This qualitative study has been focused on investigating and comparing the opportunities and obstacles for women to take on leadership positions in a male dominated industry. Despite the fact that women in leadership positions have increased over time, the fact remains that leading positions are male dominated which makes it harder for women to pursue careers on higher levels. The study’s theoretical framework consists of pedagogical theories about gender equality systems, male dominated organizations, homosociality and organizational culture . To make a foundation that includes a broad perspective to this work, both existing and previous female leaders were interviewed to draw attention to their experiences and in turn comparing similarities and differences between them. According to the purpose of this study, an analysis of  the relation between the ones that are staying and the possibilities that the company offers have also been carried out through this study. To make a difference and to continue to achieve improvement of equal conditions, the greatest development potential comes by identifying, questioning and analyzing the process of where the company is today, where they want to be followed by the possibilities to make it happen. This perspective was an aspect to achieve improvements to create a sustainable gender equality work over time. The result of the women first named experiences showed the same opportunities to reach leading positions regardless of gender and no perceived obstacles were named. Through a closer analysis , the women experienced obstacles in a more hidden form. The women also described that they have to make more effort than men in working life, which may indicate that there are difficulties for women in male-dominated organizations to be able to reach leadership positions.

Introduction: Children experience responses and expectations from those around them concerning their gender in relation to what is and what is not acceptable in their play choices. Stereotypically gendered play opportunities may create boundaries in children’s play choices and lead to gender-related occupational injustices. There is a limited amount of studies regarding occupational therapists’ perception of gender and how it impacts the practice of play in occupational therapy. Aim: To explore how occupational therapists perceive gender when encountering children in play interventions. Method: A qualitative study was conducted consisting of ten semi-structured interviews. A content analysis was performed by Giorgi`s method of analysis with a deductive approach. Results: Two main categories gender awareness and equal play were obtained from six concepts: client-centered and occupation focused encountering’s, gender role stereotypes in play, the influence of gender in play, play interventions and roles, environment and toys, and occupational therapy offering opportunities to feel accepted and to learn new things.  Conclusions: The six concepts found can be related to the occupational outcomes of justice. Significance: The study findings could provide avenues to explore how gender-related occupational injustices can be prevented and how an awareness of gender can contribute to equal play opportunities.

Background: The implementation of female networks is a recognized organizational tool to support similar social identities receiving marginalization, such as women. Still, gender inequalities seem to persist, and the effectiveness of these networks is questioned. It has been proved that when men are engaged in gender inclusion programs, the organization sees drastic improvements in reducing gender inequality than if men are not involved. In recent years, the concept of Allyship has been presented as a way to include men in gender equality work. Allyship seems to be an increasingly appreciated tool to support women and, at the same time, help organizations adapt their work culture and inclusion values.  Research problem: Despite the prevalent perception that allyship can be a valuable way for organizations to diminish gender inequality, most organizations continue to focus their efforts, initiative, and measures only on women. There is still a research gap regarding the paradox of what women consider to be an excellent ally, whom they believe can become an ally, and how they prefer that an ally should behave and act. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how members of female networks perceive and leverage male allies to combat gender inequality in male-dominated organizations. By putting this phenomenon in the limelight, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of how members of female networks experience male allies and the concept of allyship in its entirety and thereby offer essential insights to scholars and practitioners. Method: Our research methods were based on qualitative, explorative research and followed multiple case study. Our empirical data was conducted from 17 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with participants from eight different male-dominated organizations. The empirical data was further analyzed using a grounded theory for the analysis process. Conclusion: As a result of the findings, a framework was developed explaining how members of female networks perceive potential allies as 1) suitable members of the majority group, 2) top management, and 3) influential members from the same minority group. Additionally, it reveals how members of female networks would appreciate leveraging allies through autonomy-oriented help in 1) cheerleading, 2) continuous support, and 3) immediate confrontation.

Whilst gender equality has moved forward in recent years in Scandinavian countries like Norway and Sweden, there are still significant financial gaps between the genders. According to several scholars, women tend to invest less than men, which leads to consequences such as women having less financial capital wealth and lower pensions. The perception of investing and the banking and financial industry are still perceived as male-dominated by society. Linked to societal perceptions, advertisements have been discussed to influence consumers' perceptions of norms and stereotypes in society. Femvertising is a recently emerged advertising concept that empowers women and challenges concurrent norms and stereotypes about the female gender in society. Furthermore, organizations taking a stance for a social cause through advertisements has become a trend in recent years, where brand activism has been encountered in the context. However, taking a stance for a social issue can be a risky action from a brand, as corporations jeopardize harming their brand image if consumers do not appreciate the message they are trying to communicate.  The academic research on femvertising in the context of male-dominated industries has been surprisingly scarce, where previous scholars suggest further studies in this context is needed. Little to no research has investigated the usage of femvertising in advertisements for the banking industry, nor its influence on female consumers and their image of the brand. This study’s purpose is to investigate how the commercial bank DNB's use of femvertising influences female consumers and their image of the brand. We aim to fill the discovered research gap through studying a Norwegian bank that tries to empower women and take a stand in their advertisements for financial gender equality. For that reason, semi-structured interviews were conducted with one manager from the Norwegian bank DNB and nine female consumers with a solid connection to Norway. The manager from DNB was chosen for his expertise and knowledge of the bank’s campaign #huninvesterer. The other respondents were purposely sampled based on their female gender and strong connection to Norway, as we wanted respondents who already knew of DNB from before the interviews.  The thematic analysis presented several similarities between the female respondents' perception of DNB’s brand image and the manager’s description of the bank’s desired brand identity. The use of femvertising was mostly perceived as something positive and inspiring due to its empowering elements and challenging of female stereotypes, presenting a diversity of women, but had downsides of being too female focused, where several female respondents expressed certain skepticism to the campaign’s exclusive focus on women. In common for all respondents was how they perceived the bank’s stand on the socio-political issue as eligible for a large bank. The overall opinion of the influential effect on the bank’s brand image was suggested to be strengthened, although the results varied to a certain extent.  The study provides requested empirical data and better knowledge and understanding of femvertising used in a male-dominated industry. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to nuance the results as the perspectives of males and a more diverse age span among females could enrich the findings of this thesis.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att få en bild av hur jämställdhets- och genusperspektivet ter sig hos historielärare i de senare skolåren på Centralskolan i Svedala, samt om och hur man i historieundervisningen arbetar för att uppnå kraven i läroplanen angående jämställdhet mellan kön. Min utgångspunkt är att undersöka om historielärare tycker att de arbetar jämställt. Undersökningen har gjorts med hjälp av intervjuer och slutsatsen visar på att kunskapen är låg men att man ändå tycker att man arbetar jämställt. / The purpose of this paper is to get perspective on how historyteachers in Svedala, Sweden, thinks about the concept gender equality. I also wish to see how and if the teachers works to reach the demands in the curricula concerning gender equality. My main question is, do teachers think they work with gender equality? The study was made by interviews and the conclusion shows that teachers knowledge about gender equality is low but that they anyway thinks that they are working with gender equality.

Studier har visat att barn påverkas av den miljö de befinner sig i. Den fysiska världen talar ett språk som berättar om samhällets krav, förväntningar och värderingar på individen, inklusive förväntningar angående kön/genus. Könsnormer har visat sig vara inbäddade i hur rum utformas och därför kan det sägas att rum har möjlighet att påverka skapandet av kön. I denna studie undersöks hur pedagoger på en HBTQ-certifierad förskola i Sverige använder rummets språk tillsammans med det talade språket för att minska ”gender salience” i förskolan. Syftet är att ta reda på hur förskolemiljön utformas av pedagogerna för att ge alla barn möjlighet att skapa sin identitet bortom förgivettagna föreställningar om kön. Data har samlats in genom fotografier, fältanteckningar, observationer och intervjuer, samt från förskolans litteratur och styrdokument. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är feministisk poststrukturalism och queerteori, med särskilt fokus på Butlers teori om genus som performativt görande. Analysen av empirin visar hur förskolan använder färg, lekmaterial, rumslig organisering, litteratur och bilder, det talade språket, samt mat för att ifrågasätta samhällets könsnormer och öppna dörren till fler positioner än de könsstereotypa. Resultaten har implikationer både för pedagoger och också andra som är ansvariga för att skapa rum för barn och deras familjer.

Gender lens investing (GLI) considers gender-based factors across the investment process to advance gender equality and better inform investment decisions. It recognizes that gender-based discrimination persists in many areas of society, including access to economic opportunities. The aim of this study is to understand GLI as a phenomenon using the feminist standpoint theory. The research question guiding this study is: how does the management team of a venture capital fund interpret and implement gender-lens investing? The study conducted an in-depth case study on Company X, a venture capital fund that invests with a gender lens. The results were supported by interviews with the management team and company documents and were categorised according to the interpretations of GLI and key lessons to fulfil the aim. We conclude considerable efforts are underway to achieve the end goal of gender equality, however, in view of the shortcomings discussed, there is still room for improvement. The results and discussion can be used to better understand the phenomenon of GLI and lessons in the development of gender-responsive investment strategies.

The analysis studies the spill-over effect of the gender equality of the trading partner on the gender wage gap. The aim is to contribute to the gender aspect of the literature studying the effect of globalisation on wage inequality, and especially to the very limited literature on the spill-over effect of the trading partner. It uses a European multi-country approach and analyses both exports and imports, which has not been done previously. For the empirical analysis, cross-country panel data is used to construct a fixed effects model. The results show a strong positive effect on the gender wage gap for both exports and imports, although the effect is stronger for imports. It indicates that a change in the gender equality of the trading partners has a significant effect on the gender wage gap. Furthermore, the analysisis extended to also analyse the explaining mechanisms raised by the literature. The results give an indication that certain groups based on technology intensity are driving the results, implying that the explaining mechanism could be the adoption of technology favoring women, but needs further research to draw any conclusions. All in all, the results provide evidence on the existence of a spill-over effect and highlights the importance of including both imports and exports for further research into the explaining mechanisms.

Gender equality has been on the political agenda in Sweden for nearly half a century and today’s official ideology is that gender equality shall infiltrate all areas of Swedish politics. However, previous research has shown that Sweden is a patriarchal society, which manifests itself in all aspects of society, but also in the heterosexual couple relationship. This qualitative interview study identifies which factors affect experienced gender equality among ten heterosexual women who are in a couple relationship and aims to determine whether or not a difference exists between two different generations of women. The result shows that women experience that they take greater emotional and practical responsibility than men in the relationship and identifies communication and emotional attunement as being key factors which affect gender equality in the heterosexual relationship. Furthermore, it illustrates an increased level of awareness regarding gender equality among the younger generation of women, but no big differences between the age groups were found. In accordance to previous research, this study shows that patriarchal gender structures greatly affect the heterosexual couple relationship in all aspects. / Jämställdhet har varit på Sveriges politiska agenda i nästan ett halvt århundrade och idag är den officiella ideologin att jämställdhet skall prägla all svensk politik. Tidigare forskning inom området tyder dock på attSverige är ett patriarkalt samhälle och att detta manifesteras både i samhället i stort, men även i den heterosexuella parrelationen. Denna kvalitativa intervjustudie identifierar vilka faktorer som påverkar upplevd jämställdhet hos tio kvinnor som befinner sig i heterosexuella parrelationer och försöker fastställa huruvida någon skillnad existerar mellan två olika generationers kvinnor. Studien visade huvudsakligen att kvinnor upplever sig ta mer känslomässigt och praktiskt ansvar än män samt att kommunikation och känslomässig anknytning har stor påverkan på upplevd jämställdhet i den heterosexuella parrelationen. Resultatet illustrerade även en ökad medvetenhet kring jämställdhet hos den yngre generationen, men någon större skillnad mellan åldersgruppernaerhölls ej. I enlighet med tidigare forskning visar studien att patriarkala könsstrukturer har stor påverkan på den heterosexuella parrelationen i alla aspekter.

Historically, sport has been a male phenomenon and this has also left an impression onsports coverage from the media. There has always been an imbalance in reportingbetween the sexes, but in recent years it has been possible to see an improvement froman equality perspective. The purpose of this essay is to find out how the local sportsnewsrooms work for equal sports coverage, and what obstacles and difficulties there areto get the reporting completely equal. To answer the study's questions, a structuredinterview is conducted with three sports managers and five sports journalists from fourdifferent local newsrooms in Sweden, to get their views on the job towards equal sportscoverage.The essay uses four different theories that are used as a basis and help when theinterview answers are analyzed in the results and the discussion. The theories used arethe agenda theory, framing theory, the gender theory and the gatekeeping theory. Theprevious research shows varying results on equal sports coverage. Several studies haveconcluded that there are more female sports journalists who are making an effort formore equal coverage, while other studies believe that interest in women's sports hasincreased after newspapers made a stronger investment in women's sports.The essay uses a qualitative interview study and a thematic analysis to be able tointerpret the experiences and perceptions of the interviewees. The method is best suitedwhen it comes to studying people's behavior and values in society, which fits well withthe essay's purpose.The results show that the local sports editors work daily for equal sports coverage, butthat it is not as simple as one might think. There are a number of factors that emerged inthe results that make it more difficult to achieve completely equal coverage. The numberof elite teams each catchment area has, the inroads of commercialization and theeconomy of the newspaper, as well as old norms and how it has looked throughouthistory are the factors that all interviewees highlight as playing a big role in why thereporting is still not equal between the sexes. This essay shows that the problem stillexists but that it has gotten better, and that hard work is being done to get as equal areporting as possible.