"If all violence, harassment, and hate speech are examined, it is rarely or even never possible to draw a clear line between them. It is impossible to say that a certain event is always violence, another is always harassment, and the third is never," says Benedikta Björg Sörensen Valtýsdóttir, a doctoral student at the School of Education at the University of Iceland. She is currently working on a study about young people's experiences of gender-based violence and prevention in Iceland, under the guidance of Brynja Elísabeth Halldórsdóttir.
The inspiration for the study was a parliamentary resolution on prevention among children and young people against sexual and gender-based violence and harassment, which was passed by the Icelandic Parliament in 2020. "I want to find out how gender-based violence manifests in youth culture in Iceland. I am looking at what is called the continuum of gender-based violence," says Benedikta.
Difficult to categorise gender-based violence
British sociologist Liz Kelly introduced the concept of the continuum of gender-based violence in 1988. The theory addresses the grey areas in gender-based violence and how the progression from seemingly harmless speech to violence occurs.
Benedikta says some things are clearly defined as gender-based violence. She mentions rape and other sexual violence. Pressure to have sex is now considered violence, but it has not always been.
Liz Kelly argued that all gender-based violence is equally serious, except for that which leads to death. Benedikta agrees that it is difficult to determine the severity of violence due to the varied experiences of individuals.
Manifestation of gender-based violence in youth culture
The study has two parts: an analysis of educational material, which has been completed, and interviews with teenagers, which Benedikta is currently conducting. Through the interviews, she hopes to find out how gender-based violence manifests in youth culture and whether there is any kind of continuum. She tries to determine whether there are clear distinctions somewhere, whether some things are just part of the discourse, and others are clearly violence. "I want to examine how the discourse is gendered and all the stages that could potentially be defined between inappropriate speech and violent behaviour."
She conducts the interviews with groups of friends, as this approach allows her to access the trust and conversation that occurs when dialogue flows in such groups. Benedikta says the focus of the interviews is not the teenagers' personal experiences with violence but rather gaining their insight into youth culture in Iceland.
In the first part of the study, Benedikta reviewed almost all educational material available in Iceland on gender-based violence and prevention against it and mapped it out. The material was taken from the website stoppofbeldi.is. "There, the net is cast very wide. My criteria were that the material was available in Icelandic, dealt with gender-based violence, and was in some way educational or explanatory," says Benedikta.
"What I envision is having a big picture of all the incidents that either come up or are possible in the minds of young people in Iceland. Then I have another picture of all the educational material available. I could then possibly combine these pictures and see where there are gaps in education. Here is something that is part of the experience of teenagers, but there is no educational material about it."
Insight into teenagers’ experiences
The study's results are not yet available, but Benedikta says she has gained some insight into teenagers' experiences. She sees that the continuum is present: "There is a very strong connection between how things are talked about and what they experience as situations that could arise. Many different manifestations would sometimes be clearly defined as violence, but sometimes not."
For example, Benedikta mentions jokes between boys that can be rough and cross boundaries. She says teenagers find it difficult to define this as violence. However, when she presents the example as something a boy might do to a girl, the teenagers are clear that it is violence. This is an example of what forms the continuum of gender-based violence.
"If it went a little further or someone else was put in these situations, it would clearly be violence. If it went a little less far, they hardly think it's worth mentioning. This falls somewhere in between," says Benedikta.
Benedikta also says she has noticed the special situation of queer youth in the study. "They experience a lot of harassment and that it is not possible for them to be in a 'safe space' at all times," she says, adding that all her interviewees mentioned that reality is different on social media, which is another, harsher, and rougher world.
Benedikta hopes the study can lead to better insight into the reality of young people, especially online: "I hope this can be used to fill the gaps that exist in education on gender-based violence," she concludes.
Author of the article: Malín Marta Eyfjörð Ægisdóttir, student in Journalism.