This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory.

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. .

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.

AbstractThis composition is an analysis of the British writer Jeanette Winterson's novel Sexing the Cherry. My interpretation originates from the tradition of feminist literary criticism and my purpose is to read the novel against the queer theorist Judith Butler to reach an understanding of the characters queer selves.Judith Butler's theory of performative gender and her notion of sex as something derived from cultural manifestations might help me to understand the characters in the novel. For they are ambiguous in their gender identity, and the novel in it self is set forth to expand all boundaries.Keyword: Sexing the cherry, Jeanette Winterson, queer, queer-theory, queer writing, JudithButler, Feminist theory.SammanfattningDen här uppsatsen är en undersökning av Jeanette Wintersons roman Skapelsens kön. Genom att läsa romanen mot queerteoretikern Judith Butler hoppas jag kunna bilda en förståelse för romankaraktärernas queera identiter. Butlers teori om genus som performativt görande och hennes resonemang kring könet som härlett från kulturella manifestationer kan hjälpa mig med detta.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how gender in Islam and Hinduism are described in textbooks for high school. The study was conducted using a qualitative content analysis and also using a feminist gender theory and postcolonial Feminist theory. All textbooks are written or revised after 2011 when The Swedish National Agency for Educations? new curriculum came into force. Previous research in this area shows that it is most common that gender is treated in isolated parts within the chapters, but that there are textbooks that allows the gender perspective permeate the entire text.

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal Feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

This essay examines whether Feminist theory can give a plausible answer to the question: does female and male students have different attitudes towards the labour market and towards wages? Further more, I examine if factors such as class and ethnicity affect student's attitudes. These questions are investigated through a quantitative study of students at four educations on two different universities in Sweden. Two of the educations have a high degree of female students, and the other two represent educations with at high degree of male students.The main conclusion is based on the quantitative research results. Female and male student's attitudes are similar in some cases.

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..

The main purpose of this study is to explore and develop how the Christian conception of love as agape can be understood in light of feminist concerns, and how it can be cultivated in light of psychological research. Traditionally, agape has been defined as unconditional self-sacrifice for the sake of the other. Feminist theologians have highlighted repeatedly that an ethical principle of self-sacrifice might not be liberating for groups who have already internalized pressure to sacrifice their own needs for others. The main research questions are: 1) How may agape be understood in light of feminist concerns about its traditional interpretations? 2) How could a Christian community cultivate a form of agape that is responsive to feminist concerns? In order to answer these questions, the first part of the dissertation examines feminist concerns regarding discussion of agape, and then uses these concerns as a lens for analysing four themes in contemporary accounts of agape: community, care, humility, and mentalization.

The main focus of this master?s thesis concerns the relation between subject representation, power and gender. Classification systems and subject heading lists are products of their cultural and social context and some subjects and disciplines are given a greater value than others. Our aim in this thesis is twofold; to discuss and critically analyse the prevailing gender norms that are expressed trough classification systems and subject heading lists and to examine how they manage to represent gender studies as a multidisciplinary subject in theory as well as in practice. We are also discussing the particular problems with the representation of multidisciplinary subjects in general.

The aim of this paper is to examine how gender and religion is described and portrayed in relation to one another in Swedish textbooks. The research questions used in order to reach the aim of the study is what interpretation of gender and feminism is represented in the textbooks and is the gender perspective consistent regarding all religions described in the textbooks, or does it vary depending on which religion that is described?This study is based on four Swedish textbooks used when teaching religion in Swedish upper secondary school. The books chosen are published after the most recent curriculum for the upper secondary school, published in 2011. The curriculum gave new directions stating that questions of gender in relation to religion should be a part of the education.

This paper focuses on the subject of Simone de Beauvoir and how she creates her view of motherhood. With help from Toril Moi?s method ? which she calls personal genealogy ? as a standpoint I have read Beauvoir?s autobiography Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter with and against her essay about women, The Second Sex.The genealogy tries to understand the term ?making? and the idea of production or construction and the personal genealogy sees the subject ? the person ? as an extraordinarily complex effect of a whole network of different discourses or determinants. In order to be able to understand Beauvoir?s view on motherhood I have read her philosophy with and against the feminist philosopher Ulla M.

This thesis takes as its point of departure the Swedish governmental family policy and the debate on the proposed reform ?vårdnadsbidraget?. The supporters of the reform present it as something that will increase the freedom of choice for families and benefit the children, whereas the opponents warn for decreased equality and a return to the male breadwinner-model.From a constructivist perspective, language is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. By applying a feminist political theory on the debate within the Swedish national parliament 2007/2008 and conducting a discourse analysis, the aim of this paper is to analyse which concepts are used and how they construct to what makes a family within the political debate ? is there any difference or similarity between the view of the opponents and the supporters of ?vårdnadsbidraget??The main conclusion of this paper is that even though the political ideal and rhetorical concepts differ between the supporters and the opponents, they still constitute the heterosexual nuclear family as an obvious norm in family politics.

The object of this essay is to discuss the relationship between the definition of the concept of gender equality and attitudes towards gender equality and their consequences for gender equality measures. The point of departure is feminist political theory and interviews about attitudes towards gender equality at a department at the University of Linköping. The conclusions of this study is that there are a wide range of definitions and attitudes, and these conceptions are not necessarily the same as those being pointed out in the official gender equality policy at the University of Linköping. In this study the opinions of measures for gender equality among the interviewed are widely spread. Some finding Swedish men and women already being equal and therefore there is no need for measures, since this would result in discrimination of men since women would gain advantages from being women.