När genusforskningen blir ett hot mot jämställdheten

En diskursanalys av en debattartikel

Abstract

In this article, we study a current phenomenon where gender studies comes to be formulated as a threat to gender equality. In order to deconstruct how such an argument is discursively constructed, we analyse an opinion piece, published in the Swedish paper Göteborgs-Posten in April 2012 by Professor Bo Rothstein. He writes that the government in its efforts to focus on gender equality has invested significant resources in gender research in Sweden. This is on the one hand described as an admirable initiative because the living conditions in the world would be improved by greater equality. The problem is, however, said to be that gender research is no longer working on gender issues - but rather discourages it. On that basis, the author argues that government funding to gender studies should be abolished because it has ‘taken away from increasing gender equality’. The purpose of our study is to investigate what is discursively normalised, what is implied or taken for granted, and what is simultaneously silenced or hidden in the reasoning that comes to fore in the opinion piece. In such context, we consider the opinion piece to be a specific example in which to analyse the discursive elements that enable reasoning where gender studies is portrayed as a threat to gender equality. The opinion piece, constitutes a form of of writing that possibly makes such rhetoric credible in today’s debate marked by the development of anti-feminist and racist movements. The analysis shows that the articulation of gender studies as a threat to gender equality builds on the normalisation of a quantitative and heteronormative view of how gender equality is achieved as well as on a reduction of the complexity of gender research and researchers.