Kön och politik - en ofrågar fråga?

Författare

• Marja Keränen

Abstract

The paper addresses the topic of gender and politics and focuses on the difficulties in relating women’s studies to political science. The aim is to outline a frame of reference for a future study in depth. The critique of »male science» as advocated in women’s studies is described in terms of paradigmatic change, and the problem is structured in terms of Thomas Brante’s conceptualisation of »science» as a performance on three levels: the psychological-cognitive, the sociological and the theoretical level. On each level factors excluding women from science and the consequences of including women in science are discussed. Three possible tendencies are outlined. It is first of all assumed that the levels strengthen each other and work together towards an exclusion of women from political science. Secondly, it is assumed that changes at one level have positive effects on the other levels. A third assumption is that changes on one level, implying a better access for women, may have negative effects on the other levels. The »real» interaction between levels remains the object for future research. I