Jämställdhetspolitik som ideologi eller vetenskap?

Abstract

In this article we analyze the public debate on gender mainstreaming of higher education and research in Sweden between 2016– 2020, focusing on 1) positions that advocate the gender equality initiatives and 2) positions that criticize them. A recurring theme in the defense and the critique of gender mainstreaming is whether gender mainstreaming policies should be understood as ideologically driven or not and how this relates to the university’s scientific task. In the analysis, we focus on which understanding of the relationship between science and politics that appears in the empirical material and how this – explicitly or implicitly – expresses different understandings of ideology and its relation to science. We find that both sides tend to build on either a negative or a functionalist/ positive conception of ideology, and we argue that an epistemic approach to ideology paves the way for a more nuanced and reflexive scientific debate on the relationship between politics and knowledge.