Antiviolence as the Core Spirit of Feminism: The Centrality of Consent as an Antiviolent Symbol in Danish Feminist Mobilizations for a Consent-Based Rape Legislation

The article explores the development of feminist mobilizations for a consent-based rape legislation in Denmark and the significance of such mobilizations for contemporary fourth-wave feminism. Through an analysis of interviews with feminist activists and politicians, as well as critical frame analysis of relevant documents, we show that particularly alliance-building and norm diffusion were crucial factors in the success of the 2018–2020 campaign for a consent-based rape law. Furthermore, we highlight and discuss how the central norm in these mobilizations was expressed through an insistence on the concept of consent as not only a legal principle but also a moral minimum standard for sexual relations. Based on these empirical findings, we argue that this is expressive of antiviolence in the sense that antiviolence implies a social and political resistance to violations of subjective boundaries, thereby recognizing that any active subject is also a vulnerable subject. In this context, these findings on the centrality of antiviolence and the use of consent as an antiviolent symbol in Danish feminist mobilizations also confirm existing research on the essential role of resistance to gender-based violence in fourth-wave feminism.