The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights (; NKF) is Norway's oldest and preeminent women's and girls' rights organization that works "to promote gender equality and all women's and girls' human rights through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy." Founded in 1884, NKF is Norway's second oldest political organization after the Liberal Party. NKF stands for an inclusive, intersectional and progressive mainstream liberal feminism and has always been open to everyone regardless of gender. Headquartered at Majorstuen, Oslo, NKF consists of a national-level association as well as regional chapters based in the larger cities, and is led by a national executive board. NKF has had a central role in the adoption of all major gender equality legislation and reforms since 1884.
NKF was founded on the initiative of Gina Krog and Hagbart Berner by 171 prominent women and men of the progressive liberal establishment, including five Norwegian prime ministers, and was modeled after the predecessors of the League of Women Voters in the U.S. From the early years the association worked to bring women into the political mainstream. Traditionally the most important association of the Norwegian bourgeois-liberal women's rights movement and historically associated with the Liberal Party, NKF is today a big tent coalition with members from the centre-left to the centre-right. The association has always been Norway's most important mainstream feminist organization and has successfully campaigned for women's right to education, the right to vote, the right to work, the adoption of the 1978 Gender Equality Act, and the establishment of the Gender Equality Ombud. At the behest of NKF and affiliated organizations, Norway became the world's first independent country to introduce women's suffrage in 1913. NKF founded the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association.
In line with its roots in 19th century first-wave liberal feminism, political and legal reform remains its primary focus, and it has always concentrated on lobbying government bodies in a professional way. As a result of its focus on legal reform, the association has always attracted many lawyers and other academics. NKF members had key roles in developing the government apparatus and legislation related to gender equality in Norway; during the 1970s, the "Norwegian government adopted NKF's [equality] ideology as its own",Lønnå (1996) p. 273 and NKF's political tradition is closely linked to the concept of state feminism. In foreign policy NKF has a liberal internationalist outlook and generally supports Norwegian official foreign policy. Starting with the presidency of Eva Kolstad, from 1956, NKF focused strongly on the United Nations, and NKF members have been appointed to key UN bodies including UNCSW and the CEDAW Committee; the CEDAW convention remains an important focus of NKF. NKF is a member of the International Alliance of Women (IAW), which has general consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council and participatory status with the Council of Europe, and is also generally considered as a sister organization of the National Organization for Women. NKF's logo is a stylized sunflower, adopted in 1894, based on the model of the liberal American suffrage movement.
History
The Norwegian Association for Women's Rights was founded in 1884 by 171 prominent Norwegians, led by the liberal politician and women's rights pioneer Gina Krog and liberal Member of Parliament and the first editor-in-chief of Dagbladet Hagbart Berner. It was modeled after the American National Woman Suffrage Association, the predecessor of the League of Women Voters.Moksnes (1984) p. 52 The organization's founders included 87 men and 84 women, overwhelmingly prominent liberal public figures.Moksnes (1984) p. 33ff
From its establishment, the organization was strongly associated with the Liberal Party; its 171 founders included five Norwegian prime ministers, several leaders of the Liberal Party, and many liberal Members of Parliament, as well as the editors of the large liberal newspapers and public figures such as novelist Alexander Kielland. Three of the first presidents of the organization, Anna Stang, Randi Blehr, and Fredrikke Marie Qvam, were all wives of Norwegian prime ministers. NKF grew out of overlapping milieus connected to the political elite and liberal media in Norway, particularly the women's rights association Skuld that had been founded the previous year by the first women to pursue higher education in Norway, but also Læseforening for Kvinder (founded by Camilla Collett in 1874), Nissen's Girls' School, Kristiania Lærerindeforening, the influential political and cultural magazine Nyt Tidsskrift, and the liberal newspaper Dagbladet.Moksnes 1984 p. 33 Membership has always been open to both women and men, and among the board members in the first years were several prominent lawyers such as the conservative prime minister Francis Hagerup and the attorney-general Annæus Johannes Schjødt. Historian Aslaug Moksnes has noted that NKF is a women's rights organization, not a women's organization; the distinction has always been important to NKF.
NKF is traditionally the main bourgeois or liberal women's rights organization in Norway. Cathrine Holst noted that "the bourgeois women's rights movement was liberal or liberal feminist. The bourgeois women's rights advocates fought for women's civil liberties and rights: freedom of speech, freedom of movement, the right to vote, freedom of association, inheritance rights, property rights and freedom of trade – and for women's access to education and working life. In short, women should have the same freedoms and rights as men."
Among the important causes that the NKF has campaigned for are women's suffrage (achieved in 1913), the right to work (in the 1930s), abolishment of the common taxing for spouses (the 1950s), right to equal schooling (the 1960s), the establishment of the Gender Equality Council () in 1972, the Gender Equality Ombud in 1978, and the adoption of the Gender Equality Act (1979). The government apparatus concerned with gender equality, including both the Gender Equality Council and the Gender Equality Ombud, were largely built by NKF members.
Key NKF members initiated the establishment of the National Association for Women's Suffrage and the Norwegian National Women's Council. NKF inherited the former's founding membership in the International Alliance of Women (IAW) in 1937.
The association also initiated the establishment of the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association (), a humanitarian organization, which grew to become Norway's largest women's organization with around 250,000 members at one point. Historically, NKF was the most important association of the Norwegian bourgeois-liberal women's movement (associated chiefly with the Liberal Party), in contrast to the labour women's movement (associated with the Labour Party), and was traditionally dominated by liberal women from the upper and educated middle class, as well as by liberal men.Lønnå (1996) p. 18 With the increasing reformism of the Labour Party, many Labour politicians joined NKF in the postwar era. Today, NKF is a nonpartisan organization.
The 1936 bylaws described NKF's main aim as "women's full equality with men in state and society" and NKF's working methods as influencing legislative processes, cooperating with the government and influencing public opinion.Lønnå (1996) p. 147
During the presidency of Eva Kolstad (1956–1968), NKF became strongly involved in international cooperation through the United Nations and contributed significantly to early UN gender equality policies, and Kolstad was elected as a member and vice chair of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1968, the year she stepped down as NKF President, after being nominated as the joint candidate of the Nordic governments. Kolstad later became a cabinet minister in Norway, the leader of the Liberal Party, and then the world's first Gender Equality Ombud. During the 1970s and 1980s, the lawyers Karin M. Bruzelius and Sigrun Hoel led the organization. Bruzelius became the first woman to head a government ministry as Permanent Secretary in 1989 and later became a Supreme Court Justice. Hoel served as the deputy Gender Equality Ombud during Kolstad's tenure and as acting Gender Equality Ombud.
In the early 1980s, NKF was responsible for the government-funded information campaign "Women and the election". In the late 1980s, NKF initiated the TV-aksjonen campaign to raise funds for "Women in the Third World", and NKF co-founded the campaign's successor Forum for Women and Development in 1995. During the presidency of diplomat and psychologist Torild Skard (2006–2013), the former chairman of UNICEF, NKF renewed its focus on the United Nations, and NKF initiated the establishment of the Norwegian Women's Lobby, the umbrella organization of the Norwegian women's movement. Skard was succeeded as president by Professor Margunn Bjørnholt in 2013, by the Norwegian Parliament's First Vice President Marit Nybakk in 2016, by Supreme Court Justice Karin M. Bruzelius in 2018,Høyesterettsdommer ny leder i Norsk Kvinnesaksforening, Norwegian News Agency and by Professor Anne Hege Grung in 2020.
The organization had its offices in Sehesteds gate 1 in Oslo for many years and now has its offices in Majorstuveien 39 at Majorstuen in central Oslo.
NKF differed markedly from the second-wave feminist movement in its liberal and moderate political outlook, formal style of organization, emphasis on cooperation with the government and focus on legal and policy issues, and also in its membership dominated by lawyers and academics, prioritization of professional lobbying methods and lack of interest in grassroots activism. Elisabeth Lønnå describes NKF by 1970 as "an almost dignified organization" that had its "origins in the Liberal Party and had a liberal platform, centered on the main idea of equality for all citizens and based on the idea of fundamental human rights". Lønnå notes that NKF had long traditions, a clearly defined form of organization, an established network, well formulated policies and principles, and that it spent most of its resources on lobbying government bodies in a professional way. According to Lønnå it was the "only feminist organization that was primarily based on the idea of gender equality". In contrast to the many new feminist organizations that sprung up in the 1970s but quickly lost most of their membership, NKF was strengthened in the 1980s.Elisabeth Lønnå: Stolthet og kvinnekamp: Norsk kvinnesaksforenings historie fra 1913 (pp. 228–229), Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1996, The government's gender equality apparatus viewed NKF as its main civil society partner and recognised the association's historical role in spearheading the struggle for equality.
NKF has traditionally referred to its political platform as kvinnesak, a term that in this context means women's rights and that has always been associated with the liberal women's rights movement in Norway. However, supreme court justice and two-time NKF President Karin M. Bruzelius has noted that NKF has always used the term women's rights synonymously with the struggle for gender equality, the association's overarching aim since the 19th century.Lønnå (1996) p. 250 NKF expressed scepticism towards the term "feminism" as late as 1980 because it could foster "unnecessary antagonism towards men", but accepted the term some years later as it became the mainstream general term for the women's rights struggle in the western world. Today the tradition that NKF represents is generally known as liberal feminism in English. NKF works to represent the interests of all those who identify as women and girls.