Blurred lines and a tool to reveal them #Metoo

Sammanfattning: This essay focuses on experiences of sexual harassment / abuse taken from www.minnen.se which tellstheir stories in a narrative form. The experiences shared via minnen.se are largely positive. The focus is circuit on upset feelings and displeasure of a more or less social accepted behavior, and lack of trust in the legal system. To handle the material, a criminological and sociological perspective has been used, in which power, norms, symbols, insight and resistance will be discussed. The stories shows relief that this discussion has taken place like it’s finallyhas broken a stigmatized silence. During the study process, the pattern was found that #Metoo can be seen as a medial tool or a symbol to create resistance to a normalized behavior. Exposed people realize the importance of solidarity, community and to share their own experiences in order to break a destructive silence culture. In several of the stories, the behavior is described as something that is allowed to pass by in society, many times without a sanctioning towards the behavior. #Metoo becomes like a political tool and symbol of a collective community and solidarity struggle. The struggle is dedicated to women, were men take a step back, but it is still a behavior which affect others, or actually imply everyone in a society. The stories also testify to self-awareness and how to reinterpret their own experiences by sharing them with others. The insight may come from knowing that it is common practice surrounded with feelings off difficulties and problematic to talk about, but the more people who share their stories, the more they realize that even their story is important. Important in that matter, to visualize an everyday behavior which cause major consequences especially for women in the public space and draw an awareness to its expansion. Further trends that emerge in these stories were the desire to break the silence of an upkeep structure, mostly based on shame and guilt, but also other mechanisms such as violence, threat of violence or fear of reprisals. To conclude this abstract, one could also see that these stories talked about some sort of learned or normalized behavior which construct a standardization of a behavior that people act alongside, especially of men's violence and sexualization of women – which often are set in the younger years. What we need to know is more about how norms interact, counteract and collide with each other and how they relate to different forms of power structures and how to implement this knowledge to interpersonal practitioners.