I: GenDERATIONS 
GenDerations, the title of section one, is a word construct combining the words gender and generations, thus implying contact and co-operation across gender and generations.

Elderly women and their situation in different societies is one of the themes in this first part of the conference. Elderly women in Moscow, experiences from Germany, USA, and from the Sami people of Norway are examples on planned presentations.

Views on "the sound of silence" and being a lesbian mother is presented from Italy. Lesbianism is also the issue in a presentation from New Zealand, wedding among Cambodian refugees and feminism in Nigeria, and a study in sexual politics for a women’s hockey team from England.

Growing up with a dialogue between generations is a theme dealt with in several sessions. The history of women of three or four generations will be told from different countries like India, Sweden and Moldavia.

Women’s experiences from changing mother country are described with examples from Finnish immigrants to the USA, Pakistani women and their daughters in Norway, and Iranian born women and grandmothers to California. Social trends in Greece, birth control in South-Italy and American attitudes towards teenage mothers are also important issues in this part of the programme.

Keynote speakers:
The eminent Egyptian author, physician, politician and feminist NAWAL EL SADAAWI is one of the central speakers at the conference. Through many years she has been in the front line as one of the bravest and strongest female voices in the Moslem world. Presently, she is writing her autobiography which will be published in English also. Her speech is titled "Women in the New Millennium – Struggle and Resistance".

Another distinguished name in part I is ROSI BRAIDOTTI from Italy. Like few others she has combined research and theory building with practice in women’s politics. She is a social science researcher now residing in the Netherlands where she holds a professorship at the University of Utrecht. Braidotti is undoubtedly among the world top researchers within the field of theory of feminism and women’s research. She worked in the UN organisation for several years as an expert on issues related to women and development projects. Presently she is one of the most frequently consulted experts on women issues in the EU system. She is involved in several European university networks and women’s research networks.

A session worth noticing is "Next GenDeraton Network". DIANA AABERG ANDERS who is connected to the Nordic Institute for Women’s and Gender Research, NIKK, is one of the contact persons for the network. This is a Nordic-international network of young/new feminists who wish to promote their network by participating on all the arenas of the conference.
 
 

II: NEW CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER
Changes in gender roles between generations are seen in all Nordic countries today. The changes are however not unambiguous. Boys and girls choose occupations almost along the pattern of their parents and at the same time many girls enter adult life believing that equality and equality between the sexes may be taken for granted.

Gender roles will be described and focused by humanists, social scientists, psychologists and language researchers. Many of the presentations will give concrete examples from South-Africa, Spain and Norway. Theoretical contributions will be presented from a variety of universities and colleges in Scandinavia, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovenia, USA and Australia.

Changing sex and sexes crossing new barriers will be debated in several sessions. Sexuality and new insight will be presented as examples, viewpoints and findings in lectures from Japan, Indonesia, the Netherlands and USA. Other issues discussed are conflicting morals and upbringing of children in a gender perspective. What about your own prejudices if you see a wheel-chair or a pair of high heels?

Being a mother is another topic focused on from South-Africa, from Canada the mother-son relationship in a black-and- white perspective, and having daughters or being a daughter in Thailand.

Gender and space will be debated during two days. How do we divide rooms in our homes and at work? Who are permitted to these rooms? What is a corridor and who can go where in different contexts like during apartheid or to organisations like the freemasons.

Why are women afraid of the dark? Who do we open our homes for? Being inside or outside, dealing with furniture and holy places. Physical and psychological barriers, boundaries and barriers in cultural and gender perspectives. A lot of perspectives will unfold in the discussions.

In a session of their own, senior researchers will give an overview of the main topics in some of the relevant gender milieus in the world today.

The invited speakers in this section are: 
FAKHRA SALIMI – "Woman in a new and foreign country – what then of gender identity?". BRACHA LICHTENBERG-ETTINGER from Israel and HANNE HAAVIND from Norway are also invited to this section.
 
 

III: WOMEN, POWER AND POLITICS
Women all over the world are occupied with questions related to women, power and politics. The conference received no less than 250 lecture proposals on the issue. Approx. 180 of them will be presented by women’s researchers from 35 countries of all the continents.

Family relations are a big concern for many people; power within the family, how the family is the basis of reference for women when they are out in the world. Changes in the family structure will be discussed and various views on family planning.

Other topics are private and institutionalised violence against women, violence against elderly women and furthermore, how to make it legitimate to study such a sensitive issue.

Women and leadership is yet another topic and top politicians from various countries such as Botswana, Portugal and Mexico will be present. Women demand their right to the public arena, both in politics as in business. But to succeed, it is crucial to be in command of the codex for all purposes and situations, in the Nordic countries as well as in the South.

Grassroots movements in the local community will be debated, and examples will be shown on how to help people to help themselves in economically weak communities. Can the Nordic model for rural politics render some good ideas, or does it function in disfavour of women? And furthermore, what about the Nordic welfare state in the same respect? These are fundamental questions put forward from a new angle.

Women roles in young democracies will be a special topic with contributors from China, Uganda, South Africa, Canada, Slovenia and Russia.

Several sessions will be workshops, in which co-operating researchers meet to continue their work together, for instance Femina Borealis Network (the Borealis feminists), which is a co-operation network for feminists and women’s researchers from 8 countries in the northern regions and a follow up of their conference in 1997.

There will be two workshops with Palestinian participants. The Baltic experience will gather people with a special interest in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Finally, the Nordic experience of equal rights and political work will be presented extensively.

Nordisk Ministerråd (The Council of Nordic Ministers) has decided to have one of their meetings during the conference week. Projects headed by Nordisk Ministerråd will be described in a couple of the sessions.

Invited speakers in section III are: 
MARIA DE LOURDES PINTASILGO, ATHALIA MOLOKOMME, IRINA NOVIKOVA AND CAROL BACCHI. Carol Bacchi from Australia, an expert on equal rights politics. Her newest book will be presented at the conference by the publisher Sage. SUSAN HALLIDAY, Australia’s equal rights ombud, will also participate. 
 
 

IV: GENDERING WORK AND THE ECONOMY
What happens to women in working life around the world in relation to the welfare state, trade unions and making a living from own business? These are questions that interest a lot of the world’s female researchers, and seen from many different economies, cultures and different histories. The 150 different papers that will be presented in three parallel sessions at the conference, will give a good overview of the depth of questions that concern female researchers.

There are few red carpets laid out for the females world wide, but in spite of the fact that there are many difficult problems and many obstacles, the presentations in this section will show optimism, willingness and the ability to improve!

In several sessions it will be discussed what happens when women get jobs that traditionally have been occupied by men. The relations to the trade unions in such cases will also be debated. Presentations showing policies on labour markets will be done by lecturers both from the western, eastern and third world countries.

The conditions for women being forced to move from rural to urban areas or even from home country to a foreign country, are questions that are being dealt with in several sessions. Comparison of bank work in Turkey and England, exclusion patterns in the electronic economy, and the options for women in the free economic zones of Sri Lanka are concrete examples of what the session will contain.

Entrepreneurship as a way of making a living will be presented from Malaysia, Ghana, Russia and Norway. A presentation from Nordlandsforskning (Nordland Research Institute) look at the local entrepreneurships based on export products from Lofoten (fish), as somewhere between household and market. 

Work and family roles is an issue that interest a major group at the conference. How can time be divided between parents, and what about discrimination during pregnancy? Can two careers be taken care of in one family? How can we value paid and unpaid work? These question will be exemplified from Australian mining industry and from Russia. 

Gender research within political sciences and in education systems are also debated in several sessions. Here we will meet female leaders from organisations, both the public sector and businesses. Shared leadership of schools in Norway and New Zealand will be compared. Gender roles in the Israeli police force will be described. Furthermore, there is the question of female leaders – how many are there in the world’s top 500 firms?.

Keynote speakers:
ANNETTE KOLODNY, a literature researcher from USA, has in recent years become known as a bold and unconventional university administrator. At one time she was proclaimed one of Americas one hundred WORST leaders. She was in favour of affirmative action and by doing so, "stepped on too many powerful persons’ toes". She has recently written a book on the future of the education system. We look forward to her stimulating and provoking opinions and ideas.

One of Norway’s leading experts on the concept of welfare and the welfare society from the woman’s perspective is KARI WÆRNESS, Professor in sociology at the University of Bergen. New concepts like the rationale of caring is closely linked to her name. Wærness is member of the Norwegian government appointed Values commission.

AGNETA STARK, a Swedish economist, is known as one of the feminist supporter. Some years ago she helped launch a women’s programme which came close to becoming a political party. 

MARIT WIIG from Norway, professor at the University of Bergen, is also invited to this section.
 
 

V: GENDER AND HEALTH
All together close to 80 different topics from nearly 20 countries will be presented in part V about women and health. The contributions are grouped to focus on the same issue but from very different angles, be it women in Bangladesh, Slovenia or northern Europe on matters like childbirth, the menopause or the health concept proper.

The enormous range in this section will show that our lives are strongly tied to the culture we are born into and living in. At the same time, the cross cultural knowledge is useful and gives perspectives for health researchers, health workers and the population in general in times when our societies are becoming increasingly more multicultural.

This session will include material on "Tamil Women in northern Norway", genital mutilation in Germany and smoking habits among girls and boys in South Africa. "Tough" topics like abortion, contraceptives, HIV and AIDS will be put forward from countries as different as USA, Iran, Russia, East Africa and Thailand.

Some of the sessions have been composed by the organisers. Others are work groups/workshops with people who know each other’s work or who co-operate in projects.

Keynote speakers:
Invited speaker, Professor in medicine at the University of Oslo, JOHANNE SUNDBY, headed the committee which recently finished a report for the government on women’s diseases.
 
 

VI: SEXUALIZED VIOLENCE
How do our sons turn into violent aggressors, in peace as in wartime, in richness as in poverty? What is it with the global male culture which makes men believe they have the right to infringe on the opposite gender. It may be naive to ask, but during WW 99 many jigsaw pieces will find their right place.

A lot of research results, lectures and debate contributions will be put forward from Argentina, Japan, Turkey and Ghana as well as many western countries. We have all been shown the more manifest atrocities from the Balkan wars and results from investigations in Bosnia will be presented. South Africa has been in war, too, and the women have had their blows. 

We know that ritual killing is a historical fact, but we also know that it is still a reality in some countries. 

In many western countries women’s emergency centres have assisted many women to a new and better life. There are ongoing attempts at establishing centres in Archangel and in the Baltic states. The outcome of the quest for financial support will be considered by many as a touchstone of the prospects for "woman friendly" democracies.

Prostitution across the borders will be in focus and the following question asked: Can Russian and Norwegian women help each other? And what about child prostitution in third world countries?

Sexualised violence has many faces. Researchers from Malaysia, South Africa and Kazakhstan will bring surveys from their various positions. Sexual assault and harassment will be exemplified from very different places like the Netherlands, Ghana and USA.

Topics related to legislation and courts of law will be presented in this section with examples from Korea, Canada and Norway.

* This section will last three days from Wednesday through Friday.

Keynote speakers:
BERIT SCHEI, professor in medicine at the University of Bergen. DIANA RUSSEL from South-Africa/USA will be awarded an international prize at the opening of the conference in recognition of her efforts for women’s rights and human rights. "The Olympe de Gouges prize" is named after one of the heroines and victims of the French revolution.

Three researchers and authors, MARY SULIVAN, CAROLE MOSCHETTI and SHEILA JEFFREYS have investigated body tattooing and other similar fashion phenomena as forms/expressions of sexualised violence. An interesting angle and perhaps provoking for those who are into piercing.
 
 

VII: GENDERING THE PAST
For the first time in the history of the Women’s researcher conference history as a discipline is on the agenda. Somewhat surprising, since we often refer to history as "this is what it was like before" when we make our private or political choices, discuss the present or the prospects of tomorrow.

We need to look at history with the "new glasses" that today’s knowledge and perspectives can offer. What can archaeology and past times’ written material and myths tell us about our foremothers? May be they can give us a new and revised view on the ancient history of women.

A typical image of our foremothers is the one in which they stayed at home, bent over the crib, grinding cereals or impregnating hides while our forefathers were the active and outgoing. One contrasting topic deal with women pioneers; some of them went north, or to Australia or faced Indians in North America, or as freedom fighters to Italy.

The concept of family is vital to us and many people have the notion that the nucleus family has always existed. Who knows? Women’s researchers can show us examples of matriarchy in medieval Spain and divorce in Catholic Lithuania. Is sexualised violence a feature of our time only? How was the situation in Peru in the last century or in ancient Rome? Other health issues will be in focus with contributions from China, Slovenia, Cameroon and from Norway the history of nursing will be portrayed.

Women in literature will be treated in several sessions. Weekly magazines and journals deal with the history of women. We will have some glimpses from Finnish, Russian and Dutch researchers. Finally, what can cook books reveal of a nation’s identity?

Women and politics, two or three generations back, is another topic that will be lectured by participants from India, Madagaskar and Indonesia. Women in research will be exemplified from Norway, Canada, Australia and Denmark.

In this session, there will be close to 60 contributions from 20 nations. The amount of proposals far exceeded the maximum of contributions possible in this conference.

"Women’s World" is the title of a special edition of the periodical OTTAR, which will be published for the WW 99 conference. 7 comprehensive contributions from 9 authors will focus on feminist philosophy, women’s research in the social sciences, gender research in archaeology, polar researchers, gender in the classroom, and women left out of medical research. Rector Tove Bull has written the epilogue. The periodical has been edited by Dikka Storm and Ericka Engelstad.

Keynote speakers:
ELISABETH MØLLER JENSEN has edited a large project on the history of Nordic women’s literature. Jensen is director of the Danish Documentation and Information Service on Women, Kvinfo. 

Professor in history, RANDI RØNNING BALSVIK unites the local and global perspective in a model way. She has written the history of the North Norwegian town Vardø, and she is also an africanist. Her doctoral thesis was on Ethiopian history. She is presently engaged in a project in Cameroon with two other local-global researchers from the University of Tromsø; Lisbet Holtedahl and Siri Gerrard (cf. Part VIII). 

GRISELDA POLLOCK from England is also invited to be a lecturer in this part of the programme.
 
 

VIII: GENDERING THE FUTURE
"Think globally, act locally" was one of the creeds from the Environmental Conference in Rio a few years ago. Agenda 21 challenged all of us to start thinking "sustainable development". This is one of the most important themes in the conference presentations dealing with the future. The different sessions are composed in such a way that they will both supplement and contrast each other.

Themes dealing with the future gendering of men and women in all parts of the world, will be discussed in the building of the College of Fisheries. Over one hundred different seminars and lectures will deal with "environmental- and developmental" issues in a broader sense of the word.

Globalisation, sex and periphery is a theme that women activists and women researchers in Alta, Norway have been interested in. Having established a network of women throughout the region, they co-operate across cultural boundaries. The network focuses on issues like the use of resources and the living conditions for women along the coast, and how to cope with the invisible forces of the market.

In all together four different sessions attention will be given to the development of women research and women studies in Central- and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This kind of work has not been common in these parts of the world. The new development will be discussed by women from Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Croatia, Uzbekistan, Hungary, as well from USA and Russia. 

From a different geographical area, Cameroon, a discussion will be held on the development of the West South-African state status. The co-operation on university level between Cameroon and Tromsø will also be discussed.

Future knowledge and education is another very interesting theme which will be dealt with in a couple of sessions. One of the ongoing discussions here is how to strengthen the self image of women. 

Practical strategies on how to get out of "the net one is caught in" will be discussed in several sessions. Contributions will be given from countries both in the north and the south, countries like India, Indonesia, England and Canada. In these sessions there will be ample opportunities to discuss different experiences relating to sustainable fisheries.

Perspectives on the quality of life related to gender is yet another central question. Likewise the rural and urban planning is of great importance to our life quality. These questions will be debated by women from Iran, Sudan, Sweden and Brazil.

A broad co-operative project aimed at youths in nine countries in the Nordic region, MOST CCP, will be presented. At the same time India invites us to a discussion on globalisation.

Futuristic topics with the main focus on the relationship between women, and women and men in the North, South and East, will be discussed in the Norwegian College of Fishery Science building. Environmental and developmental issues in the broader sense will be treated in more than one hundred lectures and seminars.

Female (and male?) researchers from Canada, Russia, Cameroon, Guatemala, Norway and Northern Norway will present and debate the research results from works on environment and globalisation, gender and periphery, co-opreation acros cultural boundaries, childhood, youth and schools, resource management and the situation of women living along the coast. 

 Invited speakers are: 
VANDANA SHIVA, SINITH SITTIRAK, ARIANE DELUZ, France and GOVIND KELKAR from Thailand.
 
 

IX: PEACE, INDIGENOUS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Suppression of Indigenous People: The situation for indigenous people varies much in different parts of the world, but all the same, these old cultures have many problems in common. Most of them are about suppression. It is of great interest to know about the gender roles in these cultures, the double suppression women may have suffered, and changes within these cultures when they meet the modem society.

War: Women suffer in wars. Rape and enslavement of women seem to be among the means soldiers and armies use in wars. The need for justice in these cases is addressed both to National Courts and to International Courts and both in National Law and in Humanitarian Law. Also forced migration and women refugees and their suffering and ways of surviving will be highlighted.

Women in Prison: Women are minority within the prison system, and we have to pay special attention to their conditions inside prison. Women may face special problems during the course of the investigation, the court proceedings and as prisoners. For young women treatment and training may reinforce traditional gender roles. Living conditions and healthcare may be insufficient.

Peace: Women are suffering in wars, more now than ever. Women are also the most active in finding ways to stop wars and to prevent them, and women's roles in society and the culture of women may have special qualities to promote contact between parties in conflicts. This work takes place on many levels from official UN missions to more local initiatives in conflicts around the world to special women organisations for peace. To obtain and secure peace and resolve conflicts education is necessary. A special question in this area is our attitude towards the arms industry. 

Discrimination of Women: In many cultures women suffer seriously from discrimination. Religion is an important base for injustice. Women suffer through forced marriage, as property of their husbands. Female infants are killed. Women's right to own property is violated.

Women and Human Rights: What does human rights mean in relation to women? Can private violence be a violation of human rights when the state does nothing to prevent it? Female poverty is a big problem in the hole world and especially in developing countries. Women participate in human rights organisations from grass root movements to participation in regional and international organisations. Again, education is essential.

The Law: This section focus on the teaching of Law and the sex and gender perspective in the education of lawyers. Law is an important key to women's liberation, but lawyers and the teaching of law has generally been conservative. The issue of women and the law has been poorly integrated in the education of lawyers in most countries. On the other hand, the number of female lawyers are increasing, not only in Europe and US but also in Africa and Asia. Also in this session legislation and the legal practice of law in a feminist perspective in different parts of the world will be on the agenda.

Invited speakers: 
RIGOBERTA MENCHU, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, needs no presentation. FRANCES OLSON, lawyer, USA, brings research in the field of ethnic cleansing and assault on women at war. Olsen has her material from the war in Bosnia in 1996. 

GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK from the USA and RAGNHILD NYSTAD from Norway are also invited speakers.
 
 

X: CULTURE, CREATIVITY AND SPIRITUALITY
Women in art and literature, in dance and stories, as religious or spiritual leaders are some of the questions looked into at this section. Can we say that women in media today belong to the category "spiritual" leaders?

One day is reserved to discuss media. Who is visible and who talks? The participants here are from a variety of different countries: Belgium, Argentina, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Russia, Norway and South-Africa. They will all add to the understanding of who and what influences our understanding of women in media.

One session is devoted to language and gender. Female voices both from the Bible and from Henrik Ibsen are used as examples.

Female traditions of story-telling will be exemplified from many cultures. One session is devoted to a Chinese perspective, another to Botswana, while a third session will present examples from other cultures.

Costa Rica, responsible for the conference in 1993, will set up a performance focusing on women in art, while "Rituals and Drama" will be performed by a group from South-Africa.

Travelling back in time and travelling in one’s own mind (pilgrimage) is an exciting theme as poetry and literature, and will also be expressed through paintings and pictures. The theme will be presented during several sessions. 

There will be a session on writing and theories of writing with contributions from Yemen, Estonia, Turkey, Denmark and other western countries in the forms of texts, metaphors and themes. 

Spiritual and religious leadership will be discussed and exemplified from cultures in Sudan, Nenets in Russia, and muslim women in India. Other issues are the "drum place" as a holy meeting-place and traditional knowledge about medicine among women. In other words, a breathtaking diversity of issues and arenas.

Other interesting sessions/themes: "Weaving Stories, Weaving Lives: Narratives from a Female Perspective" is a session in which we will meet women from China, USA and Taiwan. Other researchers will debate issues like "Women in media", "Language and gender" and "Art, Rituals and Religion".

Invited speakers: 
GRISELDA POLLOCK is a well-known British art historian who has written several books on female artists, seen in a gender perspective. Pollock is today a professor at the University of Leeds.

Through her expeditions and her research in Arctic MONICA KRISTENSEN from Norway has challenged "Man’s sacred testing ground". Her presentation will include these challenges. Kristensen is presently director of the Kings Bay Kullkompani at Svalbard. * This presentation should also be of interest for participants of "Gender, Science and Technology" 
 
 

XI: GENDER, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
About 55 different contributions will be given in this section. The technology oriented areas have traditionally been dominated by men. This is of great importance to women all over the world, and represents an important challenge to all academic women. Three sessions focus on these questions, including that of recruiting women to IT professions.

Canadian researchers will contribute. Recruitment will be illustrated from Slovenia, and the allotment of research funding by the EU will be analysed in presentations from England and the Netherlands. Researchers from Germany, Israel and Sweden will raise questions about the recruitment to university and the practice of using mentors and marked positions.

Other sessions will describe how the information and communication technology influences our lives. There will be special sessions on medical technology and the reproduction technology. Another session deals with technology and research theory as seen by women reserachers.

The image of women on the Internet will be presented by speakers from Fiji, Korea and Turkey. "How are the Garden of Eden and the Holy Mother presented in Cyberspace?", one of the lecturers asks.

Several sessions will be organised as work shops where the participants will present and discuss their projects.

Invited speakers: 
NELLY OUDSHOORN from the Netherlands, SANDRA HARDING from the USA and GOVIND KELKAR from Thailand. 
 
 

XII: WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS/ FEMINIST ACTIVISM WORLDWIDE
In 1995 the UN arranged an important Conference on Women in Beijing. Inspiration and experiences from this conference will be presented by Chinese an English researchers. In addition other participants of the WW99 will share their views on the relationship between Chinese and international women’s movements.

The network of women in the Baltic states will have a session of their own. Women’s movements and the peace movements in this century is given another, while a third is devoted to women’s movements in the Nordic countries. Democratisation and grass root movements will be discussed by participants from different countries like Hong Kong, Canada , USA and Kirsihi in Russia.

Lectures based on theory are also part of the conference. One of them will debate the research on Muslim women in a totalitarian state, and from Czechoslovakia differences between eastern and western feminism. Women’s research and the agenda for the next 30 years will be discussed in a session with participants from Indonesia, Tanzania, Romania, Germany and Canada amongst others.

A glimpse of female issues world-wide will be the focus of several sessions with views on different themes like Greek minority women in Italy, the problems in Chile, the female body in Argentina, and how women in Bangladesh and India are organised to protect themselves. Other contributions to these sessions come from Egypt, Zimbabwe, Ireland and Norway.

There will be practical sessions on how to organise and fund research, e.g. from EU and the UN system aimed at participants who want to do research co-operatively across borders. How to organise women’s conferences is also an experience that should be shared. Previous organisers from Israel, Ireland, Australia and now Norway will join the discussion in one of the last sessions of the conference.

Keynote speakers: 
BERIT ÅS, activist and politician throughout a long academic life, has verbalised the different techniques used to dominate women. A film showing the various techniques, both in English and Norwegian, will be shown during the conference. During the session "Do women destroy their own history?" Ås will invite to self-examination and a vivid debate is expected. Ås, Professor in social psychology at the University of Oslo, is one of the founders of the Women’s University at Løten, Norway, and is actively participating in the Athena women’s network.

SOLVEIG BERGMAN is a sociologist form Åbo Akademi in Finland and a feminist movement specialist. "Old" and "new" feminist movements is her theme for presentation, which she has called " Feminist resistance: A Nordic perspective". Bergman was the co-ordinator on Nordic feminist research for five years. The position was funded by Nordisk Ministerråd (The Council of Nordic Ministers). This was the forerunner of the Nordic Institute for Women’s and Gender Research, NIKK, established in 1995 and located in Oslo, Norway.
 
 

XIII: GENDERING MEN
For the first time in the history of the Conference, male researchers are invited to participate in the programme. The invitation opens for a dialogue between the two opposite milieus. The invitation may be seen as a strategic instrument to develop gender research.

Male research is a young discipline. Internationally it is represented in four different areas of the world – Canada, USA, Australia and in the Nordic countries. In Norway the research has been an ongoing activity for ten years, and a network was established when the "Mannsrolleutvalget" (a panel on men’s roles in society) delivered their report in 1989. Since then there has been written more than 150 post-graduate theses in Norway. Still the limited amount of grants to the area has narrowed the possibilities to establish a strong milieu among male researchers.

One interesting point is that the Norwegian Prime Minister last winter invited to a conference on male related questions, admitting that we know too little about male roles in society. If this conference leads to more funding of male research still remains to be seen.

The Norwegian and international research on men is not done solely by males, but more or less of an equal number of men and women. Many of the most prominent researchers will attend the Tromsø Conference. One of them is ROBERT CONNELL from Australia, who is the author of the important theoretical contribution "Masculinities". 

A male movement was initiated in Canada during the eighties as a reaction to the killing of 14 technical college girls by a female hostile, violence obsessed man. The "White-Ribbon" campaign as the group called itself, has later spread to many countries throughout the world, Norway including. For many years now, one day in November, men have worn white ribbons to mark their view on violence against women. Recently the Norwegian network has expanded to become a Nordic network, collaborating with Iceland, Sweden and Finland.

MICHAEL KAUFMAN was one of the founders of the White Ribbon and will be lecturing at the conference as will MARIUS RAAKIL, the leader of "Alternativ til vold" ("Alternative to Violence") in Oslo, Norway – the only treatment centre for men in Scandinavia.

As the first police force in Norway, the Bergen (Norway) police has started special training of their officers with the aims to make the violence visible and to reduce the private violence.

The contributions to this section will mainly come from the established milieus, but also from countries like South-Africa and Turkey. From Germany the men’s role in society in a structural, political, cultural and historic perspective will be examined.

SOLVEIG BERGMANN will start of a discussion on mobilisation of women in the Nordic countries, and ØYSTEIN HOLTER will focus on "Nordic men participating in the work of equality between the sexes". 

JEFF HEARN from England, BOB CONNELL from Australia, UTA KLEIN from Germany and many more will also participate.

*It is important to notice that the "Gendering Men" section will be placed in the first half of the programme, that is Monday and Tuesday. It will consist of eight different sessions.