Mary Wollstonecraft (1759- 1797) wrote both A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman within a matter of weeks. Why she wants to write the second book about rights continued from the preceding one? I would try to probe into the correlations between these two works. In her argument for women¡¦s rights (even all human being¡¦s rights), Wollstonecraft contested the gendered construction of reason and virtue in political theory. I situate the pioneering feminist as a canonical thinker alongside Locke and Rousseau. Yet, although I admit that Wollstonecraft¡¦s works have been largely been overlooked by mainstream political theorists, in this paper my analysis will offer little explanation as to why Wollstonecraft has been marginalized within the conversation of political thought. To explain why Wollstonecraft¡¦s works has not been included in the canon I pose the question of how this revolutionary woman was authorized to write about political rights. In addition to her perspectives of politics, she also challenged the idea of contemporary patriarchy to fight for women¡¦s citizenship. Therefore, Complex conversations between past and present are involved in any attempt to read Wollstonecraft¡¦s texts or to find the problems of traditional liberal feminism. My study makes no pretension to offer answers to pressing problems. It does, however, provide insights into how present concerns make us resonant to themes in Wollstonecraft¡¦s writing, such as her dealing with the politics of gender difference, her awareness of sexuality and romance, her passionate wrestling with reason, and the relevance of her version of the Enlightenment humanist project to women¡¦s citizenship today. On a more somber note, her proposition makes clear how much exclusion and subjugation of women has taken place within Western feminist tradition from Wollstonecraft onwards and how attentive we need to be to decolonizing the thinking in our own heads while we dream of liberating wider theory.

This study focuses upon the relatively unexplored area of sexual harassment in British universities. In sum, the thesis suggests that although MacKinnon's (2004) aim is to enable women to feel more powerful and less stigmatised, the contribution of feminist harassment discourses may, in part, generate in some women an understanding of powerlessness and vulnerability. In particular, it suggests seemingly prevailing discourses surrounding sexual harassment in higher education and considers if and how the women interviewed define themselves through these discourses. Thus, by exploring the power effects of and resistances to these suggested prevailing discourses, it is possible to infer the degree to which these discourses may have constituted the participants' subjectivities. Further, the thesis argues that feminist harassment discourses may have generated specific effects of power with regard to my participants. That is to say, many of my participants seem to understand sexual harassment as exploitative behaviours rooted in the unequal distribution of ascribed power in higher education. Feminism's understanding of power as a static and gendered appears to have generated for the participants, at least in part, the understanding that sex at work is used to humiliate and degrade women, maintaining and reproducing ascribed notions of power. For this research, twenty-four unstructured interviews were carried out with women who had identified themselves as having experienced sexual harassment within higher education, either as a student or a member of staff, or who had witnessed events they had defined as sexual harassment. This was a passionately interested form of inquiry, recognising the partial nature of knowledge and identifying my political positionings (Gill 1995; Aranda 2006). The analysis is Foucauldian oriented, understanding power as fluid - rather than possessed - and as generating particular ways of being. In addition, although it notes that the participants did resists specific effects of power, this resistance always takes place from a new point of power and does not, therefore, carry us beyond power into a power free space. The prevailing discourses suggested from my data are: the 'grades for sex' discourse; the 'all boys together' discourse; the 'trustworthy lecturer' discourse; the 'knickers in a twist' discourse; and the 'sexual harassment as unwanted sexual behaviour' discourse. Supervisors: Dr. Kristin Aune and Dr. Gordon Riches

The following pages are about feminism and politics. The aim is to study the feministic course of action of the Swedish government, and to find the one out of three, for this paper most relevant feministic orientations, that pervades the politics. My study is based on a qualitative text analytical method, with the ideal type as an analytic tool, which include typological distinctions of liberal-, radical-, and social feminism. The result of my study shows that the prevailing orientation, is the radical feminist, here recognized by political proposals that involve changes (for the better) in attitude towards women, in all level of society.

Conflict related sexual violence is a phenomenon that has come to light since world war II, however it is only in recent years that conflict related sexual violence has been discussed in larger forums. In recent years the subject of Conflict related sexual violence has been researched and brought to light in media. This thesis aims to study the conflict related sexual violence in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The method applied on this thesis was a comparative feminist study. The theoretical framework used in this study is liberal feminism and radical feminism. In this study a comparison between the two feministic focuses has been the main object. The result of the study found that both radical feminism and liberal feminism can explain conflict related sexual violence. Radical feminism main concepts in their theory is sexual oppression that women face. Liberal feminism focus on inequality in the society between the sexes. In the result it was found that both perspectives of feminism could explain the sexual violence as something structural. There is inequality between the sexes in a societal level therefor sexual violence can be used as a way to maintain power.

This study on feminism is a study aimed at understanding a reality within feminism (suburban feminism) in the suburbs of Gothenburg and the underlying factors that contribute to the emergence of this new phenomenon, and why women in the suburbs relate to as an alternative social tool in the quest for better social standings. The research was focused on the 2 major issues and they were (1) the effect of intersectionality on feminism in the suburbs and (2), the effect of internal factors like culture and religion on feminism in the suburbs. Intersectional analysis in my study partly explained the emergence of this new phenomenon (suburban feminism) as a reality within feminism. Cultural shock experienced by the immigrant women when they come Sweden explained also the relevance of cultural polarisation as a factor in the emergence of suburban feminism. The research was done through the qualitative research methods among the immigrant populations living in the suburbs of Gothenburg. The primary research material was the respondent’s experiences and answers to a variety of questions. With the help of several respondents and earlier research done on feminism in the suburbs shows how suburban feminism as a phenomenon emerges and takes shape among the immigrant populations and how this kind of feminism emerges out of the daily challenges ranging from intersectionality, socio-economic setups and several other aspects the respondents refer to as cultural shock between different cultures that have converged in the suburbs. In general, suburban feminism is a phenomenon that emerged out of several factors that range most of them intended for the furtherance and empowerment of women in all spheres of life. The respondent’s answers to the questions fielded in this study together with the earlier research done on feminism and equality in Sweden formed the bedrock on which the study is anchored on. Suburban feminism in my study is a product of social construction different from feminism anchored on theories and this becomes more evident from the answers of my respondents in their understanding of feminism.

In the year of 2014, the new Swedish government declared itself as the world’s first feminist government. This thesis aims to study the Swedish foreign policy and thus to investigate if the declared feminist foreign policy has resulted in a changed foreign policy. By using two feminist theories; radical feminism and liberal feminism, the study’spurpose is to do a critical comparison between the governmental administration of Fredrik Reinfeldt in the years of 2010-2014, with the administration of Stefan Löfven between 2014-2018. After a recently finished first term of the feminist policy, the subject of this study is interesting in the perspective of evaluation. To investigate if the policy by fact has changed, a qualitative textual analysis will be used. Further, to analyze the foreign policy, foreign declarations from all years between 2011-2018 will constitute the material. In summary, the result demonstrates that a change in policy has appeared and can further be ascertained. Both administrations show clear features of liberal feminism. However, during the last term, between 2014-2018, the governmental policy has shown tendencies of more radical feminist elements. Although the world’s first feministgovernment has received great attention, the future of the feminist foreign policy is still indeterminate.

The goal of this essay is to analyse how women belonging to a right wing political discourse talk about feminism and equality. This analysis will be used to determine if right wing feminism exists. The analysis is based on Laclau and Mouffe´s  discourse theory as the primary base. The focus is articulation, antagonism and hegmony; the central terms of Laclau and Moffe´s theroy. The material consists of five interviews with representatives of women wings of liberal political in Sweaden; Liberala kvinnor, Centerkvinnor and Moderatkvinnor. The study shows that there are different opinions regarding feminism in the liberal political discouse, and that those opinions have an antagonistic relationship. This has resulted in a re-articulation of feminism and feministic issues.

This dissertation contributes to the discipline by demonstrating successful and productive incorporation of feminist research methods and methodologies in rhetorical studies and the application of the rhetorical arts to feminist projects. Specifically this dissertation examines the history of state-sanctioned marriage in the US and its contribution to normative discourses of family that problematically inform public policies and mainstream arguments directed at some working and parenting women struggling to care for their families and provide for them economically. Through feminist rhetorical analyses of congressional testimony on welfare; feminist rhetorics on women, work, family, and economics; and narratives of women's lived experiences derived from an interview-based study, this project renders visible and disrupts mechanizations of privilege and oppression deployed through hegemonic discourses on marriage and family. It concludes that feminist rhetorical scholars are uniquely trained and therefore called upon to address inequities promulgated through national attachment to state-sanctioned marriage and normative models of family.

Although there has been substantial progress toward gender equality, great disparities still persist. Across the globe, women face widespread gender gaps in the division of household responsibilities, economic resources, limited access to educational opportunities, and legal and political barriers to political power. Japan is one of the countries that has been falling behind, and has for several years been facing criticism from major international organisations for the persistent gender gaps in its economy, politics, and society. Furthermore, Japan has for a long time been influenced by Confucian tradition where the emphasis has been on strong gender norms and division. In 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe launched new economic policies to restart and stimulate Japan’s economic growth. He encourages an increase of active inclusion of women’s participation, and his policies came to be widely known as “Womenomics”. The ambition of this paper is to discover Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s view on women’s role in his new policies, and to conduct a dimension analysis on “Womenomics”. The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of Confucianism and Liberal Feminism, to see whether one can discover elements of Confucianism and/or Liberal Feminism in “Womenomics”. The results indicate that the prime minister consider women’s role mostly in regards to economics, and the policies and the view on women’s role are foremost aligned with the political ideas of Liberal Feminism.

The purpose of the study was to analyse and compare the current Swedish socialist government, which have declared themselves as the first feminist government, with the previous non- socialist government. This is to see if, and if so how, the current government’s policies regarding gender differ from the former government’s policies. This paper has analysed both governments using different feminist theoretical approaches to see which of the perspectives characterize the government’s policies regarding gender, and if there has been a shift towards any of the perspectives. The three feminist theoretical perspectives used were liberal feminism, socialist feminism and postmodern feminism. The method used was an idea analysis, and ideal types of the three theoretical feminist perspectives as the analytical instrument. The material contains public texts released by the governments. The result of the study showed that the government’s policies regarding gender are highly similar and that their policies can be related mainly to the liberal- and socialist feminist perspectives. The result also showed that there has not been a shift towards any of the perspectives since the current government was elected, although only the current government could be related, to a small extent, to postmodern feminism.