ABSTRACT
Gender equality has become widely accepted as a political goal over the last decades, and many countries and transnational institutions have committed themselves to this objective. Conventions have been signed, special bureaucracies and new political and administrative positions created, new policy and legal instruments developed and installed, and progress monitored in newly produced indices and rankings. While this might suggest a unity of meaning, gender equality has actually been hotly contested, been expressed by many different words and undergone various changes as a travelling concept in this global process. Grasping its specific changes in meaning but, more importantly, understanding why and how gender equality does alter its meaning, and thinking through why it matters what its meaning is, are the main ambitions of this book. We contend that, while it does matter greatly what meaning is attached to the concept of gender equality, the pros and cons of various meanings are not so clear-cut. This book therefore carefully explores what happens in these processes of change, and how we can improve our understanding of these changes.
