Citation

Knezevic Z, Eriksson M, Heikkilä M. J. Gender Based Viol. 2021; 5(2): 199-214.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Centre for Gender and Violence Research, University of Bristol, Publisher Policy Press)

DOI

10.1332/239868021X16177419125458

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional
perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children's exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly
'universal' child, forms of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children's exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced.

Language: en

Keywords

childhood; feminist theory; gender-based violence; racialisation; social problems