What are we mainstreaming when we mainstream gender?

Abstract

In the policies and practices of gender mainstreaming, gender itself is a contested concept. This article examines versions of gender mainstreaming in two countries, focusing on approaches we term the Canadian and Netherlands models. We show how different understandings of gender are attached to different reform approaches, and intimate how particular ways of conceptualising gender inhibit the efficacy of the mainstreaming strategy. In order to increase that effectiveness we suggest that gender mainstreaming models incorporate a view of gender as a verb rather than as a noun, so that the focus is on the processes of gendering rather than on the static category of ‘gender’. We make the argument that such a shift could: a) incorporate a feminist ontology of the body; b) align an understanding of gender as an unfinished process with the ways in which those who make and implement policy experience gender mainstreaming as always partial and incomplete.

Keywords:

• gender as verb
• feminist theory
• embodied processes
• gender mainstreaming models

Notes

1 Although Canada has had gender-based analysis programmes in place since 1995, it did not start using the language of ‘gender mainstreaming’ until 2001. See Status of Women Canada – Gender-Based Analysis Directorate (GBA) (2001).

2 The term ‘gender-disaggregated data’ refers to qualitative studies. In this case they were focused on the reasons why young men and women leave school and the results in terms of job prospects.

3 Kabeer (1994: 84) notes that gender is ‘constructed as a relationship of inequality by the rules and practices of different institutions’. Her social relations framework is seen by March et al. (1999) as having transformative potential.

4 This could mean that this model is not easily transportable to other contexts (see Woodward and Meier 1997).