Transgressive Muslim (Women and) Men: Gender, Ethnicity and Religion in the 'Yasri Khan Debate' in Swedish Newspapers

Appointments and nominations of Muslim men to influential positions as ministers of government or members of party executives is a recent phenomenon in Swedish politics. However, when the unwillingness of Yasri Khan to shake hands with women gained publicity, he became extremely short lived on the nomination list to the party executive of the Green Party, part of the Government coalition in Sweden since 2014. The Yasri Khan scandal and the debate around it took place in the spring of 2016, thereby comprising various ideas about gender, ethnicity and religion. The aim of this paper is to study the constructions of gender, ethnicity and religion in the debates in Swedish media in which Khan was constructed as a transgressive Muslim man. What gender ideals were articulated? How did hegemonic gender norms manifest themselves in the debate and how was it challenged by alternative gender conceptions? Methodologically, discourse analysis is performed. The discourse analysis is based on articles in Swedish print media, i.e. Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen and Aftonbladet. The study should be seen against the background that of one of the most important issues for gender/feminist research is the relationship between Islam and gender equality, an issue that has become more acute after the Yasri Khan scandal in Sweden.