The Gender Equality Experiment: The Cost of Feminist Policy in Norway
Norway’s once-celebrated gender equality policies have turned into a cautionary tale. What started as a progressive dream has sparked a mental health crisis, widened gender divides, and left young men disillusioned. With rising backlash against quotas and state-driven feminism, Norway is now reckoning with the unexpected cost of its social experiment.
Hannah Spier, MD
May 9, 2025 - 3:25 PM
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A new 2025 Pew study shows the U.S. gender pay gap has barely budged in 20 years. Half of Americans, mostly Democrats, blame employer bias and push for top-down solutions. Another recent report shows most believe women still face political barriers, fuelling calls for stronger government intervention. Democrats often hold up Norway as the gold standard for gender parity. But if this were a technical problem solvable by legislation, Norway would have cracked it long ago. Instead, they social-engineered a feminist paradise where young men and women now advocate traditional gender roles while boomers jeer at them from their gender studies sinecures.
The Machinery of Progress
By the late 1960s, Norwegian boys and girls already had equal rights in school and society. But since the goal was never really equality, textbook consultants were brought in during the ’70s to purge school materials of gender stereotypes, and with the 1978 Gender Equality Act, employers were encouraged to legally favour women.
By the early 2000s, women had taken over academia. Still, this was “not enough.”
In 2003, Norway mandated that 40% of board seats in publicly traded companies go to women. In the public sector, where job security is high and demands are low, women make up 70% of the workforce. In the private sector, only 20% of boards and 17.5% of CEOs are female.
A problem to be solved, we’re told. Not a pattern to be understood.
Norway’s gender pay gap, 4.6% per hour, 8.6% annually is officially blamed on discrimination while ignoring the many other factors that affect salary differences. I know women in the private sector who’ve negotiated higher pay than their husbands. But nuance is unhelpful when the narrative has already been written.
Still Not Equal Enough
And the narrative remains: women are still being held back. In 2023, Dagsavisen featured nine feminist leaders airing familiar grievances: discrimination, wealth gaps, underrepresentation, underfunded women’s health. “Structural inequality persists,” they claimed, “because those in power prefer to keep it” - language straight out of a Marxist pamphlet. Nobody batted an eye at hearing complaints about lack of progress for women coming from women heading some of the most powerful organizations in the country.
Meanwhile, the actual data tells a different story. Women dominate education, healthcare, the public sector, and now the professoriate. In 2024, 55,5% of university professors were women, predominately in medicine and health sciences. In tech fields, however, where only 28% are female, the government launched targeted bonus point systems, girls-only tech camps, rebranded engineering brochures to include more smiling women in hard hats. They also spent millions on awareness campaigns to encourage female entry into the oil and fishing industry.
To the surprise of no one, despite their efforts, oil rigs remain mostly male. Women make up 4–6% of offshore workers. In construction, only 2% of manual labourers are women. The slight increase in female entry into these fields has been automation. One of the few women who signed up for commercial fishing put it plainly: “With better equipment, you don’t need as much physical strength anymore.” Not gender training. Not quotas. Just machinery.
And yet the state’s response remains the same: more programs to push more women into more fields they’ve already declined.
The Feminist Project Is Complete And Nobody’s Thriving
Norway now has the highest rate of sick leave in the world, nearly a quarter of it for psychiatric reasons. Nearly 70 percent of new disability claims in young people are for psychiatric and behavioral disorders. This has been steadily worsening for decades and is expected to continue. In 2023 alone, there were more than 2 million general practitioner visits for psychiatric complaints, in a country of just five million people. That same year, 22 percent of Norwegian women — supposedly the luckiest women in the world — sought help for psychological distress.
Children are doing worse. From 1990 to 2022, psychiatric disorders in kids climbed significantly, long before smartphones could be blamed. Nearly 10,000 children are now on antidepressants and 30% suffer in broken homes.
Where Does This Lead?
We were told “all Norwegian men are feminists.” Imagine the nation’s shock when, in 2024, 47% of young Norwegian men are struggling: unemployed, sidelined, and increasingly saying they've had enough.
We’re seeing the endgame of gender equality policy. Men and women reject each other. The average age of first-time marriage is now 35 for women and 37 for men and 30% experience parental separation. The country is aging, and it’s not raising a generation able to sustain the one before it or support the next.
As if their experiment were a resounding success, Norwegian career politicians are hailed internationally as champions of liberal democratic social democracy, moving on to prestigious roles in global organizations. Their true legacy: 85,000 retirees living below the EU’s poverty line and a historically weak currency.
What now?
While the current government continues to pander to the older generation with more quotas and equality initiatives, the younger generation is turning on them.
Young Norwegian women are favouring traditional roles. Articles now question whether gender equality has gone too far. Conservative parties are surging, and voters want spending cuts and less green energy, not more quotas.
When Norwegians themselves begin rejecting the very measures once held up as moral imperatives - much to the despair of the progressive boomers - it’s worth paying attention. Turns out, gender equality is an easy sell until people have to live with it.
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Hannah Spier, MD
Psychiatrist