ABSTRACT
With the dawn of the new millennium, the debate on ‘gender mainstreaming’
has fully taken off in Europe. Gender mainstreaming has become a new topic of
academic and political conferences. Academic journals are devoting their issues
to gender mainstreaming. This apparent shift in the discussion of gender raises a
number of fundamental questions. In view of the slowing and even retrograde
developments in the efforts to achieve gender equality, has perhaps the time
come, in terms of women’s rights and politics, to give up the burden of old mot-
toes of the women’s liberation movement? Given the changes in the political
environment, driven by the developments toward a service society, inter-
nationalization and globalization: is gender mainstreaming a more appropriate
means to the end of gender equality? Do the political scope and impact of gender
mainstreaming actually go beyond the earlier approaches toward women’s
emancipation? Is it thus a step forward since the issue of women’s rights is
regarded not simply as an isolated problem of women, but rather as one that
encompasses all political fields and affects women and men alike? Has the con-
cept of gender mainstreaming, as it is now being promoted worldwide by
numerous governments and organizations, led to the long-sought common poli-
tical orientation and perspective that could contribute to the more effective net-
working of the international women’s right movement? Finally, does the attack
on ‘gender mainstreaming’ led by right-wing, anti-socialist women groups
overlapping with (predominantly male) global neoliberal networks (see Plehwe
and Walpen in this volume) support a progressive reading of gender main-
In this chapter it will be argued that the concept of gender mainstreaming
does not provide a miracle solution to the problems of gender inequality, nor
does it constitute an unequivocally progressive innovation or idea. Gender
mainstreaming is far better understood as a highly ambiguous concept, a Janus-
faced approach characterized by many hidden catches and providing some
opportunities as well as many risks. Furthermore, gender mainstreaming can be
interpreted in quite different ways. In our opinion, the gender mainstreaming
discourse is marked by conflicting positions and contradictory expectations
creating ample room for an uneven ideological and political battleground. One
can say that those on the ‘top’ most certainly have other interests and aims when
they promote the idea of gender mainstreaming than those at the ‘bottom’. For
this reason, the various pitfalls that may appear in the implementation of the
gender mainstreaming process are highly important.
