The Woman with the Handbag

Description

The Woman with the Handbag (Swedish: Kvinnan med handväskan; also Tanten med handväskan, "The lady with the handbag") is a photograph taken in Växjö, Sweden on 13 April 1985 by photojournalist Hans Runesson. It depicts a 38-year-old woman, Danuta Danielsson, hitting a marching Neo-Nazi with a handbag.

According to scholar Samuel Merrill, the photograph became popular for three reasons: it captures what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the "decisive moment" of an action or composition, it anticipates and insinuates rather than explicitly demonstrates violence, and it depicts what seems to be a vulnerable older woman confronting a young archetypal Neo-Nazi skinhead.