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Gender mainstreaming in the European Union: broadening the possibilities for gender equality and/or an inherently constrained exercise?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Julia S. O'Connor
Julia S. O'Connor*
Affiliation:
Institute for Research in Social Sciences, University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Derry/LondonderryBT48 7JL, UK
*
*Email: js.oconnor@ulster.ac.uk
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Abstract

The European Union (EU) was an influential voice in advocating the adoption of gender mainstreaming by the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Since then gender mainstreaming has become a central policy plank of gender justice globally, but progress has been variable and modest. This paper examines the unfolding of gender mainstreaming in the EU, which was one of the early adopters as reflected by its commitment to gender mainstreaming in 1996. The objective is to identify patterns that may have implications for gender justice on a broader scale. The lenses are the European Employment Strategy dating from 1997 and targeted gender equality initiatives dating from the Community Framework on Gender Equality (2001–2005). Drawing on documentary analysis of these sources constraints on moving form aspiration to policy practice and outcome are identified. These are intensified by the multilevel structure of decision-making in the EU, which means that commitments agreed at the EU level are not pursed with the same fervour by all member states. But constraints are inherent in gender mainstreaming because of the contested and vague nature of the concept, the context of cross-cutting inequalities and the structural basis of these inequalities.

Keywords

genderEUEuropean employment strategygender mainstreaming
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 30 , Issue 1: Gender justice and global policy paradigms , February 2014 , pp. 69 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis

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