Magister Artium - MA / The political participation of women in parliaments is not only important for sustainable development of every country, but it is also crucial for their voices to be heard, as they form at least half of the world’s population. Furthermore, women’s presence in significant decision-making positions represents an indicator of gender transformation and mainstreaming. However, women remain largely underrepresented in parliament and state institutions in Ghana with a current representation of 8.3% in parliament.Against this background, this study evaluates the role of women wings in enhancing women’s representation in parliament, by exploring the gendered social, political and ideological contexts in which they operate and assesses the constraints and challenges to their effective involvement in parliament. Using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the research analyses the activities of three main political parties’ women’s wings in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana by addressing the following key questions: (i) What are the demographic features of members of the women’s wings in Ghana? (ii) What structures and relationships influence women’s participation and advancement in Ghanaian politics? (iii) Do women’s wings attached to political parties have the capacity to advance the agendas of women and gender equality in Ghana or are they constrained by loyalties to male-dominated parties? (iv) To what extent do women’s wings address gendered political structures and ideology within Ghanaian society generally, and Ghanaian politics specifically? (v) Do women’s wings of different parties perform different roles, and reflect different strategies for enhancing women’s public participation? The findings indicated that women’s wings affiliated to political parties are constrained by their loyalty to their political parties resulting in a lack of a clear feminist consciousness.There was also lack of cooperation among the women’s wings which also affected their ability to enhance gender equality in the country. In addition cultural norms and discriminatory practices together with a lack of financial resources were found to be major obstacles to the effectiveness of the women’s wings in Ghana in achieving gender equality and social justice. The study therefore recommends a need for a stronger feminist consciousness and the building of women’s solidarity among and between women’s wings to enable them to address the strategic gender needs of the country and achieve gender equality in Ghana.

My Masters project is a visual exploration of otherwise unrecorded girls' and women's sports stories from the pre-Title IX era. Title IX is an American piece of legislation that was signed into law in 1972. It states that any institution receiving federal funding cannot discriminate based on sex. This law would help to expand girls’ and women’s opportunities and participation in sports, although gender equality in American school athletics has yet to be achieved. The visual outcome of my project took the form of the Sports Fans Newsstand which housed a variety of ephemera such as comics, newspapers, sports trading cards, posters and pins--each element adding a new entry point to these complex stories.

Following conflict, peace agreements bring an opportunity to profoundly change societal structures and add to women’s empowerment. Using affirmative action tools like electoral gender quotas, women’s numerical presence, or descriptive representation, has more than doubled since the 1995 Beijing Declaration. However, women’s descriptive representation does not always result in women’s representation beyond numbers, or substantive representation. This thesis aims to solve why quotas do not always lead to a rise in women’s substantive representation by exploring one possible explanation: the effect of women’s rights provisions in peace agreements on the outcomes of electoral gender quota-implementation. It argues that women’s rights provisions in peace agreements can affect policymaking outcomes in the postwar context in terms of increased substantive representation of women. The thesis employs the method of structured, focused comparison to compare the two post-war countries, Nepal and Angola. It finds support for the hypothesis that electoral gender quotas implemented following a peace agreement with women’s rights provisions leads to a larger increase in women’s substantive representation than those implemented following a peace agreement without such provisions. However, further qualitative cross-case analysis and large-n quantitative research are needed to draw more certain conclusions.

Syftet med kandidatuppsatsen är att förstå och analysera ledamöternas syn på kvinnor i politiken i Mauritius. Denna avhandling fokuserar på politikernas erfarenheter efter implementering av könskvotering i den lokala politiken som resulterade i en ökad kvinnorepresentation och dess konsekvenser. Det empiriska materialet för avhandlingen har samlats in genom kvalitativa intervjuer med manliga och kvinnliga ledamöter från tre kommuner i Mauritius. Det teoretiska ramverket är uppdelad i tre delar som används för att analysera olika punkter från det empiriska materialet. I det teoretiska ramverket har vi inkluderat teorier om de tillvägagångssätt att öka kvinnors representation, varför kvinnor bör vara aktiva i politiken, och om könskvotering. För att analysera empirin från en teoretisk synvinkel har resultaten delats upp i tre underkategorier vilket är respondenternas inställning till könskvotering och kvinnors representation i politiken, teorin om kritisk massa och förändringar i den politiska agenda, samt kommunpolitikernas attityder gentemot kvinnliga politiker. Resultaten från vår avhandling visar att föreställningen att politiken enbart är en mans domän har börjat förändras. Den ökade kvinnorepresentationen har visat att kvinnor är lika kompetenta som män att verka i den politiska världen. Dock visar inte resultaten någon märkbar förändring i den politiska agendan. Kvinnor i Mauritius är numera accepterade att delta i politiken, men det är fortfarande en lång väg att gå för dem att betraktas som likvärdiga medlemmar som män i den politiska världen. / The purpose of the thesis is to understand and analyse councillors’ view on women in Mauritian politics. This thesis focuses on their experiences after the implementation of gender quota in local government which led to an increased women’s representation in local politics as well as the consequences derived from it. The empirical material for this thesis has been gathered through qualitative interviews with male and female councillors from three municipalities in Mauritius. The theoretical framework is divided into three parts which are used to analyse different points from the empirical material. In the theoretical framework we have included theories about the ways to increase women’s representation, why women should be active in politics, and about gender quota. To analyse the empirics from a theoretical point of view, we have divided the results into three sub-categories which are the respondents’ stance to gender quota and women’s representation in politics, the theory of critical mass and the change in political agenda, as well as the councillors’ attitudes towards female politicians. The results from this thesis show that the notion that politics is solely a male domain has begun to change. The increased women’s representation has shown that women are as competent as men in the political field. However, the results do not show a notable change in the political agenda, because not enough time has passed to see any differences. Women in Mauritius are today more accepted to partake in politics but there is still a long way to go for them to be considered equal members as men in the political world.

The success of three Louisiana feminists in the 1970s, Fran Bussie, Clarence Marie Collier, and Pat Evans stemmed from their professional expertise in labor rights, education, and politics, respectively. By joining and maintaining memberships in a variety of social, civic, and activists groups, these feminist leaders via the 1976 Louisiana Governor’s Conference on Women created a unique network that allowed for the formation of a new women’s platform. This conference advanced women’s rights, established a working platform for reform, and helped usher in second-wave feminism in Louisiana. Using conference booklets, archived video and audio interviews, and newspaper articles, this thesis argues that when women came together in their professional positions to advocate for women’s rights, the results were clearly positive.

<p>This paper aimed to investigate to what extent there is an age cut-off for teenage boys in the women’s shelters of Sweden and how a possible cut-off is described and maintained. This occurrence has not been investigated earlier to a large extent, which emphasizes the importance of this paper. A mixed strategy was used to cover both the frequency as well as the explanations to the age cut-off. The quantitative survey was sent to all women’s shelters in Sweden and the result showed that 56 % of the shelters had an age cut-off for teenage boys from 12 years of age and above. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six women’s shelters in Stockholm to examine how the notion teenage boys was constructed and used by the respondents to deny them refuge together with their mothers. The teenage boys were described as young men, aggressive and in the same time need of support, which all had the consequence that they could not stay at the shelters with collective housing. The age cut-off was neither discussed nor questioned by the members of the women’s shelters and was upheld by its legitimation. From a social constructive perspective the women’s shelters could be understood as institutionalized.</p>

This paper aimed to investigate to what extent there is an age cut-off for teenage boys in the women’s shelters of Sweden and how a possible cut-off is described and maintained. This occurrence has not been investigated earlier to a large extent, which emphasizes the importance of this paper. A mixed strategy was used to cover both the frequency as well as the explanations to the age cut-off. The quantitative survey was sent to all women’s shelters in Sweden and the result showed that 56 % of the shelters had an age cut-off for teenage boys from 12 years of age and above. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six women’s shelters in Stockholm to examine how the notion teenage boys was constructed and used by the respondents to deny them refuge together with their mothers. The teenage boys were described as young men, aggressive and in the same time need of support, which all had the consequence that they could not stay at the shelters with collective housing. The age cut-off was neither discussed nor questioned by the members of the women’s shelters and was upheld by its legitimation. From a social constructive perspective the women’s shelters could be understood as institutionalized.

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.

The following will explore the operation of evolved mechanisms connected with cycling fertility. I first address strategic shifts in women’s behavior near ovulation and hypothesize that certain behavioral shifts at high fertility reflect an increase in women’s intrasexual competition tactics when conception is most probable. A simulated, online shopping program was designed to track women’s spending patterns (at varying budgets) on clothing, undergarments, shoes, jewelry, and other fashion accessories – items that likely enhance a woman’s ability to attract a high quality mate and effectively compete with same-sex rivals. Additionally, a laboratory task was created to assess women’s likelihood of incurring a risk to appear more attractive and have access to more resources than same-sex peers. Studies 1-3 will explore the effect of fertility on women’s consumer behavior and the influence of same-sex peers on fertility-induced motivation to appear more attractive. Study 4 will further examine fertility-induced shifts in women’s intrasexual competitiveness by measuring context-specific risks women take to gain a positional advantage over same-sex peers. The current studies present new data that provide novel insights into human adaptations to cycling fertility and highlight important decision-making processes that guide women’s social competition within a variety of domains. / text

Idag uppmärksammas kvinnors underrepresentation på högre chefspositioner i såväl media som undersökningar och rapporter. I dessa åskådliggörs det att det idag inte finns en logisk förklaring till varför kvinnor är underrepresenterade, vilket bland annat argumenteras utifrån att kvinnor i genomsnitt har en högre utbildningsnivå än män. Forskning förklarar att en bidragande faktor till att kvinnor fortfarande är underrepresenterade grundas i att chefskap enligt traditionen följer en maskulin norm. För att bidra med kunskap kring kvinnors underrepresentation i relation till chefskapet, har vi valt att fokusera på de kvinnor som lyckats nå ett högre chefskap. Syftet med uppsatsen är således att bidra med djupare förståelse för hur kvinnliga högre chefer upplever att de har formats på deras väg till chefskapet. Utifrån syftet har följande frågeställningar preciserats: “Hur upplever kvinnliga högre chefer den utveckling de gjort i karriären?” samt “Vilka faktorer tillskriver kvinnorna som betydande för deras utveckling i karriären?” Studien är en fallstudie med kvalitativ ansats i form av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med kvinnliga högre chefer. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats med hjälp av Lave och Wengers teori om situerat lärande samt utifrån ett könsperspektiv som huvudsakligen grundas på West och Zimmermans teori att göra kön. De teoretiska perspektiven har valts med utgångspunkt i forskaren Salminen-Karlssons argumentation om att det saknas forskning där dessa teoretiska utgångspunkter kombineras. Vårt resultat visar bland annat att de kvinnliga högre cheferna påverkats i sin karriärutveckling av att arbetsplatsen har förväntat sig att de ska uppträda på könsspecifika sätt. Således har de kvinnliga högre cheferna anammat olika könsspecifika attribut, såväl “kvinnliga” som “manliga” för att passa in. Vidare visar resultaten att de kvinnliga högre cheferna tillskriver stödet från sin familj som väsentligt, även om de upplevt stödet på olika sätt. Även behovet av en förebild i form av en kvinnlig chef betonas som viktigt under karriärutvecklingen. / Today, media as well as research are paying attention to the underrepresentation of women on top management positions. For example, articles and reports highlight that there are no logical explanations to why women are underrepresented. In contrast, science show that women, in average, have a higher education than men and that a contributive reason to why women still are underrepresented is based on the fact that managers, according to tradition, are associated with masculinity. To contribute with knowledge regarding women’s underrepresentation related to the top management positions, we have decided to focus on women who have reached a top management position. The aim with this study is therefore to contribute with deeper understanding of how women in top management positions experience how they have been “shaped” on their way to the management position. From the selected purpose, two questions were derived: “How do the female top managers experience the development they have had throughout their career?” and “What factors do the women identify as meaningful for their career development?” This study is a case study based on a qualitative method using six semistructured interviews with female top managers. The empirical data has been analysed through Lave and Wenger’s theory about situated learning and from a gender perspective, that is based on West and Zimmerman’s theory about doing gender. The theoretical perspective have been chosen with support from the researcher Salminen-Karlsson’s argumentation, in which the researcher states that there is a lack of research combining these two theoretical perspectives. Our result shows, among other things, that the female top managers during their career have been affected by the workplace’s expectations saying that they should act according to gender standards. Because of the expectations, the female top managers have adopted these gender specific attributes, by acting like a “female” or a “man”, to fit in. Furthermore, the result shows that the female top managers claim that the support from their families is important, even if they have experienced the support in different ways. Also, the result shows that the need of a role model in terms of a female manager has been important during the career.