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.

This thesis has the purpose that through a text analysis examine how four schoolbooks for high school treats the religions Judaism and Hinduism. The schoolbooks are from the years 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009. The perspectives are from a religious viewing point, that means that the women are religious, Jewish Feminists and Hindu Feminists. The theories used are written by these women and are academic litterature.  The questions are how are women represented in the schoolbooks, is the Feminist critique present or are the two religions represented and described in an invariable way, and is the description of Judaism and Hinduism consistent with the curriculum?The text analysis used in this examination means that reality is organized through and by the language used by the actors in that reality.

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 thesis focuses on politically active women within The Swedish Social Democratic Women?s Association, also known as S-women. By applying discourse analysis to interviews with active s-women and to meeting conversations between the association?s members, the study approaches ideas of feminism, Feminist politics and political commitment. ?Solidarity? ? the central concept of the labour movement ? serves as the point of departure for a Feminist discussion about class, gender, ethnicity and age/generation.

Similar to work of the Feminist movement in the seventies, you nowadays can see an increased level of textile art expressions with Feminist standpoints. In this thesis I compare two textile artists from each time period. These are Maria Adlercreutz with her composition I hennes ögon bevaras folkets ljus from 1972, and Lisa Anne Auerbach?s exhibition Chicken Strikken from 2012. The aim is to put the two artists in a contemporary context and explore their Feministic approaches in the textile field.

AbstractAt a time when the discussion of feminism is hot in the media, in the schools and in the cottages so I have been interested in how Feminist worlds order might look like and what are the roads there. There are plenty of barriers in the community, some of them you easily could influence.This essay problematize and define the problems behind the difficulties of reaching a Feminist world order, but also the factors that are important to achieve this world order. How colonization that began several hundred years ago spread and secured the patriarchal society and its influence all the way to the society of today. But even more immediate factors, on how we ourselves are involved in shaping our society in terms of where we live, how we educate ourselves, and what jobs we choose. Status symbols in society as economics, profession and political influence are all to be reckoned with when it comes to influencing society.

This study is based on the notion of "the postsecular society". I have identified both similar and dissimilar values within current and official publications regarding human rights and gender equality authored by the Swedish Feminist Party and the Church of Sweden. The aim of this study is to identify and review similarities and differences in values, as expressed in definitions and standpoints, and also to try to explain how it is that the actors have similar and dissimilar values. In this context I have chosen the sociologist Jürgen Habermas's theory about "the postsecular society" to increase the understanding how and why similar values within religious and secular actors are presented in, what Habermas calls, "the postsecular society". I have used a qualitative and comparative content analysis for this study. The result shows that the Swedish Feminist Party has a more humanistic view.