Title edit: analyze

No surprise here, obviously, but it's nice to see it demonstrated by academics. Liberal academics, at that.

"The higher the level of gender perspective, the lower was the scientific quality for seven out of nine indicators."

Study 1: Objectivity and realms of explanation in academic journal articles concerning sex/gender: a comparison of Gender studies and the other social sciences by Guy Madison and Therese Soderland.

Some highlights:

Abstract:

Gender studies (GS) has been challenged on epistemological grounds. Here, we compare samples of peer-reviewed academic journal publications written by GS authors and authors from closely related disciplines in the social sciences. The material consisted of 2805 statements from 36 peer-reviewed journal articles, sampled from the Swedish Gender Studies List, which covers >12,000 publications. Each statement was coded as expressing a lack of any of three aspects of objectivity: Bias, Normativity, or Political activism, or as considering any of four realms of explanation for the behaviours or phenomena under study: Biology/genetics, Individual/group differences, Environment/culture, or Societal institutions. Statements in GS publications did to a greater extent express bias and normativity, but not political activism. They did also to a greater extent consider cultural, environmental, social, and societal realms of explanation, and to a lesser extent biological and individual differences explanations.

Rejecting science and inconvenient facts:

The core of the criticism reviewed above is that Gender studies has a political, activist agenda, dourly subscribes to certain theories in the face of opposing facts, and mixes scholarship and ideology (e.g., Popova 2005; Sokal 2006). Accordingly, we examine to what extent statements from such publications reflect bias, political activism, and normativity, in the sense of attempting to establish or prescribe a norm. It is further claimed that the espoused theories almost exclusively consider social causes, although biological and individual differences are found to affect, for example, vocational interests (Beltz et al. 2011; Ellis and Ratnasingam 2012; Lippa 1998; Weis et al. 2007). These different causes pertain to different realms where human behaviour and interaction is explained and understood. We therefore ask how many statements that reflect social, societal, biological, or individual differences explanations. These frequencies are compared across the three levels of gender perspective described above.

...the Gender studies publications tended to have larger numbers of biased and normative statements than did the Neutral publications."

Ideology plays a much more corrupting role in gender studies than other social "sciences":

...As exemplified by the Neutral group in the present sample, there is a huge literature that explores causes for sex differences amongst endocrinological, neurodevelopmental, and genetic factors....It is reasonable to assume that these theoretical perspectives, by and large, explain a substantial proportion of the variance related to group or individual differences, otherwise would these approaches have waned for lack of empirical support. It is therefore notable that such factors are only mentioned five times in all 24 articles with some level of gender perspective, as compared to 33 times in the 12 Neutral articles. The probability of mentioning such a factor is thus 13 times smaller when a gender perspective is applied. This would not be all that remarkable if Gender studies, with its heritage from the social sciences and humanities, were compared with the natural sciences and medicine. It seems quite remarkable when compared with other social sciences, however, which are nominally equally unconcerned with biological and genetic explanatory models. It seems therefore recommendable that gender scholars and other interested parties consider and examine whether Gender studies might be prey to selective accounts of reality on the basis of ideological preferences.

Group think:

The high occurrence of statements expressing normativity in the two Gender studies groups is interesting, considering that Gender studies frequently criticize norms and argue for their abolition (e.g., Bem 1993; Bondestam 2010; Liinason 2011; Thurén 2003). In the present sample, we found more statements expressing norms in the Gender studies articles than in the Neutral ones, both proportionally within the groups and in a higher proportion of articles, although these norms tend to articulate feminist ideology in contrast to the norms that they challenge.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the present study has, for the first time, quantitatively evaluated several strands of criticism towards Gender studies in a representative sample. Critics from both inside and outside academe have questioned Gender studies in relation to scientific practice...Thus, the present study lends empirical support to the criticisms concerning ideological bias, both in terms of objectivity and choice of explanatory factors. As mentioned in the introduction, there are several ways in which an ideological outlook may interfere with scientific endeavors (e.g., Carl 2015; Klein and Stern 2009; Koertge 1998).

They end with what seems like ass covering, but may also be viewed as an ironic snipe:

It would be unfortunate for the area of Gender studies if these issues ultimately would challenge the scientific value of the field.

Study 2: Comparisons of content and scientific quality indicators across peer-reviewed journal articles with more or less gender perspective: gender studies can do better

TLDR; Gender Studies is unscientific.

The field of gender studies has faced criticism for poor scholarship and methodology, both from within and outside academia. Here, we compare indicators of scientific quality across three samples of peer-reviewed journal articles with more, less and no gender perspective, on the assumption that gender studies tend to apply a gender perspective. The statements in the articles were content-analysed with respect to subject matter, their level of support in surrounding text, and other indicators of scientific quality. The higher the level of gender perspective, the lower was the scientific quality for seven out of nine indicators. Support was higher for the no gender perspective group, but did not differ across the two higher levels. We suggest that the impact of the field can be increased by implementing established research methods employed in other disciplines, especially in terms of bringing about desired social and societal change.

Study 3: Characteristics of gender studies publications: a bibliometric analysis based on a Swedish population database

Didn't read this one, but seems to be harshly critical as well. Disturbingly, the introduction reads:

Gender studies is a growing field in academe. It is intrinsically associated with feminism and political reforms, and has in Sweden enjoyed exclusive resources and legislated support....

After some 50 years of pretending "gender studies" is a valid discipline (I think feminists call this "benevolent sexism"), it looks as though some academics may finally be deciding "enough is enough."