Contemporary relations between feminism and psychology in the Nordiccountries have their origins in feminist critique similar to that in other westerncountries. There are also some distinctive features, however, especially seen in ahistorical perspective. In this commentary, we describe both commonalities anddistinctive features and focus on how they have interacted with the ways thatfeminists working in and around psychology have produced knowledge. In doingthis, we trace the developments historically from the 1950s, when psychologywas first established as an academic discipline in the Nordic countries. Aselsewhere, Nordic feminist scholarship in psychology has been built on a combinationof political concern and scholarly critique that initially produced researchfocusing mainly on women and on links between social and personal changes forwomen. A focus on men developed later.
We start at the time of the early sex-role debates among politicians andscholars. These early debates, beginning in earnest after World War II, lasted wellinto the 1970s and resulted in some characteristic research strategies. Next, wemove to Nordic feminist conceptualizations of the psychology of care, andof gender as negotiated in interpersonal relations. Then, ways of researchinggenerational transfer and transformation of gender patterns are in focus, followedby studies of gendered identity negotiations in increasingly new identity landscapes.