This essay examines the Alberte triology, by the Norwegian writer Cora Sandel, from a gender/feminist perspective. Taking Yvonne Hirdman's theory about the gender system as a starting point I will show how the living conditions and the different roles of men and women are represented in the novel and how they are changing during the centuries before and after the First World War.I am particularly interested in Alberte, the main character, what attitude she takes to her position in the gender system and in what way she differs from the traditional female model. Is she a New Woman, a different ?species?, who doesn't fit into the rigid gender system? Does the New Woman have a male counterpart, and is he to be found in the novel? Does the novel give a positive vision of a future where men and women can meet as equals?.

During the colonial period Europeans travelled to Egypt. The French had explored Egypt through the mapping and this was published in a collection of books called Déscription de l?Égypte. Exhibitions and publications like Déscription de l?Égypte, which aimed at giving a view of Egypt, raised public interest for journeys to the Orient.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the law regarding gross violations of women and its application in the Swedish legal system. We have investigated how the legal system takes into account a holistic perspective of the vulnerable situation of women in the investigation and assessment and the extent to which psychological violence in the form of verbal abuse, threats and harassment attention. We also wanted to find out how the law's design may contribute to difficulties in the implementation and interpretation of it. In this study, we used a qualitative research approach when we decided to conduct an interview with a police officer and a textual analysis of four cases from the district court. Interview questions were semi-structured in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

The purpose of this study was to examine how students of the Human Resources and Labour Relations Programme evaluates work applications from Swedish and Somali women. 55 students participated in the study. The respondents were supposed to read a fictitious work and from that, judge four applications from four women where two had Swedish names and two had Somali names. The independent variables were the participants' gender, grade and university (between subject variables) as well as the applicant's name (Swedish vs. Somali) as the within-subject variable.

The paper describes a study on reading aloud to a group of four women with mild or moderate dementia living in a nursing home. The purpose of the study was to examine what reactions the reading aloud creates and if the reactions are different if the literature is written in common Swedish or in easy-to-read Swedish. Original and easy-to-read version of the book "The Lady with the Camelias" by Alexandre Dumas was chosen for reading aloud. The study was conducted in two separate parts with four reading sessions in each part. All sessions were filmed with two cameras, one of them focusing the group and the other focusing one individual.

The aim of this qualitative deep interview study was to gain deeper understanding of single immigrant mothers´life situation. Grounded Theory was the method of analysis. Repeated interviews with five immigrant women from different parts of the world showed that women were in need of wider and deeper social networks in order to reconstruct their identities. Social support and social networks benefit, not only reconstruction of identity, but also personal well-being. Yet it is difficult for them to create social networks in the new country, because of single motherhood.

The aim with this masters thesis is to investigate how gender is presented in Swedish picture books, in order to give librarians and other actors in the field knowledge about what kind of books they supply impressionable children with. I investigate if and how the changes concerning gender-equality in the Swedish society during the last 25 years are reflected in childrens literature, and compare how men and women are portrayed in four books from the early 1980s with four books from the 2000s. My study is delimited to three aspects of character formation, introduced by Maria Nikolajeva: description of psychology, actions and relations to other characters. It is carried through by consultation of Yvonne Hirdmans theory of how men and women are held apart and that the man in this relation constitutes the norm as well as Nikolajevas list of typical male and female characteristics. By reading and interpreting the chosen books, I analyse both text and pictures.

This bachelor thesis explores the conditions for a harmonized EU gender equality policy. Recently the maternity leave directive has been introduced by the European commission and seeks to improve the conditions for pregnant workers. The controversial subject of this maternity leave has illustrated many of the problems connected to the development of a social dimension in EU. First of all, the debate concerning the maternity leave directive in the European Parliament has shown that both sides in the parliament seem positive towards creating legislation in this matter on EU level. However, parties at the right tend to disagree to many of the amendments in the proposal, such as the maximum entitlement.

Equality between the sexes has been discussed in Sweden for more than 50 years. In the 60´s and during the 70´s the discourse that dominated the debate was based on the assumption that both men and women needed to liberate themselves from their traditional gender roles. In this approach information and education was perceived as the key to equality. During the 80´s however, power and subordination became the main focal point of concern within this debate, and focus upon changing the patriarchal power structures dominating society were perceived as the principal key for establishing equality between the sexes. Today, the latter discourse still dominates both the scientific and the political perspective upon equality.

The purpose of my work is to understand and examine the reasons why Ethiopia has not developed a larger decline of female genital mutilation, despite their ban on it? A ban that has been operating for ten years should reasonably have reached a greater change than the one Ethiopia has developed today. Based on two different branches of feminist theory, the liberal feminist theory and radical feminist theory, I will try to understand the potential power relationship that can be a immense reason for Ethiopia's continued practice with regard to female genital mutilation. I will examine the liberal feminist approach when it comes to seeing the state as the source of the balance of power that generate inequality in the world between men and women. I will also apply the radical feminist theory on my case study and understand the problem of patriarchy and its already set roles for men and women that we are following in the society today, resulting in gender inequality. The result shows that the radical feminist approach with patriarchy as essential explanation, which articulates that because of ancient traditions and the exercise of power, the amendment must be the changing of power relations between men and women in the private sphere rather than the liberal feminist approach which applies that the state repair the problem..

The purpose of the thesis has been to explore the use of hedge fund styles when constructing portfolios of hedge funds (i.e. funds of hedge funds). The central question is if the use of hedge fund styles can significantly explain and improve risk adjusted returns (characterized by Sharpe ratios). The study has been done in collaboration with Optimized Portfolio Management AB who desire further knowledge and evaluation of hedge fund styles for their fund of hedge funds.To be able to create successful ex ante portfolios we have explored various prediction models for both risk and return. Our findings indicate that return prediction is problematic using simple models such as regression since the risk exposure of the indices appear to change significantly over time.

At the Women?s House in Örebro, a children?s project has started where the work method ?Oasen? [Oasis] model has been developed by two children?s educationists. The aim of this study is, with the ?Oasen? model as a starting point, to deepen the knowledge of (1) how to meet children?s central needs while staying at a Women?s House and (2) what the ?Oasen? model may contribute to the children. The theoretical framework consists of a cognitive approach to the progress of children experiencing domestic violence and a presentation of conceptions concerning children?s needs.

This study examines counselors understanding of body fixation (alt: body image fixation) as a social problem among young women aged 15-25 years. Earlier research on this subject highlights the standards and ideals placed on the female body where happiness is associated with a slim body figure. Research has shown that young women that compare their own bodies with others are at higher risk at developing an unhealthy relationship with their body, which can lead to eating disorders. The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews with nine counselors from youth clinics, schools and primary healthcare. The results were interpreted and analysed in the light of social constructionist perspective as developed by Berger & Luckmann and Loseke's social constructionist definition of social problems.

The purpose of this essay is to explore the social services work with crime victims in Sweden, according to Chapter 5, § 11 of the Social Services Act. The study examined how social workers define the victim and assessing and prioritizing victims' needs. It has also been central to study how social workers interpret and understand the regulation of social services responsible for crime victims.Qualitative interviews with 18 social workers is the basis for the study. The analysis of the social services work with victims based in the above-mentioned interviews. The interviews analyzed using the sociology of law theory.

The intention of this study is to find out how the female celebrity is portrayed in women?s magazines directed at women of different age groups. The magazines that I have chosen to analyse are Frida, Veckorevyn and Damernas Värld. My aim is to find out what kind of celebrity appears in the magazines in terms of occupation and topics in the articles. Furthermore, the aim is also to determine whether the celebrity is portrayed in a different or similar way depending on the target group.