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Professional and lay judges are not supposed to be influenced by personal values or political opinions. Despite this, the language of judgments reflects stereotypical ideas about gender and sexuality. This language means that women who have experienced sexual violence are often blamed for the assault. This is shown in a new thesis in Scandinavian languages from Uppsala University.

Sexual offense cases often come down to one person's word against another's. According to the Swedish Supreme Court, one of the main tasks in such cases is to assess the credibility of the parties and the reliability of their accounts, especially the victim's account. The assessment includes evaluating the level of detail in the account, and supplementary testimony about the victim's emotional reactions can increase credibility.

In addition, the assessment must be objective and factual, but researcher Sofia Orrbén shows in her thesis that the language used by the courts testifies to a belief in myths about rape in Swedish district courts.

"Rape myths are preconceived notions of assault based on stereotypes about gender and sexuality and about victims and perpetrators. Some examples of common rape myths are that women want to have sex even if they say no, that men don't understand when women say no, or that women lie about being assaulted," says Orrbén, doctor of Scandinavian languages at Uppsala University.

She has analyzed 86 randomly selected judgments from Swedish district courts during the five-year period 2016–2021, i.e. both before and after the introduction of the Consent Act. All the victims were female and all the suspects were male. By examining how pronouns and words for specific body parts, actions and feelings are used, she shows what conceptions and ideas about victims, perpetrators and sexual violence exist in Swedish courts.

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