SOC 4090

Paper #2
The Evolution and Critique of Gender Mainstreaming

In order to understand Gender Mainstreaming (GM) policies in the EU, as well as in Eastern
Central Europe, we need to first situate its emergence globally. Jacqui True (2001) argues that
within a short period of time GM became a global phenomenon, with more than 100 national
governments implementing some sort of GM policy, largely due to the efforts of well-organized
international bodies such as the UN and transnational women’s and feminist NGO networks.
Such transnational collaboration on social issues has been unprecedented. While globalization
often increased inequalities between nation states and between men and women – a phenomenon
known as the ‘feminization of poverty’ – it also allowed enormous global organizing to bring
gender issues to the forefront of development discourse.

The UN and its International Conferences on Women played a critical role in putting GM on the
international agenda. Discussions on GM started as early as 1985, although GM made a major
breakthrough at the Beijing Conference in 1995. According to Hafner-Burton “In 1995, the
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing committed both the UN’s member states and its
constituent international organizations (IOs) to the principle of ‘gender mainstreaming’ the
notion that gender would become a transversal consideration in all aspects of national and
international decision-making, cutting across all issue-areas and across all stages of the policy
cycle from conception to implementation” (2007). The EU implemented GM as a Union-wide
policy in 1996, although some Scandinavian states had various gender equality policies in place
much earlier (Polack and Hafner-Burton 2000). Gromek-Broc, for example, argues that EU
enlargement process also contributed to discussions about equality and gender equality as
necessary element for democratic development. “The Commission’s 2004 Green Paper on
Equality and Non-Discrimination in an Enlarged Europe had a dual purpose: assessing the
progress made with regard to discrimination legislation but, also, gathering public opinion as to
how to (re)shape enforcement mechanisms in order to more effectively promote equality”
(2006). GM is sometimes referred to as a ’metapolicy’, a policy strategy about how policy
should be made and implemented (Gerber 2007). The EU has been advocating for gender
equality through various Treaties and Directives. However, most of it has been in the legal
sphere, such as equal pay for men and women and focusing on closing “gender gap” in
employment.1

Although EU gender equality and GM policies internationally are perceived as the most effective
and advanced social policy model, there are a variety of critiques and problems associated with
it. Jane Jensen, for example, argues that even if gender equality or “equal opportunities” for the
most part have been implemented in the spheres of politics and employment, women still often
hold low-paid or part-time jobs and constitute “three- quarters of the working poor” (2006).
Lombardo and Meier argue that in Europe “the barriers to gender mainstreaming are not due to a
difficulty in assimilating the concept, but rather to the patriarchal opposition to feminist goals
implied in the strategy” (2006). Feminist goals such as transformation of patriarchal culture, de-
eseentializing gender, critiquing gender not as merely a woman’s issue but also men’s or going
beyond binary understanding of gender alltogether. Although the European Commission
officially states that “EU policy as regards equality between women and men takes a
comprehensive approach which includes legislation, mainstreaming and positive actions”
(2008). Stratigaki, however, argues that GM served as a replacement, not a substitute to the
positive action and that there is a need to combine positive action and GM in order to alleviate
historically persistent inequalities. (2005). She also states that obstacles to GM, at least in part,
can be explained by examining the “institutional context of the powerful and deeply hierarchical
European Commission, where top-level administration and technocratic staff can play a decisive
role” (2005). Judith Squires also argues that to celebrate GM as a success is too early. Although
feminist movement is often regarded as one of the most successful such analysis should be
approached critically. It might be that feminist movement simply got successfully co-opted and
coincided with particular economic developments (such as post-Fordism) in which there was
increasingly need for women’s labor and larger, more educated labor force. The shift from a
grassroots social justice movement which called for wide cultural change to the one incorporated
within the state structures needs to be critically assessed.

Even if GM was driven by feminist theories and organizing, GM remains a highly contested
notion among policy makers, scholars, and feminist alike. Eveline and Bacchi, for example,
argue that the notion of gender, although widely used in policy documents, remains a largely
contested concept (2005). They do not propose fixed and static meaning of gender, but rather
suggest seeing it as a verb –gendering – or fluid, progressing concept which should always be
situated in a particular context. Nevertheless, the lack of a clear conceptual understanding might
inhibit effective gender policy. Then, they summarize various debates that happened in feminist
theory, which could be divided into categories of “sameness,” “difference,” and
“transformation.” In social policy, “gender” as a concept is often stripped of its feminist
connotation as a theoretical and social change tool and not a simple “women’s problem.” “By
distinguishing sex (as biology) from gender (as social attributes, norms and behaviors) feminists
were able to argue that there was no natural basis to the ‘caring’ expected of women, and to
affirm that while women and men may generally be different in physique and reproductive
function those differences had no relevance for the opportunities they should be offered and the
activities in which they could engage” (Mitchell 2004, quoted in Eveline 2005).

When it comes to East Central Europe contextual and theoretical difficulties become even more
complicated. For example, the widely used English word “gender” does not exist in most ECE
languages and often was used in its un-translated foreign form, providing another reason to
discredit it as culturally un-adoptable import. In other countries, such as Lithuania, it is used as a
word “sex” without making distinction between two terms, defeating its politicized feminist
connotations. Numerous authors have argued that the rush before EU enlargement to implement
various gender equality policies were purely instrumental (Eihernhorn 2005, Regulska 2002,
Jezerska 2005, Taljunaite 2005, Novikova 2005). Molen and Novikova (2005), for example,
argue that GM fails to encapsulate more complex intersections of gender, nationality, citizenship
and social exclusion. Estonia and Latvia have large populations of ethnic Russians that became
disenfranchised after the independence. “Despite the commendable objectives of

increased economic growth and rising living standards, the first decade of reforms produced an
economic reality showing a picture of increased poverty, large falls in real wages, a reduction in
jobs, and a substantial increase in criminal activities” (Molen and Novikova 2005: 140). In this
period women from ethnic minorities disproportionably ended up in poverty and sex trafficking.
When it comes to GM in ECE, Molin and Novikova argue, the approach is “integrationist” rather
than “transformative” (142). Other feminists have been talking about the “add women and stir”
approach, which does not transform existing cultural and institutional arrangements but rather
strategically inserts tokens to create an illusion of equality. Taljunaite, discussing Lithuania’s
GM policies, states that “despite these formal commitments to gender mainstreaming, and except
for a few initiatives, there is very little evidence that this approach is actually being
implemented” (2005). She argues that gender mainstreaming is understood as gendered policy
analysis not a transformational approach to institutions.

The hesitancy to implement gender equality should be situated in the particular post-Soviet
context, which saw large cultural shift towards traditional family and resurgence of patriarchal
values. Women’s emancipation is often perceived as an outdated concept. Manja Nickel
describes the ECE environment, where “‘Western’ researchers and policy makers were alarmed
by noticing a multitude of inequalities in post-socialist countries. They were generally alienated
by an antifeminist attitude which they perceive not only among the local population but also
within academic circles and political elites” (2008). The very few advocates of gender equality
are either women’s NGOs without broad support and legitimacy or state institutions that
overlook legal reforms in compliance with EU. In Lithuania, for example, Equal Opportunities
for Women and Men Ombudsman position has been set up. However later “women” and “men”
got taken out of the tittle, which was seen as a major defeat by the women’s NGOs which
advocated for such position in the first place (Taljunaite 2005)

Overall, GM has made progress in various areas of social and political life. Pollack and Hafner-
Burton (2000), for example, examined evidence of gender mainstreaming in procedure and
policy in five issue-areas: (a) Structural Funds; (b) Employment and Social Affairs; (c)
Development; (d) Competition; and (e) Science,

Research and Development”) and Directorate-Generals were relatively successful in the first
three (Molin and Novikova 2005). Even feminists that are critical of GM and especially its
prospects of success in ECE acknowledge that it still can be a positive tool. However, to talk
about GM as a success story is clearly too early. Squires reminds that “while gender inequality
has apparently decreased, class-based and North-South inequalities have ominously increased”
within EU and globally (2007). Sylvia Walby similarly points out that “gender mainstreaming is
always situated in the context of other diverse and intersecting inequalities” (2003-4).

References:
Eveline, Joan and Bacchi, Carol. 2005. “What are We Mainstreaming When We Mainstreaming
Gender?” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(4): 496-512.

Gromek-Broc, Katarzyna. 2006. “Equality Issues in the CEE Countries: Women and Decision-
Making in the Labor Market.” Review of Central and East European Law, 31: 413-463.

Gerber, Alexandra. 2007. “Gender Mainstreaming and becoming European: At the Intersection
of Polish and EU Gender Discourses” Presented at the 10th Biennial EUSA Meeting Montreal,
Canada May 17, 2007.

Hafner-Burton, Emilie. 2007. “The Promise and Pitfalls of Gender Mainstreaming in Global
Governance: The Case of the European Union.” Conference Paper, International Studies
Association 2007 Annual Meeting, p1.

Jenson, Jane. 2006. “The European Social Model: Gender and Generational Equality.” In eds.
Giddens et al. Global Europe, Social Europe. Cambridge: Polity. 151-171.

Lombardo, Emanuela, and Petra Meier. 2006. “Gender Mainstreaming in the EU: Incorporating a
Feminist Reading?” European Journal of Women's Studies 13 (2): 151-166.

Molen, Irna van der and Novikova, Irina. 2005. “Mainstreaming gender in the EU-accession
process: the case of the Baltic Republics.” Journal of European Social Policy 2005(15): 139-156.

Nickel, Anja. 2008. “Gender Mainstreaming.” Working Paper in Governing Difference. A

Challenge for New Democracies in Central and South Eastern European Countries. Accessed on
March 2, 2008 at http://typo3.univie.ac.at/index.php?id=20396

Polack, Mark A. and Hafner-Burton, Emilie. 2000. “Mainstreaming Gender in the European
Union.”

Stratigaki, Maria. 2005. Gender Mainstreaming vs Positive Action: An Ongoing Conflict in EU

Gender Equality Policy. European Journal of Women's Studies 12 (2):165-186.

Taljunaite, Meilute. 2005. “Gender Mainstreaming as a Strategy for Promoting Gender Equality
in Lithuania.” Sociologicky Casopis/Czech sociological Review 41 (6): 1041-1055.

True, Jackie and Mintrom, Michael. 2001. “Transnational Networks and Policy Diffusion: The
Case of Gender Mainstreaming.” International Studies Quarterly, 45: 27-57.

Walby, Sylvia. 2003-4. “Gender Mainstreaming: Productive Tensions in Theory and Practice.”
Contribution to ESRC Gender Mainstreaming Seminars, 2003-4.

1For example 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam which “includes multiple new provisions strengthening
EU competence in the area of equal opportunities. In place of the original, one-paragraph Article
119 on equal pay, the member states agreed to a new Article 119 (now renumbered Article 141),
which strengthens the original language on equal pay; provides for qualified majority voting in
the Council, and co-decision with the European Parliament for future equal opportunities
legislation” (Pollack and Hafner-Burton 2000). Also according to the EC office of Employment,
Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities gender equality should be implemented in accordance with
“articles 2 and 3 of the EC Treaty (gender mainstreaming) as well as Article 141 (equality
between women and men in matters of employment and occupation) and Article 13 (sex
discrimination within and outside the work place).” (2008).

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