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In a contemporary popular cultural Swedish context, gender equality and economic equality seem to be increasingly formulated in financial terms, through narratives centered around succeeding on the stock market, owning assets or practicing venture capitalism. In this context, self-help books in financial speculation targeting women are marketed with a gender equality narrative. In this article, we focus on how values of feminism, gender equality and economy are shaped and maintained by such books. By effectively hiding power relationships and presenting financial freedom as an attainable goal for everyone and through a condensed narrative of happiness and balance in the future, we read the fantasy of financial freedom as cruel optimism through Lauren Berlant's perspective. The fantasy of financial freedom also produces a feminist subject who, with her investments, both can and should maintain control over her own life and her family as well as navigate around the vulnerabilities of life. 

For-profit companies have begun competing with women’s shelters for ‘clients’ trying to escape violence. Using discourse theory, this study examines how 20 private shelters describe their business. The analysis shows that private shelters describe themselves as: (1) having a broad expertise and target group: (2) being able to tend to the individual needs of any client; and (3) being highly available and flexible. We understand this as an expression of a neoliberal market discourse and as a way to differentiate themselves from women’s shelters. This may put pressure on women’s shelters to provide similar ‘inclusion’, availability and flexibility. Furthermore: (4) private shelters contribute to shaping a desirable neoliberal subject, that is, a self-reliant woman; and (5), by articulating needs as individual and inherently mundane, they lean more towards ‘providing accommodation’ than addressing the particularities of (gendered) violence.

This paper examines the complexities surrounding feminist articulations diverg-ing from the established gender equality policies in Sweden, particularly concern-ing the valorization of wage labor as the cornerstone of women’s emancipation. Drawing on feminist-Marxist theories of social reproduction, it analyzes instances of women’s resistance to the hegemonic discourse of full-time wage labor, focus-ing on three empirical examples: the Haro organization advocating for the recogni-tion of unpaid domestic labor, the 2005 daycare debate ignited by Nina Björk, and the discourse of ‘mama-influencers’ typified by UnderbaraClara. Through the lens of boundary struggles and emotional labor, this study challenges the binary divi-sion between productive and reproductive work, making visible alternative femi-nist agendas centered on reducing wage labor and revaluing reproductive work. By reinterpreting women’s narratives within a feminist social reproduction theory framework, this paper aims to show how a feminist-Marxist analysis can broaden the scope of mainstream gender equality discourse. 

Mobile applications against gender-based violence are a global and growing phenomenon, with hundreds of apps available in the international market. In this article, we analyze how apps and digital technologies are discursively construed as measures against (gender-based) intimate partner violence in marketing and media coverage of three Swedish businesses and their digital tools aiming to combat and prevent violence. Focusing on sociotechnical imaginaries about the potential of technology, we analyze how the intersection between digital technology, innovation culture, and feminism affects the understanding of violence as a social problem and what type of solutions that become desirable. We do so by first scrutinizing how the selected apps’ technical functions are represented. These representations emphasize, first, a need for more, objective, and data-driven information about the nature and extent of violence, among both help-seekers and supporting institutions, and, second, the apps’ potential as tools for help-seeking and self-care, partly akin to mental health apps. While we share the conviction that digital communication can be a useful tool for help-seeking, we argue that the representations of these technical functions as solving the problem with gendered violence (a claim accentuated by the competition driven innovation context), produce a simplified and post-ideological understanding of the persistence of violence, as rooted in a lack of individual and professional insights and risk-assessments. Simultaneously, the risks of bias and increased surveillance associated with user data analyses, often perpetuating structural inequalities, are left unmentioned, something we conclusively argue is highly important for future studies and uses of technology against gendered violence.

Hur påverkar och samspelar föreställningar om digital teknik, innovationer och feminism förståelsen av könsbaserat våld som ettsocialt problem? I denna artikel undersöks hur tre kommersiellamobilapplikationer marknadsförs och konstrueras som verktygmot våld i nära relationer och mäns våld mot kvinnor.

By interviewing Swedish feminist activists who sell commodities to serve feminist purposes, this study focuses on how they articulate their engagement and make it intelligible. To untangle how articulations about feminist businesses may stabilise, reshape and challenge feminist values and engagement, we use theories of popular feminism alongside discourse theory to capture its contingencies. The analysis shows that, rather than enhancing sales by the use of feminism, the interviewees articulate an interest in spreading feminism through the sale of commodities. They understand their commodities to be ‘authentic’ and ‘truly’ feminist, thereby distancing themselves from corporations that use feminism to brand their products. However, this aligns precisely with the dominant contemporary corporate branding discourse of authenticity, understood as untainted by capitalism. The interviewees want to provide their customers with confidence, a dominant trait of popular feminism, through the display of feminist expression. A quest for visibility tends to absorb political aspects, which is further illustrated in the expressed wish to avoid an aggressive, provocative or explicitly political address. Understanding popular feminism as a discursive struggle, we conclude that the domination of a happy, confidence-building feminism will render more confrontational and radical versions of feminism less visible.

This paper explores the concept of “safe spaces” in digital learning environments, specifically in the context of gender studies educa-tion. Through a pedagogical development project called Safe Spaces Online, we collaborated with colleagues and students to address the complexities of safety in online education. Rather than reproducing the often-sensationalized portrayal of gender studies students and university settings found in mainstream media, our project examines how concerns around safe spaces are understood and realized in our courses and how these concerns influence our pedagogical practices. Drawing on our project experiences, this paper discusses how safety is understood and conceptualized in our gender studies teaching.

Our discussion reflects insights gained through dialogue with both colleagues and students, aiming to enrich and bring nuance to the polarized debates on safe spaces in higher education, particularly those concerning gender studies students. Our analysis reveals that online safe spaces in gender studies are understood in ways that significantly diverge from popular media portrayals. Contrary to narratives dominated by terms such as “trigger warnings” and “cancel culture”, students express a need for safe online spaces characterized by structure, clarity, relational engagement, and teacher presence. This paper seeks to contribute to a more balanced understanding of safe spaces by highlighting the practical and relational aspects valued by students in gender studies learning environments.

The music festival Statement was initiated as a response to sexual violence towards women at other festivals, and during the work of creating a safe festival, separatism became a central strategy. In this paper we analyse media reporting from Statement, with a focus on the desire for safety. Using psychoanalytical discourse theory, we analyse different media materials, focusing on emotive language and fantasmatic narratives. We argue that in the media representations, a desire for safety is linked to enjoyment, opportunities to be oneself, predictability and lack of conflict. Safety is also strongly represented as linked to a focus on security and the absent man is continuously present in the media articulations. While the media representations tend to reconstruct a heterosexual Woman with a universal experience, the focus on the patriarchy, a common 'we' and the emotive language might nevertheless spur political mobilisation.

The increase in private shelters for women escaping men’s violence in Sweden prompts an analysis of discursive struggles on separatism, violence, and safety. The analysis of websites and interviews with representatives from private shelters and women’s shelters show that the woman-to-woman approach is important for women’s shelters whereas private shelters frame their use of male staff as a practical necessity or a way to show women that there also exist ‘good’ men. Women’s shelters articulate the importance of knowledge about men’s violence for counteracting normalization of violence and self-blame, while private shelters emphasize therapeutic knowledge and interventions. To provide safety, women’s shelters articulate the importance of a homey atmosphere and ‘inner safety’, where private shelters emphasize security; shell protection, perpetrator profiles, and risk assessments. The women’s shelters position their work within a discourse of social change, whereas private shelters emphasize their lack of political ambitions, with profit-making as their primary motivation. Should public funding continue to be funnelled to private shelters, rather than to women’s shelters, it will undermine women’s shelter’s dual role of providing refuge and contributing to social change. Should the private shelters discourse prevail it will likely alter the support provided to victims of violence.

Sexual harassment and other forms of offensive behaviour are serious problems within academia. They affect students and staff alike and are found in all disciplines. In this study, we consider the various forms and expressions of harassment. In addition to sexual harassment, this includes bullying, cyberbullying, victimisation and incivility, all of which we examine under the umbrella term gender-based violence. 

The purpose of this report is to describe the occurrence of and analyse the corelation between sexual harassment, and other forms of gender-based violence, and the work environment and health of staff and students at Umeå University. The report is based on a national study of the prevalence of sexual harassment in academia conducted within the framework of The Research and Collaboration Programme on Gender-based Violence. 

In answer to a direct question regarding whether the respondent had been subjected to unwanted sexual attention in their place of work/study, 2.2% of staff and 6.4% of students replied in the affirmative. Among women, prevalence is higher among female students than female employees, with 7% of this group having been subjected to such behaviour, and the same is true of men, with more male students (5.5%) reporting incidents. When the question of sexual harassment is broken down into specific situations and acts, the figure increases significantly, with as many as 51% of female employees and 29% of men stating that they had experienced at least one of the specified situations. Notably, levels among female employees of Umeå University are significantly higher than the figure for the Swedish higher education sector as a whole. The corresponding figure for students at Umeå University is, however, lower than the national average for the higher education sector, with 16% of women and 9% of men responding in the affirmative. 

There are also notable disparities between the sexes with regard to bullying, with twice as many women as men reporting problems, and reporting a higher frequency of offences. However, bullying is reported to a greater extent by male than female students. There are also gender disparities in incivility, with significantly more female employees reporting incidents than men. 

Sexism in the form of sexual harassment and gender-based violence can of course be understood as a means of academic reproduction; i.e., as one of the components that maintains and recreates the various structures, hierarchies and gender-inequitable workplaces in academia. As this study makes clear, sexual harassment and gender-based violence create a systematic and recurring pattern of unwelcome events that can be understood as institutional mechanisms and behaviours that risk being normalised. This also produces other problems in addition to gender inequality. In the study, we find clear correlations for both staff and students between sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence and experiences of the psychosocial and organisational work environment and health.

Sexuella trakasserier och andra typer av kränkande beteenden är allvarliga problem inom akademin. Det drabbar både studenter och anställda och förekommer inom alla discipliner. I denna studie tar vi hänsyn till utsatthetens olika former och uttryck genom att förutom sexuella trakasserier inkludera förekomst av mobbning, nätmobbning, kränkande särbehandling och ohövligt beteende under samlingsnamnet ’genusbaserad utsatthet’. 

Syftet med denna rapport är att beskriva förekomst av, och analysera samband mellan, sexuella trakasserier och andra former av genusbaserad utsatthet, samt arbetsmiljö och hälsa bland anställda och studenter vid Umeå universitet. Till grund för denna rapport ligger en nationell prevalensstudie om sexuella trakasserier i akademin som genomfördes inom ramen för Forsknings- och samverkansprogrammet om sexuella trakasserier och genusbaserad utsatthet. 

På en direkt fråga om respondenten blivit utsatt för icke önskvärd sexuell uppmärksamhet på sitt arbete/sin studieplats så rapporterar totalt 2,2 procent av de anställda och 6,4 procent av studenter att de blivit utsatta. Prevalensen är högre bland kvinnorna i gruppen studenter där 7 procent har utsatts och dessutom är utsatta män (5,5 procent) vanligare bland studenter jämfört med anställda. När frågan om sexuella trakasserier istället bryts ner i frågor om konkreta situationer och handlingar stiger siffrorna betydligt, uppemot hela 51 procent för anställda kvinnor svarade jakande på om de utsatts för minst en av de uppräknade situationerna och 29 procent av männen svarade också ja på dessa frågor. Noterbart här är att nivåerna för anställda kvinnor vid Umeå universitet är betydligt högre i jämförelse med högskolesektorn som helhet. Vad gäller studenterna så är motsvarande siffror vid Umeå universitet dock lägre jämfört med högskolesektorn som helhet, vid frågor om konkreta situationer och handlingar, 16 procent för kvinnorna och 9 procent för männen. 

Könsskillnader är även noterbara i avseende på mobbning, där andelen anställda som utsatts för mobbning är dubbelt så stor bland kvinnorna jämfört med männen samt att kvinnorna rapporterar högre frekvens. Bland studenterna rapporterar dock män en högre utsatthet vad gäller mobbning. Det finns även könsskillnader kring ohövligt beteende där betydligt fler bland de anställda kvinnorna rapporterar utsatthet jämfört med männen. 

Sexism i form av sexuella trakasserier och genusbaserad utsatthet kan förstås som ett medel för akademins reproduktion, det vill säga, som en utav de beståndsdelar som upprätthåller och återskapar akademins olika strukturer, hierarkier och ojämlika arbetsplatser. I denna studie blir det tydligt att sexuella trakasserier och genusbaserad utsatthet skapar ett systematiskt och upprepat mönster av ovälkomna händelser. Det kan förstås som institutionella mekanismer och beteenden som härigenom riskerar att normaliseras. Förutom ojämlikhet finns här även andra problem som produceras. I studien finns för både anställda och studenter tydliga samband mellan sexuella trakasserier, de andra formerna av genusbaserad utsatthet och upplevelsen av psykosocial och organisatorisk arbetsmiljö samt hälsa.