<p>In Stockholm there are currently five women, out of a total of 102 employees, working in public sports arenas. In sports arenas men are numerically superior amongst the workers as well as the visitors. These arenas are in many ways male dominated, masculinized environments. In this essay I investigate the reasons behind the uneven distribution, in terms of gender, among sports arena workers. I do this by interviewing seven female sports arena workers (the five current and two former), and by observing their workplaces. Through discourse analysis of their narratives, I seek to use these women’s experiences, as being part of a minority, as a way to render sports arenas more available for a larger public. In the study I have a feminist, post-structural standpoint, and I relate my results to theories on gender and organization as well as research on gender and sports. From a doing gender perspective<em> </em>I focus on how the women that I have interviewed talk about themselves, their workplaces and their choices of profession, as well as how they talk about gender and gender equality.</p><p>The aim of this study is to present these women’s perspectives on sports arenas as organizations, and to draw links between these particular workplaces and larger social discursive patterns. Another aim with the study is to problematize the very effort to achieve (numerical) equality between the sexes, and to uncover underlying biases. Except for gender biases I also consider intersections between gender and age, social class and sexuality. One of my main findings is that there are quite specific discourses surrounding this profession, reproducing it as masculine. An equalization of the distribution in terms of gender among the employees is not necessarily the entire solution to the inequality problem. A more qualitative effort is needed, for instance a redistribution of power resources within the organization. In the essay I present a list of concrete proposals on how to diversify the personnel in the future, based on the interviews. The main goal with this work is to destabilize the gender based gap in the Swedish labor market, and to increase the availability to all spheres in society, for everyone, on equal terms.</p>

<p><strong>Syfte:</strong> Att undersöka pappors tankar och erfarenheter kring föräldrautbildning och föräldraledighet under barnets första levnadsår. <strong>Metod: </strong>Explorativ kvalitativ intervjustudie. Ett målinriktat bekvämlighetsurval gjordes och semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med nio män som blivit pappor under de senaste två åren. Data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. <strong>Resultat: </strong>Föräldrautbildningen bör inriktas mer på det gemensamma föräldraskapet än på graviditet och förlossning. Trots utbildningens mammaperspektiv känner sig papporna inkluderade. En majoritet av papporna ser det som en självklarhet att ta ut en längre föräldraledighet. Positiva tankar om att dela lika på föräldradagarna är att få en nära relation med barnet och få en högre grad av jämställdhet och förståelse för varandras situation. Amning, föräldrarnas arbetsförhållanden och ekonomi är viktiga aspekter för fördelningen av föräldradagarna. Även könsroller och rollförväntningar har betydelse. Papporna är negativa till att tvingas dela helt lika men är positiva till en ökad kvotering. <strong>Slutsats: </strong>Att ta ut en längre föräldraledighet och att föräldraskapet är gemensamt ses som en självklarhet för majoriteten av papporna. Föräldrautbildningen bör riktas till båda föräldrarna och fokus bör ligga på det kommande föräldraskapet. Anknytningen till barnet och jämställdhet mellan föräldrarna ses som positiva aspekter av att dela lika på föräldradagarna.</p> / <p> </p><p><strong>Aim: </strong>To examine fathers’ thoughts and experiences concerning parental education and male parental leave during the child´s first year. <strong>Method: </strong>An exploratory qualitative interview study. A target-oriented convenience selection was made and semi-structured interviews with nine men whom had all become fathers within the last two years were carried out. A qualitative content analysis was made. <strong>Results: </strong>Parental education should be more focused on the joint parenthood than on pregnancy and childbirth. In spite of the mothers’ perspective during the education fathers feel included. For a majority of the fathers a longer parental leave is a matter of course. Shared parental leave can facilitate the connection between the father and the child, and may increase gender equality as well as the understanding for the other parent´s situation. Breast-feeding, the parents’ working conditions and economy are aspects of importance regarding the divisions of the parental leave. Even gender roles and gender role expectations are important aspects. The fathers’ have a negative attitude regarding a statutory shared parental leave but are positive to an increased allocation of quotas. <strong>Conclusion: </strong>Parenthood is seen as a joint responsibility, and a longer period of parental leave is a matter of course for a majority of the fathers. Parental education should be directed to both parents and the education should be focused on the coming parenthood. A facilitation of the connection between father and child and gender equality among the parents are positive aspects of shared parental leave. <strong></strong></p>

This thesis contains four different studies on the dynamics of gender in households and workplaces. The relationship between family life and work life is in focus, particularly in the paper on labour market outcomes after divorce. In the introductory chapter, the Swedish context is briefly described. The description focuses on gender differences in the labour market and in the home. Theories concerning the division of work in the household are discussed, as are two theories on labour market discrimination, viz. taste discrimination and statistical discrimination. The theory part is concluded with a discussion of social closure processes and gendered organizational structures. The Reproduction of Gender. Housework and Attitudes Towards Gender Equality in the Home Among Swedish Boys and Girls. The housework boys and girls age 10 to 18 do, and their attitudes towards gender equality in the home are studied. One aim is to see whether the work children do is gendered and if so, whether they follow their parents’, often gendered, pattern in housework. A second aim is to see whether parents’ division of work is related to the children’s attitude towards gender equality in the home. The data used are taken from the Swedish Child Level of Living Survey (Child-LNU) 2000. Results indicate that girls and boys in two-parent families are more prone to engage in gender-atypical work the more their parent of the same sex engages in this kind of work. The fact that girls still do more housework than boys indicates that housework is gendered work also among children. No relation between parents’ division of work and the child’s attitude towards gender equality in the home was found. Dependence within Families and the Household Division of Labor – A Comparison between Sweden and the United States. This paper assesses the relative explanatory value of the resource-bargaining perspective and the doing-gender approach in analysing the division of housework in the United States and Sweden from the mid-1970s to 2000. Data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey (LNU) and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) were used. Overall results indicate that housework is truly gendered work in both countries during the entire period. Even so, the results also indicate that gender deviance neutralization is more pronounced in the United States than in Sweden. Unlike Swedish women, American women seem to increase their time spent in housework when their husbands are to some extent economically dependent on them, as if to neutralize the presumed gender deviance. Divorce and Labour Market Outcomes. Do Women Suffer or Gain? In this paper, the interconnected nature of work and family is studied by looking at labour market outcomes after divorce. The data used are retrospective work and family histories collected in LNU 1991. A hazard regression model with competing risks reveals that women’s chances of improving their occupational prestige appear to be better after divorce compared to before. Increased working hours and perhaps also increased energy invested in the job may pay off in better occupational opportunities. Worth noting, however, is that the outcome among women with a less firm labour market attachment is more often to a job of lower prestige than one of higher prestige. Hence, the labour market outcome for women after divorce is to some extent conditioned by their labour market attachment at the time of divorce. Men, on the other hand, in most cases seem to suffer occupationally from divorce. For separated men the risk of negative changes in occupational prestige is greater than for cohabiting men. Formal On-the-job Training. A Gender-Typed Experience and Wage- Related Advantage? Formal on-the-job training (FOJT) can have a positive impact on wages and on promotion opportunities. According to theory and earlier research, a two-step model of gender inequality in FOJT is predicted: First, women are less likely than men to take part in FOJT and, second, once women do get the more remunerative training, they are not rewarded for their new skills to the same extent as men are. Pooled cross-sectional data from the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions (ULF) in the mid-nineties were used. Results show that women are significantly less likely than men to take part in FOJT. Among those who do receive training, women are more likely to take part in industry-specific training, whereas men are more likely to participate in general training and training that increases promotion opportunities. The two latter forms of training significantly raise a man’s annual earnings but not a woman’s. Hence, the theoretical model is supported and it is argued that this gender inequality is partly due to employers’ discriminatory practices.

Syfte: Att undersöka pappors tankar och erfarenheter kring föräldrautbildning och föräldraledighet under barnets första levnadsår. Metod: Explorativ kvalitativ intervjustudie. Ett målinriktat bekvämlighetsurval gjordes och semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med nio män som blivit pappor under de senaste två åren. Data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Föräldrautbildningen bör inriktas mer på det gemensamma föräldraskapet än på graviditet och förlossning. Trots utbildningens mammaperspektiv känner sig papporna inkluderade. En majoritet av papporna ser det som en självklarhet att ta ut en längre föräldraledighet. Positiva tankar om att dela lika på föräldradagarna är att få en nära relation med barnet och få en högre grad av jämställdhet och förståelse för varandras situation. Amning, föräldrarnas arbetsförhållanden och ekonomi är viktiga aspekter för fördelningen av föräldradagarna. Även könsroller och rollförväntningar har betydelse. Papporna är negativa till att tvingas dela helt lika men är positiva till en ökad kvotering. Slutsats: Att ta ut en längre föräldraledighet och att föräldraskapet är gemensamt ses som en självklarhet för majoriteten av papporna. Föräldrautbildningen bör riktas till båda föräldrarna och fokus bör ligga på det kommande föräldraskapet. Anknytningen till barnet och jämställdhet mellan föräldrarna ses som positiva aspekter av att dela lika på föräldradagarna. / Aim: To examine fathers’ thoughts and experiences concerning parental education and male parental leave during the child´s first year. Method: An exploratory qualitative interview study. A target-oriented convenience selection was made and semi-structured interviews with nine men whom had all become fathers within the last two years were carried out. A qualitative content analysis was made. Results: Parental education should be more focused on the joint parenthood than on pregnancy and childbirth. In spite of the mothers’ perspective during the education fathers feel included. For a majority of the fathers a longer parental leave is a matter of course. Shared parental leave can facilitate the connection between the father and the child, and may increase gender equality as well as the understanding for the other parent´s situation. Breast-feeding, the parents’ working conditions and economy are aspects of importance regarding the divisions of the parental leave. Even gender roles and gender role expectations are important aspects. The fathers’ have a negative attitude regarding a statutory shared parental leave but are positive to an increased allocation of quotas. Conclusion: Parenthood is seen as a joint responsibility, and a longer period of parental leave is a matter of course for a majority of the fathers. Parental education should be directed to both parents and the education should be focused on the coming parenthood. A facilitation of the connection between father and child and gender equality among the parents are positive aspects of shared parental leave.

The purpose of this paper is to present a possible understanding of why the company Tekola is segregated according to sex. In accordance to this purpose, an understanding of how the segregation affects the employees in relation to power, values and possibilities is discussed. The theoretical understanding is that the organization of men and women within Tekola is done in close connection to creation of the meaning of gender in Tekola. This, in turn, affects and is affected by the recruitment to and within the company. Through the study of statistics from a survey, five interviews with employees and former employees and Tekolas’ equality plan, we are able to see the possible existence of a glass ceiling, and a culture of homosociality, which affects the possibilities of women to enter the company and also to gain full entrance to power-positions in a negative way. There is also a possibility that sexual harassment exists in Tekola. There is a clear feminization of one of the departments, a phenomenon that affects acts directed at and around that department. Also, we are able to see that there is a gap between the actual segregation between men and women in Tekola, and the employees’ perception of their possibilities. / Syftet med denna undersökning är att presentera en möjlig förståelse av varför företaget Tekola är könssegregerat. I linje med detta skapas även en förståelse av vad könssegregeringen betyder för medarbetarna i företaget i relation till makt, värderingar och möjligheter. Utgångspunkten för förståelsen av företagets organisering av kön är att könssegregeringen hänger samman med hur kön skapas i företaget, samt att detta påverkar och har samband med den interna och externa rekryteringen av män och kvinnor. Materialet som studeras består av statistik som skapats genom bearbetning av en enkätundersökning på företaget, fem djupintervjuer med anställda och före detta anställda samt Tekolas jämställdhetsplan. Analysen av materialet visar bland annat tendenser till förekomsten av ett glastak och en homosocial kultur vilket negativt påverkar kvinnors möjligheter att ta sig in på företaget samt att avancera. Det förekommer även troligtvis könsmässiga trakasserier. Samtidigt sker en tydlig märkning av en avdelning som kvinnlig, vilket påverkar olika handlingar riktade mot och kring denna avdelning. Det verkar även ha skapats en förståelse av att alla har samma möjligheter, något som motsägs av hur könsfördelningen faktiskt ser ut.

No description available.

Research on gender equality in Swedish higher education shows an unequal gender balance. Women are consistently underrepresented at the highest levels of the academic hierarchy. The lack of gender equality in academia has been illustrated by metaphors such as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline and a black hole. Unlike other problems in the academic context, gender inequality in higher education is seldom considered from a system perspective. The system of higher education has undergone major changes during the 1990s in terms of scope (more students, more faculty, more institutions, etc.), differentiation (inclusion of new disciplines) and geographical distribution (establishing institutions in previously unserviced areas). In this thesis, theoretical expectations concerning the effect of these changes on gender equality are developed. The thesis investigates gender equality in higher education by developing an analytical framework to analyze the system level and its impact on gender equality. The empirical data consists of two sets. The first set contains cross-sectional data on registered students, doctoral entrants, doctors, post-doctoral fellows, lecturers and professors in Swedish higher education. The second set is derived from the longitudinal integration database for health insurance and labor market studies (LISA), which consists of anonymized data on all individuals in the Swedish labor market that hold doctoral degrees. The main finding of the thesis is that the system of higher education does have an impact on the gender equality in higher education. The vertical gender balance has increased during the expansion of Swedish higher education during the 1990s. The horizontal gender balance has also increased, but the increase is limited to the student category. On the other hand, the system of higher education has not had an impact on the gender equality measured in terms of exits from academia. Instead, the analysis shows that the rate of men that leave academia is higher than the rate of women, and that commonly used metaphors portraying academia as a narrowing pyramid, a leaky pipeline or a black hole serve poorly as illustrations of the gender equality in academia.

Issues concerning gender equality are today an integral part of Swedish society. Because of this, even traditionally male-dominated actors are forced to incorporate a focus on gender equality. What kind of tensions may this provoke, and how are these tensions visible in the gender equality policy making of traditionally male-dominated organizations? Against this background, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse how issues of gender equality are “problematized” by three organizations that originate from masculine environments; Män för jämställdhet, IF Metall  and Rikpolisstyrelsen. I wish to analyse the meaning that these actors incorporate into the issue of gender equality and from which discourses these meanings are derived. This focus entails a specific theoretical standpoint. Thus, another aim of the study is to discuss the advantages of a post-structuralist approach to the study of public policy. More specifically, I want to develop the use of a range of discourse analytical modes of analysis and to evaluate their utility in capturing the dynamic of problematization processes. The empirical focus of the dissertation is on the years between 2000 and 2008. The research material consists of both formal and informal documents. The analysis shows that questions of gender equality can be problematized in a number of ways. Issues concerning gender equality can be tied to issues of men’s hegemony, men’s gender-specific problems, class-based problems and organizational problems. This wide array of problematizations also illustrates ways in which there still seems to be an underlying conflict over the meanings tied to the concept, even though nobody openly challenges the importance of gender equality reform efforts. I call this situation a “conflictual consensus” and point to the importance of deconstructing this supposed unity and illuminating the kind of power relations that lay hidden beneath it.

Språk både reflekterar och påverkar vår världssyn. Hur mottas då försök från gräsrotsnivå att introducera ett könsneutralt pronomen i ett språk som speglar den i samhället rådande könsdikotomin? Syftet med denna uppsats är att utifrån Hirdmans och Butlers respektive genusteorier undersöka vilken inställning användare på ett stort svenskt internetforum har till det könsneutrala personliga pronomenet hen. Undersökningen genomfördes med hjälp av en internetbaserad enkät som besvarades av cirka 150 personer. För att analysera svaren till de slutna frågorna tog vi hjälp av statistikprogrammet SPSS och för att bearbeta de öppna frågorna har vi använt oss av en tematisk analys. Resultatet visar på starkt polariserade åsikter runt hen, där ungefär lika många personer är för som emot ordet. Bland dem som är emot användandet av hen uppfattar de flesta att syftet med ordet är att skapa ett könslöst samhälle, medan hen-förespråkarna ser det som ett komplement till hon och han. Vi har även kunnat se att det finns ett visst samband mellan individens attityd till hen och dennes syn på kön och genus, vilket bekräftar vår hypotes om att det finns en sådan korrelation. / Language reflects our worldview as well as shapes it. How is grass roots level attempts to introduce a gender neutral pronoun received in a society which reflects a gender dichotomy? The purpose of this study is to, inspired by Hirdman’s and Butler’s respective theories on gender, explore what attitudes users of a large Swedish internet community have towards the gender neutral pronoun hen. The current work was performed using an Internet-based survey which was completed by roughly 150 individuals. To analyze the closed ended questions of the survey we used SPSS, whereas the open ended questions were processed with the aid of a thematic method of analysis. The results indicate that the opinions concerning hen are largely polarized, with about as many respondents pro as against the usage of the word. Among those who are against using hen the majority perceive that creating a “genderless” society is the main purpose of the word, whereas most of the word’s intercessors think  that the purpose is to pose as a complement to the pronouns han and hon (he and she).  The study shows that there is a certain connection between the respondent’s attitude towards hen and his/her view on gender, which confirms our hypothesis that there is such a correlation.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the conceptualisation of the social relations of class and gender within the Social Democratic Women’s Association during the period 1972 – 1993, on the basis of their programmes for action. The analysis of the concepts is based on an ideology critical study focusing on the manifest ideology. The study is based upon the theoretical concepts of class and gender,  The class analysis is based upon the broadened concepts of class by Erik Olin Wright and Ira Katznelson. The gender analysis is mainly based upon a Marxist understanding and a critical point of view of Marxism and feminism in the context of patriarchy and capitalism. The period of the study is where the social democracy is challenged, both by radical socialism and feminist ideology and the economic crisis during the 1980’s, as well as the possible threat of an organised women’s party in Sweden. It is also a period with major changes in the Swedish class structure, especially in the change when married women become a part of the female labour force rather than being housewives. The results indicate that the use of the concepts of class and gender is mainly sparsely used. The concepts are often paraphrased in varied terms of social equality. Class is clearly more used, and more often implied, than gender. Gender policies are formed from a latent ideology to a more practically oriented policy, without any real progress concerning power and equality, when Sweden at the same time forms policies for gender equality, from which the women’s association could benefit, even though they may not have been the actors of this change. The analysis also indicates that some of the ideological changes within the women’s association are a result of both outside influences from more radical groups as well as ideological crises within the social democracy. In this struggle between class and gender the Social Democratic Women's Association positions itself in between.