The Politics of Mainstreaming in Critical Perspective

Book excerpt: Gender mainstreaming (GM) has been identified in academic literature as a crucial topic for both public attention and academic research. This is because GM is currently considered an essential strategy for achieving the highly sought-after outcome of gender equality in public organisations. However, an exhaustive degree of academic, practitioner and advocate attention has been paid to challenges observed in the GM process. Specifically, concerns have crystallised on the following twin “puzzles”: (i) conceptual confusion and (ii) the challenges of operationalising the process. The central purpose of this book has been to make a contribution in relation to both of these academic and practice-based issues at a time when questions appertaining to gender equality are reaching critical mass. Moreover, we are simply not there yet in terms of our aspirations for gender equality in public organisations and new insights on strategies used to move us forward need to be brought to the foreground to engender progress. To address the aims of the book, the author uses three novel argumentative-turns to interrogate the politics of mainstreaming from a critical perspective. First is the challenge related to conceptual confusion. It is important to clarify that this book does not intend to investigate and define the issue of gender inequality in organisations per se, something that is beyond the scope of this book and deserves attention in its own right. Instead, this work focuses on the specific processes of change (mainstreaming) rather than the content of change (gender). Secondly, the practice element was also approached in a inimitable way by concentrating on local government in the UK which has had a long history with GM, despite the dearth of books on the issue, and thus an opportunity to analyse instructive and empirically rich cases. Finally, through a longitudinal view of local government history, this has included previously excluded evidence for consideration. Using these argumentative-turns, the book has met its three aims by mapping out: (i) the core conceptual features of mainstreaming across a range of organisational settings; (ii) developed an evaluation framework for understanding the outcomes of GM through a national level review and primary research; and (iii) interrogated the findings through a productive theory–practice dialogue using the work of social learning theory. This book should be of interest to a wide-ranging audience. As the study at the broadest level is essentially a study into the politics of change over time, students and academics may wish to utilise the books findings as they point to some of the challenges and difficulties associated with analysis of change within organisations. Feminists should also find the theoretical and methodological approach of interest in the sense that it challenges conventional wisdom and provides novel argumentative turns. Historical specialist may also find this book of interest for those concerned with process tracing methods and diachronic analysis. Finally, practitioners involved in different forms of mainstreaming/organisational change and development should be interested in the experiences encountered by the local government officers in adopting and implementing GM in the case studies. These include, but are and not limited, to Program Management Specialists, Development Officers, Policy Experts, Equality Practitioners and Gender Experts in a variety of organisational contexts from the local to the supranational levels, private, public and mixed economy sectors.