ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to visualise, analyse and critically reflect on narratives of sexual harassment and intersecting inequalities in social work organisations in Sweden. The chapter is based on the first 100 stories in the Swedish #MeToo call for social workers #orosanmälan (English #Reporting worries). It uses an intersectional narrative approach to analyse gender and heteronormativity, age and racialisation through a diffractive lens to acknowledge the complex entanglements of speech acts, embodiment and social spaces. Findings show how sexual harassment occurs in diverse institutionalised situations in social work education, social services, prison care and homes for residential care through sexualised language, threats and physical assault directed towards women’s bodies through the interlocking power of gender and heteronormativity, age and racialisation. Pregnant, young, Black and heteronormative bodies are not infrequently the site where sexual fantasies in various work-related contexts of unequal power relations in social work are staged. Gender norms and organisational culture legitimise sexual harassment by normalising a sexualising jargon, and threats and fear keep gender norms in place. The chapter shows how values of human rights, social justice, respect, safety and dignity are not always fulfilled in Swedish social work as a welfare profession when sexual harassment is examined from an insider’s perspective.
