The need for a comprehensive approach

The chapters in this book move in and between macro, meso and micro levels of society, describing and problematising the boundaries for our understandings of sexual violence and harassment. All the chapters also discuss, in one way or another, the need for a more ‘comprehensive approach’, as de los Reyes calls it in Chapter 3, to the question of sexual violence and harassment. Important insights are offered when contributions do not single out and separate experiences of sexual harassment from other forms of violence and harassment, hence resisting the fragmentation so often affecting our thinking about and understandings of sexual violence. To understand sexual harassment as an integral part of the fabric of society, rather than as individual and delimited so-called ‘unwelcome acts of a sexual nature’, changes the possibilities for thinking about and preventing sexual harassment; it pushes the boundaries of our understandings of where the phenomenon begins and ends, which in turn pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the division of responsibility for it. When sexual harassment is seen instead as a phenomenon that involves the individual, organisational and structural levels in society, it becomes something else: neither monstrous nor normal, but rather something that is expected and that affects our overall ability to exist in a society together, with each other. The question of responsibility cannot then be placed solely on the level of the individual because the phenomenon transcends the relationships between a few individuals or, as previously noted, it transcends what has been seen as a drama with two characters.

As de los Reyes indicates in her chapter, by advocating the use of a comprehensive approach, incidents of workplace violence, including sexual violence and harassment, are not isolated acts, but ‘expressions of structural and intertwined hierarchies of power that shape subordinate and vulnerable positions along lines of gender, class, sexuality and national belonging’ (Chapter 3). De los Reyes conceptualises workplace violence as transcending traditional boundaries between paid and unpaid work, between the private and working life spheres, and between productive and reproductive work. She turns these perspectives around, shifting the question from the more common one of how experiences of intimate partner violence affect one’s possibility to work in the public sphere, to how experiences of workplace violence affect one’s capacity for a fulfilling private life, including performing reproductive and care work.

A comprehensive approach clearly shows how the continuums of violence, society and life are intertwined; life is lived in several arenas, but it is the same body that lives and labours, which of course has reciprocal consequences for these different arenas as well as for the worn-out body. In Chapter 4, Sofia Strid, Anne Laure Humbert and Jeff Hearn identify another kind of comprehensive approach, suggesting that we understand violence as autotelic, meaning that it has an end or purpose in itself. Their chapter deals with violence at the structural level, as an organising principle in a patriarchal system. Through understanding violence as a form of inequality, as power and privilege per se, Strid et al force us to think about the functioning of sexual violence and harassment in a society. They argue that, in some ‘violating contexts’, the use of violence might not even be needed in order to maintain oppressive and unequal relations. Again, this pushes the boundaries of our understanding of where the phenomenon begins and ends towards a more comprehensive approach, and it prompts us to think about who or what is responsible for it: where does it begin, where does it end, and who should bear the responsibility for it in various violent and threatening situations?

Normalising sexual violence and harassment

In this book, we have seen several examples of precariousness and sexual harassment as being part of the everyday fabric of institutions and people’s lives, as being part of what constitutes local practices without causing any real outcry. In Chapter 7, Skewes presents experiences of sexism and sexual harassment as part of everyday life for the women at a university physics department. For them, it was a problem affecting their possibility of belonging and their right to belong on their own terms. At the same time, sexism and sexual harassment were expected and normalised as a consequence of them participating in a field dominated by men. The hallmark of normality is that it is something that happens without much fuss; it is taken for granted, it is anticipated, and it is not seen as out of place. This is the way norms function (Butler, 2011). Sexism and harassment appear in some of these texts as anticipated and endured repeatedly; these practices are normalised. However, harassment and sexism still have negative effects on those experiencing it, and it is only when the power to define the situation resides with those who are not experiencing it that it is accepted. Young women and non-binary persons in Helsinki learn from a very young age to be aware of, deal with and respond to adult men and their heterosexual gaze, as Mulari shows in Chapter 6. They are made aware that the public sphere is not for them, and they work to make it theirs. In the situations described in the chapters in this book, it is not possible for women and non-binary persons to be unaware of sexism and sexual harassment. Instead, there is a need for these groups to find individual and collective strategies and ways to handle experiences of sexism and sexual harassment. As Mulari shows, being in this kind of social setting requires anticipating, working around, and activating strategies for keeping one’s body safe and carving out space by defining one’s own place in it and defying assumed positionings.

Another way of discussing the normalisation of sexual violence and harassment that permeates these chapters is to look at what their existence normalises. The chapters give accounts of sexual violence and harassment as normalising unequal conditions and opportunities for some to live sustainable and fulfilling lives. The notion of a ‘normal’ subjectivity serves to mask exclusionary practices and violence. De los Reyes describes how workplace hierarchies are expected, are seen as supposedly normal, and how the repetition of microaggression is part of their maintenance (Chapter 3). Skewes shows how strong the male norm is in notions of the ‘normal physics student/researcher’, making it difficult for unequal conditions to appear as unequal, exclusionary, and contributory to harassment (Chapter 7). In Chapter 11, Silas Aliki reminds us of how possibility of calling the police or reporting without fearing for your own safety is assumed to be normal in discussions on prevention. And, as an undercurrent throughout the book, sexual violence and harassment seem to presuppose and reinforce heterosexuality and heteronormativity. By normalising gender inequality, sexual violence and harassment may well be understood as an organising principle in the Nordic region today, as Strid et al argue in Chapter 4.

When the book is read in its entirety, stories emerge that present sexual violence and harassment as an anomaly, as something monstrous and undesirable, and at the same time as something that is normalised to the point of being ignored. We argue that it is important to consider how these images of sexual harassment exist simultaneously, and how this might affect possibilities of making sense of lived experiences. This dual focus allows for greater awareness and helps distribute responsibility for prevention more widely.

Embodied experiences and encounters

We believe that the chapters in this anthology will help us to practise our ability to use a comprehensive approach in analysing sexual violence and harassment. This also includes blurring the line between past and present. De los Reyes introduces the concept of intergenerational transmission in her discussion of mothers’ depleted bodies (Chapter 3). She shows how vulnerability and violence are continuously reproduced among women along generational lines, at the point of intersection between hierarchies of power and different spheres of private and working life. By placing the body at the centre of the analysis, she underscores the importance of seeing the body in all of this (the location of the reproductive body within historical structures and practices) and of seeing all this in the body (the location of historical structures and practices within the reproductive body).

This notion of intergenerational transmission is also present in other chapters in this book, though without using that particular term. In Skåden’s chapter (8), this question is in the foreground when the experiences and consequences of oppression, colonialism and violence on three generations of a Sámi family are explored. He asks what it means for a specific minority to be weighed down for generations, if there is an invisible line from generation to generation affecting their collective mentality as a result of practices of suppression and persecution. Skåden lets these questions connect to sexual violence and harassment, asking if and how there is a connection between being collectively oppressed and the formation of a culture of silence, where the oppressed within an oppressed collective have limited possibilities for bettering their situation by speaking up (Crenshaw, 2003). Mulari’s chapter (6) bridges the different aspects of transmission by using the concept of encounters and discusses how previous encounters are always present, embodied, and affective. Here, Mulari illustrates the way that gendering, sexism and harassment are internalised in our bodies as lived memories and emotions, and that this is something that changes our ways of inhabiting our bodies. The concept of encounters is similar to the idea of intergenerational transmission, and it opens the way for an understanding of how these embodied memories are carried over generations, pointing to yet another boundary that is transgressed by experiences of violence. The idea of embodied memories reminds us that sexual violence and harassment are about physical bodies. The harm is done to bodies and to some bodies more than others. This becomes violently apparent in Chapter 5, in Mads Ananda Lodahl’s short story ‘On the freshers’ trip’, where a young transgender person’s experience of sexual harassment is described. The main character says: ‘I don’t tell anyone what happened. I try to laugh when other people laugh. To drink when they drink.’ Bodily harm, memories of it and anticipated harm affect how to move, dress, sound, and how to be; it affects subjectivity. It makes bodies sick, broken and depleted, and it makes them quiet.

Once again, a comprehensive approach is helpful in illustrating how communities to some extent consist of individuals who have inherited experiences of vulnerability and preparedness for vulnerability. We believe that there are possibilities for change if we allow invisible intergenerational lines to be recognised and blurred, and if we can manage to see how violent incidents are connected to each other, to their context, to the times when they occurred and their interconnectedness with the present, and to the effects that they have on the individual, their offspring and the community as a whole.

Counteracting restoration through juridification

Two well-known challenges of the use of the juridical system to deal with sexual violence and harassment also appear in the book. The first is that the juridical systems that we do have, under criminal law or anti-discrimination law, both see a low number of cases and, out of these few cases, a low number lead to some sort of conviction. Second, a conviction does not necessarily equal justice for victims. The juridical framework and its implementation demand a certain timeline, demand a clear situation, with a beginning and an end, forcing experiences of sexual violence and harassment to align with pre-conceived ideas, definitions, and responses. The idea and hope that the juridical system is able to achieve justice for victims of sexual violence and harassment does not seem to align with reality. While the different juridical systems clearly offer the possibility of some kind of redress, or at least some space for victims of sexual violence and harassment, its limitations are clear as well. When the perpetrator finally gets a restraining order, life slowly gets back to normal but when that restraining order is withdrawn before the set time, the uncertainty, anxiety, and fear returns, as Sumaya Jirde Ali describe in Chapter 13. This leads us to the need to discuss not only the juridical frameworks as such, but also to explore and discuss other ways of dealing with sexual violence and harassment. A lot of effort has been invested in amending and developing legal texts, policy, and practice, but the chapters in this book show that we are also in need of other imaginaries of sexual harassment, violence, and justice. In Chapter 12, Hildur Fjóla Antonsdóttir explores restorative justice as an alternative. Through letting her respondents’ voices and thoughts take centre stage in her text, the challenges and possibilities of the idea of restorative justice with regard to sexual violence and harassment are made apparent, such as distrust of offenders, fear of unjust exposure and conflicting processes. In order to make restorative justice possible, Antonsdóttir reflects on the need for social transformation. She concludes that: ‘According to participants, the necessary societal conditions entail support and understanding for survivors as well as creating both societal pressure and space for offenders to take responsibility for their actions but, at the same time, without justifying the violence.’ Aliki also discusses social transformation in their text (Chapter 11). Through the concept of transformative justice, Aliki wishes to look beyond a repressive state and instead include the distribution of economic resources, social care and joint responsibility as a way forward in confronting and managing violence. Drawing on a range of empirical evidence, the complexity of issues of justice and redress is made abundantly clear in these chapters. For the respondents in Antonsdóttir’s chapter (12), accountability (holding offenders to account and making them take responsibility for their actions) is emphasised as an important step in restorative justice for victims. Through her respondents, Antonsdóttir discusses an ‘offender accountability process’ as one way forward, making it possible to both meet the victim-survivor’s need for offender accountability, and society’s need for social transformation.

(In)equality and blind spots in juridical praxis

In Chapter 14, Anne Hellum describes how the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act in Norway has evolved over time, and the different conflicts and tensions connected to this. The chapter includes a number of aspects of the equality and/or dignity approach often present in the development of juridical frameworks concerning sexual harassment, and Hellum calls for a careful consideration of the options and limitations of the equality and anti-discrimination approach as a means of combatting sexual harassment. She describes how the courts/tribunals in Norway work to try to determine if an act was ‘troublesome’, if it was of a ‘sexual nature’, and if it was ‘unwanted’. The work that is being done by experts, judges and in the courtrooms is of importance, but it also highlights the complexity in defining and assessing acts of sexual violence and harassment, and how this rests on normative assumptions. For example, in the Boxer Shorts Case (where a male employee complained about sexual harassment by a male supervisor), the Tribunal concluded that the action was not serious enough to be seen as ‘troublesome’, exposing a lack of expertise in intersecting fields and failing to give due consideration to unequal power relations. In the Health Worker Case, meanwhile (where a female employee complained about sexual harassment by a male supervisor), the Tribunal found the behaviours to be ‘unwanted’ and ‘troublesome’, and hence constituting sexual harassment.

In Chapter 10, Silje Lundgren, Åsa Eldén, Dolores Calvo and Elin Bjarnegård introduced the concept of ‘sextortion’ to show how the juridical terms available fail to capture both the corruption and the sexual violence present in the cases discussed. They further show how an analytical framework of sextortion can help keep the focus on perpetrator responsibility and abuse of power, rendering the question of consent irrelevant. ‘Sextortion occurs when a person with entrusted power abuses this power to obtain sexual favours in exchange for a service or a benefit that is within their power to grant or withhold’, they write (Chapter 10). There are clear difficulties in handling inequality, and accountability and its consequences within the juridical framework where a situation with this kind of formal and apparent power hierarchy between victim and accused can still be understood as the victim consenting, with the consequence that the accused is acquitted. In the court’s verdict, the victims’ vulnerable positions as asylum seekers, migrants, non-heterosexual and young, in relation to the offender, made them complicit, and the abuse of power disappears from the argument and the conviction. Antonsdóttir (Chapter 12) also reflects on the power inequality that characterises cases of sexual violence and harassment, where the risk of exposure and of continuation of the violence has to be taken into consideration when discussing possible options for restorative justice.

The way in which the juridical understanding and handling of sexual violence and harassment cases is described in the chapters of this book shows, from different perspectives, the juridical system’s weakness when it comes to being able to handle unequal power relations and how this affects victims of sexual violence and harassment.

The call to speak up – the right to remain silent

Juridification is related to reporting through the call to bear witness. ‘Solving’ problems through the legal system requires identifiable victims and identifiable perpetrators, as in the ‘drama with two characters’, mentioned previously. The person who is exposed to sexual violence and harassment is also the person who must speak about it, or speak up, otherwise there is no case and ‘nothing’ has occurred. The difficulties associated with this − the fear of retaliation, shaming and blaming − are well studied, not only in themselves, but as problems because they lead to underreporting. Again, victims are made responsible for their own victimisation. They need to report the assault in order for us to be able to do something about it.

But the difficulties of speaking up, the risks of it, correlate with the silencing context in which most acts of sexual harassment take place. In Mulari’s chapter (6), the teenagers who experienced sexualised encounters with strangers on a regular basis had become immune to them. They just expected them, and did not trust that they could get support from other people if they decided to resist or talk back. Speaking up, as an act in the world, must be followed by a reply. Speaking up without recognition will just confirm the violating acts, or as de los Reyes argues (Chapter 3), concrete events of violence or abuse, accompanied by a lack of recognition, can be perceived as revictimisation. When a situation, a phenomenon, is invoked by mentioning it, and this is then not acknowledged by the surrounding community but is instead met with silence, it is not only the situation, the phenomenon, but also the person who tried to draw attention to it that is recreated as irrelevant. This is further underscored in Chapter 13, where Ali describes how her initial reaction after being violated was to speak out, to run back into the room and tell the people there what had happened to her. She writes: ‘By taking myself seriously, I had placed myself above the requirement of keeping up the great atmosphere.’ To demand respect and acknowledgement for her experiences was apparently too much to ask for.

Calling out sexism and sexualising behaviour is a job for institutions, if we follow Skewes’ analysis of the culture of silence around sexist behaviour in a physics department (Chapter 7). The silence around and normalisation of sexist and hostile behaviour need to be addressed and resisted, but it cannot be the responsibility of those who are already exposed to sexual harassment. The young men in Skewes’ study can reflect on and joke about their own normative masculinity but, when it comes to making the connection between this, their overrepresentation in the study programme and privilege, and discrimination against women, many of them object, with reference to gender-essentialist explanations. An understanding of a distributed responsibility to identify, address and counter the reproduction of a sexist and gender-segregated work environment does not seem to be in place among these young men. Instead, the responsibility seems to be assumed to lie somewhere else; it is for someone else to point out, talk about and take care of.

In Antonsdóttir’s chapter (12), the informants testify to the fear of their perpetrators. Even in an imagined secure space, the violence has already done something to its object, as one woman described: ‘There is probably a lot that I would want to say but I just wouldn’t want to talk to him … . I’m afraid of him… .’ The violating acts have already made the possibility of an equal exchange of words, a dialogue, impossible. Ali describes it like this: ‘In order to report a situation like this, you need to own it. And before you can own it, you must fight your own internal battle: to realise that your very being has been violated’ (Chapter 13). How could a person speak up when the being, the very subjectivity that should form those words, and stand behind them, is already undermined? Ali describes how her objectification as the social retaliation for breaking the silence took the form of an erasure of her as a person: ‘The conversation that followed took place as if I were not there. My gaze rushed back and forth between those who believed me and those who did not. Was this what I had initiated – a discussion?’ Her experiences were now a talking piece.

Another risk of reporting is the repressing norm of speaking according to an intelligible discourse: speaking in a way to make yourself intelligible as a person. This is what the main character in Lodahl’s short story ‘On the freshers’ trip’ is trying to resist: ‘I haven’t told anyone either, until now, because then I would also have to tell people I’m trans, and I’m just one of those trans people who think it’s a personal matter. Something I share with people I’m close to’ (Chapter 5). The possibility of staying private is thus made impossible: victims are deprived of their right to privacy.

What is described here is the normative functions that strike back if you actually follow the exhortation to report, but do not give your account according to the discursive script expected (Butler, 2005). The victim must give an account of themselves according to an intelligible order. Taking oneself seriously deviates from that order. These are the paradoxes of speaking up. You must speak. You must speak in a manner that shows that you are the right type of victim. You must speak even if nobody responds to what you say. You must speak even if the violation of your being makes you feel that there is no ‘I’ who can speak.

Is it possible to stay silent and still have the right to justice, and how can one obtain justice in such cases? The book’s last chapter, Lodahl’s short story ‘In the gents’ (Chapter 15), describes the micro-sexism in everyday life. What kind of speaking up is actually possible for Bente? To paint over the insult, or to talk to her husband? To respond to the insult by writing on the wall herself, or to tear the building down? Or to stay silent?

Violence and the state

The Nordic model and the welfare state are discussed in several chapters in the book in connection with violence, gender equality and Nordic exceptionalism. But it is also relevant to touch on the welfare state with regard to justice and juridical systems. Discussions around knowledge-building and justice, within and outside of the juridical frameworks, have dimensions that need to be taken into consideration, for example with regard to who is protected, and who is supposed to be protected, by the juridical system and the state. This question relates to the state as a supposed protector of rights and of victims of crime, which one could say is an often taken-for-granted non-violent zero level (Žižek, 2008). In their chapter, Aliki problematises the starting point for such an understanding, showing how socio-economic differences, racism and migration status affect the possibilities for people in need of help and support to receive it. Aliki points out how not everyone can afford to have their perpetrators locked up, and how a police report entails a risk that both the notifier and the offender, as well as any children in common, will be expelled from the country, and that the current tightening of maintenance requirements entails a risk for family reunification if one partner is expelled. Their chapter paints a picture of how inequality increases along lines of sexuality, gender identification, ethnicity/race, and migration status when the welfare state becomes more of what they call a ‘carceral state’, and how people who are less dependent on the redistribution functions of the welfare state are those arguing for a stricter and harsher criminal justice system.

Another aspect of state repression, identification and national belonging affecting questions of justice surfaces when the history and presence of indigenous people in the Nordic are included in the understanding of the region; for example, the Sámi population. Skåden asks questions at the end of his chapter (8), about oppression and persecution across generations, and what it does to people, and people’s trust and willingness to reach out to services built by their oppressors. Again, who is protected, and who is supposed to be protected, by the juridical system and the state? Skåden concludes: ‘I do believe that when matters like the cases in Gouvdageaidnu and Divtasvoudna surface in a Sámi context these questions also need to be on the table. They are part of our map. If not imprinted in our flesh’ (Chapter 8).

A ‘women-friendly welfare state’

Both de los Reyes and Strid et al discuss and challenge the Nordic gender equality discourse through problematising the idea of the Nordic ‘women-friendly welfare state’. Strid et al (Chapter 4) argue that this particular idea does not foreground violence against women, and therefore must be revisited and revised. Through examining the differences between high rankings on gender equality indices and a high occurrence of violence against women in the Nordic region – the ‘Nordic paradox’ of gender equality – Strid et al conclude that so-called women-friendly welfare states have not been able to prevent or reduce violence against women and sexual harassment. De los Reyes (Chapter 3) challenges the idea, through showing how the divide between reproductive and productive work still persists in these ‘women-friendly welfare states’, how the reproductive burden still weighs heavily on women, and that the neoliberal organisation of labour, including traditionally gendered division of work, amplifies and relies on continuous differentiation of bodies along the lines of gender, class, national belonging and sexuality. She shows how, in normalised practices of working life, violence actually transcends all kinds of boundaries and has negative consequences on wellbeing and health far beyond the workplace. There is a need to include this knowledge when trying to understand both the welfare state and the existence of sexual violence and harassment in the region.

The notion of the gender-equal Nordic region as an obstacle

At a micro level, as seen in Mulari’s chapter (6), the anticipation and self-image of being a strong, independent and equal woman in a sense can contribute to the silent normalisation of sexual harassment on public transportation in Helsinki. Mulari describes this Nordic gender equality discourse as a power-related set of public discourses defining acceptable and denied norms. She writes about how young femininity represented as a strong, independent Nordic girl has become an essential figuration for gender equality. You are, as Mulari writes, trusted to manage on your own. Being trusted to manage on your own does something to solidarity, a sense of community and trusting that someone else will step up and speak up if you are sexually harassed. Being trusted to manage on your own ignores the persistent (gender) inequality that also exists in the Nordic region, it builds on the idea that we are all on equal terms. That if a man twice your age comes and sits next to you, a 16-year-old girl, on an otherwise empty late-night bus, that this man is your equal. And that if you get scared, or if you move closer to the bus driver, or get off the bus at a different stop, or sigh with relief when another woman gets on the bus, that all of these strategies and emotions are about you, managing on your own. If the very definition of something normal is that it passes without recognition, then the silent endurance and avoidance of anticipated dangerous/abusive situations will no doubt underscore sexual harassment as unmarked practices (Brekhus, 1998), despite being carried out as actions in the name of strength, independence and equality. If normality is nurtured by silent anticipation and the unmarked, then every harassing practice or strategic avoidance move that goes by without public recognition of some kind will further embed sexual harassment as normal, or even mundane, in these local practices within the context of allegedly gender-equal societies. Thus, the image of gender equality can even be seen as producing a sense of responsibility in the harassed person to avoid harassment or at least avoid seeing harassing practices as practices of harassment. The image of the Nordic region as gender-equal seems to play a part in internalising processes of responsibility for avoiding dangerous situations among women in the region. The Nordic region, in this sense, seems to contribute to collective anticipations of gender equality, which in turn co-construct the understanding of local practices, including notions of masculinities, femininities and power. The figuration of ‘the strong Nordic girl’ also says something else about the gender equality discourse: namely, its difficulties in incorporating intersectional perspectives in the problem analysis. Can all young women and girls embody the figuration of ‘a strong, Nordic girl’? If you are Black or wearing a hijab, are you still viewed/understood/read as ‘a strong Nordic girl’? And if this position affects your strategies for safety, if the woman entering the late-night bus is a White woman, and your experiences of racism have taught you not to trust that you will get help or support from White women, then what are your options for managing on your own? What are the emotional and social boundaries that limit the available acts, or repertoire, of resistance strategies, or even the very possibility of acting at all, or talking about it?

Gender equality and national belonging

Sexual violence and harassment as a politicised issue in the Nordic region must be understood in the context of and ideas about Nordic exceptionalism. Lundgren et al (Chapter 10) show the risk associated with what they call Nordic exceptionalism in their chapter on sextortion. They discuss if and how ideas connected to Nordic exceptionalism, such as anti-corruption, might actually increase the risk of perpetrator impunity. Sexual violence and harassment tends to be othered, seen as something committed either by perpetrators with a background from somewhere else, or as something existing mainly within ‘ethnic communities’, hence with a background and culture understood as separate from the Nordic, othering sexual violence in line with a racist discourse. This is also a prerequisite for what Aliki describe as carceral feminism in Sweden, where demands for harsher punishments, expulsion and re-entry bans are made possible through this specific othering of sexual violence. In Lodahl’s short story ‘At the AGM’ (Chapter 2), the main character tries to intervene in a hostile situation but gets told that: ‘Danish girls can speak for themselves … Not like where you’re from’. Where sexual harassment functions as a means of male bonding, it demands the objectification of women, and it demands loyalty to a certain kind of masculinity, in this case a rather drunken Danish, White masculinity. The intersection of racism and sexism in that situation produces vulnerability by obstructing solidarity and resistance, which points to how structural inequality functions, and the limits and boundaries of the positions that are possible in an unequal world. Here, it is relevant to briefly reflect on the recent enthusiasm for bystander initiatives, and how the Nordic gender equality discourse may be a barrier to the implementation of such initiatives. The implementation of bystander initiatives might face specific difficulties within the Nordic gender equality discourse, where, at best, bystander interventions are seen as acts of solidarity, and where, at worst, they are seen as unnecessary or even as acts of sexism and disregard for women’s independence and equal position in society, as shown in Lodahl’s short story.

Research gaps: what about the offenders?

In her chapter (13), Ali writes: ‘He appeared completely unaffected. How could an incident that affected me so much have so little effect on him?’

An identified knowledge gap in the research field on sexual harassment is about the perpetrators, the offenders, the ones sexually harassing, abusing and assaulting others. In one respect, the perpetrators are also absent in this book, but in another respect they are fully present. The perpetrators are there, using their entrusted power to sexually exploit persons in vulnerable positions; they are there as partners, fathers, employers, strangers, dates, peers and colleagues. They are there with their eyes, with their hands, with their bodies, with their words, with each other, with their power, with their jokes, with their money, with their institutions. They are simultaneously present and absent, and they are always someone else’s responsibility to handle. The consequences of their acts are always their victims to carry. In Chapter 10, Lundgren et al describe how the perpetrators in the two cases discussed held positions that made them ‘good Nordic men’, perhaps contributing to them being understood as unlikely perpetrators, thus increasing the invisibility and impunity of their crimes.

We believe that there is a great need to reflect further on how, for example, positions that allow perpetration can travel across generations, and how this legacy of violence structures power relations. Also, we need to further discuss gender equality discourses and what it does to the invisibility of perpetrators in research and policy on sexual violence and harassment in the Nordic region.

Knowledge production and re-imaginations

We started out this book with the history of the theoretical concept of social imaginaries, which led to an account that would help position sexual harassment beyond the administrative handling of individual cases, repeated questions about its prevalence, and a juridification of it that in many senses has not helped actual victims of sexual violence and harassment. Understanding imaginaries as an intrinsic part of knowledge-building, inviting a multitude and variety of stories, voices, experiences and understandings into this knowledge-building process, makes possible imaginaries beyond the current situation. The need for gender and feminist research on sexual harassment, as well as on the juridical system and the organisation of work and welfare, is made visible throughout the book. The different ways of operationalising intersectionality and intersectional perspectives in each of the chapters have revealed the power dynamics at play in the Nordic region, historically and today. Changes in the Nordic welfare state, inequality, racism and colonialism, migration politics, everyday sexism, and violence together with solidarity, resistance and knowledge-building all make up the fabric of a society in great need of critical gender perspectives. In that sense, research can be seen as an action in itself, a movement that entails rearranging the way we think about ourselves and the world, but most of all as a way of trying to take into account the perspectives that are being represented.

Many of the problems pointed out are structural and material, built into the dismantling of the welfare state, the neoliberal construction of a precarious, women-dominated workforce and the covering-up of violence as autotelic, an organising principle for the Nordic societies in general. But many of the contexts that are analysed in this book can be described as part of a meso level, an institutional level. Institutions are structures as well, but they are lived structures. They cannot be maintained without actions, actions which are performed by us. The question of acting in different ways − to resist, intervene, instigate, speak up, or call out − is ever-present as subtext in these chapters. In order for those actions to move organisations in a different direction, we need to listen carefully for that subtext.

Micro-aggression is not micro in effect, since its modus operandi is repetition. For those who experience harassment, micro is not a question of size, but of visibility and responsibility: of getting close enough, listening carefully enough. We are all part of the contexts that we inhabit, be it a public toilet, a conference hotel, a train carriage, or a restaurant kitchen. Through interviews and observations, we can get access to situations that we have not been involved in ourselves, we can get a chance to see patterns that cannot be conveyed by the single, personal experience. Through fictional texts, we can get even closer to the micro details of sociality: a glance, a gesture, or the contradictory thoughts and feelings that run through the mind and body of a person being violated. They can reveal the ambiguities of the language that we are supposed to share, the possibility and impossibility of defending oneself, of looking for help, of intervening, of replying.

The practice of re-imagining sexual harassment turned out primarily to produce neither a new set of metaphors or images nor any new theoretical concepts, even if the book offers that as well. Instead, the importance of examining and exploring the social and cultural doing of sexual harassment emerges as the key: staying with re-imagining as practice.

Reflections for the future

We will end this chapter by trying to compile and share some concrete reflections resulting from our work on this book. Maybe our learnings will also make a difference for politicians, corporate executives, policy makers, administrators at HR departments and anti-discrimination agencies, researchers, activists and to all of us, usually categorised as bystanders.

The stories told in these chapters teach us that embracing and embodying a high degree of humility in relation to experiences of vulnerability and power relations is a prerequisite for change. Humility in this context means properly valuing and prioritising an understanding of vulnerability as it is presented by those who have experienced it themselves, and taking responsibility for effecting change on that basis. This means, in whatever position you are in, listening to the experiences of others, possibly outside of your own horizons of imagination and comprehension. In every position, be it professional or personal, there is a need for humble imagination beyond matrix-based perceptions of responsibilities.

The experiences described in this book show us how reporting requirements, formal management, and limitations in the definition and our understanding of the phenomenon ‘sexual harassment’ often make it difficult, if not impossible, to disclose experiences, and thus also make change more difficult. Consequently, case management systems often do not provide restitution for the victim but do give rise to retaliation or fear of retaliation.

In addition, we have learnt that accountability and responsibility are central in handling cases of sexual violence and harassment, and that this does not necessarily equal punishment and incarceration. It is about offenders being held accountable, but also given the possibility of taking responsibility for their actions. The surrounding society, be it the workplace, study environment, or social context, needs to have different options available for demanding accountability and responsibility, without at the same time excusing or diminishing the sexual violence or harassment. To build a society that can do this, we also need to be able to imagine a society strong enough to carry the burden of these experiences, offering redress, peace and space for victims.

There are no manuals of best practice that can be universally translated from one context to another, but instead local and regional norms and practices form the conditions that result in the prevalence of sexual harassment and the basis for its normalisation. There is a need to take the local context into account when trying to deconstruct the constituents of sexual harassment, regardless of which region is being analysed. Local knowledge, practices and habits are co-constructed with local norms about femininities, masculinities, intersecting power relations, material conditions, legislation and the law, and everyday norms. Precarious working conditions and sexual harassment are repeated within these structures. We believe that this is a valid starting point for everyone, regardless of their professional and personal position in society.

We have learnt that something else, something new, happens when applying a comprehensive approach, when incorporating and understanding sexual harassment as a continuum – not only of violence but of life, society and organisations – and that an intersectional lens is a prerequisite for doing this.

Furthermore, we have gained an understanding that a fundamental cornerstone for knowledge-building is the promotion of dialogue between actors such as activists, researchers, nongovernmental organisations, and other social actors. Listening to and hearing first-hand experiences is crucial, but so too is listening to those who listen: administrators, gender equality officers, HR staff. Also, let anyone be silent who wants to be silent.

The image of the Nordic region as gender-equal seems to be an obstacle to trying to reveal and emphasise the extent to which women, men and others in this region are exposed to sexual violence and harassment. In light of the analyses in the different chapters in this book, there seems to be a need for a review of the indicators in use for measuring and comparing the state of gender equality. The image of the Nordic region, maintained in part by rankings in international comparisons based on problematic measuring instruments, is in need of fine-grained scrutiny. The chapters in this book have prompted the need to look beyond glossy images of the region as a progressive haven for gender equality. The branding of the Nordic region as the most gender-equal in the world might in fact be counterproductive for social change and equality.

In one respect, we want to affirm the Nordic region and its history of cooperation between activists, nongovernmental organisations, researchers, and the political realm, which historically has had an impact on the development of social structures that have changed people’s lives. This is a powerful tool that holds the potential for important ways of working towards the creation of a region that is better equipped to manage questions of sexual violence and harassment.

Part of the aim of this book has been to encourage dialogue across different disciplines and perspectives, and between different actors, in order to enable knowledge-building and create possibilities for new imaginaries of prevention. Prevention requires knowledge about what is to be prevented, and therefore we need to reflect upon the question of the legitimisation of knowledge about sexual harassment and let this focus enrich future discussion about the development of preventive measures. So, we encourage readers to stay with the text, read it, take it in. Social imaginaries have the power to describe, and thus create, the world, but only if we engage in those imaginaries, and learn from them. In this concluding chapter, we have explored what we, as editors and contributors to this book, have learnt during this process. Maybe you learned something different, maybe you disagreed, maybe you got frustrated? Maybe you recognised something, remembered something, or maybe you imagined something − something new.