Lately it has been argued that gender equality as a concept have lost its political capacity to challenge hegemonies (Carbin & Rönnblom 2012, Eduards et al 2012, Johansson & Lilja 2013, Arora-Jonsson 2009) and that the concept has simply become administration in line with neoliberal principles of management, something very different from a feminist understanding of the concept which would focus on for example inequalities of power and structures of domination.
This article acknowledges this argument but also it also challenges it by showing that a more complex analysis is needed of when it becomes depoliticized and when it still provides a basis for possible change of inequalities. In some settings, certainly, it seems as if gender equality has become an empty buzzword, while in others, such as the case described here, it still carries political power, if only you scratch on the surface.
By analyzing a gender equality project at a Swedish University, the article shows how a deep exploration of a local context in which gender equality was considered provocative, can offer clues to why and how in some settings, gender equality as a concept still can be useful as a concept for working against inequalities and discrimination. A requisite to do so is to have a critical discussion of the silences created by the concept as well as an understanding of what equalities and inequalities the concept produces, in line with works of for example Honkanen (2008) and Liinasson (2010).
