Subjects of violence : on gender and recognition in young men’s violence against women

This is a doctoral thesis in Child and Youth Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden 2022.

The dissertation concerns young men’s violence against women. It is based on in-depth interviews with men who, in their youth, have been violent against women partners, and their stories are analysed from a feminist psychosocial perspective. Important findings concern the role of parents and peers, gendered identifications, recognition, and discourses of masculinity and sexuality in the use of violence. Furthermore, the first romantic relationship poses particular challenges to young men who have been exposed to abuse from a young age, or who lack parental support. The time of youth figures as a porous boundary of old and new dependencies, hierarchies and relationship patterns. The dissertation also sheds light on the men’s (denied) vulnerabilities, and highlights the particular nexus of love and aggression within relationships. Another central finding is the prevailing experiences of exerting sexual coercion in youth. In situations of pressurized sex, the men fail to recognize the sexual subjectivity of the woman other, something they understand in an afterwards manner, which makes them retroactive perpetrators. Violent situations are demonstrated to denote a breakdown in mutual recognition, and desisting from violence consequently involves striving towards an ideal of reciprocal recognition.