ABSTRACT
The Norwegian political scientist Helga Maria Hernes conceptualized in her book Welfare State and Women Power. Essays in State Feminism the Scandinavian countries as potentially women-friendly societies. She argued that this was a result of the combined impact of a broad political mobilization of women from below and the institutionalization of gender equality from above. She defined a woman-friendly state as a state which ‘would not force harder choices on women than on men, or permit unjust treatment on the basis of sex’ (Hernes 1987: 15).
