According to guidelines published by the Swedish Gender Equality Authority, even if the woman is the abusive partner in a close relationship, it is still classified as “men's violence against women”, the news outlet Kvartal has reported.
In its handbook “Nothing to wait for”, “men's violence against women” is described as an umbrella term that also includes such things like “exploitation of the female body in advertising, media and pornography”.
However, its interpretation is so broad that it even includes violence in lesbian same-sex relationships, where no men are present whatsoever, or situations when men are actually victims.
“By including the concept of violence in close relationships in the overarching concept of men's violence against women, violence in same-sex relationships is also featured, or for that matter women's violence against men in close relationships”, the handbook said.
The Gender Equality Authority's responsible employee Berit Jernberg, head of the department for national strategy for preventing and combating men's violence against women, said that she is happy with the wording.
“I am so happy, because it is extremely well-worded and good,” Berit Jernberg told Kvartal.
Berit Jernberg further said that it is the government that has decided that women's violence against men should be classified within men's violence against women, and that this is stated in the gender equality policy sub-goals.
At the same time, Jernberg admitted that women's violence against men is a real phenomenon.
“All of us who work professionally with these issues are fully aware that there has been violence from women against men. But, for me, and the rest of us, this concept of 'men's violence against women' is very true, because that is the structural problem,” Jernberg said.
“All of us who work professionally with these issues are fully aware that there has been violence from women against men. But, for me, and the rest of us, this concept of 'men's violence against women' is very true, because that is the structural problem,” Jernberg said.
30 November 2020, 05:14 GMT
Jernberg went so far as to suggest that men exposed to violence from women find it difficult to be taken seriously, because the default expectation is for the woman to be the victim.
Sweden is known for promoting women's rights, to the point of its Social Democrat government actually declaring itself “feminist”. Gender equality is established as a fundamental aim of Sweden's domestic and even foreign policy, as Sweden claims to be the first country in the world to formulate and pursue a feminist foreign policy. It even issued a special handbook to enhance the work for “all women’s and girls’ full enjoyment of human rights”.