The main strategy of gender equality policies has since the 1990s been gender mainstreaming. Many government inquiries show how much the Swedish government, provincial governments and municipalities are working with gender mainstreaming. The purpose of this paper is to investigative how the municipalities within the county of Stockholm handle gender mainstreaming demands in relation to other demands that the municipalities face. This is in order to closer investigate the hidden factors that create barriers to gender mainstreaming efforts. Given the study's purpose and the formulation of research question, qualitative method is the most suitable method to fulfill the purpose. The theoretical starting points used in this study was organizational theories with discussion of concepts such as institutional isomorphism, rationalized myths, organizational hypocrisy, parallel processes, and especially the theory of loosely coupled systems. The conclusion of this study is that the municipalities within the county of Stockholm handle demands from the environment in different ways. Some municipalities loose couple their system as a temporary solution to deal with various demands placed on the municipality. The result is that there is a lack of coordination within municipalities and their various governments, which in turn results in many municipalities working with the gender issue in parallel processes, hence they lack an overview of the activities in the municipality. These factors are common barriers to gender mainstreaming efforts in the studied municipalities.