"Jag som man borde ha samma svaghetsrättigheter som en kvinna har" - En kvalitativ studie om hur före detta familjehemsplacerade kvinnor och män konstruerar genus.

Sammanfattning: Foster placements are the most common form of placement for children and every year about 20,000 girls and boys are placed. Although we expect that society treats women and men equally, they are often treated differently based on stereotypical gender norms. The aim of this study was to examine how gender is constructed in women's and men's stories about their time in foster care, in matters of experiences of reception from the social service, the foster family and their mental illness. The method chosen for this study was qualitative interviews with four women and four men who were formerly placed in foster care in Sweden. The interviews were analyzed with the help of Yvonne Hirdman's and Judith Butler's gender theories. Thematic analysis was chosen as the processing method of data. Results showed that women are constructed as fragile, good and problematic which is different kinds of femininity. When women were constructed as fragile and good, they related to normative femininity. When women were constructed as problematic, they constructed a different kind of femininity. Men were constructed as strong and vulnerable which is different kinds of maskulinity. When men were constructed as strong, they related to normative masculinity. When men were constructed as vulnerable, they constructed a different kind of masculinity. The study highlights that no matter how women relate to femininity, they are constructed as inferior to men. And when men were constructed as vulnerable, it was possible to see how they were not noticed and lost support in their mental illness.