Anti-genus i Sverige - En analys av Ivar Arpis kritik av genusvetenskapen

Abstract

As the recently published scientific anthology Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe shows, antigender movements have been on a constant rise throughout Europe since the 1990s and are now a well-established part of the political landscape in numerous countries. In countries that haven’t seen the rise of an anti-gender movement however, the same discourses used to mobilize against gender issues in the countries that have can be found nonetheless. One such case is Sweden, where several academics and editorial writes have criticized, among other things, the scientific field of Gender Studies. In this thesis, a series of six texts by editorial writer Ivar Arpi of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet are analysed. In the texts, Arpi criticizes the field of Gender Studies, claiming it to be non-scientific and dogmatic in its striving to integrate its theories in public institutions and in every subject across the academy. Through the theory of escape mechanisms presented by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, as well as the theory of situated knowledge presented by feminist scholar Donna Haraway and the theoretical framework of intersectionality, this thesis examines the discourses about Gender Studies, science, knowledge and gender present in Arpi’s texts and contextualizes them by pointing to similar discourses present in anti-gender movements across Europe. The analysis shows that Arpi criticizes Gender Studies from a positivist perspective, claiming it to be a form of ideology rather than science because of its lack of biological theories about the differences in behavior and preferences between men and women. The analysis is concluded by discussing why there has not yet emerged a Swedish anti-gender movement.