Raging With Science? Fathers’ Rights Advocacy and the State-Feminist Knowledge Regime in Norway (1985–1997)

Long dismissed as enfants terribles of family policy debates, fathers’ rights activists have often been portrayed as emotional, antifeminist and epistemically reckless. This article examines how the Norwegian Joint Custody Association, Foreningen 2 Foreldre (F2F), developed and circulated knowledge in the period 1985–1997. The article analyses how the leaders of F2F positioned themselves as counter-experts in relation to what I conceptualize as a state-feminist knowledge regime . Drawing on oral history interviews with former activists and archival material, it shows how their engagement with knowledge developed into a sustained critique of local expert authority. Rather than relying on reductive portrayals of fathers’ rights advocates, the article situates F2F within a contested policy terrain. In doing so, it explores what their story can teach us about the shifting boundaries of expertise and gender politics in the Nordic welfare state.