This diploma work is focused on the situation of fathers on parental leave in the Czech Republic. The aim of research is to find out how fathers feel on their parental leave, what is positive or negative for them and how they evaluate this experience. The theoretical part describes the legislative framework of parental leave and parental allowance and explains the concepts such as femininity, masculinity, maternity and paternity. Then I deal with gender stereotypes and situation on the labour market, and their influences on the decision for starting parental leave. Then I formulate arguments for more father's participation in taking care of children. The empirical part is focused on a qualitative research. The research was realized by interviews done with 10 fathers on parental leaves, and analyzed by coding. Then I made a connection between new data and theoretical resources which are described in the first part. At the end I indicate the posibility of doins some other research, for example with both parents.

Eating Disorders from a gender perspective: disease, or part of life? Bc. Kristýna Kaválková ABSTRACT This dissertation deals with a problem of "eating disorders", which are defined in medical literature, media and magazines as psychological disease, which relates to pathological way of dealing with food, body and himself/herself. It shows that that this area is not neutral from the gender point of view; eating disorders are usually women's matter. Based on semi-structured interviews within the framework of qualitative research, this work analyses opinions of women, who have experience with this, especially their experience of their physicality and daily life. It is also focused on how women perceive the presentation of eating disorders, which concerns them, in media, medical publications and society and how they interpret their status as those who are recovering from this illness. Women's testimonies point at the fact that their surroundings look at them as persons defined through their illness, as persons, who are exclusively connected with pathology and stigma. This view of surroundings, media and specialists, however, omit the diversity of human identities. It shows that women alone can interpret their experiences in different way. They perceive their eating disorder in the context of dominant discourse...

As with other women`s garments, the kanga has always been closely linked with the perceptions and attitudes that the society has about women themselves. These perceptions and attitudes continue to shape and determine the place of women in their socio-cultural context. Just as women`s clothes are often taken to define, if partially, the beings that occupy them, similarly, in characteristically wearing certain garments and not others, women then assign to those garments what is perceived to be their `feminineness`. In Tanzania, the kanga indexes this `femininity` in a strong way, in spite of the fact that men also wear it. Even more so, the messages that appear on the kanga are viewed as a uniquely female form of communication, and women in Zanzibar, the area covered by this study, have been making increasing use of them as an additional strategy which allows them to make strong statements about their concems, while at the same time avoiding any direct conflict which may arise fiom their individual actions.

Incel-rörelsen blir allt mer uppmärksammad av media och forskare världen över. Gruppen associeras med ensamma unga män som begår våldsdåd och riktar hat mot kvinnor. Det relativt nya forskningsfältet om incels domineras av granskningar av dem som ett kollektiv och en sub­kultur. Forskarna undersöker sällan konsekvenserna av rörelsens språkbruk och handlingar gentemot kvinnor på ett djupgående plan. Syftet med den här studien är att utforska incel-rörelsens syn på kvinnor, kvinnohat och våld. Det empiriska materialet som studien bygger på består av konversationer och inlägg hämtade från det webb-baserade diskussionsforumet incels.is. Analysen utgår från kritisk diskursanalys med Faircloughs tredimensionella analys­modell som utgångspunkt. Den kritiska diskursanalysen fungerar även som teoretiskt ramverk i studien, tillsammans med genusteorier om hegemonisk maskulinitet och Hirdmans (1988) genus­system, samt begreppen eko-kammare och stigma. Resultatet visar att kommunikationen i forumet karaktäriseras av snedvridna uppfattningar av kön och jämställdhet, där kvinnohat förekommer i allra högsta grad. Diskussionerna präglas av misogynt språkbruk och avhumaniserande kvinnoskildringar, samtidigt som incels framställer sig själva som offer. Deras upplevda offerskap kan kopplas till positionen som underordnad maskulinitet, en roll som väcker frustration, som i forumet riktas mot kvinnor. Kommunikationen antyder att incels vill återerövra maktpositionen de anser sig ha berövats då kvinnor konkurrerar om samma utrymme i en könshierarki. Studien visar att det råder splittrade uppfattningar om kvinnor i forumet. Kvinnor gestaltas dels som makthavare och dels som objektifierande undermänniskor. Värderingarna som delas i forumet går att koppla till äldre kvinnofientliga värderingar som ämnar begränsa kvinnors rättig­heter och legitimerar våld mot kvinnor. / The Incel movement is currently experiencing increasing global attention from the media and in research. Incel is a term associated with lonely, misogynistic young men and violent acts against women. The research about this relatively new phenomenon is dominated by reviews of incels as a community and a subculture. Studies rarely present any thoroughly examinations of how the movement's actions and language affect women. This study aims to explore incels views of women, misogyny and violence. The data consists of posts published on the web-based forum incels.is. Fairclough’s three-dimensional analysis model is the main analytical frame­work, performed with critical discourse analysis as theoretical framework. Additionally, the critical discourse analysis is accompanied by gender theories of hegemonic masculinity and Hirdman’s (1998) gender system, as well as the theoretical concepts of eco-chambers and stigma. Our analysis shows that incels communication is characterized by distorted perceptions of gender and equality, where the presence of misogynistic beliefs is vastly noticeable. The discussions are characterized by misogynistic language and dehumanizing depictions of women, and victimized representations of incels themselves. Their self-proclaimed victim­ization can be linked to the subordinate position of masculinity, which raises a frustration that affects incels conversations about women. Incel’s communication implies that they want to regain a position of power, which they consider themselves to have lost, since women compete for the same hierarchical positions as them. In the forum, incel portrays women as matriarchs, but also as objectified sub humans. This representation shows that incels perception of women is shattered. According to the analysis, the values that incels express in the forum can be linked to older misogynistic beliefs that aims to limit women's rights and legitimizes violence against women.

Kvinnors kroppar och sexualitet har historiskt kontrollerats och styrts, men att leva som kvinna i Sverige idag innebär ur många avseenden ökade friheter och rättigheter. Samtidigt finns det fortfarande en mängd potentiella utmaningar för kvinnor att förhålla sig till relaterat till kropp och sexualitet i en, vad som kan beskrivas som, allt mer sexualiserad kultur. Syftet med studien var att få en djupare förståelse för hur unga kvinnor i Sverige idag resonerar kring sexualisering av kvinnokroppen. Den teoretiska grunden vilar på socialkonstruktionism och Butlers performativa genusteorier. För att besvara syftet genomfördes två fokusgruppintervjuer och fem individuella djupintervjuer med tretton kvinnor i åldrarna 21–35 år. Resultatet visar att kvinnornas syn på sexualisering och självsexualisering har varierat beroende på vilken livsfas de befunnit sig i. Samtliga ansåg att sexualisering av kvinnor fortfarande är ett problem i Sverige idag och att de inte betraktar kvinnors sexualitet som frigjord. Självsexualisering beskrevs delvis som stärkande och möjliggörande för kvinnors sexuella frigjordhet, men problematiserades också. / Women’s bodies and sexuality has historically been controlled and disciplined. However, for women in Swedish society today, there are greater possibilities to cater one’s freedom and civil rights. At the same time there are still several potential challenges for women to relate to in relation to body and sexuality, as the culture has become more sexualized than ever before. The main purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding about how young women in Sweden today reason about the sexualization of women’s bodies. The theoretical ground lies on social constructionism and Butler’s performative gender theories. Two focus groupinterviews and five individual in-depth interviews were implemented with thirteen women in the ages between 21 and 35 years to answer the study's main purpose. The result shows that the participants' view upon sexualization and self-sexualization has in great terms varied depending on where they have been in their life course. Every participant did consider sexualization to still be an issue for women in Sweden today, and did not consider women’s sexuality to be truly liberated. Self-sexualization was, in some ways, described as strengthening and enabling for women’s sexual liberation, but were also problematized.

Cette thèse part d'une réflexion sur l'inédit hors norme mis en acte par Jeanne la Pucelle, faisant d'elle la matrice de Jeanne d'Arc. Pour saisir sa singulière spécificité paradoxale, nous postulons que les changements majeurs opérés en et par l'anomalie Jeanne la Pucelle peuvent s'expliquer par un processus adolescent à l'œuvre, un travail d'adolescence créateur. Elle est un exemple emblématique d'adolescente hors temps de l'adolescence sociale. Le langage de ses actes verbaux et comportementaux transgressifs, d'ordre narcissique phallique, laisse transparaître l'expression d'une féminité masculine, qui condense une combinatoire d'identifications et d'idéaux transmis par les figures parentales, mais remaniés. Pour ce temps pubertaire, nous postulons que la voix johannique ne signe pas l'entrée dans la psychose, mais fonctionne comme un double de soi, un interlocuteur transitionnel ouvrant à une relation de soi à soi et à l'autre ; comme un étai autorisant et stimulant une création de soi originale en son temps.Au XIXe siècle, des républicains et des nationalistes, visant à bâtir une nouvelle France fondée sur de nouvelles origines, fabriquent une position idéologique par un roman national, qui met la fonction héroïque de Jeanne d'Arc au service de l'idéalisme patriotique. Prototype du héros patriote, elle sert de support et vecteur d'identification héroïque et d'idéaux collectifs. Le nouage identification-identité-idéal à l'individuel et au collectif fait liaison pour cerner les enjeux identitaires d'un sujet en devenir et d'une nation qui se construisent, et pour répondre au besoin identitaire du sujet et à son désir de réparation de traumatisme et de préjudice. / This thesis is based on thinking around the unprecedented action of the Maid of Orléans which created the Joan of Arc matrix. In order to understand this intriguing and singular specificity, we hypothesise that the major changes operated in and by the anomaly of the Maid of Orléans can be explained by the adolescent process, the work of a creating adolescent. She is emblematic of the adolescent who finds themselves developing outside of the social framework of adolescence. The language of her transgressive verbal and behavioural actions, which can be viewed as phallic-narcissistic, express a masculine femininity in which a combination of identifications and ideals passed on by the parent figures are coalesced and reworked. In a pubescent context, we hypothesis that the voices heard by Joan of Arc are not a sign of psychosis but a sort of double of herself, a transitional intermediary, opening up the development of a relationship with herself and with others; a form of support which authorises and stimulates the creation of a self that is both original and disturbing in medieval times.In the XIXth century, Republicans and Nationalists, building a new France, on new foundations, established an ideological position through national storytelling which used Joan of Arc's heroic function to further patriotic idealism. A prototype of the patriotic hero, she was to be used as a support and vector of heroic identification and shared ideals. The identification-identity-ideal nexus is deployed in both the individual and the collective: it helps to understand the identity issues, to respond to the individual's need for identity and the desire to repair the trauma and damage inflicted.

Bilge Olgac, one of the first female directors of Turkey, who shot her first film in 1965, shaped her films according to the developments in Turkey. This thesis investigates how Olgac was affected by the events that took place in Turkey from the 1960s to the 1980s and how she reflected this impact on the representations of men and women in her films. The study seeks answers to the following questions;  *How has political, economic, and social changes in Turkey, influenced Bilge Olgac and her films from the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s to the 1980s? *How are men and women and their relationship represented and how is the gaze indicated in the films? These research questions are tried to be answered by analyzing Olgac’s films Lawless Land (1967), Dark Day (1971), Gulusan (1985) and Ipekce (1987). While analyzing women and femininity and men and masculinity in these films, Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory is used. Findings suggest that between 1965-1975, Olgac tried to keep up with the male-dominated cinema industry on the one hand and tried to impose herself in the industry on the other and directed melodramas in which women were represented as weak and passive and men were represented as strong and active. Olgac, who took a break from cinema in 1975, focused on female protagonists by presenting a different perspective to the audience in the 1980s. However, detailed analyses of the films also reveal that she could not get rid of the dominant ideology and the female characters in her films could not escape from traditional roles. In other words, Olgac’s films reflect patriarchy, similar to the Hollywood films Mulvey has examined.

In the construction industry today, there is a big demand of new recruits. One effective way of reaching new recruits is to consider other candidates than the majority which today populates the construction industry – men. Meanwhile women face a lot of obstacles in the industry as a consequence of the macho culture. Managers play an important role in the wellbeing of their employees and for the company culture. The study’s purpose is to research if managers in Sweden can influence women to staying in the construction industry by answering two research questions: (1) How can management support female employees to make them want to stay in the construction industry? (2) What support and tools do management need from their organisations to ensure the wellbeing and workplace satisfaction of their female employees?   A qualitative research approach was conducted and women working at construction sites, their managers, and human resources-personnel were interviewed. In total 12 interviewees were participating in semi-structured and in-depth interviews and a minimum of three interviewees came from the same company. In total three companies were included in the study. A thematic analysis was applied to the collected data and three overarching themes were identified.  The most important findings of the study have been: (1) Manager’s knowledge versus managers understanding of the obstacles women face in the construction industry. (2) Managers sharing the opinion of the equality issue progressing organically. And (3) that the conflict per se is not as important as how the conflict is being managed. To give women in the construction industry the right support to want to stay in the industry mangers need to develop a deeper understanding for women’s challenges in the industry, develop their conflict management, take a clear stance in their own role in the progression of the equality issue of the industry, and take proactive actions. The identified support managers need from their organizations is educations to understand the challenges women face in the construction industry and clear and standardized communication flow between employees and different level managers support. Furthermore, they need support from human resources-personnel to minimize the risk of recruiting women on the premises them being able to withstand the current culture in the industry, which today is fuelling the macho culture.

The aim of the study is to investigate what makes young female students continue to consume beyond their financial limits in the form of student loans and grants. The study also aims to investigate whether consumption functions as a tool that helps women maintain gender, lifestyle and identity, which in turn may have an impact on them overconsuming. Through interviews with thirteen young women who study with student loans and grants we investigated how they consumed with their financial limitations and what influenced their consumption. The empirical material is analyzed with Anthony Giddens’ theory regarding identity, lifestyle, rationality and reflexivity which gave an understanding to which role identity and lifestyle had in the fact thatthe students continued consuming as well as how they argumented and financed for the consumtion. Giddens’ theory regarding lifestyle and identity combined with Helen Rose Fuch Ebaugh’s theory about “role exit” is used to analyze the interviewees’ problems with leaving their lifestyle or role as they entered the student life with a different income. Candace West och Don Zimmerman theory about “doing gender” in combination with Raewyn Connell and Rebecca Pearse theory regarding gender became significant to understand why the young women continued consuming. The study’s analysis concluded that the interviewees were aware of their financial situation, however, they had a hard time to adapt to their new life pattern and income which led them to use rhetorical and practical strategies to consume more than they are financially possible to. They used their savings, deprioritized food, convinced themselves that they should be more restrictive with their money next month and argued for the overconsumption with certain rhetorical explanations that showed how the consumption fulfilled specific emotional needs. The analysis also showed that the interviewees experienced anxiety when consuming more than they were financially capable of, however they still continued with the consumption because it fulfilled functions such as reproduction of their identity, femininity, social integration and feelings of happiness. The analysis showed that young female students' consumption is linked to their desire to feel like an attractive woman in relation to society's expectations but also to create their identity and status.

[pt] Esta tese realiza uma releitura crítica das elaborações freudianas acerca da maternidade no desenvolvimento psicossexual feminino. Baseada nas ideias feministas de performatividade e interseccionalidade, questiona-se em que medida os principais conceitos envolvidos na teorização freudiana, especialmente o complexo de Édipo, contribuem para uma visão normativa da maternidade. Para isso, apresenta-se uma contextualização histórica a fim de problematizar a naturalização da função materna para a mulher. Posteriormente, empreende-se um estudo metapsicológico da teoria freudiana sobre o desenvolvimento da feminilidade, passando pela investigação do complexo de Édipo, do complexo de castração e inveja do pênis, a partir do que se conclui que, para Freud, a maternidade localiza-se como uma compensação à falta fálica, considerada fundamental ao amadurecimento psíquico feminino. Criticamos essa teoria, pela universalização de uma narrativa de viés falocêntrico, branco, burguês, norte-ocidental, que desconsidera as múltiplas possibilidades de subjetivação feminina de diferentes contextos raciais, sociais e étnicos. Por meio da própria teoria freudiana, propõe-se que a maternidade seja abordada de forma a considerar o aspecto anárquico e criativo da pulsionalidade, não conformada, à priori, a nenhum caminho privilegiado, desvinculando-a, assim, do caráter imperativo da constituição binária de gênero, bem como desidealizando as formas de maternar, quando estas se apresentam. / [en] This thesis pretends a critical rereading of Freud s elaborations about motherhood in feminine psychosexual development. Based on feminist ideas of performativity and intersectionality, the question is to what extent the main concepts involved in Freudian theorizing, especially the Oedipus complex, contribute to a normative view of motherhood. For this, a historical contextualization is presented in order to problematize the naturalization of the maternal role for women. Subsequently, a metapsychological study of the Freudian theory on the development of femininity is undertaken, through the understanding of the Oedipus complex, castration complex and penis envy, we conclude that, for Freud, motherhood is located as a compensation for the phallic lack, considered fundamental to the female psychic maturation. We criticize this theory for the universalization of a phallocentric, white, bourgeois, north-western narrative that disregards the multiple possibilities of female subjectivation in different racial, social and ethnic contexts. Through the Freudian theory itself, it is proposed that maternity be approached in order to consider the anarchic and creative aspect of the drive, not conformed, a priori, to any privileged path, thus delinking it from the imperative character of the binary constitution of gender, as well as deidealizing the ways of mothering, when they present themselves.