<p>This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory. The main conclusion of this paper is that there are contradictions within the problem representations, both within and between the two policy areas. The most significant contradiction is that gender equality within labour market policy is formulated around the individual, whilst in family politics it is based on the family as a unit.</p>

<p>This study have two purposes, one is to examine the ideological consistency between Sida’s gender policy and the gender policy of an implemented project, and the other purpose consists of an attempt to identify a relation between the implementation of Sida’s/LAMP’s policies and actual changes on gender equality in the partnering country. Three research questions were formulated around the topics of women’s situation in Tanzania; the ideological origin of Sida’s gender policy and the reflection of these in the LAMP policy; and the consequences of an implementation in terms of equality between men and women in Babati District, Tanzania. The analysis is carried out with the help of different theoretical perspectives on women and gender in development, perspectives that have been selected on the basis that they have been influential and dominating in the contemporary planning and policy making of development agencies. The method used was a functional idea analysis and a field study where semi-structured interviews were conducted. The conclusion regarding the ideological consistency is that a comparison between the policies of Sida and LAMP shows patterns of great ideological resemblance, and that both have a somewhat stronger connection to the GAD approach. The conclusion regarding actual changes on gender equality reveals that an integration of gender aspects into the LAMP programme has had several consequences for women. The programme has helped to reduce women’s work load, increased their chances of income, and promoted women’s participation in decision-making on different levels. These are all aspects that may challenge the traditional order of women’s relationship to men and the subordination of women.</p>

<p>Trots allt jämställdhetsarbete i dagens samhälle innehar män fortfarande en större andel chefspositioner än kvinnor. Det finns många teorier som försöker förklara varför det förhåller sig så. Syftet med denna uppsats är att förklara eventuella skillnader i rekryterares attityder till kvinnors och mäns förutsättningar att nå chefspositioner inom dagligvaruhandeln. Vi har genomfört intervjuer med rekryteringsansvariga i tre dagligvarubutiker i Skåne. Resultaten från dessa har sedan jämförts med befintliga teorier och tidigare undersökningar i ämnet chefsrekrytering. Vi har kommit fram till att det finns hinder för kvinnor att nå chefspositioner i de organisationer vi undersökt. Dessa hinder verkar främst ligga i rekryterarnas attityder. Vi har funnit faktorer som verkar missgynnande för jämställdheten, men också sådant som verkar gynnande.</p> / <p>Even though the society of today promotes gender equality, men still hold a greater proportion of managerial positions than women do. There are many theories aiming to explain why things are this way. The purpose of this paper is to explain potential differences in recruiters’ attitudes towards the conditions of men and women reaching managerial positions in food stores. We have interviewed the recruitment managers in three food stores in southern Sweden. We then compared the results from the interviews with existing theories and previous studies in the subject. We found that barriers to women reaching managerial positions in the organizations exist. These barriers appear to be found in the attitudes of the recruiters. We have found things that appear to disadvantage gender equality, but also things that seem favourable.</p>

<p>In this essay I’m asking if the Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway use a third world perspective on gender equality in their development aid politics. A third world perspective on gender equality is a perspective that considers the special experiences and priorities of women in the third world. My point of view is that third world perspectives represent women in the third world better than western perspectives.</p><p>To determine if the countries uses a third world perspective on gender equality or not I have examined the countries aid policies with a third world theory. The material that I have used is policy documents on gender equality from the three countries and my method is discourse analysis.</p><p>My study shows that Sweden Denmark and Norway uses a third world perspective on gender equality to a certain extent. There are some aspects of the third world perspective on gender equality that none of the countries reflect about. Norway is the country with the best result in the study. </p>

This thesis is intended as a contribution to a discussion about education, especially when related to democracy and gender equality, in other words citizenship education. A strategy for the inquiries is developed, termed a feminist pragmatist attitude. The focus is on thqualitative content of education i.e. three theoretically demarcated relationships: feminine/masculine, home/society and home/school. When studying educational policy documents in order to identify different views on these relationships, I draw on a tradition of curriculum theory/curriculum history/didactics and the inquiries are influencedy a post-structuralist view of meaning. In agreement with Arendt, history is used to understand the present times and to propose alternatives for the future. Three discourses on home economics, ie. different ways of understanding home economics, are constructed. Home economics as: (1) Vocational education for women, (2) An education for women's mission in life and (3) Women's education for efficiency. Further, an alternativdiscourse for the future is proposed: (4) Home economics as citizenship education. This alternative discourse is constructed from "the forgotten potentials of the past", i.e. ideas from three phases or debates during the 20th century. The three phases are: thdiscussion of the relevance of home economics for the education of boys; the national curriculum from 1969, Lgr 69; and the parliamentary debate during the 1990s. The discourse is further underpinned by a discussion of feminist critique of traditional views of rationality, reason and ethics and by feminist alternatives such as ethics of care. Within the alternative discourse the norm of masculinity in education is criticised and the possibilities of breaking the dominance of thinorm is examined. The potentids of education about and for the home, e.g. education in home economics, as contributing to citizenship education of boys as well as girls are discussed.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings. SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose. The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term “gender equality” in these projects. Is there a dominant understanding of the term? What can be said about the meanings that are identified? The method used is Carol Bacchis What´s the problem approach. The main question asked to the material is “what is the problem with gender (in)equality represented to be?” The analysis shows that the understandings of gender equality are identified in five general themes. Four of them are connected to a liberal philosophy, thus forming a dominant liberal discourse on gender equality. The remaining one has quite the opposite ideas underpinning it: one that understands gender inequality as a consequence of societal structures, norms and an asymmetrical distribution of wealth and power. To conclude I elaborate on what the liberal discursive dominance means for the question of gender equality. The risk with strategies built upon liberal ideas is that it eliminates conflicts in politics – thus depoliticizing gender equality.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om det råder jämställdhet enligt parametrarna lön, utbildning och sjukfrånvaro bland skolledarna inom Barn och Utbildningsnämnden i Bollnäs kommun. / The purpose of this study is to examine if equality exists, due to the parameters salary, education and sickness leave, among the school leaders in the Children- and Education board in Bollnäs municipality.

The topic of this thesis is the sharing of resources in families. Equal sharing has often been taken for granted by policy makers as well as researchers. However, a considerable body of research has now shown that unequal sharing can and does occur in families. The aim of this thesis has been to study sharing in Swedish couples and the degree to which equality can be said to exist in these. The outcomes of sharing, i e partners’ access to money and consumption have been a major focus, as has the negotiations that take place regarding sharing. The processes and mechanisms that are at play in discussions and negotiations about sharing have also been a major focus. Money and consumption are in focus, however other resources such as leisure time and housework are also addressed. The studies are based on an in-depth interview study with ten Swedish couples where each spouse was interviewed separately; in addition, a survey study of Swedish couples is also utilized. The results of all of the four studies support earlier studies that show that unequal sharing in couples does in fact exist; women seem to experience less access to money and consumption more often than their partners. Several mechanisms were found to be at work shaping patterns of sharing. Pooling money was a common way of regarding the family economy, however it seemed this was not necessarily accompanied by an organization of money that facilitated pooling. Pooling was not necessarily a reflection of equal sharing as it is often assumed to be; instead, it could conceal inequality in that negotiations about sharing were kept off of the agenda. The gendered division of labor that still exists in Swedish society as well as in Swedish families means that women seem to have more knowledge of the needs of the family. This knowledge, which is often lacked by their spouses, also seems to mean that women take on the responsibility of seeing to it that ends are met. This could result in women sacrificing their own personal spending and using money meant for themselves as an economic buffer for the benefit of the family, something that was not found regarding men. In addition, details of the system of financial management used can sometimes act as an obstacle for women’s job of making ends meet and for their personal spending. Another important aspect of sharing in families is how money is defined. Different money can be defined differently and its definition will influence how it is shared and used. The continuous re-defining of money that takes place in families means that money’s meaning can change over time. Money was found to be relational; how it is understood and defined is influenced by its social context; how it is used can also give meaning to actions and influence the balance of power in couples. Several of the studies found support for the resource theory of marital power, however this alone could not explain women’s poorer access to money and consumption. Cultural aspects such as notions about gender and family must also be considered.

This essay is part of a project between Södertörn University College and Stockholm Academic Forum. The focus of the project is gender equality in small- and medium sized companies. I have worked with a construction company called Activa . The majority of the employees at the company were male and I was interested in the consequences of gender construction in such an environment. I think that the basic condition for equality work is an understanding of gender and the male norm. The purpose was to investigate how these things worked out in the Activa organisation. I wanted to investigate the consequences of gender and illustrate how discrimination can work. The conclusions are supposed to be a base for the company’s future equality opportunities. The methodology for this investigation were interviews. I have interviewed six persons, whom all worked at the company-office. The interviews were informal conversations based on a semi-structured methodology. The information I got was interpret by the hermeneutic tradition and analysed by gender theories. The conclusions of this study are that gender indeed affected the organisation structure. The male and female employees experienced different working conditions. The male norm were in fact setting the agenda in the organisation. The male employees had better possibilities to affect the working conditions compared to the women. Both men and women maintained this structure. They were all acting in order of their expectations. The consequence of these structures, and the behaviour of both men and women at the company, creates an conception of the male norm as natural.

Bristen av kvinnor på de högre positionerna inom ICA som i övrigt är en kvinnodominerad bransch utgör intresseområdet för denna uppsats. Vi vill med uppsatsen undersöka och belysa de erfarenheter som kvinnor på olika positioner inom organisationen har gällande deras möjligheter till karriär. Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ intervjustudie med en fenomenologisk teoretisk ansats som även stödjs av andra teorier gällande organisation och kön. Empirin som studiens resultat bygger på kommer från intervjuer med sju kvinnor på olika nivåer inom ICA. Resultatet i sin tur presenteras utifrån fem olika teman vilka belyser kvinnornas upplevelser gällande: Uppfattningar om organisationen, Jämställdhet, Rekrytering, Kompetensutveckling och karriär samt Hinder och möjligheter till karriär. Resultatet visar att kvinnornas levda erfarenheter gällande sina karriärmöjligheter inom organisationen skiljer sig åt, beroende på vilken position de besitter.  Ett flertal hinder urskiljs i resultatet, vilka kan vara möjliga anledningar till kvinnornas underrepresentation på de högre positionerna. / The lack of women in higher positions within ICA as for the rest is a female-dominated industry represents the area of interest for this essay. We want this paper to investigate and illuminate the experiences of women in various positions within the organization regarding their career opportunities. The essay is a qualitative study with a phenomenological theoretical approach which is also supported by other theories regarding organizations and gender. The empirical data that the study´s results are based on comes from interviews with seven women at different levels within ICA. The result in turn is presented based on five different themes which highlight women’s experiences regarding: Perceptions of the organization, Gender equality, Recruitment, Competence development and career and finally Barriers and opportunities for career. The results show that women’s lived experiences regarding their career opportunities within the organization differ, depending on the position they occupy. Several obstacles are identified in the results, which may be possible reasons to women’s under-representation in higher positions.