![]() ![]() Special attention will be paid to some of the participants’ behaviour towards the only immigrant participating in the focus group, as this behaviour may reflect minoritizing processes. In this exploratory article, I will investigate social connections and relations between (Norwegian) volunteers and immigrant participants based on a focus group with eight participants involved in a community centre in a Norwegian town through analysing the volunteers’ ideas of how the voluntary sector can contribute to integration processes of immigrants. Though voluntary activities can be valuable door openers for (recently arrived) immigrants, they may, under certain circumstances, contribute to minoritization processes. The voluntary sector is a strong pillar in Norwegian society and has in recent years gained increasing attention as an arena for integration. The analysis shows that the articulation of gender studies as a threat to gender equality builds on the normalisation of a quantitative and heteronormative view of how gender equality is achieved as well as on a reduction of the complexity of gender research and researchers. The opinion piece, constitutes a form of of writing that possibly makes such rhetoric credible in today’s debate marked by the development of anti-feminist and racist movements. In such context, we consider the opinion piece to be a specific example in which to analyse the discursive elements that enable reasoning where gender studies is portrayed as a threat to gender equality. The purpose of our study is to investigate what is discursively normalised, what is implied or taken for granted, and what is simultaneously silenced or hidden in the reasoning that comes to fore in the opinion piece. On that basis, the author argues that government funding to gender studies should be abolished because it has ‘taken away from increasing gender equality’. The problem is, however, said to be that gender research is no longer working on gender issues - but rather discourages it. This is on the one hand described as an admirable initiative because the living conditions in the world would be improved by greater equality. ![]() He writes that the government in its efforts to focus on gender equality has invested significant resources in gender research in Sweden. In order to deconstruct how such an argument is discursively constructed, we analyse an opinion piece, published in the Swedish paper Göteborgs-Posten in April 2012 by Professor Bo Rothstein. In this article, we study a current phenomenon where gender studies comes to be formulated as a threat to gender equality. The article also identifies counter-hegemonic representations that challenge the hegemonic understanding however, these understandings are still marginal within feminist discourse in Norway. Racism is not considered to be a relevant issue in the Norwegian context and is thus silenced. Within the hegemonic representation of feminism, the asymmetrical relationship between “immigrant women” and “Norwegian women” is unreflected, and racial horizons of understanding (race thinking) are not acknowledged. Inspired by discourse analysis, intersectionality, and perspectives from black and post-colonial feminist theory, the article argues that the hegemonic representation of feminism is so persistent because it resonates with dominant representations of “Norwegianness”, racism, integration, and gender equality. Findings indicate that minority women are excluded in the hegemonic representation of feminism by being defined as “different” and not included in this understanding of “women”. The article identifies different representations of feminism in the Norwegian women's movement. This article seeks to explore majority feminists' difficulties in addressing minority women activists' claims in contemporary Norway.
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