Artikeln handlar om mäns våld mot kvinnor i nära relationer i Sverige. Syftet är att redogöra för kvinnors våldserfarenhet i nutid, och att relatera den till kvinnors utsatthet för tjugo år sedan. Artikeln använder ett feministiskt våldsperspektiv för att undersöka kvinnors utsatthet för mäns våld och dess kopplingar till kvinnors hälsa och välmående. Data baseras på en enkätundersökning (n=6 611) som fångar kvinnors samlade erfarenheter av fysiskt våld, sexuellt våld och hot om våld. Resultaten visar, för det första, att kvinnors och tjejers erfarenhet av våld i det formellt jämställda Sverige är omfattande: 55 % av kvinnorna i studien har utsatts för fysiskt våld, sexuellt våld eller hot om våld från en man. För det andra, visar resultaten att våldet inte verkar minska över tid. Tvärtom har under en tjugoårsperiod mäns våld mot kvinnor ökat, trots politiskt tal om och fokus på frågan under samma period. För det tredje, visar resultaten att unga tjejer är särskilt utsatta för mäns och killars våld, inte minst för sexuellt våld. För det fjärde, visar resultaten på ett samband mellan olika former av våld och ett sammanhållet mönster mellan våldsutsatthet och hälsa. Resultaten diskuteras i ljuset av den första svenska omfångsstudien av mäns våld mot kvinnor, Slagen dam (2001).

This paper examines menʼs violence against women in intimate relationships in Sweden. The aim is to describe womenʼs experiences of violence and relate it to womenʼs experiences twenty years ago. It uses a feminist violence perspective to examine womenʼs experiences of menʼs violence and its consequences. The data is based on a survey (n=6 611) which captures womenʼs collective experiences of physical violence, sexual violence and threats of violence. The results show, firstly, that womenʼs and girlsʼ experience of violence in gender-equal Sweden is extensive: 55% of the women in the study have been subjected to physical violence, sexual violence or threats of violence made by a man. Secondly, the results show that violence does not seem to decrease over time. On the contrary, over a twenty-year period, menʼs violence against women has increased, despite a political discourse and focus on the issue during these years. Thirdly, the results show that young girls are particularly exposed/subjected to menʼs and boysʼ violence, including sexual violence. Fourthly, the results show a correlation between different forms of violence and a pattern of exposure to violence and health. The results are discussed in relation to the first Swedish prevalence study on menʼs violence against women, Captured Queen (2001)

I discuss some practical and theoretical problems related to the feminist project of re-contextualizing law in order to acknowledge women’s experiences. Nicola Lacey warns us that re-contextualization might result in existing misogynist presumptions being re-inscribed in “new” lines of thoughts, making the problem of gender inequality even harder to address. In this article my analytical focus is set on two cultural contexts constructed as different – a “Swedish gender equal context” and a “non-Swedish honour related context” – and the attempts made by the prosecutor and the police “to contextualize” the latter. I highlight, in the light of Lacey’s warnings, the need for a careful and grounded analysis of the issues being “contextualized” as well as a careful analysis of the norms that are supposed to guide the process of contextualization. I take my point of departure in the example of a police investigation of suspected honor related violence, committed in the context of a compulsory school.

In NORA no. 3/2015 Stormhøj et al. critically address Danish prostitution research and its role in current prostitution debates in Denmark. They argue research is involved in reproducing prostitution within a neo-liberal discourse, emphasizing “free choice” and framing prostitution as a job like any other. This, argue the authors, prevents effective policies from being enacted in order to reduce problems connected with prostitution.

In a Swedish context there is a similar and yet different problem regarding research and debate around prostitution. The participants who get access to the media debate advocate neo-liberal approaches to prostitution and try to twist the basis for the Swedish legal approach, by ignoring both the history and the basis for it, especially regarding the criminalization of the purchasing of sexual services. The media discourse is firmly centred on a narrative in which the “experts” oppose criminalization, whilst politicians are the ones advocating it but are also seeking to mask the fact that criminalization does not work. Added to this is the claim that the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services was enacted without an empirical basis. All in all a populist picture is sketched of a law serving the interests of those in power but hiding the costs for the most vulnerable—the women on the streets.

Since the American “Sex Wars” were fought in the 80’s between different strands of feminism, feminists have been arguing about how to interpret the issue of prostitution. The positions taken differ in points of departure, analytical focus, epistemological claims and of course in suggested solutions. This article examines this heated debate, as articulated within the Western context during the last some twenty years, suggesting a way of structuring it. Using distinctions such as analytical-empirical, pragmatic-idealistic and fragmented-coherent, I discuss how the different approaches to the issue of prostitution are phrased. In the article, I discuss six key points of conflict. 1. Is prostitution understood as a) purely an act or b) also as a gendered institution, with an impact on society as a whole? 2. Who is visible in the discussion about “prostitution”? a) Women in prostitution, who are made equivalent with prostitution, or b) the buying men, who are seen as key actors in prostitution? 3. How is “the whore” interpreted? As a) an empirical figure, embodied by the sex working woman, breaking gendered norms, or as b) a gendered filter of interpretation through which women are measured and constructed as women, manifesting gendered norms? 4. How is prostitution understood? “Per se”/in idealistic terms or as it manifests it self/in a pragmatic terms? In other words, is prostitution a) taken to be impossible to abolish but possible to reform, as to become what it really is – sex work – or is it b) seen as important to make fundamental changes in society, which can’t come about as long as prostitution is accepted? 5. What is seen as negotiated in the prostitution contract? Is it a) sex that is bought and sold, or is it b) women’s sexual but non reproductive bodies, i.e. women’s accessibility for men? 6. Is prostitution taken as a) a postulate, laying ground for how we should define politics and policy, or b) as a practice that can and should be challenged and politically contested. 

Research and debate on violence against women in a Swedish context is here discussed from a perspective that focuses on the different understandings and epistemological claims behind existing positions. I crystallize a dominant perspective on violence, centred around fragmentation/deviance, and a challenging feminist understanding, centred around coherence/normality. I relate these understandings to a wider set of methodological choices and epistemological claims within research on violence against women, captured in what I call a discourse on partner violence (fragmentation) and a feminist discourse on men’s violence against women (coherence).

The article also examines the reactions, in media and academic life, that a quantitative study on men’s violence against women in Sweden provoked, Captured queen, men’s violence against women in equal Sweden. A prevalence study (Lundgren et al 2001). By applying a coherent methodological approach, stemming from the feminist discourse on violence against women, the study seems to have placed itself outside what was comprehensible for many voices in the debate (from media and the academic field). I discuss the hostile reactions the study aroused, in relation to its methodology and the above presented conflicting understandings that occupy the research field “violence against women”.

The present study has a three folded focus, framed by one over all aim; to critically discuss and evaluate the constructions of women’s legal subjectivity in dominant feminist discourses on prostitution and trafficking. First, I set out to develop a gender theoretical understanding of prostitution. I relate prostitution to a context of reproduction and gender, where the separation between women’s sexuality and reproduction is understood as operating as creating a split femininity, and likewise to construct a unified masculinity. Secondly, I examine the discursive orders on prostitution and trafficking. I examine the frameworks of thought on prostitution and trafficking as they have been formulated in an international debate (on international law) during the last decades. Thirdly, focusing on the discourse that seeks to normalise prostitution as sex work, I examine how the creation of women's legal personhood with in this discourse takes place through an oscilliation between discursive orders on prostitution and trafficking, emphasizing some times different and conflicting ways of promoting women’s rights. One crucial question is how understandings of prostitution, when transposed to a context of trafficking, are expressed through a "judicial reasoning", and how these expressions might shed light upon the construction of women’s legal standing. The aim of the dissertation is to contribute to a comprehensive feminist theoretical understanding of the relation between, on the one hand, different positions on prostitution and trafficking within international law, and the discourses disputing its substance on the other.

In this article, we analyse the judicial handling of the murder of Sara in Umeå in 1996. As point of departure, we use the verdicts from the district court and court of appeal, together with the preliminary investigation reports. In our analysis, we see connections between different forms of violence (e g threats, physical violence), violence used by different men (e g brothers, fathers, uncles), directed against different women (e g sisters, mothers). We also analyse the violence in a cultural context of honour. Our analysis of violence in its context and focus on the connections mentioned, points towards a comprehensive perspective. This perspective enables an analysis of the honour killing of Sara, showing how a collective of men, with reference to the honour of the family, use different forms ofviolence against several female relatives. In our interpretation, the perspective used in the judicial handling of the case is quite another. Here, the acts of violence are separated anddemarcated, and through this, disconnected from their context. Because of such fragmentising understanding, the action of the men ends up outside the judicial understanding of violence, and its perpetrators are found not guilty. A comprehensive perspective, however, may correspond to women's experience of violence and look after women's interests.