ABSTRACT
Mainstreaming should be recognised as an important new development in practice in the equality field. Mainstreaming is new insofar as it seeks to give recognition in practice to theoretical understandings about the pervasiveness of inequality and about the ways in which inequality is maintained and reproduced in the institutions and practices of societies. Mainstreaming is also capable of addressing, on a conceptual level, feminist critiques of law as essentialising. One of the most complex and intractable political problems is the relationship between governments and markets. Mainstreaming is a tool which operates essentially in the political sphere, requiring policy-makers to take gender considerations into account when making public policy. The concept of mainstreaming can therefore be seen to offer real possibilities of change, but also to be subject to some serious limitations. Mainstreaming tools can be developed which will identify the likely gender implications of pursuing particular economic policies and strategies but they cannot by themselves determine the appropriate political choices.
