Kvinna eller man, spelar det någon roll? : En kritisk diskursanalys av språkliga genuskonstruktioner i LVM-domar

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to investigate how conceptions of gender are expressed in the construction of women and men in judgments on the Care of Substance Abusers (Special Provisions) Act (LVM). According to Swedish law everyone must be treated equally, regardless of gender. In addition, the social services have an important responsibility to promote gender equality. At the same time there are conceptions of gender in our society that have been shown to influence the treatment of women and men. It is therefore important to examine, from a gender perspective, whether and how conceptions of gender are expressed in judgments. The empirical material consisted of 30 court cases, whereof 14 cases concerned women and 16 cases concerned men. The data has been analysed through the method “critical discourse analysis”, which focuses on the implicit rather than the explicit. The method allowed us to examine the language in judgments. The main results showed that, despite of a neutral law, women and men were described different. Through the descriptions, four discourses were found. Two on each gender, which acted as opposites. Women as passive victims versus men as active agents. Women as deviant versus men as the norm. The gender discourses showed conceptions of gender that expressed a separation and a hierarchy between women and men.