I am ashamed that I reacted rudely to my colleague – my harasser: : A qualitative study of attribution of responsibility for harassment in metoo testimonies from the Swedish police

Abstract

This master’s thesis studies testimonies gathered by the #nödvärn initiative – the metoo call from2017 by the Swedish police department for their current and former employees, as well as traineesand students. The thesis contributes to filling an existing research gap about sexualharassment/violence from the perspective of the harassed/victim, by analyzing their description oftheir own experiences and how they attribute responsibility for the harassment. One of the wayswas to look at the issue from a feminist perspective and add to/build on the existing feministresearch in this field of the testimony compilation through the #nödvärn initiative in the Swedishcontext. Therefore, with the help of the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA), CarolBacchi’s theory of gender and power relations, along with the decolonial theory, I have selectedeight testimonies from the compilation and analyzed them to understand the perspective of theharassed/victims, how they reason around their experiences of being harassed/violated, how theinterpretation and reactions of colleagues and supervisors affect how the harassed persons/victimsinterpret their experiences of harassment/violence and how the harassed persons/victims attributeresponsibility for the harassment/violence in the testimonies. The analysis reveals that the way theharassed/victims reason around their experiences of sexual violence and the way (and on whom)they attribute responsibility for the harassment/violence are interconnected and are heavilyaffected by the hierarchy and power relations in the organization that also affect theharassed/victim’s colleagues’ and superiors’ reaction or response to the harassed/victim’sexperience of sexual harassment/violence