This text focuses on changes in culture and society that concern women and feminists in the Nordic countries. It examines women's political strategies, questions of identity, rationality and subjectivity, and social and cultural values.

1 Introduction: ambiguous times—contested spaces in the politics, organization and identities of gender Part I Politics in ambiguous times 2 Equal or different? that’s not the question. Women’s political strategies in historical perspective 3 Social Democratic women’s coup in the Swedish Parliament 4 “On their own premises”: the political project of the Icelandic Women’s Alliance 5 They had a different mother: the central configuration of Icelandic nationalist discourse 6 Make a line, so I can cross it: postmodernist space in Camille Paglia’s Sexual personae Part II Organization and contested spaces 7 Taste, manners and attitudes—the bel esprit and literary salon in Scandinavia c. 1800 8 The dream of reality: a study of a feminine dramatic tradition, the one-act play 9 Gender as the dynamo: when public organizations have to change 10 Sexual harassment and the genderization of work 11 Attraction and love at work 12 The gender relation and professionalism in the postmodern world: social brotherhood and beyond Part III Identity/subjectivity—between equality and difference 13 Understanding women in the psychological mode: the challenge from the experiences of Nordic women 14 Reflections on the rationality of emotions and feelings 15 Asta Nielsen: a modern woman before her time? 16 Oscillations: on subject and gender in late modernism 17 Rationality and identity in Norwegian feminism 18 Nordic women's studies and gender research