Abstract
In the post Second World War period gender equality has become one of the cornerstones of Scandinavian social democracy. Cross-gender solidarity has joined cross-class solidarity to become a central tenet of Scandinavian social democracy. However, this cross-gender solidarity has come under strain in the 1990s as the question of EU membership consumed the political debate in Finland, Sweden and Norway and the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty led to riots in Denmark. A consistent theme of the membership referendums, which held true for the Danish referendums on the Maastricht Treaty, was the resistance that Nordic women have demonstrated towards the project of European integration. In Finland, putatively the most enthusiastic Nordic applicant where 57 per cent of the population voted for membership, 54 per cent of Finnish women voted for membership while 61 per cent of Finnish men supported it (Pesonen 1994). While Finnish women were more sceptical than men, they were less opposed to membership than their Nordic counterparts. In Sweden’s referendum, 52 per cent voted for membership, but a majority of women (52 per cent) voted against it. Since the referendum, dissatisfaction with EU membership is growing in Sweden, and not only among women. About 60 per cent of Swedes indicate they are unfavourable to European integration today. In Norway, the no-vote by women was crucial in the rejection of membership, with 57 per cent voting against membership while only 48 per cent of the Norwegian men voted no.