Nordic Law and Gender Conference Schedule

In the Nordic welfare states, the objective of gender equality has shaped legislation and
policies intended to reduce differences and ensure the extension of welfare services and benefits to all. Efforts to recognize and support care work in the family are complemented by public care that facilitate family-work balance. Attempts to address inequality in access to resources are multifaceted, covering access to power and employment, promoting equal conditions, and addressing harassment in employment, and regulating distribution of property within the family. Anti-discrimination law provides cross-cutting legal frameworks for addressing gender inequality.

However, at present, digitalisation seems to take over the realm of legal imagination for the Scandinavian welfare states. Emerging visions of “digital transformation” have the potential to induce profound changes in how the welfare state operates, and how it relates to individuals. This implicates gender in multiple ways: Digital and data-driven mass administration limits the visibility of individual life experiences and increases risks of stereotyping. Growing mass surveillance and data collection about individuals and families redraws boundaries between private and public. Reliance on algorithms impedes accountability for discrimination. But new emphasis on user-centric and tailored services can also provide spaces for reorganising bureaucratic and legal structures in ways that take the lived experiences of different groups of women and men as starting points.

Yet, gender remains at the margins of Nordic discourses on digitalisation of the state. How can we bring insights from the historic development of the equality-oriented welfare state to bear on the ongoing digital transformation?

Ingunn Ikdahl is professor at the Department of Public and International Law at the University of Oslo. She chaired the faculty’s research group Welfare, Rights and Discrimination (VERDI) in 2017–2022, and is currently co-chairing the research group on Law and technology. Ikdahl has worked on women’s law, non-discrimination, and rights to property and natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, she is involved in research projects examining different dimensions of the Norwegian welfare state, including digitalization of the welfare state, welfare and rights after the 222 July terror attack, health rights and health services in prison, and the role of EEA law in Norwegian
welfare administration. Her interest in gender perspectives, interdisciplinarity, legal pluralism, and legal theory cuts across these projects.

Venue: B34, Vasagatan 1
Convenors: Maj Grasten, Copenhagen Business School, Nicole, Stybnarova Leiden University, & Miriam Bak McKenna, Roskilde University
Chair: Ivana Isalovic, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands 

(I) Title: Gender equality and the shadow of extractivism
Author: Helena Alviar García, Sciences Po Law School, Paris

There is no denying that the fight for gender equality has increasingly become mainstream
in the last thirty years. This is particularly true in Colombia, the place where this chapter
concentrates its analysis. From the establishment of an equality clause in the 1991 constitution (along with the many laws, regulations and rulings that have interpreted it); the election of the first female vice-president in 2018, to the announcement in March of 2022 of an afro descendant woman as the vice-presidential candidate for the left-wing party, the importance of women’s issues in the political agenda has been gaining central stage.

Despite these encouraging advancements, the terms, and conditions in which
this equality is fulfilled-or should be exercised- is far from a settled matter. There is an abyss between the conservative vice-president’s view (elected in 2018) and for whom equality means transforming women into micro-entrepreneurs and consequently designing incentives for them to access to credit and banking to the current vice president, who defines equality in terms of redistribution of resources across gender, class, and race, where care for the environment is central and intersectionality is key, in other words, foregrounding the political economy of equality.

To illustrate the political economy of equality, the presentation will analyze women’s access to the mining sector. Mining was selected because of its importance for the Colombian economy: it represents 40% of foreign direct investment, 32% of the country’s foreign
exchange market, 40% of its total exports, and in some cases up to 80% of the resources distributed to regions for their economic development. Despite its significance, it scarcely employs women. Further, policies geared towards solving the scarce representation of women in the mining sector are too centered upon a superficial understanding of equality that does not take into consideration how economic development policies promote resource concentration and exclude women in diverse ways. In fact, mining has been central to governmental policies for the last 30 years as Colombia has transitioned from mostly exporting coffee to becoming an oil, gas, and coal producer. The presentation will therefore analyze the effects that privileging mining as an economic development goal has had upon women’s access to work, public resources, and power, far beyond calls for equality. It will show that equality laws have very little to say about the gendered and environmental effects of granting public resources that privilege mining, and in general about how the protection of labor rights is intertwined with access to property.

(II) Title: Gender in Law and Political Economy
Authors: Miriam Bak-McKenna, Roskilde University, & Maj Grasten, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

This paper discusses how issues of gender are core concerns in the political economy of
law. It begins by examining key debates and research concerns that address how gender shapes and impacts the legal regulation of markets and economic activity across varying schools of feminist thought. While the field of law, gender and political economy is diverse, the handbook chapter focusses on three areas of analysis at the micro, meso and macro levels through the lens of gendered political economy and law. At the micro level, we examine the manner in which gendered divisions of labour within the home and family are sustained in regimes of labour, family and welfare law. We show how law constructs liminal legal subjects with limited rights, ambiguously situated in legal borderlands at the intersection of different legal regimes by differentiating between public/private,
work/non-work, and citizen/migrant. As such, law facilitates the transnational transfer and
devaluation of social reproductive labour. At the meso-level we examine the legal regulation of corporate governance, while at the macro level we examine the political economy of care beyond national borders as it is impacted by the international legal regulation of migration and international economic law.

Finally, the paper proposes a framework of use in promoting new modes of interdisciplinary research and dialogue which centers on translation as an analytical tool and conceptual model for feminist legal research, and on how focus on context, circulation and change
harnesses and enables feminist legal method and research.

(III) Title: Women’s Rights as Launching Pads for Female Economic Participation – Study in the UN Archives
Author: Nicole Stybnarova, Leiden University

The presented work is based on UN archival material to the drafting of two women’s rights
conventions (UN Marriage Convention, and CEDAW (Art 16)). The anaylsis reconstructs the rationale of the drafters with focus on highlighting those parts of history of international women’s rights-making which make visible the importance of economic productivity in understanding women’s social needs and addressing them. The argument unfolds a principial understanding of women’s rights in the two case-studies as

a) dependent on women’s partaking on the production directly or indirectly (reward women with the symbolic recognition because they have a potential to expand productive forces); or b) a consequence of this partaking (symbolic recognition is only effective in
tandem with women’s actual partaking on the production).

These two main links between women’s rights and the economic production came in many varieties sketched in the presentation. The presentation shows ways in which the economic understanding of women as subjects of rights is ingrained in the accepted meaning of those rights. It argues that the rights, as legal instruments, were conceived of as setting up of the social conditions for women to partake more productively in the economy which was understood to improve their status in reality and substantiate other rights, already nominally assigned to women.

(IV) Title: Regressive Governance
Author: Dina Francesca Haynes, New England Law, US

In 2019, I wrote an article demonstrating that regressive regimes are on the rise,
implementing laws and policies designed to have a chilling effect on their opposition. They focus much of their ire on women and immigrants, creating fear-based narratives to justify militarizing the interior, fortifying the border, reducing civil liberties in the name of national security, and, less overtly, perpetuating patriarchal systems of power. Controlling women and immigrants is central to nativist political agendas. The focus on immigrants and women is purposeful, designed to provide the latitude that the Constitution and international law may grant to political leaders allegedly operating within the arenas of sovereign authority and foreign affairs. While many regressive nativist regimes are also racist, there are strategic reasons why contemporary nativist rhetoric focuses on
immigrants in particular rather than on racial or religious minorities more broadly. The reasons have to do with the additional (alleged) legal justifications an undocumented immigrant subject provides regressive regimes. Focusing on migrants moves the locus of the law to borders and, therein, sovereignty; provides a justification for increased militarization in the name of national security and keeping out “invaders”; appeals to vigilantes who prefer to hide their racism behind narratives about defending territory and resources for citizens; allows former immigrants looking to distance themselves from new arrivals to justify their “close-the-door-behind-me” mentality; allows the regular invocation of “patriotism” as a virtue of the highest order; and provides fuel for the inevitable calls by regressive leaders for the derogation of rights and liberties of citizens in the name of national security. Regressive governments increase their own power by suppressing the rights of their opposition, circumventing enshrined constitutional protections of citizens, and subverting the rule of law. The starting point for achieving each is exerting control over non-citizens. I used the term “regressive governance” to describe political efforts to scale back rights for disfavored groups of people, understanding that the formal power structures within regressive governments differ. It was controversial at the time to argue that regressive governments were taking aim at gender and migration, even though the leader of Hungary, Victor Orban, called for ethnically Hungarian women to bear more children while making it a crime to assist refugees and asylum seekers. Other regressive leaders, like Donald Trump, were also engaging in populism, aimed at the intersection of immigration and gender, calling immigrants “criminals” and “rapists” while building a wall to keep them out, falsely claiming that (white) women were at risk of sexual violence perpetrated by migrant men of color. What unified these regressive governments was their patriarchal rhetoric, increasing use of national security theater, and instrumentalization of the rule of law to expand and entrench their power. It is now 2023 and the political landscape is far worse for women and migrants and many other historically discriminated against groups. Several regressive governments have moved from scaling back rights, to criminalizing people who attempt to access those rights, and attempting to eliminate them from public life altogether. The rule of law is a political philosophy premised on the promise that all people, systems, and institutions are accountable to the same laws, processes, and norms that work together to support equality before the law. This article argues that regressive governance is increasing around the world, including in putative democracies, quashing human rights through strategic actions designed to undermine both the rule of law and human rights. From a rule of law perspective, the distance between scaling back rights to criminalizing accessing rights and assisting others to access rights is vast. It is the distance between regressive but putatively democratic governance, and fascism. This article looks at regressive systems of power. It describes hegemonic views on immigration, gender, extractive capitalism, and minority status. It provides examples of systems of power corrupted by those views, and utilizes the rule of law, critical race theory and feminist legal theory to analyze the broader implications of these individual acts of regressive governance. Finally, it proposes defining patriarchy broadly, to include both extractive
capitalism and bigotry as methods of maintaining patriarchal order as status quo, discussing the common threads amongst regressive governments, to better challenge them.
 

Venue: C34, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Hedvig Lärka, University of Gothenburg
Roundtable participants: Hedvig Lärka (University of Gothenburg), Ulrika Andersson (Lund University), Clara Bergstrand (University of Gothenburg), Matilda Arvidsson (University of Gothenburg), and Hugo Lundberg (University of Gothenburg).

          "The word is ready when the concept is ready."
            – Lev Vygotsky

A 2020 report by Ulrika Anderson et al. reveals alarming statistics on sexual violence and harassment at a Swedish university: one in four women, one in three non-binary people and one in ten men report experiencing sexual violence or harassment in their capacity as students or staff (Agardh et al 2020). Disturbingly, one in fifty of female respondents indicate they have been subjected to rape or attempted rape by students or staff.

To make sense of the prevalence of sexual violence at our own workplaces, this workshop engages Miranda Fricker's concept of hermeneutical injustice with a generative critique of its foundational assumptions (Fricker 2007). Fricker highlights how concepts are central in shaping how subjects emerge. She points out that certain subjects or experiences are structurally harmed when there is a lack of concepts in common understanding. However, Fricker contends that no one is to blame when society misunderstands or misinterprets certain experiences. In this workshop, we turn this notion around, and discuss how all human activity is inherently conceptual. This means that we are going beyond the effects of language or knowledge, thought in the strict sense, and consider the material activity of everyday life at the university. We assume that this activity is conceptual in itself (Chukhrov 2020, Vygotsky 1986, Ilyenkov 2015). From this standpoint, hermeneutical injustice is not merely a lack of concepts but a sociomaterial practice (Barad 2007, Haraway 1988) perpetuated in daily life. Such injustice may silence a speaker or listener entirely, due to the material power of common (conceptual) activity. In this workshop, we tentatively examine the ways
hermeneutical injustice related to sexual victimization is embedded within the Swedish university seen as a practice or activity. Themes explored may include, but are not limited to:

• Alienation and powerlessness – taking responsibility: Capitalism tends to produce alienated, atomized individuals and the illusion of the autonomous subject. In academia, this tendency is even stronger due to unstable jobs, informal power relations, and a lack of collective organization. This can make workplaces feel toxic, allowing for abuse and bad behavior to become accepted as normal. As members of this workplace, we need to ask: How can we address and take responsibility for our own powerlessness?
• The dark side of care – responsible empathy: How does the way we care and practice empathy for each other at work accidentally leave some people or experiences out? Can we create a workplace that cares more about the experiences of those victimized by sexual violence, rather than the intentions of those causing harm?
• Patriarchal epistemology? Do some ways of thinking and learning in academia promote harmful behaviors and concepts? How does the way research is funded influence the academic work environment and what we study and value, and how can we address this?
• Responsible pedagogy: How can we in our contact with the students, through for example pedagogy, foster or hamper responsible community among our students? Evidence to support long term success of sexual violence prevention programs among students is lacking (Orchowski et al 2020). In what ways do these programs (not) engage the conceptual force of everyday activity? How do we foster community and collective power in our contact with the students and as an institution?

As organizers of this roundtable, we contend that this sort of approach could
offer staff (and students, should this approach be used in other settings) the methodological tools to recognize and address the hermeneutic injustices we collectively – if often unconsciously – construe in our everyday activity. Please take a moment to consider the themes in and connected to this short introduction, and how they relate to your everyday work life, teaching, and research. We will introduce the workshop with a short presentation of the subject and of the results of the Tellus report (Agardh A. et al. 2020). After this, we will have a conversation in smaller groups and together.

We very much look forward to discussing these matters with you, and to find ways to continue this conversation going forward.

References
Agardh, A., Andersson, U., Björklund, H., Elén, E., Emmelin, M., Lindell, L., Palmieri, J., Priebe, G., & Östergren, P-O. (2020). Tellus – sexuella trakasserier, trakasserier och kränkande särbehandling vid Lunds universitet: Resultat baserade på enkät-, intervju- och
fokusgruppsdata från anställda, doktorander och studenter. Lund University. In English: Agardh, et al (2022). Sexual harassment among employees and students at a large Swedish university: who are exposed, to what, by whom and where – a cross-sectional
prevalence study. BMC Public Health, 22(1), [2240]. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14502-0

Barad K. M. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.

Chukhrov, K. (2020). Practicing the Good: Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism. University of Minnesota Press.

Fricker, Miranda (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing,
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001

Haraway, Donna. (1988). ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.’ Feminist Studies 14, 3: 575–99.5

Ilyenkov, E (2015) ‘Dialectics of the Ideal’, in ed. A. Levant and V. Oittinen, Dialectics of the Ideal: Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism

Orchowski, L. M et al. (2020). ‘Integrating Sexual Assault Resistance, Bystander, and Men’s Social Norms Strategies to Prevent Sexual Violence on College Campuses: A Call to Action.’ Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(4), 811–27.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018789153

Vygotsky, Lev (1986) Thought and Language, Translated by Alex Kozulin. MIT Press.

Book launch: New books on the transformative potential of gender equality laws and policies and gender sensitive legal education in the Nordics.

Venue: C32, Vasagatan 1

Convenor: Anne Hellum, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo (anne.hellum@jus.uio.no)

In this workshop two books, that contribute to the debate about the role of equality laws and policies and gender sensitive legal education in achieving the aim of substantive equality in the Nordic countries, are presented and discussed.

14.00 (1) Nordic Equality and Anti-Discrimination Laws in the Throes of Change Legal developments in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland (Eds. Anne Hellum, Ingunn Ikdahl, Vibeke Blaker Strand, Eva-Maria Svensson), Routledge 2024, will be presented by:

Vibeke Blaker Strand (University of Oslo) comments from Leila Brännström (University og Gothenberg) and Mari Teigen (Norwegian Institute of Social Science)

This book draws a diverse and complex picture of the long, uneven, and unfinished process towards substantive equality in four Nordic countries: Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland. It presents the Nordic gender equality model’s systematic use of three measures: overarching gender policies, legislation that has an explicit or implicit impact on gender relations, and gender equality and anti-discrimination laws with low-threshold enforcement systems. What potentials and limitations do the Nordic gender equality and anti-discrimination law regimes have to combat individual discrimination and structural inequality? Can these regimes function as a driver of political, legal, economic, cultural, and social change and as a corrective to laws, policies, and practices that uphold existing inequalities and, if so, to what extent? Can weaknesses in the equality and anti-discrimination laws and the way they are enforced hamper efforts to close remaining gender gaps? Rather than looking at the Nordic gender equality laws and policies in isolation, the book situates their development and transformative potential within a changing European and international political and legal landscape.

Open Access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/75317

14.45 (2)  Gender and law: women’s, gender and equality perspectives in legal education [Kjønn og rett: Kvinne-, kjønns- og likestillingsperspektiver i jusstudiet] (Eds. Ingunn Ikdahl, Anne Hellum, John Asland, Herman Bruserud, Maria Astrup Hjort, Bjørk Gudmundsdottir Jonassen, May-Len Skilbrei), Cappelen 2022 will be presented by:

Ingunn Ikdahl and May-Len Skilbrei (University og Oslo) and commented by Stine Jørgensen  (University of Copenhagen)  and Johanna Niemi (University og Helsinki)).

Women's law, gender equality and anti-discrimination law have constituted fields of research at the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo for decades. Law establishes rights and obligations, legal protections and punishments – it can create, maintain and transform society’s distribution of power and resources between individuals and groups. It is thus an important part of legal education to create understanding of how legal constructs, rules and decisions can lead to – or counteract – gender stereotypes, inequality and discrimination. This book presents various types of gender perspectives in areas such as family law, administrative law, welfare law, contract law, corporate law, and criminal law. It also includes gender and feminist perspectives in overarching disciplines like legal philosophy, legal sociology, criminology, law and economics, and professional ethics for lawyers.

2022Open Access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/56661

Venue: D44, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Raihanatul Jannat and Ndimyake Mwalugaja, University of Eastern Finland

(I) Title: TBA
Author: Camille Loyer, UiT, Norway

Climate governance might appear gender-neutral, but climate change impacts aggravate
existing gender inequalities. Because of this, gender and women’s considerations have been first ignored, and once they were taken into account, they were misunderstood. Therefore, the full and meaningful integration of gender and women’s considerations when addressing climate change concerns is critical for achieving climate justice and gender equality as it would provide for gender-transformative climate action. To achieve this, it is essential to determine the extent to which the international climate change regime provides a framework for gender- transformative climate action.

This paper explores the incorporation of gender and women’s considerations within the climate regime and the role of feminist advocacy in this evolution. It is observed that the
climate regime largely aims at a gender-responsive content but it is not achieved in practice in all areas of climate action. From this foundation, this paper then argues that the overarching strategy of gender mainstreaming, widespread within the climate regime, might not be sufficient to achieve gender-transformative climate governance. Indeed, the “radical potential paradox” of gender mainstreaming contends that despite its transformative potential, gender mainstreaming in itself does not enable a paradigm shift in the integration of gender and women’s considerations within climate governance. The adoption of a human rights-based approach to climate governance, as a catalyst for systemic change, is then suggested in order to achieve a gender-transformative climate
change regime.

(II) Title: Gender and Climate Change: An Empirical Legal Study of Gender Responsiveness in Tanzanian Climate Change Response Documents
Author: Ndimyake Mwalugaja, University of Eastern Finland

The increasing concern on Climate change adverse environmental phenomenon in
developing countries has been on the rise due to the low adaptive capacities. In Tanzania, the impacts of climate change cut across diverse sectors and agriculture remains the most susceptible. More than 80% of Tanzania’s population depends on climate sensitive rain-fed agriculture as a source of livelihood.
The Article examines the implementation of the legislation and policies on climate and agriculture by applying Carol Bacchi theoretical framework. The first part of the article
is a textual gender analysis of Tanzanian legal framework on climate and agriculture response. The second part comprises a study of the implementation of the legal documents based on an analysis of interview data, stakeholders include representatives from different environmental organizations and institutes working with gender, climate, and agriculture. Additionally, the article makes use of sustainable livelihood and ecofeminist framework to explore the various concepts that are beneficial in creating policies that are focused in keeping gender at the centre of sustainable development.

The analysis has shown Tanzania legal framework recognizes the gendered dimension of climate change however, legal and policies documents lack coordination and
implementation to address the objectives therein. Most documents created to address climate and  agriculture have been plagued with limited technical capability, lack monitoring and evaluation framework as well as gender awareness. The article recommends the need to create gender awareness, coordination and knowledge exchange between grass root level and policy level. Additionally, the current legal measures need to be properly stated rather than vaguely created to enhance implementation and enforcement.

(III) Title: International climate finance supporting climate-resilient development of women from the global South – case study of locally-led adaptation initiatives in Bangladesh
Author: Raihanatul Jannat, University of Eastern Finland

Can international climate finance support climate-resilient development of women from
the global South? This article examines the question by:

i) analsying selected locally-led adaptation initiatives in Bangladesh that receive funding from global climate funds, and
ii) exploring the role played by international climate finance provisions in ensuring that these initiatives contribute to gender equality and Bangladeshi women’s social and economic empowerment.

The basis for this study is derived from the current reality that women face discriminatory and gendered experiences of climate impacts due to existing multi-dimensional social injustices; consequently, women require implementation of climate adaptation actions that are gender-responsive and contribute to their social and economic empowerment. As such, international climate finance provisions have the potential to play a key role in climate-resilient development of women by broadening the goals of adaptation finance and supporting locally-led adaptation initiatives that tackle inequalities and structural drivers of vulnerability in addition to reducing exposure and/or vulnerabilities to climate hazards. At the same time, however, the current legal scholarship on global climate finance is rather
fragmented and scant, mostly owing to the nascent nature of international climate law and the political debates concerning climate finance. This article therefore takes stock of the current provisions in place and proposes possible future directions for reflection that can strengthen the legal scholarship on global climate finance and contribute to climate-resilient development of women in the global South.

(IV) Title: Have Indigenous Arctic Women been forgotten in the field of Human rights and Climate change?
Author: Siff Lund Kjærgaard, University of Southern Denmark

There is no longer doubt that climate change influences human rights. However, the
academia upon the consequences of this influence is still developing, and even though much relevant research has been done or on its way, gaps still exist. Looking into the literature on human rights and climate change, the Arctic consists of a very limited part of this literature. Adding to this, the focus on the women in the Arctic is even narrower. This is puzzling, as the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world, and how scholars and international organizations (such as The United Nations (UN)) has stated how both women and indigenous communities hold a vital role in relation to mitigating and adapting to climate change. Therefore, this paper proposes a review of the main human rights literature, covering inter alia academia, relevant case law and guiding documents by e.g., UN, to understand what we know about Arctic women’s rights in relation to climate change. It will focus mainly on Greenland, but as there is limited research on Greenland, it
will also broaden to other Arctic nations where relevant. The overall aim is to better understand the nexus between human rights and climate change from a gender equality-, indigenous- and Arctic-perspective. This will help to understand the blind spot being Indigenous Arctic women and guide into further research.

Venue: B41, Vasagatan 1
Convenors: Patrik Emblad, University of Gothenburg, & Åsa Gunnarsson, Umeå University

The Nordic countries have abolished tax regulations that explicitly differentiate between men and women. However, formally gender-neutral tax provisions and tax policies can affect women and men differently because tax laws interact with socioeconomic realities and the social security system. It is therefore important to analyze tax law in a broader socioeconomic and social law context. Gender differences in outcome correlated especially with persisting gender gaps in employment rates and patterns, in the distribution of unpaid work, as well as with regard to income, old age security, poverty and wealth. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis and present economic crisis tax policy agenda, tax policy makers on particularly the international level, have come to insight that the tax policy agenda of the past decades have created a multitude of sustainability and inequality issues
that ultimately contradict the Agenda 2030 global goals to combat poverty, centered on women and their children. Future tax policies need to be sensitive to what socio-economic gender inequalities tax regulations have both created and neglected. Future tax reforms also need to be a part of the mobilization and redistribution of resources to build substantive capacity of fair tax reforms to create inclusive societies.

(I) No tax fairness for women in Sweden
Authors: Beatrice Nordling, Chief Economist at Swedish Women’s Lobby, & Åsa Gunnarsson, Umeå University
Moderator: Cristina Trenta, Linnaues University
Discussant: Patrik Emblad, University of Gothenburg

In this paper we will discuss how the gender blindness and lack of gender equality
perspectives in Swedish tax reforms have contributed to an increase of several socioeconomic gender gaps, such as the unfair distribution of income and wealth between men and women. The discussion will be based on two recently published Swedish reports of which one is published by Sveriges kvinnoorganisationer1 and the other by Jämställdhetsmyndigheten. It is obvious that the tax policy discourse that have moved from principles with redistributive and ability perspectives to neutrality and taxing for growth perspectives, have been more beneficial for men than women. Men have benefited from tax cuts and credits on labor income, low tax on capital income and corporate profits, the abandoning of wealth taxes, and the regressive taxation of housing. This development
has led to a loss of tax revenue, partly covered by an increase of indirect taxation, which also has turned out to be a tax shift from men to women. Our ambitions are to present new insights on how to change economic and legal paradigms in order achieve tax fairness from a feminist perspective.

(II) Traveling back in time – The genealogy of gendered tax subsidies of travels between workplace and home in Sweden
Authors: Patrik Emblad, University of Gothenburg & Wanna Svedberg Andersson, University of
Gothenburg
Moderator: Åsa Gunnarsson, Umeå University

In 2022, the Swedish Parliament decided to adopt a new regulation on tax relief for travel
between home and work. The change meant that the current travel deduction would be replaced by a tax reduction. The new rules were to enter into force on 1/1 2023. After the change of government in 2022, the Riksdag made a new decision to revoke the precious decision and strengthen the travel deduction with effect from 1/1 2023. It has long been known that the travel deduction predominantly benefits men. Men are more likely to travel by car, while women are more likely to use public transport. In addition, men generally commute longer distances than women do. This, in turn, is linked to the fact that women are more likely to take greater responsibility for children and the home and thus generally work closer to home. The decision to reintroduce and strengthen the travel deduction cements these unequal living patterns. It is a way of turning back the time. In this research project we are also going back in time to perform a gender critical analysis of the origin,
application and development of the travel deduction in Sweden. We highlight and critically analyze the logic that maintains (and reinforces) gendered biased travel deductions in Sweden. By deconstructing the travel deduction as a social subsidy, we show how it violates the principles and ethics of social law. This is the case because the subsidy increases in size for higher income groups.
When the subsidy is implemented through the tax system however, this effect does not attract as much attention since tax law is based on a different logic. We challenge this logic by using the concept of shared living costs. Tax law makes a distinction between costs of living and costs of acquisition to determine the deductibility of various costs. Implicitly, the cost for traveling to work is seen as an individual cost for tax purposes. Yet, we argue that it should be seen as a shared living cost. This is because the distribution of costs within a household is linked to the total distribution of responsibilities within the household. Furthermore, we argue that the treatment of costs as either joint or individual is not coherent in tax law in general because it is possible in some cases to allocate
the right to deduct between different persons.

Venue: CIP room, Vasagatan 1
Convenors: Matilda Arvidsson, University of Gothenburg, & Maria Elander, La Trobe Law School, Melbourne
Participants: Elina Sagne-Ollikainen (Åbo Akademi), Paola Zichi , Warwick Law School and Lisa Schmitz, Lund University

Venue: B34, Vasagatan 1
Convenors: Maj Grasten, Copenhagen Business School, Nicole Stybnarova, Leiden University & Miriam Bak McKenna, Roskilde University
Chair: Maj Grasten Copenhagen Business School

(I) Title: Anti-Stereotyping and Legal Subjectivity in European Human Rights Law: From Universal Autonomy to Situated Affectivity
Author: Liv Navntoft Henningsen, The Danish Institute for Human Rights, Denmark

In legal theory and practice, the legal subject has traditionally been theorised from a liberal
and masculine perspective as an autonomous and independent individual with almost superhuman intellectual and physical capabilities, whereas groups and people that do not fit this theoretical frame or norm are conceptualised as feminised and vulnerable others. In contrast, through the lens of feminist new materialism, the legal subject in this paper is figured as an embodied and embedded, relational, and affective being (becoming). The focus of the analysis is the process of othering and marginalisation that situates certain groups and individuals in a particularly precarious situation within the legal and economic infrastructures. The argument is that the identification of ‘vulnerable groups’ in case-law shields the active role of the state in distributing resources, recognition, and representation, as well as engendering certain subjectivities or life forms. Additionally, the ‘vulnerable groups’ approach may further marginalisation by pointing to particular groups as deviant
and dependent, as compared to the paradigmatic autonomous and invulnerable legal subject, enacting an exclusionary legal and philosophical genealogy. This deters a multifaceted understanding of diverse and heterogeneous legal subjects situated within complex economic and ecological webs. The argument is substantiated through a case law analysis of stereotyping cases before the European Court of Human Rights. In conclusion, the paper outlines a new direction for discrimination assessment that addresses the processes of marginalisation that contribute to situated disadvantage, and thus conceptualises anti-discrimination as a transformative process of restructuring legal norms and principles to indiscriminately accommodate the vulnerability and affectivity of all legal subjects.

(II) Title: Considering the Criminal Prohibition Against Consensual Adult Incest. The Case of Sweden and the 1970’s Revision of the Sexual Offences
Author: Caroline Karlsson, Lund University

In 1971 Social Democratic Minister for Justice Lennart Geijer appointed a government
committee to review the section on Sexual Offences in the Penal Code, which resulted in the now infamous report The Sexual Offences Inquiry (SOU 1976:9). The report was heavily criticized by feminist activists and organizations who mobilized against its misogynic construction of the rape crime and the proposal to lower the age of consent. Much feminist research in Sweden have documented and analyzed the events and controversies surrounding the report, yet hardly any scholarly attention has been directed to another proposal made by the committee in the report.
Namely, the proposal to decriminalize consensual adult incest between parent and child and between full siblings. My paper analyzes this proposal to remove the incest provision, focusing on the committee’s reasoning and considerations of the legal grounds for criminalizing voluntary adult incest. I show that the justification for removing the criminal prohibition against incest revolved around the conception that the removal would only affect a handful of people, based on the idea that a strong social and psychological taboo would continue to prevent incest. I also show that the resistance to the proposal, which in the end shaped the outcome of the legislative process, revolved around the fear that a removal would obliterate the nuclear family as a basic unit of social organization. Finally, I discuss how the genetic concerns associated with incest and reproduction, still considered the primary legal ground for the criminal prohibition against consensual adult incest, need to be considered in the context of the Swedish history of eugenics and sterilization laws.

(III) Title: Gendered Subjectivity, Law and Capitalism: Identity, Gender Pricing, Women’s Oppression and the Role of Law in Emancipation
Author: Suzana Rahde Gerchmann, City University of London, UK

This research explores the legal dimension of subject formation, focusing on the
relationship between law, gender and capital and the role of law (or the limits of law) in liberation. To unfold this entanglement, I take gender pricing – when men and women are charged differently for the same/substantially similar products and services, and women are more affected by the extra prices – as a case study. Until now, this phenomenon was analysed under a positivist/liberal scope that classified it as sex discrimination, claiming regulation as an answer. However, these solutions misunderstand the problem, relying on anti-discrimination and individualised measures, overlooking gender oppression structural causes. To address this gap and have an emancipation-driven discussion, my research questions are: How are law and capitalism interrelated in the gendered constitution of the legal subject as a consumer? Taking gender pricing as a case study, what can we learn about

(1) the legal aspects of a gendered subjectivity,
(2) the meaning of being a woman in
capitalist societies, and
(3) the role of law (or the limitations of law) in liberation?

In responding to these questions, I situate gender in capitalist societies. When I turn to gender pricing, I am interested in mapping the intersection between law, gender and capital and how they are interlocked in a system that not only gives rights but imposes subjectivities. Drawing from Marxist feminism and decolonial framework, I aim to unveil the role of law in the construction of gender identities, elucidating its limits in our struggle for liberation and exploring different solutions to emancipation.

Venue: C32, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Erik Björling

(I) Title: Revisiting the “green goddesses” of good order, justice and peace: Themis and her daughters, Eunomia, Diké, and Eirine
Author: Hanne Petersen, professor emerita of legal cultures, UCPH, Faculty of Law, Center for European and Comparative Legal Studies (CECS)

This work in progress is inspired by my collaboration with two Danish-Polish film women
in 2022, which resulted in a series of filmed interviews (Norape.org - Waystojustice | Sexual Violence in Peace- and Wartime). One of them raised the question why Justitia was a woman. Why is justice, divinity and femininity/female gender connected? This requires that we look to the past. The Romans took over Justitia from the Greeks, who had a group of female goddesses protecting law, justice and order. The elder Themis – daughter of Gaia (goddess of the earth) – is the goddess of divine justice, custom and represents tradition and the Earth. She appears among the Olympian gods as the link back to an original (matrilineal) order. Together with Zeus, she has three daughters (horae) who represent both the seasons and order. Horae (hours, seasons) are in early Greek religion personifications of blossoming and bearing fruit. They were later considered goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time and became regarded as goddesses of order in general and natural justice. "They bring and bestow ripeness, they come and go in accordance with the firm law of the periodicities of nature and of life", Karl Kerenyi observed, adding "Hora means 'the correct moment'." Traditionally, they guarded the gates of Olympus, promoted
the fertility of the earth, and rallied the stars and constellations (Horae – Wikipedia). Eunomia is the goddess of good order, the best known is Diké – the goddess of human justice, whom the Romans transformed into Justitia, the third is Eirene, the goddess of peace.

(II) Title: The Pregnant Body in Scandinavian Health Law
Author: Katharina Ó Cathaoir, University of Copenhagen

This presentation delves into the paradoxical nature of the health of pregnant individuals—
simultaneously medically neglected and of intensively surveilled. The systematic exclusion of pregnant people from clinical trials has created an evidence gap regarding the effects of routine medications on their health. Clinical uncertainty surrounding metabolic differences and fetal risks leaves pregnant individuals unable to make informed decisions about treatment and medications, resulting in potential avoidance of necessary medications or incorrect dosages. Bridging this evidence gap is crucial to improve health outcomes for pregnant people. Gathering more and better data is often hailed as the solution to this problem and other welfare state challenges (like ageing populations and difficulties in recruitment). However, the inclusion of pregnant individuals in clinical trials alone cannot address the issue at hand. Western medicine's historical trivialization of conditions affecting women's bodies has led to gendered healthcare, where female patients are often disregarded or their reports of pain neglected.
Furthermore, the healthcare field, including obstetrics and gynecology, still harbors patriarchal beliefs. Even with available healthcare data, legislatures and health professionals may limit pregnant patients' self-determination based on patriarchal views.
While criminal law's role in regulating pregnant women has essentially been eliminated in Scandinavia, indirect punishment and surveillance persist, fueled by a welfare state
that increasingly surveils the pregnant body through digitalization and datafication. Pregnant patients with mental health conditions face additional vulnerabilities due to use of medicines and stigmas surrounding their suitability as parents. Their failure to use medications due to the evidence gap or decision to continue taking necessary medicines may be reported by social workers, leading to them being flagged as “non-compliant”. The presentation draws on complaints made by pregnant patients to health boards in the Scandinavian countries to illustrate this paradox and the risks faced by patients.

(III) Title: Wearing the gákti Inside Out: Indigenous Protest as a Manifestation of the Right to Culture
Author: Carola Lingaas, VID Specialized University, Oslo

The Sámi Indigenous people of Norway recently received significant media attention by
chaining themselves to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. They protested against the inaction of the government following a Grand Chamber judgment of the Supreme Court that ruled the concessions for a wind turbine park invalid. The Fosen judgment recognized that the windpark violated the Sámi’s right to culture of reindeer husbandry; their traditional area of winter grazing area was deemed lost.
Rather than focusing on the judgment of 2021 and its legal analysis of Art. 27 ICCPR, this paper examines the protest reactions. Most female protesters decided to wear their
traditional clothing, the gákti, inside out. The gákti is worn both in ceremonial contexts and while working, especially when reindeer herding. After a painful and enduring century of colonialism and assimilation policies that ended as late as in the 1960s, where everything indigenous was banned, ridiculed, or hidden, the gákti is today worn with ever more pride.
Wearing traditional clothing inside out is, in Sámi tradition, a sign of protest. By
turning it inside out, the ugly seams are seen, and the beautiful embroideries and sewing become invisible. Rather than using words or violence, the Sámi peacefully protest by way of offering a provocative sight of a piece of clothing. This paper takes an explorative approach to the right of culture under international and regional human rights law and how it is manifested through clothing. In doing so, the paper combines theoretical discussions of the human right to culture but expands it to examining the use of clothing as an important element of the right and of protest movements.

Venue: D44, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Alexandra Lebedeva, Uppsala University

(I) Title: Using legal history as a tool when teaching law students about men’s violence against women
Author: Görel Granström, Umeå University

One of the challenges when teaching and examining law students on the subject of men’s
violence against women is to reach and engage different groups of students. That is, both those students that are well aware of this societal problem and those that are of the opinion that this area of knowledge is not something that should be part of a legal education. In my experience, one way of reaching and engaging both groups of students is by using historical examples of both legislation and case law as a means to discuss how law is used to protect different interests and what that entails for those who are not seen as legal subjects worth protecting.

In my presentation, I will give some examples of how this could be done. By using examples such as how rape and violence was defined and criminalised (or not criminalised) in a historical context, it is sometimes easier to build a foundation for discussing these questions in the context of what the students will have to handle
 in their professional life as lawyers.

(II) Title: Two decades of teaching men’s violence against women from a law and gender perspective
Author: Monica Burman, Umeå University

The need for knowledge on law, gender and men’s violence against women is not a new
insight. It was acknowledged already in the 1990’s and legal demands on gender related knowledge in law education was in 1998 for the first time regulated in the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100). At that time, the scope was wider, not only knowledge on men’s violence against women was supposed to be part of the law program, but also the relationship between law and gender equality in general. In this paper I will present and discuss my more than 20 years of experience of teaching men’s violence against women from a law and gender perspective at the law program in Umeå, with some comparison with such teaching at the police program. I will point at both obstacles and possibilities as well as highlight differences and similarities over time. I will also elucidate how the content of the teaching and the pedagogical approaches to the subject have changed due to the
development in law, policy and the production of research-based knowledge.

(III) Title: The process of normalizing violence and the process of breaking up – A practical example of how to teach and examine students in regards to a criminal investigation.
Author: Hanna Palhamn Szabó, the National Centre for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Towards Women based at Uppsala University

The subject men’s violence against women is mandatory in master programs in Law at
Swedish universities since 2018, which is regulated in the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100). As lawyers are expected to meet victims/survivors and perpetrators of violence, it is necessary to use various pedagogical approaches to successfully teach and examine law students on the subject of men’s violence against women.
According to the Swedish Agency for Government Employers lawyers are one of the most common professions within the group government employees and primarily work at the National Courts Administration, the Tax Agency, the Migration Agency, Government Offices, Procuratorate, Police authorities, the Social Insurance Administration, the Enforcement Authority, the Prison and Probation Service and the Employment Office. In addition, many private lawyers will also meet victims/survivors and perpetrators of violence. Here it is necessary to e.g. make it visible what kind of knowledge each group of lawyers need to prevent, respond and ultimately contribute to the elimination of men’s violence against women. One way of making this visible is to point out the intersection between the subject men’s violence against women and the applicable law. This is
essential since it will prepare law students on how to identify and use this knowledge in their future work as lawyers. For it to be successfull, it needs to be based on both research and practice.
My contribution to this panel would be sharing various approaches on how to teach and examine law students on the subject of men’s violence against women. This would include, but not be limited to, suggestions regarding constructive alignment, starting points on how to teach about the subject men’s violence against women, identification on the needed knowledge for each group of lawyers, examples of how to use this knowledge as a lawyer and examples of examination. In addition, it is vital to highlight how to teach law students about the subject men’s violence against women in regards to pedagogy and how to effectively handle resistance to this subject as a whole. In regards to the latter, it is also my goal to contribute to this. I am currently teaching law students at master programs in Law at Uppsala University, Lund University and the University of Gothenburg. Moreover, I am also teaching police officers and lawyers at the Police authorities.

Venue: B41, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Moa Bladini, University of Gothenburg
Participants: Ulrika Andersson, Lund University, Clara Bergstrand, University of Gothenburg, Åsa Gunnarsson, Umeå University, Sari Kouvo, University of Gothenburg.

This stream aims to initiate an intergenerational discussion and reflection on the theme law and gender through the lens of the past, present and future. The stream brings together
intergenerational scholars to form alliances and/or start conversations on law and gender from various perspectives and experiences across generational borders to shed light on and develop various aspects through past, present and future.

Venue: B33, Vasagatan 1
Convenors: Erik Mägi, The University of Gothenburg, and Elin Jonsson, Umeå University
Chair: Eva-Maria Svensson

(I) Title: The Significance of Sexuality and Gender in a Changing Swedish Parenthood Regulation
Author: Elin Jonsson, Umeå University
In the legal areas that regulate who becomes a parent, the significance of gender has in
substantial aspects diminished in recent decades. Up until a few years after the turn of the
millennium, Swedish law only acknowledged joint parenthood for different-sex couples and, unlike the use of donated sperm, utilizing donated eggs was not permissible. In the 2010s, the requirement of sterility for gender adjustment in the population register as well as the legal impediment to IVF utilizing solely donated gametes were abolished. Legislative changes in recent years have led to increased gender equality regarding the presumption of parenthood for married parents and the acknowledgement of legal parenthood established abroad.

The significance in question is now less about possibilities to parenthood and more about the categorisation concentrating on the biological or legal gender of parents. Alongside
gender-specific regulations, separate rules apply based on the gender of the partner and also based on whether either of them previously has had another gender registered. Against this background, the presentation focuses on ways in which gender and sexuality imbue the regulation of parental status and health care-provided assisted reproduction in a country that within a decade has gone from enforced sterilization to proposals that include gender-neutral legislation within family law. It further raises the question of the extent to which the centrality of gender can be done away with as long as the centrality of sexuality and sexual reproduction is being fortified in the regulation of becoming a parent.

(II) Title: Gender Identity and Legal Parenthood: a comparative analysis of transgender parents in England & Wales and Sweden
Author: Matt Jordan, Cambridge University

This presentation will discuss the allocation and recording of legal parenthood, comparing
the approach in England & Wales with that of Sweden. It will explain that, in England and Wales, the person who gestates and gives birth to a child is legally that child’s mother, regardless of their gender identity. This approach was confirmed in the recent case of R (on the application of McConnell) v Registrar General, which held that a transgender man who gave birth to his son must be recorded as the child’s ‘mother’ on the birth certificate, rather than as the child’s ‘father’, ‘parent’, or ‘gestational parent’. This outcome is unsatisfactory and acts as an example of English law preferring to uphold fictions for the sake of administrative order rather than recognising social realities and lived experiences.

This talk will propose that Swedish law has dealt with analogous cases in a more
satisfying way. In A and B v Skatteverket, the Administrative Court in Gothenburg concluded that a transgender man who transitioned after giving birth could be retroactively registered as the child’s father. Doing so was thought to be in the best interests of the child (because it prevents involuntary disclosure of the change in gender) and is consistent with the aims of population registration (recording accurate and relevant information about individuals). One legacy of Nordic family law might, therefore, be pragmatic adjudication which brings law into line with reality.

(III) Title: Unpacking Concepts of Maternity: Patterns of Norms and Exceptions in Swedish Law
Author: Erik Mägi, University of Gothenburg

Who is a mother? In recent decades, a broader array of family and parenthood scenarios
has been legally recognized in Sweden, as well as in several other jurisdictions. However, at least in Sweden, the rules of maternity continue to be rooted in ancient Roman principles, presuming that a child's mother is the woman who gives birth. This principle has been challenged by adoption, uncertain maternity, egg donation, surrogacy, same-sex couples, and transgender parents. Yet, these situations are governed by exception rules, which are often more complicated and less favourable for the child.

My PhD thesis explores the evolution of legal parenthood from a norm-critical perspective. This involves critically examining and highlighting what is perceived as standard or neutral, what are considered special cases or exceptions to such norms, and what is viewed as non-existent. Maternity is intimately tied to perceptions of womanhood. This paper seeks to explore how patterns of norms and exceptions in legal parenthood can be understood when approached from different angles, such as essentialism, social constructivism, performative acts, and material conditions

Venue: B34, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Erik Björling, University of Gothenburg

(I) Title: TBA
Author: Sari Kouvo, University of Gothenburg

(II) Title: A New Nordic Religious Law
Author: Lisbeth Christoffersen, Roskilde University

The separation of the Nordic majority churches from the Nordic states, administratively,
economically, theoretically, implies a central dimension of legal separation. Also, the human rights understanding of religion as a field of collective organization, free from state law influence, and the social fact of a diversity of lived religious law, have impact not only on the members and leaders of the churches, but also on society in all. The transformation implies basic changes in the understanding of the law in the Nordic countries.

(III) Title: Putting intersectionality into Sociology of law. Exploring the interplay between gender equality and diversity
Author: Eva Schömer, Kristianstad University

Intersectionality has been a vital tool since the 1980s to uncover injustices and discrimination faced by individuals. Gender equality is one of the aims that strives to provide both men and women with equal opportunities (generally speaking). However, gender equality is a ‘social behaviour’ norm based on an idea of how men and women should behave, with power relations that oppress women and elevate men. When gender equality intersects with diversity, it often results in a clash, as different societal norms do not always fit with one another. Intersectionality can be understood through the concept of norms, which is a widely used yes complex term. The norm perspective, modelled after the work of Michel Foucault (2002) and Judith Butler (1993, 2004), focuses on normalising principles. The problem that needs to be examined is the norms or structuring forces that are exclusionary and hierarchising, which make certain lives recognisable and liveable as normative while marginalising others. Storytelling can be an effective way to both oppress and liberate individuals, according to Mary Joe Frug (1992), a postmodern feminist lawyer
who worked in the field of sociology of law. By centring personal experiences, legal analysis can become more responsive to the needs and experiences of marginalized groups. Frug suggests that personal narratives can reveal the ways in which law and legal institutions can both oppress and liberate individuals. By sharing personal stories, individuals can challenge dominant narratives and reveal the complexities of their experiences. By centring personal narratives in legal analysis, Frug argues that legal scholars can better understand the real-world impact of legal doctrines and institutions on individuals and communities. Personal narratives can also reveal the limitations of
traditional legal analysis, which often focuses on abstract principles and ignores the lived experiences of individuals. Lena Martinsson (2014) illustrates how the 'gender-equality-norm' has become a nationalizing context where 'gender equality' has been made into something 'Swedish' and has transformed Swedishness. Societal norms have been focused in the field sociology of law for a long time.
I would argue that one should both consider and use court cases as material for storytelling.

(IV) Title: Swedish gender inclusion Strategies
Authors: Sara Winnfors Swedish Transport Agency, and Sandra Moberg, & Ellen Thorell, Swedish Gender Equality Agency

Equality between women and men is a fundamental constitutional norm and an explicit
policy objective in Sweden. The ultimate aim of Swedish gender equality policy is for women and men to have the same opportunities, rights and responsibilities in all areas of life. The gender equality work is ultimately a matter of redistributing power and resources in order to achieve the goal. In 2018 The Swedish Gender Equality Agency was established. It ́s main task is to coordinate, follow up and provide various forms of support in the area of gender equality. The agency also supports other government agencies in the program – Gender mainstreaming in government agencies. As transportation is essential in the daily life, it is crucial for it to support everyone, regardless of their gender or social status. Transport is a traditionally male-dominated sector, both from an employment point of view and for the values it embodies. In Sweden and at the Swedish Transport agency Gender mainstreaming is a core strategy. Gender mainstreaming means that all decisions in all policy areas and at all levels shall be characterized by a gender equality perspective.
Making transport policy more responsive to the needs of women and men requires a structured approach. This includes identifying instruments to address the needs, analyzing the costs and benefits of those instruments, and establishing an appropriate policy framework.

In this seminar we will present the work with gender mainstreaming at the Gender Equality agency and the Swedish Transport agency. We will discuss success factors and challenges in the work. We will also discuss how a gender perspective is central in relation to laws and regulations in the transport area.

Venue: C34, Vasagatan 1
Convenor: Linnéa Wegerstad, Lund University, & Ulrika Andersson, Lund University

(I) Title: Do legislator and medicine mean the same thing by the term female genitalia?
Author: Anu Puustinen, University of Eastern Finland

This article outlines research, is the concept of ‘female genitalia’ same in legal and medical
terms. The concept plays an essential role in the fulfilment of the constituent elements, and with it the measurement of punishment. In Finland, legislation on sexual offences was amended from the beginning of 2023. The new definition of rape in the Criminal Code is based on consent. Definitions amended slightly, but it does not define the genital organ either. In older proposals, the only reference to a woman's genitalia is that "intrusion can be vaginal." In the most recent government proposal, female genitalia have once been defined more specifically by mention that by touching female external genitalia with a tongue, the definition of sexual intercourse could be fill. Medically, female genitalia have been considered to include both external and internal genitalia. The legal text refers to only the genitals. Most obviously the legislator means that internal genitalia are same as female genitalia. The lawmaker uses the word ‘intrusion’ in the definition of a rape crime. The
Western Swedish Court of Appeals (B 6074-22) overturned the district court's judgment because, according to the Court of Appeal, it was unclear what a fanny (snippa) is. According to the Court of Appeals, in the Swedish dictionary, the fanny refers to the external parts of the female genitalia, such as the labia, and is not synonymous with the vagina. The situation of the Swedish Court of Appeal would also be very possible in Finland. The question of whether legislators and medicine mean the same by the term female genitalia is important because differing definitions bring ambiguity to the interpretation of the law.

(II) Title: Criminal justice for whom or what? Unpacking labour exploitation in Sweden through an intersectional lens
Author: Anna Sonnsjö Andersson, Lund University

Considering the development known as the punitive turn in the Nordics another shift can
be noticed: Criminalized areas are increasingly being defined in relation to the victim’s personal integrity or other protected spheres, as opposed to the offender’s blameworthy act. Furthermore, the character of the interests’ worthy of legal protection is shifting, moving from the concrete individual to the abstract State. One telling example is the criminalization of labour exploitation (4:4 b § Swedish Criminal Code). The offence is constructed as a crime against freedom, personal integrity, and human dignity. At the same time the legislator states that the victims would be “peopl who as a result of their vulnerability, doesn’t fully realize their human dignity” (prop. 2017/18:123 p. 46). This suggests that the provision correspond to several, and perhaps conflicting, legal interests,
and that one such interest is the Welfare State and a minimum standard of “dignity” in society. When criminal law shifts its focus from the individual to public goods the
question of exclusion must be addressed.
Who is the exploited worker? What is laws perception of labour? Which workers are excluded from the Swedish labour market and Welfare State?
I argue that legal concept of labour and the labour market is gendered and raced. Therefore, when public goods such as the Welfare State and a general norm of dignity influences the definition of the criminalized area of labour exploitation, there is a risk that criminal law fails to account for the diverse group of victims/workers and their lived experiences of intersectional vulnerability and subordination. In this paper, I explore how labour exploitation can be understood through an intersectional lens and discuss where the challenges lie for an intersectional/critical engagement with criminal law.

(III) Title: How to deal with stereotypes in an evidentiary framework based on relative probabilities but the individuality of cases?
Author: Otava Piha, University of Helsinki

In rape myth research, courts have been heavily criticised for relying on harmful
stereotypes about rape, rape victims and rapists. However, while background beliefs can be incorrect as general beliefs – for example, that a rape complainant whose testimony is incoherent is lying – they can hold true in a particular case – this rape complainant is lying, which manifests in an incoherent account (Temkin 2010).
According to probabilistic (Bayesian) theories of evidence, the evidence in a criminal trial should be evaluated by calculating the probability of the defendant’s guilt considering the evidence that has been presented. Lurking in the background is the probability of the evidence occurring even though the defendant is innocent. Bayesian calculus requires knowledge or an estimate of ‘prior probabilities’. According to explanationist theories of evidence, such calculus is generally impossible, and instead fact-finders reason by looking for an explanation for the evidence presented and evaluating the coherence (and other qualities) of different explanatory narratives (typically at least the narrative of the indictment and the narrative of the defendant). Which version of events sounds more ‘plausible’ or ‘credible’, which explanation for the evidence is ‘better’?
Because few behaviours are impossible, however, even explanationist reasoning takes on a probabilistic character, where some actions are ‘more coherent’ with rape than with non-rape, or vice versa. Both probabilist and explanationist theories thus rely on knowledge about how the world generally works.

However, such reasoning inevitably relies on generalisations about behaviour, i.e. stereotypes. If we, however, reject a reliance on harmful stereotypes (like rape myths), how can we justify using some stereotypes as the basis of our reasoning? What makes reasoning from generalisations justifiable in one situation but not another, considering that a trial aims to establish the facts and guilt in a particular case?

(IV) Title: Criminal Justice as the Only Way: Defamation Judgments Related to #MeToo in Sweden.
Authors: Ulrika Andersson and Linnea Wegerstad, Lund University

This paper presents a study of court cases involving women who, in connection with
#MeToo, identified alleged perpetrators in social media and were later prosecuted for and convicted of criminal defamation in Sweden. While this kind of behaviour – also called ‘naming and shaming’ – is contested, we conceptualise the use of social media to share experiences of sexual violence as an informal path to justice that makes it possible for individuals to have a voice and gain recognition of their experience. First, we show that this conceptualisation is supported by how the women’s reasons for sharing their information are described in the judgments, such as telling their story and sharing it with others, getting support, warning others, and expressing disappointment in the justice system. Second, according to Swedish defamation law, a truth defence is allowed only if the
defamatory statement is first considered to be justifiable. The justifiability assessment is a balance act between the defendant’s interest of freedom of speech against the complainant’s interest of honour and reputation. All cases studied ended in guilty verdicts due to the lack of any justificatory grounds. The study thus shows that an informal justice mechanism such as speaking out on social media is not recognised as a legally valid defence against defamation claims. In effect, through the defamation cases that followed #MeToo the criminal justice system emerges as the only way to justice for victims of sexual violence, namely to report to the police; it will act repressively towards an individual/women/ who speaks out about sexual violence outside the criminal justice system in a way that identifies a perpetrator. While victims of sexual violence express a variety of justice needs, and freedom of speech might be essential for executing some of them, defamation law puts an end to some of them.