Ulrika Andersson

The criminal justice system in modern western democracies is built on the rights of the one who is being accused of a crime, the subject of criminal responsibility, in relation to the repressive power held by the state. The entire system rests upon rules and principles, aiming at ensuring the rule of law as far as this subject is concerned. The subject is presumed to be autonomous and is set before the law according to the legal doctrine on criminal responsibility, presupposing that this subject makes free, rational choices. This thesis focuses the victim, or the one who may claim protection from a certain criminal provision: the subject of criminal protection. The main purpose is to explore and analyze the construction of this subject in criminal law in relation to sexual offences. The starting-point is that sex, as well as gender, is constructed, and that legal discourses contribute in doing so, while simultaneously producing the subjects set before the law. Drawing on the concept of discursive power put forward by Michel Foucault and Judith Butler’s constructivist theory of gender founded on the heterosexual matrix, the legal discourses are analyzed as such. The question is how these discourses construct, or produce the subject of criminal protection, more specifically regarding to body, sexuality and gender. It is argued that these discourses produce a subject with an open, accessible body and an accessible, passive sexuality, in other words a subject which is clearly feminine.