Women’s shelters and private shelters discursive struggle : separatism, security and social change

The increase in private shelters for women escaping men’s violence in Sweden prompts an analysis of discursive struggles on separatism, violence, and safety. The analysis of websites and interviews with representatives from private shelters and women’s shelters show that the woman-to-woman approach is important for women’s shelters whereas private shelters frame their use of male staff as a practical necessity or a way to show women that there also exist ‘good’ men. Women’s shelters articulate the importance of knowledge about men’s violence for counteracting normalization of violence and self-blame, while private shelters emphasize therapeutic knowledge and interventions. To provide safety, women’s shelters articulate the importance of a homey atmosphere and ‘inner safety’, where private shelters emphasize security; shell protection, perpetrator profiles, and risk assessments. The women’s shelters position their work within a discourse of social change, whereas private shelters emphasize their lack of political ambitions, with profit-making as their primary motivation. Should public funding continue to be funnelled to private shelters, rather than to women’s shelters, it will undermine women’s shelter’s dual role of providing refuge and contributing to social change. Should the private shelters discourse prevail it will likely alter the support provided to victims of violence.