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Mainstreaming Politics: Gendering Practices and Feminist Theory
Abstract
This book offers an innovative rethinking of policy approaches to 'gender equality' and of the process of social change. It brings several new chapters together with a series of previously published articles to reflect on these topics. A particular focus is gender mainstreaming, a relatively recent development in equality policy in many industrialised and some industrialising countries, as well as in large international organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organization. The book draws upon poststructuralist organisation and policy theory to argue that it is impossible to 'script' reform initiatives such as gender mainstreaming. As an alternative it recommends thinking about such policy developments as fields of contestation, shaped by on-the-ground political deliberations and practices, including the discursive practices that produce specific ways of understanding the 'problem' of 'gender inequality'. In addition to the new chapters the editors Bacchi and Eveline produce brief introductions for each chapter, tracing the development of their ideas over four years. Through these commentaries the book provides exciting insights into the complex processes of collaboration and theory generation. Mainstreaming Politics is a rich resource for both practitioners in the field and for theorists. In particular it will appeal to those interested in public policy, public administration, organisation studies, sociology, comparative politics and international studies.
... This can be active or passive (Pincus, 2002), adapt to the process of change (Amundsdotter et al., 2015;Benschop & Verloo, 2006Kirton & Greene, 2016) and be enhanced in certain groups within the organization while receding in other groups . Common forms of resistance are highlighting GE work as important, but shelving it in favour of more urgent tasks (Lombardo & Mergaert, 2013), or launching a project without understanding where and how gender inequality arises in the organization (Bacchi & Eveline, 2010). ...
... The clash that occurs when participants are confronted with the gender-unaware organizational culture was revealed in both programmes (Bacchi & Eveline, 2010). The reaction in Nora was anger and disappointment directed at the project manager and the programme, reactions that were difficult for the project manager to turn around. ...
The purpose of the article is to explore, through comparative analysis, how different objectives within the universities influence the process when implementing programmes with a gender-theoretical orientation for women researchers and leaders. In the Nora programme, with an indivi- dual objective, gender theory is repeatedly rejected by the participants, as the structural perspective in the theories collides with the participants’ idea of themselves and their organization. In Svea, with a structural objective, gender theory instead becomes a useful tool for the partici- pants. The objective also has a significant effect on the participants ability to cope with resistance from the academic environment. In both pro- grammes, participants experienced resistance that triggered frustration. In Svea, the frustration that arose could be repaired by connecting to gender theory, whereas in Nora the participants could not interpret the resistance from a power perspective and were trapped in frustration. When objec- tives focus on the individual, the problem of inequality is interpreted at the individual level, i.e., that the problem is women, and that women are still to blame. With objectives focusing on the structure, inequality is interpreted as stemming from a gendered organization which opens up for organizational change.
Lotta Snickare & Anna Wahl (05 Feb 2024): Still Blaming the Women? Gender Equality Work in Academic Organizations, NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, DOI: 10.1080/08038740.2024.2310535
... They have explored how advocates use pro-woman vs. pro-fetus frames in the discourse (Roberti, 2021), particularly the role of conservative women in championing anti-abortion legislation while co-opting feminist language of women's empowerment (Reingold et al., 2021;Roberti, 2022). Abortion scholars, in particular, have highlighted the role of gender in policy debates about the issue, borrowing from other scholars of gender (Bacchi, 2017;Bacchi & Eveline, 2010), intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), and reproductive justice movements (Ross & Solinger, 2017;Price, 2011Price, , 2018. Scholars have studied how abortion policies are gendered and gendering (Mucciaroni et al., 2019;Vossen et al., 2022), affect low-income women of color the most (Jones & Jerman, 2017), and the role of gender representation in predicting abortion policy changes (Kreitzer, 2015). ...
Although abortion policy is often discussed as a black-and-white conflict characterized by polarization and a lack of compromise, this study explores the validity of such a presupposition by asking how advocates articulate their belief systems about abortion policy and in what ways—if at all—are those beliefs shared within and across coalitions and create fissures within and between coalitions? Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework, we interviewed advocates, representing both pro-abortion-access and anti-abortion-access perspectives, about their beliefs, coalition allies, and opponents in Colorado. The result reveals nuanced belief systems that address competing conceptions of morality, gender, and life with a tendency toward deep core beliefs. This paper contributes to the ACF literature by highlighting a policy issue not often raised by ACF scholars, bridging morality policy and abortion policy literature with more mainstream policy process research, and surpassing simple “pro-life vs. pro-choice” dichotomies to reveal complex belief systems about abortion.
... Bacchi (2009) interrogates how hegemonic representational practices in policy discourse ironically create solutions in need of problems. Solutionism deflects critical inquiry into the very power/knowledge structures which undergird "specific categories of social being" (Bacchi, 2010: 112, Bacchi, 2009). Applying Bacchi's poststructuralist lens to the Emirati context, the discursive framing of bachelors as 'problematic' is informed by ideational logics of Arab exceptionalism. ...
Extending feminist geographic endeavours in the present geopolitical conjuncture, this critical intervention calls into question the everyday gendered geographies of Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in their contextual heterogeneity. In the epoch of conspicuous consumption, women-dominated shopping malls in the Gulf space can be read as material-discursive sites in and through which gendered belonging is (re)constructed. Paradoxically, frenetic economic development is marked by deeply entrenched logics of segregation, unearthing conditions of unbelonging. In particular, urbanity is predicated upon the abjection of ‘bachelors’ (low-wage immigrant men of South Asian descent) from the Emirati body politic. I then employ intersectional frameworks to counter-map the affective contours of Dubai’s urban sexscape, where spatially and temporally provisional moments of queer existence (re)surface at nighttime. Similarly, intersectional feminist geographies of sex work grapple with existing and emergent strands of spatial inequality in ways a single-axis framework cannot hope to exhaust. Whilst sexed/gendered/racialised bodies are hierarchically stratified in Emirati moral economies of transactional sex, sex worker subjectivities at once refuse rigidly boxed categories by being continually reworked at the local, national and global levels.
The way climate change is framed and represented matters because it influences the type of actions and strategies promoted by climate-related policies. To understand how policies address climate change in the Spanish context, we performed an analysis of the discourse applying the “What’s the Problem Represented to be” Bacchi’s framework. We apply a feminist political ecology perspective, countering the dominant discourses around mitigation and adaptation to climate change, as well as identifying the silences on public policy at national (Spain) and regional (Catalonia) scales. Our results show that in both cases, the official policy discourse on climate change follows a techno-positivist and market driven narrative, mainly motivated by economic growth, not questioning much of the current economic model and without clearly addressing the responsibilities regarding the climate crisis and the resulting inequities associated to it. This representation presents climate change as a biophysical problem of increased concentration of greenhouse gases, which provides an opportunity for modernization and progress but at the same time, it is a threat to national security and a catalyst for existing vulnerabilities in the country. In contrast, the exploration of the silences of official public policy shows that climate change is represented as the visible consequence of a failed, patriarchal, and colonial system that needs
to be solved under a social justice, human right and degrowth perspective. Alternative degrowth and ecofeminist discourses criticize the fallacy of greening the economic growth model and urge us to rethink the productive (and reproductive) current model, focusing on the sustainability of life as the central axis of transformation, “to live a life deserved to be lived”.
Sažetak Rodna ravnopravnost predstavlja demokratski i civilizacijski standard, i u velikom broju država u svijetu, uključujući i Bosnu i Hercegovinu, uspostavljeni su mehanizmi s ciljem implementacije urodnjavanja (eng. gender mainstreaming). Međunarodni mehanizmi i ženske organizacije civilnog društva su najznačajniji nosioci ovih promjena, dok stvarni učinci urodnjavanja ovise od kapaciteta institucija i predanosti donosilaca političkih odluka da se rodna pitanja s margine premjeste u centar pri definisanju javnih politika na svim nivoima vlasti. Svuda u svijetu su prisutni raskoraci između normiranog i primijenjenog, posebno na lokalnom nivou, a u zemljama Zapadnog Balkana su ovi problemi još izraženiji a i nedovoljno artikulisani u akademskim istraživanjima. Stoga se u ovom radu analiziraju rezultati istraživanja sprovedenog u odabranim lokalnim zajednicama iz oba bh. entiteta koje je obuhvatilo analizu pravnih propisa na lokalnom nivou i intervjua koji su obavljeni s relevantnim akterima i akterkama (aktivistkinjama i članovima i članicama komisija za ravnopravnost spolova na lokalnom nivou). Analiza pokazuje da se rodnoj ravnopravnosti pristupa fragmentarno i nedosljedno, da ona nije na adekvatan način obuhvaćena u lokalnim dokumentima i da su lokalne mehanizmi za sprovođenje urodnjavanja (komisije za ravnopravnost spolova) formirani da bi se zadovoljila formalna obaveza. U lokalnim zajednicama u kojima nema kapacitiranih ženskih organizacija, situacija je još lošija kada je riječ o mogućnosti praćenja i unapređenja rada ovih mehanizama.
Food security is a concept with evolving definitions and meanings, shaped by contested knowledge and changing contexts. The way in which food security is understood by governments impacts how it is addressed in public policy. This research investigates the evolution of discourses and practices in Tasmanian food and nutrition policies from 1994 to 2023. Four foundational documents were analysed using qualitative document analysis, revealing persistent food insecurity issues over three decades. The analysis identified a duality in addressing the persistent policy challenges of nutrition-related health issues and food insecurity: the balancing act between advancing public health improvements and safeguarding Tasmania’s economy. The research revealed that from 1994 to 2023, Tasmania’s food and nutrition policies and strategies have been characterised by various transitions and tensions. Traditional approaches, predominantly emphasising food availability and, to a limited extent, access, have persisted for over thirty years. The transition towards a more contemporary approach to food security, incorporating dimensions of utilisation, stability, sustainability, and agency, has been markedly slow, indicating systemic inertia. This points to an opportunity for future policy evolution, to move towards a dynamic and comprehensive approach. Such an approach would move beyond the narrow focus of food availability to address the complex multi-dimensional nature of food security.
Research on the effects of enterprise bargaining on the gender pay gap are farfrom settled. After reviewing some of the key contours of this debate and the available data sources we use the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT) Agreements database to analyse some of the dynamics of bargaining within the enterprise bargaining stream. In the absence of adequate data on the number or proportion of women covered by particular agreements we use industry feminisation as a weak proxy and consider wage outcomes in terms of industry feminisation, union involvement and agreement type. We find no support for the suggestion that women may beforegoing wage increases for morefavourable conditions, such as better working time arrangements. On the contrary, employees receiving lower wage outcomes under enterprise bargaining (such as women) are also more likely to be losing previously compensated working time conditions. Amongst other things, the research suggests the need for better and more accessible data on the number and proportion of women covered by individual enterprise bargains.
'Gender', understood as the social construction of sex, is a key concept for feminists working at the interface of theory and policy. This article examines challenges to the concept which emerged from different groups at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, September 1995, an important arena for struggles over feminist public policies. The first half of the article explores contradictory uses of the concept in the field of gender and development. Viewpoints from some southern activist women at the NGO Forum of the Beijing Conference are presented. Some of them argued that the way 'gender' has been deployed in development institutions has led to a depoliticization of the term, where feminist policy ambitions are sacrificed to the imperative of ease of institutionalization. 'Gender' becomes a synonym for 'women', rather than a form of shorthand for gender difference and conflict and the project of transformation in gender relations. 'Gender sensitivity' can be interpreted by non-feminists as encouragement to use gender-disaggregated statistics for development planning, but without consideration of relational aspects of gender, of power and ideology, and of how patterns of subordination are reproduced. A completely different attack on 'gender' came from right-wing groups and was battled out over the text of the Platform for Action agreed at the official conference. Six months prior to the conference, conservative groups had tried to bracket for possible removal the term 'gender' in this document, out of opposition to the notion of socially constructed, and hence mutable, gender identity. Conservative views on gender as the 'deconstruction of woman' are discussed here. The article points out certain contradictions and inconsistencies in feminist thinking on gender which are raised by the conservative backlash attack on feminism and the term 'gender'.