Rules on parental leave have over the years been the subject of several gender debates. The big question has particularly been whether a further individualization of the days should be established. Sweden is a relatively equal country but differences still exist between men and women in the labor market, such as differences in wages. A fact that is considered encouraging for this is the uneven distribution of parental leave between men and women. It has now been nearly 40 years since the introduction of the first parental insurance but we have still not achieved gender equality in working life which was the main purpose.The main purpose of this essay is to study the motives for the proposal of individualized parental leave, and in addition examine how this change of rules could impact on gender equality in the work place.

This composition deals with questions concerning the ongoing construction of gender among personnel in different project for young girls and young boys ( ages 14): its conditions and meanings and how personnel form and mediate gender experience. The aim of this essay is to investigate how gender is made in everyday practise in three projects which address to either young girls or young boys, and to examine how the formation of gender interplays between conceptions among personnel and the practise in the projects. Central questions are: How describes the practical work and the needs of girls and boys in the project? And does the gender-segregated work justified in the projects? Qualitative methods are used to answer these questions. We made qualitative interviews among personnel from three projects, Ellen, Allan and DISA.

Abstract The purpose of the study is to examine how children perceive the relation between play and sex and analyse it from a gender perspective. This by answering the questions: "Is the children?s choice of place, materials and company in play dependent on gender?" and "Is there a significant difference between the sexes and/or ages?" The study was done through twelve focusgroup interviews with three children in each group except two groups of two children in each. Eight boys and nine girls of six years old and nine boys and eight girls of nine years old were interviewed. Boys and girls were interviewed in separate groups and the questions were open ended and followed up.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how gender patterns are described in the modern picture book. Focus is on the description of men and women and their emotions and living conditions. Do the descriptions follow stereotypes in the form of binary opposites strong/weak, active/passive etc. in which one component of the pair, often associated with masculinity, is privileged or are there examples of breach of normative gender? The analysis is based upon forty of 149 picture books that are presented in a children's book catalogue published by The Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs Statens kulturråd, in the year of 2000.

Film is a tool frequently used by teachers, but it is often limited to showing students how historical time periods looked like, or as a way for students to search for historical inaccuracies. The aim of this essay is to study whether it is possible to use two films based on the legend of Robin Hood as a way to teach students how to contextualize gender history. Through the use of film analysis and gender analysis of two different versions of Robin Hood, The adventures of Robin Hood and Robin Hood: Prince of thieves were analyzed. The study has shown that it is indeed possible to use film as a source material for the study of gender history, and that film can tell us a lot about the contemporary view of gender, masculinity and femininity. The didactical analysis concluded that there was no theoretical objection of using film as a source material; however, there are some things that a teacher should be aware of. Although film may be a good way to create a varied study environment and benefit students with reading- and writing disabilities, there is a risk that time-constraints and lack of knowledge of film and its methodology on, behalf of both teachers and students, may make it hard to implement.

Den här studien använder sig av en queerteoretisk utgångspunkt för att försöka reda ut vad som kan sägas om genuskonstruktionen i två välkända religiösa berättelser: den hinduiska Ramayana samt Ruts bok som återfinns i den hebreiska bibeln. Studien använder en hermeneutisk metod och en queerteori med teoretiska modeller av Judith Butler och Yvonne Hirdman. Det kan ses i båda berättelserna att genuset hos både manliga och kvinnliga karaktärer ändrar sig under berättelsens gång, flera gånger och i relation till varandra. Slutligen diskuteras resultaten och det visar sig att den teori som används i uppsatsen, queerteori, saknar en förståelse för det slags dynamiska genus som finns att se vid en läsning av Ruts bok och Ramayana..

When gender-related refugee claims was ratified in the Swedish asylum law the 31 of March this year (2006) it opened the door for women with this specific refugee status to receive asylum in Sweden. The aim of this thesis has been to investigate how these specific female refugees are represented and described in the asylum process. The focus has been the construction of identity concerning these women in the Officials discourse at the Immigration department. The theoretical framework has been a critical discourse analysis regarding the exercise of power and dominance connected to the construction of identity.An understanding of the women with gender-related refugee claims as the Others has been perceived through the Officials discourse. Female refugees which have been exposed to persecution that occur in our part of the world (rape, wife abuse, etc.) are treated differently and much more restrictive, compared to women exposed to so called culture specific oppression (e.g.

The aim of the study has been to examine how young men from Stockholm construct "Masculinity". This has been done by examining what men think is an ?ideal man?, what "makes a man a man", which expectations they meet as men and how the life of a man differs from the life of a woman. This has been examined through three semi-structured group interviews with the total of ten men. The results have been analysed with Raewyn Connells Theory of Masculinities, the idea of ?Doing Gender? by Candace West and Don.

Women today feel that their urban surroundings are unsafe, and because of that they use different strategies to reduce the risk of being exposed to criminal acts towards them. The focus of this study is to develop an understanding of the insecure feeling that women feel and what that feeling might originate from. By using previous research and theories we have been able to incorporate a gender perspective on the study this because the gender role is central to understand women?s feelings of insecurity. The purpose of the study was to develop a deeper understanding of women?s sense of safety and insecurity.The central questions of the study are1.

This essay focuses on crime history and gender. It is a study of female crimes in the beginning of the 19th century in a small parish (Askeryd Socken) in Småland in the south part of Sweden. The method I have used is to study the records of Municipal Court regarding the citizens of the parish of Askeryd. I have then tried to find out whether the female offenders have been treated different than the male offenders, if there is a certain kind of gender-related crimes and in those cases where comparison is possible, I have examined if the females are treated in a lighter way. (?female discount?), or if they were treated as mentally unstable.The essay shows that in this particular parish during the years 1825 to 1830, female offenders were not treated in a lighter manner.

The purpose of this essay is to examine what kind of pictures the children encounter everyday in their classroom. Furthermore, the idea was to immerse myself in how girls and boys are portrayed in these pictures from a gender perspective. Three question were set, to enable this study: What kind of pictures will second grade pupils encounter in their classroom, in a city school and in a rural school?How many girls and boys are illustrated in these pictures?How are girls and boys portrayed in these pictures?The examination was done by a field study of two classrooms, where all the pictures on the walls were documented using a digital camera. The collected material were examined, using both a quantitative analysis and a qualitative ditto.

 An analysis in the work of Martin Kellermans comic ?Rocky? of the interaction between the male and female characters and of how each of their gender are portrayed. We are going to find out if it is probable for young adults to be affected by any eventual gender-stereotypes that we can find in ?Rocky? or if ?Rocky? consolidates a stereotypical image of men and women that young adults might have developed through different media. We conduct this analys by first reading through random seleceted ?Rocky? books and present some of the comic strips where men and women interact with each other or discuss the opposite sex..

ABSTRACTTitle: Violence and women representation in video games (Vålds? och kvinnoskildringar i TV?spel)Number of pages: 42Author: Karolin BodlingTutor: Göran SvenssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies DPeriod: Autumn 2005University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The aim is to investigate how violence and women are presented in video games and in game reviews.Material/Method: The study includes theories that consider violence and gender in media and video games. The material of the essay exists of two games and five reviews. The method that is being used is a content analysis. The games that are being analysed are Jade Empire and Grand Theft Auto ? San Andreas.Main results: The video games are often connected to brutal violence but the analysis of the game Jade Empire shows that it is possible to hve control of the violence in the games and that the player has a possibility to choose the outcome of violence.

During the last decade of the twentieth century both ?manhood? and gender studies seems to have undergone changes. With the field of masculinity and the critical studies of men, added as ?subsections? of broader gender studies, new knowledge has been produced to better grasp the production of gender and power relations of patriarchy. During the same decade as the ?metrosexual? first appeared of the urban stage, acts of homophobia and attitudes towards ?manhood? seems to have changed.

The aim of this paper is to describe, visualise- and analyse media’s discursive representations of female politicians in Swedish printed media. The focus of the analysis is to show if, and how these images can be understood and interpreted in terms of a socially constructed gender stereotyped suborder. The paper takes it's theoretical and methodological departure in the discourse analysis, which is combined with feminist political theory. Feminist political theory is concretised in the use of what Yvonne Hirdman calls the "gender system" which arranges the sexes into their respective genders and is based upon two rules/principles/logics: 1) the rule of distinctive separation, and 2) the male norm. Closely related to the aim of the paper lies also the critical theoretic assumption that people has to be aware of their own part in the production and reproduction of the discourse in order to change make a change.