”Fan vad vi betedde oss igår - konstigt att vi inte fick stryk” :en fokusgruppstudie om unga mäns attityder till våld, manlighet och offerskap

Sammanfattning: Violence is a central part of criminality with young men overrepresented in assault relates violence, both as perpetrator and victim. Our aim of this study was to get a picture of what attitudes ordinary young men have toward masculinity and manliness as well of violence and how these attitudes relate to their picture of the young man as a victim. The empirical material was qualitatively collected through three focus groups, each consisting of four to five men in the age of 20-25. To analyze the opinions of the young men, different theories of social norms, masculinity, violence and victimhood were used. The result showed that the informants understanding of manhood is of the man as being strong and powerful. Violence was associated with activities between men. They strongly suggested that men should not tolerate being subjected to violence but at the same time there might be expectations on men to tolerate a certain amount of violence and that it is a question of maturity. The study showed that young men cannot consider themselves as victims since it conquers strongly with manliness, hence with less expectations of stereotype masculinity, the identification in being a victim will be less problematic.