Discursive Constructions of Race and Gender in Racial Hate Crime Targeting Women in Sweden

ABSTRACT Research and official statistics alike identify women from racial minorities as a high-risk group for racial hate crime. Still, the construction of women in racial hate crime remains largely unstudied and the current knowledge on racial hate crime against women can at best be described as fragmentary. Therefore, aim of the present study is to explore the constructions of race and gender from the perspective of female victims of racial hate crime. The study draws on intersectional theory and consists of a discourse analysis based on nine interviews with women who have been targets of racial hate crime. The results show that the construction of race in hate crimes targeting women differs distinctively from the construction of race in hate crimes targeting men. The female victims of racial hate crime often find themselves entangled in racial power struggles between men: a power struggle in which men may show their status vis-á-vis out-group men by sexually controlling or abusing women. Thereby, women’s bodies are used as a tool in racial status conflicts between groups of men, as identities, scripts, and stereotypes found primarily within conservatism and right-wing ideology are enacted on the bodies of the victims.