What is the problem and how does one deal with it? Policy frames and implementation problems: the case of gender mainstreaming Vlasta Jalušič Peace Institute.

What is the problem and how does one deal with it? Policy frames and implementation

problems: the case of gender mainstreaming

Vlasta JalušičPeace Institute – Institute for Contemporary Social and

Political [email protected]

www.mirovni-institut.siwww.mageeq.net

is an acronym for

MAinstreaming GEnder EQuality

. is funded by the 5th Framework of the European Commission, under the Programme on “Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base”.

What is gender equality?

This is not a normative question in MAGEEQ.

We compare what is the actual meaning of gender equality in the practice of policymaking. The point of departure that gender equality itself is a contested concept and that it is subject to different interpretations, constructions and reconstructions.

Research questions• What is the meaning of gender (in)equality in

the practices of policy making?• Which patterns of differences and similarities

are found across European countries and between countries and the European Union?

• Which inconsistencies are present?• Which processes of exclusion result from

these policies? Who and what is excluded?

Why study the meaning of gender (in)equality?

• If only because of the multitude of feminisms we can expect gender (in)equality to have a wide range of meanings.

• Context matters: there are historical, social, cultural, political and economical differences between countries.

Why study the meaning of gender (in)equality?

• Clarifying the range of meanings can contribute to more clearly articulated visions of gender equality.

• This can improve the quality of democracy.

• This can improve the quality of policy making (especially gender mainstreaming).

What, where & when?

• Hotly debated issues of citizenship and the organization of private relationships: gender inequality as connected to political decision making, family policy, domestic violence, prostitution, migration and integration, homosexual rights and anti-discrimination.

• The West, the East and the South of Europe, and the European Union, from 1995-2005.

• Austria and the Netherlands, Slovenia and Hungary, Spain and Greece.

More specific questions

• Are gender equality policies about gender?• How prominent is gender equality in gender

equality policies, and which other goals can be detected?

• What are typical patterns of inconsistencies and what can they possibly mean?

• Who is supposed to be responsible for the problem of gender inequality, and who is given the duty to do something?

How to give answers to these questions?

How to study the meaning of gender (in)equality?

• Analyze texts, take them at face value• Official government reports, laws, parliamentary

debates, party programmes, media articles, expert texts, NGO texts

• Use qualitative sampling of texts• Use sensitizing questions to guide the analysis• Use a joint conceptual framework to allow for

comparative analysis

Central concepts used

• Policy frame: a policy frame is an organizing principle that transforms fragmentary or incidental information into a structured and meaningful policy problem, in which a solution is implicitly or explicitly enclosed.

• In operational terms: A policy frame is a specific configuration of positions on an issue

on the dimensions of:• diagnosis and prognosis of the policy problem, • roles attributed in diagnosis and prognosis, and • voice given in connection to the problem.

Methodology: Critical Frame Analysis

Voice

Diagnosis

Problem representations

Gender dimensions

Gender structures & mechanisms

Intersectionality

Prognosis

Representations of goals & measures

Gender dimensions

Gender structures & mechanisms

Intersectionality

Balance

Roles in Diagnosis Roles in Prognosis

Reflections

• Gender is perceived as a dichotomy which is not discussed

• Women and men are presented as internally homogeneous categories

• Women’s interests are represented as known in advance, given once and for all, common to all women and non debatable

Reflections

• Diagnosis and prognosis often do not fit together, often attention for structural components of found only in diagnosis

• This is related to a lack of conceptual clarity• This hinders effective policy making

“Inequality of women in politics”

How has this issue been dealt within EU and the six countries analysed?

Three levels:

• political system or political regime

• social relations and social structures, mainly there is the gender regime of the society in question

• individual level, either of politicians or of citizens.

First level: the political system

Frames mostly concern the field of citizenship – the organization of polity, politics and policies. Either the problem and its solution are located in either political structures in general, for instance in male dominated political structures or generally in the frame of “democracy”. Solutions are provided without a thorough analysis of the diagnosis of the situation of gender inequality in politics.

Second level: social relations.

The issue of gender inequality in politics is framed in relation to “society”, to social structures and relations and to gender regimes:

• patriarchal society or patriarchy • the sexual division of labour• the discrimination of women on the labour

market (segregation, segmentation, and exclusion).

Third level: individuals

• individuals are seen as a problem

• women who lack self-esteem

• women who are unqualified for politics

• women who do not vote for women

• men who do not want to renounce from power (rather rarely)

Emphasis on the quantitative representation of women

• a frame in diagnosis as well as in prognosis which occurs in all countries

• addressed as inequality in elected bodies like parliaments (national or local), in state administration

• the problem definition as well as the main issue in solution is the number of women

• the visibility or invisibility of women in decision-making bodies

• the mere physical presence of women

3. Conclusion and some questions, concerning gender

• Policy texts on gender inequality in politics tend to be unbalanced towards the prognosis, thus providing solutions to an insufficiently elaborated diagnosis of the problem

• Women are depicted as the main subjects holding the problem of gender inequality in politics, while men appear as the implicit norm group that women should attain to and they are not asked to change.

Conclusions and some questions, concerning gender

• The main voices speaking in the documents are those of female policy makers, while civil society actors and the women’s movements are rarely appearing in the texts.

• Underlying similarity in the main framing of the issue as a quantitative problem and solution.

• But also specific country patterns in framing the problem of gender inequality in politics, North-south and an East-west division, whereby this does not necessarily mean division between old and new EU members.

Conclusion and some questions, concerning gender

• Gender in equality policies in the selected European countries is generally perceived as a dichotomy, presented through two given social categories.

• Women are framed as a specific social category or identity representing “gender difference”.

• (Occasional) sub-categories related mainly to socio-professional categories, to ethnicity, social class and age.

Questions

• policy makers do not take into account gender as a social category

• What kind of “problem” are “gender” and equality – if the “policy-makers” in the analysed countries are not closely acquainted with gender as a category and “theory”?

• Do they therefore lack the basis for thinking of diverse solutions for the problem?

Questions

• How much background can these practices eventually have or could have in the theoretical concept of gender, i.e. how much are they informed by the feminist theory of gender?

• How to make the public and politicians to “see” or to (better) understand the gender construction problematic?

• Or is the question one should ask rather who the actors having the main voices (especially if they are mainly female voices) actually?

Keep the question open!

• What and whose are the concpets of:

• Gender

• Politics

• Equality