Equal Opportunities Work - Theories about Practice

2. The gender perspective, research quality and equal opportunities
A retrospective look at the arguments put forward by the powers that be in
Sweden in justification of the three assertions given above provides a point of
departure for discussing them.
In relation to the first assertion, the assumption that gender research
increases the overall quality of research, there are two main lines of
argument:21
a. Gender research increases general research quality because research using
that perspective broadens the area of knowledge covered by any given
discipline, enriches the self-awareness of science, expands the theoretical
core of research, generates new knowledge and new approaches, and
increases the number of relevant questions.22
b. Gender research increases overall research quality because it contributes
to greater equality of opportunity.23 This can, in turn, be justified in different
ways:
(i) Research based on a gender perspective makes women visible, increases
their self-esteem and provides them with female role models. Gender research
creates disciplines marked by greater equality of opportunity because it
increases the number of women researchers.
(ii) Gender research exposes sex-or-gender-related power hierarchies and
identifies obstacles to equal opportunities, as well as contributing to enabling
us to abolish these impediments to equal opportunities.2a
The second point above touches on the relationship between a gender
perspective, coursework and equal opportunities work. What makes
encouraging the development of courses with a gender perspective part of
equal opportunities work in practice? The idea is that by introducing the
gender perspective in courses, we take a step towards equality of opportunity,
because we contribute in an important way to fairer recruitment of women and
men to all disciplines, and to efforts to break down the sexgregated labor
market.25
2l Offi.iul communication from government ministrie s 1996:26 Genusperspektiv i forskningen (Gender
Perspective in Research)
)) -- Ibid. p. 9-19.
'r2,
"" Ibid. p. 9-19.
24 ruia. p. u.
25 Offi.iut government communicatio n 199912000:24, s.65, Jiimstiilldhetspolitiken infdr 2000-taler, ("Equal
Opportunities Entering the Twenty-First Century" p. 65).
23