The aim of this thesis is to, from a feminist point of view, analyse the Universal Decimal Classification UDC, which is an international and widely used classification system. A number of the larger classification systems and subject heading lists have during the last decades been placed in the limelight of various gender studies and the systems treatment of women has been criticized. With this examination of the UDC, I dont merely wish to identify shortcomings and advantages with the UDCs way to treat men and women. The UDC is also used as an example of how the gender problem can be identified and interpretated in classification systems generally. My analysis is performed with a theoretical foundation in feminist science theories about knowledge and norms, together with a linguistic perspective on valuing and emotionally tinged language.

This field study examines how politically active radical feminists have reached their position in a group called Sällskapet. The aim of the study is to examine different paths, with the purpose to gain understanding of how to become a politically active radical feminist. Also, processes of social recognition on the field are examined; what is recognized and what taste preferences and behaviors gain a lower value? The different paths to the feminist position have been examined through a qualitative method consisting of a mixture of interviews and participant observations. The question if the position in Sällskapet requires specific experiences has been analyzed through Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical framework, with a particular emphasis on the concept of habitus, symbolic- and cultural capital.

Sweden is seen as one of the world?s most feminist societies. In January 2009 all grounds of discrimination were merged into a common law; Diskrimineringslagen. This paper examines representations of gender discrimination, linked to feminist perspectives, in the Parliamentary debate on Sweden?s new discrimination legislation through a discourse analysis.

Sweden has an active and growing culture of feminist comic book artists that use comedy as a mean of disseminating political ideas and critic. In this essay I do a reparative reading of Sara Granér?s comic book All I Want for Christmas is planekonomi in order to find out if it advocates alternative orders and/or ways of expression. By exploring what the comic book does to me as a reader and how, using the term ?skev? ? a hybrid of queer that examines normativity not strictly tied to sexuality ? and gulesque theory ? a mix of feminism, cuteness, the grotesque and riot grrrl ?, I show that the comic book, through the use of comedy, works as a trojan My Little Pony, reclaiming the girly franchise, while challenging several so-called dichotomies, such as: femininity/masculinity; youth/adult; high art/kitsch.

This thesis explores the validity of feminist poststructuralist theory in relation to gender and culture. Within the theoretical frame¬work of Judith Butler, combined with insights from the field of post-colonial theory, different perspectives of the dilemma of universalism are discussed. Primary sources for the study are policy documents from the Swedish government, literary texts and newspaper articles. The results show a number of paradoxes which need to be continually and critically kept unsolved. This does not mean an end to feminist engagement in other contexts than one's own but rather the need for theoretical awareness and self reflection.

The purpose of this essay is to study how feminists portray themselves and their opinions about gender issues and other political matters in popular feminist blogs. The blogs that are studied are Lady Dahmer, Fanny Åström, Hanapee and Genusfolket. The overall essay questions are: How does the feminist bloggers present themselves? Which subjects are discussed in the feminist blogs? Which rhetorical devices does the feminist bloggers use? The theories that are used to answer the essay questions are the four spheres where there are inequality between the sexes, theories about third wave feminism, the rhetorical concepts ethos, logos and pathos and the SPADER-model for writing good argumentation. A descriptive method is used to study how the bloggers present themselves, a quantitative content analysis is used to count which subjects the bloggers write about and a qualitative rhetorical text analysis is used to study the rhetorical devices the bloggers use.The result shows that the two bloggers Lady Dahmer and Fanny Åström describe themselves with provocative words while the other blogs have more neutral descriptions.

This essay is a discourse and a feminist theoretical analysis that focuses on the alternative discourse that we consider Feminist Initiative to be constitutive of. Our theoretical stance, with base in Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory, builds on the notion that reality is characterised by conflicts between different competing discursive formations and that the social is an endless struggle over the preferential right of interpretation of meaning. More specifically, the essay focuses on the discursive struggle over the meaning of the term politics. It is our understanding that the dominant perception of politics necessarily excludes other understandings, which can according to Eduards, be explained as a consequence of a patriarchal distribution of power that renders the subordination of certain understandings of politics accordingly. Feminist Initiative, as an alternative discourse, can therefore be perceived as a threat to the dominating discourse of politics, which in order to maintain its preferential right of interpretation seek to illegitimatise and depoliticise the politics that the alternative discourse represents.

The purpose of this study is to interogate the tension-laden relationsship between men (of the dominant classes and ethnicities) and feminism. Closely linked to this lies the question of how valid and relevant official Swedish goals of gender equality can be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The essay is mainly an in-depth qualitative study concerned about questions such as; how does feminist researcher in Sweden perceive the question of men in/doing feminism and what are the implications of these perceptions for the Swedish goals of gender equality? Thus, in this study I´ve interviewed six feminist researchers, five women and one male, about their view of men doing/in/and feminism and about the adequacy of equality goals to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.The main questions I posed in this essay was prompted by the Swedish political scientist Bo Rothstein accusation of two feminist Swedish researchers, Yvonne Hirdman and Maud Eduards, of deliberately harassing men interested in feminist theory and striving to create women-only spaces at the different Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research around Sweden. This would according to Rothstein violate the Swedish goals of gender equality where equal representation is essential.However, the empirical material shows a benign attitude towards men doing feminism and the interviewed all stressed the importance of diversity among feminist scholars and students.As for the Swedish goals of gender equality, the interviewed expressed diverse and contradicatatory answers concerning how valid those goals should be to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden.Contrasting the empirical material, my own argument in this essay circles around a critique of the validity of the Swedish goals of gender equality to the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden. Seeing men as a group with groupbased experiences, perspectives and interest puts the female dominance at the Centres for Women´s Studies and Gender Research in Sweden in another light, making the absence of men not a question of harassment but a question of male privilege to stay ignorant and indifferent of gender relations..

Every now and then new political ideas appear which creates debate. A current example of political debate is the one which concerns the creation of a feminist political party in Sweden -Feministiskt initiativ. Apparent in the current debate is that there are two existing conflicts of ideas present. The liberal thought of politics of ideas stands against feminism's demand for presence in the political life. And the other, the conflict which concerns the question of where a line between the public and the private spheres should be drawn.

This study is about the artist Monica Sjoo?s (1938-2005) painting God giving birth (1968) that was accused of being blasphemous and obscene in the early 1970s. God giving birth could have had much in common with Niki de Saint-Phalle?s She ? a cathedral (1966), both works suggesting a mother goddess image. The main difference however can be found in the fact that Monica Sjoo?s painting had connection to the women?s movement in the 1970s.

The purpose of this essay is to identify how violence against women is understood in the government's policy action plan called Handlingsplan för att bekämpa mäns våld mot kvinnor, hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck samt våld i samkönade relationer. The main issue that the study is based on, is whether there is a feminist gendered understanding that permeates the action plan. To examine this, I have formulated two more specific questions:     - What is considered to be the main problem of men's violence against women?     - What is considered to be the reasons for men's violence against women?    The empirical material of the study consists of the government's action plan. With the help of Carol Bacchis discourse analytical approach "What's the problem approach", important patterns in the material have been detected.

AbstractThis literal review intended to assess and shed light upon if west-centric feminism justifiesthe neoliberal globalization that reproduces the reproduction of inequality in the world.The result indicated that sex is not sufficient to categorize a universal group of women andthat other aspects of social structures such as class, caste, ethnicity, race, religion and ageshould be included in transnational feminism, and that this discourse needs to becharacterized by contextual understanding of culture and power. Neoliberalism has createdspace for personal freedom and choice, but all do not possess the same conditions to utilisetools to attain positive progress in regard to these choices. Furthermore, this study hasrevealed that feminism is subordinate to the globalization of neoliberalism and that thepost-feminist trend could be perceived as being discrepant with a progressive transnationalfeminist movement..

This study aims to examine play as a phenomena from a phenomenological approach. This I do by discussing a dominant approach to play, an perspective which is reproduced in the context of pre-school and in where the play and learning is in single focus. Using alternative perspective on play, mainly by Gadamer and Bakthtins philosophical thoughts about the feast or the carnival, contents differ significantly from educational or developmental psychology perspectives. I open up for an understanding of what play as ontology can be understood as, and thereby enable second readings. I illustrate this thought by an empirical example from a pre-school context which where created alongside with the children in the study.

In this paper I study the Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann?s novel Malina (1971) from the perspective of Gérard Genette?s narrative theory and his notions of tense, mood and voice. In dialogue with earlier research on Malina I reflect over the last scene in the novel, what really happens there and how it matters for the rest of the novel. I give an account of feminist theories with focus on the annihilation of the female voice, the memory as theatre and the folklore tale as flight. The result is a more distinct perception of Bachmann?s skill, closeness and awareness as a writer and her use of Malina as contribution to the feminist debate and as a tool to find a place in the patriarchal world of intellectual, postwar Vienna. .

In the late 1900s the Islamic feminist movement arose in a time of an Islamic renaissance in the Arab world. Even though it started as an Arabic movement it quickly spread to the international arena and became global. Today there are Islamic feminists all over the globe and this study is a discourse analysis with a focus on the Islamic feminist movement of today. The aim of the study is to investigate what the members of the movement have in common and on what viewpoints their opinions differ. The material used for the study is Internet blogs written by Islamic feminists and the timeframe of the blog posts stretches from the start of the Arab Spring until today.