The following chapter deals with the general and special part of criminal law from a gender perspective. It analyses, in particular, the provisions from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Istanbul Convention, from 2011. The Istanbul Convention is the most comprehensive international legal instrument that outlines binding obligations to states to prevent and combat violence against women and girls. Furthermore, the Istanbul Convention contains several institutes and behaviours that have to be criminalised in the respective national jurisdictions, covering and combining dogmatics and criminal policy issues with a foundation substantially based on gender. The chapter also explores gender issues in a more general way, interpreting criminal law and its challenges towards gender equality. The special part raises questions regarding criminal law and its compatibility with the Istanbul Convention and national laws.
The risk of violence in close relationships is higher for people with cognitive disabilities than in the general population. This is due to social isolation, and physical or financial dependence on others in everyday activities. To enable adequate protection for these victims, social workers need to take decisions and provide support that is based on knowledge about both violence and disability-related needs. By contrast, people with cognitive disabilities are de facto less likely to be provided with support adapted to their needs. Therefore, this study explores how social workers navigate barriers and facilitating aspects to support victims of violence with cognitive disabilities.Data were collected in individual interviews with 18 social workers, and analysed using content analysis. The inclusion criteria were 3 years or more experience in identifying and/or assessing exposure to violence in close relationships among people with cognitive disabilities.
The emerging categories illustrate how social workers face dilemmas when navigating the balance between individuals’ rights for self-determination and complex needs for protection and support. The policies that frame social workers' practice in Sweden are discussed in relation to the need for flexible interventions and accessible support based on interprofessional collaboration related to violence and cognitive disability. The categories also problematize the power dynamics involved and how different actors’ experiences, values, and power influence the support process. The different actors involved add to the complexity that social workers need to navigate.
This presentation focus on how social workers' practice is governed and hindered by policy, a focus on individuals' rights for self-determination, and the need to support and protect a group that may have difficulties to identify both violence and their needs for support.
Students perception on stalking differ. Women consider that more casesare stalking while men consider that these cases do not classifies asstalking. Men is more often thinking that it is the victims own fault thathe or she is a victim of crime. There is ideal victims and non-idealvictims, which depending on the victims’ characteristics. The purposewith this study is to examine how students perceive the victims’vulnerability, depending on if the victim is an ideal victim or non-ideal.The study has used a mixed design which means that there will be bothquantitative results and qualitative results. The study was conductedthat the respondents read one out of two cases and then answered aquestionnaire. The results show that there are differences between menand women’s perceptions. Women consider the victims exposure to beequally severe while men consider the ideal victim’s exposure onstalking to be more severe than the non-ideal. Women however,perceive that the non-ideal victim had been exposed to stalking ingreater extent than the ideal victim while men consider the opposite.The respondents consider that the victims should handle theirvulnerable positions through reporting to the police and contact theirrelatives. The overall result of the study shows that the majority of thestudents perceive stalking as severe but the differences lays in howsevere the students perceive there is.
In a recent issue of this journal, Vandermassen suggested that feminists should include sexual selection theory and evolutionary psychology in a unifying theory of human nature. In response, this article aims to offer some insight into the development of sexual selection theory, to caution against Vandermassen’s unreserved assimilation and to promote the opposite ongoing integration - an inclusion of gender perspectives into evolutionary biology. In society today, opinions about maintaining traditional sex roles are often put forward on the basis of what is natural and how animals behave. However, the natural sciences have proved to be pervaded by gendered values and interests; Darwin’s theory of sexual selection has been criticized for being male biased, and partly due to the unwillingness of Darwin’s scientific contemporaries to accept female choice, research has been overwhelmingly focused on males. More recently, theory has become less gender biased and research has come to include a large variety of issues not present in the first version of the theory. However, there is a need to increase the awareness of gender bias in order to develop a gender-neutral evolutionary biology.
This book traces the history of how evolutionary biology transformed its understanding of females from being coy, reserved and sexually passive, to having active sexual strategies and often mating with multiple males. Why did it take so long to discover female active sexual strategies? What prevented some researchers from engaging in sexually active females, and what prompted others to develop this new knowledge?
The Female Turn provides a global overview of shifting perceptions about females in sexual selection research on a wide range of animals, from invertebrates to primates. Evolutionary biologist and feminist science scholar Malin Ah-King explores this history from a unique interdisciplinary vantage point. Based on extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on sexual selection and in-depth interviews with leading researchers, pioneers and feminist scientists in the field, her analysis engages with key theoretical approaches in gender studies of science. Analyzing the researchers’ scientific interests, theoretical frameworks, specific study animals, technological innovations, methodologies and sometimes feminist insights, reveals how these have shaped conclusions drawn about sex. Thereby, The Female Turn shows how certain researchers gained knowledge about active females whereas others missed, ignored or delayed it – that is, how ignorance was produced.
While it is widely acknowledged that Darwin’s descriptions of females were gender-biased, gender bias in modern sexual selection research is less recognized. This Perspective highlights that sexual selection theory and research are still male-centered and suggest strategies for alleviating biases in this field and beyond. While it is widely acknowledged that Darwin’s descriptions of females were gender-biased, gender bias in current sexual selection research is less recognized. An examination of the history of sexual selection research shows prevalent male precedence-that research starts with male-centered investigations or explanations and thereafter includes female-centered equivalents. In comparison, the incidence of female precedence is low. Furthermore, a comparison between the volume of publications focusing on sexual selection in males versus in females shows that the former far outnumber the latter. This bias is not only a historical pattern; sexual selection theory and research are still male-centered-due to conspicuous traits, practical obstacles, and continued gender bias. Even the way sexual selection is commonly defined contributes to this bias. This history provides an illustrative example by which we can learn to recognize biases and identify gaps in knowledge. I conclude with a call for the scientific community to interrogate its own biases and suggest strategies for alleviating biases in this field and beyond.
“Sex roles” are intuitively associated to stereotypic female and male sexual strategies and in biology, the term “sex role” often relates to mating competition, mate choice or parental care. “Sex role reversals” imply that the usual typological pattern for a population or species is deviates from a norm, and the meaning of “sex role reversal” thus varies depending upon whatever is the usual pattern of sex-typical behavior in a given taxon. We identify several problems with the current use of the “sex role” concept. (1) It is typological and reflects stereotypic expectations of the sexes. (2) The term “sex role” parses continuous variation into only two categories, often obscuring overlap, between the sexes in behavior and morphology, and variability in relation to ecological circumstances. (3) Common generalizations such as “sex role as seen in nature” mask variation upon which selection may act. (4) The general meaning of “sex roles” in society (i.e. “socially and culturally defined prescriptions and beliefs about the behavior and emotions of men and women”) is contrary to biological “sex role” concepts, so that confusing the two obscure science communication in society. We end by questioning the validity of the “sex role” concept in evolutionary biology and recommend replacing the term “sex role” with operational descriptions.
The diversity, variability, and apparent rapid evolution of animal genitalia are a vivid focus of research in evolutionary biology, and studies exploring genitalia have dramatically increased over the past decade. These studies, however, exhibit a strong male bias, which has worsened since 2000, despite the fact that this bias has been explicitly pointed out in the past. Early critics argued that previous investigators too often considered only males and their genitalia, while overlooking female genitalia or physiology. Our analysis of the literature shows that overall this male bias has worsened with time. The degree of bias is not consistent between subdisciplines: studies of the lock-and-key hypothesis have been the most male focused, while studies of cryptic female choice usually consider both sexes. The degree of bias also differed across taxonomic groups, but did not associate with the ease of study of male and female genital characteristics. We argue that the persisting male bias in this field cannot solely be explained by anatomical sex differences influencing accessibility. Rather the bias reflects enduring assumptions about the dominant role of males in sex, and invariant female genitalia. New research highlights how rapidly female genital traits can evolve, and how complex coevolutionary dynamics between males and females can shape genital structures. We argue that understanding genital evolution is hampered by an outdated single-sex bias.
Mate choice hypotheses usually focus on trait variation of chosen individuals. Recently, mate choice studies have increasingly attended to the environmental circumstances affecting variation in choosers’ behavior and choosers’ traits. We reviewed the literature on phenotypic plasticity in mate choice with the goal of exploring whether phenotypic plasticity can be interpreted as individual flexibility in the context of the switch point theorem, SPT (Gowaty and Hubbell ). We found >3000 studies; 198 were empirical studies of within-sex phenotypic plasticity, and sixteen showed no evidence of mate choice plasticity. Most studies reported changes from choosy to indiscriminate behavior of subjects. Investigators attributed changes to one or more causes including operational sex ratio, adult sex ratio, potential reproductive rate, predation risk, disease risk, chooser’s mating experience, chooser’s age, chooser’s condition, or chooser’s resources. The studies together indicate that choosiness of potential mates is environmentally and socially labile, that is, induced - not fixed - in the choosy sex with results consistent with choosers’ intrinsic characteristics or their ecological circumstances mattering more to mate choice than the traits of potential mates. We show that plasticity-associated variables factor into the simpler SPT variables. We propose that it is time to complete the move from questions about within-sex plasticity in the choosy sex to between- and within-individual flexibility in reproductive decision-making of both sexes simultaneously. Currently, unanswered empirical questions are about the force of alternative constraints and opportunities as inducers of individual flexibility in reproductive decision-making, and the ecological, social, and developmental sources of similarities and differences between individuals. To make progress, we need studies (1) of simultaneous and symmetric attention to individual mate preferences and subsequent behavior in both sexes, (2) controlled for within-individual variation in choice behavior as demography changes, and which (3) report effects on fitness from movement of individual’s switch points.
What cultural nerves are triggered by the mutations of sexed biologies associated with artificially produced hormones? Evolutionary biologist and gender studies scholar Malin Ah-King and gender studies scholar Eva Hayward question the essentialist and heteronormative assumptions that frame contemporary discourses on the toxicity of endocrine disruptors.
It is common to refer to all sorts of clear-cut differences between the sexes as something that is biologically almost inevitable. Although this does not reflect the status of evolutionary theory on sex determination and sexual dimorphism, it is probably a common view among evolutionary biologists as well, because of the impact of sexual selection theory. To get away from thinking about biological sex and traits associated with a particular sex as something static, it should be recognized that in an evolutionary perspective sex can be viewed as a reaction norm, with sex attributes being phenotypically plastic. Sex determination itself is fundamentally plastic, even when it is termed “genetic”. The phenotypic expression of traits that are statistically associated with a particular sex always has a plastic component. This plasticity allows for much more variation in the expression of traits according to sex and more overlap between the sexes than is typically acknowledged. Here we review the variation and frequency of evolutionary changes in sex, sex determination and sex roles and conclude that sex in an evolutionary time-frame is extremely variable. We draw on recent findings in sex determination mechanisms, empirical findings of morphology and behaviour as well as genetic and developmental models to explore the concept of sex as a reaction norm. From this point of view, sexual differences are not expected to generally fall into neat, discrete, pre-determined classes. It is important to acknowledge this variability in order to increase objectivity in evolutionary research.
The present study examined differences regarding sentencing outcomes and how legal factors are valued for men and women who committed the same crime in Sweden. A questionnaire with a fictitious assault case, where the perpetrator's gender was manipulated between the two versions of the questionnaire was completed by 220 participants, consisting of judges (n = 68), the Swedish counterpart of a jury (n = 61) and law students (n = 91) from 12 different regions in Sweden. The main result showed that men were recommended significantly longer sentences than women, with a difference of 1.5 years of imprisonment. The result indicated that whether a man or woman handed down a sentence recommendation, the recommendations did not differ and there were no interaction effects between the participant’s gender and the gender of the perpetrator. The result further showed that a female perpetrator is valued significantly lower on legal factors than males. The result is discussed in view of previous research and theory, and emphasizes the importance of working actively towards a completely objective judicial judgment in order to prevent crime, as longer prison sentences result in a greater propensity to recidivism.
The aim of this paper was to explore associations between previous victimization, police legitimacy and feelings of safety, and to also explore how different patrolling strategies were perceived in terms of general feelings of safety and police legitimacy. A questionnaire was created to measure these variables. The tests used were correlations and independent samples t-tests. The participants were 175 individuals living in Sweden, 67 were men and 108 were women, and the average age was 28. The correlation analysis showed that there was no significant relation between police legitimacy and feelings of safety regardless of previous victimization or not. One t-test showed no significant difference in patrolling strategies in terms of feelings of safety. However, a second t-test showed a significant difference in patrolling strategies in the general perception of police legitimacy. Participants with greater confidence in the police, perceived foot patrolling as more vital for their feelings of safety. The theory, Community oriented policing (COP), was used to further analyze results obtained within this study. Through this study, it was concluded that foot patrolling could promote cooperation between the police and the public. This might improve citizens' understanding of police legitimacy, which in turn can increase the overall levels of feelings of safety among the public.
Militaries and militarism are among the most obviously gendered of all organizational activities. The military is also one of the clearest arenas of social power, violence and killing in their many guises. Military matters are urgent, powerful and lethal. The ways armies and those in them are organized and act are literally questions of life and death for all concerned. This chapter brings together studies on men and masculinities with those in the military and military organizations. Men, militarism and the military are historically, profoundly and blatantly interconnected. These interconnections have often either been simply accepted or it has gone unnoticed that these military persons are largely men. Indeed, many, though not all, armies and other fighting forces of the world have been and still are armies composed mainly of men, young men and boys. Those engaged in active combat and direct fighting in wars are often young men and boys. In the chapter, we address the place of men and masculinities in some key organizational issues in military organization and militarism, most notably recruitment, hierarchies and segregations, disability and veterans, and the impacts of these organizations on civilians, before concluding remarks on wider processes and impacts, on research, scientific and technological organizations, on international relations and geopolitics, and on the environment.
Partner violence is a globally occurring public health problem that affects both men and women and is costly to society because of its consequences. Victimization to partner violence and attitudes to partnerviolence is something that can affect how people feel in their relationships. The purpose of the study was to examine perceived relationship satisfaction in relation to partner violence, specifically victimization of partner violence and attitudes to partner violence among young college students. The study used the normalizationprocess as the theoretical basis to explain the relationship between relational satisfaction, victim to partner violence and attitudes toward partner violence. A cross sectional design was used. A total of 545 respondents participated in the study, of which 220 respondents were included in the final sample (144 women, 75 men). The result showed a significant difference in perceived relationship satisfaction between victimization to partner violence and non-victimization to partner violence. The result showed no significant difference regarding relationship satisfaction and an accepting attitude and non-accepting attitude towards partner violence. Findings are discussed in view of previous research and theory.
Once upon a time, there was the legend of Robin Hood, the English folklore hero who was not only a skillful archer but also swordsman. Not surprisingly, the famous outlaw didn’t act alone in the deep Sherwood Forest but with the help of his band of Merry Men. His mission was to steal money from the rich and give it back to the poor. Therefore, the peasants considered Hood both as their protector and friend. Even today, Robin Hood represents in our minds a clear exemplar against any sort of oppressive authority, which in his time took the form of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Do modern heroes still exist to get inspiration by? The answer to this question is not trouble-free. A great part of people would say that the group of ‘Anonymous’ -known as ‘Anons’- falls into the category of contemporary heroes. Anons could be discerned as a ‘reincarnation’ of the digital version of Robin Hood since they fight against corruption, repression, and injustice, as he did. More precisely, the group of Anonymous is a global, Internet-based social movement of mostly young and dissatisfied people who decided to provide their own answer towards the established global governance and order. This paper will investigate the latest hacking activity of the Anonymous against a number of governmental websites in Greece. The purpose of Anonymous -as stated on their Facebook page- was to protect/defend the Greek citizens who sternly suffer because of the financial crisis and to give a ‘strong lesson’ to the elected politicians in office. Drawing on material from newspapers articles, weblogs and videos, this article aims to understand whether the group of Anonymous continues the long tradition of Robin Hood as a heroic figure/icon, or it symbolizes something radically new.
Intimate partner violence with a deadly outcome against a woman constitutes approximately 20-30 percent of all homicides in Sweden, during 2019 the violence resulted in 16 women being murdered. Research today is considered to be divided regarding whether perpetrators of intimate partner homicide should be considered a separate group from other perpetrators of deadly violence. The purpose of this study was therefore to compare men who have murdered their female intimate partner/ex-partner with men who have murdered another person they didn’t have an intimate relationship with, specifically regarding type of violence and mental disorder. The study used a cross sectional design with a retrospective approach and a sample of totally 160 verdicts from 2015 to 2020. The results showed a significant difference where men who have murdered their female intimate partner/ex-partner used reactive violence to a greater extent compared to men who have murdered another person that they didn’t have an intimate relationship with, who instead predominantly used instrumental violence. Regarding mental disorder there were no significant differences between the groups. In conclusion, the fact that the groups differ in type of violence contributes to the research field by giving an indication that they should be distinguished.
The aim of this research was to examine how young men from deprived Swedish neighborhoods, resonated regarding their participation in urban unrest. The study was executed by using a qualitative deductive research design in which a focus group interview was conducted with five respondents in the ages between 18and20. The results showed that the respondents tended to live in poorer social and material living conditions in the society, such as belonging to a lower social class, experiences of stigmatization from the Swedish majority population and state, and exclusion from vital social institutions such as the established social community, education and labor market. The respondents' reasons for their participation in urban unrest can be seen as a way to retaliate and oppose the perceived oppressive Swedish society. But also a way of showing dissatisfaction with their perceived poorer social and material living conditions in the Swedish majority society. The respondents' participation in urban unrest can also be seen as a last resort and an effective means to be heard and appeal to higher bodies such as state, politicians but also the majority population to get better social and material living conditions and increased influence in the Swedish majority society.
The aim of this essay was to examine how crime victims are portrayed in the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. Previous research has shown that the media tends to focus on the dramatic aspect of a criminal incident, and the victim is often portrayed in a positive way and the perpetrator in a negative. The material of this essay consisted of twelve news articles from four different murder cases, which has been analyzed with a content analysis. The theoretical points of this essay were the theory about The ideal victim and The framing theory. The results from the analysis showed that crime victims are often portrayed as innocent and in a positive way. Although, if the victim used to have a deviant behavior, he was portrayed in a more negative way. The conclusions of this essay were that the two newspapers portrayed the victims fairly similarly and focused on the positive characteristics of the crime victim. In general, Aftonbladet had a more descriptive and dramatic portrayal of the victim than Dagens Nyheter.
This qualitative study contains a review of how persons with an anorexia-similiar disease and borderline personality disorder, is experiencing their lives through this two conditions. A central question is to find possible causes to explain the comorbidity between an anorexia-similiar disease and borderline personality disorder. In this study, there have been five inerviews. The basis of this study have proceed from two theories; the attachment theory and biosocial theory, which also have been the basis to analyze the comorbidity between an anorexia-similiar disease and borderline personality disorder. The results of the study, indicates that there are some possible reasons why these persons have developed these two diseases and that there is a intelligible comorbidity between this two conditions. Possible factors why these persons have developed these two diseases, have lead to three notions;
attachment, vulnerability and abuse. The fourth and final concept, comorbidity, summarizes the possible factors why these persons have developed and anorexia-similiar disease and borderline personality disorder.
The aim of the study was to investigate differences in attitudes towards gang criminality amongst Swedish youth. Furthermore, the study aimed to investigate whether there were differences in attitudes based on differences in media consumption in the form of traditional and social media. The study also investigated whether living in an urban or rural environment moderated these effects. The study was performed through a quantitative web survey of youths living in Sweden. The sample consisted of two schools in an urban environment (N=68) and one school in a rural environment (N=32). The study found no statistically significant differences in attitudes towards gang criminality depending on medial news source. Additionally, there were no statistically significant differences in attitudes towards gang criminality in the rural and urban samples. Lastly, the study was unable to identify any statistically significant differences when the association between attitudes towards gangs and media source was moderated by rural or urban environment. There exist no differences in youth attitudes towards gang criminality depending on news source or urbanicity.
The overall aim of the article is to present a pragmatic approach for studies of meaning-making used in the articles of this issue. The approach, which is developed within the SMEDgroup (Studies of Meaning-making in Educational Discourses), mainly builds on the writings of John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault. A common ambition for the researchers in SMED is to enable studies and discussions on questions concerning how meanings are made in people’s actions. Another ambition is to carry out these studies beyond assumptions of dualism, essentialism, causality and determinism. In this perspective learning and socialization are viewed in a communicative perspective. We argue in the article that our approach makes it possible, and important, to study meaning-making in action in different kinds of educational practices.
En presentation av det didaktiska angreppssättet som ligger till grund för temat Didaktiska undersökningar i Utbildning och demokrati nr 3, 2008.
The overall aim of this paper is to present and discuss a pragmatic approach for studies of meaning-making in different educational practices. The approach – built on a framework developed within the SMED-group (Studies of Meaning-making in Educational Discourses) at the universities of Uppsala and Örebro – is illustrated in a number of empirical studies. The main point of departure in the studies is taken in pragmatic curriculum theory and sociocultural perspectives on learning, and is inspired mainly by John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault. A special focus is directed to communication practices and content selection within Physical education, Environmental education and Science education. A common ambition is to offer a language that enables studies and discussions on questions concerning how meanings are made in people’s actions. Another ambition is to make these investigations beyond assumptions of dualisms, essentialism, causality and determinism. In this perspective learning and socialisation is viewed in communicative perspective. Therefore, many of the studies are built on video recorded classroom conversations, but also on analysis of various kinds of written texts. We argue in the paper that this approach makes it possible to study meaning-making – learning and socialisation – in different kinds of educational practices.
Den föreliggande studiens syfte var att undersöka förekomsten av en hegemonisk maskulinitet i manliga polisaspiranters beskrivningar av en inledande interaktion med polisens yrkeskultur, yrkesroll och rollförväntningar. Detta för att belysa hur polisrollen är baserad på traditionella föreställningar av maskulinitet samt för att eventuellt kunna identifiera möjliga förbättringsområden för den svenska polisen i dess arbete för inklusion och mångfald. Detta genomfördes med hjälp av fem semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer med manliga polisaspiranter under deras femte termin på polishögskolan. Tidigare forskning har i dessa avseenden beskrivit förekomsten av maskulinitet inom polisen som problematiskt, där poliser som inte går i linje med maskulina ideal särbehandlas, eller utesluts. Resultaten påvisade att yrkeskulturen reproducerades genom att polisaspiranterna var angelägna om att låta deras yrkesroll formas enligt äldre yrkesnormativa definitioner av polisen. Vidare identifierades en polisiär jargong som syftade till att bilda en homosocialitet inom kåren på basis av informella strategier av insocialisering. Ytterligare resultat pekade på att det förekommer hierarkiseringen av maskulina attribut inom yrkesrollen, där en hegemonisk polisroll definierades enligt egenskaper av självsäkerhet, medvetenhet och fysisk förmåga. Enligt våra resultat ter sig således maskulinitet som en förutsättning för att lyckas som polis, där det bland annat redovisades för hur maskuliniteten underbygger den auktoritet som polisen besitter