[3][4] After her graduation, Stiver spent a year in Berlin teaching English and other subjects in a program sponsored by the Lutheran World Federation.

[1] Kai had been an exchange student during Stiver's time at Wittenberg and he would go on to become an ambassador of Norway, causing them to relocate as his work required.

[4] In 1983, she, Berit Ås, and Maj Birgit Rørslett, were commissioned to create an experimental project and establish Norway's first Women's University.

[19] In her role as director, she trained the staff and negotiated for funds to support furnishing and equipping the center from the Nordic Council of Ministers.

[29][30] At the time, research on women in academia was "rudamentary", as noted by Swedish sociologist Boel Berner and the book addressed issues and solutions but was limited in presenting a global picture and in evaluating why the university setting was singled out for study.

[30] In 1994, Lie, Lynda Malik, and Duncan Harris compiled an analysis of higher education across seventeen countries throughout the world, though it did not include Latin America or the Caribbean.

According to the research gender inequality stems from various factors including cultural norms, social class, location (urban versus rural) and political systems.

For example, despite East/West cultural divides and different political systems, women in Germany were confined to gender specific employment, which was characterized by low pay and little authority.

[36] In the anthology Carrying Linda's Stones Lie and the other editors studied the impact of the Soviet period upon Estonian women.