Gender doctrine should be read with a lot of critical resistance. Authors Ivar Arpi and Anna-Karin Wyndhamn blend discrimination issues with gender equality when it suits them. They mix emotional arguments, snide and tendentious formulations and scornful criticism with what is researched. It is up to the reader to try what is what, which is quite possible for them to be quite open in their style.
Exactly what Arpi and Wyndhamn (who is not only a reality star but holds a doctorate in pedagogy active at the University of Gothenburg, and has worked in the National Secretariat for Gender Research), means his concept of the "gender doctrine" is not clear. In part, they use the term in the same way that they criticize left-wing debaters for dealing with "neoliberal". Namely: a concept that can cover everything they don't like.
But the essence of their enemy image becomes quite substantial during the reading.
Academic gender science has developed an analysis that differs greatly from the uncontroversial idea of gender equality. By stepping on to partly a critique of the gender categories and partly to an intersectional perspective (ie all power regimes must be taken into account, not just one), political power, economic power and social power have been merged with gender equality. And in these areas there is no broad consensus in politics or social debate.
When the government gives the gender science (in the form of the National Secretariat and later the Equality Authority) the task of implementing the gender equality policy, there is a risk that they implement completely different things is what was decided democratically.
Wyndhamn and Arpi believe that this is done, systematically and purposefully: a revolution, a politicization of the university's activities.
I would say they rather raise issues that need to be taken seriously.
When Research Minister Helene Hellmark Knutsson 2016 says that the "gender and gender perspective" must be "constantly present in the research content" - what does she mean then? Note that she talks about the content, not the staff. What does that mean for climate research policy, for example? And not least, what exactly is meant by "and the gender perspective".
The Gender Equality Authority also states that changing the content of education is one of their methods for improving gender equality in colleges and universities. Clearly, then, it is relevant to discuss how this should be balanced with academic freedom and the quality goals of research. Who should decide how the content of the education should be changed? Sub-courses where it is not possible to achieve a gender equation list, should you abandon them? So, as the philosophical institution in Lund abandoned the course on the historically significant exchange between David Hume and Immanuel Kant because it gave an obscure list of literature?
Of such an obvious central discussion, there is no syllable in the Equality Authority's recent final report from the program for gender mainstreaming in colleges and universities that I have read in parallel with Wyndhamn and Arpi's debate book. On the other hand, it is repeatedly said that equality work always encounters resistance because it challenges current power schemes.
It is lethargic and simplistic of an authority to define all criticism as reactionary privilege defense.
On the other hand, it can be said that it is also quite simplistic to consider, as Wyndhamn and Arpi, the order and tradition that produced a male-dominated academy as a neutral or pure state.
One can criticize the Genus doctrine for gathering together a number of well-reported overtramps and framing them in a strongly ideologised backdrop of less substantiated assumptions. One can criticize the authors for highlighting facts that fit their story and turning a blind eye to facts that contradict it. For example: they make a point that a false news about hate and threats to gender scientists got circulated in the media in January this year (but not in the Culture News because we checked it) - but they do not mention if they, to the number of more, fully accurate news articles that hatred and threats to gender scientists are common.
However: this is a debate book with an openly stated starting point in liberal ideology. In such a format, one can have some tolerance for the tendentious.
On the other hand, we should not have tolerance for a governmental authority refusing to participate in a serious critical discussion about the exercise of its authority. No representatives of the National Secretariat or the Equality Authority have been interviewed by Wyndhamn and Arpi. It's not good enough.
One response they actually get is when the security manager at the University of Gothenburg contacts the publisher and asks to read the book in advance. Like it was about some kind of hate speech to be handled by the security department. Infamous, but also silly.