CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Russell, Whitney |
|---|---|
| Title | Peace for Women: Swedish Feminism and the Pornotopia |
| Summary | In 1999, Sweden became the first to adopt the abolitionist approach to prostitution, meaning it is legal to sell sex but illegal to purchase. The result of a sustained and strong social movement, the legislation is extremely popular with the Swedish public. This thesis looks at a) how this social movement achieved this legislation, and b) the context facilitating its widespread popularity. Through interviews conducted with activists, politicians, academics, and members of the feminist media, I construct a retrospective history of how the organization at the core of this movement, Riksorganisationen för Kvinnojourer och Tjejjourer i Sverige (ROKS), worked with feminist identities to create a group unified enough to lobby at a high level. I then investigate some of the socio political events happening around the movement that can explain the legislation’s popularity. I argue that ROKS gathered its strength first by conforming to mainstream expectations of organizational structure and then by building strong solidarity as an identity group. The popularity of this law can be attributed to neoliberalism forcing people to rethink their own national identity and who belongs within the nation. |
| Supervisor | Kalb, Don and Renkin, Hadley |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/russell_whitney.pdf |
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