ABSTRACT
As 2005 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the inauguration of the UN Decade for Women, it seems appropriate and worthwhile to reflect on the last three decades of global policies aimed at addressing the disadvantages that women experience across all spheres of life. While inequality itself has persisted (Jackson and Pearson 1998), the kinds of thinking that have driven policy discourse have changed-from a fairly narrow economic approach (Boserup 1970) to a much broader and more ambitious strategy of gender mainstreaming: “situating gender issues at the centre of policy decisions, institutional structures and resource allocation” (United Nations 1995). Gender mainstreaming can be defined in a number of ways, all of which are contested in one way or another. Nevertheless, the most common usage in Sweden is as a long-term strategy or systematic institutional approach for promoting/producing gender equality as a policy outcome (SIDA 1996, 1, cited in Woodford-Berger 2004). Nevertheless, although some advances have been made, particularly in terms of increasing awareness (Jahan 1995; Molyneux 2004), gender mainstreaming has led to different processes and outcomes (Standing 2004; Mukhopadhyay 2004). This chapter looks at the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming strategies in Mexico and Sweden between 1995 and 2005, to glean the lessons they have to teach each other and the world. While this chapter examines the strategy of gender mainstreaming, it also explores issues of institutionalisation of gender, that is, to what extent gender equality has become a regular and continuous part of Swedish and Mexican institutions, maintained by social norms, having a major significance in the social structure. It offers new insights in answering the following questions: Have gender issues, in fact, been placed centre stage in the policy arena? Has an active concern for gender equality been woven into all areas of policy discourse? What are the institutional arrangements-including cultural norms-that can foster gender mainstreaming as a strategy that furthers the struggle for equality? What Swedish lessons can be integrated into the variety of contexts of the developing world? To what extent can Sweden learn the valuable lessons offered by the experience of
Mexico, and how can they be integrated into future programmes and projects within the Swedish International Development Cooperation?
