My understanding is that there is a persistent gender imbalance in physics generally. Is seems obvious that the IOP would want to fund research into why this is happening and ways in which it can be solved. Is the Nazi comparison really necessary?

They won’t be doing physics. They will be doing (in the broadest sense) empirical social research with a focus on gender and physics, i.e. why are people with certain genders deciding to go into physics or not.

Are you really surprised that universities are looking for researchers researching all kinds of things? Someone I know just got a (post-doc) job researching social comparison theory and she can pretty much do whatever she wants in that field. That’s not even socially relevant, it’s merely interesting (nothing wrong with that).

Given how socially relevant this topic is (i.e. why do women decide against going into physics or even leave physics? How can we attract more women?) I’m really quite confused why you turn your nose at some poorly paid social research job looking into this for two days a week …

Social research is not luxurious. It’s badly paid, the methods at our disposal suck, the topic and subject (human brains and how they interact with each other) is fucking complex as hell, we don’t even know how to deal with it … it ain’t easy. Just so you know.