Kvinnor i antiken och var man inte hittar dem : En studie av digitala läromedels berättelser om antiken från ett genusperspektiv

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the period of antiquity is portrayed in the Swedish upper secondary school material in the course History 1bfrom a gender perspective, by examining digitalized study materials that claims to follow the specifiedcurriculum. The course curriculum for History 1bstates the importance of including female groups in the historic narrative, as well as that ideas of equality between sexes should permeate everything connected to teaching, among other things. The paper aims to analyse how gender is portrayed by examining the digitalized study material of DigilärHistoria 1 100 poäng, Nationalencyklopedin, NE, Historia 1 and Gleerups Möt historien 1b. The analysis was done using theories of gender from Yvonne Hirdman and Joann Scott to put historical power structures in relation to gender. The questions considered were (1)Which male and female characters are included and (2)how are they portrayed? (3)Lastly, how are social differences between them explained?The results showan overrepresentation of men. In the Gleerups material no specific female character was represented. NE’s material had 26 % and Digilär’s 20 % representation of women. The female characters are portrayed with stereotypical female characteristics such as their body, seduction and their ability to bear children. Female leaders are shown only to influence issues regarding equality and other women, whereas all mentioned men are portrayed as changing society especially as conquerors and warriors. Masculinity and femininity are portrayed as counterparts and men’s greatest weakness is any inability to control their wives and daughters. There are some exceptions that blurs the line such as Athene, Apollon and to some extent Cleopatra which are portrayed by showing characteristics associated with the other gender. The writers of the study materials are limited by the limited number of available historical sources and the picture they betray but only NE points out the problems with this. Neither Digilär nor Gleerups mention the skewed picture as a problem but Digilär shows to some extent how people in Greece legitimized the patriarchal structures.