ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains about the European Union (EU) which is founded on the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity. In many ways the European Union has been at the forefront of attempts to transform relationships between women and men. The book focuses on housing and the neighbourhood ran the danger of perpetuating the binary segregation of public versus private spheres as male and female domains which, as Saegert pointed out in 1980, is a 'guiding fiction' that 'finds its way into public policy and planning'. The origins of gender mainstreaming lie in the outcome of the third United Nations (UN) conference on women, held in 1985. Ten years later in 1995, the European Union formulated a Platform for Action which committed member states into incorporating a gender dimension into policy-making.
