Refusing the Uniform: Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Women’s Activism in Denmark, 1967-1997

Abstract

This thesis explores how immigrant and ethnic minority women confronted Danish activists ranging from the mainstream women’s movement to Danish trade unions between 1967 and 1997. In the process of challenging these organizations, immigrant women advocated for more complex understandings of how intersecting forms of discrimination operated simultaneously in Danish society. The thesis also traces how these immigrant activists acted on their intersectional understandings of oppression and thus forged international activist networks with immigrant women’s organizations across Europe and feminist movements throughout the Global South. Lastly, it shows how the groundbreaking work of these immigrant women paved the way for a new generation of ethnic minority women’s activism and participation in public debate in Denmark from the 1990s and onward.