Lecture 6

Question 1

Gender mainstreaming

Answer 1

§ Gender issues across all policy areas

§ Strategy to re-invent the processes of policy design, implementation and evaluation

§ Strategies of ‘integration’ tended to incorporate women into the existing framework of institutions and policies without changing them.

§ The gender perspective aimed to transform the broader social and institutional context that produces gender injustice and unequal outcomes.

§ 1990s Gender Mainstreaming: strategy to address gendered outcomes and institutional change

§ Mainstreaming aims to balance the goal of gender equality with the need to recognize gender difference

§ The process of mainstreaming

§ Economic

§ Political

§ Grassroots

§ International security

§ Human rights

Question 2

Actors and gender entrepreneurs

Answer 2

• National policies:
  § @ womens’ quota in corporate management
  § @ gender parity in academic structures
• Political parties/(inter-)govermental institutions
  § @ EIGE
• Civil society / Transnational networks of women organization
  § @ EWL
• UN/EU law
  § @ CEDAW
• International treaties
  § @ The Istanbul Convention
  § @1995 Beijing Platform for Action

Question 3

Transformations: How to bring change

Answer 3

§ National agenda (e.g., sex trafficking)

§ Global public policy (international peace and security)

§ ‘Free’ trade

§ Human rights

§ Democratization around the world

§ Reproductive rights

§ Unpaid work

§ Equal pay

§ Equal opportunities

Question 4

Theories

Answer 4

§ Conflict between the feminist goal of gender equity achieved through state-led redistribution and the neoliberal goal of efficiency achieved through market-driven economic growth

§ Gender analysis into the global policy mainstream

§ Feminist transformational politics

§ Feminist institutionalist theories

§ Feminist networking theories

Question 5

Feminist institutionalism

Answer 5

§ institutions are battlegrounds in which opposing principles, interests, values, norms and objectives are overtly or covertly articulated

> Paradox: while bureaucratic principles demand policy implementation, patriarchal principles demand evaporation.

§ individuals are bound by (gendered) institutions where they learn the norms that define appropriate behaviour,

> but they also can actually change the norms and the institutional structures in which they operate

tools

§ Research
1) include both men and women in research

2) use sex dissagregated data to formulate specific goals
3) substantive vs formal representation

§ Action

§ Budget

§ See Global Gender Gap

Question 6

Intersectionality

Conceptual clarification

Answer 6

Intersectionality, as shown by Crenshaw (1991), captures the interaction between racism and sexism in the lives of black women who are victims of domestic violence, and investigates practices of group identity to uncover a whole system of intertwining hierarchies.

§ Applying intersectional analysis means to consider at the same time different types of oppression (disadvantage or discrimination) a person is submitted to.

§ Race/ethnicity

§ Sexual orientation

§ Gender identity

§ Class

§ Nationality

§ Etc.

Question 7

Resistance : critiques – theory vs practice

Answer 7

§ Gender mainstreaming may allow institutions to appropriate the language of women’s advocacy in order to co-opt the social movement resistance and criticism.

§ The gap between feminist theory and institutional practice, and the conflict between feminist concepts and values and the broader ideological framework of neoliberal economics.

Question 8

Ethical dilemmas

Answer 8

§ Mainstreaming can lead to a shift away from ‘women’s issues’ and the elimination of specific programmes targeted at women, thus being part of a broader instrumental-capitalist restructuring agenda.

§ Ethical dilemmas: who is responsible when our ideas about gender become institutionalized as international norms and policies in such a way that they lose their socially transformative content?

Question 9

Feminist Critics

Answer 9

Post-colonial feminist scholars:
§ while the integrating women into development paradigm may have failed to empower women in much of the ‘Third World’, it has served the interests of western elite women.

§ Socialist and Third World feminists
§ a new gendered analysis of political economy based on a practical-theoretical critique of structural adjustment programmes in the South and economic restructuring in the North

Question 10

Resistance – Explicit and Implicit

Answer 10

institutional
§ Informal norms and values influence formal norms and practices
§ Ex: under-staffing; under-budgeting, insufficient gender training of personnel (EC); non-engagement with women’s interests

individual
§ Reproducing institutional patterns do not require intention, but to change the institutional norms do.
§ Ex.: retaining personal/group privileges; difficulties to understand and implement GM; challenges to
personal identity and beliefs, etc.

Question 11

Fear of feminism

Answer 11

§ Feminist ideas are feared because they are considered ideological and emotional rather than rational

Question 12

Resistance: Society at large

Answer 12

§ Patriarchy

§ Nationalism

§ Capitalism

§ Colonialism

§ Religion

§ Misogyny

Resistance; opposition

§ Ex: § Turkey withdraw from the Istanbul Convention
§ Poland & Hungary – restrict the right to abortion, criminalize LGBTQ community
§ USA - restrict the right to abortion / ongoing debate

Question 13

Article Mergaert Resistance to implementing gender mainstreaming in EU research policy

Answer 13

This study of resistances to gender initiatives in EU research policy shows that individual and institutional resistances have hindered the implementation of gender mainstreaming as endorsed in EU official policy documents. The analysis of resistances – understudied in the literature – is therefore relevant to shed light on the invisibility of gender in the EU and to understand why the implementation of gender mainstreaming has been problematic and ineffective.

Question 14

Feminist institutionalist theory helps us

Answer 14

to understand how the culture of an institution – more

open or more closed to gender equality – has implications for the degree of resistance encountered in the implementation of gender mainstreaming. Where institutions have cultures that tend to protect male privileges and power, initiatives to implement gender mainstreaming are likely to face opposition.

Question 15

Through its focus on resistance to gender change, this article contributes to advancing FI by answering the call launched by Mackay and others to identify causal mechanisms of gendered institutional power, continuity, and change.

Answer 15

Resistance to change is a concept that helps explain why gender policies succeed or fail within gendered institutions. It can show that if the institution’s informal gender norms are unequal, actors are likely to manifest resistance to gender mainstreaming, even if the institution officially endorses it, because they have ‘learnt the script’ of informal unequal gender rules of behavior within a given institution.

A resistance-centred FI approach can make opposition to change visible by identifying resistingactors (such as civil servants) and mechanisms, and can thus contribute to better diagnosingthe problem of ineffective gender mainstreaming in the EU.

The typology of individual and institutional resistance to gender equality, both implicit and

explicit, devised for analytic purposes, has helped to scrutinise resistances within the

European Commission DG Research. Future studies can refine and adapt it to different

institutional contexts. Our empirical study showed that individual and institutional resistances

are interconnected and that actors have multiple reasons for resisting gender initiatives

Question 16

The main reasons for expressing resistance to mainstreaming initiatives in DG Research appear to be

Answer 16

opposition to the goal of gender equality and a lack of – or insufficient – capacity. A lack of expertise, time and adequate tools on the part of individuals in charge of implementation tasks can move individual or collective actors within the EC to resist gender initiatives through aggregated inaction or non-implementation of EU gender mainstreaming commitments. The lack of adequate capacity-building for gender mainstreaming has to do with the resistance of an institution, which, by not prioritizing gender mainstreaming, proves resistant to the goal of gender equality.

In DG Research, institutional resistance points to actors at the highest levels of the institution, where decisions about structural provisions for planning and implementation are taken, where resources are attributed, and where divergences from original plans are decided. Our findings about institutional resistance raise doubts about the actual institutional commitment to mainstreaming gender in research, especially considering that barriers to gender mainstreaming (such as the absence of gender considerations in the assessment of proposals for funding and the lack of gender awareness among EC staff) were not removed.

Question 17

A distance between the EC’s official endorsement of gender mainstreaming in research and itsactual implementation could also be

Answer 17

could also be detected from the fact that gender-expert voices were not allowed to influence the policy process: criticism from the Helsinki Group of Women and Science against the EC’s plans to shrink gender relevance in FP7 was ignored, as were recommendations made by the Gender Monitoring Studies not to abandon the Gender Action Plans. Our findings about resistances in DG Research show that in the institutional battleground between formal norms demanding the implementation of gender mainstreaming

and informal patriarchal norms socializing individuals to preserve the gender-unequal status

quo, gender mainstreaming gets ‘filtered out’.

Yet, the mutual constitution of individuals and institutions implies that individuals not only

enact gender-unequal scripts but they can also act to promote gender change within

institutions that have provided evidence of gender-resistance. The cases of individual dutyconscious civil servants, as well as collective actors such as the Helsinki Group on Women and Science, that strive to implement gender mainstreaming against the opposition from civil servants at higher hierarchical levels are signs that change, though difficult, is still possible.

Question 18

Gender mainstreaming includes

Answer 18

attempts to establish a gender-equality perspective across all policy areas, even where the gender issues at stake may be not be immediately apparent, as in foreign security policy, and where the impact of the policy on gender relations is often indirect, as in macroeconomic policy.
Mainstreamed’ institutions, even when they are weak, provide a platform for change by encouraging new alliances and networking among feminist activists, scholars and policymakers inside and outside of government.

global policymakers are beginning to take gender inequality and injustice seriously, although International Relations scholarship has often lagged behind, not recognizing the significance and implications of gendered power relations for global cooperation and conflict

Question 19

Three enabling factors that have served to put gender mainstreaming on the global policymaking agenda:

Answer 19

1. the spread of a new language for promoting women’s rights and gender equality around the world,
2. the proliferation of women’s networks and transnational linkages
3. the growing numbers of feminist-oriented or gender-sensitive women and men in foreign policy and global governance leadership positions

Question 20

The mobilization of networks of women’s organizations connected across domestic and international settings has made gender injustices and inequities salient issues and placed gender mainstreaming on the policy agendas of global governance institutions and national governments.

Answer 20

These transnational networks serve as conduits not only of information about differing policy models and gender mainstreaming initiatives at the local and national levels but also – and crucially – of knowledge concerning alternative political strategies and how they may be applied to further promote gender policy change.

Most international relations scholars who have noted the influence of transnational advocacy networks have been concerned primarily with changes in definitions of state interests and identities as a result of transnational influence. This causal relationship has been termed ‘the boomerang effect’ But transnational feminist networks have served to effect change at the global level as well as at the national level, by mainstreaming gender issues in multilateral institutions and policies.

Gender policy entrepreneurs may make different arguments to different groups while keeping the overall story consistent. They are strategic team builders in the sense that they think about the type of coalition best able to support their issue, or a series of issues over time

Question 21

Some feminists who have studied both public and private institutions have argued that a ‘critical mass’ of women, usually about 30 per cent is needed to transform a previously male-dominated organization’s standard operating procedures and allow women strategically to advance a feminist agenda from inside an organization

Answer 21

There is considerable skepticism among feminists however, not only about gender mainstreaming but also about the role of professional feminists in the process of global social change. Post-colonial feminist scholars have pointed out that, while the integrating women into development paradigm may have failed to empower women in much of the ‘Third World’, it has served the interests of western elite women

Question 22

There are two major factors shaping and constraining efforts to mainstream gender in global policymaking to be highlighted here

Answer 22

1. the gap between feminist theory and institutional practice, and the conflict between feminist concepts and values:

and

2. the broader ideological framework of neoliberal economics.

Question 23

1. the gap between feminist theory and institutional practice, and the conflict between feminist concepts and values:

Answer 23

–> It is well established among gender and development specialists that the lack of sensitivity to gender differences in power, resources and opportunities shown by international policymakers and practitioners leads to poor policy and poor outcomes.

–> But in the context of mainstreaming initiatives to rectify this gender insensitivity, other more complex problems have been observed. Failure to appreciate the differences among women and/or erroneous gendered stereotypes about women and men as natural peacemakers and warriors, followers and leaders (Tickner 1999), for instance, can also lead to poor policy in practice.

–> gender mainstreaming efforts from above will not change institutional practices and norms unless they are supported by social movement activism on gender equity and subjected to the ongoing critical scrutiny of a gender perspective by feminist scholars and activists.

Question 24

2. the broader ideological framework of neoliberal economics.

Answer 24

Likewise, feminist economists at the World Bank and other institutions have made some of their arguments for women’s empowerment and human development in terms of the ‘efficiency gains’ to be had from investing in ‘human capital’. Sometimes these arguments are effective insofar as they have directed more resources towards funding girls’ education and women’s health programmes. However, articulating gender equity goals in this way may also mean resources are diverted from basic needs and human development areas to development initiatives that further economic growth through the expansion of markets and consumption. Only rigorous analysis of gender mainstreaming policies by feminist activists and scholars will tell us on balance whether they serve to further or reduce women’s social and economic rights.

Question 25

Feminists confront ethical dilemmas as well in the context of gender mainstreaming: who is responsible when our ideas about gender become institutionalized as international norms and policies in such a way that they lose their socially transformative content

Answer 25

As social critics: The ongoing trade in feminist ideas requires that we become more self-conscious of our scholarship; for whom and for what purpose we theorize and the variety of possible ways in which our work may be received by activist and policymaking audiences for example. Further, as feminist scholarship rapidly grows and becomes more specialized there is a danger that it will lose its traditionally close ties to activist and policy debates and that as a result, global public policy will not receive the critical scrutiny it needs, and that advocacy and policymaking will not benefit from feminist knowledge and reflection

As scholars: we need to become more knowledgeable about the worlds of advocacy and policy, and position ourselves to forge mutually advantageous relationships with feminist researchers, activists and policymakers. There are too few links between gender advocates inside mainstreaming institutions and feminist activists and scholars ‘on the outside’. Only collectively, however, can we expand the local and global spaces for promoting women’s empowerment and for transforming the sources of social power that reproduce inequalities based on gender, race, class, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, caste, religion, country of origin, national identity, aboriginal status, immigration status, regional geography, language, cultural practices, forms of dress, beliefs, ability, health status, family history, age and education.

Question 26

Although feminist policymakers in global governance institutions are typically constrained by bureaucratic procedures and by their obligations to carry out the mandates of member states, feminist scholars are less encumbered.25 We can raise theoretical issues, and develop innovative research projects that link gender relations at the micro level with processes and policies at the macro level, and that help feminist activists and policymakers to achieve their goals.

Answer 26

Finally, we can continually evaluate local and global policies and practices in light of the principles and norms that have been collectively developed by women’s movements over the past twenty years and codified in living documents such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Beijing Platform for Action.