Gender Mainstreaming:Can it Work for

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Gender mainstreaming was meant to deliver women their equality, or so says theBeijing Platform for Action which refers to the term over 35 times. It was the processwe embraced and vociferously fought for in the many meetings, negotiations anddocuments leading up to Beijing. Yet ten years later, not only is the Beijing Platform forAction taken seriously by few, gender mainstreaming is being widely criticized as aconfusing conceptual framework at best and a force that has totally underminedwomen’s rights at worst.

AWID chose to put together this issue in order to stimulate debate on how gendermainstreaming is understood, its impact and what we need to do about it. At thismoment in history there is a growing clamor in women’s movements for us to rethinkour strategies in order to put all women’s rights back on national and global agendas.We therefore asked four dynamic AWID members, all engaged with gendermainstreaming (and its effects) on a daily basis but in very different ways and places,to write their honest opinions about what has gone wrong. We then shared theircandid views amongst them and had them respond to what their colleagues wrote.

Mariama Williams, Everjoice Win, Gerd Johnsson-Latham and Joanne Sandler offerinsightful analysis and share eerily similar opinions. They provide some concretesuggestions on how we might get beyond this quagmire too. They also put outprovocative views that need consideration. We invite you therefore to add your opinionto this important debate by writing us at awid@awid.org to share with the membership.With the Beijing + 10 review upon us, we’re overdue in taking back what gendermainstreaming was really meant to do.

Joanna KerrExecutive Director, AWID

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy which aimsto bring about gender equality and advancewomen’s rights by infusing gender analysis,gender-sensitive research, women’sperspectives and gender equality goals intomainstream policies, projects and institutions.Instead of having segregated activities forwomen, or in addition to targeted interventionsto promote women’s empowerment, it bringsthe focus on women’s issues and genderequality into all policy development, research,advocacy, legislation, resource allocation,planning, implementation and monitoring ofprograms and projects. Gender mainstreamingis intended to be transformative, changing thevery definition and discourse of developmentto include gender equality as a means and anend. With gender fully integrated, therefore,“the stream” itself will change direction.

Gender mainstreaming has been espoused andpromoted by the United Nations, the WorldBank, and by many bilateral aid agencies,government departments, and human rights

and development organizations. Results havebeen mixed. Many gender equality advocatesconsider it the only strategy that will keepwomen’s issues from being swept off to themargins. They see it as the only strategy thatwill lead to the integration of gender equalityand women’s rights objectives into the so-called “hard issues” of macroeconomics andpoverty eradication. For others however, thepromise of gender mainstreaming is long gone.In their experience, it has resulted in thedisappearance of attention to women’s specificneeds and the gender-differentiated impacts ofpolicies and programs.

Has gender mainstreaming worked in someinstitutions, sectors or regions? What is itspotential? Where has it met pitfalls? Can itbe used effectively to bring about meaningfulinstitutional and policy changes that protectwomen’s economic rights? There is nosingle, definitive answer to these questions,but much to learn from practical experiencesand critical analyses.

MainstreamingGenderPerspectivesinto allPolicies andProgramsin the UN System

Mariama Williams, IGTN and DAWN

The Vision and intentionality of gendermainstreamingA key problem with current approaches togender mainstreaming is the loss of the primaryimperative and the driving force underlyinggender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreamingis not simply a point to get to; it is a process. Itis a process for ensuring equity, equality, andgender justice in all of the critical areas of thelives of girls and boys, women and men. Assuch, it is a moral and ethical imperative aswell as fundamental to human rights in all itsforms. It must therefore become ingrained toall of the institutions and operations of the vitalorgans of power and decision-making thatpromote and work toward the development ofjust and prosperous societies nationally,regionally and internationally. Gendermainstreaming must be a cornerstone of theprocess of development, poverty eradication,environmental protection policies, goodgovernance and democracy.

There is an urgent need to revisit the conceptsand frameworks of gender mainstreaming. Weseemingly have lost touch with gender as acategory of analysis that focuses on therelationship of power between women andmen in terms of access to and ownership ofresources and power dynamics. Gendermainstreaming, and the problems it now faces,is not simply an empirical phenomenon but anissue of deep value conflict, power politics,analytical tensions, contradictions anddilemmas bound up in different interpretationsand expectations at the institutional,policymaking and operational levels.

Ultimately, some of these as yet unresolvedtensions and the lack of clarity aboutobjectives and goals have contributed to areturn to a more instrumentalist focus on

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gender/women as a means to an end. How-ever, growth and/or successful project imple-mentation should not be the main purpose ofgender mainstreaming.

There are at least two major reasons contributingto this situation. First, there is under-investment inkeeping abreast of on-going analytical andpolicy-oriented initiatives that aim at developingand strengthening categories critical to gendermainstreaming in areas such as feministeconomics. The second reason is the persistentand growing gap between macroeconomics andgender mainstreaming. There is little interactionbetween macro level planning/ macrophenomena (i.e., fiscal policy, trade policy,financial liberalization and privatization) andgender mainstreaming at the policy analysis andapplications levels in governmental, internationaland inter-governmental organizations. Thisresults in a piecemeal approach to developmentand gender equality work.

Macro deficits of contemporaryapproaches to gender mainstreaming

It is undeniable that financial and tradeconsiderations set the agenda and conditionthe environment in which gender main-streaming takes place. These macro levelevents impact both the substantive content andthe operational reach of gender mainstreamingand therefore contribute - in no small way -to the weaknesses of gender mainstreaming.For example, macroeconomic policy prede-termines an over-emphasis on growth thatreinforces an integrationist approach to gendermainstreaming, constantly shifting that processback into the WID stream instead of the moretransformative GAD stream.

Globalization, trade liberalization and theemerging coherence between internationalfinancial and trade institutions greatly impinge onthe policy space at the national level. But there isno policy interaction at the institutional level withregard to gender mainstreaming. In addition,current approaches to macro-economic targetstend to result in regressive income and assetdistribution. This has direct implications forreinforcing not only a false choice betweenefficiency and equity, but also engenderscommitment to a limiting anti-povertyframework, which in turn, muddies the water forgender equality objectives.

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Within the context of the macro framework there isthe sense that these are “hard areas” that havenothing to do with gender. Gender equality andgender mainstreaming are therefore relegated to“softer” areas that must work to complement andoffset the necessary adjustment costs of macroplanning decisions and outcomes. So, for example,it is perfectly acceptable to examine areas of fooddistribution between men and women but genderhas no place in discussions about agriculturalliberalization or tariff reductions. Yet both of thesehave significant implications for food security, self-sufficiency, and sustainable livelihoods. Likewise,the intellectual property framework is often seen asa “hard area” with no gender dimensions; yetwomen’s and men’s access to medicine, traditionalknowledge, and technology transfers are impactedby intellectual property rights regimes.

Present approaches to macroeconomics havetended to enforce and reinforce a simplistic anti-poverty agenda that, though important andnecessary, is not sufficient as a goal of gendermainstreaming. We have to move the discussionbeyond poverty reduction to look at structuralissues of inequality and economic injustices thatreinforce old forms of poverty as well as createnew forms of poverty and inequalities.

Gender equality must be reaffirmed as an end initself and not simply a means to an end whenconvenient. This requires attention to structuralpolicies and changes of paradigms includingspecific attention to institutional factors such as howthe so-called “hard areas” and “soft areas” inter-relate at the meta, meso, micro and macro levels ofthe economy.

Towards a transformative approach togender mainstreaming

This means coming to grips with the challengingissues of redistribution of power, both at theinstitutional level and also in national level policymaking as well as in the global political economy.These issues point toward a need for a shift fromthe current drift back to integrationist approachesto gender, which simply try to fit women andgender concerns into existing strategies andpriorities, towards a more transformative approach.Therefore, there is great scope for retuning modelsand rethinking the rules, priorities, goals and thedistribution of resources.

WhitherGenderMainstreaming?

Joanne Sandler, UNIFEM

Ah, the question of gender mainstreaming. Whether oneis for or against, few would debate the following: a)There is conceptual confusion about what gendermainstreaming means and how it should be applied; andb) It only works when there is unswerving commitmentof leadership, accountability mechanisms are in place,and the right gender expertise is available at the right timeto align policies and practices with commitments toachieving gender equality.

If gender mainstreaming was applied and understoodas a strategy to address gender inequality at astructural level and achieve fundamentaltransformation by eliminating gender biases andpower imbalances between men and women, itwould certainly merit further investment. But one mustlook long and hard to find examples of gendermainstreaming being implemented – or evenconceptualized – in this way. Gender mainstreaming,as practiced, is more often used as a strategy forobscuring and under-valuing the significance ofgender inequality.

Examples abound. The classic situation goessomething like this. A plan is being formulated: it canbe a Poverty Reduction Strategy, the budget for thereconstruction of Afghanistan, or a civil societystrategy for influencing a World Conference. Fivetask forces are formed (e.g. poverty, water, health,etc.), but gender equality does not need a task forcebecause it is mainstreamed. Budgets are assigned toeach of the task forces, but gender equality doesn’tneed a budget because it’s mainstreamed. Then apaper is written on the work of the task forces withchapters for each issue, but gender equality does nothave a chapter because it is mainstreamed. And thenthere’s a high level meeting with the leaders of the fivetask forces present, but no one presents on genderequality because… you guessed it.

What is going on behind the scenes is even moreludicrous. Those concerned with gender equality andwomen’s rights do not have a task force so they form

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a “working group.” The group now becomesthe mainstreamers. They divide up to“influence” the task forces. They dutifullyprepare background papers on the genderdimensions of each of the task force issues.They undertake “evidence-based advocacy.”They lobby. They have the double job ofinfluencing the task forces at the same timethat they are coordinating with theircounterparts in the “working group.”

Sometimes they are very successful; they oftensucceed in getting a paragraph or twoincluded. If they miss a particularly criticalmeeting however, their successes can bewiped out in a nanosecond. Women’s doubleand triple day, which has been welldocumented in the reproductive sphere, isbeing replicated in gender equality work.While the hunger or water task force focuseson strategies to address hunger or water, thoseworking on gender equality run madlybetween everyone else’s task force at thesame time as having their own.

Aruna Rao, David Kelleher and Rieky Stuarthave written about the deep structures inorganizations that inhibit or prohibit gendermainstreaming from being an effectivestrategy for transformation toward genderjustice. We can have solid gender analysis,high quality gender training and a superbgender policy, yet when it comes to gettingthe work done – convening the task forces,assigning the budgets, distributing medicinesfor HIV or the food in a refugee camp –women and girls still have diminished accessand influence as compared to men, resultingin greater threats to their lives, their securityand their future potential.

Using gender mainstreaming as a lead strategyhas had valuable spin-off effects, generatingnew tools precisely because those advocatingfor gender equality and women’s rights havecome to understand that accountability andimplementation of agreements are critical tomaking progress. Gender-responsivebudgeting (GRB), for instance, is a promisingarea of work receiving increasing support andinterest worldwide. GRB is being used as atransformative tool in Tanzania and Uganda tobring greater transparency, participation and

accountability to local and national levelbudget processes, and in Ecuador, as amechanism for re-examining the budget withpopular participation and re-allocatingmunicipal resources in response to the resultsof the analysis. A greater interest in thegender-differentiated impacts ofmacroeconomic policies and improvedcapacity to gather and use sex-disaggregateddata have also resulted from reliance ongender mainstreaming. These tools andanalyses are raising awareness, generatingevidence, and even resulting in significantpolicy changes. In almost every instance,however, women’s rights and gender equalityadvocates are at the forefront of developing,lobbying for the use of, and monitoring thesetools. If support wanes for their work becauseof commitments to “gender mainstreaming,”how far will these tools take us?

Beyond asking whether gender mainstreaming iseffective in bringing about institutional and policychange, there are three additional questions thatmerit further exploration: a) Is it an effectivestrategy compared to other options? b) Is it astrategy at all? and c) Even if the answers to (a)and (b) are positive, has gender mainstreamingnow been saddled with so much baggage that weneed to change the language?

What are the other options? The BeijingPlatform for Action and countless genderequality policies point to two strategies forachieving gender equality: gendermainstreaming and women’s empowerment(or a focus on women). My personal opinionis that we have done the issue of genderequality and women’s rights a disservice bypresenting these as choices rather than inter-linked strategies. Nevertheless, of the two,empirical evidence indicates that ensuringwomen’s empowerment is often more effectiveat having a direct and transformative impactthan the slow and confusing process ofgender mainstreaming.

I am beginning to wonder, however, if part ofthe problem is that gender mainstreaming isnot a strategy at all. If we understand it as atheory without much practical application, it isan interesting construct for academics,philosophers and others to ponder. If we stop

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ECOSOC resolution, the text stressed somethingwhich - again - seems to have been forgotten in thediscussions: that a prerequisite for gendermainstreaming is commitment from senior manage-ment as well as the provision of adequate financialand other resources.

So ten years after Beijing, where do we stand, andwhat success stories of gender mainstreaming, if any,can be brought forward? Has gender mainstreamingbeen helpful or not in reaching the overall goals of thePfA and to combat female subordination, etc.?

The evidence does not appear to be positive. Quite afew studies and evaluations of the effects of thestrategy have been presented. In 2002, for example,a Swedish International Development Agency studywas published indicating that so far, it had not beenpursued on a regular basis and achievements werestill scattered. The same year, Norway organized adonor meeting, providing proof that while genderoften implied high rhetorics, it was seldom followedby adequate funding and high level commitment or anunderstanding of the transformatory implications ofthe process. Overall, experiences with gendermainstreaming suggest the following problems:

a) The concept itself is unclear and misunderstood:Gender mainstreaming is still difficult for thedevelopment community because “gender” is still notunderstood as a construction of roles but primarily asattention to biological women. Furthermore,“mainstreaming” has – at best – been a reminder ofthe need to add “women’s interests” to “refine”already established settings.

b) Mainstreaming has been reduced to a technique:Because gender mainstreaming seldom contains thenecessary funding, staffing or commitment, it is oftenreduced to a question of technique and “tool-kits”. Andfar too often the technique is criticized for any failures ingender mainstreaming, whereas the real problems arelack of commitment and resources and a trueacceptance of the equal worth of women and men.

c) Mainstreaming as a pretext for saving overall resources:Often agencies claim to have applied gendermainstreaming and use this to justify the lack of staff,resources, and program planning allocated tospecifically address gender and women’s issues, thusfalsely “mainstreaming” gender to invisibility. Thus,

talking about it as a strategy, we can move on tomore practical approaches.

Of one thing I am sure. The conceptual confusionaround gender and gender mainstreaming is adisadvantage in work to promote and protectwomen’s rights and gender equality. “Sex” vs. “gender” vs. “women” causes great exasperation. Amale colleague in the UN – who has been in theorganization for over 25 years – once asked me, incomplete seriousness, “why can’t we just talk aboutworking for women anymore?”

We want to find approaches that work and totransfer knowledge about what works to otherinstitutions. This requires serious reflection. Gendermainstreaming is not the problem, but it may also bethat continuing reliance on it as a lead strategy is notthe solution. In the run-up to the 10-year review ofthe Beijing Platform for Action, there is probably nomore important conversation to have than one thathelps us to develop new alternatives and moreeffective strategies toward making visionarycommitments about women’s human rights andgender equality a reality.

GenderMainstreaming:The Second-BestOption

Gerd Johnsson-Latham,

The Beijing Platform for Action (PfA), adopted atthe United Nations 4th World Conference on Womenin 1995, established gender mainstreaming as astrategy to address inequalities and unequal access toresources in areas of concern in the Platform forAction. Many considered this a remarkable achieve-ment that could transform overall developments. ThePfA stressed that before decisions are taken, genderanalysis has to be done along with a visible policy ongender equality in all areas. The before part of thiscommitment, however, seems to have been forgotten.To my mind, this has put the whole strategy intojeopardy and reduced mainstreaming to an after-thought and an “add-on.” And while in 1997 highhopes for mainstreaming as a way forward led to an

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gender work today may actually be lessequipped in terms of staff and resources than itwas in 1995. What we need today is ayardstick or some kind of minimum criteria forwhat should be labeled as gendermainstreamed.

d) Gender mainstreaming has not beentransformative:Gender mainstreaming, as it is applied today,basically accepts the status quo anddevelopment “business as usual” – and thenadds gender. Much more far-reachingmethods for transforming the agenda arerequired to put gender into the driver’s seat ofdevelopment, and reorganize and redefine thestructure and focus of current work.

Current efforts appear to be insufficient andpossibly not heading into the right direction.Mainstreaming often means that genderexperts “run after already running trains” to atleast get a minimum of attention to gender (orwomen) into processes such as the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs), the PovertyReduction Strategy Papers, etc. This isunsustainable, and reminiscent of pooroverburdened Sisyphus in Greek mythology,who had to start over again every morning,pushing a boulder up a mountain.

While gender mainstreaming might still be auseful strategy if adequate funding and high-level commitment were assured, it seemsnecessary to also explore new ways of moreeffectively reaching the targets of humandevelopment and gender equality. Gendermainstreaming may be a “second-bestoption,” which at this difficult time in globalpolitics, when the gender agenda has beenthreatened by fundamentalisms from all sides,requires more far-reaching venues of thoughtto not only ensure some thoughts on genderbut to promote transformation and change.To this end, we may need to go “upstream”in the process and challenge currentunderstandings and focuses in terms of whatdevelopment, poverty, deprivation andhuman security are all about.

Thus, to my mind, much more attention should begiven to male hegemonic structures, maledominance and male privileges, which whenthreatened are defended by force (including

violence at all levels) both within families andsocieties, often at the expense of the well-beingof women and children – and many men. Thus,we need to move from attention primarily to“women’s interests” and “women’s needs”– torather investigate and expose features whichactually dominate analysis, strategies andallocation of current resources: men’s interestsand men’s needs – which leads to the fact thatmost development undertakings today are“men’s projects,” whether we speak aboutpoverty reduction (in PRSPs which lackattention to unpaid work), health, HIV (whichoften omits focus on the Cairo agenda), security(which avoids attention to violence againstwomen –even as it is the single biggest threat tohuman security today and though male violence isa major obstacle to development and estimatedto the equivalent of some 3% of the GDP in theU.S. and possibly 8% in countries in Latin America).

We do not need to expend a lot of effort onreformulating the vision put forth at Beijing.The important thing is to develop strategiesand concepts that would facilitate change andachievements in attaining the goals of Beijing,not limited to techniques but which go to theheart of equal rights and worth of all humans,and enable us to break down and replacecurrent structures of power and privileges,instead promoting gender equality andsustainable human development.

Gender Equality:Mainstreamedinto Oblivion?

Everjoice Win, ActionAid

Locating myself

Before I began to work with the internationalNGO ActionAid, I was part of theautonomous women’s movement inZimbabwe, the Africa region andinternationally. The autonomous aspect isimportant as it distinguishes that movement

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from parts of the movement that are located withinmainstream development NGOs, the broad civilsociety movement or various bureaucracies. I enteredthis movement in the late 1980s when it was workingtowards the empowerment of women and the realiza-tion of women’s rights. We challenged power rela-tions between women and men, and between richand poor; we saw as one of our goals the changing ofthose power relations at every level. We used genderanalysis and the Gender and Developmentframeworks developed by feminists (yes, it isimportant to underline that they were developed byfeminists). Our activities included educating women/girls about their rights, economic developmentactivities, research, and using the media. Some partsof the movement worked with women directly, whileothers worked with men, others with decisionmakers, and some with mixed groups.

In the mid-1990s, particularly as we moved towardsthe Beijing conference of 1995, a new “movement”emerged, that is the “gender movement” with its“gender-speak” and “gender mainstreaming.” Thisgender work, which has become the rule rather thanthe exception, is quite distinct from my days in theautonomous women’s movement.

How I understand gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming has a double meaning: it is astrategy and a process of agenda setting andchange at different levels within organizations andinstitutions.1 It is both a technical and a politicalprocess, which requires shifts in organizationalcultures and ways of thinking, as well as in thegoals, structures and resource allocations oforganizations. It requires as well as implies changesat different levels within institutions andorganizations, paying attention to equality betweenwomen and men in agenda setting, policy-making,planning, budgeting, implementation, evaluation andin all decision-making procedures.

Gender mainstreaming is not an objective or an endin itself. It is a means to achieve gender equality. Therequired end remains equality, human rights andjustice, as well as fundamental change in powerrelations between women and men.

Unfortunately, gender mainstreaming is too often seenas an end in itself. In practice, the transformatoryaspects of mainstreaming have been sidelined. Manyinstitutions that have adopted gender mainstreaming

approach it from a very technical perspective. Main-stream institutions, such as the World Bank and stateinstitutions, have added “gender mainstreaming” totheir rhetoric but have not changed their practices ortheir policies.

Making gender a “cross-cutting issue” tends todiminish the focus on the real issues. In someinstances, gender has been mainstreamed intooblivion. In many development organizations, genderdepartments or programmes have been whittleddown and in some cases completely abolished. Sincethe Beijing Conference of 1995, women’sorganizations and gender equality departments inlarger institutions such as governments anddevelopment agencies have struggled to survive.Resources have been slashed, with the argument thattheir presence and expertise were no longer requiredgiven the efforts of gender mainstreaming. Pressed forindicators of change or progress, the stock answer isthat gender is now cross-cutting and mainstreamedtherefore it can no longer be “measured”.

Linked to the above trends are the prevailingmisconceptions about gender. Many developmentorganizations now argue that using a “genderapproach” implies a need to focus on men and bringthem in as beneficiaries. Many women’s rightsorganizations are finding it increasingly difficult toaccess resources if their programmes do not includemen. During the period 2000-2002, CIDA inZimbabwe specifically turned down fundingproposals on the basis that men were excluded.2 Atthe same time, disproportionately large amounts ofresources are going to projects such as work withmen and boys around HIV/AIDS and men’s marchesagainst violence. The lack of conceptual clarity ofgender as an analytical concept – rather than astrategy – lies behind some of these trends.

What started out as a positive attempt to build on thesuccesses and challenges of the last 20 years inadvancing women’s rights has, like the concept ofgender, been distorted to mean something else.Based on the understanding that separate projects/programmes for marginalized groups tended to bemarginal and to make little impact, mainstreaming wasseen as a strategy to widen the gains. The choice tomainstream was also based on the understanding thatgender issues are everywhere and in everything –they are not found in one or a few arenas.

Mainstreaming is about ensuring that genderequality goals are embedded at every level and in

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all parts of an institution – rather thanghettoized. It’s also about making sureresources are mobilized to move what isoften a huge agenda. Most importantly,gender mainstreaming is not the same as“integration” or adding on gender –something that many of us are alreadyfamiliar with from the old days of Womenin Development – the “add women andstir” approach.

Today, gender mainstreaming threatens therealization of the goal of gender equality.Many development organizations haveabolished gender desks/programmes andspecific funding. Gender experts are onlyinvited to “add gender” to existingframeworks, thus mainstreaming is not aboutchallenging the existing analysis of situations,nor is there an assumption that there issomething wrong with the mainstream in thefirst place. Gender mainstreaming is oftenstated as an end in itself. Gender has becomeso mainstreamed that it is no longer visible.After we have mainstreamed gender, it is nolonger clear what our programmes or policiesshould look like. Was the idea to mainstreamgender so much so that it is no longer visibleat the end of the stream?

In my work in ActionAid, I have strategicallychosen to use the terms “gender and women’srights” to indicate what this work is about -women’s empowerment, women’s equalenjoyment of their rights, and a change inpower relations.

In thinking about the reflections on gendermainstreaming by my other colleagues, I cometo the conclusion that gender mainstreaming asa strategy with specific sets of tactics and toolscan be used effectively to bring aboutmeaningful institutional policy changes inwomen’s economic rights. Arguably, it hasvery real, even structural limitations, butnonetheless it can still be a vehicle for shapingand operationalizing national and internationalcommitments to women’s economic rights andimproving women’s access to social andeconomic resources. In its current form, it isthe common practical and operationalframework for the cohering and actualizationof overall agendas which can impact all thevarious dimensions of governmental apparatusfor impacting the daily lives of women andmen: social policy, economic policy, tradepolicy and industrial policy.

To me the latent and still possible potentials ofgender mainstreaming are fourfold: 1) thepossibility of conscientizing citizens,technocrats and economic decision-makersabout the critical dimensions of women’s andmen’s lives; 2) the possibility of devising local,national, regional and international approachesto dealing with the problem of genderdiscrimination and inequality; 3) the possibilityof enlivening interlocking policy approachesfor more targeted, long-lasting and sustainableimpacts of taxation, budgeting, lending,borrowing and interest rate policies on thecaring, entrepreneurial, and labor marketactivities of men and women as they carry outtheir multiple roles and functions in society.Ultimately, gender mainstreaming can also be apowerful tool for grounding the cultural,economic and social rights of girls, boys,women and men and as such can provide thesolid foundation for advancing the economicempowerment of women.

But the sad reality is that these wonderfulpotentialities of gender mainstreaming havebeen severely attenuated, distorted andthwarted. Instead, gender mainstreaming hassuccumbed to the pitfalls of a technocratic fix

endnotes1 Ireen Dubel, “Challenges for GenderMainstreaming: The Experiences ofHivos,” 2002.2 I was the Director for Women in PoliticsSupport Unit and our proposal wasspecifically turned down because, as theCIDA staff put it, “we don’t understand whyyou are focusing only on women Membersof Parliament. Male MPs also need to beempowered”. A few other women’s NGOshad similar experiences.

Mariama Responded…

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and has lost its philosophical and moral underpinningsin most cases. In far too many cases, “gender” hasbeen misused and abused by those who refuse torecognize and take action on women’s subordinationand the various forms of social and economicinjustices in the economy and society. These genderequality subversives, who tend to have stronginfluence in any of the phases of gendermainstreaming, have tended to devote their energy tosidelining the issue of women’s oppression andsystematic inequalities. This is often done in the nameof protecting men’s interest, as if gendermainstreaming is intent on leaving men at aninstitutional or structural disadvantage.

Unfortunately, this kind of rearguard action is morepervasive than we would like to think, even in richcountries. Even more importantly some of itsarchitects and orchestrators are women. These menand their female collaborators will persist in denyingthat there is a problem of women’s subordination andpervasive gender discrimination that is unfavorable towomen. Or, even if they acknowledge the problem,they refuse to accept that it is serious or to seewhere, why and how it persists and how presentattitudes, behavior and policy may be generating newdimensions to the age-old problem. Though theywould deny it vociferously, the underlying compassthat regulates such behaviors and actions, as noted byGerd Johnsson-Latham, is that there is “no trueacceptance of the equal worth of women and men.”

Gender injustice—the pervasive and differentialtreatment of men and women that results inunfavorable burden sharing, maldistribution ofresources and imbalances in rights and entitlementsto one gender at the disadvantage of the othergender—is endemic to all present cultures.Undeniably, for the better part of most of the lastmillennium, it is women who have been at the shortend of the stick. Some cultures and societies havemanaged to eliminate or reduce the most obviousand negative aspects, while others try to neutralize itthrough laws and rhetoric such that we think theproblem only exists in other people’s culture orreligions. But the fundamental design, the hardwire,is still there in our cultural practices, sayings andreligious beliefs and dogmas. And, they undergird allthat we say and do, no matter how much we try toanesthetize it. What is the natural, automaticreaction in time of crises: underemployment, war,etc.? There can be no other explanation for thepersistence and tenacity of such an obvious affrontto human evolution and technology.

In such an environment, gender mainstreaming wasbound to meet a halfhearted, lukewarm reception andits implementation at best undertaken on aninstrumental level. There is a pervasive problem oflack of real commitment and accountability to theprime directive: gender equality and gender justice.Certainly in some areas more resources have beenleveraged for programs that benefit women. But inthe critical areas of conscientization and embeddingdeeply into the psyche of policy-makers as well asinto the structural design of policies success has beenelusive. The reality is that gender mainstreaminginitiatives, mechanisms and instruments have beenunder-funded and under-resourced.

There is therefore much work that needs to be done atthese different levels. The question can be raised: is itworth it to continue to expend much energy, or anyenergy, on gender mainstreaming? Should we not justmove on to new frameworks, concepts and programs? Ibelieve these are valid questions. But I am also sure thatunless we are seriously able to change hearts and minds,whatever success we may achieve in new frameworkswill be ephemeral. Even these new frameworks,however attractive and rewarding they may appear now,will ultimately come up against the same stumblingblocks that met gender mainstreaming. The work ofconscientization and embedding gender equality andgender justice concerns into all aspects of social andeconomic life that influence the policy-making stream willneed to continue.

It seems that there is a great deal of agreement inthe four submissions. There is consensus that: a)Work on gender mainstreaming has been reducedto a technique or an end in itself, thereby losing itsconnection to the purposes it originally sought toachieve (e.g., as a means or strategy to highlight,through analysis, the power and privilegedifferentials between men and women and supportimproved strategies toward transformation thatleads to social justice); and b) There is a rampantconceptual confusion about gender mainstreaming,leading to its use as a means of making women’srights and gender equality invisible.

I agree with all of these points raised by mycolleagues, but none of us have really articulated away forward. We are all expressing the need for

Joanne Responded…

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approaches and strategies that addressstructural inequality and transformation ofexisting power relationships. Gendermainstreaming was supposed to do that, butthis is not happening in practice. I agree withGerd Johnsson-Latham that we do not needto expend effort reformulating the vision putforth at Beijing. But we certainly needproven approaches that transform therhetoric of gender equality and women’srights into reality.

We need to recognize that change towardtransforming gender power relations ishappening haphazardly and irregularly indifferent places and at different times. WangariMaathai just became the first African womanNobel Peace Prize Winner. Women voted inAfghanistan. These, and countless otheractions taken every day by courageous menand women whose stories never reach thepublic domain, are all important steps. I thinkof Nita Barrow, the convenor of the NGOForum for the 3rd World Conference onWomen in Nairobi, who talked about howeffective leaders did not always necessarilyhave a master plan… they just knew what thethree most important next steps were.

My dream is that we have a riveting, water-tight, compelling set of approaches thatilluminate an irrevocable path toward genderequality, and that everyone would see thewisdom of this and join in. I’ll settle, however,for three key steps forward.

My initial thoughts:

a) Generate greater support for women’shuman rights: We have CEDAW, we haveregional women’s rights conventions in LatinAmerica and Africa. We need to generategreater attention, support, accountability andcapacity to redress discrimination and stigmain women’s lives.

b) End impunity for distorting gendermainstreaming: After at least 10 years ofintensive training and development of countlessgender equality policies, there need to besystems of accountability in place at all levels.

c) Build strong and sustainable organizationsand networks advocating for women’s

rights: We would not have come this far if itweren’t for so many women (and some men)who struggled to build an agenda for genderequality and women’s rights. We need to besupporting and attracting new generations ofwomen and men with new ideas and new issuesto keep this work moving forward.

Firstly, the concept of gender mainstreaming isproblematic, not only because of themainstreaming part (the strategy), but alsobecause of an additional problem in terms ofmisunderstandings regarding the meaning of“gender” (the starting point/concept).Replacing “mainstreaming”, therefore, may stillleave us with the problem raised here byEverjoice Win (and notably shared by NGOsthat I have spoken with in Sweden): “gender”tends to be misinterpreted and projectproposals which focus on women can berejected if men are not also included asbeneficiaries. Apparently, there is still agigantic task ahead in terms of explaining thatgender means considering conditions for bothwomen and men, and then giving particularattention to women to make up for centuriesof gender inequalities in almost all areas.

Secondly, “mainstreaming” requires thatsomebody actually mainstreams. Indicatingownership and responsibility for mainstreamingis vital in every process. In addition, it appearscrucial to establish a minimum requirement forwhat should be labelled “mainstreamed.” Wealso need means for accountability andcontrol, in terms of gender budgeting andgender auditing, for example.

Thirdly, it should be acknowledged thatgender mainstreaming was not the onlystrategy adopted at the Beijing conference in1995. Mainstreaming was highlighted alongwith the “empowerment of women.” Theconcept of empowerment is actually muchclearer and much less likely to bemisunderstood. Thus it appears worthwhile topick up “the empowerment of women” againand bring it back to the forefront. We stillhave much work to do to understand how theempowerment of women can be realised, both

Gerd Responded…

things have been achieved because of gendermainstreaming, for some of us, the pollution of thestruggle by gender apologist language and strategiesmakes reclamation an unattractive option.

Analyzing the mainstream itself:

Indeed we must also question what the state of themainstream itself is. Is it what we want? Where isthe stream going? Do we want to go there? Can itbe turned around to where we want? That is the bigchallenge. The mainstream in terms of developmentapproaches, anti-poverty, or even human rights is notexactly the kind of stream many a feminist wants tofind herself floating in. So before we even talk of“streaming” anything in there, we need a sharperunderstanding of what lies beneath (to quote thatfamous film). This has been one of the challenges forwomen’s rights activists and feminists, particularlythose working in that mainstream itself. Trying tounderstand the ideological mindsets, and the powerdynamics at stake, is in itself a major task. With itsseemingly non-threatening and non-politicalapproaches, “gender” tends to be very muchwelcomed into the mainstream – with smiles andopen arms. But no sooner is this veneer of welcomedisplayed than the activist finds herself wonderingtherefore why the stream keeps shifting and running indifferent directions at every turn! A good example ofthis is the current excitement around gender in HIV &AIDS. The simple question to be asked then is ifthings are so clear, and gender can be easily dealtwith, why has so little changed for women and girls?Again our feminist activism tells us, the power issuesand ideological battles are what is never openlydeclared. Therefore gender mainstreaming, which isoften presented as a non-political act, flounders as ithits the rocks of patriarchy and power.

I agree with Joanne’s colleague…let’s just go backto working for women!

Gender Mainstreaming: Can it Work for Women’s Rights? Women’s Rights and Economic Change 11

for women as different collectives and for womenindividually (e.g. through legislation, education,allocation of funds, establishing new posts for genderequality work within governments and elsewhere,etc.) Work is also needed to understand how existingprimarily male or patriarchal power structures areconnected to male privileges – and at the other sideof the coin, the costs and disadvantages for women.Similarly, we need to develop our knowledge abouthow power and privileges are decisive for decision-making, agenda-setting, access to resources andcontrol over means of violence to punish opponents(including women) and over rewards to co-optadversaries (and marginalise feminists).

To conclude: while gender mainstreaming andempowerment are means and strategies, we shouldnot forget that the overall goal is gender equality.Gender equality can be interpreted to have the samemeaning as the emerging concept of gender justice.So at this stage, in the pursuit of gender equality andgender justice, we need to focus on effective methodsof change and put more efforts on the following: theempowerment of women to achieve gender justice.

We all seem to agree that gender mainstreaming hasbeen, in a nutshell, “so much promise, so littledelivery.” With the right conceptual clarity, in the righthands and with serious commitment, gendermainstreaming can and does work. To this one mustadd – with the right political foundation. Gendermainstreaming is simply a tool. Any tool in the righthands will achieve positive results. With the rightpolitical underpinnings it can work wonders. But puta good tool in the wrong hands, it becomes a weaponwith which massive damage can be done.

A key missing piece in the analysis we have donethus far is recognizing that gender discourse andtools have been systematically wrenched from thehands of feminists. There have also been seriousefforts by many to distance “gender” and all itentails from feminism. So it is not uncommon tohear the refrain, “We don’t want to be feminists.We want to do good gender work.” What exactlydoes that mean…I ask rhetorically? This is thebiggest challenge that underlies attempts to reclaimgender and gender mainstreaming. So while I doagree with Aruna Rao et al. that so many positive

Everjoice Responded…

Compiled by:

ResearchAssistance from:Design by:

Alison Symington

Juhi Verma

Lina Gomez

Gerd Johnsson-Latham is the Deputy Director of theDepartment for Global Co-operation, Swedish Ministry forForeign Affairs. Since 1992, she has focused on Gender andDevelopment, seeking to integrate or mainstream gender intoall areas of development co-operation.

Everjoice J. Win is currently the International Gender Co-ordinator for Action Aid International, where she isresponsible for gender mainstreaming within theorganization and work on women’s rights globally. She is afeminist from Zimbabwe and has worked with the Women’sAction Group, Women in Law and Development in Africa(WILDAF) and the Commission on Gender Equality ofSouth Africa.

Joanne Sandler is the Deputy Executive Director forProgrammes of the United Nations Development Fund forWomen (UNIFEM). She has worked with internationalorganizations and women’s groups worldwide for the past 25years, with a focus on organizational development, strategicplanning and economic justice.

Mariama Williams is an international economics consultantand an Adjunct Associate at the Center of Concern,Washington, D.C. She is the Research Adviser for theInternational Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), Co-researchCoordinator, Political Economy of Globalisation (Trade) —Development Alternative with Women for a New Era (DAWN)and a Director of the Institute for Law and Economics(ILE-Jamaica).

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development is an international membership

organization connecting, informing and mobilizing people and organizations committed to

achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights. A dynamic

network of women and men, AWID members are researchers, academics, students, educators,

activists, business people, policy-makers, development practitioners, funders and others, half

of whom are located in the global South and Eastern Europe.

215 Spadina Ave., Suite 150, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5T 2C7. Tel: +1 (416) 594-3773. Fax: +1 (416) 594-0330. E-mail: awid@awid.org. Web: www.awid.org

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