https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...9.2020.1723533
A standard claim proponents of so called "positive" discrimination often put out is that there's an entrenched male elite, the white patriarchy, which isn't acceptive of newcomers and rejects them even as they bring as much or more to the table as the white male competition. It would thus stand to reason that when countries, such as Sweden, strive to close the gender gap, the institutions would not lose out on qualified personnel, as it's not simply a divergence of life choices for the different genders resulting in fewer women choosing this career path, but rather about them being held down and oppressed by the patriarchy.
Not only does the former "theory" require a significant anti-female bias across the entire male population (without any evidence to support its existence) to work, but also, that the gender dimorphism somehow magically is completely limited to the body, and not to the brain, even as the preferences for different typse of jobs are plain and open and there for all to see.
So let's see which of the two sides this study from Sweden supports:
Who would have thought. Colour me surprised.ABSTRACT
The proportion of women tends to decrease the higher the academic rank, following a global pattern. Sweden has taken comprehensive measures to decrease this gap across 30 years, and many countries are following a similar path. Yet today only 27% of faculty with the rank of professor in Sweden are female. A common explanation is that academia is biased against women. According to this hypothesis, women have to reach higher levels of scholarly achievement than men to be appointed to the same academic rank. Publication metrics when attaining the rank of professor were compiled from the Web of Science for samples of the whole population of 1345 professors appointed at the six largest universities in Sweden during a six-year period. Men had significantly more publications and citations in both medicine and in the social sciences, rejecting the hypothesis that women are held to a higher scholarly standard in this context.
Another juicy bit is the acknowledgements section right at the end:
Normally acknowledgements are the least interesting part of any paper, but this one here serves as a stark reminder of the times we live in. Pseudo-progressives often like to ridicule those criticising wrong-thinkers for calling out the doxing, smears and censorship attempts, and yet here we are.Acknowledgements
Many scholars have helped improve the presentation of this study. We thank two anonymous reviewers who have given constructive comments on a previous version of this manuscript. For giving generously of their time to comment, we are likewise indebted to Edward Dutton, Michael Gruber, Bo Molander, Erik J. Olsson, Roland S. Persson, Charlotta Stern, Anders E. af Wåhlberg, and two scholars who wish to remain anonymous. The reason that this article is published more than three years since the data collection is the cumulative duration of the review process, at it has been rejected by six journals before it was submitted to Studies in Higher Education. Five of them eventually rejected it without review, stating that it was inappropriate for, or outside the scope of, the journal. One journal rejected it after a first round of reviews, where each of reviewers 1–4 provided increasingly negative and unspecific comments.
Feel free to go through the study. To put it bluntly, you can see the difference between a MSc (which psychologists tend to have) and a MA (most sociologists only have that) displayed right there. As far as I could see, the sampling etc. were done according to actual scientific standards, unlike so many papers out there that get published without problems and with good reviews, even as their factual basis is low or even nonexistent, as long as they fit a narrative. So yes, this one has a sample size much higher than 6