Why only women?

An interview study of individual members’ experiences and perceptions of the women-only online community Heja Livet!

Malin Johnsson

Media and Communication studies: Culture, Collaborative Media and Creative Industries Master thesis, One-year master 15 credits Spring 2021 Supervisor: Maria Brock Malmö University

Abstract

Why are women attracted to join women-only online communities and what are the affordances of these communities? This study is focusing on the signifier of the fourth-wave feminism – feminist activity online and the cultivation of online safe spaces. Sweden is often considered to be a gender-equal country but this study sheds light on the fact that women in Sweden still experience gender inequalities. Through interviews with members of the online community Heja Livet, this study aims to investigate why women choose to join women-only online communities, how they reflect on separatism and safe spaces, and the group’s possible contributions to women and society at large. The study is based on a feminist perspective and has a constructionist approach in the sense that it understands the individual members’ perceptions as constructions. The study found that the administrative work, a constant renegotiation of the binaries safe/unsafe and inclusion/exclusion together with the separation from men, creates a climate where women feel comfortable to interact with other women online. Issues of whether Heja Livet is inclusive of all women remain under discussion, and even though the members consider separatist groups to be important for both individual women and the feminist movement, it is also important to raise men’s consciousness of patriarchal structures. Heja Livet provides a space where women can come together with other women to discuss, share, support, find inspiration, empower each other and raise consciousness. It is difficult to determine whether the group can be defined as a safe space or not, both due to the incomplete and dynamic nature of safe spaces and also because of the interviewees’ low level of active participation exposing themselves and their personal life in the group. The perceptions of the interviewees were, however, that the group provides women with a safe space online.

Keywords: Separatism, online safe spaces, consciousness-raising, empowerment, fourth-wave feminism

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Table of Content

Abstract ...... 1 List of tables ...... 3 1. Introduction ...... 4 1.2 Background about Heja Livet ...... 5 1.3 Aim, purpose, and research questions ...... 6 2. Previous research and theoretical framework ...... 7 2.1 Feminist separatism ...... 7 2.1.1 The rise of separatism ...... 7 2.1.2 Theorizing separatism ...... 8 2.2 Intersectionality ...... 9 2.3 Safe space ...... 9 2.3.1 The construction of safe spaces ...... 9 2.3.2 The concept of safe space ...... 10 2.4 Women-only online safe spaces ...... 11 3. Research method ...... 14 3.1 Choice of method ...... 14 3.2 Research paradigm ...... 14 3.3 Data collection method ...... 15 3.3.1 selection of respondents ...... 15 3.3.2 Pilot interview ...... 16 3.3.3 Conducting the interviews ...... 16 3.4 Data analysis method ...... 17 3.5 Method discussion ...... 18 3.6 Ethical considerations ...... 20 3.7 Validity and reliability ...... 21 4. Findings and analysis ...... 23 4.1 Why Heja Livet? ...... 23 4.1.1 The members’ descriptions of Heja Livet ...... 23 4.1.2 Why do women join the group? ...... 24 4.1.3 Why do women stay in the group? ...... 25 4.2 Feminism and separatism ...... 28 4.2.1 Is the group feminist? ...... 28 4.2.2 Separatism ...... 29 4.2.3 Problematizing separatism ...... 31

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4.3 A safe space online? ...... 32 4.3.1 ‘Safety for’ ...... 32 4.3.2 ‘Safety from’ ...... 35 4.3.3 ‘Safety to’ ...... 35 4.4 Contribution of the group ...... 36 4.4.1 Is there a need for this group? ...... 37 4.4.2 Community and support ...... 37 4.4.3 Raised consciousness ...... 38 5. Discussion ...... 40 5.1 “What are the individual members’ motivations for joining and participating in the online community Heja Livet?” ...... 40 5.2 What can a gender separatist online community such as Heja Livet contribute with to women’s everyday life and society at large? ...... 41 5.3 What are the possibilities and limitations of Heja Livet to provide a safe space for women to share and interact with other women? ...... 42 6. Conclusion and further research ...... 43 7. References ...... 45 8. Appendices ...... 49 Appendix I ...... 49 Appendix II ...... 50 Appendix III ...... 51 Appendix IV ...... 52

List of tables

Table 1. Demography of interview participants p. 18

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1. Introduction

Online communication has become increasingly important with the fast technological development and as our communication has moved online so has also the feminist movement. This study is focusing on Heja Livet, a women-only online community that has both a Facebook and Instagram page. Both Facebook and Instagram are to be considered as collaborative media since the people who engage are both the consumers and producers of the content. Collaborative media has many different definitions, but one of them that is focused on the potential to societal change is expressed as “Collaborative media are oriented toward action. They are open for interactions. And these interactions lead to the creation of experiences—experiences that change people’s dispositions and worldviews” (Löwgren & Reimer, 2013:134), and this definition goes hand in hand with what Heja Livet has set out to create – an exchange and interaction between people to make a change.

Sweden is often considered to be a quite gender-equal country, and according to the World Economic Forum (2021), Sweden ranks as number 5, after Iceland, Finland, Norway, and New Zeeland. There is however still a gender gap, even in Sweden. The report shows that the gap is closed by 82.3%, which means that there is still a long way to go, especially as gender equality cannot only be measured in numbers. The founders of Heja Livet wanted to create a social network, communication platform, and support forum for women (Heja Livet, 2021a), and one of the criteria to be able to create a space where women are willing to share personal stories is that there is a feeling of security, a ‘safe space’. The term ‘safe space’ was starting to become more commonly used with the second wave in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and was then mainly focused on women’s distancing from men and the patriarchal thought (Kenney, 2001). Harris (2015) describes that the creation of safe spaces was more the means than the end by which women were coming together to find community, and as Lewis et al. argue “Once women are safe from harassment, abuse, and misogyny, they feel safe to be cognitively, intellectually and emotionally expressive” (Lewis, et. al, 2015).

The study is based on qualitative interviews with seven members of the community Heja Livet where they share their experiences and perceptions of the community. It has a constructionist approach and the theoretical framework builds on a feminist perspective, and

4 to explain and analyze a women-only online community, the framework includes the concept of ‘safe space’ and feminist theories about separatism and intersectionality.

1.2 Background about Heja Livet

Heja Livet started as a Facebook group in 2014 and today, almost 7 years later, it has 125.000 members on Facebook (Heja Livet, 2021b) and 31.000 followers on Instagram (Heja Livet, 2021c. This can be understood as there is an interest and a need for a community like this. Facebook has three different privacy settings for groups: public, closed, and secret. Heja Livet is a closed group which means that non-members cannot see the posts or any of the content in the group. The only formal requirement to enter the group is that you identify yourself as a woman. Also, to join a closed group, such as this one, you have to send a request to the administration who then reviews the request before accepting it.

The topics that are discussed are varied and touch upon different aspects of life, and are not always related to being a woman. The name Heja Livet! is Swedish and does not have a direct translation into English but the closest translation would be “Go Life!”. On the webpage of Heja Livet! The founders describe the community as follows:

“It is a social network, a communication platform, and a support forum, which treats and mediates in categories such as mental illness, personal finance, the female body, gender equality, the environment and psychology, and more. We actively raise women at different stages in life, break taboos and safeguard a healthy climate between women; from a personal angle to a societal level” (Heja Livet, 2021a).

The group has grown in both the number of members and also in scope. On the Facebook page, a wide variety of topics are discussed, and many women are sharing their life stories. Personal topics such as career, life choices, relationships, diseases, sexual abuse, family, and children are often discussed and there are also many posts looking for advice or support from women who have been in the same situations. Some posts are about finding like-minded people to create communities and meet up in real life to do activities together.

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The administrators have created a list of rules that apply in the group to make it as safe as possible for the members. It includes for example the prohibition of sharing posts from the group on other platforms without the author’s consent. They also remind the members that there is a risk that sensitive information can be spread outside of the group, and to therefore think twice before sharing personal stories. The administrators approve all posts before they are posted to make sure that the content is in line with the group rules. There is also the option of sending a post to the authors and asking them to post it anonymously.

1.3 Aim, purpose, and research questions

The aim of this study is to better understand the construction and affordances of the women- only online community Heja Livet by interviewing individual members about their experiences and perceptions of the community. This study seeks to investigate what the motivations are for individual members to join and stay in the community, and also whether they consider it to be a safe space. As this community is only open for people who identify themselves as women, the study also aims to investigate how great importance the members place on the fact that no men are allowed and what other aspects of the community they consider to be important.

Gender separatist online communities are still a rather new phenomenon and there is a need for more research around the construction of these spaces as ‘safe spaces’ for women (Clark- Parsons, 2018). The purpose of this study is therefore to contribute to media and communication studies and the field of research on online communities by an empirical study of member’s experiences and perceptions of the women-only online community Heja Livet.

In order to guide this study, the following research questions have been formulated:

- What are the individual members’ motivations for joining and participating in the online community Heja Livet? - What can a gender separatist online community such as Heja Livet contribute with to women’s everyday life and society at large? - What are the possibilities and limitations of Heja Livet to provide a safe space for women to share and interact with other women?

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2. Previous research and theoretical framework

This chapter contains the theoretical framework that was used for the analysis of the interviews and an overview of previous research in this field. It will present definitions of the concepts used in the analysis and how these have been used and theorized in previous research. The study as a whole has a constructionist approach and the main concepts and theories that are explained here, and later on, used for the analysis are ‘safe spaces’ and theories about feminist separatism. The previous research that is covered in this chapter focuses on separatism, safe spaces, and women-only online communities.

2.1 Feminist separatism

2.1.1 The rise of separatism The ideas of feminist separatism started to arise in the 1960s with the second wave feminism and its principal message was that ‘the personal is political’. This stood in contrast to the previous more liberal, first-wave feminism that mainly focused on extending the rights for women, such as the right to vote. This shift to more social and personal issues that took place during the second wave included the ideas that women should have equal pay as men, the right to decide over their own bodies, and sexual liberation (Baumgardner & Richards, 2000). Mitchell (1973) notes that second-wave feminism was mainly led by educated women and that they came to understand that there are deeper rooted reasons behind the inequalities between men and women. It was about what came to be understood as patriarchal structures. The patriarchate is a “social system based on male dominance over women” (Gemzöe, 2012:46). This understanding of the social system is the basis of radical feminism (Baumgardner & Richards, 2000), and includes the belief that women are oppressed and that the structures of the patriarchal system give men power over women. It is a power relationship that entails men’s dominance over women in all aspects of society (Gemzöe, 2012) and most importantly, it is “a system that permeates all aspects of society in a way that makes it perceived as natural and thus becomes invisible” (Gemzöe, 2012:47).

Radical feminists developed, due to men’s reluctance to understand that women were oppressed, strategies of separatism from men. Women started to organize in spaces that were excluding men, with the idea that only when men were excluded the feminist movement could develop (Mitchell, 1973). Freedman (1979) sees separatism as an important feminist strategy

7 that enables women to talk in closed spaces without the involvement of men. There is a view that the presence of men in the women’s movement changes the direction and character of the conversations and that men tend to take over and dominate, even this debate. In order for women to free themselves from the oppressive patterns, they had to separate themselves from men to lead the movement forward (Gemzöe, 2012). It is however not only important for the development of the movement.

2.1.2 Theorizing separatism The aim of separatism is according to Frye (1983) to reach a higher purpose such as sisterhood, freedom, independence, and growth. Freedman (1979) also says that women have a common understanding of what it means to be a woman, and to discuss only between women is important for the strengthening of the collective and the empowerment of individuals. Frye (1996) emphasizes the importance of conversations between women where they exchange knowledge and experiences and claims that they work to raise consciousness. “as long as each woman thinks that her experience alone is thus discrepant, she tends to trust the received wisdom and distrust her own senses and judgement” (Frye, 1996:34). In the consciousness-raising conversations, women can therefore reach a higher feminist consciousness in the sense that they become more aware of the inequalities and oppression that the [patriarchal] system naturally includes. The consciousness-raising conversations are therefore of great importance both for individual women and also the society as a whole.

Feminist separatism has been and is still something that is highly provocative to many people and a common misconception of separatism, as Gemzöe (2012) argues, is that it consists of the determination to ignore men and “build a utopia that can only work in the absence of men” (Gemzöe, 2012:144). The American feminist and social activist bell hooks (2015) argue that in order for real change to happen men also have to be included and be part of consciousness-raising conversations. Men who are conscious of patriarchal structures and have embraced feminist politics are not a threat but should be considered allies. She also says that we have to change the assumption that feminism is anti-male and include men in the future feminist movement.

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2.2 Intersectionality

In the end of the 1980s, critique against the feminist movement for not considering the differences between women started to arise, it was especially criticized for being focused on white women and not considering other ethnic minorities (Gemzöe, 2014). The feminist movement was moving towards a focus on the individual and away from the collective thought that had been the focus in the second wave (Phillips & Cree, 2014). This is often seen as the start of third wave feminism. This wave is signified by its intersectional perspective which entails placing focus on differences between women such as, for example, race, sexual orientation, and class (Pruchniewska, 2019), and queer theory, which sees gender and sexuality as more fluid categories (Munro, 2013).

If feminism before the third wave only considered how women were oppressed in society due to patriarchal structures, the intersectional perspective added a new layer by looking at other aspects that were intersecting with being a woman, providing the possibilities for a deeper analysis and understanding of different women’s position in society. In this study, an intersectional perspective will help to analyze the differences between women within the group Heja Livet, and also shed light on the fact that only a limited group of women and their experiences are represented in this study.

2.3 Safe space

2.3.1 The construction of safe spaces Safe space and separatism are closely linked since a safe space is created in the negotiation between inclusion and exclusion. Moira Kenney is in her book “Mapping Gay LA” tracing the start of ‘safe space’ back to the ’60s and the idea of gay and lesbian bars in LA (Kenney, 2001). At this time anti-sodomy laws were still in place which gave these bars an important role in providing a safe space for people with a sexual orientation that deviated from the norm (Harris, 2015). The bars were however only safe until the police came. They were thus not safe in terms of being free from risk, but a place “where people could find practical resistance to political and social repression” (Harris, 2015:1).

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According to Clark-Parsons (2018) feminist safe spaces emerged in the US in the late twentieth century as an activist tactic for feminist, queer and anti-racist movements. The Roestone Collective (2014) describes that safe spaces can be understood as spaces that keep marginalized groups free from violence and harassment. Safe spaces can be both physical and virtual and previous research shows that marginalized groups in society have found great help and support in safe online spaces. It has become a space where people are free to express themselves and build identity (Lucero, 2017; Clark-Parsons, 2018). Safe space (sometimes also called free space) can according to Polletta (1999) have a more active approach and be described as a group of people that voluntarily participate to create cultural change that could lead to political mobilization. This thought of collective, rather than individual action was common in second-wave feminism that was focused on patriarchal structures (Blevins, 2018).

2.3.2 The concept of safe space Safe spaces revolve around binaries such as safe-unsafe, inclusion-exclusion, and often include an underlying threat of violence. Safe space is a ’living concept’ and should be understood as “(…) something more than simply a response to a static and predefined category of “unsafe” (The Roestone Collective, 2014:1347). Every safe space is created as a response to a specific problem, a threat or danger, in a certain time and place and can therefore not be detached from its context when analyzing it. Safe spaces are created in negotiation between security and danger, and inclusion and exclusion, and the cultivation of safe spaces should therefore be understood as ‘relational work’. Due to this, it is important to understand the construction of what is ‘unsafe’ in a certain context. The Roestone Collective (2014) continues to say that a safe space is always context-bound, a safe space for someone can be unsafe for someone else. This applies even within a group and, as this study will argue, the perceived safety/unsafety is what matters. Clark-Parsons (2018) says that there is a paradoxical tension, something that is present in all safe spaces, between creating a space that is inclusive for the group of identities that it is trying to protect while drawing limitations that exclude others. Which makes the group “simultaneously open to but limiting of discourse” (Clark-Parsons, 2018:16). She argues that these binaries safe-unsafe and inclusive-exclusive are necessary for the group’s political work but ultimately paradoxical to the group’s constitution as a feminist safe space.

In order to cultivate a safe space that is not reproducing the prejudice and exclusions that it is trying to challenge, The Roestone Collective (2014) argues that it has to be recognized as both

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‘safety from’ and ‘safety for’. From what or whom is the safe space providing safety and for whom is the space providing safety? It is important to reflect on this in order to make sure that intention and actualities match, and by answering these questions a strategy can be developed to achieve that goal. The negotiation of a safe space is central as it is a ‘living concept’ and there will appear new things that must be taken into consideration. The administration or leadership of a safe space is therefore of great importance. In addition to the two above- mentioned ‘safety from’ and ‘safety for’ Clark-Parsons (2018) adds a third aspect of safety that she calls ‘safety to’. With this additional aspect of safety, another level of a safe space is acknowledged. It includes what the space has the ability to provide its members with the safety to do. This third aspect helps to define the concept of safe space, which is otherwise rather fluid and provides women with the role of an agent instead of someone in need of protection.

With this background in consideration, the concept of safe space is, in this study, not to be understood as something static but rather, a dynamic concept that depends on women’s perception of it. What is of interest in this study is the group members’ experiences of the community and to understand whether or not they perceive it as a safe space for them.

2.4 Women-only online safe spaces

As mentioned, due to technological development, a large part of the communication has moved online which has also created a need for safe spaces online. What makes safe online spaces attractive to socially and politically vulnerable populations such as racial minorities, feminists, and people with other sexual orientation than the mainstream, is that these communities can provide a sense of community and belonging, support, and the relative anonymity can make it easier to talk about topics that are sensitive and difficult to talk about publicly (Herring et al., 2002).

The feminist movement has also followed technological development and online feminist activism is something that has become the signifier of fourth-wave feminism. It is difficult to determine when the fourth wave started. Some argue that it was around 2013, but many scholars consider it to have begun earlier, around 2008 (Baumgardner, 2011; Phillips & Cree, 2014). Today women all over the world organize themselves online on platforms such as

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Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other collaborative and social media. Phillips & Cree (2014) say that there are similarities to the previous second and third waves, but that aspects that are not only related to feminism such as the evolution of new cultures regarding sexuality, work, reproductive technologies, and communication technologies have an important role. They argue that in the meeting between popular culture and feminism today contradictions arise for those who grew up during the second-wave feminism in which impositions on women had to be challenged and examined. In this fourth-wave feminism these contradictions create different opinions of what feminism is and how feminism should be conducted and this has also led to a polarization where people are for or against feminism.

Pruchniewska (2019) describes in her study about closed women-only Facebook groups how social media is used today in the fourth wave feminism movement to drive everyday politics. She states that even though a group is not explicitly feminist it can still involve feminist activities, and it is important to study the everyday feminist activities that are taking place in fourth-wave feminism because, as Hollander and Einwohner (2004) argues, these activities can have a political impact even though they are invisible or unintentional.

The #metoo movement shed light on the pervasiveness of sexual assault and harassment of women (Pruchniewska, 2019). The existence of sexual assaults and harassment was nothing new, of course, but the more open sharing of women’s experiences created a greater awareness of the magnitude of the problem and opened up for even more women to talk openly about this. The harassment of women has just like our communication, as a natural consequence of technological development, moved from a physical to virtual form. Jane (2014) describes how the online harassment of women is increasing and works as a tactic to silence women in the public space. A study by the Pew Research Center made in 2014 shows that 73% of adult Internet users have witnessed online harassment and 40% have personal experience of being harassed online. The study also shows that women and young adults are more likely to experience harassment on social media than others, and women often experience more severe types of harassment, such as sexual harassment and stalking, than men (Duggan, 2014). Clark-Parsons (2018) describes that the omnipresent online misogyny has required women to create strategies to reappropriate social media platforms. In line with this Frye (1983) argues that separation from men has not primarily been about personal or political ends, but that separation “is the instinctive and self-preserving recoil from the systematic misogyny that surrounds us” (Frye 1983:97).

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In Kitzy Dixon’s (2014) study about hashtag feminism, she argues that hashtags create a space where people can come together and where their pain, narrative, and isolation are acknowledged. Hashtags can, as Dixon argues, be useful, but hashtags that are open to the public do not fall into the category of a safe space since women are often being harassed when sharing opinions and experiences or taking part in discussions. Clark-Parsons (2018) advocates separatist online communities but also says they will not solve the problem of online harassment. They can however provide a safe space for women to express themselves freely, find support from other women and be a way for women to organize themselves to take action against injustices outside of the community.

Women-only online communities can, as separatist groups did during second-wave feminism, contribute to consciousness-raising, by women sharing personal experiences with other women. During the third wave feminism, however, this collective action approach to feminism that existed in the second wave had to give way for a stronger focus on individual empowerment (Munro, 2013). Today though, the collective action approach has returned and we see a mix of collective action and individual empowerment in the feminist movement, and it is especially visible in consciousness-raising groups on social media (Blevins, 2018). What is also significant in this period of feminism is some people’s reluctance towards calling themselves feminists. Blevins explains that we are living in a post-feminist culture where many young people have an “I’m not a feminist but… attitude” (Blevins, 2018:91). Consciousness-raising groups, that reject the post-feminism notion that we have moved beyond the need of feminism, are many and continue to serve as a point of empathy and community building (Blevins, 2018).

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3. Research method

This chapter describes the method that was used to answer the research questions and fulfill the aim of the study. It accounts for the procedure of collecting and analyzing data, and a reflection of the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen method. It also includes a discussion and motivation for the choices made during the process to give better insight into the work process and ethical considerations regarding the study

3.1 Choice of method

This study is qualitative and the empirical data is collected through semi-structured interviews. The main reason for choosing this method is because this study aims to shed light on the different perceptions and experiences that exist among the members of the online community Heja Livet. It does not have the ambition to generate a generalizable result. In studies where the purpose is to make a more general overview, a quantitative method such as a survey might have been more appropriate (Esaiasson et al. 2012).

Interviews are commonly used in these types of studies when the aim is to go deeper into understanding individual experiences of how people perceive their worlds (Esaiasson, et al., 2012). This study is exploratory and the interviews are of a respondent nature. In contrast to informant interviews that intend to generate facts, respondent interviews are mainly used in studies that want to make perceptions visible. Exploratory studies with respondent interviews can thus not be considered to be true or false, but rather have the purpose of highlighting different possibilities and constitute a basis for further research (Esaiasson et al., 2012).

3.2 Research paradigm

It is essential to situate the study within a research paradigm in order to recognize the researcher’s ontological and epistemological position (Blaikie and Priest, 2017). Our ontological and epistemological views - our views of what is real and what is knowledge (Boréus & Bergström 2012) usually form the basis for which method is chosen, and thus also affect how the research problem and issues are formulated. The study is situated in an interpretivist paradigm that builds on idealist ontological assumptions, which entails that

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“social reality is made up of shared interpretations that social actors produce and reproduce as they go about their everyday lives” Blaikie & Priest, 2017:101). The epistemological assumptions fall under the category of constructionism and its main characteristics are that the language is central to the creation of social worlds and social reality has to be discovered from the inside (Blaikie & Priest, 2017). This stands in contrast to the positivist approach that claims that reality exists independent of human minds and that knowledge can only come from experience (Blaikie & Priest, 2019). Due to the ontological and epistemological assumptions of interpretivism, using personal interviews as a method for collecting data is the most suitable for this study. The interview method is largely based on the interviewees’ interpretations and is therefore used with advantage, as in this case, when the study has a constructionist approach.

3.3 Data collection method

3.3.1 selection of respondents To get in contact with interviewees the snowball method was used. This method is preferred when it is difficult to get in contact with interview subjects, as it only demands that the researcher find one or maybe two subjects that can then lead to the next one. This method gives a certain advantage to the researcher as it provides the possibility to ask the interviewee to suggest a new interview subject that fulfills the specific criteria you have (Layder, 2013).

To start the snowball method, I entered the Facebook page of Heja Livet to see the list of members of the group. I reached out to two members that I knew and asked if they would participate in the study. I decided to choose two persons because I wanted the chain to develop in two directions and increase the possibility for a greater diversity of interview subjects. I also did it because of the time limit of this study, I had to start two processes to conduct the interviews within the time limit. I did not make any specific criteria for who to interview other than that they are members of the group and have some knowledge about it, how it works and the content in it.

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In the table below (table 1) the interview participants are presented.

Table 1. [Demography of interview participants]

3.3.2 Pilot interview After finishing the interview guide, I conducted a pilot interview with a friend who is a member of Heja Livet. Pilot interviews can be useful to test the study before going through with it (Esaiasson et al. 2012) this can help to detect if the interview guide is missing some elements or if some questions are difficult for the interviewee to understand and answer.

The interview worked as a useful tool to further develop the interview guide and also prepare better for the ‘real’ interviews. The pilot interview gave important information about which questions worked well and what possible follow-up questions to ask. After the pilot interview some of the questions were rephrased to make them more precise and to the point and I also added a few questions to make sure that the study’s research questions were well covered.

3.3.3 Conducting the interviews The interviews were conducted in Swedish since it is the main language used in the group and also because it is the native language for both parts. There was one exception where the interview was held in a mix of English and Swedish because the interviewee’s native language is English and, in some situations, she felt more comfortable expressing herself in English. The interview guide was structured in an open way to give the interviewees space to freely develop their answers and the questions were organized in themes in order to make sure that all research questions were covered (see Appendix I).

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The interviews had a relaxed and informal character, where the interview subject developed her answer in a way that felt natural and I added comments or asked questions when the answer was unclear or I wanted her to develop further. The fact that I am a woman and a member of the group as well helped to create a relaxed and more comfortable interview situation. It was particularly important for this study that I am a woman conducting the interviews because this gives the relation between researcher and interviewee a common ground and basic understanding. Reinharz (1992) emphasizes that it is preferable for a woman to be interviewed by another woman in order to be better understood, and also because it can be easier for a woman to open up to another woman.

3.4 Data analysis method

To analyze the data a thematic analysis method was used. This type of analysis was chosen due to its flexibility and focus on identifying and analyzing patterns and themes. The thematic analysis is not bound to a specific theoretical framework and can therefore be used in many different fields of study (Braun & Clarke 2006). Choosing this type of analysis provided me with great flexibility and liberty, and I could adapt it to this specific study.

All interviews were recorded, but only partially transcribed. I, however, took rather detailed notes during the interviews. After conducting all interviews, I listened to them again and supplemented my previous notes. The interview had a loose structure of four broad themes: overview, separatism, safe space, and contribution and this was the structure I followed in the first part of the data analysis. From the re-listening and notes taken from the interviews, I could make out sub-themes in each of these four more general themes. I transcribed parts of the interviewees’ answers and specific sentences that could be used as quotes to emphasize an interviewee’s specific idea or opinion. The answers were organized under each theme and sub-theme. Parts of interviews were relistened a second time and sometimes a third time in order to avoid misunderstandings and make sure that the essence of the answers was captured. This was important since the interviews were held mainly in Swedish and quotes were translated into English.

When this first part of organizing the data was done, I read through the material to get a better understanding of the existing patterns. Some of the data was overlapping different themes and

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I had to restructure some of the sub-themes and move answers that corresponded to another question. This resulted in four themes:

The first one, called ‘Why Heja Livet?’, corresponds to the first research question: What are the individual members’ motivations for joining and participating in the online community Heja Livet? and includes the sub-themes: the members’ descriptions of Heja Livet; why do women join the group?; why do women stay in the group? The second theme is ‘Feminism & separatism’ and corresponds to the second research question What can a gender separatist online community such as Heja Livet contribute with to women’s everyday life and society at large? The subthemes are: Is the group feminist?; Separatism; and Problematizing separatism. The third theme ‘A safe space online?’ was split into three sub-themes based on the three different safety aspects of safe spaces: ‘safety for’, ‘safety from’ and ‘safety to’.

The fourth theme ‘Contribution of the group’ was divided into the sub-themes: Is there a need for this group?; support & community; and consciousness-raising. The third and fourth themes are together corresponding to the third research question: What are the possibilities and limitations of Heja Livet to provide a safe space for women to share and interact with other women? When the themes were set, the data was analyzed with support from the theoretical framework and previous research on the topic.

3.5 Method discussion

A problem with using interview methods can be, among other things, the researcher’s own culture. It can function as an asset but I can also make the researcher blind to certain aspects in the analytical process. On the one hand, it contributes to an understanding of the world, but on the other hand, it can prevent researchers from seeing important cultural practices (McCracken 1988). The interviewer's relationship to the respondent is also important for the result as the respondent’s answers are affected by who and how a person is interviewing (Esaiasson et al. 2012). This is called interviewer effects. The people interviewed for this study were, of course, all women and most of them around my age. This may definitely have affected the interviewees to answer in a certain way. However, our similar characteristics (sex and age) can, in this study, be an advantage and can have made the interviewees more

18 comfortable to share their experiences. If the interviews would have been conducted by a man the answers might have been different since the topic of the study is of this specific character and is focused on women.

One of the difficulties with using interviews as a method lay in the unpredictability and time planning of the work. The researcher depends on the interview subjects, first, it is difficult to assess how long it will take to find the desired number of people to interview, and second, the researcher has to adapt to when the interview subject has time to participate in an interview. Finding interview subjects and conducting the interviews within the limited frame time was one of the main challenges with this method.

Researchers who are using interviews as a method for data collection are striving to achieve “theoretical saturation”. This is achieved when no new information comes up in the interviews, but the relevant perceptions and thoughts about this phenomenon have already been discovered (Esaiasson et al., 2012). It is in other words to assess when you have gathered enough empirical data for the study. In my research, although many of the answers were recurring, new details continued to surface in all the interviews, which may indicate that I have not reached theoretical saturation. However, it is almost inevitable in a study based on people’s interpretations to not have new thoughts, opinions, and perceptions appearing in each and every interview. I thus chose not to conduct more interviews when I felt that I had a large variety of approaches that could be related to previous research and provide a good basis for analysis.

What was possibly limiting with choosing interviews as my method at this specific time was that I had to conduct all interviews via zoom in order to respect the recommendations regarding social distancing as a measure to reduce the spread of the coronavirus SARS-CoV- 2. The possibility to conduct interviews face to face could have made the interview more intimate and it would also have been easier for me to read the body language of the interview subject if we were in the same room.

Another possible limitation with this method is in the analysis process, and in my own preconceived understanding of the group. I am since years back a member of the community myself and due to this very close to the subject that I aim to study. Shaw (2013) argues though that being part of the community that is being studied can have certain advantages in for example formulating interview questions. Due to my own preconceived perceptions, opinions, and experiences of the group it was important to continuously move between the interview

19 answers, previous research, and theoretical framework to make reasonable interpretations, and not get blinded.

The choice of using the snowball method to reach interview subjects has both its advantages and limitations. One of the limitations is the low level of diversity. I found the two first interviewees by reviewing the list of members in the Facebook group and they led me in two different directions. However, the selection of interviewees was in the end a quite homogenous group of white women in the age group 28-37, and the majority was living in Stockholm or other larger cities. This can possibly limit the result of the study, and I would have liked to have more diversity among the interviewees. The advantage of choosing this method though was that there was already a connection between me and the interviewee, in the shape of a recommendation, since they had first been contacted by someone that they knew. This, and also that they knew that I was ‘one of them’ as a member of Heja Livet, gave the interviews an informal and comfortable interview situation and can perhaps also have made it easier for the participants to open up.

Lastly, I do, even though there are certain limitations, however, consider the chosen method to be the most adequate one for this study. It gave me the possibility to go deeper into women’s interpretations of their experiences and thoughts about Heja Livet and provided me with the tools to analyze the data. This qualitative method with interviews has been used in similar studies of women-only online communities such as the ones by Clark- Parsons (2018) and Pruchniewska (2019) which also strengthens the argument that it is a suitable method for this type of studies.

3.6 Ethical considerations

During the process, I have considered Vetenskapsrådets (Swedish Research Council) research ethical principles and taken into account the requirement for individual protection. The four requirements that must be fulfilled are; the information requirement, the consent requirement, the confidentiality requirement, and the usage requirement. In order to meet these requirements, the respondents were informed in writing before the interview and orally before the interview began about the purpose of the study and that their participation is voluntary and can, without the requirement to specify why, be interrupted at any time (see Appendix II). They were informed that the interview was being recorded for the purpose of avoiding

20 misunderstandings and providing the possibility to transcribe them. The recordings are going to be erased as soon as the study is completed. They were also assured that all the information they provided during the interview would only be used for the purpose of this study and all respondents were provided a letter of consent to participate in the study (see Appendix III), which they orally agreed to before the interview. The interviewees also gave their oral consent to share their personal data (see appendix IV). In order to meet the confidentiality requirement, the respondents' personal data have been stored in such a way that no unauthorized person has had the possibility to access them. The purpose of these principles is to serve as guidelines for the researcher's responsibility towards the informant. Taking the principles into account thus reduces the risk of the informant suffering negative consequences (Vetenskapsrådet, 2002).

The interviewees were anonymized to protect their integrity. All the interviewees were given a number (1-7), and this number is used when referring to statements made by an interviewee. Another possible method is to give the respondents a fictive name (Lindstedt, 2017), but I found it more suitable to give each person a number.

Since Heja Livet is a closed group it is also important to consider the fact that what is posted in the group is private. I, however, did not make an analysis of posts or comments made by other members. When content in the group is discussed in this thesis it is only posts or comments made by the interviewee, and even then, posts are not quoted but rather described and discussed. Before initiating this study, I was in contact with the administrators of the group and I received their permission to write about it. This was the first step to make sure that no rules of the group were broken and that I was not intruding on the privacy of the group members.

3.7 Validity and reliability

Qualitative research is often criticized because it is argued to be subjective and based on assumptions. Those in favor of qualitative research on the other hand argue that subjectivity cannot be right or wrong for the same reason, that it is based on interpretations (Baym, 2006). Esaiasson et al. (2012) argue that one of the problems with the validity of the empirical social sciences is that the problems are formulated on a theoretical level and the research is carried out on an operational level and it is difficult to translate the research problem from one level

21 to the other. In other words, what is important is to make sure that we measure what we say we are measuring. Marczyk et al. (2005) explain that high validity consists of accuracy and usefulness of findings and this results in “confidence in the findings of a given study” (Marczyk et al., 2005:158). To increase the validity of this study, the interview questions were divided into themes that correlated to the research questions, to ensure that I was studying what I set out to. I investigated the perceptions and experiences of individual members, and it was therefore also important to present the interviewees’ answers as accurately as possible. Their answers are, though, from a constructionist perspective, a construction of their experiences and not actual experiences.

A measure of a study’s reliability entails that the study, when repeated by someone else, generates the same result. Thus, there should not be any random or negligent errors during the collection or processing of the material. These errors can be caused by misunderstandings, inattention, or typos (Esaiasson et al. 2012). To avoid misunderstandings and hearing errors, all interviews in the survey were recorded, and I used direct quotes on many occasions instead of describing what the interviewee had answered in order to avoid that I incorporated my own interpretation. I also compared the interviewees’ answers with each other and also with previous research to make sure that I made reasonable interpretations.

The assessment of reliability is made more difficult in this type of study as the approach develops gradually and the researcher's "I" plays a major role. Repeating the study I conducted will probably not generate the exact same results as several different interpretations of the material are possible. It was, therefore, important to be transparent about the work process. I have given a detailed description of the study’s approach and goals in terms of purpose and theoretical framework. Furthermore, I have also carefully explained the work process of the study and the reasoning behind the decisions and interpretations that were made. It enables the reader to follow how the study was conducted and how it led to certain conclusions (Denscombe, 2018).

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4. Findings and analysis

In this chapter, the answers from the 7 interviews are presented and analyzed. The chapter is divided into four themes in order to cover the research questions. The main aim of the interviews is to investigate the different perceptions and experiences that the individual members have of Heja Livet. The group will be presented from the perspective of the members and also stating the reasons why they chose to join and stay in the community. The chapter will also present the members’ view on feminism and separatism, and whether or not they understand Heja Livet as an online safe space for women. Lastly, this chapter will present and analyze how the members understand what possibilities and limitations this group has to contribute to individual members' lives and society as a whole.

4.1 Why Heja Livet?

This first section of the analysis is divided into three parts and aims to answer the first research question about how the members perceive the group and what their motivations for joining and also staying in the group.

4.1.1 The members’ descriptions of Heja Livet The Facebook group Heja Livet was created in 2014 by Emely Crona Stenberg and Carro Levy. On the webpage, they say that Heja Livet “Was born out of the curiosity to find out what happens when we gather women in a common room. What was created became something bigger, something that came to change people’s lives” (Heja Livet, 2021c). The founders’ vision - to create a “social network, communication platform and support forum” (Heja Livet, 2021c) for women seems to have become reality, since all of the interviewees describe it as an open forum for women to talk about anything that relates to the everyday life and a platform where you can get help and support and one of them said “I see the group as a super wonderful forum in some way. Both that you can, if you want, share different life events and so on, but also that there is an opportunity to get help and advice” (I3). Another interviewee said that “I would describe it as a community where you can collaborate between women on many different issues, you can get professional support from experts and people's input on things and just general tips” (I4).

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Lucero (2017) emphasizes the important role virtual communities can have, because they can provide a space to express yourself without being judged, especially for socially or politically vulnerable groups. One interviewee mentioned in her description of the group how it provides a safe space for women online “I think it is a place… a safe space for women to speak freely without any pressure or any outside view where you can ask anything or read about anything, for me it’s just a safe space for us to come together” (I5). From this answer, a safe space is understood as somewhere you get to be free from judgment.

One interviewee described Heja Livet as a place where you are not just allowed but also encouraged to talk about topics that are taboo or stigmatized in order to reduce shame and guilt (I6), and another member said that “It feels a little bit like a wise best friend that we don’t know really, that you can ask and get good and honest answers from” (I7). Many of the interviewees described how the encouragement to dare to share and talk about difficult topics came from how women commented on other women’s posts. Every post gets a lot of attention in the shape of likes and comments, and the comments are always of encouraging character giving credit to the woman who had the courage to post.

The interviewees were, in this first question, only asked about how they would describe the group Heja Livet. Their answers were exclusively positive and gave the impression that they all had a great appreciation for the group.

4.1.2 Why do women join the group?

The majority of the interviewees had been recommended by a friend to join the group. One interviewee said that the group was described, by her friend who recommended her to join, as an open and safe space and also mentioned that when she was recommended this group it felt like something new, “(…) something that you hadn’t encountered before” (I1). She decided to join the community because this made her curious and said that “I think among my friends there are not that many who are super engaged in online communities but this community actually engaged [women] for some reason” (I1). What all of the interviewees had in common as their reason for joining the community was that they got the impression that it was an open and free group where you could reach out to other women. One interviewee added that her reason for joining was because she saw it as a great community for work- related topics, a way to get insights into other people’s careers and that you can get inspired by others (I3). To have the possibility to get to read about and get insight into lives that are

24 different from their own was something that many said was the reason for joining this group (I2, I3, I4, I6, I7), and one of them also said that “I’m very interested in hearing about everyone’s different experiences and I experience that in different closed women's groups conversations, that you may not get in the regular Facebook feed, happen so it was probably due to that it was a closed group [that she joined]” (I6). What the interviewed members seem to have in common as the reason to join was that the group was perceived as a positive space online, that can stand in contrast to the many times, negative and harsh internet climate.

What was worth noticing in the answers from the interviews when the women were to describe the group was that only one interviewee specifically mentioned separatism. “It is gender separatist, of course, but it also felt like it was very inviting to all aspects of life” (I4). The interviewees mentioned that the group was only for women, but instead of talking about the exclusion of men, they talked about the inclusion of only those who identified as women. This could be interpreted as the main objective for joining the group does not have to do with wanting to separate from men but rather having a space that only includes women. There is a difference between these two in the sense that the separatist view is a more active political approach, and wanting a space that only includes women is more subtle and focuses on inclusion rather than the exclusion part in the creation of a safe space. This could imply that the individuals that were interviewed were not looking for a community that is explicitly feminist, but rather that they were looking for a place to feel community. This can be compared with the findings in Pruchniewska’s (2019) study in which she states that online separatist spaces for women are increasing, especially aimed to empower women in their professional lives and that it is common that they are feminist without being labeled as explicitly feminist.

4.1.3 Why do women stay in the group?

The main reason why the interviewees have stayed in the group (for many years) was that it had exceeded their expectations. They, as mentioned, often joined because it seemed like an open group that was free and welcoming, but they stayed because there were so many more aspects to it. One woman expressed this by saying “The group gave me more than what I had thought from the beginning” (I3).

The number of members has increased at a fast pace and this has also increased the scope of topics discussed and activities undertaken. The broad variation of topics is something that all

25 interviewees said was the main reason why they wanted to stay in the group. A group that has wide-ranging topics can have an advantage in that it appeals to many different people, and this might also be a reason why Heja Livet has grown fast since its start. One interviewee said that “It is really a group like “go life”, it is really about everything in life” (I1) and another one said, about the variety of topics, that “I really like the diversity of the posts, you kind of don’t know what you will meet actually. I think it can be fun because it can show so many different aspects, so the unpredictability is something I actually like about it” (I4).

The community Heja Livet is not only a Facebook group, it also has an Instagram page. Two of the interviewees said that they are more active in following the content on their Instagram page than Facebook, mainly because they prefer Instagram over Facebook but also because the content is somewhat different (I2, I3). On Heja Livet’s Instagram page they have ‘takeovers’ for one or two days by women with unconventional lifestyles, special professions, different hobbies, interests, etc. “I think it is great to follow people who have not so traditional lifestyles and professions that I didn’t know exist” (I2), one of the interviewees said, and some of the other interviewees mentioned that they had got new insights or been inspired from posts that they had read (I1, I6, I7). This can be compared with what Frye (1996) says about consciousness-raising groups. She argues that by getting insights into other people’s lives you get a greater awareness about things that, for different reasons, are not talked about and through this, we raise our consciousness. Heja Livet can then, by drawing on the argumentation by Frye, be considered as a consciousness-raising group.

Many of the interviewees said that they do not regularly post things themselves, but that they sometimes commented on other people’s posts. They all felt comfortable participating in the group by commenting if they have something concrete to contribute with, but they were more hesitant towards making posts themselves. This possibility of being as active as you wanted was mentioned as one of the positive things about the group, that you can be a passive participant also contributed to the feeling of the group being open and not forcing anyone to anything (I1). I1 also said that even though she is not very active, she always has the group in the back of her head if she needs advice on something or wonder if other women know something about a certain topic. She said that it is a great group to search for information or find women who have been through a similar situation.

The reason why many of the interviewees were mainly participating in the group by commenting or liking other people’s posts was not due to unsafety or fear of evil comments but because they did not feel the need to do so in this forum because they already had the

26 support from friends and family that they needed. (I1, 15, I7). No one expressed a fear that strangers in the group would share their post outside of the group, but rather that their friends, who are members of the group, would read it. The ones who said that they could post something very personal said that they would send the post to the administrators and ask to be anonymous. This rather low level of activity among the interviewed women can be understood as the group has become too big and too general, the intimacy and closeness have decreased. In a group with over 125.000 members in a country with 10 million people, the probability that many friends or acquaintances are members of the same group is large. When Clark-Parsons (2018) did her study on the women-only Facebook group ‘Girl Army’ in Philadelphia it had 850 members and a stricter policy than Heja Livet about who can join and who cannot. This inevitably leads to the question of where to draw the limit, and the paradox of safe spaces of simultaneously being inclusive and exclusive, safe and unsafe.

The Roestone Collective (2014) argues that one of the most important aspects of cultivating a safe space (as Heja Livet has the ambition to be) is the negotiation between these different binaries and they say that in order to develop a strategy, there must be an understanding of ‘for who’ and ‘from what or whom’ this space is intended to provide safety. The administration of the group is therefore of great importance. The administration was one of the main reasons the interviewees thought that the group had succeeded so well in achieving their goal of creating a platform where a wide variety of topics can be discussed in a constructive way. One interviewee said “Praise to those who administrate [the group], you understand that it is very well thought through (…) you notice that there is a lot of work behind it (…) I think that is important to get a… or it can be important to get a good group” (I1). Another woman commented in a similar way saying that “I think that they are very present, the administrators. They share a lot about what they are thinking with the group for the future. They feel serious without controlling too much, the topics that are discussed are wide-ranging, I don’t feel that they are limiting [the group]” (I2). This shows that the members consider the communication from the administration to be rather clear and straightforward and that there is a strong moderation of the group but without feeling that individuals or the content are being limited by it.

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4.2 Feminism and separatism

In this theme, the interviewees’ answers to the questions about feminism and separatism are analyzed. The questions included how they feel about the fact that the group is feminist and gender separatist, if they see any problem with it, how this affects the group, and also if they think that all women are included.

4.2.1 Is the group feminist? Four of the interviewees agreed that the group is feminist (I1, I2, I3, I5) and one interviewee argues that it is a lighter type of feminism, more ‘cheering for sisterhood’, rather than deeper discussions about feminism (I4). Another interviewee said that in comparison with other feminist groups that she is a member of she did not consider Heja Livet to be as outspokenly feminist (I6). She also said that in other groups it is sometimes clearly stated what types of opinions are accepted, while Heja Livet is more welcoming and open to different opinions. There was one interviewee that at first said no, but then changed her answers and said that it can also be a question of how you define it (I 7). None of the interviewees said that the group is promoting itself as feminist, but many of them said that feminism is present anyway. One interviewee said that "There is no talk of feminism on a political level but I think it is feminist in the way that it empowers… that you are empowered by other women” (I2). She explained that even though the word feminism is not used it is still feminist in the way people interact and talk to each other. Pruchniewska (2019), as above-mentioned, highlights this topic of groups being feminist without calling themself feminist. She argues that the group does not have to be explicitly feminist to involve feminist actions. She is investigating private Facebook groups for professional women and she argues that the activities undertaken in the group such as sharing, supporting, and giving advice between women are in fact feminist actions because they contribute to the feminist goals of ‘reducing gender inequality’ and ‘promoting the interests of women’. This could be related to the activities undertaken in Heja Livet that has as one of its main goals to work as a platform for women to support other women. Regardless of the group is labeling itself as feminist or not, the actions and activities are feminist.

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4.2.2 Separatism When the interviewees were asked more directly about separatism they all agreed that the fact that the community is only open to women affects both the climate and the content. In the case of Heja Livet however, everyone said that the ‘women only rule’ is important for the group in order to discuss certain topics, and for the ‘basic understanding’ that you have as a woman on these topics.

One interviewee reflected on the separation from men and said that “I don’t see any problems with it, I think it is important with separatist spaces” (I1). Another interviewee said that “I haven’t reflected on it until now, but I don’t think it’s been something negative”. She continued to describe how the topics do not circulate around men. Neither are women talking bad about men, they are just not the focus of the group. The focus is rather on the things that women share and thanks to that the discussions can reach another level. Many of the interviewees agreed that the discussions are different in gender separatist spaces because many topics that relate to being a woman such as giving birth, being sexually abused by a man, and gender inequalities are easier to discuss with women because they can relate in another way than men can (I1, I2, I4, I6,). One of them said that “I think that you have been able to be more honest and revealing precisely because you are asking the question to other women, there is still a certain difference when you talk between women” (I2). She also said that maybe it is easier to be a bit more private in a group of only women because women share something, and she argues that women have a common understanding of certain things. This understanding between women was emphasized by all interviewees and one of them said “I think it is good to have spaces where men are not participating partly because, in my opinion, you share different experiences based on sex” (I6) and another interviewee said, in line with this, that “Many [women] can express themselves, dare to ask things and dare to be open when many around have the same experience, it can become a safe forum in this sense” (I3). Pruchniewska (2019) describes how women in her study considered the communication to be more efficient in private women-only Facebook groups because the “foundations of experience and understanding of everyday life as a woman” (Pruchniewska, 2019:1369) were already there. This could also give women more confidence to share something personal, as they know that other women will understand their situation. Stanley & Wise (1993) discuss these common understandings about what it is like to be a woman, what the social world is like and how it is constructed and negotiated, and they call them ‘feminist consciousness’. There are however critics of this notion of an existing ‘common understanding’ among

29 women. The problem with stating that there is a common understanding is that implies that women are the same and that women are seen as one, as a homogenous group (Pruchniewska, 2019). Haraway (1988) talks about ‘situated knowledges’, knowledge produced from one person’s perspective of the world. She argues that sharing of perspectives and experiences provides a great diversity of ‘situated knowledges’ and the sharing of situated knowledge can have many positive effects but, as Pruchniewska (2019) argues, it is important to remember that the experiences are those of some women, not all. For this study this is important to keep in mind as the group of interviewees is quite homogenous (white, middle class) and can therefore only represent the perceptions of some women.

Two of the interviewees reflected on Heja Livet and its values, one of them had noticed that there were “No complaints about men and injustices, but rather about empowerment [of women]. But in a [gender] equal society it would probably look like that, that it does not have to be discussed in that way” (I2). This description of how it should be in a gender-equal society suggests that the interviewee sees the community as a reality separate from the one outside of Heja Livet. Another interviewee also expressed that there is a perception that there are other values and norms within the group compared to the world outside of it, saying that “There seems to be a norm what is okay and not okay to say in this group, some unwritten rule about what is okay to say and not say, and if someone crosses the line then someone is stepping in to correct” (I7). This could be related to Clark-Parsons (2018) and how she describes the community Girl Army. She is discussing whether it could be understood as a subaltern counter-public like the ’60s and ’70s second-wave feminist safe spaces, following the definition by Nancy Fraser: “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” (Fraser, 1990:67). Following this definition, Heja Livet could perhaps qualify as a subaltern counter-public, but due to the fact that some of the interviewees said that they were hesitant towards sharing things they considered too personal, it does not fully qualify. It might be due to the size of the group that Heja Livet cannot, to the same extent as the smaller women-only safe spaces in the second wave, provide the same comfort to share.

The interviewees’ answers can be interpreted as separatism, in this case, is more used as a means than being the goal, the separation from men is not something that in itself is important

30 for the members. What is important to them with Heja Livet is rather the possibility to have a space to discuss things without the influence of men.

4.2.3 Problematizing separatism For many of the interviewees, the question of exclusion is complex and it does not have a simple answer, one interviewee said for example that “I am, in principle, against exclusion but I can also see the value in excluding” (I7). None of the interviewees however saw a direct problem with excluding men from Heja Livet, but they said that there also have to be spaces that are mixed. One interviewee said that "There need to be closed rooms for certain people, but I also feel that there need to be groups where everyone can gather” (I6). She explains this as separatism can create the problem that people just speak within the group, and do not speak between the groups. Another aspect of the exclusion of men that a few interviewees brought up was that men have to be part of the feminist discourse. They have to be informed and not kept out because this will not increase equality. If men could somehow take part of the knowledge in the group it could give them more insights and better understanding (I3). This is the point that hooks (2015) is making in her book “feminism is for everybody”. She argues that men have to be part of the feminist struggle in order for the movement to move forward. Feminism is, according to her, anti-sexism, and everyone, both men and women have to become conscious about and confront their internalized sexism. hooks goes even further in emphasizing the importance of including everyone in the feminist struggle by saying that “A male who has divested of male privilege, who has embraced feminist politics, is a worthy comrade in struggle, in no way a threat to feminism, whereas a female who remains wedded to sexist thinking and behavior infiltrating feminist movement is a dangerous threat” (hooks, 2015:12). hooks’ view on the inclusion of men can be understood as extreme and discrediting the affordances of separatist spaces. The interviewees saw a great value in Heja Livet as a separatist space for women such as being able to talk about certain topics or get support from each other, something that would not be possible in a space that is open for both men and women. Other scholars argue against hooks by saying that separatist spaces have to exist and that they are needed for the development of feminism (Frye, 1996; Freedman, 1979; Lewis et al., 2015). Three of the interviewees were members of other feminist separatist groups and they all said that there were great differences between those groups and Heja Livet, that other groups could be “more extreme” (I1). Another interviewee said that the group she is a member of contains more hate against men, which Heja Livet does not (I2). This is also something that hooks

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(2015) is discussing, that the feminist movement has in some sense failed because an image of feminism as consisting of man-hate has been created and become deeply rooted in our ‘cultural psyche’. This could also be a possible explanation to why many of the interviewees did not consider Heja Livet to be feminist because there is this image that feminism is equal to ‘anti-men’ instead of pro-women. Heja Livet is, as the interviewees have described, positive with a ‘go life’ attitude, not hating on men, and the image of feminism being something negative does not fit with their perception of the group.

The discussion of inclusion and exclusion of men seems, among the interviewees, to lean towards a positive attitude towards the exclusion. However, the women point to the fact that the information and knowledge that is shared in the group are valuable and that men should somehow get access to it. Consciousness-raising should not be limited to only closed women- only groups, but it has to be shared with men too.

4.3 A safe space online?

In order to analyze Heja Livet’s possibilities to qualify as an online safe space, this theme has been divided into the three subthemes ‘safety for’, ‘safety from’, and ‘safety to’. The cultivation of safe spaces consists of relational work and the constant negotiation between safe-unsafe, inclusion-exclusion (The Roestone Collective, 2014). In order to create strategies for the function of a safe space, it is important to define the boundaries between the above- mentioned binaries, and therefore the three different aspects of safety are analyzed separately.

4.3.1 ‘Safety for’ Is the group for all women? What the interviewees brought up as a negative aspect of Heja Livet was the question of whether all women were included or not. The interviewees’ reasoning went in many different directions in this topic and one conclusion that can be made is that there are different perceptions of inclusion of all women in the group. What all agreed on, to a greater or smaller extent, was that the group is rather white.

I1 expressed that it is important to see the exclusion within the group and think about who is given space to speak. The perception that the representation of women of color, very young

32 and very old is lower was common among the interviewees, and the majority of them had the impression that white Swedish women in the ages 20-60 were the largest group of women. I1 stated that in general in society some groups of women are excluded and some are allowed to take up more space, and the white middle class especially takes up more space. “And this is a feminist problem that permeates feminism in general, so it would be almost unbelievable if it did not do so in Heja Livet” (I1). The issue of feminism belonging to the white middle class was something that second-wave feminism was criticized for (Crenshaw, 1991) but something that still exists today. With the third wave, as a critique of the second wave, a more intersectional perspective on feminism became more common in which intersections of race, sexual orientation, and class were to a greater extent taken into consideration (Pruchniewska, 2019). Even though we are talking about different waves of feminism it does not mean that the characteristics of the previous ones have disappeared, they still exist simultaneously (Evans & Chamberlain, 2014). The lack of representation in Heja Livet can then be considered as a limitation of the group’s potential to be considered as a safe space. When women are understood as one homogenous group the different intersecting aspects within the group are neglected which results in a narrower understanding of what safety entails. This is emphasized by Crenshaw who argues that “intervention strategies based solely on the experiences of women who do not share the same class or race backgrounds will be of limited help to women who because of race and class face different obstacles” (Crenshaw, 1991:1246).

The interviewees were a quite homogenous group of white middle-class women and this can have affected findings from the interviews. Even though most of them recognized that there was a greater representation of white than non-white women in the group they did not problematize this fact. There are at least two different possible interpretations of this. Either as something that represents the symptom of lack of intersectional perspective, that unequal conditions are normalized and pass unnoticed. It can also be, as one of the interviewees mentioned, that their view is that the group is doing what it can to try to make everyone feel welcome by saying that all who identify as a woman is welcome to join the group, if women of color, transwomen or for any other reason belongs to another minority group then decides not to join it is up to them. But as Pruchniewska (2019) discusses in her text, due to the ‘white norm’ that exists in society black women do not feel like it is a space ‘for them’, even though it is ‘open to all women’. It is therefore important to problematize the group’s inclusivity because even though it is officially ‘open for all women’, some women might still not feel

33 like it is open to them. One interviewee saw a problem with the unequal representation, but since there are other online communities targeting these groups of people it might not have to be the top priority of Heja Livet (I4). This view, however, becomes problematic, and can perhaps be understood as strengthening the argument that there is a whiteness norm on the internet since the issues of people not belonging to the norm are to be discussed in separate spaces.

I5 moved to Sweden 10 years ago and she thought that the administration is trying to make the group more inclusive to all women. “Sweden has changed a lot in the last 10-20 years and I think that Heja Livet is trying to do a good job in showing that (…) I think that’s something that I noticed from the beginning that they wanted to make sure that everybody… that it wasn’t just a cool girls club or just a Swedish girls club it is for everybody” (I5). She explains that especially with the take-overs on their Instagram page they are trying to show a variety of women with for example more uncommon lifestyles or occupations. She says that she has seen posts in English too, and she feels that she could post in English and it would be fine (I5). Another interviewee expressed though that the written language in the group is quite correct and this could maybe make people, who are not as comfortable writing, refrain from posting (I2).

Many of the interviewees reflected on the fact that issues of private economy are often discussed, but only one of them (I6) connected this to the topic of class inclusivity in the group. She said that due to the questions asked about private economy in the group you can see that there are women from all social classes, and not only the middle class (I6). She was also the only one who reflected upon the inclusion of transwomen. She compared Heja Livet with other separatist groups that are only open for people whose biological sex is female and said that Heja Livet in this sense is inclusive since it is open for everyone who identifies as a woman. This is though, the perspective of a cis woman, why it is difficult, as argued above, to assess the actual level of inclusivity.

Even though the group is open for everyone who identifies as a woman it lacks representation of non-white women, according to the members. Some of the interviewees said that the climate is open and welcoming to everyone, but that the group sadly reflects the society in general, which means that the white middle class takes up more space than other groups.

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4.3.2 ‘Safety from’ What or whom is the group providing safety from? As Jane (2014) argues the climate on the internet has become harsher and women are constantly exposed to harassment and threats. One woman described how there are so many bad places on the internet and that women were looking for a place where they could be themselves without being judged (I5). This could perhaps be connected to what I1 said when she described her reason for joining the group – that this group felt like something new that she had not encountered before, and referred to the focus on empowerment and positivity. From the interviewees’ answers, it is reasonable to assume that they see Heja Livet as a space free from harassment with the goal to bring about positive change and work as an opposing force to all the negativity that exists on the internet. One interviewee said that “there are no hateful comments and questioning” (I1) and another woman said that if someone is questioning something it is out of genuine curiosity and will to understand and not to question the person (I2).

The separatism from men is important in the ‘safety from’ aspect because as Clark-Parsons (2018) says, men are the main perpetrators of online harassment of women. One of the interviewees says that she thinks that fewer women than men are trolling and says that this could also be a reason why the climate in the group is better than in a mixed community. She says that if the group had not been separatist, questions that revolve around ‘women traps’ (problems that you can have just because you are a woman) would not have been given space, because it is not safe (I4). The separation from men is therefore central to the construction of Heja Livet as a safe space. One interviewee emphasized the connection between separation from men and safe space by saying that “I think it [the group] should stay for women or people who identify as women because I think that is what makes it a safe space (I5).

4.3.3 ‘Safety to’ What does the group provide women with the safety to do? This group, as aforementioned, gives women a platform to express themselves, share, ask for help, be vulnerable, take space and talk about sensitive topics. The main point, however, that the interviewees made of the question of safety was the safety to speak without being judged. This was an answer that kept coming back through all interviews. They argued that the group climate was open and welcoming which created a feeling of well-meaning which they thought was the reason women felt safe to share stories of their personal life. The exclusion of men

35 was the main contributing factor to this perceived safety, and one interviewee expressed it as “When they [the men] are excluded these people [the women] may feel that they dare to share and ask for help” (I3). She continues to say that topics of bad or violent relationships might not be possible to discuss if men would be included.

What another interviewee appreciated was that for once attention is paid to people and topics that are usually not allowed as much attention and space on social media (I1). Other interviewees also mentioned that women and topics connected to biological and societal (such as structural, economic, and political) aspects of being a woman were for once given space and attention in a way that is not accepted in society today. Clark-Parsons says that a safe space provides women with the safety to “engage in open discussion of issues that are stifled within the broader public sphere” Clark-Parsons, 2018:9). This space, according to I1, provided the safety to talk about things that are not allowed to talk about in the public sphere.

On a more general note, the group provides women the safety to take space. Women are often, due to the patriarchal system, not able to take the same space as men are. Lewis et al. describe, in line with what the interviewees answered, that safe spaces provide safety to “express one's full personhood” (Lewis et al., 2015:1), that you do not have to hold back on who you are.

Everyone said that they felt safe in the community Heja Livet, and perceived it as a safe virtual space. However, it should perhaps be understood as a relative safety since many of the interviewees did not post anything themselves. They felt safe because they did not expose themselves, but it is difficult to assess the level of safety the interviewees actually feel since they were not actively exposing themselves to the community.

4.4 Contribution of the group

This theme analyses the members’ perception of Heja Livet’s contributions. In order to understand both what a separatist community can contribute with and also how this community can provide a safe space for women online the members were asked, not only what the group had given them personally but also what they think it can do for other women and the society.

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4.4.1 Is there a need for this group? All interviewees said that there is a need for communities such as Heja Livet, this has also been emphasized by many scholars, who argue that separatist feminist groups have helped the feminist movement forward by women being able to organize in closed spaces without the influence by men (compare with Freedman, 1979; Lewis et al., 2015; Frye, 1996). One interviewee said that “I think it is important to have these spaces (…) this type of spaces [gender separatist] creates a safety and possibility for women to talk about things that they think are important (…) and they can also be strengthened by each other” (I1). She continued in a more feminist approach, explaining that the group is an important tool and method in promoting and advancing gender equality (I1). She stated that the creation of online feminist separatist communities is a natural development of how we communicate nowadays “it is online because we are online, it is not really anything new, women have organized in this way for hundreds of years” (I1) and she said that she thought that the creation of Heja Livet filled the need for a separatist space online since many women joined and stayed in the group. Even though Sweden ranks as the fifth most gender-equal country in the world (World Economic Forum, 2021) there is still, considering the interviewees’ answers, a need for women to separate from men in order to be provided with space and safety to talk about certain topics

4.4.2 Community and support Many of the interviewees said that the group plays an important role in providing support for women and, as one woman mentioned, especially for people who are more isolated (I4). It can also work as a source of inspiration in both everyday life and professional life (I2). The support seems, from the interviewees’ answers to judge (see section 4.2.2), lay in the recognition and the perceived common understanding of what it is like to be a woman. One of the interviewees described that in a separatist space the discussions can start on a different level because you do not have to “start with telling or explaining why we feel discriminated against or not feel included” (I1), there is already a general understanding for this among the members. This, as previously mentioned, was brought up in the study made by Pruchniewska (2019) where the interviewees of that study also said that there was ‘basic understanding’ in the group.

Safe spaces are often created from a common denominator, something that the group members have in common, it has been for example sexual orientation, race, and sex (The Roestone Collective, 2014). In Heja Livet the one requirement to join is that you identify as a

37 woman, why the separatism from men should be the common denominator that creates a feeling of community, but one interviewee mentioned that “it is not just that [separatism], that is needed to feel community, but it strengthens it” (I1). As I4 and I6 who are members of other separatist groups mentioned, the climate is tougher, more excluding, and more individualist in other feminist separatist groups in comparison to Heja Livet. They have a more outspoken feminist and anti-men approach which they gather around, while Heja Livet is more focused on the support between women. The feeling of community in different feminist separatist groups does not necessarily only have to do with only the common denominator (separatism), but also the way the group is run and whether or not it feels safe. There is no other common denominator than being a woman in Heja Livet, and therefore there isn’t a need to prove yourself in knowledge or opinions to gain recognition from others. It is about sharing and that there are a variety of experiences.

4.4.3 Raised consciousness One of the advantages of being an online group is its wide reach. The group can fill an important function in giving members support from people that are outside of their regular circle of friends who have other experiences, thoughts, and opinions. The feeling of knowing that other women have been going through a similar situation or had similar thoughts is something that many interviewees brought up, and one interviewee expressed that “You think you’re alone in the world about something, but you’re not” (I3) and another interviewee said that “Sometimes you might feel that you’re not like everyone else, but there are a lot of people who are not like everyone else (I2). This is a process of raising consciousness. Frye states that “in consciousness raising there is a movement away from the isolation of the individual” (Frye, 1996:38). In conversations between women discoveries of similar ‘anomalies’ are made and when put together patterns are made visible. This means that what you may have perceived as an ‘anomaly’ is in fact not when you become conscious of other women’s similar ‘anomalies’ (Frye, 1996). This realization of not being alone can, as described by the interviewees, provide support through raised consciousness. Another interviewee also said, about the sharing of personal stories, that “It can open your eyes to things that other women are thinking or worrying about that you haven’t thought about before” (I1) and she argues that in this way you get a broader perspective and a better understanding for other people’s challenges or problems.

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Consciousness-raising groups where women share and show themselves vulnerable to other people are about collectivism. In fourth-wave feminism there has been a revival of the collective thinking that was prominent in the second wave but almost disappeared during the third wave when the focus was more on the individual (Blevins, 2018). The idea with the consciousness-raising groups when they were created in the second wave feminism was to generate awareness and pay attention to women’s different experiences and through conversations between women raise consciousness about structures that oppressed women (Frye, 1996). The consciousness-raising conversations are therefore of great importance both for individual women and also for the development of the feminist movement.

Many of the interviewees said that after reading a post in Heja Livet they had many times reflected over the post and some of them could relate other people’s situation to their own. This is something that Frye (1996) sees as something central to consciousness-raising – when we relate other women’s experiences to our own, we raise our consciousness. One woman said for example that because of the wide age range in the group she could get a better understanding for other generations, such as her mother’s because posts that she read in the group might not be things that she would discuss with people her own age (I2). Another interviewee explained how some posts had made her stop and reflect and given her perspective on things in her own life. She also said that she thought that this group can give people more empathy, sympathy, increased understanding, and that it can have a positive spillover effect (I7). Pruchniewska (2019) talks about how women-only online groups can contribute to feminist actions offline and that many feminist activities lay in the unintentional actions and everyday practices.

All of the interviewees said that the group in one way or another contributes to raising people’s consciousness about a great number of different things in other people’s lives and issues that women specifically struggle with. The outcomes from an increased consciousness had led to different things among the interviewees, someone had reached out to a friend who was going through a hard time (I6), helped to get a better perspective on their own life (I1, I7), get inspiration in their career when they saw what other people had done (I2, I3), humbling effect (I5), and many of them mentioned that they had realized that there are many more opportunities and possibilities than they had thought.

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Pruchniewska (2019) outlines the main features of a consciousness-raising group: “(1) groups without men with (2) nonhierarchical membership (3) where women could discuss everyday experiences and build communities that (4) laid the foundation for actions that challenged the gendered status quo, both in their personal lives and collectively” (Pruchniewska, 2019:1366). The first three features can with ease be said about Heja Livet, the fourth however is more difficult to assess since the interviewees’ answers only reflect their interpretations of their actions and not their actual actions. This study will, despite this, consider Heja Livet as a consciousness-raising group, based on the interviewees’ interpretations.

5. Discussion

In this chapter, the findings and the analysis are discussed. The section is divided into three parts based on the study’s three research questions.

5.1 “What are the individual members’ motivations for joining and participating in the online community Heja Livet?”

There were many different aspects of Heja Livet that made women join and stay in the community. They all found it to be an open and welcoming space for women to interact with each other and the wide range of topics covered makes it attractive to many people. Even though it is a separatist group, the separatism in itself was not their main reason for joining but rather the good and supportive climate. Separatism seems to mainly make out the ’base’ to create a group, it is the ‘official’ common denominator. However, when analyzing the answers, the common denominator rather seems to be the wish to find a safe space to connect with other women to get support, inspiration, and community. As Pruchniewska (2019) found in her study, communication is more effective because you do not have to explain certain things since there is already a basic understanding. Women in this study perceived it to be easier to have conversations about certain topics because they could start on ‘another level’ compared to having the same conversations in a mixed space. I also understand the women’s answers as that the group gave them hope in ‘the good in people’, when they described how women without knowing one another reached out and helped each other. This stands in contrast to the world outside, and especially the online world

40 that is much harsher and has a focus on the individual. In this sense, the group could be understood as a ‘subaltern counter public’ (Fraser, 1990) like the safe spaces in the second wave feminism, even though it can be argued to not fulfill all of the criteria since some women did not want to share personal information.

Heja Livet differs from other feminist separatist online communities in the sense that it is focused on women rather than the exclusion of men and this could be, in my opinion, one of the main contributing factors for the success of the group. It is focusing on talking, listening, advising, discussing, supporting, and helping between women, and not on men. One interviewee described this, as mentioned, as a ‘lighter’ feminism that is more about supporting, cheering on, and encouraging other women rather than pointing to and placing weight on the problems. I think that not labeling itself as explicitly feminist is one of the main reasons that women are attracted to the group. Feminism as a concept has, as discussed, become polarized and if it would have been more outspoken feminist there is a possible risk that many women would choose not to be members.

5.2 What can a gender separatist online community such as Heja Livet contribute with to women’s everyday life and society at large?

Some part of the feeling of security in this group derives from the knowledge that no men have access to the group, and women can therefore escape the online misogyny that exists in the public online sphere. The fact that it is separatist, has contributed to the members feeling safer to express themselves and take space that they are not allowed to do in the public sphere due to patriarchal structures. The group thus provides women with the safety to speak without fear of being judged.

The interviewees highlighted how the group has contributed to new perspectives on both their own life but also to other women’s situations. They also recognized that for them personally, as they already had a safety net of friends and family around them, their need for this group on more personal issues was not as big, while they argued that for women who do not have the same safety net and are more isolated this group has great potential to work as a support system.

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Many of the members did not consider their membership in a separatist online community as a feminist activity but as Pruchniewska (2019) argues, an activity does not have to have the intention of being feminist in order to contribute to the feminist goals. By empowering other women through listening, giving support, and taking part in conversations this group has raised the members’ consciousness and they have become more aware of injustices women face, and this contributes to the feminist goals of promoting the interests of women and reducing gender inequality.

5.3 What are the possibilities and limitations of Heja Livet to provide a safe space for women to share and interact with other women?

The absence of men, the administration of the group, and most importantly the already existing knowledge within the group of what it means to be a woman and how certain structures in society affects women are, according to the members, what provide a possibility to women to feel a sense of security in this community. The point that it is not explicitly feminist is important to consider in answering this third and last question as well. The group has an open and welcoming climate, and the fact that it is not labeled as feminist can also be a factor that strengthens this feeling of security even more since there is no pressure or obligations on individual members to take a stand on political matters.

The group has of course certain unwritten rules and norms that everyone has to adhere to, but they can be interpreted as providing women with freedom rather than working in a limiting way since they eliminate the threat of being harassed. As Lewis et al. argue in their study, a safe space enables people to “express one's full personhood” (Lewis et al., 2015:1). The group can in this sense then be understood as a liberating space for women.

There are however two limitations to the group’s capacity of functioning as a safe space for all women. The first one is the question of inclusion. Even though the group is open to everyone who identifies as a woman, not all women will feel welcome. As discussed, the ‘white norm’ that exists in society (Pruchniewska, 2019) makes women of color feel like the space is not ‘for them’, which can lead to self-exclusion, and can result in lower participation of women of color. There are also other women who belong to other marginalized groups who then deal with other factors that are intersecting with being a woman. Due to the lower representation of for example younger or older ages, transwomen, or women of color many perspectives are not raised in the group, and consequently does not provide the sense of

42 community and safety for them. The second limitation is possibly the size of the group. Many women said that they would not share too personal stories in the group because they were friends with many of the group members, and did not want all of them to get details about their private life. This is an example of the paradox of safe spaces, the negotiation between inclusion-exclusion and safe-unsafe, where should limits be drawn? To function as a safe space these binaries constantly have to be renegotiated as The Roestone Collective (2014) argues. Even though the administration, according to the members, is doing a good job maintaining the space safe by being clear about what the group stands for and what is not accepted, the open and welcoming climate is limiting the group in the sense that it lacks boundaries to protect the people it intends to provide safety for.

6. Conclusion and further research

This study aimed at contributing to media and communication studies and specifically the field of women-only online communities by investigating how members of the community Heja Livet experience and perceive the community. The research questions that guided the study were the following: 1) What are the individual members’ motivations for joining and participating in the online community Heja Livet? 2) What can a gender separatist online community such as Heja Livet contribute with to women’s everyday life and society at large? and 3) What are the possibilities and limitations of Heja Livet to provide a safe space for women to share and interact with other women?

The study found that the main reason to join was that there was an open and welcoming climate, a community that stands in contrast to the harsher climate in the ‘real world’, and the main reason to stay was that the group gave them more than they had expected. The members said that the community provided a safe space for women to interact and give each other support. The study further found that the administrative work, consisting of constant renegotiation of the binaries safe/unsafe and inclusion/exclusion together with being gender separatist and the perception of an existence of a common understanding among women were the main factors that were contributing to the creation of a space that feels safe. The issue of whether the group is perceived to really be inclusive of all women remains challenged, as the members’ opinions are not conclusive. Even though the members consider separatist groups

43 to be important for both individual women and the feminist movement as a whole, they also argue that it is also important to raise men’s consciousness of patriarchal structures.

The conclusion is that Heja Livet provides a space where women can come together with other women to discuss, share, support, find inspiration, empower each other and raise consciousness. The members perceived the group as a safe space for them, but as mentioned before, since the members did not expose themselves in the group by posting their personal stories it becomes difficult to assess the level of safety the interviewees actually feel since they were not actively exposing themselves to the community. Also, the rather homogenous group of members that were interviewed can perhaps not represent the wide spectra of possible perceptions of safety within the group.

Even though it is a group with a positive spirit, societal issues are not neglected. However, sometimes the interviewees are not critical towards the group, perhaps because of their already privileged position in it, which might have contributed to giving an overly positive image of their perceptions in this thesis.

For further research, a focus on intersectionality within women-only online safe spaces is suggested. Perspectives of non-white, transwomen, and women that for other reasons identify as belonging to marginalized groups are needed for a better and deeper understanding of women-only online communities as safe spaces.

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- Mitchell, J. (1973). Woman's estate. New York: Vintage Books.

- Munro, E. (2013). Feminism: a fourth wave? Political insight. London: The Political Studies Association (PSA). Retrieved from: https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/feminism-fourth-wave

- Phillips, R. & Cree, V. E. (2014). What does the ‘Fourth Wave’ Mean for Teaching Feminism in Twenty-First Century Social Work? Social Work Education, 33(7), pp. 930- 943. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2014.885007

- Polletta, F. (1999). “Free Spaces” in Collective Action. Theory and Society, 28(1), pp. 1-38. https://rdcu.be/bylS2

- Pruchniewska, U. (2019). “A group that’s just women for women”: Feminist affordances of private Facebook groups for professionals. New Media & Society. Vol. 21(6), pp. 1362-1379 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818822490

- Reinharz, S. (1992). Feminist methods in social research. New York: Oxford University Press.

- Shaw, F. (2013). “These wars are personal”: methods and theory in feminist online research. Qualitative Research Journal, 13(1), pp. 90-101.

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- Stanley, L. & Wise, S. (1993). Breaking Out Again. Feminist ontology and epistemology. London: Routledge.

- The Roestone Collective (2014). Safe space: Towards a reconceptualization. Antipode, 46(5), pp. 1346-1365. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12089

- Vetenskapsrådet (2002) Forskningsetiska principer inom humanistisk- samhällsvetenskaplig forskning. https://www.vr.se/download/18.68c009f71769c7698a41df/1610103120390/Forskning setiska_principer_VR_2002.pdf

- World Economic Forum (2021) Global gender gap report 2021. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report- 2021

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8. Appendices

Appendix I Intervjuguide Namn, Ålder Hur fick du information om gruppen?

Överblick 1. Hur skulle du beskriva gruppen? 2. Varför valde du att gå med? 3. Varför har du valt att stanna i gruppen? 4. Publicerar du inlägg/svarar på inlägg? 5. Om ja- varför och vad? 6. Om inte – varför inte, och hur deltar du gruppen? 7. Vad tycker du om/ogillar med gruppen? 8. Hur ser du på administrationen av gruppen? 9. Vilka teman som tagits upp i gruppen intresserar dig? 10. Anser du att gruppen är feministisk?

Separatism 11. Hur ser du på att det är en grupp som bara är öppen för de som identifierar sig som kvinnor? Är det viktigt för dig? Ser du några problem med att den exkluderar män? 12. Påverkas innehållet i gruppen av att den bara består av kvinnor? Hur kommer sig det till uttryck? 13. Anser du att gruppen är inkluderade för alla kvinnor? Någon grupp överrepresenterad? 14. Är du medlem i andra liknande grupper? Vilka?

Safe space 15. Hur är klimatet i Heja Livet enligt dig? (hur bemöts inlägg och kommentarer?) 16. Vad tror du är anledningen till att den har detta klimat? 17. Känner du dig bekväm att publicera inlägg/kommentera andras inlägg? 18. Vad gör att du känner dig trygg/otrygg? 19. Hur ser du på gemenskapen i gruppen? 20. Är du medlem i liknande online grupper med både män och kvinnor? Vad är de största skillnaderna? Känner du dig trygg att publicera samma inlägg som du skulle publicera i Heja Livet?

Gruppens bidrag 21. Tror du att det behövs grupper som denna? Varför/varför inte? 22. Vad anser du att gruppens viktigaste bidrag är? 23. Vad har det gett dig att vara med i gruppen? 24. Har något som du läst i gruppen påverkat dig i hur du handlar/beter dig eller tänker om någonting? Eller påverkat hur du tänker om dina egna livserfarenheter? 25. Tror du att gruppen kan fungera som ett stöd för kvinnor? 26. Tror du att gruppen ger kvinnor en bättre förståelse/ökad medvetenhet för andra kvinnors livssituationer och erfarenheter? 27. Har du något annat du vill tillägga?

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Appendix II

Informationsbrev

Jag heter Malin Johnsson och studerar Masterprogrammet ’Media and communication studies: Culture, Collaborative Media and Creative Industries’ på Malmö Universitet. Jag skriver under våren 2021min masteruppsats och har valt att göra en intervjustudie om Heja livet. Studien syftar till att undersöka medlemmars egna uppfattning om sitt deltagande i gruppen. Anledningen till att jag vill genomföra denna studie är för att jag vill bredda förståelsen för kvinnogrupper online och undersöka de olika aspekterna av det. Studien kommer baseras på svaren för intervjuerna med medlemmar, ca 10 intervjuer kommer att genomföras. För att nå intervjudeltagarna kommer snöbollstekniken användas, vilket innebär att den första deltagaren blir ombedd att leda mig till nästa intervjudeltagare, som i sin tur leder mig till nästa. Varje intervju beräknas ta max. en timme. Jag är intresserad av dina tankar och upplevelser och det finns därför inga rätt eller fel svar. Ditt deltagande i studien är helt frivilligt. Du kan när som helst avbryta ditt deltagande utan närmare motivering. Konfidentialitet eftersträvas i undersökningen genom att ingen obehörig får ta del av materialet. Materialet förvaras så att det bara är åtkomligt för mig som är undersökningsledare. I rapporteringen av resultatet i form av en examensuppsats på Malmö Universitet eller i annan form av publicering kommer intervjudeltagarna att avidentifieras så att det inte går att koppla resultatet till enskilda individer. Uppsatsen kommer att publiceras via DIVA portal. Du tillfrågas härmed om deltagande i denna undersökning. Jag är tacksam för att du tar dig tid och ditt deltagande vore väldigt uppskattat!

Projektets titel: Why only women? - An interview study of individual members experiences and perceptions of the women-only online community Heja Livet

Studieansvarig/a: Malin Johnsson E-post: [email protected]

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Appendix III

Samtycke från deltagare i projektet Bilaga 2

Projektets titel: (ifylles av student) Datum: (ifylles av student) Why only women? - An interview study of individual members experiences and perceptions

of the women-only online community Heja Livet Studieansvarig/a: (ifylles av student) Studerar vid Malmö universitet, Fakulteten Kultur och samhälle, 205 Malin Johnsson 06 Malmö, Tfn 040 665 70 00 E-post Utbildning: Media and communication [email protected] studies: Culture, Collaborative Media and Creative Industries Jag har muntligen informerats om studien och tagit del av bifogad skriftlig information. Jag är medveten om att mitt deltagande är frivilligt och att jag när som helst och utan närmare förklaring kan avbryta mitt deltagande. Personen/-erna som genomför studien kommer att sträva efter konfidentialitet genom att ingen obehörig får ta del av materialet som samla in. Materialet kommer att förvaras på en säker plats och bara användas i denna studie.

Jag lämnar härmed mitt samtycke till att delta i ovanstående undersökning: Datum: …………………………………………………………………………….

Deltagarens underskrift: …………………………………………………………

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Appendix IV

Samtyckesblankett / Consent form

Vår behandling av dina personuppgifter bygger på att dina personuppgifter behandlas med ditt samtycke. Du kan när som helst ta tillbaka samtycket och uppgifterna får då inte bevaras eller behandlas vidare utan annan laglig grund. Genom insamling av uppgifter om [2. kategorier av personuppgifter, till exempel namn, e- post, och uppgifter som framkommer i intervju] kommer Malmö universitet att använda i arbetet med examensarbetet. Uppgifterna kommer att behandlas under [5. tidsperiod] varefter de [6. raderas/arkiveras], [3. ev. inlägg om tredje part]. Du kan ta del av det som registrerats om dig eller ha synpunkter på behandlingen eller de uppgifter som samlats in genom att kontakta [7. kontaktperson för behandlingen] eller lärosätets dataskyddsombud på [email protected]. Klagomål som inte kan lösas med Malmö universitet kan lämnas till berörd tillsynsmyndighet.

Processing of personal data

This processing of your personal data is based on your consent. You may withdraw the consent at any time, and the data may not be retained or processed without any other legal grounds. By collecting data on [2. categories of personal data], Malmö University will [4. brief description of the purpose]. The data will be processed during [5. period of time] after which the information will be [6. deleted / archived], [3. information about possible third party]. You can find out what has been registered about you or have feedback on the processing or information collected by contacting [7. contact person for the treatment] or the university's Data Protection Officer at [email protected]. Complaints that can not be resolved with Malmö University may be submitted to the responsible regulatory authority.

……………………………………………………………… Underskrift / Signature

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