The purpose of this study is to examine how women?s reading of the Harry Potter books can be understood on the basis of gender theory and reader-response criticism. The empirical data is gathered through qualitative interviews with six female Harry Potter readers between the age of 21 and 35, and is analyzed through several theories regarding gender and reading. The results show that the readers are critical towards many aspects of the books, especially when it comes to the stereotyped depiction of women and men. The books are said to reproduce the gender dichotomy, the gender hierarchy and the heteronormativity in society.

This thesis examines the gender boundaries in sports. I do this by exploring three cases in which these boundaries, at least on the surface, have been questioned: the transsexual tennis player Renée Richards, the east European runners Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochvilova and the Swedish golf player Annika Sörenstam. The results point out different mechanisms that contain the"danger"and restore"security". But they also point out a criticism against the struggle for equality in sports, which is based on the preserving of differences and therefore cannot challenge the ideological assumptions about gender in sports..

This essay focuses on how women and the woman emancipation are described in high school history textbooks from the years 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000, using the theories history consciousness and gender. Two textbooks are analyzed from each period. There are several gender theories, in this essay it is Yvonne Hirdman?s theory concerning woman- and gender history that is used. This means that the woman emancipation and women?s history are analyzed from the perspectives invisible, add, and-, how- and gender history.

This thesis aims to describe the differences and similarities between a male dominated sector and a female dominated sector based on gender mainstreaming documentation as well as through interviews with people working within the sectors. The sectors that were chosen in this study were the fire department and the nursing and care administration of Växjö municipality. Both of the administrations? genders mainstreaming documents were subjected to content analysis in order to describe differences and similarities between the administrations. The analysis found that there were differences in approaches between the administrations were the nursing and care administration had aims of achieving a specified amount of men working within the administration, which the fire department didn?t have.

This discursive policy study has its starting point in the criticism of the Swedish gender-equality policy is depoliticised. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Swedish gender-equality policy was problematised and designed during the 2000s. The purpose of this paper is also to investigate whether the Swedish gender-equality policy can be defined as a depoliticised policy or not. The research questions of this study are: What´s the problem of gender-equality represented to be in the specifics policies and what effects are produced of this representation? Can gender policy, as it is designed in the various policy documents, be understood as a depoliticised policy, in the sense that sex is not articulated on the basis of a conflict dimension?To find the answer of theese questions I use the method ?Whats´s the problem represented to be", which is an inductive approach where the researcher sets selected questions to its material.

Gender is a universal factor that is unavoidable in classroom interaction between pupils and teachers. The principle aim of this essay is to illustrate whether, during the interaction between pupil and teachers still occurs behavior that expresses a gender order. We also want to establish if the ones who attract attention from the teachers is the individual, or if teachers still on a subconscious or conscious level, think of the pupils gender and ascribes him or her some characteristics or qualities. Especially we want to bring out the pupils thoughts and sights of there is a difference on how teachers treat boys and girls. Another purpose we wanted to achieve was to illustrate how teachers work with the concept of equivalence between the sexes, according to Lpo94.Our essay is built on our studies around what teachers think on how they treat the pupils, on the basis of gender perspective.

Abstract"The Care of Work" is a study whose background comes from the problems surrounding work-life balance and equality that permeates social debates today. The problematic work-life-balance and gender equality are just as relevant today as they were 35 years ago. The aim of the study was to investigate whether or not men and women have a satisfactory work-life balance and if the organization they work for is doing something to make their life puzzles function. Last, but not least, the purpose is to see if gender equality is in the interest of the individual or the state.The study is based on work-life balance, gender equality and gender as the theoretical frames of reference. Eight respondents, four men and four women, from established IT companies were interviewed.

The purpose of this work was to observe fifth grade students in their creative work, how they act and how gender roles appear in the creative work. The background to this work is that I want to examine whether there is any difference in gender roles, when students are working creatively and on their compliance with, the sexes, typical similarities and differences that exist.Observational study showed that girls and boys in the class I observed, in general, has followed traditional gender patterns that exist in our society. With typical gender patterns, I mean that girls are expected to be quiet, talented and helpful and the boys are expected to speak loud and more often than the girls. The girls were, on balance, quieter and more tranquil than the boys who had difficulties to sit still and wanted to be seen and heard more widely..

The text is about behaviour and appearance of boys and girls in the classroom in a gender perspective. How are the boys and girls placed in the classroom, and does this affect them in any way? How boys and girls are called on to speak. Is the teacher fare in the allocation of speech? There are a lot of differences between the genders, boys and girls are placed in a special way.

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.

The goal in doing this study has been studying public interpretations of media content in the commercials that this study uses. The analysis was based on two TV commercials for feminine hygiene products. Initially, they seemed to differ from each other, but soon the question whether or not they in fact did convey the same underlying message was raised. The theoretical premises on which the study was founded on are the gender perspective in advertising and the social construction of gender. To reveal the hidden signs appearing in these commercials and to find out their meanings, we used the method of semiotic analysis.

AbstractIn this essay I am examining the representation of popmusic with particular focus on gender and identity in two youth magazines called Kamratposten and Julia. Using the method of Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analysis I have studied ten interviews with popmusicians from each magazine based on the theorys of representations, discourses within popularmusic and queer theory. The intention with this study was to examine how popularmusic is represented in youth magazines. If the magazines were reproducing femininity and masculinity in the interviews with the musicians, and in the representation of popmusic in the magazines. And also if there were any differences and similarities between the magazines regarding the representation of popmusicians.The analysis lead to the conclusions that how popmusic is represented in the magazines depends on what the magazines wan´t to represent on the basis of their target groups and ideologies.

Abstract"The Care of Work" is a study whose background comes from the problems surrounding work-life balance and equality that permeates social debates today. The problematic work-life-balance and gender equality are just as relevant today as they were 35 years ago. The aim of the study was to investigate whether or not men and women have a satisfactory work-life balance and if the organization they work for is doing something to make their life puzzles function. Last, but not least, the purpose is to see if gender equality is in the interest of the individual or the state.The study is based on work-life balance, gender equality and gender as the theoretical frames of reference. Eight respondents, four men and four women, from established IT companies were interviewed.

The estimated number of people living in extreme poverty is 1.3 billion and 70% of those are women. The aim of this study is to explain in what ways and why women are regarded as poorer than men.The definition of poverty has expanded and is now multidimensional. In order to answer the aim of this thesis the following dimensions will be included and work as a theory in which the analysis will be structured after. Through a gender perspective, will the role of woman emerge through a multidimensional definition of poverty. If the balance is a negative in these dimensions, the situation for women will worsen and become permanent.

ABSTRACTPurpose/Aim: This essay aims to investigate what picture (obvious and hidden) of men and womens equality in our society that is to be found on DN Debatt.Material/Method: The material consists of 175 articles from DN Debatt during 2004. A content analysis and a rethoric analysis has then been used as a method of analysing the material.Main results: Men are much more represented on DN Debatt then women. The underlying picture of men and women that is presented sees men as being the ones who are in charge of all the important and ?big? decisions and questions in our society. Women on the other hand are pictured as, although they have reached higher positions in society, the ones who to a high degree focus on closer and more socially important issues.