The paper concerns the historical developments of gender as a research topic. All dissertations with gender as theme or variable is identified at two universities: Linköping and Gotheburg. The development in terms of frequencies over time is presented and discussed. In a follow-up was the careers of the authors investigated. It showed a huge difference between the two universities in terms of successful academic research careers. The outcome is discussed focussing on the existence of supervisors dedicated to gender research, but also the size of the local community of gender researchers.