Former minister Knut Storberget and former chief editor of the daily newspaper Dagbladet, Lars Helle, on how work/family balance is now a concern for men as well as women:
http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/–Familielivet-er-for-travelt-til-at-jeg-kan-ha-en-lederstilling-6920620.html
Who would think, that gender equality reduces violence in the home by almost two thirds. Not I. I thought the evidence would be mixed, in line with international research. Yet this result popped up, in my research, and would not go away, whatever variable I corrected for. Some findings are more important than others, and this is one of them.
A summary of the evidence, in Norwegian, here (2.7 mb): Likestilling og vold mot barn
[June draft version – oversize pictures, some pictures and comments missing, etc]
The “Masculinities in motion” conference at the University of Oslo (May 31 – June 1, see program here), was very successful, with almost 200 participants from Norway, the Nordic region, and several other countries, and a broad range a keynote and workshop presentations.
The conference showed the emerging width of the men and masculinities research field. Workshop papers included topics from A to Z, men and the military, therapy, health, households, work, culture, music, method – some with imaginative titles like Becoming an international man and Breakdance, that’s me!
The conference also showed increasing depth, for example in the fathers and families workshops, the multicultural workshops, health, and others. Professionals and activists were also participating, although the main groups were researchers and students, with fairly good gender balance. Especially encouraging was the presence of many young researchers, showing recent recruitment into the field. The policy part, in the second day, gave interesting new Nordic region information as well as informed debate.
Being the host and leader of the conference work group was great, with so many good people to work with. It was also a bit exhausting. The feedback, afterwards, has been very good. Together we managed to build more of the two main “bridges” that we hoped for, in the planning of the conference – connecting men and masculinites studies to gender equality research, and to health and quality of life research. I hope that most of the 60-70 papers presented will see their way into referee journals, books and other publications. They will surely make a difference.
Here are some photos from the conference (many thanks to the photographer, Nina Heilmann, STK).
Like all good men, we started with a bit of technology, or how to make it work – here is conferancier Thomas Walle, right, and a student assistant (….) left. We had a lot of help from students involved in the conference.
There were two welcome speeches, the first from the University of Oslo, by Jorunn Økland, leader of the University’s Centre for gender research.
And the second by the minister of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, Inga Marte Thorkildsen.
The welcoming speeches contributed to the good atmosphere at the conference, and a common focus on what the new research says.
Thomas Walle (right), introduces the first “trio” keynote, with me (left)
In the next picture I look to the right, trying to make the rest of the trio agree with me. The point of starting with a trio was to show the new, larger scope of the men and masculinities field, and make different viewpoints more visible and accepted.
The second trio speaker was Jan Wickman.
The third, Lucas Gottzen.
We presented new material, like this:
Some views from the audience:
Ongoing discussions, here with Nina Jon from the conference arrangement committee (left) and Thorkildsen (right).
The conference participants got a quite strong initial input and enjoyed a break.
The second keynote was Michael Messner, on his new research on anti-violence work among men in the US.
The third keynote was Susan Meriläinen, University of Lapland, speaking of gender equality, masculinity and international business culture.
Meriläinen was commented by Jeff Hearn.
On the next day, Ulla-Brit Lilleaas introduced the health topic, discussing her new study.
She was followed by Svend Aage Madsen, asking, is there a gender-equal health model?
The last part of the second day had a Nordic politician panel and a practice oriented focus. Part of the panel here.
[Some pictures]
The Iceland representative told the audience that, despite severe economic setbacks, Iceland would not go back on its gender equal parental leave reform, and is instead planning to extend it.
After the politicians, practicioners got their say, including NGO initiatives. Here, Lennart Lock, Norway.
This was followed by researcher perspectives on politics and practice, here Marie Valentin Beck, Denmark.
This section ended by a presentation by Ingolfur Gislason, Iceland, the picture shows the conferencier thanking the presenter.
Jørgen Lorentzen commented on the politics and practices part, outlining future possibilities.
The final keynote, made by Sigtona Halrynjo, warned against continuing gender inequality, especially in working life.
Halrynjo presented data on continous gender inequality in careers paths in society, and its consequences for men.
The conference was ended by Nina Jon, speaking for the conference group, emphasizing that men are not just on the top of the statistics, but at the bottom too, and the need to investigate more.
So far, the response has been that the conference worked very well.
According to the evaluations from participants, after the conference, some participants liked some keynotes better than others, and some have noted that a few papers in the workshops were less good than others. Mainly, the evaluation is very positive. Discussions at the conference were good, bringing research a step further.
Here is a final picture of informal audience discussion groups, during a break.
I don’t usually buy digital music (rather, analog LPs), but I make an exception in this case: World Party: Arkeology, a 5 CD box set with 70 songs and a booklet. I have ordered it.
World Party is about pop music, they are somewhat derivative, often poorly recorded, and so on, but I find them (or the band’s main man, Karl Wallinger) to be interesting and innovative, creating a cultural synthesis of pop music history.
To my mind, at his best, he is a master, re-recording classical pop sensibilities into the climate of the 80s and 90s. This is when one famous power holder claimed that “there is no such thing as society”. World Party proves the opposite.
One can be comforted by Wallinger singing “what is love all about”, but the listener is also constantly confronted and challenged. This is not just due to other songs and the context where the Beatles-like message of love is brought in and developed, but also by the way the music is presented and arranged. This is a “world party”, beyond Wallinger’s initial “private revolution”, the title of the band’s ramshackle first album, mostly with Wallinger playing the instruments. Due to sometimes bad quality, or more likely, his opinions, Wallinger and World Party were controversial in the music press and general media, and never received full endorsement or recognition at the time.
Their unruly and questioning “striving for depth” factor is what, speaking just for myself, makes the music unusually interesting.Wallinger tries to walk in the tracks of the giants in the pop field. He wishes to lift the whole “pop” thing, which incidentally includes the “lower classes” too, up to a higher stage.
So what works, for some, as just middle of the road pop music, nice to play in the car, or even drivel – may yet reach quite a lot deeper, when one listens more. The poor recording quality is a shame throughout this band’s career. Perhaps the new investment will help correct this, and increase the depth – we shall see, or rather, hear.
I am sorry for web page problems the last weeks, but they seem to be solved now. (The web page appeared unordered, the css file did not work correctly).
The problems were fixed and the web page was brought up again, through the help of my son Lasse Gullvåg Sætre – very much appreciated!
We took the time to update to the latest version of WordPress, which seems better in many ways.
This is about getting up to speed, in the sound sense, about 45 rpm versus 33 rpm. The latest Stereophile discloses that some of the engineers behind the long playing vinyl disc actually wanted this disc to play at 45 rather than 33 rounds per minute, at the vinyl turntable. I did not know that, but from experience over the years I agree – 45 sounds better.
Quite a lot better, in fact. I had many 45 singles and EPs from the 1960s, but sadly only have a few (ca 20) today, due to my mother giving my collection away (never quite forgiven). The ones I have include some key examples, like the first record I ever bought, the Shadows: Apache, and their Foot tapper EP, both from the early 60s, The Beach Boys: Good vibrations, Roy Obison: Pretty woman, Fleetwood Mac: Oh well, Shadows: Mary Jane, Youngbloods: Darkness darkness, and others – important inputs to the pop industry.
The amazing thing about these records is how well they sound – far later. They should have been pushed aside by later reworking and remastering, but they are not. Especially, I think, EP’s sound great.
What do I mean great? I mean that the sonic landscape is very clear and textured, even if the recording is so-so. If there is a cow bell in the recording, chances are, it does sound like a cow bell, like the one in the beginning of the single by Unit 4+2, Concrete and clay, that I have. As a whole, my 45 rpm collection sounds truthful and good – even if the recordings are in many ways inferior to what are available later. The larger speed, 45 rpm, seems to contribute quite a lot. 45 rpm music sounds clearer, better textured, and more meaningful. This is true, in my case, even with old copies that have seen a lot of parties, compared to new 33 rpm versions.
Why did the late 1960s see a “pop explosion” leading to many other developments? Could it, also, be due to an overlooked variable, audio fidelity? That singles and EPs simply sounded remarkably good? When I listen today, on a quality sound reproduction system, the difference seems quite obvious. The singles that won the day in the 1960s sound good even today, and the EP’s often even better. These were the two formats performing at the higher fidelity speed 45 rpm.
Of course 45 rpm is by itself no guarantee that things will sound good. But it seems to be a consistent trend, from the 1960s onwards, that recording egineers have tried to “push” the best music into the best format yet available – the 45 rpm vinyl disc.
You have done a good job, says one of the survivors of the terror to the defence lawyer.
Cf http://www.dagbladet.no/2012/02/06/nyheter/innenriks/anders_behring_breivik/fengslingsmote/20107916/
Do I understand this album? No. Was I meant to? Probably no. Do I understand Stereophile making it album of the month, September 2010, after their reviewer Stephan Mejias had grown to like it in May that year, saying “it kills, but it also builds, it soars, it uplifts”- ? Well, eventually, yes. He evidently got the rest of the editorial board convinced, and I mainly agree, re-listening some years later. This is borderline stuff. Not just Hendrix-like solo guitar but put into place also. A new place. Challenging, but well worth it.
Keith Reid was the poet behind the loosely-assembled ensemble “Procol Harum”. His texts are among the ones that helped me through the late 60s and early 70s. It never failed. When I was down, I grew more optimistic. Reid wrote texts showing the failures of the “revolution” at that time., and yet the need to go on. “I will blacken your Christmas”. For Procol Harum, Reid wrote for a larger meaning, trying to show the aftermath of the holocaust, cf http://www.procolharum.com/99/kr_holocaust.htm
Listening today, 2012, his rhymes on Home are still often good and his overall effect seems sublime. Allmusic.com presents some of the story behind the album, but misses a main influence – the words, the content, and therefore does not give it enough credit. Come on folks, this is one of the best post-holocaust reflections you will ever get. It is surely worthy of an album pick, at this site.
There is a quite unique – very open – picture enclosed with the original Home LP, showing the two main band influences, Keith and Gary, at each side – the band members in the middle. These include Robin Thrower (below, second left). Yet they all cringe, here, confronted with the two geniuses, Keith (left) and Gary (right), who have quite some distance between them, Gary (like always?) trying to tell the point, while Keith just seems to stand there, listening, hands in his pockets. Yet he was crucial to the whole Procol Harum event. As Wikipedia says, “Although he did not sing or play an instrument, lyricist Reid was a pivotal element to the long-term success of Procol Harum”. 
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When asked about what has made the deepest impressions on him, through his career, researcher and research director Erik Rudeng especially notes Johan Throne-Holst (1868-1946), the founder of Freia, in an inteview in the newspaper Aftenposten published 30.4.2010, see http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/article3629825.ece#.TxSi4tWwV2M.
Rudeng argues that the Freia fabric hall with its paintings by Edvard Munch became “the Aula of the east” of Oslo, a main academic forum of working class people. He argues that Throne-Holst was an entrepeneur and successful capitalist long before his time, with contributions to science as well as work-place democracy.
Rudeng says (my translation) that “Throne Holsts’ initiatives to our food research and social research is a chapter by itself. Towards the end of his life he envisioned a grand library as the heart of the factory. He liked to quote what one of his inspirations, the famous English industry builder and filantrope lord Leverhulme, said about his work: ‘I like to see some things being done'”.
I did not know about lord Leverhulme, and checked it out. JTH must have refered to the lord at his time, William Lever (1851-1925), a capitalist building soap factories by a very radical scheme, for its time, of improving worker welfare and input.
See:
http://www.todayinsci.com/L/Lever_William/LeverWilliam-SoapAndSociology%281919%29.htm
This quotes, “In the opinion of Lord Leverhulme ‘high wages, bonuses, premiums or piece work, apart from a system of co-partnership can alone bring no solution of labor difficulties. Only the true spirit of co-partnership can tend in this direction, and, by combining the democratic with the individualistic attributes of human nature will result not only higher total earnings but greater efficiency, happier life and improved mental condition.'”
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1919/feb/25/industrial-unrest
This shows how his advanced capitalist arguments were met in the debate at the time.
Rudeng has published a study of JTH and Freia in his book Sjokoladekongen / The Chocolate King. Freia was founded in 1889 and bought by Johan Throne-Holst soon after, in 1892. JTH then developed the factory to become the main Norway chocolate factory. Freia was engaged in work environment issues in many ways including the hall and a park. Based on the success in Oslo, the family in 1916 extended the company to the Swedish factory Marabou in Vasby near Stockholm. In the early 1990s, it expired as an independent unit (bought by Kraft General Foods Holding Norway Inc).
Johan Throne-Holst was my mother’s mother’s father. My mother, Harriet Holter, got a lot of intellectual and emotional inspiration from her maternal grandfather, and was very fond of him. She cherished her youth memories of him including their exciting intellectual exchanges. She felt that someone had recognized and respected her, as a child. I wish I had met him, but I was born six years after his death.
This photo is taken from Rudeng’s book. Harriet 16 years (1938) enthusiastically underlined her name under this photo, that she mailed to her grandfather.
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- Harriet 1938
Read more: http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/byens_gater/article787039.ece
