Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society
Logging and forestry have traditionally been seen as a purely masculine sphere. The aim of this study is to analyze women's introduction into and situations in the forestry sector in twentieth century northern Sweden. We interviewed 30 women who worked as cooks between the 1930s and the 1960s,...
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ftslunivuppsala:oai:pub.epsilon.slu.se:22130 2023-05-15T17:44:44+02:00 Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society Östlund, Lars Öbom, Alexander Löfdahl, Amanda Rautio, Anna-Maria 2020 application/pdf https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/1/ostlund_l_et_al_210203.pdf en eng eng https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/1/ostlund_l_et_al_210203.pdf Östlund, Lars and Öbom, Alexander and Löfdahl, Amanda and Rautio, Anna-Maria (2020). Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research. 35 , 403-416 [Research article] Forest Science Gender Studies Research article NonPeerReviewed info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2020 ftslunivuppsala 2022-01-09T19:16:00Z Logging and forestry have traditionally been seen as a purely masculine sphere. The aim of this study is to analyze women's introduction into and situations in the forestry sector in twentieth century northern Sweden. We interviewed 30 women who worked as cooks between the 1930s and the 1960s, and examined written sources. We found that driving forces behind the emergence of a system involving forestry cooks included state investigations, rationalization of the forest sector, the effects of WW2, and overall modernization of society. Our informants were unmarried and young when they started working, and their introductions to the job were characterized by encouragement and pressure in their surroundings. They had prior knowledge of cooking, but few underwent formal training. They were, in most cases, hired by the forest workers, and portray the camps as egalitarian social systems. It is clear that the Swedish system was rather unusual internationally, and these women had a definite impact on modernizing a workspace far from cities and industries. For the women, the job entailed hardships, but also a sense of freedom. Conceivably, a seed of women's liberation in twentieth century Sweden was planted by these thousands of young women working in the northern forests. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northern Sweden Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
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Open Polar |
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Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
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ftslunivuppsala |
language |
English |
topic |
Forest Science Gender Studies |
spellingShingle |
Forest Science Gender Studies Östlund, Lars Öbom, Alexander Löfdahl, Amanda Rautio, Anna-Maria Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
topic_facet |
Forest Science Gender Studies |
description |
Logging and forestry have traditionally been seen as a purely masculine sphere. The aim of this study is to analyze women's introduction into and situations in the forestry sector in twentieth century northern Sweden. We interviewed 30 women who worked as cooks between the 1930s and the 1960s, and examined written sources. We found that driving forces behind the emergence of a system involving forestry cooks included state investigations, rationalization of the forest sector, the effects of WW2, and overall modernization of society. Our informants were unmarried and young when they started working, and their introductions to the job were characterized by encouragement and pressure in their surroundings. They had prior knowledge of cooking, but few underwent formal training. They were, in most cases, hired by the forest workers, and portray the camps as egalitarian social systems. It is clear that the Swedish system was rather unusual internationally, and these women had a definite impact on modernizing a workspace far from cities and industries. For the women, the job entailed hardships, but also a sense of freedom. Conceivably, a seed of women's liberation in twentieth century Sweden was planted by these thousands of young women working in the northern forests. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Östlund, Lars Öbom, Alexander Löfdahl, Amanda Rautio, Anna-Maria |
author_facet |
Östlund, Lars Öbom, Alexander Löfdahl, Amanda Rautio, Anna-Maria |
author_sort |
Östlund, Lars |
title |
Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
title_short |
Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
title_full |
Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
title_fullStr |
Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
title_full_unstemmed |
Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
title_sort |
women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/1/ostlund_l_et_al_210203.pdf |
genre |
Northern Sweden |
genre_facet |
Northern Sweden |
op_relation |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/22130/1/ostlund_l_et_al_210203.pdf Östlund, Lars and Öbom, Alexander and Löfdahl, Amanda and Rautio, Anna-Maria (2020). Women in forestry in the early twentieth century - new opportunities for young women to work and gain their freedom in a traditional agrarian society. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research. 35 , 403-416 [Research article] |
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1766147021663633408 |