Oxytocin is today widely spoken of as a "feel good" hormone. Recent research has increased interest in the hormone and its role in social and sexual interactions, as well as its importance for complex behavioral patterns. There is evidence that oxytocin is released during physical contact and is said to suppress anxiety and stress. In animals and humans, oxytocin, which is a neuropeptide and likewise a hormone, is necessary for parturition and lactation. Synthesis of oxytocin occurs in brain neurons and in specific organs involved in reproduction.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how medial representations in a specific cultural debate expresses thoughts about gender, power and speech. The debate in question took place in Sweden 2010 and was about an inspection of sexual harassments in the Swedish acting area, made by Sveriges Radio, Ekot. This essay examines the made representations of the debate, with a feministic point of view and concludes that a male gaze shapes the form of speech and gives the debate a discourse sort of reasoning about gender. The special discourse formatted in the examined area contains a certain conception of power and the structure of power, which is also explained by the male gaze and the meaning of post-feminism..

The fundamental prohibitions against anti-competitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position are set out in the EC Treaty, articles 81 and 82 respective CL 6 and 19 §. EU: s objectives can be said to promote economic and social development within the community. These objectives will be achieved, among other things, through the establishment of a common internal market. In order to achieve a common market, where companies from different nations compete on equal conditions, it is not enough to prevent the member states from distortion of competition in the market. The free competition and thereby the advantages the common market is assumed to create, can also be limited through measures taken by companies.

The study aims to illustrate how women victims of male violence in intimate relationships are treated during the legal process and with professional perspective describe what women?s experiences considered to be in the legal process. The study also aims to draw attention to the interventions for abused women during the legal process.The results are based on interviews with professionals in the justice system, and on observations in the courtroom. Overall our results show that abused women are in need of a great quantity of help and support before, during and after the negotiation. The legal process is very stressful for the women.

The aim of this essay is to study constructions of femininity and sexuality in Sara Stridsberg?s novel Darling River (2010). The analysis is based on queer theory and the term ?skev? ? a variation of ?queer? that allows one to focus on additional forms of normativity apart from sexual desire ? and examines how the characters of the novel are challenging the heteronormative framework by performing gender and sexuality in non-normative, subversive ways. In short, I discuss how the relationship between femininity, body and destiny is being portrayed, how the characters question heteronormativity by overdoing femininity, and by being unable (unwilling) to perform adult femininity.

Today several things point to the fact that many young women are being abused and sexual harassed. Despite that there is no knowledge about how the girls handle the violence or how the battering affects them. For that reason the purpose of this study is to describe and give a picture of some girl?s experiences of being battered of men they have or have had a relationship with. In focus is also how these girls identities are affected of the battering.

ICTY bildades efter krigen i Jugoslavien. I uppsatsen beskrivs tribunalens bakgrund organisatoriskt och historiskt. Jag utreder även dels vad som faller under begreppet sexuellt våld enligt olika internationella organisationer som arbetar med internationella konflikter av olika slag, dels hur den jugoslaviska konflikten såg ut och hur sexuellt våld användes som del av krigföringen under konflikten jämfört med hur det har använts i andra fall. Jag beskriver slutligen de domar som ICTY har fällt angående sexuellt våld. Jag försöker således att utreda om ICTY har ökat juridisk rättvisa för kvinnor som har utsatts för sexuellt våld i krig.

This study is qualitative and aims to describe and analyze how senior citizens with alcohol- related problems are recognized by social workers within local care for the elderly. The empirical material consists of eleven semi-structured interviews which was completed with the help of social workers within local elderly care. The findings of the study shows that the processing of the senior citizens alcohol related problem can be explained as an identified ?awareness process.? Further, the findings of the study shows that awareness is often made by others than the social workers themselves. The study has also showed that known versus unknown information about present alcohol-related problems, tends to be crucial for when and how awareness is made in the ?awareness process?. .

I have used a discourse analysis as a method and queertheori for the theoretical. In this paper I have analyzed how different wedding magazines write about partnerships, gender-neutral marriage and wedding between homosexuals. I have for some time been interested in the beliefs wedding magazines have about homosexuality and how newspapers maintain heteronormativity implicitly and explicitly. Bridal magazines are anxious to have the marriage as a design and standard when they write about partnership. When they write about the two different forms of marriage, they glorify the religious marriage and pay no attention to civil marriage.

The aim of the study learn about if the court assesses boys and girls on an equal basis, or if there are norms of gender constructed in society that appears in the Administrative Court of Appeal. And we want to find out how norms, in this field, are different between boys and girls. We used the judgments of the Administrative Court of Appeal and went through the descriptions of the girls and boys. What basis was used in the judgment of LVU, to do this, we used discourse analysis. We summarized all judgments and then described the outcome of each requirement in LVU, we categorized the results for three requirements, other socially destructive behavior, criminal activity and abuse.

The aim of this study is to analyse how pornography is used in the American comics X-Men, published by Marvel under the authorship of Chris Claremont.I have applied Butler and MacKinnons theories about pornography as a performative speech, to this special art form. I have also investigated how censorship has influenced the comics evolution and whether it has affected the way women and sexual and ethnical minorities are represented. To corroborate how these theories apply, I have analysed three main female fig-ures in The X-Men comics - Storm, Phoenix and Shadowcat - and I have tried to identify how they relate to existing stereotypes.The conclusion of this essay is that the women characters in X-Men break the existing stereo-types and create new implications. This reinforces Butler?s theory about the possibility to re-verse hate speech and diminishes MacKinnons perspective of pornography as an imperative..

The following study is a qualitative combination of textual analysis and interviews concerning the subject of slashfiction. Slash is a sub-category to fanfiction, which essentially means non-professionally authored short stories about already existing characters and environments, for example from TV-shows, movies or books. These stories are available on the internet. The main point is to pair two of the male characters together in a sexual relationship. According to previous studies, 90 percent of all fanfiction writers are female and this percentage is probably even higher when it comes to slash.I have looked into what these stories can be an expression of, by analyzing the construction of gender, sexuality and relationships using the following three questions:Is slash a quest for an ideal equal and romantic relationship?Do these stories represent a resistance against established norms regarding gender and sexuality?What role does transcendence of boundaries play in slash? I have used stories that are derived from the American TV show Supernatural, which generally try to explore the relationship between its protagonists, the brothers Sam and Dean Winchester.  The result gives a somewhat divided picture of slash, as some stories clearly break with traditional gender norms while others seem to uphold them..

The object of this study is the female user of amphetamines and the characteristica which she is often described by. Many of these descriptions regard the female amphetamine user's sexuality which also have come to form the assumption that these women make a living from having sexual relations with men in exchange of drugs.In order to be able to draw any kind of conclusions regarding this, we found it necessary to investigate how the stereotypical female user of amphetamines makes a living and also whether it is possible for a female drug user to decide for her self how to support her habit.The disposition is a qualitative study of literature and the perspectives that we focused on in this study are gender roles, relationships and sexuality, criminality and finally the drug using woman as a victim. The theories used deal with social constructivism, respectability and shame.The main discussion of our study has been how women amphetamine users are moulded to become victims through interaction with other people but also with the society as a whole..

The aim of this study was to investigate the emotions among the staff at the group housings when they observe the caretakers expressions of masturbation and how the staff handles these expressions in their daily and long-term work. The theoretical concepts that were used in this study are group housing as a public and private arena, occupational role, relation, humanistic effort, pedagogical effort, empowerment, care ethic and emotions. The concepts are related to each other and constitutes the foundation for the analysis of the empirical data used in this study. A qualitative study was carried out, in forms of half structured interviews with six informants, of which the majority was women. It came to light that the interviewees only had positive feelings for the caretaker?s expressions of masturbation.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study has been to analyse and understand the effects of heteronormative structures in the Swedish asylum process. Homosexual refugees, seeking asylum in Sweden, is in focus when proceeding an analysis about these social structures and normative phenomena. The main discourse, being handled in this study, is between homosexuality and heterosexuality. However, central findings in this study consists of how different approaches, such as gender based identities as well as sexual preferences and ethnic background, combined is influencing the asylum process and the treatment of the asylum seekers.The analysis is based upon legal material, as well as the guidelines and work ethics of the Migrationsverket, which is being compared with theoretical approaches on heteronormativity and structural hierarchy. To achieve a wider understanding of the area and to gain more information, we have also performed interviews with relevant sources.Key-words: Heteronormativity, asylum seekers, homosexuality, power structuresSara Haugbak & Jenny Thomsen, Sociology C, University of Växjö, Sweden.