Magister Artium (Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science) - MA(SRES) / Women’s football is one of the fastest growing sports around the world, however, equity is lacking as women have to negotiate for training equipment, financial sponsorship, media coverage and safe transportation. The study represents an investigation of the lived experiences of female footballers and administrators in the Western Cape: A critical perspective of gender equity. The study further assessed the lack of development and support for women involved in football which displays the inequalities experienced by females within the football arena. The proposed study investigated female footballers’ lived experiences with regard to gender equity in football in the Western Cape. The study used a phenomenological approach which focused specifically on the lived experiences of humans with regards to a particular phenomenon which in this study is gender equity.

The question of what constitutes femininity has been widely debated, not only in gender studies, but also in the broader social world. A venue for this debate is the 1985 documentary, Pumping Iron II: The Women, in which gender and femininity in particular become part of the central plot of the film when Bev Francis, a woman bodybuilder more muscular than any other competitor, enters the competition. While feminist scholars have analyzed gender and sport from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, little attention has been paid to female bodybuilding in particular. To fill this gap, this thesis will examine the ways in which Bev Francis’s portrayal in Pumping Iron II: The Women reinforces and challenges ideas about gender, femininity, and embodiment. In Pumping Iron II: The Women Francis performs gender subversion, actively rebelling against gender norms while the film adheres to rigid definitions of femininity, resulting in her punishment. I seek to understand how female bodybuilding symbolizes larger cultural tensions around feminine gender performativity.

Bakgrund: Fysioterapeuter verksamma inom kvinnors hälsa har god kunskap om rörelse- och stödjeapparaten med kompetens att bland annat bedöma bäckenbottenmuskulatur, stödja återgång till fysisk aktivitet och finnas som stöd- och rådgivare. Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner menar att tillgången till fysioterapeutisk kompetens inom kvinnors hälsa bör förbättras. Det saknas i dagsläget studier på svenska fysioterapeuters uppfattningar om sin roll i eftervården efter förlossning. Syfte och frågeställning: Syftet var att undersöka hur fysioterapeuter verksamma inom kvinnors hälsa och som träffar postgravida kvinnor i sitt arbete uppfattar sin roll i eftervården efter förlossning. Design och metod: Studien var av kvalitativ deskriptiv design och dess innehåll baserades på semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem legitimerade fysioterapeuter verksamma inom kvinnors hälsa. Datan analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Fyra kategorier och 14 underkategorier identifierades under databearbetningsprocessen. Kategorierna kom att heta Fysioterapeuten som stöd- och rådgivare i eftervården, Fysioterapeutens unika bäckenbottenkompetens, Framtidens eftervård samt Utmaningar för fysioterapeuten i eftervården. Inom dessa kategorier framkom beskrivningar om fysioterapeutens roll kring att stödja återgång till fysisk aktivitet, utmaningar kring att nå ut till patienterna samt önskemål om att erbjuda rutinuppföljning hos fysioterapeut. Konklusion: De intervjuade fysioterapeuterna uppfattade att sin roll i eftervården efter förlossning innefattar att vara emotionellt stöd, att vara stöd-och rådgivare och att de har en unik bäckenbottenkompetens med möjlighet att individualisera bäckenbottenträning. De upplevde att kvinnohälsa bortprioriteras, att det saknas kompetens inom området och att samarbetet med andra professioner var utmanande. Det framkom även att fysioterapeuterna önskar kunna erbjuda rutinuppföljningar efter förlossning. / Background: Physiotherapists active in women's health have good knowledge of the musculoskeletal system with the competence to, among other things, assess pelvic floor muscles, support return to physical activity and be available as support and counselors. Sweden's municipalities and regions believe that access to physiotherapeutic competence in women's health should be improved. There is currently a lack of studies on Swedish physiotherapists' perceptions of their role in aftercare after childbirth. Aim: The aim was to investigate how physiotherapists working with women's health and who meet post-pregnant women in their work perceives their role in aftercare after childbirth.Design and method: The study was of qualitative descriptive design and its content is based on semi-structured interviews with five licensed physiotherapists active in women's health. The data has been analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results: Four categories and 14 subcategories were identified during the data processing process. The categories came to be called the Physiotherapist as a support and advisor in aftercare, the Physiotherapist's unique pelvic floor competence, Future aftercare and Challenges for the physiotherapist in aftercare. Within these categories, descriptions emerged about the physiotherapist's role in supporting return to physical activity, challenges in reaching out to patients and wishes to offer routine follow-up to a physiotherapist. Conclusion: The interviewed physiotherapists perceive that their role in aftercare after childbirth includes being emotional support, being a support and counselor and that they have a unique pelvic floor competence with the opportunity to individualize pelvic floor muscle training. They feel that women's health is de-prioritized, that there is a lack of competence in this subject and that they find collaboration with other professions challenging. It also emerged that the physiotherapists wish to be able to offer routine follow-ups after childbirth.

The purpose of this paper is to study women's representation in the Swedish municipal boards. The result and conclusion will be able to contribute with knowledge about women’s quantitative representation in the boards and also the variation and content of it. The problem reads: How does women's representation look like in the municipal boards? To figure this out I have chosen to use variables like gender, city, party, and boards to consideration, which gives me an opportunity to study both women's vertical and horizontal representation. The study is a quantitative study and uses a statistical analysis to analyze the material. The boards have been categorized into soft and hard political questions, for purpose to see if there is any female over- or underrepresentation in any area. I have chosen to study the 12 largest municipal in Sweden for this study, based on previous science, which shows that women's representation are higher in more highly populated cities. Because of the previous science, the studies hypothesis projects a low female representation and with the studies strategic sample the case is a least likely case. All the material is gathered from the municipal own websites and compiled in a statistical analysis. The result shows inter alia that women are underrepresented as a total in the municipal boards. The result also revealed a considerable underrepresentation when it came to hard political questions, and even in the fields where women were predicted to have a high representation, men have taken majority. For conclusion my hypothesis were for the most part verified, even with the study being a least likely case.

Magister Public Health - MPH / In recent years, the Chipata district has been making progress in promoting Respectful Maternity Care (RMC) implementation, with great emphasis on its underlying principles of ethics and psycho-sociocultural aspects as critical ingredients of care. RMC approach is individual-oriented and is based solely on the understanding of ethics and respect for human rights. Additionally, this approach utilizes evidence-based practices that recognize the needs and preferences of women and that of their newborns. Unfortunately, disrespectful and abusive care during childbirth has been found to discourage women from having their babies delivered by qualified health care workers, a practice that is essential in reducing maternal and neonatal mortalities. However, lacking are studies in the Chipata district that describe the prevalence of disrespectful and abusive maternity care.

The Chilean women’s movement has a long history of challenging state power. The role women played in the opposition against Augusto Pinochet’s authoritarian regime has fascinated researchers. There also seems to be a consensus, whereby the contemporary movement is considered to be divided. Yet, recent developments in Chile have seen a resurgence of women’s activism that has not been studied. The need for re-mobilization points to the idea that women’s concerns and needs have not been adequately addressed in the past, despite their strong presence in civil society. This study explores how women have experienced social action in the Chilean women’s movement, through narrative analysis. Analysing own voices accounts of collective action provided insight into how women organize in Chile; the origins of divisions present in the contemporary women’s movement; important differences and parallels with the women’s movement that opposed the dictatorship; and the presence of vertical structures in Chilean society. In focusing on the experiences of women who were active in the opposition to the dictatorship, as well as the largely untapped voices of women active in the contemporary movement, this project will contribute to future research on similar subjects.

By using critical discourse as a method three discourses have been exposed as active in the advicing articles published on the website of Amelia, a Swedish magazine for women. The three discourses are the neoliberalist, postfeminist and the heteronormative. The research shows, by using the theories of governmentality and the heterosexual matrix, that these discourses collaborate to form the advices that is being given around women’s sexuality and their sexual health on the website of Amelia. The discourses that is being exposed in the research can be described as they are imposing guilt upon women. It also poses women as the solely responsible for the relationship to work and the women are as well expected to conform to their partner, which often is described as a man. This implies that in the advicing articles of Amelia, women and men are not allocated the same position in a relationship. Indicating that it exists an inequal relation in the context, where women are subordinated to men. Finally, the research can contribute to an understanding of the ambiguous expectations existing regarding women´s sexuality.

A disagreement may occur between Skolverket’s aim to include various perspectives in history teaching, and the realization of the subject amongst students with negative attitudes towards the gender perspective. The object of this overview is to compile and analyze the result of an information retrieval regarding adolescents’ attitudes towards gender history, and how they may affect the teaching frame. Thus, this overview can become a tool for history teachers when implementing gender history in their teaching. Useful material was found through the databases: Education Research Complete (ERC), ERIC via EBSCO, Sociological Abstracts, Google Scholar, and DiVa Portal. Each source has been reviewed and valued based on its relevance to the effects of attitudes in regards to gender history. Therefore, sources processing attitudes around feminism, gender equality, and women’s history have also been valued as useful. The result in this overview conveys both positive and negative attitudes towards feminism, gender equality, and women’s history. However, the research provides examples of how the teacher can affect how the students encounter gender history, and, therefore, also their attitudes towards the subject matter. The teacher is wise to implement a teaching with a gender perspective, which will challenge the students’ preconceived perceptions. Secondly, the research conveys the important use of a variation of historical agents for the sake of each students’ identification within gender history. Thirdly, a significant part of the used sources promotes the idea of including gender history as a vital segment of the traditional history teaching. Otherwise it would remain simply a less valued supplement. Lastly, a relationship-oriented teaching is suggested as a useful tool whilst managing the problems which may occur when teaching gender history.

The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate elements of racism in two court documents from The Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). The court documents deal with two regulations from the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) and the implementation of these regulations, which aim to assess womens’ participation in elite running. These regulations are based on measurements of female athletes’ testosterone levels to assess who is considered eligible to compete in the female category in elite running. The regulations have been criticized by UN Human Rights Council, which states that the regulations include racial discrimination, since the regulations are primarily aimed at women from the global South as they to a greater extent demonstrate higher levels of testosterone. The thesis has analysed whether racist discourses can be discerned in the court documents by examining statements from the IAAF and CAS when it discusses the implementation of these regulations in elite running for women.  The analysis of the court documents is based on a method of critical discourse analysis. which intends to shed light on uneven power structures due to, among other things, race. In the court documents, the content of the texts was examined according to the method. The thesis examines how women who produce higher levels of testosterone are described in relation to women who produce testosterone within the “normal” range. The thesis also examines which discourses have the most space in the court documents. The analysis is supplemented with Sara Ahmed´s theory of the phenomenology of whiteness, and Sandra Fredman´s theory of the concept of equality. The results of the thesis show that women from the global South are considered abnormal due to a socially constructed norm based on white Western ideals. Female athletes who show a higher level of testosterone come mainly from the global South. Since these athletes are more affected by the IAAF:s regulations than those from the West, it can be interpreted that these women are restricted in their freedom of movement within elite running compared to white female athletes.

The modern-day phenomenon house-squatting is typically performed by social movements. Social movements can be assumed to be multifaceted and straggly. The individuals meet different needs and incentives. They find inspiration from circumstances in everyday life, as well as globally, the focus lies on information/communication rather than distribution of material resources. This thesis aims to map the individual as well as the collective attributes among the participants in the women’s house-squatting in Umeå 1983, using a theoretical framework representing social movement characteristics. The results show that the political and social aims to some extent outweighed the symbolic participation. Inspiration predominantly stems from everyday circumstances but is often related to the global ditto. Information and communication play a prominent role, although material resources should not be rejected entirely. In addition, it can be concluded that the participants show contradictory behaviors, because of the movement’s multifaceted and straggly composition.