Editorial

With this final editorial for 2020, the Finnish editorial team says goodbye and hands NORA over to the excellent Danish editorial team: Charlotte Kroløkke, Janne Rothmar Hermann, Anne Nørkjær Bang and Dag Heede, all based at the University of Southern Denmark. It has been a real privilege to become familiar with the wide range of feminist and gender research done across the Nordic region. Taking stock of the past 2 years, we can also conclude that NORA has become an increasingly popular outlet and arena for scholarly debate. We have witnessed a steady growth in the number of submissions to the journal and note a substantial increase in article downloads, perhaps as a result of our prioritizing an active social media presence. In 2019 and 2020 we have published eight issues (with this one being our final), including two Special Issues. The issues have covered a variety of topics, approaches and disciplines, which is in line with the aim we set at the beginning of our editorship, also written down in journals aim and scope as “NORA is committed to situating and mapping the breadth and depth of Nordic feminist and gender research today”. It will be exciting to follow the journal and where the new team will take it.

This issue includes five articles and a book review. In their article, Alvinius, Deverell and Hede explore how the communication in the crisis management is gendered, and how this might be changing. The background of the crisis management comes from military, and therefore it has strong masculine connotations. The authors aim at questioning this masculine precondition firstly, through discussing communication as female-coded practice; and secondly, through making gender-analysis on how crisis communicators experience their own work. Their analysis on interviews of both women and men, show how this kind of new profession that is gender-coded need to be understood and studied as constructed in the inter-relations between individuals, organizations and the society.

Strid and Axelsson’s article explores the role of men in the continuation and/or abandonment of female genital mutilation (FGM) in a migrant minority community in Sweden. Global prevalence of FGM is decreasing, but through migration processes, regional prevalence has increased in countries where FGM did not previously exist, such as the Nordic countries. As the occurrence of and phenomena related to FGM are currently under-researched, this article makes an important contribution on knowledge on FGM by exploring men’s attitudes towards and experiences of FGM. The article is based on qualitative data, including a focus group discussion with 13 male Somali migrants in Sweden. The analysis shows a window of opportunity for involving minority migrant men in prevention and to challenge a minority migrant gender regime.

Magnussen´s article dives into the “breadwinning work” of men in Norwegian heterosexual nuclear families, in the conservative Southern Norwegian region of Agder. Drawing on the analytical and methodological tools of Institutional Ethnography, Magnussen focuses on men´s everyday experiences of providing for the family. In doing so the author takes up a largely unexplored phenomenon within feminist studies of family labour divisions, and challenges how hitherto dominant understandings of breadwinning has concealed the actual work men do. Ultimately, Magnussen argues, we need to understand the work of breadwinning in order to further gender equality.

Occhino & Skewes offer an important gaze into gendersex binary and cis-/heteronormative practices in trans-specific healthcare in the context of Danish healthcare, more specifically the Danish Sexology Clinic. Their article is based on a survey study which the authors conducted in collaboration with LGBT DK asking trans people (n = 48) about their experiences with the Sexology Clinics practices, paying particular attention to how participants with non-binary or multi-gender identities have experienced being met by the clinic. The authors underline the importance of accepting trans peoples own interpellations of gendersex and sexuality, and complying with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines.

Rudloff’s article investigates the Danish Consumer Ombudsman’s (DCO) definition of sexism and its evaluation of stereotypical representations of gender in marketing campaigns by Danish companies. Applying the lens of post-feminism and sexism to the analysis, the article indicates how the DCO legitimizes and normalizes sexist advertising, and offers significant insights into practices that perpetuate inequality in the media and its regulatory institutions. Rudloff argues that the very societal institutions established to safeguard gender equality, such as the DCO, end up reproducing gender discrimination.

Marjo Kolehmainen from Tampere University, has reviewed Rachel O’Neill’s Seduction: Men, Masculinity and Mediated Intimacy. Kolehmainen assesses that Seduction is a fascinating, well-written book on the seduction industry, where “getting” women is framed as a skill or competency that men can cultivate through practical training and personal development. The seduction industry promises men greater control in their personal lives and, ultimately, “mastery” over women. The book provides insights into heterosexuality and gendered asymmetries beyond the pick-up genre. The seduction industry is not a deviation from current social norms, but rather an extension and acceleration of them. The book is an essential read for everyone interested in gendered power relations and heterosexuality.

In this last editorial, we would like to thank all wonderful authors, constructive book reviewers and attentive referees for giving your contribution to NORA during our editorial years! It has been privilege to work with you. In addition, both the editorial board of NORA (old and new) and our Finnish editorial board have supported us considerably, thank you!