Hon tar vad man vill ha : en studie av sexuella maktrelationer i samtida relationsromaner

The aim of this study is to analyse the sexual power relations in contemporary urban novels of Swedish female writers. I have identified a discourse in these novels as a heteronormative matrix which power is ruled by norms and assumptions about normality in both the heterosexual and lesbian stories. For this purpose I have related to Ivar B. Neumanns theory that individuals always find a way to confront the discourse by three different strategies. These strategies are used in my study as tools to organise these novels, because it is possible to see that the protagonists find at least one of these strategy’s to her protest. The first strategy I studied was the docile. Here I argument that the heroines in Alla vilda, Jag minns alla mina älskare och hur de brukade ta på mig, Inte enklare än så, Lögner and Att älska henne do not reject the discourse about sexual power relationships. The second strategy, named the oppositionist, implies the protagonists refusing to be left as victims. In one way or another, either by change the rolls of the sexes (Ta vad man vill ha) or by problematising the order of them (Ego girl) or find lesbianism as a way to reject the discourse (both the novels by Mian Lodalen: Smulklubbens skamlösa systrar and Trekant). The reluctant is the last strat-egy who is the creative one, which rejects some things and adapt to other. Here I place the heroines from Stjärnor utan svindel, Andra sidan Alex and Storlek 37. The result of this study is that despite quite different strategies to oppose against the hetero-sexual power discourse and the normative femininity everyone relates to it and thereby con-firms it