Sociala normer rörande sexualitet i kvinnors personliga berättelser

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to explore how personal stories describe social norms when speaking of sexuality. Data was collected through a qualitative thematic analysis of the book Flickan och skammen written by Katarina Wennstam. The book contains six personal stories of women who have been exposed to sexual violence at some point in their life. The results of the study show that social norms have a big impact on social life. When a person displays behavior that goes against the current norm it can have immense consequences and lead to different social injunctions. A repetitive theme in the analysis of the study shows social norms that determine the expectations of the different genders. Women are expected to be passive in their sexuality while men are expected to be active in theirs. The same behavior was described as having completely different approaches from a society where the men were branded with a positive attribute such as “player” while women were branded with a negative attribute such as “whore”. The study also displays gray areas in the social norms and what women are allowed from society. The study provides an understanding to the formation of social norms that can help us develop an approach to work related to sexuality.