Background: Despite the fact that organizations have been working to promote gender equality for several decades, the working environment in Sweden is not yet equal. However, problems often arise during the integration of gender equality in organizations, and too often organizations' gender equality work fails in practice. One way to deal with this is to set goals for gender equality, strategies for achieving these and then convey the strategies through policies. Statistics show that the auditing industry is an industry that is far from being equal, where men dominate at higher levels. At the same time, researchers argue that there are structures and methods in the auditing industry that are not gender neutral. Earlier research also shows that in organizations internal processes it turns out that it surprisingly often occur gender divisions and segregation between the sexes. The authors found a gap in previous research about how the gender equality strategies are reflected in the internal processes of audit firms and how gender equality is perceived by the employees and therefore considered it essential to study this more closely. Purpose: The essay aims to provide an insight into how audit firms work to achieve gender equality, if there are better or worse ways to handle inequality in the auditing industry, and how the perception of gender equality in the companies differs among employees Method: In this multiple-case study, a qualitative research method with a deductive approach is used. The empirical data has been collected through semi-structured interviews and then linked to the theory and analyzed with a comparative approach Conclusion: There are both advantages and disadvantages with the audit firms' gender equality strategies. The audit firm that handles the problem most effectively examines and analyzes the entire organization's structures and processes to find what causes inequality, thus promoting equality in the company. The authors also observe a difference in how the employees perceive the inequality in the workplace, which was that position and length of employment seemed to have an impact on how big a problem they experienced in the inequality at partner level in the auditing industry. Those with a higher position and a longer employment period show greater awareness and insight into the problem of an unequal distribution of gender at the partner level.

For the past decade, EU’s gender equality policies have undergone some changes that have affected the way in which the problem with gender equality is now represented. This case study analysis explores what the problem with gender inequalities is represented to be in EU’s Strategy for Equality between Women and Men, 2010-2015, and whether there are any presuppositions or assumptions underlying EU’s representation of the problem. The method used for analysis is Carol Lee Bacchi’s approach: What’s the Problem (represented to be)?, which is a post-structuralist approach that pays much attention to language and discourse. EU’s gender equality policy is then compared with Sylvia Walby’s theory on the patriarchy, that explains gender inequalities as being systematically produced through a system of social structures. The main conclusion is that EU’s gender policies are tailored to fit the political priorities of the union, which are to achieve the objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy.  The problems are mainly being represented from an economic perspective, and furthermore the EU dismisses the notion that gender inequalities are a result of our social structures, and rather explains the problem of gender inequality as being the problem of women.