Too late for mainstreaming? Taking stock in

BrusselsA.E. Woodward

Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Gender Mainstreaming: Theoretical Approaches and Innovative Strategies

Università della Calabria 2 December 2005

Center for Women’s Studies and Diversity Research

Some Northern European Experience with Mainstreaming

• Taking stock of practical experience is not done frequently enough

• Looking at Belgium and her participation in international projects, we can learn something about mainstreaming

• Review of Van Roemberg and Spee (2004), Kingdom of Belgium (2004), Facon, Hondeghem and Nelen (2004), Silvera, et. al. (2003) and Braithwaite (2005) provides some lessons– Van Roemberg and Spee: an expert view– Kingdom of Belgium- progress towards Beijing Platform goals?– Facon et.al. Comparing UK, NL, and Flanders– Silvera, et. al. Mainstreaming in trade unions– Braithwaite-Equalpol- integrated mainstreaming??– And finally the MAGEEQ project...

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The advantages of mainstreaming?

Brand recognition Institutionalization New governance tools Novelty Its value in terms of addressing gender equality.

Mainstreaming provides a tool to transform gender relations through public policy and seems to answer a problem in gender theory, what some feminists call the ‘Wollstonecraft dilemma’ in policy, a reflection of the Equality/Difference debate

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Disadvantages of mainstreaming?

Challenging the status quo Expense Spreading of resources Misunderstanding of concept - translation Coupling of ‘gender’ and mainstreaming blocks other

kinds of inequalities

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External Threats to Gender

Mainstreaming Issue attention cycle Popularity of idea- adapted by other groups Stability of political support when government changes Reconfiguration of equality landscape

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Reconfiguration of equal opportunities in Europe: from

national to transnational and from transnational to trans-issue

New legal framework focusing on discrimination New elements of global discourse of social justice, human rights, Political challenges of multi-cultural societies A changing set of nations (Scandinavian, the new 10) make present

European equality landscape different New issues are raised by transnationality and trans-issue identity

coalitions

What chance mainstreaming in the

new landscape? Gender mainstreaming seen as a success and to be copied The problems of gender mainstreaming will be multiplied

in diversity-land The logics of anti-discrimination and of gender

mainstreaming are different Social justice versus Pro active approach - no victim

How strong is civil society in a trans-issue format?

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Optimism? Anglo-Saxon Europe?

Openness for cross- or intersectional approaches Feminist theory and diversity Need for a European epistemological commnity

around equality issues similar to that that is around gender

Diversity needs a face but should not push out gender

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A place for gender…?• As Jo Shaw writes

• a remaining obstacle to the adoption of a broad-based equality and diversity mainstreaming approach across the grounds identified in Article 13 EC is the continued adherence in that context to the language of (direct and indirect) discrimination…a broader based approach is needed to deal with social issues such as racism and xenophobia as much as it is needed to deal with inequality on grounds of gender (Shaw 2004: 24)

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A place for gender…?• Diversity, I find that a nice concept… That is actually more equal

than gender in the manner of speaking that it also brings other, for example the relation between Belgian/migrant and others, that sort of element, culture, the multicultural and such, that is contained. So it is an important concept, but gender is a part of it, which has its own specific identity. The danger is that the parts, the components of the concept diversity will lose their own identity. That can’t happen. I find that important, it cannot just disappear… (van Roemberg and Spee 2004:61)

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