Background: Women in senior positions have been, for a long time, discredited. We wanted to study their current situation and understand how they assert themselves in their companies. We thought it would be interesting to see their link to management and leadership. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the position of female managers in organizations through the exploration of gender roles, characteristics and stereotypes. Method: We conducted our research by reviewing literature about leadership theories, management versus leadership and gender influences over leadership. Then, we conducted a qualitative study with a comparison analysis between the banking, consulting and agri-food industries in France to update the current knowledge regarding female managers, to understand how they assert themselves. Conclusion: The results suggest that it is still hard for women to assert themselves and reach manager or leader positions. However, this is mostly due to their own perceptions of themselves. Women tend to lack self-confidence, which is unfortunate because female managers generally use a transformational leadership style which is considered as one of the best, which means they have all the keys to become both successful managers and leaders, using androgynous characteristics. They also endure the maternity leave and tend to sacrifice their professional career for the benefit of their family life. Women simply need to be more confident and keep asserting themselves.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur socialarbetare på barn- och ungdomsavdelningen bedömer föräldrars omsorgsförmåga utifrån ett fiktivt fall. Vidare undersöks om det förekommer skillnader i bedömning angående föräldraförmågan utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Slutligen undersöks socialarbetares handlingsutrymme satt i relation till bedömningen. Studien baseras på en kvalitativ vinjettmetod som omfattar intervjuer med socialarbetare, där intervjuerna har utgått från konstruerade fallbeskrivningar, som är typiska för barnavårdsutredningar. Hälften av deltagarnas intervjuer utgår från en vinjett och hälften från en annan, men vinjetterna är detsamma förutom att föräldrarnas könstillhörighet är utbytta. Social konstruktionism tillämpas som vetenskaplig utgångspunkt i studien, vilken även används som ett teoretiskt begrepp i samspel med rollteori och genusteorier samt handlingsutrymme med lagstiftning. Resultatet visar att det förekommer skillnad i bedömning mellan vinjetterna, där samma egenskap upplevs olika beroende på förälderns könstillhörighet, vilket kan tyda på att synen på mödrar respektive fäder är olika. Det framkommer även att brister framhävs tydligare än förmågor samt att mödrar riskerar att anklagas för bristande omsorg av barn, men att det ändå är mödrar som har fördel i barnavårdsutredningar. Det kan medföra ojämlika bedömningar, där en anledning till åtskillnader och framhävandet av brister kan vara det snäva handlingsutrymmet som socialarbetarna befinner sig i. / The aim of this study was to examine how social workers on child and youth department assess a child’s parents based on a fictive case. Further, the aim was also to examine whether there are differences in assessment regarding the parenting skills based on a gender perspective. Finally, the aim was to examine the flexibility that social workers have in relation to their assessment. This study is based on a qualitative vignette methodology including interviews with social workers, where the interviews are based on a constructed case study, which are typical for child welfare investigations. Half of the participant’s interviews are based on one vignette and half on another, but the vignettes are the same except that the parent’s gender is changed with each other. Social constructionism is applied as a scientific base of the study, which is also used as a theoretical concept in interaction with role theory and gender theories and discretion with laws. The results show that there is differences in assessment between the vignettes, where the same characteristics are assessed differently depending on the parent's gender, which may indicate that the experience of mothers and fathers are different. It also shows that flaws are emphasized more clearly than abilities and that mothers may be accused of lack of care of the children, but still mothers have advantage in child welfare investigations. This can cause unequal assessments, where a reason for differences and the emphasis of flaws may be the tight discretion that social workers find themselves in.

Master's thesis is devoted to the study of the relationship to the appearance of women and its relationship to the theyself. The relevance of the study of this problem is due to continuously growing number of women who are not satisfied with their physical appearance that has a significant impact on various aspects of their lives, including the attitude towards themselves and, as a consequence, the quality of life. The use of modern approaches of domestic and foreign researchers allowed us to consider concepts related to the appearance and attitude toward themselves as multidimensional constructs. Because of this were found non-obvious relationships between different components of the concepts associated with age and the nature of the activities of the studied women (women leaders and female teachers of different age groups). This result is partially clarifies the nature of the influence of the relationship to the appearance of women in their attitude toward themselves, depending on the age and professional orientation that can be used in the course of psychological work with different categories of women suffering from dysfunctional attitudes toward themselves and their appearance. / Магистерская диссертация посвящена исследованию отношения к своей внешности женщин и его взаимосвязи с самоотношением. Актуальность изучения данной проблемы обусловлена непрерывно возрастающим числом женщин, которые не удовлетворены своей телесной внешностью, что оказывает значительное влияние на различные аспекты их жизни, в том числе, на отношение к себе и, как следствие, на качество жизни. Использование современных подходов отечественных и зарубежных исследователей позволило рассмотреть понятия отношение к внешности и отношение к себе как многомерные конструкты. Благодаря этому были найдены неочевидные взаимосвязи между различными компонентами рассматриваемых понятий, обусловленные возрастом и характером деятельности исследуемых женщин (женщины-руководители и женщины-педагоги различных возрастных категорий). Полученный результат частично проясняет характер влияния отношения к своей внешности женщин на их отношение к себе в зависимости от возраста и профессиональной направленности, что может быть использовано в ходе психологической работы с женщинами различных категорий, страдающими дисфункциональным отношением к себе и своей внешности.