En önskan att skriva abjektet : Analyser av akademisk jämställdhet

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to explore what makes the discourse on gender equality possible in the context of Swedish higher education. Three aspects of this discourse - gender equality work, positive discrimination and sexual harassment - are focused on both empirically and theoretically. Study I-III analyse these aspects as separate phenomena, and study IV reflects upon the theoretical implications emanating from the empirical field as a whole, from a discourse analytic, semiological, narrative and feminist-theoretical perspective. Each study builds upon different sets of quantitative and qualitative material: surveys on the organisation and implementation of gender equality; interviews with representatives of gender equality at different departments and with women who have experienced sexual harassment; documentation from 61 appointment processes; higher education policies on gender equality and sexual harassment; and also public policies on gender equality and higher education in Sweden from 1970 to 2000. The empirical results make visible some unintended and reproductive consequences concerning the possibilities to successfully implement methods aimed at improving gender equality. A paradox of difference, much debated in feminist politics and theory, structures different narratives within the discourse. Summing it up, it is the tendency to start out from a view on the problem of gender equality as connected with a category of women, marked as different from a norm, which makes gender equality work not only contradictory but also counterproductive. In a theoretical outline a perspective is put forward, which relates to feminist, post-structuralist theories and particularly the works of Julia Kristeva. Rereading the paradox of difference from this perspective stimulates a venture aimed at destabilising scientific claims on the discourse of gender equality. Furthermore, ideas are put forward which challenge the common-sensical views on the purpose of achieving gender equality, in favour of an endeavour suggesting the need for an intimate revolt.