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“Mainstreaming Gender in European Public Policy: A Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 14-15 October 2000 ”
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The Mainstreaming Gender
conference is co-sponsored by the Womens' Studies Program and Research
Center, and the Women and Citizenship Research Circle
In September of 1995, some 5,000 representatives from 192 countries, together with some 30,000 women and men representing 3,000 non-governmental organizations, gathered in Beijing for the Fourth World Conference on Women, and adopted a far-reaching "Platform for Action. One of the most important and innovative elements of this Platform was a provision calling on the UN and its signatory states to "mainstream" gender issues across the policy process, "so that, before decisions are taken, an analysis is made on the effects on women and men, respectively." Although the notion of integrating or mainstreaming gender issues across the policy process had antecedents in the previous two decades, the official recognition and endorsement of mainstreaming a formal goal of all the states in the UN system at Beijing has provided a global mandate for change, and a template against which to judge both national and international policies. The concept of gender mainstreaming promises a revolutionary change in the international and domestic policy process, in which gender issues become a core consideration not simply for specific departments or ministries dealing with women, but rather for all actors across a range of issue-areas and at all stages in the policy process from conception and legislation to implementation and evaluation. Equally clear, however, are the extraordinary changes required in the mentalities and organizations of both domestic and international actors in order for the principle of gender mainstreaming to be implemented fully. European governments and international organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe have taken the lead, both before and since Beijing, in defining and implementing this new strategy of gender mainstreaming. Across the continent, local, regional and national governments have conducted experiments into the mainstreaming of gender issues in new policy areas, developing new policy tools and techniques in the process. The Council of Europe has supported these domestic and international initiatives through a series of international conferences to promote the exchange of experience and best practice, and through the work of an Expert Group on Mainstreaming, which in October 1998 produced what has become the standard definition of the term: "Gender mainstreaming is the (re)organization, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making." The European Union, finally, declared a commitment to gender mainstreaming in February of 1996, and has since begun an ambitious program to integrate a gender perspective and gender expertise in all EU policies. In October 2000, the European Union Center and the Women’s Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin will host a workshop to explore the origins and the implementation of gender mainstreaming by local, regional, and national governments, and by the European Union and other international organizations. The organizers propose that the workshop be organized in four sections. After a brief introduction to the concept and the history of gender mainstreaming by the organizers, the first part of the workshop will focus on gender mainstreaming in local, regional, and national governance, most notably in the countries of Northern Europe. Presenters in this part of the conference will be asked to discuss both the adoption of gender mainstreaming, as well as the specific procedures, policies, and projects put in place in their chosen cases. In the second part of the workshop, we will turn to the level of the European Union, which followed up its Beijing mandate by declaring its commitment to gender mainstreaming in 1996, and subsequently implementing a horizontal network of mainstreaming officials, a preliminary set of procedures for the integration of gender into the policy process, and specific policies in projects across various issue-areas. Presenters in this section of the conference will be asked to examine either the general, horizontal procedures for implementing gender mainstreaming, or focus in greater detail on the Union’s success or failure to mainstream gender issues in specific policy areas such as education and vocational training, or the EU’s Structural Funds. The third section of the workshop will feature two papers on the attempt to mainstreaming gender issues in European law, including both the operation and the jurisprudence of European and national courts. The fourth and final section will look briefly beyond Europe at the efforts of UN development organizations to mainstream gender into their own procedures, policies, and projects, as well as those of their member states. In keeping with this general outline, the organizers have invited the following scholars and practitioners to participate in the workshop: INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME Sally Kenney, University of Minnesota Mark Pollack, University of Wisconsin-Madison Jo Shaw, University of Leeds
Sue Nott and Fiona Beveridge, University of Liverpool Sonia Mazey, Oxford University Teresa Rees, University of Bristol Mary Braithwaite, Engender Anne Havnor, Government of Norway (formerly European Commission, Equal Opportunities Unit) Jo Shaw, University of Leeds Sally Kenney, University of Minnesota Emilie Hafner-Burton and Mark Pollack, University of Wisconsin Within these overall categories, participants will be invited to select either a central theme, or a particular empirical case or cases, or both, for presentation in their papers. Possible themes include the intellectual and policy origins of gender mainstreaming; the practical difficulties of implementing a mainstreaming approach in practice; and the normative desirability of a mainstreaming approach from the perspective of feminist theory. The organizers request that all contributors provide an abstract of the proposed paper by 1 June 2000, and a draft of the paper for distribution to workshop participants by 1 October 2000. Looking beyond the workshop, the organizers also propose that the papers presented at the workshop be collected in an edited volume which would provide an introduction and critical analysis of gender mainstreaming for a broader, "mainstream" audience in both the United States and Europe. Such a volume would begin with a user-friendly introduction (to be written by Pollack and Shaw), papers from the workshop on selected themes, and excerpts from key policy documents, including the Beijing Platform for Action, official EU documents, and previous studies by the Council of Europe and its expert groups. |
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