Changing Living Patterns of Gender and the Character of the State.

The core argument of this paper is that current changes in living patterns of men and women into more equal arrangements can be regarded as a major driving force behind normative change on societal level, which eventually leads to a change of state character. The problem of changing state character has hitherto not been discussed within feminist research, but preferably within Marxist inspired institutional research. The theoretical contribution consists of a suggestion for how to handle the hitherto problematic relationship between care-convictions and women, in a way that does not tie care-convictions more to women than to men. Applying a scientific realist perspective and drawing from feminist theory from several strands such as Simone de Beauvoir and Carol Gilligan, a theoretical model is developed for how men and women engaged in attentive care of their children learn a more care-oriented attitude and behavior. Individuals are there after believed to carry these convictions into the public sphere influencing its inherent norms. The hypothesis is analyzed on societal level through two case studies in Sweden: kindergarten policy and law enforcement policy 1950 and 2000. Sweden can be regarded as a critical case in the sense that living patterns of men and women have changed very dramatically. The analysis shows that experiences of care-responsibility most likely have affected the central actors in kindergarten policy. In the case of law enforcement a normative change with similar content is uncovered on the societal level, but the mechanism of care-learning cannot be supported on the individual level (For an extended version of the argument see Stensota 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]