| dc.description.abstract | On the 7th of July 2017, the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty is different from earlier agreements due to its focus on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. Critique of the TPNW has been greatly encouraged by the nine nuclear states and the critique itself can be understood in terms of gender since a lot of the argumentation has been centred around how the advocates are delusional, emotional and naïve. With an understanding of gender as a system of symbols, and as an essential organising discourse, the aim of this thesis is to illustrate how ideas about gender shape, limit and pervade the public debate on nuclear weapons in Swedish newspapers. Through a qualitative content analysis, I study debate articles and leaders that argue against a Swedish signatory to the TPNW and look at how advocates to the convention are described by the opponents. In this way, I generate knowledge about the connection between gender and how we talk about nuclear weapons, which in turn could enable alternative approaches to disarmament more broadly. The theoretical basis of the study is a poststructuralist perspective on language, and I also draw upon theories on binary oppositions, gender, and security to analyse my material. The results of the study illustrate that the opponents accuse the advocates of being a security threat, and call them unreasonable, irresponsible, naïve and utopian. Thus, the opponents use feminine attributes to delegitimise and erode the arguments of the advocates. Also, the results indicate that ideas about gender shape the discussion since it is the arguments that focus on typically feminine values, such as the civilian and the humanitarian perspective, that are being ignored and rejected as unrealistic and emotional. | sv |
