Making Gender Equality Happen. Knowledge, Change and Resistance in EU Gender Mainstreaming

In theory, the EU’s ‘Gender Mainstreaming’ policy should mark it out as a trail-blazer in gender equality, but gender equality activists in Europe confront a knotty problem; most civil servants and policy makers can’t understand how to ‘mainstream’ gender.

Making Gender Equality Happen argues that we should take this problem seriously. In this book Cavaghan uncovers the social processes that make gender appear irrelevant to so many policy makers using a new method, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis. Building on this new perspective Cavaghan identifies:

• barriers to effective gender mainstreaming;

• mechanisms of resistance to gender mainstreaming; and

• the steps towards positive change, which gender mainstreaming can yield, even when results stop short of ‘transformation’.

These findings present fresh perspectives for policy makers and activists aiming to make gender equality happen. Cavaghan’s new method also opens fresh avenues in feminist EU studies, which are particularly relevant in the wake of the financial crisis, as the EU seems to be stepping away from its commitments to gender equality.

Table of Contents

Boxes Tables and Figures

Part I: Gender Change and EU Gender Mainstreaming
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Mainstreaming Gender: Gender and the State
Chapter 3: Understanding Policy as a Knowledge Process

Part II: Empirical Analysis
Chapter 4: Developing and Doing Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis
Chapter 5: ‘No Data, No Problem, No Policy’: Establishing Gender Mainstreaming in DG Research
Chapter 6: ‘Lets Say We Did Our Homework’: Gender Mainstreaming in ‘Directorate H’
Chapter 7: ‘Anything Pro-active, No.’ Gender Mainstreaming in ‘Directorate N’

Part III Conclusions
Chapter 8: Re-Thinking Gender Mainstreaming: Process, Contestation, and Knowing