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1. Home
2. Handbook of Feminist Governance 1800374801, 9781800374805
HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST GOVERNANCE 1800374801, 9781800374805
Compiling state-of-the-art research from 58 leading international scholars, this
dynamic Handbook explores the evolution
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HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST GOVERNANCE (INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOKS ON GENDER SERIES)
1800374801, 9781800374805
Compiling state-of-the-art research from 58 leading international scholars, this
dynamic Handbook explores the evolution
133 88 88KB Read more
HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST FAMILY STUDIES 9781412960823
The Handbook of Feminist Family Studies demonstrates how feminist contributions
to family science advance our understand
3,148 35 5MB Read more
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF GOVERNANCE 2010920019, 9781847875778
2,967 337 5MB Read more
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF GOVERNANCE 9780199560530, 0199560536
This Oxford Handbook will be the definitive study of governance for years to
come. 'Governance' has become one
338 127 7MB Read more
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF GOVERNANCE 9780199560530, 0199560536
This Oxford Handbook will be the definitive study of governance for years to
come. 'Governance' has become one
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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 9781138579859,
9780429507731
1,998 312 6MB Read more
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST MOVEMENTS 9780199943494,
0199943494
The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements explores the historical,
political, economic and social contexts
202 28 24MB Read more
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY 9780190628925, 9780190628949,
0190628928
This exciting new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the contemporary
state of the field in feminist philosophy
239 118 4MB Read more
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST THEORY 9780190623616, 9780199328581, 0190623616
The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides a rich overview of the
analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts th
193 100 2MB Read more
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF GENDER AND FEMINIST GEOGRAPHIES 9781000051858, 1000051854
This handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of contemporary gender and
feminist geographies in an international and
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* Author / Uploaded
* Marian Sawer (editor)
* Lee A. Banaszak (editor)
* Jacqui True (editor)
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Table of contents :
Contents
List of contributors
1 Introduction to the Handbook of Feminist Governance • Marian Sawer, Lee Ann
Banaszak, Jacqui True and Johanna Kantola
Timeline of feminist governance • Renee O’Shanassy
PART I: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
2 Feminist organisational principles • Kaitlin Kelly-Thompson, Fernando
Tormos-Aponte and S. Laurel Weldon
3 Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism: an
overview • Lisa Guido, Lindsay Walsh and Lee Ann Banaszak
4 Feminist governance and the state • Johanna Kantola
5 Do feminist insiders matter? Progress in conceptualization and comparative
theory-building • Amy G. Mazur and Dorothy E. McBride
6 Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance • Meryl Kenny and Tània Verge
7 Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance • Erica Townsend-Bell
8 Studying feminist governance: methods and approaches to the field • Shan-Jan
Sarah Liu
PART II: EVOLVING INSTITUTIONS
9 Weaving a feminist power tapestry: feminist governance in practice • Caroline
Lambert, Jessica Horn, Srilatha Batliwala, Michelle Deshong, Tanja Kovac and
Naomi Woyengu
10 National women’s machineries: Trojan horses or hostages? • Anne Marie Goetz
11 Gender-responsive budgeting • Monica Costa and Rhonda Sharp
12 Specialised parliamentary bodies • Marian Sawer
13 Promoting gender equality in elected office • Mona Lena Krook and Pippa
Norris
14 Gender-sensitive parliaments: feminising formal political institutions •
Sarah Childs and Sonia Palmieri
15 Tools of the trade: feminist governance in the field • Sonia Palmieri and
Julie Ballington
PART III: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
16 The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy • Karin Aggestam and Jacqui
True
17 Feminist governance in global health • Sara E. Davies and Clare Wenham
18 Feminist peacebuilding governance • Maria Martin de Almagro
19 Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council • Victoria
Scheyer and Marina Kumskova
20 Feminist interventions in trade governance • Erin Hannah, Adrienne Roberts
and Silke Trommer
21 Feminist governance and climate change • Maria Tanyag
22 Transnational feminism and global governance • Valentine M. Moghadam
23 UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? • Andrea den Boer and Kirsten
Haack
PART IV: THE EUROPEAN UNION AND FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
24 The European Parliament as a gender equality actor: a contradictory
forerunner • Johanna Kantola and Emanuela Lombardo
25 EU gender equality policy and the progressive dismantling of feminist
governance? • Sophie Jacquot
26 Challenges to feminist knowledge? The economisation of EU gender equality
policy • Anna Elomäki
27 Velvet triangles and more: alliances of supranational EU gender equality
actors • Petra Ahrens
28 Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe: invisibility, inclusivity and
affirmation • Serena D’Agostino
29 Feminist governance in the field of violence against women: the case of the
Istanbul Convention • Andrea Krizsán and Conny Roggeband
PART V: OTHER REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
30 Building gender norms into regional governance and the limits of
institutionalising feminism • Toni Haastrup
31 Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia •
Jiso Yoon
32 Feminist governance in Asia: areas of contestation and cooperation • Rashila
Ramli and Sharifah Syahirah
33 Latin American perspectives on feminist governance: between mainstreaming and
sidestreaming challenges • Gisela Zaremberg
34 Feminist governance in North America: manifestations, manipulations and
mirages • Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Tammy Findlay
35 Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands • Kerryn Baker and Renee
O’Shanassy
Index
CITATION PREVIEW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HANDBOOK OF FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOKS ON GENDER Founding Editor: the late Sylvia Chant FRSA,
FAcSS, formerly Professor of Development Geography, London School of Economics
and Political Science, UK International Handbooks on Gender is an exciting
Handbook series under the general editorship and direction of Sylvia Chant. The
series comprises high quality, original reference works offering comprehensive
overviews of the latest research within key areas of contemporary gender
studies. International and comparative in scope, the Handbooks are edited by
leading scholars in their respective fields, and comprise specially commissioned
contributions from a select cast of authors, bringing together established
experts with up-and-coming scholars and researchers. Each volume offers a
wide-ranging examination of current issues to produce prestigious and high
quality works of lasting significance. Individual volumes will serve as
invaluable sources of reference for students and faculty in gender studies and
associated fields, as well as for other actors such as NGOs and policymakers
keen to engage with academic discussion on gender. Whether used as an
information resource on key topics, a companion text or as a platform for
further study, Elgar International Handbooks on Gender will provide a source of
definitive scholarly reference. Titles in the series include: Handbook on Gender
and Health Edited by Jasmine Gideon Handbook on Gender in World Politics Edited
by Jill Steans and Daniela Tepe-Belfrage Handbook on Gender and War Edited by
Simona Sharoni, Julia Welland, Linda Steiner and Jennifer Pedersen Handbook on
Gender and Social Policy Edited by Sheila Shaver Handbook on Gender and Violence
Edited by Laura J. Shepherd Handbook on Gender, Diversity and Federalism Edited
by Jill Vickers, Joan Grace and Cheryl N. Collier Handbook on Gender in Asia
Edited by Shirlena Huang and Kanchana N. Ruwanpura Handbook of Feminist
Governance Edited by Marian Sawer, Lee Ann Banaszak, Jacqui True and Johanna
Kantola
Handbook of Feminist Governance Edited by
Marian Sawer Emeritus Professor, School of Politics and International Relations,
The Australian National University, Australia
Lee Ann Banaszak Professor, Department of Political Science, The Pennsylvania
State University, USA
Jacqui True Professor of International Relations, School of Social Sciences,
Monash University, Australia
Johanna Kantola Professor of European Politics, University of Helsinki, Finland
INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOKS ON GENDER
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© Marian Sawer, Lee Ann Banaszak, Jacqui True and Johanna Kantola 2023
Cover image: Geordanna Cordero on Unsplash All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward
Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA
UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton
Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948487 This book is
available electronically in the Political Science and Public Policy subject
collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781800374812
ISBN 978 1 80037 480 5 (cased) ISBN 978 1 80037 481 2 (eBook)
EEP BoX
Contents
List of contributorsviii 1
Introduction to the Handbook of Feminist Governance1 Marian Sawer, Lee Ann
Banaszak, Jacqui True and Johanna Kantola Timeline of feminist governance Renee
O’Shanassy
PART I
14
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
2
Feminist organisational principles Kaitlin Kelly-Thompson, Fernando
Tormos-Aponte and S. Laurel Weldon
3
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism: an
overview Lisa Guido, Lindsay Walsh and Lee Ann Banaszak
4
Feminist governance and the state Johanna Kantola
5
Do feminist insiders matter? Progress in conceptualization and comparative
theory-building Amy G. Mazur and Dorothy E. McBride
6
Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance Meryl Kenny and Tània Verge
76
7
Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance Erica Townsend-Bell
88
8
Studying feminist governance: methods and approaches to the field Shan-Jan
Sarah Liu
PART II
25
38 51
63
100
EVOLVING INSTITUTIONS
9
Weaving a feminist power tapestry: feminist governance in practice Caroline
Lambert, Jessica Horn, Srilatha Batliwala, Michelle Deshong, Tanja Kovac and
Naomi Woyengu
113
10
National women’s machineries: Trojan horses or hostages? Anne Marie Goetz
126
11
Gender-responsive budgeting Monica Costa and Rhonda Sharp
138 v
vi Handbook of feminist governance 12
Specialised parliamentary bodies Marian Sawer
150
13
Promoting gender equality in elected office Mona Lena Krook and Pippa Norris
161
14
Gender-sensitive parliaments: feminising formal political institutions Sarah
Childs and Sonia Palmieri
174
15
Tools of the trade: feminist governance in the field Sonia Palmieri and Julie
Ballington
189
PART III INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 16
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy Karin Aggestam and Jacqui
True
203
17
Feminist governance in global health Sara E. Davies and Clare Wenham
216
18
Feminist peacebuilding governance Maria Martin de Almagro
227
19
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council Victoria
Scheyer and Marina Kumskova
238
20
Feminist interventions in trade governance Erin Hannah, Adrienne Roberts and
Silke Trommer
250
21 Feminist governance and climate change Maria Tanyag
262
22
Transnational feminism and global governance Valentine M. Moghadam
274
23
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? Andrea den Boer and Kirsten
Haack
286
PART IV THE EUROPEAN UNION AND FEMINIST GOVERNANCE 24
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor: a contradictory
forerunner299 Johanna Kantola and Emanuela Lombardo
25
EU gender equality policy and the progressive dismantling of feminist
governance?311 Sophie Jacquot
26
Challenges to feminist knowledge? The economisation of EU gender equality
policy Anna Elomäki
323
Contents vii 27
Velvet triangles and more: alliances of supranational EU gender equality actors
Petra Ahrens
28
Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe: invisibility, inclusivity and
affirmation347 Serena D’Agostino
29
Feminist governance in the field of violence against women: the case of the
Istanbul Convention Andrea Krizsán and Conny Roggeband
PART V
335
359
OTHER REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
30
Building gender norms into regional governance and the limits of
institutionalising feminism Toni Haastrup
31
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia Jiso
Yoon
384
32
Feminist governance in Asia: areas of contestation and cooperation Rashila
Ramli and Sharifah Syahirah
396
33
Latin American perspectives on feminist governance: between mainstreaming and
sidestreaming challenges Gisela Zaremberg
408
34
Feminist governance in North America: manifestations, manipulations and mirages
Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Tammy Findlay
421
35
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands Kerryn Baker and Renee
O’Shanassy
371
434
Index446
Contributors
Karin Aggestam is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Centre for
Advanced Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden, and Adjunct
Professor at Monash University, Australia. She is also Scientific Coordinator of
the Strategic Research Area and Programme: Middle East in the Contemporary World
and a leading expert on peacebuilding, diplomacy and feminist foreign policy.
Her publications include nine books and contributions to Handbooks on peace
diplomacy, hydropolitics, gender, conflict analysis, foreign policy,
negotiation/mediation, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Middle East
politics. Petra Ahrens is a Senior Researcher in Gender Studies at Tampere
University, Finland. She examines European Union gender politics, transnational
civil society organisations, and gender equality in Germany. She has recently
obtained a five-year Academy of Finland Research Fellow project to study gender
sensitive parliaments in Finland, Germany and Poland. Kerryn Baker is a Fellow
in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Her
research on gender, politics and participation has been published in leading
journals including the Australian Journal of Political Science, Pacific Affairs,
Government and Opposition and Parliamentary Affairs. Her book Pacific Women in
Politics: Gender Quota Campaigns in the Pacific Islands was published by
University of Hawaii Press in 2019 and she is the co-editor (with Marian Sawer)
of Gender Innovation in Political Science: New Norms, New Knowledge (Palgrave,
2019). Julie Ballington is a global policy advisor on women’s political
participation at UN Women, where she leads a team providing policy and technical
support to states. She has published widely on policy measures to promote
women’s political participation, including through adoption of special measures,
institutional reforms and prevention of violence against women in politics. She
led UN Women’s work to measure women’s representation at the local level,
reported for the first time in 2020. Lee Ann Banaszak is Professor of Political
Science and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State
University and Head of the Department of Political Science. She has written
widely on women’s movements, gender and public opinion, and gender and policy,
including Why Movements Succeed or Fail (Princeton University Press, 1996) and
the Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State (Cambridge University Press,
2010). Her current research explores voting rights at the intersection of
gender, race and class, and examines how institutional processes of maintaining
voting rolls in the USA leads to inequality in voter access. Srilatha Batliwala
is Senior Advisor, Knowledge Building with CREA (Creating Resources for
Empowerment in Action), Senior Associate, Gender at Work and honorary Professor
of Practice at SOAS, University of London. Over the past 45 years, her work has
included building grassroots movements of the most marginalised urban and rural
women in Mumbai and Karnataka state in India, developing theory from practice,
cutting-edge research on gender issues and empowerment strategies, and capacity
building of young activists in feminist moveviii
Contributors ix ment building and leadership. She has written and published
extensively, and is best known for her work on power and empowerment, women’s
movements and movement building, feminist leadership and feminist approaches to
monitoring and evaluation. Sarah Childs is Professor of Politics and Gender at
the University of Edinburgh. Her book Feminist Democratic Representation (with
Karen Celis) was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Childs is also
the author of The Good Parliament Report (2016), which followed a secondment to
the House of Commons, and is completing her new book, Designing and Building
Feminist Institutions. Monica Costa is an economist and gender and development
researcher with a particular focus on the application of gender-responsive
budgeting (GRB). Her book – Gender Responsive Budgeting in Fragile States: The
Case of Timor-Leste (Routledge, 2018) – is the first to address the potential of
GRB in fragile state contexts. She has published in leading journals and has
worked on gender issues in Australia, Portugal, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and
Indonesia. Serena D’Agostino is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for
Migration, Diversity and Justice (CMDJ) of the Brussels School of Governance
(BSoG), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She is the coordinator of the VUB
Strategic Research Programme ‘Evaluating Democratic Governance in Europe’
(EDGE). Her research interests lie at the crossroads of (political)
intersectionality, activism/social movements and minority politics and rights –
with a focus on Romani (gender) politics and Roma (women’s) rights in Europe.
Her work has been published in Politics, Groups, and Identities, the European
Journal of Politics and Gender and the Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies,
among others. Sara E. Davies is a Professor in the School of Government and
International Relations at Griffith University, Australia. Her research is in
global health governance, gender and human security. She most recently published
Containing Contagion: Politics of Disease Outbreaks in Southeast Asia (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2019) and is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook on
Women, Peace and Security (Oxford University Press, 2019). Andrea den Boer is a
Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at the
University of Kent (UK). Her research focuses on gender and international
relations, with an emphasis on women’s rights, women’s security, and the causes
and consequences of violence against women. She is a Co-Principal Investigator
on the WomanStats Project, an international database and interdisciplinary
research project on the linkage between the situation of women and the security
of nation states. Michelle Deshong is a Kuku Yulanji woman and an Indigenous
gender advocate, with particular interest in the participation of Aboriginal
women in public and political life. She has published widely in these areas and
has expertise on leadership and governance. She works closely with Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander women across the country for empowerment,
representation and equality. Alexandra Dobrowolsky, Professor of Political
Science, Saint Mary’s University, explores gender, representation and
citizenship in an array of publications, including six books, among them the
edited collections: Women and Public Policy in Canada: Neoliberalism and After
(Oxford University Press, 2009); and with Fiona MacDonald, Turbulent Times and
x Handbook of feminist governance Transformational Possibilities? Gender and
Politics Today and Tomorrow (University of Toronto Press, 2020). Anna Elomäki is
Academy of Finland Research Fellow in Gender Studies at the Faculty of Social
Sciences, Tampere University, Finland. Her research focuses on the
interconnections between the economy, politics and gender at EU and national
levels, including the gender impacts and practices of economic policies and
governance and the neoliberalisation of gender equality policies and discourses.
Tammy Findlay, Professor and Chair in the Department of Political and Canadian
Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, focuses on feminist intersectionality
and social policy, child care policy, and democratic governance. She is the
author of the book Femocratic Administration: Gender, Governance and Democracy
in Ontario (University of Toronto Press, 2015), and co-author of Women, Politics
and Public Policy: The Political Struggles of Canadian Women, 3rd edn (Oxford
University Press, 2020). Anne Marie Goetz is a Clinical Professor at the Center
for Global Affairs, School of Professional Studies, New York University. Her
research and policy work focuses on gender and democratic governance, and gender
and conflict and her books include Governing Women (Routledge, 2009), and
Reinventing Accountability (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). She is currently
researching the rise of illiberal or authoritarian approaches to conflict
resolution. Lisa Guido is a graduate student at the Pennsylvania State
University receiving a dual PhD in the departments of Political Science and
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on identity
politics and inequality, and she is working on a project on gendered trends in
local Pennsylvania school board elections. Kirsten Haack is Associate Professor
in International Politics at Northumbria University. Her research interests
include representation and leadership in international organisations especially
by the UN Secretary-General, women executive heads and women diplomats. She is
the author of Women’s Access, Representation and Leadership in the United
Nations (Palgrave, 2022) and The United Nations Democracy Agenda (Manchester
University Press, 2011). Toni Haastrup is a Professor in International Politics
at the University of Stirling in Scotland. A feminist researcher and teacher,
her research interests include explaining the gendered practices of regional
security institutions in Africa and Europe – she has published extensively on
these themes. In addition to her academic work, she collaborates frequently with
international institutions like the UN and the EU and is an occasional media
commentator. Erin Hannah is Associate Professor of Political Science at King’s
University College at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Her research
and teaching interests include international political economy, gender and
trade, development, global governance, global civil society, and the role of
expert knowledge in global trade. She is co-editor of Expert Knowledge in Global
Trade (Routledge, 2015) and author of NGOs and Global Trade: Non-State Voices in
EU Trade Policymaking (Routledge, 2016). Jessica Horn is a feminist activist,
strategist and consultant, and a founding member of the African Feminist Forum.
She is the former Director of Programmes at the African Women’s Development Fund
and has served on the governance boards of Mama Cash, Urgent Action Fund-Africa
and The Fund for Global Human Rights. Her research and analysis has been
Contributors xi published in academic, media and popular platforms including
The Lancet, Feminist Africa, Gender and Development, Al Jazeera, The Guardian
and openDemocracy. Sophie Jacquot is Professor of Political Science at the
Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles (IEE, CReSPo). Her research interests focus
on the transformation of EU gender and anti-discrimination policies, and on the
place given to citizens in EU social and equality governance. She holds a Jean
Monnet Chair (EUGENDERING, 2022–2025) on the challenges linked to the
establishment of a Union of gender+ equality. Her books include Transformations
in EU Gender Equality Policy: From Emergence to Dismantling (Palgrave Macmillan,
2015). Johanna Kantola is Professor of European Politics at the University of
Helsinki, Finland. Her books include Gender and Political Analysis (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2017, with E. Lombardo); Gender and the European Union (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010) and Feminists Theorize the State (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006),
and co-edited Gender and the Economic Crisis in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan,
2017) and The Oxford Handbook on Gender and Politics (Oxford University Press,
2013). She directs the European Research Council (ERC)-funded five-year research
project EUGenDem (Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe). Kaitlin
Kelly-Thompson is a lecturer at Tufts University. She completed her PhD at
Purdue University in August 2020. Her award-winning dissertation ‘There is Power
in a Plaza: Social Movements, Democracy, and Spatial Politics’ demonstrates how
social movements create democratic spaces that advance inclusion and improve
local democracy using the cases of the Gezi Park protests of 2012 and the 2017
Women’s Marches. Meryl Kenny is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Gender
and Politics at the University of Edinburgh and Co-Director of the Feminism and
Institutionalism International Network (FIIN). She has published widely on
gender and political representation in Scotland/UK and comparatively, with
current research focusing on feminist institutionalism, and gender and political
recruitment. Tanja Kovac is the Director of Kovac & Co and immediate past CEO of
Gender Equity Victoria, a peak organisation for gender equality organisations
and professionals, and Senior Research Fellow for Gender Equity at the
progressive think tank Per Capita. She was Chief of Staff to Australia’s first
Family Violence Minister, overseeing family violence reform and creating
Victoria’s first Gender Equality Strategy. She is also a former Director of
EMILY’s List Australia, where she was instrumental in developing gender-based
campaign strategies including the affirmative action target for women candidates
– 50/50 by 2025. Andrea Krizsán is Professor at the Central European University,
Budapest. She is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook on Gender and EU
Politics (Routledge, 2021) and co-author with Conny Roggeband of the books The
Gender Politics of Domestic Violence (Routledge, 2018) and Politicizing Gender
and Democracy in the Context of the Istanbul Convention (Palgrave Macmillan,
2021). Mona Lena Krook is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University
and chair of the Women and Politics PhD Program at Rutgers University. She has
written widely on gender quotas and women’s political representation, including
Quotas for Women in Politics (Oxford University Press, 2009). Her newest book,
Violence against Women in Politics
xii Handbook of feminist governance (Oxford University Press, 2020), explores
resistance and backlash against women’s political participation. Marina Kumskova
is Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor at the Global Partnership for the
Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and Adjunct Professor at the Political
Science Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She has been working
in the field of human rights since 2013, as part of numerous projects exploring
human rights issues around the world, particularly enforced disappearances in
Chechnya. In 2016 she joined the Women, Peace and Security Programme at the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, where she worked to advance
gender-sensitive conflict analysis and women’s participation in peace work, with
a specific focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Caroline Lambert is a
feminist activist and consultant who has held senior formal leadership roles in
feminist and human rights organisations over a 25-year period – on the
governance side and the operational side. She is currently exploring the
exercise of informal power as she navigates feminist activism and movement
building in the Australian gender equality movements – without an organisational
affiliation. She lives and works on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people
of the Kulin nation and is in awe of the ongoing custodianship that elders offer
under conditions of colonisation. Shan-Jan Sarah Liu is Senior Lecturer in
Gender and Politics in the School of Social and Political Science at the
University of Edinburgh, UK. She has published widely on women’s political
representation, social movements, immigration in the media, and the gendered and
racialised impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic with the goal to achieve justice and
equality for the marginalised. Emanuela Lombardo is Associate Professor of
Political Science and member of the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas at
Madrid Complutense University, Spain. Her latest monographs are Gender and
Political Analysis (with Johanna Kantola, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and The
Symbolic Representation of Gender (with Petra Meier, Ashgate, 2014). She directs
the research group on Gender and Politics GEyPO (with Maria Bustelo) and is
currently participating in the Horizon Europe CCINDLE project (2022–2026) on
feminism and democracy. Maria Martin de Almagro is Assistant Professor in
Conflict and Development Studies at the University of Ghent (Belgium).
Previously, she held teaching and research positions at the Université de
Montréal, University of Cambridge and the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. Her
research on gender and peacebuilding in sub-Saharan Africa has been published in
the European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly
and Review of International Studies, among others. Amy G. Mazur is Johnson
Professor of Political Science at Washington State University and an Associate
Researcher at LIEPP, Sciences Po, Paris. Her research focuses on comparative
feminist policy issues. She currently co-convenes, with Isabelle Engeli, the
Gender Equality Policy in Practice Network (GEPP) with a co-edited book, Gender
Equality and Policy Implementation in the Corporate World: Making Democracy Work
in Business (Oxford University Press, 2022). Dorothy E. McBride is Emeritus
Professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University where she was a
founder of the Women’s Studies program and the PhD program in
Contributors xiii Comparative Studies and now advocates for women’s rights and
gender equity in her adopted state of Washington. A specialist in comparative
analysis and women and public policy in the USA and Europe, she is co-convener
of the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State. Her books include
Women’s Rights in the USA (Routledge, 1991); The Politics of State Feminism
(Temple University Press, 2010); Comparative State Feminism (Sage, 1995); and
Abortion in the United States: A Reference Handbook (ABC-Clio, 2018). Valentine
M. Moghadam is Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern
University, Boston. She has also been Coordinator of the Research Program on
Women and Development at the United Nations University-International Institute
of Global Health (UNU-IIGH) WIDER Institute (Helsinki, 1990–95) and a section
chief on gender equality and development, UNESCO’s Social and Human Sciences
Sector (Paris, 2004–06). Her books include Globalizing Women: Transnational
Feminist Networks (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) and most recently,
After the Arab Uprisings: Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East and North
Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2021) with Shamiran Mako. Pippa Norris is
the Maguire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University. The author
of around 50 books, her work has been recognised by many major honours,
including the Johan Skytte award, the Sir Isaiah Berlin Lifetime achievement
award, the Karl Deutsch Award, the Australian Laureate Fellowship and election
to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book (with Ronald
Inglehart) is Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism
(Cambridge University Press, 2019). Renee O’Shanassy lives on Ngunnawal country
and works in public policy. She holds a Masters of Public Policy and Management
from Monash University and Bachelor’s of Laws and International Relations from
La Trobe University. She is currently undertaking a Master in Arts (Women’s
Studies) with Flinders University. Renee has worked with the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), various agencies of the Australian Public Service,
development organisations and academia. Sonia Palmieri is a Gender Policy Fellow
with the Department of Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University. As
an academic practitioner, she has worked in both the university sector and
development and parliamentary organisations to support women’s political
leadership and participation. Sonia has driven the international research agenda
on gender-sensitive parliaments, and has engaged with current and aspiring women
in politics in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and – most prominently – the Pacific.
Rashila Ramli is Professor of Political Science and Principal Visiting Fellow at
the United Nations University-International Institute of Global Health
(UNU-IIGH) and former Director of the Institute of Malaysian and International
Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Her areas of
specialisation are Political Development, Human Security, and Gender and
Politics. Her current research is on Global ASEAN and Social Inclusion through
Localising SDGs. She is lead trainer on Leadership, Political Participation and
Sustainable Development in Education. Adrienne Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in
International Politics at the University of Manchester. She specialises in
feminist international political economy, with a particular focus on the
politics of social reproduction and the gendered relations of finance, debt,
development and trade. She is co-editor of the Handbook on the International
Political Economy of Gender
xiv Handbook of feminist governance (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) and
Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday (Routledge, 2018). Conny
Roggeband is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science,
University of Amsterdam. She is the author and editor of multiple books in the
domain of social movement studies and gender and politics, including her most
recent book co-authored with Andrea Krizsán, Politicizing Gender and Democracy
in the Context of the Istanbul Convention (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Marian
Sawer is an Emeritus Professor and ANU Public Policy Fellow in the School of
Politics and International Relations, The Australian National University. She
has been analysing feminist engagement with the state since the 1980s, including
the path-breaking Sisters in Suits (Allen & Unwin, 1990). She has worked in the
Office of the Status of Women in the Australian government, has twice been
attached to Status of Women Canada and has twice been rapporteur for UN Expert
Group meetings on women’s policy machinery. Victoria Scheyer is a doctoral
researcher at Monash University at the Gender, Peace and Security Centre. She
holds a Master Degree in Peace Studies from the UN mandated University for
Peace. At the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt she researches on resistances
to gender equality in peacebuilding and feminist foreign policies. As
co-president of the German section of the Women’s International League for Peace
and Freedom, she advocates for intersectional gender equality and
demilitarisation. Rhonda Sharp is an Emeritus Professor at the University of
South Australia and a former president of the International Association for
Feminist Economics, of which she was a founding member. Her work has focused on
integrating a gender perspective into economic policies, particularly through
gender-responsive budgeting, and she has engaged with governments, NGOs and
international organisations for this purpose. In 2012 she was made a Member of
the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to the study of women and
economics. Sharifah Syahirah is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Kolej
Universiti Poly-Tech MARA (KUPTM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She has Bachelor’s
and Master’s degrees in Human Science (Political Science) from International
Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), and a PhD in Political Science from
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Her area of specialisation is gender and
politics, policy and leadership. Her current research is on sexual harassment in
sports, young women’s perception of politics, employees’ happiness, and the
effectiveness of rural training programmes. Maria Tanyag is a Senior Lecturer at
the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific
Affairs, Australian National University. She received her PhD from Monash
University in 2017. She was a Resident Women, Peace, and Security Fellow at
Pacific Forum International, and programme co-chair for the Feminist Theory and
Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Association (2021–23).
Fernando Tormos-Aponte is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University
of Pittsburgh and a Kendall Fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He
earned his PhD in Political Science from Purdue University and a BA from the
Universidad de Puerto Rico – Río Piedras. Dr Tormos-Aponte specialises in
environmental and racial justice, intersectional solidarity, identity politics,
social policy and transnational politics.
Contributors xv Erica Townsend-Bell is Associate Professor of Political Science
and Director of the Center for African Studies at Oklahoma State University. Her
areas of expertise include the politics of intersectionality, comparative race
and gender politics, and social movements, especially across the Americas. Her
work is published in Political Research Quarterly, Signs, European Journal of
Politics and Gender, JILAR and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
(LACES), among other outlets. Silke Trommer is Senior Lecturer in Politics at
the University of Manchester, UK. Her work focuses on the politics of global
trade, global governance, development, social movements and feminist
international political economy. She is author of Transformations in Trade
Politics: Participatory Trade Politics in West Africa (Routledge, 2014) and
co-editor of Expert Knowledge in Global Trade (Routledge, 2016). Jacqui True is
Professor of International Relations, Director of Monash University’s Centre for
Gender, Peace and Security, Director of the Australian Research Council Centre
of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women and a Global Fellow,
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Her research is focused on the Women,
Peace and Security agenda, violence against women, and the gender dimensions of
violent extremism and conflict. In 2021 Professor True was named one of the 100
most influential Persons in Gender Policy – for the gender-based violence area.
Tània Verge is Professor of Politics and Gender at Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
where she led the Equality Unit between 2014 and 2021. She has written widely on
women’s (descriptive and symbolic) political representation, gender power
relations within political parties and parliaments, and resistance to the
implementation of gender equality policy. Lindsay Walsh is a graduate student at
the Pennsylvania State University receiving a dual PhD in the departments of
Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research
focuses on the cross-national study of women’s representation in the formal
political sphere. She is currently studying the effect of gender quotas and
increased women’s representation on policy outputs pertaining to women’s social
and economic opportunity. S. Laurel Weldon is Distinguished Professor of
Political Science at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and
co-editor of the American Political Science Review. She has written extensively
on feminist movements, public policy and women’s human rights, especially
violence against women and economic rights. Her most recent book with Mala Htun,
The Logics of Gender Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2018) won the 2019
award for Best Book on Human Rights from the Human Rights Section of the
International Studies Association. Clare Wenham is Assistant Professor of Global
Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy at the London School of
Economics & Politics and has over 10 years’ experience in research and teaching
in global health security and outbreak response. Her research has focused on the
politics and policies of health emergencies, including those of pandemic flu,
Ebola and Zika. She most recently published Feminist Global Health Security
(Oxford University Press, 2021). Naomi Woyengu is a young feminist activist and
consultant who works with Pacific and global young feminist peers to build their
individual and collective leadership and feminist
xvi Handbook of feminist governance activism. She is also the founder of a
young women-led group in Papua New Guinea called the HausKuK Initiative, which
seeks to shift from the patriarchal HausMan (Men’s House) norms around
leadership. Her feminist experience of over six years has mostly been in
grass-root community movement building and young women’s leadership throughout
Papua New Guinea and the Pacific through the YWCA. Jiso Yoon is Director of
Center for International Development and Cooperation at the Korean Women’s
Development Institute (KWDI). She has published research on women’s political
representation, gender and political behaviour, and policy advocacy in Japan and
South Korea. Her current research project involves a critical review of South
Korea’s gender-focused Official Development Assistance (ODA), and suggests ways
for the South Korean government to promote gender equality globally through ODA.
Gisela Zaremberg is Professor and Academic Coordinator of the Public Policy and
Gender Master at FLACSO Mexico. She has published on feminist governance,
conservative backlash and democratic innovation in journals such as Politics &
Gender, Journal of Politics in Latin America and International Feminist Journal
of Politics. Her most recent book is Feminisms in Latin America: Pro-Choice
Nested Networks in Mexico and Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
1. Introduction to the Handbook of Feminist Governance Marian Sawer, Lee Ann
Banaszak, Jacqui True and Johanna Kantola
For the past 50 years women’s movements have been inventing new ways of
organising, institution-building and disseminating gender equality norms. These
innovations have brought more inclusive and flexible forms of governance – of
the kind needed to respond to the complex challenges of today’s world. As used
here, the term governance covers all the processes of government from the formal
to the informal, from laws, institutional norms and policy framing to networks
and relationships through which authority is both exercised and held to account.
Our definition of feminist governance extends from the non-hierarchical style of
women’s movements in the 1970s to the transnational oversight of ‘gender
mainstreaming’ today. Feminist scholarship has played an integral role in the
development of feminist governance, contributing or co-producing conceptual
analysis of the governance innovations feminism has to offer and providing an
evidence base for practitioners to draw on. This volume aims to summarise and
reflect upon the findings of this research in a comprehensive way, making it
accessible to both scholars and practitioners. The Handbook will present the
debates over feminist governance, the role of insiders and outsiders,
transnational networks, ‘autonomous women’s movements’ and international and
regional norm transmission, as well as introducing state-of-the-art feminist
governance expertise and toolkits. While explicating the role of feminist
expertise in, for example, distributional analysis of budget impacts, we also
explore the way feminist governance innovation has led to more inclusive forms
of consultation so that the lived experience of diverse communities of women can
inform policymaking. We hope that the comprehensive nature of the Handbook
facilitates the work of practitioners, providing examples of what has been
achieved by feminist governance and how it has been introduced in a wide variety
of institutions across different regional contexts. For scholars of feminist
governance we hope that the summary and analysis of past work provides a
resource for current scholarship as well as marking potential avenues for future
research. Defining this new field of feminist governance and indicating its
scope has been an exciting part of this project. The ideas encapsulated in the
concept of feminist governance had their origins in the organisational
philosophy of the women’s movements of the 1970s. Feminist governance
encompasses feminist institutions, norms and ideas as well as the work that
feminists have done within broader political institutions and governance
networks at national, subnational and transnational levels. In considering the
transnational level, we draw attention to the significance of regional
institutions as a site of feminist innovation supported by regional advocacy
networks. But to return to origins, the ‘second wave’ of the women’s movement
created institutions explicitly designed in accordance with non-hierarchical
principles and consensus decision-making. Hierarchy was seen as a masculine
principle that would only perpetuate 1
2 Handbook of feminist governance women’s subordination. In the 1970s feminists
took these ways of organising into a range of social movements, including the
environment movement, as well as into the new women’s services born of the
women’s movement. As a joke had it at the time, Q: ‘How many feminists does it
take to change a light bulb? A: Only one, but the chair has to rotate.’ In
women’s services such as refuges and rape crisis centres, full collectivism
tended to give way to hybrid forms of organising in response to pressures from
government or donor funders and sometimes from workers themselves. The legacy of
women’s movement origins was, however, a commitment to holistic and inclusive
forms of management and service provision. At the same time, feminists were
entering government, hoping to change not only the policy outcomes ‘but also the
policy processes and the means of delivering these outcomes, as part of a more
general redistribution of power in society’ (Sawer and Groves, 1994: 9). While
insiders had to make compromises with hierarchy, other gains were made, in part
thanks to the feminist policy networks and communities that engage with
institutions of transnational governance. In this case, feminist governance may
be seen both in the organisational styles of feminist advocacy networks and in
the adoption and implementation by institutions of policies directed towards
achieving gender equality. While the term ‘feminist’ is not explicitly used in
the platforms of intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations
(UN), the term ‘gender’, drawn from feminist theory, becomes prominent from the
1980s (Charlesworth and Chinkin, 2013: 47). We say more below about the terms in
which gender-equality policies are couched; here we concentrate on the evolution
of feminist institution-building over time. Increasingly, government
bureaucracies, parliaments and international organisations are adopting feminist
principles such as promoting norms of gender equality, applying a gender lens to
policies and consulting with diverse communities of women. Such norms are
reinforced through transnational monitoring, reporting and ranking of gender
equality policy implementation and through pressure exerted by women’s movements
outside the state. Nonetheless, feminist institution-building remains precarious
and there is wide variation in the degree to which feminist governance has been
mainstreamed within governance institutions, in how it is incorporated into
day-to-day operations, and even in what ‘mainstreaming’ means in practice across
varying institutional locations. Our Handbook examines feminist governance and
the institutionalising of feminist values, rather than gender or even the
‘gender of governance’ (Brush, 2003). Nonetheless, overlaps can be seen from the
introduction to a sister handbook, Gender in World Politics: ‘Today gender is
slowly, yet surely, being mainstreamed into the day-to-day operations of all
major international institutions, in regional and national policymaking bodies
and development organizations and in legislatures the world over’ (Steans and
Tepe-Belfrage, 2016: 1). While Gender in World Politics provides an impressive
overview of gender research in international relations, others have focused more
closely on the feminist strategies deployed through international governance
institutions. Gülay Caglar, Elisabeth Prügl and Susanne Zwingel suggest that
these strategies can be roughly divided into two categories: on the one hand,
legal and normative strategies to embed women’s rights and gender equality in
international discourse; on the other, gender mainstreaming to operationalise
these norms within organisations and policymaking. They see the legitimising of
gender expertise as an important if contested strategy for challenging masculine
state institutions by anchoring ‘a substantial understanding of gender within
organizational practice’ (Caglar et al., 2013: 286). Because our own focus is on
the innovations that feminism has contributed to governance more generally, we
have cast our net widely, covering how feminists organise themselves as
Introduction 3 well as the changes introduced into political institutions. This
Handbook is focused on the period from the 1970s, when feminist organising
principles became more explicitly elaborated, but we do provide a timeline,
showing the development of gender equality norms at international and regional
levels from the late 19th century onwards. Our Handbook encompasses five
categories of feminist governance: ● feminist institutions consciously designed
in accordance with non-hierarchical feminist values, like women’s services in
the 1970s onwards ● the operationalising of these values in feminist networks
engaging with public policy, including both domestic and transnational advocacy
networks ● feminist institution-building and other feminist work within broader
political institutions such as bureaucracies and parliaments ● expression of
feminist values through the adoption and implementation by broader political
institutions of policies and forms of consultation directed towards achieving
gender equality or gender+ equality1 ● soft regulation involved in transnational
monitoring, reporting and ranking of gender equality policy implementation.
These categories of feminist governance are discussed further below, where we
introduce the themes of each part of the Handbook. Meanwhile, we shall touch
lightly on how our work relates to previous work in the field. Because we focus
on feminist contributions to governance, whether in the field of values and
practices or more formal policy and institutional design, our scope is somewhat
different to those who have focused on ‘governance feminism’. Janet Halley, in
her important work on governance feminism, conceptualises it as a form of
feminism that engages with the state and is acceptable to power holders. Indeed,
she sees governance feminism as providing a passport to certain state or
international jobs. Hence, she distinguishes it from feminist struggles to
‘prefigure emancipation in the life of feminist organizations’ (Halley, 2018:
xiii), whereas we see the prefigurative design of feminist organisations as a
major contribution to governance. Halley calls for a clear-sighted recognition
of the compromises inherent in governance feminism and the mistakes that have
been made, as well as the successes. While she highlights the moral complexities
that come with policy influence, her primary target is the form taken by gender
equality projects under the influence of neoliberalism. While we take on board
the need to be clear-sighted about the issues involved in engagement with state
or corporate power, our focus is more on feminist contributions to governance
theory and practice, both inside and outside the state. Nonetheless, the
influence of neoliberalism, referring to a shift away from the social liberal
conception of the state as a vehicle of social justice towards more marketised
models of the state, is a continuous theme of the Handbook. Concepts of feminist
governance took hold when Keynesian social liberalism was a dominant paradigm
and are more difficult to reconcile with the pursuit of market freedoms. While
feminist governance involved a revolution of rising expectations, it was met by
a neoliberal counter-revolution lowering expectations of what governments could
do and indeed questioning the very concept of social justice. In this new
context, the discursive strategies of femocrats had to change if they were to
have any policy influence, emphasising the ‘business case’ for gender equality
rather than social justice. For example, Australia led the way with studies of
the economic costs of violence against women from the late 1980s, soon followed
by Canada (Day et al., 2005). And, as we
4 Handbook of feminist governance shall see, it is not only neoliberal
compromises that are affecting feminist governance but also the more explicit
threats arising from radical right populism. To return to the governance
research on which we draw, our project builds on the path-breaking 15-year
project led by Amy Mazur and Dorothy McBride and the Research Network on Gender
Politics and the State (RNGS). The RNGS project undertook a large-scale
comparative examination of the role of women’s policy agencies in providing
women’s movements with access to the policy process (McBride and Mazur, 2010).
It assessed the extent to which women’s policy agencies served to transmit into
government the policy frames and policy demands arising from women’s movements.
Its focus was the factors that enabled such successful mediation, rather than
the nature of the governance innovation involved both inside and outside formal
political institutions. Its focus was also comparative, rather than seeking to
map the evolution of feminist governance in its multiple manifestations. The
evolution of feminist governance over time is highlighted in the chronology of
developments at international and regional levels that accompanies this
Introduction. This timeline shows the increasing significance of transnational
forms of governance and the space they have provided for feminist agendas. It
runs from the first international congress of women in 1878 to the 2020 OECD
meeting on gender governance and coronavirus, and illustrates the spread of
feminist engagement into the new transnational governance sectors that feature
in the Handbook. So, our project on feminist governance includes but extends
beyond the subjects of feminist engagement with the state or ‘state feminism’.
As noted, it includes the feminist organisational principles inspiring the
processes and design of women’s services and advocacy organisations, whether
involving full collectivity or hybrid forms. It looks at the evolution of
feminist organisational philosophy within changing governance contexts. One
change is the increased complexity of policymaking in the ‘multilevel global
policy arena’, introducing a new demand for specialised feminist policy
expertise rather than ‘feminist ideals of horizontal, non-hierarchical and loose
organizing’ (van der Vleuten et al., 2014: 58). Another aspect of the changing
context already mentioned is the emergence of right-wing populism adding to
religious mobilisations against ‘gender ideology’. In the mid-1990s, coordinated
opposition to feminist policy influence emerged in different parts of the world
and transnationally. The concept of gender became a particular target – the idea
of gender as a social construct was seen as undermining traditional family
values and the natural complementarity of men and women. Feminists were
perceived to have achieved undue influence in governance, particularly within
international and regional governance bodies that were imposing alien values on
nation states. Populist movements appealed to a constituency of men who
perceived themselves as having lost status and power thanks to the influence of
cosmopolitan elites and feminists (Verloo, 2018). One aspect of the work of
these cosmopolitan elites was the ‘soft regulation’ that is an increasingly
significant aspect of international governance. Soft regulation reinforces norms
but does not involve legal sanctions for non-compliance. It encompasses the
standards, codes of conduct, rankings, handbooks and toolkits produced by
transnational standard-setting bodies. Such exchanges of good practice and
benchmarking have become intrinsic to the dissemination of feminist governance
innovation, from electoral gender quotas to gender-responsive budgeting. Apart
from the European Union (EU), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are good examples
of transnational standard-setting institutions that disseminate such
innovations. Feminist insiders
Introduction 5 in these bodies have helped develop these standards, which can
then become a routinised part of international or regional governance (True,
2008). One of the more visible aspects of soft regulation is the role of
dialogues around the mandated reporting on implementation of international
treaties such as the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Such dialogues with the treaty
monitoring body involve both government and civil society actors, and, in the
case of CEDAW, can also involve parliamentary actors. The CEDAW Committee is the
only UN treaty body to have adopted a policy of cooperation with parliaments.
However, the dissemination of gender equality norms and soft regulation does not
only take place through international governance institutions and advocacy
networks. Regional institutions have a particular significance in norm diffusion
and peer review, making them a focus for feminist engagement (Roggeband et al.,
2020). The regional institution best known for its role in promoting gender
equality norms both within and beyond its borders is the EU. However, this may
be a matter of degree rather than of kind and other regional institutions have
also been important sites of feminist innovation, including the Organization of
American States, Mercosur, the African Union, the Southern African Development
Community, the Pacific Islands Forum and, to a lesser extent, the Association of
South-East Asian States (see van der Vleuten et al., 2014). Drawing attention to
the differing forms of feminist engagement with institutions of regional
governance is part of the mission of this Handbook. The extensive feminist norm
work in institutions of international and regional governance is now contested
in a coordinated way, for example by the countries that belong to the Group of
Friends of the Family. These successful ‘norm-spoiling’ efforts led to the
decision by feminist insiders in the UN that to hold a fifth World Conference on
Women would be too risky and result in the erosion of women’s rights (Goetz,
2020: 169).
HANDBOOK ORGANISATION The Handbook is organised into five major parts, followed
by the timeline. The parts are as follows. Part I: Theoretical Perspectives The
Handbook begins with a section exploring theoretical concepts related to
feminist governance more generally, setting the stage for the later sections of
the book. Each chapter in Part I introduces a major existing concept, providing
theoretical discussions about how it relates to our concept of feminist
governance. Chapter 2 explores how gender influences power relationships and how
feminist theorising and organising led to a set of organising principles that
embody feminist governance. Chapter 3 discusses how the methodology of feminist
institutionalism provides insights into feminist governance and examines a
number of feminist political institutions that contribute to feminist
governance. It focuses specifically on the factors that influence how feminist
governance develops and how it changes. The question of the appropriate
connection between feminists and the state has been debated for many years.
Chapter 4 utilises five different feminist theoretical perspectives on the state
6 Handbook of feminist governance in analysing how the state is gendered, the
ways that feminists can and should approach the state, and the implications of
these questions for feminist governance. In so doing, the chapter provides an
overview of the ways that the state is gendered and how these affect the
opportunities for feminist governance. Similarly, Chapter 5 offers an overview
of the concept of feminist insider activism, examining existing work on the
concept of insiders, and providing a summary definition while discussing the
implications for feminist governance. The relationship between feminist
governance and multilevel governance, particularly the ways in which
institutional arrangements connecting international, national, regional and
local governments affect and are affected by feminist movements and their
representation, is examined in Chapter 6. Through careful analysis, the authors
reveal ways feminists can take advantage of multilevel governance to effect
change; they also demonstrate the importance of paying attention to the
mediating actors like political parties as well as anti-feminist and
conservative movements. A central concept running through the Handbook is the
importance of intersectionality and multicultural approaches in understanding
feminist governance. Chapter 7 discusses the importance of intersectionality and
the degree to which intersectional analyses and policies are often lacking in
existing forms of feminist governance. It provides concrete suggestions for
increasing intersectional perspectives within feminist governance including the
necessity of incorporating intersectional praxis as the foundation of feminist
activism and policy analysis. The final chapter in Part I explores the methods
utilised by feminist governance scholars, examining the advantages and
disadvantages of different methods. In addition to echoing the need for greater
use of intersectionality, the author also demonstrates the importance of paying
attention to researchers’ positionality and methods in feminist scholarship and
praxis. Part II: Evolving Institutions Part II of the Handbook covers the
differing ways that concepts of feminist governance have been institutionalised.
The authors of Chapter 9, who have all been involved in the work of ‘movement
building’, trace the evolution of institutions of feminist governance in the
context of both advocacy and service delivery. They start with the ‘pursuit of
collectivity’ by women’s services in the 1970s and continue with collective
reflections on both the structures and norms underpinning feminist organising.
These range from practices of shared leadership to the reframing of time to
accommodate feminist process and intergenerational goals. This story is followed
in Chapter 10 by tracking the parallel development of women’s policy machinery
within government and the promotion of such machinery through the UN. This
chapter looks at how ‘national machineries’ were adopted both in OECD countries
and in emerging economies, the possibilities and pitfalls revealed over time,
and how feminist governance is affected by the new political polarisation over
gender equality. From the 1980s, transnational bodies also helped disseminate a
new development within feminist governance – gender-responsive budgeting.
Chapter 11 is devoted to the diverse practices of gender-responsive budgeting
that have emerged inside and outside government, showing how feminist values can
be blunted in the process. Parliament also became an increased focus in the
1990s and attention turned to quotas and other means of increasing women’s
legislative recruitment. These are the subject of Chapter 12, which surveys and
assesses the diverse strategies devised to pursue this goal, ranging from
electoral gender quotas to conditional public funding and training programmes.
Introduction 7 Increased numbers of women legislators in turn led to
initiatives to increase the responsiveness of parliaments to women. Chapter 13
deals with the range of specialised parliamentary bodies created to apply a
gender lens to policy and oversee gender mainstreaming. It covers the
effectiveness of such bodies and the extent to which they can provide an
alternative reference point to traditional parliamentary norms. It makes clear
they are not the only conduits of feminist policy influence, which can also
manifest itself around the Cabinet table and in ministers’ offices. By the 21st
century, there were also new initiatives at both transnational and national
levels to address issues arising for women in parliament as a workplace, whether
as elected politicians or as staff. The authors of Chapter 14 bring first-hand
experience to bear on the development and dissemination of the concept of
‘gender-sensitive’ parliaments. They also reflect on the nature of the iterative
dialogue between academics and practitioners involved in feminist governance.
The final chapter of Part II deals with the norm work involved in provision of
tool kits and handbooks for the implementation of international and regional
gender equality agreements. While normative frameworks have received much
attention, less has been paid to the guidelines and toolkits through which they
are operationalised. The authors of Chapter 15, who have both been involved in
such norm work within intergovernmental and standard-setting bodies, argue that
it is integral to the diffusion of feminist governance. Part III: International
Relations and Global Governance Part III of the Handbook focuses on feminist
governance in international relations and global and regional governance.
Importantly, it introduces feminist foreign policy as an emerging movement
attempting to transform foreign policy and global governance. Chapter 16 argues
that feminist foreign policy emerged as an innovation from inside governments
and has since spread across governments and spurned a transnational epistemic
network and movement promoting feminist principles and practices in foreign
policy. How FFP, as it has been called, is promoted and legitimised both by
states and projected outwards through multilateral institutions and
international governance is addressed in this chapter. Questions of which actors
are most important and the role of leadership in feminist governance in
international relations and global governance are a strong theme of all chapters
in Part III. Two chapters, in particular, explore in depth the leadership
provided by transnational feminist networks and the policy entrepreneurship of
UN Women since its creation in 2010. Chapter 22 on the transnational feminist
networks (TFN) built by civil society and women’s movements shows how they have
engaged with governments and global governance institutions for decades now
through research, lobbying, advocacy and action to influence policymaking from
economic to security policy: and from policies on violence against women to
policies on care work. TFNs have benefited from the UN-led global women’s rights
agenda while also contributing to its expansion and depth; the significant
political constraints they face are highlighted by the current Covid-19 pandemic
crisis. Chapter 19 complements this story of feminist governance at the global
level by documenting UN Women’s role in promoting greater accountability and
accessibility, and support for a feminist agenda across the UN system. Notably,
UN Women has succeeded in framing global issues from a gender equality
perspective and monitoring gender equality data, policies and processes, in part
enabled by engagement with feminist civil society actors.
8 Handbook of feminist governance Chapters in this part of the Handbook examine
feminist innovations across different domains of global governance: foreign
policy, security, climate change, health, peacebuilding, aid and trade policy.
They analyse and explain the emergence of feminist norms and trace their
implementation and practice in each of these domains. These domains also reflect
major challenges for global governance – such as how is it possible to govern in
the context of a pandemic that threatens the lives of every individual or in the
context of climate change that promises devastating consequences for our planet
in a world of divided, sovereign states? How is it possible to mobilise an
equitable response to these challenges within and across vastly different
governments? And what is the contribution of feminist principles, practices and
networks in addressing these fundamental challenges affecting all levels of
governance? Several chapters focus on feminist governance in particular
international institutions within each domain, such as the World Health
Organization, the UN Security Council, UN Peacebuilding Fund, UN Women, the
World Trade Organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the
World Bank. These chapters ask how far, and in what ways, feminist norms have
been adapted, contested and implemented in light of geopolitical, bureaucratic
and masculine power dynamics – the latter being important since such global
institutions have until recently been elite-male dominated. For example, Chapter
17 asks what feminist governance looks like in the World Health Organization
(WHO). WHO is the leading global health institution and technical agency
providing guidance on health emergency response, and deference to state approval
is the guiding principle. State power is a major barrier to feminist governance
in this domain, but the Covid-19 pandemic has made this stance with regard to
gender inequality increasingly untenable. Chapter 21 on climate change
illustrates further challenges with instituting feminist governance at the
global level. This chapter analyses the disconnect between ‘technical expertise’
reproduced in global governance where climate change is framed both as a
security and scientific issue, and women’s everyday knowledge. The very narrow
and still male-centric model of knowledge production and validation leads to
piecemeal policy improvements that fail to reach the most vulnerable and
climate-risk-exposed populations. Taken together, the chapters in Part III cover
a range of relatively new actors and new tools of feminist governance. They
include: the growth of new transnational feminist networks; the emergence and
consolidation of feminist local and global peacebuilding expertise explored in
Chapter 18; new feminist methodologies and technical tools for analysing trade
agreements and their gender impacts critically reviewed in Chapter 20; the
spaces opened up for broader civil society engagement and representation through
feminist engagement with the typically closed-door UN Security Council explored
in Chapter 19; and the evolution of UN Women as the powerhouse for feminist
policymaking at the UN (Chapter 23). Part IV: The European Union and Feminist
Governance Part IV of the Handbook maps the ways in which the EU can be seen as
a progressive actor for gender equality and feminist governance, including the
presence of specialised bodies within its institutions, the centrality of gender
mainstreaming and the role of civil society actors. At the same time, the
chapters illustrate shortcomings and backlash against feminist governance and
gender equality within the EU. Chapter 24 analyses the European Parliament, the
most democratic and gender equal of EU institutions, by focusing on its feminist
governance structures. The chapter covers the key
Introduction 9 parliamentary structures for feminist governance including
gender mainstreaming and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
(FEMM Committee). However, it also discusses the ways in which the anti-gender
backlash has challenged the progressive language and politics of gender equality
within the parliament. Chapter 25 provides a detailed account of the ways in
which gender equality policy of the EU has been transformed over the past
decades. The author suggests that whilst the policy used to be highly
professionalised and institutionalised, with fairly strong feminist governance
structures in different institutions of the EU, over the last decade it has been
dismantled. The author argues that feminist governance is under threat in the
EU. Chapter 26 provides one explanation for the weakening position of gender
equality. The chapter analyses the role of economisation of gender equality in
the EU and provides an account of the important ways in which economic values
have been strengthened and neoliberal economic policies have taken over
progressive gender policy. The author maps the actors, processes and knowledge
that have contributed to the neoliberal economisation of the EU’s gender
equality policy. Two chapters in Part IV focus on the role of civil society as
an important facet of feminist governance. Chapter 27 is built around the
concept of the feminist velvet triangle, a term coined originally by Alison
Woodward (2004) to capture the ways in which feminist movements, bureaucrats
within the EU and academic experts cooperated on progressive gender policy. The
chapter analyses the history and formal rules of civil society participation in
policymaking in the EU and examines the current situation and challenges to
these feminist alliances. Chapter 28 analyses intersectional feminist activisms
in the EU. Whilst the political phenomenon is not new, intersectional feminist
activism has remained largely invisible in gender and EU scholarship. The author
analyses how Black feminists, Afrofeminists and Romani feminists create new
forms of political resistance in contemporary Europe. The chapter poses a number
of important questions to feminist governance debates: who are the feminists
participating in feminist governance; which mechanisms of invisibilisation are
in place; which concepts – including intersectionality – need to be used in
theory and practice to overcome these exclusions? The final chapter of Part IV
reaches beyond the European Union to discuss a key issue in feminist governance,
namely that of gender violence and violence against women. It analyses a major
feminist success in the field of violence policy, the so-called Istanbul
Convention adopted by the Council of Europe (2011). Chapter 29 shows how this
feminist governance achievement has become the focal point of opposition against
gender and gender equality in Europe. Part V: Other Regional Perspectives on
Feminist Governance Part V explores regional innovations in feminist governance
and how regional institutions have become a key site for such innovation.
Differing contexts, differing political opportunity structures and differing
feminist perspectives affect the regional variation in forms taken by feminist
governance. For example, Chapter 30 explores how regional integration practices
culminating in the creation of the African Union have provided new entry points
for feminist activism. It highlights both endogenous and exogenous factors
involved, including African women’s organising, new indigenous legal instruments
and global normative frameworks like the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
10 Handbook of feminist governance Regional perspectives from Asia include a
chapter on feminist institution-building in two major East Asian countries:
Japan and South Korea. Chapter 31 argues that the combined work of feminist
insiders and outsiders has shaped gradual policy changes but there are key
challenges to the furthering of feminist governance. A second regional
perspective from Asia is provided by Chapter 32, comparing the feminist
governance component of a regional intergovernmental organisation (the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN) with a regional civil society
organisation (the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development). This
chapter chronicles the growth of feminist advocacy, networks and governance
within these regional institutions providing perspectives on feminist governance
within the Asia-Pacific region. Chapter 33 presents theoretical and
methodological approaches to the relationship between feminist movements and the
state in Latin America. The distinctive forms taken by feminist governance in
this region have included legislated candidate quotas and intersectional parity
clauses in local politics. The chapter also explores the possibilities for
feminist governance within states mired in conflict and violence. Chapter 34
reflects on the effects of feminist governance and its gains and losses in
Canada, the USA and Mexico. It uses Canada as a case study to evaluate the
implementation of gender-based analysis (GBA) as a form of feminist governance,
and the challenges posed by multilevel governance, free-trade agreements and
neoliberal regimes. Turning to the Pacific Islands, Chapter 35 examines how
regionalism has contributed to collective identity, and the role of regional
civil society networks in the development of gender equality initiatives such as
the Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security adopted by the Pacific
Islands Forum in 2012. It shows that while gender equality has been formally
adopted on to the regional political agenda, activists identify and contest a
failure to challenge underlying development paradigms. This uneasy relationship
between feminist governance and economic paradigms that devalue and discount
social reproduction and the care economy is a general theme of this volume. It
is particularly evident in the transnational institutions that have been vectors
of both gender equality and marketisation agendas, often serving to narrow the
ambit of gender equality to equal workforce participation. Nonetheless, as the
Handbook shows, there has been a wealth of feminist contributions to governance
innovation, inspiring a research literature that highlights the links between
theory and practice while being reflexive about the relationship between
researchers and practitioners. The chapters of the Handbook illustrate the wide
range of issues at stake when researching and doing feminist governance. The
authors provide rich material across different continents on practices and
institutions of feminist governance; transformation and successes, but also
failures and backlashes and something in between, where feminist governance is
strongly shaped not only by feminist struggles but also by political contexts,
fortunes and crises. Like all crises, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has exposed
the strengths and the weaknesses, the challenges and the gaps in feminist
governance at all levels – local, national, regional and global. Harnessing
years of feminist governance work including knowledge-building efforts,
capacity-building of advocacy coalitions and honing of policy entrepreneurship
skills, many feminist governance actors took advantage of the Covid pandemic as
a window of opportunity to promote greater policy awareness of the problem of
violence against women. The
Introduction 11 heightened nature of the problem during the pandemic was used
to spur, secure and diffuse feminist policy change. UN Women, in particular,
took on a role as policy entrepreneur, calling violence against women the
‘shadow pandemic’ and launching a global campaign for policy changes to prevent
and end violence against women, especially in homes during Covid restrictions
(UN Women, 2020). This Handbook draws on research showing how feminist
governance networks in international governmental organisations, as well as
advocacy organisations, have supported global policy innovation diffusion in
recent decades (Htun and Weldon, 2012; Simmons and Elkins, 2004; True and
Mintrom, 2001). Covid provided a ‘policy window’ to further advance this
innovation (Mintrom and True, 2022). Feminist research and advocacy in 2020–21
influenced policymaking by assembling evidence and documenting the impacts of
Covid-19 on violence against women, by promoting readily implementable
short-term solutions as well as gender-sensitive policy responses for medium-
and longer-term post-Covid recovery (Elomäki and Kantola, 2022). Innovations
included the use of new remote technologies and new agencies such as pharmacies
and supermarkets to access victims and survivors and programmes targeted at
perpetrators and bystanders. These policy innovations and good practices were
promoted, shared and implemented by already established feminist governance
networks across the world. However, while the Covid-19 crisis opened some policy
windows, it closed off others. Women’s economic insecurity has proved difficult
to address, despite women’s disproportionate loss of incomes and jobs and the
return in some countries of gender-responsive budgeting (McKinsey Global
Institute, 2020). Gender inequalities have widened globally due to the
intensification of women’s unpaid labour in elder care, home schooling and
household provision during the pandemic and economic stimulus packages have
neglected female-dominated sectors of the labour market. Thus far there have
been few successful feminist policy responses (Turquet et al., 2021). While the
pandemic raised awareness of the centrality of the care economy, the
undervaluing of the paid work of front-line workers continued. Gender budgeting
could show how women were disadvantaged by fiscal policy but was less successful
in shifting neoliberal commitments to lower taxes rather than increasing social
expenditure. There is far more work to be done in re-thinking governance and
policy guided by feminist principles – using feminist tools and expertise and
drawing on feminist movements to address systemic inequalities. Rather than
concluding the debate on feminist governance we very much hope that the Handbook
prompts more research into these crucial questions across different contexts and
using different theoretical and methodological approaches. We trust that these
reflections will be useful to feminist practice and that the owl of Minerva can
spread its wings well before the coming of the dusk.
NOTE 1. In the early 21st century the term gender+ equality was introduced to
signal that gender equality policies need to encompass intersecting attributes
and forms of disadvantage. In Canada the term gender-based analysis (GBA) was
similarly renamed GBA+ in 2011 to indicate that when a gender lens was applied
to policy the intersection of other identities would be taken into account.
12 Handbook of feminist governance
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Timeline of feminist governance Renee O’Shanassy
This timeline seeks to provide an overview of developments in feminist
governance with an emphasis on the development of normative and policy regimes
at international and regional levels, particularly the accelerating progress
made during and following the United Nations (UN) Decade for Women (1976–85).
For this purpose, feminist governance is defined as the adoption and
implementation of policies directed towards achieving gender equality,
including: ● the creation of international law, institutions, and norms,
including policies and platforms ● the development and dissemination of
mechanisms such as gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting Although
the agenda-setting role of civil society organisations is acknowledged, primacy
is given here to the role of the United Nations (UN), along with other
transnational and regional sources of governance norms. Thanks to feminist
advocacy, from the beginning in 1945, the UN Charter recognised the equal rights
of men and women, including as UN employees (Article 8).
BOX 1.1 UN CONVENTIONS AND DECLARATIONS ON WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS 1948: Universal
Declaration of Human Rights affirms that the rights and freedoms it contains
apply to everyone without distinction, including sex 1952: Convention on the
Political Rights of Women 1957: Convention on the Nationality of Married Women
1962: Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and
Registration of Marriage 1966: International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights form the
International Bill of Human Rights 1967: Declaration on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women 1979: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women The principal and original UN organ responsible for
advancing the status of women is the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
established by the Economic and Social Council in 1946 and an independent
functional commission from 1947. It has been integral in drafting 14
Timeline of feminist governance 15 the conventions on women that preceded the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), providing a forum for advocacy, action and coordination. It was also
responsible for the coordination of four UN world conferences on women.
BOX 1.2 UN WORLD CONFERENCES ON WOMEN • • • •
Mexico City (1975) Copenhagen (1980) Nairobi (1985) Beijing (1995)
At the fourth UN women’s conference, the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted
by 189 countries. It covers 12 critical areas, including gender mainstreaming
and special measures to increase women’s participation in public
decision-making. The Beijing Platform established a series of five-yearly
reviews. Considerable effort has been put into protecting its normative gains,
including in highly contested areas such as reproductive rights.
BOX 1.3 UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS ON WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY The UN
Security Council passes a series of resolutions on gender-based violence, the
role of women and the gender dimensions of peace processes, conflict resolution,
peacekeeping and peacebuilding. • • • • • • • • • •
Resolution 1325 (2000) Resolution 1820 (2009) Resolution 1888 (2009) Resolution
1889 (2010) Resolution 1960 (2011) Resolution 2106 (2013) Resolution 2122 (2013)
Resolution 2242 (2015) Resolution 2467 (2019) Resolution 2493 (2019)
Following debates on UN reform, all arms of UN women’s machinery were brought
together into a single organisation. In 2010, the General Assembly established
UN Women – Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, drawing together the UN
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women
(DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN
International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women
(UN-INSTRAW).
16 Handbook of feminist governance Internationally, the Millennium Development
Goals in 2000 and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 have sought to
pursue gender goals and indicators. These sets of goals have influenced aid
donors and recipients, but also mobilised implementing bodies of the UN and
other international organisations and alliances, to adopt gender equality
principles, gender mainstreaming and capacity building in their programming.
This includes the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the International Foundation for Electoral
Systems (IFES), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),
the European Union (EU), the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States
(OAS), the African Union (AU), International IDEA and bilateral donors such as
USAID, SIDA, NORAD, CIDA and DFAT. Development programming by these institutions
and donors has played an important role in establishing standards and reporting
frameworks for the integration of gender equality into the governance of member
states and their development assistance programmes. Regional governance bodies
such as the OAS, the European Union and the African Union have become
increasingly important sites for the development, transmission and localisation
of gender equality norms. The Commonwealth and the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) have also played a role in providing
technical assistance and guidance in the development of both gender equality
policy, and in development programming in service of gender equality goals.
Timeline of feminist governance 17 Table 1.1
Timeline of feminist governance
Pre-1900 1878
International Congress of Women first meets. Subsequent international meetings
focus on suffrage and broader issues of women’s rights.
1910s 1911
International Women’s Day first celebrated.
1915
International Congress of Women (from which develops the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom) meets at the Hague and adopts 20 resolutions for
ending the Great War, many similar to the later 14-point peace plan adopted by
Woodrow Wilson.
1919
International Labour Organization (ILO) established. Two hundred women labour
reformers from 19 countries and three continents attend the International
Congress of Working Women to coincide with inaugural International Labour
Conference. The ILO passes including the Night Work Convention and the
Childbirth Convention. At the Paris Peace Conference: Women’s groups advocate
for women’s presence and are granted limited participation in ‘women’s issues’.
Women’s groups present ‘The Women’s Charter’ seeking to make woman’s nationality
independent of her husband, demanding a ban on the trafficking of women and
girls and that women be afforded the same labour rights as men.
1920s 1920
League of Nations established. Article VII of the Covenant ensures women have
the right to work for the League on all levels, including in the Secretariat.
However, progress on establishing a ‘women’s bureau’, facilitating equal pay,
providing access to entrance exams or eliminating discrimination against married
women is very limited.
1921 1928
ILO passes Lead Paint Convention. (Americas) The Sixth International Conference
of American States establishes the Inter-American Commission of Women, the first
inter-governmental agency with a mandate to ensure recognition of women’s human
rights, with delegates from each member state.
1930s 1933
(Americas) Montevideo Pan-American Conference, the Equal Nationality Treaty, and
the Equal Rights Treaty.
1937
The League of Nations establishes a Committee of Experts on the Legal Status of
Women.
1940s 1944
An annex to the ILO Constitution affirms that all human beings, irrespective of
race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and
their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, economic
security and equal opportunity.
1945
United Nations Charter establishes the United Nations (UN). Among its purposes
is to promote and encourage ‘fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as
to race, sex, language or religion’. Women delegates successfully lobby for a
reference to the equal rights of men and women in the Charter.
1946
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is established as a subsidiary body
of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). The Division for the Advancement of
Women (DAW) was first established as the Section on the Status of Women, Human
Rights Division, Department of Social Affairs.
1947
CSW becomes an independent functional commission of the United Nations Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC).
1948
UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
recognising universal inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms. (Americas)
The Organization of American States (OAS) is established by Charter following
International
1949
Conferences of American States. UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic
in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. Establishment
of the modern Commonwealth of Nations (‘the Commonwealth’).
1950s
18 Handbook of feminist governance 1952
UN Convention on the Political Rights of Women codifies a basic international
standard for women’s political rights, including the right to vote, election to
all publicly elected bodies and the holding of public office and exercise of
public functions.
1957
UN Convention on the Nationality of Married Women. (Europe) European Economic
Community established by treaty, which includes the principle that men and women
should receive equal pay for equal work which becomes the basis of gender
equality policies for the EU.
1960s 1960
(Americas) The OAS agrees on the establishment of the Inter-American Commission
on Human Rights and notes the cooperative relationship with the Inter-American
Commission of Women, amongst others.
1962
UN Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration
of Marriages elaborates on Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights which calls for full and free consent of both parties to a marriage and
for states to specify a minimum age for marriage and to register marriages.
1963
Establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (precursor to the African
Union). No mention of women,
1965
Establishment of UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Commonwealth Secretariat.
gender equality or the establishment of women’s machinery. 1966
Adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
1967
General Assembly adopts a Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women amongst pressure from Soviet and Third World states and declares
discrimination an offence against human dignity.
1970s 1972
Proposal for an International Women’s Year at CSW.
1974
General Assembly’s Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in
Emergency and Armed Conflict.
1975
World Conference of the International Women’s Year held in Mexico City. UNGA30
adopts Resolution 3520 proclaiming 1976–85 to be the United Nations Decade for
Women. (Asia) First meeting of the ASEAN Standing Committee establishes the
ASEAN Sub-Committee on Women (ASW), which has been responsible for the
implementation of global plans of action.
1976
UNGA31 approves the programme for action for the Decade for Women and invites
action from member states and UN bodies. UNIFEM established as a voluntary fund
for the UN Decade for Women.
1979
The UN General Assembly adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women, which defines the meaning of discrimination
against women and establishes legal obligations for states parties to end
discrimination. Establishment of the UN International Research and Training
Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW).
1980s 1980
Second World Conference on Women held in Copenhagen.
1983
OECD DAC Guiding Principles to Aid Agencies for Supporting the Role of Women in
Development.
1984
Creation of UNIFEM as an independent arm of the UNDP with an explicit mandate to
promote the mainstreaming of gender issues across the full range of UN
activities. Its mandate was expanded in 1986 when it became the UN development
fund for women. World Bank includes its first explicit but not mandatory Women
in Development guidelines in its Operations Manual.
1985
Third World Conference on Women held in Nairobi, which adopts a five-year action
plan ‘Forward Looking Strategies for the advancement of women’ with movement
being made on violence against women and the introduction of principles of
gender mainstreaming. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) introduces a Women in
Development Policy, which emphasised financing programmes and women as a special
target group, including social infrastructure, agriculture, rural development
and small-scale industries. First Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers
meeting, in which ministers considered ways to empower women’s machineries to
ensure that government policies and programmes addressed the needs of women.
Timeline of feminist governance 19 1989
OECD DAC Policy Statement on Development Co-operation in the 1990s Guiding
Principles for Women in Development.
1990s 1991
The Commonwealth agrees on the Harare Commonwealth Declaration which sets
priorities for the 1990s and beyond with a strengthened emphasis on Commonwealth
contribution to democracy, human rights and equality.
1992
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ‘the Rio Summit’
outcome document ‘Agenda 21’ recognises women as a major group of interest and
integrates gender equality and women’s rights to environmental outcomes. The
1992 Dakar/Ngor Declaration on Population, Family and Sustainable Development
stated, inter alia, that population policies and programmes should be part of
sustainable development strategies. The IPU holds that democracy requires policy
and legislation to be decided upon jointly by men and women with equal regard
for each half of the population. Adopts a Plan of Action to ‘correct present
imbalances’. (Europe) The EU signs the Maastricht Treaty. (Africa) Heads of
state of countries throughout Southern Africa signed the Declaration and Treaty
of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). OECD DAC The Development
Assistance Manual which includes a section on Women in Development.
1993
The World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna recognises violence against
women as a human rights violation and calls for measures towards eliminating
such forms of violence. The UN General Assembly adopts the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women, which is the first international
instrument to address and define forms of violence and laying out a framework
for action globally. Radhika Coomaraswamy (Sri Lanka) is appointed as the first
Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
1994
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) outcome document
‘20-year ICPD Program of Action (Cairo Consensus)’ positions women’s empowerment
at the centre of development and places the right of women and couples to
control their own fertility at the centre of population policies and programmes.
The concept and commitment to sexual rights and reproductive health (SHRH) is
forged at this conference. (Americas) Inter-American Convention on The
Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women.
1995
The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women is held in September in
Beijing. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is unanimously adopted
by 189 countries, which outlines objectives and actions under 12 areas of
concern to advance women’s rights. Every five years since, global reviews have
taken place to evaluate progress and implementation gaps. (Europe) The Council
of Europe establishes a Group of specialists on gender mainstreaming under the
auspices of the Steering Committee for Equality between Women and Men.
International IDEA is established and becomes an important civil society partner
in the gender quota space. OECD DAC High Level Meeting adopts policy statement
‘Gender Equality: Moving Towards Sustainable, People-Centred Development’ which
will serve as a strategic objective for development cooperation.
1996
(Europe) The EU commits to Gender Mainstreaming.
1997
UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women
(OSAGI) established. ECOSOC adopts a resolution on gender mainstreaming.
(Europe) Member states sign the Treaty of Amsterdam which reinforces the
promotion of a high level of employment and equality between men and women as
key objectives and includes an article committing the community to ‘aim to
eliminate inequalities and to promote equality, between men and women’ in all
its activities. (Africa) SADC Heads of State and Government sign the SADC
Declaration on Gender and Development in September 1997, followed by its
Addendum on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women and
Children in September 1998.
20 Handbook of feminist governance 1998
States agree to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women (OP-CEDAW), an international treaty
which establishes complaint and inquiry mechanisms for CEDAW. The International
Criminal Court is established. The court has substantive jurisdiction over
sexual and gender-based violence and gender-based persecution, has
gender-sensitive rules of procedure and evidence and emphasis on gender balance.
(Europe) The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers adopt a Recommendation
on gender mainstreaming. (ASEAN) Declaration on the Advancement of Women in the
ASEAN Region. OECD DAC Guidelines for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in
Development Co-operation.
1999
(Africa) African Plan of Action to Accelerate the Implementation of the Dakar
and Beijing Platforms for Action for the Advancement of Women. The Framework for
the Integration of Women in APEC adopted and Ad Hoc Task Force for the
Integration of Women in APEC appointed and endorsed by APEC Trade Ministers.
2000s 2000
UN Millennium Declaration adopted from which eight goals to be achieved by 2015
(the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ or MDGs) are derived: Goals 3 (Gender
Equality) and 5 (Maternal Health) were specifically gender focused. The UN
Security Council passes Resolution 1325 recognising that war impacts women
differently and calls women to be a key part of the prevention, management and
resolution of conflicts. Resolution 1325 has been subsequently supported by
1820, 1888, 1960, 2106 and 2122. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (also referred to as the
Trafficking Protocol or UN TIP Protocol) as a protocol to the Convention against
Transnational Organised Crime is agreed. (Europe) The EU Charter of Fundamental
Rights signed in 2000 reinforces the prohibition of discrimination and the
obligation to ensure equality between women and men in all areas and releases
Community Framework on Gender Equality (2001–05). (Africa) The Constitutive Act
of the African Union is agreed. Article 4 (L) of the Constitutive Act of the
African Union stipulates that the Union will function in accordance with the
principle of gender equality. The African Union establishes a Women and Gender
Development Directorate. (Americas) The Organization of American States adopt
into their principal mandate Inter-American Program on Women’s Human Rights and
Gender Equity and Equality (IAP). OECD DAC submits a report on implementing the
DAC Gender Equality Goals to the United Nations Special Session ‘Women 2000:
Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the 21st Century’.
2001
(Europe) EU signs the Treaty of Nice.
2003
African Union adopts The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol,
which recognises the critical role of women in promoting inclusive development
and calls for the AU ‘to ensure the effective participation of women in
decision-making, particularly in the political, economic and socio-cultural
areas’. ADB releases its Policy on Gender and Development, to replace its former
Women in Development work (1985–96). International IDEA, Stockholm University
and the IPU establish the Global Data Base of Quotas.
2004
(EU) the Congress agrees to Resolution 176 (2004) and Recommendation 148 (2004)
on gender mainstreaming at local and regional level: a strategy to promote
equality between women and men in cities and regions. (Africa) The African Union
releases the ‘Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa’. (ASEAN)
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the ASEAN Region.
2005
(Africa) African Union agrees on a Charter on Women. ASEAN Work Plan for Women’s
Advancement and Gender Equality (2005–10).
Timeline of feminist governance 21 2006
UN Chief Executives Board (UNCEB) establishes UN system-wide policy on gender
equality and empowerment of women. The UN Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study on
All Forms of Violence against Women is released, the first comprehensive report
on the issue. High Level Panel releases ‘Delivering as One’ report identifies
gender as a cross-cutting issue, proposing reform to accord women a stronger
voice and recommended the establishment of a single body to deal with issues of
gender. Secretary-General presented the report A/64/588, entitled Comprehensive
Proposal for the Composite Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of
Women. ASEAN Work Plan to Operationalise the Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women (2006–10). The Commonwealth revises its conditions of
membership and including a commitment to ‘equality of opportunity’.
2007
(Europe) EU signs the Treaty of Lisbon. (Africa) SADC Council of Ministers adopt
the SADC Gender Policy.
2008
UN Security Council Resolution 1820 recognises that sexual violence can be
categorised as a war crime, calls for protection from violence in refugee and
displaced person camps and affirms the need for women’s full participation in
peace building processes. (Africa) SADC Heads of State and Government signed and
adopted the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in August 2008, except for
Botswana and Mauritius. (Americas) Statute of the Inter-American Commission of
Women agreed which sets out the current objectives and functions of the
Commission which includes the protection and promotion of women’s rights.
2009
(Africa) African Union gender policy released.
2010s 2010
General Assembly creates the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment
of Women (UN Women) to accelerate progress on meeting the needs of women and
girls. This merges the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for
the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender
Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the
Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW). The 15-year review of the Beijing Platform
for Action. OECD launches its Gender Initiative that focuses beyond development.
EU The European Commission adopts a Women’s Charter. African Union launches
African Women’s Decade. ASEAN establishes the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion
and Protection of the Rights of Women (ACWC) and makes the Ha Noi Declaration on
the Enhancement of the Welfare and Development of ASEAN Women and Children.
2011
UN Human Rights Council adopts the first UN resolution on sexual orientation and
gender identity. The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating
violence against women and domestic violence became the second legally binding
regional instrument on violence against women and girls but, unlike other
regional agreements, it can be signed and ratified by any State. ASEAN ASW Work
Plan (2011–15). The Commonwealth celebrates Commonwealth Day, with the theme of
women as agents of change.
2012
UN General Assembly passes a resolution to ban female genital mutilation.
UN-SWAP established, which serves as an accountability framework for gender
equality and women’s empowerment across the UN system. OECD All on Board for
Inclusive Growth initiative launched. IPU adopts Plan of Action for
Gender-Sensitive Parliaments. G20 Leaders make the Los Cabos Declaration, which
committed to tackling the barriers to women’s full economic and social
participation and to expanding opportunities for women in their countries.
Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Gender Equality Declaration is attached to the
Forum Leaders Communique, including a commitment to the articles of CEDAW.
22 Handbook of feminist governance 2013
ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Elimination
of Violence Against Children. ADB releases a Tool Kit on Gender Equality Results
and Indicators and Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Operational Plan. The
Commonwealth agrees on the Commonwealth Charter, which includes as a core value,
a commitment to gender equality.
2014
G20 summit leaders pledge to reduce the gap in participation rates between men
and women by 25 per cent by 2025. IFES releases Gender Equality and Election
Management Bodies: a best Practices Guide.
2015
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are agreed, including standalone Goal
Five on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. OECD releases its
Recommendation of the Council on Gender Equality in Public Life and a Toolkit
for Gender Equality in Governance. The Secretary General of the OECD releases 21
FOR 21, which enumerates the ways in which improving gender equality and closing
the gender gap will be a focus for the OECD in 2016–21. The African Union
introduces Agenda 2063, which includes at Aspiration 6, a commitment to
development that recognises women. UN Women releases the UN ‘Global Study’ of
the 15-Year Implementation of Resolution 1325. Women 20 (W20) is established as
an official G20 engagement group.
2016
The EU signs the Charter of Fundamental Rights which guarantees ‘Equality
between women and men must be ensured in all areas, including employment, work
and pay’. The EU adopts its Gender Action Plan (GAP) II 2016–20. ASEAN releases
its Regional Plan of Action on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, ASEAN
Regional Plan of Action on the Elimination of Violence Against Children and the
ASEAN Committee on Women Work Plan 2016–20. The Commonwealth makes the
Commonwealth Kigali Declaration to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced
marriage in the Commonwealth. At the 11th Commonwealth Women Affairs Ministers’
meeting the communique sets out four priorities on gender equality: women’s
economic empowerment, women in leadership, ending violence against women and
girls and gender and climate change. On Commonwealth Day, it celebrates ‘an
Inclusive Commonwealth’.
2017
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres launches a new System-wide Strategy on
Gender Parity. EU agrees the 2017 European Consensus on Development which
commits the EU and its member states to a strong gender focus in its development
work. OECD releases The Pursuit of Gender Equality – An Uphill Battle, which
discusses progress in gender equality in education, employment, entrepreneurship
and public life. It notes overall slow progress. ASEAN Heads of Government Adopt
Joint Statement on Promotion of Women, Peace and Security, and ASEAN releases
the Declaration on the Gender-Responsive Implementation of the ASEAN Community
Vision 2025 and Sustainable Development Goals. The Commonwealth releases the
Commonwealth Secretariat Strategic Plan, notes three cross-cutting outcomes, of
which Gender Mainstreaming is one.
2018
African Union releases its Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Strategy
(2018–28). The Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls
brings together governments, civil society organisations, communities and other
partners to promote gender equality, prevent violence against women and girls
(VAWG), and increase access to quality response services for survivors. G7
Advisory Group on Gender Equality established. The EU launches the Strategic
Approach to the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
Timeline of feminist governance 23 2019
In preparation for CSW64 in 2020 and Beijing 25+ Platform for Action
(Beijing+25) review, a series of national-level reviews of progress, regional
25-year review processes at regional intergovernmental meetings and parallel NGO
forums are held. The 12th Commonwealth Women Affairs Ministers’ meeting focused
on tracking progress on the four Commonwealth gender priorities by member states
present, priorities for significant review years and released a technical paper
on progress. The Commonwealth Secretariat released a Gender Equality Policy.
2020
The EU adopts the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–25 and the Gender Action Plan
(GAP) III 2021–25. CSW64 is delivered at a small scale with a political
declaration being made to commemorate Beijing 25+ due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
OECD High-Level Conference on Ending Violence Against Women. UN
Secretary-General releases policy brief: the impact of Covid-19 on women.
PART I THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
2. Feminist organisational principles Kaitlin Kelly-Thompson, Fernando
Tormos-Aponte and S. Laurel Weldon
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we trace the development of feminist
organisational concepts and practices, drawing out ten distinct principles of
governance. We begin by sketching feminist concepts of power and empowerment,
before turning to a discussion of how feminist theory and practice have worked
together to offer models of intersectional, postcolonial organising. These
models aim to offset the distorting effect of power on deliberation and to
counter the silencing and marginalisation of subaltern groups.
POLITICS, POWER AND EMPOWERMENT Traditional approaches to politics in political
science emphasise distributive considerations, as in ‘who gets what, when, how’
(Lasswell, 1936) or the authoritative allocation of value (Easton, 1953).
Feminist approaches to politics encompass not only these issues of distributive
justice, but also questions of power and empowerment, with distinctive
approaches to both concepts. Feminist understanding of power is rooted in the
idea of gender, a constellation of institutions that defines categories of sex
and identity. Gender systems assign bodies to these categories, creating social
groups. A particular gender regime empowers and elevates some groups and
characteristics and excludes and undercuts others. The gender systems in place
in most of the world elevate categories, groups and characteristics associated
with men and the masculine and devalue women, the feminine and other categories,
identities and characteristics that fall outside the binary schema which so
dominate contemporary gender politics. The first principle of feminist
organising is that it foregrounds gender as an axis of power and works to
counter oppressive gendered power structures. Other principles of feminist
organising flow from this feminist approach to gender and power. Power and
gender are not features of bodies or individuals but, rather, are an aspect of
social organisation. Power names a relationship between groups, defined by
institutional structures that constrain and enable agents to do particular types
of things. Power relations are maintained and sustained by daily interactions at
the micro level as individuals reinforce norms, rules and laws through their
compliance. Power is positional, not fungible, not a substance or amount that
can be easily transferred (Lloyd, 2013; Young, [1990] 2011). Power works through
bodies, though it is not a ‘thing’ a person can give away or hold: a person
cannot renounce their gender, race or class privilege or transfer it to others.
Feminists expand the notion of the political to encompass the working of social,
political and economic institutions that create gendered, raced and classed
hierarchies. The feminist slogan ‘the personal is the political’ reflects the
feminist analysis of power as operating in 25
26 Handbook of feminist governance seemingly ‘private’ or informal contexts as
well as in public and formal proceedings (Enloe, 1983). It operates through
norms and social identities, through bodies, and not just through explicit
efforts to influence power (Cochrane, 1999; Khagram et al., 2002; Locher and
Prügl, 2001). Power works through – and can be resisted – not just at the ballot
box, but also inside patriarchal institutions such as the Church, military and
family (Katzenstein, 1990, 1998; Okin, 1989).1 These institutional structures
combine to create a ‘matrix of domination’ (Collins, 1990). Oppression names the
condition in which a social group, like women, is confined by a cage-like
constellation of norms, laws and social practices (Frye, 1983; Young, [1990]
2011). Feminists identified gender as a form of oppression early on, but
oppression may take many forms, characterising, for example, distinct aspects of
racial or class injustice. Oppression is multifaceted, multidimensional and
intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989; Young, [1990] 2011). Conversely, feminist
struggles against injustice are inspired by the ‘anti-oppression’ principle,
which commits activists to opposing oppression in all its forms (hooks, 2000).
This does not mean that these structures and relationships of power cannot be
changed. They can: through collective action. Just as individual actions
cumulate into broad societal patterns that constitute institutions and norms,
people organise together to challenge or subvert these broader institutions and
norms by refusing to comply, by proposing alternative, rival norms and rules to
follow (Enloe, 1996; Weldon, 2019). When people en masse refuse to follow the
rules, the laws and norms lose – or at least begin to lose – their purchase. For
example, when women telephone operators in Boston held a strike in 1913 against
their bifurcated workday they were able to effectively disrupt communications
throughout the region, leading to an increased valuation of their labour
(Deutsch, 2000). Such organised action reflects empowerment, namely ‘the
development of a sense of collective influence over the social conditions of
one’s life. … includes both personal empowerment and collective empowerment and
suggests that the latter is a condition of the former’ (Young, 1997: 89). Such
collective action is complicated by the ways that axes of social domination
intersect each other, making the concept of intersectionality very important for
understanding not only the operation of power but also the strategies of
resistance and struggles for change (Ackerly and True, 2008; Crenshaw, 1989).
For example, women’s movements in the United States have had to confront
relations of racial domination among women (hooks, 2000; Roth, 2004), and the
civil rights movement in the United States, a movement for racial justice, was
riven by class and gender as well as race (Simien, 2011). Feminists of colour
writing in political science have insisted on the centrality of power to ideas
of intersectionality, and vice versa (Alexander-Floyd, 2012; Bilge, 2013).
Although solidarity among oppressed groups is critical to change, to their power
and empowerment, it remains difficult to achieve (Einwohner et al., 2021; Rai,
2017). Feminist organisations and practices of governance grow out of these
struggles for justice (see Lambert et al., Chapter 9 in this Handbook), and
feminist organisational principles reflect this origin.
EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE This
feminist notion of power not only expands the spheres of the political, it also
grounds political analysis (and knowledge) in the experiences and bodies of
women (de Beauvoir,
Feminist organisational principles 27 1972; Young, 2005). Women’s bodies and
experiences are shaped, enabled and constrained by racialised, class-based norms
of what is appropriately feminine, from dress to the movement of women’s bodies
(McMillam Cottom, 2019; Young, 2005). These messages encourage women and girls
to be their bodies’ own disciplinarians, to control their bodies through diet,
exercise, dress and the like in order to ensure that their bodies are not
unruly, uncontrolled symbols of desire (Bordo, 2003; Gay, 2017, 2018). This
policing of bodies shapes the political sphere. Powerful bodies are expected to
conform to particular standards of masculinity, and national, racial and/or
ethnic identity (Rai, 2014). For example, Indian parliamentarians are expected
to perform a particular form of Indian national identity through clothing and
speech while within the walls of parliament (Rai, 2014). Likewise, French
Housing Minister Cécile Duflot was cat-called when she dared to give a speech to
the National Assembly in a feminine floral dress. Women’s bodies are disciplined
in order to gain access to political power. These boundaries are often
maintained through violence as the burgeoning research on violence against women
in politics shows (Krook, 2017). Feminist activists have found ways to use these
gendered expectations about bodies to build power and create change. Most
obviously, activists have used nakedness as a political tactic to attract
attention (as when FEMEN protesters used toplessness to protest violence against
women in France, or in the protest-tactic in the oil-rich parts of Nigeria to
protest kidnapping, occupation by troops or other problematic government actions
or policies), or writing on their bodies to protest abortion regulations (as in
the Netherlands). More subtly, feminist activists from the suffragettes to the
Women’s March have used embodied protest as an avenue to disrupt
taken-for-granted assumptions about who is and can be a political actor by
actively claiming public space. By physically and collectively occupying public
space – a space from which women’s bodies ought to be excluded – women use
collective action to challenge gender norms and assert legitimacy as political
actors (Kelly-Thompson, 2020; Parkins, 2000). Unruly bodies have radical
potential when they break from gendered expectations (Butler, 1993; Parkins,
2000). Women’s embodied experiences form the basis for both feminist
epistemology and political organising. For example, the influential (but now
less frequently invoked) model of consciousness-raising is a technique for
developing political analysis based on personal experiences, most prominently
used by feminists in the 1970s (Morgan, [1984] 2016). The method involves
personal testimony that describes one’s feelings and experiences in a shared and
supportive context. These shared experiences are discussed in terms of their
connection to broader patterns of both power and privilege as a method for
building collective feminist knowledge (Morgan, [1984] 2016; Sarachild, 1975).
As the Combahee River Collective ([1977] 1995: 232) expresses it: The most
general statement of our politics … would be that we are actively committed to
struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see
as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based
upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The
synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As Black
women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the
manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of colour face.
While the roots of consciousness-raising are often located in the so-called
second wave and seen as a model used mainly in the past, contemporary movements
such as Ni Una Menos and #MeToo encourage a contemporary form of
consciousness-raising using both online and
28 Handbook of feminist governance in-person organising to create shared
knowledge around women’s experiences with femicide and violence (Friedman and
Rodriguez Gusta, 2020; Friedman and Tabbush, 2016). This form of knowledge
production centres women’s lived experiences as a basis for a better
understanding of power dynamics. Using deliberation and collective action that
links personal experience to political action is central to the idea of
empowerment that informs feminist approaches to governance. For feminists,
empowerment is linked to collective action whereby individual actions cumulate
to constitute a challenge to power, a disruption to business as usual. Effective
challenges to structures of power will be collective, working at a macro level,
rather than individual, even if these macro strategies work through the
transformation of a multitude of individual actions (Enloe, 1996; Young, 1997).
These challenges to power are a collective phenomenon, requiring collective
action on a wide array of dimensions to counter oppression and domination.
Empowerment encompasses both the individual-level dimensions of increased agency
and political awareness and the broader efforts to secure the societal
conditions that make individual agency possible and meaningful (Lloyd, 2013;
Mansbridge, 2001; Weldon, 2019; Young, 1997). The smooth operation of
bureaucratic, social, political and economic systems depends on women’s
compliance (Enloe, 1996). If they organise, women can use their collective power
in these realms to make a difference. The connective tissue of such collective
efforts can inhere in social networks that may not appear to be oriented towards
the state but towards social, economic, cultural and community activities
(Weldon, 2004), again pointing to the importance of a broad understanding of
what constitutes ‘political’ activity. Organisational principles may challenge
norms of governance that are implicit or taken for granted or thought of as
private and personal and beyond the organisational purview, issues of time,
relations or responsibilities for care work, or even how one wears one’s hair or
other aspects of appearance (Brown and Lemi, 2021; see also Chapter 9 in this
Handbook). This embodied understanding of knowledge and power also grounds a
politics of presence, the idea that women must be present to represent
themselves, a principled commitment to descriptive representation. This politics
of presence, however, stands in some tension with the feminist commitment to
acknowledging women’s diversity, especially when that diversity is the basis for
relations of oppression or domination among women. How can the presence of a
white, middle-class woman, for example, speaking from her own experience, help
to represent or understand relations of racial or class domination? How can
women from the Global North speak, on the basis of their own experience, for all
women globally? Below we describe the ways that feminist organising has taken up
these challenges and tensions.
UNIVERSALISM, GLOBAL FEMINISM AND TRANSNATIONAL FEMINISM: POSTCOLONIAL
PERSPECTIVES At the same time that feminists were developing accounts of
knowledge and power that linked them so closely to women’s bodies and
experiences – grounding them in local contexts and personal experiences –
cross-national, global connections between feminists grew in intensity and
frequency and the influence of these networks grew in the late 1980s and 1990s
(Friedman, 2017; Paxton et al., 2006). Global feminism emphasised the
universality of women’s position on the bottom of the sex hierarchy (MacKinnon,
1989; Morgan, [1984] 2016). It emphasised
Feminist organisational principles 29 the ubiquity of violence against women,
exclusion from political office and a lack of reproductive freedom as
universally shared elements of women’s global oppression (Morgan, [1984] 2016;
Bunch, 1990). The particularism and localism that is grounded in feminist
phenomenology might seem to stand in tension with feminist impulses towards
universalism, with movement identities that emphasise women as women, and global
feminism. Indeed, just as these universalist ideas about women’s human rights
were finding expression in powerful human rights instruments such as the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW), feminist activists and scholars began identifying sources of gender
trouble, showing the ways that the experiences of women of colour, LGBTQ+
people, Indigenous women and differently abled women (among others) did not
conform to a single shared experience (Butler, 1993; Crenshaw, 1989; Wendell,
1996). These observations went beyond the idea that the gender binary failed to
capture the experiences of the vast majority of women and men – the issue was
not just difference. It was also about power relations among women: women had
divergent and even conflicting interests as women. Some challenges to the
universalising impulses of feminist theory came from feminists writing from the
standpoint of the Global South, who pointed out the persistence of the global
domination of former imperial powers, and the ways that contemporary feminist
theory unwittingly reproduced a colonial stance with respect to Third World
women (Mohanty, 2003; Narayan, 2013). Scholars of feminism in the Global South
documented the long history of women’s organising for national independence and
women’s rights (Jayawardena, [1987] 2016). Southern women did not need northern
feminists to ‘save brown women from brown men’ (Spivak, 1988). Contemporary
feminist theorists link gender justice to a broader process of decolonisation,
including the decolonisation of feminist theory and practice (Deer, 2015;
Mohanty, 2003). Global feminism continues to influence feminist politics – for
example, in its influence on the women’s rights machinery of the United Nations
(Walby, 2011) – but most feminist theorists and activists have moved away from
the idea of global feminism towards an idea of transnational feminism (Adams and
Thomas, 2010; Moghadam, 2005). Many feminists in the Global South have organised
regional or cross-regional meetings, such as the encuentros in Latin America,
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) in the MENA region, and Development
Alternatives for a New Era (DAWN) (Adams, 2006; Moghadam, 2005). This model of
feminist practice aims to forge a more limited, practical solidarity. At the
Third World Conference on Women at Nairobi in 1985, feminist activists began to
develop a model for transnational feminist collaboration that emphasised
inclusivity and political pragmatism as the bases for feminist organising:
feminists aimed to put intersectionally marginalised women at the centre of the
leadership and agenda, working in coalitions on a case-by-case basis to find
areas of shared commitment rather than assuming these flowed naturally from a
shared identity (Weldon, 2006). The commitment to specifically transnational
rather than national feminisms signals a move beyond interests rooted in the
nation state system, with all its colonial baggage (Lu, 2017; Moghadam, 2005).
Indeed, the very idea of activism as ‘border crossing’, as challenging national
divisions, animates much contemporary feminist practice. For example, a caravan
of feminist activists from several East African countries came together in a
united trip to Kilimanjaro to highlight land rights issues in the region. The
border crossing was a deliberate effort to draw attention to issues that
transcended the specific location in which they occurred.
30 Handbook of feminist governance Similarly, in El Paso, feminist activists
braided hair together across the United States (US)– Mexico border to symbolise
cross-border solidarity (Kelly-Thompson et al., 2020). These ideas have
developed into a model of transversal, intersectional solidarity, one that
informs feminist organising (Hancock, 2016; Yuval-Davis, 2006). We turn to these
models below.
INTERSECTIONAL SOLIDARITY Feminist organising has come to see intersectional
solidarity as a way of building politically powerful coalitions whilst
simultaneously addressing the ways that difference overlaps with domination, so
that axes of global, racial and sexual difference define groups of women with
distinct and even conflicting interests as women. But what does intersectional
solidarity mean in terms of political practice? Intersectionality is the idea
that societal axes of oppression cross-cut and intertwine in complex ways
defining distinct lived experiences and perspectives, focusing initially on how
race, ethnicity and gender combined to oppress Black women. Intersectionality
emerged as a political project in both academic and activist spaces, seeking to
challenge the suppression and erasure of Black and Mestiza theorising and praxis
in intellectual and social movement spaces (Combahee River Collective, [1977]
1995). Early proponents of intersectionality developed the concept to locate
policy silences and neglect of groups at the intersection of interlocking
systems of oppression (Crenshaw, 1989), especially Black women in the US. (For
more on intersectionality, see Townsend-Bell (Chapter 7) and D’Agostino (Chapter
28) in this Handbook.) Activists and policymakers all over the world have taken
up the concept of intersectionality, and many activists have used the concept to
inform their approach to organising social movements (Chan-Tiberghien, 2004;
Falcón, 2016; Symington, 2004; Yuval-Davis, 2006). Although scholars are
increasingly interested in examining the ways in which movements enact
intersectional solidarity (Montoya and Galvez Seminario, 2022; Tormos-Aponte,
2019), they have been slower to take up the concept (Irvine et al., 2019; Liu,
2017). The emerging literature on intersectionality still decentres Black and
Mestiza feminism and lived experiences (Beaman and Brown, 2019) and overlooks
the intellectual labour of Black intellectuals (Alexander-Floyd, 2018).
Activists who seek to take an intersectional approach to organising have looked
at various forms of coalition building and solidarity more generally as an
organisational expression of a commitment to gender justice (Cho et al., 2013;
Collins and Chepp, 2013). Intersectional solidarity is an ‘ongoing process of
creating ties and coalitions across social group differences by negotiating
power asymmetries’ (Tormos, 2017: 712). It resists exclusionary solidarity
(Ferree and Roth, 1998) and avoids essentialist, biological, static and additive
notions of identity (Hancock, 2007). Movements can develop an intersectional
consciousness to inform their praxis. Intersectional consciousness refers to an
awareness of the dynamic interactions between social structures and their
government of social group power relations (Tormos-Aponte and Ferrer-Núñez,
2020). This consciousness can emerge at the individual and collective level
(Cole, 2008; Curtin et al., 2015; Greenwood, 2008; Irvine et al., 2019;
Tormos-Aponte, 2019). This consciousness can inform intersectional praxis, which
refers to ‘organizing approaches that movements adopt to negotiate inter-group
power asymmetries and steps that movements and organizers take to
Feminist organisational principles 31 transform intersectional forms of
oppression’ (Tormos-Aponte, 2019; Tormos-Aponte and Ferrer-Núñez, 2020). Working
to counter power in organising means advancing critical diversity, diversity
defined as emphasising social difference when doing so works to reveal the
domination of some groups in discussion, politics and so on – a kind of analytic
affirmative action, or affirmative representation as a principle of organising
(Einwohner et al., 2021; Strolovitch, 2007). Specific practices include ensuring
representation of marginalised groups in leadership, foregrounding symbols and
discourse of marginalised groups in movement materials, and giving extra weight
to issues raised by marginalised groups in discussions. These principles of
organisation reflect an understanding of political intersectionality as
undergirding solidarity along gender lines, an understanding of gender groups as
context-specific coalitions, not essential identities (Crenshaw, 1989; Young,
2005). Social movements can adopt a series of measures to enact an
intersectional approach to building solidarity. First, they can ensure that they
recognise the importance and presence of intersectionally marginalised groups in
their symbols and discourse. Second, they can ensure that intersectionally
marginalised social groups are present – descriptively represented – in movement
leadership and other movement-defining deliberations (Tormos-Aponte, 2019;
Weldon, 2006). Third, they can prioritise the issues of intersectionally
marginalised groups in movement agendas, a technique of affirmative
representation (Strolovitch, 2007). Movements vary in the specific identity
categories they use or emphasise as they organise to enact intersectionality
(Luna, 2016; Townsend-Bell, 2011; Tormos Aponte and Ferrer-Núñez, 2020). For
instance, Townsend-Bell (2011) describes how the relative salience of different
identity categories varies across geographies and organising contexts. Further,
movement deliberations may shape the relevance of certain identity categories
over others. These contextual social group dynamics and activist deliberations
about identity inform movement agendas, structures, discourses and strategies.
AUTONOMY AS A PRINCIPLE OF FEMINIST ORGANISING These models of feminist
organising implicitly rely on the ability of different groups of women to
organise and articulate their distinctive viewpoints. In practice, progressive
organisations of all types use caucuses and other forms of autonomous organising
for marginalised groups to facilitate the articulation of particular viewpoints.
This practice flows not only from the consciousness-raising model of feminist
mobilisation, but also from the recognition that power can subvert movement
discussions in the absence of spaces dedicated to the expression of subaltern
voices. For this reason, feminist organising has long emphasised the importance
of autonomy (Hassim, 2009; Molyneux, 1998; Ray and Korteweg, 1999; Tripp, 2001;
Weldon, 2002, 2011). Autonomous women’s communities, counter-publics, have
always played an important role for feminism, and shaped the relationship to
state (and governance). The concept, however, has sometimes been confused with
the Marxist debates about autonomy from the state. Autonomy of feminist
movements has been taken to be more than this, to reflect autonomy from male
dominated organisations, not just the state (Molyneux, 1998; Weldon, 2002,
2011). Organisational autonomy is necessary to allow the articulation of a
distinctive feminist agenda. Initially, this insistence was related to an
analysis of gender as having primacy or
32 Handbook of feminist governance being the primary axis of oppression, but
this has given way to an acknowledgement that gender is a multidimensional
phenomenon, and that gender oppression cannot be disentangled from race, class
and sexual identity (Townsend-Bell, 2012; Weldon, 2006). Organisational
autonomy, for example, proved important for the development of lesbian and queer
feminisms in Latin America as they sought to articulate their perspectives in
the context of the feminist Encuentros, the regional meetings of feminist
activists that have been organised since the 1980s (Alvarez et al., 2002). The
insistence on organisational autonomy as a mechanism for countering the
influence of power on deliberation, however, has continued to guide feminist
organising practice and models of governance.
CONCLUSION: EMPOWERING GOVERNANCE, RESISTING GOVERNMENTALITY If governance is
defined as the way that collectives manage their common affairs, as ‘a
continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be
accommodated and cooperative action may be taken’ (Our Global Neighborhood,
cited in Keping, 2018: 3), then feminist theory and practice emphasise some
model practices for inclusive governance aimed at strengthening solidarity, even
if actual feminists typically fall short of these ideals in practice. Governance
includes both formal and informal rules and arrangements (for more on feminist
models of governance, see Chapter 9 in this Handbook). Feminist principles of
political governance include such organisational rules as: 1. Inclusion of
gender as a (not the) primary axis of political organising and analysis; an
organisation that pays no attention to gender justice cannot be said to be
feminist. 2. Inclusion of axes of oppression and domination beyond gender,
including race, ethnicity, sexuality and imperialism. 3. A broad understanding
of the political, meaning, appropriate topics and practices around which to
mobilise politically and to contest, including seemingly personal issues such as
appearance, sexuality, sexual identity and other seemingly intimate issues. 4.
An organisational structure (e.g. caucuses) that facilitates and enables
separate organising and expression of distinctive points of view of marginalised
gender groups (e.g. women of colour, LGBTQ+ people, poor women) and even
subgroups within those groups (poor women of colour; LGBTQ+ people of colour).
5. An organisational structure that privileges the issues and perspectives
generated by caucuses or other organisational mechanisms dedicated to developing
subaltern perspectives. 6. An organisational structure that formalises processes
of articulating dissent. 7. Descriptive representation for marginalised groups
(including women, people of colour, diverse sexual identities and orientations,
people of various nationalities or no nationality, etc.), especially in
leadership, ideally in highly visible and powerful positions. 8. Attention to
the power of symbols and representation in official discourse, ensuring that
these represent marginalised groups. 9. Efforts to form coalitions with
like-minded groups to further social, political and economic transformations.
10. Political organising that confounds and disrupts oppressive institutional
practices, from borders to market imperatives.
Feminist organisational principles 33 These principles reflect a feminist
understanding of empowerment, one that stands in opposition to ideas of
neoliberal governmentality, that is, an idea of empowerment of ‘investing in
oneself’ that ultimately emphasises self-regulation in conformity with the
values of market hegemony. By emphasising collective action and working against
oppression and domination in all its forms, feminist activists offer a model of
governance that resists such governmentality.
NOTE 1.
This section draws on Weldon (2019).
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3. Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism: an
overview Lisa Guido, Lindsay Walsh and Lee Ann Banaszak
INTRODUCTION Feminist institutional approaches have provided methodological
tools to analyse development and change in the gendered nature of political
institutions. This chapter discusses the ways that feminist institutional
approaches give us purchase on understanding feminist governance, at local,
national and international levels. Feminist governance – those formal and
informal processes of government developing from or inspired by women’s
movements – can challenge existing hierarchical institutional processes that
vest power in a limited group, and can alter the nature of gendered
institutions, providing new avenues for feminist policy change, and creating
more diverse and inclusive political institutions. Our chapter begins with a
discussion of the concept of feminist institutionalism, exploring its
contributions to our understanding of feminist governance and feminist
governance development. Taking a feminist institutional approach, we discuss
some of the pathways to feminist governance and some of the ways that feminist
governance has changed over time. We also examine how intersectional feminist
theorising relates to feminist institutionalism. To explore these topics in
further detail, we provide brief overviews of three institutional sources of
feminist governance – sex/gender quotas, gender policy machineries and gender
mainstreaming. We focus on how feminist institutionalism provides us with better
understanding of these institutions and their impacts. We conclude the chapter
by discussing the implications of this analysis for the future of feminist
institutional research and feminist governance.
FEMINIST INSTITUTIONALIST APPROACHES AND FEMINIST GOVERNANCE While analyses of
existing institutions from a feminist perspective are as old as feminism itself,
in the last two decades feminist institutionalism has been developed as a
specific disciplinary method for understanding the gendered nature of
institutions (Kenny, 2007; Krook and Mackay, 2011; Lowndes, 2020; Mackay et al.,
2010). This approach draws on feminist analyses of the gendered nature of
existing hierarchies, power relations, norms and rules, as well as on
non-gendered institutional approaches that examine institutional change and
stability through path dependencies (Pierson, 1996), critical junctures
(Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007), institutional layering (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010)
and norm change (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). Feminist institutional approaches
thereby provide better understandings of institutions by revealing and
explaining their gendered nature. In so doing, they also provide the means for
understanding how feminist governance develops over time and can survive and
thrive within 38
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism 39
otherwise patriarchal structures. Feminist institutionalism also gives us
purchase on how and whether feminist movements may influence those institutions.
Feminist institutionalism is defined as an analytical approach that prioritises
gender as a significant factor in understanding the creation, evolution and
change of institutions, and prioritises institutional analyses where
institutions are defined as the gendered formal and informal rules of the game
(Hawkesworth, 2003; Mackay, 2011). Many of the authors in this volume utilise
feminist institutionalism to explore the rise of and the influences on feminist
governance. To answer the question of how feminist governance develops over
time, the feminist institutional approach turns to a number of important change
agents. First and foremost, feminist movements and women’s movements more
generally have played important roles in creating the conditions for gendered
changes in political institutions. As agents for change, feminist movements,
feminist organisations and even individual feminist activists raise awareness
and encourage change in political and social institutions, even in geographic
areas far beyond where they are organised (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Towns, 2010).
Feminists also work from inside institutions to create change (Banaszak, 2010;
Chappell, 2003; Sawer, 1990). Such changes range from small changes such as
incorporating gender into different locations within the state to large demands
for the creation of gender policy agencies. Feminist governance is often spread
through international organisations – such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union
(Sawer, Chapter 12 this volume), the International Criminal Court (Chappell,
2016) and the UN Conferences on women (Goetz, Chapter 10 this volume; McBride
and Mazur, 2013; Rai, 2003), leading to the international spread of
institutional change. Second, feminist institutionalism focuses on illuminating
the ways gender assumptions, roles and norms serve to influence the development
of feminist governance. Feminist scholars have demonstrated how gendered norms
and beliefs constrain feminist governance, reducing the ability to achieve
changes in policy (Ferree, 2003) or governance structures (Kantola and Lombardo,
Chapter 24 this volume). While gendered norms and values are important in
influencing the development of feminist governance, other norms about the means
by which state institutions can and should be organised may influence the
development of gendered institutions as well. For example, Banaszak et al.
(2003) argue that the rise of neoliberalism influences how feminist governance
develops. For example, neoliberalism may manifest itself in the requirement for
specific organisational forms and the degree to which free market processes are
prioritised over feminist organisational processes. Third, feminist
institutionalism is also sensitive to the degree to which such changes are
constrained by the political context (Kenny and Verge, Chapter 6 this volume;
Mazur, 1996). This sensitivity to political context allows feminist scholars to
illuminate the partial and contingent nature of feminist governance, focusing on
the degree to which feminist institutions are only partially implemented within
larger state institutions. Feminist institutionalism also clarifies the
backsliding and counter-feminist institution building seen in many areas around
the world (Bashevkin, 1998). For example, Zaremberg (Chapter 33 this volume)
notes that although gender mainstreaming and feminist-friendly policies are
often a characteristic of left-wing governments, the specific ideological
constellations of some left-wing and conservative governments alter this
assumption in Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. Finally, incorporating
intersectional feminist scholarship into feminist institutionalism has the
potential to expand our understanding of a more inclusive feminist governance.
Feminist critiques of existing feminist institutionalism and feminist governance
include the idea that
40 Handbook of feminist governance these often prioritise the experiences of
privileged women (Townsend-Bell, Chapter 7 this volume) and ignore women of
colour, LGBTQIA+ populations and poor women. Explicitly intersectional feminist
institutionalist analyses may provide different perspectives on the degree to
which feminist governance thrives within states and also may alter our
understanding of the pathways to feminist governance. While some feminist
institutional scholarship has begun to address this (see e.g. Hearn et al.,
2016; Krook et al., 2009; Skjeie and Langsvasbråten, 2009; Squires, 2005;
Verloo, 2013), as we discuss throughout this chapter, there is considerable work
to be done to fully incorporate intersectional analyses into feminist
institutional approaches to feminist governance.
UNDERSTANDING FEMINIST GOVERNANCE DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE Institutional
reproduction, creation and change are difficult to differentiate, but it is
particularly the informal institutions and their interactions with formal
institutions that provide the tools to understand continuity and change
(Banaszak and Weldon, 2011; Mackay, 2011: 185). Informal institutions like
gender norms communicate important information about who should have power in
formal institutions and mediate the effects of formal institutions. This
relationship creates opportunities for change, particularly when formal and
informal institutions are in contradiction or conflict with one another
(Banaszak and Weldon, 2011; Waylen, 2014). Change also occurs because feminist
institutions are bounded within existing institutional, cultural and discursive
environments that may limit the form feminist institutions take, contradict
central feminist principles or alter feminist discourses in incongruous ways.
The pervasiveness of some cultural norms and practices also work against gender
equality, particularly within government institutions. Women have historically
been associated with femininity and the private sphere while men have been
associated with public, masculine pursuits. Norms and practices regarding the
policing of femininity and masculinity have created a culture that is resistant
to change (Chappell, 2016). Rules restricting women from working in certain
positions or at all reflected the culture and attitude shared by those in power.
With the help of political and judicial structures, these formal restrictions
were slowly lifted and women were granted more rights and freedom. These changes
generally happened slowly, with backsliding occurring at important points, and
did not eliminate informal rules and expectations about women. As such, they are
therefore labelled ‘drift’ institutional change. While drift is not likely to
produce more gender equitable institutions, because it is slow-moving, it allows
movement towards feminist governance when it is difficult to create new
institutions or rules, particularly when societal norms and practices oppose
such changes (Waylen, 2014). Alternatively, sometimes normative change occurs
that brings existing formal rules into question. For example, increasing
acceptance of gays and lesbians in the late 20th century resulted in a
questioning of the gendered rules about marriage. Formal and informal
institutions interact and affect political outcomes in ways that are gendered
because they are embedded in a structure of gender norms (Mackay, 2011). Gender
norms and other informal institutions are heavily ingrained in the fabric of
society and as such are not always noticed or recognised as gendered (Waylen,
2014). Political institutions produce, maintain and reproduce raced and gendered
experiences in their norms and practices (Hawkesworth, 2003). Feminist
governance challenges existing gender norms but acceptance
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism 41 of
larger institutional values and rules may limit or shape the paths of feminist
governance. For example, Lambert et al. (Chapter 9 this volume) describe the way
that established formal processes within government altered the feminist
Australian health care movement. Townsend-Bell (Chapter 7 this volume) and
Banaszak et al. (2003) similarly note that contradictions between neoliberal
state operations can limit opportunities for feminist change. For this reason,
opportunities to incorporate feminist governance and gender equality often come
at a time of broad restructuring within existing institutions or during critical
junctions such as the creation of new political institutions (Mackay, 2014).
Political devolution in the United Kingdom, for example, allows for the creation
of new legislatures in Scotland which could serve as new sites for feminist
interventions. However, every institution is created within the influence of
existing institutions resulting in long-lasting legacies being built into
institutional design (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010). In the example of UK
devolution, for example, the Westminster parliamentary system rests on a
masculinised public domain, separate from the private feminised domain of
personal affairs (Mackay, 2014). Even after the implementation of new processes
or the creation of new institutions, old and existing norms prevail. The legacy
of informal rules can both hinder and help the implementation of formal rule
changes (Waylen, 2014). Mackay (2014) uses the phrase ‘nested newness’ to
describe how new institutions are influenced by the legacies of old
institutions. This is understood to be a gendered concept because older
institutions that were once thought to be gender neutral are actually masculine.
Gender reforms are particularly difficult to implement because of the
‘stickiness’ of old rules, both formal and informal (Mackay, 2014). Sources of
Feminist Change As we have suggested above, a primary source of change in
feminist governance is women’s movements. Women’s movements initiate
institutional change in that they influence the way that state bureaucratic
structures function (Htun and Weldon, 2012; Mazur, 1996). Women’s movements also
are major drivers for changing informal norms and values (Banaszak and Ondercin,
2016), creating a pathway for the institution drift described above. Insider
feminist activists also provide opportunities to change policy and transform
state institutions from the inside (Banaszak, 2010; Bereni and Revillard, 2018;
Chappell, 2003; Sawer, 1990). This allows them to further the movement in
different parts of the state. Movements that push feminist ideals often
fluctuate among different ideological and strategic stances, sometimes leaning
toward a more moderate and accommodating relationship with state institutions
and other times toward autonomy or radicalism (Banaszak et al., 2003: 2). The
approach that the women’s movement takes generally depends on political
traditions and the political opportunity structure, including the degree to
which the state incorporates formal channels for civil society advocacy.
International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and intergovernmental
organisations (IGOs) also may initiate the institutional changes associated with
feminist governance because they measure and identify gender disparities and
spread awareness of these disparities throughout the international community.
These global perspectives promote understanding of the full dimensions of
inequalities such as women’s unpaid labour contributions (Staudt, 2018). INGOs
and IGOs often provide information about gender inequalities that act as
benchmarks and set standards that are then used to pressure states and initiate
institutional change (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). International organisations also
have the power and authority to
42 Handbook of feminist governance label discrimination against women a human
rights violation. The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) labels gender discrimination as a human
rights violation because it is ‘incompatible with the dignity of women as human
beings’. It also frames gender discrimination as hindering development efforts
and increasing poverty (Hawkesworth, 2012: 254). The UN’s 1995 Beijing World
Conference on Women outlined critical areas of concern and pressured state
institutions to strengthen national machineries for gender equality. It also
provided legitimacy for gender quota claims put forward by women’s organisations
(Dahlerup, 2008: 323). Finally, as we noted above, the political context both
fosters and hinders changes in feminist governance. The constellation of the
party system and the characteristics of individual political parties are one
significant aspect of this political context. Existing political parties can
foster institutional development through both formal and informal processes,
working both for and against gender equality or feminist governance. Formal
processes refer to official party rules such as nomination procedures. Informal
processes refer to the ‘hidden’ norms and assumptions that help parties
function, like norms of candidate recruitment (Bjarnegård and Kenny, 2016: 372).
Access to information about the internal party selection processes and norms is
often ‘hidden’ from view (Norris and Lovenduski, 1995), but we know these
informal criteria affect possibilities for institutional change. Informal
processes can change formal party rules. For example, members of the Scottish
Labour Party supported gender quotas in internal party debates because they
wanted to minimise the role that the old boy network, which reduced the
representation of women, played in the candidate selection process (Bjarnegård
and Kenny, 2016).
THREE EXAMPLES OF FEMINIST INSTITUTIONALISM AT WORK To explore how feminist
institutional approaches elucidate development and change in feminist
governance, we briefly analyse three types of feminist governance through a
feminist institutional lens: gender/sex quotas, gender policy machineries and
gender mainstreaming. As Squires (2007: 2) notes, these examples represent
feminist governance strategies focused on ‘presence, voice, and process’. We
concentrate here on how feminist institutionalism provides better understanding
of their development and future trajectory, and note that each is developed more
deeply elsewhere in the volume.1 Sex/Gender Quotas Gender quotas have grown
increasingly popular over the last few decades because they are effective at
rapidly increasing the proportion of women representatives. International
pressure and women’s movements have solidified gender quotas as a requisite for
democracy and modernisation (Dahlerup, 2007), leading to more than 130 countries
adopting some form of quota by 2022 (Kandawasvika-Nhundu, 2022). The first
gender quotas were reserved seats or national mandates requiring a minimum
number of women legislators, which originated between the 1930s and 1970s in
Africa, Asia and the Middle East (Hawkesworth, 2012: 198). Unfortunately,
segregated candidate election processes and appointed status of women
legislators under reserved seats marginalised and
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism 43
discredited women legislators. From the 1970s onward, new kinds of gender quotas
evolved, although separate election processes persisted as a legacy of the
policy’s development. Party quotas originated in Sweden in 1972 through activism
carried out by the Social Democratic Women’s Federation (Hawkesworth, 2012: 197,
201) and became common in centre left parties, including Green parties.
Legislated party quotas, which mandate that parties must nominate a certain
number of women candidates, grew popular throughout the Global South in the
1990s. Today, many countries transition from one form of gender quota to
another, or implement multiple gender quotas simultaneously. Iraq, for example,
implemented separate gender quotas at both the national and subnational level.
There is an ongoing debate on whether gender quotas facilitate feminist
governance. Proponents of gender quotas argue that they are a highly effective
means of increasing the number of women elected to political office (Dahlerup
and Freidenvall, 2005; Krook, 2009; Paxton and Hughes, 2015; Paxton et al.,
2010). For many scholars, changing the number of women results in more
explicitly feminist governance. Sacchet, for example, argues that ‘if more women
are involved in policy making, the policy content will change to reflect more
fully “women’s interests”’ (2008: 375). Many scholars find that gender quotas
increase women’s substantive representation because of women’s increased
presence in decision-making bodies (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004; Franceschet
and Piscopo, 2008). Some proponents of gender quotas also argue that they
directly affect feminist governance because they increase the salience of
gender-related issues in national legislatures (Weeks, 2016). On the other hand,
critics warn that gender quotas tokenise, essentialise and generalise women
while disregarding their many-sided and cross-cutting interests (Mansbridge,
1999: 652). They question the degree to which statutory gender quotas and
reserved seat systems may accurately represent the diversity of women’s
interests (Grey, 2006; Spelman, 1988). Studies also show that a rise in the
number of women legislators may provoke backlash among male legislators, who may
impede women’s policy initiatives (Crowley, 2004; Franceschet et al., 2012;
Hawkesworth, 2003). Reserved seats and statutory gender quotas in particular may
discredit women representatives because they create an environment in which
women are not perceived to win seats based on merit but instead constitute a
separate ‘affirmative action’ group in national legislatures (Wang and Yoon,
2018). Critics also claim that women representatives elected through gender
quotas are perceived as less capable and less experienced (Bauer, 2008: 359).
This discrediting of women representatives undermines the inclusion of their
perspectives in policymaking (Lovenduski, 2005). Gender quota implementation is
characterised by layering, where new rules are introduced atop or alongside old
rules, and conversion, where actors work within a system to change institutions
(Waylen, 2014). National legislatures face pressure internally from women’s
movements and externally from the international community to implement gender
quotas because they are perceived as a necessary step for equal representation
and a strong democracy (Bush and Jamal, 2015; Dahlerup, 2008). Political parties
have also instituted internal gender quotas in response to women’s mobilisation.
However, gender assumptions and norms as well as the institutional rules of
parliamentary systems have proved an obstacle in their development of feminist
governance. When new institutions such as gender quotas are implemented in these
masculine domains, they absorb the ‘masculinised practices’ of the institutional
surroundings (Mackay, 2014). We see these masculinised practices even in
policies requiring the selection of women candidates to political office. They
can create an environment in which women MPs are not assumed to
44 Handbook of feminist governance have the competence necessary for office
because they did not earn their seat based on ‘merit’. In particular, in
reserved seat situations, appointment by gender quota may differentiate MPs
selected by this process from legislators elected through open elections. For
example, a survey of 80 Rwandan legislators revealed that the majority of MPs
claimed to know exactly which women MPs were elected by quota and also judged
them to be less experienced than women elected in an open seat (Bauer, 2008:
359). Nonetheless, gender quotas do change parliamentary institutions,
completely restructuring the process through which women enter the formal
political sphere. Gender Policy Machineries Gender policy machineries have been
extensively studied by gender scholars.2 The relationship between gender policy
machineries and feminist governance is complex and heavily influenced by
existing gendered institutions. Gender policy machineries are defined as formal
state structures that ‘promote the rights, status, and condition of women or
strike down gender hierarchies’ (McBride and Mazur, 2013: 655); they are located
at subnational, national, regional and international levels within formal state
structures, and even appear in state-related institutions such as political
parties (McBride and Mazur, 2013). For example, the United States has multiple
gender policy machineries spread throughout departments of the national
government, and these policy machineries are found in many subnational (i.e.
state and local) governments as well (Banaszak, 2010; McBride and Mazur, 2013).
The labels and placement applied to gender policy machineries can also be a
strong indicator of the degree to which feminist governance is possible. For
example, in Germany the cabinet position that advocates for women has always
been tied to children, and often also to family policy, reflecting the
intertwining of women’s interests with the family. When women’s interests were
initially provided cabinet representation in 1986, for example, the Federal
Ministry for Youth, Family and Health was renamed the Federal Ministry for
Youth, Family, Women, and Health. On the other hand, as the title suggests,
France’s Ministry for Women’s Rights represented a gender policy machinery that
enumerated gender equality as a central mission (Mazur, 1996). Whether gender
policy machineries are headed by a cabinet position also provides some
indication of importance within government. For example, in Australia, the
central hub of the wheel model of gender policy machinery has changed location
over time, with location affecting cabinet access and capacity for
cross-government coordination. Moreover, the position is often led by a cabinet
member who carries a second portfolio. For example, in March 2022, the Minister
for Women is also the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Thus, the degree to which
gender policy machineries reflect feminist governance is often constrained by
the historical and institutional context, as well as by their ‘nested newness’
which is reflected in their shifting location and portfolios (Mackay, 2014).
Given the wide variety of institutional forms and practices across countries and
over time, how can gender policy machineries result in feminist governance? In
practice, the degree to which these formal institutions constitute feminist
governance hinges on many of the factors we have described above. First and
foremost, gender policy machineries that focus on feminist governance are a
result of mobilisation by women’s movements at the national level and
transnational feminism – both of which have provided the pressure to move
intransigent or indifferent governments towards women’s equality. Moreover, just
as these gender policy machineries can bring
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism 45 feminist
governance inside the state or provide important resources for women’s movement
organisations, feminists outside the state can also provide informational
resources and support for policies pursued within these state organisations
(Banaszak, 2010). Moreover, much depends on the leadership of these formal
policy machineries, particularly the degree to which they incorporate femocrats
or feminist insiders (Mazur and McBride, Chapter 5 this volume). Where feminist
insiders are well integrated into the bureaucracy, some form of feminist
governance can survive even under hostile regimes. Politics also plays a role in
whether gender policy machineries result in feminist governance. Conservative
parties generally constrain the ability of gender policy machineries more than
Green parties or socialist parties. This has been particularly true with the
rise of populism and the move to the right of many conservative governments
(Bashevkin, 1998). However, not all left-leaning parties support feminist
policies, which may be seen as running counter to the interests of working-class
supporters. For example, Lang (2007: 130–33) chronicles the problems Social
Democrat Christine Bergmann faced within her own party when trying to pass an
Affirmative Action Law that had initially been highlighted as a goal of the
red–green coalition. Despite the widespread nature of gender policy machineries,
such institutions have made fewer advances for women at the intersections of
race, class or sexuality, and they often fail to live up to important principles
of feminist governance. For example, Hoskyns (2001: 40) notes that although the
European Union had gender equality as a long-standing goal, immigrants and women
of colour were not recognised until the late 1990s. Similarly, although the
Women’s Educational Equity Act of 1974 in the United States was considered
path-breaking in its explicit focus on women of colour, many evaluations of the
legislation suggested that even under sympathetic administrations it had minimal
impact and provided less funding to women of colour than white women (Conrad et
al., 2014). Gender Mainstreaming Feminist institutionalism tells us that all
policies and government institutions are gendered. Gender mainstreaming emerged
as a strategy for explicitly institutionalising women’s interests in all areas
of policy and governance with the goal of achieving gender equality. It is
defined as ‘the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any
planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and
at all levels’ (Rai, 2003: 16). Because of its focus on equality and equity for
individuals of all genders, when implemented, it furthers feminist governance,
though it is constrained by the presence of traditional gender norms within
political institutions. The impetus for gender mainstreaming largely came from
international institutions like the United Nations, the European Union and the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which provide
oversight and toolkits for its implementation (Moghadam, Chapter 22 this
volume). In developing countries, organisations like Development Alternatives
with Women for a New Era and the United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM) have been central to developing the gender mainstreaming agenda. Gender
mainstreaming has emerged in institutions across the globe: strategies have been
taken up at the local level in Tanzania (Mujwahuzi et al., 2018), and at the
national level in the Philippines, providing new initiatives in gender training
and changing public discourse (Honculada and Ofreneo, 2003: 131).
Gender-responsive budgeting has also grown substantially from its roots in
Australia (Costa and Sharp, Chapter 11 this volume) to be adopted in
46 Handbook of feminist governance more than 90 countries. Institutionalising a
gender lens in all areas of policy and governance, as gender mainstreaming does,
challenges the hegemonic masculinity of most government institutions and
promotes equality for all genders, but progress depends on the degree to which
gender mainstreaming is actually effective. Two emphases have developed within
discussions of gender mainstreaming: one that focuses on integrating gender into
existing institutions and one that focuses on transforming existing institutions
(Staudt, 2003: 54). Awareness of the consequences of inequality is key to
understanding the adverse effects of maintaining existing gendered institutions.
By focusing on institutional outcomes, asking questions about how policies and
practices institutionalise gender inequality, and considering unexplored
assumptions about the ‘care economy’, institutions can move towards a gender
mainstreaming framework (Staudt, 2003: 58). When implemented effectively, such a
framework demonstrates the connection between gender equality and good
governance. The implementation and success of gender mainstreaming varies across
national contexts, leading to disparity in feminist policy or governance in many
programmes. Patterns that have emerged in the implementation of gender
mainstreaming include decentralisation of responsibility and treating
mainstreaming as a set of features from which to choose (Daly, 2005). One
implementation strategy is the creation of a mainstreaming-skilled department or
task force that acts as a resource for the rest of the institution. While this
remains a best practice, some institutions hire diversity officers who are more
symbolic than substantively helpful. Having a separate unit handle
institution-wide change without leadership from the top is not productive and
does little to challenge gendered legacies within the institution. Because
institutions have ‘sticky’ norms and rules, new rules need legitimacy to survive
(Mackay, 2014). One critique of current implementation of gender mainstreaming
is that some strategies ignore other intersectional identities. Complex equality
can be mainstreamed, but each component entails a different understanding of
implementation through bureaucratic policy tools, consultation with women’s
organisations and inclusive deliberation (Squires, 2005). Feminist researchers
warn that, by essentialising the experiences of women, gender mainstreaming
could perpetuate a narrow view of gender and identity politics. What has been
largely accepted as the universal experience of women is actually the average
experience of middle-class, able-bodied, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual
women. For example, the pay gap is wider for women of colour than the commonly
advertised gender wage gap. Inclusive deliberation by maintaining an
intersectional lens when developing new institutions of governance could prevent
the reproduction of structural inequalities as well as institutionalised racism
and accessibility. Both gender mainstreaming and deliberative democracy focus on
the rule-formation process and call for equality through inclusivity, but
deliberative democrats offer resources to counter the integrationism found in
gender mainstreaming (Squires, 2005). If equality for all is truly the goal,
then incorporating other marginalised groups is necessary in the gender
mainstreaming process, but not all feminist institutionalists believe such
incorporation is possible. Hunting and Hankivsky (2020) argue that gender
mainstreaming is distinct from intersectionality and limits possible responses
to inequity by primarily focusing on gender. Intersectionality is difficult to
integrate into existing gender mainstreaming frameworks but could strengthen
approaches to inequalities on its own (see Townsend-Bell, Chapter 7 this
volume). While gender mainstreaming has institutionalised progress towards
gender equality in some governments, the implementation of such policies is not
always intersectional or effective in promoting equality for all.
Understanding feminist governance through feminist institutionalism 47
CONCLUSION We have argued here that feminist institutional research provides
important insights into our understanding of feminist governance. Feminist
movement mobilisation at multiple levels including activism inside the state,
informal norms, the political context, the gendered nature of institutions, and
historical and political legacies all influence the degree to which newer
institutions like gender quotas, gender policy machineries and gender
mainstreaming result in feminist governance. Two important questions will
continue to motivate the study of feminist institutions moving forward. First
there is still much work to be done within feminist institutional research in
exploring the complex conditions that result in feminist governance. In
particular, we need to widen the number of case studies of the development of
feminist governance, especially in authoritarian countries, those undergoing
extensive regime transitions and in the Global South. Second, while there are
certainly more calls for intersectionality, the foundational research on
feminist governance and on feminist institutionalism could do much more to
explore the simultaneity of oppressions (Frazier et al., 2017). Our current
strategies could be expanded to examine in-depth equality outcomes for all
women. Careful incorporations of intersectional feminist governance concepts and
the critiques of non-intersectional approaches into the research on feminist
institutionalism could advance our understanding of both the development and the
future of feminist governance.
NOTES 1. See, among others, Krook and Norris (Chapter 13), Goetz (Chapter 10),
Costa and Sharp (Chapter 11) and Jacquot (Chapter 25) in this Handbook. 2. See
e.g. Baldez, 2001; Haussman and Sauer, 2007; Mazur, 2013; McBride Stetson, 2001;
McBride and Mazur, 2010, 2013; McBride Stetson and Mazur, 1995; Outshoorn and
Kantola, 2007; and Teghtsoonian and Chappell, 2008.
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4. Feminist governance and the state Johanna Kantola
INTRODUCTION The state is at the heart of feminist governance debates. The
institutions and processes of the state are the target of attempts to develop
and institutionalise feminist governance practices. States come in many forms,
but none are gender neutral – treating different people as if they had no
gender, race, ethnicity or class background – nor gender equal – having adequate
policies, institutions and processes in place to ensure equal opportunities and
outcomes for all. Feminists both engage with and critique states as potential
sites for feminist governance. Feminist theories of the state are often
discussed by using labels such as liberal, radical, Marxist/socialist, Nordic or
poststructural feminist perspectives (see e.g. Chappell, 2013; Kantola, 2006,
2016). Such labels may be problematic as concepts, such as liberalism, mean
different things in different contexts (Sawer, 2003). This chapter will discuss
feminist governance and the state through five distinct analytical perspectives
on the state, which are determined by their underlying conceptualisation of
gender. The five feminist perspectives are: (i) women and the state; (ii) gender
and state institutions; (iii) deconstruction of gender and state discourses;
(iv) intersectionality and the state; and (v) postdeconstruction and the state
(see Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). The chapter is structured around these five
perspectives. In terms of feminist governance, each analytical feminist
perspective allows for a discussion of issues at the heart of debates about
feminist governance and the state. The first two approaches, women and the state
and gender and state institutions, bring forth the paradoxes and dichotomies,
which have for long been at the centre stage of feminist debates on the state,
such as public/private, in and out of the state, and relationships of the state
to feminist politics and struggles (Banaszak, 2010; Banaszak et al., 2003). The
women and the state approach prioritises engaging with the state to ensure
inclusion and advancing feminist governance from within. The gender and state
institutions approach analyses the state in terms of its gendered structures and
its patriarchal and capitalist processes, which might compromise such
engagements. Both approaches have contributed to the development of important
feminist governance tools such as gender mainstreaming, women’s policy agencies,
parliamentary bodies and equality reviews (see Childs and Palmieri, Chapter 14;
Mazur and McBride, Chapter 5; Sawer, Chapter 12, all in this Handbook).
Discussion of the five analytical approaches shows how feminist debates have
moved away from essentialist notions about women and men, and the state. The
third approach, deconstruction of gender and state discourses, suggests that
instead of the state being a real essentialised object, feminist scholarship
needs to explore the ways in which states are constantly reproduced through
discourses and practices. Feminist scholars explore the power relations behind
these constructions, the femininities and masculinities that they rely upon and
reproduce, and their differentiated gender impacts. State processes, policies,
institutions, discourses, practices and norms are shown to be gendered and
gendering and constitutive of gender orders. 51
52 Handbook of feminist governance The intersectionality and the state approach
draws on Black feminist theorising about gender, race, ethnicity and class, as
well as sexism and racism, and has become more mainstream with the popularity of
the notion of intersectionality which highlights how gender intersects with race
and ethnicity, sexuality, disability, class and other inequality categories
(Crenshaw, 1991; see also Townsend-Bell, Chapter 7 in this Handbook). States are
not only gendered and racialised but also sexualised in that they use norms
around heterosexuality to reproduce the state and nation. Feminist scholars have
coined the terms homonationalism and homoprotectionism to illustrate how the
states and nations draw new boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ or ‘the Others’
(Puar, 2007). The final approach, postdeconstruction and the state, reflects the
‘affective turn’ in feminist theory and points to the role of emotions in
holding nations and states together (Ahmed, 2004) and how they might be
gendered. The changing political and social context is reflected in feminist
debates about the state. Feminist scholarship now theorises states as highly
context specific rather than universal. Context-specific states are termed
abusive, women-friendly, developmental, fragile, coercive, postmodern, central,
strategic, neoliberal, illiberal or postcolonial in feminist debates to reflect
both the differences between and within states and state institutions (Bumiller,
2008; Kantola and Dahl, 2005; Parashar et al., 2018; Prügl, 2010). What was
first discussed as ‘globalisation’ has now been specified as neoliberalisation
that takes different forms in different parts of the world. Neoliberal
governmentality reflects the infiltration of market-driven truths and
calculations into the domain of politics (Brown, 2018; Ong, 2007: 4). A
cross-cutting theme in current feminist governance and the state debates is the
manifold impact of neoliberalism and its manifestations in states and feminist
engagement with them, to the extent that we can talk about a move towards
‘market feminism’ (Kantola and Squires, 2012) and ‘governance feminism’
(Griffin, 2015; Halley, 2018; Prügl, 2011).
WOMEN AND THE STATE The women and the state approach centres women’s presence,
roles, action, interests, needs, rights and voices in political analysis. The
approach treats women and men as unitary categories whose interests, needs and
beliefs can be identified objectively in research. In terms of political
analysis, the women approach challenges the exclusion of women from analytical
concepts such as power, agency and institutions, and from what is analysed –
polity, politics and policy (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). In feminist
governance debates, this signifies the inclusion of women in male-dominated
governance structures within states. Because of the still relatively precarious
position of gender and politics within the discipline of politics, the category
of ‘women’ retains considerable importance even if it has been challenged in,
for example, gender studies and feminist theory. In these approaches, the state
represents a neutral institution that can be targeted and lobbied to achieve
progressive gender equality legislation and policies. The state is an
institution that is a source of potentially women-friendly legislation and
policies. For example, in Betty Friedan’s liberal feminist classic The Feminine
Mystique (1962), equality of opportunity for women is to be achieved through
changing legislation on equal pay and working hours, and outlawing
discrimination in workplaces. Women’s access to the state in terms of political
institutions (parliaments, governments, bureaucracy) becomes an important
political question and goal (see Kantola, 2006, 2016). The notion of the state
put forward by liberal feminists is
Feminist governance and the state 53 symptomatic of liberal feminist
appropriation of key concepts in general: they take existing ideas and apply
them to the case of women. More women in the state would entail more women’s
policy, a presumption that has since been challenged in the debate about women’s
substantive representation where it has been shown that increases in women’s
descriptive representation do not automatically translate to feminist policy
(Celis et al., 2008). Nordic theorising of women-friendly welfare states
construes them as a prime – yet of course not the only – example of feminist
governance from within potentially benign states. Helga Maria Hernes (1987)
defined Nordic states as potentially women-friendly societies, which signified
that women’s political and social empowerment happened through the state and
with the support of state social policy (for a discussion, see Kantola, 2006).
Studies of the Nordic women-friendly welfare states drew attention to women’s
contributions and roles in both maintaining and changing gender relations (Siim,
1988). Early debates on women-friendly welfare states highlighted the
contradictions, whereby the private dependency of women on individual men was
transformed into public dependency on the state (Dahlerup, 1987). The expansion
of the public sector, even if it benefited women, was planned and executed by a
male-dominated establishment, yet women’s lives were more dependent and
determined by state policies than men’s. The concept of the women-friendly
welfare state has since come under intense criticism from feminist scholars in
the Nordic countries. First, the women-friendly welfare state has been shown to
benefit only some women and men (e.g. white and middle class) and to be
constructed on inequalities based on race and ethnicity, sexuality and class. As
a powerful discourse, ‘women-friendly welfare state’ may even mask these
inequalities by creating an impression that equality has been achieved for all
(Kantola, 2006). Second, Nordic welfare states have been strongly influenced by
the processes of neoliberalisation and economisation, which intensified during
and in the aftermath of the 2008 financial and economic crisis. These states
have become more neoliberalised in terms of policymaking norms and processes and
the effects have been gendered and racialised (Elomäki and Koskinen Sandberg,
2020). Third, the Nordic welfare states are highly corporatist, meaning that a
number of gender equality issues, especially those related to the labour market,
continue to be decided in complex negotiations between labour market
organisations – out of the reach of democratic politics or feminist governance
within democratic institutions (Elomäki et al., 2021; Saari et al., 2021).
Whilst Nordic countries continue to perform comparatively well in terms of
achievements on gender equality, corporatism has been understudied as a policy
framework that is in many cases detrimental to gender equality (Elomäki et al.,
2022). For example, employers’ organisations have been opposed to increasing pay
transparency or parental leave if they consider these reforms to be costly to
private sector companies.
GENDER AND STATE INSTITUTIONS Despite their great variety, gender approaches
include the need to understand gender always in relation to wider social
structures in order to comprehend domination and inequalities that are by
definition structural. Analytically, the focus shifts here from women to gender,
and gender is studied as a complex socially constructed relation between
masculinities and femininities, and deep gender structures are understood to be
socially constructed (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). For feminist governance,
this means that mere inclusion of women in the state, its laws
54 Handbook of feminist governance and institutions is insufficient. Instead,
feminist governance needs to include a transformative aspect: transforming these
gendered norms and structures. On a practical policymaking level, gender
mainstreaming has been developed as a feminist governance tool to be used for
breaking gendered structures. Feminist governance debates take place against a
long history of feminist theorising of the state, highly critical of the state
as an embodiment of deeply unequal gendered structures and as an essentially
patriarchal and capitalist institution. Radical feminists stressed the
patriarchal nature of the state, analysing the role of the state in perpetuating
gender inequalities. The state was not an isolated, neutral and narrow
institution – as in the women and the state approach – but rather embedded in
broader gendered social structures that in turn shape women’s engagement with
the state and the policies that emanate from it (Eisenstein, 1986: 181). The
concept of patriarchy captured the insight that the oppression of women is not
haphazard or piecemeal but, rather, that the diverse forms of oppression were
interconnected and mutually sustained (see Kantola, 2006, 2016). The radical
nature of this feminist analysis stemmed from the claim that the state was not
only contingently patriarchal, but essentially so, and patriarchy was global and
universal. MacKinnon (1989) directed her critique at the liberal state in
particular and criticises its laws and policies, for instance, for never fully
enforcing laws relating to violence against women or women’s bodily rights. At
the same time, states enforced the equation of women with sexuality, which added
to their oppression. For Carole Pateman (1988), the origins of patriarchy lay in
the social-sexual contract that gave men political rights over women and access
to their bodies. An exclusive focus on integrating women into state institutions
produced a situation that perpetuated dominant patriarchal discourses and norms
rather than challenged them (for a discussion, see Kantola, 2006, 2010).
Employing a gender analysis means focusing on the gendered structures in the
wider society. It also signifies that a more complex notion of state power and
institutions is needed. Feminist studies of democracies have discussed the
concept of ‘gender democracy’ to analyse how democratic decision-making is
influenced by gendered assumptions and patterns in the wider society (Galligan,
2015: 2). As the gendered nature of political processes and practices varies
according to the specific institutional contexts and levels of decision-making,
a comparative perspective to the study of democratic polities is needed
(Galligan, 2015: 2; Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). Galligan (2015) proposes three
criteria to assess the quality of ‘gender democracy’ in specific empirical
contexts: inclusion, accountability and recognition. While inclusion is more
often analysed through women approaches, accountability and recognition are
particularly addressed from gender – and intersectionality – approaches (Kantola
and Lombardo, 2017a). Democratic accountability requires the transparency of
democratic decision-making processes to make political or public representatives
accountable to the people for the decisions they make. When analysed through
gender lenses, this means, for example, asking questions such as: ‘How far do
political parties articulate their proposals on gender justice and gender
equality?’ or ‘How extensive is the range of mechanisms aimed at rendering
decision-makers accountable for upholding gender equality commitments?’
(Galligan, 2015: 9). Recognition calls attention to the diversity of voices,
groups and identities, and sensitivity to the participation of different
minoritised groups and subjects within both democratic and feminist governance
structures. The gender perspective has resulted in a significant number of
empirical and comparative studies of how different state formations, such as
democracies, provide the conditions for feminist governance. Comparative state
feminist literature has studied the ways in which
Feminist governance and the state 55 women’s movements engage with one branch
of the state – women’s policy agencies – and evaluated the factors that impact
on the successes and failures of these engagements for overall gender policy in
the state (see McBride and Mazur, 2010; McBride Stetson and Mazur, 1995). Lee
Ann Banaszak (2010) conceptualises the state in terms of its organisation and
bureaucracy and explores favourable locations for gender activists and the
impact of changes in these for feminist struggles. Feminist institutionalists,
in turn, study the state as a variety of separate institutions that include both
formal and informal institutions such as norms and rules (Chappell, 2002, 2013:
607). This body of work draws attention to the importance of institutional
legacies, path dependencies and possibilities for change (Chappell, 2013: 608).
The state is a differentiated set of gendered formal and informal institutions,
practices, agencies and discourses, and politics and the state are
conceptualised in broad terms.
DECONSTRUCTION OF GENDER AND THE STATE DISCOURSES The third approach,
deconstruction of gender and state discourses, analyses the ways in which gender
as a discourse and a practice is continuously contested and constructed in
political debates (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). In deconstruction, gender is
deemed to have no fixed meaning, but rather to assume different normative
meanings in the conceptual disputes that policy actors engage in (Bacchi, 1999;
Verloo, 2007). This approach has shown that a problem such as gender inequality,
which feminist governance seeks to tackle, can be represented in many different
ways, with many different solutions, and that a particular diagnosis of the
problem of gender inequality is at the same time silencing alternative
representations of the problem (Bacchi, 1999). Deconstruction, therefore, makes
it possible to understand how some solutions are favoured over others and how
gender can be silenced in political disputes, stretched to include other
equality dimensions apart from gender, or bent to other goals that have nothing
to do with gender equality (Ferree, 2009; Lombardo et al., 2009). Drawing on
this approach, poststructural feminists have made important contributions to
feminist debates on the state by deconstructing the internal unity of the state
and theorising the differentiated state as a diverse set of institutions
(Pringle and Watson, 1990, 1992). Elisabeth Prügl defined the postmodern state
as ‘a decentered state in which authority is shared by multiple levels of
government’ (2010: 448). The state is depicted as a discursive process meaning,
for example, that state unity and identity are reproduced discursively (see e.g.
Kantola, 2007; Kantola et al., 2011). The patriarchal state can be seen then,
not as the manifestation of patriarchal essence, but as the centre of a
reverberating set of power relations and political processes within which
patriarchy is both constructed and contested (Connell, 1987). These particular
discourses and histories construct state boundaries, identities and agency
(Kantola, 2006, 2007) and masculinity remains central for understanding ‘the
multiple modes of power circulating through the domain called the state’ (Brown,
1995: 177). The analyses allow the complex, multidimensional and differentiated
relations between the state and gender to be taken into account. They recognise
that the state can be a positive as well as a negative resource for feminists,
thus deconstructing the dichotomy between ‘in’ and ‘out’ of the state. Within a
framework of diverse discourses and power relations, gender diversity and
differences in gendered experiences come to the fore (Kantola and Dahl, 2005).
Scholars working with deconstruction approaches have developed the notion of
governance feminism. The concept of governance feminism captures the ways in
which feminist actors
56 Handbook of feminist governance and knowledge can be transformed – and
become compromised – in interactions with national or international
institutions’ priorities, which may be, for example, neoliberal, conservative or
populist (Griffin, 2015; Prügl, 2011). For example, in EU institutions, gender
equality policies have been instrumentalised to achieve economic goals and focus
on a narrow range of issues supportive of economic integration (see Elomäki,
Chapter 26; Jacquot, Chapter 25; and Kantola and Lombardo, Chapter 24, all in
this Handbook). As Elomäki shows in her chapter here, ‘economisation’ of EU
policies brings the need to define gender equality through an economic rationale
– costs and benefits to the economy and economic growth. Neoliberalism
especially has become an important theme for feminist analysis as it has so
fundamentally shaped the opportunities for gender and equality policies and
feminist engagement with the state. Neoliberalisation signifies the
marketisation of public services, transferring costs and risk from the state to
individuals and families. It includes employment and social policies that
responsibilise individuals and governance reforms that extend private sector
management practices to the public sector (Elomäki and Kantola, 2018). The
effects have been gendered. While neoliberal discourses and policies portray
both women and men as rational economic actors and push women into the labour
market, policies that dismantle the welfare state and re-privatise and
informalise care rely on and intensify women’s unpaid or poorly compensated
work, increasing class-based and racialised inequalities among women (Bakker,
2003; Brown, 2018). Feminists are faced with new challenges when the state
becomes a ‘competition state’ or a ‘strategic state’ as a result of impact of
neoliberal ideologies and modes of governance. At a practical level, lower
levels of funding to state-based bodies have resulted in the dismantling of
state gender equality architecture and defunding of women’s organisations
(Kantola and Lombardo, 2017b). Neoliberalism has also been conceptualised as a
new relationship between government and knowledge through which governing
activities are recast as non-political and non-ideological problems that need
technical solutions (Ong, 2007: 3). De-democratising shifts in economic
governance have narrowed down democratic debate and civil society participation.
These changes in the state are also transforming state-based feminist strategies
and practices from previous ‘state feminism’ to ‘market feminism’ (Kantola and
Squires, 2012) or governance feminism (Prügl, 2011), where feminist knowledge is
appropriated and transformed to the service of neoliberal states.
INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE STATE Intersectional analyses study the inequalities,
marginalisation and domination that the interactions of gender, race, class and
other systems of inequality produce. While the concept of ‘intersectionality’
may be a novelty, its key ideas were articulated decades ago in Black, lesbian
and postcolonial feminist theorising that exposed the limitations of women-only
and gender-only analyses. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s coining of the term
‘intersectionality’ gave this approach new analytical purchase. Elaborating the
concepts of structural and political intersectionality, Crenshaw (1991) studied
how the intersection of inequalities of gender, race and class have consequences
for people’s opportunities in life, in areas such as employment and gender
violence, and how political and social movement strategies focusing on one
inequality are not neutral in relation to other inequalities.
Feminist governance and the state 57 Feminist theorising of the state, such as
the conceptualisations discussed above, often comes from specific (Western)
contexts that are not always made explicit. There is a strong body of feminist
work on the state that stresses the importance of different contexts where
states are theorised as well as the linkages between theory and practice.
Development scholars, too, point to the fundamentally different meaning of the
state (Afshar, 1996; Alvarez, 1990; Dore and Molyneux, 2000; Rai and Lievesley,
1996). In terms of key issues, postcolonialism, nationalism, economic
modernisation and state capacity emerge as important, whereas Western feminists
often take these issues for granted, focusing instead on how best to engage with
the state (Chappell, 2000: 246; Wieringa, 2002: 47). When exploring women’s
activism, for example in Africa, the ways in which patriarchy is combined with
(neo)patrimonialism in the state becomes central (Tripp, 2001). In
neopatrimonial states, ‘claims to authority are based on personal relations of
loyalty and dependence that stand above the law’ (Tripp, 2001: 106). When
combined with patriarchy, this can have a negative effect on women’s position
and participation in the state. Hence, questions of women’s autonomy acquire a
different significance. For example, the Ugandan women’s movement has been able
to claim a greater degree of autonomy from the state, which has been critical to
its success (Tripp, 2001: 105). Again, these practices vary greatly between
states and need to be studied contextually. In postcolonial states, the colonial
past and anti-colonial struggles are present in different ways and shape the
ideologies, governance and institutional structures of such states (Parashar,
2018: 162). For many, the nation state presented an idealised form of self-rule,
a structure where anti-colonial nationalism could be manifested (Parashar et
al., 2018: 8). For critics such as Ashis Nandy (2003), ‘the state’ shares ‘the
white man’s burden’ as it controls and civilises societies, promoting
modernisation through, for instance, development policies. For postcolonial
states, in particular, it is an acute paradox that while anti-colonial struggles
saw the idea of the sovereign state as a solution to colonial abuse, ‘many of
these postcolonial states became perpetrators of gross human rights violations,
particularly against women and minorities, violences that have been largely
unseen or silenced, neither reported, recorded nor recognized’ (Parashar et al.,
2018: 1). Political and armed conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East fuel
and are fuelled by weak, non-existent state structures, making the achievement
of human rights, women’s rights and equality through sovereign states seem like
a distant goal (Parashar et al., 2018). Intersectionality approaches have been
used to explore how LGBTQ+ activists have changed state relations and how the
state has structured opportunities for lesbian and gay communities all over the
world (Ayoub and Paternotte, 2014). An important shift in Europe has been the
expansion of one-dimensional state equality laws, policies and institutions
based on gender or race to cover, for example, sexual orientation, age,
disability and religion too. The opportunities and challenges this creates for
advancing equalities and intersectionality in gender policymaking has been the
subject of feminist debates on ‘institutionalizing intersectionality’ (Kantola,
2010; Krizsan et al., 2012). Radical right populism is changing feminist
politics in relation to states too. Radical right populists directly oppose
gender and gender equality as a harmful ‘gender ideology’. They construct
advancement of gender equality as a harmful elitist ideology imposed on member
states by the European Union (Kantola and Lombardo, 2019; Kuhar and Paternotte,
2017). Opposing ‘gender ideology’ is based on seeing the social construction of
femininities and masculinities implied by the concept of ‘gender’ as harmful and
wrong. Rather, radical right
58 Handbook of feminist governance populists talk about natural roles of women
and men, boys and girls, and stress heterosexuality and nuclear families as the
basis of society and state policy. Radical right populists have made important
electoral gains in a number of European states, most visibly affecting gender
equality in Hungary and Poland. Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary has transformed
the democratic principles of the state, curtailing the independence of media,
civil society and courts. Feminist activists, like others, are faced with
engaging the new illiberal politics of the state (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2018).
In Poland, abortion rights have been restricted through undemocratic processes
referring the final decision to government-influenced courts. Even in countries
where radical right populists are in opposition, the ways in which they oppose
gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights is having an impact on debates on gender
equality, making such rights less legitimate (Kantola and Lombardo, 2019, 2020;
Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017; Verloo, 2018).
POSTDECONSTRUCTION AND THE STATE Postdeconstruction is a term that can be used
to refer to debates on feminist new materialism and affect, studies that come
analytically ‘after’ reflections on the deconstruction of gender (Kantola and
Lombardo, 2017a). Postdeconstruction has been widely debated in feminist theory,
gender studies and cultural studies but is yet to emerge as an analytical
strategy in gender and political analysis. As an approach, postdeconstruction is
interested in understanding the role of affect, emotions and bodily material in
gender and politics. From the new materialist point of view, significant social
change cannot be achieved solely by deconstructing subjectivities, discourses
and identities. Rather, there is a need to understand and alter very real
socioeconomic conditions and the interests that these serve (Coole and Frost,
2010: 25; see also Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a). This places emphasis on
economic and political processes and their materiality and impact on bodies. In
terms of feminist governance and the state, using postdeconstruction suggests
that the state and its effects cannot be understood merely in terms of
discourses. Instead, these approaches stress that the states are embedded in
material phenomena and processes, which is irreducible to culture and discourse
(Ahmed, 2008; Coole and Frost, 2010: 2–3). From the point of the view of
theorising the state, what becomes important is the biopolitical interests of
the modern state: the state’s role in managing the life, health and death of its
populations. Management of ‘fertility rates, marriage and funeral rites,
epidemics, food hygiene, and the nation’s health’, including seemingly technical
questions about biological life processes, enter the political order because the
state must make decisions about the worthiness of different lives (Coole and
Frost, 2010: 23). In this way, states exert powers in shaping, constraining and
constituting life chances and opportunities. The ways in which the state
exercises power is both discursive and material; the two cannot be separated but
neither reduced to one another. Whilst economic factors and capitalism become
central, the capitalist system is not understood in a narrowly economistic way
but rather ‘as a detotalized totality that includes a multitude of
interconnected phenomena and processes’ (Coole and Frost, 2010: 29). This view
encourages us to take seriously Foucauldian analysis of governmentality,
biopolitics and the role of discourse in maintaining social order, and
incorporating the state’s role in maintaining the conditions of capital
accumulation into the analyses (Coole and Frost, 2010: 30).
Feminist governance and the state 59
CONCLUSION Feminist political analyses of the state powerfully demonstrate the
multiple ways in which states continue to be gendered and the challenges this
creates for feminist governance. The state continues to play an important role
in upholding and reproducing gendered, racialised and sexualised hierarchies in
contemporary societies. Feminist governance within states has been able to
challenge such hierarchies but has also become complicit within them, for
example by providing legitimacy to neoliberal policies. These dilemmas are well
captured by the notion of governance feminism. This chapter has demonstrated,
however, how the state can be analysed through a variety of feminist approaches:
women and the state, gender and state institutions, deconstruction of gender and
state discourses, intersectionality and the state, and postdeconstruction and
the state. The multiplicity of the feminist approaches ensures that state–gender
relations can be illuminated from different perspectives and the possibilities
and challenges for feminist governance richly mapped.
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5. Do feminist insiders matter? Progress in conceptualization and comparative
theory-building Amy G. Mazur and Dorothy E. McBride
INTRODUCTION At the heart of the study of feminist governance is understanding
what happens when women’s movement actors and ideas become institutionalised
inside the state through women’s policy agencies and individual actors – called
femocrats – who advocate explicitly feminist agendas. Since path-breaking work
done in Australia on femocracy – ‘sisters in suits’ (Sawer, 1990) ‘working from
inside’ (Sawer and Groves, 1994) and ‘inside agitators’ (Eisenstein, 1996) –
researchers have used the concept ‘feminist insider’ primarily in the context of
Western post-industrial democracies to describe the phenomenon. They have
explored various research questions such as: Who are these feminist insiders and
how are they connected to the women’s movement outside state arenas? To what
extent are feminist insiders able to achieve change that reflects feminist ideas
in the organisational logics of the state and the adoption and implementation of
policies and tools? Put simply, do feminist insiders matter? Certainly, actors
and structures within the state, like femocrats and women’s policy agencies,
have the potential to be conduits for movement actors and ideas in ways that
enhance gender equality and, in doing so, to improve the overall quality and
performance of democracy. At the same time, critics have warned that the
potential for cooptation and rejection posed by the gender-biased/ patriarchal
state jeopardises such democratic promise. As Guido et al. say in this Handbook
(Chapter 3), pervasive cultural norms work against gender equality, including
within government institutions. While research on gender and the state has
developed the analytical notion of feminist insiders and their activism, the
concept has not been operationalised and used in systematic cross-national
analysis with an eye towards building comparative theory. Thus, the goal of this
chapter is to propose a precise operational definition of feminist insider
activism (FIA) that can be used in such comparative research. The intent is to
help researchers identify insiders and map their trajectories, systematic
empirical research that can contribute to larger theories about the impact of
these inside agitators in a wider range of national contexts. The first part of
the chapter traces the evolution of the use of the term insider from its origins
outside gender and politics research to the ways various studies have used it to
examine the connections between women’s movements and state action. This review
then leads into a working definition of feminist insider activism and an
elaboration of how to apply it in comparative research. The conclusion turns to
a discussion of the next steps in the emerging research agenda on feminist
insiders and implications for broader questions of feminist governance and the
performance of democratic systems.
63
64 Handbook of feminist governance
FEMINIST INSIDER ACTIVISM: AN INTERNATIONAL CROSS-DISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE Whereas
researchers who work on comparative issues of gender policy and the state have
tended to focus on state feminism, feminist policy formation, or feminist
movements and policy separately, the emerging research agenda on feminist
insiders and their activism integrates findings from these three ‘separate
streams’.1 At the core of the concept of feminist insider activism is the
‘intersection’ (Banaszak, 2005, 2010), between movements outside government and
actors and structures within the state; what makes the insiders feminist is
their advocacy of feminist ideas that they bring from movements outside the
state, for example, the cases of South Africa and Australia in this Handbook. As
research on the state–movement connection shows, understanding insider activism
is less about whether feminist insiders are formally part of the women’s
movement (see e.g. Bereni and Revillard, 2018), or whether women’s movement
actors are autonomous from the state (e.g. Banaszak, 2010), but rather what they
do as actors within state arenas. The specific links between feminist insiders
and outsiders, therefore, is a question for research. What do researchers mean
when they use the term insider? Politics and gender researchers by no means have
a monopoly on the notion and in fact they have been inspired by studies,
especially on social movements, apart from those on feminist governance. As
Banaszak points out, ‘the decision to take to the streets or work in the
airconditioned halls of government’ (2005: 169) was highlighted as early as 1976
by Jo Freeman’s study of the US women’s movements and then by a range of social
movement and politics and gender scholars in the 1980s and 1990s. Building on
the work of Merton (1972), Patricia Hill Collins developed the concept of the
‘outsider within’ to show how Black feminist thinkers may use their positions of
marginality in producing ideas that reflect their ‘special standpoint’ (1986).
This ‘outsider within’ phenomenon can be found in discussions of feminist
approaches to fieldwork, for example by Cuomo and Massaro (2014) and Naples
(1996). Social movement researchers have used the term feminist insider to
identify feminist women’s movement actors who move into non-feminist movements
and/or groups. For example, Uthman’s (2009) study of insiders in Nigeria focuses
on the Muslim women who work inside the larger Islamic movement. Multilevel
insider–outsider feminist strategies at the transnational level have been
identified by Hsiung et al. (2006) and Einhorn (2006), while, Keck and Sikkink
(1998) have observed a ‘boomerang effect’ in many countries across the globe.
Here, feminist activists go ‘outside’ the national level to mobilise in
transnational movements and intergovernmental organisations and then use
international norms and policies to put pressure on national governments to
pursue gender equality policy. Thus, the insider–outsider construct has been
quite fruitful for a range of feminist analyses. At the same time, in the study
of gender politics and the state, the use of the feminist insider concept with
respect to feminist governance emerged in the 1990s and early 2000s (Chappell,
2013). The proliferation and diffusion of women’s policy machineries across the
globe, which began in the 1970s, culminated at the 1995 Beijing Conference
(McBride and Mazur, 2013). That, along with the shift in women’s movement
mobilisation in Western countries from anti-system protest movements to more
institutionalised networks aimed at policy reforms, provided fertile ground for
analysis. A closer look at the emergence of the concept reveals how it has been
used in comparative theory-building on gender politics and the state, not only
to develop and test assertions about determinants and dynamics of feminist
governance, but also
Do feminist insiders matter? 65 to provide good practice and recommendations
for policy actors, practitioners and activists who pursue gender equality both
inside and outside the state. State of the field articles on state feminism
(McBride and Mazur, 2013), insider activism/ tactics in the United States (US)
(Banaszak and Whitesell, 2017) and other Western countries (Banaszak, 2005), and
gender and governance (Chappell, 2013) in the 1980s and 1990s documented the
shifts in women’s movement mobilisation and activities of women’s policy
agencies in Western post-industrial democracies. These studies convinced
researchers to change the view of the state as a monolithic patriarchy to seeing
it as a complex set of institutions and arenas. Australian feminist scholars led
the way in studying the growth of agencies and femocrats. Sawer’s (1990) work on
‘sisters in suits’ was followed by Eisenstein (1996) who, in her study of
bureaucrats pursuing explicitly feminist agendas, helped transfer the label
‘femocrat’, originally both a critique and a form of identity, into a legitimate
area of study (Sawer, 2016). Chappell (2013) made an important contribution by
re-thinking critical feminist theories of the state, asserting that the state
should be thought of in more differentiated terms. These studies showed that
women’s movement activists on the outside could find openings as insiders to
move into the state to promote gender justice and gender equality (Franzway et
al., 1989; Pringle and Watson, 1992). Pringle and Watson argued that once
inside, the approaches of femocrats were shaped by the particular discursive
contexts where they were situated in the state. While a rich international
literature has continued to examine the role of femocrats, the definitions of
just who is a femocrat vary. Some writers define them as any women in the state
bureaucracy, others as bureaucrats with feminist agendas and still others as any
actor working for a women’s policy agency. Outshoorn (1994), for example,
focuses on femocrats in women’s policy agencies in the Netherlands. Thus, there
is no agreement that all femocrats are feminist insiders, although, to be sure,
femocrats are a major conduit for insider activism.2 In her comparative study of
Canada and Australia, Chappell developed the notions of ‘feminist engagement
with the state’ and ‘gendering government’ where ‘feminist activists cannot
avoid the state’ and ‘actor–agency relations’ are ‘co-constitutive’ (2002: 25).
German theorists also advanced the idea of ‘feminist materialism’ to describe
the obstacles and opportunities for feminist action offered by the contemporary
variegated state (e.g. Sauer and Wöhl, 2010). In the late 2000s, feminist
institutional theory emerged and identified gender power imbalances that act as
barriers to advancing women’s rights and gender equality in a meaningful way
(e.g. Krook and Mackay, 2011). Chappell (2006) honed in on processes within the
state that had gender-biased path dependencies – dominant gender norms and
practices that made it difficult for feminist insiders and outsiders to make
progress (here she revised March and Olsen’s (1984) quite gender-blind notion of
institutional path dependencies and ‘logics of appropriateness’).3 Meanwhile,
feminist scholars in the Nordic countries identified the policies and laws that
came from interactions between feminist insiders and outsiders as state
feminism, focusing on agitation from below and integration from above (Hernes,
1987; Siim, 1991). Feminist politics and gender scholars in the US also engaged
with insider–outsider concepts. Banaszak conducted path-breaking research on
insider activism in the US bureaucracy (2005 and 2010) and more recently with
Whitesell (2017) in the legislative arena, providing key insights and
observations that are foundational for any understanding of insider activism.
Their perspective was influenced by the American anti-state political culture
and a broad-based grassroots
66 Handbook of feminist governance women’s movement that was both anti-system
through direct protest and pro-reform through lobbies and large feminist groups
and networks. At the same time as these single-country studies were conducted, a
group of feminist scholars based in the US, Europe and Australia came together
in 1994 to study women’s policy agencies (WPA) from a comparative perspective.
Based on the history, organisation and activities of a single WPA in each of 14
Western post-industrial democracies, it was clear that a core research question
still needed to be addressed: whether and to what extent do WPAs ‘develop
opportunities for society based actors – feminist and women’s advocacy
organizations – to have access to the policy process?’ (McBride Stetson and
Mazur, 1995: 14). To study this question, members of this group and other
scholars formed the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS).
Eventually growing to 40 members, RNGS set to work to refine the concept of
state feminism and develop a comparative mixed-methods research design to guide
a comparative long-term study of the influence of women’s policy agencies across
five sectors of public policy and in 13 Western democracies. The nominal
definition of state feminism, developed by RNGS, went beyond equating state
feminism with the presence of WPAs in government. It spelled out that state
feminism occurs when women’s policy agencies act as allies of women’s movement
actors to achieve policy goals and procedural access to policymaking arenas.4
Based on theories of social movements and representation, the RNGS project began
with the assertion that WPAs could be potential sites for the representation of
women’s movement interests both in terms of descriptive representation – women’s
movement activists themselves entering the policy process – and substantive
representation – the ideas of women’s movements entering and influencing the
formation of public policies. Such representational potential of insiders became
part of the RNGS research agenda. This approach was in line with Weldon (2002),
who argued that organisations inside and outside the state are just as important
to representation as individuals elected to public office. This new research on
state feminism signalled the crucial connection between feminist insider
activism and democratic performance through representation. By its focus on
women’s policy agencies, the RNGS study thus explored feminist insider activism,
defined as the extent to which WPAs have helped feminist women’s movement
outsiders and ideas gain access to the policy process and have substantive
impact on policy outcomes. Thus, the term feminist insider has an explicit
operational meaning in RNGS research: those WPAs that were movement allies
through gendering public policy debates in feminist terms and bringing forward
feminist women’s movement actors into the policy sub-system at the end of the
debates. Feminist insiders are defined by the results of their activities, not
just their intent (McBride and Mazur, 2010: 125). Alongside the focus on
movement–state relations through studying feminist insiders is the equally
international literature in Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP) – analysis that
identifies the ingredients for authoritative and feminist/gender equality
policies. While FCP research took place, for the most part, in Western
post-industrial democracies (Mazur, 2015) there was also work on countries in
Latin America and the Caribbean (e.g. Lycklama a Nieholt et al., 1998). In this
work, a major ingredient or driver for feminist policy success has been the
‘strategic alliances’ between women in office, women’s policy agencies and
women’s movements (see Ahrens, Chapter 27 in this Handbook on ‘velvet
triangles’; see also Holli’s 2008 review of the concept).
Do feminist insiders matter? 67 Thus, an important paradigmatic shift in
comparative politics and gender scholarship has led to the emerging consensus
that feminist insiders and insider activism are highly useful concepts to assess
whether the state can become more feminist in its governance, for example,
through new methodologies of consultation and through gender impact analysis of
policy and programme delivery. This turn towards analysis of feminist insider
activism can be found across all areas of comparative gender and politics
research: state feminism, women’s movements, feminist policy formation and
feminist institutionalism. It ultimately shows how feminist insiders are key to
the process and outcomes of feminist governance, what Chappell and Mackay (2020)
call a ‘feminist change agenda’.
RESEARCH DEFINITION OF FEMINIST INSIDER ACTIVISM (FIA) A Complex Causal
Operational Definition From this overview, it is clear that any agenda for
understanding feminist insiders must go beyond identifying and describing
insiders and include an analysis of what insiders are actually doing in practice
within all state arenas: how they are connected to the feminist movement and
then, most importantly, the policy outcomes of their activities, the feminist
movements to which they are linked and, because of their potential to represent
both substantively and descriptively feminist interests, the degree to which
these enhance the quality of democracy. The concept feminist insider activism,
rather than feminist insiders, captures these complex relationships and the
normative understanding that the goal of FIA is to put forth feminist movement
agendas in order to produce concrete results and, in doing so, has the potential
to improve overall democratic performance. The following working definition is
designed to ‘travel’ across national contexts so that researchers can use it to
collect data systematically with an eye towards building a comparative theory of
FIA.5 Feminist insider activism comprises individuals and/or structures that
formally operate within state arenas at any level and that have links to
feminist movement actors and/or their ideas outside the state in order to
advance those ideas in policy practice and/or policy instruments to enhance
gender equality in policy outcomes and empower feminist movements. In the
language of conceptualisation, feminist insider activism is an ideal-type
concept rather than grey zone, meaning that the operational definition allows
researchers to identify state– society interactions that are either instances of
feminist insider activism or not. For example, the activities of women’s policy
agencies that do not explicitly express outsider feminist movement ideas or help
them access the policy process would not be considered instances of FIA. Figure
5.1 maps out the different dimensions of the concept and how they interrelate
according to the level at which it is taking place – extra-national, national,
subnational and local level. These are illustrated as contextual determinants.
As Kenny and Verge argue in this Handbook (Chapter 6), the study of multilevel
governance highlights the constitutional blueprint in each national setting and
the international memberships and obligations beyond the national level that
frame and affect feminist governance. Taking a closer look at the dimensions and
their interrelations shows how this complex concept can be used in comparative
research.
68 Handbook of feminist governance
Figure 5.1
Mapping feminist insider activism
Inside Actors: Agencies and Femocrats in a Range of State Arenas This dimension
allows for insiders to be individuals or structures. It reflects work that looks
either at individual activism, most of which tends to be focused on the US
(Banaszak and Whitesell, 2017) or focuses on structures such as women’s policy
agencies, most of which is comparative. State feminist literature has combined
these by looking at the individual in charge of a WPA as a major actor in
entering into successful state feminist alliances. Feminist insiders and
femocrats such as upper-level civil servants, staffers and even ministers can
also be located outside women’s policy agencies, bringing explicitly feminist
ideas and action to the work of a broad range of governmental agencies (Sawer,
2020). This dimension also reflects the debate about what the state is, and
where it ends and society begins. The state may be seen as a shifting complex
entity with multiple access points (Chappell, 2013). Moreover, conceptions of
the state and its boundaries shift from one country to another. While Andrew
(2013) refers to women’s policy agencies as part of the ‘institutional harvest’
of the women’s movement in Australia, and Bereni and Revillard (2018) have shown
how WPAs are ‘movement institutions’, particularly in the French case, Bereni
(2021) has also argued that WPAs worked with the women’s movement to get parity
laws on the books in France through a ‘women’s cause field’ that was both inside
and outside of the state. At the same time, the words any level in our
operational definition imply that state power in its broadest form includes a
wide range of locations with statutory or constitutional authority. This
includes all branches of government including police and courts and commissions,
as well as the quasi state structures such as advisory commissions and women’s
commissions in
Do feminist insiders matter? 69 political parties. Given that there are
locations both within a given country and in its engagements at the
transnational and international levels, there is the potential for a large
number of cases or observations of feminist insider activism. Such broad
conceptualisation shows great promise for increasing the number of observations
to address the problem in qualitative comparative analysis of too few cases and
too many variables (Lijphart, 1971). Connections Between Insiders and Outsiders
As depicted in Figure 5.1, the women’s movement itself is the starting point for
feminist insider activism. Work on feminist insiders has often emphasised the
direct connections between movement groups and insiders through overlapping
affiliations, for example, femocrats who are also members of movement
organisations (e.g. Banaszak, 2010; Eisenstein, 1996; Sawer, 1990). In contrast,
work on state feminism has shown that feminist movement ideas, not actors, can
be the conduit for insider activism. The RNGS project’s conceptualisation of
women’s movement is also quite helpful here (McBride and Mazur, 2008). Building
on comparative movement scholarship, their approach identifies women’s movements
by their ideas and the actors that present them in public life. Women’s movement
ideas comprise explicit identity with women as a group, specific claims to
represent women and the use of gendered language; feminist movement ideas are
considered a subset of these ideas with the specific goals of striking down
gender hierarchies and promoting gender equality. Thus, while insiders may
connect with women’s movement ideas generally, they may not always connect with
feminist movement ideas and actors. Studies that have looked at women insiders
as a proxy for connections to the movement, without determining whether they
supported women’s movement goals, are not studies of feminist insiders (e.g.
Santoro and McGuire, 1997). To locate feminist insiders requires some discussion
of whether women in the study supported feminist ideas or not, as we see in
Banaszak’s (2010) study of women in the US federal bureaucracy. Alternatively,
if men within the state connect with outsiders through supporting their ideas,
they too could potentially be seen as feminist insiders. This dimension makes it
clear that women’s movement outsiders can be formal organisations as well as
more shifting structures such as protests; the approach and form of the outsider
entity matters little, just that it is promotes feminist women’s movement ideas
in public life. Policy Practice of Insiders: The ‘Tools of the Trade’ Once the
insiders have been identified, the researcher can determine the tools these
insiders formally use to pursue the feminist movement agenda and then study how
the actors employ those tools; in other words, the policy practice of the
insiders. The actual mechanisms and the outcomes of the tools and practice of
the trade will vary across different types of political systems. It will be up
to the researcher to see how this plays out in quite different institutional
settings, for example the differences between presidential and parliamentary
systems. As Banaszak and Whitesell (2017: 490) argue, the target of feminist
insiders need not be just statutes, regulations or laws. The targets can include
programmes, budgets, appropriations and administrative rules. In fact, some
argue that budgets, specifically gender budgeting, has been a central tool for
feminist insider action. The very nature of the business of governing and the
inherent gender-biased patterns of state structures can also be the target of
insider feminist
70 Handbook of feminist governance practice. Palmieri and Ballington’s survey
of the ‘tools of the trade’ for international feminist governance (Chapter 15 in
this Handbook) provides a useful checklist to help identify the full range of
instruments for insider practice. Policy Outcomes: Feminist Content,
Authoritative Post-Adoption, Gender Equality, Empowerment and Democracy As FCP
analysts and students of feminist insider activism agree, we need to assess the
outsider–insider nexus in the policy process from start to finish – agenda
setting to policy implementation, evaluation and the outcomes. The development
and application of the Gender Equality Policy in Practice Approach (GEPP)
signals a focus on post-adoption processes and outcomes (Engeli and Mazur,
2018). The GEPP network has conducted comparative qualitative analyses of the
practice of gender equality policy in employment, care and political
representation across 50 countries. The network’s gender transformation measure
gauges policy effects on gender-role change, gender equality and inclusive
policy empowerment in terms of intersectionality – a move away from dominant
heteronormative notions of gender. The measure has four levels of potential
transformation: full, gender accommodation, gender neutral and row back (Engeli
and Mazur, 2018). The gender transformation measure can also be used to assess
the results of feminist insider activism. After insider actions are identified
and traced using the various instruments, the researcher can study the content,
implementation, evaluation and direct impact of the policy trail left by those
actions. Did the policy instrument or output reflect feminist demands from the
movement? Was it implemented and evaluated in terms of movement demands and
ideas? Were movement actors brought into the process with the insiders? Was the
problem solved and gender equality achieved in line with the ideas and demands
of feminist movement actors? This policy outcome dimension also brings in the
notion of descriptive and substantive representation, that is, empowerment. The
question here is: to what degree do feminist insiders empower women’s movement
actors and their ideas through both direct participation and the expression of
women’s movement ideas in policy outcomes and processes? For example, immediate
descriptive empowerment would be achieved when a member of a feminist movement
organisation joins a state structure. Substantive empowerment occurs by bringing
forward and inserting the movement ideas for gender equality into the policy
debate frames and/or content of government affairs and policy. This
representative potential means that if empowerment is achieved because of
insider activism, then, the larger democratic process is improved, forming
another potential indirect outcome of FIA (see Figure 5.1). Transversal
Considerations Feminism: a necessary condition In this approach, to be
considered FIA the ideas and actions that are explicitly pursued by the state
actor/agency in question must be linked to the feminist ideas put forward by
women’s movement actors. The ideas expressed by insiders and outsiders may
reflect women’s movement ideas, but they are not feminist unless they explicitly
seek to advance women’s rights, status and identities by striking down
gender-based hierarchies. Thus, the conceptualisation brings feminist ideas to
the fore as a first question to be considered, rather than just assuming that
any actor from the women’s movement is feminist.
Do feminist insiders matter? 71 Putting intersectionality on the analytical
radar This transversal dimension reflects current feminist research and
theorising (see Townsend-Bell, Chapter 7 in this Handbook) by clarifying that
all society-based claims-makers that speak for women need to be taken into
consideration, including transgender individuals who identify as women, and not
just those from middle-class, heterosexual and dominant ethnic/racial groups
within a given country.6 It is imperative to examine ideas challenging gender
hierarchies articulated by all racial and ethnic groups and the extent to which
feminist insiders speak for them, especially if those ideas have been ignored or
silenced in the political process. While an ultimate goal of FIA should be a
full representation of intersectionality, it is not a necessary condition. At
the same time, researchers need to include it in their analytical purview and
may want to develop a scale for an intersectional FIA.
NEXT STEPS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FEMINIST GOVERNANCE AND THE QUALITY OF DEMOCRACY
This chapter has traced the definitions of feminist insider activism and its
examination in case studies and cross-national research since the 1990s. The
conceptualisation shows that a new research cycle is well underway. Feminist
institutional research has suggested that the political opportunity structure of
the state and its path-dependent gender biases and norms present formidable
obstacles to feminist insider activists’ ability to achieve transformation and a
gender justice agenda. Research on FIA in transitional or post-conflict settings
with new political opportunity structures and institutions coming out of extreme
periods of change points to the promise and the pitfalls of the absence of
long-established conventions and path dependencies for effective action.7 FCP
studies have shown that sectoral differences rather than regional differences
are salient in understanding successful feminist policy outcomes and that
left-wing governing majorities do not always produce feminist outcomes (Htun and
Weldon, 2018; Kittilson, 2006; McBride and Mazur, 2010). Comparative gender
politics research indicates that rising resistance and opposition, illiberal
democratic forces and hard economic times also may be important intervening
forces affecting the ability of feminist insiders to institute feminist
governance (e.g. Bashevkin, 1998; Verloo, 2018). A long-standing problem in
research on feminist governance is the imbalance in empirical studies between
Western democracies and countries in the Global South. This gap is especially
telling in the study of feminist insider activism. Although there have been a
few studies of the role of women’s policy agencies and feminist alliances
outside Western democracies (e.g. Gouws, 2022: Hassim, 2006; Kang and Tripp,
2018; Lycklama a Nieholt et al., 1998; Rai, 2003), the major theory-building
effort on FIA is more of a mid-range endeavour that focuses on democratic and
post-industrial contexts. Feminist analysts document that state–society
relations in non-Western settings are radically different from those in the
West, severely limiting the analytical usefulness of concepts and methods
developed in Western settings (Valiente, 2007). FIA, if it exists at all,
unfolds in a manner that is quite different from activism in Western
post-industrial democracies. Economic challenges and chronic political
instability in developing countries, exacerbated by the global turmoil
associated with Covid-19 and environmental injustice, undermine many state-based
feminist efforts. Feminist scholars with lived experience outside the Western
context will need to study this emerging approach to movements, gender politics
and the state,
72 Handbook of feminist governance and determine if it promises greater
understanding of issues of feminist governance in their settings. A promising
place to start is to assess the large literature on women’s policy agencies and
women’s movements outside the Western world for evidence of feminist insider
activism.8 Despite these limitations, the study of feminist insider activism has
clearly moved from infancy into adolescence. A more precise conceptual mapping
of this complex phenomenon could begin with a targeted rereading of literature
on state feminism and women’s movement policy activity. From there, researchers
might develop research questions and gather data on more instances of potential
feminist insider activism in all arenas and levels of state action; this would
comprise a new data collection project. The use of a variety of methodological
and mixed methods approaches might help analysts adapt more easily to data
availability and available resources for research. A careful articulation of
representation and intersectionality within the study of insider activism will
enhance broader theories and understandings of feminist governance. In the final
analysis, not only does the study of feminist insider activism show potential
for more in-depth knowledge of feminist governance, but also how such activism
may increase state representativeness and responsiveness to gender interests and
claims, despite current challenges. By contributing to the breaking down of
gender-biased hierarchies and path dependencies within state and society, such
findings could transform our understanding of the state. Indeed, in the context
of the current challenges to gender equality through democratic backsliding,
economic downsizing and downturns, and the fallout from Covid-19, a systematic
focus on feminist insider activism may reveal whether ‘working from inside’ can
be an important countervailing force.
NOTES 1.
2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8.
Mazur (2015: 2528) identifies the emergence of the international sub-area of
‘feminist comparative policy’ that ‘seeks to determine if, how, and why
contemporary, Western, post-industrial democracies are feminist by focusing on
the interface between gender politics and the state’. FCP research is classified
into four separate streams of research with some areas of overlap. For a concise
overview of work on femocrats, see Sawer (2016). See McBride and Mazur (2010)
for more detail on the efforts of Chappell and other feminist institutionalists
to develop theories of state change in response to the silences of non-feminist
new institutional approaches and path dependency theory. For more on RNGS and
its contributions to the study of women’s policy machineries and state feminism,
see McBride and Mazur (2013). The approach used here follows the lead of social
scientists who focus on good conceptualisation as a major stepping stone in
theory-building and, in particular, work that calls for more attention for
conceptualisation in comparative gender research that avoids the trap of concept
stretching (Mazur, 2020; Sartori, 1970). Comparative analysis of
intersectionality in ‘equality architecture’ in Walby and Verloo (2012) provides
data for assessing whether WPA feminist insiders represent intersectional
aspects of women movements. See the chapters on gender dynamics in post-conflict
and transitional countries in Scheele et al. (2022). In 2011, for example,
McBride and Mazur identified 134 discrete studies of women’s policy machineries
in countries outside the Global North.
Do feminist insiders matter? 73
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6. Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance Meryl Kenny and Tània Verge
INTRODUCTION: GENDER AND MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE Studies of federalism or
multilevel governance (MLG) have very rarely taken into account issues of
gender, while, at the same time, feminist political science has often ignored or
underplayed the importance of territory and political architecture. Real-world
developments have made these questions more pressing – as political
decision-making has become more complex and diffuse, through processes of
federalisation, decentralisation and transnational regional integration. Yet
efforts to build theories of gender and MLG have been hindered by the lack of a
‘common language’ due to the diversity of approaches that have addressed this
question, such as the literature on federalism and institutional architectures
(e.g. Chappell, 2002; Haussman et al., 2010; Vickers et al., 2013), the
literature on transnational or supranational governance (e.g. Abels and MacRae,
2016; Kantola, 2010) and the comparative literature on territorial politics
(e.g. Alonso, 2018; Kenny and Verge, 2013; Thomson, 2019). The term MLG has also
been used both in a general sense in the scholarly literature to address levels
of governance beyond the nation state, and in a specific sense associated with
the European Union (Hooghe and Marks, 2001; see also Part IV of this Handbook).
In this chapter, we focus on the broader understanding of MLG, using it as an
umbrella term covering feminist scholarship that examines relationships within,
below and above the state through a gender lens. This term describes the
dispersion of decision-making across multiple territorial levels, as well as
state and non-state actors, ranging from international governmental and
non-governmental organisations to community groups and social movements.
Therefore, the ‘multilevel’ dimension of the concept captures the increased
vertical interdependence of actors at different territorial levels (upwards and
downwards between tiers of government), while the move towards ‘governance’
encapsulates less hierarchical and more horizontal (sideways) forms of
policymaking and decision-making with a broader range of actors (Bache and
Flinders, 2004; Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Sawer and Vickers, 2010). We begin the
chapter by taking stock of the small but growing body of literature on the
relationship between gender and MLG structures. Engaging with theories of
governance that conceive of the state as a differentiated set of institutions
and agencies with an open outcome regarding gender equality policy and women’s
empowerment (Kantola, 2006), we evaluate the development of research on gender,
territory and state architecture over time, focusing in particular on work on
women, gender and federalism. We review existing findings as to how MLG
arrangements affect and are affected by women’s movement organising,
participation and representation (Vickers, 2020). In doing so, we highlight the
insights of feminist research with regard to the gendered character and impacts
of institutional architecture, which has shed new light on both how women’s
movements and feminist actors can use MLG structures to 76
Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance 77 effect change, but also on
how institutions either facilitate or obstruct reform efforts (Chappell, 2002;
Vickers, 2013a). We then move on to consider two key questions that remain
understudied in the gender and MLG field. First, we argue that analyses of
whether women are advantaged or disadvantaged by multilevel arrangements must
pay attention to the mediating actors in MLG, particularly to political parties.
Second, we contend that the impact of institutional architecture on actors
navigating MLG, specifically women’s movements and anti-gender movements, also
deserves further examination. We conclude by reflecting on the utility of
gendered approaches to studying MLG in ‘turbulent times’, pointing to new
directions forward for feminist research on this topic.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENDER AND INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE As discussed in
more detail in Chapters 3 and 4 in this Handbook, feminist scholars conceive of
the state as gendered. As Jill Vickers (2013a) argues, ‘gender makes states’, in
that gender norms and stereotypes are embedded in policymaking – shaping the
composition of structures, the unfolding of processes and the organisational
culture of institutions. At the same time, ‘states make gender’ by regulating
gender power relations on a daily basis through policies, laws, judicial rulings
or spending decisions (Vickers, 2013a). Given that gender relations are
historically dynamic and that the state’s position in women’s/gender politics is
not fixed, the state is the focus of interest-group mobilisation (Connell,
1990). Indeed, early work on gender and MLG focused on whether federalism was a
barrier to or an opportunity for women’s equality-seeking strategies. Feminist
and LGBTI+ studies explored the ways federalism may accord an advantageous
political opportunity structure to transfer activism across institutional levels
(federal and state arenas) and venues (executive, legislative and judicial) when
blockage is faced in either arena (Banaszak, 1996; Bashevkin, 1998; Chappell,
2002). Subsequent work turned to how federalism impacts women’s politics, which
Vickers (2011: 136) conceptualises as involving ‘descriptive representation,
organizational patterns in movements and interest advocacy, and projects
promoting substantive representation’. This includes both conventional politics
and feminist activism (Vickers, 2010: 433), as well as gender equality policy in
a variety of sectors such as protection of rights, service delivery,
gender-based violence policy, economic empowerment and political participation
(Forster, 2020). The so-called ‘federal advantage’ includes women’s greater
access to political institutions, since politics is ‘closer to home’ (Obiora and
Toomey, 2010; Ortbals et al., 2012); the provision of multiple points of access
for gender equality activists to forum shop; and the higher capacity to foster
innovation through top-down, bottom-up or horizontal diffusion of learning
processes and policy transfer (for a review, see Forster, 2020). However,
scholars have also warned that these same features may pose various ‘federal
disadvantages’ (Meier, 2014). On the one hand, the asymmetry in the provision of
public services across sub-state units can potentially undermine the development
of coordinated and integrated countrywide gender equality policies, yielding an
uneven delivery of services and a broad diversity of policies and laws on the
same issue (Celis and Meier, 2011; Chappell and Curtin, 2013; Franceschet,
2011). On the other hand, conservative actors may exploit the exist-
78 Handbook of feminist governance ence of multiple veto points with a view to
obstructing or even rolling back gender equality progress (Grace, 2011;
Haussman, 2005). For this reason, most accounts have gradually come to adopt a
‘conditional approach’ (Gray, 2010). That is, the positive or negative impacts
of federalism on gender equality policy depend on the characteristics of
individual countries, and their effects ‘vary between institutions, across
institutional arenas, and policy or issue sectors, and with time and space’
(Vickers, 2010: 419; see also Chappell, 2002). For instance, gender equality
policy innovation, policy transfer and race-to-the-top dynamics are more likely
to be set in motion in either cooperative or competitive federations than in
dual federalism where the centre and the sub-state units hold different
jurisdictions (Vickers, 2011: 136; see also Beyeler, 2014). Dual federalism has
been found to be potentially harmful for women’s rights as the existing gendered
division of powers leaves the competences of high import to women – such as the
regulation of ‘private life’ (e.g. family law), education, health or welfare –
in the hands of the sub-state units. In contrast, the powers associated with
masculinity (e.g. defence or external affairs) tend to be found at the federal
level (Grace, 2011: 100; Irving, 2008: 69). This may lead to legal pluralism
regarding fundamental rights and crucial social programmes, yielding an unequal
protection of women and an uneven access to resources across the country
(Chappell, 2001; Irving, 2008; Mettler, 1998), particularly when the two main
tiers of government engage in a politics of blame shifting (Grace, 2011: 101).
Still, state capacity and political will may constrain the danger of legal
pluralism in federal countries (Vickers, 2013b). Also, party federalism, as will
be further discussed in the next section, crucially contributes to shaping
gender outcomes in MLG systems (Lang and Sauer, 2013). While the initial focus
of much of the work on gender and state architecture has been on established
federations, predominantly from the Global North, scholars have increasingly
looked at federations in the Global South, such as Nigeria (Obiora and Toomey,
2010), India (Spary, 2020), Pakistan (Mufti, 2020), Brazil (Bohn, 2020) and
Argentina (Lopreite, 2020). Recent work in the field has also started to look
more systematically at intersectional power relationships, exploring how gender
interacts with race, ethnicity, language, religion, sexual orientation and other
structures of power, and demonstrating that the outcomes of particular MLG
arrangements differ for majority and minority women (e.g. Smith, 2010; Vickers
et al., 2020). The federal–unitary dichotomy has also given way to the inclusion
of decentralised countries in the investigation of the relationship between
gender and state architectures (Vickers et al., 2020). Indeed, sub-state units
have more powers or autonomy (self-rule) in some so-called ‘unitary’ states than
in some federations, albeit the cross-level decision-making capacity of
sub-state units (shared rule) tends to be larger in federations. This shift has
led scholars to increasingly consider federalism, decentralisation or devolution
as ‘processes, not events’.1 Analyses have thus become less static and paid
attention to the territorial dynamics fostered by the downloading, uploading or
offloading of power over time, and how these shape the opportunities to mobilise
and to effect gender change (Banaszak et al., 2003; Kenny and Verge, 2013;
Russell et al., 2002; Verge and Alonso, 2020). These newer studies have left
behind the ‘methodological nationalism’ (cf. Jeffrey and Schakel, 2013) of both
feminist and mainstream political science, which has tended to focus on the
nation state as the main unit of analysis. They have also increasingly
acknowledged that the ‘nation’ and the ‘state’ are not always territorially
coterminous, which has important implications for women and for gender equality.
The saliency of territorial-based identities
Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance 79 matters for gender politics
(Sawer and Vickers, 2010; Vickers, 2011). For example, scholars have found that
in polities with a higher saliency of the ethno-territorial cleavage, gender
equality strategies are more difficult to organise due to the competition of the
relevance of sex/ gender with that of territory, yielding more fragmented
progressive alignments and alliances (Vickers, 2011: 134; see also McAllister,
2001). Taking a multilevel approach also highlights that organised women’s
movements do not only (or ideally) relate to unitary states (Vickers et al.,
2020). For example, many regional women’s movements support territorial autonomy
and even secession, as can be seen in nations like Catalonia, Quebec and
Scotland (e.g. Alonso, 2018). This in turn raises important questions about
territorial differentiation of political community (and gendered citizenship)
within the state. Indeed, some sub-state units have adopted more progressive
positions regarding certain gender equality policy domains than the centre, even
where the national cleavage is prominent, as shown, for example by Quebec within
Canada (Vickers, 2010), Scotland within the United Kingdom (Mackay, 2010), or
Catalonia and the Basque Country within Spain (Verge and Alonso, 2020).
Processes of constitutional and institutional restructuring can provide the
women’s movement with the opportunity to push for gains in women’s descriptive
representation, as well as to incorporate gender equality into wider political
debates. Yet, new decentralised arrangements are also ‘nested’ within wider
structures and historical legacies that may constrain possibilities for change
(cf. Mackay, 2014; see also Thomson, 2019). Work on gender, federalism and
decentralisation in the Global South, for example, highlights the extent to
which patterns and effects of decentralisation are shaped by wider colonial and
authoritarian legacies (Henders, 2020). Last but not least, since changes in
formal institutions do not necessarily lead to greater gender equality, feminist
scholars have also looked at the impact of informal institutions. These include
gendered or apparently gender-neutral political discourses (Grace, 2011);
mechanisms of path dependence such as the historical legacies of federations, as
discussed above (Smith, 2018; Vickers, 2010, 2011); prevailing norms about
gender relations; or reinterpretations of the division of powers that favour
progressive outcomes – for example, the voiding of state family laws by the US
Supreme Court on equal protection grounds (Banaszak and Weldon, 2011: 267). On
the one hand, informal institutions may facilitate positive gender change,
particularly when there is good fit and tight coupling between formal and
informal institutional arrangements. For example, Mackay’s (2014) assessment of
the successes and limits of devolution in Scotland highlights the ways in which
campaigners linked formal rule changes (e.g. the introduction of family-friendly
working hours) with informal norms and discourses around care and ‘new
politics’. On the other hand, informal institutions may undermine formal
institutions and processes (perhaps in the face of changing arrangements) or
exist alongside formal arrangements as a parallel institution (see Helmke and
Levitsky, 2004). For example, Grace (2020) highlights the ways in which formal
rules about who can participate in intergovernmental decision-making in Canada
are shaped by informal norms of masculine leadership and discourses of
territory, which limit possibilities for pursuing women’s policy objectives.
Likewise, executive federalism, characterised by lack of parliamentary oversight
and intergovernmental decision-making behind closed doors, has been found by
Sawer (2014) to hamper the implementation of a participatory/democratic model of
gender mainstreaming in Australia.
80 Handbook of feminist governance
GENDER AND MLG: A RESEARCH AGENDA As outlined in the previous section, research
on gender and MLG has developed and expanded in multiple directions: examining
how MLG arrangements affect women’s political participation and representation;
how women’s organising and presence shapes MLG arrangements; and how MLG
arrangements shape, and are shaped by, ideas about gender (Vickers, 2013a). New
research has expanded these concerns by investigating a broader range of MLG
arrangements and country case studies, and by incorporating the
‘intersectionality imperative’ to consider the interplay between gender and
other structures of power (see Vickers et al., 2020). Yet, there is still much
that remains to be explored in this rapidly expanding field. Here, we focus on
two key research agendas: the role of political parties in the operation of MLG
and the ways in which (different groups of) actors navigating MLG arrangements
are impacted by institutions. Gender, Political Parties and MLG Despite being
the actors to whom modern democracies accord linkage, representative and
governing functions, the role of political parties in the operation of MLG has
been largely neglected. Yet, empirical examinations of how state architecture
shapes women’s politics needs to consider parties as independent, complex
organisations in their own right that are themselves multi-layered actors (Kenny
and Verge, 2013). ‘Federal advantages’ might only further gender equality policy
if political parties use them to put forward a progressive agenda, for instance
through the work of women’s policy agencies (Lang and Sauer, 2013). Scholars
have found party politics to matter more for advancing gender equality and
LGBTI+ policies at the central level rather than at the regional level, with
these policies expanding with left-wing governments thanks to the leading role
of party feminists and the alliance of the central-level women’s policy agency
with the feminist movement when the left is in power (Valiente, 2007).
Furthermore, analyses of the gendered implications of MLG should take into
account that the party system is one of the crucial institutional variables in
which state architecture is ‘nested’ (Erk and Swenden, 2010: 201). Therefore,
‘vertical division of powers alone cannot explain variations in outcomes’ in a
particular women’s rights policy, but they interact with party politics
(Franceschet and Piscopo, 2013: 130). A small number of scholars have looked
into how political party polarisation mediates gender outcomes, particularly
doctrinal or morality policies such as sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI+
rights. On the one hand, conservative groups often promote partisan conflict
around doctrinal issues by resorting to negative states’ rights discourses in
dual federalism polities (Vickers, 2010: 426) or by polarising voters for
partisan advantage (Haussman, 2005). On the other hand, in the absence of
adequate intergovernmental coordination mechanisms, both among sub-state units
and between the latter and the federal level, the nature of the party system
might provide incentives for political officials in some MLG countries to act as
territorial agents. For example, party polarisation around morality issues (such
as same-sex marriage) will be stronger in meso-level units with high religious
diversity, as parties compete to own the issue and gain an electoral advantage,
particularly when political careers are built at this level of government
(Mariani, 2020). It should be noted, though, that moral divides within political
parties, for instance around abortion rights, are more likely to be found in
decentralised organisations, which leave the
Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance 81 central party with limited
capacity to align all regional branches on a single position and to discipline
deviations from the national party platform. In this vein, MLG arrangements
matter for policy outcomes not because of the centre–periphery division of power
but because of its effect on party dynamics, which may be either centralised
(i.e. linked to countrywide concerns) or territorialised (i.e. linked to
regional concerns) (Franceschet and Piscopo, 2013: 131). When political parties
are centralised or integrated, they create connections across tiers of
government through both formal and informal mechanisms, leading some authors to
characterise these polities as ‘party federalism’. It is more likely to be found
in parliamentary democracies where policy ‘innovation from above and from below
has to be launched via parties’ (Lang and Sauer, 2013: 77). Intra-party
organisational dynamics have also been found to mediate the relationship between
formal institutions and women’s descriptive representation. Indeed, even if
federalism or political decentralisation widen the possibilities for the
selection and election of women candidates, parties are still the main vehicles
through which selection processes occur for both executive and legislative
office at all tiers of government. Specifically, the impact of MLG arrangements
(existing or new) on electoral gender quota adoption and implementation is
contingent upon the internal distribution of authority between the central and
the regional branches of political parties. When moderate intra-party multilevel
shared decision-making is combined with relatively limited autonomy for the
regional branches, quota reforms are more successfully enforced at both tiers,
thereby ‘overcoming the potential fragmenting effect of multiple levels’. On the
other hand, high autonomy for regional branches undermines the central party’s
capacity to effectively implement gender quotas (Kenny and Verge, 2013: 123).
Moreover, in devolution processes, the creation of new institutions, with no
incumbent candidates, and the choice of more gender-friendly electoral systems
(i.e. proportional representation systems, as compared to plurality systems) has
created new opportunities to make women’s representation a more prominent
feature in party competition (Russell et al., 2002: 72). Actors Navigating MLG:
Women’s Movements and Anti-Gender Movements A key question going forward for
gender and MLG scholars is ‘which combination of conditions is positive or
negative for attaining gender reform’ (Vickers, 2013a: 12). In other words, a
‘conditional approach’ to studying the interplay of gender and MLG structures
needs to move beyond the question of whether MLG arrangements advantage or
disadvantage women to a more nuanced analysis of ‘which specific elements of a
given institutional arrangement are (or are not) renegotiable, and why some
aspects are more amenable to change than others’ (Thelen, 2004: 36; original
emphasis). Actors adapt their strategies to the tiers and venues they target
(Fetner, 2008). The characteristics and historical legacies of MLG arrangements,
including the specific division of powers, also facilitate or constrain women’s
and LGBTI+ activism across tiers of government and across venues (Smith, 2018;
Vickers, 2010; Vickers et al., 2013). Lobbying efforts, for example, are easier
to launch in states where key policies for women and LGBTI+ people fall under
federal jurisdiction (Bashevkin, 1998; Macdonald and Mills, 2010; Obiora and
Toomey, 2010; Smith, 2004). This is also the case in symmetrical MLG
arrangements that more closely resemble unitary states, which facilitate the
crafting of alliances and the spread of policy innovation through a policy
learning process across the entire polity (Chappell and Curtin, 2013; Vickers,
2011). Likewise, in cooperative federations where
82 Handbook of feminist governance there is a wide array of shared competencies
– both vertically between the federal and sub-state units and horizontally
between the sub-state units – progressive social movements find it easier to
launch concerted lobby efforts at one level when the other level is not
accessible (Mahon and Collier, 2010). Conversely, exclusive division of powers,
where the ‘separate spheres’ paradigm prevails, increase the operational costs
of promoting women’s and LGBTI+ groups’ interests throughout the polity. They
require social movements to lobby several access points at once when the
competence is located at the meso level, which entails the need for more
resources (Mahon and Collier, 2010; Smith, 2004). These challenges for women’s
organisations are heightened when the number of constituent units is larger;
when they have bicameral (upper and lower) houses; when the federal Senate is
elected; and when the polity is a presidential democracy with a strict
separation between the legislative and the executive powers (Vickers, 2010:
424). Asymmetrical MLG arrangements, where different sub-state units have a
dissimilar level of competences, also impose higher coordination costs (Celis et
al., 2013; Celis and Meier, 2011), which may advantage more resourceful
conservative counter-movements (Haussman, 2005; Macdonald and Mills, 2010).
Territorial differences in gendered citizenship can also limit opportunities for
women’s movements to deploy their strategies. In the United Kingdom, for
example, while asymmetrical devolution has allowed for some degree of
progressive change across its four nations, the dominant narrative in Northern
Ireland has been one of ‘difference’, with abortion (and other gendered issues)
considered ‘off limits’ by the central UK government (Thomson, 2019). Instead of
opening up opportunities for ‘venue shopping’, devolution has created a
‘ping-pong’ effect, where no action on abortion and reproductive rights is taken
in Northern Ireland, but the central UK government has also absolved itself of
responsibility for these issues. The unidirectional examination of the
opportunities for ‘venue shopping’ that vertical and horizontal divisions of
power may afford has been gradually made more complex, as scholars have shifted
to a ‘two-way street’ approach focused on investigating the (co-constitutive)
relationship between institutions and actors (Chappell, 2002; Vickers, 2010).
This implies ‘revers[ing] the causal arrow’ and to examine how organised women
aim at changing or circumventing federal arrangements (cf. Vickers, 2010: 412).
Indeed, similar institutions in MLG countries may accord the women’s movement
different opportunities; that is, feminist activists do not just seek to take
advantage of existing opportunities but also seek to turn them to their
advantage for advancing their aims (Chappell, 2000). For example, women’s
organisations and LGBTI+ groups have tried to ‘nationalise’ gender equality
issues by means of constitutional litigation, as in the case of abortion rights
and same-sex marriage. This strategy is more likely to succeed in asymmetrical
MLG arrangements, since ‘ongoing contestation over the division of powers opens
up political space feminists can use to change obstructive federal arrangements’
(Vickers, 2010: 413; see also Sawer and Vickers, 2001). Conversely, it is more
difficult to deploy under MLG where an exclusive division of powers prevails
(Vickers, 2010: 428). Further attention is also needed to how divisions of power
may have a dissimilar impact on minority women and majority women, as well as
the strategies that both groups might find more effective to push their demands
forward. In Canada, for example, nation-building projects at federal and Quebec
levels promoted progressive gender regimes to gain women’s support, culminating
in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Dobrowolsky, 2000; Vickers, 2011).
English-Canadian women were advantaged by federal control of family and criminal
Feminist perspectives on multilevel governance 83 law, but Franco-Quebec women
benefited most from social policies at the provincial level, where Quebec had
created their own, more ‘women-friendly versions’ of pan-Canadian programmes
(Vickers, 2010: 425). Aboriginal women, however, were not advantaged, and
continued to experience detrimental outcomes from colonialist federal laws
(Green, 2003; Vickers, 2011). Gender and MLG scholars would also benefit from
engaging further with the growing body of work on ‘anti-gender’ movements in
Europe and beyond, which offers a crucial piece of the ‘puzzle’ in terms of
explaining resistance to change (e.g. Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017; Verloo, 2018).
Work in this area demonstrates how MLG arrangements also impact the strategies
of anti-gender movements to oppose gender equality. For example, when marriage
equality was upheld nationwide in the United States in 2015, the state level
became the arena from which to obtain exemptions for both the clergy and private
businesses from providing services to LGBT couples (Mariani, 2020; see also
Haussman, 2010 on abortion policy). Looking above the state, research also
points to the ways in which supra-national institutions like the European Union
have provided a platform for radical right populist parties to both frame
debates at European level and to connect to right-wing constituencies at the
national level (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021). The effect of this has been to
polarise debates on gender equality and to limit spaces for debating progressive
gender policies in sub-state, national and international forums.
GENDER AND MLG IN TURBULENT TIMES The dispersion of political power from
national governments to sub-state and supra-national ones has become a defining
feature of contemporary democracies. Dialogue between mainstream studies of MLG
arrangements and gender politics scholarship has been minimal to date, yet there
is considerable value to bringing a gendered approach to the study of MLG. A
gendered lens offers crucial insights into issues of power and change, exposing
the extent to which MLG arrangements are gendered and investigating the
conditions under which gains for women and gender equality can be achieved.
Research in the field must continue to ‘ask the other question’, bringing an
intersectional lens to bear on majority and non-majority women’s experiences of
navigating different MLG arrangements. Looking beyond the Global North will be
crucial to advancing this agenda, as well as considering MLG arrangements in
non-democratic or semi-democratic countries. We must also consider not just
positive cases of gender change, but also negative cases, and cases where no
action has occurred. ‘Actions not taken are as important as those that are’
(Thomson, 2019: 202) – and in complex MLG arrangements, gendered issues may be
difficult to mobilise around politically and the onus on institutions to act on
gender equality can get lost. Furthermore, focusing not only on formal, but also
informal institutions – and their interplay – will increase our analytical
leverage, allowing scholars to better explain differential effects across MLG
systems and over time (cf. Banaszak and Weldon, 2011). Finally, more systematic,
comparative and mixed-method studies are needed across multiple and diverse
federations in order to gather more data and to develop robust theories and
concepts that can travel across different settings. These questions are all the
more important given the challenges that lie ahead for federal and decentralised
countries, including: global economic recessions; increases in political
polarisation and the rise of populism; and the Covid-19 pandemic. Policy
responses to these
84 Handbook of feminist governance kinds of crises may jeopardise the gains
made by women, entailing a retrenchment of social and gender equality policies,
as was the case of the global financial crisis of the last decade (Karamessini
and Rubery, 2014). Indeed, policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have
already had a regressive effect on gender equality – in particular by
significantly increasing the burden of unpaid care, which is carried out
disproportionately by women. The austerity policies enacted by the European
Union and enforced by central governments have affected the capacity of
sub-state units to respond to economic crises – capacity which is shaped by the
degree of fiscal centralisation of MLG arrangements and by the tax-raising
powers and spending capacity of sub-state units. Yet, while federalism and MLG
may potentially hamper responses to these contemporary challenges, there may
also be the possibility that local, regional and national policy responses to
these ‘crisis moments’ will lead to new opportunities for more progressive paths
and gender regimes, creating spaces for women and for gender equality concerns.
NOTE 1. This phrase was memorably coined by the then Secretary of State for
Wales Ron Davies (1998: 15) in the context of devolution in the United Kingdom.
In a pamphlet published ahead of the first elections to the National Assembly
for Wales, he explained: ‘Devolution is a process. It is not an event and
neither is it a journey with a fixed end-point.’
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7. Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance Erica Townsend-Bell
INTRODUCTION Feminist governance’s concern is fomenting gender equality.
Intersectionality’s intervention is to consider: where? at what level? Under
what conditions, if any, can we speak meaningfully of gender unattached to other
systems or even categories, where our attention is on the relationship expressed
beyond basic descriptive addends? Feminist governance is still a
concept-in-formation, but its basic elements are widely agreed upon. It refers
to actors, entities, norms and policies directed towards achieving gender
equality. It is multi-scalar and multilevel, taking place in and across multiple
dimensions, in formal and informal settings. It may be direct or indirect in
orientation (Chapter 1, this Handbook). That is, fomented by and under the aegis
of feminism, or indirectly, in that actors, events and processes are influenced
by, or at least partially aligned with feminist norms and values (Chapter 1,
this Handbook). Halley (2018) suggests conceiving of feminist governance as a
heuristic category, which is helpful in conceptualising the great breadth of
action, structures, processes and people that the concept approaches. In all
these dimensions it is constitutive of gender, and of the notion of gender
equality (Halley et al., 2018; Kantola and Squires, 2012). Some basic critiques
of, and questions about, feminist governance are also widely shared. Most
fundamentally that feminist governance is an important corrective to
undifferentiated models of governance, but not of a transformational variety
(Bustelo, 2009; Sawer, 2007). Or rather, that the transformations which do occur
are of feminism itself, with the result that feminism becomes yet another
instrument of dominant neoliberal governmentalities, adapted to neoliberal
priorities (Miller and Razavi, 1998; Prügl, 2015). Following this is the
argument that a consistent practice of feminist governance is precarious and
always at risk; increasingly so in the wake of more and more entrenched
neoliberal global moves which reduce governance to a set of tools that
prioritise resource access, capacity-building and other moves meant to centre
self-sufficiency and the individual (Kantola and Squires, 2012). Banaszak et
al.’s description of the great explosion of governance, in which state authority
has been ‘uploaded’ to supranational organizations, ‘downloaded’ to substate
governments, ‘laterally loaded’ to non-elected state bodies, and ‘offloaded’ to
civil society and other non-state actors (2003: 4–7) remains a helpful heuristic
itself for organising our understanding of the diffusion of power from the
traditional state model. Taken together, these concerns frame yet another
critique of feminist governance – that it has not sufficiently grappled with the
fundamental questions of difference central to its interlocutors (Brah and
Phoenix, 2004; Lewis, 2013; Mohanty, 2013). How could it be made to do so? What
does intersectionality bring to the table? Centrally, a grappling with the
concept of feminist governance itself. As Patricia Hill Collins (2015) argues,
intersectionality has been understood as many things, but it is centrally a
knowledge project, a lens that helps to excavate 88
Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance 89 the working of social
formations that structure complex inequalities. It is also a multifaceted and
multi-sited set of political projects, all centrally concerned with forging
justice (Crenshaw, 1989; Rice et al., 2019). It is finally, relatedly, a
theoretical framework useful for helping us to conceptualise enquiry, but to be
most productive, this engagement must begin at the stage of initial
conceptualisation (May, 2015). As such, I begin with two main questions. To what
or whom does the feminist in feminist governance refer, and how is gender
equality conceived of in the frameworks of feminist governance? Put differently,
governance in search of what? How is gender equality conceived, for whom is it
designated and how is it implemented? It is, perhaps, unsurprising that that an
intersectionally oriented review of feminist governance raises many of the same
critiques that have been wielded against feminism generally. Indeed, there is
remarkable consistency and continuity in regard to the questions asked, the
concerns raised and the populations centred. First, that feminism remains too
focused on white, or mainstream, people and conceptions, such that feminist
governance is insufficiently occupied with the needs and concerns of varied
populations, which are instead ignored, overlooked or mischaracterized. Second,
and as a result of these elisions, the problems that feminist governance
highlights are themselves misunderstood, misconstrued or conceived too narrowly,
both in scope and form, and the solutions too partial. I follow this discussion
with consideration of more intersectional modes of feminist governance,
alongside a set of other, overlapping resistant and interventionist knowledge
projects, before ending with suggestions for a way forward.
FEMINIST GOVERNANCE FOR WHOM, EXACTLY? It remains the case that feminism is
conceived of as unrelated to the lives, problems and experiences of many, women
and people of colour major constituencies among them. Considerable conversation
remains about how to address this problem most effectively, but there is surely
no unfamiliarity with the basic argument that feminism remains too Eurocentric,
too able-ist, too centred on heteropatriarchal modes, and too unattuned to the
import of class relations, among other concerns. As such the focus here is not
on the whiteness of feminist governance, but rather on a still very brief review
of the ways in which this problem remains even in the face of both increased
recognition, and fairly widespread and genuine commitment to tackling it. A
variety of correctives to the dominance of mainstream feminism have been
introduced over the years, including standpoint feminism, womanism, Third World
feminism, multicultural feminism and, ironically, intersectional feminism.
Nonetheless, scholars engaged on topics ranging from gender mainstreaming
(Baines, 2010; Hankivsky, 2005; Walby, 2005), broader conceptions of state
feminism (Skjeie and Langvasbråten, 2009; Squires 2009) and civil society
organising (Lépinard, 2014) suggest that attempts to integrate the insights of
intersectionality into the multi-layered sites of feminist governance are
wanting. The persistent gap between the rhetoric of intersectionality and its
application in practice is a key element of the problem (Townsend-Bell, 2021;
Tungohan, 2016). The basic questions of intersectionality remain the same: who
is not included here, and as a result, what – what problem, what experience,
what alternate conception – is not included here? This stubborn gap ranges on a
spectrum from unintentional – but nonetheless consistent and problematic –
exclusion, to proactive hostility.
90 Handbook of feminist governance In one version of the problem the
intersectional lens is truncated in its vision of the actors and issues central
to feminism. As a consequence, certain problems and experiences are passively
sidelined, or even excluded from conversation altogether. One widely discussed
example of this concern manifested in the 2017 United States (US) Women’s March,
with an emphasis on pink pussies as a basis of unity in solidarity, even as
other participants pushed back on a specific colour or form of genitalia as the
basis for inclusion and recognition in the category of woman. A similar issue
arose in the 2017 Vancouver, Canada version of the march; the inaugural planning
committee was called out for the dearth of non-white members for an event that
proclaimed the explicit goal of creating an ‘INCLUSIVE, INTERSECTIONAL
collective’ (Boothroyd et al., 2017: 712). In neither case was exclusion a
likely goal, but such is the result when actual people fall outside of the
imaginary of the feminist subject. Hence, routine questions regarding whether
such a large number of participants would have turned out if the march themes
were more centred on feminist issues typically understood as specific to
particular sub-populations, such as high rates of missing Indigenous women and
girls. Or how many participants were first-time marchers, because only now was
their level of grievance large enough to motivate their mobilisation (Boothroyd
et al., 2017). These questions, and the many women of colour who posed them,
challenged the notions of feminist solidarity underlying the marches, affirming
its limits where tangible subjects do not fit standard images as conceived.
These limits also emerge in the now unquestioned linkage between gender and
poverty, often problematised as the feminisation of poverty. The problem of a
limited feminist imaginary is reversed here, as there is concerted attention to
context and difference, but in a manner that effectively delimits the problem to
certain parts of the world, and is frequently conceived as specific to certain,
more melanin-rich shades of skin (Arora-Jonnson, 2011). Consequently, women of
the Global South come to be flattened to a one-dimensional image as poor,
disempowered Third World Women, even as women outside of this location, and
struggling with similar issues, are unaddressed. These distortions reduce the
likelihood of programmes that address specifically gendered experiences of
poverty as they really manifest, and the probability that affected women act as
agents of change to impact the problem. Mischaracterisation and oversight are
not the only forms exclusion can take. More pronounced leans towards dominant
group perspectives are visible across some cases. For instance, debates on the
veil continue in France, as does the willingness of some prominent feminist
groups to declare unequivocally and without reservation, no circumstance under
which the veil is emancipatory (Lépinard 2020: 69). Similarly, Behl (2019)
contends that the high-profile rape, torture and murder of Jyoti Singh in 2012
gathered such attention among many Indians because of the mistaken perception
that she was a member of a middle-class family to whom such things should not
happen. Meanwhile, the common reality of gendered violence against poor and
working-class Indian women remains an unremarked phenomenon. Another, especially
insidious, strand of the problem is one in which intersectionality is
proactively derailed, whether because of a perceived competition between the
primacy of gender versus other axes of difference, or because of a broader
attempt to co-opt the language of intersectionality while working toward goals
squarely in opposition to its prerogatives, or both (Bustelo, 2009; Esguerra
Muelle and Bello Ramírez, 2014; Gianettoni and Roux, 2010; Lewis, 2013).
Esguerra Muelle and Bello Ramírez reflect on the Colombian state’s appropriation
of intersectionality for aims in opposition to its central interventions.
According to them,
Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance 91 intersectionality has been
understood, conveniently, as an individual issue of the crossing of stigmatized
identities, where it is possible to exempt the State from its responsibility in
the reproduction of the violences and inequalities that sustain these
intersecting dominations … Little by little intersectionality has been converted
into a technical concept for public management of ‘different’ groups within the
nation-state. To that extent, instrumentalization has meant a dispossession of
social movements’ tools of struggle and the confiscation of their emancipatory
and counter-hegemonic knowledge. (2014: 29)
In yet other instances, the question of exclusion is both unsettled and largely
unasked. There is a continued scarcity of analyses troubling the conception of
what, precisely, is gained by the descriptive representation boosts of gender
quotas, and for whom. Evidence indicates that elite women are most likely to be
elected in many quota settings (Franceschet and Piscopo, 2014; Barnes and
Holman, 2020). This finding begs the question whether elite women prioritise the
concerns of the broad, and differentially empowered population of those gendered
feminine; especially those only partially admitted to the category of woman, if
at all. It is apparent across all these cases that gaps between rhetoric and
practice remain, intentionally or not. A commonality across all of these varied
instances are protagonists that make feminist, even intersectional claims, while
maintaining a posture that proceeds from a perspective of difference as
descriptive fact, rather than constitutive of power (Curiel, 2007; Gedalof,
2012; Prügl, 2015). It is precisely the idea that certain kinds of subject are
integral to the conversation, while others are either outside of conception, or
different in a way that is perceived as irrelevant to the central organising
concern, that allows for this exclusion and inattention to power asymmetry.
FEMINIST GOVERNANCE FOR WHAT, EXACTLY? Writing in 1999, Carol Bacchi asked us to
critically consider ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ Writing in 2020,
Mikki Kendall answers, noting that her response is sure to differ from that of
mainstream (white) feminists. The problem, according to Kendall, is the fact of
serious deficits in basic needs for millions of US women, and a domestic
feminist movement that remains inattentive to this problem, often due to sins of
oversight and omission, but also commission. Kendall’s attention is on the US,
but writings from other locations make clear that problems are just as easily
flattened and misconstrued as populations, sometimes purposefully so. Moreover,
the real problems that people, and particularly marginalised women, face are not
necessarily delimited by geography. Instead, they share some important
commonalities. Gendered violence is both an intra- and inter-state phenomenon,
evoked in practices such as austerity cuts, the rise of carceral feminism and
the continued use of the state as a weapon to police those non-normative peoples
with the audacity to claim public space (Roberts, 2014; Williams, 2009). This
insight is not a new one of course; it served as the originating ethos of the
Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA), among other similar organisations
(Townsend-Bell, 2012). But it bears repeating. As noted, attention to the ideas
of intersectionality are on the rise in many dimensions. The uptake is
especially noteworthy for intergovernmental and supranational entities, owing to
their explicit mission to speak to the needs and problems of vast and varied
human populations. The United Nations compels special attention here, given its
early, multi-agential com-
92 Handbook of feminist governance mitment to intersectionality, a clear
improvement over approaches that treated both categories and experiences of
discrimination as distinct and primarily descriptive in nature (Chow, 2016;
Coomaraswamy, 2002). Intersectional consideration is reflected in initiatives
like the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, lauded as one of the more successful
feminist governance interventions of the 21st century. The programme seeks to
give concerted attention to inclusion, via the introduction of new frameworks
that start from reassessing what the problem is, who is affected and how.
However, the United Nations’ approach to intersectionality still understands it
primarily as a gendered concept that speaks to categorical variation among
women. Thus, as with the connection between gender and poverty, the mark as
female is taken as the central, unifying problematic, with still insufficient
attention to the import of context, and the workings of different kinds of
difference (Chow, 2016). As a result, problems remain misconstrued: only some
kinds of people are recognised as vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence
of the sort that matters, leaving the problem under-reported (Behl, 2019; Hagen,
2016). And women continue to be perceived primarily as victims of conflict in
need of protection, rather than agential providers of strategies and resources
that can allow for the creation of alternative futures (Martín de Almagro and
Ryan, 2019). In these cases the issue is not one of inattention to
non-mainstream actors. Rather, the issue is a focus that remains too
decontextualised, thus flattening the category of women that agents of feminist
governance seek to service. In other instances it is excessive attention to the
mainstream that underlies the misperception. One significant area of enquiry is
the interaction between feminist governance and austerity politics, and whether
there can be any such thing as feminist governance and austerity in relation to
one another (Rottenberg, 2018). Eschle and Maiguashca (2018) offer the helpful
reminder that the debates about the co-option of feminist governance require
significantly more unpacking of what constitutes feminism itself, and who has
the capacity to decide. Griffin (2015) suggests a similar positionality, with
the caveat that that which harms is clearly out of the set. ‘Feminism does not
lose its credibility because of its association with governance until feminists
start making policies that injure people’ (Griffin, 2015: 68). What constitutes
injury, and what kinds of injuries register, are surely their own matters of
debate. What is clear is that the supposed problems of austerity and crisis are
only new for some, and the presumption that it is a problem equally felt is
fundamentally misguided (Bassel and Emejulu, 2017; Emejulu, 2015; Griffin, 2015;
Kendall, 2020; Wilkinson and Ortega-Alcázar, 2019). One concern of dominant,
neoliberal discourses is the supposed problem of agency, or the lack thereof.
Emejulu (2015) tracks the perception of agency as a portable ‘object’ often
perceived as lacking in marginalised communities, and a problem that neoliberal,
sometimes feminist, governance models seek to fix, particularly in the
disadvantaged, ‘backward’ realms of the Global South. In one such instance, the
state sought to grant agency by endowing poor, rural South African women with a
rhetoric of rights, and a legal framework meant to increase their access to
marital property. Instead, deficits of state capacity made the existence of
legal frameworks more or less irrelevant to the majority of that population
(Moore and Himonga, 2017). Notably, the actual problem of insufficient state
capacity is shared among the marginalised populations of the North and the
South. It does matter, in terms of seeking working strategies, whether the
problem is a fundamental lack of resources, or an unwillingness to extend them.
But whether state capacity is non-existent, unavailable or otherwise delimited,
the issue in these cases is that it is too absent. In other instances it is too
present. Tropes of ‘extraordinary sexism’ or excessive sexism (Bilge, 2010;
Gianettoni and Roux, 2010), the
Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance 93 racialisation of Muslims
and accompanying effects on discourses around gender and sexuality (Lewis,
2013), the rise of the punitive, carceral, feminist state (Roberts, 2014), and
the gendering of religious oppression (Behl, 2019) abound. In those instances
the actual problem is an unwelcome excess of state capacity, running after
purported problems that do not exist, that have been misconstrued, purposefully
flattened or otherwise delimited in inauthentic ways. In these, and numerous
other instances, the actual problem is state violence, multifaceted, steady and
unbounded by location, buttressing Patil’s argument that ‘there are no locals
and globals, only locals in relation to various global processes’ (2013: 863).
A MORE EXPANSIVE FEMINIST GOVERNANCE? How can feminist governance be made to
grapple with these concerns, or to do so in a better, more consistent manner? I
highlight two major approaches to this question, which centre precisely around
the question of whether feminist governance can be made to work for the many.
First are intersectional responses that, while critical of contemporary systems,
outline possibilities for working within them to actually push greater
inclusion. One such approach is outlined within the ongoing
Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) project (Hankivsky et al., 2014).
IBPA offers a variety of helpful and practical tools for crafting more
intersectionally informed policy that begins by building on the Bacchi (1999)
question, setting the stage for critical reflexivity around the conception of
policy problems, solutions, populations and stakeholders that can be brought to
bear in the creation of more equitable and responsive provision of health care.
IBPA offers concrete strategies for assessing policy problems in a way that
embeds intersectionality’s most basic question ‘who or what is missing here?’
directly into policy formation, implementation and analysis. Most practically,
what this set of strategies offers is the opportunity for a bottom-up approach
that can prioritise the conception of specific population groups and
requirements as a primary factor, moving out from there to consider how to
enlarge the group of people or issues addressed. The level of engagement, or
even whether to engage at all, is up to policy actors, meaning that the
intersectional analysis may well remain in the realm of identitarian, additive,
diversity-linked territory, rather than leaning toward a more systemic
assessment of difference (see also Parken, 2010). Thus, the tools are there but
the uptake is optional, and largely based on the normative commitment of the
policy actors (Jordan-Zachery, 2017). Intersectional praxis at the activist
level is similarly based on a normative commitment to a radical
reconceptualisation of difference, for the purpose of achieving social justice.
Here, too, critical reflexivity and proactive, ongoing work towards building
solidarity among actors, often in the form of intersectional coalitions, is a
centrepiece. For instance, Chun et al. (2013) highlight the intersectional lens
that links a varied diaspora of Asian immigrant women together in common cause
through proactive and ongoing building of solidarity, rather than presuming
common identity. Similarly Tungohan (2016) and Tormos (2017) argue forcefully
for the capacity of broad, inclusive, intersectional coalitions to push for
change across and within institutional structures. Here, too, though, there are
potential roadblocks. First, there is the point that elisions, uneven emotional
impacts and epistemic violence can and do occur even in cases of ethical
commitment to coalition (Murib, 2018; Roshanravan, 2018). Such an outcome is
particularly likely in the sort of mixed-race and mixed-gender coalitions that,
while difficult to sustain, are arguably
94 Handbook of feminist governance necessary for pursuing real and wide-ranging
sociopolitical change. However, as Cole (2008) and Chun et al. (2013) remind us,
these fractures are equally as likely in women-of-colour or other more
‘homogeneous’ coalition spaces, unless proactively guarded against. Accordingly,
we find scenarios in which coalitions work as sites of critical, and productive,
if sometimes limited resistance, in that coalition actors do not engage with, or
are not taken up by, the state or other governance entities; and spaces in which
coalitions, while still potentially productive, remain fraught, particularly for
some members (Carastathis, 2016; Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016; Roshanravan,
2018). Consequently, these inclusion strategies can and do have the potential to
create meaningful change, particularly at the level of civil society, but also
at the institutional level. Promisingly, such change has the capacity to be as
multi-sited, multilevel and diffuse as feminist governance itself. But it
remains the case that these approaches to change can be slow and uneven in
uptake, if they are taken up at all. And they surely exact a non-trivial toll on
their proponents, women and people of colour heavily represented among them,
along the way. Because of this, some argue the need to move away from what
D’Agostino (2021) calls the ‘predominant logic of inclusivity’. Such a move asks
what happens when we stop seeking inclusion in spaces that are structurally, and
perhaps constitutionally, unable to grant it. Hemmings argues that ‘gender
agenda[s] [are] … consistently harnessed to cultural or economic difference from
Western subjects and sites’ (2011: 9). She is joined by arguments that this
objectification of marginalised women as less than fully human is also a
persistent intra-Western phenomenon (Emejulu, 2015), and that ‘the archive of
gender is structurally anti-black. Its assumptive logic, whether explicit in its
presentation or not, maintains that all women have the same gender … [and] makes
it conceptually impossible to think of gender violence as orienting more than
the realm of gender’ (Douglass, 2018: 115). Given such presumptions,
decolonialists and postcolonialists contend that there is little value in
seeking inclusion and change within systems that are fundamentally incapable of
granting it. Instead, decolonial, and some postcolonial, strains of theorising
focus on two dimensions. One considers the origins that precede the contemporary
constitutions of difference on which many strains of intersectionality tend to
focus. Only by attending to the origins of modernity, and the systems of
colonialism and imperialism that constitute it, can the conditions of hierarchy
and the uneven relations of power that it imposed be dismantled (Lugones, 2010;
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). Unpacking the invisible threads that organise the
ongoing condition of coloniality and the erasures it fosters, especially its
gendered dimensions, remains a major area of research enquiry (Pérez, 1999;
Velez, 2019). Such work renders the reduction of specific group identity and
cultural claims to mere ‘identity politics’ unsustainable. This shift to a space
of epistemic plurality is another key dimension of decoloniality. Here commences
a process of unlearning Western epistemological traditions, and of transition
away from dichotomy as axiological to the organisation of world views. This move
also poses a challenge to the negative effects that dichotomy creates, such as
cultural erasure, violence and partialising of humanity. Instead, a permanent
fracturing, for instance, of ‘enchantment with the idea of “woman” [and] the
universal’ (Lugones, 2010: 753) ensues. Importantly, these fractures are
irreconcilable and permanent. In this new environment a #MeToo movement
originally conceived to name and connect the particular forms of sexual violence
experienced by some black and brown girls in the US is not appropriated for a
campaign that quickly shifts to feature prominent white women and their
experiences of violence. Instead, resistance work against gendered violence
remains attentive to the fact of differential
Seeking intersectionality in feminist governance 95 group experiences and
unfolds accordingly. Thus, the Violence on the Land, Violence on our Bodies:
Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence (VLVB) group’s work on
documenting the excessively large number of Indigenous women and girls murdered,
missing or subject to other gendered violence takes care not to fall into the
trap of anonymising them in ways that are complicit with the Indigenous erasure
on which coloniality rests, furthering said violence. Instead unnamed victims
remain called into community via labels designating them as ‘“our women”,
“family members”, and “loved ones” – rather than nameless victims’ (Mack and
Na’puti, 2019: 357). In this way, the fractures serve as a source of
empowerment. Decolonial feminism emphasises a fragmented locus and lenses of
partiality as a shared status of everyone, such that coalitions, which are still
the most productive way forward, begin with no particular groups or logics
claiming centre. In keeping with this approach, we see decolonial feminisms
retain familiar ideas, such as coalition or affirmative action, but reimagine
their possibilities. Thus, epistemologies that embrace ambiguity as a
constitutive state, and regard coalitions as an ongoing internal and external
practice of navigation, and as fundamentally relational, rather than
instrumental or transactional, come to the fore (Osei-Kofi et al., 2018; Taylor,
2018). This approach echoes Walsh’s (2015) assessment of affirmative action as a
potentially decolonial and transformational project when conceived in forms that
expand different social, political and economic orders. In other words,
decoloniality and other intervention projects do not always have to be distinct
from ideas or processes common in liberal democratic, and even neoliberal,
settings. It’s their conception and implementation that determines their
positioning.
THE WAY FORWARD? The work reviewed here suggests that feminist governance has
quite some way to go in connecting the gender equality mission with the insights
of intersectionality. As it stands, much work in the feminist governance vein
appears unreflexive on the questions of for whom is action taken, what problems
need to be addressed, and what solutions might actually have impact. The
diagnosis of un- or insufficient reflexivity is important here, because it
suggests that the concern lies on a spectrum in which some inattention to varied
subjects, their experiences and needs is purposeful. The gender ideology
movement provides a particularly notable example. However, in many other
instances, the issue is not one of intent but the need for meaningful
translation of intersectional concepts into practice. So what can
intersectionality, in tandem with other overlapping resistant knowledge
projects, offer to feminist governance? Here again, we note a continuity of
response. Intersectionality offers concerted attention to differential power, a
willingness to grapple with partiality and ambiguity, and a call to honesty. It
is difficult to imagine any successful pairing of intersectionality and feminist
governance, much less intersectional feminist governance, that does not begin by
clearly laying out the basic assumptions, goals and parameters of action that
guide the union. Such an approach requires engaged consideration of/grappling
with multiple questions. What is the problem? For whom is it a problem? How do
we hope to address it? Who is the ‘we’ serving as agents of change? Who is the
‘they’ we hope to engage? Why? How? Proceeding from what lens? And what variant
of that lens are we priming? Constant reflexivity, plus consistent discussion
inclusive of a wide variety of differently located actors,
96 Handbook of feminist governance is the minimum requirement in avoiding the
tendency to yield back to the mainstream that dogs so much feminist governance
work. Taking this admonition seriously can begin to open a path forward, and to
engage with the additional questions that the decolonial lens primes – on the
origins of differential power, and the alternative strategies of organisation
that epistemic plurality allows. These alternative approaches are on view in the
attention to repair, restoration and new conceptions of justice that motivate
decolonial feminist models of degrowth, and environmental justice. An embrace of
epistemic plurality offers many such opportunities for convergence. For
instance, new models of coalition and relations are not automatically built on
divisions that must be overcome in strategic, temporary, alliance or superseded
via the hard and often fleeting work of creating some unity in solidarity.
Instead, such moves create possibilities for building new modes of
socioeconomic, cultural and political relations, and new understandings of
solidarity and relation.
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8. Studying feminist governance: methods and approaches to the field Shan-Jan
Sarah Liu
INTRODUCTION Understanding approaches to studying feminist governance is
important because it helps us reflect on how feminist governance scholarship is
and should be situated within the broader political science and international
relations disciplines. Such comprehension also provides an opening to evaluate
existing research methods, as well as an opportunity to create innovative ways
to incorporate and mainstream gender in these predominantly male-dominated and
heteronormative fields. Drawing on Ackerly and True’s (2019) Doing Feminist
Research in Political and Social Science, I argue that feminist governance
scholars must follow feminist epistemology. Studying feminist governance without
reflecting upon one’s own power and positionality as a researcher is akin to
claiming feminism without recognising how various forms of oppression have an
intersectional impact on how individuals experience and interact with the world.
Such attentiveness includes awareness of the individuals and cases that may have
been previously excluded. Even when scholars pay attention to the power
dynamics, it is also vital to recognise that gender incorporation and
mainstreaming development can often incur other ‘complex inequalities’ (Walby,
2005). For example, institutions could favour gender to a point where it is
impossible to achieve intersectionality, although intersectionality is a
repertoire for inclusion in feminist governance. That is, the prioritisation of
gender could ignore other inequalities and injustices (Strid and Verloo, 2019;
Benschop et al., 2019). Therefore, I specifically call attention to one of True
and Parisi’s (2013) models of gender mainstreaming –
‘gender-as-intersectionality model’1 – and further advocate for
intersectionality mainstreaming. This chapter suggests a break from orthodox
procedures and analyses in the field but a continuation of diversity in
methodological innovation in feminist governance research. It starts by
discussing what it means to do feminist research. It offers suggestions on how
to do feminist research by examining several research methods commonly employed
by feminist governance scholars. By no means does this chapter review all
research methods employed in feminist governance scholarship. Nonetheless, the
discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these methods is a starting
point for researchers to think more broadly and comprehensively about not just
the implications they can draw from their findings but also the impact their
power has on the research subjects, as well as the discipline of politics and
international relations. It concludes by offering insights into future
directions for feminist governance scholarship.
100
Studying feminist governance 101
PAYING ATTENTION TO POWER Feminist governance research employs feminist
methodology – ‘a commitment to using a whole constellation of methods
reflectively and critically, with the end aim being the production of data that
serves feminist aims of social justice’ (Ackerly and True, 2010: 6). By this
definition, there is not a particular method used in feminist governance
research. Instead, scholars identify important research questions, engage with
literature and concepts and gather and analyse data in a meaningful way to
incorporate and mainstream gender. Gender incorporation and mainstreaming are a
meta-gender equality strategy (Krook and True, 2012) to encourage academics,
activists and policymakers to account for gender in policies and programmes so
that the differential impact on women and men can be evaluated critically.
Making the hidden nature of gender visible alters the way institutions view
gender; gender mainstreaming challenges the existing patriarchal nature of
institutions. Although such incorporation and mainstreaming of gender are
considered an effective mechanism to eliminate barriers for women, scholars can
only convincingly achieve gender incorporation and mainstreaming when their
research is guided by feminist epistemology. The first step in following
feminist epistemology is to pay attention to the power of the researcher when
conducting a study. Rarely can research present a complete picture. Therefore,
it is crucial to differentiate how knowledge is produced and what enables
knowledge production in feminist governance scholarship. Only when one’s power
is critically examined can the researcher see the people and voices lost in the
research process. Researchers must be aware of the power they have and of how
their power can be used to either advocate for the marginalised or silence the
oppressed. Who is Being Studied and How are They Being Studied? Feminist
governance scholars focus on the gender dimensions of the questions of who
participates, how and why they participate, and the outcomes achieved by such
participation in governance. However, regardless of how many features are
shared, no group has an essential identity. Although being aware of group
experiences based on an identity such as gender helps generate some
perspectives, these perspectives can never be comprehensive without taking into
account one’s standpoint, which is how one sees, understands and interacts with
the world (Harding, 1992). The perspectives of the minoritised can help create
more objective accounts of the world; paying attention to and giving a voice to
the minoritised in and through scholarship helps feminist scholars recognise
patterns that those with power may not be able to see. At the same time, taking
a standpoint and being aware of one’s positionality also helps researchers
communicate with their subjects and evaluate any biases in their research. For
example, Fallon (2008) experiences obstacles during her field research in
sub-Saharan Africa when she interviews women from women’s organisations. One of
the hurdles that confronts her is the different understandings of vocabulary.
Her participants respond strongly and negatively towards her usage of the word
‘politics’ as the organisations were deliberately distancing themselves from
politics. Therefore, accounting for contextual difference, in this instance,
what ‘politics’ means in different settings, is crucial for researchers to draw
unbiased conclusions. Moreover, while scholars may agree that in feminist
governance scholarship, all women’s participation must be accounted for, in
reality many studies focus on the role of elite women in
102 Handbook of feminist governance international organisations and movements.
The focus on elite women may not be deliberate as researchers can experience
obstacles when identifying and recruiting participants for their study. Perhaps
due to the difficulty of identifying and accessing women who are not official
leaders, few studies include those who do not formally work for prestigious
organisations. Such exclusion of grassroots women prevents scholars from
creating multidimensional knowledge about how feminist governance works. For
example, Chatty and Rabo (2020) show a sharp contrast between women who organise
as formal and as informal groups in the Middle East. The gap is found because
the researchers pay attention to women who mobilise on the ground. Using
interviews and focus groups with leaders of civil society and women’s
organisations, as well as government officials, Tripp (2016) compares women’s
rights provisions in all African post-independence constitutions. Conversations
with activists on the ground in Kenya and Somalia inform us about how changes
are made over time and how women’s movements shape the difference between
conflict and post-conflict constitutions. These examples show that experiences
of players within feminist governance differ, depending on their identities,
backgrounds and positionalities. Exclusion of grassroots women delegitimises
informal participation or unconventional activism of women without access to
resources, resulting in biased understanding of how feminist governance works.
Therefore, to achieve a holistic picture of feminist governance, a comprehensive
understanding of difference is needed. In addition to potential biases caused by
an underrepresented sample in interviews and focus groups, using large datasets
such as surveys also creates challenges. Large datasets often essentialise
identity-based differences and ignore how various axes of identity and
standpoint can shape one’s experiences. Large datasets put women in the same
category without acknowledging that not all women who share identities have the
same experiences. For example, Black women experience police brutality at a
significantly higher rate than white women. Yet, large datasets often do not
provide information beyond gender. For example, World Bank data encompasses many
gender dimensions, including the gender ratio in educational attainment, women’s
labour force participation, percentage of women in parliament, and so on. Using
large datasets, scholars are able to show that female MPs are more likely to
support family leave policies than men (Kittilson, 2006) and that female cabinet
ministers are more likely to foster a female-friendly labour environment
(Atchison, 2015), but not how women of colour may be underrepresented in the
economic, political and cultural structures. Consequently, researchers can only
tell part of the story. As demonstrated, part of practising feminist
epistemology is about paying attention to intersectionality. Only when
researchers recognise that gender is not the only identity and that it
intersects with others in shaping one’s experiences can the study be as
comprehensive as possible. Taking an intersectional approach prevents a
monolithic explanation of a phenomenon. For instance, Martin de Almagro (2017)
incorporates intersectionality when investigating the creation of the National
Action Plans that implement the women, peace and security agenda in
post-conflict countries. In particular, through analysing the subject position
of women participants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and
Liberia, she contends that these policymaking practices (re)produce gendered
normativity and hierarchy. Because she doesn’t pay attention only to gender, she
is able to offer nuanced (and also problematic) insights showing that gender is
ranked higher than race, sexuality and class in women, peace and security
agendas. Without an intersectional approach, she would not be able to
demonstrate that gender also creates a binary category of participants – women
as victims and women
Studying feminist governance 103 as agents. Neglecting race, sexuality and
class can also essentialise participants and prevent understanding of how
women’s oppression can vary by their multiple identities. Consequently, feminist
governance scholars must not treat women as a homogeneous group as it
legitimises the representation of women in these national agendas to secure and
restore peace, which also means those without the privileges of white women are
silenced.
WHO HAS AGENCY? In the research process, participants mostly do not have much
power in shaping the research as they are often on the receiving end. For
instance, participants in a survey are asked questions that are not constructed
by them. Survey questionnaires can also be designed without sensitivity or
inclusivity. Most surveys ask demographic questions and provide options that do
not leave much room for one’s own interpretation. For example, surveys tend to
ask participants what their sex is. It is only recently that researchers have
become aware of the difference between sex and gender, hence creating questions
that separate sex registered at birth and gender that participants identify
with. Surveyors may also give limited options to answering the question of sex
and/or gender, such as female and male, without recognising that participants
may be non-binary. The lack of opportunity to interact directly with the
surveyors may leave participants feeling powerless in the research process.
Therefore, scholars must be aware of their own biases when constructing these
questions. The tasks of researchers (asking questions) and participants
(answering questions) create power differentials between subject and researcher.
Therefore, a feminist approach to survey data requires scholars to ask
themselves where they fit within the research process and how data production is
shaped by their presence (Stauffer and O’Brien, 2018). Existing indicators in
survey questionnaires need to be reconceptualised and re-operationalised for a
more inclusive language, which helps researchers yield different and perhaps
more accurate responses. Furthermore, as most researchers use standardised
surveys, they are only able to analyse standardised responses. Yet, it is not
appropriate for researchers to assume that measures apply consistently to both
men and women. For example, scholars who are interested in the gender gaps in
political knowledge in the past have tested men’s and women’s political
knowledge using standard questions, which are often gendered. Instead of using
traditional survey measures to test political knowledge, Dolan (2011) finds
questions about women politicians result in women participants having higher
scores than men. Similarly, scholars who are interested in the impact of
feminist governance may evaluate women’s political participation by using
standardised items on political activities, such as voting, petition-signing and
participating in peaceful rallies (e.g. Liu, 2018; Liu and Banaszak, 2017). Yet,
these traditional measures neglect other (non-conventional) activities that may
be engaged in by women, especially women lacking the right to vote or go on a
march. Many oppressed women may participate in politics in a different way, such
as through organising events or starting petitions online and still remain
excluded. Stepping away from traditional measures in a survey may yield
completely different results from past studies. Therefore, researchers should
acknowledge and overcome the issue of gendered, as well as other intersectional
biases in their research designs (Stauffer and O’Brien, 2018). In addition to
surveys, interviews are one of the ways to produce oral history and gather
opinion and feedback on one’s experiences. Semi-structured and open-ended
interviews par-
104 Handbook of feminist governance ticularly allow participants agency in
defining their own issues. Although interviews can be subjective as
participants’ conceptualisation and memories of the movement are not the same
across individuals, meeting and talking to those who mobilise at the grassroots
level provides a perhaps more realistic presentation of movements than official
press releases. Also, while in-depth interviews and focus groups tend to be
conducted with a relatively small sample, they show the complex ways in which
movement actors experience the challenges and opportunities of mobilising, as
well as achieving their goals. The complex relations among activists and between
movements and official governing bodies are often difficult to capture with
large quantitative data. In a way, interviews allow participants more agency in
the research process as they can pause, ask questions and share thoughts that
may not have been probed by a previously constructed survey. Nevertheless,
interviews are often conducted in person, via the phone or the Internet, meaning
that there is direct human contact. Such contact also means that researchers
must be extra careful about the power they have as researchers on their
subjects, especially where researchers might already know the interviewees
through employment connections, political activities, and so on. These prior
relationships create a power differential, suggesting that participants may find
it difficult to be completely transparent in the interview. Therefore,
researchers must not only build trust prior to the interviews, but they must
also provide ways to mitigate risks and power differentials for the
interviewees.
WHICH CONTEXT IS INCLUDED AND HOW IS IT INCLUDED? Accounting for context is as
important as accounting for individual differences. Mannell (2012) conducts
in-depth interviews with fieldworkers and senior management of non-governmental
organisations in South Africa, finding perceptions that gender mainstreaming has
become a technical concern of government bureaucrats rather than a political
struggle. Funds are insufficient for gender structures to work; senior
management support for gender units is lacking; and there is a failure to agree
on gender goals. The idea of gender mainstreaming taken from the Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 has met with the reality of insufficient
resources for implementation and a failure to adequately address gender
inequality (Rao and Kelleher, 2005). Such challenges are not unique to South
African organisations. Yet, South Africa is unique in the sense that
mainstreaming as a popular belief coincided with the end of apartheid in 1994.
This sequence also means that key activists have moved from the resistance
movement into the establishment, holding office in the parliament and the civil
service. As experienced women become insiders, many women’s movements in South
Africa are left fragmented (Meer, 2005). Furthermore, as women’s rights
activists become insiders, international organisations believe that South Africa
is capable of addressing gender injustice on its own and have reduced their
support and help accordingly (Mannell, 2012). Mannell’s findings on how gender
mainstreaming has failed in South Africa provide a nuanced perspective on
feminist governance because she takes context into consideration. Moreover, as
women in the Global South are often seen as ‘ignorant, poor, uneducated,
tradition-bound, religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc.’
(Mohanty, 1988: 65), centring these women in a study without delegitimising,
dehumanising or victimising them, in a way, gives women in the Global South
their power back. Only when researchers
Studying feminist governance 105 care for the role and efforts of women with
various marginalised identities can they understand the agency, capabilities and
leadership of minoritised women. While large datasets may overcome the problem
of excluding important cases and provide more generalisability, it is still
crucial to pay attention to cases that are not represented in the sample.
Researchers may use large datasets produced by these supra-national
organisations, which are inherently political in determining which data and
which countries are included. Data from the United Nations (UN), World Bank,
European Union (EU), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
often neglect important dimensions other than gender. For example, the World
Bank has data on women’s participation in the labour force. While the data helps
people understand the extent to which women work outside the home, it neglects
the fact that many women, particularly in non-Western countries, partake in
informal labour. Their contribution is not recognised by such a measure.
Similarly, most organisations do not include Taiwan because of its international
exclusion. Nonetheless, if researchers use data provided by supra-national
organisations and exclude Taiwan, one of the few countries with a female
president, in their study of women in national governance, they are likely to
arrive at biased conclusions. The scholarship on women’s leadership and Covid-19
is an example of how usage of such large datasets obtained through
supra-national organisations is problematic. Taiwan has experienced one of the
lowest Covid-19 infection and death rates. Scholars (e.g. Johnson and Williams,
2020) are interested in whether and how female leaders play a role in
successfully tackling the pandemic. However, the important, successful case of
Taiwan is missing from the large datasets provided by transnational
organisations. In addition to using large datasets, researchers may also conduct
other types of analyses, such as discourse analysis or institutional analysis,
to understand feminist governance. However, these analyses have a number of
limitations. First, researchers from the Global South are challenged by the
biases of editors, who are based primarily in North America and Europe. Their
interpretations and analyses of texts may be deemed insufficient because they
are not conducted in English, creating obstacles to publication of
non-Eurocentric or non-American-centric research. Second, researchers are rarely
fluent in languages outside their region. As many feminist governance scholars
are based in North America or English-speaking countries, they are likely to
analyse documents in English, leading to an overly biased sample. Such
over-representation of North American and European cases also creates a bias in
the discipline, narrowing the sort of knowledge that is produced and reproduced.
Further, it creates a bias in who we consider to be knowledgeable, which then
not only determines whose works we engage with but also with whom we
collaborate. Therefore, without decolonising and dissipating Westernised ways of
interpreting and analysing texts, our knowledge will always be limited to a
certain aspect of the ivory tower and to the certain aspect of the world.
HOW IS DATA ANALYSED AND SHARED? Feminist governance research should be guided
by feminist epistemology, including the data collection process. The choices
that scholars make in what methods to use and what data to gather matter for the
conclusions that they can draw. These choices also matter for understanding the
power relations involved in governance enquiry. While scholars may choose
between
106 Handbook of feminist governance approaches to collecting qualitative and
quantitative data, they should reflect upon their choice of methods, using a
feminist research ethic (Ackerly and True, 2019). For example, in feminist
governance scholarship, several approaches are undertaken to evaluate the role
of gender in an institution (e.g. Krook and Mackay, 2010), including
institutional analysis and discourse analysis. True (2008) conducts
institutional analysis by examining the actors, structure, mechanisms and
processes of these organisations to demonstrate that, for example, the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the EU mainstream gender as a
governance strategy to increase trade capacity. Scholars also evaluate the
contents, discourses, narratives and framing of texts. Through analyses of
documents of the UN, for example, researchers can quantify and interpret common
patterns expressed via words, themes or concepts, in these documents, revealing
the power dynamics, positionality and biases within feminist governance. For
instance, using a discourse analysis of UN documents on peace operations,
Puechguirbal (2010) demonstrates that these documents often use gendered
language that perpetuates gender stereotypes and removes women’s agency.
Analysing the translation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 into National
Action Plans in Australia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the
United States, Shepherd (2016) also shows that some countries tend to focus on
making ‘war safe for women’ instead of demilitarising. Without an analysis of
important documents, we would not be able to grasp the extent to which these
organisations and policies are gendered. However, these analyses are also not
perfect. While it is impossible to be completely objective and prevent biased
assumptions, researchers can acknowledge their own standpoint in the research
process. As judgements are inevitable, being transparent about one’s own
positionality should clarify any grey area, especially in the researchers’
interpretations of texts, observations or institutions. For example, researchers
who conduct analysis of texts may provide a codebook, enabling coders to follow
the same set of rules. Once the coders start the coding process, they need to
constantly review the codebook and have discussions among coders. As the study
concludes, inter-coder agreement must also be established and calculated, aiming
for reliability of coding and analysis. Making the codebook available also
enables readers to understand how texts are interpreted. Various platforms now
allow for storage of qualitative data securely. Although most qualitative data
are not shared, there is an increasing trend for journals to require or
encourage authors to upload their qualitative data. Therefore, qualitative
researchers need to make their data collection more transparent.
WHOSE WORKS ARE CITED? When demonstrating the significance of their research,
researchers also have the power to explain contending theories. Whose works are
cited and which perspectives and standpoints are engaged with indicate the
inclusion and exclusion of not just feminist scholarship but also feminist
scholarship from the Global South. When gender incorporation and mainstreaming
are seen as ways to liberate the various levels of governance, we must also
think of feminist governance research as a mechanism to liberate scholarship and
the discipline. As white women feminist scholars from the Global North dominate
the field of gender and politics, feminist governance scholarship must be
decolonised by paying attention to the subjugation and subjection of people for
the purpose of accumulating knowledge that serves white Western hegemony (Kessi
et al., 2020). Citation is a way of reproducing sameness and exclud-
Studying feminist governance 107 ing difference (Mott and Cockayne, 2017). In
order to produce inclusive and comprehensive knowledge, feminist governance
scholars need to ask themselves if they only cite white scholars. If they also
cite scholars of colour, scholars then need to pay attention to whether they
only cite women of colour who are scholars from the Global North. When scholars
cite women of colour from beyond North America and Europe, they also need to
critically engage with Global South scholarship, rather than treat such citation
as a box-checking exercise. If feminist scholars’ primary concern is to address
issues of power and marginalisation, whose works are cited and which journals
are referenced are also are crucial in the (re)production of knowledge, which
may or may not reinforce a heteronormative, masculine and white way of seeing
feminist governance. The sole citation of white, cis-gender and able-bodied
scholars embodies a particular privilege and neglects
untraditional/non-mainstream knowledge (Rose, 1993). The broader disciplines of
political science and international relations have been (and still are)
dominated by men and there is a lack of active disciplinary engagement with
non-white, homonormative scholarship. Feminist scholars should have a
conscientious engagement with this issue and treat citation as a performativity
of power (Mott and Cockayne, 2017). When feminist epistemology is incorporated
in research, the active citing of marginalised scholars means there is no longer
an uncritical reproduction of power dynamics within the discipline. Citation is
a way to reproduce certain bodies or to welcome bodies that have been previously
left out (Ahmed, 2013). Being guided by feminist principles, feminist governance
scholars can use citational practices as a tool to reflect and resist unethical
hierarchies of knowledge and promote marginalised voices (Mott and Cockayne,
2017). What Other Methods Should be Considered? As demonstrated, interviews,
focus groups, surveys, institutional analysis and discourse analysis are common
methods through which scholars examine feminist governance. Nevertheless, there
are ways in which scholars could further immerse themselves in the communities
they study, as well as deriving causal inferences through precise measurement.
Participatory action research allows researchers to immerse themselves in the
communities that they study. Although some feminist governance scholars have
conducted participatory research, more could be done when researching elites
(e.g. Childs and Palmieri, Chapter 14 this Handbook) or women’s movements
(Lambert et al., Chapter 9 this Handbook). In this approach, research is no
longer the only or primary goal. Instead, participation and action are also ways
in which researchers can generate knowledge – oftentimes via co-production. Not
only does participatory action research enable researchers to understand the
world and change it (Reason and Bradbury, 2001), it also enables the subjects to
be the centre of the study while holding on to their agency in showcasing their
experiences and activities. The methods that dominate the feminist governance
field also lack a mechanism allowing researchers to derive causal inferences
with precise measurement. In experiments, researchers can break down complex
relationships, enabling them to explore the details of process and validating
the conditions under which causal connections exist. Moreover, as experiments
are a popular method today, conducting experiments gives feminist governance
scholars an opportunity to mainstream their research in political science,
broadening their audience beyond the gender and politics community. Although I
call for more attention to innovative research methods to study feminist
governance, such as participatory action and experiments, scholars still need to
pay attention to the
108 Handbook of feminist governance power relations between themselves as
researchers and their participants as subjects. In most research activities,
participants have little agency. Participants answer questions formulated by
researchers and partake in activities designed by researchers. Even when
participants are agents of their own situation and experiences, they do not
always have the same power to negotiate subject positions and claim agency in a
research process (Amigot and Pujal, 2009). Therefore, in designing experiments,
for example, researchers not only need to take research ethics into account, but
they also need to be aware of the power hierarchy and the potential impact of
the hierarchy on the outcomes. Thus, feminist scholars should practice
reflexivity2 as an analytical device to not only ensure participant agency, but
also to acknowledge that alternative explanations are possible outside of
researchers’ own familiarity and subjectivity (Ackerly and True, 2008; van
Stapele, 2014).
MOVING FORWARD The incorporation and mainstreaming of gender have been one of
the goals in feminist governance scholarship as it seeks to influence
institutional rules and norms and to promote change within organisations.
Nonetheless, most studies focus solely on the gender aspect without paying
attention to how other axes of oppressions can occur within formal and informal
governance. Moving forward, feminist scholars must produce research to
demonstrate to political elites, policymakers and actors within governance that
it is not enough to address disparities between men and women. While women may
be treated as the ‘other’ in existing institutions and structures, women are not
the only ones being ‘othered’. Disparities among various marginalised groups
need to be addressed in order to achieve greater equality. Feminist governance
researchers need to incorporate intersectionality as a form of critical enquiry
that can be a powerful tool in dismantling hegemony (Overstreet et al., 2020).
Conventional single-axis approaches treat gender as a dichotomy, reaffirming the
status quo embedded in our institutions, policies, structures, social movements
and research (Collins, 2019). In other words, institutional transformation
cannot truly occur unless critical praxis is used to acknowledge the struggles
of women with intersectional identities (Overstreet et al., 2020). How might
feminist governance scholars use critical enquiry to produce knowledge that
uncovers the interlocking systems of power? First, scholars need to recognise
the multiple oppressions experienced by various marginalised groups based on
their gender, race, class and sexual orientation at both the individual and
institutional levels (Hancock, 2007a). As scholars recognise that
marginalisations are intersecting rather than additive, each category of
difference also has within-group diversity that helps us conceptualise the role
and impact of actors inside and outside governing bodies (Hancock, 2007b).
Second, political scientists need to think about the epistemology that guides
their research. I call for a postcolonial epistemology in which scholars
destabilise and critique the Eurocentric theories, methods and practices of
coloniality. As colonialism and Western domination have long silenced local
knowledge and assumed that Western civilisation is the pinnacle of progress
(Lentin, 2017), researchers need to get rid of the notion that the West is the
norm. Instead of focusing on cases in the Global North or including a
cross-sectional analysis, researchers should pay attention to colonial history,
as well as contextual differences. It is researchers’ duty to ‘fight ignorance
regarding the lives of subjects who have been marginalized’ (Ortega,
Studying feminist governance 109 2017: 505). Decolonial epistemology enables
researchers to dismantle the insidious effects of hegemony and empire. As
feminist governance scholarship has progressed towards being an integral part of
political science, we scholars have offered numerous ways to conceptualise,
understand and challenge existing institutions and structures. In various parts
of society, some aspects of gender have been mainstreamed, albeit slowly. Moving
forward, there is still room to improve and further mainstream not just gender
but also other axes of identity and oppression. Future feminist governance
research should incorporate intersectionality and be guided by decolonial
epistemology in order to achieve the goal of greater equality.
NOTES 1. The gender-as-intersectionality model asks organisations to
contextualise and adapt gender mainstreaming strategies while taking into
account the needs of those with intersecting identities. 2. Reflexivity is an
instrument for researchers to recognise how their own subjectivities impinge
upon their research, enabling them to recognise how the knowledge produced could
be biased (van Stapele, 2014).
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PART II EVOLVING INSTITUTIONS
9. Weaving a feminist power tapestry: feminist governance in practice Caroline
Lambert, Jessica Horn, Srilatha Batliwala, Michelle Deshong, Tanja Kovac and
Naomi Woyengu
INTRODUCTION Feminist governance understands governance as personal and
political praxis. It aspires to support egalitarian dynamics, collective voice,
an ethic of care and the valuing of diverse forms of knowledge and lived
experience. This is in stark contrast to mainstream models of governance, where
hierarchical power is vested in the few – to determine strategy, policy, budgets
and risk appetite, monitor organisational performance and management of a Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) (AICD, 2018). We have drawn on an alternative framing by
the Indigenous Community Governance Project: ‘the evolving process,
relationships, institutions, and structures by which a group of people,
community, or society organises itself collectively, negotiates its rights and
interests, gets things done, and make decisions …’. This includes who is
recognised as a member, the management of work, negotiation with outsiders, who
has authority and over what, accountability mechanisms, the enforceability of
decisions, and how the group arranges themselves to achieve their goals (CAEPR,
2004: 12). We have expanded this definition to incorporate feminist
deliberations, drawing from Batliwala’s (2011) work which evolves a model of
feminist leadership predicated on understanding principles/values; power;
politics/purpose; and practice. Our understanding of feminism is intersectional,
engaging the intersections of gendered oppression with racism, classism,
ableism, homophobia and transphobia, and other forms of oppressive power (Davis,
1983; Crenshaw, 1991; Chakravarthi, 2019; AWDF, 2016 [2007]) and that continues
to evolve to better understand the diverse forms of identity that can inform an
individual and community’s access to power (Astraea Lesbian Foundation for
Justice, 2019; Wong, 2020; Moreton-Robinson, 2020). We draw on organisational
theory that acknowledges the relational dynamics between staff, community and
other actors, as well as questions of individual and collective well-being
(Chigudu and Chigudu, 2015). We have taken guidance from Freeman’s exploration
of the ‘tyranny of structurelessness’ and the importance of clarity of
decision-making, accountability, distribution of authority, dispersal of tasks,
and access and transparency (Freeman, 1972). And we have been inspired by the
work of Machold et al. (2008) who assert the importance of centring an
organization-wide ethic of care, of committing to approaches that ‘do no harm’
in the relations organisations have with least advantaged stakeholders, of
reciprocity and the privileging of human relationships in decision-making, and
of recognising the obligation of care within asymmetrical power relationships.
In our understanding, feminist governance is a field of praxis as opposed to a
singular set of practices or a ‘model’ and is shaped and informed by structural
power dynamics of the specific 113
114 Handbook of feminist governance context, including race, class, caste,
geopolitical positioning, and the legacies and ongoing practices of colonialism
and casteism, alongside other axes of power. It is a value-imbued navigation
that interrogates how women govern and are governed – how they get to have a
voice, make decisions, exercise authority – and explores gendered understandings
of masculinities and femininities within the theory and practice of governance
(Rao et al., 2018). And it asks what power dynamics and structural
considerations play out within groups of women (Ford-Smith, 1997). It is
important to note that feminist organisations grow largely out of feminist
social movements (Horn, 2013; Andrew, 2013; Alvarez, 1999) and thus carry
movement concerns into their practices, including their governance.
Non-patriarchal ways of working intersect with concerns over racism, ableism,
heteronormativity, class and caste privilege, and so on. Although some contend
that this represents an intrinsically ‘feminine’ approach, we would argue that
it stems from an ethical concern with creating and sustaining systems that
promote equality and inclusion and democratic forms of organisation and work,
and that considers accountability to communities as a foundational principle.
This is not to say that feminist governance exists without contradiction or
indeed failure. Feminist organisations also sit within the confines of
patriarchal systems and structures of government. They have been shaped by the
pervasive ideologies of patriarchal neoliberalism and economic and political
colonisation that have driven government and civil society approaches to
governance across the world (Sawer and Andrew, 2013; Scheepers and Lakhani,
2020). These dynamics have had contradictory effects: on the one hand, feminist
organisations have been strengthened in their ability to deliver important
services. However, contracts and funding agreements have also restricted
organisational design, management, strategy, priorities, feminist political
advocacy, building feminist organisational cultures and (of course), governance.
In this chapter we offer a series of encounters with feminist practices of
governance. We recognise that feminist governance is an evolving field and
remains an area for both documentation and analysis. The case studies stand as
independent contributions from each author, and act as a springboard to our
collective explorations of feminist revisions of governance. Our subsequent
analysis offers an enquiry into feminist leadership and an exploration of the
embedded power in organisations, a recasting of how we understand core
governance concepts of strategy and risk, challenges to accountability flows,
reframed concepts of time, and organisational frameworks that incorporate and
value the care work that sustains our societies and political and economic
systems.
FEMINIST GOVERNANCE EXPERIMENTS: CASE STUDIES Case Study 1: The Women’s Health
Sector in Victoria, Australia In Victoria, the women’s health sector evolved
from grassroots consciousness-raising on reproductive health rights for
marginalised women. Initially in the 1970s these organisations were volunteer
and collectivist in their approaches, focused on education and health promotion
including building migrant and refugee women’s knowledge of sexual and
reproductive health through workplace programmes in factories and farms.
Volunteers delivered outstanding work that was unsustainable without government
funding. With government funding came account-
Weaving a feminist power tapestry 115 ability requirements that eroded
collectivist structures. The compulsory competitive tendering introduced in the
1990s for previously public services further eroded the non-hierarchical
governance of community organisations. While bidding for contracts secured
income, funding tended to be directed towards projects aligned to government
priorities, with less recognition and financial support for grassroots
consciousness-raising, movement building or advocacy. New contracts required an
independent board which delegated operational management to a CEO. The Victorian
women’s health sector has, however, continued to maintain feminist values and
practices. While external engagement with government, philanthropic and private
sector bureaucracies is more formalised through traditional governance and
contract performance obligations, transformative gender practices persist
internally, with consensus decision-making driving board and committee
governance, holistic employment practices that provide flexible, supportive
workplaces for women, and a commitment to intersectional consultation and lived
experience in service design. More traditional feminist collectivism is
particularly evidenced when women’s health services come together
collaboratively for an advocacy campaign or funding opportunity. Here there is a
return to a much flatter structure of leadership and engagement. In this
environment, feminist CEOs of feminist organisations show a high-level desire
for transparency, iterative policy, process and project design and equally
shared resources, as well as dedication to ensuring application of an
intersectional lens. The strategic work at this level – such as pro-choice and
gendered violence reform advocacy – is slower and time-consuming, but is what
has achieved shifts in state policy, including the decriminalisation of abortion
and the adoption of recommendations from a Royal Commission into Family
Violence. Case Study 2: Building Collective Advocacy Mechanisms with Government
Funding Since 2002 the Australian Government has funded National Women’s
Alliances to be the main channel for non-government organisation (NGO) access to
government. From the establishment of this model the Young Women’s Christian
Association (YWCA) has been the lead contract holder for the Equality Rights
Alliance (ERA),1 and auspiced the first contract of the National Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA). The YWCA Australia Board
agreed to act as the legal home for ERA but supported it to act as a stand-alone
entity. This was a significant disruption to the corporate governance model of
the YWCA Australia Board – who effectively ‘sub-contracted’ strategy and
financial management to a group who had no formal legal standing – creating a
‘legal fiction’ of leadership and governance. Through a collective process the
network developed membership principles, decision-making guidelines, budgets,
policy positions and influencing documents. The latter were endorsed ‘all or in
part’ to enable a multiplicity of positions to be presented, although certain
aspects of the membership principles create a set of non-negotiables that ERA
articulates. In this way, ERA sought to challenge the idea that there should be
a single, unified position on a policy issue, valuing the plurality of women’s
voices and seeking to overcome the racism of the women’s movement in its
universalisation of the interests of white, middle-class women. Recognising that
gender equality change takes time, the annual workplan would include space for
project wins that could be achieved within the life of the contract, while also
supporting longer-term projects (for example, to position older women’s
homelessness as a policy
116 Handbook of feminist governance priority). However, the requirement for
Alliance workplans to be approved by government constrained the imagination of
the advocates working together, and in some years resulted in activities being
introduced to meet government priorities. Activities that the YWCA undertook on
behalf of ERA – the employment of staff, the day-to-day management of the budget
and the delivery of contracted activities – took on entirely different
dimensions when a similar structure was adopted to auspice NATSIWA. Feminist
recasting of traditional governance structures, in the context of racism,
floundered as the ongoing impact of colonial dispossession and the imperative of
self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples clashed
with the YWCA’s formal role as the contract holder. It was simply not possible
to honour the principles and practices of self-determination and voice by the
NATSIWA Advisory Board despite the best intentions of all parties at the start
of the agreement, constituting a failure of feminist recasting of governance.
Case Study 3: Governance among the Women of Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara
Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation, Alice Springs, Northern
Territory Aboriginal people have been practising methods of cultural governance
since time immemorial, with culture at the heart of establishing structure and
purpose to communities, offering important insights for alternative ways of
approaching governance, informed both by matrilineal and patrilineal knowledge
systems and kinship obligations. But colonial oppression and marginalisation has
coerced Indigenous peoples into a Western model of governance that at some point
contradicts the cultural foundation of their own governance structure.
Aboriginal women are often the foundation of community and are recognised for
their ability to look after family, group, the land, its resources, and related
systems of knowledge and law. The number of women in governing roles in
Aboriginal nations, communities and organisations is growing, but they face
gender-based challenges in terms of decision-making power, respect and
recognition for their voices, leadership and capabilities, unequal resource
allocations, and overcoming structural barriers to women’s participation.
Furthermore, Western disciplinary research has disproportionately privileged the
stories and contributions of Indigenous men, while the Australian nation state
reproduced its own institutional patriarchy by favouring the advancement and
authority of Indigenous men (Davis, 2011). It is notable that in the past 10
years we have begun to witness a shift towards the feminisation of Indigenous
leadership and governance (Oscar, 2017). The reclaiming of a feminist governance
approach has been a notable trend, and the case study below explores the
benefits of this approach. Aboriginal women within the homelands of the
Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara, and Yankunytjatjara (NPY) formed the NPY Women’s
Council (NPYWC) to give representation and power to the voice of women in the
region. The NPYWC recasts traditional governance by encouraging the practice of
culture, observing NPY women’s law, as well as promoting the interests and
rights of the NPY women. For example, the administrative requirements of the
council have been integrated into annual bush meetings, which unite women for
both an annual general meeting (AGM) and ‘law and culture’ meetings, which are
instrumental in transforming the governance–operational split of traditional
approaches to governance.
Weaving a feminist power tapestry 117 This has been augmented by the Malparara
way, meaning a person who is with a friend or companion. Malparara way
recognises and values the knowledge, skills and resources of the local people
while assisting them in gaining access to services that are delivered in a
culturally appropriate and effective way, challenging the knowledge hierarchies
of traditional governance frameworks. The NPYWC have taken this a step further
when it comes to evolving service delivery, developing an approach that includes
kulikatinyi (considering something over a long period of time); nyakuakatinyi
(looking for something as one goes along); and palyaalkatinyi (making something
as one goes along). This moves away from the traditional model of an
organisational leader empowered to approve a static strategy at a point in time,
and supports a more emergent approach, grounded in the lived reality of the
women who need the services, and challenging notions of time/efficiency in
decision-making in seeing change (Australian Indigenous Governance Institute,
2018). Case Study 4: Building a Feminist Culture in a Government-Sponsored
Women’s NGO Mahila Samakhya (meaning Women Valued as Equals) was a historic
programme fostered by the Ministry of Education, Government of India that
promoted the use of feminist popular education (Miller and VeneKlasen, 2012)
methodologies to organise and empower marginalised women in rural areas, with
educational goals such as increased female adult literacy, and girl child
enrolment and retention in school, as hoped-for by-products (Batliwala, 1996).
The programme was launched in 1989 in in the state of Karnataka in South India
through a government-created women’s NGO, Mahila Samakhya Karnataka, led by
feminist staff, who mobilised marginalised Dalit2 and Indigenous women into
village-level collectives in 300 villages, deploying multiple strategies for
transforming their social, economic and political reality. By 1992, a mass
movement of some 50,000 women had emerged, tackling issues as diverse as minimum
wages for their labour, transparency and accountability of government
anti-poverty schemes, proper functioning of local schools and health services,
and dismantling oppressive caste and gender norms and practices. Given the
radical nature of the feminist empowerment process adopted, the programme’s
leadership simultaneously attempted to invert its traditional governance
structure to build a more feminist culture within the organisation and create
more direct accountability to the marginalised women the programme served. One
innovation was to reverse the permission process for seeking leave/time off:
each individual would have to get permission from those most affected by her
absence, rather than her supervisor/s in the hierarchy – for example, activists
would need permission from the village collectives, the District Coordinators
from the activists and the Director from the District Coordinators.
Interestingly, it was not government officials but many within the activist team
who resisted this most strongly, exposing the deeply internalised sense of
privilege, status and power that this change confronted. Rotating leadership and
decision-making in the women’s collectives was another innovation – after
discussions critiquing the patriarchal hierarchy of president, vice-president
and secretary of the village council or the local cooperative that they were
familiar with. The model of collective leadership eventually took hold, after
navigating struggles to determine who would represent the collective in various
forums and the rotating out of core leaders after a set term. Indeed, in a few
years, collectives mocked the traditional hierarchical leadership model as
outmoded and unfeminist.
118 Handbook of feminist governance Case Study 5: Participatory Resourcing in
Feminist Funds Feminist Funds are funding mechanisms established by women’s
rights activists – and more recently LGBTI+ rights activists to resource
movement work based on the principle of ‘by, for and with’. The Central American
Women’s Fund pioneered a model of participatory grant-making that enabled
applicants themselves to lead in grant decision-making. This model inspired the
participatory models for FRIDA, the Young Feminist Fund, and UHAI- EASHRI,
funding East African LGBTI+ and sex worker rights activists. This devolution of
grant decision-making beyond fund boards and staff to applicants is a
significant step in shifting power around resourcing (see Gibson and Bokoff,
2018). Since its founding in 2010, FRIDA has continued to explore approaches to
redistributing decision-making power and leadership within the fund and in
relation to its grantees. After its first director, FRIDA initiated a
co-directorship model as an experiment in shared leadership, hiring two
full-time co-directors. Working collaboratively, they led and represented the
organisation externally, while leading different aspects of oversight
internally. FRIDA extended this culture of participatory thinking and
decision-making in all areas including human resources policies and budgeting,
and with all staff and grantees. In response to collective exhaustion amongst
staff, for example, FRIDA initiated a collaborative process to create the
Happiness Manifestx outlining principles of individual and collective care
(Elboubkri and Johnson, 2019). Initiating a participatory culture required
constant check-ins, learning and adaptation, given the tendency to default to
vertical decision-making. The co-leadership model began to extend to board level
and among staff with co-programme management leads. As participation became
embedded as a practice and expectation, the co-directors noted growing
complexity in how participation was operationalised. There was need to
differentiate forms of participation and clarify what was required – for example
feedback, a vote or a consensus decision. As the participatory culture evolved,
it also became clearer where constituencies trusted others to make an
appropriate decision. On difficult decisions there were also times when people
returned to the idea of having senior leadership decide. The FRIDA experiment is
ongoing in its modelling of alternative ways to distribute decision-making and
manage leadership with a deep attention to the ways in which power is used more
democratically in grant-making. In the words of former co-director Devi Leiper
O’Malley, ‘participatory is not about getting “rid” of power; it’s about sharing
it, negotiating it, maybe even making it bigger if you can’ (personal
communication with Jessica Horn, 14 September 2020). Case Study 6: Young Pacific
Women as Leaders in the YWCA Leadership and governance spaces in the Pacific
context are framed by the intersection of culture, gender and age. This case
study focuses on leadership of the Young Women’s Christian Associations (YWCAs)
in Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, which for a variety of
reasons, have experienced challenges in embracing young women’s leadership. YWCA
member associations have been formally required to ensure that at least 25 per
cent of their board positions are held by young women (under 30 years of age),
both to increase young women’s participation and to ensure that YWCAs act as
incubators for young women’s leadership. But quotas alone have not functioned to
either address biases against young women’s leadership or to support young women
to step into leadership roles. Intergenerational co-leadership models have been
trialled and many YWCAs have developed
Weaving a feminist power tapestry 119 young women’s leadership programmes. In
the Pacific, Rise Up! evolved from a programme developed by the Solomon Islands’
YWCA to become a Pacific and Asia regional programme supporting the development
of young women leaders. The programme is focused on peer-led leadership training
and engagement opportunities among young women, particularly in rural areas.
Monash University’s study of the impacts of the programme found that young women
not only represented a new constituency, but also reframed visions of
leadership. The young women challenged the dominant approaches to leadership by
older women, preferring instead to lead in ways that are based upon
collaborative, shared and horizontal power relationships, and in spaces that are
often considered informal and private (Pruitt and Lee-Koo, 2020). However, while
the programme supported young women to step into an alternative framing of
leadership, they still faced barriers within YWCAs and in other women’s
organisations in the Pacific – such as the masculine and ageist bias in
leadership, the lack of community support and willingness to see young women as
leaders (which may include backlash against them) and access to dedicated
programmes that support young women’s leadership (Pruitt and Lee-Koo, 2020).
Young women have shared that the main enablers of young women’s leadership are
the widespread promotion of young women’s rights, the creation of safe spaces,
the building of peer networks to allow young women to work together, the
modelling of strong intergenerational leadership and the support of local
communities (Pruitt and Lee-Koo, 2020). This is long-term work, and speaks to
the importance of new ways of measuring impact and accountability. To support
this, the Rise Up! Young Women coordinators developed a feminist, participatory
approach to measuring programme success, grounded in their lived experience in
delivering the programme, and challenging traditional accountability and
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) frameworks that position the MEL
practitioner as the expert.
THE THREADS OF OUR LIVES: FEMINIST GOVERNANCE PRAXIS 1.
Modelling Feminist Leadership and Exploring the Embedded Power in Organisations
Feminist governance expands ideas of the who, what and how of leadership. In
mainstream governance there is a common expectation that there should be
individual leaders for the governance arm, led by a president, and an
operational arm with considerable decision-making power led by a CEO (and
executive team), with decision-making power delegated by a board. These
leadership structures and practices are reflective of dominant social patterns
of privilege, power and exclusion. NGO governing boards are increasingly drawn
from more privileged constituencies with experience in corporate or NGO
management, or capacity to access or leverage resources. While many feminist
organisations replicate these dynamics, we maintain that feminist governance
aspires to alternative conceptualisations of the everyday operation of power. It
challenges the systems and structures that authorise power to be more easily
exercised by certain individuals or bodies, and to be exercised in hidden, or
even invisible ways, based on embedded privilege and identities. Feminist
governance focuses on egalitarianism, collective
120 Handbook of feminist governance voice, an ethic of care, and the valuing of
lived experience, and prioritises different knowledges and sites of authority.
As our case studies demonstrate, feminist organisations continue to experiment
with and reconceptualise models of leadership. They explore the use of less
hierarchical structures – either in formal leadership aspects of the
organisation (Mahila Samakhya); informal non-hierarchical practices for
determining strategy and policy priorities and advocacy approaches (ERA, women’s
health); alternative knowledges as the basis for community interventions or
establishing measures for success (NYPWC, RiseUp!’s MEL framework); rotating
leadership (Mahila Samakhya); diversity in leadership (YWCA, Mahila Samakhya);
and the model of multilevel shared leadership and decision-making (FRIDA, YWCA,
NYPWC). In addition to dismantling traditional notions of leadership, these
innovations better distribute workloads and responsibilities, and enable more
collective power to address complex questions. These approaches build on earlier
experiments with ostensibly ‘flat’ structures that gave rise to hidden
hierarchies of power and exclusion (Freeman, 1972) and, more recently, the
recognition of organisational ‘deep structures’ as sites where dominant systems
of power and privilege are subtly reproduced. These alternative approaches are
not without their complexities and take time to develop, particularly given how
deeply embedded hierarchical and individual leadership are in our collective
psyche and professional practices. For example, as FRIDA sought to integrate
participation in all processes, clarifying to both staff and grantees different
mechanisms of participation (e.g. consultation, collective decision-making), it
proved vital to create common understanding and expectations, alongside
clarifying the nature of engagement sought in each case. As the model
progressed, different actors also chose to opt out of some processes – as with
grantees delegating certain kinds of decisions to FRIDA staff. Shared
participation also comes with shared responsibility: some people may be less
inclined to be included in tougher matters such as disciplinary processes.
Efforts to shift power into different loci can also be fraught when they run
into the formal requirements of corporate governance – as evidenced by the
experiences of NATSIWA. Nonetheless, feminist governance, particularly in the
recent past, has more directly addressed the power dynamics embedded within its
own spaces and processes. The Mahila Samakhya, NATSIWA, Women’s Funds and YWCA
case studies, for example, highlight how issues of embedded power and privilege
were confronted by, or clashed with, mainstream notions of governance, creating
sites of both tension and innovation. And the emergence of co-CEO and co-chair
positions may herald the start of a recognition of feminism’s impact on
masculinist notions of singular, hierarchical power. 2.
Reframing Strategy and Direction-Setting, Risk and Accountability
Although a variety of formats for organising collective action exist, the growth
of the registered and externally funded NGO or community-based organisation as
the primary model for managing feminist organising has had deep effects on ideas
and practices of strategy, risk and accountability. Often termed ‘NGO-isation’
(Lang, 1997; Alvarez, 1999; Al-Karib 2018), feminist organisers have
increasingly found themselves defaulting to, or obliged to follow, conventional
top-down governance and decision-making structures, answering to externally
established benchmarks. These dynamics are made even more complex by growing
backlash against successful feminist activism and increasing state antagonism
towards civil society
Weaving a feminist power tapestry 121 (Bishop, 2017), including by restricting
external funding, targeting individual organisations and their staff, and
regulations and legislation that limit NGO practice. In mainstream governance,
priorities are often driven by donor policies and resource availability, rather
than purpose. Accountability is practised more towards donors and legal and
statutory requirements, and towards protecting the organisational ‘brand’,
although the rhetoric may disguise this. Each of the case studies shows how
feminist organisations challenge this by designing processes that integrate the
representation and perspectives of their constituencies with the advancing of
organisational purpose. For example, the NPYWC Bush Meetings, Mahila Samakhya
annual leave planning and the WomenSpeak/ERA collective budget processes offer
alternative forms of accountability. The WomenSpeak/ERA, women’s health and
FRIDA case studies point to the collectivisation of strategy and advocacy,
disrupting the idea of ‘single agendas’ for diverse women’s interests. These,
alongside the FRIDA pursuit of a culture of participatory thinking and
decision-making, point to significant feminist rewrites of strategy. This is not
without its challenges, as highlighted by the resistance to young women’s
leadership by some within YWCAs in the Pacific. Risk is another area of both
experimentation and challenge. Corporate governance is predicated on boards
setting risk appetite and creating apparatus to identify organisational risk,
and then reduce it as far as possible. Feminist advocacy, however, is inherently
risky, balancing the gains and losses associated with contesting power
relations. For feminist advocacy and service organisations, prioritising the
defence of women and trans people’s rights is the priority – even when this
entails risking legal status, agreements or funding of activist organisations.
WomenSpeak, for example, faced a conflict with their funder when they produced a
report that called into question government policy settings. While raising these
problems was in the purview of their advocacy, the nature of the WomenSpeak
contract, and the provisions around approvals, raised red flags in risk
management reporting to the YWCA board, and left the organisation open to
greater pressure to amend the report. Financial sustainability is an ongoing
concern for feminist organisations – linked strongly to the question of
political autonomy (Lever et al., 2020). As explored in the women’s health case
study, some feminist organisations navigate the tension between receiving
government funding for service delivery and the need for political independence
to engage in advocacy – including targeting government. Women’s Funds have made
explicit choices to ‘fill in the gaps’ left by other institutional funding,
supporting core operations as well as more political projects, including for
marginalised and persecuted communities. While pushing back on existing risk
definitions, feminist organisations have broadened notions of risk to include
attention to risks faced by activists, with serious mechanisms to mitigate and
respond. This expands organisational responsibility around risk and its
resultant duty of care to consider not just individual organisations themselves
but the communities they work with and the broader field of allied actors. 3.
Reframing Time
Underpinning our analysis of feminist governance is recognition of different
conceptualisations of and approaches to time. Implicit in these subversions is a
challenge to the pace and streamlined nature of mainstream corporate governance
that expects immediate decision-making, quick resolution of problems and fast
delivery of results. Feminist governance slows down to secure a more diffuse and
meaningful form of authority, from sites that would commonly
122 Handbook of feminist governance not be engaged in decision-making (e.g. the
subversion of annual leave approvals in Mahila Samakhya and the practice of
emergent thought and action in the Malparara way). There is dissonance between
the funder-driven time frames for impact and the intergenerational nature of
feminist change (Batliwala and Pittman, 2010). Funders are very often
constrained within the politics of budget allocations and, in the case of state
funding, within short-term election-based cycles. As a result women’s
organisations often receive one- to three-year grants with unrealistic
expectations of significant shifts in generational patterns of inequality, or
with a series of quantitative indicators that do little to demonstrate
meaningful change. Feminist approaches to impact, which focus on self-identified
indicators of change and demand longer time frames (YWCA and Women’s Funds),
offer a different approach to the accountability framework. Our work takes time,
is complicated and we need to pause, unpack how and where we succeeded, where we
held the line, and where we failed. Intergenerational change cannot be achieved
in a three-year programme (see also Hessini, 2020: 369). But, in our experience,
changes are possible by acknowledging what our co-author Tanja Kovac calls ‘the
beauty of persistent incrementalism’. To achieve deep structural change around
long-held concepts of hierarchical masculinist power, feminist governance
requires different time frames for measuring impact – and recognition that our
slower pace achieves more sustainable change. 4.
Valuing and Incorporating an Ethic of Care
Feminist governance approaches have made significant contributions to
considering ways to incorporate and value the care work that sustains our
societies and political and economic systems. Mainstream human resources
management has tended to focus on questions of performance and career
advancement. More political questions of how organisational cultures and
practices mirror, internally, the values and mission supposedly driving its
external purpose are rarely addressed – much less the holistic well-being and
growth of staff, or support for balancing professional and personal lives.
Feminist Funds have developed HR policies that provide greater support for staff
well-being than statutory requirements including around maternity leave, and
support for staff mental and physical health – an example being FRIDA’s
Happiness Manifestx. In line with this, FRIDA established a two-week break from
external communications in response to the Black Lives Matter protests in
mid-2020, recognising that staff themselves were being overwhelmed as they
offered solidarity in a stressful political moment. These approaches create more
space for recognition of staff members’ changing emotional states and the fact
that a variety of factors can affect staff engagement and contributions and
encourage organisations and management to be more nimble, compassionate and
responsive, not solely fixated on outputs without attention to the impacts on
the staff conducting work. Feminist organisations globally continue to integrate
feminist care ethics into their policies and procedures, and practise support of
their staff and volunteers both in managing the stress and dangers associated
with feminist service delivery and advocacy (Horn, 2020; AWID 2014), and the
balancing of competing demands of paid work and private sphere care work. This
includes reimbursing child care costs incurred as a result of attending board or
external meetings, including children in meeting spaces, ensuring that mental
health services are provided in employee health packages, and supporting
flexi-time and other policies to enable people to manage both health and care
needs and their paid work.
Weaving a feminist power tapestry 123
CONCLUSION In this chapter we have explored the threads of feminist governance
in women’s civil society organising across a range of national and cultural
contexts. Through it we have traced the contribution of feminist ethics to
reconceptualising the purpose and methodologies of governance. We have explored
the many ways in which feminists attempt to shift governance power away from
hierarchies and towards more participatory and collaborative methods that honour
diversity. We have also noted the common difficulty posed by increasing
formalisation associated with state and philanthropic funding of women’s
organisations, as well as the shift from advocacy to service provision and the
pressure this places on organisations and networks to conform to more corporate
and masculinist models of decision-making, accountability and target-driven
methodologies. We acknowledge that efforts at feminist governance are in
process, entangled in the difficult work of reflecting on ourselves as agents of
power and transformation, and grappling with the fact that we also bring
experiences of the trauma of oppression into the ways that we articulate power
in our leadership and our governance. However, we also recognise the innovation
that feminist organising brings to questions of governance. These ‘experiments’
are what set feminist governance apart from other systems of governance – in
particular, corporate governance models that have yet to grapple in any rigorous
way with the replication of deep structures of unequal norms and power
relations.
NOTES 1. Initially the WomenSpeak Network. 2. While the term Dalit literally
means ‘the oppressed’, it is used to refer to people belonging to a group of
castes formerly called ‘untouchables’.
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Canberra: CAEPR, ANU. Chakravarthi, Uma (2019) Gendering Caste through a
Feminist Lens, London: Sage. Chigudu, Hope and Rudo Chigudu (2015) ‘Strategies
for Building an Organisation with a Soul’, African Institute for Integrated
Responses to Violence against Women and HIV/AIDS (AIR). http:// airforafrica
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-Organisation -with -Soul -for -web1 .pdf. Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1991) ‘Mapping
the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of
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Self-Determination and Aboriginal Women’, Indigenous Law Bulletin 7(23): 6–8.
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Democracy, and the Organization of Cultural Production’. In M. Jacqui Alexandra
and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (eds), Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies,
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(1972) ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’, The Second Wave 2(1). Sydney: Words
for Women. https:// www .jofreeman .com/ joreen/ tyranny .htm. Gibson, Cynthia
and Jen Bokoff (2018) Deciding Together: Shifting Power and Resources through
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Leila (2020) ‘Financing for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights: The Role of
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and Social Movements Overview Report, Brighton: Institute for Development
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Health in Development: African Feminist Innovations’, Gender & Development
28(1): 85–98. Lang, Sabine (1997) ‘The NGO-ization of Feminism:
Institutionalization and Institution Building within the German Women’s
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Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics, New York:
Routledge, 101–20. Lever, Esther, Kellea Miller and Kasia Staszewska (2020)
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Stuart Farquhar (2008) ‘Corporate Governance and Ethics: A Feminist
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DC: JUST Associates. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen (2020) Talkin’ Up to the White
Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism, 20th anniversary edition, St Lucia:
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10. National women’s machineries: Trojan horses or hostages? Anne Marie Goetz
INTRODUCTION Since the First World Conference on Women, organised by the United
Nations (UN) in Mexico City in 1975, bureaucratic mechanisms for the advancement
of gender equality have been considered significant components of feminist
governance. In 1995, at the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, these ‘national
women’s machineries’ (NWMs) were identified as one of the 12 crucial areas of
concern in the Beijing Platform for Action. By May 2020, all but one (North
Korea) of the 193 countries recognised by the UN had established some type of
institutional mechanism on gender and women’s issues (UN Women, 2020). At their
best, these dedicated agencies can ensure routine attention to gender equality
in government decision-making and provide channels for civil society activists
to inform and influence it. However, they are highly subject to fluctuations in
national executives’ support for gender equality and have been demoted or
repurposed where populists are reviving traditional masculinities and
traditional notions of ‘the family’. A government mechanism addressing women’s
issues (if not necessarily promoting equality or empowerment) is now a universal
feature of the state – every country has some version of this.1 NWMs are not
created equal, however. They vary significantly in their positioning in the
hierarchy of government offices, in their funding levels, in their institutional
roles (advocacy, operational or accountability/watchdog functions), in their
mandates, in their relative independence from the executive, and in the quality
of their leadership. These variations, in part, determine their effectiveness in
advancing women’s rights and addressing broader gender equality issues (such as
protections for sexual and gender minorities) as well as their capacity to
safeguard gender equality achievements. Effectiveness is also greatly affected
by whether gender equality is a programmatic concern of the ruling party,
whether dominant ideologies about the role of the state are welfarist or
neoliberal (Harris-Rimmer and Sawer, 2016; Sawer, 1996), and whether the state
itself has the capacity to enforce what can be unpopular policies. This chapter
reviews the history of national women’s bureaucracies and their record in
advancing women’s rights and equality in gender relations. It is based primarily
on the now vast literature on NWMs, including studies previously published by
this author (Goetz, 1995, 2009), with added insights from interviews with
current or former members of bureaucracies for women in the Philippines, Turkey,
USA and Argentina. After summarising evidence of impact of gender equality units
and identifying conditions for their effectiveness, the chapter considers the
role of the UN and regional institutions in providing support. The chapter also
considers important secular shifts in national gender equality institutions.
Once, these bureaucracies were viewed as classic examples of how feminists must
work ‘in and against’ the state – as insurgent insiders, fighting internal
government resistance, in uneasy cooperation with a demanding external feminist
constituency. Gender equality units have suffered from being 126
National women’s machineries 127 sidelined from top decision-making and from
chronic underfunding. ‘Femocrats’ – feminist bureaucrats dedicated to advancing
gender equality (Sawer, 1990, 2016), often experience marginalisation. But now,
in some contexts, working in a gender equality unit is no longer a career dead
end for ambitious civil servants. The most influential gender equality
machineries in welfare-oriented democratic states now boast high-profile
feminist leaders and professional staff drawn both from the civil service and
feminist movement, with less of a sense of the contingency and divided loyalties
implied by ‘in and against’. Before proceeding, a note on terminology is needed.
‘National women’s machineries’ no longer adequately reflects the way mandates
have shifted and diverged. In some states, these institutions address
discrimination not just against women but against people with non-conforming
sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics
(SOGIESC). ‘Gender equality machinery’ (GEM) is a more appropriate label for
these bureaucracies. In contrast, some conservative populist governments have
repurposed women’s rights bureaucracies to perform functions contrary to their
initial mandate – such as encouraging traditional families, promoting women’s
fertility and even colluding with authorities in persecuting homosexuals. It is
wrong to use the term GEM to describe these institutions, and even ‘NWM’, which
is linked to Beijing-era expectations about their role, seems misleading. To
avoid a proliferation of abbreviations, however, ‘GEM’ will be used to describe
national bureaucracies dedicated to promoting equality for women and other
genders, and in the case of conservative family-promotion units, specific titles
will be used as far as possible.
BACKGROUND TO AND DIFFUSION OF GEMS China and Cuba had the first state women’s
bureaucracies, ranked low in the administrative hierarchy, set up in 1949 and
1960, respectively. These were state organs paralleling (and easily confused
with) party women’s wings with similar functions; mobilising women citizens in
support of national goals, such as increasing women’s engagement in the labour
force or limiting the birthrate. By the time of the First World Conference on
Women in Mexico City in 1975, about a dozen countries, mostly developing nations
such as Barbados, Ghana, Iraq and the Philippines, and also Australia and
Canada, had women’s offices, often in response to a demand for state access from
women’s movements. The Mexico City conference strongly endorsed the idea of
these bureaucracies, as did all subsequent world conferences on women. The
Beijing Platform for Action called for the establishment of these mechanisms at
the highest possible level, with adequate resourcing, and mandates to, at a
minimum, coordinate, facilitate and monitor government policies on gender
equality and women’s empowerment. Since then, a number of women’s bureaucracies
have shifted to ministerial status – there are currently 90 countries whose
gender bureaucracies are ministries with the word ‘women’ or ‘gender’ in the
title, though some of these are connected to women’s reproductive roles through
the addition of words like ‘family’ or ‘children’ or ‘youth’. Ministerial status
is not necessarily an upgrade – it can signify an underfunded silo. There are
about 40 stand-alone agencies for women at a lower than ministerial level, such
as women’s institutes, or national commissions on gender equality, and sometimes
these are highly strategically located, for instance within the office of the
president or prime minister. The remaining cases are women’s desks within other
ministries with a focus on human development (labour, social protection, human
rights), culture, justice and sometimes a rag-bag of remaindered issues. In
Australia
128 Handbook of feminist governance the women’s movement has championed a wheel
model, with a hub in the main coordinating agency of government so as to have
access to all cabinet submissions, while the ‘spokes’ are in the departments and
agencies.
STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND FUNDING: WHAT WORKS? The chances that public authority
and resources are deployed to promote gender equality depend on a variety of
factors such as the strategies of feminist civil society organisations, the
extent to which systems for the representation of group interests in politics
give voice to feminist demands, and the normalisation of gender mainstreaming as
a routine part of governing (Outshoorn and Kantola, 2007). An efficient gender
equality unit can capitalise on these dynamics, but there is no agreement on the
most desirable institutional model to produce an effective GEM. Over the past 50
years GEMs have taken a wide range of institutional forms. They seem to work
best in strategic partnership with feminist organisations, in high-capacity
states with the ability and resources to enforce implementation of equality
policies, even against bureaucratic and social resistance. They are, however,
almost completely dependent on the place of gender equality in the governing
plans of ruling parties and are thus highly vulnerable to dismantling or
relegation to ‘marginal policy ghettos’ when conservative political interests
are dominant (Woodward, 2003). A number of cross-national studies have sought to
explain the circumstances under which GEMs are established (True and Mintrom,
2001), but since GEMs have become universal, there is much more interest in
identifying the conditions under which they deliver the best value for feminist
policy objectives. Given the vulnerability of these bureaucracies, there is now
a growing interest in identifying tactics for safeguarding policy advances of
the past and in enabling these units to act as alternates or stand-ins for
women’s activism in circumstances where conventional channels of political
representation are blocked or compromised. Earlier effectiveness studies
examined the ‘hardware’ of GEMs including whether they had ministerial status
and a cabinet seat, whether they had clear mandates that do not overlap or
compete with mandates of other equality agencies, adequate budgets, technical
capacities for planning, access to gender-disaggregated data for gender impact
assessment, an intersectoral mandate with gender focal points across government,
and a capacity to promote gender-responsive budget analysis (Goetz, 2005).
However, the confluence of all of these conditions and tools is rare
(particularly the ‘adequate budget’ condition), and even when most are met,
technical capacities do not always translate into policy effectiveness. Efforts
to fight violence against women tend to be an area of greatest consensus, even
under conservative governments. A study of OECD countries by S. Laurel Weldon
(2002) finds that effective national gender equality bureaucracies are more
significant determinants of strong policies to stop violence against women than
are the proportion of political representatives that are women, provided that
the women’s movement is strong and that there are effective channels of
communication with and accountability to women’s movements. Dorothy McBride and
Amy Mazur, who have led a multi-volume research project comparing women’s policy
agencies in post-industrial states,2 distinguish four types according not to
structure or function but according to the type of compact that they negotiate
between the national women’s movement and governing authority (2010: 73). They
identify ‘Insider’
National women’s machineries 129 agencies as those that adopt and advance
women’s movement policy positions. ‘Symbolic’ agencies are simply place-holders,
sometimes established in response to international expectations; they do not
necessarily advance women’s movement positions. ‘Marginal’ agencies may present
women’s movement demands but do not have the capacity to influence how policy
debates are framed. Finally, ‘Anti-Movement’ agencies do not advance women’s
movement positions (McBride and Mazur, 2010: 73). Success varies enormously by
issue area, with most success scored by ‘Insider’ agencies in efforts to
increase women’s political representation, and much less success in liberalising
abortion rights. Left-wing political party support contributes to success in
advancing issues associated with women’s labour rights, but unevenly.
Region-specific efforts to catalogue GEM types and effectiveness are similarly
inconclusive, but provide a great deal of nuance regarding the significance of
institutional variations, the encompassing policy and political environment, and
fluctuating influence depending on changes in governing parties. A 2017 analysis
of gender policy machineries in Latin America, for instance, follows Beveridge,
Nott and Stephen (2000) in distinguishing them according to policymaking style:
bureaucratic, participatory, transformative (a combination of the previous two)
and purely ceremonial (Gusta et al., 2017). The ‘pink tide’ of left-wing
governments 1999–2016 brought a focus on political inclusion and social
equality, but this did not consistently mean elevation in the status or
capabilities of equality machinery (Blofield et al., 2017). On the other hand,
in periods of right-wing government in places like Argentina, Brazil and Chile
some aspects of women’s rights survived, for instance broadly accepted equality
policies such as anti-violence against women (VAW) laws, or popular social
policies with large constituencies dependent on their benefits (i.e. Conditional
Cash Transfer programmes) (Blofield et al., 2017: 363). Some gender equality
offices written off as ‘straightjackets’ under centrist or right-wing
governments have been dramatically revived under current left-populist
governments, as in Mexico and Argentina. The heightened need for mass social
protection measures and anti-VAW programmes during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis has
provided elevated visibility for the work of gender equality offices. There is
consensus that equality machineries work best in high-capacity states with
relatively low levels of corruption – states able to implement socially
progressive policy even against the opposition of traditional interest groups.
Some structural features can contribute to the influence and reach of equality
machineries. For instance, according to UN Women, gender mainstreaming efforts
are more effective when equality agencies are whole-of-government coordinating
structures and it has been useful to establish gender focal points in both
legislative and executive institutions. Gender focal points in subnational
governments, down to municipalities, extend vertical policy coordination, and
have been particularly effective when combined with participatory measures to
engage grassroots women in local planning as in the Philippines and in parts of
India.
THE ROLE OF GLOBAL AND REGIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN SUPPORTING
GEMS National gender equality bureaucracies have been strengthened – and to a
degree protected – by global and regional multilateralism. The UN has played a
vital role in legitimising and supporting these bureaucracies – not just by
consistently urging its member states to create them, but through a range of
reporting requests and annual meetings that require GEM staff
130 Handbook of feminist governance to provide responses. Delegations to the
annual meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), for instance,
are normally led by the highest-ranking gender equality or women’s issues
representative in a government. States have the option of including civil
society representatives on delegations – though of course, once on the ‘inside’
of a government delegation, civil society representatives may find themselves
less able to be critical of official positions. Preparation for negotiations on
the annual themes addressed by the CSW usually require the assembly and
submission in advance of national data on the topics in question, as well as
participation in negotiations in New York to reach ‘agreed conclusions’. This is
a capacity-building experience in itself, and requires domestic cooperation
between the GEM and other ministries, as well as collaboration with the foreign
ministry to ensure coherence in negotiating positions. Since 2012, when CSW
negotiations on the topic of rural women failed to end with agreed conclusions
because of coordinated opposition by the ‘Group of Friends of the Family’,3
negotiations have become highly contentious in areas such as same-sex and trans
rights, sex and sexuality education for adolescents, reproductive health
services, and increasingly, even the use of the word ‘gender’ itself (Goetz,
2020a). Conservative ‘norm-spoilers’ (Sanders, 2018) have assigned senior and
experienced negotiators to the task of dismantling the international women’s
rights regime. Blindsided, some countries have rushed to boost the seniority and
rank of CSW delegates, accompanying gender equality representatives with
negotiators from foreign ministries, or providing stronger staff support from
New York-based UN missions. UN Women is the natural global counterpart of
in-country gender equality institutions. As shown elsewhere in this volume, it
keeps them constantly updated with gender mainstreaming tools, good practice
examples and capacity-building through training (ITAD, 2019). UN Women (like its
predecessors) also encourages gender equality units to develop national plans on
aspects of women’s rights, strengthening their coordinating role across
government. By early 2020, over 80 per cent of countries had a national action
plan for gender equality and 68 per cent of states had specific anti-VAW plans
(UN ECOSOC, 2020: 52, 47). As shown in Part III of this Handbook, UN Women has
also been encouraging GEMs to initiate national planning on women, peace and
security, as a means of implementing UN Security Council resolutions and 82
countries now have such plans. The CEDAW Committee, the treaty body overseeing
the implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women, scrutinises reports from CEDAW members every four
years. Producing the report is usually the responsibility of GEMs and the
reporting process makes huge demands on their analytical and data capacities.
The scrutiny of the CEDAW Committee is a form of ‘soft accountability’ which,
while lacking enforcement measures, focuses a global gaze on national gender
issues, sometimes prompting improvements. The UN’s flagship efforts to galvanise
global goals, such as poverty reduction or climate change mitigation, also
provide openings for GEMs to strengthen reporting capacities and to demand
performance from other ministries. States need to report on progress in reaching
the stand-alone gender goal in the Sustainable Development Goals framework (SDG
5) as well as gender-specific targets under other goals. As noted elsewhere in
this Handbook (Chapter 11) this goal has, for the first time, an indicator
regarding ‘systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and
women’s empowerment’ – creating a global demand for capacity-building in
gender-responsive budgeting and auditing.
National women’s machineries 131 Also significant are indicators to measure
target 16.7: ‘Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative
decision making at all levels.’ These indicators focus on the share of positions
in public institutions held by different groups and how responsive and inclusive
decision-making is according to public opinion surveys. While gender equality
machineries should not be responsible for gender parity or inclusiveness in
public administration, they are well placed to monitor these aspects of good
governance. The UN’s report on 25 years of implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action shows, however, that not all gender equality machineries
have risen to the occasion (UN ECOSOC, 2020). Regional governance institutions
have also been important drivers of the creation and strengthening of gender
equality machinery. As seen in Part IV of this Handbook, the European Commission
and the European Parliament have provided European women’s movements with
opportunities for policy influence and reasons to collaborate effectively. On
the other hand, the European Institute for Gender Equality has documented
diminishing status and authority of these institutions since 2012, with some no
longer full ministries and with reduced budgets (EIGE, 2020). This is in part
because of neoliberal austerity measures, but some observers have also argued
that commitment to addressing a wide range of inequalities within gender,
particularly those stemming from sexual orientation and diverse gender
identities, can have a fragmenting effect (Krizsan et al., 2012). European Union
accession conditions have provided a tremendous incentive for the establishment
or strengthening of equality machineries in the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe in the early 2000s, and are of particular importance where domestic
women’s movements are weak, where LGBTQI+ individuals experience serious
discrimination and ‘anti-gender equality framing’ is more present in policy
debates (Krizsan, 2012). Gender equality machinery does not, of course, operate
in the mechanically predictable fashion implied by the industrial metaphor
‘machinery’. In spite of the requirement of reporting to the EU on meeting
equality goals, these bureaucracies have been highly exposed to political
shifts, as discussed below. Equality machineries in Africa have been limited by
tiny budgets, sometimes weak women’s movements, human development challenges
that compete with gender equality for resources, weak state capacity and
corruption, conservative social attitudes, particularly towards women’s
reproductive and sexual rights, and same-sex and trans rights, and in some
contexts, the paralysing effect of armed conflict. Equality machineries even
came under attack from international creditors such as the World Bank in the
late 1990s as ‘low hanging’ targets for demolition in cost-saving drives (Sarr,
2009; UNECA, 2001: 4). Many, therefore, have suffered from donor dependency and
take a short-term project-based approach. Low-income countries in other parts of
the world likewise have gender equality machinery suffering from weak technical
capacity, remoteness from decision-making centres and a lack of interest from
national leaders in prioritising gender mainstreaming, suggesting ‘little
progress has been made since 2015’ (UN ECOSOC, 2020: 54). Perhaps the best test
of the effectiveness of gender equality institutions is their capacity to
insinuate themselves into non-gender-stereotyped or high-power areas of
government decision-making, or their capacity to defend women’s interests in
moments of crisis, such as the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. In September 2020, UN
Women and UNDP launched a gender analysis of Covid-19 response measures, which
revealed the consequences of under-powered gender equality units: while many
countries introduced new measures to respond to elevated levels of domestic
violence, only 18 per cent of new social protection and labour market
132 Handbook of feminist governance measures extended income protection to
women and only 10 per cent of economic stimulus measures were targeted to
female-dominated sectors (UN Women and UNDP, 2020: 5).
THE NEW POLARISATION ON GENDER EQUALITY Gender equality machineries are created
out of the conviction that gender-based inequality is a distinctive and
politically salient form of injustice, affecting everyone. The rationale for
stand-alone state entities is that the project of introducing change to all
parts of the massive, complex set of formal and informal institutions that make
up government, requires an internal champion and watchdog to keep the effort on
track. But internal advocates of the vast policy changes expected of state
feminism inevitably face resistance. On the one hand, femocrats are accused of
being Trojan horses enabling the infiltration and outsize influence of what many
conservatives still see as a minority and even elite interest. On the other
hand, they are seen by feminist critics as hostage to or co-opted by the
patriarchal logics and limitations of public policy institutions, and thus
lacking the legitimacy and credibility needed to represent feminist perspectives
within the state. GEMs have been active in most states for decades now. Is the
‘Trojan horse vs hostage’ dichotomy still meaningful, given changes in the
nature and capacities of the state, in the size and strength of feminist
movements, and also in the ferocity of misogynist reactions? At one extreme,
gender equality efforts and advocates and even discourse have been outlawed and
gender studies banned (Peto, 2018). Some GEMs have been repurposed to serve
anti-feminist objectives, as we shall see below. But at the other extreme in a
few states, feminism has become an establishment policy frame. This is certainly
an emergent and incomplete process, but feminist equality objectives have been
internalised in governance in a number of post-industrial welfare states. No
Trojan horse is needed.
FEMINISM AS A VILIFIED MINORITY INTEREST AND THREAT TO THE STATE The electoral
successes of illiberal leaders that, since the early 2000s, ended the ‘third
wave’ of democratisation have often been accompanied by right-wing populist
rhetoric that specifically targets feminists, femocrats and the social
engineering projects of gender equality bureaucracies. Populism is not new, but
has evolved and grown considerably as economic crises and globalisation have
eroded traditional areas of male employment and deepened inequality (Hozic and
True, 2016). State institutions for gender equality, and the femocrats who staff
them, have sometimes become targets for populist outrage at policies seen as
providing undeserved and unfair access to resources at the expense of male
breadwinners (Sawer, 2004). Combined with resurgent nationalism and falling
birth rates, illiberal regimes have set out to de-institutionalise gender
equality bureaucracies. When these bureaucracies address same-sex and trans
rights they trigger especially visceral reactions to concepts that defy ‘common
sense’ understandings of gender as a biological given (Correa et al., 2018). The
outright elimination, or demotion and conversion of gender equality
bureaucracies into family promotion functions has been pursued as a key
signalling device to communicate the credentials of populist leaders to
conservative bases. In Brazil, one of the first acts of
National women’s machineries 133 Jair Bolsonaro after his inauguration was to
fold the Secretariat for Women’s Policies into the Human Rights Ministry and to
add ‘Family’ to the name of the Ministry. The Ministry’s mandate was revised to
eliminate its role in ensuring protection from discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation and gender identity (Ghitis, 2019), and an anti-abortion
evangelical pastor was appointed its leader. The approach of the Trump
administration to US gender equality architecture was similar: including
selective defunding and institutional marginalisation, and populating key
functions with operatives drawn from the evangelical extreme of the Republican
Party. Trump did not eliminate the Office of Global Women’s Issues (OGWI) or the
Obama-era White House Council on Women and Girls, but he cut their programme
budget to zero and failed until 2020 to appoint a head of the OGWI. Continuous
discursive ‘cleansing’ was undertaken through combing out words like ‘gender’
and ‘foetus’, to the point that, according to a former official: ‘We were now
aligned with Russia on family issues.’4 In the four years of the Trump
administration there was a gap between conservative right-wing top appointees
and femocrats lower in the hierarchy who used evasive tactics to slow down
erosion of former gains. The women’s issues unit in Turkey has seen a steady set
of demotions under President Erdogan, though he was initially supportive of
efforts to meet international standards. As an EU accession country from 1999,
Turkey set up a (non-cabinet) Ministry of Women, Family and Children. From 2011,
however, a more conservative agenda set in. According to a former official:
‘Before 2011 we were busy amending laws and had on the whole good cooperation
with the government. There was only the occasional flare from Erdogan about us
being bad women, especially on bodily autonomy issues.’5 Around that time the
government supported the establishment of ‘government NGOs’ set up by
conservative women to put forward traditional positions on gender issues. In
2018 the Ministry was demoted to a desk in the Ministry for Labour, back to
where it had started. The former official said that what Erdogan wants from the
unit includes: ‘An effort to remove permanent alimony. An effort to unpunish
child marriages. An effort to ban abortion.’ The area causing most contention is
the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention on preventing violence against women
– now framed as ‘acting against the family’.
FEMINISM AS ESTABLISHMENT: TOWARDS FEMINIST GOVERNANCE? The most successful GEMs
are in wealthy countries with social democratic governments that have put gender
equality high on their agendas. Recently some middle-income countries with left
populist governments such as Mexico and Argentina are laying claim to the ‘state
feminist’ label. Smaller and lower-income countries such as Uruguay and Bolivia
are experimenting with radical expansions of state social protection and welfare
systems to provide safety nets to women in the informal sector. Since the 2018
G7 summit in Canada in which a Gender Equality Advisory Council ensured the
entire agenda reflected feminist issues, some male presidents (of France, Mexico
and Argentina) and male prime ministers (of Canada and Sweden) have declared
themselves to be feminists, and committed their governments to feminist policy
reforms across the board. As discussed elsewhere (Chapter 16 in this Handbook),
a number of countries have specifically committed to a feminist foreign policy,
starting with Sweden. In some cases, domestic gender equality machineries have
been upgraded, with Canada creating
134 Handbook of feminist governance a full, cabinet-rank Minister for Women and
Gender Equality in 2018. In contrast, the Mexican National Institute for Women
and the French Secretariat of Equality between Women and Men have remained small
and focused on their catalytic roles. France and Mexico have taken on a
leadership role in resuscitating the Beijing Platform for Action, building
‘Action Coalitions’ to address outstanding gaps instead of risking a fifth
UN-organised World Conference on Women that might see right-wing populist
governments eroding past gains. The position of the cabinet-level Ministry of
Women, Genders and Diversity in Argentina, its inclusive title (‘Genders’ in the
plural) and its success in supporting abortion law reform reveals the impact of
sustained feminist mobilisation, the presence of feminists in the legislature
and in government, and a supportive national executive. A senior official
explained the decision to create the country’s first gender ministry as ‘the
outcome of women on the streets’ and successive mobilisations over violence
against women and reproductive rights.6 Feminist support for Alberto Fernández’s
electoral victory in October 2019 was rewarded by the ‘Micaela law’, named after
a murdered feminist activist, making gender training mandatory for all
government officials to ensure feminist policymaking is not the job of the
gender ministry alone. The Argentine Ministry has been one of the few globally
to be a core member of the national Covid-19 response team, and has mainstreamed
gender considerations across the range of Covid health, social protection,
labour and fiscal policies (UN Women and UNDP, 2020). Nonetheless, feminist
activists and staff in the Ministry are under no illusions as to the precarity
of this moment. According to a Ministry official: ‘We don’t know how long we
will be here so we have to mainstream plus institutionalise ourselves – we know
from Spain and Chile that the first thing to be dropped when the government
changes is this ministry.’7 The boldness and speed of the policy work of the
Ministry is impressive, given expectations that backlash increases to the degree
that policies challenge religious doctrine, have significant budgetary
implications or an emphasis on intersectionality (Blofield et al., 2017).
Despite successes, feminist governance claims are frequently confounded by
incompatible policies across government – such as Sweden’s and Canada’s
continued arms sales to the misogynist regime in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless,
adoption by leaders of the ‘feminist’ label is not just cynical branding. It has
costs. It is not an obviously popular or electorally rewarding decision. Even
feminists have mixed feelings about state feminism as a version of feminism
compatible with neoliberalism, falling short of hopes for radical institutional
transformations (Achilleos-Sarll, 2018). Social and political dynamics that
explain the deepening of feminist governance include the following: first,
behind the central role of women’s mobilisation, long-term strategic planning by
some gender equality institutions is paying off. Women’s movement struggles are
mediated by formal and informal institutions, and it is clear that gender
equality institutions are now significant shapers of the strategies and outcomes
of women’s movement struggles. Second, the emergence of a ‘feminist
establishment’ reveals the professionalisation of the feminist movement in the
sense of being able to sustain street activist pressure while working with
political parties to reframe policy. There is much more frequent changing of
places between feminist activists, femocrats and women politicians, nationally
and transnationally. Internationally, women from national gender entities now
staff multilateral institutions, and vice versa. This circulation enables less
antagonistic activist positions in response to the constraints on femocrats, but
also more effective strategising to advance policy agendas and safe-
National women’s machineries 135 guard gains. This significantly dilutes
earlier ‘in and against’ tensions that isolated femocrats even from their most
important sources of information and inspiration. Third, transnational
standard-setting in the areas of democracy and governance has helped identify
feminist and women’s activism with democratisation, and the work of GEMs in the
state with good governance. This is despite the effects seen in this chapter of
populism or religious extremism pushing back against transnational norms and
conditionality. Stronger awareness of some of the sickening extremes of
patriarchy – particularly violence against women and sexual harassment – have
encouraged more diverse social groups to demand a reckoning with sexism,
deepening the feminist base. Finally, generational factors may explain
acceptance of feminism as a governing system – today’s leaders have grown up
with decades of feminism – it has become vernacularised in all but contexts
dominated by religious extremists. The embrace of feminism by the establishment
may have more popular support in social democracies than ever before, but it is
not expected to be uncontroversial, or permanent. A paper on Sweden’s feminist
foreign policy observes: ‘the use of the f-word represents a significant pivot
away from the widely-accepted framing of gender mainstreaming and towards a
controversial politics’ (Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2018: 323). To be
effective, feminist governance can be expected to disrupt the elite privilege
and power on which governance is based; backlash is inevitable, and considerable
determination is needed to weather it (Goetz, 2020b). To be credible to its
primary constituencies, feminist governance must shift the economic and social
structures that generate gender-based inequalities.
CONCLUSION It is no surprise that gender equality bureaucracies can neither
evade nor counter the policy preferences of governing regimes when they are
hostile to the advancement of women’s and gender+ rights. Experience of dramatic
policy reversals and status demotions has made femocrats invest in means of
safeguarding women’s rights gains where possible, and transnational forums offer
some opportunities to build alliances to help weather these episodes. There is
no doubt, however, that the frequent changes in status of GEMs erode historical
memory and institutional capacity. The stepped-up hostility to gender equality
of the new generation of hyper-nationalist right wing populists has also pushed
femocrats into a defensive position, wasting time on protecting past normative
gains or even relitigating them. In spite of this vulnerability, which made this
author once assert that GEMs are examples of ‘how not to approach
gender-sensitive good governance’ (Goetz, 2009: 245), they have had staying
power and sometimes a degree of transformative capability as a bridge between
feminist movements and the state. GEMs seem to increase the chances that
legislation to stop VAW will be passed; they have also built national capacities
for gender-sensitive planning and budgeting, and in some cases, comprehensive
social protection systems. In some contexts there are striking recent shifts,
such as national leaders proclaiming feminist governments and feminist foreign
policy. Among the many reckonings brought by the Covid-19 crisis, a
reconsideration of the role of GEMs may be one. Responses to the pandemic have
elevated the importance of the state in sustaining health management, the
economy and social life. The importance of women’s care work, the relevance of
social cohesion, the need for strong state (not random market) manage-
136 Handbook of feminist governance ment of health systems and the recognition
of connections between well-being and security provide vital openings to
feminist proposals to use public power to redress social injustice. GEMs are
well placed to support such reassessments. Far from being unnecessary for
feminist governance, they may well prove to be its anchors.
NOTES 1. In addition to the 192 countries on the UN’s list, Taiwan and Kosovo
have administrative units for liaising with the national women’s movement, but
no stand-alone government agency for women’s rights. 2. See the RNGS project,
https:// pppa .wsu .edu/ research -network -on -gender -politics -and -the
-state/ . 3. Members of the Group of Friends of the Family can be found at
https:// unitin gnationsfo rthefamily .org/ background -2/ organisers/ . 4.
Interview with former State Department official, 14 August 2020. 5. Interview
with a former official of the Ministry of Women, the Family and Social Services,
Turkey, 18 March 2019. 6. Interview conducted for this chapter, senior
government official, 27 November 2020. 7. Ibid.
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11. Gender-responsive budgeting Monica Costa and Rhonda Sharp
INTRODUCTION Since the 1980s, feminists have sought to challenge mainstream
economic governance showing how economic policies impact differently, and often
unequally, on women and men. Economic governance typically refers to the policy
and regulatory system (institutions, rules and norms) that shape how economies
operate and the roles and responsibilities of states, markets and families in
that process (see Razavi, 2012). Reforms in economic governance, promulgated by
international financial institutions and Western conservative governments, have
resulted in rich and poor countries alike adopting fiscal and public sector
financial management policies that promote private sector development and shrink
government, often with particularly adverse impacts on women and their dependent
children. The unequal impact of economic policies on women and men (with gender
intersected by other structural inequalities and identities) results from the
distinct positions they hold in the economy and in society. This gender
inequality1 is often made invisible in mainstream economic policy,
overwhelmingly ruled by neoclassical theory, a paradigm which prioritises
markets over governments, and undervalues women and communities, and their
reproductive roles and responsibilities. In contrast, a feminist approach takes
account of the role of non-market as well as market work in the operation of the
economy. Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) has emerged as a feminist strategy to
shine a light on the impact of government budgets on gender equality.2 GRB
involves the application of gender impact analyses to government expenditure and
revenue raising, and the reprioritisation of budgetary decision-making to
promote gender equality. Central to the feminist idea of GRB is recognition that
processes and outcomes of government budgets are as much political as they are
technical. Fiscal policy and budgetary decision-making are perceived to be more
responsive to democratic influences than other areas of economic policy, such as
monetary and trade policy; hence, the feminist challenge to economic governance
begins with GRB. The first GRB was an Australian innovation by feminists located
within the state, known as femocrats, who in 1984 extended gender impact
analysis to the budget. Before long, this innovation was being promoted across
international feminist networks. It was celebrated in the 1985 meeting of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Party on
Women and the Economy and in 1998 was selected as best practice by the UN expert
group meeting on national machineries for gender equality (Sawer, 2002). GRB has
emerged as an international movement with feminist networks instrumental in its
spread. The burgeoning epistemic community in feminist economics and their
networks, including in gender and development, have provided the intellectual
foundations and support for GRB. This chapter details the evolution of GRB, from
a feminist institutional innovation in Australia to the emergence of a global
movement. It shows how political debates and economic governance reforms have
shaped the policy space for GRB. We begin by examining how Australian feminists
took advantage of opportunities provided by a newly elected pro138
Gender-responsive budgeting 139 gressive government to put gender on the
economic policy agenda. We then outline how this innovation evolved into a
global movement spearheaded by feminist networks and feminists in key
international institutions. We argue that the endorsement of GRB by key
international financial institutions continues to influence its framing in both
positive and negative ways.
THE EVOLUTION OF GRB IN AUSTRALIA The close to 40-year history of GRB in
Australia demonstrates how shifts in economic governance impact on the spaces
available for feminist engagement with economic policies and governance. GRB is
not legislated in Australia, so its rise and decline has been broadly associated
with the changing agendas of different governments and changing economic
circumstances (Sharp and Broomhill, 2013). The Introduction of GRB under a Labor
Government (1983–96) GRB was introduced in 1984 by a newly elected federal Labor
government,3 which initially adopted a Keynesian approach to economic policy and
had a commitment to strengthen women’s policy machinery. The Office of the
Status of Women (OSW) was returned to the chief policy coordinating arm of
government, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, with responsibility
for analysing all Cabinet submissions for their gender impact. This role, first
introduced in the 1970s, represented institutional recognition by the Labor
government of the feminist insight that public policy was unlikely to be gender
neutral and so required systematic gender analysis (Sawer, 2007). GRB was first
mooted at one of the intergovernmental meetings of Commonwealth, state and
territory women’s advisors as a way to go beyond programmes specifically
targeted at women and girls and exercise leverage on ‘mainstream’ budget
expenditures. The idea of GRB was taken up and developed at the federal level by
OSW with a high-level task force made up of departmental heads with
responsibility for its implementation. The establishment of this task force was
part of the incoming government’s formal women’s policy and the implementation
of a cross-portfolio women’s budget programme was one of the first agenda items
for the new body (Sawer, 2002). This programme, which became known as the
Women’s Budget Statement (WBS), required each department to present an account
of the gender impact of their policies and programmes in the forthcoming budget.
All of these accounts were then published as a budget paper. The process
revealed how deeply ingrained were departments’ assumptions about gender. The
WBS initiative also provided, with varying degrees of success, a baseline gender
analysis and a window to monitor and compare year on year how well departments
were attempting to address gender inequality. Initially, the WBS assumed, and
indeed achieved, an increased level of consciousness-raising within departments
about the gender impacts of their policies and programmes (Summers, 2002). As a
result of the WBS initiative, spending did increase in social welfare areas,
although the economic portfolios were slower and less comprehensive in their
gender assessments and plans for change (Sharp and Broomhill, 1990, 2002). In
particular, there was resistance by the Treasury to providing a gender analysis
of the impact of different taxes, including the
140 Handbook of feminist governance dependant spouse tax rebate that mainly
reduced men’s income tax. On the other hand, child care gained recognition as an
economic policy issue. The quarterly intergovernmental meetings of women’s
advisors led to women’s budget processes spreading to all state and territory
governments over the decade from 1984. From the beginning, these meetings served
to establish the understanding that the implementation of GRB required both a
technical and political strategy. They also highlighted the importance of
engaging economists with a feminist perspective in GRB work. The Impact of
Changing Economic and Political Contexts on the Potential of GRB Within a year
of the Labor government taking office at the federal level the global economic
environment dramatically changed. Austerity policies introduced under the
conservative governments of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher reflected a
global transformation of the dominant economic paradigm from Keynesianism to
neoliberalism. In this context, the near loss of an early election in 1984 led
to an almost immediate backtrack on the Labor government’s expansionary
budgetary approach. While the expanded role for feminist structures of
governance continued, the ability of femocrats to achieve ambitious goals was
undermined. The WBS continued to be published throughout the life of the Labor
government but resistance inside the bureaucracy remained strong and a detailed
WBS could not be sustained. Outside political pressure from the women’s movement
weakened as it increasingly treated the WBS as an internal bureaucratic
exercise, left to the femocrats. Nevertheless, its policy relevance continued to
be defended within the Parliamentary Labor Party by its Status of Women
Committee, which managed in 1993 to stop an initial proposal to eliminate it
(Sawer, 2002). Following the defeat of the Labor government in 1996, a centre
right Coalition government adopted a more aggressive neoliberal policy approach,
cutting government services and reducing the progressivity of the taxation
system (Sharp and Broomhill, 2013). The WBS was rebadged and departments were no
longer required to provide a published assessment of the impact of their
policies on men and women. While Australia’s innovative experiment with a
feminist governance approach was on the wane, new strategies emerged from
femocrats such as commissioning detailed costings of policies. To avert a threat
to child care funding, a femocrat commissioned an assessment of the programme
which found it generated a net gain due to extra tax revenue and savings on
social security payments (Anstie et al., 1988). This illustrates the increasing
sophistication of gender analyses and their use in policy advocacy. After a
decade of conservative government, Labor returned to office in 2007 but the
Office for Women was not reinstated within the central policy coordinating
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Minister for Women
remained outside the Public Expenditure Committee, the powerful Cabinet body
that considered all budget bids. In this institutional context, influencing
budgetary decision-making was difficult. A new centre right Coalition government
elected in 2013 did return the Office for Women to the Department of Prime
Minister and Cabinet, something the women’s movement had long lobbied for, but
at the same time ceased publishing anything relating the budget to women.
However, there has been a new emphasis on gender equality in Australia’s foreign
policy which gained momentum under Australia’s first woman Foreign Minister
Julie Bishop. Australia required 80 per cent of its foreign aid to target or
improve gender equality (see Chapter 16 in this Handbook) and contributed to
improving the OECD aid flows committed to targeting gender equality as a policy
objective.
Gender-responsive budgeting 141 Without a federal government statement, the
National Foundation for Australian Women took up the challenge of producing A
Gender Lens on the Budget – an annual gender analysis of the budget from outside
government. While such outside analyses are important for encouraging
accountability, they are not a substitute for an internal process. Strong
advocacy by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has continued for the return
of GRB processes inside government. More recent government and parliamentary
initiatives in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory show that the idea
of a government-led GRB continues to simmer in Australia. Following pressure
from the women’s movement, the centre right Coalition government published a
Women’s Budget Statement in the 2021 budget, although focusing on
gender-specific measures of women’s safety, economic security, and health and
well-being.
THE GLOBAL SPREAD OF GRB Early international initiatives demonstrated the
variety of ways in which feminists were leveraging GRB. In 1989, the UK Women’s
Budget Group, a network of gender researchers and advocates, began publicly
commenting on the gender impacts of the Thatcher government’s neoliberal
taxation and social security policies (Elson, 2021). In 1993, the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom published a one-off Canadian Women’s
Budget highlighting the opportunity cost for social programmes and services of
spending on federal defence. The first example of a legislated GRB occurred in
the Philippines in 1995, including a policy goal of at least 5 per cent of total
development budgets to be allocated to gender and development (Kanwar, 2016).
The South African Women’s Budget Initiative initiated by the Mandela government
incorporated the Australian model and was distinguished by its cooperative
relationship between civil society activists and parliament (Govender, 1996).
The South African experience influenced a Ugandan women’s NGO to build GRB
capacity amongst women parliamentarians to improve their participation in
parliamentary debates (Kusambiza, 2013). The spread of GRB gained momentum at
the 1995 Fourth World Women’s Conference. The Beijing Platform for Action
delivered a transformative blueprint for policymaking that remains relevant
today (Esquivel and Rodriguez Enriquez, 2020). It built on feminist critiques
from the 1980s, which showed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
World Bank’s structural adjustment, international trade and aid policies were
undermining gender justice and the realisation of women’s rights. The inclusion
of financial recommendations in the Platform for Action reflected an awareness
that its ambitious gender equality agenda would not be implemented without
attention to the impact of budgets on women. In addition, the Platform for
Action elevated the concept of gender mainstreaming in global policy circuits,
offering a tailor-made discourse and practice for GRB to draw upon and expand.
The first large-scale international GRB project was initiated in 1996 by a
meeting of Commonwealth ministers for the status of women. The Commonwealth
Secretariat’s engagement with early feminist critiques of the structural
adjustment policies of the IMF and World Bank positioned it to play a
transnational role in GRB, assisting the governments of South Africa, Sri Lanka,
Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis, and Fiji to design and undertake pilot GRBs
(Hewitt, 2002).4 Conceptual and practical advice was provided by UK, South
African and Australian feminist economists involved in the development of GRB
initiatives in their own countries and they contributed the first GRB manual,
How to Do a Gender Sensitive Budget
142 Handbook of feminist governance Analysis (Budlender and Sharp, with Allen,
1998). These Commonwealth pilot programmes were short-lived and narrow in their
achievement, but they generated knowledge, practices and networks that were
crucial in the development of a GRB rationale and its repertoire of concepts,
tools and practices. By the early 2000s, GRB initiatives were established in 20
countries and four regions (UNIFEM, 2000). The spread of GRB to developing
countries was assisted by the greater openness of development research to
heterodox thought, including feminist economics (see Woolley, 2005). However, in
practice, governments were earmarking funds for gender-specific programmes, and
were ignoring the gender impact of general policies and programmes that
accounted for the vast majority of spending (estimated to be in the order of
95–99 per cent of total expenditure) (UNIFEM, 2000). An expanded agenda for GRB
was set out in UNIFEM’s Progress of the World’s Women 2000 report with a
macroeconomic framework that integrated the productive contributions of
non-market activity (volunteer, domestic, informal work) with the market
economy. It highlighted the role and under-measurement of the paid and unpaid
care work disproportionately done by women. This framework showcased the work of
feminist economists including that of the report’s distinguished coordinator,
Diane Elson. UN Women (and before it UNIFEM) played an important role in
disseminating GRB frameworks and practices, a role that was particularly crucial
in the spread of GRB to the Global South. A second wave of GRB concepts and
practice emerged from a high-level conference in Brussels in 2001 that brought
together key players from 48 countries to mobilise support for the goal of
implementing GRB in all countries by 2015 (UNIFEM, 2002). It provided impetus
for the growth of GRB while a Council of Europe report in 2005 provided a
definition that gained currency across Europe. Pilot initiatives were launched
in Ireland and Malta, with more systematic approaches woven into government
processes in Austria, Sweden and Andalucia, Spain (Klatzer et al., 2018).
Critically, the Brussels conference recommended GRB as a tool to achieve good
economic and financial governance. The adoption by international financial
institutions of the ‘good governance’ agenda (as it was initially termed) reset
the economic role of institutions and the management of the public sector,
offering opportunities for GRB. Governance reforms emphasised rules for
expenditure and revenue systems that would achieve accountability, transparency,
participation and predictability of government. This was accompanied by a shift
to performance- or results-based budgeting that could facilitate GRB with the
development of, for example, gender-sensitive output and outcome indicators to
plan and monitor services (Budlender, 2007; Holvoet and Inberg, 2014; Sharp,
2003). However, the implementation of performance budgeting within the context
of neoliberal policy framings has also been problematic for GRB. First, equity
has received little attention as a criterion of performance (Sharp, 2003).
Second, the adoption of fiscal rules that limit expenditures by shifting
activities from the public to the for-profit sectors has contributed to women’s
reduced access to services. Neoliberal economic governance, as the early
Australian experience demonstrates, narrows the fiscal space for GRB and
undermines its potential for feminist economic reform. This emphasis on
performance gained renewed attention with developments in financing for
development debates following the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
Aid recipient countries were expected to provide strong financial and
procurement systems, including medium-term budget frameworks, to ensure that
donor money was effectively spent. Feminist networks and individual feminists in
key international agencies and donors saw in these debates an opportunity to
advocate for GRB by highlighting the congruence between its
Gender-responsive budgeting 143 goals and those of effective development
financing (Budlender, 2007; Khan, 2015).5 Feminist transnational networks were
successful in crafting a global GRB indicator – Goal 5 Gender Equality, Target
5.c – under the 2015 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals that monitors the
proportion of countries with systems to track and allocate government funds to
gender equality and women’s empowerment. It was a further attempt to translate
the vision that gender should be systematically woven into the budget cycle (see
Khan, 2015). However, regular reporting of this indicator is not mandatory, and
the UN reports a low level of full adoption of this indicator (UN ESC, 2019:
66). The 2000 Women, Peace and Security agenda is another example of an
international commitment recognising the potential of GRB, in this instance to
highlight the links between militarised government budgets and adverse peace and
gender impacts. While there has been a slow uptake of this agenda by
international financial institutions (True and Svedberg, 2019), feminist
advocacy in countries such as Timor-Leste demonstrate how post-conflict recovery
offers opportunities to advance a GRB initiative with assistance from key donors
(Costa, 2018). The opportunities for GRB increasingly narrowed in a context of
globalisation of trade, investment and finance. Governance reforms in public
finances were mediated by reduced government capacity to raise revenue and
manage international borrowing (Elson, 2021). The ensuing crises, culminating in
the global financial and economic crisis, were often made worse by austerity
policies. The EU economic governance reforms, for example, gave a focus to debt
and budget deficit reduction which, combined with reductions in government
services and benefits, adversely impacted on women and increased gender
inequalities (Klatzer et al., 2018). These macroeconomic policies also rejected
the kind of public investment that could open the fiscal space to support gender
equality (see Elson, 2021; Seguino, 2017). GRB was reignited globally in the
aftermath of the 2007–08 crisis. The 2008 Session of the Commission of the
Status of Women buttressed demands for more financing for gender equality,
recognising that insufficient budget resources and political will were
undermining women’s and gender equality agendas. A further development was that
international financial institutions were giving more credence to the link
between gender equality and economic policy. As concerns grew over the social
dimensions of macroeconomic policies, the IMF turned to the potential for
possible macroeconomic gains through gender equality policies. Outside the IMF,
transnational space for promoting feminist ideas in foreign economic policy had
expanded and included support from the high-powered Women in G20 (see Chapter 16
in this Handbook). Inside the IMF voices such as that of Janet Stotsky (2006)
had long argued that financing for gender equality captures positive
externalities from improving women’s health, education and employment
opportunities, thereby increasing economic growth. She demonstrated that within
the framework of mainstream economics GRB is ‘good budgeting’ (Stotsky, 2006:
7). This argument was echoed in 2016 by IMF managing director Christine Lagarde,
in response to the large-scale IMF study of the international impact of GRB.
This study of 23 countries provides evidence that GRB has shaped fiscal policies
to address the needs of women and girls in areas such as education, health and
infrastructure. In addition, GRB work has led to improvements in administration
and accountability of government spending (Stotsky, 2016; Stotsky and Zaman,
2016). Further weight to GRB as a strategy for good budgeting came from an IMF
analysis of GRB’s contribution to the G7 initiative on gender equality in 2017.
The report showed that among the wealthy G7 countries fiscal policies seeking to
impact on labour and human capital
144 Handbook of feminist governance contributed to both gender equality and
economic growth. It suggested that GRB could provide a ready-made technical fix
stating that it ‘does not require a new approach to budgeting’ (IMF, 2017: 10).
A further example of how GRB has been framed within the context of mainstream
budgeting rules is the design of a gender module to supplement the World Bank’s
influential Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA). PEFA is a
widely used World Bank tool to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of public
financial management systems. Like the IMF’s large-scale study of GRB impact,
which was also externally funded and researched, the PEFA supplementary gender
module was initiated and funded outside the World Bank by a multi-donor trust.
The gender module seeks to determine the extent of gender mainstreaming
throughout the budget cycle by posing 22 questions about the different processes
for managing government finances and scoring the results against 31 PEFA
indicators. Theoretically this PEFA gender module provides a practical means of
applying a gender lens to the budget, using the language and expertise with
which its public finance users are familiar, and potentially contributing to
greater engagement with GRB by finance-related ministries. However, there is a
danger that the PEFA and other technocratic approaches will markedly shape the
meaning and practice of GRB and be seen as providing a GRB blueprint (Hadley,
2019). The PEFA gender module focuses on financial and fiduciary controls, at
the expense of the processes for developing policy and endorses practices (such
as tagging) that remain contested within the GRB community of practice. GRB
evaluations that exclude policy goals and actions along with the political
dimension of budgets are unable to provide meaningful analyses as to why GRB
works, or not. Over the past decade, the IMF and the World Bank have helped
disseminate GRB, albeit in a limited form. The transformative potential of GRB
is ultimately curtailed by the tightly held neoliberal views of these
international financial institutions, placing market rationality at the centre
of economic policies. While there is greater acknowledgement of the costs of
gender inequalities arising from institutional biases, norms and power (Prügl,
2017), and some initial inroads into integrating GRB in the agendas of these
organisations, there is limited evidence that economic thinking and the types of
policy alternatives endorsed have changed (see Burgisser, 2019). Women are still
narrowly framed as contributing inputs to economic growth, with policies
designed to bolster women’s labour market engagement and little understanding of
political economic country contexts such as that of fragile state contexts (True
and Svedberg, 2019: 342). This is in part because these institutions are engaged
in a ‘reconstruction of neoliberalism so that it dons a feminist face’,
preserving earlier commitments to market rationality and aligning those
commitments with calls for more equality (Prügl, 2017: 47). Given this, it is
not surprising that GRB research and practice remains marginal, often at the
discretion of staff and externally funded, with True and Svedberg (2019)
describing support for gender work within international financial institutions
as akin to ‘voluntary work’. Since the early 2010s, GRB’s contribution to
economic governance has gained traction within the OECD with its recognition of
the ‘power of the purse’ in influencing government-wide policymaking to achieve
national goals. One response of the OECD has been to develop an indicator that
seeks to capture key elements of governance for embedding GRB practice:
strategic framework, tools of implementation and an enabling environment (Downes
and Nicol, 2019). The indicator shows that half of the 17 OECD countries engaged
in GRB are classified as having an ‘introductory’ practice level, and the rest
classified as having a ‘mainstreamed’ practice level. No country was classified
as ‘advanced’ practice.
Gender-responsive budgeting 145 This work engages with feminist research into
the practice of GRB and has the potential to be a useful political tool for
feminist advocacy. Nevertheless, the OECD’s GRB work has yet to be mainstreamed
within the institution and to gain broad-based support within its membership.
Crucially, for over three decades, GRB’s feminist ambition has been fostered by
the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE). Encompassing
researchers from the Global North and South, IAFFE has played a critical role in
providing the intellectual muscle for an engagement with economics from a
feminist perspective. An active and multidisciplinary intellectual GRB community
developed within IAFFE and fostered the growth of specialised formal and
informal networks like the European Gender Budgeting Network. IAFFE recognised
the need to challenge the ‘strategic silence’ of neoclassical economics around
gender (Barker, 2006) by influencing economic governance within institutions.
Key to IAFFE’s impact is its quality journal, Feminist Economics, showcasing the
wealth of global feminist research and paving the way for the
institutionalisation of feminist economics. The spread of GRB was significantly
enhanced by networks linking feminist economists with activists. For example,
the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International
Economics, established in 1994, was critical in the development of
gender-sensitive macroeconomic modelling and training for feminist activists and
practitioners from UN institutions and national ministries (see Çağlar, 2010,
2012). This work illustrates how economic knowledge can serve as a form of
feminist political intervention. These networks created intellectual space for
the development of GRB normative frameworks giving renewed emphasis to policy
processes, reproduction work and gender equality outcomes – using capabilities
(Addabbo et al., 2019) and human rights approaches (Elson, 2008). This work
complemented the equality framework that underpinned Australia’s GRB work.
FINAL REFLECTIONS: NEW AVENUES AND CHALLENGES FOR GRB? Australia’s GRB
innovations seeded a global movement to engage with budgets to achieve gender
equality. In turn, Australia has benefited from this global movement and has
been reinventing GRB in the context of changing fiscal spaces. The evolution of
GRB in Australia has been subject to peaks, declines and the green shoots of
reinvention, having never completely disappeared despite neoliberal budgetary
pressures and political ideology, and having been sustained by the national
women’s movement and the global GRB movement. A similar pattern has emerged
across the world. The first wave of the international spread of GRB came as
feminists expanded gender mainstreaming to ensure gender equality was adequately
resourced. A second wave emerged in the early 2000s with the promulgation of
economic governance reforms by international financial institutions, but the
neoliberal framing of these reforms blunted their feminist potential. Feminist
critiques of economic policy in the aftermath of the 2008 economic and financial
crisis and gender debates within international financial institutions created
the space for a renewed interest in GRB, or a third wave. Greater credence has
been given to the link between gender equality and economic policy by the IMF,
OECD and World Bank, but the contradictions of neoliberal framing remained. The
global Covid-19 pandemic has triggered unparalleled economic and social
challenges. It has changed work, and placed care – health care, unpaid care,
child care, aged care – at the forefront of economic activity. Women,
particularly low-income, migrant, Indigenous and
146 Handbook of feminist governance other groups of economically vulnerable
women, bear a heavy load of increased care work and greater job insecurity.
Governments worldwide have committed unprecedented resources to tackle the
economic and social impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and to set the course for
economic recovery. Fiscal expansion under stimulus budgets gives GRB advocates
more room to manoeuvre. The head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, has called
for an inclusive post-Covid-19 recovery with ‘gender-responsive fiscal policies’
(see Georgieva et al., 2020). While these are positive cues, there is limited
evidence that the IMF has developed a systematic approach to address gender
equality in its work, and that it has turned away from its well-worn neoliberal
policies that have effectively deepened gender inequality (see Burgisser, 2019;
Fresnillo and Serafini, 2020). At the country level, GRB advocates have argued
that the menu of policy options presented is inadequate for the task. A common
response of governments is to stimulate the economy with investments in physical
infrastructure, such as in the traditionally male-dominated sectors of
construction, manufacturing and energy. These policies are ill-suited to address
the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women, resulting from the loss of
service and care jobs, ineligibility for social security benefits and increased
time burdens of unpaid work. Feminist economists have challenged such fiscal
strategies – arguing for a recovery led by investments in social infrastructure.
Investing in care and education has the strongest economic growth multiplier
effects while also responding to the structural problems of the sex segmented
labour market exposed by the pandemic (see the special issue of Feminist
Economics on Covid-19, published March 2021). However, for GRB to be a force for
transformation in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis it needs to
continually, and strategically, engage with the fundamental political nature of
budgets. In such contestations there can be a hidden politics operating around
economic policy knowledge. Gender knowledge concerning fiscal policies is
regularly overlooked or actively denied, as demonstrated by Covid-19 stimulus
budgets in many countries. Denial of feminist knowledge cannot be explained by a
simple gap in knowledge, an accident, an epistemological oversight or epistemic
injustice. Rather, it is inextricably linked to how power and its use achieves
political purposes (Franzway et al., 2009; Mills et al., 2014). In other words,
the denial of feminist knowledge is a sign that a non-egalitarian gender
politics is at play that frames women and men’s roles and responsibilities in
particular ways, often to women’s economic and social detriment. Transformative
economic policies will not emerge without a better understanding of the
production of knowledge, including an understanding of the practices of not
knowing or ignorance in economic policy (Sharp, 2019). Neoliberal macroeconomic
policies have impacted on GRB’s transformative potential and macroeconomic
decisions and their impacts are relatively insulated from scrutiny from a gender
perspective. In practice, GRB has focused on gender analyses of direct budgetary
impacts on provision of services, infrastructure, income transfers, jobs in the
public sector, budget decision-making process, taxation and user charges. Such
analyses are critical, but mainstreaming gender into budgets is also needed at
the macroeconomic policy level. Macroeconomic policy does not affect people
directly but works through indirect channels via the impact of the budget on the
private sector and through the budget’s influence on aggregate demand, and thus
on job creation and economic growth (Elson and Sharp, 2010). These indirect
processes, combined with an impression of objective modelling and
decision-making control in the hands of powerful institutions, lends an
invisibility to macroeconomic policy that makes challenging it from a gender
perspective difficult. However, macroeconomic policy provides the world view
that frames how the economy operates, including what counts
Gender-responsive budgeting 147 as economic activity and the roles and
responsibilities of governments, markets and families. The Covid-19 crisis
provides a springboard for a fourth wave of GRB theory and practice. We need
continually to acknowledge the political nature of budgets and this means
challenging the dominant framework of economic knowledge as well as the
budgetary decision-making processes that shape gender impacts.
NOTES 1. There is a recognition of the need to include trans and non-binary
identities in the use of the term gender in GRB (see Canadian Government, 2020).
Similar to the experiences of gender-sensitive parliaments (see Chapter 14 in
this Handbook), the capacity of GRB frameworks to incorporate these and other
identities has yet to be fully conceptualised and applied. 2. Government budgets
impact on people through a variety of direct and indirect channels: direct
channels are provision of services, infrastructure, income transfers, public
sector jobs, taxation, user charges and budget decision-making processes;
indirect channels operate through the impact of the budget on the private sector
(via government contracts, grants and subsidies), and the macroeconomic or
fiscal policy impacts from the use of government spending and revenue-raising to
influence the economy as a whole through the level of aggregate demand,
employment, prices and economic growth (see Elson and Sharp, 2010). 3. Australia
has a federal system, made up of the Commonwealth (the federal level), six
states and two territories. 4. NGO actors such as the Bretton Woods Project and
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) had highlighted the
impacts of the policies of international financial institutions on post-conflict
countries. 5. See Gender Responsive Budgeting and Aid Effectiveness Knowledge
Briefs, 2010, UNIFEM. https:// www .unwomen .org/ en/ digital -library/
publications/ 2010/ 1/ knowledge -briefs -grb -aid -effectiveness.
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12. Specialised parliamentary bodies Marian Sawer
INTRODUCTION Since International Women’s Year in 1975, the existence of
governmental machinery for promoting gender equality has become a marker of good
governance across the world. As Anne Marie Goetz shows elsewhere in this
Handbook (Chapter 10), the UN has played a key role in promoting such machinery,
monitoring its development and identifying good practice. Interestingly, at
first the UN’s emphasis was on machinery within executive government. However,
by the 1990s, gender-focused parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) had begun to multiply.
By 1997 there were enough of them in Europe for a European Network of
Parliamentary Committees for Equal Opportunities to be established. The UN began
including parliamentary bodies in its monitoring of national mechanisms for
promotion of gender equality and by 2010 found that their establishment was a
growing trend (Jahan, 2010: 24). The main international body to champion these
new parliamentary bodies was the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and their
creation and operation became the subject of an IPU data collection from 2006.
The IPU began holding annual seminars for members of such parliamentary bodies
as part of its efforts to strengthen parliamentary capacity to promote gender
equality. The role of the IPU in developing the concept of ‘gender sensitive
parliaments’, in which GFPBs play their part, is analysed by Sarah Childs and
Sonia Palmieri in Chapter 14 of this Handbook. The IPU, together with the
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), commissioned studies
of these new parliamentary bodies and of the factors contributing to their
effectiveness (Gonzalez and Sample, 2010; Palmieri, 2011, 2013). The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has likewise
included them in its gender equality tool kits. GFPBs are viewed by such
international agencies as playing a significant role in gender mainstreaming –
the term used internationally from 1995 as shorthand for the process of ensuring
that gender perspectives are introduced into all areas of governance (see
Chapter 4, this Handbook). While emphasising the contribution of specialised
bodies, agencies also warn against placing responsibility for parliamentary and
legislative gender mainstreaming and oversight solely in such gender-mandated
bodies rather than in parliamentary leadership (OECD, 2018: 48–60). This
overview tracks the emergence and recognition of GFPBs as a significant gender
equality mechanism and the emergence of a research literature drawing on
feminist institutionalism and legislative studies to throw light on their
operation. Existing research draws attention to both the achievements and
limitations of GFPBs as a form of feminist governance, whether in terms of
inclusivity, responsiveness or policy outcomes. While the focus of this chapter
is on GFPBs it by no means suggests that they are the only conduit for feminist
policy influence in 150
Specialised parliamentary bodies 151 parliament. At the cabinet level, the role
of feminist ministers is receiving increased attention, while the role of
feminist ministerial staffers deserves much greater prominence. The chapter
begins by outlining the different types of GFPB, followed by an account of the
origins and diffusion of such bodies and their sustainability over time. This is
followed by sections on research relating to each of the main types of
parliamentary body. This includes the extent to which they provide a channel for
more diverse groups of women to engage with parliament or more technical
questions concerning contribution to the legislative process or executive
scrutiny. The chapter concludes by offering some indicators of feminist
governance that can be applied to such bodies, as well as pointing to
constraints imposed by long-standing parliamentary traditions and newer populist
threats.
TYPES OF PARLIAMENTARY BODY The three main types of GFPB dealt with in this
chapter are: standing committees or commissions, women’s caucuses and all-party
parliamentary groups. Standing committees or commissions are permanent bodies of
their parliaments, constituted under standing orders, with membership reflecting
the representation of political parties in the parliament. As is the case with
any parliamentary committee, dedicated gender equality committees may hold
public hearings and consult with their associated policy communities. Ministers
and government officials may be brought before the committee to answer questions
concerning the gender effect of policies, programmes or legislation. Half of the
countries responding to a 2011 OECD survey indicated that such committees were
used as an accountability mechanism and to oversight progress in implementing
gender equality policies (OECD, 2014: 158). Women’s parliamentary caucuses are
relatively informal bodies, not covered by standing orders, although they vary
considerably in terms of structure and decision-making processes. They are
basically of two types, cross-party caucuses and single-party caucuses.
Precisely because they cannot be seen to take a partisan approach, international
development programmes and agencies have primarily supported cross-party
caucuses. Donor agencies have viewed them as an important element in democracy
strengthening through promoting women’s political participation. While the IPU
collects data on these two types of GFPB, a third type can be identified –
all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs), also called parliamentary friendship
groups. These differ from caucuses in terms of needing approval by a presiding
officer or comparable parliamentary authority as having cross-party membership
and meeting other requirements, but do not operate under standing orders.
Examples of APPGs promoting gender equality include current UK groups on
preventing sexual violence in conflict and promoting equality for women in state
pensions. In the European Parliament these issue-based groups are called
intergroups and, as in national parliaments, an LGBTI group has played an
important advocacy role. The three types of GFPB cover the spectrum from the
most formalised (standing committees, whether dedicated or multi-portfolio) to
the least formalised (women’s caucuses), with parliamentary groups coming
somewhere in between. Standing committees may have a strongly institutionalised
role in applying a gender lens to the legislative process, for
152 Handbook of feminist governance example, the Committee on Women’s Rights
and Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) of the European Parliament (see Chapter 24
in this Handbook). By contrast, a women’s caucus such as those found in
sub-Saharan Africa may be a much more informal body, specialising in providing
support to its members through mentoring, training, capacity-building,
confidence-building, networking, discussions and information sharing. The
resources available to such bodies also vary considerably, whether the
parliamentary resources and staff allocated to a standing committee or the
technical or research help that may be provided to women’s caucuses by, for
example, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) or by non-governmental
organisations (NGOs). Some researchers have questioned the usefulness of
distinguishing between standing committees and women’s caucuses, on grounds of
the variability in formality and parliamentary integration of the latter (Allen
and Childs, 2019). GFPBs indeed operate in very different ways in different
political and institutional contexts and within different parliamentary
traditions. However, the broad patterns that have been observed and the discrete
data collections that exist seem to justify the maintenance of existing
distinctions. At the same time, despite these differences in type and modes of
operating, these bodies share a mandate, whether bestowed by parliament or
self-generated, to promote gender equality. This is the distinguishing feature
of the GFPBs that are the subject of this chapter. They are an institutionalised
means of conducting parliamentary deliberation or executive scrutiny from a
gender perspective. In most cases they also provide an access point for women’s
movement organisations to engage with the legislative process.
ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION In many countries the establishment of GFPBs came after a
significant inflow of women into parliament. Critical actors sought to
capitalise on new numbers by creating an institutionalised platform for
claims-making (Sawer, 2015: 106). For example, the Committee on Women’s Rights
and Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) of the European Parliament was established
after the number of MEPS rose from 5 to 16 per cent in 1979 and Simone Veil was
elected as President of the Parliament (Kantola, 2010). In the Finnish
Parliament, a Women MPs’ Network was established after a record number of women
were elected in 1991 while in Sweden, the Speaker’s Network for Women
Parliamentarians was similarly established after the election of a record number
of women in 1994. An increase in the number of women legislators, however, is
not always the most significant factor accounting for the formation of women’s
caucuses. In the US context, for example, party has played a role as caucuses
are only formed where Democrats are in control of State legislatures (Mahoney
and Clark, 2019: 685). In new democracies, women’s caucuses and other GFPBs were
often established after the adoption of gender quotas brought large groups of
women into parliament but women’s caucuses could also be critical actors in the
introduction of quotas. As discussed further below, another factor in the spread
of women’s caucuses has been the timing of democracy building. When this occurs
after the consolidation of gender equality norms at the international and
regional levels, norm diffusion can be important influence (Adams et al., 2019).
The creation of GFPBs provides institutional legitimacy for advocacy that might
otherwise be seen as special pleading, even where the political culture is
already relatively feminised. In
Specialised parliamentary bodies 153 Sweden, members of the Speaker’s Gender
Equality Group described it as not only providing legitimacy for the promotion
of gender equality in the parliament, but also for work in their party groups
(Freidenvall and Erikson, 2020). Or, as a study of the Scottish Parliament’s
Equality Committee put it, the Committee was ‘a strong institutional signal that
women’s policy issues constitute an appropriate arena for legislative
initiatives’ (Chaney, 2012: 452). In Uruguay, the creation of a women’s caucus,
the Bancada Femenina, was helped by the fact that several of its members had
previously been unsuccessful in promoting individual legislative initiatives on
gender issues, so were receptive to the proposal for collective action (Johnson
and Josefsson, 2016: 853). The ways in which GFPBs have multiplied around the
world raises interesting questions about norm diffusion, institutional transfer
and the critical actors involved, which are relevant to the more general
diffusion of feminist governance. One way in which institutional transfer comes
about is through the dissemination of ‘best practice’ models by international
standard-setting bodies such as the IPU, the OECD and the OSCE and their
promotion by transnational governance bodies. Such models are given additional
legitimacy when they are adopted in neighbouring countries that are a
traditional source of comparison and policy borrowing (Adams et al., 2019).
Civil society and women’s movement organisations may also bring pressure for the
replication of bodies seen to operate successfully in other countries and these
initiatives may be supported by donor agencies. Specialised parliamentary bodies
may themselves play an active role in promoting similar bodies elsewhere, such
as the FEMM Committee’s support for such a body in the Tunisian Parliament or
the model provided by the Ugandan women’s caucus (the Uganda Women’s
Parliamentary Association) for neighbouring countries in Africa (Adams and
Wylie, 2020: 621). Similar to the FEMM Committee in the European Parliament,
women’s caucuses within international parliamentary associations may also
reinforce the need for women’s caucuses within the parliaments of member
nations. A case study of the role of the Women’s Network of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Portuguese-Speaking Countries shows how it leveraged gender
equality norms and strategies to support the establishment of a women’s caucus
in Timor-Leste (Costa, 2016). All of these conduits for institutional transfer
contribute to the kind of institutional isomorphism associated with gender
mainstreaming and recorded by international monitoring bodies. International
pressure may, however, have contradictory effects. The conditionality associated
with the process of European Union (EU) accession has been a significant
influence in the creation of GFPBs such as parliamentary standing committees in
candidate countries. However, the institutional strength of these bodies has
been greatly affected by contextual factors. In Eastern Europe such factors
include rejection of communist-era legacies such as women’s workforce
participation and the strength of ‘anti-gender’ movements defending traditional
values from outside influences (Chiva, 2017). The rise of nativism and
right-wing populism, whether in Eastern Europe, Turkey or Latin America, has
seen a rejection of the ‘foreign ideologies’ exemplified in gender equality
machinery. In the Pacific (see Chapter 35, this Handbook) the priority given to
gender equality by aid donors may also have contradictory effects. While
populist pushback is one threat to GFPBs, there is also the general
precariousness affecting feminist institution-building. As with women’s policy
agencies, ‘gender mainstreaming’ becomes an argument that the continued
existence of specialised bodies is unnecessary
154 Handbook of feminist governance and that, in the case of parliament, all
parliamentary committees should have responsibility for gender issues (Ahrens,
2016: 782). Accompanying the attempted mainstreaming or streamlining of
specialised bodies is often the suggestion that as gender equality has now been
done it is time to move on to more important issues. Given such precariousness,
support from civil society and women’s movement organisations can be crucial for
survival. Studies of the institutional harvest of the women’s movement indicate
the vulnerability of policy bodies within government, particularly those that
lack ongoing engagement and support from social movement actors (Andrew, 2013).
There may often be a mutually constitutive relationship between this political
base outside and gender equality bodies inside. For example, campaigns by the
European Women’s Lobby (EWL) have played a vital role in ensuring the continued
existence of the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament (Kolthoff, 2007: 95).
STANDING COMMITTEES By 2020 the IPU recorded some 134 ‘gender equality
committees’ operating in national parliaments and 90 cross-party women’s
parliamentary caucuses. The numbers are somewhat fuzzy because of the reliance
on survey returns and the inclusion in them of some multi-portfolio committees
without an explicit gender designation. It should be noted that there has been
evolution in the nomenclature of such formal parliamentary bodies, as with other
feminist governance institutions, with the substitution of ‘gender’ for ‘women’,
in many places (see Chapter 10, this Handbook). Parliamentary committees with a
gender equality remit have been the subject of an expanding literature and have
generally been found to make an important contribution to gender mainstreaming.
This contribution has included initiation of gender equality laws, review of
implementation and application of a gender lens to other legislative proposals.
In South Korea, the Standing Committee on Gender Equality and the Family has
promoted initiatives such as the gender budgeting clause included in the 2006
National Finance Act (Costa et al., 2013: 334). As noted by Joan Grace (2016), a
gender-focused parliamentary committee can enable members to apply a gender lens
to policy in a way that would be impossible in their own party rooms. Dedicated
gender equality committees have also been tasked with auditing national women’s
machinery, as in India, or may commission audits of gender mainstreaming in
government, as in Canada. As with all gender-focused parliamentary bodies, good
working relationships with women’s policy agencies, gender research institutes
and women’s NGOs may be helpful in identifying key gender issues. Alison
Woodward has coined the term ‘velvet triangle’ to capture this kind of policy
interaction and mutual support between feminist politicians, femocrats, gender
researchers and women’s NGOs (Woodward, 2003). In general, the creation of
standing committees with a gender equality remit reduces the pressure on
individual women parliamentarians to raise such issues, possibly at the risk of
their parliamentary careers. Transfer of responsibility to parliamentary bodies
also means that male parliamentarians are no longer absolved from responsibility
and can also play their part. There are now a number of case studies of
dedicated standing committees1 as well as a comparative study of the Danish
Committee and the Finnish Committee for Employment and Equality (Holli and
Harder, 2016). This comparative study drew on a legislative studies
Specialised parliamentary bodies 155 approach as well as feminist
institutionalism and highlighted the different functions performed by the gender
equality committees of the two different countries. In the case of Finland, the
committee conducted legislative review, while the Danish committee conducted
executive oversight (of the gender equality ministry). Both committees were
found to have a high level of interaction with NGOs, and also with gender
equality agencies and gender scholars in the Finnish case. In some countries,
such as Croatia and Nepal, there is representation of outside gender equality
bodies on the parliamentary committee itself, a fruitful subject for future
research. Apart from dedicated parliamentary committees, in many parliaments
there are multi-portfolio committees that include gender equality. Sonia
Palmieri has noted from IPU data that multi-portfolio committees that include
gender equality concerns fall into two main subgroups – those with a heavy
emphasis on social affairs and the family, and those more focused on human
rights, and legal and constitutional matters. She found examples of the former
in El Salvador, Poland and Norway, and examples of the latter in Estonia,
Ireland and Zambia. Women are much less likely to chair the multi-portfolio
committees than the ones dedicated to gender equality and less likely to form a
majority of members (Sawer et al., 2013).
WOMEN’S CAUCUSES Bodies providing support for the establishment and
strengthening of women’s caucuses include the IPU, the National Democratic
Institute, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, UNDP
and UN Women. Support from the IPU has included step-by-step guidelines on how
to set up and organise a women’s caucus, with examples of successful strategies
and policy accomplishments. Examples of caucus accomplishments range from the
introduction of gender quotas and legislation for ending violence against women
to the banning of smoking (an initiative of the Mongolian women’s caucus) (IPU,
2013: 12–15). As already mentioned, women’s caucuses vary considerably in terms
of formality of structure and decision-making processes. For example, in Uruguay
the caucus has no leadership structure, meets in plenary sessions and decides
work plans by consensus, while in Zimbabwe when consensus cannot be reached
decisions are taken by secret ballot (IPU, 2013: 32). Women’s caucuses often
have capacity-building functions for new women parliamentarians as well as
providing a safe space for the exchange of information and networking. While
women’s caucuses may be formed subsequent to the adoption of gender quotas and
an inflow of women into parliament, they may also play an active role in the
adoption of quotas. They have become particularly common in Africa, where they
had been created in 38 national parliaments by 2015, constituting 45 per cent of
such caucuses worldwide (Adams and Wylie, 2020). Research on African experience
with women’s caucuses is likely to become of increasing importance in the GFPB
research. While caucuses such as these are created by women parliamentarians,
men are often invited to participate in one capacity or another. In Uganda, the
women’s caucus started involving men to increase receptivity to its legislative
initiatives. Male associate members became critical actors in the promotion of
gender equality legislation such as the prohibition of female genital mutilation
(Johnson and Josefsson, 2016: 850). Apart from achieving male allies the Ugandan
caucus has achieved increased organisational efficiency through attracting
international financial donors to pay for its secretariat.
156 Handbook of feminist governance In policy work, there can be a
complementary relationship between women’s caucuses and standing committees with
a gender remit and the more formal body may have its origins in women’s caucus
lobbying. In Finland, the Women MPs’ Network achieved the inclusion of a gender
equality mandate in the remit of a standing committee by 2000. In Uruguay, the
Banca Femenina succeeded in creating a gender-focused standing committee, with
the committee’s formal access to legislative procedures complementing the
outreach of the women’s caucus to the women’s movement and to the media (Johnson
and Josefsson, 2016: 854). In Timor-Leste, the cross-party women’s caucus worked
closely with a gender-focused standing committee as well as with women’s
machinery in government and with the women’s movement on the introduction of
gender-responsive budgeting (Costa et al., 2013). As well as enabling
gender-focused deliberation and policy initiatives, the promotion of
collaboration between women legislators across party lines is itself a
significant function of women’s caucuses. Such collaboration may be particularly
valuable in the context of increased political polarisation, as has been noted
in relation to the increased number of all-party parliamentary groups. As centre
right parties move further to the right to meet the challenge of right populist
parties, cross-party collaboration can both become more difficult and more
highly valued when institutional space enables it to occur. In countries with
strong party systems, however, the role of single-party caucuses may be more
sustainable than cross-party initiatives, particularly in centre left parties.
There are stronger traditions of collective work in these parties than in centre
right parties where, broadly speaking, women share in more individualistic
traditions. There are now some substantial case studies of single-party
caucuses. These include a 30th anniversary study of the Status of Women
Committee (SWC) of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party in Australia, based on
interviews and meeting records. The SWC was established in 1983 by a feminist
senator, Pat Giles, who before entering parliament had been a founding member of
the Women’s Electoral Lobby. SWC membership is open to all Labor women
parliamentarians, who meet weekly during sitting weeks in order to ‘exert some
feminist muscle on the reform agenda’ (Sawer and Turner 2016: 771). It has
survived proposed streamlining of party committees in 1996 and 2007. The UK
Parliamentary Labour Party’s Women’s Committee was established a year earlier,
in 1982, by leading feminist politician Harriet Harman. It is similarly open to
all Labour women parliamentarians although there is a smaller core of regular
attenders. As in the Australian case, speakers include representatives of the
party’s front bench, who makes themselves available for a feminist grilling, as
well as representatives from women’s advocacy organisations. Both of these
long-lived women’s caucuses have functioned as a significant site for
integrating feminist perspectives into party policy, whether in government or
opposition, as well as providing support for women ministers (Allen and Childs,
2019). The Liberal Women’s Caucus in the Canadian Parliament, established in
1993, has been found to play a similar role in grilling ministers (or shadow
ministers) on the gender impact of their activities, as well as acting as a
personal and professional support network for Liberal women (Steele, 2002). As
with feminist governance scholarship generally, case studies of women’s caucuses
serve a function beyond simply that of scholarly analysis. Histories of women’s
caucuses such as those documented by the OSCE help sustain them by contributing
to institutional memory – inspiring new participants with a record of past
accomplishments while also cataloguing lessons learned (Palmieri, 2013: 69).
Specialised parliamentary bodies 157
ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS While APPGs share certain features, such as the
need for recognition by a presiding officer or similar parliamentary authority,
they also come in different shapes and sizes. Unlike standing committees,
parliamentary groups do not operate under standing orders and in general are not
provided with parliamentary resources such as secretariats. Instead,
characteristically, NGOs provide secretariat services for them. For example, in
the UK, the Fawcett Society (‘Closing the inequality gap since 1866’) has
provided the secretariat for the APPG on Sex Equality and the APPG on Women in
Parliament, while in Australia the Parliamentary Friends of Women for Election
is serviced by the NGO of the same name. However, there are exceptions to this
dependence by parliamentary groups on external bodies for resourcing.
Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, a parliamentary group examined both by
Jennifer Curtin (in Celis et al., 2016) and Sonia Palmieri (2020), is entitled
to have a parliamentary officer as its secretary, by virtue of its relationship
with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. In Sweden, the Speaker’s Gender
Equality Group has also benefited from secretariat services provided from within
the parliament (Freidenvall and Erickson, 2020). In Australia, a case study
found that participation in an APPG helped build trust across party lines thus
enabling co-sponsored legislation removing a ministerial veto on chemical
abortion (Sawer, 2012). The parliamentary group concerned was that on population
and development. There are now 65 national parliaments with such groups focused
on reproductive rights and gender equality – created in the wake of the 1994 UN
Conference on Population and Development to ensure governments honoured
commitments made there. The establishment of these particular APPGs was
supported by US philanthropic foundations and by the UN Fund for Population
Activities. One study has compared the quality of the substantive representation
of women provided by different types of specialised body in the Belgian, United
Kingdom and New Zealand parliaments (Celis et al., 2016). The criteria applied
were those of responsiveness and inclusiveness, with inclusiveness being judged
by the diversity of the civil society groups interacting with the parliamentary
body. One recommendation was for more inclusive hearing processes on the part of
standing committees and another for more transparency and accountability on the
part of parliamentary groups.
CONCLUSION Specialised parliamentary bodies have been evaluated from different
perspectives. One example has already been referred to – an evaluation framework
focusing on inclusivity and responsiveness as measures of the quality of
substantive representation (Celis et al., 2016). Another evaluation framework
examines the extent to which specialised parliamentary bodies exhibit various
characteristics of feminist institution-building or feminist governance. Such
characteristics as first listed in Sawer and Turner (2016) include some or all
of those in Table 12.1. As can be seen from Table 12.1, the extent to which
feminist governance can be exhibited in specialised parliamentary bodies is
constrained by broader parliamentary norms and traditions – the problem of
‘nested newness’ identified so well by Fiona Mackay (2014). It may not be
158 Handbook of feminist governance Table 12.1
Characteristics of gender-focused parliamentary bodies
Feminist indicators
Possible constraints
Initiated by feminist critical actors
Requirement for authorisation by parliamentary or party authorities
Create space and legitimacy for women-centred deliberation
Deliberation may be curtailed by party interests or by time constraints due to
constituency, parliamentary and party responsibilities
Act as gateway for diverse groups of women to access the
Speed of parliamentary process may prevent adequate
legislative process
community participation; resources may be lacking to support participation by
vulnerable groups
Apply a gender lens to all legislative proposals; promote specific Lack of
technical expertise and support for legislative and gender equality proposals;
oversight gender mainstreaming in
budgetary gender analysis; effect of party ideology in inhibiting
government
full analysis of distributive impact of policy
Non-hierarchical and consensus-based organisational style
Avoidance of divisive topics
Presenting an alternative to dominant norms (as a feminist
Difficulty in gaining parliamentary allies
reference group)
Source: Based on Sawer and Turner (2016: 766).
possible to exhibit a full range of feminist organisational values in a
specialised parliamentary body, such as a standing committee, thanks to standing
orders and the need to conform to existing practices. Nonetheless, particularly
if there is adequate technical support, such committees can play a crucial role
in ensuring a gender lens is applied to legislative proposals, as well as to
policy and programme delivery. One obstacle to the contribution of GFPBs to
gender mainstreaming is the strength of partisan loyalties and suspicion of
women cooperating across party lines to advance equality agendas. Where there
are strongly entrenched party systems combined with majoritarian political
cultures, the room for collaborative work may be narrowed. Hence, the
significance of single-party women’s caucuses in these countries, which, as we
have seen, are found predominantly in centre left parties. Despite the
difficulties of working across party lines, significant collaboration has taken
place between parliamentary women on issues such as women’s health and violence
against women, where issues of redistribution are less at stake. Another
obstacle to the effective operation of GFPBs can be lack of adequate resources.
Resources required can include expert technical support for the application of a
gender lens to legislative or budgetary proposals as well as administrative
support. Such support may come from inside the parliament, be funded by
international donors or be provided by NGOs, as is often the case for
parliamentary groups. But one of the most important resources is time.
Parliamentarians are already juggling the demands of parliamentary, party and
constituency work, let alone family responsibilities. Consulting with and
responding to diverse equality-seeking groups in order to promote gender
equality may require time-consuming processes at odds with the speed of much
parliamentary activity in the digital age. GFPBs are a relatively recent
addition to the universe of feminist governance and one that presents particular
challenges. Nonetheless, both scholars and practitioners are helping to locate
the place of these bodies in gender equality architecture and their role in
promoting more inclusive democracy and more responsive public policy. As noted,
the presence of GFPBs, particularly of the more formal type, can be an important
signal that parliament itself is taking responsibility for promoting gender
equality, rather than leaving it to the efforts of individual women
parliamentarians. The institutionalising of gender equality agendas within
Specialised parliamentary bodies 159 parliaments has assumed an additional
strategic importance in light of populist movements contesting these agendas.
Research into what makes such specialised bodies sustainable will be of
considerable relevance to their future, whether in their current form or some
form not yet visible. Like other feminist governance research, it contributes
knowledge that is co-produced and has immediate relevance to policy and practice
in the building of more just political institutions.
NOTE 1. These include studies of the FEMM Committee of the European Parliament
(Ahrens, 2016, 2017), the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on the
Status of Women (Grace, 2016), the Parliamentary Women’s Delegations in France
(Green, 2016) and the Danish Committee on Gender Equality (Harder, 2017).
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13. Promoting gender equality in elected office Mona Lena Krook and Pippa Norris
INTRODUCTION Contemporary institutions of feminist governance have gradually
evolved since the 1970s, including initiatives to strengthen gender equality and
women’s inclusion and empowerment within elected local governments, regional
assemblies and national parliaments. Gender equality has become a central goal
of national governments and international organisations around the globe. The
roots of this demand extend back to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted in 1948, which enshrines the equal rights of men and women, including
the right to participate in government. A series of other documents signed by
United Nations (UN) member states over the years – including the World Plan of
Action in Mexico City in 1975 the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women in 1979, and the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies
in 1985 – resulted in a landmark commitment in the 1995 Beijing Platform for
Action, signed by all member states at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on
Women, to a target of gender balance in decision-making positions.1 The United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (‘Rio+20’) renewed member states’
commitment to achieving gender equality for women and girls, where the effective
participation of women is seen as critical for achieving all other aspects of
sustainable development. In Goal 5, the Sustainable Development Goals recognise
gender equality as a fundamental right in itself, and instrumentally valuable as
a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
Facilitating access by women to elected office is an important goal in and of
itself, but also central to concepts of feminist governance, as a way of
transforming institutions, laws and practices. Eliminating barriers to the
election of more women doesn’t guarantee that this will necessarily advance
feminist ideals and policies. There are also important questions about which
women are successful and whether there is inclusion by race and ethnicity,
sexuality and gender identity, class and caste. But ensuring that governments
reflect the diversity of the societies they represent guarantees a balanced
perspective which enables an inclusive approach to policymaking and service
delivery. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
emphasises: ‘Gender diversity in public institutions is particularly crucial,
given that these decision-making bodies create the rules that affect people’s
rights, behaviours and life choices.’2 Despite commitments to women’s
empowerment and gender equality, and considerable progress over the years, in
many countries these goals have often fallen short in practice. The data tells
us that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making and most
countries today fall short of the ‘gender balance’ target established by the
1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Figure 13.1 illustrates the trends in
descriptive representation during the last century, measured in parliaments by
major global region. The figure shows the growing inclusion of women after the
end of the Second World War, a process accelerating from the 1970s onwards in
Latin America and Western Europe, North America and Australasia, followed by
more recent progress from the early 1990s in many other parts of the globe. 161
162 Handbook of feminist governance By 2020, the global share of women in
national parliaments (single/lower house) was 25 per cent, up from 11.6 per cent
in 1995. Data from 133 countries and areas show a higher share of women in local
government, at 36.3 per cent as of 1 January 2020. Only 13 per cent of countries
have reached gender balance (40 per cent or more) in national parliaments, while
15 per cent have achieved it in local government. Figure 13.1 indicates steady
progress towards achieving gender equality in elected office in many regions,
but not all, since the Beijing Declaration.3 Women have also made gains in
parliamentary leadership roles since the Beijing Declaration; for example, the
proportion of women speakers has doubled from 10.5 per cent in 1995 to 20.5 per
cent today.4 At the same time, progress worldwide remains uneven; for example,
several national parliaments continue to lag behind with 5 per cent or even
fewer women representatives, while even today a few states have no women in
parliament. As Figure 13.1 illustrates vividly in the cases of Eastern Europe
and Central Asia, there can also be sharp reversals, caused in these countries
by the fall of the Soviet Union and the initial abandonment of legal gender
quotas for parliaments, before a gradual recovery in the region.5
Note: The percentage (%) of the lower (or unicameral) chamber of the national
legislature who are female. Source: Varieties of Democracy V10.0 (July 2020).
https:// www .v -dem .net/ dsarchive .html.
Figure 13.1
A century of women in parliament
What more can be done? The Beijing Platform for Action suggests that the target
of equal representation might only be achieved through greater use of positive
action in candidate selection.6 Today, as illustrated in Figure 13.2, many
regions have adopted this strategy and around 130 countries have implemented
constitutional, legal or party gender quotas specifying the minimum proportion
of women candidates and/or elected officials.7 Scientific knowledge about the
effectiveness of these policies has expanded (Dahlerup, 2006; Krook, 2009). The
Platform for Action did not solely focus on these policies as a solution,
however. It also highlighted a range of other measures, like ‘career planning,
tracking, mentoring, coaching, training, and retraining’ for women and ‘public
debate on the new roles of men and women in society and in the family’.8
Promoting gender equality in elected office 163
Note: Is there a national-level gender quota for the lower (or unicameral)
chamber of the legislature? National-level quotas either reserve some seats for
women in the legislature (as a whole or per district) or mandate through
statutory law that all political parties must nominate a certain percentage of
female candidates or candidates considered for nomination. Source: Varieties of
Democracy V10.0 (July 2020). https:// www .v -dem .net/ dsarchive .html.
Figure 13.2
A century of gender quota laws
The Platform for Action recognised that quotas alone may not suffice to achieve
gender equality in elected office. There is also the need for programmes
expanding the pool of potential female candidates, supporting women’s
legislative capacities and promoting broader transformation in public views
towards women in politics (cf. Franceschet et al., 2012). Moreover, formal
quotas may not be an option in all states and political parties, due to
institutional barriers and ideological objections (Krook et al., 2009). Around
one third of UN member states have not yet adopted gender quotas.9 Further,
poorly designed policies can prove ineffective in achieving their stated goals
(Hoodfar and Tajali, 2011; Jones, 2009). In these cases, alternative strategies
are required. In contrast to the extensive literature on quotas, however,
non-quota measures have been subject to less systematic research. Promoting a
more comprehensive approach, this chapter draws on theories of political
recruitment and the public/private divide to highlight ongoing challenges to
change. The first section conceptualises a range of policy solutions for
overcoming women’s exclusion. The second presents examples of each type of
intervention by civil society, political parties, parliaments and the state. The
sheer variety of these measures reveals a wide menu of options for promoting
women in politics, while also underscoring the need for a multifaceted approach
to tackle the diverse obstacles to women’s political inclusion. Many initiatives
are ‘downstream’ projects, however, rather than being upscaled to encompass many
contexts and societies. The conclusion suggests that future work is needed to
evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these various strategies and their
broader impact on feminist governance.
164 Handbook of feminist governance
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Devising effective strategies
for change requires beginning with an analysis of the status quo, illuminating
what must be done. There are multiple interpretations as to why women are
underrepresented in political life. These views can be reconciled when political
recruitment is theorised as a multi-stage process. Models of Political
Recruitment The political recruitment process is most commonly conceptualised as
a sequential model (Figure 13.3) progressing from (1) activists eligible to run
for office; (2) those who aspire to run for office; (3) those nominated to run
for office; (4) those elected to office; and (5) women’s empowerment. If no
barriers are at work, the characteristics of individuals at each stage of the
ladder should be similar (Norris, 1997). The transition from stage 1 to stage 2
concerns the supply of available aspirants, the move from stage 2 to stage 3
reflects the demand for certain types of candidates, and the shift from stage 3
to stages 4 and 5 involves the outcome of elections (Norris and Lovenduski,
1993). This model sparked debates as to whether women’s underrepresentation
stems primarily from gender differences in ambition that cause fewer women than
men to consider running for political office, biases in the recruitment
practices and preferences of gatekeepers, or institutional failures in elections
(Ashe and Stewart, 2012; Kantola, 2019; Lawless and Fox, 2005; Norris and
Lovenduski, 1993).
Figure 13.3
The recruitment process
Persistent inequalities indicate that ‘sex’, biological differences between
women and men, and ‘gender’, the social meanings given to these differences,
introduce important distortions. Gender roles in many societies lead women to
have fewer resources of time and money and lower levels of political ambition
(Lawless and Fox, 2005; Norris and Lovenduski, 1993).
Promoting gender equality in elected office 165 Similarly, selectors may
perceive female aspirants as less competent or to pass them over for selection
due to concerns about voter bias. Policy Interventions The political recruitment
model suggests three key transition moments: from activist to aspirant, from
aspirant to candidate, and from candidate to elected official. Stages of
recruitment can be matched to various interventions, illustrated in Figure 13.1,
permitting the elaboration of strategies as well as comparisons of their goals
and projected effects. The activist to aspirant moment requires women to believe
that they have the qualifications and resources to run for office. A key barrier
is overcoming perceptions that women do not belong in politics, both among
gatekeepers and among activists. Awareness-raising campaigns and monitoring can
help by highlighting the exclusion of women and how women contribute to
politics. Civil society actors are well placed to organise such efforts, but
these may also benefit from financial and moral support from the state. A
related tactic by parliaments is symbolic action within political institutions
recognising the roles that women play in political life. Reforms to legislative
working conditions can make politics more ‘women-friendly’ by suggesting that
women’s participation is valued. Finally, laws to punish violence against women
in politics may be essential, when their personal security is at risk. A second
obstacle facing aspirants concerns women’s self-confidence in pursuing a
political career. Civil society organisations and political parties have the
most to contribute in this respect. The first task is to identify women who
might be candidates. This can be done via various kinds of recruitment and
outreach initiatives, assembling lists of names through personal contacts, group
mailings or even online suggestion boxes. Party rules and procedures can also
require gatekeepers to expand their recruitment efforts, for example by
specifying that a certain minimum number of women have to be considered for
nomination. The next step is to cultivate the skills, knowledge and connections
these women might need in order to wage a political campaign, in turn inspiring
confidence in their own abilities to stand as candidates. These goals are best
served through capacity development programmes for women, which might also
include a mentoring component. Together, these various ‘transition 1’ strategies
can enhance the supply of female candidates, undermining dynamics of personal
socialisation and public prejudice to produce a more supportive environment for
women to pursue a career in politics. Interventions at the aspirant to candidate
stage, in contrast, seek to compel gatekeepers – most often, party elites – to
revise their implicit or explicit biases against potential female candidates.
Electoral gender quotas operate primarily at this moment in the recruitment
process. In countries with reserved seats, parties have an incentive to put
forward female candidates in order to maximise their seat allotment in political
assemblies. In the case of quotas applying to the number of candidates, parties
have more leeway to comply with quota regulations (Krook, 2009; Murray et al.,
2012). An important obstacle, as noted above, is that elites may believe that
women are not viable candidates. A number of strategies can help combat this
perception. Within the party, soft targets, internal quotas and women’s sections
can provide leadership opportunities crucial to accumulating political
experience. State actors can also play a significant role when parties are
reluctant, by using party funding regulations to create incentives or impose
sanctions encouraging parties to include women. These ‘transition 2’ measures
address
166 Handbook of feminist governance the demand for female candidates, employing
both direct and indirect strategies to combat outdated beliefs about women being
ineffective or unqualified candidates. Lastly, the transition from candidate to
elected official involves ensuring that women have the resources and support to
win. Access to sufficient finance is often critical to success. For individual
candidates, special funding opportunities may be available from their own
parties. Alternatively, civil society groups may organise fundraising networks
to collect and distribute money to female candidates to increase the success
rates of their campaigns. The regulation of party funding can also contribute,
albeit in a more indirect manner, by tying public financing to the election –
and not just the selection – of women. A second way that states can intervene is
by imposing placement mandates on quota policies. As the research literature
observes, simply nominating more women is no guarantee that greater numbers of
women will be elected. What matters is whether women are nominated to ‘winnable’
districts or positions on party lists (Jones, 2009; Krook, 2009). Once women are
elected, parliaments can introduce or support provisions to assist women in
being effective legislators, such as women’s caucuses and gender-specific
research and training. ‘Transition 3’ strategies thus augment the effects of
demand-side initiatives, while also reinforcing supply-side programmes to
empower women politically.
ACTORS AND AIMS: CATEGORISING STRATEGIES Disaggregating the recruitment process
opens up a host of creative solutions to overcome the underrepresentation of
women in political life. Civil Society Actors Civil society groups have engaged
in awareness-raising and training of potential female candidates, as well as
fundraising. Raising awareness: One strategy seeks to reshape public opinion
towards women in politics. Changing traditional gender stereotypes may increase
the number of women considering a political career, as well as altering how
voters and political parties view female candidates. Strategies include
media-based campaigns, as well as publishing data to monitor women’s exclusion.
Media campaigns are quite varied. In the Czech Republic, for example, a poster
campaign was sponsored by the group Fórum 50% in the run-up to the 2006
elections. The group placed posters in the Prague subway and street network
featuring a long row of ties and the caption: ‘Do you really have a choice?’ The
message implied that while there were some differences among men in politics,
there was actually little true ‘choice’ among candidates – who were still almost
exclusively men. Excluding women therefore undermined democracy by restricting
the options available to voters.10 Data monitoring can also be a powerful tool.
Evidence from university research centres,11 as well as international
organisations like the Inter-Parliamentary Union,12 have been instrumental in
raising awareness of the extent of women’s exclusion – as well as highlighting
major gains. Data disaggregated to the party level can ‘name and shame’ those
that nominate few women, damaging a party’s reputation and possibly its
electoral success.
Promoting gender equality in elected office 167 Recruitment initiatives: A
necessary first step towards greater gender equality in elected office is to
identify and encourage women to run for office. Recruitment initiatives
organised by civil society organisations are particularly well developed in the
United States, where the majoritarian electoral system, combined with
ideological hostility to gender quotas, make it difficult to achieve sudden
increases in women’s political representation. A campaign along these lines is
the 2012 Project, a non-partisan campaign initiated by the Center for American
Women and Politics at Rutgers University.13 Women interested in being candidates
were connected to leadership institutes, think tanks, training programmes and
fundraising networks designed to help them succeed. Training programmes:
Capacity-building initiatives have developed exponentially since the 1980s, when
only a few programmes existed worldwide. Such programmes are now run by
non-partisan networks, university centres and even international organisations.
Networks like the 300 Group in the United Kingdom (UK) were based on the
realisation that women often did not know where to start when pursuing a
nomination for office.14 In the United States (US), many of these programmes are
based at universities.15 More internationally grounded, the Women in Public
Service Project (WPSP) seeks to build a new generation of global female
leaders.16 Fundraising networks: These initiatives seek to ensure that women
have the financial resources to wage a successful campaign. Perhaps the most
well-known programme is EMILY’s List, a group founded in 1985 in the US which
solicits campaign contributions from supporters across the country for selected
women candidates.17 The group claims to have trained over 9,000 women and helped
elect over 1,400 women to federal, state and local office.18 Similar fundraising
groups have been established in Australia, the UK and Italy. Political Parties
Political parties are more heavily involved in ‘transition 2’ tactics, due to
their central role in selecting candidates (UNDP-NDI, 2011). Gender quotas:
Reforming their nomination procedures, many socialist and social democratic
parties globally have amended their statutes to establish gender quotas
(Kittilson, 2006; Krook, 2009). A major reason for the rise in the proportion of
women in parliament has been the implementation of formal gender quota laws,
especially those with thresholds defining the minimum number of women
candidates, with legal sanctions for non-compliance and agencies overseeing
their implementation, and with gender-ranked lists of candidates alternating
male and female nominees. South American countries adopted several early
measures but the use of legal gender quotas expanded rapidly worldwide after
Beijing. Soft targets: Established democracies in Western Europe, North America
and Australasia have been reluctant to enact quota laws, in part because many
parties in these countries had adopted gender quotas in their internal rules
governing the candidate nomination process. Other parties use internal
regulations and procedures that seek to encourage, but do not require, the
selection of more female candidates (Krook et al., 2009). In New Zealand, party
quotas using all-women shortlists were proposed by the leader of the NZ Labour
Party following the adoption of a new electoral law in 1993. This idea was
rejected but the party adopted a target in late 2013 (Curtin, 2017). Women’s
sections: Women’s sections have traditionally served the party’s broader
interests, such as helping fundraise and canvass voters. Yet, over time, these
have also come to serve
168 Handbook of feminist governance as a platform for women inside parties
(Lovenduski and Norris, 1993), contributing to policy development, coordinating
the activities of female party members and providing support and training to
newly elected female office-holders – as well as supporting a more general
transformation within the party by sensitising party members, male and female,
to the importance of gender equality (UNDP-NDI, 2011: 17). Internal leadership
quotas: Quotas for internal party bodies, such as on party governing boards or
national executive committees, expand women in party leadership. These policies
are sorely needed: a joint report by the United Nations Development Programme
and the National Democratic Institute estimated that women were between 40 and
50 per cent of party members globally, but occupied only 10 per cent of party
leadership positions (UNDP-NDI, 2011: 15). Internal quotas can present women
with leadership opportunities and help them gain important experience.
Recruitment initiatives: Women’s sections and party leaders have also devised
new ways of recruiting women candidates. Prior to the adoption of formal quotas
in Sweden, women’s sections inside the major parties assembled databases
containing the names and curriculum vitae of potential female candidates, which
could be presented to party officials as they sought to find women to put on
their lists (Wistrand, 1981). Capacity-building programmes: Programmes can be
offered to women currently running for office, as well as to those who might
consider doing so in the future, focusing on topics like fostering motivation,
improving public speaking and demystifying the campaign process. While this
strategy is most commonly pursued by civil society actors, one party-based
initiative is Women2Win in the British Conservative Party. The group seeks to
promote ‘the brightest and best women the party has to offer’ through support,
advice and training in public speaking and media skills.19 In El Salvador, the
Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional sends money from the party
budget to the National Ministry for Women, which uses it for national assemblies
for party women, training and consultations with women (Sidhu and Meena, 2007:
20). Campaign funding: Financial support can help overcome perceptions that
women are not viable candidates, as well as compensate for the fact that women
often lack access to the formal and informal networks that supply campaign
funds. Women may also have expenses not incurred by men, for example to help
with household tasks, child care or extra security (Sidhu and Meena, 2007:
10–11). One approach is to create a special internal party fund for women’s
campaigns, while another is to provide subsidies of one kind or another to
female candidates. A party fund within the Liberal Party in Canada assists women
with campaign costs (UNDP-NDI, 2011: 28). Party subsidies seek to overcome one
of the major financial barriers to women’s participation, especially the need to
pay a deposit in order to register a candidacy. In Sierra Leone, several parties
– including the main opposition party – have reduced or waived nomination fees
for women. Similarly, the ruling People’s Democratic Party in Nigeria introduced
a waiver of the mandatory registration fees for women aspiring to any elective
post on the party label.20 Parliamentary Actors Legislatures can signal that
doors are open to women and thus make politics a more attractive career for
women. Once women have moved from candidate to elected official, parliaments
Promoting gender equality in elected office 169 can enhance their capacities by
providing resources, capacities and skills training to help them be more
effective legislators. Images: Parliaments worldwide are saturated with
practices that can reinforce as well as challenge social hierarchies.21 Certain
legislatures, for instance, provide a separate list of female members,
highlighting women in parliament.22 Some websites showcase events related to
gender equality, like anniversary celebrations of women’s right to vote and the
passage of women-friendly legislation (Palmieri, 2011). In France, a special
section of the parliamentary website was added on the history of women in
politics.23 Working conditions: According to a global survey of MPs, many women
perceive the traditional working practices of parliaments as problematic
(Ballington, 2008), highlighting ‘work–life balance’ issues as the greatest
challenge when serving in parliament (Palmieri, 2011: 97). One problem concerns
the timing of sittings. Many chambers work late into the night, precluding MPs
from being home with their families. Recognising this was a problem, several
legislatures have established new rules. In Denmark, no votes may take place
after 7 p.m., while in Sweden evening votes are avoided as much as possible.
Additionally, voting is generally not done on Mondays or Fridays. Another
family-friendly provision involves aligning the parliamentary schedule with the
school calendar, which has now been done in nearly 40 per cent of parliaments
(Palmieri, 2011: 92). Debates over child care and breastfeeding have become more
common in recent years, with the election of greater numbers of younger women.
The response has been uneven. In Germany, child care centres cater to staff, but
not members themselves, while in Sweden, all MPs are entitled to use the centre.
In Scotland, child care facilities are available to members and visitors from
the public, viewed as ‘an important part of creating an open and accessible
Parliament’.24 Research and capacity-building: Some legislatures have devised
new ways to support women in parliament once they are elected, both individually
and as a group. While some legislatures offer brief induction sessions for newly
elected members, resources for deeper capacity-building may be incomplete –
especially for those without informal mentors. To combat this problem, a
Research Centre for Women’s Advancement and Gender Equality was established in
Mexico in 2005 to provide specialised technical support and analytical
information services. While the centre works with both men and women, with the
aim of promoting gender equality policies,25 in practice it works largely with
female deputies to craft bills. Women’s caucuses: Women’s caucuses can support
women’s legislative work, bring women together across partisan lines and serve
as a means to connect with actors in civil society (Archenti and Johnson, 2006).
They can range from more formal organisations, with permanent offices and
objectives, to more informal groups, with meetings convened as necessary, to
non-formal gatherings. The degree of cooperation often depends on the strength
of party politics, with women being less likely to come together where partisan
divides are strong. A comprehensive model is the Forum of Rwandan Women
Parliamentarians, established during the transitional assembly in 1996. All
female members in both houses of parliament are included. Formally recognised,
with its own office, the Forum engages in advocacy on behalf of women,
identifying legislative priorities and reviewing legislation to ensure that it
is gender-sensitive. To this end, the caucus coordinates with the Gender and
Family Promotion Committee inside parliament, as well as with women’s groups in
civil society (Palmieri, 2011: 46). At the same time, it also seeks to build up
the capacity of members through training workshops, administrative assistance
and expert technical advice.26
170 Handbook of feminist governance State Actors Finally, state actors engage
primarily by seeking to influence how political parties approach the nomination
and capacity-building of female candidates. The state can address
aspirant-to-candidate dynamics by encouraging parties to select more women
through positive and negative incentives linked to party funding regulations and
publicly provided campaign support. Actors at this level can also enhance the
likelihood that female candidates will be elected through regulations tying
public finance to women’s election, not just their nomination, and by
implementing new laws to combat violence against female politicians. These
various strategies can, in turn, encourage women to run for office due to
increased resources and security for their campaigns. Party funding: In
countries where parties are publicly funded, regulating how these funds are used
can be an effective way of promoting women’s participation.27 Candidate-centred
regulations present incentives for parties to nominate or elect greater numbers
of women, with funding being conditional on how many women are put forward by a
given party. Parties may lose a share of funding if they do not nominate a
certain percentage of female candidates, as in France where state subsidies are
reduced by 75 per cent of the difference between the proportions of women and
men if these exceed more than 2 percentage points, and in Ireland, where party
funding is reduced by 50 per cent if parties do not nominate at least 30 per
cent women.28 In other countries, parties are rewarded for nominating women. In
Ethiopia, a required percentage is not specified, but support is determined
according to how many women are nominated by each party. In Georgia and Italy,
rewards are more explicitly enumerated. In Georgia, a party will receive an
additional 10 per cent of the funds it is entitled to if there are at least 20
per cent candidates of a different sex per group of 10 candidates. In Italy, the
proportion of state funding lost by parties that do not respect the legislative
quota for European Parliament election is, in turn, distributed as a bonus to
parties that do comply. In states as diverse as Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Colombia, Mali and Niger, between 5 and 10 per cent of state funding is
allocated to parties based on their share of women elected, encouraging parties
to elect as many women as possible. In other countries, the regulation is more
explicitly formulated as a bonus. Laws can also require that parties earmark a
certain percentage of their public funding for activities that contribute to
capacity-building for women. Each party in Mexico, for instance, must devote 2
per cent of their annual public funding to the training, promotion and
development of women’s leadership skills. In Panama, at least 10 per cent of the
25 per cent of party funding dedicated to civic and political education
activities must be channelled solely towards the training of women. Campaign
support: In a global survey of 300 MPs, lack of finances emerged as one of the
most significant factors deterring women from entering politics (Ballington,
2008: 18). States can intervene by indirect funding of political campaigns. In
Timor-Leste, more broadcast media time is given to parties that place women in
high positions on their party lists, which in past elections has had the effect
of encouraging the nomination of women and their visibility during the campaign
(Sidhu and Meena, 2007: 31; UNDP-NDI, 2011: 30). In Afghanistan, a 2014
regulation required the state-run media to provide equal facilities to all
candidates, including broadcasting and advertising messages free of cost.29
Anti-violence laws: The issue of electoral violence against women running for
and/or holding elected office is increasingly recognised. It includes inflicting
physical, sexual or psy-
Promoting gender equality in elected office 171 chological harm or suffering
intended to deter women’s political participation. Acknowledging this problem,
legislators in several Latin American countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador,
Guatemala and Mexico, have sought to enact laws to prevent and punish all forms
of persecution, harassment and violence against women in politics (Salguero
Carrillo, 2009). In 2012, Bolivian legislators approved the ground-breaking Law
against Harassment and Political Violence against Women. This was in response to
demands from women’s organisations who pointed out that, over the previous eight
years, police had received more than 4,000 complaints of harassment from women
participating in politics – a figure that most likely does not reflect the full
extent of the problem, given that many incidents are not reported.30
CONCLUSIONS: ELECTORAL QUOTAS AND BEYOND Many contemporary efforts to promote
gender equality in elected office have revolved around gender quotas as one way
to strengthen feminist governance. Yet women leaders have different interests,
values and concerns, as well as coming from diverse political parties, racial
and ethnic groups, and socioeconomic sectors. Moreover, backbench
representatives often have limited capacity to change either parliamentary
procedures or policy outcomes. As a result, more inclusive legislative bodies
reflecting principles of gender equality do not mean that feminist concerns in
the electorate will be reflected automatically in processes of governance.
Nevertheless, the substantial body of research summarised in this Handbook
indicates that women in elected office have the capacity to advance feminist
governance (cf. Bacchi, 1999; Franceschet et al., 2012). While quotas constitute
a crucial mechanism for achieving gender equality, they do not exhaust the list
of options available for recasting the political recruitment process. The
diversity of supplementary measures – implemented by civil society groups,
political parties, parliaments and state agencies – suggests a broad array of
creative solutions. In states with quotas, additional strategies may expand the
pool of potential candidates and promote a broader transformation in public
views towards women in politics. In those without quotas, other strategies
present an alternative path to women’s political integration. Evidence from
around the world suggests that the main barriers to women’s increased election
are political, rather than social, economic or cultural (Kittilson, 2006; Krook,
2010). Dramatic changes are thus not likely to occur without deliberate
interventions to increase the number of viable female candidates, empowering
women in governance.
NOTES 1. Par. 182, http:// www .un .org/ womenwatch/ daw/ beijing/ fwcwn .html.
2. https:// www .oecd .org/ gov/ women -in -government .htm. 3.
Inter-Parliamentary Union (2020) Women in Parliament: 1995–2020: 25 Years in
Review. https:// www .ipu .org/ resources/ publications/ reports/ 2020 -03/
women -in -parliament -1995 -2020 -25 -years -in -review. 4. IPU. http://
archive .ipu .org/ wmn -e/ speakers .htm. 5. Pippa Norris and Mona Lena Krook
(2014) Handbook on Promoting Women’s Participation in Political Parties, Warsaw:
OSCE. http:// www .osce .org/ odihr/ 120877. 6. Par. 184, 189, 192, 194. http://
www .un .org/ womenwatch/ daw/ beijing/ fwcwn .html. 7. For the lists of
countries, see http:// www .quotaproject .org; https:// www .idea .int/ data
-tools/ data/ gender -quotas/ country -overview.
172 Handbook of feminist governance 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
Par. 194. http:// www .un .org/ womenwatch/ daw/ beijing/ fwcwn .html. For the
lists of countries, see http:// www .quotaproject .org; https:// www .idea .int/
data -tools/ data/ gender -quotas/ country -overview. http:// www .5050democracy
.eu/ . See, for example, http:// www .cawp .rutgers .edu/ fast _facts/ index
.php. http:// www .ipu .org/ wmn -e/ classif .htm and http:// www .ipu .org/ wmn
-e/ classif -arc .htm. http:// www .cawp .rutgers .edu/ education _training/
2012Project/ index .php. Personal interview with Lesley Abdela, founder of the
300 Group. For a state-by-state list, see http:// www .cawp .rutgers .edu/
education _training/ trainingresources/ index .php. http:// womeninpublicservice
.org/ . http:// www .emilyslist .org. http:// emilyslist .org/ who/ we _are
_emily/ . http:// www .women2win .com. Nigeria Report to the UN CEDAW Committee,
April 2003, p. 19. http:// www2 .warwick .ac .uk/ fac/ soc/ pais/ research/
gcrp/ . http:// www .aph .gov .au/ About _Parliament/ Parliamentary
_Departments/ Parliamentary _Library/ Parliamentary _Handbook/ womennow; http://
www .parliament .uk/ mps -lords -and -offices/ mps/ ; http:// www .assemblee
-nationale .fr/ histoire/ femmes/ index .asp. http:// www .assemblee -nationale
.fr/ histoire/ femmes/ citoyennete _politique .asp. http:// www .scottish
.parliament .uk/ visitandlearn/ 12522 .aspx. http:// www3 .diputados .gob .mx/
index .php/ camara/ 001 _diputados/ 006 _centros _de _estudio/ 05 _centro _de
_estudios _para _el _adelanto _de _las _mujeres _y _la _equidad _de _genero/
000d _que _hacemos. http:// www .rwandaparliament .gov .rw/ parliament/
forumrwpf .aspx. All data is from http:// www .idea .int/ political -finance/ ,
unless explicitly specified in the text. https:// www .dfa .ie/ irish
-consulate/ sydney/ news -and -events/ latest -news/ irelands -experience -of
-parliamentary -gender -quotas .html. http:// aceproject .org/ epic -en/
CDCountry ?set _language = en & topic = ME & country = AF. http:// www .unwomen
. org/ 2 012/ 0 6/ b olivia -approves -a -landmark -law -against -harassment -of
-women -political -leaders/ .
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133–53. Ashe, Jeanette and Kennedy Stewart (2012) ‘Legislative Recruitment:
Using Diagnostic Testing to Explain Underrepresentation’, Party Politics 18(5):
687–707. Bacchi, Carol Lee (1999) Women, Policy, and Politics, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage. Ballington, Julie (2008) Equality in Politics, Geneva:
Inter-Parliamentary Union. Curtin, Jennifer (2017) ‘Ardern Vows to Improve
Cabinet Gender Balance’, RNZ, 20 October. https:// www .rnz .co .nz/ news/
political/ 342022/ ardern -vows -to -improve -cabinet -gender -balance.
Dahlerup, Drude (ed.) (2006) Women, Quotas, and Politics, London: Routledge.
Franceschet, Susan, Mona Lena Krook and Jennifer M. Piscopo (eds) (2012) The
Impact of Gender Quotas, New York: Oxford University Press. Hoodfar, Homa and
Mona Tajali (2011) Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women, London:
Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Jones, Mark P. (2009) ‘Gender Quotas, Electoral
Laws, and the Election of Women: Evidence from the Latin American Vanguard’,
Comparative Political Studies 42(1): 56–81. Kantola, Johanna (2019) ‘Women’s
Organizations of Political Parties: Formal Possibilities, Informal Challenges
and Discursive Controversies’, NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender
Research 27(1): 4–21.
Promoting gender equality in elected office 173 Kittilson, Miki Caul (2006)
Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in
Contemporary Western Europe, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Krook,
Mona Lena (2009) Quotas for Women in Politics, New York: Oxford University
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Comparative-Gendered Approach’, Perspectives on Politics 8(1): 233–40. Krook,
Mona Lena, Joni Lovenduski and Judith Squires (2009) ‘Gender Quotas and Models
of Political Citizenship’, British Journal of Political Science 39(4): 781–803.
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Swedish Women on the Move, Stockholm: Swedish Institute.
14. Gender-sensitive parliaments: feminising formal political institutions Sarah
Childs and Sonia Palmieri
INTRODUCTION The ideal and practice of gender-sensitive parliaments (GSP) is
just two decades old. We date the first publication as Gender Sensitizing
Commonwealth Parliaments, produced by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
(CPA) in 2001. We argue the 2010s publications by the Inter Parliamentary Union
(IPU) were critical to GSP’s wider dissemination and uptake. By 2020, GSP was a
truly global political phenomenon – an emergent and arguably widely accepted
international norm – and we posit, an important and successful case of feminist
activism in the field of governance. This is not to say that the world’s
parliaments have achieved gender sensitivity. In too many parliaments women lack
equal representation, descriptive, substantive and symbolic. Conceived of as
workplaces, most elected political institutions remain modelled on the
preferences and habits of the male elected representatives and the male
parliamentary clerk and officials who built, maintain and continue to
overpopulate them. This ‘state of the art’ study offers the first analysis of
competing GSP frameworks and toolkits, illuminating how the ideal and practice
of GSP has developed over time. We are moreover keen to show how GSP efforts
constitute a positive example of iterative dialogue between academics and
practitioners, even as these relationships are not always straightforward.
Gender insensitive parliaments are characterised by male-dominated membership
and leaderships which legitimise male decision-makers and masculinised
decision-making; they ignore the differential impacts of policy and legislation
across demographic populations; and in privileging and normalising (some) men,
they moreover marginalise and fail to represent women. As a norm, GSP
articulates a set of expectations, and demands institutional actions to bring
about: equality of participation and leadership between women and men;
infrastructure provision, working practices and environments that meets women’s
needs; a non-discriminatory parliamentary culture, with the elimination of
sexism, gendered bullying and sexual harassment; and the substantive
representation of women across all the work of parliament, including its
legislative and policy outputs. In sum, GSP are inclusive, with women and men
sharing genuine power, and with their core business and systems oriented towards
the goal of gender equality. Amidst multiple transnational efforts, lessons
learned in one country are ‘taken abroad’ and shared via international
governmental organisations (IGOs), parliamentary organisations, and individual
and organised groups of elected members and officials and clerks. Two
illustrations: the ‘Mother’ of the UK Parliament, Harriet Harman MP, recently
shared her experience of introducing proxy voting for MPs on ‘baby leave’ with
the Canadian parliament; the former Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament, the
Rt Hon. David Carter, having held a key role in the IPU executive, played an
influential role in implementing family-friendly practices back home (Palmieri
and Baker, 2022). There is informal evidence too of inter-parliamentary com174
Gender-sensitive parliaments 175 petition, with, for example, head clerks
apparently vying to be the most inclusive institution – ‘we have more gay MPs
than you’, or ‘we have gender balance in our executive ranks’.1 With all this
activity, it is not surprising that politics and gender scholars, especially
those who wish to see political institutions re-gendered/feminised, have also
taken a keen interest in GSP. For scholars associated with feminist
institutionalism (FI) the relationship is stronger still: as central democratic
institutions parliaments have long been of interest to FI because their core
functions – representation, oversight, legislation – all contribute to,
exacerbate or reinforce, societal gendered conceptions, relations and
structures. Academic interests are both conceptual and empirical: not content
with simply understanding the extent to which parliaments are gender sensitive,
academics have been concerned with nature of the ‘gender’ and ‘sensitive’
components of the GSP approach. And, in some of this work, a clear demarcation
between the academic (who studies) and the practitioner (who acts on/in an
institution) is blurred, alongside the positive effects and associated tensions
that the GSP academic must negotiate as they go about their work. We are,
admittedly, professionally (and personally) invested in all this. Palmieri is
the author of key 2010s IPU documents, and a cross-over academic/practitioner
having worked on GSP at global, regional and national levels; Childs is the
author of The Good Parliament Report, the outcome of a secondment to the UK
House of Commons and the 2020 CPA GSP Guidelines; and together we co-authored
the 2020 UN Women GSP Covid-19 Guidelines. Our grounded GSP experiences permit
particular insights into the relationships and power dynamics that arise when
advancing GSP regarding (a) the feminist epistemic community and (b) within the
non-feminist practitioner community. In reflecting on these experiences, we
explore the politics of parliamentary transformation, institutional resistance
and opportunities presented by crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. A key
observation is that parliamentary acceptance of the GSP norm depends
significantly on institutional culture – which in some cases remains
unapologetically masculinised (see Lovenduski, 2005) – and capacity, as well as
the extent to which gender-sensitive norms can easily be translated into local
contexts.
GENDER-SENSITIVE PARLIAMENTS: A 20-YEAR HISTORY The body of work that
constitutes GSP guidance is long-standing. We have only recently come to
appreciate that this work dates back to 2001, when the CPA organised a study
group to examine ‘conventions and language embedded in Standing Orders that
possibly affect behaviour and attitudes towards women’ – quickly widened to
explore other ‘aspects of parliamentary life which women find alienating or
difficult’. The CPA was clear that across Commonwealth parliaments women were
underrepresented on the basis of their gender; that this constituted an
unacceptable state of affairs; that women’s greater political participation is a
societal ‘good’; and that once present within a parliament, women must gain
‘real’ power. In addition to its formal recommendations and informal
suggestions, the 2001 CPA Report spent considerable time discussing the role
that the CPA as an external, supranational organisation could and should play in
bringing about GSP reforms, alongside identifying internal parliamentary actors
and institutions: Women MPs who should highlight the poor behaviour by male MPs,
act as role models and directly encourage young women (schoolgirls and
university students) to participate in politics; Political parties, who must
‘recognise’ the need to provide
176 Handbook of feminist governance support for women candidates; and a
parliament’s Speaker, to ensure a ‘high’ standard of debate. Interestingly, the
IPU’s 2011 GSP report was not inspired by the CPA’s work, but rather followed
from its own (2006) workshop report on the role of parliamentary committees in
mainstreaming gender equality, and its (2008) Equality in Politics survey, which
highlighted the need for more research into ‘parliamentary interventions
addressing gender inequality and discrimination within their structures,
processes and practices, and policies’. Both of these publications were driven
by Julie Ballington, who, in her previous role at International IDEA, had
steered the second edition of the publication Women in Parliament: Beyond
Numbers (2008). Together, these reports acknowledged the importance of women
elected representatives’ presence but reoriented the focus towards the
conditions under which women might use their numbers ‘to contribute
substantively to policy making’. In his foreword to the IPU 2006 report, Anders
B. Johnsson – then IPU Secretary General – remarked: ‘ultimately, parliaments
must become gender sensitive, and mainstreaming gender equality in committee
work and parliamentary outputs is essential for ensuring respect for women’s
rights.’ Since the early 2000s, then, GSP approaches have been advanced by a
range of organisations, albeit underwritten by a core set of GSP specialists
(see Appendix, Table A14.1). In the chronology below, we outline the
institutions and authors behind each publication, and summarise their
distinctive contributions with respect to GSP definitions and foci, and
methodology and method. In reviewing these approaches, our intention is to
distil critical, non-negotiable aspects from those less imperative, as well as
noting the critical methodologies supporting parliaments’ review of their gender
sensitivity. Importantly, we note that this is a comparison of essentially
‘political documents’ produced through compromise among diverse political
stakeholders, frequently but not exclusively parliamentarians. Such compromises
are often necessary to achieve consensus about what can be done in relation to
GSP in a particular case, or at an organisational or international level. As
authors of some of these publications, we have had to participate in such
negotiations, reflecting the realities of engendering change on the ground,
rather than from the perspective of the ivory tower;2 our work has at times been
reorganised and reframed to meet alternative politics and priorities.3
Definition and Foci Early GSP approaches – detailed in definitions and
recommendations – revolved around women’s participation and leadership. GSP were
defined as institutions that ‘remove barriers’ for women (principally as MPs)
and that are ‘responsive’ to women’s interests. Not surprisingly, the emphasis
of early recommendations lay in redressing significant imbalances in terms of
women’s leadership (across political and parliamentary roles); the management of
work and family responsibilities; and voice (e.g. through the promotion of
cross-party women’s caucuses). A second theme evident in early definitions is
the equation of gender sensitivity with ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’,
drawing on neo-institutionalist arguments of improved functionality. Linking
gender sensitivity with stronger workplace practice aimed to showcase
parliaments as institutions for the ‘modern society’ and to encourage greater
‘buy-in’ among those not yet converted. The modern parliament could leave behind
its discriminatory past by adopting gender management tools and restructuring
its organograms: instituting affirmative action in selection processes;
developing codes of conduct that punished sexist behaviour; creating new
mechanisms for policy and legislative influence (e.g. a dedicated committee).
Gender-sensitive parliaments 177 Gender equality was, arguably, an implied
benefit of GSP, rather than its ultimate objective. Indeed, the emphasis on
‘structures, processes, methods and work’ assumed that the institutionalisation
of gender mainstreaming would circumvent political resistance to gender equality
as an institutional objective. Over time, however, GSP iterations and toolkits
have more clearly articulated parliament’s responsibility to deliver gender
equality. The importance of this shift lies both in the recognition that gender
equality should be the ultimate objective of all parliamentary work, and that
parliaments are responsible for that outcome. No longer can women MPs, and/or
women parliamentary workers be primarily responsible for the labour of
feminising their political institutions; such acts even when shared with good
men are not sustainable in the long term and indeed may very well face
institutional backlash and backsliding from parliamentary and other critics.
Taking this opportunity to clarify these elements in a new definition of GSP, we
suggest: A GSP values and prioritises gender equality as a social, economic and
political objective and reorients and transforms a parliament’s institutional
culture, processes and practices, and outputs towards these objectives. What we
are suggesting, in other words, is that a ‘missing ingredient’ from earlier GSP
work, including our own, has been the recognition of the gender
equality-oriented culture required to fuel and entrench gender sensitivity; this
results not simply from the institutionalisation of mainstreaming GS processes
and practices, even though the institutionalisation of GSP is fundamental.
Rather, it is an internally and externally driven understanding and acceptance
of the normative principle of gender equality for all, and by all. It is
captured, we argue, in the distinction between gender-sensitive parliaments
(noun) and gender-sensitising parliaments (verb). From what we have observed to
date, cultivating and sustaining such a cultural transformation is far from
easy, and requires greater academic and IGO attention to GSP advocacy,
conceptualisation, operationalisation, and implementation and review.
Methodology and Method Encouraging parliaments to reflect on – and change –
their institutional processes, practices and cultures has to date been achieved
in various ways. Across IGOs and parliamentary associations there are
differences in methodological approaches to GSP activity and support, with some
based on quantitative assessment methods, while others take a mixed method
approach. The EIGE, for example, developed an online assessment survey, the
statistical results of which are published on its website, ranking parliaments
from most to least gender sensitive.4 More qualitative approaches, conversely,
have been supported in one of two ways: (i) self-assessment, driven by the
parliament and supported by an international organisation; or (ii) an audit,
conducted by an ‘independent person or group of individuals (such as auditors,
researchers or parliamentary development specialists)’ (IPU 2016: 9). For the
IPU, the difference in these two processes lies in ‘ownership’: the former being
owned by the parliament, while the latter is externally motivated, and in some
sense autonomous. Data on audits has not as yet been systematically gathered
(Childs, 2016; Verge et al., 2019), although ‘stock-taking and reform-planning’
exercises have been carried out with support from the IPU in Bangladesh (2012),
Chile (2012), Colombia (2019), Georgia (2018), Kenya (2016),
178 Handbook of feminist governance Namibia (2018), Rwanda (2012), Serbia
(2019), Sweden (2010), Tanzania (2017), Turkey (2012), Uganda (2012) and the
United Kingdom (2018).5 Is the audit or the self-assessment preferable? The
IPU’s general preference has been to support self-assessments because they
facilitate a particular operationalisation of GSP that works ‘with’ a
parliament’s history, politics, institutional characteristics and the
preferences of its institutional actors. For the IPU, GSP is not a fixed ideal
or a prescriptive model; its expectations have, and we would argue should, move
with the times, and reflect the particular institutional and indeed wider
context. A similar, admittedly inherited, sentiment characterises the approach
of the UN Women in their Covid-19 GSP primer and checklist, in which there are
procedural outcome goals and questions to ask of institutions rather than a set
of objective measures to impose on a parliament. The likelihood of a parliament
responding positively to the self-assessment and implementing GSP reforms is,
all other things being equal, enhanced, because they are owned and ‘fit’ the
case. On the other hand, audits, because of their greater autonomy, may provide
for more critical analysis and more radical recommendations. Here, there may be
the possibility of advocating for reforms beyond the ‘low hanging fruit’, and to
address gender insensitivities that require substantial reform and/or which
would normally be avoided because they disadvantage powerful parliamentary
actors and vested interests. We remain ultimately agnostic. Determining which
approach – audit or self-assessment – constitutes the best option should be
determined by a case- and context-specific answer. Most importantly, neither the
audit nor the self-assessment denies the value of the gender expert, which is
for us absolutely critical to a successful GSP exercise. Without specialist
guidance, GSP efforts risk pandering to the prejudices and preferences of
parliamentarians. Of note: a number of parliamentary self-assessments supported
by the IPU (and other IGOs) have been facilitated by an external actor. Where
gender experts are deployed – whether external or ‘in-house’ – audits and
self-assessments benefit from an aspiration at least and a ‘shared vision’ of
gender sensitivity at best. It must be said, however, that the role of the
gender expert differs in self-assessment and audit: if in the former s/he
facilitates the parliament’s assessment of gaps and strategies for redress, in
the latter, the gender auditor plays a stronger hand in the determination of
recommendations to ensure that they meet the standard of local and/or
international gender experts.
BUILDING GENDER-SENSITIVE PARLIAMENTS: A FEMINIST ENDEAVOUR? Parliaments do not
become gender sensitive on their own. Along with the guidance and methodology
outlined above, building GSP requires support – and considerable leadership and
persuasion – from international organisations and parliamentary associations,
domestic civil society gender practitioners and academics. We now turn to the
feminist academic’s role in this process. GSP and the Feminist Academic GSP was
at first a practitioner-led activity; only more recently has it become something
that academics study and do. Accurate at the general level this statement risks,
as already intimated, masking the back-and-forth movement between academia and
the field for key GSP
Gender-sensitive parliaments 179 practitioners – not least Palmieri (Box 14.1)
– and of failing to recognise the different roles that academics have played in
advancing GSP as both an ideal and as a practice, and of the tensions (and
reputational risk) that might be associated with these different positions and
roles. With no single definition or model of GSP (as the first section of this
chapter lays out) the academic working directly with international organisation
or parliamentary association will adopt their particular approach and
methodology. Whether the academic is commissioned or acting more independently
will, moreover, mediate how they approach their work on the ground and
publication and other outputs. To what extent can one be critical or revise the
approach or particular measures, or mix and match between models? Childs, for
example, has shifted in the last five years from GSP to Diversity-Sensitive
Parliaments and back to GSP, as if such a move is unproblematic conceptually or
practically. Those working with more than one governmental organisation or
association over time will need to navigate these differences in definition,
models and methodology.
BOX 14.1 BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND THE FIELD In 2010, the IPU chose Palmieri as its
GSP project lead, on the basis of her academic and parliamentary experience: she
had taught university-level gender politics; investigated the gendered dynamics
of Australian parliamentary committees in her doctoral thesis; and had worked
for the Australian Department of the House of Representatives. As a consequence,
the IPU’s GSP report was informed by a feminist institutionalist understanding
of parliament, if not explicitly framed in those terms. Palmieri continued to
work with the IPU as a ‘GSP expert’, deployed on short-term missions to the
parliaments of Egypt (2016), Fiji (2016), Tanzania (2017), Rwanda (2012) and
Uganda (2012), as well as a researcher, designing and leading a new project to
capture GSP change in the parliaments of Belgium, Bolivia, Namibia and New
Zealand (2018–19). Through other organisations, including the OECD [2016; 2017],
OSCE ODIHR [2013; 2015], UNDP [2011; 2012; 2015], UN Women [2014–15; 2020] and
the World Bank [2016], Palmieri has engaged with national and regional actors,
to encourage GSP understanding and endorsement. These experiences have informed
both practice, in the form of new GSP guidance (Childs and Palmieri, 2020), and
theory, including conceptualisations of GSP as a research agenda (Palmieri,
2018), and as an emergent international norm (Palmieri and Baker, 2022). In
2015, Childs ‘invited herself’ into the UK House of Commons, prompted by her
earlier experiences working behind the scenes towards the establishment of the
Women and Equalities Committee (Childs and Challender, 2019). Responding to the
feminist desire to transform as well as study the world (Campbell and Childs,
2013), and enabled by a governmental and university impact agenda, Childs
received funding that enabled a full-time secondment at Westminster. That she, a
‘known feminist’, was let in reflected the fact that Childs had sufficient
academic credentials, and established inter-personal relations on both the
political (from 1997) and administrative side of the House (from early 2000s),
at a time when a Clerk, who valued academic/parliamentary links, could sign off
a pass form. A non-partisan approach, alongside academic books on the two main
parties, plus formal (The 2010 Speaker’s Conferencea) and informal (Improving
Parliamentb) advisory roles in the House, meant that for key political GSP
actors, including the Speaker, Childs’
180 Handbook of feminist governance feminism would be welcome. Formally
independent, she was responsible for the content of her Report neither to Mr
Speaker nor to the House but to her university; the extent to which claims to be
able to ‘change’ the institution as a consequence of the secondment would be
realised. Such accountability meant that The Good Parliament could never be a
‘fantasy feminist shopping bag’ of reforms, but would need to be made up of a
series of technically accurate and politically viable recommendations.c Sources:
a https:// www .parliament .uk/ business/ committees/ committees -a -z/ other
-committees/ speakers -conference -on -parliamentary -representation/ . b
http:// appgimpro vingparlia mentreport .co .uk/ download/ APPG -Women -In
-Parliament -Report -2014 .pdf. c Childs (2016).
The feminist academic brings something distinctive to the project of GSP –
academic knowledge that might at times ‘get in the way’ of a practitioner’s
goals. If the academic is also working with a parliament, their academic
knowledge will be mediated through the knowledge they gain of the institution
when they are in the field too. Put baldly, the academic seeking to bring about
GSP change, armed with the international organisation/parliamentary association
model, is facing two or even three pathways: the ivory tower; the real-world
parliament in front of them; and/or (where they are commissioned), the
international organisation/parliamentary association. Reconciling these can be a
quotidian task. That said, we would suggest that any academic attuned to the
history of GSP work over the last two decades, and well-read in FI, will be
cognisant that re-gendering parliaments is going to be a hard, messy and
exhausting business. GSP and the Feminist Epistemic Community Building GSP is
very much characterised by the ‘feminist art of the possible’. By this we do not
mean to imply that ‘anything goes’. Instead, we suggest three accountability
tensions that are characteristic of and mediate the feminist art. First,
accountability to feminist identities and communities. GSP feminist content is
not always explicitly stated in the work undertaken by GSP practitioners –
international organisation/parliamentary association and/or academic. Oftentimes
this will be strategic and justified by the political context on the ground and
perceptions of negative audience reception. But questions are left about the
costs of hiding our feminist ‘ends’. And there is, moreover, the question of
whose feminism, and how much feminism counts? Are some gender insensitivities
simply non-negotiable but others up for discussion and, if necessary, diluting
and/or downgrading? What if the context is such that GSP work ends up producing
recommendations that are far from the author’s own feminist sensibility but
which are nonetheless adjudged to have the best chance of engendering positive
change? And what of alternative or competing feminist definitions? Is the GSP
academic accountable to other feminist perspectives, even when they may not be
as cognisant of the complexity of the institutional constraints that she is
working with (defined by the international organisation/parliamentary
association and/ or parliament itself)? In particular cases there may be
differences of perspective between extra-parliamentary feminist actors and
parliamentary actors (women MPs, and feminists on the political and
administrative side) that require some form of reconciliation. Should she have
contemporaneous accountability obligations to a wider feminist community/ities,
or merely expect to be held to account later?
Gender-sensitive parliaments 181 Such considerations shift the debate onto the
terrain of feminist co-option scholarship (see Chappell and Mackay, 2020; Eschle
and Maiguashca, 2018; Holvikivi, 2019; Chapter 4 in this Handbook), and on to
contemporary feminist debates regarding women’s intra-group differences.
Consideration should therefore be given to what is hidden by use of the term
gender in GSP. For much of its history, the term gender referred to men and
women, and gender inequality to the differences in access to decision-making and
the outcomes of such decisions, and between women and men. In effect, gender was
a synonym for sex (Carver, 1996), even as it was conceptualised as socially
constructed.6 At the same time, women’s access to political power and the
experiences of women in society were always mediated by other aspects of their
identity. Accordingly, and we would suggest unproblematically, a GSP approach
would need to be an intersectional one (Crenshaw, 1991; Hill Collins and Bilge,
2016). The capacity of GSP frameworks to capture and/or redress intersectional
parliamentary gender insensitivities have yet, we would argue, to be fully
interrogated or foregrounded in GSP publications/ frameworks, or in audits. What
changes, for example, in conceptualising and operationalising GSP if one starts
from the perspective and experiences of the most marginalised women? What
reforms might be necessary to permit her to participate and participate
effectively in a parliament? What kinds of policy outcomes does she require of
her parliament? Likewise, what changes are required to the framework when trans
and non-binary identities are included (cf. Tremblay, 2019)? Claims that a shift
from gender to diversity sensitive framework might be more effective on the
ground, more theoretically appropriate, and thus the best strategy – demand
(future) interrogation.7 Second, accountability to feminist objectives and
standards. GSP is not best thought of as a fixed standard with discrete
indicators but manifest in multiple, context-specific ways, with specific
parliaments achieving gender sensitivity to a greater or lesser extent. As
contexts change, so too should standards of gender equality and thus gender
sensitivity. Feminists should aim high with GSP conceived as a progressive set
of aims that are responsive to new opportunities and challenges, and with
attention to building capacity to resist backlash through the normalisation and
entrenchment (read: institutionalisation) of GSP ideals and practices. As the
CPA 2020 Guidelines make explicit, in the 20 years between publications there
have been developments, positive and negative, on the ground in terms of women’s
political participation, as well as developments in the study of women’s
political representation, that should be brought to bear on revisions and new
standards. Recall how the UN’s ‘30 per cent’ goal for women MPs is more
frequently today challenged by the ideal of 50:50 equal presence, or parity.
More specifically, a couple of recommendations in the 2001 CPA GSP Report would
not end up in the revised 2020 Guidelines because they are no longer considered
sufficient. The informal and opaque practice of ‘pairing’ MPs to assist those
with new babies is now rejected in favour of providing the parent MP with a
proxy vote or some other formal and transparent means to register their
position. Pairing may still work for those with an illness, but today the notion
that the pregnant or new mother MP is ‘ill’, or that her rights to leave should
be dependent upon the agreement of another member, has much less credibility.
Ditto, the apparent growing acceptance of MPs breastfeeding in the world’s
parliaments which in turn reflects greater social acceptability of public
breastfeeding. Finally, accountability to feminist practice. Here we very
briefly refer to established notions in the wider feminist literature regarding
how best to undertake research: critical (self‑) reflection, the emancipatory
ideal and the ethical responsibility to those we work with and for. Taking such
feminist research commitments into the parliamentary field may be easier said
182 Handbook of feminist governance than done. This might be due to the
practicalities of the project, such as time and resources, although it may also
be constrained by the approach to GSP adopted by the international
organisation/parliamentary association. Collaborations and co-production may
simply not be feasible within the terms of consultancy, for example; a purely or
largely quantitative method of determining GSP cannot give ‘voice’ to women in a
parliament (whether MP, official or other worker), even as it may provide other
highly useful data. Similarly, a top-down approach may miss the views of those
women at the bottom of the hierarchy or those marginalised to the sides, and/or
few in number, and yet these perspectives may be critical to fully capturing the
(intersectional) gender insensitivities in a particular institution. One of us
vividly recalls being told by senior male politicians not to accept the views of
women elected representatives who were, because of their newness as Members,
simply misunderstanding, and hence wrongly critiquing, how the parliament
worked. Discounting views in this way rather goes against the idea of
accountability to our research subjects and for ensuring our research benefits
women. And do we, as GSP practitioners, take sufficient stock of our previous
work in any systematic and critical fashion, or engage in reflective exercises
with the beneficiaries of our inquiries (MPs and staffers)? Once again, the
question of working with (diverse) extra-parliamentary feminist actors comes
into view. In all this, then, there is more we could do to subject our own
efforts – to gather data, to identify reforms and to persuade those with the
power to change things – to systematic and careful self-criticism. GSP and the
Non-Feminist Practitioner Community Notwithstanding that feminist impact on
electoral politics can occur in multiple spaces (Campbell and Childs, 2013:
185), the GSP project requires direct change in parliaments, endorsed – at least
at some level – by a non-feminist community of practice. This raises three
inter-related challenges for the feminist GSP academic and/or practitioner:
anti-gender resistance, individual credibility and time. Perhaps in recognition
that GSP require both gender targeted and gender mainstreamed interventions,
resistance is often couched in seemingly ‘gender-neutral’ terms. Resisters argue
that ‘men face the same obstacles as women’ to political participation and
leadership, and that gender is but ‘one of many issues’ to be considered by
parliament. These arguments place the GSP feminist in a difficult position: she
can either accept that these arguments are made in good faith, albeit with
considerable gender blindness, or she can take them as a disingenuous attempt at
dismissal. Either way, mounting persuasive counter-arguments to this resistance
requires, at the very least, individual and institutional credibility. Here
again, challenges arise. Even where she is introduced as a ‘GSP expert’, for
example, Palmieri has seen her credibility in the field contested on three
counts: age (too young), experience (not a Member of Parliament) and nationality
(from the Global North). Aside from a general preference among parliamentarians
to learn from their peers (notably other MPs, preferably from their own region),
credibility is questioned where the practitioner appears to lack cultural
knowledge: during a workshop, a male MP tellingly spoke, ‘But Sonia, in our
villages, women are often referred to as “the kitchen”’; in another, having
sensed her audience of women MPs required some kind of acknowledgement of
cultural affinity, Palmieri felt compelled to declare her African ancestry.
Building credibility, however, requires time – something the practitioner does
not always have, presenting a third set of challenges. Positive examples of GSP
change have happened while practitioners were deployed for significant periods
of time. In Fiji, for example,
Gender-sensitive parliaments 183 the United Nations Development Fund seconded a
parliamentary staffer from the Welsh Assembly for five months to support the
work of parliamentary committees. Having established some trust and credibility
among both MPs and staff with whom she worked every day in their inquiries, this
practitioner was able to develop guidance on gender-sensitive legislative
scrutiny, based on the IPU standards.8 Considerable time and space are also
required where GSP change is encouraged through MPs’ self-assessment and
reflections. As shown elsewhere in this Handbook (Chapter 9) time is both
central to the concept of feminist governance and a major challenge. Being
notoriously time poor, asking MPs to spend time reflecting on parliamentary
functionality and gender sensitivity results in either disjointed, unfocused
reflection (with MPs coming in and out of deliberations), or skewed attendance
(with the ‘converted’ over-represented). Finally, it is clear that time plays
another key role in norm diffusion – for GSP to be more widely endorsed and
implemented across the world’s parliaments. As mentioned earlier, the IPU has
supported GSP interventions in 13 countries since the publication of its 2011
report. But in the words of one of its senior officers, ‘10 years is not a long
time’!9
CONCLUSION An apposite moment to take stock of the ideal and practice of GSP
occurred in 2020: parliaments around the world have had to respond to new and
gendered challenges raised by Covid-19; and representative democracy is facing
seemingly more contestation from populist, anti-democratic and anti-feminist
forces. The mushrooming of GSP approaches means that political actors and other
interested parties do not suffer from a lack of knowledge about how to go about
transforming their elected political institutions into ones that are inclusive
of women and seek redress of gender inequality. We have some concerns,
nevertheless, that this multiplication might risk a disjointed GSP narrative and
that there may be at times something of a competition rather than cooperation
between international organisations. Instead of a global consortium of
organisations that can pool donor resources, each of these organisations tends
to attract small funds, allowing only for limited interventions rather than
comprehensive, ‘transformative’ projects. Yet, and at the same time, there is
much that is positive: there is a much stronger international norm that women’s
participation and representation in politics is both necessary and desirable;
and multiple international governmental and parliamentary association actors are
actively interested in, and have the institutional backing to, support GSP.
Related to this, there may be some evidence of trust in these various actors,
and in their ‘localised’ approaches and tools (e.g. those designed at the
regional level by EIGE). Some of these actors have strong connections in
parliaments built over decades of development partnership. The Covid-19 pandemic
has made GSP more rather than less urgent, underlining that GSP are not merely
luxuries for the good times. The UN Women ‘Primer for Parliamentary Action’
identifies a number of opportunities that should not be wasted in the wake of
the crisis, including: promoting gender equality as a matter of human rights and
democracy; trialling and showcasing institutional reflexivity, adaptation and
innovation; leading by example and including women’s different experiences,
perspectives, talents and skills in all crisis responses to ensure better
informed decisions, fairer outcomes, and evolution of ‘group think’ and
traditional ways of doing things; and taking the everyday opportunities to
address gender equality.
184 Handbook of feminist governance With the IPU, UN Women and the CPA and
Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians all having produced pandemic-responsive GSP
updates and standards, and/or new guidelines and checklists that update GSP, no
parliament can feign ignorance of how to respond in a GSP fashion to the current
crisis. Nor deny its importance. In deciding how best to proceed, we wish to
draw attention, once again, to the importance of gender-sensitising parliaments.
Our refined definition declares that a GSP as an institution that values and
prioritises gender equality as a social, economic and political objective and
reorients and transforms a parliament’s institutional culture, processes and
practices and outputs towards these objectives. Even as we recognise that
efforts towards its realisation will be fashioned by a ‘feminist art of the
possible’ in a particular case – with all the attendant questions this raises
for the actor – academic, international organisation/parliamentary associations
– and parliamentary – who undertakes such work – we close with a call to arms:
as the earliest work on GSP boldly asserted, removing gender insensitivities
from the world’s parliaments is not only about fairness; it is also, and we
concur, essentially about good governance. In its 2020 incarnations, GSP is more
explicitly about gender equality and, thus, about feminist governance.
NOTES 1. 2.
Private recollections. The work of Lena Wängnerud (2015) is perhaps a purely
academic consideration of GSP, and more precisely, of the substantive
representation of women. 3. We acknowledge that in our current (academic)
positions, we are less constrained by such political pressures. 4. https:// eige
.europa .eu/ gender -mainstreaming/ toolkits/ gender -sensitive -parliaments/
assessments/ overview. 5. Global lesson-learning from these self-assessments is
limited, because – by design – the results of these exercises remain the
property of the individual parliament and are not usually published. 6. We do
not suggest that GSP works with anything other than socially constructed ideas
of gender and gender difference. 7. See Childs (forthcoming) Building Feminist
Institutions: The Making of the Good Parliament. 8. Personal communication,
August 2020. 9. Personal communication, September 2020.
REFERENCES Ballington, Julie (2008) Equality in Politics, Geneva:
Inter-Parliamentary Union. Campbell, Rosie and Sarah Childs (2013) ‘The Impact
Imperative: Here Come the Women ☺’, Political Studies Review 11(2): 182–9.
Carver, Terrell (1996) Gender is Not a Synonym for Women, London: Lynne Rienner.
Chappell, Louise and Fiona Mackay (2020) ‘Feminist Critical Friends: Dilemmas of
Feminist Engagement with Governance and Gender Reform Agendas’, European Journal
of Politics and Gender 4(3): 321–40. https:// doi .org/ 10 .1332/ 2515
10820X1592 2354996155. Childs, Sarah (2016) The Good Parliament Report,
University of Bristol. https:// www .bristol .ac .uk/ media -library/ sites/
news/ 2016/ july/ 20 %20Jul %20Prof %20Sarah %20Childs %20The %20Good
%20Parliament %20report .pdf. Childs, Sarah and Chloe Challender (2019)
‘Re-Gendering the UK House of Commons: The Academic Critical Actor and Her
“Feminist in Residence”’, Political Studies Review 17(4): 328–39. Childs, Sarah
and Sonia Palmieri (2020) A Primer for Parliamentary Action: Gender-Sensitive
Responses to COVID-19, New York: UN Women.
Gender-sensitive parliaments 185 Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA)
(2001) Gender-Sensitizing Commonwealth Parliaments: The Report of a Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association Study Group, London: CPA. https:// www .iknowpolitics
.org/ sites/ default/ files/ cpa _gender 20sensitiz ing20commo nwealth20p
arliaments _2001 _1 .pdf. Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins:
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color’,
Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–99. Eschle, Catherine and Bice Maiguashca (2018)
‘Theorising Feminist Organizing in and Against Neoliberalism: Beyond Cooption
and Resistance?’ European Journal of Politics and Gender 1(1): 223–39. Hill
Collins, Patricia and Sirma Bilge (2016) Intersectionality. Malden, MA: Polity
Press. Holvikivi, Aiko (2019) ‘Gender Experts and Critical Friends: Research in
Relations of Proximity’, European Journal of Politics and Gender 2(1): 131–47.
IPU (2006) The Role of Parliamentary Committees in Mainstreaming Gender and
Promoting the Status of Women, Geneva: IPU. IPU (2008) Equality in Politics: A
Survey of Women and Men in Parliaments, Geneva: IPU. IPU (2016) Evaluating the
Gender Sensitivity of Parliaments: A Self-Assessment Toolkit, Geneva: IPU.
Lovenduski, Joni (ed.) (2005) State Feminism and Political Representation, New
York: Cambridge University Press. Palmieri, Sonia (2018) ‘Gender-Sensitive
Parliaments’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https:// doi .org/ 10
.1093/ acrefore/ 9780190228637 .013 .215. Palmieri, Sonia and Kerryn Baker
(2022) ‘Localising Global Norms: The Case of Family-Friendly Parliaments’,
Parliamentary Affairs 75(1): 58–75. Tremblay, Manon (2019) ‘Uncovering the
Gendered Effects of Voting Systems: A Few Thoughts about Representation of Women
and of LGBT People’. In Marian Sawer and Kerryn Baker (eds), Gender Innovation
in Political Science: New Norms, New Knowledge, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
91–114. Verge, Tània, Nazia Chowdhury and Irina Ulcica (2019) Gender Equality in
National Parliaments across the EU and the European Parliament. 2019 Results
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2016
2016
2012
parties, parliamentary staff).
and men, girls and boys to fully realise their
Co-operation and Development
in all processes, practices and procedures.’
themselves model and advance gender-sensitivity
potential requires that parliaments and legislatures
interests. Ensuring equal opportunities for women
Organisation for Economic
that all policies, including legislation, promote their practice (largely drawn
from IPU research); key actions
Parliaments
to consider; pitfalls to avoid.
Analysis of ‘why this is important’; examples of good
Each area includes:
the women and men they represent, but also ensure
Gender-Sensitive Practices in
representation).
expected to both reflect the wishes and needs of
(oversight and accountability, mainstreaming, balanced
Equality in Public Life –
in the realisation of the gender equality agenda. As representatives of the
people, parliaments are
(Independent consultant)
OECD Recommendation on Gender
Governance: Implementing the 2015
‘Parliaments and legislative bodies are core actors
review and action. Self-assessment questions across three main areas
Sonia Palmieri
Toolkit for Gender Equality in
areas, emphasises parliamentary ownership of GSP
Inter-Parliamentary Union
Self-assessment methodology across the seven action
Parliaments: A Self-Assessment Toolkit
legitimate’.
mainstreaming, culture, male champions, political
a modern society’; ‘is more efficient, effective and
Evaluating the Gender Sensitivity of
(composition and leadership, policy framework,
‘addresses and reflects the equality demands of
Assembly in 2012, outlining seven ‘key action areas’
‘a positive example or model to society at large’;
Policy document, unanimously endorsed by the IPU
change and examples of good GSP practice.
Inter-Parliamentary Union
‘responds to the needs and interests’ of both
cross-party collaboration. Research-based global report, presents evidence for
barriers to women’s full participation’ and offers
(Independent consultant)
A Global Review of Good Practice
A political institution that:
operations, methods and work’; ‘has removed the
Sonia Palmieri
Gender Sensitive Parliaments:
for work/family balance, and women’s leadership and
Presents 14 recommendations, emphasises the need
participation in parliament.
psychological barriers to women’s access and full
Defines political, cultural/economic, institutional and
by advisors from Finland.
Parliaments
and Tobago)
Association
women’.
First report of an all-female MP Study Group, supported
Plan of Action for Gender Sensitive
Representatives of Trinidad
Commonwealth Parliamentary
the barriers which inhibit fullest participation by
Distinctive contributions
women and men in terms of its ‘structures,
(Clerk, House of
Parliaments
A parliament that is gender sensitive ‘removes
GSP definition
Inter-Parliamentary Union
Jacqui Sampson-Jacent
Gender Sensitizing Commonwealth
2011
Author(s)
Publication
2001
Chronology of GSP guidance
Year
Table A14.1
APPENDIX
186 Handbook of feminist governance
Nazia Chowdhury and Irina
Equality
(IPU)
Note for Parliaments
Inter-Parliamentary Union
Zeina Hilal
Gender and COVID-19: A Guidance IPU definition
parliamentary interventions.
presents key questions to consider and examples of
First appraisal of GSP responses to the 2020 pandemic;
GSP research agenda.
are used effectively toward promoting gender equality.’
institutionalism and GSP; outlines a comprehensive
‘They ensure that their operations and resources
(University of Canberra)
Makes explicit the link between feminist
processes. IPU definition +
Sonia Palmieri
2020
IPU).
Gender Sensitive Parliaments
18 recommendations have been actioned since 2016;
and effective in its many functions’ (following the
2018
recommendations directed at nine institutional actors;
representative, transparent, accessible, accountable
emphasises the importance of institutionalizing DSP
sensitive parliament’ (DSP) audit; presents 43
The Good Parliament is one that is ‘truly
First published report of a parliamentary ‘diversity
exercises.
2019 results of European parliaments’ self-reporting
review and action.
functions), emphasises parliamentary ownership of GSP
areas (access, influence, spaces, legislation, symbolic
Online quantitative self-assessment tool across five
Distinctive contributions
(University of Bristol)
reiteration of the IPU definition.
respects and delivers on gender equality’ +
‘A parliament is gender-sensitive when it actively
GSP definition
Sarah Childs
The Good Parliament
(ICF S.A.)
2016
Equality
European Institute for Gender
European Parliament
Parliaments across the EU and the
Gender Equality in National
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra),
European Institute for Gender
2019
Tània Verge
Gender Sensitive Parliaments Toolkit
2018
Ulcica
Author(s)
Publication
Year
Gender-sensitive parliaments 187
Draws on short survey completed by 21 CPA
in the future.’ ‘Parliaments must work to become gender
(Australian National University) Sarah Childs (Royal Holloway University of
London)
Gender Sensitizing Parliamentary
Standards
Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association
institutionalisation and GSP processes.
and wider well-being of the public, both now, and
Palmieri
UN Women
2020
accompanying checklist; emphasises the importance of
effective containment of the disease, and the health
of London) and Sonia
COVID-19
COVID-19 response and recovery decision-making
GSP standards and accompanying checklist; emphasises the importance of
institutionalisation.
equality for all.’
Parliamentarians, Foreword)
Chairperson of the Commonwealth Women
(Hon. Shandana Gulzar Khan, MNA
parliaments undergoing a formal GSP Audit; presents
environment and must actively champion gender
GSP recommendations; restates the importance of CPA
Parliaments; reviews progress against the 2001 CPA
and disenfranchisement in their parliamentary
recognise the detrimental role of gender privilege
sensitive institutions, meaning they ought to
This is vital for public order and the rule of law, the address women’s needs;
provides a primer and
the COVID-19 pandemic with gender sensitivity.
Highlights practical actions to ensure parliaments’
(Royal Holloway University
Distinctive contributions
Gender-Sensitive Responses to
‘Parliaments have a responsibility to respond to
Sarah Childs
A Primer for Parliamentary Action:
2020
GSP definition
Author(s)
Publication
Year
188 Handbook of feminist governance
15. Tools of the trade: feminist governance in the field Sonia Palmieri and
Julie Ballington
INTRODUCTION The practice of feminist governance around the world is underpinned
by ‘normative work’ expressed in conventions, declarations, regulatory
frameworks, agreements, guidelines, codes of practice and other standard-setting
instruments, at global, regional and national level (UNEG, 2012: 5). A vast
array of organisations work to support the translation of global liberal norms
into national policy, legislation and programmatic action, including global
intergovernmental bodies, such as the United Nations (UN) system, and regional
intergovernmental bodies, like the African Union and the European Union.
Specialised international agencies, like the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Office of Democratic Institutions and
Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE
ODIHR), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
(International IDEA) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), contribute to
standard setting and dissemination, as do international non-governmental
organisations (too many to name). While normative frameworks – such as the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – provide a road map
for change, tools such as handbooks and self-assessment guides help achieve that
change at country level. They provide examples of good practice and advice on
national implementation of global norms. Yet, despite their critical role in
feminist governance, and an increasing investment from the international donor
community in their production and dissemination, relatively little is written
about these tools – or their impact – in the academic literature (exceptions
here include Arora-Jonsson and Sijapati-Basnett, 2017; Prügl, 2010; and Sawer,
2021). In part, this may be because these tools are only rarely developed –
and/or used – by academics. We write this chapter as authors of various
handbooks and tools that have been used by practitioners in the field of women’s
political participation and leadership. While Palmieri is an academic, she is
well known to the development practitioner community, having worked in (and as
an independent consultant for) a number of transnational organisations.
Ballington has held senior advisory roles within the UN system for over a
decade, preceded by extensive experience with International IDEA and the IPU.1
Together and separately, we have developed extensive guidance through which
different institutions – including parliaments, electoral administrators and
political parties – might become more inclusive and respectful of gender
equality. It is from these positions that our reflections spring and our
evidence is collected. This chapter is an exploration not only of the efficacy
of feminist governance tools to support women’s political participation and
leadership, but of the process by which we have arrived at our conclusions: that
is, through the lens of our ‘critical friendships’ (Chappell and Mackay, 2020;
Holvikivi, 2019) in this particular field. We find that feminist governance
tools are the 189
190 Handbook of feminist governance products of those who develop them, and
those who use them, and that there is considerable scope to increase both of
these pools. In doing so, we see opportunities for stronger collaboration
between academics and practitioners; between experts in the Global North and
South; and with end-users.
FEMINIST NORMATIVE FRAMEWORKS Particularly since the adoption of the Beijing
Platform for Action in 1995, much attention has focused on ensuring the improved
participation of women in public life. The normative framework for women’s
electoral and political participation is set out in covenants and conventions,
human and political rights declarations, UN resolutions, reports, and action
plans and existing UN policy on gender equality. The goal of achieving women’s
full participation in public life has its origins in the principles of
non-discrimination and equal enjoyment of political rights enshrined in the
following instruments: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted
in 1948; the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (CPRW, 1952); and other
regional conventions that explicitly state that the enjoyment of such rights
shall be without distinction of any kind, including sex or gender. Article 25 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1966)
elaborates the rights of all citizens not only to take part in the conduct of
public affairs, but also ‘to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic
elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors’ and
‘to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his [sic]
country’. Women’s right to participate fully in all facets of public life has
continued to be a cornerstone of UN resolutions and declarations. CEDAW affirms
the right of women ‘to hold public office and perform all public functions at
all levels of government’, calling on state parties to ensure women’s equal
rights to vote, stand for election and take part in formulating policy,
including through the adoption of temporary special measures (Article 4). The
1995 Platform for Action established women’s participation in decision-making as
a critical area of concern and set a target of ‘gender balance’ in legislative,
executive and administrative bodies. The Commission on the Status of Women
Agreed Conclusions 2021 (E/CN.6/2021/L.3) and 2006 (E/2006/27-E/CN.6/2006/15)
and the General Assembly Resolution 66/130 (2011) further call on states to
promote women’s political participation, and governments have consistently been
urged to implement measures to substantially increase the number of women in
elective and appointive public offices and functions at all levels, with a view
to achieving equal representation of women and men, if necessary through
positive action. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015) places
gender equality as both a goal and a means of implementing the Agenda, and
includes Target 5.5 to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal
opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political,
economic and public life. Recent normative advances have tackled a major
obstacle to women’s political participation, gender-based violence, with General
Assembly resolutions calling attention to the issue and calling on states to
intensify efforts to eliminate it (A/73/301). States that are parties to
international conventions share the responsibility for upholding and
implementing these obligations across a range of institutions. CEDAW, in fact,
is one of the most widely acceded UN conventions, with 189 states party,
indicating – at least at the
Tools of the trade 191 level of public discourse – that there is global
agreement around the importance of gender equality. The continued reality of
gender inequality across all societies, however, suggests there is a disjuncture
between an acceptance of normative gender equality obligations, and the
implementation of actions to achieve substantive change. Tools of feminist
governance – such as handbooks, manuals, action plans and checklists – have been
promoted and developed as a mechanism by which global standards may be more
realistically attained in diverse contexts. True (2008) suggests that the idea
for such tools originates from the Australian and New Zealand ‘femocrat
experiment’ of the 1990s.2 She writes, [femocrats] did leave a legacy: the
diffusion of feminist ideas on gender as a legitimate frame for policy analysis
in government. Moreover, many of their ideas, such as gender budget analysis,
time-use surveys for unpaid work, gender checklists and gender-impact statements
subsequently spread to other countries and importantly, to international
organisations such as the UN and the EU. (2008: 95)
In fact, over the past two decades, the production of feminist governance tools
has increased considerably (see Appendix). Their popularity is evident not only
in their number and publication by a range of transnational bodies, but also in
the diversity of languages into which they are translated. This guidance is
largely based on codification of best practices, as well as extensive research
with duty bearers (such as politicians and policymakers), practitioners and
development experts, to present practical options for institutions to consider
in developing their own plans of action to achieve gender equality (Box 15.1).
The question to be more carefully considered, then, is to what extent has this
guidance succeeded in implementing global norms of gender equality, and what
might hinder its effectiveness.
BOX 15.1 CREATING THE TOOLS WITH RESEARCH Our own experience, spanning over 20
years, illustrates the link between research and quality tools. In the early
2000s, and as the Manager of the Women in Politics Project at International
IDEA, Ballington developed the Global Database on Electoral Quotas, launched in
partnership with Stockholm University in 2002. The website showcases the growing
number of countries that have adopted legislated gender quotas. In order to
expand knowledge and deepen understanding of how quotas work in practice, IDEA
organised regional workshops in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe, each one
bringing together researchers and practitioners ‘to allow country- and
region-specific information on quota implementation and enforcement to be
collated, and a network of researchers and experts working in this field to be
developed’ (Ballington, 2004: 8). Each workshop report included the research
papers presented as well as analysis and synopses of the discussions that
followed. This ground-breaking research – and the Global Quota Database it
informed – provides policymakers, political actors and parties, as well as
gender equality advocates and election practitioners with an accessible resource
on gender quotas. A rigorous research process also informed the IPU’s plan of
action and evaluation toolkit for gender sensitive parliaments, published in
2012 and 2016, respectively. Palmieri led the multi-country, collaborative
research project in 2010, which commissioned case studies from 17 different
parliaments, five regional reports (Africa, Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Europe
and Latin America) and three sets of questionnaires administered globally to
par-
192 Handbook of feminist governance liamentarians, parliamentary party groups
and parliamentary staff (see also Chapter 14 of this Handbook).
CRITICAL FRIENDSHIP AS METHODOLOGY In answering these questions, we draw on
practitioners’ accounts of their development and use of governance tools, as
well as their perceptions of overall effectiveness. Most, but not all, of these
practitioners would be known as ‘gender experts’, part of an increasing
professionalisation of gender mainstreaming efforts across various institutions
of democratic governance (True, 2008: 91). In describing our group of
respondents, we take Kunz et al.’s (2019: 24) definition of gender expertise as
‘specialized knowledge about what gender is, how gender inequality is
perpetuated and what is necessary to change this’. In generating new knowledge,
our respondents have been involved in the development and dissemination of good
practice guides, manuals and handbooks on inclusive electoral management bodies,
promoting women’s participation in political parties and elections, implementing
electoral gender quotas, eradicating violence against women in elections and
politics (including sexism, harassment and bullying), gender-sensitive
parliaments and legislative scrutiny (including budgetary scrutiny),
establishing women’s parliamentary caucuses, running practice parliaments for
women, and improving awareness and understanding of the CEDAW process and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)/Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among
parliaments. We held semi-structured interviews with 14 development
practitioners of our personal acquaintance who are either affiliated with
international development organisations or independent consultants and, at the
time of interview, were based in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Myanmar,
Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (we
discuss below the implications of this predominantly Global North sample).3 In
truth, these interviews might be better described as ‘conversations with
friends’, having usually begun with a brief catch up on our personal lives. Our
project applies the lens of ‘critical friendship’ (Chappell and Mackay, 2020;
Chappell and Waylen, 2013; Holvikivi, 2019) in three respects: as research with
known acquaintances and (former) work colleagues; as ‘critical recognition’ of
the work of ‘friends’; and as ‘critical dialogue’ with those ‘friends’. We
outline these further, cognisant that our interpretation of the term differs to
some extent from its original conceptualisation. On the first, we were – in all
cases but one – well known to each other through previous work experience and,
in some cases, long-standing friendships. We differ in one sense from Chappell
and Mackay’s position that critical friends are ‘external to the organisation’
(2020), given that one of us remains very much an ‘insider’ (i.e. Ballington,
within the UN system, although interviews were conducted by Palmieri alone).
Palmieri, however, might be considered a ‘recovering femocrat’ (Chappell and
Mackay, 2020) and therefore more in line with core understandings of the term.
In reflecting on our positionality, we take heart from the idea that ‘feminist
work is often done from locations that are neither fully inside nor fully
outside an academic discipline, professional organisation or social formation’
(Holvikivi, 2019: 135; see also Hesse-Biber, 2012). Arguably more pertinently,
we see this research as part of a much larger conversation among friends,
supplemented by ‘informal exchanges in … workshops … social encounters
Tools of the trade 193 … and through email and social media’ (Holvikivi, 2019:
134). More than a few of these conversations presented an opportunity for us to
critically reflect on our collective body of work. There is a related point of
departure in the categorisation of these friends as ‘gender experts’. While Kunz
et al. (2019: 27) found their ‘gender experts’ to have varying degrees of
affinity with ‘feminism’ (however defined), most of our experts readily
self-identify as feminists. Indeed, on being thanked for her participation in
the research, one of our experts said with some conviction, ‘always happy to
support the sisterhood!’ (Participant A). This may point to a peculiarity of
experts working in the women’s political participation/democratic governance
space, where practitioners share similar university and work backgrounds, with a
common emphasis on feminist studies. Second, we see this research as a depiction
of ‘critical friendship’ in its recognition of the work done – either
collectively, as a group of gender specialists, or individually – in the
development of feminist governance tools that has, to date, gone relatively
unnoticed. Indeed, we welcome the opportunity afforded us in this chapter to
highlight – and critique – this work, done predominantly by friends on the
inside, cognisant of the fact that they are rarely thanked for their efforts.
This reflection from Holvikivi’s interviews certainly resonates with us: …
[it’s] feeling like you’re endlessly banging your head against the wall trying
to make things better and then [academics] who fundamentally want the same
things you do come along and tell you that you are part of the problem. (Sarah,
2016, quoted in Holvikivi, 2019: 139)
Where we are in complete alignment with Chappell and Mackay’s understanding of
critical friendship, however, is in the conduct of the research. While
interviews were structured around a core set of questions asked of each
participant (e.g. around the benefits and challenges involved in developing and
implementing gender governance tools, and lessons learned in their deployment),
there were certainly ideas that we wanted to test, and contestation around those
ideas became part of the conversation. We too aimed to challenge assumptions and
‘speak hard truths constructively’; we are, ultimately, desirous of ‘a two way
relationship that creates space to negotiate the goals of gender expertise and
how it is practised’ (Holvikivi, 2019: 131).
IN TRANSLATION: WHAT IS GAINED AND WHAT IS LOST? The creation and dissemination
of tools that translate global norms into regional and local contexts is now a
firmly established development practice (see Jacobsson and Sahlin-Andersson,
2006; Lobel, 2004). Not all tools are alike, however. Some are written for a
regional audience (e.g. the OSCE region, or the Asia-Pacific); others are more
global – and therefore generic – in nature, with options for national discussion
and localisation. While some tools are written as ‘step by step’ guidance,
others allow for stakeholders to determine their own approach to achieve gender
equality through, for example, self-assessment exercises. Asked what they
considered to be some of the key strengths of this approach, our participants
routinely noted that tools were a positive first step towards national
implementation of key democratic standards. Tools, they noted, ‘open the door
for discussion … consultation’ (Participant N); they are ‘a starting point for a
conversation … not a prescription or an obligation’ (Participant I). Once these
‘windows of opportunity’ (Participant F) had been opened – that is, once a
conversation had been broached around possibilities for change – development
194 Handbook of feminist governance practitioners felt it was ‘hard to go back’
(Participant A). Some of our experts explained that ‘tools help [policymakers]
gain political support to convince their colleagues’ (Participant M), and have
the effect of bringing a range of diverse stakeholders together, to ‘enable
partnerships at the national level’(Participant M). Tools, therefore, act as a
catalyst for an initial consideration of a problem, and critically, its
potential solutions. For many of the practitioners we spoke to, the most
significant benefit of these tools was that they also pointed to new actions, or
approaches, to enable gender equality change. When implemented well (a point to
which we will return), tools point to alternative strategies for feminist
governance. They ‘encourage people in-country to have an international reference
point, [provide] comparison as a motivator for change, [act as] peer pressure’
(Participant I). In this vein, Sawer (2021) has referred to tools as ‘soft’ and
‘inquisitive regulation’ that assumes practices implemented in neighbouring
countries will stimulate ‘comparison and policy borrowing’. In some cases,
success is evident: ‘new [gender equality] policies have been inspired by our
guidelines’ (Participant L); rather than simply asking the local women’s
organisation what they thought about an issue, one of our interviewees explained
that a manual on gender sensitive legislative scrutiny allowed a parliamentary
committee to cast its net wider in seeking gender advice (Participant N). Tools
can therefore be enablers of change, particularly where they ‘allow people to
find the solutions themselves’ (Participant M). For the feminist practitioner,
tools have lent credibility to gender equality concerns. As one of our
respondents remarked, no one believed violence against women in politics
existed, so the tool is useful to say ‘this is a thing’ (Participant F). While
the credibility gap is well researched,4 our respondents felt that tools had
allowed them, in the field, to say, ‘it’s not just my view’ (Participant D);
‘tools normalise and put up front [the standard]’ (Participant J). For others,
tools have helped practitioners articulate an entirely different narrative in
the field. Rather than having to respond to the questions, ‘what does this norm
mean?’, ‘is this relevant to our context?’ or ‘do we need to consider these
issues?’, tools have encouraged a different set of questions around how the
standards should be applied (Participant G). As one of the more senior gender
experts retorted, ‘quotas and standards work – so get over yourself – they have
proven that women make a difference in life expectancy’ (Participant A). There
was consensus among the respondents that tools also simplify the complexity of
development assistance. By providing concrete, how-to ideas (Participant K),
tools ‘provide something that can be learned from – they’re practical – they
break it down with headings and pull outs’ (Participant G); ‘I wouldn’t have
been able to do what I did without the standards already established; I would
have been making it up’ (Participant B). To a lesser extent, some of the group
considered the power of tools in their ability to support practitioners in
navigating the political dynamics in the field; ‘when talking to local
organisations, it’s useful to say we have all the legal frameworks [in place],
now … what is the political impact?’ (Participant F). Overall, there was
consensus that ‘we would be in a much worse place without them’ (Participant A).
All that said, respondents considered that tools also lost something in their
translation of global standards and norms, primarily because they are unable –
on their own – to achieve substantive gender equality change. For some, this was
because of a ‘superficial implementation’ particularly evident where political
institutions have agreed to consider a normative standard as a consequence of
outside pressure, but without any genuine internal motivation. The result might
be a policy that ‘has no teeth, no sanctions’, and/or an institution that
considers it ‘has ticked the gender box’. Tellingly, practitioners know well
that they are ‘trying to convince
Tools of the trade 195 very conservative, traditional men’ (Participant B);
‘the information is acknowledged but nothing is done to transform the practices’
(Participant C). For others, however, the limits of tools in achieving
substantive change relate to how they are used; ‘we need to get better [at
helping] our regional people translate the norms’ (Participant J). Two key
obstacles are evident in the translation of global standards through the medium
of feminist tools: localisation, and the source of ‘demand’. Despite their
presentation of good practices from around the world, localisation remains a
constant challenge. One of our respondents considered that this guidance can be
‘detached from the working reality of [policymakers] and therefore not very
relevant’. For another, tools that failed to carefully consider local context
resulted in ‘lazy implementation’ (Participant E) and provoked resistance and
‘greater hostility to foreign actors’ (Participant F). The difficulty here
arises both in the development of the tool and in its implementation. One of our
‘insiders’ noted that there were simply not ‘enough resources [time and people]
to work through the [internal] reports systematically and identify good
practices’ (Participant K). From the consultant’s perspective, localisation is
challenged when there are ‘competing toolkits, making it difficult to know which
one to use; which one has more value’ (Participant G). The demand for feminist
tools represents a further source of contention for some, with one of our
informants acknowledging that their production can be an ‘easy’ use of donor
funding (Participant N), rather than the result of local stakeholders expressing
an interest or need in this particular area. This highlights an important point,
usually asked by evaluators, about how user needs are identified and how tools
are developed taking into account the national context. Where they are
implemented with local backing, it tends to be with the blessing of those ‘who
are already wishing to improve’ (Participant I). The missing dimension here, for
two respondents at least, was the women’s movement which globally now struggles
to ‘speak to power holders’ (Participant A). Whereas gender equality change is
expected from this ever decreasing community of activists, there was a feeling
that more was needed to socialise gender equality objectives among the
‘mainstream’ policy community: ‘we need to speak in other languages and mindsets
… with the “unusual suspects”. Ministers for women will usually be on board, but
maybe we should also be talking to the ministers for planning’ (Participant K).
CRITICAL LESSONS: SPECIALISTS AND SPACES If feminist tools are to be effective,
not only in their development but in their implementation, we consider two
critical lessons must be heeded: gender expertise requires stronger validation
in the field of democratic governance; and that expertise requires space for
stronger collaboration and reflection. While the role of gender experts is
clearly critical in feminist governance, and some of our respondents literally
‘pleaded’ for more technical capacity (Participant A), there is a fundamental
need to support their work in the face of ‘everyday resistance’ in the field. As
one of our gender experts noted, ‘we cannot take for granted that the democracy
assistance community knows what a gender perspective is … gender advisors are
seen as “irritating”. They “slow things down”; gender expertise is seen as a
“soft field”’ (Participant F). This recalls Kunz and Prügl’s (2019: 9) point
that the claim to gender expertise must be recognized by its audience: in this
case, the democracy assistance community, which is heavily male-dominated. Yet
this expertise is questioned, if not contested outright: gender experts in
democracy assistance are constantly required to demonstrate their ‘mainstream’
subject matter
196 Handbook of feminist governance expertise – in elections, in parliamentary
procedure, in political party administration – before they can legitimately
apply their gender expertise. A related challenge is the limited uptake or usage
of gender equality tools by the broader democracy assistance community. Tools
are intended to provide clear and practical guidance not only to feminist
practitioners but the larger technical assistance community so that gender
concerns can be mainstreamed into broader democracy or electoral assistance
programmes. How, then, does the gender expert build credibility in the field?
One – perhaps obvious – avenue is to expand the pool of gender experts;
increasing the numbers, particularly of women, in the field might mainstream,
and legitimise, their role in democratic governance. In this, Bardall has
suggested: In redefining its engagement in this area, communities of
practitioners should proactively revisit gender balance in the field of practice
and hold democracy assistance providers accountable to meeting gender goals both
in projects and internal structures. (2019: 4)
Of note is the strategy adopted by one of the practitioners we interviewed of
‘surrounding herself with women’ when building teams in-country (which,
interestingly, she said was done relatively easily in all fields except
information technology) (Participant D). Crucially, expanding the pool requires
much more engagement with the Global South. It is not lost on us that the group
of practitioners interviewed for this chapter are predominantly from the Global
North. While we may represent Kunz et al.’s (2019: 34) ‘figure of the global
gender expert’, we absolutely agree that there is a need to ‘learn from and cede
space to knowledge produced in the Global South’ (Holvikivi, 2019; Medie and
Kang, 2018). One of the more instructive processes by which a tool has been
developed in the past five years involved someone from the Global North being
seconded to the Global South for an extended period of five months, working
day-to-day alongside colleagues, even before the tool was conceptualised.
Indeed, the idea for the manual came from local counterparts, and was eventually
produced with local references (actors and processes) throughout. Reflecting on
this experience, the gender expert noted the ‘need to tailor the tool to the
politics, culture and psychology of [stakeholders]’ (Participant B). More
emphasis is also required on the space in which gender experts work, and the
networks in which they engage. Space for ‘co-creation’ (Participant H) is needed
with local authorities and CSOs (Participant E), as well as between academics
and practitioners (Participant F), and with those who will ultimately use the
tools (Participants I and M). Creating this collaborative space has to be
resourced. In her desire to see ‘local sources of gender expertise’ cultivated,
for example, Palmieri has previously called for gender-sensitive development
assistance programmes to build in partnerships between experts of the Global
North and South so that generic tools are not only more context appropriate, but
also applied (e.g. through training exercises) by local experts on a continuing
basis when the international expert departs (2019: 186–7). This more
‘participatory’ approach prioritises local knowledge over global expertise and
builds capacity for experimentation that is more likely to ‘stick’ (Chappell and
Waylen, 2013: 605). It also requires a different kind of gender
capacity-building and training. Lucy Ferguson’s work (2019) is instructive in
this respect, noting that gender equality trainers should employ feminist
methods to allow greater reflection and reflexivity that acknowledges and
interrogates privilege, and focuses on the process – rather than just the
outcome – of feminist governance practice (see also Palmieri and MacLean, 2021).
Tools of the trade 197 In sum, and as one of our respondents noted: For tools
to work, you need networks (exploring in country, over time, with mentoring,
supporting you to explore your own relationship with the norm/standard) … access
to information (when you need it) … and safe spaces in which you are protected
when experimenting with change – either a Facebook group, or brought to you at
your own place of work. (Participant J)
CONCLUSION Feminist governance tools are an intermediary between broad global
norms and concrete positive action on gender equality at national level. They
were never meant as ‘silver bullets’ and are certainly not communicated as ‘one
size fits all’ remedies. Some may question their effectiveness or long-term
impact, especially when piecemeal or small-scale gender equality interventions
are designed and implemented. No one handbook, toolkit or intervention will on
its own reform national norms and policies. However, showcasing comparative
examples and codifying good practices remains the crucial starting point for
critical actors willing to take critical actions towards the gender
transformation we collectively seek. In this chapter we have sought to
critically reflect on a body of work that we would (somewhat self-interestedly)
argue is insufficiently acknowledged. One reflection in this process, perhaps,
is that the collaboration between a former-insider-turned-academic, and an
insider, has been instrumental in this process. Our critical friendships have
facilitated access to both a known group of gender experts, and the necessary
space to critically examine our contribution to the development and
effectiveness of feminist tools. On reflection, some development practitioners
took the opportunity to be self-critical (‘there is more we can do’); others
pointed to the structural disadvantages faced in prosecuting an agenda which is
constantly marginalised in the democratic government community of practice. Both
points are valid and useful. There is certainly resistance to feminist
governance in the field but, as Ferguson notes, resistance is essential to the
‘contestation required for transformative change’. We agree with her that this
necessitates, on our part, ‘transformative courage’ (Ferguson, 2019: 125). We
suggest that courage is to be found in stronger collaboration. While we have
provided evidence of the benefit of collaboration with the academy, there is,
most particularly, a need to engage, on a more equal basis, with experts in the
Global South. Resourcing alone will not be sufficient here: it requires
dedicated political commitment too – and humility – from the full spectrum of
critical actors in this space.
NOTES 1. 2. 3.
Julie Ballington has authored this chapter in her personal capacity. On the
‘femocrat experiment’, see Eisenstein, 1991; Sawer, 1990. Interviews were
conducted remotely (via Zoom) between August and September 2020, at the height
of the coronavirus pandemic, while both parties were working from home, and were
recorded with consent (in accordance with an approved ANU ethics protocol). Of
the 14 participants, two were men, 12 were women. Two others were invited to
participate, but were unable to commit time to the project. Given the small
sample size, we have chosen to de-identify participants’ reflections in this
chapter. Letters are ascribed to each based on when the interview was held (i.e.
‘Participant A’ was the first interviewed, in August 2020).
198 Handbook of feminist governance 4. The contestation over women’s
‘credibility’ as experts has been evidenced in the spheres of journalism (e.g.
Martin, 2020) and politics/policy (e.g. Borrelli, 1997; Embacher et al., 2017).
Gender analysts reviewing the 2020 Australian federal budget provoked the claim
from political insiders that they lacked credibility (see Lambert, 2020).
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PART III INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
16. The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy Karin Aggestam and Jacqui
True
INTRODUCTION It’s time to become a little braver in foreign policy. I think
feminism is a good term. It is about standing against the systematic and global
subordination of women. (Margot Wallström, 2016, Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Sweden) In a globalized world, gender inequality is holding us back. (Julie
Bishop, 2014, Foreign Minister, Australia)
Feminist governance encompasses norms and ideas and the advocacy and
policymaking networks, which shape and diffuse them. Feminist principles and
approaches are also reflected in political institutions across national,
subnational and transnational levels. Hence, while feminist governance is
wide-ranging, its definition and categorisation is contested. In foreign policy
the emergence of feminist governance can be seen in the growing number of
foreign policy strategies on gender equality and women’s empowerment as well as
in their mainstreaming across foreign policy bureaucracies, branches or sections
dedicated to gender equality and multilateralism. It is also reflected in the
working methods of these institutions that consciously partner with women’s
civil society organisations and movements to achieve core foreign policy
objectives. Feminist governance, in addition, serves an agenda-setting function
at intergovernmental meetings, such as the G7 and G20, and through the creation
of transnational governance networks and tools. Finally, a burgeoning feminist
foreign policy movement outside governments is promoting the values of feminism
and their application to the practice of foreign policy. Since Sweden launched
its avowedly ‘feminist’ foreign policy (FFP) in late 2014, there has been a
phenomenal diffusion and endorsement of not only the brand, but of key feminist
principles, as expressed by former Swedish and Australian Foreign Ministers
Margot Wallström and Julie Bishop in the epigraphs. Standing up for women’s
rights and reducing gender inequality around the world are now embraced as core
foreign policy goals by a multitude of state and non-state actors that seek to
promote stability, peace and sustainable development. Yet, feminist foreign
policies do not come out of the blue. Indeed, the pattern of international
diffusion in the case of feminist governance in foreign policy is in some ways
reversed compared to other major examples of feminist policy change, such as on
the prevention of violence against women (cf. Htun and Weldon, 2012). FFP is not
an innovation, per se, that began with civil society and their claims on the
state. Rather, the policy entrepreneur, in this instance, is the activist state
and leader – Sweden and Wallström, respectively – in setting forth the agenda
and then identifying allies in civil society and academe to assist in
transforming the institution of foreign policy. In this chapter, we argue that
feminist foreign policy has emerged from and through the advocacy of feminist
actors inside government (cf. Banaszak, 2010). These actors have sought allies
outside of government. Their policy entrepreneurship 203
204 Handbook of feminist governance has been enabled and supported by a broad
movement encompassing knowledge, governance and advocacy networks. These
networks also take a critical stance on the future development of feminist
foreign policy aiming to promote the transformative impact of such policies.
Observing this trend, feminist international relations scholarship has examined
the advent of gender mainstreaming and explicitly feminist foreign policies and
their effects in an increasing number of countries around the world (Aggestam
and True, 2020; Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2016). Feminist principles
concerned with gender equality and women’s rights have become part of foreign
policy across various domains, including aid and development, humanitarian
protection, security and defence, and trade and economic multilateralism (as
discussed throughout this Handbook). In this chapter, we ask, how far and in
what ways is feminist governance becoming a normative, ideational and
institutional feature of foreign policy reflected across the domains of foreign
policy? To address this question, we examine three types of feminist governance
in foreign policy. First, we examine the diffusion and localisation of the
international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda within diverse country
foreign policies as well as the creation of new international alliances to
promote sexual health and reproductive rights (SHRH) in foreign policy in the
context of significant inter-state contestation. Second, we assess the role of
transnational governance networks of women and feminist foreign policy leaders.
Third, we highlight the burgeoning feminist foreign policy movement – as
reflected in new think tanks, media, research institutes and other philanthropic
initiatives that interface with women’s movements, conferences and universities.
We also consider the emergence of state-of-the-art foreign policy expertise,
handbooks and toolkits, and the kinds of new knowledge being produced to advance
feminist foreign policies. Regardless of whether or not particular states adopt
or reject explicitly ‘feminist’ foreign policies the mobilisation of a movement
and an epistemic community will ensure that feminist governance is embedded in
foreign policy institutions and available for any actor to draw on and further
expand in foreign policy practice.
DIFFUSION OF FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICIES The emergence and diffusion of feminist
normative frameworks in foreign policies are a relatively recent phenomenon. The
promotion of pro-gender equality norms in foreign policy is perceived by some
states as a window of opportunity to enhance global leadership and nation
branding. In 2014, Sweden was the first country to frame its foreign policy as
feminist, arguing that the pursuit of gender equality is not only a goal in
itself but also a means of achieving other objectives – such as peace, security
and sustainable development. Former Foreign Minister Margot Wallström argued
that ‘a feminist approach is a self-evident and necessary part of a modern view
of today’s global challenges.’ Sweden’s feminist foreign policy has advanced
principles of women’s rights, women’s equal representation and women’s equal
access to resources, which have influenced the country’s policy choices and
alliances (Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2018). In this normative vision,
peacebuilding, conflict resolution and humanitarian response are core activities
of foreign policy. Following Sweden’s lead, Justin Trudeau’s government in
Canada announced in 2017 that it was developing a feminist international
assistance policy that would require development aid to be 100 per cent
contributing to gender equality and also to support women’s rights
organisations. As a result, Canada is now among the top four donors providing
aid focused
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy 205 on gender equality. In
addition, Canada’s foreign security policy aimed to address the gender imbalance
in UN peace operations by promoting increased participation and training of
female peacekeepers (Fillion, 2018). Australia has also pursued a foreign policy
gender strategy since 2016, making gender equality and women’s empowerment core
objectives across all domains of foreign policy. On her appointment as Foreign
Minister in 2014, Julie Bishop questioned why only 50 per cent of overseas
development aid had to address gender equality and immediately raised the bar,
requiring 80 per cent of Australian aid investment to target or improve gender
equality (True, 2016: 228–9). Most recently, the new Coalition government
agreement in Germany referred to approaching foreign policy ‘alongside feminist
foreign policy’ (Koalitionsvertrag 2021: 144). Apparently, this was a point of
contention among the parties prior to this language being agreed upon.
Developing countries have also been following the trend towards feminist foreign
policies. Mexico launched its feminist foreign policy in September 2019 and
planned a major conference, Generation Equality Forum in May 2020 in
collaboration with UN Women and France as well as women’s civil society to mark
the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action (Government of France et
al., 2020). Unfortunately, the forum had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19
pandemic and is now ongoing via working groups with the outcome forum held in
Paris in June 2021. The forum showcased and strengthened both Mexico and
France’s feminist foreign policies.1 South Africa has promoted gender equality
as a foreign policy objective and has adopted a National Action Plan on Women,
Peace and Security (Haastrup, 2020). With its election to the UN Security
Council in 2019, South Africa has been an active champion of the WPS agenda, and
of gender equality in the state’s foreign policy, focusing in particular on
women’s roles in mediation and conflict resolution, especially in the African
region and in conjunction with the African Union. In line with their feminist or
gender equality-focused foreign policies, a number of countries have established
a global ambassador position specifically to promote women’s rights and gender
equality internationally.2 This new office provides an institutional mechanism
for the development of normative feminist principles to inform foreign policy.
The promotion of feminist foreign policies reflects a broader global shift in
political power and a gradual power shift in gender relations as women’s
economic and political participation increases. It also reflects geopolitical
power, and the reality that for some states, soft power tools are often their
main mechanism of diplomacy. Aggestam and True (2020) find that those countries
that are not in the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council, the control room
of international politics, but would like to influence global affairs, seek to
have normative influence on international agendas through what they do, who they
ally with and where they spend their development aid dollars, and so on. It is
these ‘middle power’ countries that strive to promote their own self-interest
while aspiring to be influential global players that adopt feminist or
pro-gender equality foreign policy. Promoting a feminist foreign policy may also
have a positive impact on the state’s identity or international brand, further
enabling the state’s multilateral and bilateral influence. In their study of EU
member states’ perceptions of Swedish feminist foreign policy, Sundström and
Elgström (2020: 419) found that two-thirds of EU diplomatic representatives
regarded Swedish feminist foreign policy positively even though labelling a
country’s policy ‘feminist’ was seen as ‘more controversial than carrying out
gender-promoting policies within the context of “ordinary” foreign policy’. Some
EU members noted that Sweden’s feminist
206 Handbook of feminist governance foreign policy had given it a ‘specific
mark’ that had helped Sweden’s overall branding and appeared to be somewhat
envious of the country’s enhanced foreign policy role. However, feminist
governance in foreign policy goes beyond the perception of the brand to consider
the salience of a gender or feminist perspective and policy framework in what
states do as well as say. Every country is unique and has its own set of
experiences, set of actors, set of opportunities and constraints. Gender
equality has been widely institutionalised and socially embedded in the state
feminism practised by several Swedish governments. Hence, to bring it into
foreign policy made sense as the next step. In contrast, for a country like
Mexico, with more ambiguous domestic implementation of gender equality
commitments, the impetus was to elevate its leadership in the global realm, as a
G20 state. Feminist foreign policy has allowed the country to gain some
international visibility in multilateral forums, to demonstrate that they could
be part of global leadership especially representing the Global South. The
confluence of gender policy developments achieved in intergovernmental
organisations, especially the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, the UN Security
Council’s Women, Peace and Security agenda, and the promotion of gender equality
by the G7 (see Timeline, Chapter 1 in this Handbook), has enabled and supported
the rise of feminist foreign policy. It has also facilitated the creation of new
international alliances, for example to promote SHRH in foreign policy, in the
face of backlash against gender equality by some states. In sum, the
international diffusion of feminist foreign policy represents a new window of
opportunity available to all countries to redesign their foreign policies with
gender inclusion and equality at their heart.
FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY GOVERNANCE NETWORKS Transnational governance networks
of, inter alia, women and feminist foreign policy leaders are a major mechanism
for promoting feminist governance in specific foreign policy domains such as
security, trade and economic integration, and humanitarian aid. Logics of power
and secrecy frequently operate in foreign policy domains to exclude women from
decision-making positions and to mask the relevance of feminist or gender
perspectives, for instance on issues of national security, such as terrorism and
violent extremism, where male-only groups and norms of masculinity encourage and
justify the use of violence. Feminist foreign policy-relevant governance
networks subvert that logic of foreign policy power. They create an alternative
logic of empowerment promoted through diplomacy that supports women and men to
deliver peace and prosperity through principles of human rights and gender
equality. Stone et al. (2020) observe that governance networks are a
transnational structure that unites agents with ‘a similar cause and connecting
a vast number of heterogeneous people, with different political culture
backgrounds and policy interests, enabling the translation and legitimation of
policies’. Such a transnational governance network may involve state and
non-state actors across countries, and from the local to global realms.
Innovative ideas such as those pertaining to feminist foreign policy may be
developed in the network and diffused from there, rather than adopted by states
emulating one another. We see precisely this transnational dynamic in new
feminist governance networks since the early 2000s. Networks of women foreign
policy leaders pre-date the branding of foreign policy as ‘feminist’, but they
have prepared the ground for them, breaking down masculine hegemonies and
enabling new forms of leadership and governance. Women’s foreign policy leader-
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy 207 ship may result in
distinct foreign policies, as Bashevkin (2016) has shown with her study of
international aid targeting women’s empowerment in the Global South (see also
Barnes and O’Brien, 2018). There are formal networks such as the Network of
Women World leaders created by Madeleine K. Albright in the 1990s while she was
US Secretary of State (True, 2003). There is also the informal network created
by Samantha Power (2019), and Albright before her, of women UN ambassadors.
These networks have provided mutual support and they mitigate the pressure on
women leaders to adopt traditionally masculine policy agendas, including the use
of force. Recently, a group of women leaders has formed to save multilateralism
in the face of the trend started by the US administration under Trump to
withdraw from global treaties and ditch funding for women’s reproductive rights
in developing countries as well as situations of crisis. Such networks have been
changing the script for female foreign policy leaders and enabling a more
gender-inclusive style of foreign policymaking (Leimbach, 2019; Lyons, 2019).
Albright’s Network of Women World Leaders As US Secretary of State, Albright
sought to promote global gender issues. In a speech given at the Department of
State in 1999 she stated that: ‘Working with a variety of agencies and
forward-looking NGOs … we have brought international women’s issues into the
mainstream of our foreign policy, which is right where they belong’ (quoted in
True, 2003: 380). Bringing together women foreign ministers from around the
world, in the late 1990s Albright calculated that people sharing two key
identities – as women and foreign ministers – could agree to new emphases and
perspectives and form a base from which to leverage significant broader policy
change. Albright created a strategic coalition that transcended cultural and
political differences to forge international support for gender equality issues.
The commitment among these women foreign ministers was to meet face to face
regularly, to take each other’s telephone calls and to promote a unified front
on foreign policy issues having a particular impact on women.3 For example, in
1999, women foreign ministers from 14 nations wrote a letter to Kofi Annan, the
Secretary General of the United Nations, calling for a new international
framework to end the widespread transnational trafficking of human beings –
predominantly women and children – in the service of prostitution, domestic
servitude and other forms of profiteering.4 These actions were prompted by the
networking efforts of feminist-oriented women in foreign policy decision-making
roles who had been reaching out to women’s non-government organisations (NGOs).
Samantha Power’s Female UN Ambassadors Network Former US Ambassador to the
United Nations (2012–16), Samantha Power said that being the only woman on the
UN Security Council made her a feminist (Ryan, 2017). By the end of her tenure
as ambassador, however, she was one of 37 women ambassadors leading their UN
permanent mission in New York. In 2014, the UN Security Council nearly reached
gender parity for the first time, with six women ambassadors on the 15-member
Security Council. This shift was short-lived: the number of women ambassadors on
the Council dropped to four in 2016 and to one in 2017. Responding to violence
against political women, Power (2019) started a campaign called #FreeThe20 and
mobilised her female and male ambassador peers at the UN. This campaign focused
on 20 women who had been locked up by their
208 Handbook of feminist governance governments for championing human rights or
women’s rights, including sexual harassment. Intergovernmental networking of
this sort raises the profile of gender perspectives on a range of global public
policy issues. They have prepared the ground for the emergence of a feminist
approach to foreign and defence policy, grounded in feminist thinking,
approaches and policy preferences. G20/W20 Convening The creation of the W20
(Women in the G20) within the G20 intergovernmental forum established a new
transnational space for promoting feminist and gender equality principles in
foreign economic policy. Turkey founded the W20 in 2015 during the year it
hosted the G20, showing its credibility as a state power willing to address
gender equality in the global economy. The previous year, Australia had hosted
the G20, making gender inequality a major agenda item. Members agreed upon a
target to close the economic participation gender gap by 25 per cent, thereby
demonstrating Australia’s diplomatic capacity as a ‘middle power’ through the
promotion of gender equality (Harris-Rimmer, 2015). In 2016, China used the
opportunity of hosting the G20 and W20 to showcase its leadership and state
strength in this area. In 2018, Germany convened the G20/W20 and included a
panel on women’s economic leadership in which Angela Merkel as well as Canadian
foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, International Monetary Fund (IMF) head
Christine Lagarde and Ivanka Trump, special advisor to the US president,
participated. This high-powered group elevated the W20 governance network and
generated consensus on the importance of giving women economic power and
reducing gender inequalities by addressing barriers to women’s economic
participation such as the cost of child care, lack of technical and skill-based
education and the need for mentors and networks supporting women. In 2018, the
W20 meeting coincided with the launch of the World Bank’s women entrepreneurs’
start-up capital fund. A technology business leader from Kenya emphasised the
need for women to be involved in the co-design of innovative technology
platforms as well as connectivity to accelerate the inclusion of women. The
panel of global leaders also highlighted the importance of safeguarding women’s
human rights to education, health care, reproductive rights and maternity leave
as fundamental to participation in the economy, thus articulating core feminist
principles as relevant. Women Political Leaders (WPL) at the Munich Security
Conference Like the G20/W20, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) is a leading
global forum for world leaders to discuss important national and international
policy concerns, but with regard to international security rather than the
economy per se. Since 2016, the Munich Security Conference has been committed to
achieving equitable inclusion of ‘female perspectives on peace, security and
defence policies’ (quoted in Women Political Leaders, 2020). Increasing women’s
participation in foreign and security decision-making must be the first step of
feminist governance in foreign policy. Since 2018, the MSC has collaborated with
Women Political Leaders, who created the annual Reykjavik Index on Leadership
with Kantar, a leading data, insights and consulting company based in London.
The index aims to measure women and men’s attitudes towards women’s leadership
across 23 sectors (including governance and politics, the judiciary and a range
of business sectors) in ten nations including the G7 nations as well as India,
Nigeria and Kenya. The results have been both surprising and alarming, with
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy 209 just 46 per cent of
society being very comfortable with a woman as head of government, and 48 per
cent with a woman as CEO of a major national company. The Munich Conference has
become an intergovernmental platform to address the absence of progress in
closing gender gaps in leadership. In 2020, a high-level panel was held with
leaders sharing proposals on how to disrupt discriminatory perceptions of female
professionals and leaders in the peace and security field, which included the
female foreign minister of South Korea. Town hall discussions were also held in
2018 and 2019 on amplifying women’s leadership in peace processes and
peacemaking and to bring global good practices for constructing sustainable
peace. The Munich conference has allowed side events and the participation of
NGOs to further build the transnational governance network. In 2020, there was a
side event entitled ‘No Peace without Feminism: Why every state needs a feminist
foreign policy’, involving men and women, state and civil society leaders. It
noted the exclusion of women and other political minorities from foreign and
security processes and the need for foreign policy to counter discriminatory and
patriarchal structures around the world. Transnational governance networks
empower feminist entrepreneurs to build coalitions and teams to persuade others
of the merits of a feminist or gender equality soft power approach to foreign
policy. Norm or policy entrepreneurs need not be women, as illustrated by the
cases of William Hague (Davies and True, 2017) and Justin Trudeau (Aggestam and
True, 2020), but women’s transnational governance networks have been crucial
enablers and amplifiers. As more women enter positions of foreign policy
leadership, we are seeing approaches to foreign policy that contrast with
hyper-masculine and strongman approaches. Gender and leadership scholarship
predicts that balance of men and women in leadership positions should enable
gender differences (both masculine and feminine approaches) to come to the fore
within the foreign policy leadership of both women and men (Eagly and
Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Mandell and Pherwani, 2003).
THE RISE OF A FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY MOVEMENT With feminist foreign policy,
Margot Wallström and Sweden gave a name to a movement already well underway. The
key ideas were given a brand that gained international popularity – even
notoriety in some quarters. In so doing, it advanced feminist governance by
enabling a common movement across transnational women’s governance networks and
women’s civil society organisations. Non-state groups have become significant
actors in expanding the feminist foreign policy movement, amplifying and
expanding the normative principles in state foreign policies and the ideas
advanced by women leaders’ networks in transnational forums. The burgeoning
feminist foreign policy movement is now reflected in new media platforms, NGO
coalitions, research and philanthropic initiatives that interface with states
and international organisations. As with the WPS agenda, this civil society
engagement has been vital in furthering feminist governance in foreign policy
(True and Wiener, 2019: 556; Björkdahl and Mannergren-Selimovic, 2019). Before
feminist foreign policy was articulated, the WPS agenda had spawned a
transnational network of advocates, practitioners, scholars and policymakers
positioned in and coming from different institutions and locations and engaged
in the same quest to transform international peace and security. As a result,
much learning and sharing of gender perspectives on foreign policy issues had
already occurred between and among state and non-state actors.
210 Handbook of feminist governance Civil society was used to monitoring
governments’ foreign and security policies and holding them to account in open
debates at the UN Security Council to challenge the dominant security discourse
of women as immutable victims of conflict (see Chapter 9, this Handbook).
Feminist advocacy was also pursued in other venues where international peace and
security decision-making was influenced or undertaken, such as NATO,
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and regional
organisations such as the European Union, African Union, and Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other UN institutions such as the UN CEDAW
Committee, the Human Rights Council, and the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (Cook, 2016; O’Rourke, 2020). However, since Sweden
declared it was conducting a feminist foreign policy, new spaces for activism,
monitoring and accountability have emerged. For example, in 2018 Sweden hosted a
large-scale conference on Gender Equality in Stockholm, inviting feminist groups
and leaders from around the world; and in 2019 the same multi-stakeholder
conference was hosted by the Tunisian government. A US coalition for a feminist
foreign policy for America was formed in 2019. The coalition involved a number
of major NGOs and policy advocates, including the International Council for
Research on Women, Amnesty International, Women’s Environment and Development
Organization, Planned Parenthood, Rockefeller, Open Society and New America
Foundations – all cognisant of the ‘quietly growing trend in the international
community’. The group released a discussion draft paper, ‘Toward a Feminist
Foreign Policy in the United States’ endorsed by over 70 organisations.5 They
stated that it was ‘a collective effort to develop a vision for the highest
standard of U.S. foreign policy that promotes overarching goals of gender
equality, human rights, bodily autonomy, peace and environmental integrity,
while prioritizing the articulation of concrete policy recommendations’ (ICRW,
2020a).6 Mindful of other countries’ feminist foreign policies and the
groundwork of feminist research and analysis the US coalition asked, ‘what would
a feminist foreign policy for the USA in 2021 look like? And what needs to
change in US policy, funding and programming to be considered “feminist”?’.7
Meanwhile, we have seen a media platform with offices in London, New York and
Berlin called ‘The Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy’ flourish online via
social media (with almost 15,000 Twitter followers) and public events to
popularise feminist concepts and representation in foreign policy. New alliances
of long-time feminist NGOs have now joined forces with the feminist brand and
explicit agendas to transform humanitarian action in the case of the Feminist
Humanitarian Network,8 and conflict prevention in the case of FIRE – Feminist
Impact for Rights and Equality (comprising Women’s International League for
Peace and Freedom, MADRE, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, Medica Mondiale, and
Kvinna till Kvinna). As Moghadam discusses (Chapter 22 in this Handbook), the
latter most recently published their five principles for a feminist ceasefire as
a feminist take on the UN Secretary-General’s March 2020 call for a global
ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Even older women’s peace activism, for
instance, was rebranded, as in the case of ‘Codepink’ into ‘The feminist foreign
policy project’ connecting to and leveraging off the burgeoning FFP movement.
Feminist Foreign Policy Expertise Like most, if not all, gender policy reform
since the 1980s, efforts from above at the level of international organisations
and political leaders are not sufficient to change norms, ideas and
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy 211 institutional practices
unless they are supported by social movements and subject to ongoing critical
scrutiny by gender activists and scholars. The latter is why it is important to
include the emergence of FFP expertise as part of feminist governance and
alongside changes in state foreign policies. FFP expertise can be seen in the
construction of new knowledge generated and shared in publications, events,
toolkits and the like, translating research into policy frameworks and
recommendations (see Kunz and Prügl, 2019). The Swedish government itself has
produced a Handbook on Feminist Foreign Policy (Swedish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 2018) to enable the diffusion of knowledge on its approach; there has
been a flurry of feminist scholarship on gender and foreign policy over the past
several years as well as policy- and practitioner-friendly handbooks and
guidance notes.9 Indeed, the growth of an epistemic community championing FFP
parallels the earlier growth of an epistemic community in support of
gender-responsive budgeting to ensure that fiscal spending promotes equality.
Similar to FFP, gender-responsive budgeting arose as a feminist initiative from
within governments, as demonstrated by the ongoing publication of national
gender budget statements in Australia, India, Nepal and South Korea, among other
countries (see Chapter 11 in this Handbook). As Diane Stone (2012: 1) has
argued, ‘the “soft” transfer of ideas and information via networks whether they
be personal, professional or electronic is rapid and frequent.’ This knowledge
diffusion fuels policy transfer, while policy transfer, evident in the spread of
state feminist foreign policies ‘lays down routes for the continuous circulation
of knowledge’ by individuals, networks and institutions (Stone et al., 2020: 1).
Feminist expertise and knowledge networks on foreign policy are increasingly
visible nationally, regionally and globally. Intellectual exchanges on feminist
foreign policy are promoted by universities and research institutes (and
webinars), including by bespoke centres focused on gender, peace and security
and global women’s leadership. Some universities have created new courses and
accredited qualifications to build the knowledge and technical capacity to
undertake feminist foreign policies (e.g. MA in Women, Peace and Security at LSE
in the United Kingdom; a Graduate Certificate in Gender, Peace and Security at
Monash University in Australia; and a Feminist Foreign Policy course at Sciences
Po in France). In addition, foreign policy think tanks in Europe and the US,
such as Foreign Policy Interrupted (Zenko and Wolf, 2015; Zenko, 2011) and the
US Council on Foreign Relations and Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, have
highlighted gender gaps in foreign policy through high-profile media and
convening. Some are loose relationships to exchange information with like-minded
policy institutes, university centres and government agencies. In Australia, the
International Women’s Development Agency, an NGO, has launched a new project to
map the impact of feminist foreign policy and the strategies for further
advancing these policies within and across countries (ActionAid Australia et
al., 2020). Individual expert advisors also act as policy entrepreneurs,
advocating for particular feminist policy ideas vis-à-vis particular governments
and international agencies, such as UN Women and the UN Commission on the Status
of Women, within a tighter epistemic community. Feminist expertise and the
emergent epistemic community focused on FFP seek to evaluate foreign policies
and practices in light of feminist principles and norms, and to guide their
implementation rather than being responsible for their actual implementation.
212 Handbook of feminist governance
CONCLUSION Feminist governance is becoming a normative, ideational and
institutional feature of foreign policy in an increasing number of states driven
by leadership and transnational governance networks, feminist NGOs, activism and
research. We have argued that feminist foreign policies do not come out of the
blue; rather, they are enabled and supported by a burgeoning global social
movement encompassing knowledge, governance and advocacy. This FFP movement is
critical to the future development and transformative impact of actual feminist
foreign policies. The emergence and direction of feminist governance in foreign
policy, moreover, is not linear. Since it is taking place in a highly contested
global, political environment, we see states adopting feminist foreign policy at
the same time as we also see rising misogyny and the scapegoating of women by
populist political leaders, parties and non-state actors worldwide. The growth
of illiberal democracies and right-wing populism has led to foreign policy
reversals in some countries, with a growing remasculinisation of foreign policy,
marked by prioritising short-term security concerns over more considered
engagement in longer-term conflict prevention. That said, the social, economic
and political momentum in favour of gender equality is too strong to ignore.
Moreover, the increased presence of women leaders in powerful positions and the
development of gender-responsive policies seem to go together in driving
societal change. One outcome of states adopting feminist foreign policy is that
there is stronger feminist ‘networked governance’, that is, coordination within
civil society and between civil society and governments across areas of foreign
policy including but also beyond the ‘women, peace and security’ agenda. Recent
events have further solidified the future of feminist foreign policy in the
short term. Feminist leadership in foreign, security and public health policy
has proven highly effective in reducing the spread and severity of Covid-19
globally. We have observed how feminist alliances across policy areas have been
vociferously building on the feminist foreign policy movement, calling for a
feminist Covid-19 Policy and Recovery10 and for ‘feminist peace’, especially in
light of the 2021 change in the US presidency (see Chapter 17 and 22 in this
Handbook).11 As this global crisis unfolds, feminist civil society organisations
and the wider epistemic community continue their mobilisation efforts to ensure
that feminist principles of governance are embedded within foreign policy and
security institutions. In doing so, these networks create space for any actor to
call on and expand their foreign policy practice in a stronger and more peaceful
feminist direction.
NOTES 1. France, Mexico and UN Women, Generation Equality Forum, https:// www
.gob .mx/ sre/ prensa/ mexico -presents -national -strategy -for -generation
-equality -forum -2020 -to -mark -25th -anniversary -of -beijing -platform -for
-action ?idiom = en. 2. Sweden, the USA, Seychelles, the UK, Iceland, Spain, the
Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Finland, Canada, Luxembourg; see https:// www
.cfr .org/ blog/ ambassadors -gender -equality -who -they -are -what -they -do
-and -why -they -matter. 3. Some diplomatic missions of United Nations member
states complained about Secretary Albright’s effort to put women on the agenda
and, in particular, they objected to the way she discussed policy issues with
other women foreign ministers from around the world. Because male foreign
ministers represented their countries, the countries reasoned, they were being
excluded from important
The rise of feminist governance in foreign policy 213
4.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11.
high-level opportunities to network and deliberate. Secretary Albright was quick
to retort that if these countries felt excluded, they should appoint woman
foreign ministers (True, 2003: 380). United Nations News Agency, ‘14 Women
Ministers Seek End to Human Trafficking’, 15 October 1999. Other collaborations
among the 15 women foreign ministers included advocating the election of two
women judges to the International Criminal Court, condemning the house arrest of
Aung San Suu Kyi and human rights violations in Burma and leading an
international campaign to stop the spread of HIV/AIDs. ICRW 2020a, https:// www
.icrw .org/ publications/ toward -a -feminist -foreign -policy -in -the -united
-states/ . ICRW 2020b, https:// www .icrw .org/ wp -content/ uploads/ 2020/ 12/
FFPUSA -AboutUs -Dec .2020 -ICRW .pdf. Personal email correspondence, 2019.
Feminist humanitarian network comprises 48 members, including local and national
women-led organisations working in the Global South, international organisations
and individuals. See https:// www .feminis thumanitar iannetwork .org/ . See
Davies and True (2019); Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and
Peace Research Institute Oslo (2017, 2019); Women Political Leaders and Kantar
(2018); Brown (2019); Global Counterterrorism Forum (2014, 2019); Cheung et al.
(2021). The following statement has been endorsed by more than 1,600 individuals
and women’s networks and organisations from more than 100 countries, to demand
that states adopt a feminist policy to address the extraordinary challenges
posed by the Covid-19 pandemic in a manner that is consistent with human rights
standards and principles. See http:// femin istallianc eforrights .org/ blog/
2020/ 03/ 20/ action -call -for -a -feminist -covid -19 -policy/ . In January
2021, a new feminist peace initiative led by Grassroots Global Justice Alliance,
MADRE, and Women Cross DMZ released A Vision for a Feminist Peace: Building a
Movement-Driven Foreign Policy. The framework aims to reimagine US foreign
policy built on intersectional feminist principles led by social movements. See
https:// www .fem inistpeace initiative .org/ .
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17. Feminist governance in global health Sara E. Davies and Clare Wenham
INTRODUCTION Existing international organisations and institutions play an
important role in advocating for health and human rights. The 1948 WHO
Constitution, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR) and the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) all articulate an individual right to
health that is inclusive, irrespective of gender, religion and ethnicity. The
1948 WHO Constitution defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental
and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO,
1948). The 1966 ICESCR defines health in Article 12 as: ‘the right of everyone
to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health’ (UN General Assembly, 1966). In 2000, the UN Economic and Social
Committee adopted General Comment 14 concerning the right to the highest
attainable standard of health (Article 12 of ICESCR). The General Comment
recommended that States integrate a gender perspective in their health-related
policies, planning, programmes and research in order to promote better health
for both women and men. A gender-based approach recognizes that biological and
socio-cultural factors play a significant role in influencing the health of men
and women. (UN CESCR, 2000)
In 1979, Article 12 in CEDAW provided that States Parties shall take all
appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of
health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access
to health care services, including those related to family planning. (UN General
Assembly, 1979)
The CEDAW Committee, like the UN Economic and Social Committee in relation to
the ICESCR, has provided a series of advice and recommendations on the gender
inclusive right to health (OHCHR, n.d.). Neither of these processes, however, is
legally binding on member states’ practice of health governance (Bennett and
Davies, 2019). The World Health Organization (WHO) remains the only
international health organisation that can call upon its 194 member states,
through the World Health Assembly, to meet their health system obligations under
the 1948 WHO Constitution, and specifically, health emergency response under the
International Health Regulations (2007). The debate has been what should be the
ambition of WHO Secretariat power over member states: technical standard-setting
advice or normative politically positioned demand for reform (McInnes and Lee,
2012: 49)? WHO has been the normative lead or ‘focal point’ for over 60 years in
health research, health policy and guidelines (Hanrieder, 2015: 192). There are
a growing number of disease-specific global health initiatives such as UNAIDS,
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Global Alliance for
Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness
Innovations (CEPI). WHO, however, remains the 216
Feminist governance in global health 217 only international (state member)
organisation with a mandate to fund, advise and legislate all areas of health
under the 1948 WHO Constitution. Despite funding, political and technical
challenges, WHO maintains its lead as the technical standard-setting agency for
global health governance, especially in the area of infectious disease
surveillance and response. We contend that WHO has maintained this leading role
because the organisation has not sought to challenge states’ unequal ‘gendered
processes of power’, especially health emergency response (Waylen, 2014).
Feminist research ‘alerts us to the importance of studying silences and absences
in familiar institutions’ (Ackerly and True 2010: 7). On the one hand, the World
Health Organization is not silent concerning gender. For two decades WHO has
promoted a definition of gender that reflects feminist principles: ‘gender is
the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles
and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society
to society and can be changed. The concept of gender includes five important
elements: relational, hierarchical, historical, contextual and institutional’
(WHO, n.d.). On the other hand, as we will discuss, there is little evidence
that these elements are consistently promoted across the global health
programmes, especially health emergency response, within WHO. In the area of
health emergencies, where pre-existing gender inequality can significantly
affect access to care, treatment and recovery, WHO is the critical agency to
define and promote a gender inclusive vision of infectious disease surveillance
and response that is receptive to the gender mainstreaming activities occurring
around it in other UN organs (as revealed in Chapter 23 of this Handbook). At
WHO’s helm in health emergency response, its technical advice remains blind to
the fact that women’s needs may be different to men’s (gender equity) and health
care may be determined by gender equality (Davies et al., 2019). This chapter
examines why WHO has failed to promote a gender inclusive response to health
emergencies up to (and including) the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter will
proceed in three stages. First, the chapter will present a brief history of WHO
to illustrate why this institution, and its health emergency programme in
particular, deserves examination. Second, the chapter will examine the
institutional structures within WHO that have sought to promote feminist
knowledge and research. In the final section, the chapter will examine why WHO’s
own gender concept is repeatedly excluded from WHO health emergency response
recommendations, including the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The chapter concludes
with suggestions on the next steps required for WHO to enact gender-inclusive
institutional reform for gender mainstreaming to permeate across the work and
activity of WHO, especially in the area of health emergency response.
WHO: A BRIEF HISTORY The 1948 WHO Constitution itself is absent of gendered
language. References in the document are to ‘peoples’; and the document refers
to the need to ensure that access to health care and health well-being is
attained for every individual ‘without distinction of race, religion, political
belief, economic or social condition’ (WHO, 1948). WHO was a direct descendent
of the health organisation of the League of Nations Permanent Health
Organisation; and its function was and is to introduce a shared ‘technical’
standard of public health such as nutrition advice, child and maternal health,
physical education, cancer treatment and drug addiction (Hanrieder, 2015).1
Reflecting the functionalism of its time – to reduce political tensions and
218 Handbook of feminist governance promote universal acceptance of its
recommendations – WHO was to be less political and more scientific in its
orientation (Chorev, 2012). This tension affects WHO’s operations to this day:
it is a political organisation always trying to dress itself in technical robes
so as not to offend member states. However, Chorev (2012) argues that while WHO
may be politically and financially subject to the whims of its members, the
organisation has institutional agency. The WHO Headquarters, especially the
Secretariat led by the WHO Director-General, has some normative influence over
the direction of the organisation, even the budget and programme priorities. The
WHO bureaucracy has its own principles and interests that has determined, in the
past, whether it adopts a political, technical, public sector or private sector
mentality. WHO has a history of health policy entrepreneurialism. Key global
health initiatives that originated from WHO leadership include ‘Health for All’,
Access to Essential Medicines, International Code of Marketing Breastmilk
Subsidies, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and infectious disease
eradication programmes like the smallpox eradication campaign during the Cold
War. The growth of donor-led health aid and entrepreneurialism has increasingly
occurred outside of WHO; and WHO is not the first place that states and
philanthropic donors call to coordinate a health initiative. However, one area
where WHO remains the undisputed ‘focal agency’ (Hanrieder, 2015: 204) is
infectious disease surveillance and response to health emergencies. In this area
WHO has undisputedly ‘owned’ the space with authority drawn from the
International Health Regulations (IHR), an instrument adopted by WHA member
states that guides states and the WHO response to infectious disease outbreaks,
or, as termed in the IHR, public health emergencies of international concern
(Moon et al., 2015). As the next section will discuss, feminist knowledge and
practices exist within WHO but they remain marginalised and excluded from health
emergency response.
FEMINIST KNOWLEDGE AND WHO Many epistemological battles have been fought to
recognise the inclusion of feminist methodologies in sciences, technologies and
medicine (Mukhopadhyay and Prügl, 2019; Shannon et al., 2019). A review of
global gender data found that ‘the overall pattern of gender equality for women
in science, medicine, and global health is one of mixed gains and persistent
challenge’ (Shannon et al., 2019). The 1995 Beijing Declaration at the Fourth
World Congress for Women called for the collection of gender sensitive and
sex-disaggregated health data; promoting gender equality and leadership in
health care services, policies and programmes; and ensuring research, advice and
treatments that were women-centred (United Nations, 1995). Twenty-five years
later, the field of health continues to have a gender problem (Davies et al.,
2019). As a WHO report revealed in 2019, women are hired disproportionately in
low-income health roles (WHO, 2019); there are few women in senior positions in
health sciences, private health insurance, research and pharmaceutical
companies; and few gender-sensitive policies in health-related civil society
organisations, philanthropic and internal organisations (IOs) (Global Health
Council, 2019; Global Health 50/50, 2020). As the leading health institution,
WHO has sought to develop a public health approach to gender, implementing
efforts to mainstream gender within the organisation and programmes (WHO, n.d.).
In 2001, WHO adopted a commitment to gender mainstreaming (WHO, 2001); and six
years later a gender strategy was adopted by WHO’s Executive Board (EB120.R6.2)
Feminist governance in global health 219 and World Health Assembly (WHA60.25)
(WHO, 2008). The strategy introduced mechanisms to operationalise gender
mainstreaming within WHO, including training materials, a toolkit for gender
analysis and a gender road map (WHO, 2003, 2011a). The formal adoption of WHO’s
Gender Strategy was to be a ‘game-changer’ for the governance of this
international organisation (WHO, 2008). Three years later, WHO’s (2011b)
internal review of the success of its gender strategy across the organisation
demonstrated ‘limited’ success: less than one quarter of WHO publications
published sex-disaggregated data; few WHO units had integrated gender and sex
into the programmes, or monitoring and evaluation; and only a third of public
dialogue and speeches from WHO mentioned gender. The report concluded that ‘the
impact on day-to-day work has been limited’ (WHO, 2011b). In 2016, an internal
report on WHO’s gender strategy referred to ‘considerable progress’ but the
basis of this is unclear. The report provides case studies on specific
programmes as ‘models of progress’; there is no data provided in the report to
reveal the policy and programmatic gaps for gender mainstreaming that may
persist (WHO, 2016). This means we are unable to assess the claim that gender
mainstreaming has increased across WHO and its programmatic activity. The formal
adoption of WHO’s gender strategy laid the framework for feminist governance
within WHO’s internal practices and health programmes (Walyen, 2014), but there
is no evidence of transformational practices across the whole organisation. The
central unit for gender guidance and mainstreaming advice within WHO sits within
the Department of Equality and Human Rights, which comprises five people (WHO
directly employs 7,500 people). The mandate for this team’s work has been
vertical: addressing individual pillars of health such as gender and tobacco,
and gender and tuberculosis. Moreover, the gains made in the (small) gender
programme remain unclear as there are no benchmarks on what gender and tobacco,
for example, should look like in WHO- or state-level practice. For the first
time, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros declared in his 2017 election manifesto
that gender equality within WHO would be a core focus. However, the gender team
has not grown in size and they have continued to be given specific areas for
engagement (not, for example, the instruction to conduct a gender audit of WHO’s
80-plus programmes). Before the Covid-19 pandemic, this team almost exclusively
focused on gender and universal health coverage, and women’s leadership
challenges within the health workforce (see WHO, 2019). These are important
issues, and research on women’s leadership has ‘broken through’ to impact on
health emergency response (as we discuss below). There remains, however, no
reference to the integration of knowledge on gender and sex, including
monitoring and evaluation, within the health emergency programme – one of WHO’s
largest programmes (Mazumdar, 2020). This gap is illuminating, given the
gender-specific harms that health crises manifest. Formally, the key governing
mechanism for health emergencies within WHO is the IHR (2005). Women and gender
are mentioned twice within the IHR: as a category of travellers whose rights
must be protected under Article 32, and in Article 50, which recommends equal
gender representation on the IHR Review Committee. After the Ebola outbreak in
West Africa (2014–15), an external review of WHO’s response found that gendered
experiences of the outbreak were not considered and not included in risk
communication recommendations (WHO, 2015: 20). In the wake of this report, there
was a growth in global health advocacy movements focused on women’s
representation and leadership in global health, as well as the mainstreaming of
gender equality in global health programmes (Dhatt, 2020). Two notable movements
were the United States-based Women in Global Health (WIGH) (launched in 2015)
and the
220 Handbook of feminist governance United Kingdom-based Global Health 50/50
(launched in 2018). Both strongly advocate for gender equality in health
outcomes and greater women’s representation in UN institutions (including WHO)
and other health-affiliated organisations. In the wake of these campaigns,
women’s representation is one area where there was progress in WHO’s health
emergency response programme. Specifically, increased female representation in
the IHR’s Emergency Committees (ECs) which designate a public health emergency
of international concern (PHEIC). For H1N1 (2009) there were two women out of 15
members and similar levels of representation were seen for MERS 3/13 and Ebola
(2014) 2/13.2 By the time of the Zika outbreak in 2016, committee representation
had grown to 6/21 and in 2019 representation was (almost) equal for Ebola 2019
at 5/10 (there was regression for Covid-19 which only had 4/16 women). Within
WHO Health Emergencies Programme (HEP) gender inclusion has been interpreted as
women present within the outbreak response system. Representation is, however,
only one aspect of gender mainstreaming (Davies et al., 2019). From an
intersectional view, the women in the EC discussions are elite, highly educated
and professionalised. They are more likely to have come from the Global North,
or have been educated there, and represent an elite social group to facilitate
their entry into a global organisation. This approach of ‘add women and stir’
presumes representation equals inclusion (Davies et al., 2019), when neither
women scientists nor women public health officials are automatically feminists
(Harman, 2016). This is revealed in the content of the assessments and
regulations that inform the health emergency programme. The self-assessment
(SPAR) for WHA member states to meet their IHR obligations has no reference to
gender considerations in capacity-building, preparedness or outbreak response.
There is no requirement for collection of sex-disaggregated data in health
emergencies (WHO, 2018). In the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) exercises of
states’ performance in IHR core capacities, there is no consideration of gender
equality measures for workforce, risk communication, human rights legislation,
human resourcing (i.e. child care and schooling) during emergencies, or gendered
impact on health care workers’ access to personal protective equipment (WHO,
2005). The HEP toolkits to manage outbreaks have no mention of gender, gender
definitions, gender audit, nor any gender inclusive practice guidance for each
PHEIC, or in the ‘what can WHO do in health emergencies’ pages on WHO’s website
(WHO, 2018). The gap between formal participation and the inclusion of gender
knowledge, methods and approaches within WHO health emergency programme confirms
that while equal representation matters, women’s participation is not the same
as creating a space for feminist knowledge to ensure advice and programmes are
reaching women and high-risk groups on the ground at risk of infection and
neglect. This is fundamentally at odds with WHO’s own 2008 Gender Strategy:
‘programmes are responsible for analysing the role of gender and sex in their
areas of work and for developing appropriate gender-specific responses in all
strategic objectives on a continuing basis’ (WHO, 2008). Thus, while more women
may be formally present in WHO, gender-inclusive policies and gender empowerment
practices are still missing from WHO’s health emergency best practice
recommendations for the organisation itself and its member states (Lowndes,
2019). As we discuss below, the consequence of WHO’s exclusion of feminist
practices from its emergency response programme is the exclusion of
recommendations that would address the politics of gender relations: addressing
how culture, knowledge and behaviours affect outbreak response on the ground.
Feminist governance in global health 221
GENDER-INCLUSIVE HEALTH EMERGENCY RESPONSE: COVID-19 AS A TEST IOs craft their
legitimacy like any other actor (Chorev, 2012). IOs have their own institutional
culture that ‘sustain and enable their particular modalities of operation’ (Ni
Aoláin and Valji, 2018: 61). In a crisis, gender ‘preconditions’ have a huge
effect on society – they can reinforce unequal gender structures or reverse
gender progress (Hozic and True, 2016; Tanyag, 2018). WHO has a history of
excluding gender-specific recommendations because this would require WHO to end
the charade of being an apolitical institution. A feminist response to health
emergencies requires WHO to confront states with behavioural, cultural and
regulatory practices that are gendered and discriminate against individuals’
right to access health, economic and political resources (Kunz et al., 2019).
Despite the criticism that WHO failed women and girls in their response to the
2014–15 Ebola outbreak (WHO, 2015: 20), WHO did not recommend the collection of
sex-disaggregated data during the Zika virus outbreak occurring across Latin
America in 2016 (Diniz, 2017). Any effort to consider sex and/or gender as a
determinant for risk of infection was thwarted at the first stage of data
collection in the Zika outbreak (Pacheco, 2016). The public health
recommendations made by WHO and reissued by the affected states was that women
should avoid pregnancy and reduce risk of infection through household vector
control and insecticide. Gendered norms in Latin America (especially amongst
poor and ethnic minority communities) led to these responsibilities falling on
women. These responsibilities fell on women who already experience significant
gendered barriers (autonomy, cultural, financial) to access sexual and
reproductive services (Wenham et al., 2019). WHO issued advice and policies that
were wholly unsuitable to the management of the spread of infection and failed
to relieve the additional burden of the outbreak on women. The exclusion of
gender-inclusive recommendations in WHO’s advice on health emergency response
had a similar impact during the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) in 2018–19. Gender experiences were excluded from WHO risk
communication strategies, including access to minimum services for sexual and
reproductive health care, women’s at-home caregiving roles and survival sex
strategies (Holt and Ratcliffe 2019; International Rescue Committee, 2019). The
consequence of no gender analysis in WHO health emergency care delivery and risk
communication became visible when the false promise of access to early vaccine
interventions was used by men – employed by the government and WHO – to procure
sex from women and girls (McKay et al., 2019; Flummerfelt and Peyton, 2020). At
the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, WHO was again slow to include
gender-specific advice in its recommendations in response to the outbreak. This
time, however, WHO was not permitted to remain silent for long. Perhaps this was
due to the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic compared to previous health
emergencies where the spread and risk was more geographically limited; and
perhaps this was due to the first ‘shared’ global experience of the differential
impact a health emergency has on women and other marginalised groups. There were
numerous commentaries and blogs detailing the gendered vulnerabilities to
infection risk, and the secondary effects of outbreak interventions (Peterman et
al., 2020; Wenham et al., 2020; UNICEF, n.d.; UN DGC, 2020). For example, CARE
International was one of the first to outline how first responders needed to
consider the multifaceted concerns which women face in the design and
implementation of ‘lockdown’ response efforts during Covid-19 (Haneef and
Kalyanpur, 2020). WHO Lebanon was the first within that organisation to present
a gender
222 Handbook of feminist governance framework analysis within their
programmatic response to Covid-19 with UN Women, and identify how underlying
gender inequalities will compromise the containment response (UN Women Lebanon,
2020). Slowly, WHO Headquarters began to engage in conversation about gender
relations during the Covid-19 health emergency. There are more websites,
speeches and webinars being hosted by WHO on women and gender. The IHR Emergency
Committee for Covid-19 had announced the outbreak as a PHEIC on 30 January 2020
and, on 3 April 2020, Dr Tedros first referred to the impact of lockdowns and
associated risks (WHO, 2020a). On 1 May 2020, the Covid-19 PHEIC statement
included, for the first time, gender-specific recommendations on the right to
access sexual and reproductive health care during lockdown, and identified the
increased risk of domestic violence in lockdown situations (WHO, 2020b). In the
same month, May 2020, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution calling for
an evaluation of the global response to the Covid-19 outbreak, including a
review of the IHR. In this IHR review, for the first time, was the inclusion of
review of gender-specific recommendations in health emergency preparedness and
response. Indeed, May proved a pivotal point for WHO’s position on gender
inclusion. Collecting sex-disaggregated data for Covid-19 was recommended to
assist with informing the trends concerning infections amongst health care and
essential workers. Meeting this recommendation required states to prioritise the
collection of sex disaggregated data (at the time less than 50 states were
consistently collecting this data; see Global Health 50/50, 2020). In 2020, the
majority of Covid-19 lockdown measures failed to consider the gendered impacts
of such public health interventions and little advice on the gender harms of
lockdown came from WHO (Peterman et al., 2020; Wenham et al., 2020). It was not
until September 2020 that Dr Tedros announced the creation of the first Gender
Working Group within the Health Emergencies Programme (which is yet to convene).
CONCLUSION The absence of feminist practices is particularly harmful in health
emergencies. Prior to Covid-19, WHO had declared five PHEICs under the IHR: H1N1
(2009), Ebola (2014), Wild Poliovirus (2014), Zika (2016) and Ebola (2019). Each
outbreak has directly affected the health risks and health outcomes of women,
men and non-binary people differently, and required gender-sensitive risk
communication messages to different groups according to their gendered social
reproductive roles (Davies and Bennett, 2016; Smith, 2019; Wenham and Farias,
2019). However, gender expertise, gender-sensitive data and feminist-informed
methodologies have been absent from WHO’s initial response to each crisis,
including the initial response to Covid-19. WHO is captured by the dictates of
its member states but not in the way usually ascribed. WHO has been the
normative lead or ‘focal point’ for over 60 years in health research, health
policy and guidelines. It has secured this status through a delicate balance of
political and technical engagements with its member states. As the leading
technical international organisation for health governance, WHO has the agency
to promote gender-inclusive knowledge, methods and recommendations on health
emergencies, but it has chosen not to. Pressing for a change in the power of
gender relations requires WHO to recommend states to change their practices.
Until Covid-19, this was a step too far for the organisation. It only did so in
2020
Feminist governance in global health 223 due to groundswell of demand for WHO
engagement and thus was a relatively ‘risk-free’ step. Time will tell whether
Covid-19 will bring the necessary change for WHO to adopt feminist practices in
its governance of health emergencies.
NOTES 1.
WHO has its own World Health Assembly (WHA) which meets annually in Geneva and
comprises health ministry representatives from each member state. The WHA
approves the organisation’s yearly programmes and budget, and sets major policy.
There is also an Executive Board, with a rotating membership based on technical
expertise and geographical origin, which oversees all of the WHA’s decisions and
the WHO Director-General’s work. WHO also has six regional offices with separate
budget autonomy in the implementation of its programmes: Africa, Eastern
Mediterranean, Europe, Pan America, South East Asia and Western Pacific. 2. EC:
H1N1 – 2/15; MERS – 3/13; Polio – 6/20; Ebola (WA) – 2/13; Ebola (2018) – 5/11;
Zika – 6/21; Yellow Fever – 4/8; Ebola (Oct. 2018) – 5/10; Ebola (Apr. 2019) –
6/13; Ebola (June 2019) – 5/10; Ebola (Oct. 2019) – 5/12.
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18. Feminist peacebuilding governance Maria Martin de Almagro
INTRODUCTION Since the early 2000s, United Nations (UN) peacebuilding
architecture and feminist peace activists have constituted a unique alliance for
the development of feminist peacebuilding governance. This alliance has made
possible substantial changes in UN peacebuilding norms and practices in post-war
states, including: the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women,
Peace and Security (WPS) in 2000; subsequent resolutions; the creation of the
Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund; and the systematic inclusion of women and
the advancement of gender equality as foundational principles in UN
peacebuilding architecture. Feminist peacebuilding governance strives for more
than just halting direct violence. It seeks to address the specific insecurities
and the continuum of violence experienced by women and sexual minorities in the
aftermath of conflict and to eliminate gender hierarchies and other oppressive
structures that existed prior to, and exacerbated, violent conflict – including
poverty and inequality (hooks, 1984; WILPF, 2015). Feminist peacebuilding
governance is based on a feminist vision of peace embedded in three core values
and principles. First, because violence and insecurity take many forms and women
and men experience conflict and peacebuilding differently, feminist
peacebuilding governance values inclusivity and seeks to redistribute spaces,
gender roles and power in a more equitable manner. Second, it recognises that
binary understandings of war and peace erase the fact that violent conflict is
experienced as a continuum and that women and gender minorities experience
violence both before the war declaration and after the signature of a peace
agreement during reconstruction processes, due to the domination of political,
economic and societal positions of power by men and male ownership of most land
and natural resources (True and Hewitt, 2019). Therefore, feminist peacebuilding
governance takes a multidimensional and transformative approach to social
justice by tackling structural, economic, environmental, symbolic and social
insecurities together, in a comprehensive manner (True and Hewitt, 2018: 99).
Third, it acknowledges that the state and formal institutions are not the only
spaces where peace is built and that informal institutions and spaces such as
self-help groups amongst residents in rural communities are essential to sustain
peace (Autesserre, 2021). Thus, peacebuilding activities need to be expansive
and ensure that local women’s peace and human rights organisations have the
necessary power and resources to generate their own conflict-resolution and
peace-making initiatives in formal and informal spaces, rather than to simply
include them in state-centric formal processes of conflict resolution. While
acknowledging the work that regional organisations such as the EU and
non-governmental organisations such as Oxfam, Kvinna till Kvinna and ActionAid
are doing, this chapter explores the evolution of UN feminist governance in
peacebuilding from both a policy formation and a practice perspective. To that
end, the chapter proceeds as follows. The first section examines the evolution
of the UN feminist peacebuilding normative and legal framework. It suggests that
there are two demands promoted by feminist activists and scholars 227
228 Handbook of feminist governance that are now well-established UN
peacebuilding practices: partnership with local women’s organisations and the
engagement of informal, localised spaces in the quest for multidimensional
sustainable peace. The second section examines how these gender-sensitive
practices in UN peacebuilding interventions are implemented and reveals their
limitations. Ultimately, the chapter argues that peacebuilding interventions
offer opportunities for the diffusion of feminist peacebuilding norms and values
including the inclusion of marginalised perspectives. Nevertheless, the
heteronormative and neoliberal rationality embedded in these interventions ends
up reproducing patriarchal visions of social order and further conflicts around
what feminist peacebuilding should be about, exposing the gendered, classed and
racialised power relations within and between national, international and
transnational, formal and informal institutions (Dobrowolsky and Findlay,
Chapter 34 in this Handbook). Informed by feminist critiques of UN peacebuilding
frameworks, the concluding remarks reflect on how the potential for feminist
peacebuilding governance could be better developed.
FROM GENDER-BLIND TOWARDS FEMINIST PEACEBUILDING GOVERNANCE Gender-Blind
Peacebuilding The end of the Cold War enabled an increase in the number, length
and complexity of UN peacebuilding operations. The new emphasis on peacebuilding
stems from the UN recognition that previous traditional peacekeeping operations
did not tackle root causes of conflict and were not well suited to help
countries achieve sustainable peace. Whereas the UN charter does not contain any
language on peacebuilding, the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali’s 1992 Agenda
for Peace marks the beginning of a new multidimensional framework for action to
reconstruct political institutions and infrastructure, promote the organisation
of democratic elections and assist the post-conflict country in reintegration
into the global market economy in the aftermath of war. However, although it
distinguished itself from the previous simpler aims of physically separating and
keeping the peace between two warring factions (Doyle and Sambanis, 2000), this
new long-term approach to conflict prevention and peacebuilding was gender-blind
in two ways. First, although it recognised that peacebuilding needs to be
multidimensional, it still focused very much on militarisation and the
deployment of soldiers to conflict-affected areas. This raised concerns about
the ways in which military institutions promote norms of masculinity that value
belligerence and use force to end violence (Higate and Henry, 2009; Whitworth,
2004). Second, it sought to reconstruct infrastructure and promote the
reintegration of a post-war country into the global market economy through
neoliberal economic structures which enable violence against conflict-affected
women (Duncanson, 2019; True, 2012). International financial institutions such
as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund promoted economic
development strategies that prioritised austerity measures and the privatisation
of public and social services, while investing mostly in large-scale
infrastructure projects that provide traditionally male-oriented job
opportunities in sectors largely controlled by pre-war political and military
elites (True et al., 2017). These gender-blind policies not only reinforced a
gendered order that pushed women back to their pre-war traditional roles and
Feminist peacebuilding governance 229 spaces, exacerbating women’s poverty and
vulnerability to abuse and exploitation, but also reinforced structural
inequalities and crystallised root causes of conflict (Goldstein, 2003). This
only changed after a series of gender and sexual-based violence and abuse
scandals authored by UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, Haiti and Cambodia in the early
1990s which ‘exacerbate[d] insecurity for vulnerable individuals as a
consequence of gender power relations’ (Higate and Henry, 2009: 150). Following
sustained transnational feminist advocacy and in light of previous UN
peacebuilding failures, the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
included a series of commitments to address gendered power structures in
peacebuilding and the United Nations Security Council recognised that gendered
logics and practices shape and drive the political and socioeconomic dynamics of
war and peace (Cockburn, 2012; Meintjes et al., 2001).
A FEMINIST GOVERNANCE OF PEACEBUILDING: NORMATIVE AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS
For the past 20 years, the United Nations has outlined a normative and
institutional framework that reforms its practices according to feminist values
and principles. Although these initiatives were at first specifically directed
at addressing women’s vulnerabilities during conflict, the expression of
feminist values through the adoption and implementation of policies directed
towards achieving gender equality has permeated broader UN peacebuilding
institutional and legal frameworks. As a result, the increased participation of
women in peacebuilding activities and the understanding of peace as
multidimensional and multi-scale became core goals of UN peacebuilding
governance. First, in October 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed
UNSCR Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The Resolution, considered
the foundation stone of gender-sensitive policy formulation in peacebuilding
(Moran, 2010: 262), called for ‘equal participation of women in peace and
security decision-making, a gender approach to policy analysis, and sex-specific
data and research on peacekeeping and peace-building operations’ (True, 2016:
308). A whole policy architecture numbering ten dedicated resolutions, as well
as regional and national action plans, now constitute the Women, Peace and
Security agenda. Its mandate is usually described as consisting of the three
‘Ps’: prevention of violent conflict and its related sexual and gender-based
violence; protection of women and their rights in conflict contexts; and
participation of women in all affairs related to peace and security.
Importantly, this agenda has also sought to redistribute power and authority in
international interventions, as well as to move away from liberal and
state-centric perspectives, and towards bottom-up and inclusive initiatives in
post-war relief and recovery activities. Second, the institutional creation of
the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund1 at the UN in 2005
constituted a conscious effort to operate in accordance with non-hierarchical
feminist values as it laid the groundwork for an integrated approach to
post-conflict peacebuilding and reconciliation based on inclusiveness and
conflict prevention. The Peacebuilding Commission was established as an
intergovernmental advisory body to create and promote comprehensive strategies
for peacebuilding in general terms and in specific country situations. The
double UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions that led to its
establishment recognised the need to integrate a gender perspective in its
operations and reaffirmed the key role women play in conflict prevention and
peace-
230 Handbook of feminist governance building, as well as highlighting the need
for their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the
maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Furthermore, the UN
Secretary-General published a report entitled ‘Women’s Participation in
Peacebuilding’ as part of the ten-year anniversary of the WPS agenda (UNSC,
2010). The report highlighted the need for gender-sensitive disarmament,
demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes and Security Sector Reform
(SSR) initiatives and expressed clear commitment to the protection of women’s
rights throughout the peacebuilding process.2 Crucially, it outlined a
‘Seven-Point Action Plan’ for gender-responsive peacebuilding (UNSC 2010, para.
26) adopted as a response to critical voices that the participation of women was
being neglected in favour of protection, and that has informed much of the
policy work undertaken by the UN Peacebuilding Commission (Duncanson, 2016:
105). In 2016, the Peacebuilding Commission adopted its Gender Strategy to
ensure a more structural and systematic integration of gender perspectives
across its thematic work and its country-specific activities (UNGA, 2016). The
Strategy makes a clear link between gender equality and sustainable peace, and
identifies specific areas for gender-responsive peacebuilding, such as the
inclusion of women and gender experts in mediation, conflict resolution and
post-conflict reconstruction, and the upholding of women’s rights and needs
during economic recovery.3 Furthermore, the Peacebuilding Fund has also used a
gender marker system since 2009 to track its financial allocation and ranking of
projects that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. To provide
financial means for the implementation of the Gender Strategy and the
Seven-Point Action Plan, the UN created the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund
(WPHF) in 2016. The WPHF directly funds local expertise and women’s
organisations working on gender-responsive peacebuilding without the
intermediary of national administrations and through a highly consultative and
de-centralised process of project selection. Third, the broader normative
framings of the new UN Agenda on Sustaining Peace4 adopted in response to the
findings of the 2015 high-level UN’s peace operations, peacebuilding
architecture and Women, Peace and Security reviews have embraced and integrated
feminist understandings of peace as an inclusive, multidimensional and
multi-scale endeavour. Accordingly, the agenda emphasises first the need to
prevent conflict by working within formal and informal spheres of governance at
all stages of conflict and in all its dimensions, and second, the participation
of as many women as possible as a central condition for the transition to
advance sustainable solutions to peacebuilding (Klugman and Mukhtarova, 2020;
UNSC, 2020; World Bank and United Nations, 2018). To be sure, at least
discursively, gender is central to the constitutive logic of sustaining peace
across ‘all policies and programmes’ (Krook and True, 2012: 118). Holistic and
sustained engagement with local expertise, inclusive partnerships and
authority-sharing all require leaving behind the state as the main referent of
peacebuilding interventions as well as masculinised discourses about military
threats and managerial practices of liberal peace. These are replaced by
interventions at societal and community level, fostering capacity-building and
grassroots participation at different scales of governance and involving a wide
variety of actors (Hirblinger and Landau, 2018; Hunter, 2012; Rothe, 2017).
Feminist peacebuilding governance 231
GENDER-SENSITIVE PEACEBUILDING GOVERNANCE: PRACTICES AND LIMITATIONS This
section conducts a gender analysis of the two main current practices to engender
peacebuilding – women’s inclusion and partnership with local women’s
organisations in conflict prevention, and the prioritisation of informal,
everyday spaces in peace initiatives – in order to understand whether these
practices take us closer to the feminist vision of peace as outlined in the
introductory section of this chapter. It shows how, paradoxically, the
gender-sensitive activities that result from the adoption of these practices are
based on a set of assumptions about women’s agency and informal spaces that lead
to important tensions and contradictions, limiting the impact of feminist
peacebuilding governance. I will illustrate the argument through the analysis of
peacebuilding interventions in Liberia. Women Organisations as Partners in
Conflict Prevention There is now little chance that a peacebuilding initiative
does not include women and women’s organisations. Whether as part of Track 1
peace negotiations, such as in Colombia in 2013, informal conflict resolution,
such as the Bashingantahe, the circle of elders at community level in Burundi,
or through the establishment of quotas for women’s representation in parliament
and post-conflict governance, women now have a seat at the table. However,
critics have pointed to the fact that it has proved difficult to translate
women’s representation into substantive gains and a gender-sensitive peace
(Byrne and McCulloch, 2012; Tripp et al., 2009). This could be because
institutional layering initiatives, whereby new elements, such as adding women,
are ‘attached to [the] existing institution’ (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010, cited in
Van der Heijden, 2011: 11), can only bring small incremental changes while
institutional barriers are sustained over time. Some of the most recent
initiatives have tried to overcome these limitations by engaging women’s
organisations as partners in community spaces where they have always been and by
considering those spaces as key sites of peacebuilding. Based on the normative
frameworks of the UN sustaining peace and Women, Peace and Security agendas, the
joint EU–UN Spotlight Initiative (EU and UN, 2018) is the latest international
project for gender equality and women’s participation in which women’s
organisations have been invited to be partners. The Spotlight Initiative, a new
multi-year multi-million dollar programme, promises to end gender-based violence
around the world, increase community resilience and prevent conflict through a
holistic approach that combines socioeconomic empowerment and capacity-building
of women’s grassroots. Nevertheless, the programme has already shown limits to
its capacity to achieve sustainable peace according to feminist values and
principles. First, it is based on essentialist conflation of gender as sexual
binary and women as particularly vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence
(Bargués-Pedreny and Martin de Almagro, 2020). Second, it is instrumentalist, as
it builds a chain of assumptions whereby investing in women’s natural capacities
as conflict preventers will not only reduce sexual and gender-based violence,
but will also generate returns for community sustainable peace and resilience
(Charlesworth, 2008). Third, it is highly racialised and racialising, as certain
regional pathologies such as femicide in Latin America, or harmful traditional
practices in sub-Saharan Africa, are identified as socio-cultural problems
rather than considering how gender violence is related to the gendered
structures of poverty or to the global dynamics of neoliberal accumulation and
dispossession (Bargués-Pedreny and Martin de Almagro, 2020).
232 Handbook of feminist governance To illustrate, the Liberia Spotlight
Initiative highlights ‘a number of sociocultural factors that pose a challenge
to the eradication of GBV in Liberia’, including ‘patriarchal norms’, years of
war or ‘a generalised cultural and societal acceptance of violence against women
and children’ (EU and UN, 2018: 9). Spotlight finds that the most problematic
issue in terms of gender violence are harmful traditional practices, such as
Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting, ‘a deeply rooted practice that is a few
thousand years old’ (Middleburg, 2018: 22). While Spotlight points to Liberian
culture, customs and rituals preserved by traditional leaders as responsible for
gender violence, it also locates the solution in the same informal rural
settings such as bush schools, female secret societies and other informal
authorities, legitimising a holistic approach to transforming cultural norms,
whereby women are victims but also key agents in conflict and violence
prevention. This also reproduces racialised representations of Black women as
victims of their own culture, and gives legitimacy to the continuing
‘gender-sensitive’ mode of government on sustaining peace, while more political
questions on recognition and on what kind of economic, social and political
capital are necessary for meaningfully engaging in peacebuilding processes are
not answered. Multidimensional and Multi-Scalar Peacebuilding: Informal Spaces
and Socioeconomic Justice UN peacebuilding governance understands peace as
multidimensional and encompassing physical, economic and environmental security.
Accordingly, the UN Secretary-General has recognised that one of the major
barriers to the inclusion of women in post-war recovery is that women’s pre-war
economic activities are marginalised;5 immediate post-war reconstruction efforts
focus on large-scale infrastructure projects that tend to provide employment
opportunities primarily to men. These models of massive infrastructure
investment prioritised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
usually also involve savings and cuts in the public sectors and services where
women work and on which women rely because of their assigned care roles, such as
health and education. This results in the poverty that makes it virtually
impossible for women to challenge unequal social relations and can also in part
explain why gender-based violence tends to persist in post-war countries (Cohn
and Duncanson, 2020). In order to correct this imbalance, the UN Peacebuilding
Fund now supports projects that specifically target women’s socioeconomic rights
through the provision of microfinance schemes or small-scale income generation
projects directed at developing the entrepreneurial skills of women in cash crop
production of, for example, cashews, cocoa and coffee, and at formalising their
participation in the country’s economy through the formalising of traditionally
female businesses such as beauty parlours, food stands and susus, women’s groups
for money lending (Martin de Almagro and Ryan, 2019). Nevertheless, although
these gender-sensitive peacebuilding practices seek to economically empower
women, they rarely offer the opportunity for women to escape poverty and to
safely and equally participate in post-conflict reconstruction. This is because
these practices are based on neoliberal economic prescriptions that reproduce
gendered hierarchies and put women into a subordinate position in the global
economy. For example, small-scale income generation projects dichotomise formal
and informal spaces by targeting informal ‘feminine’ activities that contribute
to the economy of the household, without recognising how women’s informal
economic activity always and already contributes to growth of formal markets.
This, together with the idea that women have poten-
Feminist peacebuilding governance 233 tial as small-size entrepreneurs to bring
more economic growth reproduces gendered power dynamics that on the one hand
devalue the feminised ‘informal’ and that on the other result in an added burden
for women. The devaluing of the informal sector in WPS implementation documents
and the Peacebuilding Commission strategy is striking, all the more because of
the predominant participation of women (90 per cent) in informal or agricultural
economic activity in post-conflict countries, upon which most of the formal
economic sector depends (UNDP, 2009: 7). Second, we find similar dynamics in
post-conflict land reform, where the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund privilege land privatisation schemes. While in principle these reforms seek
to ensure equal access to land, in practice it worsens the situation for women
and other marginalised populations in post-war settings. This is because the
private ownership of land reduces the land available for collective uses upon
which women have relied. For example, in Liberia, the formalisation of land
rights and land titles in the new Land Rights Act (2018) was supported by the
Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund. The Act gives rights to
women to own land for the first time and integrates women into decision-making
structures at community and national levels. In practice, however, a rural
illiterate woman who has always cultivated collective plots of land will not be
able to capitalise on registration opportunities and obtain a land title, but
will suffer the consequences if somebody else registers as private land the land
which she cultivates or where she finds firewood, or if the land is taken over
by concession companies in the rubber, mining and forestry sectors where women
rarely have employment opportunities. These projects treat women as individual
smallholders with access to land, whereas the decisions about what to cultivate,
where to cultivate and how the common plot of land will be distributed are taken
by men, and women cultivate it as a collectivity (women share land with
co-wives, for example). While the intention has been to balance power
inequalities and redistribute resources, the solutions proposed to gender
mainstream national economic recovery follow technocratic and neoliberal logics
and do not account for how structural inequalities and gender power
differentials play out in the proposed reforms.
CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have argued that feminist peacebuilding governance
understands how war-making and peace are shaped by gendered power relations, and
how these determine whose experiences of war count as legitimate knowledge and
who can sit at the peace negotiation table. During the past two decades, UN
peacebuilding architecture and feminist peace activists have constituted a
unique alliance in global governance, making possible substantial changes in UN
peacebuilding norms and practices in post-war states. First, a normative and
legal framework has turned once gender-blind peacebuilding into a project where
the inclusion of a diversity of women’s perspectives, experiences and expertise
is regarded as essential to bring about social and political change. Second, a
series of implementation practices have ensured that gender is integrated in UN
peacebuilding policies on conflict prevention and economic recovery. In a second
section, the chapter offered a gender analysis of gender-sensitive peacebuilding
practices such as working alongside women’s organisations as partners and
engaging in informal spaces. It exposed a mixed picture of slow wins and
remaining challenges. Although
234 Handbook of feminist governance these practices represent opportunities for
the diffusion of gender-sensitive, people-centred peacebuilding, they are also
based on problematic gendered and racialised assumptions concerning women’s
participation and on dichotomous understandings of formal and informal
institutions that devalue and depoliticize the informal spaces where women are
most present. As the Liberia example illustrated, UN gender-sensitive
peacebuilding initiatives have selectively integrated feminist critique into
their policy frameworks through incremental integration of women (Fraser, 2013)
as peacebuilders and economic producers, while in practice reinforcing
neoliberal policies that perpetuate hierarchical gendered, classed and
racialised power structures rather than correcting them. In other words, the
transformative claims of a new sustainable peace agenda based on feminist values
and principles are not met because normative framework and policy practices are
still based on a dominant neoliberal policy frame consisting in giving
individual rights and formalising previously informal structures. This
complexity and the contradictions need to be considered in order to better
understand the material consequences gender-sensitive practices have for the
everyday life of women and marginalised populations in post-war societies. For
example, when facing the latest threat, Covid-19, what the UN highlights is ‘the
importance of women’s full, equal and meaningful participation to an effective
pandemic response and to peacemaking efforts’ (UNWOMEN and DPPA, 2020).
Accordingly, the 2020 annual Secretary-General report on Women, Peace and
Security affirmed that ‘[a]lthough the primary responsibility for handling
public health emergencies lies with the State, women’s groups have demonstrated
that they are essential leaders in emergencies and play a key role in
maintaining social cohesion and preventing further conflict and instability’
(UNSC, 2020: 2). Crucially, because state structures are weak, ‘superhero(in)e’
women’s groups in post-conflict contexts are once again positioned as the
solution (Shepherd, 2011), while the economic policies of international
financial institutions that have undermined the revenue base of states and
weakened public health services remain unquestioned. Ultimately, challenging
neoliberal reconstruction policies that determine the distribution of post-war
power and resources should be at the core of feminist peacebuilding governance.
This involves careful gender analysis of care and reproduction economies and the
role they play in post-war reconstruction, as well as feminist
institution-building outside the UN peacebuilding architecture (Duncanson, 2019;
Martin de Almagro and Ryan, 2019; True and Svedberg, 2019). Failing to do so
will result in what the UN calls ‘feminist’ peacebuilding being antithetical to
the needs of women and marginalised populations, not least because their
presence and (re)productive work is only valued if it sustains neoliberal ideas
of ‘good governance’ and economic growth. Alternative feminist visions that
dismantle global political and economic power structures and masculine
institutions, and that put women’s agency and needs at the centre, must become
an integral part of UN peacebuilding frameworks and practices if these are to
help build gender-sensitive, sustainable peace.
NOTES 1. UN Security Council S/RES/1645 (2005) and UN General Assembly
A/RES/60/180 of 20 December 2015 on post-conflict peacebuilding led to the
creation of the UN Peacebuilding architecture and its three main bodies: the
Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding Support
Office.
Feminist peacebuilding governance 235 2.
Countless toolkits and manuals have been developed that propose strategies to
ensure gender training for staff responsible for SSR policy and planning and
also for new recruits in police, military and private security forces. See, for
example, OSCE (2019) ‘Inclusion of Women and Effective Peace Processes: A
Toolkit’, available at https:// www .osce .org/ secretariat/ 440735; Hunt
Alternative Fund and International Alert (2004) ‘Inclusive Security, Sustainable
Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action’; Megan Bastick and Kristin Valasek
(eds) (2008) Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, Geneva: DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR
and UN-INSTRAW. 3. The Peacebuilding Commission’s Gender Strategy is available
at https:// www .un .org/ peacebuilding/ sites/ www .un .org .peacebuilding/
files/ documents/ 07092016 - _pbc _gender _strategy _final _1 .pdf (accessed 29
April 2021). 4. UN General Assembly, Review of the United Nations peacebuilding
architecture, A/RES/70/262, 27 April 2016; UN Security Council, S/RES/2282
(2016), Resolution 2282 adopted by the Security Council at its 7580 meeting. 5.
Women, Peace and Security, Report of the Secretary-General (S/2019/800 and
A/73/890-S/2019/448) (UNSC, 2019).
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19. Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council Victoria
Scheyer and Marina Kumskova
INTRODUCTION The concept of feminist governance – initiated by feminist peace
activists protesting against the First World War – has been evolving for over a
century. Already in 1915, feminists demanded national governments end war and
the arms trade and focus on gender equality and social justice instead.1 Ever
since, steps have been taken to transform traditional concepts of peace and
security based on the absence of war and instead move towards a feminist
understanding of peace and security. In this endeavour, the engagement of the
feminist movement with the United Nations (UN) Security Council is critical. The
Security Council – the intergovernmental body responsible for the maintenance of
international peace and security – is one of the most powerful institutions in
the UN system. It is not only a decision-making actor but also an arena for
other stakeholders to interact with one another. As an actor, the Security
Council has a strong influence on how conflicts or threats to peace and security
are understood and dealt with due to its power to ‘determine the existence of
any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression’ (UN Charter,
1945: Art. 39) and how these threats are addressed, via the deployment of a
peacekeeping mission, imposing sanctions, and otherwise. Additionally, the
Security Council provides an arena where policies, including on gender equality
and women’s rights, are negotiated. Peace and security stakeholders, such as
states, intergovernmental organisations, scholars and civil society, come
together to advance norms and principles on peace and security in the periphery
of this arena. As the engagement between the Security Council and feminist
actors grows, it becomes crucial to understand how they influence each other in
this process. To elaborate how feminist governance interacts with the Security
Council and its peace and security mandate, this chapter discusses feminist
peace and security governance and unpacks the framework for analysis.
Subsequently, we map out where feminist efforts have carved out processes and
actions to advance feminist norms and practices. Finally, we assess how these
structures, policy and actions are at risk of being co-opted and used to sustain
traditional peace and security governance. Overall, we argue that feminist peace
and security governance and the Security Council – as an actor and an arena –
influence each other in ways that shape the transformation of peace and
security. At this point, we acknowledge our situatedness in the Global North and
emphasise that the definitions in the article reflect our understanding of an
inclusive and intersectional approach to feminism.
238
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council 239
DEFINING FEMINIST PEACE AND SECURITY GOVERNANCE Feminist governance consists of
a multitude of ‘feminist institutions, norms and ideas as well as the work that
feminists have done within broader political institutions and knowledge and
governance networks at national, subnational and transnational levels’, as
defined elsewhere in this Handbook. Feminist institutions and policies function
in accordance with feminist values, such as power-sharing, non-hierarchy and
intersectional inclusiveness. Feminist governance, as such, is based on gender
equality, applies an intersectional gender lens to policies, consults with
diverse gender identities and seeks a transformation of traditional governance.
Feminist governance in the context of the Security Council and its peace and
security mandate requires an understanding of peace and security as gendered
concepts. The understanding of concepts as gendered – including peace and
security – rests on the premise that gender is the ordering principle of all
aspects of social life (Connell, 1987). Gender structures the economic, cultural
and political spheres and shapes society’s ideology, institutions and identities
(True, 2012). Gender and its intersection with race, class and sexuality further
form a system of dominance (Crenshaw, 1991). This system shapes how we
understand peace and security, who is included and excluded in decision-making,
and who is the target audience of policies or actions. It favours and reinforces
ruling principles that are heteronormative and postcolonial and ‘hegemonic
masculine’2 identities that are heterosexual, (context-specific) white, and
wealthy (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Peace and security in traditional
theory of international relations and governance evolved out of this system of
dominance. Security is understood to serve the purposes of supporting the
dominance of the ruling principles and people through militarism and national
ownership (Hooper, 2001). Peace is understood as the absence of war and violence
– neglecting state responsibility to deliver on social justice and gender
equality as a goal, means or indicator of peace. Feminist peace research
understands peace and security as normative, intersectional and transformational
concepts (Wibben et al., 2019). In other words, feminist peace and security
governance is based on ‘the promotion of social justice and the elimination of
violence in all its manifestations and at all levels of society’ (Tickner,
2019). It serves to remove power hierarchies, foster gender equality from an
intersectional perspective, engage in gender-sensitive human security and take a
people-centred approach. From this perspective, the Security Council would seek
to transfer and share power with other actors for more inclusive decision-making
and with the focus on conflict prevention. To understand the extent to which the
Security Council is able to pursue transformation, we assess the Security
Council as an actor: its structure (e.g. veto power), the roles of member states
(i.e. permanent and elected members), working methods (e.g. Informal Experts
Groups (IEGs)) and its products (e.g. resolutions, presidential statements).
Through examining the arena offered by the Security Council, we pay attention to
processes that exist around it. The Security Council provides a platform through
which policies on gender equality, peace and international women’s rights are
negotiated by member states, UN actors (e.g. UN Women, the Peacebuilding
Commission), intergovernmental organisations (e.g. the African Union) and civil
society (e.g. NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (WPS)). To
understand the ways feminist peace and security governance interacts with the
Security Council, we analyse it as an actor and an arena within feminist peace
and security governance through its most critical processes: (1) the creation
and operationalisation of feminist values in transnational networks engaging
with peace and security policy; (2) feminist
240 Handbook of feminist governance institution-building within and around the
Security Council; (3) the expression of feminist values through the adoption and
implementation of policies by the Security Council; (4) the soft regulation
involved in transnational monitoring, reporting and ranking of policy adopted by
the Security Council.
STATUS QUO OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL The Security Council forms the powerful
centre of the UN’s work on peace and security with traditional peace and
security governance structures and practices at the core of the institution.
Historical preconditions prevalent in 1945, at the time the UN was formed,
integrated patriarchal and colonial principles of traditional peace and security
governance and national ownership into the UN Charter and, specifically, into
the mandate of the Security Council. While its hegemonic masculine structure is
still the point of departure, without the Security Council, feminist peace and
security governance would not be the same. The Security Council’s adoption of
the WPS agenda, with Resolution 1325 and nine subsequent resolutions, has been a
critical step in forming feminist peace and security governance, spearheading
the global feminist transformation. The actions of no other body within the UN
system can give the same visibility and political support to feminist values and
feminist peace and security governance more broadly. After almost a century of
constant lobbying and advocacy, feminist activists and a growing transnational
movement, together with states, were able to carve out space in the Security
Council to advocate for feminist values and institution-building and promote
feminist peace and security governance (Caglar et al., 2016; Zürn, 2020). The
action of feminist activists has played a significant role in what Prügl (2004:
75) calls the process of building ‘new rules of identity, expanding the scope of
rights, new gender norms, and new means of enforcement’. As such, feminist
transformation continues taking place across nations, sectors and institutions,
including through the spaces created within and around the Security Council.
POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE SECURITY COUNCIL AND FEMINIST PEACE AND SECURITY
GOVERNANCE The Security Council – both as an actor and as an arena – undoubtedly
has influenced the adoption of feminist approaches to peace and security, while
feminist peace and security governance has also changed the Security Council’s
role and position in the fulfilment of gender equality and social justice at all
levels and for all people. As an actor, the Security Council has used its
political power to advance critical processes around women’s situations in
conflict. Building on the work of the feminist movement, the Security Council
has developed a solid normative feminist peace and security framework, which, as
NGO Working Group on WPS (2020) reports, incorporates a broader range of issues
than any other thematic area on the Security Council’s agenda. It includes, for
example, gender-responsive peacebuilding, survivor-centred approaches to
gender-based violence and women’s participation. The WPS agenda subsequently
made the Security Council a relevant actor and a useful arena for the goals of
feminist peace and security governance: it encouraged the international
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council 241
community to look beyond the securitised understanding of peace and security and
inspired further development of feminist objectives in peace and security.
First, the WPS agenda serves as a foundation and a critical tool for security
experts, activists and policy professionals all over the world to advance peace
and security in a way that looks at conflict comprehensively, takes into account
different experiences and is rooted in dialogue, prevention and peace for
everyone. While criticised for failing to achieve its full potential, the WPS
agenda allows for transformative conversations about peace and security that
extend beyond reproducing traditional security. Second, the WPS agenda has
influenced the Security Council’s working methods and decision-making on matters
such as referrals to the International Criminal Court, country-specific
resolutions,3 donor conferences for conflict-affected countries and peace
talks.4 In many of these processes, WPS is now a critical consideration.
Finally, it contributed to the creation of what Aggestam and True (2020: 148)
call ‘a community of practice’ that not only monitors but builds on existing
developments and in which meanings and discourses of gender are negotiated and
changed. Aggestam and True (2020) refer to progressive developments in the
understanding of the categories of women and men. Instead of portraying those as
homogeneous groups, an intersectional lens is increasingly applied (including,
for example, girls, minority groups and disabled women, as well as recognizing
men and boys as active allies and victims of gender-based violence themselves).
Changes in discourses and meanings also lead to changes in international peace
and security practice. As such, the WPS agenda not only protects women in
conflict but also encourages the international community, including the Security
Council, to reconsider the way they approach peace and security. The Security
Council became a stronger actor in feminist peace and security governance by
introducing relevant gender expertise into its internal workings. In 2011, it
mandated new institutional offices, most notably the Office of the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict
(S/RES/1988). It improved the gender capacity of peacekeeping missions and peace
operations by enabling the deployment of gender advisors and women protection
officers (Chinkin and Rees, 2019). Furthermore, the IEG on WPS – formed in 2016
– highlights gender dimensions of particular conflict-affected situations,
assesses consultations between the Council and local experts, and thus
strengthens the flow of information about women’s experiences in conflict
(Chinkin and Rees, 2019). While the Security Council’s role in feminist peace
and security governance is critical, the limitations of its structure
necessitated the establishment of several processes. First, a member states-led
collective to support the implementation of the WPS agenda – the Group of
Friends – has been formed under the leadership of Canada. Second, the NGO
Working Group on WPS (2020) reports that the increased use of ‘solidarity
missions’ by senior UN leadership brought the WPS dimension into relevant
Security Council meetings on country-specific situations. Finally, Spain,
together with Canada, Chile, Japan, Namibia and the United Arab Emirates,
launched the WPS Focal Points Network in 2016, which ‘serves as a cross-regional
forum and provides space in which to share experiences and best practices so as
to advance the implementation of all Security Council resolutions on women,
peace and security and to improve the coordination of funding and assistance
programmes’.5 The WPS agenda has transformed the work of the UN more broadly.
Resolution 1325 inspired the establishment of the Inter-Agency Network on Women
and Gender Equality
242 Handbook of feminist governance (IANWGE) and its Task Force on WPS to
promote and coordinate the integration of gender perspectives into all the peace
and security work of the UN (Otto, 2010). As an arena, the Security Council
represents a driving force behind shifting the narrative and practice directed
towards achieving gender equality at all levels, while strengthening its own
awareness on the use of gender analysis in conflict. The Security Council hosts
two important annual debates – one on sexual violence in conflict and another on
WPS. On the decision of a presiding member state, additional meetings can be
added.6 During these meetings, all states – not only those within the Security
Council – and other WPS stakeholders can share their WPS priorities and goals.
As such, the Security Council facilitates the exchange of ideas, provides space
to articulate feminist principles in peace and security, creates incentives for
the states to engage with WPS, and potentially bridges the divide between
normative support for and implementation of the WPS agenda. Notably, the
experiences of WPS practitioners have gained a more prominent space within these
meetings. The NGO Working Group on WPS (2020) reports that briefings by women
civil society representatives are increasing in number, growing from two women
in 2016 to 26 women in 2019, providing greater opportunity for multi-stakeholder
exchange. Outside of the formal meetings of the Security Council, member states
active on WPS have been increasingly utilising the format of Arria Formula
meetings. These meetings have become an important working method for allowing
‘outsiders’ to have an impact on the Security Council and other stakeholders.
Ruane and Kumskova (2018) highlight a specific example – the 19 March 2018 Arria
Formula Meeting on the human rights situation in Syria – where the findings from
the Commission of Inquiry on Syria’s report on human rights violations, sexual
violence and accountability were stressed. Following the meeting, the
International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on Syria affirmed it
would not only include specialists in sexual and gender-based crimes in its work
but also ensure it addresses the full range of gender-based crimes and properly
hear the voices of women in the accountability process (Ruane and Kumskova,
2018). The platforms provided by the Security Council have resulted in impact at
the international, regional, national and local levels. Internationally, the WPS
agenda has served as a foundation for global policy frameworks and approaches to
implement and monitor women’s rights in conflict. These include the Seven Action
Points on Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding (2010 and 2020) and the 2016
Gender Strategy and 2021 Action Plan of the Peacebuilding Commission. In 2019,
the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) adopted a policy on
WPS to ensure that gender-relevant perspectives are integrated into all DPPA
activities to promote inclusive conflict prevention. Feminist peace and security
governance is now part of the policy within the UN Department of Peace
Operations (DPO) and is a cross-cutting element in Security Sector Reform (SSR)
and Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) efforts. Overall, True
(2016) suggests that gender mainstreaming has become a regular practice in
international organisations and UN agencies. The impact of evolving feminist
peace and security governance is seen at the regional level. For instance, the
European Union (EU) has adopted a Comprehensive Approach on WPS; the African
Union has created an Office of the Special Envoy on WPS; the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS), Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have also developed regional
action plans on WPS. The WPS agenda has had a significant impact at the national
level. First, Sonneveld (2015) reports that, for local civil society, the WPS
agenda serves as a framing tool and source of legit-
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council 243 imacy to
demand action from governments and the international community. Simultaneously,
the WPS agenda demands implementation of national governments through WPS
national action plans (NAPs). Currently, over 60 states have NAPs, including
conflict-affected states (e.g. Ukraine, South Sudan), post-conflict states (e.g.
Bosnia, Nepal, Liberia) and states not involved in conflict (e.g. Belgium,
Austria) (Chinkin and Rees, 2019). Other states advance feminist values through
feminist foreign policies, the appointment of dedicated ministerial positions
and parliamentary committees, and WPS-informed defence strategies, among other
avenues. The Security Council has played a unique role in feminist peace and
security governance and one beyond the capacity of any other actor. Through the
adoption of the WPS agenda the Security Council opened the door to the
institutionalisation and operationalisation of new gender norms and gendered
social relations internally but also everywhere in the world and for everyone.
As such, the powerful position of the Security Council can be used to the
benefit of feminist goals if properly orchestrated by member states. This
process can produce a more inclusive understanding of security and has the
potential to shift the relations of domination in institutions seemingly
incapable of this shift – like the Security Council.
CO-OPTATION OF FEMINIST PEACE AND SECURITY GOVERNANCE Since its powerful
position is rooted in traditional peace and security models, the Security
Council often co-opts and limits the full capacity of feminist peace and
security governance through its structure and its practice. As an actor, the
Security Council’s structure creates intersectional inequalities by reproducing
hierarchy, power and dominance through the division between permanent and
non-permanent members, its lack of transparency, the use of veto (Ruane and
Kumskova, 2018) and its legitimation of the use of force (Kronsell, 2012). The
division between permanent and non-permanent members upholds the power
differences and restricts the feminist principle of power-sharing. Boyle and
Chinkin (2007: 346) argue that this exclusivity makes the Security Council a
‘deficient vehicle’ of fairness, transparency and accountability because of its
unrepresentative nature and the power given to its permanent members. Hence, the
permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States – have built a ‘legalized hegemony’ of the most powerful,
institutionalised in the system of the UN (Hurd, 2018). While Hurd fails to
address gender, race or sexuality in his analysis, we argue that this system of
dominance is crucial in understanding how the hegemony of the permanent members
and the Security Council is upheld and inequality regimes are created. The most
powerful states are at the centre, while others remain at the margin,
‘feminized’, ‘deviant’ and ‘weak’ (True, 2018) and do not get to make decisions.
As such, the Security Council dramatically influences the trajectory of
conflicts, countries’ relations and people’s lives, including those of women,
LGBTQI, refugees, marginalised ethnicities, and all others. Feminist scholars
and activists are noticing that the new feminist spaces in and around the
Security Council are increasingly being co-opted for traditional security
purposes (Pratt, 2013; Otto, 2010; Aggestam and True, 2020). Even after the
adoption of Resolution 1325, the Security Council remains very much opposed to
expanding its security practice towards a people-centred approach and reflecting
the experiences of all genders. Instead, the Security
244 Handbook of feminist governance Council is devoted to what Cohn (2008)
calls a ‘hardcore issue of military threats’, and it understands security as
state-centred and therefore national security. The Security Council limits the
WPS agenda from becoming a fully transformative vehicle in feminist peace and
security governance. Limitations imposed by the Security Council on the WPS
agenda include its securitised foundation; lack of meaningful and systematic
implementation thereof; ongoing focus on ‘womenandchildren’7 as a single group
of victims of conflict; lack of meaningful participation; and reinforcement of
patriarchal power structures. Otto (2016: 3) recognises that the ‘WPS Agenda has
come at some cost to feminist goals’. One of the costs is the inability to go
beyond women’s inclusion in the discussion about conflict. This would enable the
change of discourse and a shift from securitisation and war towards prevention
and gender equality (Cohn, 2008; Pratt, 2013). Another cost is the way the WPS
agenda is used to securitise conflict-related sexual violence (Chinkin and Rees,
2019). This securitisation means the reformulation of a political issue into a
security threat that requires a militarised response, driving the legitimation
of militarisation. Instead of responding to a political issue, securitisation
serves to hide the underlying gendered, racialised and sexualised power
relations (Meger, 2016). Another cost, according to Pratt (2013), is the neglect
of colonial and imperialist hierarchies and the favouring of women’s experiences
over broader notions of gender, sexuality, race and class. The Security
Council’s approach to peace and security lacks an intersectional approach that
addresses the experiences of diverse women, including LGBTQI or disabled women,
and co-opts postcolonial, Black and intersectional feminism. The WPS agenda and
Security Council’s engagement with it has been ‘watered down’ (Allen and
Shepherd, 2019). The adoption of a new WPS resolution used to be a process of
building on the language of Resolution 1325 and expanding on some of its
aspects, without losing its critical messages. Today, tabling a resolution on
WPS has become a tool for raising member states’ legitimacy and visibility in
the international arena. The adoption of Resolution 2467 in 2019 is a good
example where the German government ignored official statements by both
transnational and German civil society8 against passage of a new resolution. The
language on sexual health and reproductive rights was compromised because the
United States threatened to veto this resolution otherwise (NGO Working Group on
WPS, 2019). The Security Council’s practice of deploying militarised
peacekeeping missions limits feminist peace and security governance and a
different approach to peace. Peacekeeping with its militarised personnel is
itself a highly masculinised practice as almost all soldiers are men – only 4.8
per cent of peacekeepers are women (UN Peacekeeping, 2020). Peacekeepers are
trained for combat in their national contexts, protecting those that have been
constructed as weak or ‘feminised’. It is through such military structures that
peacekeepers commit sexual exploitation and abuse (in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Haiti and Liberia) and add violence to countries already in conflict.
While feminist peace and security governance has created a strong push for the
establishment of gender advisor positions in peacekeeping missions, practical
implementation often fails, and structures co-opt their purpose. Gender
positions in peacekeeping are also more likely to be cut when funding becomes an
issue (Allen, 2017); responsibility for women and gender issues is then
outsourced to gender advisors, who do not always have the power or experience to
advance meaningful change (Athie and Taylor, 2017). While the appointment of
gender advisors and increase of women in peacekeeping are necessary steps
towards transforming the field of peace and security, they are not sufficient to
challenge security practices, militarised masculinities and peacekeeping
practices in general.
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council 245 Progress
towards the transformation of peace and security has often relied on individual
initiatives of elective members and their national agendas and is not a result
of the structure and practices of the Security Council. The power divide between
the permanent five and the non-permanent members co-opts feminist
institution-building and power sharing. Namibia, Bangladesh, Canada and Jamaica,
for example, brought forward Resolution 1325; Canada and Uruguay are co-chairing
the Focal Point Network of WPS; Sweden continually raised women and gender
issues at the Security Council’s meetings during its tenure; and Peru and
Bolivia have pushed for the root causes of conflicts to be addressed (Ruane and
Kumskova, 2018). Also, in the IEG on WPS meetings, elected members usually
express strong support, provide information and push for topics to be included
in country-specific resolutions of the Security Council. For example, the
protection of women human rights defenders in Libya has been raised several
times in IEG meetings but still has not been addressed (NGO Working Group on
WPS, 2020). In the negotiation process, other factors matter, and these factors
go beyond the priorities and needs of people. Cohn (2008) suggests that
motivation often rests on coincidence and personal relationships. Dependence on
individual members means that when non-permanent members of the Security Council
leave their seat, so too will the topic of WPS or feminist values. As an arena,
the Security Council brings about limited concrete change in policy and action.
While the Security Council has improved its engagement with feminist movements,
the outcomes vary greatly from the input by civil society. The Security Council
is a space where the feminist movement can express its concerns; however, this
space is difficult to enter and has solid boundaries for feminist activism
(Cook, 2009). The Security Council is hard to access for those who are
geographically, politically and financially outside of the New York WPS ‘bubble’
and outside the Global North. It has been difficult for many local
organisations, especially from the Global South, to be able to participate in
the Security Council’s work, as member states who invite civil society briefers
do not support their travel to New York. Therefore, many organisations rely on
lobbying their governments in national capitals or have NGO representatives in
New York to advocate on their behalf. Despite all warnings and suggestions, the
Security Council has failed to respond to the gendered impact of the Covid-19
pandemic and instead has significantly decreased the number of civil society
speakers. The resistance to WPS implementation in the Security Council arena is
limiting transformation towards feminist peace and security governance. The NGO
Working Group on WPS (2019) reports that women are often excluded from peace
processes or have limited influence on their outcomes. At the 2019 Yemen Peace
Talks, only one out of 12 delegates was a woman, and the Stockholm Agreement
does not include any specific provisions for women or gender (NGO Working Group
on WPS, 2019). The Secretary-General states in his 2019 report on WPS that
implementation remains a challenge: only 41 per cent of member states have
adopted national action plans on WPS; the world’s total military spending in
2018 reached US$1.8 trillion; only 24.3 per cent of parliamentary seats are held
by women; and ‘the rise of misogynistic, sexist and homophobic speech by
political leaders in recent years has contributed to increased violence against
women, against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex
individuals, and women human rights defenders’ (UN Secretary-General, 2019: 2).
In regard to the implementation of the NAPs, feminist scholars and activists
(Haastrup and Hagen, 2020; Achilleos-Sarll, 2018) highlight the process of
reinforcing power structures. The divide is clear between NAPs in the Global
North that are aimed at foreign aid rather than the
246 Handbook of feminist governance implementation of WPS commitments in their
own countries, and NAPs in the Global South that are focused on the
implementation of WPS in their own contexts. The Security Council – as an actor
and as an arena – carries the risk of co-opting feminist peace and security
governance and further reinforcing hegemonic masculine structures and practices,
such as the securitisation of the WPS agenda, militarisation of peacekeeping
missions in the name of saving and protecting women, integration of women in the
military (under the mask of achieving greater gender equality), or lack of
positive action to counter power structures, hierarchy and exclusion. It is
evident that the Security Council only engages with selective topics on the
feminist agenda and instrumentalises it for traditional security purposes.
THE FUTURE OF FEMINIST PEACE AND SECURITY GOVERNANCE IN THE SECURITY COUNCIL The
Security Council would not be the same without feminist peace and security
governance, and vice versa. However, the interaction between the Security
Council and feminist peace and security governance is complex, with positive and
negative outcomes. The Security Council is not simply countering feminist
governance. Claiming this would be to ignore the hard-won gains that have been
achieved by member states championing WPS and feminist movements fighting for
gender equality, inclusion, dialogue and disarmament, and paving the way for the
adoption of the WPS agenda. What is important is that the Security Council
changes under the influence of feminist peace and security governance. The
Security Council’s role in feminist peace and security governance shows that
feminist governance can utilise the Council to advance its goals. However,
governance actors must be very careful concerning the potential impact of their
interaction with the Security Council in the long term. The Security Council
needs to be analysed through the prism of the broader system of international
politics, where patriarchal relations are constitutive of the global neoliberal
world order (True, 2018). It remains a hegemonic masculine institution that
upholds and reproduces gendered, racialised and sexualised social relations.
While the Security Council is a meaningful actor that has helped move global
peace and security governance towards a more feminist agenda, the Security
Council needs to fulfil the feminist principle of transferring and sharing power
– to empower other actors and encourage the use of other arenas for feminist
peace and security governance.
NOTES 1.
Resolution of the first congress in the Hague in 1915 stands against war and
militarism and demands inclusive peace (see WILPF, 1915). 2. Hegemonic
masculinity posits a form of hegemony that is institutional, normative and
cultural based on hierarchy and the oppression of not only femininities but also
non-heterosexual forms of masculinities (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). 3.
NGO Working Group on WPS (2020) cites a considerable increase in WPS language in
outcomes adopted by the Council. The 11 peace operations that did not have a
mandate to engage with women’s civil society included little to no information
on such activities. 4. NGO Working Group on WPS (2020) found that in 2019 only 1
per cent of the Security Council’s discussion of country-specific situations
included mention of women’s participation in peace and security processes.
Feminist peace and security governance and the UN Security Council 247 5. See
the ‘about’ section of the WPS Focal Points Network at http:// www . wpsfocalpo
intnetwork .org. 6. In 2016, under the leadership of Angola, the Security
Council hosted an additional open debate on Women, Peace and Security in Africa
(S/PV.7658). 7. The term was first developed by Cynthia Enloe (1993) when she
described the protectionist logic of saving women and children in war and
conflict. 8. German civil society statement against new resolution initiated by
Germany as a non-permanent member; see Anica Heinlein et al. (2019).
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20. Feminist interventions in trade governance Erin Hannah, Adrienne Roberts and
Silke Trommer
INTRODUCTION While some institutions of global economic governance have long
been interested in questions of gender equality, gender concerns have only
recently started to gain traction within trade governance. A number of
institutions started to engage in gender mainstreaming in trade in the 1990s,
including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, while gender-specific
provisions were included in the Economic Community of Central African States,
the Economic Community of West African States and the East African Community in
the 1980s and 1990s. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD) was also developing recommendations for how to mainstream gender in
trade at the turn of the millennium. Yet, in the mid- to late 2010s, a notable
change occurred in trade governance as gender concerns were integrated into more
mainstream trade institutions and policymaking circles. Perhaps most notable was
the signing, in 2017, of the ‘WTO Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s
Economic Empowerment’ by 118 members and observers. This marked a considerable
departure for the World Trade Organization (WTO) which has long maintained that
trade is a technical matter and gender neutral in its effects. It was also
during this period that the first chapters dedicated to gender were integrated
into Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between countries. This change in trade
governance occurred during a period where trade-related feminist activism was
relatively subdued compared to other periods. Indeed, after more than a decade
of lobbying on gender and trade with relatively little success, mainstream trade
governance institutions are suddenly attentive to gender concerns. But their
interest in gender and trade has come at a time when gender and trade activism
has been weakened by falling support for women’s NGOs, among other factors
(Williams, 2013: 95; Macdonald et al., 2018). Nonetheless, the adoption of
certain feminist ideas by some leading actors in trade governance has served as
a catalyst for the reformation of a global alliance. In 2018, largely in
response to the WTO Declaration, the Gender and Trade Coalition (GTC) was
established to bring together feminist and progressive activists to advance
feminist trade analysis and advocacy in a way that does not instrumentalise the
gender equality agenda as a means of furthering economic liberalisation,
privatisation, deregulation and the deepening of corporate power in trade
(Gender and Trade Coalition, n.d.). The GTC is echoing the concerns of feminist
scholars that gender issues and feminist language are being integrated into
governance frameworks in ways that empty feminism of its most radical elements –
including its structural critique of neoliberalism – and leave the aims and
operating procedures of institutions fundamentally intact (Chant and Sweetman,
2012; Coburn, 2019; Elias, 2013; Griffin, 2009; Perrons, 2005; Prügl, 2015;
Roberts, 2015; Roberts and Soederberg, 2012; True, 2003; True and Parisi, 2013).
This ‘neo-liberalism with a feminist face’ (Prügl, 2017) works to reinforce the
hegemony of global capitalism and cement gender-based and other inequalities
that underpin and are reproduced by its continued expansion (Roberts, 2015;
Fraser, 2009). 250
Feminist interventions in trade governance 251 In this context, the first part
of this chapter examines two trade governance mechanisms recently adopted by
states and mainstream trade institutions. We assess to what extent these
mechanisms reflect the feminist values espoused by feminist scholars and
activists. The second part of the chapter elaborates on what feminist values
look like more broadly in trade governance. We use this framework to critically
analyse (1) gender chapters in FTAs, and (2) gender-based impact assessment
frameworks. In conclusion, we reflect on the possibilities for feminist
transformations of trade governance.
FEMINIST VALUES IN GLOBAL TRADE GOVERNANCE What constitutes a ‘feminist value’
in trade governance is highly contestable and contested. To make gender
mainstreaming in trade transformative, civil society actors and academics have
outlined practical and specific (Gender and Trade Coalition, n.d.; Harrison and
Stephenson, 2018; Macdonald and Ibrahim, 2019; Price, 2019; Williams, 2013), as
well as broad-based (i.e. epistemological) moves (Hannah et al., 2021; Roberts
et al., 2019; True, 2008a, 2008b; True and Parisi, 2013). Drawing on this
literature, as well as literatures in feminist International Political Economy
(IPE) and the critical IPE of trade, we have identified four key feminist values
that should inform trade governance. These are attentiveness to (1) structural
inequality; (2) impacts of trade on different groups of people in multiple
roles; (3) benefits for the social reproduction of people and communities; and
(4) inclusivity and democracy. Regarding the first value, it is necessary to
acknowledge and challenge the operation of structural inequalities in the global
political economy that shape one’s participation in the economy and society at
multiple sites and scales (Bedford and Rai, 2010; Elson and Çağatay, 2000;
Marchand and Parpart, 1995). Gender research on trade shows that simply
integrating women into existing relations of production and trade may reinforce
the feminisation of labour and gender-based pay gaps (Busse and Spielmann, 2006;
Sauvé and Hosny, 2014). At the same time, when trade policymaking ignores the
gender-based division of unpaid labour, policies may work to deepen this
division and increase the amount of unpaid labour performed overall. This
occurs, for example, as the privatisation of social and health services
increases the amount of care done by women and others in response to increased
costs and/or lower quality services (Fontana, 2007; Jarman and Greer, 2010).
Second, the focus of many gender and trade initiatives adopted by states and
international institutions is on women as business owners and entrepreneurs.
This is problematic not least because it omits workers and consumers, but also
because of the expansion of the trade agenda. While traditionally, international
trade rules targeted duties and regulations pertaining to imports and exports of
goods, since the 1980s, behind the border rules that affect trade, such as
product and production standards, domestic legislation affecting service trade
and intellectual property rights are also included in trade agreements (Young
and Peterson, 2006). Today, the agenda has further expanded to areas such as
procurement, competition, investment protection, labour rights, consumer
protection, e-commerce, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), state-trading
enterprises, sustainable development, human rights, environmental commitments,
and more. This means that trade policy affects almost every area of public
policy today. Critical feminist research on trade governance reveals that trade,
broadly conceived, impacts people in their multiple roles as business owners as
well as workers, consumers, users of public services, paid and unpaid carers,
citizens, and more (Fontana, 2007;
252 Handbook of feminist governance Roberts et al., 2019; van Staveren et al.,
2007). Given that these roles are shaped not only by gender norms and power
relations, but also by relations of class, caste, race, ethnicity, nationality,
citizenship status, sexuality, age, ability, and so on, there is a need to adopt
an explicitly intersectional approach to redressing gender inequality in trade
(True and Parisi, 2013). Third, feminist scholars have long insisted that ‘the
production of people, meeting human needs, and fostering well-being should be
the driving force of economics’, rather than economic growth and capital
accumulation (Luxton, 2018: 37; see also Bakker, 2003; Rai and Waylen, 2013). A
feminist approach to trade should therefore acknowledge and seek to support the
relations of social reproduction that constitute the global political economy
(Pflaeger Young, 2018). By social reproduction, we mean processes involved in
reproducing, both biologically and socially, the people and communities upon
which exchange rests (Bakker, 2003; Luxton, 2018). A crucial part of reproducing
people and fostering well-being further involves a commitment to environmental
sustainability, so a progressive feminist trade governance strategy would
recognise and protect broader environmental conditions. None of this is possible
if trade liberalisation and economic growth are positioned as the primary goals
of trade governance mechanisms (Jarman and Greer, 2010; Trommer, 2022). Finally,
critical research in trade has long suggested that in order to make trade more
equitable, it must be much more inclusive and democratic, and disrupt the
‘expert’-driven nature of trade governance (De Ville and Siles-Brügge, 2016;
Hannah, 2016; Trommer, 2014b). The feminist literature on trade policymaking,
and macroeconomic policymaking more broadly, similarly argues that a
transformative approach needs to democratise the policymaking process itself
(Elson and Çağatay, 2000; Walby, 2005; Williams, 2013). Feminist research and
activism related to trade governance often begins from an epistemological
starting point that seeks to disturb the orthodox, androcentric and masculinist
knowledge that underpins trade governance (Elson et al., 2007) and seeks to
incorporate the views of people affected by trade by involving civil society
organisations that represent those most impacted (Gabriel and Macdonald, 2005;
Gender and Trade Coalition, n.d.; Hannah et al., 2022a). Because women are not a
homogeneous group, there is a need to provide opportunities for the
participation and representation of a diversity of women (True and Parisi, 2013;
Leibowitz, 2008). In sum, the feminist and trade literatures elucidate how more
equitable, just and sustainable trade governance involves attentiveness to
structural inequalities, the differential and widespread impacts of trade,
social reproduction, and improved inclusivity and democracy. We would consider
such attentiveness to reflect feminist values in trade. We now turn to explore
the extent to which these values are reflected in two trade governance
initiatives: (1) gender chapters, and (2) gender-based impact assessments.
GENDER CHAPTERS Over the past 20 years, global trade governance has abandoned
its predominantly multilateral character, whereby the agreements and
negotiations of the WTO set a singular rule book for global trade flows and
practices, in favour of a hybrid governance model in which states negotiate
commercial rights and obligations via increasingly complex networks of
multilateral, regional and bilateral deals (Trommer, 2017). Alongside the
above-mentioned expansion of the trade agenda, gender provisions have also
become more mainstream in trade agreements. They were first included in the
founding treaties of regional integration organisations, often
Feminist interventions in trade governance 253 via a reference to equal pay or
to women in development. Over the past 30 years, the percentage of trade
agreements including gender-related provisions has steadily increased; 243 of
556 agreements signed and notified to the WTO (up to 2018) contained
gender-related provisions (Monteiro, 2018). In recent years, FTAs have started
to dedicate stand-alone chapters to gender and trade, rather than including
gender-related provisions in other chapters. Our analysis focuses on five FTAs
with dedicated gender chapters: the Chile–Canada FTA (modernised version,
entered into force 5 February 2019), the Chile–Argentina FTA (entered into force
8 November 2018), the Uruguay–Chile FTA (entered into force 13 December 2018),
the Canada–Israel FTA (modernised version, entered into force 1 September 2019),
and the UK–Japan agreement (entered into force 1 January 2021). Although their
contents vary, all existing gender chapters follow a similar structure. They set
out general principles, areas of cooperation, set up a gender and trade
committee or working group, and specify the relationship between the gender
chapter and the dispute settlement mechanism of the agreement. Their number is
likely to increase over the coming years, as there is proposed text for a gender
chapter in the EU–Chile FTA and several governments, such as the UK and Canada,
are committed to including gender chapters in future FTAs. From a feminist
perspective, dedicated gender chapters in FTAs are welcome as they provide
institutional mechanisms that bring gender issues to the attention of trade
policymakers. All existing gender chapters are, however, constrained in their
ability to advance feminist values in trade governance due to structural
barriers arising from the complex network of agreements and the nature of the
agreements themselves. First, gender chapters are explicitly excluded from
dispute settlement mechanisms of the agreements (Art. 15.6 Argentina–Chile; Art.
14.6 Uruguay–Chile; Art. N bis-06 Canada–Chile; Art. 21.4 UK–Japan) or require
both parties’ consent to launch proceedings (Art. 19 Canada–Israel), making the
provision mostly diplomatic in nature. Second, all gender chapters are
stand-alone chapters that do not interfere with commitments made elsewhere in
the agreements, although all commitments of the agreement, including the core
commercial clauses, produce gender-differential impacts. Third, the growing
number of FTAs poses an obstacle to women’s organisations that are monitoring
trade governance. While small organisations are able to follow WTO negotiations,
where everything is decided in one place, only well-resourced, typically
corporate and state interests are able to remain on top of policy developments
across the ever-increasing network of FTA (Trommer, 2017). 1.
Attentiveness to Structural Inequalities
Latin American and Canadian gender chapters provide a broad picture of the
multiple ways in which women carrying social reproductive responsibilities are
structurally disadvantaged in trade. They highlight differential access to
economic resources, finance, public and private decision-making bodies and the
need to foster ‘gender equality policies and practices’ (Art. 15.1.2
Argentina–Chile; Art. 14.1.2 Uruguay–Chile; Art. N bis-01.3 Canada–Chile; Art.
13.1.2 Canada–Israel). Latin American gender chapters also acknowledge
structural inequalities along intersectional lines. They highlight the need to
eliminate ‘all forms of discrimination against women for reasons of sex,
ethnicity, race, colour, national or social origin, sexual orientation, gender
identity, age, religion, political opinion or any other convictions, economic
position or any other social, family or personal circumstance’ (Art. 15.1.2
Argentina–Chile;
254 Handbook of feminist governance Art. 14.1.2 Uruguay–Chile). The UK–Japan
chapter, on the other hand, works at the most superficial level. It only
explicitly mentions access to markets, technology and finance, leadership and
workplace flexibility as relevant dimensions (Art. 21.2 UK–Japan) and does not
contain the phrase ‘gender equality’. No existing gender chapter challenges
structural inequalities in the global political economy due to a lack of
meaningful and tangible obligations that could work to offset them. There are no
rights and obligations in existing gender chapters beyond states’ responsibility
to set up Gender and Trade Committees or Working Groups and engaging in
cooperation activities on gender and trade. There are no obligations for
cooperation activities to lead to any material results. 2.
Differential Impacts of Trade on People in Multiple Roles
Women entrepreneurs and/or business owners and women workers are mentioned in
all existing gender chapters which acknowledge that structural inequalities
often disadvantage women in these roles (Art. 15 Argentina–Chile; Art. 14
Uruguay–Chile; Art. N bis Canada–Chile; Art. 13 Canada–Israel; Art. 21
UK–Japan). Where gender chapters envisage solutions for women entrepreneurs and
business owners, some are thematic (e.g. a simple mention of workplace
flexibility in Art. 21.2 UK–Japan), while others are concrete (e.g. confirming
adherence to ILO Conventions number 100 on equal pay, number 111 on
discrimination in the workplace and number 156 on workers with family
responsibilities in Art. 15.2 Argentina–Chile). All existing gender chapters in
FTAs to which Chile is a party further consider certain impacts of trade on
women and other persons as carers, and as informal and unpaid workers, which is
omitted in Canada–Israel and UK–Japan. There is generally little to no
acknowledgement that the roles of entrepreneur/business owner, worker and carer
can and often do overlap in practice and that structural disadvantages in trade
may arise from the resulting double or triple burden. What is more, gender
chapters do not acknowledge that other chapters of the agreement might undermine
the conditions of care and unpaid domestic work, or might affect people in their
roles as bearers of broader political, civil and human rights. There is no
acknowledgement in gender chapters of criticisms that trade and investment
agreements negatively impact ‘the rights to life, food, water and sanitation,
health, housing, education, science and culture, improved labour standards, an
independent judiciary, a clean environment and the right not to be subjected to
forced resettlement’ (OHCHR, 2015). 3.
Social Reproduction
Via the recognition of differential impacts of trade on people in multiple
roles, the gender chapters in FTAs that involve Chile show some awareness of the
need to support relations of social reproduction. Canada–Israel and UK–Japan
gender chapters do not explicitly acknowledge social reproduction but focus on
the productive economy. They reproduce standard conceptualisations in which ‘the
economy’ and trade are decoupled from activities taking place in the ostensibly
‘private’ sphere and thus fail to recognise that social reproduction is
essential for trade to exist and function. What is more, there is no recognition
in any gender chapter that other clauses in the agreement affect social
reproduction. For example, shifts in income distribution and economic insecurity
and inequality resulting from economic adjustments under goods and services
liberalisation are linked to negative public health outcomes among certain
populations, thus provoking a crisis of social reproduction for affected groups
(Trommer,
Feminist interventions in trade governance 255 2022; Blouin et al., 2009). At
the same time, many standard clauses in trade agreements undermine the wider
conditions in which social reproduction takes place, that is, when health and
social services liberalisation hollows out equitable and universally accessible
health care systems (Jarman and Greer, 2010) or intellectual property clauses
affect the availability and affordability of medical and care products (Gleeson
and Labonté, 2020). Trade agreements benefit and politically empower corporate
actors providing products and services relating to social reproduction, but
curtail government policy autonomy, public spending and civil society campaigns
in these areas (Trommer, 2022; McNamara et al., 2021). These are intersectional
issues, because the negative effects of trade adjustments tend to play out among
women and other marginalised populations, while the benefits of trade
adjustments tend to reach wealthy, well-educated and already well-resourced
societal groups. 4.
More Inclusive and Democratic Trade Governance
In terms of expanding the range of societal groups invited into trade
policymaking processes, most gender chapters provide for cooperation among
government institutions, business associations, trade unions, educational and
research institutions, and civil society representatives (Art. 15.3.3
Argentina–Chile; Art. 14.3.3 Uruguay–Chile; Art. N bis-03.3 Canada–Chile; Art.
13.3.3 Canada–Israel). This open language constitutes a double-edged sword in
terms of advancing inclusive and democratic trade policymaking, because
well-resourced and well-connected interest groups and political actors are
better equipped to create, identify and use political opportunities provided by
legal language (Trommer, 2014a). In particular, no existing gender chapter seeks
input from gender experts, leaving it up to policymakers to decide which types
of expertise to seek on gender and trade matters. In terms of transparency, most
Gender and Trade Committees (with the exception of UK–Japan) are mandated to
facilitate exchange of information, discuss joint proposals and any matters
relating to the interpretation, operation and application of the gender
chapters. Yet, the wording of these chapters does not compel parties to
meaningfully engage stakeholders in the processes of information sharing,
discussion and monitoring. In particular, there are no obligations to make
public information on the activities carried out under any of the gender
chapters, nor to make public information on the gender-related aspects of the
entire agreement.
GENDER-BASED IMPACT ASSESSMENTS Assessing and monitoring the gendered impacts of
trade policy is another way that policymakers mainstream gender into global
trade governance. This is key to ensuring that trade policies can be used to
improve gender equality and that they produce no harm. They are also useful for
identifying how trade policy can be combined with appropriate social policy so
that it works to reduce gender inequality. While significant progress has been
made in this area, existing gender-based impact assessments only partially align
with the four feminist values outlined above. The most widely used models for
monitoring the gendered impacts of trade policy have been made by national
governments such as Canada and organisations such as UNCTAD. In partial
fulfilment of its ratification of the United Nations (UN) Beijing Platform for
Action, Canada committed to using Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to advance
gender equality. This promise was made actionable in 2018 when Canada committed
to applying
256 Handbook of feminist governance GBA+ to all federal budget items, including
new FTAs. GBA+ is an analytical process to examine potential impacts of FTAs on
gender and a range of other intersectional identity characteristics including
race, religion, mental and physical ability, Indigenous heritage and
socioeconomic status. GBA+ has no prescribed methodology. It is described,
rather, as a ‘way of thinking’ that draws on a range of methods and approaches
including computer-generated equilibrium (CGE) modelling, descriptive
statistics, interviews and community forums.1 It is conducted alongside, and is
informed by, environmental impact assessments and economic impact assessments.
In 2019, Canada became the first country to conduct a comprehensive, chapter by
chapter GBA+ of its ongoing negotiations with Mercosur (Global Affairs Canada,
2019). Since then, it has conducted a GBA+ of the recently concluded
Canada–United States– Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), and has begun a GBA+ of ongoing
negotiations with Ukraine (Canada–Ukraine FTA (CUFTA)) and Indonesia
(Comprehensive Economic Partnership (CEPA) agreement). The UNCTAD gender and
trade toolbox also offers a comprehensive framework for gender-based impact
assessment (UNCTAD, 2017). It consists of four main components: (1) descriptive
analysis of gender inequalities and the economic context of the country at
stake; (2) quantitative analysis of the expected consequences of trade policies
on the economy (i.e. in terms of exports, GDP, sectoral labour demand) and
particularly on women’s participation in the economy; (3) a checklist for
gender-sensitive accompanying measures and monitoring indicators; and (4) a
‘Trade and Gender Index’ (which uses female employment and gender gaps as an
indicator of gender inequalities in the workplace that can be used for
in-country analysis over time). 1.
Attentiveness to Structural Inequalities
In line with feminist values, the UNCTAD toolbox provides detailed assessments
of how gender norms impact women’s economic participation (Hannah et al., 2018).
It also goes some distance towards challenging structural gender inequalities by
providing a ‘checklist’ to assist policymakers in developing ‘accompanying
policies’ aimed at ‘achieving greater gender equality or reducing the risk of
exacerbating gender disparities’ under the FTA (UNCTAD, 2017). Particular
attention is paid to mitigating the adverse impacts of the FTA on gender
disparities in welfare including reductions in public expenditures, increases in
taxation, changes in working conditions and unpaid care work. The inclusion of
unpaid and caring labour in the checklist, in particular, points to the need to
assess, for instance, whether export promotion policies include support for
child care and whether reductions in public expenditures (i.e. due to tariff
revenue loss) and increases in taxation affect access to public services and the
burden of care work (UNCTAD, 2017: 28). By contrast, while Canada recognises
that ‘trade affects people differently, based on a wide range of factors,
including gender’,2 the focus is on integrating ‘traditionally underrepresented
groups’ (Global Affairs Canada, 2019) – women, SMEs and Indigenous peoples –
into the global economy. This reflects the desire to expand trade to include
more people by addressing non-trade or behind the border barriers, but it does
not address the negative impacts of trade liberalisation on some economic
sectors or groups. Moreover, neither the Canadian GBA+ nor the UNCTAD toolbox
provides mechanisms for monitoring or revising FTAs once they are implemented.
In these respects, both governance mechanisms fall short of aligning with
feminist values.
Feminist interventions in trade governance 257 2.
Differential Impacts of Trade on People in Multiple Roles
One of the main shortcomings of Canada’s GBA+ and the UNCTAD toolbox is that
neither fully recognises the multiple and overlapping roles of women and other
vulnerable communities, particularly as they pertain to patterns of consumption
and the use of public services. The emphasis tends to be on the potential
effects of an FTA on workers, producers, business owners and entrepreneurs.
Canada’s GBA+ of CUSMA goes somewhat further by considering unpaid care work,
particularly in its assessment of the labour and environment chapters, where it
considers the impact of the FTA on job-protected leave for childbirth, adoption
and family caregiving responsibilities, and takes stock of the impacts of the
FTA on economic, social and cultural well-being of Indigenous peoples. It is
also attuned to the vulnerabilities of migrant women, particularly those working
outside of formally regulated markets (Government of Canada, 2020). However, no
attention is paid in Canada’s GBA+ to the impacts of FTAs on access to public
services. Similarly, UNCTAD’s toolbox considers the impacts of FTAs on gender
disparities in welfare, but consideration of the FTAs’ impact on consumption is
minimal and no attention is paid to the impacts on access to public services.
This is significant because women are often responsible for consumption
decisions (particularly on food and household essentials) and are the main
providers and users of care services. 3.
Social Reproduction
The predominant emphasis of Canada’s GBA+ and the UNCTAD toolbox is on removing
obstacles and barriers to market entry and social goals tend to be subordinated
to economic growth. Nevertheless, they make progress in aligning with feminist
values where they include provisions aimed at supporting rather than undermining
relations of social reproduction. For example, while Canada’s gender chapters
take a quite narrow approach to care work and focus mainly on the productive
economy, Canada’s GBA+ takes a broader lens in assessing the impacts of FTAs on
unpaid care work and various dimensions of family caregiving responsibilities
(see e.g. Canada’s GBA+ of CUSMA). The distinct vulnerabilities of migrant
women, those working in the informal economy and/or with irregular status are
also prioritised. The need to support and protect human rights and labour rights
is evident in the GBA+ of the labour chapters in the Canada–Mercosur and CUSMA
FTAs. The scope of GBA+ goes furthest in terms of supporting social reproduction
and prioritising social goals above economic growth where it puts into view
protections for the environment and for Indigenous communities. Much of the
focus of the UNCTAD toolbox is on the economic impacts of the FTA on employment
using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) CGE model. However, as discussed
above, the UNCTAD toolbox identifies those trade policies that may either
support or undermine social reproduction in its checklist for gender-sensitive
accompanying measures and monitoring indicators. It provides guidance to
policymakers for introducing social policies that could mitigate the adverse
impacts of the FTA on women. In this respect, the toolbox aligns with feminist
values. 4.
More Inclusive and Democratic Trade Governance
Canada’s GBA+ is increasingly coming into line with feminist values that call
for regular and iterative consultations with stakeholders such as business
(particularly representatives
258 Handbook of feminist governance of women-owned SMEs), organised labour and
civil society actors (particularly women’s groups), academics (particularly
gender experts) and representatives from related policy areas (including social
service providers). Canada’s approach to GBA+ involves consultations with the
general public and a range of stakeholders that has been widened over time.
There is still much work to be done, particularly with respect to the monitoring
of FTAs and tracing the input of stakeholders, but Canada has made significant
progress in including those with specialised gender knowledge in GBA+ (see
Hannah et al., 2022b). While the UNCTAD toolkit is intended to assist government
officials, particularly those with limited capacity or resources to conduct
gender-based impact assessments, and development practitioners working on gender
equality issues to understand the potentially adverse impacts of a proposed
trade agreement, there is no mention of stakeholder consultations in the toolkit
itself. If the process of gender-based impact assessment is to be democratic and
inclusive, policymakers should build upon Canada’s lead in seeking wide-ranging
input from relevant experts and those most affected by the FTA.
CONCLUSION This chapter has evaluated the extent to which two gender and trade
governance mechanisms reflect key feminist values, namely attentiveness to
structural inequality; the impacts of trade on different groups of people in
multiple roles; the benefits for the social reproduction of people and
communities; and inclusivity and democracy. With regard to the first value, we
find that there has been a fundamental shift in thinking within trade
policymaking communities about the ways in which trade policy intersects with
gender equality and structural inequalities more broadly. Nevertheless, existing
governance mechanisms risk reproducing structural gender inequalities because
the gendered norms and power relations underlying and constituting global trade
are, for the most part, left unaddressed. Second, existing gender chapters in
FTAs consider some impacts of trade and people in certain roles but retain a
narrow focus on entrepreneurs/business owners and workers, and pay limited to no
attention to how trade impacts those who provide care and unpaid work, or who
are bearers of broader political, civil and human rights. Gender-based impact
assessments perform somewhat better where they consider the impacts of FTAs on a
broader range of care work, migrant and informal labour. Nevertheless, they tend
to focus on integrating underrepresented groups into existing structures rather
than mitigating the potentially adverse impacts of trade liberalisation on
vulnerable communities or advocating alternative trade practices. Third, insofar
as gender and trade governance mechanisms consider certain areas of social
reproduction, they remain largely wedded to the goal of improving the position
of women business owners and/or underrepresented groups in the global economy,
which itself remains unchallenged. Gender chapters in particular show little
recognition of the fact that trade agreements may undermine social reproduction,
whereas impact assessments are more likely to show how trade policies may
support or undermine social reproductive labour, and to propose remedies.
Finally, gender chapters in FTAs seek to consult with stakeholders but do little
to specifically support the involvement of non-elite groups, a diversity of
voices and/or gender experts. By contrast, some progress has been made in
gender-based trade impact assessments in establishing regular and iterative
consultations with a broad range of domestic stakeholders,
Feminist interventions in trade governance 259 including women’s groups and
gender experts. In both cases, more work needs to be done to integrate the
voices of those most adversely affected by FTAs in partnering countries
(especially developing countries), including those working in households and
informal sectors of the economy. Mechanisms for ex post monitoring and
assessment are also needed if the promise of democratic and inclusive governance
is to be realised. Our analysis suggests that insofar as some of the trade
governance initiatives adopted by states and international organisations are
putting a rather superficial ‘feminist face’ (Prügl, 2017) on existing
commitments to trade liberalisation and market expansion, some aspects of trade
governance are shifting in ways that reflect more critical and transformatory
feminist values. It is unclear whether or not gender mainstreaming in trade will
challenge the distribution of power and resources in the realm of trade
governance, or in the global political economy more broadly. What is clear,
however, is that new spaces have opened for discussion, debate and activism
centred on the relationship between gender and trade, and that there is a need
for critical researchers, activists and policymakers to play a role in shaping
the emerging landscape of gender and trade governance.
NOTES 1. For an overview of GBA+ in Canada, see https:// www .canada .ca/ en/
impact -assessment -agency/ services/ policy -guidance/ practitioners -guide
-impact -assessment -act/ gender -based -analysis -plus .html and https:// women
-gender -equality .canada .ca/ en/ gender -based -analysis -plus .html. 2.
https:// www .international .gc .ca/ trade -commerce/ gender _equality -egalite
_genres/ trade _gender -commerce _genre .aspx ?lang = eng.
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laura -berlin -2019 -to -post .pdf. Macdonald, Laura, Nadia Ibrahim and Scott
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21. Feminist governance and climate change Maria Tanyag
INTRODUCTION The importance of gender in environmental research and policymaking
is more widely accepted than ever before. The inclusion of gender in climate
change governance has resulted in the proliferation of national and local action
plans, development of gender-responsive climate financing and new technologies
that explicitly target women.1 The United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed on 9 May 1992 and entered into force on 21
March 1994. Since then, the Convention has generated complex global governance
processes institutions, and actors with gender equality now widely recognised as
a core ambition. Indeed, at the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties
(COP25) held in Madrid in 2019, state parties agreed to strengthen efforts
towards gender-responsive climate action by committing to the Enhanced Lima Work
Programme on Gender and Gender Action Plan.2 The promotion of feminist and
gender-responsive governance in the global climate change agenda has come a long
way since the first reference to gender balance in COP processes appeared in the
outcome document of COP7 in 2001 in Marrakesh, Morocco (Prebble et al., 2015:
3). Yet, mainstreaming efforts have not translated to transformations in social,
political and economic relations, especially for rural women. This chapter
examines feminist governance in climate change with particular attention to the
problem of why more ‘gender’ does not necessarily equate to more gender
equality. By focusing on climate governance, I show that feminist governance is
about ensuring feminist knowledge production – asking who are recognised as
‘knowers’ and which sources of knowledge and truth claims inform governance.
Drawing on diverse feminist scholarship on gender, environment and climate
change, I theorise and empirically demonstrate the importance of feminist
epistemologies as vital attributes and distinctive outcomes of feminist
governance. Feminist governance does not only concern institutions and
institution-building even as institutions are broadly defined to encompass both
formal and informal rules that are leveraged in addressing collective problems
across different scales. Feminist governance, above all, pierces through and
defies epistemological foundations that inform, enclose and sustain specific
modes of governing and governance. It involves challenging how and which issues
get to be defined as ‘problems’ and whose and what forms of expertise are deemed
necessary to solve them. Affirming what Enarson argued in the context of gender
and disaster, this means governance ‘through women’s eyes’ and understanding
climate change not as disembodied set of phenomena but rather their relationship
to ‘the material conditions of women’s everyday lives, focusing on the situated
knowledge of those outside the dominant power structures but assuming no unified
identity or set of experiences’ (1998: 157). Feminist standpoint theory
recognises the situatedness and embodied nature of knowledges (Haraway, 1988;
Harding, 1991; Hartsock, 2003). The epistemological assumptions of standpoint
theory matters for climate governance because they directly engage with how
climate change is both ‘scientised’ and ‘securitised’ (MacGregor, 2010, 2017).
Climate change remains predominantly represented both as a scientific problem
262
Feminist governance and climate change 263 and as a threat to national and
international security (MacGregor, 2010: 127). From a feminist epistemological
standpoint, the framing of climate change both as a security and scientific
issue has concentrated knowledge production and validation within a very narrow
and still male-centric model, despite positive attempts at creating a more
gender-responsive climate governance. As I examine in this chapter, the double
privileging of technical and scientific expertise as the authoritative lens
through which to frame problems and solutions has been exclusionary, especially
at the global and national levels. It has hindered the substantive inclusion of
varieties in expertise, including from different groups of women. At the same
time, while we now have unprecedented availability and access to scientific
evidence, the global climate change agenda has been matched not only by
political inaction but worse, by resistance in the form of populist denialism
and anti-science backlash threatening to derail or undo existing efforts. In
countries whose political systems vary greatly, such as the United States (US)
and Norway, similar patterns have emerged in terms of the rise and
intensification of climate change denialism. Research on the ‘conservative white
male’ in the US (McCright and Dunlap, 2011, 2015) and Norway (Krange et al.,
2019) has made visible the links between climate change denialism, patriarchal
beliefs and right-wing nationalism. Compared to the broader population, these
so-called ‘cool dudes’ tend to endorse climate change denialist views,
particularly those with self-reported confidence in their own understanding of
global warming (McCright and Dunlap, 2011, 2015). Rather than an aberration,
former President Trump’s withdrawal in 2020 from the Paris Agreement, a major
international treaty on climate change, is arguably the conservative white male
effect writ large. Research in the US also suggests gender differences in how
environmental problems are discursively framed such that men are more likely to
use business or science frames while women are more likely to view climate
change in the stereotypically feminine ethical-justice frame. The findings from
this geographically specific research reflect a global trend demonstrating that
scientific and business frames are articulated more in economically wealthy
countries; whereas justice and ethical frames by those in poorer countries
already on the frontlines of the climate crisis (Swim et al., 2018: 224). As
other scholars point out, framing matters because it influences the
prioritisation of issues as well as who is included in the decision-making and
where (McDonald, 2018; Swim et al., 2018). The challenges facing feminist
governance in climate change are deeply enmeshed with gendered knowledge
production and validation concerning the nature of climate change and the
solutions needed to address it. Climate governance must involve learning and
serious engagement with the feminist analytical and methodological tools
necessary to bridge multiple perspectives and situatedness of diverse groups of
men and women for a truly transformative and feminist climate governance. As an
alternative to the adversarial connotation of feminist insider/outsiders in
governance, I use visions or vantage points from ‘above’ and ‘below’ in order to
more accurately capture how different groups of women and men are positioned and
acquire distinct insights to how climate governance operates. I argue that
because of the profound epistemic and expertise-based challenges in climate
governance, we need to pay attention to the ways the views from ‘above’ and
‘below’ have different causal explanations of why feminist perspectives have had
contradictory outcomes and siloed implementation within the global climate
change agenda. Crucially, it is the coming together of these distinct and
different standpoints that enables us to get a fuller, less distorted
understanding of patriarchy in global governance. I develop this analysis in the
four main parts of this chapter. First, I discuss feminist governance within the
UNFCCC agenda in relation to existing global feminist and
264 Handbook of feminist governance environmental scholarship and activisms. In
the second and third sections, I disaggregate levels and modalities of
governance according to a view from ‘above’ or governance at national and global
levels and from ‘below’ or more localised and everyday forms of governance.
These levels and modalities are not discrete and there is clear permeability and
cross-fertilisation among them. However, in the fourth section, I warn of the
increasing disconnect between ‘technical expertise’ reproduced at national and
global levels, and the compartmentalisation of women’s everyday knowledge within
community or localised levels, which in turn leads to piecemeal improvements
that fail to reach the most vulnerable and climate-risk exposed populations. I
conclude by reiterating the importance for climate change solutions that embody
feminist governance in the form of recognising and cultivating diversity in
expertise.
GENDER IN AND GENDER OF CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA Five decades of sustained
analytical and normative contributions from feminist and environmental
scholarship and activism have played a major role in shaping the UNFCCC and the
global climate change agenda. Material and ideational linkages between women,
gender and environment have been historically pivotal in the evolution of a
global climate and environmental governance (Arora-Jonsson, 2014; Resurreccion,
2013). Arora-Jonsson (2014) observes that since gender and feminist research
gained ground in the 1970s in international development and environmental
research and policymaking, its importance has never been more widely accepted.
There is now broad-based political support and far better financial resources
dedicated to promoting participation by diverse groups of women and men in all
areas and levels of climate and/or environmental governance. As I mentioned
above, COP has committed to a Gender Action Plan which sets five global priority
areas: (1) capacity-building, knowledge management and communication; (2) gender
balance, participation and women’s leadership; (3) coherence; (4)
gender-responsive implementation and means of implementation; and (5) monitoring
and reporting. Similar commitments to gender equality are found in disaster risk
reduction (DRR) agendas such as the global Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–15)
and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, (2015–30). In 2018, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued General
Recommendation No. 37 to thematically address states’ obligations concerning the
gender-related dimensions of disaster risks and climate change. The Committee
stated that ‘[S]tates parties should ensure that all policies, legislation,
plans, programmes, budgets and other activities related to disaster risk
reduction and climate change are gender responsive and grounded in human-rights
based principles’ (CEDAW, 2018: 7). While gender can be said to be in the
mainstream of climate governance now, efforts have not translated into
transformations in social, political and economic relations especially for rural
women. Paradoxically, there is even a widening disconnect between stated goals
and ambitions on the one hand, and actual opportunities and outcomes on the
other. According to the Gender Climate Tracker analysis of UNFCCC decisions (as
of 2021), the most robust gender-sensitive language has been in relation to
climate change adaptation. Adaptation relates to people’s abilities to respond
to the consequences of climate change as well as their vulnerabilities. That
gender is most present in the context of decisions relating to adaptation
attests to the strong awareness at the global level that climate change impacts
men and women differently based on established research that women tend to face
pre-existing
Feminist governance and climate change 265 inequalities that render them more
vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change. However, the word ‘gender’
first appeared in the UNFCCC decisions as ‘gender balance’ in recognition of
underrepresentation of women in national and global decision-making processes.3
Since then, the Gender Climate Tracker notes that the majority of UNFCCC
decisions now use ‘gender mainstreaming’ defined as the ‘integration of gender
norms, roles, and relations in the development of actions and policies and
implementation’.4 This, to me, reveals an important disconnect between the
‘comfortable’ representation of women as vulnerable but virtuous victims of
climate change (Arora-Jonsson, 2014), and concrete measures to allow women to
wield power over political decision-making that can materially affect climate
change policies. Based on longitudinal data from 2009 to 2019 mapping trends in
women’s participation, gender parity among heads of delegation at COP will not
be achieved until 2068 (WEDO, 2020; see also Kruse, 2014 for similar
quantitative findings). Feminist scholars critical of the growing co-optation of
feminist language and activism in the service of neoliberal governance have
drawn a distinction between gender in governance and the gender of governance,
even as the two are interrelated. Gender in governance refers to the descriptive
and empirical incorporation of gender, while the gender of governance refers to
foundational gendered assumptions and logics. First, across major global agendas
including climate governance, the neoliberalisation of feminism particularly as
‘smart economics’ has tended to mask the persistent and complex dynamics of
gendered privileges and burdens. Valorised ideals of the entrepreneurial,
altruistic, environmental-savvy and crisis-resilient woman have replaced
improvements in women’s status and well-being through genuine redistribution of
political and economic resources in state and society (Arora-Jonsson, 2014;
Mukhopadhyay and Prügl, 2019; Tanyag, 2018). These contradictions emerge ‘when
women are regarded as a collective but addressed as individuals in programs and
when the focus is on the governance of gender with little attention to the
gender of neoliberal governance’ (Arora-Jonsson, 2017: 296–7; 2014). According
to this critique, gender mainstreaming has been successful in institution
building but less so in terms of institutional reform. Hence, unsurprisingly,
projects that address both climate change and women’s rights comprise only 0.01
per cent of all worldwide climate funding; and on average, women constituted
only 22 per cent of the governing bodies of the major climate funds (UNDP,
2016). Relatedly, feminist scholars have warned of an overconfidence and belief
in technological fixes as a masculinised and male-dominated feature of
neoliberal governance. In both climate change and gender equality agendas, this
has reproduced assumptions that socio-cultural, political, economic and climate
injustices can be addressed by technology and that technology is immune to power
and politics. Second, the overemphasis on the ‘best available science’ and on
the expertise of scientists and engineers found in climate and environmental
governance is located in a neoliberal continuum with the growth and
proliferation of ‘gender-lite’ approaches. Gender-lite is not the same as
‘gender-blind’ in that there are steps taken to promote ‘gender’ but without the
weight of material and ideational transformations. This occurs, for example, in
ways that co-opt or misuse concepts such as ‘empowerment’, making them into
bureaucratic and technocratic exercises marked by a preference for discrete or
measurable indicators as outcomes. A shift towards technologies is evident in
that ‘[C]ontrary to the 1990s when questions of participation and
decentralization occupied environmental studies and policy, discussions have now
moved to high level meetings between governments, international organizations,
companies and scientists’ laboratories especially in relation to climate change’
(Arora-Jonsson, 2014: 295). This
266 Handbook of feminist governance problem is intensified in the governance of
gender within climate change agendas precisely because climate governance is
becoming even more ‘science-driven and expert-oriented’ in response to and as a
result of ongoing contestations over the role of science in policymaking
(Backstrand, 2003). Building on the long and historical feminist critique of
technology, Mukhopadhyay and Prügl (2019: 709) examine the use of technologies
in agricultural research and how these technologies themselves enact,
reconstruct and perform gender relations and expertise. For example, they
observed that the development of agricultural technology sought to make rural
women more ‘productive’ but in a way that mirrored the pre-existing gendered
division of labour and further cemented certain agricultural activities as
feminine. Technologies for fish cages, horticulture and seed preservation were
taken as doing good gender work because these promoted women’s existing area of
‘expertise’ or responsibility and were developed for use within or adjacent to
the homestead. They argue that ‘[P]art of the problem is the failure of
scientists to recognize that gender relations are power relations. Instead they
tend to extract what men and women do in agriculture from the relations in which
they are embedded’ (2019: 709). Extrapolating more broadly to climate
governance, there is a clear impetus to understand why the institutionalisation
of feminism has not necessarily translated into more definitive results for
gender equality, and what this means for the role of feminist governance for
peace and security in the context of climate change. Focusing on the global
governance of climate change acutely reveals underlying epistemological tensions
that are hidden or ‘bracketed off’ amid the proliferation of gender platforms
and institutions. Revealing dominant interpretations of security and scientific
expertise across different levels of decision-making has crucial implications if
we are to explain and address prevailing challenges to enabling a truly feminist
governance of climate change. As I demonstrate in the next sections, the
challenge is how to effectively create, collaborate and cultivate diverse forms
of feminist-informed authority and expertise. I suggest that this begins with
taking stock of the multiple views of climate governance women and men acquire
from above and below.
VIEW FROM ‘ABOVE’: FEMINIST GOVERNANCE AT NATIONAL AND GLOBAL LEVELS The context
and experiences of women’s participation at national and global levels offer a
distinct view of the gendered dynamics in the construction of expertise and
decision-making in climate governance. The International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) Environment and Gender Information (EGI) platform provides
regular monitoring and up-to-date data on women’s participation, incorporation
of gender-equality considerations in reports and agreements, and
gender-responsive policies and programming. IUCN pioneered the development of
the Environment and Gender Index (EGI) in response to the lack of mechanisms to
monitor and ensure the implementation of established international mandates
requiring women’s participation to be central to environmental decision-making.
EGI seeks to measure and understand a country’s performance in relation to
gender, environment and sustainable development. International agreements and
standards that the EGI monitors include the three ‘Rio Conventions’: UNFCCC,
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the United
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The EGI also draws on the
Feminist governance and climate change 267 Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action.5 The pilot study on EGI reported that: Scientific
measurements are and should be part of gender mainstreaming policies and
programs in all spheres. Measuring and collecting gender data in the realm of
environment and sustainable development would significantly bolster monitoring
and evaluation efforts, promote efficiency and effectiveness, and contribute to
enhanced decision-making and performance, and accountability. (IUCN, 2013: 12)
Based on the EGI research, countries working towards gender equality are more
likely to achieve climate justice because of more gender equal decision-making
that can enable more inclusive, sustainable and integrated environmental
solutions. The index showed that ‘countries which take seriously their
commitments to advancing gender equality in environmental arenas are also making
strides well beyond survival toward long-term wellbeing for all their citizens’
(Prebble et al., 2015: 1). However, a crucial finding from the EGI is that
‘gender balance in the environmental realm is so far out of reach’ particularly
because even at its highest at 36 per cent, the global average for women’s
participation in intergovernmental negotiations on climate change, biodiversity
and desertification remains low (IUCN, 2013: 32). For example, according to the
same report, direct participation from women leaders in global negotiations such
as in the UNFCCC COP have slowly increased over time but are still consistently
low. In 2014 at the COP20 in Lima, Peru, 36 per cent of government delegates
from 186 countries were women. Within the delegations, women were
underrepresented as government chief negotiators, comprising only 25 per cent.
Women’s underrepresentation is also reflected at regional and national levels of
environmental decision-making because most negotiators are also leaders of
environmental ministries in their home countries (Prebble et al., 2015: 10).
There is thus a clear preference or standard-making in these negotiations that
privilege scientific or technical expertise, as evidenced by the institutions
training negotiators must represent. It is therefore not surprising that women
scientists have had low participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) assessments and leadership as well (Huyer et al., 2020). The IPCC
is the authoritative international body that undertakes assessment on all
scientific information relating to climate change. In its most recent Special
Report on 1.5°C, only 27 per cent of author nominations were female (Huyer et
al., 2020: 573). Scientific expertise is the final arbiter of global climate
policymaking yet the sciences as a discipline has remained deeply hostile to
women’s participation as scientists let alone from other fields of expertise.
The EGI report concluded that in order to enhance women’s participation at the
global decision-making level, it is crucial that national governments target
reforms not only within domestic environmental sectors and decision-making
processes but foundationally, in examining women’s representation and technical
training in the fields of environmental science and management (Prebble et al.,
2015: 11). Importantly, the barriers to direct participation appear more
intractable than for indirect forms of participation in COP negotiations. The
same research found that COP participant lists show near equal representation of
men and women among NGO delegations. As a result, ‘women occupy a larger share
of NGO representatives to each COP than their government delegate counterparts’
(Prebble et al., 2015: 15). This represents important progress and the greater
gender balance within NGO delegations suggests broader recourse to forms of
expertise and disciplinary or professional training. However, at
268 Handbook of feminist governance the highest levels of decision-making,
where crucial and actual decisions are made via government delegations, women do
not have equal numbers of seats at the table and therefore are less able to
affect the outcomes. Drawing on feminist standpoint epistemology, the ‘view from
above’ of climate governance lays bare the need to challenge the gendered
constructions of scientific and technical expertise. Relevant national
ministries can serve as important gatekeepers or gateways for promoting
gender-equal global representation in climate and security negotiations, but
gender balance alone cannot transform barriers in the production and
interpretation of expertise. For example, in the pilot EGI report, it was noted
that ‘[S]ectors that fall under the environmental and sustainable development
arena, and that are distinct from the traditional “women’s rights” areas of
health and education, are good entry points for these countries to make progress
on gender equality’ (IUCN, 2013: 38). Yet, ‘[I]nformation about women’s role and
access in environment-related sectors is not comprehensively collected and
reported’ (IUCN, 2013: 32). The report also suggests the problem of ‘glass
ceilings’ in terms of women’s participation and education in sectors most
relevant to climate change. The report cited 2009 data from several European
countries where it was found that ‘[W]hile the majority of students graduating
in life science disciplines are women, representation in technological fields is
much lower at 27 percent’. That is, in disciplines such as engineering and
engineering trades and life sciences, women constituted the minority. This low
representation within educational training then cascades to governance through
similar patterns of underrepresentation in actual decision-making positions
within environment, transport and energy sectors among these European countries
(IUCN, 2013: 67–8). Examining case studies of women in environmental
decision-making in Ecuador, Liberia and the Philippines, researchers found that
‘empowering women in the environmental sector will require a cultural shift for
all countries’ (IUCN Global Gender Office, 2015: 8). Challenging these
traditionally male-centric and male-dominated fields and reframing what
constitutes climate expertise is crucial to feminist climate governance.
Promoting diversity and inclusion within academic disciplines is necessary to
broaden who are seen as legitimate ‘knowers’ and ‘negotiators’ in climate
governance. Based on available evidence, women’s participation does make a
difference. For example, female representation in national parliaments is found
to correlate with more stringent climate change policies and, consequently, with
lower carbon emissions (Mavisakalyan and Tarverdi, 2019). Ultimately, women’s
presence is not enough when prevailing norms and codes in climate governance
continue to privilege masculinised forms of activities, behaviours and
solutions. Part and parcel of achieving gender-responsive alternatives is to
re-think the very ideological and material structures that underpin climate
governance (Kronsell, 2013).
VIEW FROM ‘BELOW’: LOCAL AND EVERYDAY FEMINIST GOVERNANCE International
agreements and frameworks on gender and environment have been undergoing
localisation via national gender and climate change action plans at community
and village levels. Since the enactment of the Rio Conventions, there has been a
proliferation of climate change and Gender Action Plans (ccGAPs) worldwide
(IUCN, 2013). According to IUCN (2013: 70), ‘[t]he development of a ccGAP is a
key moment in a country’s acknowledgement
Feminist governance and climate change 269 that gender equality is central to
effective climate change decision-making, implementation and, ultimately,
resilience’. At localised levels of governance, efforts have been made to
incorporate traditional and Indigenous governance mechanisms around agriculture,
land management and disaster preparedness and response. Gender-responsiveness in
climate decision-making becomes more possible through the incorporation of
‘gender expertise’ via national machineries on women or gender equality. For
example, research in three countries – Cambodia, Kenya and Vanuatu – found that
all three countries have the necessary laws, policies and action plans relating
to gender and climate change. Furthermore, there have been efforts to include
women via community or village-wide networks in identifying climate risks and
responses (Tanyag and True, 2019). Women’s representation in community
decision-making is supported by national-level policy or action plans. Indeed,
everyday life and more localised forms of governance are typically where women’s
participation and expertise have been relatively well-established in research
and, to some degree, have had specific influence (MacGregor, 2010). At its best,
women’s participation through collective action and networks can signal how,
where and why different climate-related risks are intersecting and how to
address them with long-term security in mind (Ortiz, 2016; Sen and Grown, 1987;
Tanyag, 2020). Still, at these local levels, where there have been spaces for
gender inclusion, these have been under departments traditionally viewed as
dealing with ‘soft issues’ such as social welfare and culture. For local
programmes under departments and ministries relating to energy, meteorology,
land and natural resources, gender is seen as relevant only in meeting inclusion
requirements, thus treating women as beneficiaries rather than decision-makers,
implementers and technical experts. In country projects under the Climate
Investment Fund, the EGI project found women were represented in three main
ways: ‘vulnerable group’, ‘stakeholder or agent of change’ and as
‘beneficiaries’ (IUCN, 2013: 47). Similarly, ‘[W]ith respect to how women and
women’s participation are characterized in NBSAPs [National Biodiversity
Strategies and Action Plans], the most countries (37% of the 174 Parties
included in this analysis) indicate inclusion of women as stakeholders; 27%
include reference to women as beneficiaries; 17% refer to women as vulnerable;
and the fewest, 4% (seven countries) characterize women as agents of change’
(Clabots and Gilligan, 2017: iv). The view from ‘below’ of climate governance
illuminates that while greater participation of women has been possible, it is
circumscribed within and reproduces prevailing structures and values relating to
knowledge production. Women are included in so far as their roles and
contributions confine them to being ‘receivers’ of existing knowledge. Women’s
participation in effect rubber stamps the decision-making process even if the
outcome ultimately sidelines their insights. Participation can often be reduced
simply to consultation where the women are taught or ‘given’ information rather
than enabled to set agendas and define outcomes. Even when they are framed as
‘agents of change’, the ‘change’ in question has been pre-defined and envisioned
from the ‘objective’ standpoint of technical expertise and therefore engenders
limited or no agency at all. This ‘view from below’ cascades to and affirms the
‘view from above’ with the underrepresentation of women in global and national
climate decision-making. Barriers to women’s contributions to knowledge
accumulate and compound at local or community levels. In another important
example, George’s (2019) research on Pacific women and how they have been
visible in global and national climate processes reveals a complex ‘architecture
of entitlements’. Drawing on insights from feminist institutionalism and
political geography, George argues that women’s agency is ultimately mediated by
political and material entitle-
270 Handbook of feminist governance ments that are themselves socially
constructed and contested. Architectures of entitlement structure what
constitutes legitimate authority and what is owed to whom, where, when, how and
why. This architecture is a gendered ‘enclosure’ – materially and ideationally –
in that it sets the rules for what forms of women’s participation and authority
are deemed appropriate. According to George (2019: 106), women who challenge
this architecture by making claims to different sorts of authority, or who voice
aspirations of leadership not as mothers, not in ways that reflect women’s
caring or nurturing obligations, but in ways that may be in more direct
competition with established spheres of male authority, are subject to a very
different and sometimes hostile response because they are perceived to flout
established norms of gendered entitlement.
Pacific women have been valued and valorised for the distinct expertise they
bring to climate governance but only in ways that conform to maternalist
narratives and identities. Similar dynamics were reported in Kenya, Cambodia and
Vanuatu where community-level governance institutions such as Community Disaster
and Climate Change Committees (CDCCCs) have been set up to include locally
appointed women’s representatives. However, there were reportedly cases where
the purpose or mandate of the women’s representative was unclear even to the
appointee (Tanyag and True, 2019). Moreover, there were concerns over ‘a growing
tendency to relegate women’s leadership only within and up to community “DRR
[disaster risk reduction] and CC only issues” rather than capacity for
leadership in national security and development concerns including improving
women’s political participation within the national parliament’ (Tanyag and
True, 2019: 17–18). Here we see that both women’s expertise and climate change
knowledge are depoliticised by feminising these community-based leadership
roles. The limits to women’s everyday participation are also ironically
environmental. Globally, we need more women to participate in climate governance
but the most vulnerable and most affected, and therefore those with the clearest
vision of the urgent need to address climate change, are prevented from
participating by the very impacts of climate change. This affects promising and
progressive projects such as the development of Feminist Participatory Action
Research (FPAR), which is championed as a tool for climate justice by the
non-government organisation Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
(APWLD). FPAR is about cultivating and promoting women’s leadership and
participation in climate policymaking across all levels but particularly
beginning from and with the ‘grassroots’. It does so by seeking to break down
traditional barriers between ‘researcher’ and ‘subject’ and moving towards
co-ownership of knowledge and action (Godden et al., 2020: 597). APWLD believes
that it is through meaningful, rather than tokenistic, participation that truly
feminist and climate justice-oriented outcomes can be achieved. However, and
perhaps sadly, evaluation of FPAR projects revealed that the quality of
participation was impacted by women’s mobility within their immediate surrounds,
which in turn was increasingly hampered due to weather, distance and transport
needs (Godden et al., 2020: 608). Building on the argument by George regarding
‘architectures of entitlement’, women’s varied expertise is being allowed but
confined to community levels where they face everyday material and ideological
constraints that prevent them transforming local climate change agendas, let
alone those at the global level.
Feminist governance and climate change 271
CONCLUSION: LIMITS AND POTENTIAL OF FEMINIST GOVERNANCE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Feminist governance in climate change does not relate only to ‘women’s issues’
and nor are its contributions limited to understanding women’s different
experiences of climate risks and impacts. Rather, a truly feminist governance
entails actively integrating different types of information, celebrating a
plurality of expertise and the valuing of diverse knowledge sources. What counts
as climate risk is ultimately shaped by the realities and relationships of those
who do the counting. Drawing on feminist epistemology and the concept of
‘situated knowledges’, this chapter concludes that it is in the coming together
of partial perspectives through collaboration and intersectional knowledge
production that we arrive at a fuller, more objective account of the climate
crisis on which to anchor feminist governance. Feminist governance in climate
change has the potential to bridge the growing disconnect between rhetorical
commitments to gender equality and tangible outcomes by recognising women’s
critical role in helping solve the climate crisis. However, at present,
examination of the view from ‘above’ and ‘below’ of women’s experiences and
situatedness in climate governance reveals paradoxical outcomes that ultimately
hinder transformative reforms. First, at global and national levels, broader
groups of women and men are kept out of climate negotiations because of the
privileging of scientific and environmental expertise. Second, when women’s
forms of leadership or ‘expertise’ do get recognised, these tend to be confined
narrowly within and reinforce traditional gender roles. As a result, these
stereotypes structure women’s entitlements and participation. They also indicate
a lack of serious engagement with the potential of everyday and traditional
knowledge as a form of expertise required to make science and technology studies
more robust. Echoing existing recommendations from IUCN, it is therefore vital
that the necessary resources are mobilised across all national agendas and
programmes to sustain women’s networks and professional mobility within the
sciences and related government ministries. Overreliance on narrow
interpretations of scientific and security expertise makes us all inadequate.
Instead, ‘[W]e need the power of modern critical theories of how meanings and
bodies get made, not in order to deny meanings and bodies, but in order to build
meanings and bodies that have a chance for life’ (Haraway, 1988: 580). As this
chapter underscores, feminist governance is multiscalar and emerges on multiple
fronts and from multiple viewpoints. It potentially provides alternative models
and ethics for integrating diverse knowledge systems. If feminist governance is
to transform environmental and climate decision-making, there is an urgent need
to reshape and reformulate new vantage points and world views. This involves
challenging narrow constructions of ‘merit’ and what counts as ‘technical’
towards more open and deliberative decision-making processes. Addressing the
macro-level political economy that underpins gendered distribution of political
authority and resources – all conduits in valorisations of particular forms of
expertise – is also needed. Here, further studies of the political ecology and
economy of femininities and masculinities as they inform legitimate forms of
expertise in climate governance will yield important pathways for reform.
Feminist researchers, scientists and engineers all have a role to play in the
critical scrutiny and brokerage of existing ‘high-level’, ‘scientific knowledge’
and ‘knowledge from the ground’ in the service of developing more just and
effective climate solutions.
272 Handbook of feminist governance
NOTES 1. See, for example, the Gender Climate Tracker developed by WEDO in
partnership with the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), https:// www .
genderclim atetracker .org/ . 2. See COP25 final report for the text on Enhanced
Lima Work Programme and Gender Action Plan, https:// unfccc .int/ sites/
default/ files/ resource/ cp2019 _13a01E .pdf. The Lima work programme on gender
was adopted at COP20 (2014), https:// unfccc .int/ sites/ default/ files/
resource/ docs/ 2014/ cop20/ eng/ 10a03 .pdf. The gender action plan was first
established at COP23 (2017). 3. ‘Gender mandates in Climate Policy’, https://
www . genderclim atetracker .org/ gender -mandates/ introduction. 4. See also
‘Quick Analysis’, https:// www . genderclim atetracker .org/ gender -mandates/
quick -analysis. 5. The EGI is based on six categories with weighted averages
and scaled from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the most favourable condition for
gender equality and women’s empowerment. The six categories are livelihood,
ecosystem, gender-based rights and participation, governance, gender-based
education and assets, and country-reported activities. See IUCN (2013) for a
detailed description of the methodology.
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22. Transnational feminism and global governance Valentine M. Moghadam
INTRODUCTION Transnational feminist networks (TFNs) have a long history,
starting with organisations such as the International Council of Women (ICW),
formed in 1888, the International Alliance of Women (IAW), founded in 1904 as
the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and the Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), formed in 1919, all of which continue to thrive.
Socialist and labour activists developed their own networks across borders,
promoting social justice for working women within and outside the International
Labour Organization. The late 20th century saw an expanded field with TFNs
mobilising around structural adjustment policies, religious fundamentalisms and
civil conflicts. Most recently, TFNs have met Covid-19 with statements that
criticise the root causes of the pandemic, such as social and gender
inequalities and misguided state policies and priorities. From caring economies,
demilitarisation and a more robust social democracy to eco-socialism and
degrowth, TFN proposals challenge institutions of national and global governance
to implement transformative policies while critiquing existing institutions.
What are TFNs and what do they do? Situated within the field of global feminist
social-movement activism, TFNs are groups of women’s rights advocates from three
or more countries who mobilise and coalesce around a common set of grievances
and goals (Moghadam, 1996, 2005, 2013). Their mobilisation strategies occur at
global, regional and local levels, and broadly entail research and analysis;
lobbying, public advocacy and education; coalition building; and humanitarian
action, international solidarity and public protests. As non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), they take part in UN NGO forums and many are accredited to
the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), enabling them to attend the
annual meetings of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. TFNs create,
activate or join global networks and coalitions to mobilise pressure outside
states, doing so via e-petitions, action alerts and appeals, and through public
protests and acts of civil disobedience. They act and agitate within states, at
both local and national levels, to enhance public awareness and participation,
often using innovative digital platforms for training and advocacy and to reach
diverse constituencies. As ‘outsiders’, TFNs work with ‘insiders’ to make
meaningful interventions on key national and international issues. At a minimum,
and like women’s NGOs in general, TFNs seek recognition and representation for
women, along with redistributive measures such as gender budgets (see Chapter 11
in this Handbook).1 Some also offer wide-ranging critiques of neoliberal
policies and masculinist practices, issuing proposals for social equality,
economic justice and peace. Such critiques and proposals evince efforts to
advance an alternative, feminist mode of governance. The UN and its specialised
agencies, programmes and funds have offered space for TFN lobbying, advocacy and
resource mobilisation, which in turn has enabled adoption and diffusion of
gender equality norms and mechanisms such as gender mainstreaming (True and
Mintrom, 2001). TFN expertise has not escaped the notice of governments and
intergovern274
Transnational feminism and global governance 275 mental organisations (IGOs),
including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).2 In turn,
those bodies have called on TFNs for consultations or echoed their narratives –
if not adopted entirely the values and norms that TFNs represent and promote. In
the wake of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, IGO attention to care sectors reflected
years of feminist research and advocacy (e.g. Georgieva, 2020). Framed by
feminist institutionalism (Krook and Mackay, 2011) and world-systems theory
(Chase-Dunn, 1998; Wallerstein, 2000), this chapter addresses feminist
governance through a focus on TFNs, their opportunities, achievements and
constraints. Although concerted collective action by social movements and civil
society organisations – including TFNs – may influence practices and outcomes,
favourable outcomes may be prevented, undermined or overturned by the broader
‘rules of the game’ of the capitalist world system, including the prerogatives
of the hegemon and the system’s central logic of endless accumulation and
growth. The world system’s wars, economic crises, ecological disasters and
pandemics continue to preoccupy TFNs.
FROM THE DEMAND FOR PEACE TO THE CRITIQUE OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT Forty years
after the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York that called for women’s
rights, 53 women’s organisations from nine countries gathered in Washington, DC
(Rupp, 1994). Ten years later, the ICW formed an International Standing
Committee on Peace and International Arbitration; other standing committees were
soon established on issues from suffrage to health.3 In the wake of a
devastating world war, and after a 1915 meeting of over 1,100 women at The Hague
seeking to develop a vision of peace, WILPF formed in 1919 to take a stand
against war. Much of WILPF’s language in the interwar period emphasised the
importance of economic, social and physical security in guarding against future
wars (McCarthy et al., 2015). Both the ICW and WILPF engaged with the new
multilateral organisation, the League of Nations, as did the IAW, and they
promoted peace, equality of men and women, and women’s involvement across all
domains.4 Given the logic of the world system, the first generation of TFNs
could not prevent the Second World War. They were, however, prepared to take
part in the new, post-World War II institutions of global governance, notably
the United Nations, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and specialised
UN agencies such as UNESCO, whose mission at its founding was to ‘build peace in
the minds of men’. WILPF became a distinctive voice within the international
peace movement and a major player in histories of 20th-century global feminism
(Confortini, 2012). The Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF),
founded in 1945 in France and later headquartered in East Berlin, was affiliated
to the socialist/communist movement; its main areas of concern were world peace,
anti-fascism, child welfare and improving the status of women (Armstrong, 2016;
de Haan, 2010a, 2010b). The IAW, ICW and WILPF developed as federations, with
national units as well as an international secretariat, and gradually assumed
feminism as an overarching frame. Politically, they diverged, with IAW and ICW
choosing to be neutral while WILPF adopted radical positions on militarism, war
and peace. Meanwhile, women’s groups expanded across the globe. All four
federations – IAW, ICW, WILPF and WIDF – sent representatives to the UN’s CSW
meetings.
276 Handbook of feminist governance In mid-century, the Cold War cast a shadow
on feminist solidarity, in the form of the East–West and North–South divides.
Antipathy existed between women’s groups aligned with the communist movement and
liberal feminist groups aligned with the so-called Free World. WIDF enjoyed
consultative status with the UN’s ECOSOC), but there was hardly any connection
between WIDF and non-communist Western women’s groups, although links with WILPF
did exist.5 Moreover, WIDF faced intense anti-communist denunciations from US
officials (de Haan, 2010a). Recent studies have uncovered an important,
previously hidden, part of the history of the global women’s rights movement.
Through her focus on two activists, from Bulgaria and Zambia, Ghodsee (2019)
uncovers the important role of women from the Second World, and socialist women
from the Third World, in championing women’s rights. De Haan (2010a) writes that
WIDF representatives attending a CSW meeting, led by the WIDF President Hertta
Kuusinen from Finland, proposed that the UN declare 1975 as International
Women’s Year; this launched the Decade for Women (1976–85) and a new wave of
global feminist governance. At the start of the decade, autonomous feminist
groups were emerging within national borders, encompassing liberal, radical,
Marxist and socialist ideologies, and those political differences constituted
one form of division within feminism. The other division, as noted, took the
form of North–South, or First World–Third World, differences in priorities and
strategies; many First World feminists saw legal equality and reproductive
rights as key feminist demands and goals, while many Third World feminists
emphasised underdevelopment, colonialism and imperialism as obstacles to women’s
advancement. Disagreements over what constituted priority feminist issues –
legal equality and personal choice versus global economic and political
hierarchies – came to the fore at the beginning of the decade’s First and Second
World Conferences (in Mexico City in 1975 and Copenhagen in 1980). In the
mid-1980s, during preparations for the 1985 World Conference in Nairobi,
bridge-building across regional and ideological divides was made possible by
three critical world-systemic developments: the transition from Keynesian to
neoliberal economics, along with a new international division of labour that
relied heavily on (cheap) female labour; cuts to the welfare state in the core
countries and the decline of the developmental state in the Third World; and the
emergence of fundamentalist and politicised religious movements. Activist women
in developing and developed countries responded by building the second
generation of women’s transnational networks, now with explicitly feminist
framings: MADRE, DAWN, WEDO, WIDE, Women Living Under Muslim Laws and, in 1995,
the World March of Women (Moghadam, 1996, 2020).6 The UN system continued
activities around women’s participation and rights, creating space for the
first- and second-generation transnational networks. The emerging feminist
agenda included a critique of neoliberalism and structural adjustment policies
(SAPs), as well as an insistence on women’s full citizenship, reproductive
rights, bodily integrity, and autonomy, no matter what the cultural context.
Scholar-activists noted that SAPs affected women in distinctive ways, especially
in social reproduction and care activities (Elson, 1991; Sen and Grown, 1987).7
Consensus culminated in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
Along the road to Beijing, other UN venues enabled consensus-building and
advocacy: the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994,
and the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995. There, women
declared that environmental issues were women’s
Transnational feminism and global governance 277 issues, that women’s rights
were human rights, that governments should guarantee women’s reproductive health
and rights, that women’s access to productive employment and social protection
had to be expanded, and that cutbacks in public services were not acceptable.
New resonant frames emerged – women’s human rights, gender justice, gender
equality, ending the feminisation of poverty, ending violence against women –
frames that came to be adopted not only by women’s groups across the globe but
also, increasingly, by governments and IGOs (Moghadam, 2020: 143–4). In the
1990s, TFNs worked with UN agencies, notably the United Nations Development Fund
for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), to establish
and diffuse the new frames and policy norms. They attended the annual CSW
meetings and helped write Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) shadow reports, and they were consulted by
various IGOs. As a result, TFN activities and partnerships resulted in some
successes at the UN conferences of the 1990s and afterward. One was the
favourable outcome document of the 1994 ICPD, which included references to
women’s right to reproductive health and services. TFNs insisted on the need for
sex-disaggregated data; endorsed and helped secure support for the establishment
of ‘national machinery for women’, or women’s policy agencies; pushed for gender
mainstreaming across international organisations and governments; and promoted
adoption of gender budgets. Drawing on Reanda (1999) and others, Hafner-Burton
and Pollack (2002) describe the influence of the ‘international women’s
movement’ in the adoption of gender mainstreaming at the World Bank and the
UNDP. Several TFNs joined the ‘Fifty Years is Enough’ campaign that criticised
the World Bank and IMF for the economic policies they promoted; in response,
World Bank President Wolfensohn created an ‘external gender consultative group’,
inviting several feminist critics to join (Moghadam, 2005: 122). A major
achievement was Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in October 2000 and
focused on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). The precursor was TFN lobbying at
the 1993 Conference on Human Rights; the final Vienna Declaration included the
assertion that violence against women was an abuse of human rights, and a
critique of the harmful effects of certain traditional or customary practices,
cultural prejudices and religious extremism. The declaration stated that abuses
of women during armed conflict – including systematic rape, sexual slavery and
forced pregnancy – are violations of the fundamental principles of international
human rights and humanitarian law. Gender experts at UNIFEM, working with
several TFNs, held informal meetings with members of the UN’s Security Council
to advocate for a resolution on WPS (Hill et al., 2003). This paved the way for
UNSCR 1325 (see Chapter 18 in this Handbook), calling on governments, as well as
the UN Security Council itself, to include women in negotiations and settlements
with respect to conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and to mainstream gender
in peacekeeping, training and other operations. At the same time, the Rome
Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), was
influenced by the lobbying efforts of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice
(Cohn, 2008). By strategising with each other and engaging with allies in
international organisations, TFNs influenced the crafting, adoption and
diffusion of the global women’s rights agenda, thus helping to advance feminist
governance. In that sense, the 1990s were a period of tremendous growth for
TFNs. At the same time, the post-Cold War world order was characterised by harsh
UN sanctions against Iraq; civil conflicts in sub-Saharan African, Yugoslavia
and former Soviet republics; the growth of al-Qaeda in the wake of the US
support for Islamist rebels in Afghanistan; the worldwide expansion of a
neoliberal and financialised model of capitalist
278 Handbook of feminist governance globalisation; and the beginning of reform
and restructuring (including downsizing) of the UN. These and subsequent
world-systemic developments in the new century affected TFN opportunities and
prospects. One response was to join the World Social Forum – the left-wing
counterpart to the World Economic Forum – after its first convergence in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, in 2001.
CRISES IN THE NEW CENTURY AND FEMINIST RESPONSES The 2003 US-led invasion of
Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, the 2010–11 Arab Spring and
its meltdown, and a weakened UN affected transnational feminist partnerships,
financing and strategies, including the dissolution of at least one TFN and the
dissipation of the funding base of another. A 2011 study by the Association for
Women’s Rights in Development found that post-2008 budget cuts from donors
compelled staff and programme downsizing at many women’s rights organisations
(AWID, 2011). UN Women, launched in 2010 from the merger of four entities,
established programmes on women’s economic empowerment, peace and security, and
other issues, and continued UNIFEM’s practice of inviting TFN scholar-activists
to contribute to its flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women. But
conflicts, sanctions, and heightened inter-state tensions and rivalries
threatened women’s empowerment, leadership and physical security. In early 2020,
UN Women warned that ‘unprecedented global challenges’ hindered progress towards
gender equality and that gains were under attack.8 These crises may have pushed
TFNs in a more radical direction. Code Pink: Women for Peace, which emerged in
the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was radical at its inception and
continues to engage in public protest as well as advocacy. In autumn 2019 it
formed an initiative called the Feminist Foreign Policy Project, bringing
together scholar-activists and launching working groups and webinars. Women
Cross DMZ was created in 2016 to mobilise women globally for peace in Korea, and
regularly holds peace marches along the demilitarised zone separating North and
South Korea. MADRE, formed in the mid-1980s, partners with Code Pink, Women
Cross DMZ and other grassroots and transnational feminist groups to critique
war, inter-state rivalries and economic injustices. WILPF has retained its
feminist anti-militarist vision for peace with women’s equality and rights; its
secretariat in Geneva and UN liaison office in New York focus on SCR 1325. Even
so, Rees and Chinkin (2020) of WILPF called for an end to ‘predatory capitalism
and patriarchal society’ and its replacement with ‘equal access to basic
resources and valuing care’. The Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA),
launched in September 2016 at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in
Budapest, aims at dialogue among feminists and degrowth proponents ‘to make
feminist reasoning an integral part of degrowth activism and scholarship’.9
Facing Covid-19 When Covid-19 struck in early 2020, most governments were
ill-prepared to tackle it effectively, and high rates of infection and deaths
were experienced in Italy, France, Spain, the UK and the US. Paradoxically, the
pandemic coincided with several international anniversaries: 75 years of the UN,
25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, 20 years since SCR 1325, five
years since the Paris Climate agreement. Yet there was little to cheer about,
given the per-
Transnational feminism and global governance 279 sistence of conflicts and
wars, income inequalities and violence against women. The pandemic emerged and
expanded at a time of increased global tensions that the UN seemed unable to
alleviate – the internationalised conflict in Syria and subsequent refugee
crisis of 2015, the collapse of the Libyan state following the 2011 NATO assault
to dislodge Ghaddafi, the trade wars between the US and China, the war of words
between the US and Russia, Brexit and other challenges within the European
Union, the denial of climate change by right-wing populist leaders, the assault
on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the US recognition of
Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights (Syria) and of Jerusalem as Israel’s
capital, the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal as well as from UNESCO,
the assassinations of two top Iranian officials, and the harsh US sanctions on
Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and 25 other countries. TFNs
were quick to understand the links among the economic, political, environmental
and health crises. In diagnosing the underlying causes, their critiques echoed
earlier ones focused on inter-state rivalries, structural adjustments and
neoliberal capitalism. TFN analyses and proposals were based on reason, the
ethics of care and a critique of militarism and endless accumulation and growth.
FaDA (2020) connected the pandemic to the pursuit of profit and growth, noting
that ‘deforestation from agro-industry incurs into forestlands and viruses jump
from displaced wildlife to livestock and then to humans’. WEDO (2020) stressed
the problem of food insecurity and called for both a Green New Deal and a
Universal Basic Income. MADRE (2020) argued that the lack of funding for public
water supplies, sanitation, housing and health services – along with
deforestation and the destruction of ecosystems – had helped spread Covid-19; it
also called for universal health care, child care, and paid sick leave in the US
and other countries lacking such provisioning. All TFNs stressed that
gender-based violence was likely to increase during lockdowns, as it had during
periods of economic recession, hence the need to educate publics and protect
women by ensuring the availability of shelters. Recognising that ‘essential
workers’ were not hedge-fund managers but rather those in economic sectors
providing care and basic services, TFNs reiterated long-standing demands for
valorisation of ‘care, well-being, equality, human flourishing, and meeting
basic needs’. In a WILPF statement, Rees and Chinkin (2020) noted that
caregivers worldwide were more than 70 per cent female and ‘are thanked for
their sacrifice but aren’t given a seat at the table to make decisions’. As in
earlier critiques of structural adjustments and neoliberal capitalist growth,
TFNs analysed the pandemic as a reflection of the crisis of reproduction and
care, calling for people- and community-oriented sustainable economies, in part
through a Global Green New Deal. WEDO (2020) stressed the need to re-evaluate
what kind of work is ‘essential’, recognise those who are working at the front
lines and understand the gendered nature of the crisis. The FaDA collective saw
the pandemic as ‘an opening for a careful radical transformation’. Endorsing the
call for a ‘care income’ by the Global Women’s Strike (GWS) and its Women of
Color section, the Collective demanded social recognition for the ‘unpaid and
gendered care work that we all perform to sustain the life and wellbeing of
households and communities’ (FaDA, 2020). Other specific proposals included
‘support for community-supported organic agriculture to increase local
resilience, regenerate soil nutrients, and reduce dependency on global supply
chains’; the socialisation of health care and utilities; the ‘decommodification
of food, housing, medicines, education, etc.’. Women’s NGOs affiliated with the
CSW meet monthly in New York, and in April and May 2020 discussions revolved
around the pandemic, its gendered effects and the need for new economic and
humanitarian policies. A WEDO representative worried that there would
280 Handbook of feminist governance be ‘long-term impacts on democratic
governance and human rights’ as well as on women’s employment and economic
security.10 Echoing UN Women’s Shadow Pandemic Campaign, the Women’s Learning
Partnership (WLP) called gender-based violence (GBV) ‘the shadow pandemic during
COVID-19 and beyond’. To mitigate the economic and health impact of Covid-19 and
build women’s resilience, women’s CSW NGOs recommended sex- and
age-disaggregated data analysis; leveraging networks and connections with
women’s NGOs, gender specialists within IGOs, and faith communities for a
coordinated socioeconomic response; using social media and other computer
technologies to exchange and distribute information; and providing expertise and
resources for community engagement to reach women with disabilities and those
living in marginalised communities. There was consensus on the need for
government investment in women’s health care facilities, domestic violence
hotlines and shelters for GBV victims. TFNs and women’s NGOs also agreed on
holding multilateral organisations and governments accountable and – as Bridget
Burns of WEDO stated – ensuring ‘solutions that are framed in the context of
global justice’.11 A May 2020 joint statement by MADRE, Women Cross DMZ and
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance asserted that this public health crisis has
only amplified the need to redistribute resources, restructure society, and
create long-term solutions that prioritize the true needs of all people. … [It]
calls for us to challenge our militarized notion of security.
Code Pink’s Feminist Foreign Policy Project similarly argued that the pandemic
had revealed … the shortcomings of healthcare systems across the globe and the
huge social costs of an economic model that prioritizes markets and profits over
people’s health and wellbeing. COVID-19 is exactly the kind of crisis that our
neoliberal capitalist economy is ill-equipped to solve.12
The US section of WILPF later endorsed the ‘Marshall Plan for Moms’ – a young
coder’s initiative which in February 2021 received the support of a
Congresswoman from New York – and distributed a petition to be submitted to
President Biden.13 TFNs on Peace, Economic Security and Feminist Humanitarianism
In addressing the spread of Covid-19 and ways to mitigate its effects across
countries, TFNs emphasised the value of achieving sustainable peace, given the
number of conflicts and US-initiated sanctions, and endorsed UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for a global ceasefire in late March
2020. WILPF then proposed ‘five principles for a meaningful ceasefire’,
including the full participation of women and civil society groups, and
reallocating military expenditure to fund local civil society-led efforts
towards ‘recovery, reconciliation, and reconstruction’ (WILPF, 2020). The
statement was issued on behalf of the consortium FIRE, the acronym for Feminist
Impact for Rights and Equality, consisting of MADRE, WILPF, the Nobel Women’s
Initiative and Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation. In May, Women Cross DMZ joined
Code Pink and others to promote a ‘feminist foreign policy’ to confront the
pandemic through a global ceasefire, an end to ‘US militarism at home and
abroad’ and to redefine national security. The statement called on the US ‘to
prioritize interdependence, connection and cooperation, justice, valuing people
and the planet over profit, and protecting the most vulnerable among us’.14 In a
separate statement, Code Pink demanded ‘a new social
Transnational feminism and global governance 281 contract’ that would include
‘the immediate and permanent end to all sanctions against nations levied by the
United States’, as these are ‘a death sentence for many of the most marginalized
people in the countries they target’. This should be accompanied by ‘an
immediate and permanent ceasefire of all global conflicts so that we can
prioritize peacemaking, diplomacy and cooperation in this time of global crisis’
(Code Pink, 2020). In late March 2021, Code Pink, MADRE, Women Cross DMZ and
WILPF joined 51 US-based civil society organisations in asking that President
Biden lift sanctions to ‘allow the peoples of sanctioned countries and locations
to respond to the devastating human and economic fallout of COVID-19’.15 In
previous work, I identified ‘feminist humanitarianism’ as a strategy of
transnational feminism, and pointed to activities – by Code Pink, MADRE, WEDO,
the Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) and
other TFNs – to reach across borders and provide financial and technical
assistance to partners. MADRE works with women’s groups in Yemen, Nicaragua and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), among other countries. In the
context of the pandemic, MADRE stressed the poor quality of Yemen’s health and
water infrastructure due to the internationalised civil war; described its work
supporting access to potable water stations; and demanded a ceasefire. In its
work with Indigenous peoples in Nicaragua, MADRE provides supplies to midwives
to promote maternal health care while also supporting local initiatives around
seed preservation and organic agriculture. In the DRC it runs awareness
campaigns focused on displaced persons and community violence-prevention and
provides sanitation and medical supplies (MADRE, 2020). WEDO (2020) called for
‘migrant justice’ along with a ‘focus on the well-being, health, and safety of
all people in an intersectional manner that protects sexual and reproductive
health’ and is ‘based on democratic values that use cooperation and global
justice to protect the planet’. WLP (2020) described its partners’ increased use
of messaging apps and social media to disseminate information, ‘sensitizing
journalists about the pandemic’s particular threats to women in the home and
outside, raising funds for populations most at-risk, and even broadcasting
messages by megaphone in communities where there is limited technology
infrastructure and access to the web’. Examples followed of initiatives in
Jordan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Brazil, Malaysia, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and
Mozambique. The more recently formed Feminist Humanitarian Network ‘actively
shifts power to women-led organisations working in humanitarian contexts in the
Global South’ and thus ‘promotes a feminist humanitarian agenda’.16
CONCLUSIONS: TOWARDS FEMINIST GOVERNANCE A year after the establishment of UN
Women, a coalition of women’s groups – WIDE, AWID, the Center for Women’s Global
Leadership and the Feminist Alliance for International Action – distributed a
joint statement asking that the agency ‘design its policy and program on women’s
economic empowerment from an economic, cultural, and social rights framework’.17
WILPF issued ‘Towards a Feminist Security Council: A Guidance Note for Security
Council Members’ with recommendations for more meaningful SCR 1325 outcomes
(WILPF, 2018). By taking part in IGO meetings and preparing background papers,
briefing papers and reports, TFNs help set agendas and increase expertise on
issues. By lobbying delegates, they raise awareness and cultivate supporters.
282 Handbook of feminist governance At the same time, TFNs help strengthen the
international women’s movement through mutual support and solidarity. Arguably
more so than the first generation of international women’s groups, contemporary
TFNs evince considerable narrative, institutional and mobilisational capacity.
Across the globe, they have joined local women’s groups in the UN’s annual ‘16
Days against GBV’. Many participate in the meetings of the Association for
Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) or of the International Association for
Feminist Economics (IAFFE).18 During the Arab Spring, TFNs extended solidarity
to Arab women while also disseminating the concerns raised by Arab feminists
about the place of women’s participation and rights in the new polities. They
joined or supported coalitions to challenge the growth of right-wing populism
across the globe. In May 2019, DAWN held a meeting in Addis Ababa on
public–private partnerships and corporate accountability in African countries.19
In the US, Code Pink and WILPF-US joined with other US-based groups to
underscore the lawlessness of the January 2020 US assassination of a prominent
Iranian general and his Iraqi counterpart, and the late November Israeli
assassination of a prominent Iranian nuclear scientist. Working with civil
society and movement partners and with allies in IGOs, TFN activism spans local,
national, regional and global terrains and addresses some of the most critical
international issues. If the immediate goal is to set agenda for policy reform
and shift it in a feminist direction, many of the TFNs discussed in this chapter
ultimately seek wider systemic transformation. From the early 20th century to
the present, TFNs have addressed militarism, war and violence against women;
economic crisis; environmental degradation; and social injustices. They have
drawn attention to the gendered nature of the institutions that generate such
inequalities and crises, and they have sought partnerships and allies to diffuse
and instil feminist governance principles of care, equality, cooperation and
sustainability. They note that a post-pandemic future with policies for gender
equality and environmental protection requires debt cancellation. Decades of
feminist knowledge-building has enabled TFNs to show the links between the
worldwide spread of Covid-19 and systemic inequalities and injustices. By
connecting the pandemic to the neoliberal capitalist model and militarism, TFNs
put the spotlight on the deficiencies of hegemonic states and institutions of
global governance. The women within TFNs are keenly aware of the structural and
institutional obstacles to societal and global transformation, and the depth and
extent of the present century’s crises. Yet, as a MADRE statement noted, crisis
also brings about possibilities for agency, especially through collective
action. The goal of a peace- and care-based economy within and across borders
may not be realised soon, but it will remain a key component of transnational
feminist governance.
NOTES 1. The relationship of redistribution, recognition and representation (or
‘parity of participation’) to social movement activism and goals is adapted from
Nancy Fraser, in Fraser and Honneth (2003). See also ‘Interview with Nancy
Fraser: Justice as Redistribution, Recognition and Representation’, MRonline.
https:// mronline .org/ 2009/ 05/ 16/ interview -with -nancy -fraser -justice
-as -redistribution -recognition -and -representation/ . 2. See e.g. IMF (2015);
World Bank (2012). 3. http:// www .icw -cif .com/ 01/ 03 .php. 4. On the IAW and
Middle Eastern women’s groups in the early 20th century, see Weber (2001). 5.
Joan Ecklein, WILPF-Boston, personal communication, 19 August 2019.
Transnational feminism and global governance 283 6. DAWN: Development
Alternatives with Women for a New Era; WIDE: Women in Development Europe; WEDO:
Women’s Environment and Development Organization. There is some overlap between
TFNs and what some call women’s international NGOs, or WINGOs (Paxton and
Hughes, 2014), but a WINGO such as the International Federation of Business and
Professional Women does not necessarily share the TFNs’ political and economic
critiques. 7. ‘We want a world where inequality based on class, gender and race
is absent from every country, and from the relationships among countries. … In
such a world, women’s reproductive role will be redefined: … Childcare will be
shared by men, women and society as a whole’ (Sen and Grown, 1987: 80). 8.
https:// www .unwomen .org/ en/ news/ stories/ 2020/ 3/ press -release -ahead
-of -international -womens -day -report -warns -that -progress -is -lagging
(accessed 8 April 2021). 9. https:// w ww . degrowth . info/ e n/ f eminisms -
and - degrowth - alliance - fada/ c ollective - research -notebook/ (accessed 8
April 2021). 10. https:// ngocsw .org/ ngo -csw -ny -may -2020 -monthly
-meeting/ (accessed December 2020). 11. https:// ngocsw .org/ ngocsw64/
(accessed December 2020). 12. Feminist Foreign Policy Project: https:// www
.codepink .org/ feminist _response _to _covid _19 (accessed 8 April 2021). 13.
https:// www .marshallplanformoms .com/ (accessed 9 April 2021). 14. https://
portside .org/ 2020 -05 -09/ statement -feminist -foreign -policy -confront
-coronavirus -pandemic (accessed 9 April 2021). 15. https:// www .afsc .org/
newsroom/ civil -society -groups -call -biden -to -provide -immediate -sanctions
-relief -and -legal -reform (accessed 10 April 2021). 16. https:// www .feminis
thumanitar iannetwork .org/ our -vision -and -goal (accessed 9 April 2021). 17.
https:// www .escr -net .org/ docs/ i/ 1509856 (accessed April 2021). 18.
Personal observations. 19. https:// dawnnet .org/ wp -content/ uploads/ 2019/
07/ DAWN -PPPs -Africa -Workshop - .pdf (accessed 12 April 2021).
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23. UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? Andrea den Boer and Kirsten
Haack
INTRODUCTION UN Women, or the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the
Empowerment of Women, was established by General Assembly resolution 64/289 in
July 2010 to coordinate the work of the United Nations system in advancing
gender equality, and to promote gender equality globally and within the UN
system. The new agency was intended to bring institutional and system-wide
coherence to the disparate and therefore relatively weak gender architecture,
which had developed in the wake of the United Nations Decade for Women, under
one umbrella and transform the normative achievements of the Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 into tangible results for gender equality
(see Charlesworth and Chinkin, 2013). After a decade of working as the ‘global
champion for gender equality’, has UN Women fulfilled the promise to focus UN
activity on gender equality, and provide a stronger platform for normative
development and advocacy? Does and can UN Women fulfil the promise of feminist
global governance by operationalising feminist values and practices, while
challenging patriarchal institutions, values and practices? Or does UN Women
represent a bureaucratisation of feminism and the emptying of feminist values?
In this chapter we analyse UN Women as an example of feminist governance,
focusing on its achievements in formulating and implementing policies to achieve
gender equality, including the creation of norms and promotion of gender
equality both within states and the UN system, its engagement with feminist
civil society actors, its success in monitoring gender equality data, policies
and processes, and its ability to frame issues from a gender perspective. In
doing so we frame the goals of feminist governance as a radical feminist agenda
that challenges patriarchal power structures, focusing on gender equality,
women’s rights, and women’s empowerment and agency. This radical agenda stands
in contrast to liberal feminist agendas focused on gender parity and women’s
participation in various domains of public life without recognition of women’s
specific roles and needs. Differences between radical feminist governance and
liberal feminist governance are further exemplified by goals to achieve change
through meaningful participation and engagement, versus the limitation of
organisational activity to bureaucratic exercises and technical measurements of
gender equality. Secondly, differences can be found in a move beyond the
definition of gender as women towards a recognition of the role of men in the
first instance, and, more recently, towards a recognition of the non-binary
nature of gender. The end-of-decade assessment suggests that while some of the
problems of the earlier, sprawling gender architecture have been addressed,
others have continued and new issues have emerged. The question of whether the
radical ideals of feminism are hollowed out or whether UN institutions help
advance feminist ideals continues to preoccupy commentators and practitioners
alike. While its central location in the UN system provides it with an
opportunity to 286
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? 287 influence normative
development and promote gender equality among UN agency leaders, and potentially
member states, UN Women’s relative size and limited resources pose a challenge
in shaping substantive change on the ground.
THE UN GENDER ARCHITECTURE 1945–2010 The conferences of the UN Decade for Women
had seen the creation of a range of institutions and mechanisms to support the
normative and operational development of gender equality. The Commission on the
Status of Women (CSW), established in 1946 to promote women’s rights, set
standards and monitor the status of women around the world, had functioned as
the main institution of feminist governance. In its early work it focused on
legal dimensions of women’s status, including women’s rights at work,
nationality rights and marriage, and was supported by the Section on the Status
of Women in the Human Rights Division of the Department for Economic and Social
Affairs, renamed in 1988 as the Division for the Advancement of Women. These
institutions remained the only agencies specifically concerned with gender
issues until the passing of the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women in 1967, which marked a starting point for broader engagement with
gender equality at the United Nations. In the 1960s and 1970s, women’s
movements, which had played an important role in shaping women’s role in
international organisations, in international law and policy since the late
nineteenth century, from the League of Nations to the UN (Garner, 2010;
Stienstra, 1994), began to critique UN development policies. The changing
understanding of women’s role in development led to increased calls for a
recognition of gender equality in the UN system, both in programmatic areas as
well as for UN staff. Following the World Conference on Women in Mexico City,
the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women
(OSAGI) was established in 1977, followed by the International Research and
Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) in 1979. CEDAW, the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, was
adopted in 1979, which heralded the beginning of close collaboration between
women’s rights experts at the UN and women’s rights movements around the world
(Zwingel, 2016). The Voluntary Fund for Women, established in 1976 to support
the Decade for Women, became the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in 1985.
The 1985 Nairobi Women’s Conference also led to the introduction of gender
mainstreaming as a system-wide strategy, including the establishment of gender
units, focal points and gender networks. This was reinforced by the Fourth World
Conference of Women in Beijing in 1995, which influenced the reconfiguration of
the UN system’s gender architecture in the new millennium to address the
limitations in the sprawling system of gender institutions and their relative
lack of influence and authority. While individual organisations were not
entirely unsuccessful in fulfilling parts of their mandate, feminists at UNIFEM
specifically noted the limitations of its framework, leading Sandler and Rao
(2012: 12) to conclude that UNIFEM was in a position of ‘structured inequality’
and subject to ‘systematic institutional sabotage’ throughout its lifetime.
Located within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNIFEM was
unable to sign its own cheques or undertake its own recruitment, while the
professional ranking of its staff was too low to have a seat at the table. This
multi-institutional gender architecture was geographically spread, fragmented,
lacking in authority, leadership
288 Handbook of feminist governance and voice, and indeed resources (Sandler
and Rao, 2012), requiring institutional reform to strengthen the gender equality
agenda.
A NEW FEMINIST GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK? The new millennium, along with Millennium
Development Goal 5 ‘gender equality’, marked the beginning of a move towards a
new framework for feminist governance informed by the political goals of the
1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the organisational goals of a system-wide
drive to achieve greater institutional coherence and efficiency. In 1997, the
United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) called for a gender
mainstreaming accountability mechanism, which informed the decision of the Chief
Executives Board in 2006 to institute a System-wide Policy on Gender Equality
and the Empowerment of Women and the System-wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP). These
system-wide plans ensured that gender equality was at last institutionalised in
all agencies of the UN system. Moreover, they also assigned clear responsibility
for the implementation of gender equality to agency leaders and departmental
decision-makers, who had previously obstructed gender mainstreaming (Daes,
1995). While the UN-SWAP created a clear institutional strategy to strengthen
feminist governance internally (programmatic policy outcomes were excluded), the
High-level Panel on System Wide Coherence in 2006, instituted by
Secretary-General, did not feature gender. Gender equality was only included
after successful lobbying from the Gender Equality Architecture Reform campaign,
composed of over 300 civil society organisations (CSOs) led by the Women’s
Environment & Development Organization. The panel recognised that the UN’s
contribution to gender equality was ‘incoherent, under-resourced and
fragmented’, and recommended that a new institution bring together existing
agencies in order to focus, streamline and empower the UN’s work (Rao, 2006).
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Comprehensive Proposal for the Composite Entity
for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women1 and General Assembly
resolution 64/289, 21 July 2010, established UN Women. The Beijing Platform for
Action and the Sustainable Development Goals form the platform for the agency’s
action. The institutional framework of UN Women is marked by complexity compared
to other UN agencies. It is organised in a multi-tiered intergovernmental
structure in which the General Assembly, ECOSOC and the Commission on the Status
of Women provide the normative framework, and the General Assembly, ECOSOC and
an Executive Board provide the operational framework. UN Women is tasked to work
with each of these organisations to ensure coordinated action across the system,
and to support normative and policy development. It is governed by a 41-member
board based on a distribution of seats that is intended to strengthen the role
of developing countries and recognise voluntary contributors (Rosche, 2011). In
addition to the standard regional distribution (here: ten seats for Africa, ten
Asia-Pacific, four Eastern Europe, six Latin American and the Caribbean, five
Western Europe and Others), four seats are allocated to contributing countries
and two seats to contributing countries that are not members of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee.
The institutional space occupied by UN Women within the UN system facilitates
the mainstreaming and coordination of gender through the coordination and
monitoring of
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? 289 UN-SWAP, through
institutional norm entrepreneurship (i.e. the ability of institutional actors to
influence norms, ideas and agendas across the UN system) and through the
creation and support of networks and institutions. For example, UN Women
supports the drafting of the Secretary-General’s report on the Improvement of
the Status of Women in the UN system, and serves as CSW’s Secretariat,
supporting annual meetings and the coordination of final resolutions. The agency
is led by an Executive Director at the level of Under-Secretary-General, who
reports directly to the UN Secretary-General, advising on all issues of gender
equality across the UN system. Located in New York, the Executive Director is
well placed to influence other UN agencies as a member of the Senior Management
Group, which brings together heads of various UN agencies and regional
commissions, departmental heads and envoys, as well as members of the UN
Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) and the Chief Executive Board for
Coordination (CEB), gaining a voice that predecessor institutions did not have.
From an organisational perspective, this new institutional framework has
remedied a number of the shortcomings of the former gender architecture,
specifically the question of fragmentation, voice, access and, to some extent,
resources, allowing for stronger leadership on gender equality (Bloch, 2019).
However, the merging of different agendas and staff identities, as well as the
emergence of new issues and roles, have created new conflicts, while the
backlash against gender equality since the Fourth World Conference has affected
the functioning of UN Women. This has left feminist commentators and
practitioners to note the hollowing out of radical feminist content. With its
move to New York City, UN Women has gained access to decision-making, yet this
has resulted in an increased focus on normative development over effective field
activity, which had been UNIFEM’s strength (Dersnah, 2016, 2019; Sandler and
Rao, 2012). Yet, despite this apparent focus on normative development, Dersnah
(2016) notes that the merging of organisations and staff, as well as the
leadership of Michele Bachelet, led to a move away from human rights work as an
expression of radical feminism towards development and technical-bureaucratic
approaches, and thus more muted gender equality, or liberal feminist, work.
Following Anderfuhren-Biget et al.’s (2013) finding that UN staff self-select
based on cosmopolitan values and eagerness to create social change, Dersnah
(2016) finds that the merging of staff from different organisations, as well as
the influx of new staff, has led to internal conflicts. While UNIFEM staff were
committed to radical feminist goals of gender equality and structural change,
with a focus on serving the people, OSAGI staff (as well as new staff joining
from UNDP) were focused on technical issues, the proper functioning of the
bureaucracy and individual careers. According to Dersnah, this group sees itself
in service to member states, rather than to people, thus reducing the radical
feminist promise of gender equality to bureaucratic strategies and technical
measurements. Second, the disproportionately large Executive Board, larger than
the much bigger organisations of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and
UNDP, has proven to be a hindrance in achieving goals of feminist governance.
While it is well placed to support effective coordination of gender
mainstreaming in development programming, given its presence in the joint
meeting of the executive boards of UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA (United Nations
Population Fund) and the World Food Programme (WFP), its membership includes
member states not sympathetic to, or indeed actively working against, gender
equality. Given the Board’s task to supervise UN Women’s activities, to monitor
the performance of UN funds and programmes in their achievement of gender
equality, to recommend new programme initiatives, and, importantly, to decide on
administrative and financial plans and budgets, this has
290 Handbook of feminist governance led to micro-management by the Board
(Dersnah, 2016), and created opportunities for Board members to frustrate
feminist policymaking and institution-building. Indeed, the concerted efforts of
the Holy See, together with conservative and religious member states and other
organisations, have frustrated the development of gender equality by reframing
resolutions towards traditional frames of mothers and the family, while also
ensuring the defunding of activities in the area such as reproductive health and
family planning. The content and language – particularly the use of women rather
than gender – found in UN Women’s strategy and other core documents are evidence
of the watering down of feminist content that occurs as texts are rewritten to
reach consensus among member states. Feminists have thus sought alternative
spaces to advocate and build coalitions, accessing new spaces to advance gender
equality (Goetz, 2020), while relying (again) on alliances between feminist UN
insiders and outsiders (Çağlar et al., 2013; Jauk, 2014; Stienstra, 1994).
Although UN Women’s work on gender equality focuses solely on women, it
champions the rights of the LBGTI community through its Executive Director
blogs, country events and campaigns, and by hosting the UN’s first high-level
event on ‘gender diversity and non-binary identities’ in 2019. The institutional
space occupied by UN Women in the global architecture of feminist governance is
also characterised by its unique relationship with civil society. Feminist civil
society organisations were instrumental in the creation of UN Women and have
played a significant role as advisors (particularly in the newly established
Civil Society Advisory Group), co-producers of knowledge, co-partners and
coordinators for UN country projects, and supporters of UN strategies. Civil
society organisations had high expectations for the role they could play in the
newly established UN Women – in 2010, the Gender and Development Network called
on UN Women to push from the outset for mandated, formalised and
truly-participatory structures for civil society organisations – from the local
and country levels, right up to full participation in the Executive Board. It is
vital that UN Women is accountable, accessible and responsive to the needs, not
just of the governments of the world, but of the women and girls of the world
and the organisations that represent them. (Quoted in Chong, 2011: 559–60)
However, despite the promise of an institutionalised relationship that would
give civil society a voice, Sandler and Goetz (2020) note that civil society
actors have been denied formal representation in the decision-making bodies of
feminist governance, such as on UN Women’s Executive Board and the Bureau for
the CSW. Since 2012, UN Women has regularly engaged with civil society actors
through its global, regional and country-based Civil Society Advisory Groups,
comprised of members drawn from women’s movements and organisations, think tanks
and other researchers. UN Women’s dialogues with civil society create
opportunities for UN Women to pursue feminist governance goals of adopting
intersectional approaches to policymaking to incorporate age, race, religion,
nationality and sexual orientation, among other characteristics. For example, in
2018 UN Women met with civil society activists from rural areas, including
Indigenous women, women with disabilities, refugees, migrants, youth and members
of the LGBTI community, to discuss strategies for empowering all women (UN
Women, 2018b). In addition to the advisory groups, UN Women holds Expert Group
Meetings, which provide an opportunity for UN Women to discuss priority themes
with academics, practitioners and other external experts to identify good
practices and inform UN approaches and
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? 291 policies. Recent meetings
have addressed issues such as violence against women in politics, women’s
participation in peace negotiations and peace agreements, Beijing +25, and
women’s participation and decision-making in public life. Working with civil
society and women’s movements and organisations, as well as with feminist
experts and researchers, demonstrates UN Women’s commitment to key principles of
feminist governance, but there is room for improvement – a recent external
assessment of UN Women’s work stated that while UN Women is open to engagement
with civil society organisations at the global, regional and country level, the
entity lacks resources to focus on civil society work and ‘does not have a clear
organisational approach to civil society strengthening’ (MOPAN, 2019: 25). UN
Women’s achievements in mainstreaming gender throughout the UN, norm setting and
policymaking are also the result of the powerful women who have acted as UN
Women’s Director, first Michelle Bachelet and currently Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Under-Secretary-General Mlambo-Ngcuka has pursued a radical approach to gender
equality, seeking to dismantle patriarchy and promoting interventions at all
stages of the lives of girls and women to bring about women’s empowerment and
gender equality. Under her leadership, UN Women appointed its first LGBTIQ+
Policy Specialist (Sophie Browne) to bring a multi-gendered lens to UN Women’s
work and assist the entity in addressing all forms of gender inequalities (UN
Women, 2020e).
UN WOMEN’S EFFORTS TO PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY Given the challenges that UN Women
faces promoting gender equality within the UN bureaucracy, to what extent is the
entity able to embody feminist principles in its work in terms of influencing
state political and social practices to promote gender equality and women’s
empowerment? At its creation in 2010, UN Women established four priority areas
around which its activities are organised: women’s role in governance (including
leadership, participation and gender-responsive budgets), women’s economic
empowerment, violence against women, and Women, Peace and Security (including
women’s role in preventing natural disasters and humanitarian action) (UN Women,
2011).2 In this part of the chapter, we take a closer look at UN Women’s work
pertaining to women’s economic empowerment (WEE) to showcase some of its
successes and challenges in promoting feminist principles through its work with
CSOs as well as state and international institutions. At the global level, UN
Women has contributed to the establishment of norms and policies in the area of
WEE through UN General Assembly resolutions (pertaining to, for example, women
migrant workers, rural women, women in development and unpaid care work), ECOSOC
resolutions (through integrating a gender perspective in the work of the
Council), as well as other intergovernmental bodies (such as Financing for
Development), in addition to its numerous discussion papers, position papers and
policy briefs which promote and synthesise UN Women’s normative work. UN
discussion papers, such as ‘Macroeconomic Policy and Women’s Economic
Empowerment’ (2017a) which was co-authored with numerous civil society actors,
demonstrate one of UN Women’s successes in collaborating with feminist CSOs to
generate knowledge and understanding around gendered processes pertaining to
women’s economic empowerment. In the Rio +20 process, UN Women ensured that
gender equality was recognised as central to sustainable development (UN Women,
2015: 67). In cooperation with numerous other feminist activists and CSOs, UN
Women played a significant role in
292 Handbook of feminist governance ensuring that the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) incorporated a gender perspective (Taylor, 2020), resulting in a
gender-focus for 11 of the 17 goals (including a stand-alone goal on gender
equality goal in SDG 5), for a total of 54 (out of 232) gender-specific
indicators. To assist in the collection of gender disaggregated country-level
data to monitor progress on the SDGs, UN Women launched the Women Count
programme and data hub.3 Women Count funds research and training to improve data
collection and serves as a repository for gender data to aid country-level
monitoring and policy formation that go beyond the SDG indicators (including
Covid-19 related data for gender-responsive planning).4 While UN Women is the
only UN entity whose sole focus is gender equality, it shares the work of
women’s economic empowerment – particularly in terms of achieving the SDGs –
with other UN actors, including the World Bank, the UNDP and the International
Labour Organization (ILO). UN Women has had difficulties establishing itself as
a global leader in an area that has been dominated by others, but with fewer
resources: UNDP’s budget for 2018 ($5.1 billion), for example, was 13.4 times
that of UN Women’s ($380 million) (UNSCEBC, 2018). UN Women’s 2015 evaluation of
its economic empowerment efforts revealed that while the UNFPA, UNDP and UNICEF
‘have made space for UN Women to establish its presence’, the report noted that
‘donors are impatiently seeking strong technical and strategic leadership on
WEE’ (UN Women, 2015: 54). UN Women’s lack of resources and weak country
presence (UN Women has 55 country offices and six regional offices compared to
UNDP’s 170 country offices) has affected its abilities to engage with state
institutions and CSOs to exercise leadership and effect structural change.
Although having overlap across issues can help to ensure that strategic goals
are met, reports suggest that UN Women has been frequently side-lined by UNDP
due to their larger budget and lead role on projects, or by CSOs who might view
UNDP as a more powerful partner for influencing governments (UN Women, 2018a).
Other problems arise concerning ‘duplication and even competition for funding
with other UN partners’ (MOPAN, 2019: 50). Recognising these problems of
duplication, competition and uneven power relationships across agencies, UNDP,
UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women (2020) have agreed to collaborate on achieving some
of the SDGs, which in fact helps UN Women to fulfil its mission of mainstreaming
gender throughout the UN. Within this overall collaboration, UNDP and UN Women
have signed a partnership to work towards common goals for women’s economic
empowerment, among other priority areas, which in 2019 included an agreement to
collaborate in 102 country offices (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women, 2020).
Whether this collaboration enhances or further dwarfs UN Women’s influence
remains to be seen. UN Women’s feminist aims to empower women are further
hampered by an organisational focus on targets and indicators. UN Women’s
Strategic Plan for 2018–21 outlines five priority outcomes, each of which has a
corresponding set of measurable outputs (UN Women, 2017c). The five outcomes
include strengthening and implementing gender norms and policies; ensuring that
women benefit equally with men from governance; supporting policies and creating
conditions for women’s income security, decent work and economic autonomy;
preventing violence against women; and creating sustainable peace and security,
including better response and prevention concerning conflicts and disasters. In
the area of women’s empowerment, the strategy has three areas of focus: decent
work and social protection (which overlaps with SDG 5.4.1 on the time spent on
unpaid domestic and care work and SDG 1.3.1 regarding social protection
systems); women’s ownership and management of businesses; and rural women’s land
rights (which overlaps with SDG 5.a.1). UN
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? 293 Women’s specific plans to
achieve these outputs are outlined in a ‘Theories of Change’ document (UN Women,
2017b); rural women’s land rights and access to resources, for example, includes
actions such as ‘engendering climate-smart agricultural policies and increasing
women’s land tenure security and access to productive resources’ and
‘climate-smart information’, in addition to further actions around ‘women’s
capacity to invest in climate-smart and time- and labour-saving technologies and
tools’ and increased access to markets (UN Women, 2017b: 18). The ‘Theories of
Change’ background paper acknowledges that in addition to legal barriers to
women’s land ownership, social and cultural norms also lead to discrimination
against women in practice (UN Women, 2017b: 18), yet the actions proposed in
this thematic priority do not address the need to first ensure that women have
legal entitlement to own and inherit land and other resources. Instead,
sustainability and climate-smart practices appear to be prioritised over
resource ownership. This is surprising given that land rights are a particular
interest of UN Women; in 2013, UN Women published a paper titled ‘Realizing
Women’s Rights to Land and Other Productive Resources’, which was further
updated in 2020 (UN Women, 2020c). The document is comprehensive and offers
examples of the multiple ways in which women can be discriminated against in the
area of access to, and control over, land and other resources, recognising the
problems of religious and customary practices and laws that prevent women –
whether single, married, widowed or in polygynous unions – from exercising full
land rights. UN Women’s research demonstrates their awareness of the
complexities surrounding women’s land rights and the need to tackle both laws
and social norms and practices around land ownership and inheritance, yet this
is not reflected in the simple targets found in UN Women’s Strategy, and which
are echoed in the SDGs. UN Women’s 2020 report on progress in achieving these
outcome targets states that UN Women has exceeded their targets regarding
women’s access to resources – since 2018, the entity has ‘supported the
development, reform and/or implementation of 59 policies on women’s land rights
and tenure security’ and further ‘assisted 167,269 rural women’ to access land
or other resources (UN Women, 2020d). The report does not explain whether the 59
policies pertain to 59 states or a smaller subset of states with multiple
policies, nor is it clear where the 167,269 women are located and whether they
represent particular ethnic, religious or other groups of women likely to have
been ‘left behind’ without UN intervention. UN Women has been criticised for
concentrating too heavily on micro-level projects, with 70 per cent of country
offices indicating that their work was focused on interventions for individual
women and was not addressing structural changes necessary to impact on women in
society as a whole, suggesting a gap between UN Women’s knowledge and
implementation (UN Women, 2015: 45). UN Women’s 2015 evaluation reported that
country offices claimed they could not ‘abandon micro-level interventions
because their key government counterparts (as well as donors and CSOs) demand to
see “practical action” as a prequalification for having credibility at the
policy table’ (UN Women, 2015: 46). UN Women thus has difficulties establishing
itself as a credible global leader in the area of women’s economic empowerment
due to its weaker country presence, which arises from its newness as an entity,
underfunding, as well as legacy issues: its predecessor in this area – UNIFEM –
while seen as an entity with strong feminist values, was perceived by the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID) in 2013 as ‘poor value for
money’ due to problems with impact, performance and weak transparency and
accountability (DFID, 2013). DFID adjusted its review slightly in 2016, deeming
UN Women to be a good match with UK
294 Handbook of feminist governance development objectives, but rated their
organisational strength as ‘adequate’, explaining that the entity had not yet
demonstrated leadership or shown how it could add value to the work already
being done by other development agencies (DFID, 2016). If UN Women seeks to
establish itself as an entity relevant for all women, then it may need to reduce
its heavy focus on development and rural women, but at the moment its budget
does not permit a widening of its priorities. The exclusive focus on achieving
land rights for rural women, for example, is driven by the sustainable
development agenda, but means that UN Women’s work may not focus on the
structural and social changes necessary to ensure that all women have access to,
and control over, resources, including land and other assets. UN Women’s work to
promote women’s economic empowerment needs to do more to shift social and
political attitudes regarding women’s employment, unpaid care work, land rights
and other issues affecting women’s empowerment. One evaluation suggested that
the HeForShe campaign,5 which has raised UN Women’s profile, could be used more
specifically to support women’s economic empowerment (UN Women, 2015). UN Women
in fact launched a #HeForSheAtHome campaign in April 2020 to ‘highlight this
unfair burden on women and encourage men to do their equal share’ (UN Women,
2020a), but the campaign has attracted little interest to date. Not all
feminists believe that the HeForShe campaign, or similar efforts to work with
men and boys on gender equality, alters power relationships between men and
women; rather, they argue that the campaign gives more space to men and draws
much needed funding and attention away from women and girls (Leek, 2019). The
lack of interest may also be explained by the timing of the campaign and the
global focus on the Covid-19 pandemic. UN Women was quick to respond – on 19
March 2020, just one week after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19
to be a pandemic, UN Women published an article outlining the gendered
implications of the virus and state responses to the virus, including the
increased risks to women’s health in health care jobs, the loss of jobs for
women in the informal economy, the impact of home working on women’s share of
unpaid care work, as well as the potential for increased violence against women
(UN Women, 2020b). UN Women has continued to work closely with states to monitor
and record sex-disaggregated data concerning the economic impact, rates of
infection, the unequal care burden and domestic violence, as well as to
encourage states to involve women in decision-making concerning Covid-19
interventions and recovery planning. In addition to advising states on their
responses to the pandemic, UN Women has assisted with and carried out rapid
assessments of the violence against women in states, launched the Shadow
Pandemic public awareness campaign to educate the wider public of the increase
in domestic violence, offered virtual courses to assist women in businesses and
offered social protection to mitigate the effects of unpaid care (UN Women,
n.d.). In this way, UN Women demonstrates its relevance as a feminist global
governance actor by assisting states with collecting sex-disaggregated data to
achieve greater gender equality in economic planning and policies, and promote
women’s decision-making and leadership in these processes while also supporting
women’s civil society groups and women-owned enterprises.
UN Women: a case of feminist global governance? 295
CONCLUSION UN Women has consolidated the previously fragmented gender
architecture and has gained a prominent seat at the table of system-wide
decision-making. Its normative work has been visible globally through a variety
of campaigns, yet its fieldwork appears dwarfed by the larger UN agencies it
collaborates with. Is UN Women an example of feminist governance? UN Women
contributes to feminist institution-building through its role in coordinating
UN-SWAP, its programmatic activity and norm entrepreneurship, yet these
institutions largely reflect more liberal feminist values. In other words, UN
Women enables the creation of spaces for women and institutions to ensure that
gender equality is pursued, yet this takes place within existing hierarchical,
non-feminist institutions. Feminists have criticised the dilution of feminist
values through its limited interpretation of gender; the translation of gender
equality and women’s empowerment into tick-box exercises; and its need to adapt
to wider institutional demands (Charlesworth and Chinkin, 2013; Dersnah, 2016).
However, its impact – or leadership – can be found in the processes of
policymaking6 and the continuation of efforts to move the UN system, its
programmatic and institutional domains, towards greater parity and gender
equality. UN Women marks a feminist intervention in a patriarchal organisational
system, yet it works within rather than against this system.
NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4.
A/64/588, 6 January 2010. UN Women, ‘About UN Women’, https:// www .unwomen
.org/ en/ about -us/ about -un -women. UN Women Count, https:// data .unwomen
.org/ women -count. UN Women, ‘COVID-19 and Gender Monitor’, Women Count, at
https:// data .unwomen .org/ resources/ covid -19 -and -gender -monitor. 5. The
UN Women initiative of the HeForShe campaign commenced in September 2014 with an
inaugural address by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson. The campaign has
become a global movement in support of gender equality that has attracted
significant social media attention, particularly from celebrities, as well as
male leaders from around the world. 6. We thank Khushi Singh Rathore for this
observation.
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Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
PART IV THE EUROPEAN UNION AND FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
24. The European Parliament as a gender equality actor: a contradictory
forerunner Johanna Kantola and Emanuela Lombardo
INTRODUCTION The European Parliament is considered to be the European Union (EU)
institution that is most democratic and most supportive of gender equality of
the EU institutions. In terms of democracy, it is the only directly elected
decision-making body of the EU and it is an arena of deliberation and
contestation. In terms of gender equality, women’s representation has steadily
increased (15 per cent in 1979, 20 per cent in 1989, 27.5 per cent in 1999, 35.5
in 2009 and 40 per cent in 2019) and the Gender Equality and Women’s Rights
Committee (FEMM Committee) has been an active supporter of gender equality
policy initiatives within the European Parliament. This chapter addresses the
question: to what extent are the European Parliament’s political practices
supportive of gender equality and feminist governance? The chapter maps the
formal institutional arrangements, which support gender equality within the
institution and constitute important facets of feminist governance. This
includes not just the FEMM Committee but also different gender mainstreaming
initiatives in all parliamentary committees as well as gender action plans and
sexual harassment policies for parliamentary staff. The chapter briefly looks at
some key measures at the level of political groups too, including gender
equality provisions for gender-balanced representation in political group
statutes as well as key gender equality networks addressing the extent to which
the European Parliament has been an arena for feminist agency and feminist
alliances. The wide array of formal institutional arrangements for the
advancement of gender equality provides a positive picture of the European
Parliament as a gender equality actor and a success story for feminist
governance. The parliament has also had some successes in inserting a gender
perspective into EU policy. At the same time, there are a number of informal
practices in the parliament that have the potential to undermine the good formal
practices and institutions for feminist governance. The chapter draws on
research findings on opposition to gender equality in the European Parliament
which slows down the good feminist governance practices and gender equality
policies. These include, for example, opposition to sexual harassment policies
(Berthet and Kantola, 2020); radical right populist groups and MEPs that
directly and indirectly oppose gender equality and related policies in the
plenary debates (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021a); and institutional resistance to
gender equality among the parliament as a whole and among established mainstream
political groups. Exploring both formal and informal institutions for gender
equality within the parliament reveals the multiple struggles for feminist
governance in the European Parliament and how making progress requires feminist
actors to have the capacity to advance gender equality at the formal level as
well as to develop informal strategies and broader alliances. 299
300 Handbook of feminist governance
FORMAL INSTITUTIONS FOR FEMINIST GOVERNANCE IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT The
formal institutional arrangements, which support gender equality within the
European Parliament and advance gender equality policies, include the FEMM
Committee and different gender-mainstreaming initiatives in all committees.
Feminist governance practices extend to parliamentary staff in the form of
sexual harassment policies and to the political groups of the parliament.
Committee for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) The FEMM Committee is
the focal point of the European Parliament’s feminist governance in line with
extant literature which suggests that gender-focused parliamentary bodies are
important in ensuring that gender equality is included in parliaments’ work
(Grace and Sawer, 2016; see also Sawer, Chapter 12 in this Handbook). The
committee was fully established in 1984, building on earlier ad hoc committees
initiated as early as 1979. FEMM has had a rocky history, which includes
successes in strengthening the position of gender equality in the European
Parliament’s work. It has also faced threats to its existence and funding. It
has been chaired by a conservative and anti-feminist MEP and has attracted the
interest of radical right populist MEPs opposed to gender equality in the 2010s
and 2020s (see Ahrens and Rolandsen Agustín, 2021). FEMM is in charge of gender
equality issues and functions as a supervisory body for gender mainstreaming in
the parliament (Ahrens, 2016, 2019). It has 35 members from all of the
parliament’s political groups – including the radical right populist groups
European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) and Identity and Democracy
Group (ID) – and each of the political groups has a FEMM coordinator who acts as
a focal point between the political group and the committee. Unlike other
committees, FEMM has a status as a ‘neutralised committee’, which means that
being a member of FEMM is voluntary and it is taken by the MEPs on top of other
responsibilities (Ahrens, 2016; Nugent, 2019). FEMM issues opinions and
statements on legislative proposals and puts forward own-initiative reports. Its
impact is increased by the ways in which its members have been able to network
across committees and pressure other committees to integrate gender perspectives
in their work (Ahrens, 2016: 786–90). Unlike in the plenary debates and votes,
in the FEMM committee, it is the gender progressive groups Group of the
Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) and the Left Group in the European
Parliament (GUE/NGL) that are able to punch above their political weight and
ally with the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in
the European Parliament (S&D) and liberals Renew Europe Group (ALDE/Renew),
whilst the biggest group in the parliament, the conservative Group of the
European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) (EPP), is more divided (Warasin et
al., 2019: 150). This results in progressive reports, which, on the downside,
are not always adopted in the plenary as a majority in the FEMM committee does
not necessarily reflect a majority in the plenary (Warasin et al., 2019: 153).
Despite its formal position, FEMM has fewer powers and less prestige than other
committees and its work is hampered in many ways. It is rarely allocated
legislative proposals to work on and hence mainly issues less significant
own-initiative reports. In policy terms, too, the work that FEMM does is often
bypassed by other committees. A recent example is
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor 301 the economic crisis of
2008, where FEMM committee proposals on the gendered impacts of the economic
crisis were largely ignored and failed to gender mainstream the EU crisis
response (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017b). The FEMM Committee is also disregarded
in the parliament’s organisation, for instance in the planning of the
parliamentary calendar where the lead committee’s meetings often conflict with
FEMM meetings, hindering participation of FEMM members (Ahrens, 2016: 784–5).
This can explain the low mean attendance of MEPs in committee meetings (see
Nugent, 2019: 125). The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed some of these
vulnerabilities and provided an important test case for feminist governance in
the European Parliament. FEMM was one of the seven committees whose work was
completely suspended initially and then the committee met less frequently than
most other committees (Elomäki and Kantola, 2021). The result was that during
the critical time, when the gendered impacts of the Covid-19 crisis became
evident and the European Parliament began to formulate its stance on the EU’s
recovery measures, the FEMM committee hardly met (Elomäki and Kantola, 2021).
The suspension measures thereby silenced a strong voice for women’s rights and
gender equality and the parliament’s main site of gender expertise at a very
moment of a crisis, with immense implications for gender equality in Europe. The
economic crisis of 2008 and the failure of the gender response to it in the EU
(Kantola and Lombardo, 2017b) provides important background to the current
crisis. The FEMM committee was determined to avoid some of the pitfalls and
early on started to work on an own-initiative report on the effects of the
Covid-19 crisis (Elomäki and Kantola, 2021). The report had strong sections on
measures to combat the gendered impact of the crisis in health, gender-based
violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), economic response,
and recovery. It put forward an intersectional approach focusing on the impact
of the crisis on LGBTQI+ rights, homeless women, migrants, disabled and other
vulnerable groups (FEMM, 2020). Most significantly, the committee members – in a
coordinated effort – were able to insert the gender-mainstreaming provisions in
the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Committee on Budgets
(BUDG) proposals on the EU’s Recovery Fund (Elomäki and Kantola, 2021).
GENDER MAINSTREAMING Gender mainstreaming became an important feminist
governance tool in EU policymaking towards the end of the 1990s and in the
2000s, travelling from one policy field to another and eventually becoming
enshrined in EU treaties (Kantola, 2010; see also Guido et al., Chapter 3 in
this Handbook). Its promise was to break deeply entrenched gendered structures
by requiring all policies to be assessed from the perspective of their impacts
on women and men. Since then, it has been critiqued in the EU context for the
fact that it was adopted in a soft form, not implemented properly and not
reaching beyond a technical exercise, hence not resulting in any meaningful
change (Hafner-Burton and Pollack, 2009). In this context, it becomes
significant that the European Parliament has remained a strong supporter of
gender mainstreaming and has institutionalised gender mainstreaming in its
structures. As Petra Ahrens notes: the European Parliament ‘is one of the few
parliaments worldwide that committed to implementing gender mainstreaming and
can therefore be characterised as a vanguard’ (2019: 85). Between 2003 and 2019,
the parliament adopted no
302 Handbook of feminist governance less than six resolutions and several
reports on gender mainstreaming, representing significant efforts by the FEMM
committee to institutionalise gender mainstreaming in parliamentary procedures
(Ahrens, 2019: 85, 88). Ahrens shows how different framings of gender
mainstreaming are put forward in the debates on the reports, and gender
mainstreaming is argued to solve issues ranging from the parliament’s internal
organisation (committees, delegations, human-resources, administration) to
various policy fields (Ahrens, 2019: 95). Important measures to achieve these
goals include establishment of the gender-mainstreaming network across the
parliamentary committees to ensure coordination of gender equality issues. A
Standing Rapporteur on Gender Mainstreaming was nominated in 2016 and a second
gender-mainstreaming network of administrators for each committee was set up.
Nineteen of the 23 committees prepared a gender action plan following the 2019
resolution (Ahrens, 2019: 99). In addition to gender mainstreaming, the FEMM
committee and other gender equality advocates within the parliament have started
to argue for gender budgeting, namely the need to take gender equality into
account in the EU budgetary process (Cengiz, 2019; see also Costa and Sharp,
Chapter 11 in this Handbook). Gender budgeting can be an important tool for
feminist governance. In the European Parliament, however, its implementation
suffers from the parliament’s lack of powers in relation to the EU budgetary
process (Cengiz, 2019). Other Formal Institutional Structures The European
Parliament has developed a network of other actors in addition to the FEMM
committee and the gender-mainstreaming network across committees. These include
the High Level Group on Gender Equality and Diversity, the Group of Equality and
Diversity Coordinators, and the Equality and Diversity Unit in the European
Parliament administration. The precise impact and role of these is yet to be
explored in feminist scholarship. The MEPs can also organise themselves in
so-called intergroups according to the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure
(Rule 35), which state that these may be formed for the purpose of holding
informal exchanges of views on specific issues across different political
groups, drawing on members of different parliamentary committees, and of
promoting contact between members and civil society. The intergroups can be
important as they focus on specific political topics not directly covered by
committees (Landorff, 2019). One of the longest-standing informal groups is the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights – LGBT Intergroup, established in
1997, which has an important role in mobilising support for LGBTQI+ rights
(Ahrens and Rolandsen Agustín, 2021). Other intergroups, such as those on
‘Anti-Racism & Diversity’ (ARDI), ‘Disability’, and ‘Ageing and
Intergenerational Solidarity’, also draw attention to intersectional equality
(Ahrens and Rolandsen Agustín, 2021). Whilst dependent on the commitment of
individual members, they can push equality issues on to the political agenda
through organising events, gathering and disseminating information and data, and
providing an access point for civil society organisations. Parliament as a
Workplace: Gender Equality for Staff Like all parliaments, the European
Parliament employs a wide range of staff for its administration, maintenance and
catering. Structures, actors and actions for feminist governance in parliaments
can also be established and studied at the level of parliaments as workplace. On
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor 303 the one hand,
parliamentary staff can advance gender equality. For instance, the European
Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) publishes fact sheets and reports on
gender equality, often commissioned by the FEMM committee (Ahrens and Rolandsen
Agustín, 2021). On the other hand, gender equality action plans for staff can
help to pinpoint lack of gender equality and gendered power structures, and
actions to overcome them. In the parliament, an important action on gender
equality in relation to parliamentary staff was the adoption of the report
‘Gender Equality in the European Parliament Secretariat – state of play and the
way forward 2017–2019’ in 2017 (Ahrens, 2019: 99). Institutional practices for
tackling sexual harassment within parliaments are a crucial test for feminist
governance. In the European Parliament, as in most parliaments, sexual
harassment is prevalent and attempts to tackle it predate the international
#MeToo campaigns which made sexual harassment a massive topic. Yet, there too,
the #MeToo movement – translated into the #MeTooEP campaign – exposed both the
problem itself and the weakness of existing institutional responses (Berthet and
Kantola, 2021). The European Parliament had had an Anti-Harassment Committee
since 2014 which had jurisdiction over both ‘psychological’ and sexual
harassment and was responsible for complaints against MEPs. It had not
investigated a single case of sexual harassment prior to 2019 when #MeTooEP was
at a peak (Berthet and Kantola, 2021). Both MEPs and staff were represented on
the committee and a gender balance was respected; there was, however, no
indication that members were trained to review sensitive cases. The Committee
reported to the parliament’s president, who made the final decision (Bureau
decision 2018: article 11). The #MeTooEP campaign resulted in some institutional
changes in the parliament. They included a voluntary pilot programme for
training MEPs and a new institutionalised code of good conduct which included an
explicit reference to sexual harassment (paragraph 5) (Berthet and Kantola,
2021). Using soft language, it specified that MEPs ‘may not be elected’ to
certain positions if they do not abide by it, and ‘should take part in
specialized training’ (paragraphs 5 and 7). Each MEP’s declaration appeared on
the parliament’s website, along with their declaration of financial interests,
in the 9th legislature (2019–24) (Berthet and Kantola, 2021). Some new rules
were created in political groups too, including training, the appointment of
confidential counsellors and new anti-harassment guidelines (Berthet and
Kantola, 2021). Advancing Gender Equality in Political Groups The European
Parliament’s political groups are critical decision-making actors in the
parliament. MEPs from member state political parties form political groups: for
example, in the so-called 9th Parliament (2019–24), there were seven political
groups. The biggest political group, the conservative EPP, had 187 MEPs (2020,
after Brexit), followed by the social democratic S&D (147 MEPs), and the liberal
Renew Europe (98 MEPs). The departure of the UK MEPs made the radical right
populist ID (Identity and Democracy) group the fourth biggest in the parliament
(75 MEPs) ahead of the Greens/EFA (69 MEPs). There is also another radical right
populist group called the ECR (62 MEPs) and a group left of the social democrats
called GUE/NGL (39 MEPs). Although much of parliamentary work in the European
Parliament happens in committees discussed above, the political groups exert
power in setting the policy lines, negotiations for joint policy positions of
the parliament, deciding on the leadership of the parliament, the committee
chairs and members, and so on. From the point of view of gender equality, they
304 Handbook of feminist governance provide an important focus for feminist
governance structures – just like national political parties. In many of the
mainstream groups, advancing gender equality in policymaking is the
responsibility of dedicated individual MEPs and staff, who are often members of
the FEMM committee. The Greens/EFA group has advanced the furthest in formally
institutionalising gender mainstreaming practices within the group (Kantola,
2022). The political groups are indeed very differently positioned in relation
to advancing gender equality. The green/left groups have the highest numbers of
women MEPs and most women in key positions, whilst the conservative EPP has a
more contradictory record, and the radical right groups may have women in their
ranks but oppose gender equality (Kantola, 2022; Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín,
2019). The green/left groups have developed a number of practices to advance
equality. These include the co-chair structure in Greens/EFA and left/ green
GUE/NGL, with leadership shared by a woman and a man. The Greens/EFA have
explicit provisions for gender balance in their statutes, and the S&D has a
quota provision for its bureau, which is implemented (Kantola, 2022). In
contrast, the EPP has a quota provision for its presidency, which is not
implemented. The green/left groups have developed other practices too. For
example, in GUE/NGL, speaking time in group meetings is divided equally between
genders, and women and men speakers are alternated on the list. The Greens/EFA
has developed internal measures for ensuring gender mainstreaming of all
policies, which includes training, and is looking into developing a gender
action plan for the group. The radical right populist groups, by contrast,
oppose gender equality, gender quotas and any ‘programming’ for gender equality,
an issue we discuss in more detail in the next section.
INFORMAL POLITICAL PRACTICES IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: GENDERED NORMS,
OPPOSITION TO GENDER EQUALITY The feminist governance of actors and gender
equality institutions is affected by existing informal gendered political
practices, which can undermine gender equality progress achieved in formal
political practices and institutions. We analyse such practices from a
discursive feminist approach (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017a), asking the
questions: to what extent are European Parliament political discourses and
practices supportive of gender equality and feminist governance? And how does
feminist agency counteract opposition that practices and discourses present to
gender equality? In this section we address gendered discourses and practices
that occur in the parliamentary ‘workplace’ (Erikson and Verge, 2022; Miller,
2021), as well as opposition to gender equality (Verloo, 2018), both of which
slow down good feminist governance practices and gender equality policies. We
also mention practices of feminist counter-resistance to informal gendered
practices and opposition to gender equality in the European Parliament. Gendered
Practices as Informal Institutions in the European Parliament Observed from the
perspective of informal gendered norms developed by feminist institutionalism,
the European Parliament enacts a variety of informal gendered political
practices in the institution as a whole and in European Parliament’s political
parties and political groups (Berthet and Kantola, 2021; Kantola and Miller,
2021; Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín,
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor 305 2019). Parliaments are
gendered institutions. This genderedness is analysed by approaching parliaments
not only as sites of democratic representation, but also as workplaces, whose
organisational inequalities have gendered effects on descriptive, substantive
and symbolic political representation. A number of scholarly works have studied
the genderedness of parliaments by combining feminist institutionalism and Joan
Acker’s (1990) theory of gendered organisations that includes the dimensions of
gendered division of labour, gendered interaction, gendered symbols and gendered
subjectivities. This combination enables researchers to capture the production
and reproduction of gendered norms and hierarchies in parliaments (see Erikson
and Verge, 2022; Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín, 2019; Miller 2021). This
involves enquiring into parliamentary practices such as those concerning
recruitment and promotion of staff, work–family arrangements and anti-harassment
policies, as well as observing gendered practices such as long-working-hours
culture, hyper-masculine political performance, surveillance of women MEPs and
‘burden of doubt’ about their competencies, and prescription of behaviours
considered acceptable for women and men or sanctioned for being inappropriate.
Research on the European Parliament shows that – despite the formal
institutional structures for feminist governance outlined above – this
institution is no exception among parliaments as regards the gendered division
of labour based on seniority and gender stereotypes that symbolically associate
women with less valued issues (that tend to include equality and ‘soft’
policies) and men with more important ones. The distribution of MEPs across
committees shows that policy areas like economy and finance are still considered
to belong to the competency of men, while women dominate in committees such as
FEMM (Ahrens and Rolandsen Agustín, 2019; Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín, 2019;
Nugent, 2019). This reveals the existence of informal norms of appropriateness
in which gender marks the assignment of more prestigious and important
committees to men, and less socially valued ones to women (Erikson and Verge,
2022). Similarly, informal norms about politics as a full-time occupation and
the lack of work–life balance structures and practices reward MEPs without care
responsibilities – mostly men – and create hurdles for MEPs with caring
responsibilities – mostly women – who find it difficult to attend late-hours
meeting and participate in social events and thus be included in networking
spaces that are important for political career, alliances and being perceived as
legitimate ‘insiders’ (Erikson and Josefsson, 2022; Miller, 2021). Bodily
performance and style of debate associated with hegemonic masculinity, including
adversarial and aggressive style of speaking and loud voice, is another informal
practice that rewards hyper-masculine men and tends to alienate women in
parliaments (Erikson and Verge, 2022), creating affective atmospheres and ‘tone
of the office’ that symbolically indicate women do not belong to the institution
(Miller, 2021). In the European Parliament, this is the case especially for some
committees related to economic policy (Elomäki, 2021; Kantola and Rolandsen
Agustín, 2019). We have discussed in the previous section how sexual harassment
is formally addressed by the European Parliament’s structures. Here we focus on
the informal gendered structures which sustain it, despite the formal
institutions. A number of factors make the European Parliament a workplace
context exposed to sexual harassment. Gendered hierarchical distribution of
power is a key factor in this respect. As Ahrens and Rolandsen Agustín (2019)
state, men are overrepresented in top and middle management positions, while
women are overrepresented in lower staff positions of the European Parliament;
while data on intersections of gender with race, age and disability are lacking.
Berthet and Kantola (2021) argue that the following elements create fertile
ground for sexual harassment practices in the EP: existing inequalities,
306 Handbook of feminist governance hierarchy between staff and MEPs, the fact
that MEPs enjoy parliamentary immunity that is interpreted in different ways in
the European Parliament according to the different legislation and culture of
the member states, the daily closeness of parliamentary assistants to their
MEPs, and their dependence on MEPs for their job. In their analysis of sexual
harassment in the European Parliament, Berthet and Kantola (2021) find that,
while the issue is discursively contested in the institution, some actors resist
sexual harassment policies by rejecting the fact that sexual harassment is an
abuse of gender power and by framing it instead as a private and a cultural
problem. They defend the European Parliament as a good institution and are more
worried about the prestige of the parliament than the safety and well-being of
harassed workers. Polarisation Around and Opposition to Gender Equality If the
aforementioned informal practices manifest long-term resistance to gender
equality policies not only typical of the European Parliament, the rise of
populist and Eurosceptic MEPs and political groups in the European elections of
2014 has led to polarisation of debate and active opposition to gender equality
and feminist governance. One such oppositional practice that has gendered
dimensions and effects is the antagonistic norm of debate that is particularly
employed by MEPs from radical right populist groups. A typical illustration is
the radical right populist MEPs’ use of hate speech against women and minorities
in plenary debates. Hate speech – for example using racist or sexist stereotypes
of women and minoritised people – seeks the silencing of political opponents by
conveying a message of intimidation, discrimination and subordination of women
and minorities to impose the domination of one social group over another
(Mackinnon, 1979). In the European Parliament, the practice of hate speech is
often conducted through the antagonistic use of ‘blue-card questions’ in plenary
debates. This practice, which allows MEPs to ask direct questions of the
speaker, has been employed by radical right populists to attack women and
minorities through misogynistic, homophobic and racist speech and to make gender
issues contentious (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021a; Kantola and Miller, 2021).
Antagonism implies treating opponents as enemies to be destroyed rather than as
legitimate adversaries to argue with in agonistic ways (Mouffe, 2005). It is a
key ingredient of populist ideology that opposes ‘the elites’ and defends ‘the
common people’ (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013: 151). In addition, the
populist political style tends not only to be adversarial, but also to be based
on a performance and rhetoric of ‘bad manners’ that includes ‘use of slang,
swearing, political incorrectness’ (Moffitt, 2019: 52). Scholarly works on
gendering parliaments have shown that this adversarial norm of debate mimics and
favours hegemonic masculinity and tends to ‘alienate women MPs’ (Erikson and
Verge, 2022: 5). Research on gender and populism further exposes that
antagonistic practices are detrimental to feminist politics, which rather
privileges agonistic forms of political conflict based on the recognition of
diversity and the questioning of power hierarchies (Caravantes, 2021; Kantola
and Lombardo, 2019). Opposition to gender equality and feminist governance in
the European Parliament is also manifested through discursive strategies against
gender equality and related policies expressed by radical right populist groups
and MEPs in the plenary debates (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021a). These strategies
can be both of direct opposition and indirect discursive opposition to gender
equality and sexuality policies. However, they rarely have a specific impact on
actual
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor 307 legislative processes
and rather serve to create a hostile atmosphere for gender equality. Direct
opposition manifests itself through outright rejection of gender equality:
questioning policy issues that are still controversial in the EU arena such as
gender quotas and LGBTQI+ rights, as well as issues that have long been accepted
in the EU (though not effectively implemented) such as equal pay and policies
against gender-based violence. Direct opposition is also performed by denouncing
gender equality policies and gender knowledge as ‘gender ideology’, that is, a
form of indoctrination. This is part of anti-gender actors’ process of
resignification of the progressive concepts they oppose, with the aim of
endowing them with negative meanings (see Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017). Radical
right populist strategy of direct opposition discursively frames the EU and
international actors as ‘corrupt elites’ supposedly seeking to impose a harmful
‘gender ideology’ on national politics, through policies such as sex education
in schools or LGBTQI+ rights, interpreted as contrary to the supposedly natural
categories of women, men and families (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021a). Indirect
opposition takes many forms. For example, Kantola and Lombardo’s (2021a) study
of opposition to gender equality in the European Parliament shows how it is
embedded in Euroscepticism, with gender quotas and LGBTQI+ rights framed as
being in the competency of national governments, not the EU. Another typical
form of indirect opposition is the instrumental use of gender equality, bending
it towards issues and goals other than gender equality. This is evident in
ethnocentric and Islamophobic discourses that frame migrant people, especially
Muslims, as a threat to national gender equality policies and native women.
Other discourses of indirect opposition to gender equality in the European
Parliament include the depoliticisation of gender by referring to biology –
arguing, for example, that LGBTQI+ issues are a matter of biology rather than a
matter of human rights. Taken together, these practices of direct and indirect
opposition to gender equality enacted by radical right populists in the European
Parliament have consequences for feminist governance. The main effect is to make
gender equality and feminist politics more contentious, as we have argued
elsewhere (Kantola and Lombardo, 2021a). This polarisation shapes the meaning
and borders of gender equality and gender equality policies and commitments in
restrictive ways. Hate speech, misogynistic comments and ‘bad manners’ also
contribute to create an aggressive and intimidating atmosphere that is not
friendly to women MEPs and creates obstacles to feminist governance. Formal
norms were introduced in the European Parliament to address long-term gender
inequalities as well as opposition to gender equality in the context of a more
polarised European Parliament since 2014. This is the case of the amended
Corbett report on the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure (P8
TA(2019)0046), prepared by an S&D MEP and adopted in plenary in 2019 (Kantola
and Lombardo, 2021b). To address long-lasting inequalities, the Corbett report
introduced gender-mainstreaming measures, parity democracy (‘the diversity of
Parliament must be reflected in the composition of the bureau of each committee;
it shall not be permissible to have an all-male or all-female bureau’ 204.1) and
gender action plans for the parliament. In response to problems that have been
put on the European Parliament’s agenda in recent years, the report adopted
provisions on hate speech (MEPs ‘shall not resort to offensive language’ such as
‘defamatory language, “hate speech” and incitement to discrimination based, in
particular, on any ground referred to in Article 21’ 11.3c) and against sexual
harassment (MEPs ‘shall refrain from any type of psychological or sexual
harassment’ and ‘respect the Code of appropriate behaviour for Members of the
European Parliament’ 11.3e).
308 Handbook of feminist governance Individual and collective feminist agency
has developed to address informal gendered practices in the parliament. A good
example of such feminist counter-resistance is the #MeTooEP movement that
organised to demand policies against sexual harassment in the European
Parliament. In their analysis of the #MeTooEP movement, Berthet and Kantola
(2021) find that, although they did not achieve the transformation and policies
they demanded, the #MeTooEP actors were effective in putting the issue on the
agenda and articulating a ‘harassed workers discourse’. Rather than employing
the framing of sexual harassment more common in feminist circles as an abuse of
gendered power, the #MeTooEP actors framed sexual harassment as a work problem,
offering concrete and practical solutions to the problem based on the experience
of the European Parliament’s harassed workers. Also, transnational civil society
organisations have readapted their feminist strategies to cope with the changed
parliamentary context after the rise of radical right populist parties. Ahrens
and Woodward (2020) find that, to bypass the decrease in their formal access to
policymakers and funding, these organisations have devised new informal ways of
accessing these resources, including the expansion of their network of alliances
with civil society actors working on equality issues beyond gender, in an effort
to promote gender equality policies in the European Parliament.
CONCLUSIONS The European Parliament has created a series of formal institutions
that support gender equality and feminist governance. The catalyst of feminist
governance is the FEMM Committee, whose activity is essential to the integration
of gender equality in parliament’s work. Not only is FEMM the expert committee
in charge of promoting gender equality issues, it also monitors gender
mainstreaming in the EP, a practice that is uncommon among global parliaments.
While the FEMM committee has been active in producing gender equality and
gender-mainstreaming reports, effective implementation of its policies is
hampered by its restricted formal powers and informal gendered norms about the
limited importance of a gender equality committee as compared to other
committees. The latter is shown both in routine activities such as the lack of
consideration of FEMM meeting schedules in the organisation of the plenary
calendar, and in moments of crisis, as the disregard of FEMM’s recommendations
on gender equality during the economic and Covid-19 crises. Feminist governance
is also present in institutions to promote gender equality for staff, such as
the Anti-Harassment Committee. In particular, the experience of #MeTooEP showed
that collective mobilisation of staff is needed to activate and update existing
institutions. Political groups of the parliament are important institutions for
gender equality, as the difference in implementation of measures to advance
gender equality between green/left and radical right groups shows. Informal
gendered political practices in the European Parliament are as important for
feminist governance as the formal ones. Daily informal norms of parliamentary
work tend to reward MEPs without care responsibilities, who tend to be men, or
political performances associated with hegemonic masculinity, while generating
resistance to consideration of women MEPs as legitimate ‘insiders’. The rise of
radical right populist parties in the European Parliament has intensified
discourses and practices of opposition to gender equality, with the effect of
making gender equality more contested and the environment more hostile to women
MEPs, due to hate speech and other de-democratisation practices.
Counter-resistance to such opposition has emerged, for instance through the
#MeTooEP movement and the Corbett report’s reform of
The European Parliament as a gender equality actor 309 the EP rules of
procedure, showing that the struggle for feminist governance in the European
Parliament is ongoing and requires feminist actors to have the capacity to
advance gender equality at the formal level as well as to develop informal
strategies and broader alliances.1
NOTE 1. Funding statement: this chapter has received funding from the Horizon
2020 European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant project (771676).
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International, 141–58.
25. EU gender equality policy and the progressive dismantling of feminist
governance? Sophie Jacquot
The European Union (EU) is often considered a progressive political arena with
regard to the promotion of gender equality. Since the 1970s, the EU has promoted
a series of norms and values higher than those in effect in most member states,
and gender equality is one of the rare policy domains in which the EU has gone
beyond the mere fluidification of the market. This has been made possible by the
existence of a specific system of governance which fits the criteria for
feminist governance stated in Chapter 1 of this Handbook: feminist institutions
and institution-building, feminist networks, public policy explicitly aimed at
achieving gender equality through hard and soft regulation, and transversal
integration of gender equality within public action from elaboration to
implementation. This de facto system of feminist governance was originally
established in a non-feminist environment and nevertheless managed to overcome
various political, legal and institutional barriers in order to create an
alternative space of re-regulation favourable to gender equality at the European
level. This complex and intertwined system of feminist governance enabled the
promotion of gender equality as a legitimate goal and autonomous field of
competence of the European Economic Community (EEC) and later the EU. Today, the
evolution of this system brings into question the nature of the EU gender regime
and its ‘gender equality project’ (Walby, 2018). Conflicting trends are at play,
including populist opposition to gender equality (Siim and Fiig, 2021), but also
an ambitious discourse and positioning of the European Parliament (EP) and the
European Commission which came into power in 2019, advocating for a ‘Union of
equality’. The first part of this chapter retraces the trajectory of the
emergence and consolidation of this system of feminist governance, exploring the
extension of gender equality promotion at the European level, the development of
policy instruments in this domain, as well as progressive institutionalisation
and setting up of its policy community, from the signing of the Treaty of Rome
to the beginning of the 21st century. The second part reviews the transformation
of the different elements of this system since the mid-2000s. The analysis shows
that even if some positive initiatives have recently appeared, the EU system of
feminist governance is undergoing a process of dismantling and can be considered
under threat.
FROM NON-FEMINIST REGULATION TO FEMINIST GOVERNANCE IN THE EU In 1957, the newly
signed Treaty of Rome included an article 119, now article 157 of the Treaty on
the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), which guaranteed equal pay to male and female
workers for equal work. However, this article was certainly not conceived as a
feminist stand by the ‘founding fathers’ of the new EEC. The negotiators of the
Treaty believed that European integration would foster economic progress, which
in turn would naturally bring about social 311
312 Handbook of feminist governance progress. Additionally, member states
sought to retain their competences in social matters. The primary aim was to
harmonise national social systems, in order to avoid distortions in competition
among the member states within the context of the gradual elimination of customs
and trade barriers. It is under this light that the content of article 119 can
be understood: it was not a matter of asserting the principle of gender
equality, or even of demonstrating a desire for social justice, but rather of
avoiding any risk of social dumping in sectors that relied heavily on female
labour, such as the textile industry (Hoskyns, 1996). Nevertheless, out of this
non-feminist beginning, progressively emerged a fully-fledged public policy,
including instruments, institutions, representations and a policy community that
can be considered as constituting feminist governance at the EU level.
Progressive Extension of the Perimeter of Gender Equality Policy Theoretically,
the principle of gender equality covers a diversity of possible understandings,
which, in turn, can each be translated into different policy strategies
(Squires, 2007). The three main conceptions of gender equality are: equal
treatment, which is based on the concept of equal rights and implemented through
the law; equal opportunities, which is based on the concept of difference and
translated into the policy process through positive action or positive
discrimination measures; and equal impact, which is based on the concept of
gender and primarily operates through instruments such as gender mainstreaming.
Most feminist analyses agree that like a ‘three-legged stool’ (Booth and
Bennett, 2002), gender equality policy can only pursue its objectives if it is
stable on its feet and if it achieves a balance between these three main policy
strategies. At the level of the EEC, and then the EU, a political strategy for
the promotion of gender equality based on equal treatment was established from
the mid-1970s, and then complemented from the 1980s by the recognition of equal
opportunities. This alliance was in turn extended by the implementation of
gender mainstreaming from the mid-1990s, allowing a progressive definition and
extension of the remit of gender equality public policy, however imperfect (see
MacRae, 2010). The principle of equal treatment was contained in article 119 of
the Treaty of Rome on equal pay for equal work. In the 1970s, this general
principle was extended by the Court of Justice of the EU to access to employment
and to social security. Since then, equal treatment in the labour market covers
equal pay, access to employment and matters of social security, but also
training, professional advancement and working conditions. The definition of
equal treatment has again been widened with the signing of the Amsterdam Treaty:
its article 13 (now article 19 TFEU) referred to the limits of action in the
fight against discrimination as being the same as the ‘limits of the powers
conferred by [the treaty] upon the Community’, opening the way for radical
extension. The new definition allowed the adoption of a 2004 directive
(2004/113/ EC) extending equal treatment to access to and provision of goods and
services. The economic domain remains nevertheless the main limit to the
definition of equal treatment between women and men at the EU level. When it
comes to equal opportunities, this concept was introduced at the European level
with the 1976 directive on equal treatment (76/207/EEC), evoking the possibility
of equal opportunities through positive action. The development of equal
opportunities as a complement to equal treatment only emerged at the beginning
of the 1980s, however: funding programmes aimed at removing obstacles to the
participation of women in the labour market
EU gender equality policy 313 were established from 1982. As part of the
European Social Fund, these programmes allowed the EEC to intervene in the
promotion of equal opportunities in the supply and demand of employment
(training, combating professional segregation, enabling professional
requalification). But they also allowed the European Commission to finance
projects linked to issues such as home-based work, child care, political
representation, women’s health and sexual harassment, which were all beyond the
legal scope of article 119. However, the regulatory frame for equal
opportunities remained extremely limited in the 1980s, especially because of the
lack of legal basis. It was only in 1992 that equal opportunities started to
become firmly established with the directive on the health and safety of
pregnant workers (92/95/EEC). It was the first hard law that embraced the logic
of equal opportunities, considering women as a group benefiting from
differentiated treatment in order to compensate for existing disadvantages. A
disposition on equal opportunities on the labour market was finally integrated
into the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997: member states have the possibility to set
up positive action measures in relation with the functioning of the labour
market in favour of what is called the ‘underrepresented sex’. This step was
important because it ran contrary to the liberal definition of gender equality
as only equal treatment. Positive actions have benefited from renewed interest
at the EU level with a proposed Commission directive on improving gender balance
among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges, commonly
known as the ‘Women on Boards’ proposal, which sets the aim of a minimum of 40
per cent of non-executive members of the underrepresented sex on company boards.
Presented in 2012, the text was blocked by the Council until 2020, when the EP
and the Commission resolved to relaunch the negotiations with renewed impetus.
The new Directive was formally adopted by the EP and the Council in November
2022. The principle of equal impact appeared for the first time in a European
text in 1991, but it was only really endorsed as a policy strategy for the EU
after the UN Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 and it was finally integrated
into primary law in the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997. Article 3.2 proposed a
description of gender mainstreaming (although it did not use the phrase itself)
and validated the generalisation of this principle to all EU policies. The turn
of the 1990s was a crisis period for social policy at the European level due to
the lack of political will in national governments, the general drop in social
spending and the resistance of employers’ unions to any kind of social
regulation. In this context, gender mainstreaming was part of the first soft law
measures that were able to get around the legislative restrictions imposed by
the member states. After Amsterdam, gender mainstreaming has been implemented
across policy domains at the EU level, at least formally. This implementation
has not been developed consistently across policy fields, but it has allowed a
significant extension of the field of intervention of gender equality policy,
enabling the legitimate tackling of subjects such as decision-making, economic
and social cohesion, development cooperation, gender budgeting, publicity and
media, scientific research, and human trafficking and violence, both in internal
and external policy areas. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the
restrictive definition of the limits of the legitimate action of the EU (i.e.
employment, paid work and the labour market) has been questioned and
outstripped, and the EU’s jurisdiction and possibilities for action with regard
to gender equality promotion have been progressively and substantially
increased. The next sections will show how the other components of the EU system
of feminist governance have also progressively developed.
314 Handbook of feminist governance Progressive Diversification of Policy
Instruments The progressive extension of the field of action of gender equality
policy at the EU level has been matched by a parallel extension and
diversification of the instruments used in order to implement this public
policy. These include legal but also budgetary and transversal policy
instruments. As mentioned above, the inclusion of article 119 in the Treaty of
Rome was decisive: it made public action promoting gender equality possible by
providing the European Commission with the legal and political legitimacy to
make proposals and develop strategies that would gradually constitute a feminist
public policy in a constrained environment. Starting in the mid-1970s, secondary
law started to be developed and by the turn of 2000, the legal instruments of
the European gender equality policy composed a solid corpus. In 2022, ten
directives on gender equality are in force, including both a recast directive on
equal treatment and equal opportunities in matters of employment and occupation,
and legislative texts against trafficking in human beings, in particular women
and children, adopted under articles 79 and 83 TFEU.1 Starting from the
mid-1980s, the directives have been complemented by numerous non-binding legal
instruments, which are part of the EU acquis. Initially, these soft law
instruments mainly remained restricted to the sphere of employment (such as
dignity at work) and were tools aimed at monitoring legislation. From the 1990s
and the development of gender mainstreaming, there has been an increase in the
number of soft law instruments (resolutions, recommendations, communications)
and a diversification of their content (decision-making, development
cooperation, publicity and media, scientific research, violence against women,
etc.). European gender equality policy is not only a regulatory policy and from
the late 1970s it has included distributive instruments. This development can be
seen as the result of compensation by member states for the blockage of proposed
directives in the Council. It can also be seen as a strategic reaction by the
Commission, which took the initiative to propose the first multiannual ‘action
programmes’ and to use them to create new margins of manoeuvre for itself, to
extend the range of its actions and to ground its image as an active institution
in the field of gender equality (Ahrens, 2019). Starting from the mid-1990s, a
new category of policy instruments has flourished. It includes incorporating
concerns linked to gender inequalities into the EU multiannual programmes in the
field of social policy (European Employment Strategy from 1997, Lisbon Strategy
from 2000), as well as the development and implementation of gender
mainstreaming. These new sets of transversal instruments display the two major
trends which characterised EU gender equality policy up to the Lisbon Treaty: a
reinforcement of non-binding measures and an extension of boundaries. Indeed,
the transversal approach represented by gender mainstreaming means questioning
the foundations of a gender equality policy solely concerned with matters of
employment and occupation. The flexibility and malleability of these transversal
instruments accelerate this process still further, since the integration of
gender equality into new areas is neither exceptional nor legislative. Instead,
it becomes a daily process, part of the routine of administrative activities
(Schmidt, 2005). In sum, European gender equality policy can be seen as an
accumulation of different types of policy instruments aggregating around initial
primary law. These elements don’t really
EU gender equality policy 315 follow a unique objective, nor do they constitute
a coherent and organised ensemble, yet they form the material basis of feminist
governance at the European level. Progressive Institutional Structuring and
Networking Defining gender equality policy as an accumulation of instruments is
not sufficient, however, to gain a precise understanding of the entire system of
feminist governance in the EU, which goes beyond this material basis. It is
important to examine the environment of the policy, especially its institutions
and policy community which have gradually come to constitute a distinct policy
sector with a high level of internal coherence, and which are essential to the
formation of feminist alliances (see Chapter 28 of this Handbook). The first
embryonic structure for the gender equality sector emerged at the beginning of
the 1970s with the creation of a working group on women’s employment with
representatives from the member states. On the basis of this group, the Advisory
Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men was established, and it
inaugurated a singular form of functioning, combining informal relationships and
official structures, promoting engagement for the women’s movement and for
European integration. Within the European Commission, the institutionalisation
of the gender equality policy began to take shape after the adoption of the
first directives on equal pay and equal treatment (Mazey, 1995). Two structures
were set up in 1976: the Bureau for Problems Concerning Women’s Employment in
the DG in charge of employment and social affairs; and the Women’s Information
Service in DG Information. The first structure was in charge of supervising the
implementation of the legislation and developing policy instruments, the second
structure aimed at ensuring awareness of women regarding this policy and to
maintain dialogue with women’s and feminist organisations. From the beginning of
the 1980s, the Women’s Bureau developed thematic networks of experts, in order
to support and legitimise its action in the field of gender equality. Members of
these groups were chosen for their specific expertise but also for their
engagement with the cause of gender equality. Another important pillar for
feminist alliances within the EP (see Chapter 26 of this Handbook) was an Ad Hoc
Committee on Women’s Rights, created as early as 1979, and becoming permanent in
1984. From outside the gender equality sector, the ‘FEMM Committee’ was seen as
a feminist bastion, before being a deliberative or legislative arena. When it
comes to civil society groups and movements (see Chapters 27 and 28 of this
Handbook), the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) was ‘only’ created in 1990, some 15
years after the adoption of the first directive on equal pay. Before the
creation of this umbrella organisation, small groups existed but the
representation of women’s interests at the European level was largely based on
individual activities and resources rather than on structured and
professionalised collective action. These informal networks were, however,
important pieces and active elements in the setting up of the EU system of
feminist governance as early as the 1970s and 1980s in a non-feminist general
environment.
316 Handbook of feminist governance
THE MECHANISMS OF THE DISMANTLING OF EU FEMINIST GOVERNANCE On the eve of the
21st century, the EU was considered by some authors as ‘one of the most
progressive political systems in the world regarding the promotion of gender
equality’ (e.g. Hafner-Burton and Pollack, 2000: 452). However, in the following
years, under the combined influence of the 2004 enlargement and the political
fragmentation it entailed; budgetary restrictions, especially after 2008; and
transformation of the interinstitutional balance and administrative reforms, the
EU system of feminist governance has started to be destabilised, inducing a
process of policy dismantling. This second part presents the characteristics of
these changes, with regard to gender equality policy instruments, structures,
networks and cognitive frameworks (for a detailed view of today’s gender
politics in the EU, see Abels et al., 2021). Weakening Policy Instruments Since
the 2000s, EU gender equality policy has evolved into what can be defined as a
rights policy framework. That is a policy framework that primarily focuses on
the promotion and enforcement of rights, including the fight against
discrimination. One of the main characteristics of rights policies is to
emphasise an individual approach to discrimination and to favour modes of public
action based on the judicialisation of the treatment of inequalities.
Legislation and regulatory action have always been at the heart of the EU’s
action in the gender equality field. However, its specificity has been to be
built on a threefold equilibrium combining law, funding for positive action
programmes and integration of gender equality transversally. Beginning with the
2008 crisis, managerial reforms and financial pressures have increased, while
political focus has decreased. As a consequence, budgetary instruments have
started to be undermined, coordination instruments have been considerably
weakened and the centre of gravity has shifted, with legal instruments becoming
its main component. This shift can be considered detrimental to the EU system of
feminist governance, since the legislative function of the gender equality
policy has not given birth to much progress. Indeed, although the revised Lisbon
Treaty provides a reminder of the place of gender equality in the values and
missions of the EU, the modifications brought to the European normative
framework remain very limited (Ellis, 2010). When it comes to secondary law,
legislative developments since Lisbon have encountered many obstacles. The
revision of existing directives (on parental leave and on equal treatment of
self-employed and assisting spouses in 2010) included only minimal requirements.
Some proposals have been blocked in the European Council (gender balance on
boards of listed companies and horizontal anti-discrimination) or abandoned
because of absence of compromise (revision of the directive on the protection of
maternity). The proposals that have been adopted have either experienced very
conflictual negotiations (2019 directive on work–life balance for parents and
carers) or resulted in the side-lining of the gender equality focus (2011 and
2012 directives on human trafficking and the victims of crime).2 With regard to
soft law, the Council has not renewed its European Pact for gender equality
which ended in 2020 and was not associated with any precise objective. The
Commission has replaced the five medium-term action programmes which covered the
period between 1982 and 2006 with a series of programming documents,3 including
the latest one, the Gender Equality Strategy 2020–25. However, they are no
longer attached to funding instruments and
EU gender equality policy 317 therefore remain primarily declaratory (Ahrens,
2019). Budgetary instruments have necessarily been impacted by reduction in
funding which began to hit gender equality policy in the 2007–13 multiannual
financial framework. Since then, the budget allocated to gender equality as a
proportion of the overall EU budget has regularly decreased (Jacquot, 2015:
147–53). An equivalent dismantling of the third pillar of EU gender equality
policy – coordination instruments – has taken place. First, there has been a
near-total evaporation of concern with the fight against gender-based
inequalities in the major multiannual action plans of the EU. In the Europe 2020
strategy, the European Semester and the European Pillar of Social Rights, the
integration of gender inequalities has been in significant decline, with only a
few mentions of specific discrimination faced by women in the labour market and
no acknowledgements in the accompanying objectives or indicators (Elomäki and
Kantola, 2020; O’Dwyer, 2018). Second, the impact of gender mainstreaming on the
transformation of gender relations and on the nature and degrees of gender
inequalities has been extremely limited (Guerrina, 2020). Even more, recent
analyses have shown that resistance to the deconstruction of gender norms and
the transformation of power structures has started to emerge, even in policy
domains which used to be considered as receptive, such as scientific research
(Cavaghan, 2017; Vida, 2020). Rationalising Institutional Structures and
Dissolving the Networks of Feminist Governance Two main trends have
characterised the evolution of EU gender equality structures and networks of
actors over the last decades: first, a phenomenon of professionalisation of
actors, which led to the marginalisation of activist and feminist involvement in
the development of gender equality policy, and second, a phenomenon of
normalisation of its institutional and administrative specificities, which are
increasingly seen as inappropriate for the standards of EU ‘good governance’. As
a consequence, the cause-based coalition traditionally supporting European
gender equality policy has undergone a process of erosion and the
interconnectedness of the different types of actors (administrative, political,
academic, activist) specific to feminist alliances, and key to feminist
governance, has been weakened. In 2010, there was a transfer of portfolio within
the European Commission and in 2011, the Directorate for Equality and the Fight
against Discrimination (home of the Gender Equality Unit), formerly part of DG
Employment and Social Affairs, started reporting to DG Justice. Far from being a
merely organisational matter, this administrative transfer was consequential for
EU gender equality policy. First, it signalled the fact that gender equality was
(only) one ground of discrimination among other fundamental rights and tackled
from a primarily legal perspective. Second, it implied a loosening of the ties
between gender equality and social policy. This has a particular significance in
times of economic crisis. It is all the more difficult to infuse employment and
social inclusion initiatives with a gender perspective, even if the consequences
of the crisis are deeply gendered. Recently, social initiatives have had a hard
time including a transformative gender perspective, as exemplified by the
European Pillar of Social Rights (Plomien, 2018). This situation has (partly)
evolved since 2019 with the von der Leyen Commission and the introduction of an
Equality Commissioner. This new portfolio is responsible for all matters linked
to inclusion and equality; however, on the organisational front, it does not
have its own administrative services and only has authority over ‘relevant
units’ which remain part of DG Justice and DG Employment. Commissioner Dalli
also chairs a ‘Task Force for Equality composed of experts from the Commission
services’.4 This new
318 Handbook of feminist governance integrated organisation has not proven
efficient in mainstreaming gender equality concerns, as shown by the
gender-blind content of the 2020 EU recovery plan (Recovery and Resilience
Facility). Following administrative reforms within the European Commission, the
number of expert groups has also been drastically reduced. In this new approach
to the role of scientific knowledge in European governance, expertise is mainly
outsourced, but this outsourcing is not seen and used as a possibility of
creating partnerships or coalitions of cause, but rather as mere service
provision (Jacquot, 2020). As a consequence, the strong cross-network cohesion
that characterised these groups is gradually weakening, diminishing their
driving force in support of the policy and also the sense of community which
used to unite the members of the EU system of feminist governance. Another major
change was the creation of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE,
inaugurated in 2010). Even though it was initially conceived as a tool aimed at
producing gender expertise along with liaising with a variety of gender equality
actors, in practice EIGE produces technical knowledge rather than alternatives
or a political vision (Hubert and Stratigaki, 2011). The creation of EIGE can be
linked to a general trend towards de-politicisation affecting all organisations
responsible for gender equality, as well as some feminist organisations. EU
policymakers are increasingly expected to draw on specialised and technical
information in order to elaborate and formulate ‘evidence-based’ proposals. In
this context, EIGE is characteristic of the transformation of feminist activism
and knowledge into ‘gender expertise’ (Prügl, 2015), and the emergence of
‘market feminism’ (Kantola and Squires, 2012). Some authors have underlined how
such an exclusive technocratic approach to gender equality policymaking
contributes to gender expertise being emptied of political perspectives, and
feminist governance being weakened for bureaucratic purposes (Jacquot and
Krizsán, 2021). Another important change in the structure of EU gender equality
policy has to do with the evolution of the institutional balance of power,
especially between the three poles of the legislative triangle (European
Commission, EP, Council of the EU). In line with analyses considering that
European integration is undergoing a phase of ‘new intergovernmentalism’ (Hodson
and Puetter, 2019), member states have increased their presence and dominance in
EU gender equality policy. They play a stronger role in the policy process via
the enhanced role of the presidency trios in the agenda-setting sequence and the
design and monitoring of the policy. This stronger role induces a relative
marginalisation of the Commission and of the EP (including the FEMM Committee),
which have generally been in the lead in terms of feminist governance at the EU
level. Finally, there have been important transformations within the system of
representation of interests in the gender equality sector, concerning both civil
society (particularly women’s and feminist organisations) and social partners
(in particular women’s committees). The development of a broad rights policy
that gathers gender equality, the fight against discrimination and the promotion
of fundamental rights leads to a thematic competition, whereby civil society
organisations (CSOs) working in each of these areas seek recognition of their
demands. This is doubled by financial competition for funding and subsidies,
competition that is intensified in periods of budgetary crisis. Within this new
environment, the EWL has to manage the tension between providing efficient
technical expertise to policymakers and acting as a critical voice advocating
for women’s interests (Seibicke, 2019). Thus, the influence of feminist
mobilisa-
EU gender equality policy 319 tion is clearly limited (Cullen, 2014). Moreover,
for a few years, gender equality as a policy issue has taken a back seat in the
social partners’ agenda (Elomäki and Kantola, 2020). All these changes taken
together contribute to the deterioration of relations between key actors in the
gender equality policy sector, whether public (femocrats, MEPs) or private
(activists, academics, experts). Previously close and frequent exchanges and
collaborative relationships have loosened, contributing to the upheaval of the
system of EU feminist governance. Adopting a Minimalist View of Gender Equality
Policy Since the second half of the 2000s, European gender equality policy has
undergone a period of crisis affecting its instruments, its institutions and its
policy community, thereby shrinking its legitimacy. Dominant beliefs and
discursive representations of the place and role of EU action with regard to
gender equality have also been impacted. Consensus on ends and means has been
more difficult to reach with the increase in the number of member states and the
multiplication of national gender regimes (Walby, 2004). Also, some member state
governments like Poland or Hungary have started directly attacking EU gender
equality policy for ideological reasons (Roggeband and Krizsán, 2018) and this
overt opposition is used as political cover by other member states whose
opposition is mainly budgetary. Moreover, the extension of the perimeter of
gender equality policy to include new issues (such as trafficking, development),
as well as the challenge of taking multiple discriminations into account, have
contributed both to a fragmentation of policy instruments and actors, and to a
fragmentation of ideas and representations. Confronted with this increased
diversity of meanings and the difficulty in agreeing on objectives and
strategies for action, the cognitive framework of EU gender equality policy has
become more unstable and consequently more vulnerable. Beyond the fragmentation
of the principle of equality, the context of the economic and budgetary crisis
has also contributed to destabilising the cognitive framework of EU gender
equality policy. Since 2008, the EU’s policy agenda has been reorganised and the
norm of gender equality has become subordinate to other objectives higher up in
the list of political priorities, particularly economic ones (see Chapter 27 of
this Handbook). The configuration of ‘equality for the market’ (Jacquot, 2015)
has been accentuated again, and even when subordinated to economic objectives,
initiatives in favour of promoting gender equality have a hard time finding
legitimacy. Gender equality has become an objective which is not only
subordinate but genuinely secondary. In this configuration, gender equality can
only exist ‘despite the market’, with only minimalist ambitions and restricting
its focus to issues that can aggregate the widest possible interests. This
minimalist conception of EU gender equality policy can be seen when examining
the flagship initiative of the Commission. In March 2021, it tabled a proposal
for a directive on pay transparency to strengthen the principle of equal pay.
Constrained by the shrinkage of political and budgetary opportunities, this
proposal addresses the issue of equal pay through a minimalist lens. Tackling
the gender pay gap, and even more, pay transparency, has become the single issue
to which gender equality in employment and occupation is reduced. Issues such as
the quality of employment (including part-time work), working conditions or the
structural discrimination embedded in the gendered classification of occupations
are left unaddressed. So, if feminist governance includes the existence of
public policy which explicitly promotes gender equality, then this minimalist
conception of gender equality signals that the EU system of feminist governance
is still in place but in a muffled tone and with reduced ambitions.
320 Handbook of feminist governance
CONCLUSION In their famous book on policy implementation published in 1973,
Pressman and Wildavsky aimed to explain implementation failures in the US
federal system and more precisely How Great Expectations in Washington Are
Dashed in Oakland. More recently, Abels and Mushaben have analysed how the Great
Expectations with regard to advancing gender equality raised by the election in
2019 of Ursula von der Leyen as the European Commission’s first woman president
run the risks of being constrained by Structural Limitations (Abels and
Mushaben, 2020). In this chapter we have seen the role and importance of these
institutional limitations in recent years: the reinforcement of the Council and
the marginalisation of the Commission and the EP, the stronger polarisation over
gender issues which make consensus more difficult. We have also seen that other
elements, such as economic restrictions, administrative upheavals and ideational
changes, have to be taken into account in order to understand the transformation
with regard to gender equality. Beyond the formal provisions related to the
status of gender equality as a fundamental right and a common value of the EU,
these combined limitations have weighed on the EU system of feminist governance
since the mid-2000s. The Covid-19 crisis has shown that these constraints weigh
heavily on existing gender leadership. Indeed, after the presentation in March
2020 of the much-awaited Gender Equality Strategy for 2020–25, the European
Commission in its April work programme suggested postponing any binding measures
until 2021 to ‘avoid increasing the administrative burden for those companies
affected by COVID 19’,5 even though the pervasiveness and critical level of
gender inequalities have been brought to the fore by the pandemic. Paraphrasing
both Pressman and Wildavsky, and Abels and Mushaben, we could thus consider that
‘Great Expectations’ in March 2020 ‘Have Already Been Dashed’ in April 2020.
When in competition with other saillant issues, gender equality initiatives tend
to be sidelined, raising the question of the EU gender equality policy as only a
‘good weather’ policy and its ability to withstand backlash and obstacles. This
finding is all the more critical since the damaged EU system of feminist
governance will have difficulty supporting any renewed political will in this
field.
NOTES 1.
This count does not include the new ‘Women on Boards’ Directive which will be
added to this series of texts at the end of 2022 or beginning of 2023 after its
publication in the EU Official Journal. 2. Only since 2021 has this legislative
framework started to be revivified with the adoption of the Directive on gender
balance on corporate boards in November 2022, the proposal on pay transparency
in March 2021, and the proposal on combating violence against women and domestic
violence in March 2022. 3. Roadmap for Equality between Men and Women (2006–10),
Women’s Charter (2010), Strategy for Equality between Women and Men (2010–15),
Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality (2016–19). 4. See https:// ec .europa
.eu/ commission/ commissioners/ 2019 -2024/ dalli/ announcements/ union
-equality -first -year -actions -and -achievements _en. 5. Europe Daily
Bulletin, ‘Trade unions regret Commission’s postponement of gender pay equality
measures’, no. 12471, 22 April 2020.
EU gender equality policy 321
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26. Challenges to feminist knowledge? The economisation of EU gender equality
policy Anna Elomäki
INTRODUCTION International institutions and organisations, governments,
corporate actors and civil society actors are increasingly relying on gender
equality discourses focused on economic growth, human capital, efficiency and
corporate productivity. At the same time, neoliberal governance practices, such
as cost–benefit calculations and good practices, increasingly shape gender
equality policy measures (e.g. Cullen and Murphy, 2018; Kantola and Squires,
2012; Prügl, 2015; Roberts, 2015). It has been argued that such discourses and
practices have co-opted feminist governance while, at the same time, providing
strategic openings in institutions otherwise hostile to gender equality
(Ferguson, 2015; Kunz et al., 2019). Such developments have been typical of the
European Union’s (EU) gender equality policy. In comparison to other
international institutions, the EU has been seen as a progressive gender
equality actor. The EU fulfils the criteria of feminist governance set in this
Handbook, and it has brought about important changes in member states in terms
of equal pay, maternity and parental leave, and anti-discrimination policy
(Kantola, 2010; Jacquot, Chapter 25 of this Handbook). Yet the EU’s gender
equality policy has since its inception been tied to the EU’s economic
priorities (Jacquot, 2015). More recently, EU institutions have explicitly
promoted a discourse focused on the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality
(Elomäki, 2015), and the focus of policy measures has shifted from legislation
to gender mainstreaming, exchange of good practice and other tools of neoliberal
governance (Jacquot, 2015). Simultaneously, the EU’s economic policies and
economic governance practices have become increasingly hostile to gender
equality (Kantola and Lombardo, 2017). This chapter discusses the actors,
processes, tools and knowledge that have contributed to the neoliberalisation –
or economisation – of the EU’s gender equality policy and addresses the effects
on feminist governance. Neoliberalisation of feminism has different facets
connected to the different understandings of neoliberalism as a political
project, ideology and governance (Prügl, 2015). In this chapter, I understand
neoliberalism as a political rationality or a form of governance that extends
market values and practices to all spheres of life (Brown, 2015; Oksala, 2013).
Wendy Brown (2015) has described this process as economisation. I use this term,
too, to emphasise my focus on an economic logic that shapes understandings,
practices and subjectivities rather than on neoliberalism as an economic policy
project. I understand neoliberal economisation of gender equality policy as a
process whereby the values, ideals, goals and practices related to economic
policy and the corporate sector begin to shape this field. I am particularly
interested in the role of knowledge in this process. Economists and economics
are often given special authority in policymaking (Fourcade, 2009; Hirschman and
Berman, 2014), and this has been the case in EU gender equality policy too
(Elomäki, 2020). 323
324 Handbook of feminist governance I will first map the actors and processes
in the neoliberal economisation of the EU's gender equality policy. I then turn
to two key challenges that economisation poses for feminist governance: shifts
in the meaning of gender equality, and legitimisation of gendered economic
policies and narrow notions of the economy. Finally, I discuss the increased
reliance on mainstream economics in EU gender equality policy. The chapter
brings together gender and EU literature and feminist political economy
perspectives. It argues that economisation limits the possibilities of the
institutions and actors of feminist governance to challenge the EU’s economic
priorities, ideas and policies.
ECONOMISATION OF EU GENDER EQUALITY POLICY: PROCESSES, ACTORS AND TOOLS The EU’s
gender policies have from the very beginning been linked as much to the pursuit
of market-making as to social justice, or even subsumed under the logic of the
market (e.g. Jacquot, 2015; Lewis, 2006; van der Vleuten, 2007). The
relationship between the market principle and the gender equality principle has
taken different forms over time, depending on developments in the EU’s economic
policy and its economic situation. This section sheds light on the processes,
actors and tools that have shaped this relationship and eventually intensified
the neoliberal economisation of the EU’s gender equality policy. It is important
to note that the EU is not a unitary actor and that policy developments, such as
economisation, are always contested within and between the EU institutions and
the actors that aim to influence them. From Treaty of Rome to Lisbon Strategy
The manner in which equality between women and men entered the European agenda
in 1957, when the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ was included in the
Treaty of Rome, is indicative of the economic rationale that has guided the EU’s
gender equality policies. Article 119 on equal pay was adopted because the
French government, which had already introduced legislation on equal pay, was
afraid that countries using low-wage female labour might undermine the
competitiveness of French industry (Jacquot, 2015: 21–2). The main concern was
thus to ensure ‘fair competition’ rather than to promote gender equality as a
value in itself (Lewis, 2006: 420). The scope of gender equality policy soon
expanded from equal pay to increasing women’s labour market participation
(Ostner, 2000). In this early period, gender equality eventually came to be seen
as an object to be pursued in itself, but it took the specific form of ‘equality
within the market’ (Jacquot, 2015: 20). Whilst this labour-market-centred
approach has had a significant impact in countries where women’s paid work was
constrained by traditional family norms, it also reflects the way EU gender
equality policy has focused on themes that support economic integration and
goals. The focus on market-related issues was complemented with discursive
economisation, namely, the framing of gender equality as a contribution to
economic growth, competitiveness and other economic goals. The idea that gender
equality had economic benefits in the sense of women’s labour market
participation and a better use of human resources appeared in the European
Commission’s and Council’s policy documents in the 1980s. Economic framing of
gender equality strengthened in the 1990s, coinciding with the introduction of
gender
Challenges to feminist knowledge? 325 mainstreaming and the integration of
equal opportunities in the EU’s employment policy, in particular in the European
Employment Strategy (EES) (Elomäki, 2015; see also Repo, 2016.) The EES can be
seen as a key moment in the economisation of EU gender equality policy. It
intensified the reduction of gender equality to a question of economic
integration and connected gender equality to neoliberal discourses of individual
responsibility, entrepreneurship and employability (Rubery, 2017; Wöhl, 2011).
Moreover, the EES intensified the framing of gender equality issues through
employment rather than gender equality objectives. A prime example is the way
the concept of reconciliation of work and family life, introduced into EU gender
policy in the late 1980s, shifted meaning after it was incorporated in the EES.
Feminist actors within the Commission had originally used the concept to advance
the redistribution of domestic and care work between women and men. This
feminist goal was overridden by the market-oriented objective of encouraging
flexible forms of employment for women, an objective advanced by employment
policy actors (Lewis, 2006; Stratigaki, 2004). The case of the EES indicates the
role of gender mainstreaming in the neoliberal economisation of EU gender
equality policy. Whilst gender mainstreaming has extended the scope of this
policy to areas like development, trade and education, it has further subsumed
gender equality under economic objectives and rationales. This is because gender
mainstreaming has focused on integrating gender into existing macroeconomic
frameworks rather than assessing whether the EU’s employment, economic or trade
policies are in the interests of gender equality (Hoskyns, 2008; Rubery, 2017;
True, 2009). When macroeconomic fundamentals conflict with gender equality
objectives, these objectives are dropped from the policy discourse. For
instance, the concern for care and unpaid work as well as women’s job quality
were omitted from the EES focused on increasing the employment rate (Hoskyns,
2008: 118). In the early 2000s, following the adoption of the Lisbon Strategy
with its goals of sustainable economic growth, more and better jobs, and greater
social cohesion, the Commission and the Council increasingly framed gender
equality as a contribution to economic growth. The reorganisation of the Lisbon
Strategy in 2005 around the goals of growth and jobs had the effect of further
prioritising economic framing (Elomäki, 2015). Jacquot has argued that in this
period (1990s–2000s) gender equality was no longer an objective in its own right
but became an instrument for other economic policy priorities (Jacquot, 2015:
177). Similarly, Rubery (2017) has characterised the 1990s and the 2000s as an
era of ‘instrumental policy’ where gender equality was considered instrumental
to achieving other objectives. Economic Case for Gender Equality in the Context
of Economic Crisis The end of the first decade of the 2000s signalled a shift
from merely subordinating gender equality to economic goals to the explicit
development and promotion of a market-oriented gender equality discourse
(Elomäki, 2015). This discourse, referred to by the Commission as the ‘economic
case’, turned the long-standing yet sporadic arguments about women as labour
market reserve, women’s unused human capital and women’s labour market
participation as a solution to the demographic challenge into a consistent
approach that emphasised the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality. The
economic case was developed during the financial and economic crisis, and
coincided with the further subsuming of the EU’s social goals under economic
priorities – the strengthening of the EU’s austerity-focused economic governance
(Crespy and Menz, 2015).
326 Handbook of feminist governance The institutions and actors of feminist
governance had a key role in the development of the economic case. Key actors
included the European Commission’s gender equality bodies and gender experts,
the gender equality-friendly Swedish government during its presidency of the
European Council in 2009 and the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).
These actors saw the economic case as a way to increase the visibility of gender
equality at the highest political level and advance gender equality in a time of
crisis (Elomäki, 2015, 2020). That emphasising economic benefits was seen as the
most effective way to promote gender equality can be seen as a way to counter
resistance in hostile institutional settings (Ferguson, 2015; Kunz et al.,
2019). It can also be interpreted as a result of processes of economisation:
gender equality must demonstrate its usefulness for the economy (Brown, 2015).
Empirical studies of the impact of gender equality on economic growth and the
costs of inequality, commissioned by the above-mentioned actors, were a key tool
in the development and dissemination of the economic case. As part of its gender
equality agenda, the 2009 Swedish presidency published a study that estimated
that gender equality could increase gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 45 per
cent in the EU member states. EIGE’s more recent study estimated that gender
equality could increase EU GDP per capita by almost 10 per cent by 2050 (see
Elomäki, 2020). The emphasis on empirical knowledge indicates that it was no
longer sufficient to discursively frame gender equality in economic terms as had
been done in the 1990s and early 2000s. In line with ideas of evidence-based
policymaking (e.g. Triantafillou, 2015), one also had to provide empirical
evidence of economic benefits. The economic case quickly became the backbone of
EU gender equality policy, and the range of gender equality issues justified in
economic terms broadened. The draft directive on gender balance in corporate
boards proposed by the Commission in 2012 was the culmination of this
development. In the policy debate that paved the way to the directive, the
Commission turned women’s underrepresentation in economic decision-making, which
earlier was mainly seen as an issue of democracy and the sharing of power, into
an economic problem related to competitiveness and the use of women’s human
capital. The debate was so thoroughly economised that some policy documents did
not even mention gender equality as a goal (Elomäki, 2018). More recently,
Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission (see Abels and Mushaben, 2020) has been more
inclined to talk about gender equality as a core value of the EU and a
fundamental right. Whilst references to values and rights are still complemented
by economised framing, the latter are somewhat less prominent than in the early
2010s. The emphasis on economic arguments for gender equality has also had
repercussions at the national level, for instance, through EU programmes that
are often a significant source of gender equality funding at national level. For
example, in Ireland, the need to rely on EU project funding brought gender
balance initiatives that relied on economic arguments into the main women’s
organisation’s work programme (Cullen and Murphy, 2018: 120). Economic actors
and processes have also contributed to the intensification of economisation. The
EU’s economic governance processes, which were strengthened after the economic
crisis, have taken over the role played by the EES two decades earlier. The
annual cycle of economic policy coordination, called the European Semester, has
subsumed social concerns to economic goals both in terms of policies and
understandings (Dawson, 2018), and has done this for gender equality, too.
During the European Semester, EU institutions set key reform priorities for the
EU: review national performance and policies, and issue policy recommendations
for member states. Although the standing of social issues, including gender
equality, within the European Semester has increased over the years, only a
restricted number of social
Challenges to feminist knowledge? 327 issues have been included, and economic
goals and ideas shape understandings of social policies and goals (Dawson,
2018). In terms of gender equality this has meant a focus on employment-related
issues, mainly women’s labour market participation (Chieregato, 2020). Moreover,
the economic knowledge and expertise underpinning the Semester sideline crucial
gender equality issues such as unpaid work, and misrepresent others, such as the
provision of affordable care services, as a cost (Cavaghan and Elomäki, 2020).
Economisation is not a uniform (and not necessarily even a hegemonic) process.
Economic discourses have existed side-by-side with other frames, and the
discourses of different EU institutions and actors have competed with one
another. Parallel to the development of the economic case in the 2010s, the EU
gender equality policy has been increasingly engaged with rights and justice,
partly due to the move of the Commission’s gender equality unit from DG
Employment to DG Justice and the consequent distancing of gender equality policy
from social policy (Jacquot, 2015; see also Jacquot, Chapter 25 in this
Handbook). Moreover, alternative conceptualisations of the relationship between
gender equality and the economy have existed all along. Already in the late
1990s the Commission’s gender experts called for new, more gender-equal systems
of economic organisation and for the abandoning of the narrow focus on growth
(Elomäki, 2015). In the 2010s, many EU-level gender equality bodies and
networks, such as the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) and the European Women’s Lobby (EWL), produced
knowledge about the gendered impacts of crisis and austerity (Guerrina, 2017).
There are tensions between the different EU institutions too: the Commission has
tended to use both economic and rights-based framing; the Council has almost
exclusively framed gender equality in economic terms; and the European
Parliament has championed human rights frames (Elomäki, 2015; Stratigaki, 2004:
50; True, 2009: 126–7).
THE EFFECTS OF ECONOMISATION ON FEMINIST GOVERNANCE The economised approach to
gender equality in EU policymaking has delivered some benefits, for instance,
increased awareness of care issues in the 1990s and early 2000s (Rubery, 2017:
576–7). However, the intensification of economic justifications in the 2010s did
not improve the visibility of gender equality in the context of economic crisis
and austerity. In fact, gender equality goals disappeared from the EU’s
long-term economic strategies (Villa and Smith, 2014), and the crisis
intensified the ongoing dismantling of the EU’s gender equality policy (Ahrens,
2018; Jacquot, 2015). Furthermore, arguments about economic benefits did not
change member states’ views of gender equality policies as too expensive (van
der Vleuten, 2007). For example, the improved maternity leave directive proposed
by the Commission in 2008 was blocked by member states who considered it too
costly. At the same time, the economisation of EU gender equality policy has
negatively impacted the transformative potential of feminist governance.
Existing research has pointed out how economisation, on the one hand, ‘shrinks’
and ‘bends’ (Lombardo et al., 2009) the meaning of gender equality in
depoliticising ways and constructs neoliberal gendered subjectivities for the
purposes of capitalism. On the other hand, economised gender equality discourses
legitimise and reproduce neoliberal values, gendered economic policies and
gendered understandings of
328 Handbook of feminist governance the economy in ways that circumvent the
possibilities of feminist institutions and networks countering gendered
policies. Narrow Understandings of Gender (In)Equality and Economised
Subjectivities Research on EU gender equality policy has drawn attention to the
narrow way in which gender equality is conceptualised as equality in the market
(Jacquot, 2015). Gender equality issues such as unequal distribution of unpaid
work, which do not fit with economic priorities, have often been either
sidelined or reframed to fit with the dominant narrative (Lewis, 2006;
Stratigaki, 2004). In addition to reconciliation, already discussed above, such
reframing took place in the discussion on women’s representation in economic
decision-making. Here earlier framings related to the equal sharing of power
between women and men and women’s participation in the making of decisions that
affect them and the society gave way to discussions about equality in career
advancement (Elomäki, 2018). These narrow understandings of gender equality are
depolicitised. Research on gender policies of internal institutions and
multinational corporations has shown how constructions of gender equality in
terms of economic growth or business benefits are mainly silent about the
structural and historical dimensions of inequality and how problem
representations and solutions tend to focus on individuals (Elias, 2013; Prügl,
2015; Roberts, 2015). Although EU policymaking has also sought system-level
solutions in the form of legislation and increased child care provision, the
discourses and knowledge backing these solutions have tended to sideline
gendered structures and focus on individual behaviour. For instance, the debate
on women on corporate boards took the perspective of well-educated and skilled
individuals and their right to compete for board positions in equal terms with
men (Elomäki, 2018). These co-opted understandings provide limited tools for
EU-level feminist governance to transform gender relations. For instance, the
economised reconciliation discourses and policies left the gendered division of
labour within families out of consideration and failed to challenge it
(Stratigaki, 2004: 50). Economised understandings of gender equality are
connected to the construction of specific kinds of economic subjects. Whether
located within the EU or outside of its borders, these subjects mainly operate
within the market economy, freed from the social and gendered power relations
rendered invisible by policy discourses (True, 2009: 131). These subjects are
responsible for the European economy as a whole through being employable and
acting as self-responsible entrepreneurs (Wöhl, 2011). They tirelessly climb the
career ladder and thereby enhance the EU’s competitiveness and ensure that
governments get return on their investments in education (Elomäki, 2018).
Importantly, their responsibility extends to meeting the EU’s biopolitical needs
through producing the next generation of wage workers. These subjects
self-regulate their reproductive and productive behaviour to find an optimal
work–life balance for the benefit of the EU as a whole (Repo, 2016: 319–20).
These depoliticised understandings of gender equality that suit the needs of
neoliberal capitalism and that reproduce neoliberal rationales and values are
embedded in the empirical knowledge that underpins economised discourses. The
economic theories, methods and models used by EU institutions to estimate the
economic benefits of gender equality have reduced gender equality to equal
amounts of paid work and equal productivity. Furthermore, when issues such as
unequal division of unpaid work or gender pay gap have been translated into the
macroeconomic language of labour supply and productivity, their meaning has been
Challenges to feminist knowledge? 329 radically transformed and power relations
and structural inequalities have been legitimised or rendered invisible
(Elomäki, 2020). Legitimisation of Gendered Economic Policies and Narrow
Understandings of the Economy One of the key concerns in the literature on
neoliberal gender equality policies and discourses is that they rarely criticise
the dominant economic policies and corporate practices that have been shown to
uphold gender inequalities at global, national and local levels. Therefore,
these policies and discourses legitimise gendered policies and capitalist
accumulation (Ferguson, 2015; Roberts, 2015). At the EU-level, the integration
of a gender perspective into the EES in the late 1990s supported policies that
flexibilised labour markets and promoted non-standard forms of work (Rubery,
2017: 578; Stratigaki, 2004; Wöhl, 2011). The economic case for gender equality
in the 2010s, in turn, legitimised economic growth as the EU’s main goal and
gave silent agreement to budget discipline and fiscal consolidation as the key
means to achieve economic growth (Elomäki, 2015). The EU’s post-crisis austerity
policies had manifold gendered impacts in member states. These ranged from
increased gendered economic inequalities, shifting of responsibility for care
from the state to households and the intensification of the crisis of social
reproduction, to increased violence against women and the dismantling of gender
equality institutions and policies (Bassel and Emejulu, 2017; Bruff and Wöhl,
2016; Kantola and Lombardo, 2017; Karamessini and Rubery, 2014). EU gender
equality policy documents of the 2010s that emphasised gender equality as a
factor of economic growth were silent about the gendered impacts of the EU’s
crisis response policies. This illustrates the one-way approach to the
relationship between economy and gender equality that is characteristic of
economised discourses. The contribution of gender equality to the economy is
acknowledged, but the causal arrow is not reversed to see how economic policies
impact gender equality (Elomäki, 2015). Moreover, economised gender equality
discourses reproduce gendered and narrow assumptions of what the economy is and
how it functions that are typical of neoclassical economics (see e.g. Folbre,
2009). Mainstream economic thinking and economic policies often neglect the
interrelationships between the ‘productive’ market economy and the
‘reproductive’ economy constituted of the paid and unpaid activities needed to
reproduce life. Yet, as feminist political economists have shown, social
reproduction is necessary for the functioning of the economy (e.g. Elson, 1994;
Hoskyns and Rai, 2007). This neglect is also visible in EU policymaking. The
EU’s economic governance ignores unpaid work and those who provide it, often at
high personal cost, undervalues monetised care work and sees public care as a
cost, rather than as an investment (Cavaghan and Elomäki, 2021). Similarly, the
EU-level studies on the economic benefits of gender equality that form the
evidence-base for the economic case ignore unpaid care and its contribution to
the economy and reinforce the undervaluation of care work within the monetised
economy (Elomäki, 2020). The way unpaid and monetised reproductive work
disappears from view is particularly worrying in a situation where austerity
politics and neoliberal governance shift care work to households and intensify
the crisis of care and social reproduction across the EU (e.g. Bruff and Wöhl,
2016).
330 Handbook of feminist governance
ECONOMISATION OF EXPERT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT GENDER EQUALITY The economisation of EU
gender equality policy and the related demand for empirical evidence of the
economic benefits of gender equality has implications for the kind of expert
knowledge about gender equality that is valued in EU policymaking. In line with
the prioritisation of economists and economics in policymaking (Fourcade, 2009;
Hirschman and Berman, 2014), gender experts working in global governance
structures, such as the World Bank, have increasingly sought authority by
drawing on economics and other quantitative knowledge that employs positivist
methodologies (Kunz et al., 2019). At the EU-level, expert knowledge about
gender equality has traditionally drawn on a wider range of disciplines and
methods. However, the interest in the economic benefits of gender equality has
engaged mainstream economists – for instance, consultancy companies with little
experience in gender equality – and tools of knowledge production typical of the
economics discipline. Thus it is not only EU gender equality policy that is
being economised. As I have argued elsewhere (Elomäki, 2020), we are also
witnessing economisation of expert knowledge about gender equality in EU
policymaking. This shift towards economic modes of knowledge production is a
shift towards more positivist, technical and quantitative knowledge about gender
equality that emphasises mathematical proofs and causalities (Ylöstalo, 2020).
The emphasis on quantifiable, monetised evidence runs counter to the way
feminist theories and methodologies have expanded what counts as evidence.
Whilst there is no conclusive evidence that EU institutions see economised
knowledge as a more desirable basis for gender equality policy than other forms
of gender expertise, the institutions have represented such knowledge as
objective, indisputable and particularly relevant (Elomäki, 2020). This common
strategy to give economics a higher status than other social sciences (Fourcade,
2009) implicitly casts other forms of knowledge as more subjective and
ideological. Yet this economised expert knowledge and its modes of knowledge
production rely on specific theories about what the economy is, how it works and
how people make choices, which are not value-free but involve gendered biases
and background assumptions (e.g. Folbre, 2009). A key challenge posed by the
economisation of gender equality expertise is a shift in which aspects of gender
equality and human activities are analytically visible and intelligible to us.
The EU institutions’ reliance on mainstream economics to support gender equality
claims restricts the range of issues from which knowledge can be produced and
has an impact on the kind of truth claims that can be made about the gendered
structures of the economy and gender equality. Importantly, through sidelining
issues related to social reproduction, the economised knowledge about gender
equality financed and promoted by EU institutions may make it harder to account
for the gendered effects of austerity and neoliberal governance reforms, such as
the increasing strain that cuts in public spending and the marketisation and
privatisation of public services put on social reproduction and care.
CONCLUSIONS This chapter has shed light on the neoliberal economisation of the
EU’s gender equality policy – the expansion of market goals, values, practices
and knowledge to this field – as well
Challenges to feminist knowledge? 331 as reflected on the challenges this poses
for feminist governance. I have shown how the economised framings promoted by
some EU institutions, including actors of feminist governance therein, have
‘bent’ and ‘shrunk’ the meaning of gender equality in individualising and
depoliticising ways. I have also illustrated how economised gender equality
discourses legitimise the EU’s gendered economic policies and reproduce narrow
understandings of the economy. Finally, I have suggested that the discursive
economisation of gender equality policy is closely connected to the
economisation of expert knowledge about gender equality, that is, increased
reliance on mainstream economic knowledge in gender equality policymaking. I
will conclude with a reflection on the implications of economisation for
feminist knowledge and its capacity to influence EU policymaking in the crucial
area of economic policy. The actors of feminist governance are facing major
challenges in this policy field. For instance, knowledge about the gender
impacts of austerity produced by feminist actors was not included in the EU’s
response to the 2008 economic crisis (Guerrina, 2017), and integrating gender
perspectives in economic governance processes, like the European Semester, has
been difficult. Scholars have identified several reasons for the neglect of
feminist knowledge in this field. First, the male-dominated character of key
economic decision-making spaces has implications for their working culture and
the possibilities of moving gender equality forward (Guerrina, 2017; Walby,
2015). Second, the narrow constructions of economic expertise and ‘objective’
knowledge in these spaces sideline feminist knowledge, which is often seen as
political and ideological. Finally, gender equality actors have found it
difficult to communicate using the abstract and mathematical vocabulary that has
become a key ‘legitimacy requirement’ for participation in economic policy
debates (Cavaghan, 2017; O’Dwyer, 2019). Could economised knowledge, although
different from knowledge about economic benefits that has been prominent in EU
gender equality policy, provide a solution to these problems? In some contexts,
feminist actors have successfully mobilised quantified knowledge based on
economic modes of knowledge production – for example, calculations of
distributive gender impacts – to criticise dominant economic policies and
advocate for feminist alternatives (Cavaghan, 2020; Ylöstalo, 2020). Even if
critical of existing economic policies, however, this knowledge comes with
drawbacks similar to those related to the evidence about economic benefits. It
reduces gender impacts to monetised distributive impacts, reproduces the
(gendered) methodologies and assumptions of mainstream economic thinking, and
prioritises economists as the main producers of policy-relevant knowledge,
sidelining other feminist voices and other types of feminist knowledge
(Ylöstalo, 2020). Eventually, the kind of feminist knowledge needed to re-think
the macroeconomic objectives of the EU and change the course of its economic
policies would have to break the false distinction between productive and the
reproductive sectors of the economy that underpins the EU’s policies.
Acknowledging the role of social reproduction would extend our understanding of
what the economy is and how it functions and lead to more gender equal economies
where gender equality is not subsumed under economic goals.1
NOTE 1. Funding statement: this chapter has received funding from the Horizon
2020 European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant project (771676).
332 Handbook of feminist governance
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27. Velvet triangles and more: alliances of supranational EU gender equality
actors Petra Ahrens
INTRODUCTION The European Union (EU) has often been accused of suffering from a
democratic deficit and historical changes such as direct elections to the
European Parliament since 1979 were intended to overcome this allegation.
Engaging better with EU citizens meant interacting more directly with social
movements, (academic) experts and civil society organisations (CSOs), among them
feminist actors. Likewise, the EU also offered an opportunity for women’s
movements promoting gender equality norms to develop specific features of
supranational feminist governance and to create formal and informal alliances
beyond the nation state. The EU provides a complex multilevel governance system
with reciprocal, though asymmetrical power relationships between CSOs and core
EU institutions like the European Commission and the European Parliament (Lang,
2021). Herein, feminist alliances contributed to feminist governance as
categorised in this Handbook by (1) networking to influence EU gender equality
policy, particularly regarding employment and gender-based violence; (2) working
within EU institutions to making them more gender-aware internally and
externally; (3) fostering the adoption of gender equality strategies such as
gender mainstreaming; (4) monitoring and benchmarking EU and member states’
implementation of gender equality policies. The rules steering the relationship
between various (feminist) gender equality actors changed with new treaties,
thereby impacting feminist governance within EU institutions (Jacquot, Chapter
25 in this Handbook). Civic engagement occurred via diverse channels ranging
from EU advisory bodies, expert groups and protesting on the streets, to
specific participatory elements such as the European Citizens’ Initiative1 and
public online consultations by the European Commission. In recent times,
feminist and gender equality actors increasingly face opposition from
anti-feminist and anti-gender actors opposing progressive gender equality
policies and aiming to influence EU institutions accordingly. Furthermore,
transnational institutions steer strategic choices and agency of CSOs regarding
their political actions and the scope of intersectional engagement (Irvine et
al., 2019). This chapter contributes to feminist governance research by taking
stock of the core features of today’s landscape of civil society actors and EU
institutions. First, it recapitulates the history and formal rules of EU–civil
society relationships. Next, it provides examples of how supranational alliances
in gender equality policy have deepened, broadened and changed. Finally, it
addresses intersectional mobilisation, opposition to gender equality and
national trajectories in multilevel governance as important challenges to EU
feminist governance.
335
336 Handbook of feminist governance
HISTORY AND FORMAL RULES OF EU–CIVIL SOCIETY RELATIONSHIPS Feminist governance
research has highlighted women’s and feminist movements and CSOs as powerful
political actors extending the traditional arena of politics and opening up EU
spaces for feminist agendas (Halsaa et al., 2012; Johansson and Kalm, 2015). In
manifold political actions they mobilised at all levels, from the supranational
to the local (Bee and Guerrina, 2015; Evans and Lépinard, 2019; Irvine et al.,
2019). Scholars have produced different concepts to capture the relationship
between feminist actors and transnational institutions. Prominent
conceptualisations include Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) ‘boomerang’ concept,
Woodward’s (2004) ‘velvet triangle’, van der Vleuten’s (2007) ‘pincer model’,
and ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks’ (TANs) (Lang, 2014; Montoya, 2013). As
well as investigating feminist actors’ impact on policymaking, scholars have
examined how the Commission and the European Parliament, particularly its
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM), utilised CSOs as a source
of expertise for policymaking and a tool to tackle its democratic deficit. The
Commission, the EP and the Council design the institutional structures and
access points for CSOs and other stakeholders; they invite them to expert
groups, hearings and consultations, and thereby partly exploit civil society for
legitimation purposes. CSOs have to consider this when making choices about
where to invest their resources and it often leaves them without much room for
manoeuvre. Opportunities to mobilise for gender equality are heavily reliant on
the scope of the EU treaties. Until the mid-1970s, gender equality was merely
declamatory and limited to labour market issues, with only article 119 (now 157)
on equal pay referring to equal rights for women and men (Jacquot, 2015).
Nevertheless, feminist actors utilised article 119 to put gender equality on the
EU agenda, with Belgian lawyer Eliane Vogel-Polsky taking cases to the European
Court of Justice for violating the principle of equal pay. Committed feminists
within the European Commission used the rulings to initiate a first series of
directives on equal opportunities in employment matters, establishing a ‘pincer’
pressuring member states top-down and bottom-up to make costly changes to their
national legislation (van der Vleuten, 2007). From the 1980s onwards, gender
equality policy programmes designed by the Commission proactively connected
gender equality actors beyond the national level and resulted in transnational
projects (Ahrens, 2018). Subsequently, the Commission supported both the
creation of supranational umbrella CSOs such as the European Disability Forum,
the Social Platform and the European Network Against Racism, and their
participation in EU policymaking (Johansson and Kalm, 2015; Sanchez Salgado,
2014). The most prominent example in gender equality is the European Women’s
Lobby (EWL) established in 1990 (Strid, 2014; Schrama, 2019). Concurrently,
feminist activists entered EU institutions such as the Commission and the
European Parliament, establishing what Woodward (2004) labelled a ‘velvet
triangle’. The velvet triangle aimed to advance EU gender equality policy and
consisted of a feminist network inside and outside EU institutions, covering
femocrats in the Commission, women Members of the European Parliament (MEPs),
women’s movement activists and academic gender experts (Woodward, 2004).
Scrutinising this specific mode of feminist EU governance, scholars challenged
the implicit assumption of stability, highlighted the risk of feminist claims
being co-opted by neoliberal governance and pointed to how the undemocratic lack
of access
Velvet triangles and more 337 and transparency made intersectional mobilisation
unlikely (Elomäki et al., 2021; Jacquot, 2015; Lang, 2014). In terms of policy
change, the velvet triangle mobilised massively around the 1995 Beijing Women’s
World Conference and forced the EU and member state governments to adopt the
Beijing Platform for Action – including the strategy of gender mainstreaming,
eventually included in article 3.2 of the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 (Hubert
and Stratigaki, 2016). This success was a major leap forward in supranational
gender equality policy, extending its scope beyond employment and opening doors
for CSOs and feminist networks to include new policy fields (Jacquot, 2015).
Alongside treaty changes, however, the velvet triangle proved not to be stable
over time and its specific mode of policymaking slowly disappeared after the
Amsterdam Treaty. Today’s actors generally conform to EU system rules and
routines (Ahrens, 2018; Jacquot, 2015). In particular, the process leading to
the policy programme ‘Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men 2006–2010’
fostered dissolution: the institution-transcending network incrementally
‘shifted from close collaboration to sceptical observation’ (Ahrens, 2018: 6).
In 2010, this development was further accelerated when the Commission moved
responsibilities for designing, steering and coordinating gender-equality and
anti-discrimination policy from Directorate General (DG) Employment to DG
Justice (Jacquot, 2015). In addition to gender mainstreaming, the Amsterdam
Treaty introduced article 13 on anti-discrimination, covering sex, racial or
ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation, and
thereby improved its coverage of essential human rights and CSOs’ legal basis
for claiming rights vis-à-vis European institutions (Ahrens, 2019; Verloo,
2006). Yet, the directives originating from the article created new hierarchies
among discrimination grounds with, for instance, the Race Equality Directive
broader in scope than previous gender equality directives and other grounds only
protected in employment (Kantola and Nousiainen, 2009: 466). Likewise, the
Commission’s favouring of single-axis umbrella CSOs caused problematic
exclusions for those not following this logic (Cullen, 2010; Rolandsen Agustín,
2013b). The EU’s Formal Setting Inclusive forms of consultation are important to
innovatory feminist governance. EU institutions designed different forms and
rules to engage with citizens and CSOs, although mainly recognising them as
tools to legitimise their activities (Sanchez Salgado, 2014) and as sources of
expertise, information and policy implementation (Jacquot and Vitale, 2014). The
Commission engages directly with EU citizens through public online consultations
over laws and policies (since the early 2000s) and through the European
Citizens’ Initiative, enacted with article 11.4 of the Lisbon Treaty. The
former, however, resulted in ‘echo chambers’ rather than transparent and
inclusive exchange (Lang, 2020). Moreover, putting CSOs’ expert knowledge on the
same footing as that of any citizen potentially makes it harder for feminist
voices to foster progressive gender equality policies. Similarly, the European
Citizens’ Initiative is mainly utilised by well-resourced EU groups,
(supra)national political actors and also anti-gender actors rather than CSOs or
small movements (García, 2015; Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017). EU institutions also
directly partner with CSOs. The Commission’s DG Employment established and
funded close and exclusive relationships with selected CSOs through social and
338 Handbook of feminist governance civil dialogues (Sanchez Salgado, 2014:
86). In the inter-institutional Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities,
committed femocrats established networks with feminist member state experts and
with women’s groups through the EWL, which has advisory status on the committee
(Jacquot, 2015; Strid, 2014). Moving gender-equality and anti-discrimination
policy to DG Justice in 2010, which had no history with expert networks, funding
or consultation, resulted in lost feminist expertise, ties cut and funding
scaled down (Ahrens, 2019; Hubert and Stratigaki, 2016; Jacquot, 2015). The
Council and the European Parliament also transformed their relationships with
civil society. The Social Platform, with the EWL as a founding member, has, for
instance, been invited to attend meetings of the EU presidency trios2 since 2000
and informal meetings of the Council of Ministers of Social Affairs since 2007;
however, the EWL or other women’s organisations have never been directly
invited. Overall, the Council is usually considered closed to CSOs and scholars
have found that it is best accessed through lobbying at the national level
(Sanchez Salgado, 2014). The European Parliament has established formal spaces
through the European Citizens’ Initiative, public hearings and so-called
parliamentary intergroups where members of parliament organise informally around
specific issues across political groups and – if wanted – with civil society
representatives. As for public hearings, it has become common practice to invite
CSOs, interest group representatives and (academic) experts to committee
hearings (Crespy and Parks, 2019). For gender equality actors, such hearings
play an important role in forming the policy agenda and positioning them
vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council (Pristed Nielsen, 2013; Rolandsen
Agustín, 2013b). Kluger Dionigi (2017) shows how parliamentary committees
maintain close relationships with interest groups – often with business groups
at the forefront, even if they are not generally more successful than CSOs.
Despite the crucial work of European Parliament committees for the EU policy
process, their relationship with less well-resourced interest groups – among
them gender equality actors – receive considerably less attention.
DEEPENING, BROADENING AND CHANGING SUPRANATIONAL ALLIANCES IN GENDER EQUALITY
POLICY The EU functioned for a long time as an ally for women’s movements and
its main institutions were open to supporting policy change. The growing number
of expert groups, committees and semi-elected bodies designed by various
institutions shaped strategies and activities of the burgeoning supranational
equality CSOs (Ahrens, 2019; Sanchez Salgado, 2014). With treaty revisions
extending EU competencies, CSOs with limited resources needed to decide with
whom to engage and which EU institutions to lobby (Cullen, 2015; Lang, 2021;
Rolandsen Agustín, 2013a, 2013b). The changing nature and scope of EU policies
made the (dissolving) velvet triangle adapt their organisational strategies to
maintain involvement in EU governance (Lang, 2014). An increasingly
professionalised ‘networked fabric of issue-specific alliances’ succeeded the
velvet triangle (Lang, 2021: 226). Even if policy tools such as gender
mainstreaming or gender budgeting stipulate participatory processes and the
involvement of civil society, the recent EU implementation of these strategies
reveals an alarming disregard of participatory elements (Cengiz, 2019).
Moreover, with weakened insider positions, equality CSOs act increasingly as
external watchdogs from the margins of the political system, and
Velvet triangles and more 339 simultaneously need to take up the challenge to
overcome exclusionary single-axis mobilisation (Irvine et al., 2019; Lang,
2021). The EWL, its activities, involvement in EU policymaking and internal
organisational logic have received ample attention in feminist governance
research. While the EWL has been acknowledged as a creation of dedicated
femocrats, others have raised concerns about it representing mainly interests of
white, middle-aged, professional women, pointing to a lack of intersectionality
(Bygnes, 2013; Jacquot and Vitale, 2014), and about its gatekeeper role in
policymaking (Ahrens, 2018; Schrama, 2019). This role stands out compared to the
more limited roles of, for instance, the European Network of Migrant Women and
the European Forum of Muslim Women, both of which directly address gender and
ethnicity-related intersectional issues. The former evolved with support from
the EWL, which still represents it in the Social Platform, thereby creating new
dependencies (Lang, 2021; Stubbergaard, 2015). Interestingly, the EWL
successfully lobbied for the inclusion of gender mainstreaming in the Treaty of
Amsterdam, but afterwards marginalised it on its website and thus in its own
work (Lang, 2013); the same applies to intersectional approaches (Pristed
Nielsen, 2013; Stubbergaard, 2015). Crucial for feminist governance debates is
investigating whether alliances can push through policy change. An instructive
example of the velvet triangle losing its power is the failure to reform the
Maternity Leave Directive in 2015, seven years after the European Commission
proposed its revision (Ahrens and Abels, 2017; Kluger Dionigi, 2017; Seibicke,
2019). The EWL and trade unions successfully lobbied the FEMM committee to
extend the Commission proposal, but this increased member states’ resistance in
the Council (Kluger Dionigi, 2017). Concomitantly, employer associations and
member states lobbied centre-right MEPs to vote against the FEMM committee
position, leading to a stalemate with voting postponed three times. In the end,
the European Parliament adopted a joint position with a slim majority in 2010,
but the proposal was then blocked in the Council and withdrawn by the Commission
(Ahrens and Abels, 2017; Kluger Dionigi, 2017). This case suggests that the
weakening of the velvet triangle provides the Council with sufficient power to
block legislative proposals on gender equality policy (Ahrens and Abels, 2017).
Similarly, proposals for directives on board quotas and anti-discrimination
beyond the workplace were halted under both the Barroso and Juncker Commissions
and only the revised Work–Life Balance Directive was passed in 2019. Whether the
new Commission under Ursula von der Leyen will be able to reactivate the
proposals and push through additional ones on equal pay and gender-based
violence remains to be seen. Another policy combatting violence against women
and gender-based violence arrived on the supranational agenda in the 1980s, with
the FEMM Committee playing an important agenda-setting role, well ahead of many
member states (Montoya, 2013). Towards the end of the 1990s the issue became a
policy field where the Commission supported the creation of transnational
multilevel networks (Montoya, 2013; Roggeband, 2021). Furthermore, through
strategic framing of violence against women as a public health problem, the
European Parliament maximised its influence and took advantage of the fact that
the issue fell under the co-decision procedure, giving the body more power than
it may have otherwise had (Roggeband, 2021; Rolandsen Agustín, 2013a). Krizsán
and Roggeband (2019a) illuminate that similar framings occurred in the new EU
member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and led to regionally specific
patterns of coalition-building between women’s organi-
340 Handbook of feminist governance sations and state actors. As a result, many
gender-sensitive domestic violence policy reforms were adopted, before becoming
again contested in EU member states from 2015 onwards. Recent crises have also
impacted gender equality alliances. The austerity responses between 2007 and
2014 primarily hit grassroots and member state-level CSOs and had a less direct
impact on the transnational CSOs dependent on EU funding (Woodward, 2016). Yet,
in light of austerity measures, the EWL changed its strategy to focus on policy
issues where the EU still provided funding and simultaneously tried to secure
support for organisational survival through other intergovernmental arenas
(Cullen, 2015). Elomäki (2015) highlights that reorganising was prompted by the
Commission and the Council shifting to a market-oriented gender equality
discourse, making it harder to maintain policy issues not framed as an economic
case. Despite these harsh winds, the EWL has maintained its presence in the EU
arena and has used growing informal access – particularly to the European
Parliament – to widen its scope of action (Ahrens and Woodward, 2020). In sum,
the European Parliament and its FEMM committee has become an evermore important
contact for networking around equality issues, while the potential of the 2019
Commission under von der Leyen to adopt a more nuanced and progressive approach
to gender equality remains to be seen.
CURRENT CHALLENGES TO GENDER EQUALITY ALLIANCES IN EU GOVERNANCE In addition to
challenges originating from changes in the EU institutional system, formal
rules, access options and the settings for civil society, three additional
challenges stand out, together with how gender equality actors respond to them.
These are: intersectional aspects, opposition to gender equality and different
national trajectories in multilevel governance. As the following subsections
show, each of the three requires adaptation of strategies and networking.
Intersectionality: Alliances Between Feminist and Other Civil Society Groups
Intersectional issues were disregarded by EU institutions for a long time
(Kantola and Nousiainen, 2009; Lombardo and Rolandsen Agustín, 2016) and
research related to them focused on the national arena and less on supranational
EU politics (Bee and Guerrina, 2015; Evans and Lépinard, 2019; Irvine et al.,
2019). In particular, the Commission supported umbrella CSOs representing one
ground of discrimination and at best considered multiple discrimination, not
intersectional aspects, with problematic consequences for those not following
this logic (Cullen, 2010; Rolandsen Agustín, 2013a). The new Commission under
von der Leyen, however, included intersectionality in the new vision of a ‘Union
of Equality’ and the accompanying five core strategies on gender equality,
anti-racism, LGBTQI rights, Roma people, and disabilities.3 Each of the
strategies emphasises the intention to pay attention to intersectional aspects
throughout, yet how to operationalise and implement this remains vague. When
examining whether intersectionality played a bigger role for major supranational
gender equality actors, the picture is ambivalent (D’Agostino, Chapter 28 in
this Handbook). At first, the concentration imposed by the Commission on one
ground of discrimination was tolerated, if not welcomed, by umbrella
organisations (Rolandsen Agustín, 2013b: 168). Moreover, the long history and
specific national context of women’s organisations make it likely that some
intersectional aspects are picked up more than others, often privileging the
Velvet triangles and more 341 needs of majority groups over those of minority
groups (Bygnes, 2013; Nyhagen Predelli and Halsaa, 2012). Yet, without an
intersectional approach, CSOs, among them women’s organisations, may lose impact
due to their limited scope, and in the long run become untrustworthy in
representing equality issues (Ahrens and Meier, 2019; Irvine et al., 2019). The
EWL is often criticised as being exclusionary and solely representing the
interests of white, middle-class, well-educated heterosexual women, which makes
receiving public funding, having a gatekeeper role in policymaking and access to
EU committees, expert groups and hearings appear as privilege (Ahrens, 2019;
Jacquot and Vitale, 2014; Strid, 2014). Stubbergaard (2015) emphasises recent
changes towards more intersectionality, for instance, with the EWL creating the
European Network of Migrant Women and maintaining strong ties with it
(D’Agostino, Chapter 28 in this Handbook). Overall, insufficient resources do
not necessarily lead to competition and conflict and satisfactory resources do
not automatically lead to intersectionality being adopted; whether
intersectional mobilisation happens depends on EU institutions positively
sanctioning it (Ahrens, 2019). As a consequence, the current linkages between
equality CSOs and EU institutions resemble more a mountain skyline with a clear
hierarchy of class – gender – race as descending levels (Ahrens, 2019).
Opposition: Networks Mobilizing Against Gender Equality A growing feminist
governance literature explores the multiple facets of opposition to gender
equality and which actors mobilise and network nationally and supranationally
against women’s, LGBTI and minority rights (Köttig et al., 2017; Kuhar and
Paternotte, 2017; Verloo, 2018). Anti-gender activists have developed the frame
of ‘gender ideology’, seen as a threat to the traditional division of roles
between women and men in society, in order to devaluate gender equality policy
and its actors (Korolczuk, 2020; Korolczuk and Graff, 2018). Thus, challenging
gender equality and its activists has become a ‘symbolic glue’ (Kováts and Põim,
2015) for a counter-movement whose exact actors are hard to nail down, but,
among others, comprise the Catholic Church, radical right and right-wing
parties, and movements against marriage equality. The counter-movements have
become particularly successful in the context of the crisis of liberal democracy
and democratic backsliding (Kováts, 2017; Krizsán and Roggeband, 2019b). These
actors have been attentive to new avenues for action. After the invention of the
European Citizens’ Initiative, the campaign ‘One of Us’ managed to collect the
required one million signatures to force public hearings and a Commission
response. The initiative officially claimed to organise around human embryonic
stem cells but actually consisted of anti-choice actors strongly supported by
the Catholic Church.4 The campaign caused open conflicts ahead of public
hearings in the European Parliament, with ‘One of Us’ organisers trying to
prevent opponents also being invited and outspoken conservative MEPs undermining
coalition-building with progressive women’s movements (Crespy and Parks, 2019).
After the public hearings, the Commission refused to take action as all the
ethical requirements proposed by the initiative would already have been in place
(Hedling and Meeuwise, 2015). Nevertheless, anti-gender mobilisation by
conservative, religious and nationalist actors has become increasingly visible
as they shower progressive MEPs with threatening emails. As a consequence of
this changing political environment and the weak gender equality profile of the
Commission under Barroso and Juncker, gender equality actors have moved towards
more
342 Handbook of feminist governance informal channels of participation,
particularly in the European Parliament, thereby avoiding polarisation and
conflict (Ahrens and Woodward, 2020). Another arena where opposition to gender
equality has become outspoken over recent years is that of combatting violence
against women and gender-based violence (Roggeband, 2021). This arena, which
previously had been promising, became contested not only by the EU merging and
cutting back specific funding programmes, but also by new, more conservative,
governments in member states, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe
(Krizsán and Roggeband, 2019a). While the political rhetoric often remained the
same, implementation and accountability were challenged, thereby undermining
legislation. More recently, the Istanbul Convention on Combating Violence
Against Women and Domestic Violence (signed in 2011) has become a focal point of
controversies in gender-based violence policies (Krizsán and Roggeband, Chapter
29 in this Handbook). Opposition to the Istanbul Convention is characterised by
a strong anti-gender rhetoric aiming at delegitimising the norm and undermining
its ratification by the EU (Berthet, 2022). Multilevel Governance and National
Trajectories Important for feminist governance are challenges originating from
the EU system of multilevel governance as such (Kenny and Verge, Chapter 6 in
this Handbook). Lang and Sauer (2016: 217) labelled this as ‘politics of scale’
characterised by ‘a messy set of multi-scalar and inter-scalar policy processes
in a plurality of spaces with many more entry and resistance points’ than in
member states. Engaging with the politics of scale allows us to decipher
different elements of agency and voice and informal spaces. The EU level allows
domestic feminist actors to counteract conservative gender regimes or to
increase their parliamentary representation. For instance, Irish women MEPs,
refused FEMM committee membership due to national debates around abortion and
party discipline, were able to promote gender equality in other policy fields
such as agriculture (Cullen, 2019). For women MEPs from South-Eastern Europe,
gender equality was less contested in the European Parliament, thereby
‘socialising’ them to act in favour of women’s interests rather than influencing
the parliament in a conservative direction (Chiva, 2019). Likewise, LGBT
movements in different European regions forged a unified voice by deliberately
utilising the notion of ‘Europe’ and related rights (Ayoub and Paternotte,
2014). Equally important to feminist governance is addressing how supranational
women’s organisations manage multilevel governance (Lang, 2014). The EWL is a
potential bottleneck between domestic and supranational levels: whether domestic
women’s organisations adapt or influence EWL positions often depends on matching
frames, individual leadership connections and simply geographic proximity
(Ahrens and Meier, 2019; Lafon, 2018). Furthermore, Schrama (2019) illustrates
severe imbalances between Western and Eastern EWL members, with the former rich
in human, financial and social capital, while the latter aim to compensate for
their lack of resources by linking up directly with the Commission. Recently, as
an effect of Brexit, British women’s organisations would have been excluded from
the EWL; this was prevented by changing the internal rules and emphasising
supranational ‘sticky networks’ (Minto, 2020). The change of rule potentially
indicates ‘a more systematic broadening of the EWL’s reach beyond the EU’ by
allowing for non-EU members, with Icelandic women’s organisations joining first
(Minto, 2020: 1599).
Velvet triangles and more 343 Simultaneously, conservative and anti-gender
governments – particularly but not only – in CEE member states started actively
supporting and even creating so-called GONGOs (government operated
non-governmental organisations) (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2019b). Such GONGOs have
started to side-line feminist and progressive women’s movements and have become
powerful counter-movements in coalition with their governments. The effects of
conservative government-led national organisations have also become visible in
the conflicts around the Istanbul Convention (Berthet, 2022), and the long-term
effects for supranational feminist alliances are still unknown.
CONCLUSION Feminist EU governance is characterised by promoting women’s
community-based participation in policymaking, with transnational women’s CSOs
and institution-transcending feminist alliances as core features. Feminist
actors have covered a wealth of issues and managed to put their footprint on EU
treaties, legislation and policies. Confronted with anti-gender mobilisation,
the growing importance of intersectional aspects and managing multilevel
governance, it remains to be seen how alliances will change and whether they can
be maintained to promote progressive gender equality policies. Future feminist
governance research would benefit from closer examination of certain
inter-institutional constellations. Previous alliances such as the velvet
triangle have been shaken up, with gender equality currently institutionalised
in different places (van der Vleuten, 2019). Whether this leads to new
multi-layered velvet triangles deserves attention. Furthermore, there is a
research gap regarding the relationship of the European Parliament and the
Council to feminist and intersectional CSOs. Despite the European Parliament
gaining power vis-à-vis the Council, exploring linkages between CSOs and
parliamentary groups or the impact of anti-gender mobilisation on Council
positions is in its infancy. Unquestionably, the history of supranational EU
gender equality alliances illustrates the liveliness of feminist actors inside
and outside institutions and their fascinating ability to adjust to new
settings.5
NOTES 1. Initiatives collecting more than one million signatures in at least
seven member states require the European Parliament and the Commission to hold
public hearings; the latter must adopt a formal response. 2. The Council
presidency rotates among EU member states every six months. The current,
outgoing and incoming presidency together form the so-called EU presidency trio
which prepares a common rolling agenda for an 18-month period. 3. Cf. https:// e
c .europa . eu/ commission/ commissioners/ 2019 -2024/ dalli/ a nnouncements/
union -equality -first -year -actions -and -achievements _en. 4. This informal
coalition is also closely linked to the World Congress of Families (WCF), an
international event using the frame of the ‘natural family’ to hide radically
conservative views on gender and sexual equality (Pavan, 2020). 5. Funding
statement: this chapter has received funding from the Horizon 2020 European
Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant project (771676).
344 Handbook of feminist governance
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28. Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe: invisibility, inclusivity and
affirmation Serena D’Agostino
INTRODUCTION Race-only and gender-only approaches are a particular form of
violence that excludes black women’s voices from the discussion of power and
politics. Whether out of neglect or deliberate omission, it is a form of
silencing when others do not pay attention to their specific cries for justice
and equality. (Beaman and Brown, 2019: 230)
Intersectional feminist groups in Europe are not new to mobilising and
organising themselves politically. European Black-feminist and Afrofeminist
political actions have been, for instance, crucial in the anti-slavery,
anti-colonial and socialist politics on the continent (Emejulu and Sobande,
2019: 6). Yet, intersectional feminist activisms – of which Black- and
Afro-feminisms are key, although not sole, expressions – have been mostly
invisible in, and invisibilised by, both European politics and academia. In this
chapter, I engage with broader debates on feminist governance, its ‘immense
emancipatory achievements’ and ‘terrible mistakes’ (Halley et al., 2018) from an
intersectional activisms perspective. Focusing on the activist roots of the
concept, which arose from the women’s movements of the 1970s, I critically
reflect on the role of intersectional feminist activisms – such as Black
feminism, Afrofeminism and Romani feminism – in contemporary European
multi-layered politics and power structures. In particular, I discuss whether
and to what extent intersectional feminist groups are actually part of those
‘feminists [who] now walk the halls of power’ (Halley et al., 2018) and how they
participate in governance, knowledge production and diffusion processes. As
illustrated by Emejulu and Sobande in one of the very few works on Black
feminism in contemporary Europe, ‘[l]ocating Black feminist and Afrofeminist
politics in Europe is provocative because it is radical counter-storytelling
about whose knowledge counts, whose politics matter and who gets to be part of
the “European story”’ (Emejulu and Sobande, 2019: 6, emphasis added).
Understanding how feminism participates in European governance and who are the
feminists that are actually incorporated into state, state-like and
state-affiliated power (see Halley et al., 2018) thus requires further
exploration of this ‘radical counter-storytelling’ and the invisibilisation of
intersectional activisms. On the one hand, a single-strand approach to
marginalisation, oppression and inferiorisation has been predominant in both
mainstream mobilisations and policymaking in Europe. Namely, social justice
movements, civil society organisations and equality bodies have traditionally
emerged and developed around one specific form of discrimination – such as
racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and so on. On the other hand, European
social movement and political intersectionality scholars have only recently
started engaging with intersectional activisms. Social movement scholars have
conventionally focused on movements mobilising around a single category of
oppression and promoting a unified collective identity, such as women’s and
anti-racist movements (see, for 347
348 Handbook of feminist governance instance, Fella and Ruzza, 2012).
Intersectionality scholars, predominantly within the field of gender studies,
have mostly examined intersectionality institutionalisation – namely, how and to
what extent intersectionality is integrated into political structures, such as
(equality) policies and institutions (see, among others, Krizsán et al., 2012;
Lombardo and Rolandsen Agustín, 2011; Lombardo and Verloo, 2009; Rolandsen
Agustín, 2013; Verloo, 2006). Academic attention to collective action located
at the intersection of several oppressions and minoritisations in Europe has
increased in recent years. Among the many factors that have contributed to this
shift in focus, two are particularly relevant for the scope of this chapter.
First, the re-appropriation of intersectionality by activists positioned at the
crossroads of multiple marginalities and movements. This re-appropriation has
resulted in the ‘proliferation and dissemination of intersectionality in
activists’ and organisations’ discourses’ (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 2), as well
as their increased visibility and participation in European politics, both
nationally and transnationally; second, the growing recognition, resonance and
articulation of intersectionality as a normative goal and mode of mobilisations
(Irvine et al., 2019: 2). Such recognition has brought new challenges in
conceptualisation and definitions, as well as new tensions and confrontations
between intersectionality as collective identity, self-organising and
self-representation, and intersectionality as a strategy and repertoire for
inclusivity (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 291). In this chapter, I define
intersectional (feminist) activisms as those forms of mobilisations organising
around multiple intersecting oppressions and minoritisations that seek social
justice through (radical) transformative change in social and political
structures. In particular, I discuss intersectional feminist movements in Europe
by focusing on two key issues. First, I address the invisibility of
intersectional activisms in European society, politics and academia. I do so by
bringing in examples from contemporary European Black feminism, Afrofeminism and
Romani feminism. For the sake of clarity, the distinction between Black feminism
and Afrofeminism in Europe is not clear-cut. The similarities between the two
are indeed manifold and specific characteristics depend on historical legacies
and the sociopolitical contexts in which they emerged and developed. Whilst
European Black feminism is usually associated with Black feminist movements in
the UK, Afrofeminism mostly concerns Black women’s activisms in Continental
Europe, whose action is predominantly grounded ‘in the particular and specific
histories of colonialism, racial formation and gender hierarchy of the various
European nation-states in which Black women live’ (Emejulu and Sobande, 2019:
5). In this chapter, I use Afrofeminism to refer to Black women and women of
colour in francophone Europe – namely, France and Belgium. Although
intersectional feminist organising in Europe includes a much broader variety of
mobilisation actors – such as Muslim feminists, queers of colour, disabled
feminists, and so on – I only focus here on intersectional activisms
particularly mobilising around issues of race, gender and class. Second, I
engage in critical reflection about the ongoing (academic and activist) debate
on identity-based intersectionality and inclusionary intersectionality, and ask
‘how intersectionality is and should be deployed’ (Bilge, 2013: 420) when
approaching social movements from a critical perspective. In order to push such
a discussion forward, I identify some common patterns among the three kinds of
intersectional feminisms mentioned above (i.e. Black, Afro- and Romani feminism)
– such as, interstitial politics, contestation from within, intersectional
resistance, agency and affirmation. This pattern exercise has mostly an
analytical scope and is not meant to create a monolithic bloc where all
intersectional activisms converge. Likewise, I do not intend in any manner to
nullify the specificities of each activist group, nor to essentialise
Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe 349 activists’ identities and
intersectional claims. As I have clarified elsewhere (D’Agostino, 2021),
contemporary intersectional activisms are a highly heterogeneous form of
mobilisations, which differs significantly depending on the context where it
emerges and operates, its mission, strategies and repertoires, and activists’
lived experiences and social locations. By way of example, divergent political
views exist among Romani women activists engaging in self-organising and
mobilisations. Such divergences can be attributed to multiple factors, such as
the so-called ‘generational gap’ (see Izsák, 2009) and the tensions between more
or less progressive ideologies (see, among others, Corradi, 2018; Jovanović et
al., 2015). In order to avoid any essentialised understanding of European Black,
Afro- and Romani feminism, I build on Emejulu and Sobande (2019) to broadly
define them as radical praxes for liberation and affirmation that identify
racialised women (e.g. women of both African and Romani descent, as well as
European citizens or migrants) as agents of change. In the next section, I
address the first of the two key issues I have referred to in the previous
paragraphs – namely, the invisibility of intersectional activisms in European
society, politics and academia. I then delve into more critical reflections
about intersectionality as collective identity and intersectionality as a
repertoire for inclusivity. I end this chapter with some concluding remarks
about intersectional agency and affirmation and the need for re-politicising
intersectionality in Europe by bringing it back to its activist roots.
INTERSECTIONAL INVISIBILITY AND ACTIVISMS ‘IN THE CRACKS’ Established in 2014 by
Romanian Roma actresses Mihaela Drăgan and Zita Moldovan, Giuvlipen is the
first independent Roma feminist theatre company in Romania.1 Combining the
Romani word for woman, giuvli, and the suffix -ipen, which stands for crowd, the
term Giuvlipen is ‘the closest Romani language gets to “feminism”’ (Erizanu,
2017). Giuvlipen is one of the many examples of activists’ use of art as an act
of political resistance and affirmation. It was conceived by Romnja2 feminist
activists as their ‘main weapon to fight for feminist and anti-racist goals’
(Kokoladze, 2016), as well as to make their art and activisms visible and strive
for self-representation. Although Romania has been one of the pioneers of Romani
gender politics and Romani feminism in Europe, Romanian Romani women’s
intersectional activisms is still disregarded by many. In an interview to
Hysteria Magazine a few years after the creation of Giuvlipen, Mihaela Drăgan
declared: […] it was quite a surprise to observe through our audiences how
invisible Roma women actually were and how the simple fact of our existence was
a novelty. (Kokoladze, 2016; emphasis added)
The year 2014 also marked an important time for the visibility of Afrofeminism
in France, with the creation of the feminist collective Mwasi.3 Mwasi emerged in
a moment when French Afrofeminists were receiving high media attention. The
renowned documentary Ouvrir La Voix by Amandine Gay on francophone Black women
and their experiences of discrimination in France and Belgium was – for instance
– also produced in this year (released in 2017). Some white feminist scholars
celebrate the creation of the Mwasi collective as ‘the event mark[ing] the first
time, in France, that the term intersectionality was appropriated as a feminist
identity’ and stress the key role of intersectionality ‘in the emergence and
development of new forms
350 Handbook of feminist governance of feminist activisms which aim to
represent the needs and interests of multiply-marginalised women, especially
with respect to race’ (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 1). Interestingly, Mwasi’s
activists insist on emphasising that Afrofeminism has been building resistance
against patriarchal, racist, capitalist, ableist and colonial French society
since the beginning of the 20th century (Awori Othieno and Davis, 2019). By
doing so, they contest the idea that the movement is ‘new’, as they see it as a
way for invisibilising and erasing ‘Black women’s long history of activisms and
theorizing in France’, as well as ‘insult[ing] the intellectual labour of
[their] foremothers’ (Awori Othieno and Davis, 2019: 51). These examples concern
two different forms of contemporary intersectional feminist activisms in Europe,
namely Romani feminism in Romania and Afrofeminism in France. Despite the very
different social and political contexts in which these activisms occur, as well
as their distinctive characteristics, political views, strategies and
repertoires of action, both struggle with ‘intersectional invisibility’
(Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach, 2008). There has been a lack of recognition as
political subjects and agents of change by both civil society actors (such as
mainstream movements and single-strand organisations) and national and
supranational institutions.4 Intersectional invisibility catches
multiply-minoritised activists ‘in between’ – namely, in the ‘empty space’
(Kruckenberg, 2010) emerging from the division between distinct movements (e.g.
feminist and anti-racist movements), policy fields (e.g. gender equality and
anti-discrimination) and human rights regimes (e.g. women’s and minority
rights). Single-strand movements in Europe – such as those advocating for
(majority) women’s rights and those fighting against racial discrimination –
have traditionally disregarded the specific demands of intersectional activist
groups.5 As I have observed elsewhere (see D’Agostino, 2015, 2018, 2021), the
case of Romani women’s activisms in some Central and Eastern European countries
is emblematic. In Romania, for instance, women’s and feminist movements emerging
after the fall of the communist regime did not include in their missions and
strategies the peculiar intersectional condition of minority women, such as the
Romnja (see also Oprea, 2004). Similarly, the Roma rights movement and related
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) mushrooming in the region6 in the
aftermath of the so-called EU Eastern enlargement (Kóczé, 2012; Ram, 2011) were
marked by the invisibility of gender politics and lack of intersectional
thinking. In particular, the broader Roma movement considered Romnja activists,
especially those declaring themselves as feminists, as both divisive and
contentious (see Jovanović et al., 2015; Schultz, 2012). On the one hand, Romani
women activists were suspected of causing an internal breach within an already
fragmented movement. On the other hand, they were blamed for diffusing a
negative image of the Roma vis-à-vis the majority society both at the national
and international levels (D’Agostino, 2018). Thus, Romani feminism emerged from
and developed within the space between the women’s and Roma rights movements. In
doing so, Romani feminists made a creative usage of intersectionality, which
allowed them to transform negative into positive (Braidotti, 2010). Namely, they
used their intersectional position to translate intersectional invisibility into
intersectional resistance and affirmation (particularly interesting in this
respect is the case of Romanian Romnja – see D’Agostino, 2018, 2021). Similar
analyses have been conducted by scholars of Black feminism worldwide. In her
work on US-based Black feminist organisations, Springer (2001: 155, emphasis
added) observes that ‘Black feminists’ voices and visions fell between the
cracks of the civil rights and women’s movements.’ From the ‘fissures’ that
developed within the two movements, Black feminists then crafted their
‘collective identity and basis for organizing that reflected
Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe 351 the intersecting nature of
Black womanhood. Black feminists were the first activists to theorize and act
upon the intersections of race, gender, and class’ (Springer, 2001: 156).
Springer refers to social movement intersectionality operating in the cracks
between oppression and the spaces between movements as ‘interstitial politics’
or a ‘politics in the cracks’ (as cited in Broad-Wright, 2017: 45). Such an
interstitial politics applies to European Black- and Afrofeminist activisms as
well. Black- and Afrofeminists in Europe have indeed engaged with ‘revolutionary
political action’ so as to translate their intersectional invisibilisation and
silencing into ‘creative and dynamic production of thinking and living
otherwise’ (Emejulu and Sobande, 2019: 3). In this respect, the case of
contemporary Afrofeminism in Belgium is illustrative.7 Although some believe
that Belgium is currently witnessing ‘an Afrofeminist resurgence’ (Grégoire and
Ntambwe, 2019: 65), the young Belgian Afrofeminist movement is still contested
at different political levels, both in terms of relevance and legitimacy. On the
one hand, the movement experiences some contestation from within – namely, from
those Afro-women activists who do not identify as feminists (mostly because they
associate the term with white female domination) and/or do not connect with the
‘new subversive vocabulary [used] to articulate Afro-women’s daily lived
experiences of gendered racism’ – such as, negrophobia, misogynoir,
whitemensplaining, male privilege, and so on (Grégoire and Ntambwe, 2019: 70).
On the other hand, both the mainstream (predominantly white) Belgian feminist
movement and the male-led Afro-Belgian organisations tend to engage with a sort
of ‘soft resistance’ towards the growing Afrofeminist movement. While the former
considers it a danger to the universality of the broader feminist movement, the
latter tends not to take its political agenda seriously. As for Romani
feminists, accused by some members of the Roma rights movement of being
gadje-ised8 (D’Agostino, 2021: 182), Belgian Afrofeminists are labelled by some
Afro-Belgian male activists as ‘black women contaminated by white feminism’
(Grégoire and Ntambwe, 2019: 71). For clarity, the aforesaid analogy between
American and European Black- and Afrofeminisms is limited to this specific
discussion about the ‘politics in the cracks’ and does not intend in any manner
to universalise the Black American experience nor to contribute to importing
American race politics to Europe. As observed by Emejulu and Sobande (2019:
4–5), by applying the dominant discourses of racial, gender and intersectional
politics of North American Black feminists to Europe, we would risk further
silencing the particular experiences of oppression and histories of resistance
and liberation of European Black- and Afrofeminists. This is obviously not the
intention of this chapter. On the contrary, by focusing on Black, Afro- and
Romani feminist movements in Europe through the experiences of activists, it
aims to foster reflection about (re)positioning intersectional activisms from
the margins to the very centre of European politics and academia. Intersectional
activisms need to be recentred in intersectional studies (Broad-Wright, 2017:
41), especially in (Continental) Europe, where ‘there is a certain propensity …
to discuss intersectionality without much empirical grounding’ (Bilge, 2013:
411). European feminist scholarship on intersectionality is indeed criticised
for contributing to de-politicising and whitening intersectionality (Bilge,
2013, 2014). In particular, it is blamed for detaching intersectionality from
its activist roots and ‘confining [it] to an academic exercise of
metatheoretical contemplation’ (Bilge, 2013: 405). Thus, it contributes to
neutralising the critical potential of intersectionality as a tool for attaining
social justice. European intersectionality scholars are also criticised for
diffusing a ‘narrative [that] puts gender at the core of the
352 Handbook of feminist governance intersectional project and leaves out the
constitutive role of race’ (Bilge, 2014: 1), thereby erasing the origins of
intersectionality in Black feminist thought and activisms. Such a ‘whitening of
intersectionality’ reinforces a Eurocentric model of knowledge production, where
the contributions of those who have multiple minority identities and are
marginalised social actors are overlooked or excluded from debate (Bilge, 2013:
412). In order to overcome such invisibility in knowledge production,
intersectional feminist scholars in Europe have had ‘to create [them]selves from
scratch in environments that usually construe [them] exclusively as activists
and/or research subjects and never imagine them as scholars who inhabit a space
where knowledge is produced’ (Kóczé, 2018: 112, emphasis added). In doing so,
they have had to engage with a (radical) ‘creativity of resistance’ (Emejulu and
Sobande, 2019: 6) by transgressing the constructed binaries between racism and
sexism, and between activisms and scholarship (Kóczé, 2018).
INTERSECTIONAL MOBILISATIONS BETWEEN INCLUSIVITY AND AFFIRMATION Discussions
over intersectional invisibility and activisms ‘in the cracks’ show how
intersectionality can actually act as a ‘double-edged sword’ (Rolandsen Agustín,
2013) for those activists positioned at the crossroads of multiple
marginalities. On the one hand, it can contribute to making them invisible as
significant interlocutors in the political arena. On the other hand, it can
serve as a tool for affirming new visions and strategies and crafting new
mobilisations spaces (on this point, see Beaman and Brown, 2019).
Intersectionality moulds social and political mobilisations in diverse ways.
Existing European research on the role of intersectionality in social movements
has mostly addressed the issue in terms of politics of inclusivity. Gender and
sexuality scholars (Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016; Lépinard, 2014) have asked
whether and to what extent traditional social movements are inclusive of
marginalised minority groups, and have developed concepts such as
‘intersectional recognition’ and ‘intersectional solidarity’ (Lépinard, 2014)
to define the interaction between the former and the latter. Evans and
Lépinard’s recent work, Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements:
Confronting Privileges (2020), actually originates from scholarly conversations
around inclusivity.9 Extending this initial scope to broader discussions around
the concept of privilege, Evans and Lépinard explore three ways in which
intersectionality operates within contemporary feminist and queer movements,
namely as a collective identity, as a strategy for forming coalitions, and as a
repertoire for inclusivity. The first way in which intersectionality is
practised relates to the need of multiply minoritised groups to self-organise
around a specific intersectional identity in order to represent oneself.
Claiming intersectionality as an identity and collective action strategy brings
us back to the very origins of the concept, namely its activist roots (Bilge,
2013, 2014; Broad-Wright, 2017; Evans and Lépinard, 2020). The second approach
addresses intersectionality as a coalition-building strategy among different
mobilisations actors and at different political levels. On the one hand,
coalitional intersectionality has the potential to foster descriptive and
substantive representation of multiply minoritised groups. By way of example,
Romani women activists have often emphasised the importance of having alliances
‘on different levels’ and in ‘multiple arenas’ (Jovanović et al., 2015) – that
is, both within the wider Romani movement and with other advocacy groups, such
as non-Romani women/feminist constellations – for
Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe 353 their own recognition as
relevant political interlocutors.10 On the other hand, it implies the risk of
co-optation and asymmetric relations of power amongst those taking part in
coalitions (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 8–9). The third kind refers to
intersectionality as a strategy and repertoire for inclusivity and solidarity
used by activists to transform their organisations. In particular, the focus
here is on the composition of (mainstream) movement organisations – namely,
whether and to what extent they are inclusive and representative of multiply
marginalised activist groups. The logic of inclusivity significantly builds on
the dichotomy between established (mainstream) organisations and grassroots
(minority) ‘constituencies’. It suggests that the more embedded a minority
‘constituency’ is within the wider mobilisations framework, the stronger is its
agency and substantive representation. The predominance of the inclusivity-based
approach among intersectional mobilisations scholars in Europe – where
intersectionality is mostly used ‘as a proxy for being inclusive’ (Evans and
Lépinard, 2020: 289) – fosters reflection on ‘how intersectionality is and
should be deployed’ (Bilge, 2013: 420) when approaching social movements from a
critical perspective. In particular, it opens up the debate about activisms
which centre on intersectionality as a collective identity and tool for
resistance and affirmation, and inclusionary intersectionality. On the one hand,
the logic of inclusivity contributes to furthering empirical and theoretical
research on how contemporary mobilisations for social justice address
difference. On the other hand, it entails two main limitations. First, by
assuming that the more inclusive a traditional (single-strand) movement is, the
better represented are its minority ‘constituencies’, it risks fostering
asymmetric relations of power between the two – as it is up to the former ‘to
decide’ how and/or to what extent the latter should be ‘included’ (D’Agostino,
2021). Second, by centring the analysis on mainstream movements, it positions
intersectional minority voices at a subordinate level of investigation. It thus
risks ‘encourag[ing] research on intersectional mobilizations which reproduces
the same hegemonic discourses and dynamics of power that intersectionality aims
to challenge’ (D’Agostino, 2021: 173). Intersectional feminist (minority)
activists and scholars in Europe have often opposed this approach and proposed a
distinct narrative and logic of analysis focused on intersectional agency and
intersectional resistance. The recently published work The Romani Women’s
Movement: Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe (Kóczé et al.,
2018) is, for instance, a collaborative project through which a group of Romani
and non-Romani activists and scholars reveal how gender-related inequalities
have informed and shaped the agenda and strategies of the broader Roma rights
movement, and how Romani women and queer activists have actually contributed to
gendering Romani politics. As I have observed elsewhere, the emphasis here is on
the fact that ‘intersectional minority activists have agency, irrespective of
their belonging (or not) to a broader consolidated movement. As agents of
change, they are able to translate their experiences of structural inequalities
into political battles and to challenge mainstreamed agendas’ (D’Agostino, 2021:
173). Intersectional activisms can then arise as political phenomena per se –
thus entailing a multitude of ‘new’ power dynamics, alliances, voices, issues
and sites. Previous empirical studies have already confirmed such an
observation. In her research on Black and Chicana feminisms in America’s second
wave, Benita Roth (2004) shows, for instance, how social movement
intersectionality does not only happen within one movement, or ‘in the cracks’
between movements, but in certain circumstances manifests as multiple
stand-alone movements and finally translates into distinct feminisms
(Broad-Wright, 2017: 45). As elucidated by Beaman and Brown (2019: 227) in their
recent work on Black women’s activism and #BlackLivesMatter
354 Handbook of feminist governance in the United States and France, ‘it is
black women’s identities and experiences that motivate their advocacy and
activism [and] how they enact intersectionality.’ Building on their own
intersectional lived experiences and unique ways of understanding the world
(Collins, 1990), Black women activists thus shape their political behaviour – in
both formal and informal politics – and become agents of change and capable
political actors. In doing so, they ‘impact the system and social structures
that seek to oppress and marginalize them at every turn’ (Beaman and Brown,
2019: 228). Understanding Black women’s experiences, subjectivities and social
positionings is then key to understanding their intersectional activisms as
well. This brings us back to our initial reflection on the tensions and
confrontations between intersectionality as collective identity and inclusionary
intersectionality. Namely, it emphasises how crucial such confrontations are for
‘ensur[ing] that intersectionality retains its critical potential to challenge
privileges’ (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 291) – thus leading to (radically)
transformative politics and social justice. Intersectional minority activists –
such as Black, Afro- and Romani feminists – employ identity-based
intersectionality and self-organising as tools for claiming their agency and
affirming themselves as political actors. Their practices of intersectionality
are marked by everyday resistance, self-representation and the creation of ‘safe
spaces’ that often consist of non-mixed working environments, as well as slogans
such as ‘nothing about us without us’ (see Bogdán et al., 2015) and ‘those who
fight for us, without us, are against us’ (see Awori Othieno and Davis, 2019).
These practices show that some of the key concepts related to intersectional
activisms – like ‘inclusivity’, ‘coalitions’ and ‘alliances’ – are not
necessarily acknowledged by intersectional feminists as elements of ‘good
activisms’ per se (see Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 289). In a recent interview for
the magazine Médor, Belgian Afrofeminist activist Betel Mabille has, for
instance, made a clear distinction between allié (ally) and complice
(accomplice). In Mabille’s words, while the former designates an individual who
is not directly discriminated against but nonetheless supports somebody else’s
fight against discrimination, the latter implies a step forward. Mere solidarity
is not enough; it is necessary to actively participate in such a fight by
putting oneself in danger when injustices occur and building bridges with others
(Traub and Engels, 2020: 57).11 This serves as an example to further emphasise
how crucial the voices, experiences and positionalities of intersectional
(minority) activists and scholars actually are in the process of knowledge
production concerning contemporary intersectional feminist activisms in Europe
and beyond.
CONCLUDING REMARKS In this chapter, I have discussed intersectional feminist
activisms in contemporary Europe. In particular, I have focused on two key
debates. The first concerns the invisibility of intersectional activisms in
European society, politics and academia. The second refers to the tensions and
confrontations between intersectionality as collective identity and
intersectionality as a repertoire for inclusivity. In doing so, I have used
examples from intersectional forms of mobilisations that politically organise
around issues of race, gender and class – namely, European Black, Afro- and
Romani feminisms. The discussions presented in this chapter have shown that
despite the growing political and scholarly attention to intersectional
mobilising, intersectionality ‘is still far from the norm in social movements or
in social movement scholarship’ (Irvine et al., 2019: 2). Whilst in contexts
Intersectional feminist activisms in Europe 355 such as the USA, Canada and the
UK, the ‘normalisation’ of intersectionality is ongoing and ‘good activist
practices are … assessed in relation to this norm’, in most continental European
countries – such as Belgium, Germany and France – ‘it does not seem to
constitute yet a shared norm’ (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 290, emphasis added).
In order for a substantial normalisation to occur, both scholars and activists
should engage with a process of re-politicisation of intersectionality. Namely,
they should contribute to refocusing intersectionality on its activist roots and
relocating race and racism at the core of contemporary feminist intersectional
politics in Europe. To do so, activists positioned at the crossroads of multiple
marginalities and movements should be recognised and valued as political
subjects and agents of change who confront and combat the interlocking systems
of power shaping their lives (Bilge, 2013: 410). Recentring intersectional
activisms in intersectionality studies (Broad-Wright, 2017) thus implies a
significant reappraisal of intersectional agency, whereby the focus should move
to activists’ identities, lived experiences and social locations. As observed by
Beaman and Brown (2019: 231), ‘as intersectionality has become more mainstream
and theoretical, it has moved away from the black feminist standpoint tradition
of highlighting experiences.’ Going back to such a tradition is thus essential.
Through the reappropriation of intersectionality, contemporary European Black,
Afro- and Romani feminists have been engaging with a creative process of
transformation (Braidotti, 2010) that denotes a radical repositioning of the
social and political actors facing multiple forms of minoritisation. In this
chapter, I have explored the possibilities of a shift in the analytical focus
from the predominant emphasis on inclusivity towards a new politics of
affirmation, whereby intersectional minority activists move from the periphery
to the very centre of the enquiry. In order to foster a ‘critical turn’ to the
study of contemporary intersectional mobilisations in Europe and to contribute
to a ‘radical’ change in the way knowledge is currently produced, ‘further
research should therefore explore intersectional activism as a new activist
repertoire’ (Evans and Lépinard, 2020: 291) and the contributions of scholars
with multiple minority identities should become central to academic and
political debates around intersectionality.
NOTES 1. See https:// giuvlipen .com. 2. The term ‘Romnja’ stands for ‘Romani
women’ (pl.) in Romanes, i.e. the Romani language. 3. Mwasi means ‘woman’ in
Lingala, a Bantu language mostly spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
More information on the Mwasi Afrofeminist Collective is available at https://
www .mwasicollectif .org/ en/ . 4. As for the case of Romani feminism in
Romania, concrete examples of single-strand institutional and non-institutional
political actors and their interactions with intersectional feminist activists
are illustrated in D’Agostino (2015, 2018). 5. For instance, previous studies on
Romani women’s activism (see D’Agostino, 2018) have shown that Brussels-based
Roma and women’s advocacy groups and organisations, such as the European Roma
Information Office (ERIO), the European Roma Grassroots Organizations Network
(ERGO), the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) and the European Women Lobby
(EWL), have mostly addressed the rights of Romani women and their socioeconomic
empowerment as minor questions, subordinated to the core issue of their advocacy
work, i.e. Roma inclusion, anti-racism and gender equality. 6. The use of terms
such as Central and Eastern European ‘region’ and the identification of common
‘regional patterns’ has a practical purpose and does not aim to foster any
regional homogeneity
356 Handbook of feminist governance discourse on gender politics in former
European socialist states. To fully understand the emergence and development of
particular forms of feminist collective action across different countries, as
well as (context-specific) challenges to intersectional feminisms, the focus on
domestic specificities is indeed essential in the study of European politics in
general, and Central and Eastern European politics in particular (on this point,
see D’Agostino, 2021: 183–4). 7. The Belgian Afrofeminist movement is mainly
francophone and has recently (its landmark year being 2017) become visible in
the wider cultural and activist arenas in Belgium thanks to a new generation of
Afro-women activists particularly engaged with issues of postcoloniality,
intersectionality and self-determination. For a more in-depth analysis, see
Grégoire and Ntambwe (2019). 8. The term gadje is used by Romani people to
indicate those who do not belong to the Roma communities, such as (but not
exclusively) majority group members. This chapter refers to gadje-isation as the
process of influence and/or the transfer of cultural norms, values and
behaviours from the gadje to the Roma (see D’Agostino 2021, endnote 18). 9. This
edited volume results from the workshop ‘Addressing Intersectionality: Social
Movements and the Politics of Inclusivity’, organised by Evans and Lépinard in
2018 in the framework of the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops (Nicosia, 10–14
April 2018). 10. Specific examples of the political advantages for Romanian
Romnja activism deriving from intersectional coalitions and alliances are
discussed in D’Agostino (2018). 11. Own translation into English of original
text in French reads: Allié est un mot militant désignant des personnes non
discriminées qui décident de soutenir une cause. Sauf que ce terme est devenu
tellement superficiel qu’on utilise le mot complice pour insister: ce n’est pas
juste se montrer solidaire et puis ne rien faire. C’est se mettre en danger face
aux injustices et faire le relais avec les autres.
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29. Feminist governance in the field of violence against women: the case of the
Istanbul Convention Andrea Krizsán and Conny Roggeband
INTRODUCTION Gender-based violence against women is a fundamental gender
equality problem that is seen both as a cause and as an effect of gender
inequality. While violence against women (VAW) is a relatively late addition to
the spectrum of gender equality policies, it is nevertheless a fascinating field
to look at from the point of view of feminist governance. On the one hand, it is
interesting because of the logics of the issue, the ways in which it challenges
mainstream policy thinking and becomes a prominent part of a feminist
transformative agenda. On the other hand, it is interesting because of the
innovations in governance which it has facilitated, and the central role of
feminist activism in developing these. While the governance of VAW is thus a
critical issue for feminist governance, given its transformative proposals it
can also become a field of contestation. In this chapter, we discuss the
governance of violence against women in three parts. First, we discuss the
specificity of the issue in terms of governance and the governance responses to
it developed by feminists in local and national contexts. Second, we discuss it
as a specific transnational governance issue. Finally, we show how and why the
feminist governance of VAW has become a major terrain for recent ‘anti-gender’
mobilisations in Europe. In particular, we examine the resistance to the 2011
Council of Europe Convention on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence
(the Istanbul Convention). The Convention is currently the most comprehensive
international legal and policy instrument addressing VAW. It builds extensively
on previous international norms as well as lessons from policy pioneers in the
field and as such it embodies the most up-to-date feminist knowledge on
combatting VAW.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A SPECIFIC FEMINIST GOVERNANCE CHALLENGE Protection
from VAW is a relative latecomer to the feminist agenda and to human rights.
However, once it reached the international human rights agenda, the issue spread
at a remarkable pace and scale (Htun and Weldon, 2012). Feminist advocacy has
been the driver of this change (Htun and Weldon, 2018; Mazur, 2002) and also the
main protagonist in developing and putting in place policy interventions to
combat VAW both at the national and the international level. This section looks
at a few of the most prominent feminist innovations introduced in the process
aiming to improve responses to VAW and the consequences of these innovations for
meeting feminist objectives. 359
360 Handbook of feminist governance Feminist activists located in different
domains and policy levels have been instrumental in reforming criminal law and
codifying a variety of new crimes that capture forms of VAW and gender
discrimination. These include the recognition of marital rape and domestic
violence, reframing of rape from a crime of property or morality into crimes
against persons, their bodily and sexual integrity, criminalisation of stalking
and sexual harassment (MacKinnon, 1979; Zippel, 2006), or recognising the link
between rape and genocide in international law (Russell-Brown, 2003). In
addition, feminist actors developed innovative services and policy interventions
directed at survivors of violence, but also attempted to mainstream feminist
thinking in wider governance models. Specific forms of intervention were at the
core of the early waves of feminist mobilisation engaging with VAW. The first
waves of mobilisation engaging specifically with VAW took the form of shelter
movements and self-help movements (Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Elman, 2003;
Matthews, 1994; Schechter, 1982; Weldon, 2002). At the core of these movements
was, on the one hand, the articulation and recognition of the problem of VAW as
a socially cross-cutting issue that affected women universally; on the other
hand, the attempt to provide support and empowerment to victims of violence
(Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Edwards, 1987). These early initiatives set up
innovative services and strategies to tackle and denounce VAW, such as shelter
services, self-help groups, speak outs, rape crisis centres and ‘take back the
night’ marches from later in the 1970s. These activities were intended to
achieve recognition for the problem, but also to provide support and empowerment
to survivors largely autonomously from states, where states were perceived as
hostile, patriarchal and reluctant to engage with violence occurring in what was
seen as the private sphere at that time (Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Matthews,
1994). The community-based and empowerment-driven shelter and crisis
intervention models developed during these early years along with different
rituals for presenting testimony (such as tribunals or speak outs or marches)
and self-help groups. Their added value was in providing services to women while
also serving as political arenas, where social transformative action could be
undertaken through feminist empowerment. These early initiatives stood at the
foundation of challenging the sharp division between the private and the public,
and asserting the private as political and as potential location for abuse of
women’s rights. While the early years of feminist engagement with VAW in some
countries were marked by a rhetoric and practice of autonomy from states, as
awareness concerning violence against women increased and generated more demand
for support, state involvement became inevitable. Models developed by women’s
organisations became the standards for similar institutions now funded and
increasingly also run by state institutions (Elman, 2003; Walker, 1990). Some of
the initial services moved from full collectives to hybrid models (see Chapter 9
in this Handbook). As state actors took centre stage in policies addressing
violence against women, the specific feminist elements of empowerment and
transformation were increasingly threatened by bureaucratic and neoliberal state
operations. In the US context, analysis showed how feminist elements of
intervention were replaced by an individualist, therapeutic notion of
intervention (Bumiller, 2008) in line with principles of the neoliberal state.
Another innovative feminist contribution to governance modes was the coordinated
community intervention model and perpetrator programmes developed initially in
the early 1980s in Duluth, Minnesota (Hester and Lilley, 2014; Shepard and
Pence, 1999). These programmes aimed to move beyond the shelter-based protection
model to a coordinated intervention model
Feminist governance in the field of violence against women 361 in which
victim-centred intervention is secured by the coordinated action of all
stakeholders, including police, prosecutors, health care, social services,
probation, child protection and women’s rights groups, and other civil society
groups representing locally vulnerable populations (Shepard and Pence, 1999;
Walby et al., 2015). Women’s rights groups had a particularly important role to
play in keeping the victim-centred approach and mainstreaming feminist
perspectives into intervention modes (Martin, 2007; Walby et al., 2015). As
such, coordinated community responses can also be seen as mechanisms that
mainstream the feminist approach to intervention and counteract the
appropriation of VAW interventions by alternative policy logics. The other
element of the Duluth programme that contributed to establishing a feminist
logic of intervention into VAW was the targeted perpetrator programmes geared to
address power and control mechanisms underlying the logic of violence against
women (Hester and Lilley, 2014). These programmes were geared towards male
perpetrators rather than protecting women and aimed to transform stereotypical
and power-driven attitudes and behaviours, rather than putting the emphasis on
the traditional criminal intervention of sanctioning. While the efficiency of
these perpetrator programmes is discussed especially if reliant on self-referral
and not made mandatory (Stark, 2007), and the perceived diversion of public
funding from chronically underfunded women’s services towards treating men makes
them controversial, overall, they are considered as one of the successful
feminist models of intervention that disrupted previous modes of thinking about
violence (Hester and Lilley, 2014). Finally, feminist transnational advocacy
also successfully framed VAW as a human rights issue (Keck and Sikkink, 1998).
The process not only resulted in a series of new international documents, as
described in the next section of this chapter, but fundamentally changed human
rights thinking. While the traditional human rights paradigm considered states
as the main perpetrators of human rights violations, the feminist approach to
VAW, and later children’s rights advocacy, directed the attention to the role of
private actors, such as members of the family, the immediate community or in any
case people known by the victims as the main perpetrators (Edwards, 2011). Even
if states were not directly involved in perpetrating such abuse they had
responsibility to address it. Achieving this paradigm shift along with
mainstreaming references to women’s rights more generally, and VAW more
specifically in international human rights governance, was a major success of
feminist transnational advocacy (Kelly, 2005). This huge success, however, also
came at a cost. In order to emphasise resonance with mainstream human rights and
also to maintain the wide scope of the advocacy efforts, transformative elements
of the feminist paradigm were played down, and only partially and with limited
enforceability integrated into the international human rights framework (Kelly,
2005). A norm concerning state obligations to combat VAW was created, but its
feminist transformative elements did not become mandatory elements of
enforcement. This allowed the appropriation of feminist agendas for the pursuit
of alternative objectives (Merry Engle, 2006; Zwingel, 2005). With the growing
involvement of states and international organisations, the importance of
public–private partnerships between women’s groups and state actors emerged as
fundamental in governing VAW interventions. Women’s rights organisations stood
for a conscious design and implementation of services and policies in accordance
with a feminist analysis of the problem and feminist outcome, focusing on three
primary goals – protection, prosecution and prevention – addressing power
inequalities in a wide variety of realms. Where partnership was difficult or
impossible, VAW interventions could easily be co-opted or appropriated by
alternative logics of intervention.
362 Handbook of feminist governance These processes of appropriation of VAW
interventions provided one of the main venues for feminist debates about
financial and organisational autonomy from states. Co-option of feminist
objectives was widely discussed in this field as a problematic issue (Bumiller,
2008; Kelly, 2005; Matthews, 1994). This was a core reason of why feminists in
many places opted for autonomous organising, though some levels of cooperation
with states was unavoidable in order to respond to the demand for services from
women victims of violence (Matthews, 1994; Roggeband, 2004). Yet, in other
places, feminists were more open to cooperation with state actors (Elman, 2003;
Roggeband, 2004, 2012). While autonomous organising had always been vulnerable
to limited resources and availability of voluntary work and charity,
organisations dependent on state resources were more prone to co-option of their
agendas as well as state budget restructuring (Elman, 2003). Matthews’ (1994)
analysis of conceptions of autonomy in the context of rape movements pointed to
the need to understand autonomy dually: at the practical as well as at the
ideological level. She argued that while autonomy is critical for pursuing
transformative feminist objectives, providing alternatives to state action is
not the only way to achieve autonomy. Instead, she proposed a more complex
understanding, which is based on a critical engagement with states, recognisably
the main provider of resources for addressing VAW, including domestic violence.
Matthews (1994) further noted the discrepancy between a more radical
understanding of autonomy at the ideological level versus a more engaging
approach towards the state at the practical, institutional and resource levels.
Her suggestion was institutionalisation while keeping a critical standpoint and
remaining autonomous on another level. Arnold and Ake (2013) addressed the
tension between autonomy and institutionalised cooperation with states by
pointing to the complexity of different streams of activism within women’s
movements and the benefits of insider–outsider cooperation.
THE TRANSNATIONAL GOVERNANCE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN VAW became part of the
global development and human rights agenda due to the persistent work of
transnational feminist advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). Several
important events triggered international feminist networking on VAW. Tracing
these events clearly points to the trajectory of VAW in transnational feminist
governance reforms. In 1975, the United Nations (UN) first World Conference on
Women, convened in Mexico City, gave an important impetus to feminist organising
at both national and international levels (Friedman, 2003; Jaquette, 1994; Keck
and Sikkink, 1998). The conference made gender a political issue and promoted
international networking between feminists from across the globe, but VAW was
not yet on the agenda. One year later, in March 1976, the International Tribunal
on Crimes Against Women gathered over 2,000 women from 40 countries. The event
was created with the intention to ‘make public the full range of crimes’
committed against women in all cultures (Russell and Van de Ven, 1976). The
initiators Diana Russell and Nicole Van de Ven were inspired by Bertrand
Russell’s International War Crimes Tribunal, a people’s tribunal on crimes
committed in the Vietnam War. The concept of VAW was not yet used, and instead
activists were running separate campaigns against rape, battering and incest and
some more context specific forms of violence like sexual torture of political
prisoners in Latin America, female genital mutilation in Africa and dowry deaths
in India. Unlike issues that previously created division between feminists, the
issue of violence helped to bring together
Feminist governance in the field of violence against women 363 activists from
different contexts and with different intersectional positions (Keck and
Sikkink, 1998). The UN Decade for Women (1976–85) and global conferences helped
to further catalyse exchanges and transnational cooperation among feminists and
opened new international policy arenas to be targeted (Alvarez, 2009; Keck and
Sikkink, 1998). The UN, and also the Organization of American States (OAS),
provided a specific strategic framework that helped feminists to frame women’s
rights as human rights and VAW as a violation of women’s human rights (Bunch,
1992; Meyer, 1999). This led to naming VAW a priority issue in the Nairobi
Forward Looking Strategies (1985), the first unanimously adopted
intergovernmental document which defined the concept of VAW comprehensively
(Joachim, 2007; Pietilä and Vickers, 1990). The UN Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) initially did not include
any references to violence against women as a form of discrimination. As part of
its norm work, the CEDAW Committee adopted the comprehensive General
Recommendation No. 19 (1992) introducing the concept of gender-based violence
and recognising it as a form of discrimination ‘that seriously inhibits women’s
ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men’. States
parties were now asked to report on combatting VAW under their CEDAW reporting
obligations. Following the Vienna Conference on Human Rights and the Tribunal
staged there providing testimony on VAW, in 1993 the UN General Assembly adopted
the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in which
governments agreed that ‘States should condemn violence against women and should
not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their
obligations with respect to its elimination … [and] Develop penal, civil, labour
and administrative sanctions in domestic legislation to punish and redress the
wrongs caused to women who are subjected to violence’ (Article 4). Together with
the CEDAW jurisprudence, the Declaration provided a normative framework which
defined VAW and obliged states to take measures with the aim of eliminating such
violence. As a Declaration it was not legally binding on member states, but it
nonetheless recommended a series of specific legislative, educational and
administrative measures to be taken by states and thus legitimised pressure by
feminist activists on ‘their’ states. Furthermore, in 1994 the UN Commission on
Human Rights also decided to appoint a UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women. In 1999, the CEDAW Committee also adopted the Optional Protocol to the
CEDAW, providing an individual complaints procedure in cases of discrimination,
including VAW. These international rituals, documents and institutions indicate
an emerging global consensus on VAW and the emergence of transnational
governance to combat it. The evolution of these norms and institutions continued
under the auspices of CEDAW reporting as well as through the large number of
cases brought before the CEDAW Committee under the Optional Protocol (Zwingel,
2005). However, there was still a lot of space for states to decide on the
scope, depth and gender sensitivity of their actions. Feminists were more
successful at the regional level in the push for binding international law on
VAW. The first regional treaty uniquely devoted to violence against women was
the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of
Violence against Women adopted June 1994 in Belém do Pará, Brazil by the OAS
General Assembly (Friedman, 2009; Roggeband, 2016). The OAS Convention,
developed in the midst of the wider transnational mobilisation described above,
adopted a feminist interpretation of the problem and offered a broad definition
of VAW and its scope, dealing with physical, sexual and psychological forms of
violence whether taking place at home, in the community or
364 Handbook of feminist governance in the public sphere, and whether
perpetrated by state or non-state actors (Friedman, 2009; Roggeband, 2016). The
Belém do Pará Convention obliges state parties ‘to pursue, by all appropriate
means and without delay, policies to prevent, punish and eradicate such
violence’ and it specifically defines the compliance mechanisms designed to
supervise enforcement of the treaty (Articles 7 and 12). A second regional
treaty is the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, adopted in 2003 by the African Union,
and entered into force in 2005. The Protocol makes VAW a core aspect of women’s
right to dignity and the right to life, integrity and security of the person. It
commits states to eliminate all practices ‘based on the idea of the inferiority
or the superiority of either of the sexes, or on stereotyped roles for women and
men’ (Article 2.2) and to ‘enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms of
violence against women … whether the violence takes place in private or public’
(Article 4.2), and a series of other specific measures to combat VAW. The third
regional treaty, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combatting
violence against women and domestic violence, the Istanbul Convention (IC),
adopted in 2011, is so far the most comprehensive international treaty dealing
with VAW. It moves the international legal framework a step further by
establishing a legally binding definition of VAW as ‘a violation of human rights
and a form of discrimination against women’ and establishes a strong link
between VAW and gender inequality. As such, it embodies the most up-to-date
feminist expertise on combatting VAW (Acar and Popa, 2016). On top of a detailed
framework for criminal justice interventions, it includes complex packages of
action devoted to protection of victims and prevention of VAW and domestic
violence (Möschel, 2021), as well as measures to empower victims (Article 18) to
overcome the consequences of violence. The Convention mandates the use of a
gender-sensitive perspective on all measures implemented under the Convention,
including promoting equality between women and men as well as empowerment of
women (Article 6) and the inclusion of civil society groups in most actions
under the Convention. The IC introduces a paradigm shift for many countries in
Europe by making progress towards a complex VAW intervention and monitoring
model. The IC covers primarily Council of Europe (CoE) member states,1 but it is
open for signature by other states not members of the CoE and may also serve as
a catalyst for boosting the fragmented European Union (EU) governance structure
for VAW (Roggeband, 2021). Feminist observers have noted that the EU’s
initiatives on VAW comprise a limited set of directives combatting specific
aspects of gender-based violence, mainly in areas where the EU has legal
competences, like human trafficking (free movement) and sexual harassment in the
workplace (internal market).2 In addition, the EU has developed a range of soft
law measures like declarations, awareness-raising campaigns, studies and
capacity-building programmes and funding mechanisms aimed to sponsor cooperative
action along these lines intended to address the wider issue of VAW (Montoya,
2013). Ratification of the IC by the EU is opposed by several member states
while the European Parliament and the European Commission (EC) continue to
support it. In its Gender Equality Strategy (2020: 3) the EC stated that
accession to the Council of Europe Convention is a key priority and that in case
this remains blocked ‘it will propose measures to achieve the same objectives as
the Istanbul Convention’. The three regional treaties are key forms of feminist
governance in the field of VAW. They reveal the central role of feminist
activism in pushing for gender sensitive governance instruments, and they
demonstrate, though not to the same degree, the centrality in the feminist
paradigm of linking VAW to gender inequality. Women’s rights activists and
feminist experts
Feminist governance in the field of violence against women 365 and scholars
were included in the preparation and drafting of these international treaties
(Acar and Popa, 2016; Friedman, 2009; Joachim, 2007; Zippel, 2006). Women’s
rights organisations also play a central role in the implementation of these
policies at the national level and the monitoring mechanisms of the OAS
Convention (MESECVI) and the IC (GREVIO) draw on feminist expertise and actors.
OPPOSITION Similarly to the Belém do Pará Convention, which is the most ratified
instrument in the inter-American system,3 the Istanbul Convention at first
emerged as a landslide victory for gender equality norms with 34 ratifications
by 2019.4 However, along with the wave of ratifications the Convention has also
become a major site of contestation at national as well as at the EU level
(Berthet, 2021). As a result many governments, in particular in Central and
Eastern Europe (CEE), have refused to ratify it (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021)
and Turkey actually withdrew from the Convention in 2021 after having ratified
it in 2012. In 2018, Bulgaria was the first country to block ratification,
followed by Hungary in 2020. Processes of ratification are pending and also
extremely contested in the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. In
addition, some countries like Turkey that initially ratified the Convention have
expressed their wish to withdraw. Opposition to the feminist governance of VAW
goes back to the years when the VAW issue reached the feminist agenda. The
Vatican, while accepting the legitimacy of VAW as a problem, already stated its
concern about making the link between VAW and gender inequality in its
statements at the Beijing Conference (Buss, 1998). Contestation in recent years
takes these early efforts to oppose gender transformation to new levels (Graff
et al., 2019). Opposition to the IC comes from a loose set of actors including
relatively new civil society organisations and think tanks, acting together with
established actors such as organised religion and political parties and state
actors (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021). Who initiates and leads this opposition
varies across countries; for instance, in Poland it is strongly orchestrated by
the Roman Catholic Church, whereas in Bulgaria and Croatia (religious) civil
society organisations take the initiative and in Hungary, opposition comes from
the state, which is also the case in Poland since the Law and Order party took
office in 2015 (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021). While the anti-IC campaigns may be
orchestrated by different actors, various non-governmental organisations are the
backbone of all of these mobilisations. These include organisations that focus
on the defence of the family, traditional and national values, opposing
different aspects of liberal democracy including in this context progressive,
rights-based approaches to gender equality and LGBTI+ issues. Many of these
organisations are tied to religious traditions and churches, but not all of
them. Opposition is also backed by some of the traditional opponents of VAW
policies like men’s rights organisations, family protection and children’s
rights groups. And, finally, they are now also joined by right-wing nationalist
groups concerned about national sovereignty and the protection of traditional,
national values. Oppositional actors are driven by two core concerns: first,
they focus on the transformative aspects of the Convention and the supposed
‘gender ideology’ of the IC. Second, they view the Convention as a threat to
national values and culture, and an instrument of foreign intervention
challenging national sovereignty and democratic control. The IC introduces
terminology of VAW and gender not previously used in policy debates in the CEE
region and puts the, so far
366 Handbook of feminist governance largely silenced, issue of gender equality
at the centre. Opponents resist the use of gender in the Convention arguing that
gender is a problematic legal category, not in line with a ‘traditional’ or
‘constitutional’ binary understanding of sex (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021). For
instance, the Hungarian think tank Center for Fundamental Rights argued that the
Convention ‘rules out the definition of biological sex and introduces genders
instead’ so that ‘nobody could be simply a man or woman anymore, instead would
belong to one of the endless artificially created gender categories’. Or the
Croatian conservative Catholic organisation Vigilare argues that ‘[the
Convention] seeks to introduce into the Croatian legislative framework the
notion of gender, which does not exist, neither in the Constitution of Croatia,
nor in the constitutions of other countries’. Opponents represent the IC as a
‘Trojan horse’ used by proponents of gender ideology to smuggle their ideas into
law under the cover of an international treaty combatting VAW, an ideology aimed
at transforming traditional socio-cultural norms including those relating to the
family (Hungarian NGO Center for Human Dignity). The IC is seen to endanger
national traditions, religious doctrine, traditional heterosexual families and
children. It is said to create opportunities for ‘enforcing same-sex marriages’
and introduce school programs for studying homosexuality and transvestism
(Bulgaria, IMRO; see Cheresheva, 2018). The Bulgarian NGO association Society
and Values argues that the adoption of the IC will lead to the study of
‘non-stereotyped gender roles’ and will deprive parents of their right to
educate their children in accordance with their moral and religious beliefs
(Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021). Intervention in the education system and the
family is framed as a conspiracy of a powerful internationally supported
left-wing lobby and is problematised not just as a sovereignty issue, but also
as a democracy problem. Opponents argue that a treaty that raises so much
controversy should be submitted to broad public consultation and in some
countries they have lobbied for referenda and organised petitions to demonstrate
that substantial parts of the population are against the convention. Another
strategy to prevent ratification is the production of alternative knowledge, in
which conservative think tanks play a key role. In some countries, notably
Hungary and Poland after 2015, anti-IC actors have also infiltrated or captured
state institutions. This access to institutional politics and the support of
major political parties and even governments is an important explanation for the
success of opposition to the IC. One final notable strategy is harassment and
persecution of actors defending the IC. Women’s rights and IC advocates are
singled out as agents of foreign ideologies and vilified as such. Opponents use
(social) media to attack and threaten women’s rights organisations and
orchestrate smear campaigns. Also, on some occasions violence has been used
against activists, not only by non-state actors, but in Hungary and Poland
(after 2015) by state actors (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021). Contestation over
the gender aspects of the IC has fundamental consequences for the governance of
VAW in Europe. In CEE countries it takes place amidst an unprecedented
politicisation of gender equality. This politicisation is linked to other
aspects of the wider gender equality project as well, but the IC and its gender
transformative aspects stand at the centre of the debates in several countries
(Korolczuk and Graff, 2018; Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017). Politicisation has both
positive and negative consequences. On the positive side it brings a
reinvigoration of feminist activism, diversification of protest strategies, a
strengthening of feminist coalitions and widening of alliances with actors that
previously have not engaged with VAW or gender equality issues. Particularly in
countries with autocratic governments openly opposing the Convention, we see
advocacy for the Convention make its way on to the
Feminist governance in the field of violence against women 367 agenda of
pro-democracy mobilisation, and protection of women from violence problematised
as a core democracy issue. Politicisation results in a much wider use of VAW as
a policy term, on both sides of the contestation (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021),
compared to previous silence over crimes such as domestic violence (Krizsán and
Roggeband, 2018). Debates on the Convention do not block policy changes in
various fields of VAW. On the negative side, however, we find that
politicisation exposes women’s rights actors to confrontation, smear campaigns,
raids, auditing and even violence in unprecedented ways and leads to a variety
of coping strategies, including in some cases consideration of removing gender
from the names of their organisations. Contestation also leads to cooptation of
VAW policy regimes for objectives other than gender equality. While new policies
are passed and budgets spent on violence overall increase, the new services and
provisions that emerge as a result of these changes are not in line with
long-established feminist protocols and practices. Instead, women’s rights
groups with expertise in the field are marginalised or excluded from them. In
general, the vilification of women’s rights advocates results in their
marginalisation in or exclusion from VAW policy processes. Alternative policy
logics prevail, which may benefit some women victims, but are not addressing VAW
as a gender inequality problem and do not recognise and engage with the
structural aspects of the problem (Krizsán and Roggeband, 2021).
CONCLUSIONS Overall, while feminist advocacy has been extremely successful in
introducing new norms and institutional frameworks to combat VAW, maintaining
feminist principles and gender equality transformation at the core of these new
modes of governance remains an ongoing struggle. This chapter has presented the
diversity of feminist governance innovations through the lens of one particular
policy field: that of combatting VAW. While far from being exhaustive, it
illustrates some of the main modes of governance introduced by women’s rights
advocates or as a result of their activism at the national and international
level. We discussed the contributions of feminist VAW activism to reforming
modes of governance as well as some of the compromises their
institutionalisation meant for initial feminist objectives. The pushback against
the CoE Istanbul Convention, the most recent and most comprehensive
international instrument in the field, makes clear that the issue of VAW,
despite the advances in (inter) national legislation, remains contested.
Feminist activism remains vital to uphold and advance VAW policies in the
national and international realm
NOTES 1.
The CoE has 47 member states, 27 of which are members of the EU. It defines
itself as the European continent’s leading human rights organisation. 2. Kantola
(2010) analysed the development of the EU Directives on trafficking. Zippel
(2006) undertook a thorough analysis of the development of EU sexual harassment
policies. 3. Out of the 35 member states of the OAS, 32 have ratified it – the
United States, Canada and Cuba being the outliers. Many countries passed
national legislation on VAW within five years after the Convention was adopted.
4. The IC was ratified by 22 countries before entering into force in 2014, and
by 12 countries since.
368 Handbook of feminist governance
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PART V OTHER REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON FEMINIST GOVERNANCE
30. Building gender norms into regional governance and the limits of
institutionalising feminism Toni Haastrup
INTRODUCTION The importance of regional institutions to the integration of
feminist principles into governance has never been more apparent than now in the
African context. Africa, consisting of 54 countries is a region in which men
still dominate in leadership and manifest masculinised logics in the everyday
and reinforce patriarchy. At the same time, it is a region that appears
particularly committed to regional governance as evidenced by the existence of
39 regional organisations on the continent (Byiers, 2017). Indeed, the
trajectories of politics that saw the reconstitution of Organisation for African
Unity (OAU) as the African Union (AU) in 2001 underscore the importance of
regionalism in the governance of the continent. In the context of the AU
especially, feminist agents within and outside the organisation advocate for
feminist principles in law and policy practice. From the promotion of norms of
gender equality, to the creation of new bureaucratic practices that allow
greater engagement with feminist activists/ organisations, feminist principles
have arguably gained a place in regional governance structures. This is
particularly the case in the area of peace and security (see Haastrup, 2021),
where the AU has embraced the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Yet, and
as has been argued (Van der Vleuten et al., 2014), the discussions about
regional governance in academic and policy context tend to omit issues of
gender. Governance within this continental organisation is used as a proxy for
regional governance. This chapter seeks to illustrate the ways in which the
governance of peace and security at the AU/continental level provides some space
for feminist inclusions. It draws on primary official documents and academic
scholarship on gender and the AU. I show the ways in which regional integration
practices have provided new entry points for feminist activism. This process
through which gender comes into ‘the regional’ is guided by endogenous and
exogenous factors that rely on African women’s organising and Indigenous legal
instruments as well as global normative ones. I argue, however, that despite the
significant work done by feminists to set governance agendas informed by
feminist insights, there remains a blind spot within the AU itself. Using the
example of the sexual harassment complaints that emerged in the AU Commission,
and subsequent investigation into them, I show that while practices aimed
externally show some feminist gains, the complaints illustrate the fragility of
feminist transformation within an institution still characterised by hegemonic
masculinities. Feminist institutionalism (FI) provides a useful frame for
understanding the ways in which AU processes include, reject, alter or ignore
gender norms (Haastrup, 2018: 220). It allows us to pay attention to the
informal rules, or practices, that function beyond the surface but are essential
to the work that the AU does across the continent. As shown elsewhere in this
371
372 Handbook of feminist governance Handbook, FI is interested in patterns of
change and continuity. In this context, FI helps to understand the ways in which
feminist principles have been integrated into the new processes of regional
governance at the continental level. Furthermore, the notion of nested newness
shows how despite the opportunities to include feminist principles within AU at
its formation – opportunities that were leveraged by feminist agents – there is
still resistance to change because no institution is a ‘blank slate’ (Mackay,
2014). Indeed, legacies from the OAU, the patriarchal nature of African
societies and the regional integration experience more broadly, endure within
the new institution. In short, this chapter is a ‘story’ about how, on the one
hand, ‘feminist change agents’ use the establishing of a new regional
institutional order to ‘insert new actors, new values, and new rules’ (Mackay,
2014: 549) but on the other hand, old habits die hard. The chapter focuses on
the inclusion of gender concerns within the peace and security architecture of
the AU, its core area of governance. The chapter also seeks to illuminate the
extent to which feminist principles are manifested beyond this peace and
security domain, showing how reversion to old patterns reinforces the status quo
of regional governance (Mackay, 2014: 566; Chappell, 2006). Ultimately, the
focus on the AU will provide a means through which to understand the
complexities of feminist engagement with regional governance.
REGIONAL GOVERNANCE AND INTEGRATION IN AFRICA: WHERE DOES GENDER FIT? Van der
Vleuten and Van Eerdewijk (2014: 18) define regional governance as ‘the system
of rule at the regional level where authority is exercised by state and
non-state actors in formal and informal ways, and where global, regional,
national and subnational levels are linked’. According to Amandine Gnanguênon
(2020), regional organisations are a particular feature of the African
sociopolitical landscape. Many are focused on similar issues and have
overlapping mandates. Some are more visible than others in terms of recognition
of their impact on the socioeconomic and political life of African governments
and citizens. These represent broad sub-regions and are known as regional
economic communities (RECs) or regional mechanisms (RMs). While these
sub-regional organisations cover a variety of policy sectors including economy,
development and peace and security (Gnanguênon, 2020), in most cases, gender
equality is a cross-cutting priority (Table 30.1). Through a system of norms,
principles, legal instruments and compliance mechanisms, regional gender
equality regimes are being developed. These regional organisations, to an
extent, coalesce in the African Union (AU) where the RECs and RMs are designated
as the building blocks of the continental organisation. Unlike its predecessor,
the AU has explicitly sought to institutionalise feminist norms like gender
equality within the organisation, primarily through its executive branch, the
Commission. In line with the commitment to create a new continental organisation
that sought to protect the most vulnerable, the Constitutive Act of the African
Union included provisions for gender equality. Specifically, the Constitutive
Act mandates the AU not only to promote gender equality but also
gender-mainstreaming. In the new organisation, gender equality is designated as
a human right. Gender equality in this context ‘refers to the equal rights,
responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys’ (African
Union, 2018a: 63). Moreover, the AU is invested in gender-mainstreaming, ‘a
strategy for implementing greater equality for
Building gender norms into regional governance 373 Table 30.1
RECs and their gender equality regimes
Regional economic communities (RECs)
Gender equality policy frameworks and instruments
Arab Maghreb Union (AMU)
–
COMESA
Gender Policy (2016)
East African Community (EAC)
EAC Gender Equality and Development Bill (2017) EAC Gender Policy (2018)
Economic Community of Central African States
ECCAS Gender Policy (2019)
(ECCAS) Economic Community of West African States
Dakar Declaration on the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 (2010)
(ECOWAS)
Supplementary Act on Equality of Rights between Women and Men (2015) ECOWAS Plan
of Action on Gender and Trade 2015–20 ECOWAS Gender and Migration Framework and
Plan of Action 2015–20
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
The Gender Management System (GMS) Handbook Gender Mainstreaming Customized
Tools/Guidelines IGAD Institutional Gender Policy IGAD Gender Policy Framework
2012–20 Regional Action Plan for Implementation of UNSCRs 1325 and 1820
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
SADC Declaration on Gender and Development (1997) Addendum on the Prevention and
Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children (1997) SADC Gender Policy
(1997) SADC Protocol on Gender and Development (2008; amended 2016) SADC Gender
Mainstreaming Toolkit (2009) SADC Gender Workplace Policy (2009)
women and girls in relation to men and boys. [It] is the process of assessing
the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation,
policies or programs, in all areas and at all levels’ (African Union, 2018a:
64). The inclusion of gender within what is effectively the constitution of the
AU and the commitment to mainstreaming are feminist innovations for the
continental organisation, led by the AU executive, the Commission (Figure 30.1).
While the Constitutive Act gives a broad mandate for including gender concerns
in the work of the AU, new frameworks comprising legal instruments and
structures have been layered within the organisation to reinforce gender
equality as a norm. Already in 1981, African countries adopted the African
Charter on Human Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), which included the principle of
non-discrimination within a regional context. However, its attention to gender
issues did not go far enough for feminists and women’s rights activists
(Haastrup, 2019a: 379). The Charter failed to challenge the structure of power
that engenders gender inequality or even acknowledge that for many Africans the
source of discrimination is patriarchy. The Charter is, however, important
because it paved the way for the adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter
on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, also known as the
Maputo Protocol, which was adopted in 2003. The Maputo Protocol would have been
impossible without the campaigning of feminist activists for over 20 years. In
particular, the Protocol was a direct result of feminists constituting regional
advocacy networks – ‘a collection of individuals and organisations from the same
world region working together toward a common goal’ (Adams and Kang, 2007: 452).
374 Handbook of feminist governance
Figure 30.1
African Union organisational structure
The Maputo Protocol explicitly commits the AU, other regional organisations and
African state governments to a range of feminist principles including gender
equality in all areas of sociopolitical, economic and legal life. It is seen as
especially progressive as the first international treaty that explicitly
articulates abortion as health care. It also disavows harmful practices like
female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual harassment, and provides gender-based
violence campaign points for feminists. Intersectionality is underscored through
acknowledgement of the interactions of oppression for disabled women, and
widowed women, something previously excluded from public discourse and human
rights statutes (see Haastrup, 2015). Moreover, gender is narrated here as a
structure of power that shapes the regional order. Other policy instruments that
have informed the development of Africa’s gender regime (see also Haastrup,
2013) include policy instruments like the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies
(1985) and the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
(1993). Overall, apart from representing a clear progression of the African
Charter and other continental instruments, the Maputo Protocol is also a result
of leveraging global frameworks that can be viewed as exogenous to the
continent. Three landmark frameworks informed the eventual adoption of the
Maputo Protocol. First, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), often referred to as the international
bill of human rights for women. Several court cases challenging discrimination
against women have leveraged CEDAW as a means of localising anti-discrimination
based on gender in Africa (see Bond, 2014).
Building gender norms into regional governance 375 Second, there was the push
given by the Beijing Platform for Action to enact gender concerns in policy
frameworks and practices and to make gender equality central to governance. The
Beijing Platform for Action was all encompassing in that it focused on the
public and private spheres of women’s lives. It emphasised women’s equality and
empowerment via development, thus highlighting the impact of economic
hierarchies that go together with geo-political positions in the international
system. The third framework is United Nations Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) 1325, Women, Peace and Security, which called for the experiences of
women to be incorporated into war and peace-making practices. Adopted in 2000,
this global normative framework has been the basis for institutional innovation
at the regional level (OAU, 2000). While these three frameworks can be read as
exogenous to regional governance in Africa, the presence and impact of African
feminists in achieving these important milestones suggests a more complicated
story. For example, the Dakar Fifth Regional Conference on Women in 1994
produced the African position, which fed into the Beijing Platform for Action.
Moreover, Gertrude Mongella from Tanzania was General Secretary to the
Conference. The outcome document explicitly links insecurity to negative
outcomes for women in development, foreshadowing UNSCR 1325. Indeed, African
feminists and activists who focus on peacebuilding directly fed into the
resolution that launched the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through the
2000 Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action. In any case, the
adoption of the Maputo Protocol soon after the formation of the AU is an
important example of feminist activism and campaigning at the regional level.
Understanding these contributions of African feminists to key milestones in the
governance of gender in Africa locates ‘feminist struggle … as a critical stance
against the mainstream of patriarchal power’ (Ahikire, 2014: 9).
GENDER EQUALITY IN TRANSLATION WITHIN THE REGIONAL GOVERNANCE ORDER Since the
creation of the AU, there has been a systematic effort to turn grand declaratory
statements and normative frameworks into tangible mechanisms or instruments of
governance at the continental level (see Forere and Stone, 2009; Haastrup, 2013,
2019a, 2021; Omotosho, 2015). As all the RECs are intended to be building blocks
of the AU, it makes sense that whole-of-region approaches are embedded within
the continental institution. This has not slowed down the creation of new gender
equality instruments at the regional level, which in a sense reinforce the
budding importance of feminist principles to the processes of regional
integration. Yet, at the AU, recently there has been a particular emphasis on
governance practices to promote gender equality, gender mainstreaming and
especially women’s leadership in Africa, implemented primarily through the AU
secretariat, the Commission. To underscore the commitment to gender equality in
the Constitutive Act of the AU, the Women, Gender and Development Directorate
(WGDD) was established. The aim of the WGDD is to mainstream gender within the
AU and promote gender equality initiatives across the continent including in the
relationship between the AU in Addis Ababa and its member states, and between
the AU and RECs. WGDD is the new and improved iteration of the Women’s Division
in the former OAU.
376 Handbook of feminist governance Yet, there were no significant resources
apportioned to the directorate, and it did not capture the main remit of the AU,
peace and security, with instead a ‘soft’ focus on development. The directorate
as conceived in the early days of the AU typified an understanding of women and
gender framed within a human rights discourse. As evidenced in the first policy
developed from the directorate, the 2004 Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality
in Africa (SDGEA), the commitment to gender equality is also a commitment to
reinforcing a binary between men and women, thus silencing alternative gender
identities. Gender equality here is heteronormative. Nevertheless, the
Directorate’s mandate was clear and included the harmonisation of member states,
sub-regional and AU level approaches to gender equality – in this sense, it was
inclusive and sought to share best practices. Overall, the SDGEA appeared to
roll back the explicitly feminist gains made by the adoption of Maputo, through
a regressive understanding of gender equality in the regional context. Indeed,
as previously noted, gender was linked to issues of ‘maternal health and
economic development’. This narrow understanding also meant that gender equality
was linked primarily to women’s empowerment and thus ‘mainstream fixations on
representation, and women and children as victims’ (Haastrup, 2015). Yet, except
for SADC in 2008, none of the RECs were advocating policies on gender in the
immediate aftermath of Maputo. This would suggest that much of the activism
going on around embedding feminist principles in the process of regionalism and
regionalisation was happening at the national and continental level.
Nevertheless, despite the weaknesses of the SDGEA, it is significant in that it
opens up the space for women’s rights and feminist organisations to participate
in the processes of regionalisation. Since 2007, the Gender is my Agenda
Campaign (GIMAC), a consortium of 55 organisations, has worked to promote gender
perspectives within the AU’s work. Created initially to monitor progress towards
the implementation of the SDGEA, its remit arguably has expanded given that it
holds an annual pre-summit meeting to inform the AU’s overall agenda from a
gender perspective. In 2009, the SDGEA was subsumed by the first African Union
Gender Policy. The 2009 Gender Policy set the groundwork for the AU’s
decade-long agenda, the African Women’s decade (2010–20). While the declaration
of this decade signalled a significant win for activists and underlined that
feminist principles concerning women’s lives and experiences was integral to the
overall functioning of regionalism, it also firmly aligned ‘gender’ to ‘doing
something about women’. In the evolution of the regional order alongside gender
equality principles, the dominant narrative of gender has been women’s rights as
human rights, with no account of patriarchal power. A partial explanation for
why we see a deviation from the aspirations of Maputo could perhaps be found in
the policy area that has come to characterise regionalism in Africa – from the
sub-regional level to the continental one – peace and security. The next section
reflects on the ways in which the focus on security as the prime motivator for
regionalism has accelerated the integration of some feminist norms in some ways,
while in others it constrains the possibilities of feminist transformation.
SECURITY GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA VIA THE WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY AGENDA From its
onset, regional integration in Africa has tended to prioritise cooperation on
security, specifically to tackle wars and conflicts. For example, although the
Economic Community of
Building gender norms into regional governance 377 West African States (ECOWAS)
was formulated as an economic bloc, it came to prominence due to the
coordination of members’ armed forces via ECOMOG (Economic Community of West
African States Monitoring Group). ECOMOG had been convened in 1990 as a response
to the civil war in Liberia. Meanwhile, the OAU, whose purpose was to maintain
sovereignty and the territorial integrity of postcolonial states, had many
aspirations but little achievements. Significantly, the absence of the OAU from
the theatre of one of the worst atrocities in human history – the Rwandan
genocide – spelled the end for the regional organisation. While the aspirations
of the AU are quite broad, the regional context meant the elimination of violent
conflict and the guarantee of peace and security for African citizens eclipsed
all other policy priorities. Part of the transformation from the OAU to the AU
was the idea that the focus on state security at the expense of citizens no
longer worked. Thus, and as a means of responding to insecurity on the
continent, the AU adopted the notion of human security. This concept of
security, which privileges the protection of human life, was to be guaranteed by
the AU’s security apparatus, the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA).
The APSA includes the Peace and Security Council, the Continental Early Warning
system, the Panel of the Wise, the RECs, and the Peace and Security department.
They all derive their power from the Constitutive Act. As the APSA is the core
of the AU, understanding the practices of feminist governance requires attention
to what happens in the area of peace and security. How precisely do feminist
principles inform this new regional security governance architecture? Indeed,
these linkages between the promotion of feminist principles and regional
security governance perfectly capture the relationship between the local,
regional and global (see Haastrup, 2019a, 2019b). This linkage coalesces in the
United Nations Security Council’s WPS agenda which, as noted above, was the
result of years of feminist activism including African women’s campaigning. As
described elsewhere in this Handbook, UNSCR 1325 is structured around four
pillars – participation, prevention, protection, and relief and recovery. The
participation pillar focuses on women’s representation at ‘all levels of
decision-making, including peace-processes, electoral processes … and the
broader social-political sphere’. The prevention pillar focuses on integrating
gender perspectives and allowing women to participate in the prevention of
violent conflict. The protection pillar obligates ‘the United Nations and its
agencies, countries, regional organisations and civil society’ to protect women
and girls’ rights in conflict and post-conflict settings. The final pillar on
relief and recovery extends protection by prioritising sexual and gender-based
violence survivors’ access to sexual and reproductive health services, and
trauma counselling. In this context, UNSCR 1325 has resonated within the AU and
its aims on the continent. Already in 2003, the Maputo Protocol acknowledged
UNSCR 1325 in Articles 10 and 11, which emphasise the right of women to a
peaceful existence and to participate in promoting and maintaining peace on the
continent/region. Beyond this, it obligates member states of the AU to ensure
that this happens. Feminists view the governance of peace and security as an
opportunity to leverage regional initiatives as well as the broader global WPS
commitment to achieve feminist gains. As part of the move to implement the WPS
agenda, actors like GIMAC emphasise women’s representation and participation in
conflict and post-conflict processes on the continent. They draw on SDGEA, the
Gender Policy and indeed sub-regional initiatives where they exist (see also
Haastrup, 2019a: 380). The impact of WPS, however, cannot be discounted, whether
on policy instruments, or the role of key feminist actors, or practices that
link the issues of peace and security.
378 Handbook of feminist governance African states have committed rhetorically
to the WPS agenda. Thus, at the continental, sub-regional and national levels,
attention to the WPS agenda has been facilitated by African women, who
themselves were instrumental in its development and adoption, particularly
feminist activist-scholars. In the context of the peace and security
architecture, it is perhaps useful to understand gender as a structure of power
that has implications for the organisation of political life. As feminists have
noted, security institutions tend to privilege masculine ideas (see Kronsell,
2005). The AU, via its peace and security architecture, confirms this
assumption. Across the organs that constitute the APSA, men make up much of the
membership. The prevalence of masculinised bodies and experiences makes feminist
principles of gender equality and the strategy of gender mainstreaming even more
urgent. The WPS has facilitated the prioritisation of feminist principles in the
context of the AU’s main tasks of peace and security. One of the most
significant institutional innovations within the AU has been the creation of the
Office of the Special Envoy (OSE) The brainchild of former Chairperson Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma, herself a feminist, the OSE was created specifically to mainstream
gender within the APSA and accelerate the implementation of the agenda across
the region including at member state and sub-regional level. Although the OSE
was not created until almost ten years after the SDGEA, the work to embed
feminist principles in the AU had continued, although slowly. For example,
feminist civil society organisations via GIMAC, and beyond, worked across the
continent to support member states in developing their road maps for
implementing the WPS agenda, National Action Plans (NAPs). This work allowed for
a revolving door between local aims, and policies and strategies at the
continental level. This culminated in the 2009 AU Gender Policy. The Gender
Policy consolidated previous policy instruments and had a primary purpose of
‘localising’ the WPS agenda, signalling the centrality of the gender/security
link in regional governance (African Union, 2009). The influence of the WPS
agenda is also seen in the expansion of the AU’s peace and security concerns
articulated in the 2006 Framework for Post Conflict Reconstruction, the 2011
Policy Framework for Security Sector Reform and Agenda 2063 (Hendricks, 2017).
By the time the OSE was created in 2014, it solidified the message that in the
continental/ regional governance of security ‘women’s empowerment, leadership
and visibility’ was integral (Haastrup, 2021). In this office, the Special Envoy
that was appointed was one of the most visible feminists within GIMAC,
Senegalese Bineta Diop, having led what is considered the largest of the
feminist civil society organisations in Africa, Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS).
The OSE is strategically located in the Chairperson’s office. This location,
rather than within the APSA itself, indicates a commitment to the systemic
integration of the WPS into the main work of the AU and also gives greater
prominence to the OSE’s work on gender, despite the continued existence of the
WGDD. This location, moreover, ensures that gender issues are not siloed
(Haastrup, 2021). It is the job of the Special Envoy to provide ‘guidance and
leadership on the institutionalization of the WPS agenda’ (Haastrup, 2019a:
381). And there are several ways in which this has been done. In the initial
phases of appointment, the OSE created a gender, peace and security work plan,
and the Gender, Peace and Security programme. These strategies existed as a
means to implement the WPS agenda within five years across Africa. This period
also saw the insistence that the AU Commission needed Gender Focal Points across
its peace and security apparatus, in liaison offices, at the RECs level and in
missions (African Union Commission, 2018).
Building gender norms into regional governance 379 The Special Envoy through
her office is obliged primarily to implement the global normative framework at
the regional level, which in principle also includes national and local levels.
Consequently, the OSE has played a significant role in the increased adoption of
NAPs in African countries since 2014. Between 2014 and 2020, nine African
countries adopted an NAP for the first time (Peace Women, n.d.) while six of the
11 that previously had an NAP adopted updates. In all then, despite the work
that is still left to be done, the WPS Special Envoy has been instrumental in
promoting the WPS agenda in a regional context. But has the impact of these
instruments had an overall impact on governance processes within the region?
GOVERNING THE ERADICATION OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AT REGIONAL LEVEL The protection
pillar of UNSCR 1325 prioritised dealing with sexual violence, particularly but
not solely in conflict situations. By most accounts of WPS, this focus within
the agenda has far eclipsed other foci. So, how well are the feminist principles
embedded within the organisation positioned to respond to this specific
challenge? As Cormac Smith (2018) shows, despite the general lack of attention
to Africa in narratives about the ‘global’ #MeToo movement, sexual violence in
Africa is significant, perhaps even more acute than in the Global North. Given
global momentum, the African context, and instruments and mechanisms at the
disposal of the OSE in the AU, this was the opportune space to prove the
effectiveness of the regional gender architecture. Instead, the AU was
confronted with its own #MeToo moment.1 In May 2018, the South African newspaper
Mail and Guardian revealed two internal complaints by women staff within the AU.
The complaints listed a litany of accusations against an institutional culture
that allowed ‘routine ill-treatment, humiliation and discrimination on the basis
of their gender’ (Allison, 2018). One of the internal memos, titled Me too up
for her; She matters for all of us, leveraged the global movement. The memo was
addressed to AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat and the deputy chairman
Kwesi Quartey, though Faki has claimed he was unaware of the memo. That the AU
had such complaints might have been shocking but unsurprising. Sexual violence
is endemic in every society and societal institutions manifest the same. What is
perhaps surprising is that with all the tools at its disposal, its own house was
in disorder. As one analyst noted, ‘not only did the African Union fail to
empower its female staffers as it championed women’s rights around the
continent, it also failed to protect them from sexual harassment’ (Chutel,
2018). The exposé by Mail and Guardian prompted an immediate investigation,
which was completed approximately six months later, in November 2018. In the
first instance, the chairman of the AU Commission appointed a three-person panel
including Bineta Diop, the Special Envoy for WPS as Chairperson; Justice
Tujilane Rose Chizumila, a judge at the African Court of Human and Peoples’
Rights (AfCHPR) and Lucy Asuagbor, a member of the ACHPR and Special Rapporteur
on the Rights of Women in Africa (African Union Commission, 2018). The panel was
supported by a seven-person taskforce, which included representation from the
WGDD. The composition of the panel underscored the privileged role that the
Special Envoy on WPS had within the AU Commission – with the WGDD playing a
subordinate role. The mandate of the panel was to investigate the different
manifestations of gender discrimination within the institution, including
harassment allegations.
380 Handbook of feminist governance The result of the investigation was
published in November 2018. The outcome report revealed a deeply gendered
institution that appeared to have missed out on the benefits of its own feminist
advocacy. The investigation further revealed that the AU itself had no sexual
harassment policy despite its commitments to the WPS agenda. As per the initial
accusations, the investigation revealed a ‘professional apartheid’ that
manifested itself in what is effectively a ‘jobs-for-sex’ system in which young
women were the main targets. The investigation relied on interviewing 88
individuals using a methodology described as relying on a ‘balance of
probabilities, best evidence rule, triangulation and corroboration’ so the panel
could establish whether and how further investigation was warranted and design
redress for victims/survivors (African Union, 2018b: 1). This approach made
visible gender discrimination and sexual harassment among the seven elements of
problems within the AU (African Union, 2018b: 2). On sexual harassment in
particular, the panel found that incidents of sexual harassment exist in the
Commission. This is established by the almost unanimous confirmation of the
prevalence of this occurrence by interviewee … Evidence presented suggests that
this form of harassment perpetuated by supervisors over female employees in
their charge, especially … during official missions outside the work station.
(African Union, 2018b: 2)
The panel went on to note that that lack of sexual exploitation and abuse policy
was part of the problem. It further noted that already vulnerable women, due to
employment precarity, were most exposed to sexual harassment, especially
‘short-term staff, youth volunteers and interns’ (African Union, 2018b: 2).
Evidence of jobs for sex was described as follows: Senior departmental staff,
who position themselves as ‘gate-keepers’ and ‘king-makers’, make … promises to
young women that they will be offered contracts. (African Union, 2018b: 3)
Further evidence indicated that women who had been subject to discrimination and
sexual harassment did not feel comfortable reporting through any mechanisms
within the institution, as whistle-blowers were not protected. Unfortunately,
those who did report later withdrew their complaints, likely due to fear of
retaliation. Overall, the report conveyed an institution that had not
internalised the lessons it was championing. It especially called into question
the extent to which the AU can act outside of the WPS remit on the everyday
concerns of ordinary women including those that exist outside of conflict zones.
While the rapidity of convening an investigation was applauded, the outcome has
been criticised. Only a five-page excerpt of the investigation was released into
the public domain (African Union, 2018b). The report was relatively sparse
except for an extended quote from the main report on sexual harassment. The
report has further been criticised for downplaying the gender dynamics
underpinning human resources practices within the institution. So, while the
outputs from the institution reflect the work of feminist groups, and therefore
feminist principles, the institution itself appears to be inhospitable to
feminist governance and on issues it actively promotes externally. This is not
unique to the AU. For instance, in the recent domain of feminist foreign policy
(FFP), there is a tendency of states that practice FFP to emphasise their
feminist credentials abroad, while performing poorly amongst the most
marginalised groups at home (Haastrup, 2020; Haastrup and Hagen, 2020). Learning
again from feminist institutionalism, the fact it did
Building gender norms into regional governance 381 not occur to the
institutional feminist agents that the AU needed a sexual harassment policy
suggests, at the very least, an unintended reversion to the status quo. The
status quo, however, is not simply a blank slate; rather AU practices, while
seeking to supply what the OAU lacked, invariably replicate the ‘old’
institutional culture (OAU Charter, 1963).
CONCLUSION The continental architecture for gender equality promoted by the
African Union is evidence of the adoption of feminist principles into the core
of regional governance. The development has been gradual and reinforces the
importance of local and global norms and practices for pushing the agenda
forward. Locally or endogenously, women and feminist groups have been
instrumental to the inclusion of feminist informed practices within the AU’s
core area of function – peace and security. This inclusion has mainly taken the
form of building the infrastructure for externalised peace and security
practice. In exploring the processes through which feminist principles have been
included (or excluded) at the highest levels of regional governance, it is fair
to conclude that in almost two decades and despite the seemingly myriad
mechanisms, transformative change has been eluded. Where transformative change
is impossible for the women of the AU, there is reason to be sceptical of
possibilities within African states themselves, and of the progressive role of
the AU. This chapter has explored the ways in which feminist actors have
embedded feminist ‘newness’ in the new institutions of regional governance. The
feminist institutionalist lens that has informed this unique analysis
demonstrates that change is possible but can be limited by the past and by the
enduring nature of gendered hierarchies. Importantly, this chapter has tried to
show that the impact of embedding feminist principles cannot be underestimated.
This work is supported by specific feminist networks, but the aftermath of the
AU sexual harassment investigation poses a danger for feminist regional
governance. The institutional culture that has facilitated sexual violence
within the organisation undermines the credibility of the AU as a feminist
gender actor on sexual violence across the continent and delegitimises its work
on the WPS agenda. Indeed, the marginalisation of women within an institution
that demonstrates hegemonic masculinity shows how easy it can be for feminist
principles to take a back seat to competing institutional priorities (Haastrup,
2021). While the current Special Envoy for Women, Peace and Security, together
with other feminists within the organisation, has demonstrated leadership and
motivation for institutional transformation, change appears limited to the
external practices of the AU. This analysis shows not only the limits of
institutional change, but also the constraints experienced by feminists who must
contend with the ‘old’.
NOTE 1. The AU Commission was not by any means the only regional institution
implicated in #MeToo, as demonstrated by Berthet and Kantola (2020) in their
account of the EU Parliament.
382 Handbook of feminist governance
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164–85. Haastrup, Toni and Jamie Hagen (2020) ‘Race, Justice and New
Possibilities: 20 Years of the Women, Peace and Security agenda’, LSE Women,
Peace and Security blog, 28 July. https:// blogs .lse .ac .uk/ wps/ 2020/ 07/
28/ race -justice -new -possibilities -20 -years -of -the -women -peace -and
-security -agenda/ . Hendricks, Cheryl (2017) ‘Progress and Challenges in
Implementing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the African Union’s Peace
and Security Architecture’, Africa Development 42(3): 73–98. Kronsell, Annica
(2005) ‘Gendered Practices in Institutions of Hegemonic Masculinity’,
International Feminist Journal of Politics 7(2): 280–98. Mackay, Fiona (2014)
‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation, and the Gendered Limits of Change’,
Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–71. OAU (2000) The Constitutive Act of the African
Union, Lomé: Organisation of African Unity. OAU Charter (1963) ‘OAU Charter,
Addis Ababa, 25 May’. https:// au .int/ en/ treaties/ oau -charter -addis -ababa
-25 -may -1963. Omotosho, Babatunde, J. (2015) ‘African Union and Gender
Equality in the Last Ten Years: Some Issues and Prospects for Consideration’,
Journal of Integrated Social Sciences 5(1): 92–104. Peace Women (n.d.) ‘WILPF
Monitoring and Analysis of National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security’.
http:// 1325naps .peacewomen .org/ . Smith, Cormac (2018) ‘#MeToo, Africa Too?’,
Africa is a Country, March. https:// africasacountry .com/ 2018/ 03/ metoo
-africa -too. Van der Vleuten, Anna and Anouka van Eerdewijk (2014) ‘Regional
Governance, Gender and Transnationalism: A First Exploration’. In Anna van der
Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk and Conny Roggeband (eds), Gender Equality Norms
in Regional Governance: Transnational Dynamics in Europe, South America and
Southern Africa, London: Palgrave Macmillan, https:// doi .org/ 10 .1057/
9781137301451 _2. Van der Vleuten, Anna, Anouka van Eerdewijk and Conny
Roggeband (2014) Gender Equality Norms in Regional Governance: Transnational
Dynamics in Europe, South America and Southern Africa, London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
31. Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia Jiso
Yoon
INTRODUCTION This chapter examines ways in which feminist institutional building
can slowly lead to the adoption and implementation of gender equal policies by
focusing on two East Asian countries. Following Guido, Walsh and Banaszak (see
Chapter 3 in this Handbook), the chapter traces the history of feminist
institutions that have been created and implemented as (1) sex/gender quotas,
(2) women’s/gender equality policy agencies, and (3) gender/equalities
mainstreaming. As Anne Marie Goetz notes (in Chapter 10 in this Handbook), the
Fourth UN World Conference on Women identified national women’s machineries as
one of the 12 crucial areas of concern, inspiring women’s rights activists in
Japan and Korea to mobilise successfully to establish feminist institutions in
both countries. While Japan and South Korea are prominent advanced
industrialised nations in the Asian region, the economic and political
empowerment of women in the two countries hardly matches the size of their
economy nor the strength of their democracy. That is, Japan is ranked as third
and South Korea as 12th richest country in the world today, in terms of GDP
size,1 and the two countries are also highly rated democracies (first and second
within Asia, 23rd and 24th globally) according to the Economist’s Democracy
Index.2 On the contrary, Japan and South Korea rank last and second-to-last
among all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member
countries in the glass-ceiling index.3 Similarly, the Inter-Parliamentary
Union’s monthly ranking showed in November 2020 that South Korea was ranked at
119 out of 193 countries with 19 per cent female parliamentarians, and Japan
even lower at 167 with 9.9 per cent female parliamentarians in the lower house.4
These contradictory figures concerning gender equality (i.e. highly developed
and democratised countries, where gender gaps are persistent in both political
and economic spheres) are particularly surprising considering the fact that
women’s policy machineries were created two decades ago, and a number of legal
measures have been adopted in order to advance gender equality policies. The
current gender equality standing of Japan and Korea contrasts with that of
Taiwan, where women account for 41.6 per cent of lawmakers, and women’s
empowerment index in the country is the highest among all Asian countries (Chen
and Mazzetta, 2021), thanks to the successful implementation of gender quotas
and gender equality policies promoted by the Cabinet’s Gender Equality Committee
(Huang, 2015). In this regard, delving into the cases of Japan and Korea allows
us to identify both the success and limits of women’s policy machineries
inspired by the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 in the Asian region. Women’s
economic and social conditions are far from improving, and opposition to
feminism and feminist institutions (e.g. backlash) presents key challenges to
furthering feminist governance in both countries (Kano, 2011; Lee et al.,
2018;). Low status and the lack of resources, as well as conservative
governments’ efforts to diminish 384
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia 385 the
roles of women’s policy machineries all contribute to their limited role (see
Goetz, Chapter 10 in this Handbook). At the same time, it is important to note
that feminist institutions in the two countries have brought about important
policy changes to promote gender equality. In particular, internalisation of
feminist equality objectives in government and institutionalisation of gender
mainstreaming policy tools like gender-sensitive budgeting are key to expanding
and deepening gender equality policy in the two countries.
EMERGENCE OF FEMINIST INSTITUTIONS The most significant achievement in the
history of feminist institutions can be regarded as the creation of women’s
policy units and relevant laws in the two countries. In Japan, debates on gender
equality in the 1980s led first to the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in 1985,
then the subsequent enactment of Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society, and
finally Basic Plan for a Gender-Equal Society in 1999. Following these changes,
new administrative structures were built, and municipal ordinances were passed
in order to mainstream gender policy (Yamaguchi, 2018). For example, the Gender
Equality Bureau – a national machinery for advancing women’s rights – was
created under the Cabinet Office in 2001 (Kano, 2011). This kind of
institutional design intended the gender equality bureau to be able to intervene
in other ministries’ and agencies’ work, so that gender policy was not limited
to a single ministry within the government. At the same time, an administrative
division was created in each bureaucratic ministry and agency to coordinate
gender-related policy efforts.5 Furthermore, prefectural and local governments
followed these actions by passing their own gender equality ordinances and
established administrative offices. In this way, ‘the Basic Law fulfilled the
function of being a blueprint for change’ (Kano, 2011: 49) that trickled down to
prefectural and city governments. Tokyo metropolitan city and Saitama prefecture
were the first two local bodies to pass related ordinances in the year 2000.
Korea took a similar path of establishing feminist institutions, by creating a
centralised women’s policy unit. Both international and domestic pressures to
promote women’s development and gender equality eventually led to Framework Act
on Women’s Development in 1995 under the Kim Young-sam administration (Chang et
al., 2006). President Kim Dae-jung established the President’s Special Committee
on Women’s Affairs in 1998, with the goal of making gender mainstreaming –
understood as promoting women’s issues in all national policies – a focal point
of his administration. In addition, positions of women’s policy officers were
created in six government ministries (Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Education,
Ministry of Law, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry, and Ministry of Administration and Local Government) to coordinate
gender-related policies across different ministries and agencies (Kim and Kim,
2011: 392). In 1998, the Korean Women’s Development Institute, originally
established in 1983 to conduct basic research to promote women’s social status
and development, was moved to the supervision of the President’s Special
Committee on Women’s Affairs, and then in 1999 to prime minister as an official
government-funded research institute (Chang et al., 2006: 15).6 Three years
later, in 2001, the Special Committee was abolished, and instead the Ministry of
Gender Equality was established. The specific mission of the newly established
ministry included increasing women’s representation in the decision-making level
of government bodies, developing gender sensitive statistics, and an evaluation
system for gender policy
386 Handbook of feminist governance Table 31.1 Pre-2000
Institutional changes and events Japan
South Korea
– The first election by universal suffrage without
– Women’s suffrage included in Article 11 of the national
distinction of sex (1946)
constitution (1948)
– The Equal Employment Opportunity Law (1985)
– Framework Act on Women’s Development (1995)
– Basic Act for Gender Equal Society (1999)
– President’s Special Committee on Women’s Affairs &
– Gender Equality Bureau (2001)
– Political Party Act (revision) (2000)
– The Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation
– Ministry of Gender Equality (2001) (title of the ministry
Gender Policy Units (1998) Post-2000
and Advancement in the Workplace (2015) – Law to Promote Co-participationof Men
and Women in Politics (2018)
has changed several times since then) – Public Official Election Act, Political
Funds Act (revision) (2002) – Framework Act on Gender Equality (2014)
(previously Framework Act on Women’s Development) – Gender Equality Office in
eight government ministries (2019)
Source: Compiled by the author.
(Kim and Kim, 2011: 394). Since its establishment, the ministry has undergone a
number of changes in line with new missions of various administrations: it was
renamed the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in 2005, expanding its domian
to include child care and family work. The conservative government that took
power in 2008 changed the name to Ministry of Gender Equality (although it was
changed back to Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in 2010)7 and
significantly limited the scope of the ministry (Kim and Kim, 2011). In 2014,
the Framework Act on Women’s Development was revised to Framework Act on Gender
Equality, highlighting the government’s responsibility in promoting gender
equality. According to this Framework Act, the Minister of Gender Equality and
Family is designated as the person ultimately in charge of formulating the
Master Plan for Gender Equality Policies (updated every five years), and the
Gender Equality Council under the prime minister is designated as the body
responsible for deliberating on, and coordinating major matters regarding gender
equality.8 Recently in 2019, Gender Equality Offices (similar to women’s policy
officers) were recreated in eight government ministries and agencies, an
important addition to the existing feminist institutions in the country.9
Currently, the activities of the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office in
Japan can be summarised as follows: expansion of women’s participation in policy
and decision-making processes, work–life balance, gender equality and disaster
risk reduction, elimination of violence against women, and support for the
promotion of gender equality in local governments.10 Similarly, the Ministry of
Gender Equality and Family in South Korea is working in the areas of gender
equality policy, family policy (including issues related to work–life balance),
youth policy, and protection of human rights (e.g. gender-based violence).11
Indeed, recent reports from both countries reveal that women’s policy
machineries are actively working to promote gender equality in these priority
areas. Specifically, the Fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality in Japan lists new
government targets for women’s participation in the decision-making process,
providing equal opportunities for men and women in the labour market, as well as
eliminating all forms of violence against women (Cabinet Office, 2021).
Similarly, the new year’s plan for the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family
includes a number of priorities, such as affirmative action measures to
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia 387
increase women’s representation in the public sector, as well as adopting other
measures to assist career-interrupted women, victims of gender-based violence
(particularly in cyberspace) and single-parents (MOGEF, 2021). In addition to
building feminist institutions, both countries adopted tools like gender
budgeting, although the specific methods of implementation vary. In South Korea,
gender budgeting is mandated in the National Finance Act (2006), while in Japan,
the Basic Plan for Gender Equality links the government’s gender equality policy
to budgeting issues without an official legal basis (Ichii and Sharp, 2013: 3).
The Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality provides a framework for monitoring
the performance of gender-related programmes (IMF, 2017). There are signs that
gender budgeting is contributing to increasing gender equality. The Gender
Equality Bureau in Japan estimated total expenditure on gender equality
priorities to be 4 per cent of the general budget in 2009 (Ichii and Sharp,
2013). In Korea, the government’s budget for gender equality has been slowly
increasing (although it still comprises only 2.3 per cent of the central
government budget in 2021), and an increase in gender equality awareness among
government officials who have experience in preparing gender budget statements
is also noticeable (KWDI, 2021: 6–7).
UNCERTAIN FUTURE OF WOMEN’S POLITICAL REPRESENTATION Women’s political
representation has been particularly problematic in both Japan and Korea.
Women’s groups in both countries have made significant efforts to promote
increased political representation of women and ultimately women’s policymaking.
Japan was slow to develop legal measures to increase women’s presence in
politics. Neither quota adoption nor women’s political representation was an
important priority for the political leaders of the dominant Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP) (Dalton, 2015). By contrast, other parties have introduced measures
to support women’s access to politics. For instance, Netto, the political wing
of the seikatsu club cooperative – a grassroots movement promoting the
well-being of community residents – has been key to representing women’s
interests by nominating female candidates and addressing fundamental concerns of
housewives (shufu) in local politics (Gelb and Estevez-Abe, 1998; Shin, 2016).
Similarly, both the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the Japanese Communist
Party (JCP) have consistently expressed interest in systematically increasing
the number of women legislators (Gaunder, 2015). Party strategies to increase
women’s political presence, however, have been mainly limited to parties other
than the dominant LDP, and therefore their impact has been limited to local
councils. In 2013, a coalition of approximately 60 women’s groups – the
Association to Promote Gender Quotas (Q no kai) – held a number of meetings with
parliamentarians and organised public forums to raise awareness on women’s
political representation.12 In response, an all-party parliamentary group
‘women’s political participation and empowerment’ prepared the Gender Parity Law
(the Law for the Promotion of Gender Parity in Politics), which was successfully
adopted in 2018 (Miura, 2018: 88). The law stipulates, as a basic principle,
that political parties should aim at parity in the number of female and male
candidates in national and local elections. The law also places an obligation –
both at national and local levels – to implement gender equality in politics
(Miura, 2018: 87).
388 Handbook of feminist governance The recent passage of the Gender Parity Law
was considered significant in that the law encourages parties to ‘make an
effort’ to implement quotas or numerical targets in order to achieve gender
parity in politics. However, the gender parity law relies on parties simply to
make an effort, rather than legally binding parties to do so.13 It is unclear
how political parties would react to a gender parity law that relies on parties’
own efforts to achieve gender equality in politics. In this regard, the
long-term impacts of the gender parity law on women’s numerical representation
remain to be closely monitored in the future. As previously mentioned, parties
other than the LDP have worked to promote women’s political representation,
particularly in local councils. Yet, a recent study finds that female members of
minor parties and those with no party affiliation (Independents) are passionate
about acting for women, but their minority status prevents them from actually
turning their ideas into policy outputs (Osawa and Yoon, 2019). Therefore, what
is important is for major parties like the LDP in Japan to actively recruit
female candidates, and for those female legislators to be able to speak for
women once they are elected. In South Korea, quota adoption has been a primary
goal of women’s groups from early on, since democratisation of the country in
1987. Women’s organisations across the ideological spectrum formed coalitions to
push for the adoption of gender quota laws and for subsequent revisions (Yoon
and Shin, 2015). In 2000, the Political Party Act was revised to recommend that
parties nominate at least 30 per cent women in their proportional representation
(PR) lists in both national and local elections, although specific enforcement
measures were not included. The election laws (e.g. Political Party Act, Public
Official Election Act, Political Funds Act) were revised several times in
subsequent years. As of today, while political parties are ‘mandated’ to comply
with 50 per cent zipper-list quotas for PR candidate lists (or else the party’s
list is rejected), no sanctions apply to non-compliance with the gender quotas
in single-member districts, even though large portions of seats in both the
national and local legislatures are elected in SMDs rather than in PR (Shin,
2016: 358). Instead, political parties are simply given access to additional
political funds as an incentive when conforming to the 30 per cent quota in the
majoritarian tier. Overall, gender quotas have contributed to women’s numerical
increase over time in South Korea. The percentage of women in the National
Assembly remained very low at 5.9 per cent in 2000, but jumped to 13 per cent in
2004. The percentage of female members elected to the National Assembly
gradually increased to 17 per cent in 2016, and to 19 per cent in the most
recent election in 2020. At the same time, the proportion of female
parliamentarians is still far from meeting the 30 per cent critical mass.
Parties, on the surface, show support for quotas, but resist informally by
complying only in the PR tier of the mixed electoral system: they show lack of
commitment to enforcement in single-member districts where they face strong
opposition from male incumbents (Yoon and Shin, 2017). As a result, most female
representatives win seats in uncontested elections through zipper-list quotas in
PR. Moreover, there is an informal agreement that exists among parties that PR
members serve a single term, making it difficult for those elected female
members to run again as PR list candidates in subsequent elections (Yoon and
Shin, 2015). Despite the uncertain future impacts of the Parity Law in Japan and
legislative gender quotas in South Korea, there are still some positive signs
regarding women’s sustainable and substantive representation in the two
countries. For instance, while most women have won seats through zipper-list
quotas in PR, the number of women elected in SMDs has continuously increased
since quotas were adopted in 2000 (e.g. from five in 2004 to 19 in 2016).
Similarly,
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia 389
about 50 per cent of women elected in SMDs had previously served as PR members
in the National Assembly (Shin, 2014). Thus, the impact of zipper-list gender
quotas is not limited only to PR, but may spill over to SMDs under the mixed
electoral system, contributing to women’s sustainable representation in South
Korea. Furthermore, a comparative investigation of statements in local councils
in Japan and Korea revealed that female members, regardless of their party
affiliation, speak about women’s issues more often than their male counterparts
in both countries (Yoon and Osawa, 2017). As expected, parties representing
distinct constituencies and ideologies (e.g. conservative vs progressive)
highlight different aspects of women’s concerns, but overall, female legislators
are more likely than male legislators to advocate for women’s interests in local
councils. These findings suggest a greater possibility of women’s substantive
representation as more women are elected in the future.
FEMINIST GOVERNANCE AND LIMITED POLICY IMPACTS Despite more than two decades of
institutional history, women’s policy units seem to have made little progress in
advancing the social and economic conditions of women in the two East Asian
countries. One area in which progress has been slow is in women’s economic
empowerment. The global gender gap index places Japan at 110th and South Korea
at 115th out of a total of 149 countries. Of the features listed under the
category, women’s low level of labour force participation, and representation as
senior officials and managers seem particularly problematic. In Japan, women’s
average labour force participation is about 17 per cent lower than that of men
(68.4 per cent for female, 85.6 per cent for male). The gap is much more extreme
when considering women’s representation as legislators, senior officials and
managers (13.2 per cent female, 86.8 per cent male). The Abe government has
strived to improve women’s economic participation and representation in recent
years. The fundamental idea behind Abe government’s ‘womenomics’ policy is to
boost Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) by 12.5 percentage points by
increasing women’s participation in the labor force (Matsui et al., 2014: 5).
The policy also contained the slogan ʻ30 by 20’, which aims to put women into 30
per cent of leadership positions in the economy and government by 2020.14 To
meet this target, the Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement
in the Workplace was passed in 2015, to assess employers according to their
efforts to empower women. According to this law, corporations and local
municipalities ranked highly on this measure would be eligible for modest
grants, but they were voluntary measures for which no clear penalties for
non-compliance were indicated. Not only was the impact of Abe’s womenomics
limited, but the measures were harshly criticised by feminist scholars, as
women’s economic participation and advancement were discussed in the context of
katsuyo (utilisation) or katsuyaku (lively contribution), considering women as
assets to re-energise the national economy (Kano, 2018). In Korea, the problem
of women’s economic participation and advancement is even more serious (Figure
31.1). Women’s labour force participation rate has stagnated at around 50 per
cent since 2000. In 2020, women’s labour force participation is at 59.1 per
cent, which remains 18.8 points lower than that of men. What’s worse, Korean
women in their 20s and 30s experience career interruption due to child care or
housework (i.e. M curve phenomenon), and they face worse working conditions when
they are re-employed (Figure 31.2). The gender wage gap in Korea is narrowing,
but it
390 Handbook of feminist governance
Source: OECD Statistics (https:// stats .oecd .org/ Index .aspx ?DataSetCode =
LFS _SEXAGE _I _R #).
Figure 31.1
Korean labour force participation (2000–2020)
Source: OECD Statistics (https:// stats .oecd .org/ Index .aspx ?DataSetCode =
LFS _SEXAGE _I _R #).
Figure 31.2
Women’s economic participation by age group for Korea and OECD countries (2020)
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia 391 is
still greater than that of other OECD countries. For instance, the average
gender wage gap in the OECD was 15.3 per cent in 2017, while that of Korea was
36.7 per cent – the highest among all OECD countries and higher even than that
of Japan (Chang et al., 2019: 109). One of the main reasons for the continuing
gender wage gap is women’s tendency to work in low-wage jobs within non-regular
work (more so than men). The Ministry of Gender Equality has adopted several
ongoing strategies to increase women’s representation in private corporations
and women’s leadership capacity, and various support policies have been
implemented to bring career-interrupted women back into the labour market. Yet,
the various institutional measures implemented by the government to support
female workers have done little to improve women’s economic participation and
advancement. Moreover, the recent #MeToo movement hinted at the hostile working
environment women face in the two countries, well-known for their patriarchal
and masculine cultures. In Japan, #MeToo began in the social media when a
freelance writer named Hachu wrote and shared a post on Facebook describing the
sexual harassment she experienced at Dentsu – Japan’s leading advertising
agency. Shortly afterwards, a freelance journalist, Shiori Ito shared her story
of being raped by Yamaguchi – a prominent TV journalist and acquaintance of then
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – who invited her to dinner for a possible
job opportunity while she was interning at Thomson Reuters. Similarly, #MeToo in
South Korea was ignited by Ji-Hyeon Suh, a female prosecutor, when she shared
her experience of sexual harassment and discrimination within the prosecutor’s
office on live TV news in January 2018. Not too long afterwards on the same live
news programme, Ji-Eun Kim, a staff member of Hee-Jeong An, a Governor of
Chungbuk province, exposed publicly the sexual assault she had endured while
working for Governor An. The early cases of #MeToo occurred in work-related
environments in both countries. In Japan, the movement began with two freelance
workers who did not have permanent positions, which gave them some liberty to
speak out about their experiences. This also means that speaking out about
sexual assault experiences may be far more difficult for other women, who fear
harming the reputation of the firm as well as their own careers – the reason why
most female victims of sexual harassment choose to stay silent and anonymous
(Hasunuma and Shin, 2019). In Korea, the early cases involved prominent figures
in powerful positions, where men relied on their powers to sexually harass and
assault female subordinates repeatedly. What is even more surprising, however,
is how little has changed as a result of the #MeToo movement, despite the large
amount of public attention to the issue. This has been particularly true in the
case of Japan, where the movement was limited mostly to the journalism field. By
contrast, in Korea, the #MeToo movement ignited by a female prosecutor led to a
bottom-up grassroots movement of women speaking out about their experiences in
different professional fields, such as sports, culture and the arts, and
education (i.e., #School MeToo). The movement eventually led the government to
recreate Gender Equality Offices in eight government ministries in 2019, whose
key mission is to address sexual assault cases occurring within the boundaries
of the ministry (e.g. addressing #MeToo cases in schools and universities and
adopting legal measures to prevent further cases in the Ministry of Education),
in addition to coordinating gender equal policymaking (Park et al., 2019).
Nevertheless, the news in 2020 that the personal secretary of Seoul Mayor
Won-soon Park accused the mayor of sexually harassing her for more than four
years, and that her requests for help to the Seoul City Hall went ignored,
suggested that organisational culture with regard to preventing and addressing
sexual assault cases changed little.
392 Handbook of feminist governance
BACKLASH AGAINST FEMINIST INSTITUTIONS AND INTENSIFYING GENDER CONFLICT
Unprecedented levels of backlash against feminist institutions occurred in the
early 2000s in Japan, when the questioning of government policies for gender
equality increased in the Diet (Kano, 2011: 42). Around this time, several
municipal gender equality centres were built, offering meeting rooms, libraries
and educational programmes for city residents. These actions were considered an
invasion of feminism into the local community as a result of gender equality
ordinances and centres. The conservative attacks began in newsletters and
pamphlets produced by conservative organisations like Nippon Kaigi (Japan
Conference), and these attacks were quickly picked up by the conservative mass
media like the Sankei and online communities, criticising both the direction of
municipal gender equality ordinances and the educational programmes held in
municipal gender equality centres. The term ‘gender free’ often became the
target of attack. Although it was used mostly to mean ‘free from gender bias’,
it was regarded as ‘eliminating gender’ (Kano, 2011: 45). The fact that the
women’s policy machinery was created as an outcome of international
mobilisation, rather than domestic grassroots mobilisation, added to the
build-up of hostility toward these institutions (Kano, 2011). Institutional
backlash against feminist institutions was not difficult to foresee from the
outset, when specific wordings were chosen for political reasons. For example,
the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society in Japanese includes the phrase, ‘danjo
kyodosankaku’, which translates as ‘co-participation and planning of men and
women’. It was a strategic move by conservative politicians to use a murky term
instead of a clearer and straight-forward term for equality, which is ‘byodo’
(Yamaguchi, 2018: 68). Conservative politicians avoided using ‘byodo,’ because
it was understood as equality in outcome rather than opportunity, and instead
preferred ‘sankaku’ – participation in planning – calling for a greater role for
women in society (Kano, 2011: 44). Backlash against feminist institutions has
been even more intense and visible in South Korea. Thousands of citizens signed
a petition in 2020 demanding the government abolish the Ministry of Gender
Equality and Family, because ‘clearly the ministry that operates with taxpayers’
money is doing nothing to improve the conditions of women’.15 In male-dominated
online communities, it is not too difficult to come across comments that point
to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family as the main cause of their
frustration (Lee et al., 2018). Yet, to understand the essence of this
institutional backlash, it is important to look at gender conflict that is
deeply rooted and growing in Korean society. Since the Korean War, Korean men
between 18 and 35 have been required to serve for approximately two years in the
military. However, young men today don’t believe this should be a duty assigned
only to men;16 they also believe they are missing out on important opportunities
during the years of their military service. Furthermore, while men in their 20s
agree that older generations of women have made sacrifices and were
discriminated against, they do not believe that women of similar ages as
themselves experience discrimination based on sex. Therefore, when the Ministry
of Gender Equality and Family announces a plan to expand female representation
both in government and the private sector, young men believe these measures give
women an unfair advantage, and make it more difficult for men to get jobs and
become successful in their careers.
Feminist institutions and implications for gender equality in East Asia 393
CONCLUSION This chapter has shown that Japan and South Korea similarly launched
women’s policy units to achieve gender equality more than 20 years ago, although
the two countries differed in specific institutional design, and the form of
legal measures to promote women’s political representation. Nevertheless, the
low status of women’s policy machineries, as well as lack of resources, has been
a constant challenge, limiting their institutional capacity to implement gender
equality policy. This in part explains why policy impacts and women’s
advancement in economic and social spheres have been slow in both Japan and
South Korea. Furthermore, the two countries are strikingly similar in facing
backlash, despite continued policy efforts by feminist institutions to advance
gender equality policy. As discussed previously in this chapter, backlash has
been more pronounced in the case of South Korea, and the Ministry of Gender
Equality and Family has become the central target of the backlash movement. The
two country cases are important, because they have implications for other new
democracies in the Asian region where feminist institutions are developing and
expanding. While specific mechanisms of these national policy machineries
differ, both countries have highly stable policymaking institutions and tools
like gender budgeting to implement gender equality policy. In this regard, the
presence of these institutions and tools makes it possible to pass
gender-related legislations (e.g. on violence against women), and strengthen
national capacities for gender-sensitive planning and budgeting, even when
backlash intensifies.
NOTES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
See https:// www .worldometers .info/ gdp/ gdp -by -country/ . See https:// en
.wikipedia .org/ wiki/ Democracy _Index #cite _note -index2019 -7. See https://
www .economist .com/ graphic -detail/ 2019/ 03/ 08/ the -glass -ceiling -index.
See https:// data .ipu .org/ women -ranking ?month = 10 & year = 2020. For
details of the organisational structure of the national machinery in Japan, see
https:// www .gender .go .jp/ english _contents/ about _danjo/ lbp/ basic/
toshin -e/ org -e .html. 6. To date, the Korean Women’s Development Institute
supports gender equality policymaking in the country by conducting basic
research in major policy areas impacting women. See https:// eng .kwdi .re .kr/
about/ goal .do. 7. See https:// eng .kwdi .re .kr/ publications/ genderPolicy
.do. 8. See https:// elaw .klri .re .kr/ eng _mobile/ viewer .do ?hseq = 52893 &
type = part & key = 38. 9. Eight ministries and agencies include Ministry of
Education, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of
Defence, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ministry of Employment and
Labour, Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, and National Police Agency (Park et al.,
2019). 10. See https:// www .gender .go .jp/ english _contents/ mge/ index
.html. 11. See http:// www .mogef .go .kr/ eng/ pc/ eng _pc _f001 .do. 12.
WINWIN – a group that has continuously worked towards women’s political
representation – is an executive organisation of Q no Kai. See http:// www
.winwinjp .org/ . 13. Miura notes that legal quotas were considered
unconstitutional for two reasons. First, it violates freedom of association,
namely the freedom for political parties to recruit and nominate their own
candidates; second, it was considered unconstitutional to discriminate against
men and that legal quotas endangered men’s right and freedom to run for office
(Miura, 2018: 88). 14. The government became less ambitious in 2015, when it
lowered the target to 7 per cent of leadership positions in government and 5 per
cent in the private sector in the Fourth Basic Plan of Gender Equal Society.
394 Handbook of feminist governance 15. See https:// www1 .president .go .kr/
petitions/ 591086. 16. In their study of 3,000 adult men, Ma et al. (2018) found
that 72 per cent of men in their 20s think that the male-only draft is a form of
gender discrimination, and almost 65 per cent believe that women should also be
conscripted.
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32. Feminist governance in Asia: areas of contestation and cooperation Rashila
Ramli and Sharifah Syahirah
INTRODUCTION Women’s empowerment has been an issue impacting all of society. In
South East Asia, women’s activism has taken place at the grassroots level,
mostly through civil society organisations (CSOs), within the private sector as
well as at governmental level. Throughout the 20th century, women discovered
that their voices are taken more seriously if they speak as one through an
organisation. On the other hand, women’s representation as decision-makers is
still low in all sectors particularly in legislative, regional organisations and
corporate sectors (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2021), leading to direct and
indirect discrimination as addressed in the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Substantive gender equality,
non-discrimination and state accountability to protect women’s rights are the
heart of the women’s rights convention, CEDAW. This convention has been ratified
and acceded to by 189 member states of the United Nations, providing a
much-needed legal entity for states and organisations to leverage their demands
(United Nations Treaty Collection, 2020). For governments, ratification means
they have agreed to take necessary actions to adhere to the convention. For
CSOs, CEDAW provides a universal framework to hold the government accountable
for advancing gender equality. CEDAW spells out broad state obligations in
Articles 2–4, which mention that the state parties must enact non-discriminatory
policies, promote and take proactive measures for women’s advancement, and
introduce affirmative actions to intensify de facto equality (IWRAW-ap.org,
2020). Since CEDAW was adopted by the UN General Assembly, there have been
attempts by governments as well as CSOs to introduce and later on embed feminist
values and governance within their organisations using CEDAW as the guiding
instrument. Feminist governance encompasses feminist institutions, norms and
ideas, as well as the work that feminists have done within broader political
institutions and governance networks at national, subnational and transnational
levels. This chapter studies the operational values of feminist governance in
Asia specifically within intergovernmental (IGO) and CSO regional organisations.
It focuses on the extent to which feminist values are practised through regional
IGOs and CSOs in Asia. How has feminist governance been realised within these
organisations? To examine the issue, this chapter (i) discusses gender equality
advocacy within a regional IGO and CSO; and (ii) analyses these regional actors
based on three main components of feminist governance. Two regional
organisations are selected as case studies, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia Pacific Forum for Women, Law and Development
(APWLD). Although the organisations differ starkly in terms of their
organisational structures, they have a similar objective of empowering women and
girls. For ASEAN, the objective is stated in the ASEAN Charter of 2007 while in
APWLD, its mission is stated in the APWLD Constitution. Both organisations adopt
the human rights approach where women’s rights are human rights. 396
Feminist governance in Asia 397 ASEAN, an IGO with 10 member states, was
established in 1967. There are two main consultative bodies that directly and
indirectly promote feminist values: the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) and the ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). AICHR was established in
2009 and subsequently, the ACWC was formed on 7 April 2010 (ACWC, 2010; ASEAN
Secretariat, 2009). Since AICHR’s inception, it has organised meetings and
workshops related to women’s rights that directly assist ACWC objectives. As a
loosely integrated regional IGO, the ASEAN structure is based on three pillars:
political-security, socio-cultural and economic pillars. Despite being the only
two anchors of human rights within ASEAN, AICHR and ACWC usually work without
coordination. Although AICHR is the overarching human rights council of ASEAN,
it is placed within the ASEAN political-security pillar, while ACWC is placed
within ASEAN socio-cultural pillar. As for commissions within ASEAN, although
AICHR and ACWC only act as advisors, they have directly empowered human and
women rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs) through engagement and
networks. Meanwhile, the APWLD is a feminist CSO that advocates gender equality
within the Asia Pacific. Established in 1985, and presently based in Chiang Mai,
APWLD comprises two types of membership: organisational membership and
individual membership. To date, there have been 235 NGO members and individual
members from 27 countries since its founding. As a regional NGO, APWLD initiated
capacity-building workshops and women’s rights advocacy by engaging with
governments, IGOs and women NGOs in the Asia Pacific region. This chapter
focuses on feminist governance by analysing feminist values, mechanisms and
networks. It highlights the roles of ASEAN (through AICHR and ACWC) and APWLD in
fostering feminist governance based on values, mechanisms and networks. There
are areas of cooperation and contestation faced by these organisations in
promoting gender equality and feminist-related agendas.
REGIONAL GOVERNANCE IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION Feminist values, mechanisms and
networks, which are indicators of feminist governance (Table 32.1) illuminate
how regional governance and feminism influence the Asia region. Feminist values
refer to gender equality, inclusiveness, empowerment, substantive equality,
philosophy and principles. Mechanisms refer to organisational structures,
platforms, protocols and law, while networks refer to the collaborative
endeavours and the discursive relationships that exist among CSOs, IGOs, state
governments and business organisations to foster feminist values. This chapter
contextualises the evolution of Asian feminist governance by mapping the actors
involved, particularly IGOs and CSOs. To enrich the above conceptualisation, the
element of culture must be considered since the sites of governance are
enveloped by cultural contexts. Culture in this context refers to human and
organisational attitudes towards feminist beliefs, rights, justice and
expectations. This approach is also known as the Substance– Structure–Culture
approach, which provides a framework to scrutinise both existing laws that
directly or indirectly enable or oppress women and methods to reform the law to
eliminate all forms of discrimination against women (APWLD, 2014). Many feminist
governance values are derived from CEDAW and supported by the ASEAN Charter and
other human rights conventions. These international agreements construct and
398 Handbook of feminist governance Table 32.1
Feminist governance elements in South East Asia
Feminist Governance
Description
1.
Values
State obligation, substantive equality and non-discrimination
2.
Mechanism
Government and regional IGO policies, laws, administrations
3.
Network
Local, regional and global organisations, specific government and IGOs agencies
Source: Syahirah (2015).
pressure ASEAN member states to revisit and amend different laws, policies and
practices related to women’s rights and human rights in general. In South East
Asia and much of the world, CEDAW is a good example of a substantive normative
framework. As an international women’s convention, CEDAW became a compass of
feminist governance in South East Asia after all ASEAN state members ratified
it. Meanwhile, the changes made in state policies and structures after CEDAW
ratification are good examples of the structural approach. The IGO and CSO
networks constructed through CEDAW are a part of culture-building that has
shaped feminist governance in the Asia region. This regional–global governance
is strengthened by ratification of other human rights conventions such as the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the introduction of the ASEAN
Charter in 2008. Through the regional Charter and member states’ ratification of
human rights conventions, feminist values, mechanisms and platforms have been
shaped and strengthened over time. Table 32.2 indicates member states’
commitment to CEDAW. Table 32.2
ASEAN state members and CEDAW
No
States
Date of ratification
State reports
Shadow/alternative report
1.
Brunei
24/5/2006
None
None
2.
Cambodia
15/10/1995
2004, 2011
2006, 2010, 2016
3.
Indonesia
13/9/1984
1997, 2005, 2011, 2019
2007, 2012, 2019
4.
Laos
14/8/1981
2005, 2008, 2017
None
5.
Malaysia
5/7/1995
2004, 2018
2005, 2012, 2018
6.
Myanmar
22/7/1997
2000, 2007, 2016
2000, 2008, 2016
7.
Philippines
5/8/1981
1993, 1997, 2006, 2015
2006, 2016
8.
Singapore
5/10/1995
2000, 2007, 2009, 2015, 2019
2007, 2011, 2017
9.
Thailand
9/8/1985
1997, 2004, 2015
2003, 2017
10.
Vietnam
17/2/1982
1986, 2001, 2007, 2013
2006, 2010, 2013
Source: Syahirah (2015); United Nations (2021).
This table indicates that all ASEAN member states have separately ratified
CEDAW. The earliest states to accede to CEDAW were Laos, the Philippines,
Vietnam and Indonesia in the 1980s. Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore
ratified it in the 1990s. The last member state to ratify CEDAW was Brunei in
2006. As one of the main human rights conventions, CEDAW has comprehensive
provisions that shape regional–global governance for women’s rights and human
rights in general (Syahirah, 2015). Several feminist governance values are
evident in CEDAW. The first relates to countries’ obligation to rectify any
laws, administrations and mechanisms not compliant with CEDAW’s equality
standards. Member states also have the obligation to submit and present periodic
reports related to the progress of the amendments. For example, a women’s
development ministry was introduced in 2001 after the Malaysian government
acceded to CEDAW in 1995
Feminist governance in Asia 399 (Malaysian Government, 2004, 2018). This
resulted in several laws that discriminate against women being amended. For
example, in Article 8(1) of the Malaysian Federal Constitution, the word gender
was added to ensure no discrimination based on sex occurred. The second value is
substantive equality which refers to the methods states use to uphold equality
by acknowledging the differences in treatment received by men and women
throughout history. It also takes into account indirect discrimination due to
culture, mindsets and stereotypes within communities. Therefore, this feminist
governance value emphasises the need for different measures and treatment of men
and women to achieve equal outcomes – for example, quotas for women. ASEAN state
members that have introduced quota policy for women are Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines and Vietnam (International IDEA, 2020). The third feminist value in
CEDAW is non-discrimination including demands that member states make explicit
efforts to eliminate forms of discrimination due to sex and intersectionality.
For example, in a concluding comment, the CEDAW committee congratulates
Indonesia for adopting new laws to eliminate discrimination against women and
promote gender equality (United Nations, 2007). In terms of the mechanisms of
feminist governance, the establishment of ministries and policies related to
women and human rights has meant various platforms, protocols and laws to ensure
the realisation of feminist values within the ASEAN region. After the
ratification of CEDAW, every member state established a ministry for women and
introduced a policy to address women’s issues and interests. After the ASEAN
Charter, two ASEAN consultative bodies were established and given the mandate of
addressing issues related to women and human rights. The existence of AICHR and
ACWC have strengthened feminist values and constructed forms of power for civil
society organisations and government agencies to amplify women and human rights
issues locally and regionally. These consultative bodies also directly adopt a
global governance framework, particularly inclusiveness, legitimacy,
accountability, transparency, universality, reciprocity and rationality
(Dingwerth, 2003; Syahirah, 2015). Since 11 February 2015, AICHR has adopted a
consultative relationship with CSOs to enhance its engagement. In November of
that year, CSOs were invited to various events and workshops such as AICHR–SOMTC
Joint Workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia 5–6 November 2015 to discuss the human
rights-based approach to combat trafficking in persons, especially women and
children (AICHR, 2015). By having these visible mechanisms within states and
ASEAN, CSOs and related agencies gain institutional power to engage in feminist
governance and monitor member states’ compliance with and implementation of
feminist governance. Institutional power is constructed through various
international treaties which have been endorsed by member states. These
organisations gain rights and authority to monitor and demand that member states
adhere to the values and action plans of feminist governance. Barnett and Duvall
(2005) have highlighted the contestation of power that occurs within global
governance, namely around structural power and institutional power. Structural
power is associated with a country’s sovereignty, based on its history, culture,
law and religious interpretation. The institutional power of feminist governance
has grown through the UN human rights conventions. In particular, CEDAW has
strengthened the power of feminist ideas and advocacy networks. Due to this
power, various global, regional and local civil society organisations can
operate as advocacy agents within the ASEAN framework. This chapter focuses on
how the regional agencies, AICHR and ACWC, as well as the CSO APWLD can utilise
the values, mechanism and network of feminist governance to eliminate
discrimination against women.
400 Handbook of feminist governance
GENDER EQUALITY IN AICHR AND ACWC More than 32 years since its establishment,
ASEAN has begun to adopt and promote gender equality values and mechanisms
through ACWC and AICHR. Discussion on human rights in ASEAN started in 1993
through a Joint Communique of the 26th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting. After
participating in the UN World Conference on Human Rights and adopting the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action, member states of ASEAN agreed to adopt the
ASEAN Charter in November 2007 (ASEAN, 2007). Article 14 of the ASEAN Charter
states that a human rights body is needed to ensure effective human rights
governance within the South East Asia region. Hence, in 2009 at the 15th ASEAN
Summit Thailand, AICHR was inaugurated and designed to be an integral part of
the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN. In line with the adoption
of CEDAW and CRC, the ACWC was created on 7 April 2010 to address issues related
to women and children in the South East Asia region. ACWC started to develop
policies and programmes based on a global feminist governance framework by
engaging various stakeholders including CSOs. Regional feminist governance began
to be operationalised by the appointments of AICHR and ACWC representatives from
the 10 member states. AICHR and ACWC have growing normative roles in addressing
issues related to women’s vulnerability, dignity, rights and well-being.
However, due to the nature of ASEAN’s loosely integrated structure of
regionalism and member states’ political sovereignty, AICHR and ACWC face
challenges in eliminating discrimination and human rights abuses in the region.
The first challenge is that AICHR and ACWC are widely criticised by
stakeholders, particularly CSOs, as ineffective and ‘toothless’. They are also
perceived as protecting the state members’ interest more than promoting human
rights in the region. The Chairperson of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
(APHR), Charles Santiago, said at the High-Level Dialogue on Human Rights in
ASEAN: If AICHR cannot be reformed as a way to protect people’s rights in the
region, then should we look for another mechanism? This is the challenge I think
for today and a challenge for our governments. If we can answer this question we
can move forward for human rights in the region, as well as the protection and
promotion of human rights for our communities. (ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human
Rights, 2019)
Second, as consultative bodies, AICHR and ACWC lack mandates or a system that
facilitates smooth coordination among bodies to avoid duplication and
overlapping of programmes. There are also gaps between the three pillars of
ASEAN. Gender issues and human rights are not mainstream issues and are not the
main priority of ASEAN (Forum Asia, 2020; Mules, 2017). Although AICHR and ACWC
are supposed to be regional mechanisms for women and human rights, the terms of
reference (TOR) of these councils do not address the need to respond or give
assistance to any urgent cases related to women, children and human rights
violation in ASEAN. Since ASEAN is a loosely integrated regional
intergovernmental organisation, it is difficult to achieve consensus in certain
matters, including reforming the AICHR and ACWC TORs (Forum Asia, 2020). Another
challenge is that since the governments of the member states have the
prerogative to choose their representatives, the representatives have varied
backgrounds – coming from government offices, NGOs and the academy. This has
contributed to a lack of commitment and understanding of the objectives of AICHR
and ACWC (Forum Asia, 2020).
Feminist governance in Asia 401 Although there are major challenges, the
existence of AICHR and ACWC has made a substantive contribution to human rights
and gender equality endeavours within ASEAN. Despite growing criticism of the
inclinations of ASEAN member states to emphasise the ‘ASEAN way’ (Mules, 2017),
AICHR and ACWC have managed to create platforms for governments, civil society
and academicians to discuss and highlight different issues related to gender
equality and human rights. These platforms have strengthened the values and
networks of gender equality initiatives. The main breakthrough was the adoption
of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration in 2012. As the first standard-setting
political document to codify basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, this
declaration helps empower stakeholders and gender equality and human rights
movements within the South East Asia region (ASEAN Secretariat, 2013). AICHR and
ACWC give institutional power to different women’s NGOs and CSOs to push and
strengthen gender equality and human rights mechanisms within ASEAN. At ASEAN
events, stakeholders have managed to highlight the importance of all ASEAN state
members upholding CEDAW and CRC as part of the ASEAN Political-Security
Community Blueprint and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community missions (Forum Asia,
2020). However, the two councils report to different pillars of ASEAN; the AICHR
reports to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting under the political-security
pillar, while the ACWC reports to the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Social
Welfare and Development and the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Women under the
socio-cultural pillar (Forum Asia, 2020). This set-up can be both beneficial and
challenging to the feminist governance in ASEAN. As a consultative body, AICHR
is described as the overarching human rights institution in ASEAN with overall
responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN, while
ACWC’s TOR states the need to work with AICHR as well as other relevant bodies
pertaining to issues related to women and children’s rights. Although there are
limits to taking action as consultative bodies, AICHR and ACWC have mandates to
engage and organise consultative dialogues with various national, regional and
international stakeholders (Forum Asia, 2020). The establishment of these human
rights consultative bodies created an epistemic community comprising ‘a network
of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain
and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or
issue-area’ (Haas, 1992: 1–2; Hara, 2019). This community can directly influence
decision-makers by providing national and regional frameworks for policies
relating to women, children and human rights. It is a discursive but effective
mechanism to diffuse advocacy ideas and strategies from civil society to
governments and ASEAN. In assessing the impact of ACWC, Forum Asia (2020)
conducted a survey related to the ACWC’s governance particularly on its
selection process, and its performance on the promotion of human rights and
fundamental freedoms of women and children in ASEAN. The survey tried to measure
ACWC roles as an advocate for women and children and how it assisted ASEAN
member states in preparing CEDAW, CRC, UPR and other Treaty reports. Other than
that, this survey also measured to what extent ACWC efforts on stakeholders’
capacity-building and information provision related to women’s and children’s
rights are publicised. The findings indicate that ACWC is constrained by (i) a
lack of support from ASEAN member states resulting in the absence of an annual
budget and resources for ACWC; and (ii) ACWC’s structural position is vague and
the selection process for its representatives could be improved. ACWC needs to
be a fully-fledged human rights mechanism to eliminate all forms of
discrimination against women. Sixty-five per cent agreed with the statement that
402 Handbook of feminist governance the ACWC has performed satisfactorily on
the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and children in
ASEAN since there had been changes to national policies concerning violence
against women and children. However, the ACWC’s direct contribution to the
changes remains unclear. Respondents surveyed stated that the top three priority
areas for ACWC should be (i) strengthening initiatives to eliminate violence
against women and children by developing accountability mechanisms within ASEAN;
(ii) eliminating violence against women in the context of public health
emergencies; and (iii) developing a regional action plan on women, peace and
security to support women in conflict and the post-conflict situations in ASEAN.
Discussions about the AICHR and ACWC reveal the complexity involved in trying to
strengthen feminist governance components within ASEAN. In terms of values,
there is frequent contestation between the feminist governance values of state
obligation, non-discrimination and substantive equality, and the core values of
the ASEAN way that uphold sovereignty and non-interference in the internal
affairs of one another. Therefore, AICHR and ACWC can only act as advisory
entities and are regarded as weak by CSOs and human rights activists. Despite
the contestation, AICHR and ACWC directly attain institutional power through the
CEDAW reporting process that upholds the principle of state obligation upon
ratification. ASEAN state members are obliged to adopt and implement policies
and amend laws to be in line with CEDAW. AICHR and ACWC also manage to empower
CSOs and human rights activists through meetings, workshops and events related
to human rights, particularly women’s and children’s rights. With these
activities, AICHR and ACWC have strengthened and amplified feminist governance
despite values and structural contestation within ASEAN.
THE ASIA PACIFIC FORUM ON WOMEN, LAW AND DEVELOPMENT, AND FEMINIST ADVOCACY At
the Asia Pacific regional level, the APWLD is one of the most vocal feminist
organisations. Feminist governance is apparent from the inception of APWLD, as
it is in many feminist civil society organisations (see Chapter 2 of this
Handbook), in terms of feminist values, mechanisms and networks. Gender equality
for all is the stated goal of APWLD. Recognising that advances in women’s human
rights can be achieved and sustained when autonomous feminist movements exist
and have enabling environments in which to work, APWLD uses feminist analysis to
dissect, engage with and transform laws, legal practices and the system that
shape and inform them (APWLD, 2020). It fosters feminist movements to influence
policies, laws and practices at different levels of governance. APWLD upholds
the concept of Women’s Human Rights developed during the UN Decade for Women
(1976–85). Since the APWLD’s founding, its founders and members have advocated
for change and utilised intersectional perspectives. By 2010, the organisation
began to emphasise both intersectionality and a stronger theory of change as it
strives to achieve development justice for all. More challenging for APWLD has
been the mechanisms of feminist governance. APWLD is a grassroots-based
organisation formed in 1986 when lawyers, activists and scholars set up a
secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. From 1997 until 2008, the grassroots
members operated within task forces that were answerable to the Regional
Council, the highest governing body of APWLD. Members of the Regional Council
are elected every three years. They represent six sub-regions in the Asia
Pacific and provide directions for the Programme and
Feminist governance in Asia 403 Management Committee members who work with the
Secretariat of APWLD. The organisation has developed extensive networks in 27
countries with the main aim of promoting legislation to ensure the protection
and empowerment of women while recognising that law can also be used to inhibit
women’s potential. Between 1997 and 2007, APWLD members had the opportunity to
serve on six different task forces: Violence against Women; Rural and Indigenous
Women; Women’s Participation in Political Processes; Labour and Migration;
Women’s Human Rights; and Women and Environment. New members were nominated to
different task forces by other members. Each task force would meet annually to
plan and execute its activities. During the Strategic Planning Meeting on 27–8
January 2002, the Regional Council decided on six programmes for the six task
forces. However, there was a crisis in 2006 when APWLD ran out of funds. Based
on the third external evaluation for 2003–5, members knew that APWLD had to
restructure itself to be sustainable. In 2008, the APWLD Operations Manual
outlining management, administrative and financial guidelines and procedures was
finally completed. Task forces were replaced by organising committees. This
shift towards a horizontal organisational structure provides more space for
members to participate. Furthermore, the move to conduct major meetings online
also allows for greater participation and more voices to be heard. In 2008,
there were four major programmes organised by APWLD: Beyond Marginalisation,
Women in Power, Feminist Legal Theory, and Grounding the Global. By 2015, two
additional programmes had been added: Feminist Development Justice and Climate
Change. One of the common threads that bind the programmes together is the
concern to eradicate all forms of violence against women (VAW). APWLD members
see VAW as a cross-cutting issue that must be addressed by all programmes.
Through the years, many cases of VAW have been documented by APWLD in rural
areas, the workplace and public spaces, as well as within households. Each
programme developed approaches to confront VAW in a targeted manner. For
example, the Feminist Legal Theory programme explicitly highlights laws,
regulations and inadequate support systems concerning VAW (Ramli, 2018).
Comparative analyses were undertaken to compare and contrast actions taken by
state enforcement agencies, as well as the support given by NGOs to victims of
violence. One of the strongest activities of APWLD is the capacity-building
programmes developed by different organising committees. Two capacity-building
programmes are the Feminist Law and Practice Training Programme (FLP) and the
Gender and Politics Training – Women in Power (WiP) Programme. On the one hand,
FLP is a long-standing programme that focuses on the transforming of
discriminatory laws, policies and practices by women’s rights advocates and
organisations. On the other hand, WIP trains participants who have the
aspiration to become candidates for election in their respective countries.
Besides training, APWLD is also known for Feminist Participatory Action Research
(FPAR). FPAR is feminist-organised training to document rights violations,
collectively craft solutions and advocate a strategy for change at the local,
national, regional and international levels. FPAR can be designed for specific
contexts and issues such as climate justice, women’s rights to decent work, a
living wage and participatory democracy, and discrimination against marginalised
women. In the case of climate justice, women’s organisations located within
village communities utilised FPAR to mobilise cross-movement collaboration in
the form of co-creation of the Feminist Fossil Free Future. The strength of
APWLD is its networks from the grassroots to the global level. Using information
gathered from grassroots members, injustice towards women’s human rights
404 Handbook of feminist governance defenders such as harassment and
imprisonment were brought to the attention of regional and international bodies.
At the global level, APWLD has been engaging with UN treaty bodies and special
procedures since the new millennium. It campaigned for the creation of the
mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and in 1994
Radhika Coomaraswamy, one of APWLD’s founding members, was the first appointment
to the position. To facilitate direct engagement between Asia Pacific women’s
rights organisations and UN mandate holders, APWLD began to hold annual
consultations with the UN Special Rapporteur, attended by NGOs working on VAW as
well as victims of VAW. These consultations have been expanded to other mandate
holders with the aim of ensuring that women’s human rights are systematically
integrated into UN human rights bodies and mechanisms. The regional
consultations provide a safe space for women to provide first-hand testimonials
on specific cases directly to the mandate holders. More importantly, the
consultations provide an opportunity to identify patterns of rights violations,
influence the themes of the mandate holders’ reports, and share strategies and
strengthen networks in the Asia Pacific region. Another important engagement is
the commencement of the Ground Level People’s Forum organised by APWLD for civil
society and people’s movements to have their voice heard on the implementation
of the Global Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Forum,
through its networks, provides an alternative venue to follow up on and review
the SDGs as compared to the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). The HLPF of
2019 focused on the review of SDG 4 on education, SDG 8 on decent work, SDG 10
on reducing inequality, SDG 13 on climate change and SDG 16 on peaceful, just
and inclusive societies. Malaysia is one of the 183 countries committed to
implementing the SDGs. Knowing the importance of the global development
framework, 40 CSOs established the Malaysia SDG CSO Alliance in 2015. The
network has been able to push for SDG implementation through the establishment
of the first All-Party Parliamentary Group Malaysia on SDGs in the Malaysian
Parliament. At least two of the key persons in the All-Party Parliamentary Group
on SDGs – Shanthi Dairiam and Rashila Ramli – are associated with APWLD.
Although APWLD is a feminist organisation, its effectiveness was initially
limited by difficulties in making itself sustainable. This is due to the very
rapid expansion of membership in many countries, the lack of clear operational
manuals for daily operations and, most of all, its limited fundraising
abilities. APWLD diverted the crisis by taking stock of its situation and
adhering to recommendations made by external evaluators. The Strategic Planning
Meeting held in 2008 was a turning point for APWLD. It was at this meeting that
a complete restructuring of the organisation as well as a five-year financial
sustainability plan was put into place. More importantly, members continue to
uphold the values of feminist governance and belief in what they were fighting
for despite these adverse conditions.
INTERNAL VARIATION WITHIN AND BETWEEN ASEAN AND APWLD Feminist governance relies
heavily on networks for its advocacy work. For both ASEAN and APWLD,
organisational structures determined the impact of their programmes. Analysis of
their networks indicates the uniqueness, as well as the strengths and
weaknesses, of ASEAN and APWLD in terms of the advocacy collaboration and
partnership needed for feminist gov-
Feminist governance in Asia 405 Table 32.3
Applying feminist governance concepts to ASEAN and APWLD
Feminist governance ASEAN (within)
APWLD (within)
Values
Contest (liberal vs feminist
Cooperate (consistent feminist values
values)
despite cultural differences)
Cooperate – AICHR and
Contest (drastic organisational
ACWC are embedded within
restructuring and fundraising activities)
ASEAN and APWLD (between)
Mechanisms
Contest Contest
ASEAN Network
Contest (work in silo)
Cooperate (strong linkages from the
Some cooperation
ground to the global level)
ernance. For that reason, we identify areas of contestation and cooperation
within and between the two organisations (Table 32.3). Contestation and
cooperation within ASEAN or APWLD can be explained by the strength of the values
held by members. Members of ASEAN represent the values of their state; thus,
there is a tendency towards protecting one’s national interest while pursuing
mutual gains. Although there is some interdependence, the three pillars of ASEAN
tend to operate independently from one another. APWLD, on the other hand, places
a strong emphasis on feminist values. While their programmes were cohesive, they
had to overcome the organisational and financial challenges. APWLD, as a
regional advocacy organisation, works to increase democratic voices and feminist
values within ASEAN. APWLD continues to support the Southeast Asia Women’s
Caucus on ASEAN, organise the Asia-Pacific People’s Forum and published the
ASEAN Handbook for Women’s Rights Activists. Due to differences in values as
well as mechanisms between the two regional organisations, their interactions
are characterised more by contestation than cooperation. Since AICHR and ACWC
are embedded within ASEAN, these councils have similar objectives and policies
to the ASEAN Charter and international human rights conventions. In the case of
APWLD, its biggest feminist governance challenge was the need to undergo drastic
organisational restructuring and fundraising activities in 2008. Although ACWC
and AICHR share similar feminist values with APWLD, there is contestation in
terms of policies and structures as IGO councils need to adhere to the core
principles of ASEAN (i.e. consultative status). In terms of practice, these two
organisations often create policies or documents that differ significantly from
APWLD goals and expectations, especially on issues related to human trafficking
and refugees. Although these organisations work on the same issues in various
feminist governance platforms, there is dissatisfaction due to differences in
expectations and actions between APWLD, on the one hand, and AICHR, on the
other. For example, in the case of human trafficking issues, both ASEAN and
APWLD seek to eliminate or minimise human trafficking. Both organisations call
for the implementation of the 4Ps (prevention, protection, prosecution and
partnership). However, ASEAN emphasises ASEAN member states’ role as the primary
enforcement units, while the focus of APWLD is the well-being of the victims
regardless of member states’ positions. The difference in focus can lead to
contestation instead of cooperation.
406 Handbook of feminist governance
CONCLUSION This chapter sheds light on feminist values, governance and advocacy
in the Asia Pacific. International agreements, particularly CEDAW, have been the
catalyst of feminist governance in the Asian region, and the Beijing Platform
for Action and the Global Agenda 2030 on SDGs have also been important. These
are seminal for feminist movements since they take gender equality and
non-discrimination as pillars for action. We have focused on feminist values,
mechanisms and networks to highlight the strength, challenges and opportunities
for feminist governance in Asia. Although there has been more contestation than
cooperation, the CSO networks, as well as specific actors within IGOs, can
augment the state obligations to eliminate discrimination and promote gender
equality. The chapter also describes APWLD’s role as a feminist governance
amplifier within the Asia Pacific region. Despite the challenges, AICHR and ACWC
within ASEAN, and APWLD at the civil society level, remain adamant in their
quest to foster gender equality through feminist governance in Asia. An
examination of the organisational structure of ASEAN and APWLD and their goals
suggests that feminist governance flourishes in more horizontal organisations.
This analysis also shows that IGOs tend to be guided by the national interest of
their member states. IGOs such as ASEAN can produce many documents moving
towards feminist governance, but these serve only as a guide to all member
states, such as those on human trafficking and the implementation of SDGs. CSOs
that are engaging with IGOs usually make use of IGO official documents in their
efforts to push their agenda forward. To overcome some of the challenges
highlighted in this chapter, groups of like-minded CSOs tend to form alliances,
which can better engage with government bodies because of their stronger voices
and extensive expertise. In South East Asia generally, contestation tends to
prevail over cooperation. Feminist governance represented by feminist values,
mechanisms and networks has been put in place by organisations such as APWLD.
With IGOs such as ASEAN, while mechanisms to support feminist governance are not
in place, feminist values and networks are being consistently introduced into
the system. It is through constant interaction between such organisations that
gender equality can prevail in the region.
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33. Latin American perspectives on feminist governance: between mainstreaming
and sidestreaming challenges Gisela Zaremberg
INTRODUCTION This chapter offers a panoramic analysis of the conflictive yet
prolific relationship between feminist social movements and states in Latin
America. Feminist movements have a long history of developing relationships with
states in the region. Access to institutional state spaces has broadened,
especially after most Latin American countries signed the 1995 Beijing Platform
for Action to implement gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming in the region
has been described as a key characteristic of the ‘third wave of feminism’ that
began in the 1990s (Varela, 2019). Scholars and activists usually describe this
third wave as a process spearheaded by white, middle-class and professional
women occupying positions in new bureaucratic organisations or in
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) specialising in gender public policy.
Drawing from a narrative of ‘betrayal versus loyalty’ some ‘stories’ told from
this third wave perspective argue that the relationship between the feminist
movement and state institutions undermined the movement’s autonomy, led to tepid
results and excluded intersectional and non-binary groups (see Gargallo, 2006:
10; hooks, 2017). However, some feminist analysts have critiqued this
characterisation. First, they question a dichotomy between outside and inside
feminist activism, providing a positive notion of femocracy (Eisenstein, 1996),
and addressing the concept of insiders to analyse when feminists become part of
the state fabric (Banaszak, 2010). Second, they advance the understanding of
variation in gender policy mechanisms and their consequences in different
countries (McBride and Mazur, 2010). Third, they explore factors involved in
generating this variation (Htun and Weldon, 2018). As Mazur and McBride show
(Chapter 5 in this Handbook) international researchers have developed
comparative theory that not only enhances our understanding of feminist
governance, but also of gender justice advocates. In Latin America, this
non-dichotomous perspective has permeated feminist research. Some scholars
consider that the process of gender mainstreaming implies including issues on
the political agenda and securing institutional change (Vargas, 2008). Using the
notion of femocracy, Zaremberg (2004) analysed the management styles of women
who were both outsiders and insiders in relation to gender institutions in Chile
and Argentina. Referencing the notion of femocracy but focusing on the concept
of institutional activism, Abers and Tatagiba (2015) describe an ‘artisanal
feminist institutional activism’ within the Brazilian Health Ministry. Some of
this research is in dialogue with feminist scholars who employ concepts such as
triangles of empowerment or velvet triangles regarding women’s cooperation for
feminist governance (Vargas and Wieringa, 1998; see also Chapter 27 in this
Handbook). 408
Latin American perspectives on feminist governance 409 Considering this
non-dichotomous perspective, Brazilian feminist scholar Sonia Alvarez (2014,
2019) argues that the feminist movement was always heterogeneous and has
multiple relationships with Latin American states. She describes this
heterogeneity by distinguishing between gender mainstreaming and sidestreaming.
This differentiation is of special interest in this chapter. Alvarez describes
gender mainstreaming as a vertical flow between feminist organisations and the
state. Following this flow, feminists leverage their agendas by occupying
positions in women’s groups embedded within government bodies and thereby
influencing public policy. In the case of Brazil, analysed by Alvarez, gender
mainstreaming includes a whole participatory system through Women Councils and
Conferences (Matos and Paradis, 2013). Participatory systems in Latin America
imply different gender justice effects, depending on the political project
pursued in each country (Zaremberg, 2016). In contrast, sidestreaming promotes a
horizontal flow between loose networks of feminist organisations previously on
the margins of the vertical flow. These organisations do not necessarily look to
interact with states. In fact, some of them look to avoid or even confront the
state. In addition, they are usually not connected with formal international
feminist organisations. Black women’s networks in slums, cooperating through rap
or street art groups, Indigenous women confronting neo-extractive projects,
LGBT+ marginal urban clubs, young university feminists’ collectives and social
networks on campuses, the direct action of abortion doulas; these are a few
examples included in the sidestreaming flow. In other words, sidestreaming
locates previously marginalised feminist collectives in the centre of the
debate, and re-prioritises intersectional (race, ethnic, class, etc.) and
non-binary (LGBT+) demands and strategies within the feminist agenda.
Mainstreaming and sidestreaming are two different means through which feminist
movements are innovating in the feminist governance field. At the same time,
studies have discussed the overlapping legal and illegal dual faces of some
Latin American states and implications for gender justice in the region
(Hernández Castillo et al., 2008; Segato, 2014). Based on an intersectional,
anthropological and historical view that focuses on Indigenous, Afro and popular
women’s experiences, these studies emphasise the intimate relationship between
criminal states and gender violence. Moreover, they move the field of feminist
governance studies beyond simple accusations of betrayals, posing, either
implicitly or explicitly, the following question: To what extent is feminist
governance really possible in state contexts that perpetuate gender, ethnic,
racial and class inequalities historically embedded in colonial oppressions and
perpetuated in criminal logics? In this chapter, I argue that responding to this
question requires a complex understanding of the state, even if it is a criminal
state. It also necessitates understanding the state as an ensemble (Jessop,
2015) rather than as a monolithic space. The state not only exercises legitimate
violence but also infrastructural domination (Mann, 1984). It is thus a
heterogeneous (even incoherent) relational space where violent and
infrastructural administrative domination occur simultaneously. Zaremberg and
Almeida (2022) propose several dimensions to capture this fragmented state
ensemble. One of these dimensions is the separation of powers, as a key element
for states under democratic contract. In this chapter, I will focus the analysis
on this dimension (branches of power), as well as on the concepts of
mainstreaming and sidestreaming. The sidestreaming analysis, in particular, will
provide reflections about challenges to overcoming intersectional inequalities
and implementing feminist governance in Latin America. Following Kantola
(Chapter 4 in this Handbook) we analyse feminist governance (both at the centre
and at the margins) to observe multiple ways in which states and feminist
movements interact and challenge each other.
410 Handbook of feminist governance Considering these perspectives, the next
sections analyse the long, tense and prolific relationship between feminist
movements and states in Latin America.
MAINSTREAMING BY BRANCHES In Latin America, so-called state feminism is a result
of processes that intersect: the mobilisation of feminist movements at a
national and international level; the many degrees and rhythms of democratic
transitions; and the various political turns that have alternately modified the
state. As Guzmán (2001) notes, during these processes, external action pushes
various gender public policies from feminist movements to the states.
Simultaneously, as women access bureaucratic and elective positions, they drive
a model of action from within the state itself that also generates policy
advancements in favour of women. Since the 1970s, Latin American feminists have
developed a variety of gender-sensitive policies that include: affirmative
action policies, policies for women, gender perspective policies and gender
mainstreaming policies (Rodríguez Gustá, 2021). The first (affirmative action
policies) were key to the advancement of women’s political rights, particularly
through the application of quota laws in the region (this will be discussed
further below), while the last, gender mainstreaming, has been predominant since
the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. From that moment, state feminism created
various organisational and legal instruments to promote gender agendas. Some of
these policy instruments are women’s policy agencies (WPAs), included as one of
the most important national mechanisms for the advancement of women (NMAW),
sectorial policies, national plans and programmes for gender equality, and
equity laws. This gendered institution-building was nurtured within
international and regional feminist governance institutions. Regional
institutions deserve a special mention because Latin America stands out in the
adoption of multilateral feminist conventions – for example, the first
international convention on violence against women in 1994 (van der Vleuten et
al., 2021). Following the 1995 Beijing Conference agreements, the WPAs became
administrative structures with the main mission to promote and support gender
equity in all governmental bodies and legislation. Despite this general
orientation, the scope of these mechanisms differed considerably between the
various countries of the region. García (2016) classifies WPAs according to the
manner of their insertion in executive branches. High-scoring WPAs constitute
ministers, or administrative organisations where the head occupies a ministerial
position. Medium-scoring WPAs depend on the presidency; their heads do not
participate in the governmental cabinet, and they may occasionally have some
relative autonomy (offices attached to the presidency, secretariats, national
institutes and other figures). Finally, a low score corresponds to mechanisms
that depend on a ministry or a lower authority. Using this typology to classify
19 Latin American countries, this author describes important variations between
countries and concludes that, with the exception of Panama, the higher the
hierarchical level, the more functions the mechanism performs. Fernós (2010)
also shows similar variation and analyses the factors that generate it. In
addition to the influence of international cooperation, she addresses how state
institutionality, respect for the rule of law, economic crisis, violent civil
strife and civil war limit the NMAWs. She also observes that civil war and
violent civil strife in Central American countries create major obstacles to the
introduction of gender policies within a human rights framework.
Latin American perspectives on feminist governance 411 More recently, Barreiro
and Soto (2016) assessed sectorial policies (e.g. policies against gender
violence), gender mainstreaming mechanisms, equality plans and equality laws in
Latin America. Regarding the NMAWs, they find that equality plans tend to be
considered from a sectorial perspective rather than from a truly transversal or
horizontal perspective that would require the active involvement of ministries
and other hierarchical administrative organs. They also show how equality laws
have a direct impact on gender mainstreaming within public administration. The
same sample of 19 cases reveals that 10 countries had equality laws and 17 had
equality plans in 2016. The cases of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, El Salvador and
Honduras are particularly noteworthy as they illustrate a severe deterioration
of the gender agenda within the gender mainstreaming process, due to a political
context that tends to control, and even repress, the feminist movement and
associated civil society organisations. At the same time, there have been
significant indications of advancements in the gender agenda within the
legislative and judicial branches. Unlike other regions, such as Europe, Latin
American legislatures incorporated quotas and parity laws that forced parties to
guarantee women’s access to elected positions (Caminotti, 2016; Htun and
Piscopo, 2014). The impact of these laws is remarkable, reflected in the
increase in the percentage of women in Latin American legislative bodies from 9
per cent in 1990 to 30.8 per cent in 2019 (IPU, 2019). Within this context, it
is once again possible to observe crucial variations. For example, while in
Bolivia, Mexico and Costa Rica more than 40 per cent of seats are occupied by
women, Brazil just slightly exceeded 10 per cent in 2018 and Panama barely
reached 18.3 per cent in 2019 (Freidenberg and Brown, 2019).1 This increased
access to legislative branches in the region led to a flourish of laws. In the
first period, bills that were not related to doctrinal issues and hence
generated less moral or religious controversy (such as anti-gender violence
laws) were approved in most of the region’s national legislatures (Htun and
Weldon, 2018). But it is only recently that controversial bills like the legal
or voluntary interruption of pregnancy were approved in Argentina and Uruguay.
Aspects of LGBT+ agendas such as so-called equal marriage laws have also been
advanced in some Latin American legislatures (see Corrales, 2020). On the other
hand, the judicial branch has played a crucial role in the advancement of gender
agendas and gender mainstreaming processes, although this has been largely
overlooked by scholars in the region who tend to concentrate on the executive
and the legislative branches. Specifically, Supreme Courts have played a crucial
part in advancing the feminist agenda on controversial topics relating to
doctrinal issues, such as abortion and LGBT+ rights (Bergallo and Michel, 2018).
The courts of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and El Salvador have also protected key
legal abortion exceptions and countered several unconstitutional actions.
Recently, the Supreme Court made a historical ruling decriminalising abortion
for all Mexican women. The courts in Latin America constitute decisive
counter-balancing instruments in the face of the conservative, religious,
anti-abortion activism that has permeated legislative and executive spaces
(Beltrán y Puga, 2018; Ruibal, 2021). The judicial branch is also a strategic
space for achieving LGBT+ rights (López Pacheco, 2018). On the other hand, from
a political sociological perspective, the relationship between the building of a
democratic state and the role of an active and strong feminist movement is
crucial and significantly affects the degree and type of gender mainstreaming
processes that occur in the region. Analysing the case of Mexico, Cerva Cerna
(2006) finds that a slow democratic transition, over-focused on party political
alternation (from a hegemonic party that ruled for more than
412 Handbook of feminist governance 70 years), encouraged a more instrumental
and technocratic, rather than substantive, gender mainstreaming process (see
also Alfama, 2015). Zaremberg and Almeida (2022) found that in Brazil (in
contrast to Mexico), as the democratic transition was based on extensive social
mobilisation, the substantive agenda of abortion formed part of the political
scenario and draft legislation was presented in the national legislature in
2005.2 Meanwhile, quota laws and the issue of parity moved into the background
as women’s access to elected positions was severely weakened within the
electoral and party system. On the other hand, several studies have pointed out
that the ideological orientation of a ruling party does not ensure the
advancement of gender mainstreaming in Latin America (see Friedman and Tabbush,
2019). It is often argued that progress on the gender agenda is favoured by
left-wing rather than right-wing parties (Kittilson, 2003). However, leftist
governments in Ecuador during the Correa presidency, or in Argentina during
Cristina Kirchner’s government, did not result in strong WPAs, despite their
parties supporting an increased number of women (some of them feminists) in the
legislature. Once again, a comparison between Mexico and Brazil shows that
despite the conservative-pragmatic parties in government from 2000 to 2018 in
Mexico, a relatively strong WPA was installed (achieving a medium score in terms
of García, 2016). In contrast, even though Brazil was ruled by a centre-left
coalition from 2003 to 2016, the gender agenda had non-linear progress, and
faced crucial obstacles. Moreover, strong feminist movements do not always
result in stronger gender institutionalisation. Following the categorisation
proposed by McBride and Mazur (2010), Rodríguez Gustá (2021) argues that despite
the presence of one of the strongest feminist movements of Latin America, the
WPA remained symbolic under Kirchnerism in Argentina (2002–15), and thus almost
irrelevant to the Argentinian feminist movement’s organising and lobbying during
this period. In contrast, under the Cambiemos (a right-wing party)
administration (2015–19), the WPA was strengthened following the appointment of
a feminist leader as its head. By 2019, the WPA upgraded from symbolic to
marginal.3 In comparison, the Brazilian WPA converted from an insider agency,
representing state feminism, to an anti-women agency, captured and reframed by
conservative actors. The transformation of WPAs and other gender mechanisms to
the opposite extreme of their initial purpose is a concerning phenomenon within
a context of increasing backlash in Latin America. Scholars have identified this
phenomenon of conservative coalitions capturing WPAs at both the subnational and
national level (Tarrés, 2006). The Brazilian case is paradigmatic and striking
because of the profound leap from gender progressive institutions to the
complete opposite. However, similar or even more alarming declines can be seen
specifically in Central America. In this sub-region, where evangelical churches
account for more than 40 per cent of the population, WPAs in the executive and
other branches have experienced substantial setbacks. Beyond the ideology of the
governing party, counter-reforms cancelled abortion exceptions (even in cases of
rape), stigmatised reproductive and sexual education, and publicly discriminated
against LGBT+ groups. In other cases, as in Peru or Paraguay, strong
conservative groups have been able to mobilise a significant portion of the
population against sexual education and LGBT+ rights reforms. In sum, Latin
American counter-movements are threatening the feminist institutionalisation
that took decades to build, with different degrees of success (Piscopo and
Walsh, 2020; Zaremberg et al., 2021).
Latin American perspectives on feminist governance 413
SIDESTREAMING: MORE GRASSROOTS, LESS STATES? During the 1970s, scholars
explained how Latin American feminism had two tendencies: some activists joined
left-wing political parties and movements, while others did not belong to any
organisation. According to Alvarez (2014, 2019), Latin American feminist
activists have, for some time, demanded spaces free of discrimination based on
LGBT+ orientations or ethnic, Afro and class cleavages. Thus, heterogeneous
ascriptions were evident in the feminist movement from the first stages or
waves. In the 1980s, some scholars pointed to an increasing distance between
some feminisms and the state and parties (included left parties) in a context of
the democratic transitions in the region (Fischer, 2005). As was mentioned
previously, in the 1990s, a process of gender mainstreaming was accompanied by
an increased gap between so-called autonomous versus institutional feminism
(Gargallo, 2006). Feminists from the ‘margins’ asserted that ‘state feminists’
use of the category of gender restricted the feminist view to a binary
relationship between women and men, and excluded other sexual orientations. At
the same time, the predominance of white, urban, highly educated women at the
forefront of gender mainstreaming processes was criticised. In addition, some of
the so-called ‘feminists of the rupture’ pointed out that international
cooperation involved a certain degree of imperialism, as the embedded
developmental perspective suffocated local agendas and views (Barrancos, 2020).
Simultaneously, other feminists discussed un-doing and performing gender
(Butler, 2004) and including a set of inequalities from an intersectional
perspective (Crenshaw, 1989). Many scholars and activists from Latin America
have contributed to these discussions with fundamental innovative frameworks.
Particularly at the beginning of this century, they proposed the need to
decolonise feminism (Curiel, 2010; Espinosa, 2009; Hernández Castillo, 2001;
Hernández Castillo et al., 2008; Lugones, 2008, 2011; Mendoza, 2014; Segato,
2013). In opposition to a heteronormative, capitalist and hierarchical gender
perspective, embedded in a Eurocentric paradigm, these feminists propose
problematising the patriarchy in light of perspectives that consider territory,
race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation (Curiel, 2010; Espinosa, 2010; see
also Townsend-Bell, Chapter 7 in this Handbook). In other words, these feminist
perspectives criticise the discursive frames of so-called Global North feminisms
that seek to fit all women into the concept of ‘white woman’, without
understanding the meanings and perspectives that Latin American women have built
from their own experiences and from their different positions of
domination/oppression (Lugones, 2008). It is thus crucial to highlight the
specific approaches emerging from so-called Indigenous and communitarian
feminism (see Paredes, 2008; Paredes and Guzmán, 2014). As with other streams
within feminism, Indigenous and communitarian feminism is also heterogeneous.
Gargallo (2012) identifies four lines within the women of the original nations
of Abya Yala.4 These are: Indigenous women who work for the rights of women at
the community level but who do not call themselves feminists because they fear
community reaction; Indigenous people who refuse to call themselves feminists
because they question the label of white and urban feminists; Indigenous women
who connect their activism in communities with the activism of white feminists
and claim to be feminists or ‘equal’ to these feminists; and Indigenous people
who openly affirm themselves as feminists but from an autonomous and critical
thinking perspective. Although not all Indigenous women and their movements
fully identify themselves as ‘feminists’, their struggles began from a
decolonial position against racism, the
414 Handbook of feminist governance marginalisation of their people and the
sexism of their cultures and communities, seeking to recover autonomy over their
bodies, their territories and their stories (Curiel et al., 2005). Within this
context, it is particularly interesting to observe the conceptualisations of
state coming from feminists connected to this decolonial thinking. From their
perspective, the state has to be redefined by its margins, as a construct that
is constantly reconfiguring its boundaries (see Banaszak et al., 2003). As
mentioned above, Segato (2014) argues that Latin American dual states have two
faces: one formal, and displayed publicly; the other informal, working on a
hidden level and connected to criminal organisations that thereby constitute
‘narco-states’. This hidden side of the state demarcates its borders, killing
women to achieve domination over its territory. This violent cruelty exercised
over women’s bodies is the clear communication of a moral defeat of marginal
communities where honour codes, embedded in patriarchal paradigms, still
prevail. The real motivation of this gender violence is thereby political, and
not simply libidinal. In addition, these states are incapable of including
Indigenous normative frameworks without oppressing, devaluing and even
exterminating this population. Indigenous women’s world views thus suffer a
double chain of oppression. Within their communities they are victims of male
discrimination and outside their communities, they experience a lack of
recognition from a dual state, including devaluation by white women who live
according to the accepted and hegemonic rules of the state. For example, due to
this double discrimination, Mapuche women leaders in Chile differentiate between
gender issues within the Mapuche culture and outside of it, refusing to
denominate themselves as feminists (Cuminao, 2009; Richards, 2002). Referring
not only to the decolonial paradigm but crucially the historical marks of the
Latin American slavery experience, Afro Latin American feminisms, mainly (but
not only) in Brazil, have queried both the classic and Western conception of the
state and of heteronormative and binary feminism (Lozano, 2010). Under the
slogan of ‘blacken the feminism’, Afro-descendant Brazilian women have led a
struggle against racism, including traces of racism within ‘white’ mainstream
feminism (Carneiro, 2011; Curiel, 2007, 2008). Central topics in the feminist
agenda have been reformed under this shift of perspective. Even abortion has
been reformulated in terms of ‘reproductive justice’. Considering that slavery
impeded motherhood experience (infants were separated from their mothers to be
sold in slave markets), Afro feminists in Latin America have claimed to shift
the focus to policies that can assure health and social protection for
Afro-women mothers. From this perspective, abortion is only one more point in a
broader agenda which includes sexual and social rights (Gonzalez, 2008). By
virtue of this profound criticism, decolonial, Afro and intersectional
feminisms, which conceive of the state from its margins, have generated serious
doubts regarding the extent to which feminist activism can achieve palpable
results through heteronormative, racist and patriarchal states. These doubts are
far from irrelevant, particularly for the most unequal region in the world.
These queries are also raised by the strong relationship between Afro and
Indigenous communitarian feminists in struggles against neo-extractive
industries supported by Latin American states (Korol, 2016). For example, Aymara
and Quechua women of Peru are the main leaders of communitarian defence of their
territories. Similarly, other prominent leaders fighting for their territories
in Guatemala (such as Lorena Cabnal or Lolita Chavez) propose a feminism that
heals the body by protecting the earth, conceptualising the healing of the
body-earth as an emancipatory process (Cabnal, 2010). From these women’s
perspectives the priority is to strengthen feminist or women’s grassroots
networks from the margins, not
Latin American perspectives on feminist governance 415 to work with a state
that not only does not recognise them but also cooperates in their extinction.
As Townsend-Bell points out (Chapter 7 in this Handbook) decolonial and
postcolonial feminist perspectives ask what happens when we stop seeking
inclusion in spaces that are structurally, and perhaps constitutionally, unable
to grant it. Nevertheless, despite the accuracy of these remarks, some
innovations can be identified in the interactions between sidestreaming feminist
actions and these dual Latin American states. For example, in spite of serious
conflicts within communitarian feminism itself, the Bolivian and the Ecuadorian
Indigenous women’s movements have leveraged several legislative, and even
constitutional reforms (Espinoza, 2011; Pacari, 2004; Prieto et al., 2005). The
incorporation, in both constitutions, of the Sumak Kawsay or Good Living
proposal, associated with Indigenous world views, promotes a political
orientation aimed at the development of an economy of care, based on principles
of communal reciprocity and cooperation. Despite these constitutional
provisions, many gender mainstreaming mechanisms in these two countries appear
to have been weakened during supposedly pro-women, Indigenous world view
governments (Perea Ozerin, 2017). Simultaneously, some normative Indigenous
frameworks have been recognised within legal state paradigms after critical
socio-legal processes within the judiciary, as happened regarding the right to
autonomous government in Cherán in Michoacán, Mexico; or within local
legislatures certifying Indigenous methods for election of municipal authorities
in Oaxaca, Mexico. These processes have different consequences for Indigenous
women depending on their ethnic ascription, Indigenous normative tradition and
roles played during mobilisation (Hernández Castillo, 2016). On the other hand,
in Mexico, the well-known Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) put
forward a woman candidate for the presidential elections of 2018. This was an
interesting twist in the case of a decisive (and understandable) break between
the movement and a highly repressive Mexican state that has failed to respect
the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous rights.5 In the case of the EZLN, the
candidature of María de Jesús Patricio Martínez (Mari Chuy: a traditional doctor
and human rights defender of Nahua origin) was preceded by several International
Women’s Encounters of ‘Women who Fight’ (Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres que
Luchan).6 These encounters are spaces of reflexive debates and meetings between
self-declared autonomous Zapatista and non-Zapatista women.
CONCLUSION Feminist governance in Latin America shows significant heterogeneity.
Several notable feminist actions have resulted in the construction of
sophisticated gender mainstreaming mechanisms (WPAs, NMAW, equality plans and
laws). Furthermore, legislative quotas and parity laws provide women with
increased access to governmental electoral and non-electoral positions.
Simultaneously, judicial branches, particularly through Supreme Courts, have
played a crucial role in enabling controversial issues (such as abortion and
LGBT+ rulings) and in blocking severe counter-movement actions. However, these
achievements suffer from important weaknesses. On the one hand, some
advancements (i.e. some WPAs) present a more instrumental and technocratic
rather than substantive profile. The conversion from symbolic and marginal to
insider WPAs does not necessarily depend on the ideology of the governing party.
Left-wing governments of the so-called Pink Tide period, during the first decade
of the 21st century, did not guarantee a broader scope
416 Handbook of feminist governance for gender mainstreaming processes and,
following this period, a severe conservative backlash has transformed some WPAs
into anti-movement agencies. On the other hand, in varying degrees, these
mechanisms appear to perpetuate Latin American states’ inability to reach their
margins, thereby excluding intersectional and non-binary demands and
perspectives. Sidestreaming processes within the feminist Latin American
movement sharply question these limitations, while intersectional and decolonial
feminist perspectives give voice to Afro and Indigenous women, who, regardless
of whether or not they identify as feminist, demand broader recognition. Despite
the negatives, these groups claim that some innovative actions are permeating
Latin American states in the executive, legislative and even judicial branches.
Examples include the constitutional processes in Ecuador and Bolivia and
judicial recognition of some particular Indigenous normative frameworks in
Mexico. An interesting paradox arises from these paradigmatic attempts.
Sidestreaming feminist movements claim an autonomy that implies no relation with
dual and even criminal Latin American states. At the same time, from the
margins, and privileging grassroots strategies, they seem to aspire to modify
these states in some way (or at least not completely resign from the state). In
this context, feminist governance in Latin America has an enormous challenge to
learn new languages to process conflicts and extend bridges between innovative
aspirations from the margins and dominant states embedded in historical paths of
persistent inequality.
NOTES 1. Proportions in Nicaragua also appear to exceed 40 per cent; however,
these percentages conceal the democratic deterioration in the country and the
irregular situation regarding the selection of candidates. 2. However, this bill
proposal was defeated in the national legislature in the same year (2005). 3.
Rodriguez Gustá revises McBride and Mazur typology as follows: Insider agencies,
those that facilitate gendering policy debates based upon women’s movements’
demands and represent state feminism; Marginal agencies, those that fail to
influence the policy agenda despite seeking alliances with women’s movements;
Symbolic agencies, those excluded from main policy debates and without links to
feminist movements; and Anti-Movement agencies, whose policy ‘microframes’ are
at odds with women’s rights activists. 4. In 2004, the Indigenous Continental
Confederation officially adopted the name Abya Yala to refer to the American
continent. This name, coined by the Kuna people, means ‘land of vital blood’ and
is used to refer to the territory where the original peoples settled. Abya Yala
is conceived as a form of Indigenous claim against the colonisation of their
territories for more than 500 years. 5. The failure to fulfil these Agreements
after the political alternation in 2000 seriously impeded the development of
constructive ties between the Mexican state and the EZLN, and undermined efforts
to intensify the Mexican democratic transition in a substantive way. 6. The EZLN
also approved a crucial Revolutionary Law for Women in 1993.
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34. Feminist governance in North America: manifestations, manipulations and
mirages Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Tammy Findlay
INTRODUCTION In the 2020 American presidential election, pundits cautioned about
a ‘mirage effect’: presidential candidates appearing well ahead in bitterly
contested states, then leads quickly disappearing with more ballots counted
(Kahn and Lange, 2020). This evocative ‘mirage’ resonates with the nature of
feminist governance across North America. Despite multiple manifestations of the
gendering of governance on this continent, noteworthy manipulations of feminism
and examples of rhetorical, and ephemeral, gender equality commitments, render
them illusory, especially for less privileged women. Strategic opportunities for
feminist governance of different kinds have been seized and shaped by diverse
North American women, but their respective country-specific environments, and
social locations, have resulted in fundamental constraints. This chapter
explores select changes and challenges to feminist governance, primarily
focusing on two countries possessing dramatically different economic, social,
cultural and political contexts. We spotlight Canada and Mexico for their
multi-pronged institutionalisation of feminist governance, but also for their
emblematic North–South dynamics. Regional institutions promoting gender equality
are less prevalent on this continent than elsewhere, although we study the 1993
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and its more recent renegotiation,
as a catalyst for multiple feminisms. Moreover, we emphasise the diffusion of
governance feminism which foregrounds equality, diversity and inclusion in
words, but in deeds, instrumentalises and/or institutionalises neoliberal,
individualised, marketised priorities, such as efficiency and economic progress
(Halley et al., 2018; Paterson and Scala, 2020: 50). Rodríguez Gustá et al.
(2017) identify three feminist governance models: bureaucratic ones that
encompass teams of staff and experts to lead committees and councils that
coordinate procedures to advance women’s equality; participatory models
characterised by more state–society interactions with gender-based policy
machineries; and, finally, transformative models that include a mix of
bureaucratic and participatory processes involving and seeking to empower
diverse groups of women. Elements of these models have been undertaken across
North America and we highlight their changes over space and time, but we also
point to prevailing governance feminist mandates and mechanisms regionally,
arguing that their lack of social justice outcomes have contributed to feminist
mirages, particularly for marginalised women. While Mexico developed a
participatory feminist governance model with clear transformative governance
ambitions, the United States (US), despite decades of feminist mobilisation, has
been more reticent to put in place institutional guarantees of equality.
Moreover, these are by no means linear processes, as seen in Canada’s transition
from a period of robust bureaucratic feminist governance with elements of
participatory governance in the 1970s 421
422 Handbook of feminist governance and early 1980s, to a period of
retrenchment, and then to revocation, especially from 2006 to 2015.
Subsequently, a seemingly transformative turn has instead manifested more
governance feminism. The first section sketches the evolution of women’s state
machinery and feminist governance in Mexico, as well as the practical realities
that limit their effectiveness. The second section then highlights changes in
Canadian feminist governance over time and evaluates the recent implementation
of Gender Based Analysis/Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA/ GBA+) – policy lenses
intended to foreground gender (GBA) and gender, diversity and intersectionality
(GBA+) – exploring whether they constitute transformative feminist governance.
The relationship between feminist governance and governance feminism is explored
further in the third section, as we consider NAFTA, old and new, along with
Canada’s role in mining ventures in Mexico. The final section weaves all these
strands together to provide some concluding reflections. Before proceeding, we
must acknowledge the difficulties in understanding and encapsulating the
political, economic and cultural intricacies involved, especially given that
Canada and the US epitomise the privileges of the Global North, while Mexico,
although a South–South regional leader, still experiences its political and
economic exigencies, including profound poverty and inequalities. Our own
subjective, Canadian vantage point, and writing ‘across major cultural and
linguistic barriers’ (Frías and Angel, 2012: 7) compound the matter, rendering
an admittedly partial and cursory account. Colonialism, federal systems and
written constitutions are institutional features shared by Canada, Mexico and
the US, but then the differences abound.
MEXICO’S MOVES TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIVE FEMINIST GOVERNANCE Local mobilisation and
the growing internationalisation of the feminist agenda were linked in Mexico
and had an impact on national norms. However, tensions also developed between
Mexico’s autonomous feminist movements and an ‘official feminist movement that
sought to recapture and neutralize independent voices, accompanied by
conservative women’s voices seeking to limit a threatening change’ (Ortiz-Ortega
and Barquet, 2010: 115). The 1970s saw emergent feminisms and national and
international milestones, with Article 4 in the constitution affirming equality
between women and men in 1974, and Mexico City hosting the United Nations’ First
World Conference on Women in 1975. Yet there were deep divisions between
feminists and leftists, between middle-class women who saw themselves as
feminists, and between working-class, peasant and Indigenous women, some of whom
rejected this label and associated priorities such as abortion and reproductive
rights. Indeed, the 1975 women’s world conference spurred a counter-conference
and subsequent Coalición de Mujeres Feministas (Coalition of Feminist Women)
revealing divergent autonomous versus state-focused feminist priorities. These
‘diverse feminist subjects’ included a ‘popular’ movement of workers, rural
women and housewives from poor inner-city neighbourhoods that formed after the
first Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres (National Women’s Meeting) in 1980 (Damián,
2015). Indigenous women participated in these and other popular movements (Garza
et al., 2008), which then
Feminist governance in North America 423 prepared the ground for the next
decade’s flourishing Indigenous feminist movement (following the 1994 Zapatista
uprising). Mexico’s women’s movements have had ‘strong transnational ties and a
well-developed capacity for advocacy’ (García-Del Moral and Neumann 2019: 461).
Through the 1980s, for example, feminists lobbied politicians around violence
against women (VAW) reforms, and while they were initially either ignored or
co-opted by the long-standing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) (Beer,
2017), inroads were made a decade later. With the 1994 Inter-American Convention
on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women,
feminist activists held Mexican governments accountable to international
commitments signed in Cairo and Beijing (Amuchástegui et al., 2010). From the
1990s onward, feminist grassroots activists mobilised transnationally around the
disappearance and brutal murder of young women, in Ciudad Juárez and beyond
(García-Del Moral and Neumann, 2019: 466). Local and international mobilisation
had an impact on national developments. The 1990s saw legislation responding to
sexual crimes, political rights and violence (Ortiz-Ortega and Barquet, 2010).
Women and feminists from different sectors, civil society organisations and
parties came together to promote women’s leadership in the 1991 National
Convention of Women for Democracy that called for the election of women to
Congress (Baldez, 2007), and led to the 1993 Federal Code of Institutions and
Electoral Procedures law, which recommended (but did not require) that parties
promote more women. Securing quota laws became ‘a top priority’ for numerous
women’s groups (Baldez, 2007), as Mexico now lagged behind several Latin
American countries in this regard. The foregoing laid the groundwork for a
national programme, Programa Nacional del Mujer (PRONAM), formed in 1996, and
the 1997 establishment of an Equity and Gender Commission. The latter, and the
subsequent creation of state-level women’s institutes, signalled an increasing
institutionalisation of gender-related concerns (García-Del Moral and Neumann,
2019: 462), although feminist initiatives ‘to foster formal dialogue between
female legislators and women from civil society organizations’ continued
(Ortiz-Ortega and Barquet, 2010: 126). In 2000, the end of one-party dominance
presented an opportunity, even though the party that replaced PRI, the Partido
Acción Nacional (PAN), was conservative. More than ‘120 women’s organizations
and 319 candidates’ signed an agreement for a ‘Legislative Agenda and Government
Rule in Favour of Equity’ (Ortiz-Ortega and Barquet, 2010: 129) and the new
president, Vincente Fox, saw the strategic value, internationally, in promoting
human rights, as well as feminism, diversity and Indigeneity (Beer, 2017). Fox
thus supported the ‘creation of institutionalized spaces of dialogue with
Mexican civil society’ (García-Del Moral and Neumann, 2019: 462), including the
establishment of the Women’s National Institute, Instituto Nacional de las
Mujeres (INMUJERES). Manipulation was evident by both conservative and left-wing
Mexican parties, but Fox’s instrumentalisation of women’s claims was
particularly explicit. He was criticised for naming a PAN partisan and
anti-choice woman as INMUJERES’s head, while his response to Zapatista women’s
mobilisation combined ‘old developmentalism with a liberal multiculturalist
discourse, having little to do with the real demands of indigenous people’
(Ortiz-Ortega and Barquet, 2010: 130). Still, by adopting a rights rhetoric,
Fox’s government found itself under more national and international scrutiny
(García-Del Moral and Neumann, 2019).
424 Handbook of feminist governance Meanwhile, INMUJERES’s policymaking voice
and bureaucratic and participatory feminist governance mechanisms were integral
to the creation of the first National Programme for Equality of Opportunities
and Non-Discrimination Against Women 2001–06 (PROEQUIAD), and successive plans
at decade’s end, and into the next. INMUJERES influenced federal and state
legislation on gender violence (Beer, 2017) and ‘assisted the emerging gender
units at line ministries’ through training, ‘general advice, and the provision
of tools’ (Rodríguez Gustá et al., 2017: 467–8). A Program for Strengthening
Gender Mainstreaming was launched in 2008, and by 2016, gender units existed in
almost all federal secretariats (Rodríguez Gustá et al., 2017) and some at the
state level. Participatory governance was reflected in INMUJERES’s two civil
society bodies: the Consultative Council and the Social Council with advisory
and monitoring roles, respectively, whose delegates were integrated into the
INMUJERES board (Rodríguez Gustá et al., 2017). In Mexico, then, feminist
activists leveraged, and feminist legislators legitimated, supranational
authority, which in turn created national momentum on feminist governance,
seemingly at the North American forefront in institutionalising gender equality
with several legal, legislative supports and structures. However, whether Mexico
has been effective in implementing and enforcing its efforts is another issue.
Rodríquez Gustá et al. (2017) suggest, ‘under the PAN and PRI governments, while
gender innovations occurred, actual policy content and orientations remained
ambiguous’ and there were various loopholes, ‘especially in the coordination
with subnational governments’ (468), rendering mainstreaming incomplete and
fragmented (Ortiz-Ortega and Barquet, 2010). Moreover, as with the Canadian case
below, these developments do not remain static and there can be backsliding
(Rodríguez Gustá et al., 2017). INMUJERES created a ‘legal basis and location of
the principal gender regime’, fostered norms to promote gender equality and
broaden governmental mandates (Sørensen, 2018: 106), as well as encouraged civil
society participation, with an aim of transformative feminist governance. Yet,
these bureaucratic and participatory governance models are about inclusion that
typically involves governance feminist rationales, where the objective becomes
bringing women into institutions, and not sufficiently scrutinising the
institutions for their heteropatriarchal, racialised and capitalist logics.
Marginalised people become the problem, not the institutions (Paterson and
Scala, 2020). For many Mexican women, the individuals in INMUJERES were part of
social classes far removed from their realities. Stark inequalities endure
between Mexican women and men, and between different groups of women, from
education to the economic realm (Frías, 2008). Nowhere is this more apparent
than in Mexico’s continuing ‘obscene levels’ of gender violence (Sandin, 2020)
and its femicide ‘pandemic’ (Sørensen, 2018), with little enforcement of laws
and few resources for prevention or support of victims (Frías and Angel, 2012).
Granted, autonomous women’s movements have creatively mobilised against femicide
(‘Feminists take over’, 2020) and the term feminicidio was coined to frame it as
both gendered violence and a state-complicit concern. Between 2004 and 2011,
seven federal initiatives responded to feminicidio, and in 2012 it became a
crime in Mexico’s Criminal Code. Nonetheless, as encapsulated by García-Del
Moral and Neumann (2019): ‘a successful naming and shaming campaign by local
feminist actors linked to litigation in … supranational arenas, and the
intervention of feminist legislators’ succeeded in the criminalisation of
feminicidio, but this ‘transformative potential has been perverted in practice’
(454) in that ‘the very state which perpetuates gendered violence is expected to
be the guarantor of justice’ (480).
Feminist governance in North America 425 Linda Stevenson (2009) captures the
complexities of women’s lives in Mexico by describing a ‘beautiful, yet tragic
mosaic’ (421) combining vibrant civil society engagement and more receptive
political institutions, but with persistent gender-based economic inequality,
violence and death. Diverse Mexican women and feminists have mobilised on
multiple scales, from local to transnational, and this country’s national
feminist governance, institutionally, could be considered ahead of Canada and
the US. Yet there are many complications, contestations and contradictions.
These include party manipulations, transformative governance efforts challenged
by governance feminist priorities, and often lethal inaction and impunity
particularly around feminicidio.
CHANGING FEMINIST GOVERNANCE IN CANADA Canada illustrates key trends including
the transition from constructing to dismantling and/ or defusing feminist state
machinery with the rise of neoliberalism, to the growing influence of governance
feminism, in the guise of transformative feminist governance. But first, some
historical context. In response to the recommendations of the 1970 report of the
Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW), the contours of the ‘women’s
state’ were drawn at the federal and provincial/territorial scales. Networks of
Ministers responsible for the Status of Women, women’s policy directorates and
advisory councils – like the federal Status of Women Canada (SWC) and Canadian
Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW), respectively – incorporated
both bureaucratic and participatory elements, while funding for women’s
organisations and grassroots activism provided varying levels of procedural and
substantive representation, with some coming closer than others to a
transformative model (i.e. Ontario under the New Democratic Party) (Findlay,
2015). Extensive women’s mobilisation successfully entrenched equality in two
sections of Canada’s 1982 constitution and new Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
and then a few years later, effectively scuttled two constitutional amendment
processes that some feared jeopardised these rights (Dobrowolsky, 1998).
Nonetheless, by the mid-1980s and 1990s, neoliberalism brought what Brodie and
Bakker (2007) call ‘the 3 Ds of degendering policy capacity’: delegitimisation
of women’s voices in public policy; dismantling of women’s policy machinery; and
disappearance of a gender lens in policymaking. The Liberals terminated the
CACSW, favouring technocratic solutions in the form of GBA/GBA+, the systematic
application of a gender and/or intersectional lens to policymaking (Scala and
Paterson, 2017). This resulted in both reduced feminist governance capacity and
a reorientation away from feminist advocacy in the policy process. Neoliberalism
intensified and conjoined with social conservatism, under Prime Minister Stephen
Harper’s Conservatives (2006–15). Drastic cuts ensued, including those to SWC:
its regional offices were closed; equality was removed from its mandate; and its
critical research buried. GBA was left to atrophy. Equality-deserving groups
were denied and denigrated. In contrast, Justin Trudeau’s 2015 Liberal election
mantra supported feminism, diversity and Indigeneity, akin to Vincente Fox’s
earlier discourses. When Trudeau became prime minister, some saw an opening for
transformational feminist governance. Those changes, including the launching of
an Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG),
something the Harper government refused to do, gender parity in cabinet,
426 Handbook of feminist governance a new Feminist International Assistance
Policy, the creation of an LGBTQ2 Secretariat, and the spotlighting of GBA+ on
two federal budgets, served to buoy bureaucratic, and to some extent,
participatory feminist models, with new funding opportunities and a greater role
for women’s organisations (Findlay, 2020; Paterson and Scala, 2020). However,
critiques of Trudeau’s ‘fake’, ‘Facebook’ or at least neoliberal brand of
feminism grew (Ashe, 2020; Dobrowolsky, 2020; Findlay, 2020; Kingston, 2016),
suggesting less progress, more feminist mirage. Despite the appropriation of
progressive language and concepts borrowed from intersectionality – such as
references to systemic inequality – Trudeau’s feminism mainly focused on
privileged women’s concerns (Dobrowolsky, 2020; Findlay, 2020; Paterson and
Scala, 2020). An example of this policy bias was the six-month extension of
Parental Leave, accessible only to women who could afford to take a longer leave
without any additional financial support (Cattapan et al., 2017; Dobrowolsky,
2020; Findlay, 2020), and its accompanying discourses around ‘daddy days’ and
‘birth parents’ framing families in heteronormative and bionormative terms
(Findlay, 2020). Trudeau’s talk of Indigenous rights and reconciliation was
increasingly at odds with the foot-dragging around implementing the MMIWG
Inquiry’s recommendations, the structural changes needed around the UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Lightfoot, 2018) and the
remaining state-sanctioned sex discrimination against Indigenous women (Brake,
2019). With the elevation of GBA+, inequality becomes a ‘technical’ issue that
can be solved with better information and expertise, yet GBA+ training is
limited, primarily online, not mandatory in all departments and the analysis is
often superficial (Scala and Paterson, 2017). The 2017 and 2018 GBA+ budgets,
with their investments in male-dominated infrastructure, leniency on tax
loopholes, privatisation and lack of action on pressing needs in child care,
failed in many ways to address the ‘G’ let alone the ‘+’ in their analyses. The
‘+’ is an attempt to integrate intersectionality but it rarely goes beyond an
additive approach, and there are questions about its applicability to Indigenous
women and colonialism (Findlay, 2019; NWAC, 2010). Another cause for alarm is
the rapid corporatisation of GBA/GBA+ consulting and education (Findlay, 2019).
Trudeau government GBA/GBA+ pledges regarding policy development could thus
epitomise both inclusion and exclusion of diverse women’s concerns, supplanting
the women’s state (Scala and Paterson, 2017) as well as reducing input from
organised and autonomous women’s movements and devaluing their knowledge (Rankin
and Wilcox, 2004). To be sure, SWC received more support, was renamed Women and
Gender Equality (WAGE Canada), and upgraded to a full department with a larger
mandate (Findlay, 2020). Yet the new acronym is telling, evoking employability
and governance feminist emphases on econocentric concerns. Moreover, WAGE is
still quite marginal, with limited financial and human resources for substantive
analysis. Commitments to bureaucratic innovations have also been transitory. For
instance, the LGBTQ2 Secretariat was aligned to a central agency (the Privy
Council Office) only briefly, before its demotion to a line department (Canadian
Heritage) with less reach and profile. Transformational governance has yet to
materialise, but there are issues even on the bureaucratic and participatory
sides. Trudeau’s feminist government has produced reactive approaches to policy
that appeal to an individualistic, equality of opportunity logic dovetailing
with neoliberal goals of efficiency, effectiveness and economic progress, rather
than a response to intersectional power dynamics (Paterson and Scala, 2020).
This amounts to governance feminism and a mirage that creates the illusion of
inclusion, a distraction and refraction from transformational change.
Feminist governance in North America 427
CONTINENTAL TRENDS: GOVERNING TRADE AND MINING Shifting regimes governing trade
and mining provide a window into intra-North American connections and diverse
women’s, including Indigenous women’s, mobilisation. While Rodríguez Gustá et
al.’s (2017) framework was designed for cross-national comparisons of gender
policy machineries, we apply it here in a continental context, where elements of
bureaucratic, participatory and transformative models can also be identified.
The chosen policy areas illuminate the complexities of feminist governance,
governance feminism and the multilevel navigation of these opportunities and
constraints. The North American region is endowed with many natural resources,
leveraged in different ways, reflecting distinctive politico-economic
trajectories. The Global North–Global South dynamic provides an obvious example,
but there are also disparities between Canada and the US, with the latter a
historic economic powerhouse vis-à-vis Canada’s staples-based economic
vulnerabilities. Yet, as we shall see, Canada has also pursued its own
empire-building agenda in the Global South (Klassen, 2014), including Mexico.
Economic benefits are disparately felt across the continent, given colonialism
and the intersections of gender, race, class, ability, age, sexuality and
citizenship status among other power relations. For example, Indigenous women in
North America ‘occupy multiple worlds that place greater value on whiteness
(couched in the language of progress and civilization), on heteronormativity and
misogyny … and on a range of other hierarchies and structures of oppression’
(Starblanket, 2020: 124). In the 1980s, free trade was a ‘key mainstream
economic issue taken up by feminists in Canada’ (MacDonald, 1995: 2008) and by
the 1990s, NAFTA became a site of continental feminist struggle (Bashevkin,
1989; Cohen, 1996). Feminist concerns included: gendered and racialised wage
inequality; poor working conditions and job losses; increased unpaid and
caregiving work; cuts to public services; increased capital mobility; a growing
urban/rural divide; gender-based violence; violations of reproductive justice;
food and agricultural disruption; intensification of climate change; economic,
social and geographic dislocation; and land dispossession, most acutely for
Indigenous peoples (Aguilera Fernández and Castro Lugo, 2017;
Altamirano-Jiménez, 2020; Cohen, 1996; Macdonald and Ibrahim, 2019; Navarro,
2002). Women were impacted differently in each country. Canadian feminists waged
vociferous campaigns first against the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement in the
1980s and then NAFTA, in coalition with other social justice organisations
(Cohen, 1996). Women’s organisations in border towns in the US worried that
NAFTA ‘eliminated them from an economy that was built on their backs’ (Navarro,
2002: 94). In Mexico, inequalities interacted with ‘pre-existing class, ethnic,
gender and regional cleavages’ (Navarro, 2002: 84). Nonetheless, across North
America, women also forged linkages through groups such as Mujer a Mujer,
Mujeres en Accion Sindical, Labour Notes, and the National Action Committee on
the Status of Women (MacDonald, 1995). Feminists offer a range of views on NAFTA
governance. Critics, like, Altamirano-Jiménez (2020), explain how its rules
functioned to override the recognised territorial jurisdiction of Indigenous
Peoples in Mexico. Gabriel and Macdonald (2005) examine how NAFTA epitomised
neoliberal and globalised norms that contributed to the retrenchment of state
feminism and curtailing of feminist influence on public policy, including
gender-based analysis of trade policy. Cohen (1996) also warned NAFTA undermined
democratic institutions, prioritising market-oriented institutions over
citizenship rights, while at the same time urging cross-country women’s
solidarity. As such, NAFTA simultaneously presented a threat to
428 Handbook of feminist governance existing bureaucratic modes of governance,
but conceivably allowed for new extra-state participatory action. Navarro’s
study of local organising by Mexican-American, Spanish-speaking female garment
workers suggested that NAFTA foregrounded these identities becoming ‘an
incitement to discourse’ and serving as ‘vehicles for political expression’
(2002: 84). Some saw NAFTA as an opportunity for ‘feminist internationality’,
based on the commonality of gendered economic impact (Gabriel and Macdonald,
1994). Gabriel and Macdonald (2021) reflect on how, through NAFTA’s labour and
environmental side accords, ‘Transnational linkages were forged among social
movements in the three countries, including labour unions, environmentalist
groups, women’s organisations, faith-based groups, farmers, social justice
organisations and others’. They also note that its ‘migration governance
architecture’ creates new spaces for activism and cooperation among migrant
workers. The renegotiation of NAFTA proved to be a challenge, however,
especially under the Trump presidency with his racist disparagement of Mexicans
and his macho dismissal of Trudeau as ‘meek and mild’ and ‘very dishonest and
weak’ (Macdonald, 2020: 512). Trump was even less impressed with Canada’s then
Foreign Affairs Minister, Chrystia Freeland, declaring: ‘We are very unhappy
with … the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very
much’ (MacCharles, 2018). Still, some saw these renegotiations as an opening.
Pitched as a ‘progressive trade agenda’ and later dubbed an ‘inclusive approach
to trade’, the hope was that the new NAFTA would be more responsive to labour
and environmental protections (Macdonald, 2020: 513). Trudeau attempted ‘to
bring on board civil society through mechanisms of consultation and by partial
incorporation of its demands’ (Macdonald, 2020: 517). There have long been calls
for feminist and intersectional analysis that considers the differential impact
of macroeconomic policy and trade (Cohen, 1996), and the Canadian government
itself acknowledged that ‘trade affects women and men differently’ (Macdonald
and Ibrahim, 2019). Conversations, led in part by Freeland, also turned to
imagining what a ‘feminist NAFTA’ would/could/should look like. Mexico,
initially reluctant to apply a gender lens to trade, eventually became an
important ally of Canada’s position against pressure from the US to drop this
concern (Figot, 2017). Nevertheless, the three countries’ discussions on a
gender chapter were fraught. One potential model lacked an enforcement
mechanism; there was pushback from both Mexico and the US on moving beyond a
gender binary to include sexuality and gender identity, as well reticence around
‘external oversight’; and the Trump administration resisted the very principle
of feminist trade (Figot, 2017; Macdonald and Ibrahim, 2019). In many respects,
the results were more mirage than material, with the ‘New NAFTA’ reflecting more
governance feminism than feminist governance. As Macdonald and Ibrahim (2019)
conclude, despite ‘some limited language recognizing the importance of gender
equality’ there is ‘no gender chapter’ and the agreement ‘merely entrenches a
dominant trade model that growing numbers of experts, civil society and social
movement actors want to see rebuilt from the ground up’. More optimistically,
the new agreement does make some improvements to labour protections related to
workplace discrimination, equal pay, health and safety, caregiving, and
workplace violence and harassment. Furthermore, NAFTA renegotiation did carve
out room for equality-deserving groups across the continent to engage in a
reimagining of gendered trade regimes. Macdonald and Ibrahim (2019) list some
key ingredients that could go far beyond the addition of a gender chapter (see
also Hannah et al., 2020):
Feminist governance in North America 429 Meaningful consultation with experts
and the public; gender mainstreaming, particularly … pertaining to public
services, intellectual property (access to medicines), agriculture,
environmental protection and labour rights; and applying an intersectional
gender analysis that considers the complex, multidimensional and
context-specific nature of an agreement’s gendered impacts, both before and
after implementation.
Macdonald and Ibrahim’s ingredients make for a more robust recipe for
transformative trade governance, than what the new NAFTA ultimately yielded.
Finally, we move to one additional, and related, mirage: Canada’s contradictory
role in mining ventures in Mexico and its disastrous effects on Indigenous
women, despite the Canadian federal government’s expressions of Indigenous
reconciliation, feminism and feminist foreign policy. As Aggestam and True
discuss in Chapter 16 in this Handbook, state-led feminist foreign policy is a
recent phenomenon. In 2017, Canada released the Feminist International
Assistance Policy (FIAP) with ‘six principal action areas, namely gender
equality and the empowerment of women and girls, human dignity, growth that
works for everyone, environment and climate change action, inclusive governance,
and peace and security’ (Morton et al., 2020: 331). This was a welcome shift
from the previous Conservative government, but concerns remain. Morton et al.
(2020) problematise the economic instrumentalism, paternalism and gender
essentialism on which the FIAP rests, reflecting a ‘feminist neoliberalism’
unlikely to meet the needs of marginalised and stigmatised women. They also
point out that even though other countries, including Mexico, are applying a
feminist lens to all of their foreign policy, Canada’s is largely limited to
international aid, leaving other foreign interventions unexamined. There are few
areas where this gap is starker than in Canadian mining. Klassen (2014) outlines
the extent of Canadian mining interests and their consequences: ‘with more than
3000 projects in over 100 countries, Canadian mining capital has been associated
with human rights abuses, land confiscation, bribes and corruption, political
repression, labour exploitation, gendered violence, and ecological destruction’
(153). The Canadian state, including the former Canadian International
Development Agency, has long been a global enforcer in the extractive industry
and is therefore complicit in conflicts ‘over land rights, water use,
deforestation, poverty, and dispossession in the contested zones of global
mining’ (Klassen, 2014: 215). Mexico is a resource-rich country and mineral
development continues to entice business interests at home and abroad. Canadian
mining companies are a strong presence, supported through a continental
governance regime secured by the Canadian state (Altamirano-Jiménez, 2020).
Mining provides yet another instance where Canada’s feminist governance is
unevenly applied and stubbornly neoliberal/limited in its orientation.
Altamirano-Jiménez (2020) highlights the disconnect between Canada’s multiple
national (and international) commitments to Indigenous peoples and the
devastating impact of its mining operations, particularly on Indigenous women in
Mexico. She explores the integral connection of body to land in Indigenous ways
of knowing and being, and thus mining’s simultaneous colonisation of bodies and
land, noting how ‘narratives of good governance, white civility, and promises of
employment generation serve to conceal current processes of dispossession and
the violence sustaining the racially structured national and global Canadian
mining industry’ (Altamirano-Jiménez, 2020: 159). Again, feminist governance is
revealed as a mirage, on offer only to a select group of economically and
politically advantaged women.
430 Handbook of feminist governance Of course, this too can be complicated
further. Indigenous societies are diverse and dynamic. Mining certainly can have
‘devastating effects on the environment, and negative cultural and social
effects with its impact on sites of cultural or religious significance’, but it
can also ‘generate employment and business development opportunities and
substantial revenues for indigenous people’ (O’Faircheallaigh, 2013: 1792). This
can mean multiple strategies and responses including Indigenous women’s protest,
refusal and absenting themselves from negotiations, as well as embedding
themselves in the process. The latter, however, can also point to the reach, and
multiple guises, of governance feminism.
LESSONS LEARNED, CONCLUSIONS This chapter contributes to studies of feminist
governance by highlighting how and why multilevel governance (including
Indigenous governance), and diverse women’s and feminist movements, have
contributed to what are often quite convoluted and contested feminist governance
mechanisms in North America. The task of trying to encapsulate North American
feminist governance trends is gargantuan, and so we provide several snapshots
and hope to home in on key lessons learned. Mexico’s state capacities are not as
robust as those of Canada and the US, and yet Mexico’s women’s movements have
mobilised on multiple scales. This helps to explain the sophisticated
institutionalised feminist governance measures that have been adopted and why
Mexico’s institutional mechanisms may exceed the measures found in either the US
or Canada. However, we show how such ‘gains’ cannot be assumed, given shifting
institutional landscapes and substantial differences between women. Canada
provides another case in point, where the distinction between feminist
governance and governance feminism is blurry and in flux. Finally, the cases of
trade and mining in North America illustrate the messiness of continental
governance, the hypocrisies at play, and multi-layered feminist acts and
omissions. All this serves as a vivid account of manifestations, manipulations
and mirages for some, when it comes to feminist governance. We continue to see
examples of bureaucratic and participatory governance, but the claims of
transformational feminist governance, especially given prevailing governance
feminist mandates and mechanisms, have not translated into substantially, and
substantively, enriched realities, particularly for marginalised women.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our profound thanks to Laura Macdonald, Hepzibah Muñoz-Martínez
and Christina Gabriel for their invaluable insights on an early draft of this
chapter; we are also very grateful for the work of our Research Assistants,
Katherine Lewis (Saint Mary’s) and Erin Esau (Mount Saint Vincent).
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35. Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands Kerryn Baker and Renee
O’Shanassy
INTRODUCTION Feminism is a highly contested term in the Pacific Islands.
Regional governance in the Pacific has historically been heavily male-dominated,
with gender issues not given high priority. This is despite a gender lens being
critical in countering the major social, environmental and development issues
facing the contemporary Pacific: women and girls in the Pacific experience high
levels of gender-based violence, are especially vulnerable to the effects of
climate change and encounter pervasive gender-based discrimination in terms of
employment, land-holding, inheritance and access to justice, education and
health services. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) is the primary regional
governance body. There is significant diversity among member countries in terms
of socioeconomic status, traditional and contemporary leadership structures, and
sovereignty arrangements. Other key regional engagement and collaboration forums
include the Pacific Community, a regional development agency and United Nations
(UN) subgroupings including the Alliance of Small Island States and the Pacific
Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) group, which enable small Pacific states
to exercise global influence through collective diplomacy particularly on the
issue of climate change. Entrenched cultural and traditional norms, influenced
by missionary and colonial ideals, have positioned women largely outside of
public life in the region. The Pacific has consistently ranked poorly in terms
of women’s political representation. As of August 2020, the proportion of women
in the lower or only chambers of parliament in the region was 16.7 per cent, the
lowest of any world region and below the global average of 25.1 per cent;
excluding Australia and New Zealand, that figure drops to 6.4 per cent. The only
three countries in the world with zero women parliamentarians – the Federated
States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu – are all found in the
Pacific.1 Yet despite these heavily male-dominated political spaces, there are
increasing numbers of women at senior levels in the public sector (Chan Tung,
2013; Haley and Zubrinich, 2016), including in regional architecture; in 2014,
Dame Meg Taylor of Papua New Guinea became the first female PIF Secretary
General. Despite their underrepresentation in elected positions, Pacific women
have been actively engaged in politics, particularly around environmental and
decolonisation issues. This transnational activism was formative in the
development of local women’s movements. The first Pacific Women’s Conference was
convened in 1975, and in subsequent years other regional feminist and women’s
groups emerged. These formal and informal networks provide a key avenue of
influence in regional governance, which persists as a driver of advocacy and
norm change. Whilst the relationship with Western feminism has been fraught,
there is a long history of Pacific women’s organising to advocate for goals that
are feminist in nature, if not in name. 434
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands 435 This chapter explores
the origins and trajectory of feminist regional governance in the Pacific
Islands. First, it gives a brief overview of regional identity formation and
governance architecture. Then, the gender equality agenda at the regional level
is examined, including the role of development partners. Next, it explores how
feminist and women’s groups have contested prevailing development paradigms in
the region. The fourth section looks at women’s contributions to regional
security. Finally, it asks whether recent developments suggest a greater
feminist consciousness is emerging in regional governance, and considers the
role of civil society in shaping Pacific feminist futures.
REGIONAL IDENTITY AND INSTITUTIONS Regional governance structures in the Pacific
originated in the colonial period, to serve colonial purposes. The postcolonial
era brought significant change: new institutions, including the South Pacific
Forum in 1971 (renamed the Pacific Islands Forum in 1999), with greater Pacific
Islander control over regional policy and governance (Fry, 2019). Core regional
institutions are represented by the Council of Regional Organisations of the
Pacific (CROP), including PIF, the Pacific Community, and others such as the
University of the South Pacific. A significant proportion of the funding for
these institutions comes from Australia and New Zealand. A newer generation of
regional groupings sit outside of CROP and are either self-funded by Pacific
states or rely on other donors for funding; this group includes PSIDS and the
Melanesian Spearhead Group, and do not include Australia and New Zealand as
member states. Through regionalism, a collective identity has emerged, partly
based around Fijian statesman Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara’s enduring idea of a
‘Pacific way’. A Pacific approach to international relations, the ‘Pacific way’
emphasises consensus, collective diplomacy and regional engagement based on
shared Pacific traditions and values. This narrative, however, has been
critiqued as marginalising women: In macrolevel political negotiations, regional
solidarity has always been vital to securing the interests of Pacific Island
states. Inherent in this process, dominated by male negotiators, was the
disembodied practice of homogenizing the Pacific, with the imagined beneficiary
of Pacific regional solidarity being, implicitly, male. (Slatter and
Underhill-Sem, 2009: 207)
Regionalism has always presented an opportunity for Pacific Islands countries to
work together to overcome challenges of smallness and isolation. Yet this
framing of ‘small island states’, rather than ‘great ocean states’, has been
resisted by influential Pacific Islanders who argue that the former entrenches
global power disparities and belies the Pacific region’s history of
interconnectedness (see Hau’ofa, 1994). Today, a more assertive regional
politics draws on the notion of a ‘blue Pacific continent’ to emphasise the
region’s strength, autonomy, collective identity and strategic importance
(Taylor, 2019). This new form of politics is evident in the successful and
highly visible collective diplomacy of Pacific Islands states on the issue of
climate change (Carter, 2015). The place of feminist governance in the ‘blue
Pacific’, however, is complicated by the persisting marginalisation of women.
436 Handbook of feminist governance
THE GENDER EQUALITY AGENDA Gender equality has become increasingly
institutionalised throughout the region, reflecting a broader global focus on
women and girls, particularly through the Beijing Platform for Action, the
Millennium Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda. One recent symbol of this is
the Pacific Women Leaders Network: established in 2020, two years later a
Pacific Women Leaders Meeting was formalised as part of the annual Pacific
Islands Forum calendar (Payne, 2022). Figure 35.1 summarises the various loci of
regional feminist governance, with PIF and the Secretariat of the Pacific
Community, and internationally the United Nations, taking central roles. Yet
gender remains largely siloed, with limited attempts to mainstream, or even
include, gender in national development strategies (JSCFADT, 2015: 296). While
gender equality has emerged as an international and regional priority, the lack
of gender mainstreaming remains a stumbling block. The language of feminism and
women’s rights is far from indigenised in the Pacific, and there is a persistent
belief that gender equality is a foreign and externally driven agenda,
manifesting in local resistance to gender equality initiatives (Box 35.1).
BOX 35.1 ‘CEDAW IS A SECRET AGENT OF SATAN’ In 2015, the Tongan Government
announced its intention to ratify CEDAW. Strong resistance emerged, particularly
from religious groups; at a protest one sign read ‘CEDAW is a secret agent of
Satan’. Opposition to CEDAW centred around issues of land and succession rights,
abortion and same-sex marriage (Lee, 2017). A petition to the Parliament and the
King opposing the ratification of CEDAW was signed by more than 10 per cent of
Tonga’s population. In response, the Civil Society Forum of Tonga collected a
petition in support of CEDAW from 13 non-governmental organisations, but as
women’s advocate ‘Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki noted, civil society lacked the
significant resources of the churches (RNZ, 2015). Ultimately, after the King
publicly stated his view that ratification would be unconstitutional, the
government abandoned its plan. Between 2011 and 2016, the Pacific received an
average of US$2 billion in foreign aid a year, making it the most aid-dependent
region in the world measured by aid as a proportion of gross domestic product
(Dayant, 2019). The scale of aid in the Pacific means that development partner
priorities can have – or be perceived to have – significant influence on
national and regional policy. Over USD$5.6 billion in aid with gender equality
or women’s empowerment as a principal or significant objective was allocated
between 2009 and 2017 by OECD-DAC members to the Pacific (Reddy and Buadromo,
2020). Most development partners have identified gender as a priority or a
cross-cutting issue, including the largest regional aid donor, Australia, which
in 2012 endowed the ten-year AUD$320 million Pacific Women Shaping Pacific
Development initiative. This is the largest overseas investment Australia has
made to gender equality, influenced in part by the reorientation towards a
gender mainstreaming approach to aid, security, trade and multilateralism in
foreign policy by the United States and United Kingdom (True, 2016: 228). In
2021, Australia committed AUD$170 million over five years to a successor
programme, Pacific Women Lead.
Figure 35.1
Relationship between regional and international governance arrangements
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands 437
438 Handbook of feminist governance A focus on gender equality does not
necessarily lead to feminist policy outcomes. Aid advocacy groups have sought to
push development partners in the Pacific to adopt an explicitly feminist
framing. In 2020, five Australian non-governmental development organisations
argued for the adoption of a feminist foreign policy, arguing that such an
approach was critical to Australia’s objectives in the region (ActionAid et al.,
2020). Yet an enduring issue is that the role of development partners in
promoting gender equality reinforces, for some, the foreignness of ideas of
women’s rights. Beyond the formal gender equality agenda, women have been active
and important participants in shaping the direction of regional governance,
inside and outside of formal institutions. This has not always been with an
explicitly feminist perspective, as prominent Pacific Islands women activists
have heavily critiqued, or outright rejected, the label (see Jolly, 2005; Trask,
1996). Key contributions of women to regional debates on development and
security are outlined below.
GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT Women’s groups in the Pacific have been influential
actors in setting forth alternative views on development and critiquing
prevailing neoliberal ideas. This work has been bolstered by transnational
connections with other women’s movements from the Global South, particularly
through DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), a global
feminist network of which Fiji’s Claire Slatter was a founding member. DAWN
promotes alternative development paradigms through a Global South and
women-centred approach (Sen and Grown, 1987). The group is credited with
introducing a critical development perspective into Pacific regional debate
(Fry, 2019: 224). This perspective, and its feminist underpinnings, is clear in
a 1994 book of essays by Pacific women, Sustainable Development or Malignant
Growth?, which contains thorough critiques of mainstream development paradigms.
It issued a call to action to rethink what constitutes development in the
region, recognise the contribution of women and foreground women’s perspectives.
The volume noted resistance to Western feminism in the Pacific, but highlighted
the potential for an emerging feminist consciousness: The contributions in this
collection bear cogent and often poignantly-impassioned witness to the fact that
there are indeed far more commonalities than there are differences in the life
experiences, aspirations and struggles of women in our Pacific community … these
commonalities can provide a strong foundation on which to build a pan-Pacific
feminism. (Griffen, 1994: 283)
While this perspective was not incorporated into the mainstream readily, it
gained more traction in the 2000s in opposition to the Pacific Plan and regional
free-trade agreements (Fry, 2019). Women were also active in the creation of the
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), which promotes alternative approaches
to development. In 2004, the Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation
and Integration was endorsed at the PIF Leaders’ Meeting. It was criticised for
insufficiently reflecting the lived realities of Pacific Islanders, and for
advocating a neoliberal agenda inimical to Pasifika interests. Pacific civil
society voices were central to the opposition to the Pacific Plan (Slatter,
2006). Activists employed a gender perspective, arguing that ‘the new
regionalism of market
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands 439 integration offers few
prospects for improving the lives and standard of living of the majority of
Pacific women’ (Slatter and Underhill-Sem, 2009: 196). Core regional successes –
such as the end to nuclear testing in the region and the global ban on driftnet
fishing – have often been coordinated efforts involving regional institutions,
state governments and civil society, reflecting the symbiotic relationship
between activists, policy actors and political leaders in advocating
international policy change (Penjueli, 2015; Slatter and Underhill‑Sem, 2009).
In this context, the lack of an institutionalised voice for civil society in
regional governance had been criticised. The opposition to the Pacific Plan was
characterised as ‘a long overdue reclaiming of political regionalism by Pacific
NGOs’ (Slatter and Underhill-Sem, 2009: 204). The backlash to the Pacific Plan
resulted in a reimagining of Pacific regionalism, with the plan’s successor –
the Framework for Pacific Regionalism – an attempt to incorporate the voices of
non-state organisations, at least to an extent, into regional agenda-setting
(Slatter, 2015). While gender equality and gender mainstreaming goals had been
added to the Pacific Plan in 2007, the Framework for Pacific Regionalism
included gender equality as an agreed value from the outset. Even where gender
equality has been incorporated into the regional political agenda as a
formalised priority, activists have continued to contest the way in which it has
been adopted – that is, without challenging underlying development paradigms.
The ‘legal-technocratic approach’ to gender equality has been criticised by
prominent Pacific scholars as ignoring the structural barriers to gender justice
(Slatter and Underhill-Sem, 2009: 206). This is the approach to development that
Amelia Rokotuivuna critiqued when she noted that ‘development has become a very
technical pursuit’ (Slatter, 2006: 23).
GENDER AND SECURITY Throughout the modern history of Pacific regional
governance, networks of women’s groups and women’s policy machineries have been
contributing to regional security discussions and policy. These contributions
have often been ‘at the margins’ (Teaiwa and Slatter, 2013), and hampered by a
lack of engagement – or outright opposition – by key male political actors. As
Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls (2014: 118) notes of the Pacific region, ‘When it comes to
notions of “traditional” security, women remain invisible.’ Yet this belies the
extent of their engagement on regional security: From the heights of the 1970s
and 1980s antinuclear movement, especially the protests against nuclear testing
in the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia, through the ‘events’ in New
Caledonia, the decade-long civil war in Bougainville, successive military coups
in Fiji, and civil unrest in Solomon Islands, Pacific Islands women have been
actively critiquing and reclaiming concepts of ‘security’. (Teaiwa and Slatter,
2013: 447–8)
Environmental security has been a fundamental anxiety in the Pacific region in
the postcolonial era. Pacific islands such as Mururoa in French Polynesia and
Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands were testing grounds for nuclear weapons,
causing massive environmental damage and enduring health issues. The Nuclear
Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) Movement was a coalition of non-governmental
organisations formed in 1975, closely aligned to the burgeoning regional women’s
movement. Women were active as leaders in the NFIP, advocating both
decolonisation and an end to nuclear testing (Box 35.2). The regional women’s
movement, in
440 Handbook of feminist governance their first formal conference held in Fiji
in 1975, likewise made these two goals fundamental to its mission (Fry, 2019).
BOX 35.2 WOMEN’S ACTIVISM FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE CONSTITUTION IN PALAU The movement
to include a nuclear-free clause in Palau’s constitution was driven by women. As
Isabella Sumang (1994: 225) reflected: In our Palau culture, it is women who
have responsibility for preserving the land for generations still to come. So,
when the women of Palau realised that our overwhelmingly male-elected leadership
was not going to stand up to US military ambitions, we took it upon ourselves to
take action.
The Otil A Belaud (Anchor of the Land) women’s organisation was a prominent
voice in the movement. Its leader, Mirair Gabriela Ngirmang, and other female
elders led the popular and legal fight for a nuclear-free constitution, drawing
on support from the regional women’s movement, including through
awareness-raising at Pacific women’s conferences. The nuclear-free clause,
however, proved contentious in negotiations for a compact of free association
with the USA and was, after 15 years and 11 plebiscites, eventually overturned
(dé Ishtar, 2008). Building on this legacy of environmental activism, women are
prominent actors in the movement to combat climate change in the region.
Political leaders including Hilda Heine of the Marshall Islands, the first
female head of government of an independent Pacific state, and Fiamē Naomi
Mata‘afa, who in 2021 became the first female prime minister of Samoa, have
played an important role in highlighting the existential risk that climate
change poses to the Pacific. The underrepresentation of women in the climate
change diplomacy space is a recognised issue; while Pacific women have played
leadership roles in climate negotiations, the reality is that they are operating
in a space that is heavily masculinised and oriented towards the Global North
(Carter and Howard, 2020). Given that women are particularly vulnerable to
climate change impacts, a gender-responsive approach to climate change
mitigation and adaptation is important. Such an approach must foreground local
knowledge, prioritise women’s representation at all levels of governance and
acknowledge the ways in which the impacts of climate change intersect with and
compound other gender inequalities (Tanyag and True, 2019). Women-led
initiatives such as Women Wetem Weta (Women’s Weather Watch), a disaster risk
reduction programme in Vanuatu that mobilises a core group of women to warn
communities of incoming climate-related events, demonstrate the benefits of such
an approach. The dominant security issue for many women in the Pacific is
gender-based violence. While a global issue, the prevalence of intimate partner
violence is high across the Pacific (ODE, 2019). Since 2008, when Vanuatu’s
Family Protection Act was passed, there has been significant regional diffusion
in terms of family violence legislation; similar legislation was passed in
Samoa, Palau, Tonga and Papua New Guinea in 2013, and in Kiribati and Solomon
Islands in 2014 (Box 35.3). Yet such legislative reform has often been the
subject of fierce resistance in the region, and is rarely implemented
effectively (Biersack, 2016).
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands 441
BOX 35.3 THE VANUATU FAMILY PROTECTION ACT The Vanuatu Family Protection Act was
first drafted in 1997, but took 11 years to be passed into law. The delay was
due to strong opposition from influential groups including the National Council
of Chiefs and the Vanuatu Christian Council. Opponents argued that the
legislation went against both customary and religious values (Biersack, 2016).
Once the bill had finally passed in 2008, it was the subject of an unsuccessful
constitutional challenge, in a case supported by the Vanuatu Christian Council.
The case of the Vanuatu legislation shows the powerful vested interests that can
seek to work against feminist law reform in the region; yet it also shows that
change, while slow, can be made despite fierce opposition. In a more traditional
sense of security, women have been active in peace processes across the region.
In Bougainville, a decade-long secessionist conflict was waged from the late
1980s. The beginning of the peace process was attributed to women (see Sirivi
and Havini, 2004). Similarly, in Solomon Islands where ethnic conflict broke out
in 1998, women peacebuilders were critical actors in informal peace processes
(Monson, 2013). The role of women in post-conflict institution-building varied.
In the case of Bougainville, the traditions of matriliny in the region, and
women’s substantial role in peacemaking, were leveraged to ensure guaranteed
seats for women in decision-making spaces: first, on the constitutional
commission that drafted the 2004 constitution, and then in the Bougainville
House of Representatives and Executive Council (Baker, 2019). In Solomon
Islands, however, women were marginalised in post-conflict political
decision-making (Monson, 2013). Women’s civil society has played a defining role
in protesting successive military coups in Fiji and promoting democracy. Such
protest has taken both direct and indirect forms, reflective of the changing
political context in Fiji (George, 2012; Leckie, 2002). While the coups and
increasing militarisation in Fiji have generally been seen as detrimental to
women’s rights, political perspectives in Fiji amongst women are obviously
diverse. Some Fijian women’s organisations take an explicitly feminist approach
and others resist the label, yet productive connections between conservative and
more radical groups have been made on issues of women’s health and welfare
(Leckie, 2002). In addition to this domestic advocacy, Fijian civil society
organisations have drawn on Fiji’s status as a regional hub to extend and
enhance activist networks on key security issues of concern for women across the
Pacific, including gender-based violence (George, 2012). Since the adoption of
the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security,
greater global attention has been focused on gender and security. Within
regional governance, this global agenda has had an impact. Regional networks
such as the Pacific Women’s Media and Policy Network on UNSCR1325, coordinated
by the Fiji-based FemLINKPACIFIC, sought to build connections between women
working in the peacebuilding space and to foster awareness of the Women, Peace
and Security agenda (Bhagwan-Rolls, 2014). In 2010, a Pacific Regional Working
Group on Women, Peace and Security was established with representatives from the
UN, regional organisations, national governments and civil society; the working
group developed a Regional Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security that was
adopted by PIF in 2012.
442 Handbook of feminist governance
A PACIFIC FEMINIST FUTURE? The Pacific Islands Forum’s 2018 Boe Declaration
described climate change as ‘the single greatest threat to the livelihoods,
security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific’ (PIFS, 2018). Pacific
women, who are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change,
will play an important role in responding to this global challenge. Scholars and
activists have been clear about the need for regional governance structures to
value and foreground the contributions of women in addressing climate change and
other key issues facing the Pacific Islands (see Bhagwan-Rolls, 2014; Howard and
Carter, 2021; Slatter and Underhill-Sem, 2009). In 2016, the inaugural Pacific
Feminist Forum was held with over 130 participants from 13 countries. Following
the conference, Jane Alver (2017) noted that Pacific feminists actively sought
out alternative organising spaces to the established regional structures which
often locked women’s voices out. The Forum developed a Pacific Feminist Charter
for Change, which defined its feminism within the frame of common Oceanic
identity – the bonds of wansolwara (ocean), vanua (land) and tua’a (ancestors) –
underpinned by strength in diversity (PFF, 2016). A second Forum, held in 2019,
redoubled the commitment to the principles of the charter, and in particular to
collective action on gender equality, human rights and justice (PFF, 2019). It
reasserted the importance of strengthening Pacific feminist voices, especially
in light of attacks on human rights defenders, shrinking space for civil society
and the threats of poverty and climate change (FWRM, 2019; RNZ, 2019). Against
the backdrop of backlash and threats to feminist civil society, analysis
suggests that a ‘negotiated sisterhood’ that encompasses intersectional
alliances has benefits for amplifying Pacific feminist voices to regional and
global institutions (Alver, 2021). In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic,
concerns were raised regarding the possible regression of human rights in
Pacific Islands stemming from the pandemic response, including increased rates
of gender-based violence (Amnesty International, 2020). In addition to health
impacts, the pandemic has detrimentally affected livelihoods and exacerbated
existing gender inequalities in the Pacific (Cliffe, 2020; UN Women, 2020).
Women’s groups in the region already faced significant issues in terms of access
to stable funding, networks and decision-makers, and Covid-19 has compounded
these challenges. Prominent women leaders such as Dame Meg Taylor (2020) have
raised concerns over waning international attention to the climate crisis due to
Covid-19, and the potential impacts for the Pacific. The future of regional
governance itself is uncertain given the rift between Micronesian states and
other PIF members over the selection of Taylor’s successor as Secretary General
(Carreon and Doherty, 2021). In this global and regional context, ensuring a
feminist future for regional governance remains a work in progress. Making this
project even more difficult is the entrenched resistance in the Pacific to
Western-centric models of feminism. Yet regional governance has been shaped in
many ways by women’s activism that has been feminist in nature if not in name.
Power and decision-making structures, development theories and regional security
initiatives have all been influenced and critiqued by feminist thought. In the
contemporary Pacific, emerging coalitions such as the Pacific Feminist Forum are
asserting their voice and articulating a political agenda. As they say in their
Charter ‘our Pacific feminist and women’s activism is vibrant and always
growing, and draws on its rich lineage and herstories.’
Feminist regional governance in the Pacific Islands 443
NOTE 1. In November 2021, Dr Perpetua Konman became the first woman ever elected
to the Congress of the Federated States of Miconesia (Puas and Oliver, 2022).
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Index
3 Ds of degendering policy capacity 425 #BlackLivesMatter 353 #MeToo movement
27, 94, 303, 308, 379, 391 Abels, Gabriele 320 ableism 113, 114 Aboriginal women
116 abortion decriminalisation of 115 abortion rights 82 accountability 54, 120,
141, 151, 180, 182, 242, 243 to feminist objectives, standards and practice 181
ACHPR see African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Acker, Joan
305 Ackerly, Brooke 100 ActionAid 227 activism 29 spaces for 210 activist to
aspirant moment 165 Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in
the Workplace 389 actor–agency relations 65 ACWC see ASEAN Commission on the
Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) Ad Hoc
Committee, Women’s Rights (European Parliament) 315 administrative hierarchy 127
advocacy 6, 115, 121, 122, 169 approaches 120 by non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) 141 coalitions 10 institutional legitimacy for 152 networks 203, 204 of
feminist actors 203 advocacy networks 5 advocates transnational network of 209
affirmation 352 affirmative representation 31 Africa equality machineries in 131
African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Right (ACHPR) 379
African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) 377, 378 African Union (AU) 9,
189 ACHPR 373 APSA 377 Constitutive Act, the 372, 373 feminist agents 371
gender-mainstreaming 372 Maputo Protocol, the 373, 374, 375, 376 OSE 378 RECs
and RMs 372 WPS agenda 371 Afrofeminism 9, 347 and Black feminism 348 France 349
intersectional invisibility 350 Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030 190
Aggestam, Karin 205, 241 Ahmed, Pervaiz 113 Ahrens, Petra 301, 302 305, 308
AICHR see ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) Albright,
Madeleine K. 207 all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) 151, 156, 157
Altamirano-Jiménez, Isabel 427, 429 Alvarez, Sonia E. 409 Alver, Jane 442
Amnesty International 210 analytic affirmative action 31 Andrew, Merrindahl 68
anti-feminist movements 6 anti-gender movements 77, 83, 153, 306, 341, 343, 359
anti-gender resistance 182 anti-gender rhetoric 342 ‘anti-oppression’ principle
26 Anti-Racism & Diversity (ARDI) (European Parliament) 302 anti-violence
against women (VAW) laws 129, 170 APPGs see all-party parliamentary groups
(APPGs) APSA see African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) APWLD see Asia
Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) armed conflict 131
Arora-Jonsson, Seema 264
446
Index 447 Arria Formula Meeting 242 Article 119, equal pay (Treaty of Rome)
324, 336 ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women
and Children (ACWC) 397, 399 feminist values 399, 405 gender equality 400 ASEAN
Handbook for Women’s Rights Activists 405 ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on
Human Rights (AICHR) 397 feminist values 399 gender equality 400 Asia APWLD and
feminist advocacy 402 gender equality, ACWC and AICHR 400 internal variation,
ASEAN and APWLD 404 regional governance 397 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) 106, 250 Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
capacity-building programmes 403 climate justice advocacy 270 feminist advocacy
402 feminist governance 397, 402, 405 FPAR 403 gender equality 397, 402 internal
variation 404 Asuagbor, Lucy 379 asymmetrical devolution 82 austerity policies
84 politics 92 Australia feminist scholars 65 femocracy 63 foreign policy gender
strategy 205 women’s movement 68, 69 Australian health care movement 41
autonomous women’s communities 31 autonomy 41, 178 for regional branches 81
importance of 31 of feminist movements 31 organisational 31, 32
awareness-raising campaigns 165 Aymara and Quechua women, Peru 414 Bacchi, Carol
91, 93 Bachelet, Michelle 291 backlash 134, 135, 392 Bakker, Isabella 425
Ballington, Julie 176, 189, 191 Banaszak, Lee Ann 39, 41, 55, 64, 65, 69, 70, 88
Bancada Femenina 153, 156 Bardall, Gabrielle 196 Barnett, M. 399 Barreiro, Line
411 Barroso, José Manuel 339, 341 Bashevkin, Sylvia 207 Batliwala, Srilatha 113
Beaman, Jean 353, 355 Behl, Natasha 90 Beijing Declaration 162 Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action 189, 229 Beijing Platform for Action 126,
127, 134, 141, 161, 162, 163, 190, 205, 206, 255 implementation of 131 Belém do
Pará Convention 364, 365 Bello Ramírez, Jeisson Alanis 90 Bereni, Laure 68
Bergmann, Christine 45 Berthet, Valentine 306, 308 Beveridge, Fiona 129
Bhagwan-Rolls, S. 439 Bishop, Julie 140, 203, 205 Black and Mestiza feminism 30
Black feminism 9, 27, 347, 348, 350 Black feminist theorising 52 Black Lives
Matter 122 blame shifting politics of 78 Boe Declaration 442 Bolsonaro, Jair 133
boomerang effect 64, 336 Boyle, Alan 243 breastfeeding debates over 169 Brodie,
Janine 425 Brown, Nadia 353, 355 Brown, Wendy 323 budget decision-making process
146 Budget impacts distributional analysis of 1 bureaucracies vulnerability of
128 bureaucracies for women 126 Bureau for Problems Concerning Women’s
Employment (European Commission) 315 Caglar, Gülay 2 campaign funding 168
campaign support 170 Canada 10, 425 feminist international assistance policy 204
foreign security policy 205 Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) 256
448 Handbook of feminist governance Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of
Women (CACSW) 425 candidate-centred regulation 170 candidates ‘choice’ among 166
quota regulations 165 capacity-building programmes 168 research and 169 capacity
development programmes 165 capitalism 58 carceral feminism 91 care economy 11,
46 CARE International 222 Carter, David 174 caste 114, 161 CEDAW see Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) CEDAW
Committee 130 Center for Fundamental Rights 366 Central American Women’s Fund
118 Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (Berlin) 210 Cerva Cerna, Daniela 411
Chappell, Louise 65, 67, 193 Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canada) 82 child
care costs 122 debates over 169 child marriages 133 Chinkin, Christine 243, 278,
279 Chizumila, Tujilane Rose 379 Chorev, Nitsan 218 Chun, Jennifer 93, 94
cis-gendered, heterosexual women 46 citation 106, 107 civil society 153, 154,
210 actors in 165, 169 groups 166 groups, diversity of 157 civil society
organisations (CSOs) 288, 291, 292, 318 APWLD 397 CEDAW 396, 398 committee
hearings 338 feminist values 396 policymaking 336 single-axis umbrella 337
supranational equality 338 supranational umbrella 336 transnational 340 civil
society representatives 130 claims-making institutionalised platform for 152
class 32, 114, 161
inequalities of 56 classism 113 climate change 8, 434, 440, 442 adaptation 264
denialism 263 Gender Action Plan, COP 264 gender in and gender of 264 limits and
potential, feminist governance 271 local and everyday feminist governance 268
national and global level, feminist governance 266 standpoint theory 262 white
male effect 263 climate change and Gender Action Plans (ccGAPs) 269 co-creation,
space for 196 Code Pink 278, 280, 281, 282 coding process, transparency of 106
Cohen, Marjorie Griffin 427 Cohn, Carol 244, 245 Cole, Elizabeth R. 94
co-leadership model 118 collective action 26, 28 deliberation and 28 collective
feminist knowledge 27 collective leadership model of 117 collective voice 113,
120 collective wellbeing 113 collectivism 2 Collins, Patricia Hill 64, 88
colonialism 108 federal laws 83 oppression and dispossession 116 systems of 94
colour women of 102 Combahee River Collective 27 Commission of Inquiry on
Syria’s report 242 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) (UN) 130, 287, 288
Agreed Conclusions 2021 190 Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality
(FEMM) (European Parliament) 9, 152, 153, 154, 299, 327 economic crisis (2008)
300, 301 history 300 planning, parliamentary calendar 300, 301 political groups
300 common language 76 Commonwealth gender budgeting pilot programmes 142
intergovernmental meetings of 139 Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA)
174, 175
Index 449 Gender Sensitising Parliaments Report 2001 175, 181 Community
Disaster and Climate Change Committees (CDCCCs) 270 community groups 76
community of practice 241 community organizations non-hierarchical governance of
115 comparative gender politics research 71 competition state 56 complex
inequalities 89, 100 Comprehensive Approach on WPS (European Union) 242
Comprehensive Proposal for the Composite Entity for Gender Equality and the
Empowerment of Women 288 computer generated equilibrium modelling (CGE) 256
conceptualisation of insider activism 67, 69, 70, 71, 89 conditional approach
impact of federalism on gender equality 78 Conference of the Parties, 25th
session (COP25) 262 Conference on Human Rights, 1993 277 conflict prevention
228, 229, 231, 239, 242 resolution 227 stages of 230 trajectory of 243 women’s
experiences in 240, 241 women’s rights in 242 conflicts 274, 277, 278, 279, 280,
281 political and armed 57 consciousness roots of 27 consensus decision-making 1
conservative movements 6 conservative ‘norm-spoilers’ 130 constitutional
authority 68, 69 constitutional restructuring 79 constitutive relationship 154
consultation inclusive forms of 1 contemporaneous accountability 180
contemporary democracies dispersion of power in 83 contestation 397, 399, 402,
404, 405, 406 continuum of violence 227 Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 5, 29, 42, 130, 161, 189, 190,
216, 267, 277, 287, 363, 374, 436 ASEAN member states 398 CSOs 396
feminist governance values 398, 399 substantive normative framework 398
Convention on the Political Rights of Women 190 cooperation 397, 404, 405, 406
cooptation potential for 63 coordinated community intervention model 360 Corbett
report (on European Parliament procedures) 307 corporate governance 121
corporate power 3 corporatism 53 Council of Europe 9 Council of Regional
Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) 435 counter-publics 31 COVID-19 pandemic 11,
129, 145, 146, 147, 217, 221, 278, 294, 301, 442 economic and social impacts of
145, 146 gender relations during 222 global response to 222 lockdown measures
222 sex-disaggregated data for 222 CPA see Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association (CPA) credibility of women 182, 194 Crenshaw, Kimberlé 56 crisis
moments 84 critical actors 176, 178, 179 critical friendship 189, 192, 197
depiction of 193 critical junctures 38 CROP see Council of Regional
Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) cross-border solidarity 30 cross-government
coordination 44 cross-party caucuses 151 cross-party initiatives 156 CSOs see
civil society organisations (CSOs) CSW 130 delegates 130 negotiations 130
cultural governance practicing methods of 116 Cuomo, Dana 64 Curtin, Jennifer
157 CUSMA see Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) cynical branding 134
Czech Republic media campaigns 166 Dae-jung, Kim 385
450 Handbook of feminist governance D’Agostino, Serena 94, 347, 359, 362, 365,
367, 368 Dairiam, Shanthi 404 Danish Committee 154 danjo kyodosankaku 392 data
monitoring women’s exclusion 166 decentralisation 76 patterns and effects of 79
decision making 113, 131 dispersion of 76 forms of 76 human relationships in 113
processes 151 rotating 117 structures 120 decolonial 94, 95, 96 decolonial
epistemology 109 decolonial feminism 95 decoloniality 95 decolonizing the
curriculum 105 degrowth feminist models of 96 de Haan, Francisca 276 delegations
civil society representatives on 130 deliberative democracy 46 democracies
feminist studies of 54 democracy accountability 54 quality and performance 63,
71 democracy assistance community 195 democratic elections organisation of 228
democratic governance 135, 196 field of 195 institutions of 192 democratic
institutions parliaments 175 democratic polities study of 54 democratic
standards national implementation of 193 democratisation 132 Dersnah, M.A. 289
descriptive representation 28 Development Alternatives for a New Era (DAWN) 29
development assistance complexity of 194 development scholars 57 devolution
processes 81 difference 88, 90, 91, 93, 94 Dionigi, K. 338 Diop, Bineta 379
diplomacy mechanism of 205 Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR)
230, 242 disaster risk reduction (DRR) 264, 270 discourse 31 discourse analysis
105, 106, 107 dispossession 231 diversity definition of 31 Doing Feminist
Research in Political and Social Science (Ackerly and True) 100 Dolan, Kathleen
103 domestic violence 360 levels of 131 donor agencies 151 donor funding 195
Drăgan, Mihaela 349 ‘drift’ institutional change 40 DRR see disaster risk
reduction (DRR) dual federalism 78 negative states’ rights discourses in 80
Duflot, Cécile 27 East African Community 250 Ebola outbreak 221 echo chambers
337 ECOMOG see Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group
(ECOMOG) economic case, gender equality European Semester, the 326 GDP 326
gender balance 326 institutions and actors of feminist governance 326 Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 242, 377 Economic Community of West
African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) 377 economic governance 138 impact on
spaces 139 reforms in 138 economic insecurity 254 economic modernisation 57
economic multilateralism 204 economic policies impact on women and men 138
economic policy feminist critiques of 145 ignorance in 146 economisation
discursive 324, 331 economic case, gender equality 325 EES 325
Index 451 European Semester, the 326 expert knowledge 330 feminist governance
327 gender (in)equality and economised subjectivities 328 legitimisation 329
neoliberalism 323 processes, actors and tools 324 processes of 53 Treaty of Rome
to Lisbon strategy 324 Economist’s Democracy Index 384 ECOSOC see United Nations
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) ECOWAS see Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) EEC see European Economic Community (EEC) Eerdewijk,
Anouka van 372 effective action dependencies for 71 egalitarianism 119 EGI see
Environment and Gender Index (EGI) EIGE see European Institute for Gender
Equality (EIGE) Einhorn, Barbara 64 Eisenstein, Hester 65 elections
institutional failures in 164 electoral assistance programmes 196 electoral
gender quotas 165, 171 electoral politics feminist impact on 182 Elomäki, Anna
56, 340 Elson, Diane 142 Emejulu, Akwugo 92, 347, 349, 351 EMILY’s List 167
employee health packages 122 employment gender equality policy in 70 empowerment
28, 70, 71 and feminist governance 25 feminist understanding of 33 idea of 28
personal and collective 26 source of 95 Enarson, Elaine 262 encuentros in Latin
America 29 environmental governance 264, 265 Environment and Gender Index (EGI)
266, 267, 268 epistemic plurality 94 Equal Employment Opportunity Law (Japan)
385 equality agencies 128 equality agendas 158 equality for the market 319
Equality in Politics survey 176
equality machineries 129, 131 in Africa 131 Equality Rights Alliance (ERA)
(Australia) 115 equal marriage laws 411 equal pay for equal work 324 equal
rights, concept of 312 equal treatment 312, 313 ERA see Equality Rights Alliance
(ERA) Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 133 Eschle, Catherine 92 Esguerra Muelle, Camila 90
ethic of care 120, 122 Ethiopia 170 ethnicity 161 ethnic/racial groups 71 EU see
European Union (EU) European Commission 131 European Disability Forum, the 336
European Economic Community (EEC) 311, 312, 313 European Employment Strategy
(EES) 325 European Gender Budgeting Network 145 European Institute for Gender
Equality (EIGE) 131, 318, 326 European Network Against Racism, the 336 European
Network of Migrant Women, the 341 European Network of Parliamentary Committees
for Equal Opportunities 150 European Parliament 131 Anti-Harassment Committee
303 Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) 152, 153, 154
democracy 299 formal institutions, gender equality 300 informal political
practices 304 European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) 303 European Pillar
of Social Rights 317 European Semester, the 326 European Social Fund, the 313
European Union (EU) 83, 189, 242 accession conditions 131, 153 dismantling,
feminist governance 56, 316 economic governance reforms 143 economisation,
gender equality policy 323 equal opportunities 312, 313 European Social Fund,
the 313 feminist governance 8, 311 formal setting 337 gender equality actors 335
gender equality policy 9, 311, 312, 316, 317, 318, 319, 325, 326 gender
mainstreaming 313 institutions 335 intersectional feminist activisms in 9
452 Handbook of feminist governance multiannual programmes 314 post-crisis
austerity policies 329 TFEU 311 ‘Women on Boards’ proposal 313 European Women’s
Lobby (EWL) 154, 315, 318, 327, 336 advisory status 338 femocrats 339 Social
Platform 338, 339 Euroscepticism 307 EU-UN Spotlight Initiative 231 Evans,
Elizabeth 352 EWL see European Women’s Lobby (EWL) exclusion hierarchies of 120
exclusionary solidarity 30 executive scrutiny 151 fairness ‘deficient vehicle’
of 243 Fallon, Kathleen M. 101 Farquhar, Stuart 113 Fawcett Society 157 federal
bureaucracy 69 federalism 76, 78 disadvantages 77 gender equality policy 78
historical legacies of 79 studies of 76 federal-unitary dichotomy 78 female
candidates demand for 166 nomination and capacity-building of 170 selection of
167 female-friendly labour environment 102 female genital mutilation (FGM) 232,
374 female party members 168 female politicians combat violence against 170
FEMEN protesters 27 feminine floral dress 27 Feminine Mystique, The 52
femininity policing of 40 feminism 1, 2, 38, 44, 70, 71, 88, 90, 113, 132, 134,
180, 193 acceptance of 135 aegis of 88 autonomous vs. institutional
institutional 413 decades of 135 dominance of mainstream 89 embrace of 135
feminist change agents 372 feminist institutionalism (FI) 371 gender
mainstreaming 408, 410
Global North 413 heteronormative and binary 414 Indigenous and communitarian 413
in Global South 29 institutionalising 371 intersectional 414 Maputo Protocol,
the 373 neoliberalisation 265 Pacific Islands 434 state 410, 412 Feminisms and
Degrowth Alliance (FaDA) 278, 279 feminist activism 6, 120 conventional politics
and 77 solid boundaries for 245 feminist activists 134 feminist advocacy
networks organisational styles of 2 feminist analysts 71, 72 feminist ceasefire
principles for 210 feminist change intergenerational nature of 122 sources of 41
Feminist Comparative Policy (FCP) 66 analysts and students 70 feminist co-option
scholarship 181 feminist culture 117 feminist debates 51 feminist empowerment
process radical nature of 117 feminist Encuentros 32 feminist epistemology 100,
101, 262, 263, 271 feminist establishment 134 feminist expertise role of 1
feminist foreign policy (FFP) 203, 206, 381 development of 204, 211 diffusion of
204 expertise 210 governance networks 206 impact of 211 international diffusion
of 206 movement, rise of 209 promotion of 205 US coalition for 210 Feminist
Foreign Policy Project, the 278 feminist funds 122 participatory resourcing in
118 feminist governance 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 38, 39, 40, 42, 47, 53, 64, 88, 89, 91,
92, 95, 102, 107, 114, 119, 134, 135, 195 analysis of 121 and climate change 262
and economic paradigms 10
Index 453 and limited policy impacts 389 and multilevel governance 6 approaches
to studying 100 Asia 396 at local, national and international levels 38 autonomy
31 Canada 425 categories of 3 CEDAW 397 challenges with 8 claims 134 collective
advocacy mechanisms with government funding 115 components of 126 concept of 1,
3, 5, 6, 161 contemporary institutions of 161 co-option of 92 critical
friendship as methodology 192 critical role in 189 critique of 88 debate on 1,
11, 51, 54 de facto 311 definition of 1 description of 1, 89, 189, 203
development of 4, 6, 38, 39, 42, 203 dismantling mechanisms 316 economisation
327 elements, Southeast Asia 398 embodied knowledge 26 European Union and 8
feminist institutional approaches to 40 formal institutions, European Parliament
300 forms of 6, 45 gender budgeting see gender-responsive budgeting (GRB)
general diffusion of 153 governmentality 32 impact of 103 impact on 163
implications for 6 inclusion in 100 influences on 39 in foreign policy 206 in
international relations and global governance 7 innovation 4 institutional
sources of 38 institutional structures, rationalisation 317 interventions 92
Latin America 408 minimalist view, gender equality policy 319 multi-layered
sites of 89 networks 11 North America 421 partial and contingent nature of 39
pathways to 40 politics, power and empowerment 25 potential sites for 51
practice of 88, 189, 196 practices and institutions of 10 problems and solutions
164 process and outcomes of 67 project on 4 questions for 6 review of 89
scholarship 1, 101, 103, 106, 108 steps and implications for 71 strategies for
194 structures 9 terms of 51 TFNs 274 theories and understandings of 5, 72 tools
8, 51, 189, 191, 193 universalism, global feminism and transnational feminism 28
UN Women 286 VAW 359 weakening policy instruments 316 feminist governance
experiments women’s health sector in Victoria 114 feminist governance research
63, 71, 72, 101, 108, 159, 217 innovative methods 107 feminist guidance/tools
189, 191, 193, 196 feminist humanitarianism 280 Feminist Humanitarian Network
210 Feminist Impact for Rights and Equality (FIRE) 280 feminist innovation 1, 8
feminist insider activism (FIA) 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 concept of 67 definition
of 63, 71 evidence of 72 instances of 67 international cross-disciplinary
dialogue 64 mapping 68 potential 72 research definition of 67 results of 70
study of 71, 72 systematic focus on 72 feminist insiders 63, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69,
70, 71 analytical notion of 63 and outsiders 65 target of 69 feminist
institutional approaches 38, 42 feminist institutionalism (FI) 39, 42, 67, 76,
150, 155, 175, 304, 305, 371 approaches and feminist governance 38
454 Handbook of feminist governance concept of 38 critiques of 39 description
of 38 examples of 42 gender mainstreaming 45 gender policy machineries 44
governance development and change 40 methodology of 5 sex/gender quotas 42
feminist institutional scholarship 40, 65 feminist institutions 239, 311
backlash 392 emergence of 385 limited policy impacts 389 women’s political
representation 387 Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) 429 feminist
international relations scholarship 204 feminist knowledge denial of 146 space
for 220 feminist leadership 119 feminist materialism 65 feminist methodology 101
feminist mobilisation 47, 134 feminist movement actors ideas and demands of 70
feminist movements 39, 127, 245 professionalisation of 134 size and strength of
132 feminist networks 142, 143, 311 feminist normative frameworks 190 emergence
of 8 feminist organisational philosophy 4 feminist organising 6, 120 models of
31 principles of 25 Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) 270 feminist
peace and security governance co-option of 243 defining 239 description of 238
future of 246 positive engagement 240 risk of co-opting 246 transformative
vehicle in 244 feminist peacebuilding governance conflict prevention 231 core
values and principles 227 description of 227 development of 227 informal spaces
and socio-economic justice 232 normative and institutional frameworks 229
practices and limitations 231 feminist peace research 239 feminist policy change
203 feminist policy networks 2 feminist policy objectives 128 feminist policy
reforms 133 feminist power description of 113 feminist practitioner 194
feminists negative resource for 55 feminist research see feminist governance
research feminist scholars 52, 252 feminist scholarship 1, 52 inclusion and
exclusion of 106 feminist service delivery 122 feminist social movements 114
feminists of the rupture 413 feminist solidarity notions of 90 feminist theory
2, 29, 52 ‘affective turn’ in 52 feminist tools 195 demand for 195 feminist
transnational networks 143 feminist values advocate for 240 expression of 229
institutionalising of 2 in trade 252 visibility and political support to 240
feminist women’s movement actors 64 FEMM see Committee on Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality (FEMM) femocrat recovering 192 femocrats 63, 65, 68, 69, 127,
132, 133, 134, 154, 336, 338, 339 ability of 140 agencies and 68 approaches of
65 Australia 63 constraints on 134 discursive strategies of 3 feminist insiders
and 68 role of 65 strategies emerged from 140 Ferguson, Lucy 196 Fernandez,
Alberto 134 Fernós, M. 410 FFP see feminist foreign policy (FFP) FI see feminist
institutionalism (FI) FIA see feminist insider activism (FIA) Fiji 441
Index 455 financial and economic crisis (2008) 53 financial management policies
138 financial sustainability 121 Finnish Committee for Employment and Equality
154 Finnish Parliament 152 First World Conference on Women in Mexico City in
1975 127 Focal Point Network of WPS 245 foreign ideologies 153 foreign policy
analysis 210 description of 203 feminist governance in 209 knowledge networks
211 leadership 207, 209 principles and practices in 7 Foucauldian analysis of
governmentality 58 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 42, 64,
104, 141, 337, 365 Framework Act on Gender Equality (South Korea) 386 Framework
Act on Women’s Development (South Korea) 385 Framework for Post Conflict
Reconstruction (African Union) 378 France feminist foreign policies 205 protest
violence against women in 27 Freeland, Chrystia 428 Freeman, Jo 64, 113 free
market processes 39 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) 250, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258
French Secretariat of Equality between Women and Men 134 FRIDA 118, 120 case
studies 121 Happiness Manifestx 122 Friedan, Betty 52 FTAs see Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs) functionalism 217 funding opportunities 166 fundraising groups
167 fundraising networks 166 G7 203 G7 summit in Canada 133 G20 203 Gabriel,
Christina 427, 428 Gargallo, Francesca 413 Gay, Amandine 349 GEM see gender
equality machinery (GEM) gender activists and scholars 211
and MLG 80 and poverty 90, 92 and state architectures 78 and tobacco 219 as form
of oppression 26 ‘common sense’ understandings of 132 conceptualisation of 4, 51
constitutive of 88 deconstruction of 51, 55 equality 2 equality legislation and
policies 52 equality norms 1 equality norms and soft regulation 5 essentialist
conflation of 231 feminist ideas on 191 feminist scholarship on 211 focal points
129 gaps in political knowledge 103 incorporation and mainstreaming 101
inequalities of 56 insensitive parliaments 174 justice 29, 30 mainstreaming 45
norms and stereotypes 77 of governance 2 perspectives 54 power and 25 specific
research and training 52, 63, 166 systems 25 Gender and Family Promotion
Committee (Rwanda) 169 Gender and Trade Coalition (GTC) 250 Gender and Trade
Committees 255 gender architecture (UN) CEDAW 287 Commission on the Status of
Women 287 Division for the Advancement of Women 287 OSAGI 287 UNIFEM 287 gender
balance 161 gender-based analysis (GBA) implementation of 10 Gender Based
Analysis/Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA/GBA+) (Canada) 422, 425, 426
gender-based violence 190, 231, 232, 240, 241 gender-blind policies 228 gender
budgeting see gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) Gender Climate Tracker 264, 265
gender democracy 54 gender differences 209 gendered economic policies 329
gendered institutions development of 39
456 Handbook of feminist governance gendered language 69 gendered processes of
power 217 gendered violence 115 gender empowerment practices 220 gender equality
2, 8, 41, 53, 57, 58, 63, 69, 70, 78, 83, 88, 115, 145, 158, 203, 204, 206, 238,
239 access for 77 achievements 53 advancement 126 agenda 141, 143, 250
agreements 7 AICHR and ACWC 400 and economic policy 10, 143 and multilateralism
203 architecture 133 arms trade and focus on 238 as policy objective 140 bodies
154, 155 bureaucracies 128, 132 ‘business case’/economic case for 3, 325 change
194 civil society actors 166 cultural norms work against 63 debates on 83
description of 161 development of 3 East Asia 384 economisation of 9 favour of
212 feminist governance and 8 for resources 131 for women 218 fundraising
networks 167 GDP 326 global norms of 191 government funds to 143 impact of 126
implementation of 206 importance of 191 in Australia’s foreign policy 140
institutionalising of 158 institutions 126, 131, 134 Japan and Korea 384, 385
machineries see gender equality machinery (GEM) mainstreaming 176 mandate 156
movement ideas for 69, 70 narrative and practice directed towards 242 national
action plan for 130 national executives’ support for 126 norms of 2 objectives
195 opposition 306, 307
oriented culture 177 Pacific Islands 436 parliamentary committees 154 plans of
action to achieve 191 policy 54, 76, 78, 79, 169, 239, 250, 253 political
parties 167 political resistance to 177 prevention and 244 progressive language
and politics of 9 projects 3 promotion of 128, 155, 167, 206 regional civil
society networks 10 regressive effect on 84 reproductive rights and 157 soft
power approach 209 state actors 170 training programmes 167 UN Women efforts 291
WGDD 375 Gender Equality Advisory Council (G7) 133 gender equality alliances, EU
governance intersectionality 340 multilevel governance and national trajectories
342 opposition 341 Gender Equality Architecture Reform campaign 288 Gender
Equality Bureau 385 gender equality machinery (GEM) 42, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131,
132, 135, 150 circumstances under 128 ‘hardware’ of 128 in state with good
governance 135 in wealthy countries 133 openings for 130 responsibility of 130
to initiate national planning 130 types and effectiveness 129 gender-equality
policy 2 activist and feminist involvement 317 diversification, instruments 314
economisation 323 EU 317, 318, 319, 325 institutions and policy community 315
minimalist view 319 progressive extension, perimeter 312 rights policy framework
316 Gender Equality Policy in Practice Approach (GEPP) signals 70
gender-equality progress 78 Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025 (European
Council) 316 Gender-Equal Society (Japan) 385 gender expertise 192, 193, 195,
196 local sources of 196
Index 457 gender experts 192, 193, 196 pool of 196 gender-focused parliamentary
bodies (GFPBs) 154, 158 achievements and limitations of 150 contribution of 158
creation of 152 description of 150 distinguishing feature of 152 effective
operation of 158 emergence and recognition of 150 establishment of 152
international agencies 150 origins and diffusion 152 populist pushback 153
standing committees 154 transfer of responsibility to 154 types of 151 women’s
caucuses 152 gender-friendly electoral systems 81 gender gaps in foreign policy
211 gender governance OECD meeting on 4 tools 193 gender identity 133 sexuality
and 161 gender ideology 4, 57, 307, 341, 365 gender impact assessment 128 gender
inclusive health emergency response 221 gender inequality 11, 54, 55, 139, 143,
203, 217, 255, 328 continued reality of 191 in trade 252 Gender is my Agenda
Campaign (GIMAC) (African Union) 376 gender issues responsibility for 154
traditional positions on 133 gender justice proposals on 54 gender knowledge 146
inclusion of 220 gender mainstreaming 1, 7, 51, 54, 104, 108, 129, 145, 153,
218, 242, 250, 251, 259, 265, 287, 288, 289, 301, 302, 312, 313, 317, 323, 325,
337, 372, 385 centrality of 8 contribution to 154 current implementation of 46
equality plans 411 extent of 144 gender-sensitive policies 410 impetus for 45
implementation of 46
judicial branch 411 normalisation of 128 parliamentary and legislative 150 state
feminism 410 tools 130 WPAs 410, 412 gender norms 203, 204, 206 structure of 40
Gender Parity Law (Japan) 388 gender perspectives integration of 242 gender
policy agencies 39 confluence of 206 equalities and intersectionality in 57
machineries 44 gender quotas 42, 91, 155, 162, 167 adoption of 152, 155 form of
43 implementation 43 proponents of 43 statutory 43 gender regime 311, 319, 342
gender relations politics of 221 gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) 6, 11, 45,
70, 128, 274, 302, 387 Brussels Conference 142 community of practice 144
concepts and practice 142 contribution to economic governance 144 description of
138 discourse and practice 141 economic and political contexts 140 feminist
ambition 145 implementation of 140, 142 in Australia 138, 139, 140, 141
initiatives 142 international spread of 141, 145 large-scale international
project 141 mainstream budgeting 144 meaning and practice of 144 new avenues and
challenges for 145 normative frameworks 145 opportunities for 142, 143 renewed
interest in 145 research and practice 144 strategy for good budgeting 143, 144
theory and practice 147 transformative potential 144, 146 gender-responsive
fiscal policies 146 gender-responsive peacebuilding ‘Seven-Point Action Plan’
for 230 specific areas for 230 gender scholarship 67, 175
458 Handbook of feminist governance gender sensitive parliaments (GSP) 150, 169
activity and support 177 advocacy, conceptualisation, operationalisation, and
implementation 174, 177, 181 and feminist academics 178 and feminist epistemic
community 180 and non-feminist practitioner community 182 approach to 176, 182
at global, regional and national levels 175 change 180, 183 conceptualising and
operationalising 181 definition of 176, 177 description of 174 dissemination and
uptake 174 feminist content 178, 180 frameworks 174, 181 gender and sensitive
components of 175 history 175, 180 iterations and toolkits 177
operationalisation of 178 parliamentary acceptance of 175 practitioners 179, 180
self-assessment and implementing 178 toolkits 174 gender sensitivity 174, 176,
183 with ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’ 176 gender violence 9, 94, 229 gender
wage gap 46 General Assembly Resolution 66/130 (2011) 190 George, Nicole 269,
270 Georgieva, Kristalina 146 German civil society 244 Germany foreign policy
205 GFPBs see gender-focused parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) Ghodsee, Kristen 276
Giuvlipen (Romania) 349 glass-ceiling index 384 global alliance re-formation of
250 global civil society 290 global economic governance institutions of 250
global economic recessions 83 global feminism 28, 29 Global Fund to Fight AIDS
216 global governance foreign policy and 7 institutions 7 international
relations and 7 global health governance 217 global intergovernmental bodies 189
global leadership 204
global liberal norms translation of 189 global market economy 228 global
multilateralism 129 global norms national implementation of 189 Global North
196, 245 experts of 196 feminist scholars from 106 situatedness in 238 global
policy frameworks foundation for 242 global political economy structural
inequalities in 251 Global South 196, 245 federations in 78 feminism in 29
feminist scholarship from 106 women’s empowerment in 207 Global Women’s Strike
(GWS) 279 Gnanguênon, Amandine 372 Goetz, Anne Marie 290 good budgeting 143
‘good governance’ agenda 142 governance definition of 32 feminism 3 feminist
contributions to 3 feminist practices of 114 feminist principles of 212 feminist
structures of 140 forms of 1 gender in 265 gender of 265 innovation 4, 10 Latin
America 408 levels of 8 mainstream models of 113 norms of 28 Pacific Islands 434
participatory 421 phenomenological approach to 26 spaces 118 transnational forms
of 4 governance feminism 52, 55, 421, 422, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430 governance
institutions 5 governance scholarship 100 governance theory feminist
contributions to 3 government ‘gender-sensitive’ mode of 232 patriarchal systems
and structures of 114 governmentality 33 government bureaucracies 2
Index 459 Grace, Joan 79, 154 grants decision-making 118 grassroots women
exclusion of 102 GRB see gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) Greens/EFA see Group
of the Greens/European Free Alliance Griffin, Penny 92 Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) 326 Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) 300, 303, 304
GSP see gender sensitive parliaments (GSP) Gustá, Rodríguez 412, 421, 424, 427
Guzman, Virginia 410 Haastrup, Toni 371 Hafner-Burton, Emilie 277 Halley, Janet
3, 88 Hankivsky, Olena 46 Happiness Manifestx 118 harassment 171 Harman, Harriet
174 Harper, Stephen 425 hate speech 306 health advocacy movements 219 health
emergencies feminist response to 221 gender inclusive response to 217
sex-disaggregated data in 220 health emergency programme 219 HeForShe campaign
(UN Women) 294 hegemonic masculine structure 239, 240 hegemony 108 Hernes, Helga
Maria 53 heteronormativity 114, 228 heteropatriarchal modes 89 hierarchical
masculinist power 122 High Level Group on Gender Equality and Diversity
(European Parliament) 302 Holvikivi, Aiko 193 homogenous groups 241
homonationalism 52 homonormative scholarship 107 homophobia 113
homoprotectionism 52 Hoskyns, Catherine 45 Hsiung, Ping-Chen 64 human
development 127 human resources management 122 human rights principles of 206
Human Rights Conference, Vienna 276 human rights violations 57, 242 human
security 239 Hunting, Gemma 46
Hyogo Framework for Action (UN) 264 Hysteria Magazine 349 Ibrahim, N. 428 IC see
Istanbul Convention (IC) ICESCR see International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) ICW see International Council of Women (ICW) IDEA
see International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
identity definition of 25 diverse forms of 113 identity-based differences 102
IGAD see Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) IGOs see
intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) IHR see International Health Regulations
(IHR) illiberal democracies growth of 212 illiberalism 132 images 169 impact
assessments 251, 255 imperialism systems of 94 inclusion 54 inclusive
deliberation 46 inclusive governance 32 inclusive hearing processes 157
inclusive knowledge 107 inclusiveness 229 inclusivity 352 intersectional
mobilisation 353 logic of 353 incorporate feminist deliberations 113 incorporate
feminist governance 41 Indigenous and communitarian feminism 413 Indigenous
Community Governance Project 113 individual activism 68 individual credibility
182 individual expert advisors 211 individual feminists 142 individual
legislative initiatives 153 individual wellbeing 113 individual women
parliamentarians 154 inequalities 56 categories 52 persistent 164 race and
ethnicity, sexuality, and class 53 inequality consequences of 46 dimensions of
41 inferiorisation 347 Informal Expert Group (IEG) on WPS 241
460 Handbook of feminist governance informal ‘feminine’ activities 232 informal
gendered institutions 40, 55, 227 European Parliament 304 opposition, gender
equality 306 informal norms 41 informal spaces 231 INGOs 41 ‘in-house’– audits
178 innovation 4, 9, 11 insecurity 227 insider activism 65 ‘insider’ agencies
129 insider-outsider construct 64 insiders policy practice of 69, 70
institutional analysis 105, 106, 107 institutional architecture gender and 77
impacts of 76, 77 institutional biases 144 institutional change 38, 39, 40, 41,
381 possibilities for 42 institutional credibility 182 institutional culture 175
institutional design 3, 25, 26, 32 institutional forms variety of 44
institutionalizing intersectionality 57 institutional layering 38 institutional
legacies importance of 55 institutional marginalisation 133 institutional memory
156 institutional patriarchy 116 institutional reproduction 40 institutional
restructuring 79 institutional transfer 153 institutions gendered nature of 38
global governance 275, 282 patriarchal nature of 101 INSTRAW see International
Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)
instrumental policy 325 integrationism 46 intellectual spaces 30 Inter-Agency
Network on Women and Gender Equality (‘IANWGE’) 242 interest-group mobilisation
77 Intergenerational co-leadership 118, 119 Intergovernmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) 242 intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) 2, 41, 239, 275,
398
ASEAN 397, 406 feminist values 396 through CEDAW 398 Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) 267 intergroups 302 International Alliance of Women (IAW)
274, 275 International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) 145
international borrowing 143 international community 41, 241 International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 276, 277 International Council
for Research on Women 210 International Council of Women (ICW) 274, 275
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 190 International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 216 International
Criminal Court 39, 241 international development programmes 151 international
diffusion pattern of 203 international discourse 2 international financial
institutions 142, 143, 144, 145, 228 economic governance reforms 145
international governance 2, 4, 5 institutions of 5 international governmental
organisations (IGOs) 11 ‘taken abroad’ and shared via 174 International Health
Regulations (IHR) 216, 218, 219 Emergency Committees (EC) 220 Joint External
Evaluation (JEE) exercises 220 International Impartial and Independent Mechanism
(IIM) on Syria 242 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance (International IDEA) 150, 189 international institutions 2, 8, 251
International Monetary Fund 228, 232 land privatisation schemes 233
international non-governmental organisations 189 international norms 174, 183
international organisations (IOs) 221 international peace 209 International
Political Economy (IPE) 251 international popularity 209 international pressure
153 international relations and global governance 7
Index 461 feminist governance in 7 traditional theory of 239 International
Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) 287
International Standing Committee on Peace and International Arbitration 275
International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women 362 International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 266 International Woman Suffrage Alliance 274
International Women’s Development Agency 211 international women’s rights 239
International Women’s Year in 1975 150 Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) 39, 150,
151, 153, 154, 155, 174, 177, 178, 189, GSP report 2011 176 in Bangladesh 177
intersectional 408, 409, 413, 414, 416 intersectional activisms Afrofeminism
347, 348, 349, 350 contemporary 349 inclusivity and affirmation 352 invisibility
and activisms 349 minority activists 354 re-appropriation 348 recognition 348
intersectional consciousness 30 intersectional feminism 89 intersectional
feminist activisms 9 intersectional feminist scholarship 39 intersectional
inequalities 243 intersectionality 6, 26, 30, 46, 52, 54, 70, 71, 88, 90, 91,
93, 95, 100, 102, 108, 113, 115 approaches 57 appropriation of 90 basic
questions of 89 concept of 30 emphasis on 134 ideas of 91 imperative 80
importance of 6 insights of 89, 95 institutionalisation 348 intervention 88
language of 90 literature on 30 mainstreaming 100 multi-agential commitment to
92 notion of 52 pairing of 95 praxis 93 presence of 31 representation 71, 72
rhetoric of 89 social and political mobilisations 352 strains of 94 terms of 70
United Nations’ approach to 92 whitening of 352 see also intersectional
activisms Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) project (Canada) 93
Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements: Confronting Privileges 352
intersectional solidarity 30 interstitial politics 348, 351 invisibilisation
mechanisms of 9 invisibility Afrofeminism 349, 350, 351 Black feminists 350, 351
de-politicising and whitening 351 Giuvlipen 349 interstitial politics 351 Roma
rights movement 350 IPCC see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) IPE see International Political Economy (IPE) IPU see Inter-Parliamentary
Union (IPU) Islamic movement 64 Istanbul Convention on Combating Violence
Against Women and Domestic Violence (IC) 9, 342 opposition 365 protection of
victims 364 ratification 364, 365 VAW and gender inequality 364 Jacquot, Sophie
325 Japan average labor force participation, women 389 economic and political
empowerment of women 384 fifth basic plan, gender equality 386 gender equality
384, 385, 386 Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office 386, 387
glass-ceiling index 384 global gender gap index 389 #MeToo 391 women’s political
representation 387 Jihye, George Lipsitz 93, 94 Johnsson, Anders B. 176 Juncker,
Jean-Claude 339, 341 Kantola, Johanna 299, 306, 307, 308 Keck, Margaret A. 64
Kendall, Mikki 91
462 Handbook of feminist governance Keynesian approach to economic policy 139
Keynesian social liberalism 3 kidnapping 27 Kirchner, Cristina 412 Klassen,
Jerome 429 knowledge, gender equality EU policymaking 330 production 330 Korean
Women’s Development Institute, the 385 Kovac, Tanja 122 Krizsán, Andrea 339
Kumskova, Marina 242 Kunz, Rahel 192, 193, 195, 196 Kvinna till Kvinna (Sweden)
227 labour feminisation of 251 minimum wages for 117 labour market 11, 56
organisations 53 Lagarde, Christine 143 land private ownership of 233 Land
Rights Act (Liberia) 233 Lang, Sabine 45, 342 Latin America feminicide in 231
lesbian and queer feminisms in 32 mainstreaming 410 sidestreaming 413 Law
against Harassment and Political Violence against Women (Bolivia) 171 leadership
116, 178 alternative framing of 119 and engagement 115 quality of 126 rotating
2, 117, 120 spaces 118 traditional notions of 120 legalised hegemony 243 legal
pluralism 78 legitimacy 243 Lépinard, Eléonore 352 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &
Transgender Rights – LGBT Intergroup (European Parliament) 151, 302 LGBTI 151,
290, 341 LGBTI+ 77, 80, 81, 82, 118, 365 LGBTIQ+ 291 Browne, Sophie 291 LGBTQI
243, 244, 340 LGBTQI+ 58, 131, 301, 302, 307 LGBTQIA+ 40 Liberal Party in Canada
168 liberal peace
managerial practices of 230 Liberal Women’s Caucus in the Canadian Parliament
156 Liberia formalisation of land rights 233 peacebuilding interventions in 231
Liberia Spotlight Initiative 232 Lisbon Strategy, the 325 Lisbon Treaty, the
314, 316, 337 lived experiences 30 localisation 193, 195, 228 localism 29
Lombardo, Emanuela 299, 307 Mabille, Betel 354 Macdonald, Laura 427, 428, 429
Machold, Silke 113 Mackay, Fiona 67, 79, 157, 193 Mackinnon, Catharine 54
macroeconomic policy 138, 146 Mahamat, Moussa Faki 379 Mahila Samakhya 117, 120,
121 annual leave approvals in 122 Maiguashca, Bice 92 Mail and Guardian, South
African newspaper 379 Malparara way 117, 122 Mannell, Jenevieve 104 Mapuche
women 414 Maputo Protocol, the 374, 375, 376 ‘marginal’ agencies 129
marginalisation 56, 108, 116, 127 marginalised groups 32 marginalised women 117
rights for 114 marginal policy ghettos 128 marital rape 360 market economy 142
market feminism 56, 318 market freedoms pursuit of 3 market hegemony values of
33 market rationality 144 Martin de Almagro, María 102 masculinised practices 43
masculinity policing of 40 Massaro, Vanessa A. 64 maternity leave directive
(European Union) 327 matrix of domination 26 Matthews, Nancy A. 362 Mazur, Amy
4, 128, 408, 412 McBride, Dorothy 4, 128, 408, 412 media-based campaigns 166
Médor (Belgium) 354
Index 463 men
characteristics of 217 MENA 29 mentoring component 165 Merton, Robert. K. 64
methodological nationalism 78 Mexican National Institute for Women 134 Mexico
10, 422 feminist foreign policy 205 Micaela law (Argentina) 134 militarisation
228 legitimation of 244 militarism 239 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and
Girls (MMIWG) 425, 426 Mlambo-Ngcuka, Phumzile 291 MLG see multilevel governance
(MLG) mobilisation 90 challenges and opportunities of 104 local and
international 423 women’s 423, 425 modern state biopolitical interests of 58
Moldovan, Zita 349 Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) frameworks 119
Morton, Sam E. 429 movement building 6 movement-defining deliberations 31
Mukhopadhyay, Maitrayee 266 multicultural feminism 89 multidimensional
peacebuilding 227, 228, 230, 232 multilateralism 203 economic 204 multilevel
governance (MLG) 430 actors navigating 81 arrangements 78, 81, 83 asymmetrical
arrangements 82 characteristics and historical legacies of 81 description of 76
gender and 76, 80 gendered implications of 80 in turbulent times 83 mediating
actors in 77 operation of 80 political parties and 80 studies of 76 systems 78
understanding of 76 multilevel insider-outsider feminist strategies 64
multi-portfolio parliamentary committees 154, 155 Mushaben, Joyce Marie 320
Mwasi collective (France) 349, 350
Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies 161, 374 Nairobi Women’s Conference, 1985 287
Nandy, Ashis 57 Naples, Nancy 64 narco-states 414 National Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA) 115, 116 National Action Plans (NAPs)
see Women, Peace and Security (WPS) National Biodiversity Strategies and Action
Plans (NBSAPs) 269 National Finance Act 2006 154 National Foundation for
Australian Women 141 nationalism 57 national mechanisms for the advancement of
women (NMAW) 410, 411 national ownership 239 national women’s bureaucracies
history of 126 national women’s machineries (NWMs) 6 diffusion of GEM 127
feminism 132 feminist governance 133 gender equality bureaucracies 129 global
and regional inter-governmental institutions in supporting GEMs 129 polarisation
on gender equality 132 structure, function and funding 128 see also gender
equality machinery (GEM) nation branding 204 nativism 153 NATSIWA see National
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA) 120 neoliberal
accumulation 231 neoliberal austerity measures 131 neoliberal discourses 92
neoliberal economic governance 142, 228 neoliberalisation 52 feminism 323 gender
equality policy 323 processes of 53 see also economisation neoliberalism 39, 56,
140, 425, 429 impact of 52 influence of 3 structural critique of 250 neoliberal
logics 228, 233 neoliberal macroeconomic policies 146 neoliberal priorities 88
neopatrimonial states 57 nested newness 41 networked governance 212 New Zealand
‘femocrat experiment’ 191
464 Handbook of feminist governance Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara, and
Yankunytjatjara (NPY) 116 Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s
Council Aboriginal Corporation 116 NGO see non-government organisation (NGO)
Nigeria protest in 27 Ni Una Menos 27 Nobel Women’s Initiative 210
non-democratic countries 83 non-discriminatory parliamentary culture 174
non-feminist practitioner community 175 non-gendered institutional approaches 38
non-government organisation (NGO) 115 non-hierarchical practices 120 non-market
activity 142 non-state groups 209 Nordic countries feminist scholars in 53
Nordic theorising 53 Nordic welfare states gender equality issues 53 normative
work 189 norm change 38 norm transmission 1, 25, 26, 153 North America Canada
425 governing trade and mining 427 Mexico 422 North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) 421, 422, 427, 428 Nott, Sue 129 NPYWC see NPY Women’s Council
(NPYWC) NPY Women’s Council (NPYWC) 116, 117 Bush Meetings 121 Nuclear Free and
Independent Pacific (NFIP) Movement 439 NWMs see national women’s machineries
(NWMs) NZ Labour Party 167 OAU see Organisation for African Unity (OAU) Office
of Global Women’s Issues (OGWI) 133 Office of the Special Adviser on Gender
Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI) 287 Office of the Special Envoy
(OSE) 378 Office of the Status of Women (OSW) (Australia) 139 O’Malley, Devi
Leiper 118 One of Us campaign (European Union) 341 opposition to gender equality
see anti-gender movements oppression 26
forms of 31, 100, 113 interlocking systems of 30 Orbán, Viktor 58 organisation
formal leadership aspects of 120 organisational autonomy 31, 32 organisational
design 114 organisational leader 117 organisational responsibility 121
organisational theory 113 Organisation for African Unity (OAU) 371, 372, 375,
377, 381 organisations embedded power in 119 organising hybrid forms of 2
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 189 Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) 150 Organization of American
States (OAS) 363, 365 OSAGI see Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues
and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI) OSE see Office of the Special Envoy (OSE)
OSW see Office of the Status of Women (OSW) Otil A Belaud (Anchor of the Land)
women’s organisation 440 Otto, Dianne 244 Outshoorn, Joyce 65 Ouvrir La Voix 349
Oxfam 227 Pacific Islands 10 Boe Declaration 442 gender and development 438
gender and security 439 gender equality 436 regional identity and institutions
435 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) 242, 434 Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional
Cooperation and Integration, The 438 Pacific Small Island Developing States
(PSIDS) group 434 ‘Pacific way’ 435 Palmieri and Ballington’s survey 70
Palmieri, Sonia 157, 175, 179, 189, 191, 192, 196 Paris Climate agreement, the
278 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness 2005 142 Parisi, Laura 100
parliamentarians prejudices and preferences of 178 parliamentary actors 168
parliamentary associations 178 parliamentary committees 155
Index 465 see also gender-focused parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) parliamentary
functionality 183 parliamentary groups 151, 157 see also gender-focused
parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) parliamentary leadership 150 parliamentary
resources 152 parliamentary systems institutional rules of 43 parliamentary
traditions 152 parliamentary transformation politics of 175 parliaments
traditional working practices of 169 participants’ conceptualisation 104
participation mechanisms of 120 participatory action research 107 participatory
culture 118 particularism 29 partnership 228, 230, 231 party funding regulations
165, 166 leadership quotas 168 lists 166 organisational dynamics 81 rules and
procedures 165 selection processes 42 soft targets, internal quotas, and women’s
sections 165 party committees streamlining of 156 party competition prominent
feature in 81 party federalism 81 party funding 170 party system constellation
of 42 Pateman, Carole 54 path dependencies 38 Patil, Vrushali 93 patriarchal
norms 232 patriarchal relations 246 patriarchal state 55 patriarchy concept of
54 sickening extremes of 135 peace feminist approaches to 240 transformation of
238, 245 peacebuilding engendering 231 UN feminist governance in 227
Peacebuilding Commission 233
institutional creation of 229 strategy 233 Peacebuilding Fund 229, 230, 233
peacekeepers 244 peacekeeping gender positions in 244 peacekeeping mission 244,
246 deployment of 238 gender capacity of 241 peacekeeping operations 228
peace-making initiatives 227 peace operations UN documents on 106 PEFA see
Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) People’s Democratic Party
in Nigeria 168 performance budgeting implementation of 142 persecution 171
personal socialisation 165 persuasion 178 PIF see Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)
pincer model 336 Pink Tide period 415 Platform for Action see Beijing Platform
for Action policy alternatives types of 144 policy analysis 6 policy bodies
vulnerability of 154 policy debates 131 policy dismantling 316 coordination
instruments 317 rationalising institutional structures 317 rights policy
framework 316 weakening policy instruments 316 Policy Framework for Security
Sector Reform and Agenda 2063, 2011 378 policy instruments progressive
diversification 314 weakening 316 policy learning process 81 policymaking forms
of 76 networks 203 policy outcome dimension 70 policy problems conception of 93
policy transfer 211 policy windows 11, 30 political analysis technique for
developing 27 voices in 52 political campaigns 165
466 Handbook of feminist governance indirect funding of 170 political career
166 political community territorial differentiation of 79 political context
sensitivity to 39 political discourses 79 political finance 166, 170 political
governance feminist principles of 32 political groups 303 political inclusion
129 political institutions 3, 40, 52 creation of 41 feminising 177 gendered
changes in 39 gendered nature of 38 political intersectionality 31 political
knowledge 103 political parties 77, 80 regional branches of 81 representation of
151 political party polarisation 80 political power dispersion of 83 political
pragmatism 29 political recruitment models of 164, 165 theories of 163 political
rights non-discrimination and equal enjoyment of 190 political stakeholders 176
politics and feminist governance 25 feminist approaches to 25 men in 166
phenomenological approach to 26 research 63 women participating in 171 politics
of scale 342 Pollack, M.A. 277 populism 132 postcolonialism 57 post-conflict
reconstruction 232 postdeconstruction 52 and state 58 postmodern state
definition of 55 poststructural feminists 55 potential transformation levels of
70 poverty gender and 90, 92 gendered experiences of 90
power and empowerment 26 and feminist governance 25 and gender 25 and
marginalisation 107 and privilege 27 centre-periphery division of 81
constitutive of 91 description of 25 divisions of 82 dynamics 28, 106 efforts to
influence 26 efforts to shift 120 feminist notion of 26 hierarchies of 120, 239
of symbols and representation 32 paying attention to 101 performativity of 107
relations 25, 29, 105 risks and 104 structures of 26, 28 transferring and
sharing 246 power inequalities 233 powers exclusive division of 82 power-sharing
feminist principle of 243 Pratt, Nicola 244 predominant logic of inclusivity 94
principle of organising 31 private life regulation of 78 privileged women 40
productive economy 254 pro-gender equality foreign policy 205 pro-gender
equality norms 204 Progress of the World’s Women 278 Protocol to the African
Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa 373 Prügl,
Elisabeth 2, 55, 195, 240, 266 PSIDS see Pacific Small Island Developing States
(PSIDS) group public affairs conduct of 190 Public Expenditure and Financial
Accountability (PEFA) 144 public funding for activities 170 public health
approach 218 public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) 220 public
institutions positions in 131 public life
Index 467 facets of 190 public policy 138 institutions 132 sectors of 66 public
policy institutions 132 public prejudice 165 public services marketisation of 56
public space 27 Puechguirbal, Nadine 106 quantitative methods 104, 106 Quartey,
Kwesi 379 quota laws 167 race 26, 32, 161 inequalities of 56 racism 113, 114
radical counter-storytelling 347 radical feminists 54 radicalism 41 radical
praxes 349 radical right populism 4, 58 Ramli, Rashila 396 Rao, A. 287 Reagan,
Ronald 140 Reanda, L. 277 recognition 54 RECs see regional economic communities
(RECs) Rees, M. 278, 279 regional branches 81 regional contexts 1 regional
conventions 190 regional economic communities (RECs) 372, 375, 377 and AU 375
SADC 376 SDGEA 376 regional governance 5 and integration, Africa 372 Asia 397 FI
371 gender equality, translation 375 institutions of 5 Pacific Islands 435
security, Africa 376 sexual violence, eradication of 379 regional governance
institutions 131 regional innovation 9, 29, 32 regional institution 5, 9
significance of 1 regional integration organisations 252 regional
intergovernmental bodies 10, 189 regionalism 435, 438, 439
regional mechanisms (RMs) 372 regional multilateralism 129 regional perspectives
from Africa 9 from Asia 10 religious diversity 80 religious mobilisations 4
religious oppression 93 reproductive freedom 29 reproductive healthcare during
lockdown 222 reproductive rights 244 research data collection process 105 ethics
108 focus groups 107 generalisability 105 process 101, 103, 104, 108
significance of 106 social movements and 108 Research Center for Women’s
Advancement and Gender Equality (Mexico) 169 researchers 105 own familiarity and
subjectivity 108 tasks of 103 Research Network on Gender Politics and the State
(RNGS) 4, 66 resistance 175, 177, 182 resistance to change towards gender
equality 306 Revillard, Anne 68 rights policy framework 316 right-wing populism
4, 153 risk 120 RMs see regional mechanisms (RMs) Roadmap for Equality between
Women and Men 2006–2010 (European Union) 337 Roggeband, Conny 339 Rolandsen
Agustín, Lisa 305 Romani feminism 9, 348, 349, 350 Romani Women’s Movement:
Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe 353 Rosamond, Bergman 205
Roth, Benita 353 Ruane, Abigail 242 Rubery, Jill 325 Russell, B. 362 Rwandan
genocide, the 377 Sacchet, Teresa 43 SADC see Southern African Development
Community (SADC) same-sex marriage 82 Sandler, J. 287, 290 Sauer, Birgit 342
Sawer, Marian 63, 65, 72, 189, 194
468 Handbook of feminist governance Scottish Labour Party 42 Scottish
Parliament’s Equality Committee 153 SDGEA see Solemn Declaration on Gender
Equality in Africa (SDGEA) SDGs see Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
security inclusive understanding of 243 transformation of 238, 245 Security
Council Resolution 1325 277 security governance 238 feminist peace and 239
Security Sector Reform (SSR) initiatives 230, 242 selection processes
affirmative action in 176 self-assessment 220 semi-democratic countries 83
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (UN) 264 Seneca Falls Convention
(US) 275 ‘separate spheres’ paradigm 82 separate streams 64 service delivery 6
sex definition of 25 sex hierarchy 28 sexual harassment 135, 303, 307, 308
sexual health 244 sexual health and reproductive rights (SHRH) in foreign policy
204, 206 sexual identity 32 sexual orientation basis of 133 sexual orientations,
gender identities and expressions and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) 127 sexual
violence 229, 242, 244 Africa 379 governing eradication 379 internal memos 379
#MeToo movement 379 sexual violence in conflict 151 shared competencies 82
shared decision-making 81 shared leadership practices of 6 shared participation
120 Shepherd, Laura J. 106 Shin, Young 93, 94 sidestreaming 413 Sierra Leone 168
Sikkink, Kathryn 64 Sisters in Suits (Sawer) 65 small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) 251 Smith, C. 379
Sobande, Francesca 347, 349, 351 Social Democratic Women’s Federation (Sweden)
43 social difference 31 social equality 129 social groups 25, 31 dynamics 31
social hierarchies 169 social infrastructure investments in 146 social justice
3, 239 concept of 3 feminist aims of 101 social liberal conception 3 social life
aspects of 239 social movement actors 154 social movement researchers 64 social
movements 2, 31, 76, 82 theories of 66 social movement spaces 30 Social Platform
(EU) 336, 338, 339 social reproduction for affected groups 254 products and
services relating to 255 social security benefits 140, 146 social services
liberalisation 255 societal groups 255 soft regulation aspects of 5 soft targets
167 Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) 376, 377, 378
Sonneveld, Shafferan 242 Soto, Lilian 411 South Africa 104 WPS agenda 205
Southern African Development Community (SADC) 376 South Korea economic and
political empowerment, women 384 gender budgeting 387 gender equality policy 386
glass-ceiling index 384 global gender gap index 389 #MeToo 391 quota adoption
388 Standing Committee on Gender Equality 154 South Pacific Forum 435 Soviet
Union gender quotas for parliaments 162 spaces in peace initiatives 231
Speaker’s Gender Equality Group 153 speak to power holders 195
Index 469 specialised international agencies 189 specialised parliamentary
bodies 7, 153, 157 continued existence of 153 contribution of 150 feminist
organisational values in 158 mainstreaming/streamlining of 154 types of 157 see
also gender-focused parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) Squires, Judith 42 standpoint
theory 64, 262, 263, 268, 269 state and gender 55 capacity 57 debates about 51
description of 51 discourses 51, 55 feminist governance and 58 feminist
perspectives 51 feminist theories of 51, 57 gender and 53 illiberal politics of
58 institutions and processes of 51, 54 intersectionality and 56 organisational
logics of 63 postdeconstruction and 58 power 8 responsibilities 138 strategic 56
universal feature of 126 women and 52 women’s position and participation in 57
state architecture 76, 78, 80 state capacity deficits of 92 state feminism 4,
56, 64, 65, 132 broader conceptions of 89 concept of 66 definition of 66
literature on 72 ‘state feminist’ label 133 state-of-the-art foreign policy
expertise 204 state social policy 53 state structures, gender-biased patterns of
69, 70 States (US) Women’s March 90 Status of Women Committee (SWC) of the
Federal Parliamentary Labor Party in Australia 156 Stephen, Kylie 129 Stone,
Diane 206, 211 Stotsky, Janet 143 ‘strategic silence’ of neoclassical economics
145 strategy reframing 120 strong party systems 156
structural adjustment policies (SAPs) 276 structural inequalities reproduction
of 46 substantive empowerment 70 substantive representation 157 Suh, Ji-Hyeon
391 superficial implementation 194 supra-national organisations 105 survival sex
strategies 221 sustainable development aspects of 161 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) 130, 161 Svedberg, Barbro 144 Sweden feminist foreign policy 204,
205 foreign policy 204 formal quotas in 168 Speaker’s Gender Equality Group 157
Syahirah, Sharifah 396 symbolic action within political institutions 165
‘symbolic’ agencies 129 symbols 31 Taiwan 105 TANs see Transnational Advocacy
Networks (TANs) Task Force for Equality (European Commission) 317, 318 Tatagiba,
Luciana 408 taxation system progressivity of 140 Taylor, Dame Meg 442
technocratic logics 233 Tedros, Adhanom Ghebreyesus 219, 222 territorial
differences 82 TFNs see transnational feminist networks (TFNs) Thatcher,
Margaret 140 the Netherlands abortion regulation 27 ‘Theories of Change’
document 293 the Philippines 45 third world feminism 89 Third World Women’s
Alliance (TWWA) 91 Timor-Leste 156 women’s parliamentary caucus 153 Tormos,
Fernando 93 Townsend-Bell, Erica 31,41 trade agreements 251 trade governance
attentiveness to structural inequalities 253, 256 change in 250 description of
250 ‘expert’-driven nature of 252
470 Handbook of feminist governance feminist research and activism 252 feminist
values in 251 gender-based impact assessments 255 inclusive and democratic 255,
257 leading actors in 250 people in multiple roles 254 social reproduction 254,
257 trade institutions 250, 251 trade liberalisation 252 trade policy gendered
impacts of 255 trade policymakers 253 traditional feminist collectivism 115
traditional governance transformation of 239 traditional governance frameworks
117 traditional interest groups 129 traditional parliamentary norms 7
traditional peace 238, 240 traditional security purposes 243, 246
transformational variety 88 transformative conversations 241 transformative
economic policies 146 transformative governance 421, 422, 429 transgender
individuals 71 Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) 336 transnational civil
society 340 transnational epistemic network 7 transnational feminism 28, 29
transnational feminist networks (TFNs) 7 covid-19 278 crises 278 description 274
mobilisation 274 peace, demand for 275 peace, economic security and feminist
humanitarianism 280 transnational governance institutions 2, 4, 10, 153
transnational governance networks 206, 239 transnational regional integration 76
transparency 243 transphobia 113 Treaty of Amsterdam 313, 337, 339 Treaty of
Rome 311, 312, 313, 314, 324 Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) 311
Tripp, Aili Mari 102 Trudeau, Justin 204, 209, 425, 426 True, Jacqui 100, 106,
144, 191, 241, 242 Trump, Donald 133, 263, 428 Tungohan, Ethel 93 Tunisian
Parliament 153 TWWA see Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) tyranny of
structurelessness 113
UDHR see Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Uganda women’s caucus 153,
155 UK Parliamentary Labour Party’s Women’s Committee 156 UK’s Department for
International Development (DFID) 293 UK Women’s Budget Group 141 UN institutions
and national ministries 145 work on peace and security 240 UN Agenda on
Sustaining Peace 230 UN Beijing Conference on Women, 1995 313 UNCCD see United
Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) UN Conference on Population
and Development 1994 157 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women 29, 42, 130, 161, 189, 190, 216, 267, 277, 287,
363, 374, 436 UNCTAD gender and trade toolbox 256 UN Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples 426 UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO) 242
underrepresented sex 313 UNDP see UN Development Programme (UNDP) UNFCCC see
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) UNFPA see United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) ‘unitary’ states 78 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) 276 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (‘Rio+20’) 161 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD) 250 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) 267
United Nations Development Fund 183 United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM) 45, 277, 278 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 152, 168, 287
United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 274, 276, 288, 291 United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 262, 264, 265, 267
United Nations Fund for Population Activities/ Population Fund (UNFPA) 157, 277
Index 471 United Nations Security Council 8, 130, 205, 210, 229 United Nations
Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 106, 227, 375, 377, 379 United Nations
(UN) flagship efforts 130 institutional mechanism 126 peacebuilding architecture
227 peacebuilding governance 232 peacebuilding interventions 228 ratification of
255 system 189 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) see Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) United Nations (UN) Security
Council 238 adoption of the WPS agenda 240 and feminist actors 238 approach to
peace and security 244 formal meetings of 242 future of 246 in feminist peace
and security governance 241 practice of deploying 244 status quo of 240 United
States racial domination among women 26 Women’s Educational Equity Act of 1974
45 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 161, 190 universalisation of
interests of white 115 universalism 28 UN Peacebuilding Commission 230 UN
peacebuilding frameworks feminist critiques of 228 UN Peacebuilding Fund 232 UN
peace operations 205 UNSCR see United Nations Security Council Resolution
(UNSCR) UN Secretary-General 232 UN Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG) 289 UN
Women 11, 130 Expert Group Meetings 290 framework for feminist governance 288
gender architecture 1945–2010 287 gender equality 291 gender mainstreaming 291
multi-gendered lens 291 US Council on Foreign Relations 211 US women’s movement
Jo Freeman’s study of 64 Uthman, Io 64 value authoritative allocation of 25
Vanuatu Family Protection Act 440, 441 VAW see violence against women (VAW) VAW
laws see anti-violence against women (VAW) laws velvet triangle 66, 154 CSOs
335, 336, 337 EU-civil society relationships 336 EWL 338 feminist actors and
transnational institutions 336 femocrats 336, 338 gender equality actors 338
gender equality alliances, EU governance 340 gender mainstreaming 337 public
hearings 338 supranational alliances 338 Treaty of Amsterdam 337 venue shopping
82 vertical decision-making 118 Vickers, Jill 77 Victorian women’s health sector
115 Vigilare (Croatia) 366 violence 206, 227 against women in politics 165, 170,
171 violence against women (VAW) 3, 7, 9, 11, 54, 128, 134, 135, 203
appropriation 362 coordinated community intervention model 360 domestic violence
360 Duluth programme 360, 361 feminist advocacy 359 marital rape 360 opposition
365 politicisation 366, 367 protection 359 self-help movements 360 shelter
movements 360 transnational advocacy 361 transnational governance 362 women’s
rights groups 361 violences reproduction of 91 violent conflict 227 Vleuten,
Anna van der 372 Voluntary Fund for Women, The 287 von der Leyen, Ursula 317,
320, 326, 339, 340 Wallström, Margot 203, 204, 209
472 Handbook of feminist governance Walsh, Catherine E. 95 WBS see Women’s
Budget Statement (WBS) Weldon, S. Laurel 66, 128 wellbeing individual and
collective 113 western domination 108 WGDD see Women, Gender and Development
Directorate (WGDD) whiteness 89 Whitesell, Anne 65, 69 white western hegemony
106 WHO Constitution 1948 216, 217 WIDF see Women’s International Democratic
Federation (WIDF) Wildavsky, Aaron 320 Wolfensohn, James 277 womanism 89 women
advisors 140 advocacy organisations 156 and leadership 189, 200 and state 52
attractive career for 168 barriers for 101 bodies of 27, 28 budget programme 139
bureaucracies 127 candidates 43, 168 category of 52 characteristics of 217
clothing and speech 27 collective action 27 compliance 28 descriptive
representation 53, 81 discrimination against 42 diverse communities of 1
economic and political participation 205 economic insecurity 11 empowerment 161,
203 engagement in the labour force 127 equal access to resources 204 exclusion
166 experiences in society 181 facilitating access by 161 fertility 127
inclusion and empowerment 161 in Global South 104 in male-dominated governance
structures 52 in national governance 105 in national parliaments 162 in politics
163, 166 in public life 190 international congress of 4 intra-group differences
181 issues unit in Turkey 133
labour force participation 102 leadership challenges 219 leadership skills 170
legislative capacities 163 legislative recruitment 6 legislators 152 lived
experiences 28 mobilisation 134 movement 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 movement
organisations 154 movements 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 nomination of 170
organisations as partners 231 organisations in the Pacific 119 parliamentary
caucuses 151, 154 participation and leadership 176 policy agencies 4, 65, 80,
153 policy machinery 6, 139 political participation 151, 171, 189, 190 political
representation 129 private dependency of 53 proportion in parliament 167 ‘remove
barriers’ for 176 representation in parliament 231 reproductive roles 127 rights
2, 141, 176, 203 rights, aspects of 130 rights, status and identities 70
sections and party leaders 168 self-confidence 165 services and advocacy
organisations 4 substantive representation of 157, 174 unconventional activism
of 102 universal experience of 46 unpaid labour in child care 11 violence
against 3, 7, 9, 11, 54, 128, 134, 135, 171 waived nomination fees for 168 with
femicide and violence 28 Women2Win in the British Conservative Party 168 Women
and Gender Equality (WAGE) (Canada) 426 Women Count programme (UN Women) 292
Women for Peace 278 women-friendly legislation 169 women-friendly welfare
concept of 53 Women, Gender and Development Directorate (WGDD) (African Union)
375, 378, 379 Women in Global Health (WIGH) 220 Women in Parliament: Beyond
Numbers 176 Women in Public Service Project (WPSP) 167 women legislators 156
Index 473 Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML) (MENA region) 29 Women MPs’
Network (Finland) 156 womenomics 389 ‘Women on Boards’ proposal 313 Women, Peace
and Security (WPS) 143, 204, 229, 277, 375 agenda Security Council 243 and
feminist movements 246 commitments 246 Focal Points Network in 2016 241
implementation in the Security Council 245 institutionalization 378 National
Action Plans 102, 243, 245, 378, 379 NGO Working Group 240, 241, 242, 245
securitisation of 246 security governance, Africa 376 women rights activists 104
women’s bodily rights 54 Women’s Budget Statement (WBS) 139, 140 as internal
bureaucratic exercise 140 initiative 140 see also gender-responsive budgeting
(GRB) women’s caucus/es 155, 166, 169 and standing committees 156 case studies
of 156 creation of 153 establishment and strengthening of 155 function of 156
outreach of 156 single-party 158 Ugandan 153 see also gender-focused
parliamentary bodies (GFPBs) women’s economic empowerment (WEE) 291, 292 Women’s
Electoral Lobby SWC membership 156 women’s empowerment economic 293, 294 gender
mainstreaming 291 UN-SWAP 288 UN Women 286 WEE 291, 292 Women’s Information
Service, the 315 Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) 275 Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) 141, 274, 275, 276, 278, 279
women’s labour market participation 324, 325, 327, 389 women’s leadership 208,
209, 211 Women’s March 27 women’s movement 63, 64, 68, 69, 141
actors 69, 70 goals 69 mobilisation 65 policy activity 72 RNGS project’s
conceptualisation of 69 women’s movement organisations 153 women’s movements 55
activists 336 EU 338 gender equality norms 335 progressive 341, 343 Women’s
Participation in Peacebuilding 230 Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF)
227, 230 WomenSpeak/ERA collective budget processes (Australia) 121 women’s
policy agencies (WPAs) 63, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72 high scoring 410 medium scoring
410 transformation 412 women’s rights 238 women’s rights activists 118 women’s
rights organizations 361, 365 Women Wetem Weta (Women’s Weather Watch) 440
Woodward, Alison 9, 154, 308, 336 ‘work–life balance’ issues 169 World Bank 228,
232, 233 World Health Assembly 216 World Health Organization (WHO) 8 advice on
health emergency response 221 bureaucracy 218 description of 216 exclusion of
feminist practices 220 Executive Board 218 feminist knowledge and 218 gender
inclusive policies 220 gender strategy 219, 220 Health Emergencies Programme
(HEP) 220 health emergency response programme 217, 220 history of 217 internal
practices and health programmes 219 internal review 219 World Plan of Action in
Mexico City in 1975 161 World Summit for Social Development 276 world-systems
275, 276, 278 World Trade Organization (WTO) 250, 252, 253 WPAs see women’s
policy agencies (WPAs) WPS see Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda WTO see
World Trade Organization (WTO)
474 Handbook of feminist governance Yemen Peace Talks 2019 245 Young Women’s
Christian Associations (YWCAs) 115, 116, 118, 120, 121 young Pacific women as
leaders in 118 young women’s leadership 119 YWCA Australia Board 115 corporate
governance model of 115
YWCAs see Young Women’s Christian Associations (YWCAs) Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN) 415 Zaremberg, Gisela 39 Zika virus 221 Zwingel,
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