Jämställdhet och genus på akademins villkor

Två exempel på det vetenskapliga fältets agerande i samband med politiska satsningar

Abstract

This artide focuses on political gender equality interventions in the academy during the last fifteen years. The point of departure is a clash between different ideals. On the one hand, there is a politicalinterestlo balance the numberof men and women on the most prestigious positions in the academy, and to enhance research on gender in the academy. The academy, on the other hand, strivesto maintain autonomytowardsthe political field. Mertonian imperatives can be said to govern in the academy, where meritocracy and the freedom of research are highly regarded. The academy is not opposed to gender equality per se, but there is a fear for the loss of self-determination. Political interventions based on recommendations tally well with the academic ideals, whereas directives that are understood as compulsive, do not. The Thamprofessorships in the mid-nineties are examples on the latter. The advertising of the posts was combined with the possibility of employing affirmative action, which was seen as a threat against meritocracy. The political steps are here analysed in terms of translation and the discussion focus on how political measures have been received inside the academy and how the academy strived for adjusting externat requirement for change to suit their own ideals. This article shows that the original intentions of the Thamprofessorships tended to be watered-down, and the primary intentions were hidden and their instatement was partly merely symbolic. Representatives of different disciplines tried to translate the gender content of the political investment into terms that better suited the doxa of the discipline and "gender" risked beingtranslated into "studies on women". The success rate of the intervention was dependent on co-operation and the alliance between politicians and gender researchers, which in itself is challenging.