Stories from the Front Lines: Making Sense of Gender Mainstreaming in Canada

Abstract

Gender mainstreaming (GM) is a strategy used by governments to promote gender equality. It entails integrating gender and intersectional considerations into all aspects of policy work, including policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. However, its success in achieving gender equality and social transformation has been limited. Drawing on implementation research and narrative analysis, this article explores the micro-level dynamics and the local actors that help shape the character and outcome of gender mainstreaming. Using narrative analysis, we explore how GM specialists within the Canadian public service make sense of their role, and we identify the strategies they use to make gender matter in policy work. By examining their stories of isolation, disempowerment, and resistance, we uncover the administrative and political forces that shape not only the “space” for gender work but also the opportunities for individual activism and resistance. These stories convey how, by engaging in these micro-level strategies, GM specialists both challenge and reinscribe, at the macro level, technocratic representations of GM and of policy work in general. We conclude with some reflections on the insights that micro-level analysis and implementation research can bring to the study of gender mainstreaming.

Organizational change in Canadian public institutions: The implementations of GBA+ in DND/CAF

“…This going micro is even more important when trying to understand how normative changes are absorbed into an organization. As Scala and Paterson (: 211) note in their discussion of gender‐mainstreaming (GM), “how these forces are understood and expressed at the local level in the day‐to‐day work of actors tasked with enacting GM policy ‘on the ground’,” remains understudied. Although sociological institutionalism recognizes the importance of systemic factors, such as power, the whole of government, and state interests, they add that we need to look at organizations like public sector institutions as social environments that often behave in ways that challenge or complement system‐based explanations (see Johnston ).…”

Inclusion of Gender Views for the Evaluation and Mitigation of Urban Vulnerability: A Case Study in Castellón

“…Fainstein pointed out the role of urban policies to benefit disadvantaged social groups by implementing programs to enhance equity and to promote diversity, ending discriminatory zoning. GMU reflects all these issues perfectly and, as a result, a more inclusive model can be achieved by adopting this view [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The inclusion of GMU and gender mainstreaming in policy making is a transformative approach that has great potential for social development and change [22].…”

Beyond the Policy Rhetoric: The Limitations of Gender Mainstreaming in South Korea Relating to Women and Childcare

“…Gender mainstreaming (GM) is a strategy for bringing gender-sensitive perspectives into the policy decision making processes in order to pursue gender awareness and as a result, advance 'gender equality' across all policy agendas (Council of Europe, 1998;Daly, 2005;Walby, 2005;Squires, 2007). Emerging from the 1995 United Nations (UN) Beijing Platform for Action on incorporating a gender equality perspective 'in all policies at all levels and at all stages' (Council of Europe, 1998:13), the language of GM was quickly adopted by more than 160 governments and international/regional institutions worldwide, including the Council of Europe and European Union (Daly, 2005;Caglar, 2013;Scala and Paterson, 2018). However, this ambitious intent was subject to much ambiguity in terms of how this transnational policy discourse could be adapted to each nation's domestic policy decision-making processes (Y-o Kim, 2004;Daly, 2005;Scala and Paterson, 2018).…”

“…Emerging from the 1995 United Nations (UN) Beijing Platform for Action on incorporating a gender equality perspective 'in all policies at all levels and at all stages' (Council of Europe, 1998:13), the language of GM was quickly adopted by more than 160 governments and international/regional institutions worldwide, including the Council of Europe and European Union (Daly, 2005;Caglar, 2013;Scala and Paterson, 2018). However, this ambitious intent was subject to much ambiguity in terms of how this transnational policy discourse could be adapted to each nation's domestic policy decision-making processes (Y-o Kim, 2004;Daly, 2005;Scala and Paterson, 2018). A number of methodological tools and operational frames have been developed to incorporate the concept into policy implementation processes, such as gender analysis, gender-based assessment, and gender budgeting.…”

“…A number of methodological tools and operational frames have been developed to incorporate the concept into policy implementation processes, such as gender analysis, gender-based assessment, and gender budgeting. However, challenges continue to revolve around the understanding of 'gender mainstreaming' and 'gender equality' in politics (Mazey, 2002;Daly, 2005;Orloff and Palier, 2009;Meier and Celis, 2011;Scala and Paterson, 2018).…”