During recent years, countries and societies around the world have acknowledged questions regarding gender equality and diversity, and these issues are nowadays put on the agenda for both governments and business executives. Knowledge about gender equality and its positive effects has spread down to organizations and individuals, and existing research about gender equality is often built upon or put in relation to the phenomena of organizational culture. The Swedish society and especially the Swedish ICT industry have acknowledged the importance of having a gender-balanced organization, but for many organizations the question stays as a thought of mind and small or few actions are made to change the current .gender-balanced The purpose of the thesis is to identify and discuss aspects of gender equality for companies within the ICT industry, and to examine how an organization’s culture is involved in current imbalance of gender distribution. The research question is formulated as follows: Which opportunities and downfalls exist for women’s career development within the ICT industry? One of the starting points of the study is that gender is seen as a social construction, and that gender is created through society structures, segregation and hierarchy. This creates gendered power relations in society that are intertwined with organizational power relations. Further, the study builds upon the fact that organizations should be seen as gendered because of the power perspective and the belief that conditions are different for men and women and that there is a constant amount of power that needs to be shared. A case study of a specific region in an international ICT company has been carried out by mapping the company’s gender structure, and by conducting interviews with employees within the region. The conclusion is that career development within the company is gendered and based on male prerequisites and working conditions, which constitutes a downfall for women’s career development.

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This essay examines the stance of the current Swedish government parties, Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna, towards Sweden's six sub-goals in gender equality policy; power, economy, education, unpaid domestic work, health and violence against women. Through a qualitative idea analysis, the focus will be on investigating the parties' positions and political actions through two different feminist perspectives, namely equality feminism and difference feminism. By studying Kristdemokraterna and Liberalerna own political documents on gender equality, this study seeks to answer whether their policies predominantly align with equality feminism or difference feminism, and whether there are any contradictions between the parties' gender equality policies based on these two different feminist approaches.

As one of the world's most equal countries, gender equality holds significant importance in Sweden. This thesis examines how Sweden formulates its gender equality policy accordingly. From a post-structural feminist perspective, this thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis of the Gender Equality Policy in Sweden. The central objective of this thesis is to examine whether the policy contributes to the reproduction and perpetuation of gender norms that sustain hegemonic female and male identities within the context of a heteronormative framework. The concluding remark emphasises that by acknowledging non-heteronormative rights in the discourse, the Gender Equality Policy in Sweden can foster a more transformative perspective on gender equality that questions and dismantles the normative assumptions that uphold heteronormativity. By changing its discursive and linguistic practises, Sweden could become a more equitable society where all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have equal opportunities, rights and protection.

The urge for a more equal society is growing, but the conservative movement poses a threat to the concept of gender equality and feminism. In recent years the interest for conservative feminism has grown which hinder the development towards a gender equal society as it contains anti-feminist traits. Kristdemokraterna, a political party in Sweden, can be seen as a case for a conservative wave in Swedish politics as they drive a conservative gender equality. However, it is currently unknown how the policy relates to already established equality work in Sweden as well as internationally. This study aims to analyze how problem constructions of gender equality are created within the political conservative sphere where Kristdemokraterna operates. The purpose is to investigate whether, and to what extent, the problematizations of Kristdemokraterna interact with and affect the society's system in terms of power and dominance and to obtain this interpretation repertoire and WPR approach are utilized as methods. The study resulted in the understanding that gender equality is problematized as a question of choice, immigration, and motherhood. The problematization differentiates groups and have unequal expectations of these. This in turn results in politics that can be perceived as passive. The concept of gender equality undergoes a process of bending and shrinking due to the problematization. Ultimately, the study states that Kristdemokraternas gender equality policy seems to become a middle-class privilege for ethnic Swedes.

Entrepreneurs who need funding often turn to the venture capital industry. In Sweden, women entrepreneurs represent a third of the total number of entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, women-owned businesses only raise one percent of the total venture capital in Sweden. Previous research has attempted to explain why male entrepreneurs raise more venture capital than women entrepreneurs, however, more research is needed to understand the circumstances for success. This leads to the study’s aim which is to create an understanding of what makes women entrepreneurs successful when raising venture capital, and how they do it, and the research questions, which are How do drivers enable women entrepreneurs to raise venture capital? How do women entrepreneurs overcome the different challenges that they meet when raising venture capital? To reach the study’s aim and answer the research questions a qualitative method was used. Semi-structured interviews with ten respondents, who were women entrepreneurs who had raised venture capital, were conducted. This study contributes new perspectives to the already existing field of entrepreneurship and venture capital, by providing a new framework showing how women entrepreneurs overcome challenges and use drivers for raising venture capital successfully. The results show how the respondents use their entrepreneurial, risk-prone, and highly self-confident personality in their relationship with investors and other entrepreneurs, to successfully raise venture capital. The findings in this study suggest that governmental agencies should provide more network possibilities with venture capitalist firms and investors for women entrepreneurs.

This study analyzes the global impact of democratic backsliding on gender equality through cross-section regression analysis. As a wave of democratic backsliding is spreading around the world, scholars have started to notice a backlash against gender equality as well. Since these changes seem to happen simultaneously, the question is whether they are interrelated. Very little research has been done within this area, and the impact of democratic backsliding on gender equality is still relatively unknown. This study contributes to the understanding through a quantitative study analyzing the effect of democratic backsliding on gender equality on a global scale. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, the impact of democratic backsliding on women as a group is analyzed. Secondly, the impact of democratic backsliding on gender equality in terms of relative power distribution between men and women is analyzed to find out whether de-democratizing is affecting women particularly hard. The results show that democratic backsliding is affecting women negatively. However, no impact can be confirmed on gender equality in terms of power distribution between women and men, which suggests that recent developments are likely explained by regional and contextual factors rather than democratic backsliding.

Women's empowerment in the police sector as leaders is an important study that has received little attention in the literature. Understanding the problems and hurdles, as well as solutions to empower women police today as leaders in the police force, was the emphasis of the study. The goal of this research was to investigate the concept of female police empowerment in the Abu Dhabi Police. This study looks at the important elements of empowerment for ADHGHQ women police, as well as the problems they encounter because of their gender in a historically male-dominated industry. The following four research questions served as a guide: 1) To what extent the principles of empowerment are implemented of women police in the ADPGHQ? 2) What is the impact of empowerment implementation on leadership of women police in the ADPGHQ? 3) What is the impact of empowerment implementation on skills of women police in the ADPGHQ? 4) What is the impact of empowerment implementation on the abilities of women police in the ADPGHQ? An in-depth survey and personnel meeting were conducted with women police operating in all ADPGHQ sectors to have a better grasp the issue. The data collection and analysis paradigms used in the research investigation were quantitative. The core data is gathered through questionnaires and personal meetings with a group of 650 female police officers from various sectors who work at the Abu Dhabi Police (ADHGHQ). Data was gathered via e-mail, and personnel were present. This research finishes with practice recommendations for strengthening police leadership in the ADPGHQ and removing real and perceived barriers to women's full involvement in the workforce and leadership. A proposal method was established to improve the position of women's police empowerment in leadership, according to the study. This approach is intended to empower female police officers in positions of leadership at ADPGHQ, but it can also be used as a general conceptual framework to empower women in other police sectors. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that women police require empowerment to achieve the desired leadership position.

Bosnia and Herzegovina as a European country committed to the so-called European path decided to submit a request for a candidacy back in 2016 and start fulfilling the conditions that the EU sets for future members. The European Union accepted the request and, as part of its enlargement and integration policy, set out the requirements of the EU towards Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had to fulfill in order to be a full member of the EU. Among those conditions, gender equality was found as one of the pillars of the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina responded to that demand. However, even though Bosnia and Herzegovina's response existed both at the legislative and institutional level, the EU did not evaluate it as adequate. Therefore, the aim of the research and the main question is to try to understand how and to what extent the state of gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina affects its admission to the EU?  It can be said that Bosnia and Herzegovina will have to fulfill the conditions related to gender equality and women's rights that the EU has put before it, but it seems that they will not be decisive for its admission to the EU.

To confront the inadequate representation of women as heroic figures in American public art, this project investigates the precedent of representing heroines in art. Through researching artwork featuring heroines, and heroic figures in general, this project aims to understand the historical context that new works featuring heroines will fit into. A template for constructing art featuring heroines was developed, showing what features or qualities are generally emphasized for the artwork to read as heroic. As art history has supplied principally man heroic figures, it was interesting trying to discern whether a template for art about heroines is different or essentially the same as a template for heroes. This project also includes three groups of artworks: new portraits for United States paper currency featuring American heroines, propaganda posters featuring Lady Liberty, and proposals for public installations that celebrate American heroines. These works investigate the process of placing women in spaces historically used to celebrate predominantly man heroic figures. In this investigation, I found that many heroic signifiers used for heroes were suitable for heroines. Emphasize physical strength, a performance of masculinity, or an emphasized performance of femininity were not necessary for the portrayal of heroines to read as heroic. By creating these artworks and a template for constructing heroines, this project will hopefully encourage and enable other artists to create works featuring heroines and generate support for better representation of women in public art.