The literature on homosociality has often assumed differences between female and male homosocial relationships, where sociality and intimacy form a continuum among women and a binary among men. Also, female homosociality is understood as associated with family and home, while the male equivalent would be associated with public space and work. However, some have argued that with the increasing acceptance of male homosexuality, as well as with feminist organising and women’s inclusion in the public sphere, these gender differences in homosociality would disappear. Such reduced gender differences would presumably be more prevalent in countries where the tendencies mentioned are more pronounced, such as Sweden.

In this presentation, I present a quantitative visual content analysis of Swedish newspaper photos featuring same-sex siblings. I argue that the representation of such sibling relationships can be a good measurement of homosociality in society. The hypothesis tests overall disconfirm the hypothesis that homosociality is becoming less gender-specific, for example showing that brothers touch less frequently in the photos than sisters and that they are associated more often with work while sisters are associated with home and family. There are however caveats to these results, and some measurements do show signs of homosocial convergence.