Transcript Gender mainstreaming – a contradiction in terms?

Gender mainstreaming – a
contradiction in terms?
Karen Sjørup
The Danish Research Centre on Gender Equality
Roskilde University
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
www.celi.dk
Workshop Malta 4-8th April 2003
The concept of gender
• an analytical tool,
pinpointing the social aspects of sex
• Pervasive sex (Laqueur)
• Sex/gender system(Gayle Rubin)
• a performance (Butler)
• sex as an essence
• sex is established as pre-discursive
• the body as a situation (Beauvoir)
How is gender produced?
• social determination
• discursive production
• a social determination that excludes action
and transformation
• free will or of determination
• pre-gendered substance
Women’s nature
Women prefer to work with human beings, women
prefer to have time off with the family rather than
have a long working day, women are naturally
good at caring for children, the old and the sick
etc. This means that there is a joint commonly
understanding of gender, and this understanding of
gender is based on assumptions of women's nature
or o the assumption of women and men’s essential
different nature.
there is still an overall picture of inequality:
• Women use flexibility to have more hours off with the family and the children,
• Men use flexibility to work more
• Women are joining managerial and professional positions in the most dynamic sector,
the service sector
• Women’s representation at the lower end of the ladder is still much higher
• There is still a glass ceiling, that is very difficult for women to break through in order
to reach the top managerial positions.
Gender mainstreaming
The council of Europe:
“Gender mainstreaming is the (re)organisation,
improvement, development and evaluation of
policy processes, so that a gender equality
perspective is incorporated in all policies at all
levels and at all stages, by the actors normally
involved in policy-making.
(Council of Europe 1998: 15)”.
GM of European Labour Market
What would gender mainstreaming of the European Labour market mean:
• To counteract gender stereotypical choice of education and career
• To reconcile work and family life on an equal basis
• To gender mainstream parental leave
• To fight unequal pay
• To promote women's careers
• To promote the integration of men in family life and housework
UN definition of GM
"Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of
assessing the implications for women and men of any
planned action, including legislation, policies or
programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy
for making women's as well as men's concerns and
experiences an integral dimension of the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and
programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres
so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is
not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender
equality.”
GM as a political process
• Gender mainstreaming usually involves a reorganisation of
policy processes, because existing procedures and routines
are all too often gender-blind or gender-biased. In contrast
to the standard assumption of policy makers and policymaking organisations that their work is gender-neutral, it
has been proven over and over again that gender
differentials are not recognised in regular policies, and
that unreflected assumptions include (most often
unintentional) biases in favour of the existing unequal
gender relations (Verloo 2000).
Strategy
Diagnosis
What is wrong?
Equal
treatme
nt
Specific
equality
policies
Gender
mainstreaming
Inequality in law,
different laws/ rights for
men and women
Unequal starting
position of men and
women. Group
disadvantage of women.
Specific problems of
women that are not
addressed. Lack of
access, skills, or
resources of women
Gender bias in regular
policies and social
institutions resulting in
gender inequality
Attribution of causality
Prognosis
Call for
action
Who/what is responsible
for the problem?
What should be
done?
Who should
do
something?
Individual
responsibilities
Change the laws
towards formally
equal rights for
men and women
in laws
Legislators
Diverse, both at
individual level, and at
structural level
Design and fund
specific projects
to address the
problems of
(specific groups
of) women
Gender
equality
agencies,
sometimes
together
with
established
institutions
Policy makers
(unintentionally)
(Re) organize
policy processes
to incorporate a
gender equality
perspective in all
policies
Government
/all actors
routinely
involved in
policy
making