ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical role of women in the voluntary sector and with the ongoing transformation of this role resulting from far-reaching changes in organized social life and the decline of the complementary conception of the woman's role. Local voluntary organizations are easy to start up in Norway and often do not last long. A good number of people, at any given time, both join and leave such organizations, as either new organizations crop up, others become defunct, or people leave or join existing organizations. In this respect, the society of local voluntary organizations is an open and dynamic sector in continual change. By defining women's organizations as those that are closely linked to the family sphere, and thus the intimate sphere, indeed as being only care-providing organizations in one way or another, scholars in the social sciences have made women invisible in a very important part of the public space in which women have played a crucial role.
