The essence of literature ? it?s voice, it?s meaning? has always been scrutinized of interest to readers and theorists. The language in itself has the power to revolt against and undermine current and dominant hierarchies. This language can also be of a passive nature, accepting existing norms and dichotomies. This paper has the ambition to examine the language, the voice, of Clarice Lispector in her novel A Hora da Estrela (The Hour of the Star).The theoretical horizon from which I will read The Hour of the Star is that of Hélène Cixous, which can be expressed through the term écriture féminine.

This essay investigates the feminist philosophy of Rosi Braidotti with particular focus on the alternative feminine feminist nomadic subject that she creates. I also introduce Braidotti?s theoretical inspiration from Gilles Deleuze and Luce Irigaray. I argue that Braidotti creates an alternative figuration for feminism through synthesizeing Deleuze?s concept of ?becoming? with Irigaray?s sexual difference-theory.

The main purpose of this essay is to identify opinions of masculine and feminine language in a written text. The aim is to examine whether the reader of a text can define the anonymous author?s sex, judging only by elements such as choice of words or sentence structure. Are there any differences between the sexes as they appear in written language, and is the common man able to make this distinction? The essay is based on several studies on people?s ideas on masculine and feminine language, as well as studies on actual differences.

New Age has often been described as a religion pertaining to women and studies has shown that women do indeed constitute the vast majority. A reversal of hierarchy between feminine and masculine attributes and values, common in a modern western society, has also been shown to occur.This study looks at how the feminine is visible in written text and pictures depicting people, more specifically in the periodical magazine Free that has a circulation of circa 25,000. The main bulk of the magazine is advertisements, and one reoccurring part is the article Frimodigt where several of the magazine?s advertisers take part in a short interview. Twelve of these interviews have been analyzed, along with depictions of 518 people from three issues.The theoretical framework that has been applied to the outcome of my analysis has been social constructivism, with particular emphasis on the paper Doing gender by the professors of sociology Candace West and Don Zimmerman.My findings indicate that the feminine, indeed, is thought of as very positive and sometimes contrasted with the masculine.

This is a study of the novel Mes mauvaises pensées (2005) by the French writer Nina Bouraoui. I use an intertextual comparative method, where I read the novel against three intertexts: Marie Cardinal Les mots pour le dire (1975), the David Lynch movie Mulholland Drive (2001) and novels and photographies by Hervé Guibert. Main focus is on the relation between body and language. Using the psychoanalytic theories by Julia Kristeva I examine the melancholy of the narrator in Mes mauvaises pensées. The melancholic subject mourns a Thing which is the unrepresentable archaic mother.

Gendered reading has a history of intense debate and negotiation. In this essay I will examine how feminine and masculine reading was construed in the early 19th century through three Swedish texts that all give a didactic, moral and instructive opinion about gendered reading. They consist of an advice manual, a collection of letters and a periodical featuring an assortment of suitable reading material, all published between the years of 1808-1815 and directed to a female audience. As the male sex was generally considered the invisible, desirable norm and the female sex tended to be viewed as deviant and problematic, gendered discussions are inclined to focus on the latter. I will argue that female reading is largely construed in relation to the bourgeois marriage while the male is construed in terms of citizenship.

I slutet av 90-talet sköljde en våg med asiatisk skräckfilm in över västvärlden. Filmerna handlade om kvinnor som dött en våldsam eller orättvis död och nu var tillbaka för att hämnas.Takashi Miike är en av de mest kända japanska regissörerna som har bidragit till den japanska skräckfilmsgenren som fick så stor spridning i väst.Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka kvinnoroller som finns representerade i fyra utav Miikes skräckfilmer och hur de framställs.Uppsatsen utgår från klassisk feministisk filmteori och undersöker om Barbara Creeds ?the monstrous feminine? och Carol Clovers ?the final girl? finns representerade i Miikes filmer.Bland uppsatsens slutsatser går det att finna att ?the final girl? delvis finns representerad i Miikes filmer, dock inte i samma utsträckning som i amerikansk skräckfilm, samt att man kan stöta på en viss problematik när man applicerar Creeds och Clovers teorier på filmer som inte följer ett västerländskt berättande.  .

The purpose of this study is to analyze picture books from a gender perspective. The books are found in a book box that the libraries send out to preschools. This study is based on the following questions:How are boys and girls portrayed in picture books?Do the picture books encourage or discourage the principles of equality found in the Curriculum for the Pre-School and the equality work conducted in the preschools?I performed a qualitative text and picture analysis of 12 picture books. I used Maria Nikolajeva and Kajsa Wahlströms schedule of typical masculine and feminine qualities and activities when analysing the picture books.

The society in which we live is controlled by various kinds of rules, both written and unwritten. These rules tell us not only how we should act as humans but also how we should act as women and men. Adults teach their children the rules of the society in various ways, but they also act as model figures. Children are influenced by conscious and unconscious actions and also by activities performed by the adults. Furthermore, adults write children?s books which bring the essential content into children?s lives.

The way towards an equal society, where both women and men has the same possibilities both private and in professional life, has been a long and still ongoing process. During my practical studies to become a recreation instructor I have noticed a difference between the children I have met in my workplace. What I saw was that girls and boys had a different approach towards their future, plus that the pedagogues at the school had different roles depending if they were men or women.In this study I have investigated which dreams and visions a group of after-school children has, plus how these distinguish between the genders. I have through group interviews, first three boys and then three girls, investigated how children look at their future focusing on career, spare time and familysituation. The questions have also focused on how children look at the schools pedagogues with gender as a premiss.My result shows that the children's vision on their future tends to look different between the genders.

AimThe purpose of this study is to investigate if there is any variance between masculine and feminine physical education teachers leadership.Are men more authoritarian than woman in their education? Do the influence of pupils have something to do with the gender of the teacher?s? Do the pupils respect masculine physical education teachers any different compound to feminine teachers?MethodWe have studied relevant literature that consider masculine and feminine leadership. The choice was to work with senior compulsory school. We choose the community of Botkyrka, through comfort choice. The criterion for the teachers were that they would have a swedish physical education and have been working at least for 4 years.

The aim has been to investigate and describe how gender-neutral design, concerning typefaces and colours, can be created. Based on my results I?ve designed a cover for a recipe-book to make it appealing to both women and men. I have been doing my research based on questions such as; Does feminine and masculine design, concerning typefaces and colours exist? And if so what characterizes it? Does gender-neutral design, concerning typefaces and colours exist? And if so what characterizes it? Is it possible to design a cover for a recipe-book in a gender-neutral way, concerning typefaces and colours? The first part of my research consists of a literature study based on keywords such as gender, graphic design, gender theory, typeface, androgynous, visual communication, colour, shape, feminine, masculine, and book design.

This study is a qualitative content analysis which sets out to examine the representation of stereotypic masculine traits amongst the main characters in two films from The Swedish Institute of Film's (Svenska Filminstitutets) selection for ?School Cinema? (Skolbio). The study is operationalised through the use of a scheme, constructed by Lorraine Evans and Kimberly Davies for their study No sissy boys here, which maps stereotypical masculine and feminine traits and originates from Sandra Lipsitz Bems ?Sex Role Inventory?. The masculine traits in the scheme are: aggressive, competitive, argumentative, decisive, assertive, risk-taking, self-reliant and adventurous, and the feminine are: affectionate, emotionally expressive, impetuous, nurturing, panicky, passive, tender, and understanding.

Sara Stridsberg?s novels Happy Sally, Drömfakulteten and Darling River are all brimming withliterary images of movement and becoming. The physical aspects of being a female subject inbecoming highlights the enfleshed body as important. Themes such as sexuality, power andviolence can be traced in the beautiful but most disturbing narratives of Stridsberg.The purpose of this study is to show the reader how the literary female characters aretranscending the physical borders of their bodies in order to become something more than what thehuman form allows them to be. Heteronormative sexuality, sickness, closeness to water andanimaling are bound together by the way they enact the female characters to stretch beyond thesurfaces of their skins.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact that clothing has in Margaret Atwood?s novel The Blind Assassin from 2000. The essay begins with a brief overview of how clothing has been acknowledged in different areas of research. The overview leads up to the conclusion that fashion, as well as clothing in large, has been overly ignored as a potentially fruitful subject of academic status. This is much due to the fact that fashion is traditionally regarded as being a classically Feminine subject, as well as it can be said to be a result of fashion?s very elusive character.