ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on processes and lobbying leading to the adoption of GM however, by examining the multi-layered EU polity and gender mainstreaming (GM) 'trickle down' within it. It explores GM as a process of contestation in great detail, using a new method. Feminist Political Science (FPS)/Feminist Organisational Sociology (FOS) scholars have explored the mutually legitimating relationship between gender inequality and the state itself. The chapter also explores the links between discourses legitimating state action and how gender inequality is legitimised by the state. Feminist theory has indicated, however, that the state is not only involved in the production of gender inequality through its externally facing policies. The chapter shows that how many years of feminist research has contributed to the development of a complex conception of the state as a powerful locus in the reification and regulation of gender and the production of gender inequality.
