ABSTRACT
Gender mainstreaming is increasingly the dominant language through which policymakers worldwide understand women and men. It is one of the contemporary logics through which international institutions, governments and non-government organizations engage with the politics of the global – be it global security, development, poverty, or trade. Assessing and understanding mainstreaming is thus the task of feminist scholars, especially in the international relations fi eld, where global power is the core subject of analysis. Feminist International Relations scholars use a critical lens to analyse gender mainstreaming and its effects. It is not our role to be proponents or critics of mainstreaming per se. Rather, the point is to examine institutional practices and how they augur with theoretical expectations and offi cial policies at the international level. What are the implications of gender mainstreaming in international institutions for feminist theories of power and global governance? Further, what are the implications of mainstreaming policies for the strategies of women’s movements worldwide?
