Genusbegreppet - dess idéhistoriska utveckling och politiska innebörd

Abstract

Theoretically, gender research deals with two discourses, sameness/difference and power. I argue against male critics who flatly deny that there can be a power relation between the sexes or critizise it as a holitic concept without much connection with reality. Within gender research, I criticize the postmodernistist thought that all apparent realities are social constructs. In queer theory the identities of individuals as men and women are purely social constructs to be dissolved. In that way one can avoid the power question altogether: no political groups exist, only individuals. A political theory dealing with the relationship beween the sexes has yet to be developed. Formal equality is a first step, the difficult question is how to deal with power, the preferential interpretation of the dominant group of what is important and valuable in society. The division in a public and a private sphere is inadequately dealing with family as an institution. Are women in countries where the state is minimal, where they marry very young and have thirteen children, “free”?