ABSTRACT
Strategies to promote gender equality are developing continuously. While the main strategies remain equality in legislation, positive or affirmative action and gender mainstreaming, the last decade has seen a proliferation of instruments to measure and monitor progress towards a gender-equal society. Resonating well with ‘new public management’, the introduction of indicators and more complex indices results in country rankings that are seen as indicative of their achievement of gender equality. The recent increase in such rankings makes them more important for the assessment of countries’ performances in this field.1 A common feature of ranking and benchmarking is the underlying idea of the concern for reputation as a motor for implementation.
