The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.

One area of responsibility for a nurse is to alleviate suffering. Gender research has shown that there are differences between men and women. The aim of this literary study has been to elucidate men and women’s experience and expression of pain and to examine to what extent sex and gender influence which treatment the patient receive. The study is based on 21 scientific articles from the databases PubMed and Cinahl. The result shows that women experience and express more pain than men, postoperative and experimental. It is however not possible to draw any general conclusions in terms of the need for men and women to be treated in different ways.

Vår studie, som omfattar sex intervjuer, fokuserar på genusmedvetenhet hos vägledare. På vilket sätt de arbetar med genus i mötet med elever för att vidga perspektiv och på vilket sätt de kan tänka sig att arbeta med att skapa en genusmedvetenhet hos elever i år 4-6. Vårt resultat visar att genusmedvetenhet är ett svårt begrepp som har olika betydelse för vägledarna. Vägledarna menar att de inte arbetar på ett planerat genusmedvetet arbetssätt idag men vi ser att de omedvetet arbetar med genusperspektivet genom olika aktiviteter. I arbetet med elever i år 4-6, vill vägledarna bidra på olika sätt med att vidga elevernas perspektiv gällande självuppfattning, yrken och arbetsmarknad.

The purpose of this thesis was to study descriptions of companies on their webpages on the Internet. This was performed from a socialconstructionist point of view with focus being on subject positionings and gender. A critical discourse analysis was carried out on two texts from the webpages of two organizations on the Internet. Using the three dimensional model for critical discourse analysis by Fairclough, the discourses and subject positionings that the texts included could be revealed. The purpose of this thesis was also to point out the importance of the use of language in recruiting personnel and to hopefully encourage organizations to put effort into text production to avoid discrimination.

Since Sweden can be considered to be a secular society it is interesting to investigate how different actors experience swimming education in the course syllabus of sports and health education, for practicing Muslim girls in middle and high schools. The investigation is based on qualitative interviews with sports teachers, practicing Muslim girls and the staff of the public swimming center in Växjö. The result shows that swimming education can be somewhat problematic, since the Muslim girls only want to attend lessons that are gender separated. In the public swimming center, there are no pools exclusively intended for women, and there are only a few times available for women every week. However, the teachers stress opportunities instead of obstacles, and the students? experience that their teachers are trying to create possibilities for them to have a gender separated swimming education.

The aim of this study in social work was to investigate, describe and analyze six Swedish men?s description and experiences of relationships with bargirls in Thailand, whom the men initially paid for sexual services. We also aim to find out how these men look upon prostitu-tion, masculinity and gender and we analyze these themes in relation to the men?s description of their relationships. The theoretical approach was social constructivist theories of masculini-ty in combination with gender theory.

The purpose with this essay is to study if the exhibition, Maria-Drömmen om kvinnan has a gender perspective and if it contributes to the history of art. The study shows what kind of women the exhibition illustrates and what kind of perspective it has. By telling about the black Madonna I also show that there is another representation of the middle age women in the Roman Catholic Church at this time that the exhibition not have included. The study is also going to illustrate the difference between a genderperspektiv in art and a women?s perspective.

The following study was undertaken in the spring of 2005 in Helsingborg, Sweden.It presents a study of the experience and values six young couples have related to parenting and gender equality. Twelwe people, six women and six men, were interviewed about the above mentioned topics related to their new found role as parents. How did these women and men choose to assign or elaborate their role as parents in terms of household chores and parental leave? Did they consider their parenthood to be equal or did they feel that their role as parents had already been assigned based on their gender? What were the decisive factors, if any, that determined their parenting roles?Although this study is relatively limited, the results are compatible with other published studies and indicate that young parents of today, without consideration to their gender, have a traditional view on parenting. The study also indicates that the attitudes seem to be established by traditional values, norms as well as sexualgender.

This research aim was to examine the relationship between the choice of lunch dish, level of education, gender and age of the participants. The understanding of diet and it´s influence on health was also of interest to the research, as was cooking interest and travel habits. The goal was to demonstrate how these factors affect the adult individuals in their choice of lunch. A questionnaire was filled in by 99 guests in a chosen restaurant. The results show that many of these factors influence the choice of dish, especially those related to gender.

Income support is granted to those who are not by themselves or in any other way able toachieve a decent standard of living. Assessment of entitlement to income support is based onan individual evaluation and equal treatment (Kjellbom, 2009). Administrators of economicaid should therefore not judge clients differently depending on, for example, gender. The aimof this study was to commence from a gender perspective in understanding howadministrators of economic aid think of equality and inequality between the sexes whenheterosexual couples apply for income support. Based on this objective we arrived at twomain formulations of questions; how administrators of economic aid deliberate aroundequality and inequality between sexes in connection to applications for financial support, aswell as which variables in organisations sustain or discourage inequalities between genders inaid management.

During the autumn of 2007 I carried out an investigation within the bank and finance Sector. The aim of the investigation was to see how informal aspects could be understood in relation to equality within Bank AB? The main question was: Which are the obstacles and opportunities for equality within Bank AB? To answer the main question I asked the following questions to the material: Are there any gender related different within the organization? How are men and women represented within the internal magazine? Which are the conceptions related to sex/gender within the organization? The investigation is based on a survey, the internal magazine was investigated and finally interviews took place. Throughout the investigation I used organization theory in a gender perspective. With the gender organization theory I examined concepts as structures, leadership, symbolism and changes associated with equality.

The purpose of this study was to examine how girls and boys are described by social workersin psycho-social assessments in child and adolescent psychiatry. The questions at issue wereif girls and boys are described in different ways and if gender related patterns could be found.The study was both qualitative and quantitative. I used textual analysis as a method anddiscourse analysis as theory.Results: Sexes were generally described differently. Girls are depicted from how they are andhow they look and boys are described by what they do and their behaviour. The mother isdescribed as the person who is most responsible for children of both sexes.

This study shows how social workers reason about the concepts of gender, gender roles and equality and if these arguments reinforce heteronormativity that could affect the ability of same-sex couples to adopt children. The reasoning regarding equality indicates a difference between heterosexual couples and same-sex couples. What emerges in the study is that the social workers reasoning can be explained with that they have been imbued by heteronormativity. Heteronormativity becomes a contributing part of how same-sex couples are seen in the adoption process. Arguments for equality, which erase stereotypes, do not apply in the same way for same-sex couples as for heterosexual couples.

This qualitative study aims to highlight if there are any gender difference in social workers reasoning about a particular case. To achieve a deeper understanding we had to explain and understand our respondent?s answers, primarily from a gender perspective, but also from a power perspective. Our questions were: how does social worker reasoning about a particular case? How can we understand the social workers answer from a gender- and power perspective? The method consisted of a construct case and of semi-structured interviews.

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.