The study is conducted in cooperation with a gender research group, at Mid Sweden University as a part of their larger study of gender equality within the organisation SCA. The purpose is to identify the challenges that females experience as leaders within male-dominated industries. The research approach is based on social constructivism philosophy and with an abductive reasoning approach. The empirical data were gathered with a qualitative method, usinginterviews as a research tool. The analysis was conducted with temple analysis method. The research’s findings showed that the organisation had a stereotype of a leader that connects the ideal leader to the male stereotype, that creates challenges for females in leading positions. It also indicated that the organisation had masculine structures and that it values employee’s that are being decisive, competitive, result-focused, etc. The research result also indicated that thestereotypes in the organisation are creating challenges for females in both operating abilities and challenges with advancing/get employment as a leader.

The purpose of this study is to use a qualitative approach to get an understanding of what is expected of social workers targeted towards women managers in social services. Nine social workers were interviewed. The empirical data was then analyzed on the basis of gender theory. Respondents did not see their supervisor as a manager but more as a social worker with special tasks. Our empirical data indicates that there is a strong belief that men and women possess different properties. The social workers thought that men were likely to make a career and women were considered to work in the area of social care. It was considered to have a different leadership in social services than in other organizations.

Magister Artium - MA / This mini-thesis makes an argument for the significance of a female-dominated hidden tradition of experimental ethnographic writing in British social anthropology. It argues that the women anthropologists who experimented with creative forms of ethnography were doubly marginalised: first as women in an androcentric male canon in British social anthropology and American cultural anthropology, and second as creative writers whose work has been consistently undervalued in sombre scholarly circles. The study proposes that Hilda Beemer Kuper (1911-1995) and Edith Turner (1921-2016) should be regarded as significant in a still unexcavated literary tradition or subgenre with Anglo-American anthropology.

Previous research confirms that gender affects organizations and the overall organizational culture. Organizations are heavily gendered and, in most cases, to the disadvantage of women. It has been shown that gender bias within male-dominated organizations creates the queen bee syndrome, characterized by a lack of solidarity and hostile behavior amongst women. Because gender bias exists in all organizations, it is reasonable to believe it also exists in female-dominated organizations. This study examines the queen bee syndrome in female-dominated organizations, analyzing how the characteristics permeate the organizational culture. The study employs a qualitative research method and collects data through qualitative surveys with LiVO members, a Swedish union organization for managers within the health and care sector. The study aims to build on theory regarding the queen bee syndrome and extend knowledge about gendered organizations and female-dominated organizations. This study suggests that signs of the queen bee syndrome, to some extent, permeate the organizational culture in female-dominated organizations. However, the result also reveals that complexity and duality exist. The triggering structures that create the queen bee syndrome need to be addressed rather than the gender composition to counteract queen bee behavior.

I dagens samhälle förekommer könssegregering på arbetsmarknaden, vilket gör att kvinnor och män har skilda yrken. En del yrken betraktas som manliga och andra som kvinnliga. Trots detta väljer en del kvinnor ändå att arbeta inom mansdominerade arbetsplatser. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur kvinnliga högskolelärare upplever arbetssituationen inom en mansdominerad sektion respektive en kvinnodominerad sektion, på en högskola. Vår studie belyser kvinnliga högskolelärares trivsel, vilka hinder och motstånd kvinnliga högskolelärare möter, kvinnliga högskolelärares samarbete med sina manliga kollegor och hur de hanterar dessa omständigheter, inom båda sektionerna. Studien bygger främst på två teorier, nämligen organisations- och genusteori. Studien utgår ifrån en hermeneutisk analys, och kvalitativa intervjuer med fem kvinnliga högskolelärare från den kvinnodominerade sektionen och fem kvinnliga högskolelärare från den mansdominerade sektionen. Studiens resultat visar att kvinnligare högskolelärare från båda sektionerna upplever bra bemötande och trivsel på arbetsplatsen, men att det i större utsträckning förekommer hinder och motstånd såsom att klättra upp i organisationens hierarki, makt och negativa kommentarer från manliga arbetskollegor, inom den mansdominerade sektionen. Detta gör att ojämställdhet kvarstår främst inom den mansdominerade sektionen. Att ständigt diskutera jämställdhetsfrågor är väldigt viktigt för att dessa könsrelaterade problem ska minska. / In today's society there is gender segregation in the labor market, which means that women and men have different professions. Some occupations are regarding as male and others as female. Despite this, some women choose working in male-dominated workplaces. The study aims to examine how female university teachers experience the work situation in a male- dominated section and in a female-dominated section at a college. Our study illustrates female university teachers’ well-being, what obstacles and hardships female university teachers face, female university teachers’ cooperation with their male colleagues and how they handle these circumstances, in both sections. The study is based on two theories, namely organizational perspective and gender theoretical perspectives. The study is based on a hermeneutic analysis, and interviews with five female university teachers from the female-dominated section and five female university teachers from the male-dominated section. The study’s results shows that women from both sections experienced good attitude and satisfaction at the workplace, but there are larger extent obstacles and resistance as to climb up in the organizational hierarchy,  power  and  negative  comments  from  male  colleagues,  in  the  male-dominated section. This means that the gender inequality remains mainly in the male-dominated section. To constantly discuss gender issues is very important so that these gender issues will be reduced.

This undergraduate thesis is written for an ethnological standpoint with the purpose of studying how concepts of masculinity is discursively constructed in relation to the women dominated work field of nursing. This is done by analysing the material gained from six interviews with male and female nurses with the poststructuralist theory of political discourse by the theorist Laclau and Mouffe. By doing this the thesis has concluded that masculinity is foremost constructed in relation to the nursing femininity within the work field and the strong masculinity from outside of it. While also being interconnected in systems of meaning where masculinity is created, reproduced and questioned in a continual cycle.

<p>The relationship between the Swedish state’s welfare political commitments and the emergence and development of three female-dominated welfare state occupational groups - nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists - is at the heart of this thesis. The primary aim is to study the professional possibilities and limitations created by the state’s welfare political commitments in health care, family policy and rehabilitation.</p><p>The thesis emphasises the importance of regarding the state as a historically conditioned actor and as an organisation of organisations. The state is not a unified and static actor and this makes it difficult to speak of the state’s relationship to different welfare occupations in general terms. Nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have encountered the state in different historical contexts and established ties to different parts of the state. Abbott’s (1988) term jurisdiction is used to characterise the area within welfare politics that nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have made claims on or been allotted. The struggle for jurisdiction takes place on three, analytically separate but in reality interconnected arenas. These arenas are the workplace, the media arena and the legal arena. The thesis limits itself to the legal arena, that is, the state’s administrative, planning and legislative structures. At the centre of the analysis of the legal arena are the Swedish Government Commission and the welfare political reform work that to a large degree has been formed by these institutions’ function and work.</p><p>An important conclusion from these three case studies is that the state’s welfare political commitments have been central for the emergence of nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists and their development into welfare state occupational groups. The state’s welfare political ambitions have contributed considerably to the transformation of nurse, home relief helpers and occupational therapists into modern occupational groups. Dependency on the state has not always been easy to handle however. The state’s welfare political interests have often contradicted the wishes of the professions regarding the content, length and organisation of training programmes, as well as regarding continuing education and licensing. The state has been unwilling to provide more training than deemed necessary from a welfare political perspective. An important conclusion from this study is that it is difficult for welfare state occupational groups to steer their professional project in a direction that falls outside of the state’s welfare political commitments.</p>

Disputats, Umeå 2007. / Sammanfattning på engelska.

The relationship between the Swedish state’s welfare political commitments and the emergence and development of three female-dominated welfare state occupational groups - nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists - is at the heart of this thesis. The primary aim is to study the professional possibilities and limitations created by the state’s welfare political commitments in health care, family policy and rehabilitation. The thesis emphasises the importance of regarding the state as a historically conditioned actor and as an organisation of organisations. The state is not a unified and static actor and this makes it difficult to speak of the state’s relationship to different welfare occupations in general terms. Nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have encountered the state in different historical contexts and established ties to different parts of the state. Abbott’s (1988) term jurisdiction is used to characterise the area within welfare politics that nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists have made claims on or been allotted. The struggle for jurisdiction takes place on three, analytically separate but in reality interconnected arenas. These arenas are the workplace, the media arena and the legal arena. The thesis limits itself to the legal arena, that is, the state’s administrative, planning and legislative structures. At the centre of the analysis of the legal arena are the Swedish Government Commission and the welfare political reform work that to a large degree has been formed by these institutions’ function and work. An important conclusion from these three case studies is that the state’s welfare political commitments have been central for the emergence of nurses, home relief helpers and occupational therapists and their development into welfare state occupational groups. The state’s welfare political ambitions have contributed considerably to the transformation of nurse, home relief helpers and occupational therapists into modern occupational groups. Dependency on the state has not always been easy to handle however. The state’s welfare political interests have often contradicted the wishes of the professions regarding the content, length and organisation of training programmes, as well as regarding continuing education and licensing. The state has been unwilling to provide more training than deemed necessary from a welfare political perspective. An important conclusion from this study is that it is difficult for welfare state occupational groups to steer their professional project in a direction that falls outside of the state’s welfare political commitments.

Syfte: Syftet är att skapa en djupare förståelse för hur bakslagseffekten verkar inom en kvinnodominerad organisation när kvinnor avancerar i hierarkin. Metod: Vår studie antar en kvalitativ forskningsansats. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med nio kvinnliga chefer inom en kvinnodominerad organisation. Vi har en abduktiv ansats där vi låtit teorin ligga till grund för de teman vi har tagit upp och som är återkommande genom vår studie. Respondenternas åsikter har sedan tolkats genom en innehållsanalys. Vår teoretiska referensram bygger på tidigare forskning inom bakslagseffekten, könspräglade organisationer, könsroller och ledarskap. Resultat &amp; slutsats: Vår studie visar att de kvinnliga cheferna antar ett transformativt ledarskap men att de trots det i vissa avseenden antar manliga karaktärsdrag. De möter vidare en bakslagseffekt som kan karaktäriseras av att de missgynnas i rekryteringsprocesser. När kvinnor blir chefer över tidigare kvinnliga kolleger möts de av en bakslagseffekt där de ogillas, deras kompetens ifrågasätts och i vissa fall blir de även utfrysta. Förslag på fortsatt forskning: Framtida forskning bör rikta in sig på att studera om det finns informella hierarkier som påverkar kvinnor när de avancerar i hierarkin. Organisationskulturer och generationsfrågan bör studeras närmare för att se deras inverkan på bakslagseffekten. En sista punkt är att definitionerna av könsroller och de karaktärsdrag som förskrivs till kvinnor respektive män förändras över tid därför kan det vara ett intressant område för att se vad det har för effekt på bakslagseffekten. Uppsatsens bidrag: Vårt teoretiska bidrag är att vi har visat att kvinnor som avancerar i hierarkin inom en kvinnodominerad organisation möter en bakslagseffekt till följd av att de blivit chefer över tidigare kvinnliga kollegor. De praktiska bidragen är att organisationer måste arbeta med att motverka informella hierarkier och att sträva efter att skapa mindre löneskillnader mellan könen. / Aim: The purpose with our study is to create a deeper understanding of how the backlash against women works in a female-dominated organization when women advances in the hierarchy.  Method: The study applies a qualitive research perspective. We have conducted semi structured interviews with nine female managers in one female-dominated organization. We have an abductive approach. Respondents' views have been interpreted through a content analysis. Our theoretical frame of reference is based on previous research on backlash, gendered organizations, gender roles and leadership. Result &amp; conclusions: Our study shows that the female managers assume a transformative leadership, although they assume male characteristics in some respects. They face a backlash that can be characterized as being in disadvantage in recruitment processes and also by facing disapproval from colleagues. When women become managers of former female colleagues, they face a backlash in which thet are disliked, their skills are being questioned and, in some cases, they are also being exploited.   Suggestions for future research: Organizational cultures, informal hierarchies and different generations should be studied more closely to see how they impact on the backlash. One last thing is that the definitions of gender roles and the characteristics attributed to women and men change over time, hence it would be an interesting area to study, in order to see what possible effect it may have on the backlash. Contribution of the thesis: Our theoretical contribution is that we have shown that women who advance in the hierarchy in a female-dominated organization face a backlash as a result of becoming managers of former female colleagues. The managerial contributions are that organizations must work to counter informal hierarchies and to strive to decrease the salary gap between the sexes.