Gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is the public policy concept of assessing the different implications for women and men of any planned policy action, including legislation and programmes, in all areas and levels. Mainstreaming essentially offers a pluralistic approach that values the diversity among both men and women.

The concept of gender mainstreaming was first proposed at the 1985 Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya. The idea has been pushed in the United Nations development community. The idea was formally featured in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and was cited in the document that resulted from the conference, the Beijing Platform for Action.

Most definitions of gender mainstreaming conform to the UN Economic and Social Council formally defined concept:

Gender mainstreaming tries, among others, to ascertain a gender equality perspective across all policy areas. According to Jacqui True, a Professor of politics and international relations, "[e]very policy or piece of legislation should be evaluated from the perspective of whether or not it reduces or increases gender inequalities." This concept of gender equality is not limited to formal equality, it includes as well equality de facto, which is a more holistic approach to gender policy in order to tackle the interconnected causes that create an unequal relation between the sexes in all areas of life (work, politics, sexuality, culture, and violence).

Lombardo notes that "[t]here should be evidence that gender equality objective and policies of special concern for women (for example, social policy) have been prioritized in the organization among competing objectives (in terms of financial and human resources, type of measures adopted, voting systems used, and so forth)."

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