There has been a surge in demand for arable land as a resource for agricultural production for food and energy purposes. This surge can be attributed to increases in global food prices, climate change, population pressure, and escalating energy prices. The search for land has given rise to the practice of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA). Due to misconceptions and old colonial views of land in Africa, the continent has become the most targeted region for these land acquisitions. The establishment of these projects in Africa is justified in the name of development. Paradoxically, LSLA has left local communities, especially women, in a more disadvantageous position than before. This qualitative study explores and relates LSLA to the right to food and participation. The thesis also critically engages with SDG – 2 to examine if large-scale projects comply with the goal’s purpose. This thesis aims to investigate the phenomenon of LSLA and how they impact women’s right to food and participation. The author has used qualitative content analysis as a method and relied on peer-reviewed studies on women and land-grabbing in three different countries. Compared to the previous research, the thesis results showed that the impacts of LSLA are gendered and have had severe consequences on women and their access and right to food. The support for business interests that are permeated in SDG – 2 has, based on the cases examined, also exacerbated rather than alleviated hunger which does not comply with the purpose of the goal.

Practices to promote gender equality and equal opportunities for men and women have become an important part of many organizations' agenda. However, women are still experiencing challenges in career advancement to a larger extent than men. This is due to structural, cultural and societal factors and other types of discrimination against women. This thesis aims to explore the experienced challenges and opportunities for career advancement by women in the Swedish energy industry, a male dominated industry. Although Sweden is a leading country regarding gender equality, women are still paid less and are exposed to discrimination and subordination. The energy industry has made efforts to improve gender equality, focusing on wage and gender distribution, but there is still more to be done to achieve equal opportunities for men and women. This thesis combines qualitative and quantitative methods and presents empirical data on women’s experiences of career and its challenges and opportunities. The empirical data is based on a survey with female respondents that are members of an organization that promotes gender equality within the energy industry. The findings indicate that the women experience both structural and cultural discrimination in their organizations, where they often are subordinated to men. Furthermore, results also indicate that men empower other men in career advancement in the organizations. Moreover, the current gender order together with gender structures create challenges for women in their careers in male dominated industries. However, there are situations where the respondents describe how they benefit from their gender minority situation, indicating opportunities for career advancement. / Jämställdhet och lika möjligheter för män och kvinnor har blivit en viktig del av organisationers arbete. Däremot upplever fortfarande kvinnor utmaningar gällande karriärutveckling i större utsträckning än män. Dessa utmaningar baseras bland annat på strukturell, kulturell och samhällelig diskriminering mot kvinnor. Den här avhandlingen syftar till att utforska de upplevda utmaningarna och möjligheterna för karriärutveckling hos kvinnor i den svenska energibranschen, vilken är en mansdominerad bransch. Även om Sverige är ledande inom jämställdhet mellan könen så tjänar kvinnor mindre än män samt utsätts för diskriminering och blir underordnade. Energibranschen har under den senaste tiden gjort ansträngningar för att förbättra jämställdhet mellan könen, där man fokuserat på lön och könsfördelning, men det finns fortfarande mycket kvar att göra för att uppnå samma möjligheter för män och kvinnor. Denna uppsats kombinerar kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder och presenterar empiriska data på kvinnors erfarenheter kring karriär och dess utmaningar och möjligheter. Den empiriska data är baserad på en enkät med deltagare från en organisation som arbetar för jämställdhet i energibranschen. Resultaten tyder på att kvinnorna i studien upplever såväl strukturell som kulturell diskriminering i deras organisationer, där de ofta upplevs underordnade till män. Vidare indikerar resultaten att män stöttar andra män i karriärutveckling i de deltagande kvinnornas organisationer. Dessutom, den nuvarande könsordningen kombinerat med informella definitioner av manlighet och kvinnlighet skapar utmaningar för kvinnor och deras karriärer i mansdominerade industrier. Å andra sidan, finns det situationer där kvinnorna i studien upplever att de drar nytta från deras könsminoritet vilket indikerar möjligheter för karriärutveckling.

AbstractThis final essay in religious studies at Malmö Lärarutbildningen (Teacher’s education) is a minor field study (MFS) carried out in Ghana about Trokosi. Trokosi is a tradition, system and practice where young girls are given to village shrine priests as sexual and domestic slaves, or "wives of the gods", in compensation for offenses allegedly committed by a member of the girl's family. My main research question has been: What are the thoughts of the victims as well as the rescuers of Trokosi thoughts about the Trokosi tradition, system and practice? The thesis is based on a minor field study, observations and interviews. I observed the work at International Needs Network Ghana (INNG) and their work with Trokosi mainly focusing on the International Needs Vocational Training Centre (INVTC). At INVTC former Trokosi get the opportunity of becoming independence and self-sufficient - ke te pam tem eng. In this essay I have interviewed two opponents to Trokosi, in this essay called the rescuers, as well as one victim of Trokosi. In my interviews, the only person who criticized the theory and the religion behind Trokosi was the victim, a person who was born into this belief system. INNG’s critics are not about the theory behind Trokosi but how it is practised. Applying of feminist perspective this thesis focuses religious and cultural practices, in this case Trokosi, as a part of a larger system that is limiting women’s lives. In addition, post colonial theory may contribute to the analysis of “third world women’s own struggle and aspiration for independence. There are different views and perspectives on Trokosi and despite Ghana’s constitution and other documents that forbid this type of practice it is still vital. This indicates that there are more factors to consider. For instance overall patriarchal structures and post colonial experiences. Information and education is essential for the transformation of Trokosi in order to favour women’s right especially in the fields of human- and women’s rights.

This study investigates how the feminist movement in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, relates to the International Women’s Strike – a transnational feminist mass strike launched by the Argentinian feminist collective Ni Una Menos in 2017. Based on a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of 10 feminist organizations in São Paulo, this text explores the feasibility of a feminist strike in the context of São Paulo and highlights the structural challenges in its implementation. In addition, the text employs a qualitative literature review to examine the ways in which women in São Paulo have resorted to the strike as an instrument of their resistance since the early 20th century. Theoretically drawing on the theories of direct action and institutionalization of social movements, this work constitutes a synthesis of previous debates and sheds light on the implications that the institutionalization of the Brazilian feminist movement has had on the viability of direct actions such as the feminist strike. A central finding indicates a relative consensus that the feminist movement in São Paulo must first build a massive and popular feminist movement, before an inclusive and intersectional feminist strike can be carried out.

Le Canada et le Québec, à l’image de la communauté internationale, ont à cœur le respect, la protection et la promotion des droits des femmes. Toutefois, les normes en matière d’apparence physique et de beauté qui pèsent uniquement sur les femmes, particulièrement sur les femmes et les filles noires, menacent le projet d’égalité réelle. Ces normes sont ce qu’on appelle les codes sexuels. Les codes sexuels cherchent à universaliser, naturaliser et normaliser un modèle unique de féminité, qui respecte un équilibre précaire entre beauté et professionnalisme, entre chasteté et attractivité. Dans ce mémoire de recherche, nous nous intéresserons au rapport entre le droit et la norme, qu’elle soit juridique, sociale ou culturelle, afin de comprendre l’effet préjudiciable des codes sexuels sur les femmes, et de comprendre comment et pourquoi le droit permet, renforce ou lutte contre les codes sexuels. Notre cadre théorique intersectionnel étudiera le principe de discrimination en droit international, canadien et québécois et présentera différentes théories de la norme, à l’intérieur et en dehors d’un contexte purement juridique. Cela permettra d’analyser de façon intersectionnelle la violence normative des deux codes sexuels à l’étude, soit les codes vestimentaires à l’école et les codes sur l’apparence au travail, puis de présenter des solutions sur mesure pour remédier à l’effet de ces codes sur les femmes et les filles. / Canada and Quebec, along with the international community, consider the respect, protection and promotion of women's rights of utmost importance. However, beauty norms and physical appearance standards that only burden women, especially black women and girls, threaten the project of substantive equality. These norms are called sexual codes. Sexual codes seek to universalize, naturalize and normalize a unique model of femininity, which observes a precarious balance between beauty and professionalism, between chastity and attractiveness. In this research paper, we will focus on the relationship between the law and the norm, whether legal, social or cultural, in order to understand the harmful effect of sexual codes on women, and to understand how and why the law allows, reinforces or fights against sexual codes. Our intersectional theoretical framework will study the principle of discrimination in international, Canadian and Quebec law and will present different theories of the norm, inside and outside a strictly legal context. This will allow us to analyze, using intersectionality, the normative violence of the two sexual codes under study, namely dress codes in schools and codes on appearance at work, and then present tailor-made solutions to remedy the effect of these codes on women and girls.

This study aims to analyze the development of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia by examiningthree reforms dated between the years of 2011 to 2022. The reforms revolve the progressmade within the subject and are therefore relevant to our paper. Furthermore, the reforms areanalyzed from the perspective of two theories: late rentierism and liberal feminism. Themethodology in the essay aims to seek motives behind decisions made by the state, thus beingappropriate to use in our case. In the analysis we connect the found motives with the chosentheories and draw conclusions regarding how the motives can be explained by each theory.Our findings show that the progress of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia can be connected tothe theory of late rentierism, where the reforms all indicate that the state of Saudi Arabia hastheir best economic interest in mind when implementing the reforms analyzed. A certainconnection with the theory of liberal feminism can be drawn as women’s rights are legalizedto a larger extent, as well as their rights in family matters that appear to be of larger interest tothe state today.

Most studies that deal with intimate partner violence (IPV) focus on men as the assailant and women as the victim. This study however explored how personnel within nonprofit men's shelters and crisis centers for men, work with male victims of IPV and what resources the personnel have to help these men. The central purpose was to get a broader understanding of IPV in Sweden by focusing on men's susceptibility, how it affects them and how well professionals and laymen within this field can work with male victims of IPV. The authors found that these businesses work with complex issues surrounding these men in borth different and equal ways.  The study was conducted using semi-structured qualitative interviews, and the number of interviewees was 9 people that currently work within the aforementioned men's shelters or crisis centers for men. From these interviews, the authors used content analysis to process and analyze the data. The interviewees mentioned that shame and stigmatization is highly prevalent in IPV affected men in heterosexual relationships regarding aspects of gender norms and masculinity, to the extent that it functions as a large barrier for many men in seeking help for their exposure to violence. This barrier is so large for these men that they more commonly deny their exposure to violence altogether or they become convinced that they are actually the perpetrators and not the victims.

Recently, a new IR movement called Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) has become more influential and achieved certain success when states like Sweden, Canada and France adopted these theories. This study will analyse Switzerland’s foreign policy to understand to what extent it is a FFP. Feminist Foreign Policy Analysis has developed new frameworks to answer this research question. Such as Aggestam and True’s four commitments, which is adapted in this thesis. Through a qualitative content analysis, policy documents of the Swiss government are analysed for gender mainstreaming, international development assistance, Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and gender equality mechanisms. The findings are that the implementation of WPS policies is at an advanced stage, and the international development assistance includes clearly defined budget goals and many pro-gender objectives. On the other hand, there is a lack of gender mainstreaming throughout Switzerland’s core foreign policy papers and gender equality mechanisms are rather sparse. The research concludes that, although Swiss FP contains feminist elements, it cannot be defined as feminist.

Title: “Holy” War on Human Rights - A hermeneutic study of the complex situation of human rights activists in Afghanistan Author: Zandra Bergman Supervisor: Maud Eriksen Examiner: Johanna Romare Department of TheologyMaster program of Religion in Peace and ConflictMaster’s thesis, 15 credits  In September 2020, the latest attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan, the intra-Afghan peace talks formally began. The opening of the peace negotiations failed to produce the long-desired ceasefire. Instead, it marked an increase of violence: a sharp number of deliberate killings of human rights defenders. The purpose of this study is to examine lived experiences of human rights activists in Afghanistan and the complex situation in which they are operating and to gain a deeper understanding of why they have increasingly been subject to violence. Furthermore, it is an attempt to explore the meaning of violence against Afghan human rights activists promoting women's rights. This is a hermeneutic study primarily based on data collected through interviews with two Afghan human rights activists. Rather than touch every topic and present data about an objective reality or truth, the aim is to shed light on the shared experiences of the respondents, providing snapshots of the current situation of Afghan human rights defenders, and to discuss their stories in the light of selected theories. The following research questions have been used to guide the study: (1) How can we understand the complex situation of human rights activists in Afghanistan, and (2) What are the underlying reasons they are being targeted? By adopting mainly, the concepts of hegemony: to decode underlying dimensions of power struggles, and a critical feminist approach: to grasp the gender dimensions of the conflict, I have exposed how my respondents in their positions of human rights defenders bring new life to a historical conflict of interests impinging on the future nature of Afghanistan. Moreover, they expose a recurrent clash between opposing hegemonic aspirations: a struggle over the maintenance of social order in the Afghan society, in which they are being placed at the center.

People who are diagnosed with or suspect endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are rarely included in the design of reproductive health applications, leading to a lack of functions useful to this user group. Non-normative user groups in general, including those experiencing endometriosis or PCOS, are also rarely mentioned in research of reproductive health applications or Human-Computer Interaction. Based on user requests, the aim of this thesis was to design new functions within the application Read Your Body aimed at their users experiencing endometriosis or PCOS. The project consisted of an iterative design process including research for design, sketching, prototyping, and user tests. It was found that this user group mainly wanted to track their symptoms and cycle to gain health insight, and a large number of tracking options and easy customisation was requested. The design process resulted in a design prototype that includes the ability to track symptoms, triggers, self-care practices and treatments as well as visualising and exporting data for personal health insight or to communicate with others. Knowledge created on the non-normative user group, their goals for tracking, and how to design reproductive health tracking applications for non-normative users could be useful in future research and design projects. The functions designed could improve understanding of self and communication with healthcare professionals, and inform diagnosis, treatment plans and self-care practices.