Gender mainstreaming and evaluation in the EU: comparative perspectives from feminist institutionalism

This article presents a focused comparative analysis of the institutionalization of two governance practices in the European Commission that levy distinct challenges to the gender status quo: gender mainstreaming (which overtly challenges gender bias) and evaluation (which does not have explicit feminist aspirations). With reference to five dimensions, we identify evaluation as relatively strongly institutionalized, and gender mainstreaming as relatively weakly institutionalized. We draw on the explanatory power of feminist institutionalism to unpack these findings, arguing that a feminist institutional perspective can shed light on this variation, as it provides greater insight into the formal and informal institutions that constrain, enable and shape the implementation of evaluation and gender mainstreaming. We assert that the notion of path dependency, the logic of appropriateness, and the concept of layering serve as useful tools to understand the gendered nature of the European Commission. This research provides insights into the institutional factors that impact the implementation of gender equality strategies (such as gender mainstreaming). In turn, this contributes to the development of more effective strategies to promote institutional change toward greater equality.     

From evidence to action: Applying gender mainstreaming to pay gaps in the Welsh public sector

Progress on reducing gender disparities remains painfully slow, despite efforts to identify the determinants of gender pay gaps and specify size and shape. Recent studies highlight the need for a more nuanced account of the way that public policy shapes organizational responses and insights into the types of organizational practices that diminish pay disparities. In response, this research reports on an action research intervention in three large Welsh public organizations, subject to a unique statutory equality duty. Data demonstrate how an evidence‐based gender mainstreaming approach facilitated the development of a ‘no blame’ strategy, which legitimized organizational proactivity through collaborative and empowering change management processes. The research contributes to the study of gender pay gaps by demonstrating that gender mainstreaming, with facilitative local conditions and supportive public policy, shapes action on gender segregation, with particular success in women's low‐paid employment. Conclusions highlight theoretical and policy implications arising from the research.     

Organizational perspective to gender mainstreaming in the Finnish state administration

Gender mainstreaming has been celebrated as a new policy strategy for change in gender relations. However, its transformative potential seems to be lost in the process of implementation. The aim of this article is to evaluate the policy effectiveness of gender mainstreaming and its ability to bring about change in gendered social structures and practices. Previous research has focused on gender mainstreaming as a policy strategy. This article provides a new perspective on the problems of implementation by approaching gender mainstreaming from an organizational perspective. Gender mainstreaming takes place in certain organizational contexts, implemented by local actors. This article reveals the practices of implementation in the Finnish state administration, specifically in the Ministry of Defence. The analysis is based on a discursive reading of thirteen group and individual interviews collected in the Ministry of Defence in 2012. The article pinpoints two interlinking problems concerning implementation of gender mainstreaming on the organizational level. First, the state officials, who should implement gender mainstreaming, do not have enough information to do so successfully. Second, there is resistance toward gender mainstreaming on the organizational level. This article suggests that negotiations about gender, gender equality and gender mainstreaming as complex issues concerned with social power relations should be included in the process of implementing gender mainstreaming.     

Mainstreaming disability in policies: the Flemish experience

Although research on gender mainstreaming (GM) is extensive, literature on disability mainstreaming (DM) is scarce. This article builds on the experience of GM to explore the conditions affecting DM, focusing on the first Flemish policy cycle of DM (2010–2014) in two policy domains: employment and education. We found no substantive difference in the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of DM compared with that of GM. Also, developments specific to the policy domains had more influence on the inclusive character of policies than did the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities or the Flemish approach to DM.     

Re‐inventing the Gendered Organization: Staff Attitudes towards Women and Gender Mainstreaming in NGOs in Malawi

Gender inequality within non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) is constructed on a daily basis through the gendered norms, attitudes and practices of individuals within them. The continual re‐invention of a gendered organization ensures the maintenance of the status quo and therefore the privileging of male/masculine interests over female/feminine interests. Gender mainstreaming is an approach designed to alter the status quo and facilitate women's empowerment. In Malawi, many NGOs have adopted gender mainstreaming as a strategy to address gender inequality both within their organizations and with the communities where they work. Gender mainstreaming initiatives involve a variety of activities including hiring more women staff members, designing policies within the organization to promote gender equality and educating staff members about gender issues through training workshops. While these strategies represent important steps forward for gender equality, it is not clear to what extent these policies and initiatives are translating into meaningful change within the organization.     

Limits and Possibilities: Rights‐based Discourses in Australian Gender Pay Equity Reform 1969–2007

In 1969 and 1972 Australia adopted a highly distinctive approach to equal pay. Its unusual characteristic lay in its incorporation in Australia's system of wage determination. This reform was advantageous to women in paid work but key ambiguities emerged as to how the right to equal pay would be claimed in areas of highly feminized work. In 1993 the right to equal pay was introduced in statute and conjoined to a test of sex discrimination, a construction that was ineffective, particularly in the context of a decentralizing wages system. State jurisdictions in Australia developed innovative responses to this impasse that were founded on the concept of undervaluation. These approaches addressed a persistent flaw in rights‐based approaches, the requirement for women to demonstrate they are the same as men to claim equality. These approaches, although currently proscribed, demonstrated that particular constructions of rights‐based discourses can be effective if connected to the underlying dynamics of gender pay inequity and grounded in the instruments of industry and minimum wage determination.     

The Alliance for Jobs in Germany: The Promise and Failure of Gender Mainstreaming

SUMMARY

The German Alliance for Jobs, Education and Competitiveness, a new policy instrument for reducing unemployment, was introduced by the red-green coalition government in 1998. In 2000, this policy instrument was abandoned, largely because business, labor, and government could not find sufficient common ground to continue working together. I argue that this policy instrument had the potential to affect the female workforce positively but that leaders from all sectors failed to incorporate gender considerations. In my view, the German economy will continue to lag behind its competitors unless it adopts gender mainstreaming, increases opportunities for women, and transforms its economy into a more service-oriented economy.     

Equal Opportunities Policies in English Schools: Towards Greater Gender Equality in the Teaching Workforce?

The under‐representation of women in promoted posts is one particular pattern of occupational segregation by gender across post‐industrial societies. This phenomenon also characterizes those professions which have been described as ‘women‐friendly’, such as teaching. The development of national and European legislation and recommendations on equal opportunities reflects this concern to address the gender imbalance among the workforce. But do schools identify women's under‐representation in promoted posts as an issue? To what extent do school's policies recognize and remedy the gender imbalance at managerial level? To answer these questions this article draws on a study of women teachers' careers in nursery, primary and secondary education in England. It shows that school equal opportunities policy statements widely ignore the under‐representation of women in school managerial positions. It suggests that the constructions of gender issues in schools by those in charge of designing and implementing school policies, that is, head‐teachers and governors, represent a key hindering factor for equal opportunities policies to contribute to greater gender equality. A major argument in the article is that because head‐teachers' and governors' discourses do not always fundamentally challenge the position of women in society, school policies and practices can offer only a limited contribution to gender equality.     

Accounting for equality: Gender budgeting and moderate feminism

This article sheds light on the relationship between quantification and calculative practices of accounting and moderate feminism. Drawing on a case of gender budgeting in Austria and the literature on social studies of accounting, I show how gender equality initiatives are translated into practice and come to codify the governance of gender relations through calculative practices that further the logic of neoliberal governmentality, rather than fundamentally challenging it. As such, this article provides an account of one site of the neoliberal recuperation of feminist critique through technologies of quantification and accountability.     

Gender inequalities: the integrated approach to the gender dimension in Europe

Despite the increase in, and focus on, gender equality in European debate – along with a substantial amount of policy initiatives and legal regulations – gender equality in the workplace and in careers is still some way off. In order to see the magnitude of the gap between women and men in European countries we have considered some significant domains such as the economy (employment structure and occupational segregation), education (educational attainment) and politics (political empowerment). The article aims to present data demonstrating that the employment structure in the EU, even in those countries where women have achieved high employment rates, still suffers from segregation, both ‘horizontally’ and ‘vertically’; and to single out some ‘weak signals’ but with a strong potential for social change and some indicators for social alternatives for the future.     

Communicating equality through policy documents: On legitimacy,double logic and stable translations

This article discusses gender mainstreaming (GMS) as a strategy to implement gender equality in public work organizations by analysing discourse in terms of the theoretical notions of translation and circulation in organizations to shed light on how gender equality and the mainstreaming strategy are formulated in the documents which govern the Swedish fire and rescue services. More specifically, it looks at how the goals regarding gender equality are circulated and translated. The results show that gender equality as a practice is created in the translation of national goals in terms of the local context and its specific gender equality challenges. Furthermore, the article discusses how vague formulations in the documents are stabilized through circulation between the government and the public agency in question. The results indicate the central role played by maintaining stable translations over time and the presence of a double logic of change in the processes, as well as the importance of legitimizing gender equality initiatives.     

The march for gender equality of Algerian women: The struggle for spatial and historical recognition

Social and political anti-government movements have been major headlines across the globe in recent years, with a noticeable participation of women. In the MENA region, such movements spanned Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Lebanon among others. Through an ethnographic inquiry into the Algerian pro-democracy movement Hirak (2019–2021), we delve into women's experiences of the Hirak to show how women remain marginalized politically, economically, and socially despite their heavy and praised participation. Using a recognition theory lens, we unveil dialectics of unity and division in the struggle for recognition among women in Algeria, a post-colonial context charged with conflicting ideological stances. We detect two structural dimensions of the struggle, a spatial/physical dimension and a historical/temporal dimension that help surface different gender positionalities and their dynamics as they vie for recognition. We stress the importance of not homogenizing women's political struggles, especially in the Global South.     

The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations

The state has a twofold relationship to gender change in society, through its overall steering capacity and through the gendered character of its constituent agencies. It is therefore important to understand the experience of gender change in state organizations. The findings from a study of gender relations in ten public‐sector worksites in New South Wales, Australia are presented. There is a widespread consciousness of gender change linked with new labour processes, restructuring and new patterns of management. These changes are uneven and limits to change are visible. Gender is recognized as an organizational problem in specific circumstances, most visibly where men’s resistance to change appears. A number of mechanisms limit the consciousness of gender as a problem. Several trends, including the current strength of neo‐liberalism, converge to make the gender‐neutral workplace the principal goal of gender reform in the public‐sector workplace. This, however, limits the state’s steering capacity in regard to societal gender relations.     

The reproduction of gender: housework and attitudes towards gender equality in the home among Swedish boys and girls

The housework Swedish girls and boys age 10 to 18 do, and their attitudes towards gender equality in the home are studied. One aim is to see whether the work children do is gendered and if so, whether they follow their parents', often gendered, pattern in housework. A second aim is to see whether children's attitudes are influenced by their parents' attitudes and practices. When it comes to issues like these, Sweden is of special interest because in 1995, Sweden was appointed the most gender equal country in the world by the United Nations. The data used were the Swedish Child Level of Living Survey 2000 (see http://www.sofi.su.se/LNU2000/english.htm), a data set that includes extensive first-hand information from both children and their parents. The results indicate that girls and boys in two-parent families are more prone to engage in gender atypical work the more their parent of the same sex engages in this kind of work. The fact that girls still do more housework than boys in all families independent of, among other things, the parental division of housework and the mother's educational level indicates that housework to some extent signifies gender also to children. However, no clear relation is found between the parents' division of work and the child's attitude towards gender equality in the home. Neither is there any clear relation between the parents' attitude towards gender equality in the home and the children's attitude to the same topic.     

Gender differences in social workers’ assessments and help-giving strategies towards single parents

The study investigates Swedish male and female social workers’ assessments and help-giving strategies towards single parents applying for income support. The study was carried out with the help of a vignette distributed as a mail questionnaire. Results show that social workers tend to conform to assessments and help-giving strategies that are consistent with expectations linked to their own gender role.     

Seeing the system: Systemic gender knowledge to support transformational change towards gender equality in science

Scholars agree that gender inequality is systemic and that participants in gender equality interventions need knowledge on gender inequality processes. However, a detailed view on the specific characteristics of this knowledge is as yet missing. This article aims to contribute to gender equality interventions by conceptualizing and visualizing systemic gender knowledge as an important condition for transformational change. Combining gender and participatory system dynamics literature, this article first introduces the concept of systemic gender knowledge. This concept captures two main characteristics that make gender knowledge systemic: knowledge on the interaction of gender inequality processes and endogenous thinking, here implying a focus on the organization as the relevant level of analysis. In addition to this conceptual contribution, the research contributes methodologically to the gender inequality intervention literature by designing a visualization process, translating written texts into system dynamics models which enable exploration of systemic gender knowledge. Finally, the research contributes empirically by exploring the systemic gender knowledge of participants in two science research institutes of a Dutch university, finding shifts in both characteristics of systemic gender knowledge. This enables researchers to discern whether gender equality interventions lead to increases in systemic gender knowledge, thus supporting transformational change.     

Bureaucratic Role Perceptions and Gender Mainstreaming in Canada

Since the mid‐1990s, governments have adopted gender mainstreaming (GM) as a strategy for achieving gender equality and improving women's social, economic and political conditions. Yet, studies indicate that GM continues to be unevenly implemented, both within and across countries. To explain this outcome, this paper focuses on the local implementers of GM — the gender focal points — and how they understand GM and interpret it in their everyday work. Drawing upon interviews with gender focal points in the Canadian public service, we explore how bureaucratic role perceptions shape how these local actors understand GM and how they navigate the complex terrain between bureaucratic neutrality and the equality agenda of gender mainstreaming. Our exploratory study shows no common understanding among our interviewees, revealing how the meaning of gender mainstreaming varies depending on whether the public servant views himself or herself as policy analyst, policy advisor or policy advocate. Based on these insights, we conclude with suggestions for future research on gender mainstreaming.