This Masters thesis aims to study the reading habits of readers of romantic fiction, especially focusing on gender issues. The main areas studied are the function of reading romances compared with reading other genres, and how the readers value romantic and general literature. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with seven readers of romances, five women and two men. The theoretical background is based on reader response theory and Gender theory. Before I started interview the readers I asked them to read two romances; Sidney Sheldons - The best Laid Plans, and Rosamunde Pilchers - The End of Summer, which we later discussed during the interviews.

Beyond the binary borders of sex -A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGender theory AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT. GERGANA TOSEVA KARIN SELIN A thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012. The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transGender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transGender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions: 1. Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined? 2. In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary? 3. Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject? We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using ?fuzzy logic?(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead.

This study aims to show how teachers talk about their teaching with regards to gender in relation to literature.We have interviewed four teachers of Swedish for upper secondary school to discover how they feel about, and understand, the fact that gender is a factor in the teaching of literature and that they should present to the students literature written by both male and female authors. To analyze the interviews we use Sannersted's (1991) theory about teachers as street-level-bureaucrats ("närbyråkrater"). He states that teachers are persons who have to follow what politicians have decided but they are fairly free to choose how they do it, but to be able to follow a decision as closely as possible three qualifications have to be met. The teachers have to understand the decision, be able to follow it and want to follow it. We find that the teachers that we have interviewed are aware that they discuss gender issues with their students and they all claim that they present a variation of authors to their students.

Analysis of the piece Pygmalion in set at the Gothenburg City Theatrefrom a gender perspective with the purpose to investigate which genders that arepresented and how the piece relates to the heterosexual norm. The method consists inthe analysis and discussion of how the pieces portrays females and males (with focuson feminine and masculine coded expression and presentation of desire) and whatconsequences it brings. This based on various method books of norm-breaking designwork for Aesthetic staff, and a theory based on Judith Butler's research. Primarymaterial consists in a piece analysis of Pygmalion, from a spectator's perspective.Main Results: The designing is consciously working with a set of norm-breakinggender expression, particularly female genders. The set translates socially criticalviews against patriarchal hierarchies.

The aim of this study was to describe how male social workers who work in the section for children and family in one municipality in southern Sweden, experience that their gender influences their daily work. The main focus is to understand what it means to be a man in the social services department. The first research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their contact with children and parents in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The second research question was how the male social workers experienced how their gender influenced their working place in terms of possibilities and obstacles. The third research question was how the male social workers experienced that their gender affected the work with women colleagues.

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 purpose of this study is to examine sex/gender relations amongst staff in public libraries who have taken part in projects related to information technology. This is done through e-mail surveys and telephone interviews with staff who have participated in the development of the two library websites Mina bibliotek and Biblioteket.se regarding their experiences. The theoretical basis for the analysis is two gender theoretical perspectives with reference to technology. The first perspective is represented by Yvonne Hirdman?s theory concerning the gender system, in which women and men are kept apart and in which there is always a hierarchy where men are higher up, and Hanna Westberg-Wohlgemuth?s theory concerning sex marking of job-tasks.

At the Congress of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) in 1991 a decision was made to reform LOs politics of gender. In the new resolution class and gender were established as equal causes of oppression. This was a giant leap from LOs traditional politics, where the dimension of class had always been considered more important than gender. The present thesis discusses how gender was constructed in LOs discourse after 1990 by analysing their official publications about gender politics called Klass och kön. The key terms in the analysis are continuity and change.

The national curriculum states that the school actively should promote that women and men have equal rights and opportunities and that there is a responsibility to counteract traditional gender patterns. However do research observations show that teachers often treat girls and boys differently. Studies show that the teachers are influenced by their conceptions and their expectations of gender behavior. The aim of this study is to examine how teachers in preschool and primary school discuss gender awareness and how they state that they work with gender awareness according to the curriculum goals of counteracting the traditional gender patterns.The study is inspired by the phenomenographic research approach and the empirical material has been collected by qualitative interviews with eight teachers in preschool and primary school. The empirical material has together with earlier research and theories been analyzed and discussed in order to reach a conclusion.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

The law of 2006 about Equal treatment, has been put in place to stop discrimination of students, example based on their gender. The law has an important function to increase the equality of opportunity between girls and boys in school. Therefore the teacher has an imported roll for raising the equality of opportunity between girls and boys in school. That?s why it?s imported to work gender awareness.

This paper attempts to display how five teachers of social studies use and relate to the policy documents and their instructions on gender. To penetrate the subject, five teachers were intreviewed. Each interview focused on how the curriculum attempts to guide teachers regarding gender, sex differences and equality of opportunity. The collected information was processed, analyzed and discussed using gender studies and discourse theory.The results show that the interpretation and usage of the curriculum is very subjective and varies greatly between all the interviewed teachers. Their personal interpretation proves to be crucial when it comes to making reality of the stated goals in the curriculum, concerning actively working towards equality of opportunity between sexes.

The aim of this Bachelor essay is to examine the portrayal of women and men constructed in two textbooks aimed for religious studies. The aim is also to examine how the image relates to the curriculum directives on gender equality. The theory consists of Gender theory based on work by Catharina Raudvere, Jeanette Sky and Yvonne Hirdman. Previous research on gender and textbooks has shown that male perspective often dominates and that the female perspective is insertions in the rest of the text.?Genustrappan? (gender stairs) are used as analysis method.

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 work is to examine gender rols in lifestyle magazines. In order to do this, two magazines were used and analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. In addition the authors also analyze the advertisements for each gender. Interviews in King of Sweden and Elle are also analyzed. The thesis is examined on the basis of Gender theory, and theories about stereotypes and myths.