At the University of Gothenburg, the signs have been taken down which shows where the National Secretariat for Gender Research is located after a bomb attack was hung on the door.

- It was in December 2018 that the first employee found something that looked like a bomb hanging in a plastic bag on the handle, says Jörgen Svensson.

Scientists are silent

So far, no one has been arrested for the bomb threat and Jörgen Svensson believes that this type of serious threat makes researchers in disciplines who can be considered controversial cautioners to speak publicly.

When SVT Nyheter calls around to different gender institutions, few researchers want to set up and tell about their experiences with name and image when they are afraid of more threats.

There are no statistics on which research areas are more vulnerable to threats. But ethnologist Jenny Gunnarsson Payne sees that the criticism of gender science has changed the creation in recent years.

- We see that the criticism is much more generalizing and hateful. This may be because issues related to power and inequality can be considered controversial, but also that an active campaign, including from conservative groups, has been conducted against gender science.

Building on ignorance

Jenny Gunnarsson Payne thinks that research should clearly be examined from all directions, but that much of today's criticism of gender science is based on ignorance of the subject.

- It is thought that gender science is extra ideological or unscientific. But that's not true, you use the same methods as other disciplines, she says.