The purpose of this study was to illuminate the everyday work of school counsellors in the City of Stockholm with a gender perspective by studying the school counsellors ́ talk about masculinity and femininity. The aim was to reach an understanding of how parts of the counsellors everyday work are influenced by gender through the perspective of the school counsellor. The study was conducted using qualitative methods. Six school counsellors, five woman and one man, were interviewed. An interview method called thematically open interview was used to identify themes regarding aspects of gender in the school counsellors ́ everyday work. The theoretical perspectives that were applied during analysis were Judith Butlers ́ theory on gender performativity and Mimi Shippers ́ theory on gender hegemony. A qualitative data analysis was conducted using hermeneutic principles for interpretation. The results show that the school counsellors gave femininity and masculinity three different meanings, that gender influenced varying aspects of the counsellors work including the interaction with teachers, pupils, parents and principal and that indications of gender hegemony could be found in the stories told by four of the school counsellors. Further some school counsellors experienced gender as an obstacle to a larger extent than others. / Syftet med denna studie var att belysa skolkuratorer i Stockholm stads vardagliga arbete ur ett genusperspektiv genom att studera hur skolkuratorer talar om maskulinitet och femininitet. Målet var att nå kunskap om hur delar av skolkuratorernas vardagliga arbete influeras av genus ur skolkuratorns perspektiv. För att genomföra studien användes kvalitativa metoder. Sex kuratorer intervjuades, fem kvinnor och en man. En Intervjumetod kallad tematiskt öppen intervju användes för att identifiera teman beträffande olika aspekter av genus i skolkuratorernas vardagliga arbete. Under analysen tillämpades Judith Butlers ́ teori om genusperformativitet och Mimi Schippers ́ teori om könshegemoni. En kvalitativ dataanalys genomfördes med hjälp av hermeneutiska tolkningsprinciper. Studiens resultat visar att skolkuratorerna gav femininitet och maskulinitet tre skilda betydelser, att genus influerade olika aspekter av skolkuratorernas arbete inklusive deras interaktion med elever, lärare, föräldrar och rektorer och att det är går att se tecken som tyder på förekomsten av könshegemoni i fyra kuratorers berättelser. Vidare upplevde vissa kuratorer i högre grad än andra kuratorer att genus utgjorde ett hinder i det vardagliga arbetet.

Using a method of reflexive ethnography, this thesis deals with a question of masculinity performace in the Czech extreme metal milieu (to be specific I am concerned with the brutal death metal and related sub-genres). Participants of the brutal death metal subculture either in the position of performers or audience are with a very few exceptions men. Brutality, harshness, extremeness and other values are the main aesthetic criteria, which - as we can observe while doing the research - the participants connect with a coherent collection of ideas about a certain ideal of dominant manhood. To achieve these values to the greatest extent possible the musicians use particular musical features and topics of the compositions; and so does both the musicians and the audience via their visual image, with using specific kind of behaviour and having fixed movements and dancing during the music production. On the basis of an analysis of these values and means of their manifestation I am concerned with the question of what specific characteristics the masculine identity, which is performed in the given subculture, has. My research data show that these are: 1) mutual affinity with the other participants, 2) power as an ability of an aggressive attack as well as one's own endurance, and 3) coarseness, lack of...

This essay aims to investigate how the leaders for the Swedish parliamentary parties appear on their official Instagram accounts. By conducting a discourse analysis, looking at both text, visual images, and the combination of the two in the Instagram posts, the intention is to analyse how gender is being performed through the rhetorical concept of persona.  The analysis show that all eight party leaders mainly enact political/professional personas. Sub-personas derived to this category are individual vs group member, active vs passive, and critic. The male party leaders exhibit the individual, active and critical personas to a greater extent than their female counterparts, and thereby performing gender in a stereotypically masculine way – reproducing the image of the stereotypical male politician. The analysis also finds that some party leaders, mainly female ones, use personal personas to a greater extent.  The conclusion is that all party leaders mainly use professional personas, profiling them as first and foremost politicians. But when looking at how the personas are carried out, the female party leaders can be seen using numerously more personas than the male ones, especially adding on personal personas. In addition to enacting the traditional female stereotype of having to handle both carrier and family, this may reward them with additional Instagram followers. But when the number of followers is put in relation to surveys of trust and opinion polls, the conclusion is that the party leaders exhibiting masculine coded personas are more prosperous in actual politics.

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Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), and Peau d'âne (1970), though quite popular with the public at their time of release and continuing to leave an aesthetic stamp on contemporary cinema, have been received by some critics and viewers in general as pure contrivance with little edification. This thesis puts forward, however, that such interpretations of these Demy musicals as primarily saccharine, superficial, and light miss the elemental melancholy belied by the charming varnish. Here, the three are unified as a triptych that thematizes and aestheticizes lack and desire in ways that can speak directly to the queer viewer. This thesis first situates the films among criticism from the 1960s to the present, opening a discourse on the potential for diverse political and aesthetic readings of Demy's work that continues to the present queer reading. Through a method of narratological close reading, I unify the three films as a triptych, each a variation on themes of isolation, absence, and amorous lack. Jean-Pierre Berthomé's Jacques Demy et les raciness du rêve (1982) is a rich resource in presenting these three seemingly distinct films as a totality. Once justified for study as a triptych, my thesis presents a queer reading of the films' ostensibly heterosexual narrative structures. With the buttressing of the queer theory of Harold Beaver, Andrew Ross, and Michael Koresky, among others, this chapter demonstrates how the narratives of longing Demy crafts can speak to the queer viewer and transcend a heterosexual framework. Finally, my thesis moves beyond narrative to another continuity, the aesthetic of camp present throughout the triptych. Through an exploration of the interconnectivity of camp, gender performance, and seduction, drawing on scholars Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, and Jean Baudrillard, respectively, the aesthetic of Demy's triptych is situated in a queer sensibility. Catherine Deneuve, Demy's "princesse idéale," is read as the reification of this sensibility in her potent performance of gender at the confluence of masculine and feminine qualities, as well as the ideal tabula rasa onto which the queer viewer's desire and longing can be projected. Ultimately, the triptych's reconciliation of the visually confectionary and the narratively somber is celebrated, as it points to a victory over tragedy through affective agency. / Master of Arts / Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), and Peau d'âne (1970), French musicals from a masterful director of the New Wave movement in cinema, have been generally received positively by the public, and especially by gay viewers. Yet, these Demy films have been met with a range of skepticism to derision by some critics and even by a number of Demy's contemporaries. The three films' narratives concern a nascent romance thwarted by the Algerian War and economic demands, potential amorous encounters prevented by missed connections and arbitrary social barriers, and a flight from incestuous demands and its consequences of isolation and ridicule, respectively. Though these narratives are fundamentally melancholic, they are aestheticized through kaleidoscopic colors, virtuosic dancing, and the beautiful music scores of Michel Legrand. This thesis reexamines these films as a triptych that, considered together, thematizes lack and desire in a way that can speak directly to the queer viewer. Areas of overlap between the filmic narratives and the queer experience in the West are excavated and explored to demonstrate how the films can carry intimate signification to sexual minorities, as well as other marginalized identities. Finally, the particular and continuous aesthetic of the three films is studied as a queer sensibility embodied by the star of all three, Catherine Deneuve. The ability of this triptych to transcend a singular heterosexual interpretation and to heighten its effects on the viewer through a tension of form and content is celebrated.

Since The Well of Loneliness’ publication in 1928, critics have notoriously understood Radclyffe Hall’s sexually inverted protagonist as a lesbian character. Nevertheless, despite its reputation as the lesbian novel for the majority of the early and mid-twentieth century, Stephen Gordon has been heavily criticised in lesbian circles for her hyper-masculine, “mannish”, and melancholic lesbian representation. With the rise of the queer and trans movement, some contemporary critics have started arguing that Stephen’s experiences correspond more accurately to that of a queer, trans person. Grounded in Queer theory, especially Judith Butler’s conceptualisation of gender performativity as well as Feminist and Queer literary criticism, the purpose of this essay is to explore how queer gender identity and sexuality are presented, explored, and negotiated during the early twentieth century. Embedded in this literary exploration, I will also turn to affect theory to analyse notions of shame, loss, pride, and resistance in relation to queer experiences and identity formation, as well as its correlation to societal norms regarding gender and sexuality. I claim that Hall’s protagonist should be read as a trans “genderqueer” character rather than a cisgender lesbian. Stephen Gordon both subverts and endorses gender norms in her exploration of her queerness in accord with the socio-cultural and political climate of her time, which ultimately contributes to how and why her queer identity is formed the way it is. Thus, by focusing on Stephen´s experiences of being queer, treating her as a trans character that embodies both transmasculine, lesbian and female experiences, this essay aspires to untangle the complex relationship between gender, sexuality, and shame in a non-essentialist way. The concept of “genderqueer” enables me to situate the novel in a larger and more fluid discourse of queer identities and experiences and thus contribute to a better understanding of how queer identities historically have been presented in literature and what the importance of their representation means to the past and future of queer gender non-conforming lives and history.

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