Edna O'Brien and Marian Keyes are two sexually candid female writers. They are both from Ireland and their novels have caused many spectacular headlines over the years. These female authors have been greatly acclaimed, but also sharply criticised for their outspoken way of writing. However they have enjoyed huge success and their novels have been read by many people. This essay will focus on two of the many novels written by these Irish authors: The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien and Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes. In the following essay I will focus on Irish women represented in the novels of Keyes and O'Brien, and their relation to men but also to their daughters. In these novels, women are forced into strict gender roles, very different from those of men. Still, even though the older women in the novels are trapped in their roles, they encourage their daughters to develop and grow beyond such roles. I would argue that the novels and also the feminist actions that still occur in Ireland are built upon a long time of subordination for women, and also from the twisted structure in many of the Irish men-women-relationships. I would argue that the rules and roles created in historical Ireland, have formed an inequality between the sexes that still exists.

Muslim women’s rights, and gender equality in the Muslim world, are commonly discussed subjects within the academic world. Feminism, as a term, is often connected to this topic of discussion. This thesis aims to analyze two different perspectives concerning how these rights should be achieved: Islamic feminism, using internal resources, and Muslim feminism, using external resources. Islamic feminism, as a strategy, proposes that by interpreting the Quran, the ultimate revelation of God, Islam could provide the central and egalitarian meaning of the Quran. There is disagreement within the academic community whether Islamic feminism would enable these rights. Muslim feminism, as a counterpoint to Islamic feminism, proposes that the state must become secularized. Rendering Islam and the state as separate entities.    This thesis will utilize the theoretical perspective on Islam and feminism from five feministic academics. They all have different backgrounds, standpoints, and approaches towards the development of Muslim women’s rights, as well as what strategies they suggest to improve them. These strategies encounter different kinds of difficulties. The Islamic feminism, which uses the Quran, runs the risk of being too heavily associated with already established interpretations of the Quran. It may be seen as intertwined with existing fundamentalist views. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Muslim feminism may create a divide between Islam and women’s rights. This thesis aims to present the potential of different theoretical perspectives on Islam and feminism as well as the limitations on suggested strategies for improvement of Muslim women’s rights.

The government in Poland led by the Law and Justice party (PiS) and characterized by its anti-genderism and right-wing populist politics, is framing its opposition to the Istanbul Convention in human rights language. This leads to a puzzling occurrence of the women’s rights Convention being opposed with rights rhetoric. This puzzle was addressed in the thesis by investigating how the PiS-led government is mimicking human rights rhetoric in their opposition to the Convention. That was done in accordance with the ‘Rights as Weapons’ theory, developed by Bob Clifford. Findings revealed that the PiS-led government in their right rhetoric denies the necessity, effectiveness, and apoliticality of the Convention, invokes fears, presents Polish society as victims of 'gender ideology,' and puts forward opposing rights to those enshrined in the Convention. Moreover, their rights rhetoric heavily relies on fear, misinformation, and misinterpretation of the Convention.

There has been a surge in demand for arable land as a resource for agricultural production for food and energy purposes. This surge can be attributed to increases in global food prices, climate change, population pressure, and escalating energy prices. The search for land has given rise to the practice of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA). Due to misconceptions and old colonial views of land in Africa, the continent has become the most targeted region for these land acquisitions. The establishment of these projects in Africa is justified in the name of development. Paradoxically, LSLA has left local communities, especially women, in a more disadvantageous position than before. This qualitative study explores and relates LSLA to the right to food and participation. The thesis also critically engages with SDG – 2 to examine if large-scale projects comply with the goal’s purpose. This thesis aims to investigate the phenomenon of LSLA and how they impact women’s right to food and participation. The author has used qualitative content analysis as a method and relied on peer-reviewed studies on women and land-grabbing in three different countries. Compared to the previous research, the thesis results showed that the impacts of LSLA are gendered and have had severe consequences on women and their access and right to food. The support for business interests that are permeated in SDG – 2 has, based on the cases examined, also exacerbated rather than alleviated hunger which does not comply with the purpose of the goal.

AbstractThis final essay in religious studies at Malmö Lärarutbildningen (Teacher’s education) is a minor field study (MFS) carried out in Ghana about Trokosi. Trokosi is a tradition, system and practice where young girls are given to village shrine priests as sexual and domestic slaves, or "wives of the gods", in compensation for offenses allegedly committed by a member of the girl's family. My main research question has been: What are the thoughts of the victims as well as the rescuers of Trokosi thoughts about the Trokosi tradition, system and practice? The thesis is based on a minor field study, observations and interviews. I observed the work at International Needs Network Ghana (INNG) and their work with Trokosi mainly focusing on the International Needs Vocational Training Centre (INVTC). At INVTC former Trokosi get the opportunity of becoming independence and self-sufficient - ke te pam tem eng. In this essay I have interviewed two opponents to Trokosi, in this essay called the rescuers, as well as one victim of Trokosi. In my interviews, the only person who criticized the theory and the religion behind Trokosi was the victim, a person who was born into this belief system. INNG’s critics are not about the theory behind Trokosi but how it is practised. Applying of feminist perspective this thesis focuses religious and cultural practices, in this case Trokosi, as a part of a larger system that is limiting women’s lives. In addition, post colonial theory may contribute to the analysis of “third world women’s own struggle and aspiration for independence. There are different views and perspectives on Trokosi and despite Ghana’s constitution and other documents that forbid this type of practice it is still vital. This indicates that there are more factors to consider. For instance overall patriarchal structures and post colonial experiences. Information and education is essential for the transformation of Trokosi in order to favour women’s right especially in the fields of human- and women’s rights.

Le Canada et le Québec, à l’image de la communauté internationale, ont à cœur le respect, la protection et la promotion des droits des femmes. Toutefois, les normes en matière d’apparence physique et de beauté qui pèsent uniquement sur les femmes, particulièrement sur les femmes et les filles noires, menacent le projet d’égalité réelle. Ces normes sont ce qu’on appelle les codes sexuels. Les codes sexuels cherchent à universaliser, naturaliser et normaliser un modèle unique de féminité, qui respecte un équilibre précaire entre beauté et professionnalisme, entre chasteté et attractivité. Dans ce mémoire de recherche, nous nous intéresserons au rapport entre le droit et la norme, qu’elle soit juridique, sociale ou culturelle, afin de comprendre l’effet préjudiciable des codes sexuels sur les femmes, et de comprendre comment et pourquoi le droit permet, renforce ou lutte contre les codes sexuels. Notre cadre théorique intersectionnel étudiera le principe de discrimination en droit international, canadien et québécois et présentera différentes théories de la norme, à l’intérieur et en dehors d’un contexte purement juridique. Cela permettra d’analyser de façon intersectionnelle la violence normative des deux codes sexuels à l’étude, soit les codes vestimentaires à l’école et les codes sur l’apparence au travail, puis de présenter des solutions sur mesure pour remédier à l’effet de ces codes sur les femmes et les filles. / Canada and Quebec, along with the international community, consider the respect, protection and promotion of women's rights of utmost importance. However, beauty norms and physical appearance standards that only burden women, especially black women and girls, threaten the project of substantive equality. These norms are called sexual codes. Sexual codes seek to universalize, naturalize and normalize a unique model of femininity, which observes a precarious balance between beauty and professionalism, between chastity and attractiveness. In this research paper, we will focus on the relationship between the law and the norm, whether legal, social or cultural, in order to understand the harmful effect of sexual codes on women, and to understand how and why the law allows, reinforces or fights against sexual codes. Our intersectional theoretical framework will study the principle of discrimination in international, Canadian and Quebec law and will present different theories of the norm, inside and outside a strictly legal context. This will allow us to analyze, using intersectionality, the normative violence of the two sexual codes under study, namely dress codes in schools and codes on appearance at work, and then present tailor-made solutions to remedy the effect of these codes on women and girls.

This study aims to analyze the development of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia by examiningthree reforms dated between the years of 2011 to 2022. The reforms revolve the progressmade within the subject and are therefore relevant to our paper. Furthermore, the reforms areanalyzed from the perspective of two theories: late rentierism and liberal feminism. Themethodology in the essay aims to seek motives behind decisions made by the state, thus beingappropriate to use in our case. In the analysis we connect the found motives with the chosentheories and draw conclusions regarding how the motives can be explained by each theory.Our findings show that the progress of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia can be connected tothe theory of late rentierism, where the reforms all indicate that the state of Saudi Arabia hastheir best economic interest in mind when implementing the reforms analyzed. A certainconnection with the theory of liberal feminism can be drawn as women’s rights are legalizedto a larger extent, as well as their rights in family matters that appear to be of larger interest tothe state today.

Recently, a new IR movement called Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) has become more influential and achieved certain success when states like Sweden, Canada and France adopted these theories. This study will analyse Switzerland’s foreign policy to understand to what extent it is a FFP. Feminist Foreign Policy Analysis has developed new frameworks to answer this research question. Such as Aggestam and True’s four commitments, which is adapted in this thesis. Through a qualitative content analysis, policy documents of the Swiss government are analysed for gender mainstreaming, international development assistance, Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and gender equality mechanisms. The findings are that the implementation of WPS policies is at an advanced stage, and the international development assistance includes clearly defined budget goals and many pro-gender objectives. On the other hand, there is a lack of gender mainstreaming throughout Switzerland’s core foreign policy papers and gender equality mechanisms are rather sparse. The research concludes that, although Swiss FP contains feminist elements, it cannot be defined as feminist.

Title: “Holy” War on Human Rights - A hermeneutic study of the complex situation of human rights activists in Afghanistan Author: Zandra Bergman Supervisor: Maud Eriksen Examiner: Johanna Romare Department of TheologyMaster program of Religion in Peace and ConflictMaster’s thesis, 15 credits  In September 2020, the latest attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan, the intra-Afghan peace talks formally began. The opening of the peace negotiations failed to produce the long-desired ceasefire. Instead, it marked an increase of violence: a sharp number of deliberate killings of human rights defenders. The purpose of this study is to examine lived experiences of human rights activists in Afghanistan and the complex situation in which they are operating and to gain a deeper understanding of why they have increasingly been subject to violence. Furthermore, it is an attempt to explore the meaning of violence against Afghan human rights activists promoting women's rights. This is a hermeneutic study primarily based on data collected through interviews with two Afghan human rights activists. Rather than touch every topic and present data about an objective reality or truth, the aim is to shed light on the shared experiences of the respondents, providing snapshots of the current situation of Afghan human rights defenders, and to discuss their stories in the light of selected theories. The following research questions have been used to guide the study: (1) How can we understand the complex situation of human rights activists in Afghanistan, and (2) What are the underlying reasons they are being targeted? By adopting mainly, the concepts of hegemony: to decode underlying dimensions of power struggles, and a critical feminist approach: to grasp the gender dimensions of the conflict, I have exposed how my respondents in their positions of human rights defenders bring new life to a historical conflict of interests impinging on the future nature of Afghanistan. Moreover, they expose a recurrent clash between opposing hegemonic aspirations: a struggle over the maintenance of social order in the Afghan society, in which they are being placed at the center.

This study investigates how the non-governmental women’s rights organization Kvinna till Kvinna structures their external communication to raise public awareness in Sweden of issues important for social change; and in what way strategic communication is used in this process in order to cope with contemporary challenges. A qualitative research approach is applied to create an in-depth understanding of this. Two methods, qualitative content analysis of online gathered material and semi-structured interview, are used to grasp the organization’s work with the external communication. The strategic participatory approach to communication for development and social change functions as the theoretical framework. The results identify the organization’s approach to social change, strategic thinking in the set of goals, communication tactics, communication strategies and use of strategic junctures. Kvinna till Kvinna communicates on the basis of a structured and strategic plan which decides what, when and how to communicate. By repeatedly sharing great amounts of information about women’s rights, development work and development challenges, the communication is characterized by persuasion as well as educational connections. The persuasive character is strengthened through the use of storytelling and celebrities that convey the information. Kvinna till Kvinna to some extent work according to the strategic participatory approach which indicates that the awareness of the public could be increased. It is however primarily strategic rather than participatory elements, that permeate the organization’s communication, which also function as a way to handle contemporary challenges. A strategic communication which takes the external environment into account is concluded to be a tool for counteracting threats by political developments. The study highlights that strategic elements are central for a non-governmental organization in its strive for promoting and achieving social change, but participatory elements can also be understood as valuable in this process. The case of KtK enabled a discussion about the applicability of the theoretical framework and through this, possible developments and additions to the framework were highlighted.