Kuningatar kiipelissä

Men´s violence against women in "equal" Sweden - a prevalence study. ( Eva Lundgren, Gun Heimer, Jenny Westerstrand, Anne-Marie Kalliokoski. pdf)

• Almost every second woman, i.e. 46 per cent, has been subjected to violence by a man since her fifteenth birthday. 56 percent of all women have been sexually harassed. Nearly one woman in four between 18 and 24 years of age has been subjected to violence in the last year.
  

• These numbers illustrate the fact that violence against women is far from being a marginal problem. Nearly every second woman has been subjected to violence at some point since her fi fteenth birthday. In the light of this it is impossible to regard violence to women as a marginal and isolated problem which can be dealt with separately from discussion of relations between men and women in society as a whole.
  

• Four questions were asked about sexual violence. The respondent was asked whether her former husband/cohabitant partner had forced her into any form of sexual activity by threatening her, holding her or hurting her in any way, whether he had tried to force her into any form of sexual activity by threatening her, holding her or hurting her in any way, whether he had forced or tried to force her into any form of sexual activity when she was unable to defend herself, e.g. because she was asleep or under the influence of drugs, and finally, whether he had touched her in a sexual way against her will, e.g. by grabbing, holding, kissing or hugging her.
  

• Thirteen per cent of the women state that former husbands/cohabitant partners have touched them in a sexual way against their will.
  

• A total of 56 per cent of women have been subjected to sexual harassment.
  

• More than half of Swedish women have been sexually harassed. Younger women and students are the ones most at risk. Of female students, one in three has been sexually harassed in the last year.
  

• The results of the study indicate that violence is widespread in all groups of women. They show that Swedish men are responsible for 82 per cent of the violence infl icted upon women in current marriages/cohabiting relationships. This calls into question the stereotypes of the "violent" immigrant male and the "equal" Swedish male.

• The women?s reports indicate terminated relationships to be considerably more violent than current ones. The reporting of violence committed by current husbands/cohabitant partners is considerably lower than that of violence by former ones. This difference forms a pattern throughout the women?s responses, applying to the reporting both of controlling behaviour and of violence during pregnancy. The same applies to the children: according to the women?s responses, it is four times as common for a violent former husband/cohabitant partner to have committed violence on the woman?s children as it is for a violent present husband/cohabitant partner to do so. On the whole, a much more favourable picture is painted of current relationships compared with relationships that the women have terminated.
  

• In interviews with women who have left violent men, an important difference appears in the women?s retrospective understanding of the violence compa red with the way they rega rded the man?s actions while they were still in the relationship with the man and in the violent situation. It is only when the woman is out of both the relationship and the violence that she can fully put words to her experiences as actually constituting violence.
  

• We recommend that like Norway and Finland, Sweden should establish a research programme in order to c rea te a new understanding of gender-related violence in which results from the prevalence study which appear to be particularly interesting are studied more intensively.