När ska du ha barn?

Skeva livslinjer i svenska feministiska serieböcker

Abstract

Swedish comics and graphic novels have developed over the last decade with clearly feminist and socially critical themes. This article considers contemporary feminist comics through research on “lifelines,” the order in which a life should be lived to be considered intelligible. Focusing on comics by Karolina Bång, Liv Strömquist, Mats Jonsson, Sofia Olsson, Sara Elgeholm, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom and Linda Spåman, we examine the way in which these works problematize the life choices of the characters and the passage into adulthood, with or without children. In these comics, the child becomes an ambivalent symbol for the meaning of life lived according to what Sara Ahmed refers to as the “straight line” of heteronormativity. Representations of reproduction, or lack thereof, are thus a central part of the discussion of intelligible adulthood taking place in contemporary feminist comics.