Lena Gunnarsson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3603949 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lena Gunnarsson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lena |
| FAMILY NAME | Gunnarsson |
| SIGNATURE | GUNNARSSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Örebro University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7766-8696 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Who Holds the Power? Gendered Experiences of Involuntary Singlehood in the Age of Online Dating
Although singlehood is a desired lifestyle for an increasing number of heterosexual women and men, many are involuntarily single, struggling to find a partner. Meanwhile, popular debates about dating are sharply polarized along gendered lines. While “incels” see themselves as victims on a dating market ruled by women, relatively mainstreamed feminist sensibilities frame heterosexuality as marked by men's power. This article investigates how Swedi…
Assessing the validity of counter-authority knowledge
The internet has given rise to an informational landscape that challenges epistemological hierarchies between experts and lay people. Tensions regarding how to address the growing flora of counter-authority claims are pertinent in the context of health, where warnings about misinformation co-exist with notions of patient empowerment. This context accentuates the importance of revitalizing conceptualizations of how to assess the validity of knowle…
Who knows? On the epistemic status of experience in sugar-dating research
Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practic…
Gender knowledge production and epistemology in the incelosphere
There is a growing field of research dedicated to online incel communities, gathering men identifying as involuntary celibates or ‘incels’. A distinctive aspect of the incelosphere is the elaborate ‘theoretical framework’ communicated in the forums, portraying incel men as voiceless losers at a (hetero)sexual market ruled by women and biologically superior men. While the content of this incel worldview is relatively well-studied, a notable gap ex…
The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating
The proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a 'sugar baby' and a 'sugar daddy,' raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a 'marketization' of intimacy. Ba…
On the verge between the scientific and the alternative
The article intervenes in discussions on lay knowledge production about health in the Internet era, through the case of a group of women claiming that their use of copper intrauterine devices has led to systemic side effects. Based on online group interviews and written essays, we examine how women embracing these knowledge claims navigate various sources of information, focusing on the role of scientificity in these epistemic negotiations. The w…
Love Power in the Rear-View Mirror
Jónasdóttir’s home in Örebro, Sweden. Alessandro Johansson transcribed the audio recorded interview and Gunnarsson translated and edited the transcription in dialogue with Jónasdóttir.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Translated from Swedish by Gunnarsson.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAnna G. JónasdóttirAnna G. Jónasdóttir is professor emerita in Gender Studies at Örebro Unive…
The different facets of 'experiential knowledge' in Swedish women's claims about systemic side effects of the copper intrauterine device
Experiential knowledge' has been identified as a key epistemic resource used by lay people to contest medical authorities and build new knowledge related to health. The Internet has created unprecedented opportunities for such experience-based epistemic projects. This article contributes to understandings of the as yet under-theorised concept of experiential knowledge by analysing accounts of a group of Swedish women who claim that their use of c…
Varieties of Sugar Dating in Sweden
With the emergence and global proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is increasingly on the public agenda. Sugar dating is described by these sites as dating arrangements based on an exchange of intimacy and companionship for financial or other forms of support. Given that sex is often part of the arrangements, claims are widespread, yet disputed, that sugar dating is a form of prostitution. Based on interviews a…
Attitudes Toward HPV Vaccination in Sweden
Background While HPV vaccination uptake in Sweden is quite high, at around 80%, vaccine hesitancy remains an issue in countries throughout Europe. The latter can be related to a contemporary context of increased contestation of expert knowledge and of a large share of information on health-related issues including vaccination today being sought via the internet. Still, there is a paucity of recent research on attitudes toward the HPV vaccine in a…
Jag är inte prostituerad, jag lever normalt”
Sugardejting är ett till stora delar nytt och växande fenomen inom sex- och intimitetsindustrin som kretsar kring för ändamålet nischade webbsidor. Fenomenet överlappar i betydande grad med prostitution men marknadsförs som något annat. Utifrån intervjuer med femton ”sugarbabes” och nio ”sugardaddys” med erfarenhet av heterosexuell sugardejting undersöker vi i artikeln vilka strategier sugardejtare använder för att avgränsa sina erfarenheter från…
Chemistry or Service? Sugar Daddies’ (Re)quest for Mutuality within the Confines of Commercial Exchange
With the emergence and global proliferation of “sugar dating” websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is gaining increased attention. Sugar dating is described by these websites as arrangements based on an exchange of financial or other forms of support for intimacy and companionship. The framing of sugar dating as something in between a business transaction and mutually enjoyable dating serves as the point of departure of this article, which dr…
Critical Realism, Feminism, and Gender
In assessing the current state of feminism and gender studies, whether on a theoretical or a practical level, it has become increasingly challenging to avoid the conclusion that these fields are in a state of disarray. Indeed, feminist and gender studies discussions are beset with persistent splits and disagreements. This reader suggests that returning to, and placing centre-stage, the role of philosophy, especially critical realist philosophy of…
Feminism and the Power of Love
Although love in some form is arguably as old as humankind, many scholars judge that it has never been as socially and existentially decisive as it is in contemporary western societies (Bauman 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Ferry 2013; Giddens 1992; Gunnarsson 2014a; Illouz 2012; Jónasdóttir 1994, 2011; Kaufmann 2011; Luhmann 1998; May 2011). The loosening of collective and role-based modes of recognition and existential security has meant t…
Excuse Me, But Are You Raping Me Now?” Discourse and Experience in (the Grey Areas of) Sexual Violence
In feminist research on sexual violence and victimization, the relationship between discourse and experience has often been at the forefront of intense debates. Poststructuralist scholars have emphasized that the discourses used to name sexual violence may in fact perpetuate the very problem they set out to describe, by freezing women into powerless positions of rapability. Others have likened this sort of argument to anti-feminist trivialization…
Feminism and the Power of Love
Although love in some form is arguably as old as humankind, many scholars judge that it has never been as socially and existentially decisive as it is in contemporary western societies (Bauman 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Ferry 2013; Giddens 1992; Gunnarsson 2014a; Illouz 2012; Jonasdottir 1994, 2011; Kaufmann 2011; Luhmann 1998; May 2011). The loosening of collective and role-based modes of recognition and existential security has meant t…
Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism
An increasing number of scholars have become familiar with critical realism, finding it a robust alternative to the poststructuralist perspectives that currently dominate gender studies and feminis
The Dominant and its Constitutive Other
In this article I explore love's relation to gendered power asymmetries by comparing Anna Jónasdóttir's, Jessica Benjamin's and Teresa Brennan's respective theorizations of this theme. Despite the considerable differences between these feminist frameworks, they can all be read in terms of what I call the figure of the Dominant and its Constitutive Other. This refers to the contradictory relation whereby the powerful and ‘independent’ existence of…
Hetero‐Love in Patriarchy
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
För ett brett fält av feministiska kärleksstudier
Nature, Love and the Limits of Male Power 1
It has long been taboo for feminist theorists to draw on notions of nature in their conceptualizations of gender relations. Objecting to this nature-phobia, I argue that we need to anchor our social theories in explicit notions of the natural necessities on which any social structure draws and must ultimately accommodate. Such a reference to a ‘natural ontological order’ is needed not only for explaining how power structures can get a hold over p…
Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’
Disputes about how to understand intersectional relations often pivot around the tension between separateness and inseparability, where some scholars emphasize the need to separate between different intersectional categories while others claim they are inseparable. In this article the author takes issue with the either/or thinking that underpins an unnecessary and unproductive polarization in the debate over the in/separability of intersectional …
The Contradictions of Love
The Contradictions of Love: Towards a feminist-realist ontology of sociosexuality offers a robust and multifaceted theoretical account of how, in contemporary western societies, women continue to be subordinated to men through sexual love. The book defends and elaborates Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s thesis that men tend to exploit women of their ‘love power’, by means of an innovative application of critical realism, dialectical critical realism and the…
The naturalistic turn in feminist theory
After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism's enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz's postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature's dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qual…
Love - Exploitable Resource or ‘No-Lose Situation’
In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflicting theorizations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of his philosophy of metaReality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir's historical materialist-radical feminist theory of ‘love power’. While Bhaskar emphasizes the essentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’, Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relations by conceptual…
Excuse Me, But Are You Raping Me Now?” Discourse and Experience in (the Grey Areas of) Sexual Violence
In feminist research on sexual violence and victimization, the relationship between discourse and experience has often been at the forefront of intense debates. Poststructuralist scholars have emphasized that the discourses used to name sexual violence may in fact perpetuate the very problem they set out to describe, by freezing women into powerless positions of rapability. Others have likened this sort of argument to anti-feminist trivialization…
Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’
Disputes about how to understand intersectional relations often pivot around the tension between separateness and inseparability, where some scholars emphasize the need to separate between different intersectional categories while others claim they are inseparable. In this article the author takes issue with the either/or thinking that underpins an unnecessary and unproductive polarization in the debate over the in/separability of intersectional …
Chemistry or Service? Sugar Daddies’ (Re)quest for Mutuality within the Confines of Commercial Exchange
With the emergence and global proliferation of “sugar dating” websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is gaining increased attention. Sugar dating is described by these websites as arrangements based on an exchange of financial or other forms of support for intimacy and companionship. The framing of sugar dating as something in between a business transaction and mutually enjoyable dating serves as the point of departure of this article, which dr…
The naturalistic turn in feminist theory
After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism's enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz's postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature's dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qual…
Varieties of Sugar Dating in Sweden
With the emergence and global proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is increasingly on the public agenda. Sugar dating is described by these sites as dating arrangements based on an exchange of intimacy and companionship for financial or other forms of support. Given that sex is often part of the arrangements, claims are widespread, yet disputed, that sugar dating is a form of prostitution. Based on interviews a…
A defence of the category 'women
Against influential strands of feminist theory, I argue that there is nothing essentialist or homogenising about the category 'women'. I show that both intersectional claims that it is impossible to separate out the 'woman part' of women, and deconstructionist contentions that the category 'women' is a fiction, rest on untenable meta-theoretical assumptions. I posit that a more fruitful way of approaching this disputed category is to treat it as …
The different facets of 'experiential knowledge' in Swedish women's claims about systemic side effects of the copper intrauterine device
Experiential knowledge' has been identified as a key epistemic resource used by lay people to contest medical authorities and build new knowledge related to health. The Internet has created unprecedented opportunities for such experience-based epistemic projects. This article contributes to understandings of the as yet under-theorised concept of experiential knowledge by analysing accounts of a group of Swedish women who claim that their use of c…
Critical Realism, Feminism, and Gender
In assessing the current state of feminism and gender studies, whether on a theoretical or a practical level, it has become increasingly challenging to avoid the conclusion that these fields are in a state of disarray. Indeed, feminist and gender studies discussions are beset with persistent splits and disagreements. This reader suggests that returning to, and placing centre-stage, the role of philosophy, especially critical realist philosophy of…
Who knows? On the epistemic status of experience in sugar-dating research
Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practic…
The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating
The proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a 'sugar baby' and a 'sugar daddy,' raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a 'marketization' of intimacy. Ba…
Hetero‐Love in Patriarchy
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Love - Exploitable Resource or ‘No-Lose Situation’
In this article I attempt to reconcile two seemingly conflicting theorizations of love, the one elaborated by Roy Bhaskar as part of his philosophy of metaReality and Anna G. Jónasdóttir's historical materialist-radical feminist theory of ‘love power’. While Bhaskar emphasizes the essentially non-dual character of love, envisioning it as a ‘no-lose situation’, Jónasdóttir stresses the antagonistic features structuring love relations by conceptual…
A defence of the category 'women
Against influential strands of feminist theory, I argue that there is nothing essentialist or homogenising about the category 'women'. I show that both intersectional claims that it is impossible to separate out the 'woman part' of women, and deconstructionist contentions that the category 'women' is a fiction, rest on untenable meta-theoretical assumptions. I posit that a more fruitful way of approaching this disputed category is to treat it as …
The naturalistic turn in feminist theory
After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism's enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz's postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature's dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qual…
The Contradictions of Love
The Contradictions of Love: Towards a feminist-realist ontology of sociosexuality offers a robust and multifaceted theoretical account of how, in contemporary western societies, women continue to be subordinated to men through sexual love. The book defends and elaborates Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s thesis that men tend to exploit women of their ‘love power’, by means of an innovative application of critical realism, dialectical critical realism and the…
Nature, Love and the Limits of Male Power 1
It has long been taboo for feminist theorists to draw on notions of nature in their conceptualizations of gender relations. Objecting to this nature-phobia, I argue that we need to anchor our social theories in explicit notions of the natural necessities on which any social structure draws and must ultimately accommodate. Such a reference to a ‘natural ontological order’ is needed not only for explaining how power structures can get a hold over p…
Why we keep separating the ‘inseparable’
Disputes about how to understand intersectional relations often pivot around the tension between separateness and inseparability, where some scholars emphasize the need to separate between different intersectional categories while others claim they are inseparable. In this article the author takes issue with the either/or thinking that underpins an unnecessary and unproductive polarization in the debate over the in/separability of intersectional …
Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism
An increasing number of scholars have become familiar with critical realism, finding it a robust alternative to the poststructuralist perspectives that currently dominate gender studies and feminis
The Dominant and its Constitutive Other
In this article I explore love's relation to gendered power asymmetries by comparing Anna Jónasdóttir's, Jessica Benjamin's and Teresa Brennan's respective theorizations of this theme. Despite the considerable differences between these feminist frameworks, they can all be read in terms of what I call the figure of the Dominant and its Constitutive Other. This refers to the contradictory relation whereby the powerful and ‘independent’ existence of…
Hetero‐Love in Patriarchy
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
För ett brett fält av feministiska kärleksstudier
Feminism and the Power of Love
Although love in some form is arguably as old as humankind, many scholars judge that it has never been as socially and existentially decisive as it is in contemporary western societies (Bauman 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Ferry 2013; Giddens 1992; Gunnarsson 2014a; Illouz 2012; Jónasdóttir 1994, 2011; Kaufmann 2011; Luhmann 1998; May 2011). The loosening of collective and role-based modes of recognition and existential security has meant t…
Excuse Me, But Are You Raping Me Now?” Discourse and Experience in (the Grey Areas of) Sexual Violence
In feminist research on sexual violence and victimization, the relationship between discourse and experience has often been at the forefront of intense debates. Poststructuralist scholars have emphasized that the discourses used to name sexual violence may in fact perpetuate the very problem they set out to describe, by freezing women into powerless positions of rapability. Others have likened this sort of argument to anti-feminist trivialization…
Feminism and the Power of Love
Although love in some form is arguably as old as humankind, many scholars judge that it has never been as socially and existentially decisive as it is in contemporary western societies (Bauman 2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Ferry 2013; Giddens 1992; Gunnarsson 2014a; Illouz 2012; Jonasdottir 1994, 2011; Kaufmann 2011; Luhmann 1998; May 2011). The loosening of collective and role-based modes of recognition and existential security has meant t…
Critical Realism, Feminism, and Gender
In assessing the current state of feminism and gender studies, whether on a theoretical or a practical level, it has become increasingly challenging to avoid the conclusion that these fields are in a state of disarray. Indeed, feminist and gender studies discussions are beset with persistent splits and disagreements. This reader suggests that returning to, and placing centre-stage, the role of philosophy, especially critical realist philosophy of…
Chemistry or Service? Sugar Daddies’ (Re)quest for Mutuality within the Confines of Commercial Exchange
With the emergence and global proliferation of “sugar dating” websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is gaining increased attention. Sugar dating is described by these websites as arrangements based on an exchange of financial or other forms of support for intimacy and companionship. The framing of sugar dating as something in between a business transaction and mutually enjoyable dating serves as the point of departure of this article, which dr…
Attitudes Toward HPV Vaccination in Sweden
Background While HPV vaccination uptake in Sweden is quite high, at around 80%, vaccine hesitancy remains an issue in countries throughout Europe. The latter can be related to a contemporary context of increased contestation of expert knowledge and of a large share of information on health-related issues including vaccination today being sought via the internet. Still, there is a paucity of recent research on attitudes toward the HPV vaccine in a…
Jag är inte prostituerad, jag lever normalt”
Sugardejting är ett till stora delar nytt och växande fenomen inom sex- och intimitetsindustrin som kretsar kring för ändamålet nischade webbsidor. Fenomenet överlappar i betydande grad med prostitution men marknadsförs som något annat. Utifrån intervjuer med femton ”sugarbabes” och nio ”sugardaddys” med erfarenhet av heterosexuell sugardejting undersöker vi i artikeln vilka strategier sugardejtare använder för att avgränsa sina erfarenheter från…
On the verge between the scientific and the alternative
The article intervenes in discussions on lay knowledge production about health in the Internet era, through the case of a group of women claiming that their use of copper intrauterine devices has led to systemic side effects. Based on online group interviews and written essays, we examine how women embracing these knowledge claims navigate various sources of information, focusing on the role of scientificity in these epistemic negotiations. The w…
Love Power in the Rear-View Mirror
Jónasdóttir’s home in Örebro, Sweden. Alessandro Johansson transcribed the audio recorded interview and Gunnarsson translated and edited the transcription in dialogue with Jónasdóttir.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Translated from Swedish by Gunnarsson.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAnna G. JónasdóttirAnna G. Jónasdóttir is professor emerita in Gender Studies at Örebro Unive…
The different facets of 'experiential knowledge' in Swedish women's claims about systemic side effects of the copper intrauterine device
Experiential knowledge' has been identified as a key epistemic resource used by lay people to contest medical authorities and build new knowledge related to health. The Internet has created unprecedented opportunities for such experience-based epistemic projects. This article contributes to understandings of the as yet under-theorised concept of experiential knowledge by analysing accounts of a group of Swedish women who claim that their use of c…
Varieties of Sugar Dating in Sweden
With the emergence and global proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is increasingly on the public agenda. Sugar dating is described by these sites as dating arrangements based on an exchange of intimacy and companionship for financial or other forms of support. Given that sex is often part of the arrangements, claims are widespread, yet disputed, that sugar dating is a form of prostitution. Based on interviews a…
Assessing the validity of counter-authority knowledge
The internet has given rise to an informational landscape that challenges epistemological hierarchies between experts and lay people. Tensions regarding how to address the growing flora of counter-authority claims are pertinent in the context of health, where warnings about misinformation co-exist with notions of patient empowerment. This context accentuates the importance of revitalizing conceptualizations of how to assess the validity of knowle…
Who knows? On the epistemic status of experience in sugar-dating research
Sugar dating has gained extensive media coverage over the last couple of years, often being depicted as a veiled form of prostitution / sex work. While similar dating arrangements encompassing some sort of economic compensation are well researched in an African and Asian context, sugar dating has only garnered attention from researchers in the Global North during the last decade, in the wake of a proliferation of websites facilitating the practic…
Gender knowledge production and epistemology in the incelosphere
There is a growing field of research dedicated to online incel communities, gathering men identifying as involuntary celibates or ‘incels’. A distinctive aspect of the incelosphere is the elaborate ‘theoretical framework’ communicated in the forums, portraying incel men as voiceless losers at a (hetero)sexual market ruled by women and biologically superior men. While the content of this incel worldview is relatively well-studied, a notable gap ex…
The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating
The proliferation of 'sugar dating' websites, facilitating transactional relationships between a 'sugar baby' and a 'sugar daddy,' raises new questions about the reconfigured relationship between intimacy and economy in the contemporary Global North. By encouraging people to approach sex and intimacy through a logic of exchange, sugar dating has been claimed to represent the culmination of a broader trend towards a 'marketization' of intimacy. Ba…
Sociology (20 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Feminism (5 works) · Gender Politics and Representation (5 works)