During the course of this study we have been inspired by Carin Holmbergs essay ’It’s Called Love’ (1993). Our purpose with this study has been to examine how gender works among young Swedish heterosexual couples without children. This was done by examining how couples distribute housework among themselves, with certain focus on how class interacts with gender. We asked three questions: 1). How is gender made in relation to expected characteristics of how women and men should be? 2). How is gender made with distribution of household work within the couples? 3). In what way does class play a role in distribution of domestic work? Qualitative method was used in order to answer our purpose and questions. We interviewed ten couples, five whom had a university degree and five whom had secondary education. Our theoretical framework consists of the perspective of symbolic interactionism, Yvonne Hirdman's theory of the gender system, asymmetric role-taking and class. The analysis of our empirical material showed that the individuals within the couples attribute themselves and each other with properties that are in line with the traditional gender distribution in society, regardless of which class the couples belong to. When it came to all housework activities women were initiators. The distribution of household work took place according to what the men thought was interesting, regardless of class. Class, on the other hand, plays a role in the distribution of domestic work that took place on the basis of what was natural or not. Couples with upper secondary education distribute household work based on what is natural for the sexes in relation to the traditional gender roles, while those with an academic degree carry out household work that is not tied to the traditional gender roles to a greater extent. We found that women's and men's genders contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of the woman as subordinate and the man as superior, which contributes to an uneven distribution of labour in the home where the woman still has the main responsibility for the care work.

This study explores the functions and effects of virtual communities on Instagram and YouTube and discusses the communication process between Swedish female social media influencers and their followers. With a qualitative research design, where I analysed both the textual and visual posts on Instagram and YouTube, I found that the virtual communities can function as a place where people find like-minded people and where they can affirm their own self imagine and experiences, specifically in relation to questions regarding LGBTQIA+ and body positivity. The study operationalises Horton and Wohl’s (1956) concept of Parasocial Relationships which describes the phenomena where people form intimate and close relationships with media people they watch on television. By analysing my material through theoretical frameworks from Goffman (2020; 1979), West and Zimmerman (1987) and Deutsch (2007), I also found that Instagram and YouTube functions as places where norms of femininity and love are constructed, deconstructed, and reproduced. The study concludes that social media (platforms), specifically the virtual communities established and maintained by (social media) influencers, play a vital role in how users understand themselves and other people. Social media can in such a way operate as an institution that helps to both deconstruct and reproduce normative ideals about femininity and sexuality depending on how influencers do gender and portray themselves on their social media profiles.

In this thesis the overall aim is to analyse conceptions of change with the point of departure being texts developed within the framework of three development partnerships financed by the European Social Fund's Equal Programme 2001-2007. The development partnerships, consisting of collaborating parties from both the public and private sector, aimed at developing new methods and ideas in order to counteract discrimination and all kinds of inequality in working life. The thesis poses the following research questions: How are the problems that the development partnerships intended to counteract described? What appears as important to change in order for discrimination in working life to decrease? In what ways are changes aimed at combating discrimination and contributing to increased gender equality and diversity in working life deemed possible? What motives emerge behind the visions of creating a working life without discrimination? How are gender and other social categories constructed and how do these constructions impact on the conceptions of change that emerge? The ideas, perspectives and interests that characterise the understanding of changes in working life in the studied texts, are illustrated with the aid of theories on how society's forms of rule have changed from government to governance and theories on how gender is done. Furthermore, why certain perspectives and ideas emerge and the consequences of them is analysed based on institutional ethnography and concepts such as social relations and ruling relations. The thesis' analysis points to how the consensus-based organisational form of partnership and the politics and principles that are reflected in the Equal Programme together with notions on growth, leadership and gender create limits for the conceptions of change. Limits that in certain respects entail that society's relations of power and inequality, instead of being challenged, are reproduced. Based on the results of the study, the importance is emphasised of continuously taking one's point of departure in identifying and challenging the limits to how one can speak of change, since the dominant conceptions of change may be an expression of the ruling relations. / I den här avhandlingen är det övergripande syftet att analysera föreställningar om förändring med utgångspunkt i texter som tagits fram inom ramen för tre utvecklingspartnerskap som finansierades av den Europeiska socialfondens Equal-program 2001-2007. Utvecklingspartnerskapen, som bestod av flera samverkansparter från privat och offentlig sektor, syftade till att utveckla nya metoder och idéer för att motverka diskriminering och all slags ojämlikhet i arbetslivet. Avhandlingen utgår från frågeställningarna: Hur beskrivs de problem som utvecklingspartnerskapen avsåg att motverka? Vad framstår som viktigt att förändra för att diskrimineringen i arbetslivet ska minska? På vilka sätt antas förändringar, som anses leda till minskad diskriminering och ökad jämställdhet och mångfald i arbetslivet, vara möjliga? Vilka motiv framträder bakom visionerna om att skapa ett arbetsliv utan diskriminering? Hur konstrueras kön och andra sociala kategorier och hur inverkar dessa konstruktioner på de föreställningar om förändring som framträder? Med hjälp av teorier om hur samhällets styrformer förändrats ”från government till governance” och teorier om hur kön görs åskådliggörs vad det är för idéer, perspektiv och intressen som karakteriserar förståelsen av förändringar i arbetslivet i de rapporter, filmer, utbildningar och metodböcker med mera som studerats. Utifrån den institutionella etnografin och begrepp som sociala relationer och styrningsrelationer analyseras vidare varför vissa perspektiv och idéer framträder och konsekvenserna av dem. Avhandlingens analys pekar på hur den konsensusbaserade organiseringsformen partnerskap och den politik och de principer som reflekteras i Equal-programmet tillsammans med föreställningar om tillväxt, ledarskap och kön skapar gränser i föreställningarna om förändring. Gränser som i vissa avseenden innebär att samhällets relationer av makt och ojämlikhet – istället för att utmanas – reproduceras. Utifrån studiens resultat poängteras vikten av att ständigt ta utgångspunkt i att identifiera och utmana gränserna för hur det går att tala om förändring eftersom dominerande föreställningar om förändring kan vara ett uttryck för samhällets styrningsrelationer.