Although feminist scholarship has discussed intersectionality extensively, few studies have addressed its implementation in public policies. This article fills that gap with an empirical study of the obstacles and enabling factors in implementing intersectionality in the Madrid City Council. We focus on the multiple meanings, actors, and structures involved in translating policy planning into concrete measures. Through a content analysis of policy documents, interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, our qualitative study identifies five key factors that hinder the implementation of intersectionality-informed policies: the absence of a legal framework and precise guidelines; the multiple and contrasting interpretations of intersectionality; the lack of training; the compartmentalized work structure and culture; and the unavailability and misuse of data. These findings contribute to the scholarship on the implementation of intersectionality in public policies and provide empirical-based recommendations to overcome the identified obstacles.

The research objective of this article is to analyze the European Parliament’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of feminist governance. Feminist governance can either play a role in ensuring the inclusion of a gender perspective in crisis responses, or, quite the opposite, crises may weaken or sideline feminist governance. The empirical analysis focuses on two aspects of feminist governance: (1) a dedicated gender equality body and (2) gender mainstreaming. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of feminist governance, the analysis sheds light on the political struggles behind the policy positions. The article argues that feminist governance in the European Parliament was successful in inserting a gender perspective into the COVID-19 response. The article pinpoints the effects of the achievements of the European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee and gender mainstreaming on gendering the pandemic crisis response.

Twenty years after the passing of Resolution 1325, the participation of women as military personnel in peacekeeping operations remains limited. Women currently comprise just under five per cent of military personnel in UN peacekeeping missions, and the UN consistently calls for more. We contend the low numbers of female military personnel in peacekeeping reflects a lack of gender mainstreaming in national militaries globally. This article introduces the problem of sidestreaming, the practice, deliberate or unintentional, of sidelining women and relegating them to specialised spaces in international peace and security while attempting gender mainstreaming or increased gender integration. Drawing on empirical evidence from national militaries we show how and where sidestreaming occurs with the result being that women remain clustered in gendered and low-status spaces in national militaries and in specialised spaces in peacekeeping operations. This has a negative effect on retention and recruitment contributing to the low numbers of female peacekeepers in UN peace operations. We conclude that gender mainstreaming in its fullest sense will require military reform that decouples violence and combat skills from masculinity and inclusive research strategies that engage men as well as women.

This article examines the limitations of the gender mainstreaming discourse regarding the issue of childcare by women in South Korea, an area of responsibility that was transferred from the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) to the Ministry of Gender Equality (MGE)1 in 2003. Through employing a discursive institutionalism approach, this article articulates that whilst the gender mainstreaming discourse has been interpreted at the surface level of politics, it has been formulated differently behind the scenes due to various policy interests. I argue that the discourse has remained at the level of superficial political rhetoric with underdeveloped understanding about the relationship between childcare and gender, thus retaining a stereotypical view of women as caregivers.

This article explores the dynamics of antigender mobilization in Poland and shows how gender equality projects are interconnected with the rise of opponents of “gender ideology.” It highlights material and discursive links between the local implementation of gender mainstreaming and the antigenderist backlash. The article points out that particular gender equality policies in non-Western settings result from Europeanization and thus are marked by a significant democratic deficit—that is, they are promoted without engaging a wider audience and elude parliamentary control. The study shows that if gender equality projects, such as gender mainstreaming, are fostered by external international commitments and obscure bureaucratic measures, they may unintentionally provide the impetus for antigender mobilization. Indeed, gender wars are fueled not only by controversies over gender and LGBT equality but also by growing concerns about citizens’ control over the state and its policies. The article is data based, and by employing framing analysis, it provides an explanation of the recent political success of antigenderist campaigns, which take place in a world of reconfigured states and diminishing democracies.

This article analyzes the implementation of gender mainstreaming at the local level in Sweden by investigating implementation gaps in the operations of two municipalities, Eskilstuna and Jönköping. The study draws on the literature on policy implementation, particularly the dimensions of comprehension, capacity, and will, as well as the feminist institutional literature on resistance. The data are based on a micro-study of the implementation of gender mainstreaming in two model municipalities, comprising interviews with key actors and a document study. The study shows that the key obstacles to the implementation of gender mainstreaming are complacency—that is, the perception that work on gender mainstreaming is satisfactory and that no extra attention to the matter is needed—and the congestion of perspectives—the fact that the gender equality perspective must compete with other relevant perspectives, a process in which gender equality is often the loser. Another obstacle is lack of political will. However, lack of political will, even in model municipalities, may be compensated for by solid systems of governance. The study contributes to research on implementation theory and feminist institutionalism by demonstrating the gendered barriers and obstacles to affecting change, even in best-case scenarios.

This article assesses the implications of the shifting market-state relationship for feminism in the neoliberal era. In a case study of the private military and security industry as an actor that is uniquely positioned at the intersections of security governance and global markets, the analysis combines feminist security studies’ critique of securitized gender discourses and feminist global political economy scholarship on corporate-led equality initiatives. Based on a critical discourse analysis of documents from industry and nongovernmental organizations, such as codes of conduct and policy recommendations, I argue that the discourses on gender put forward in the context of security privatization merge securitized and marketized discourses to the effect that the emancipatory potential of “gender” is further curtailed, raising new challenges for feminist knowledge in powerful organizations. The article thus contributes to the critical gender research on private security, debates on the neoliberalization and securitization of feminism, and the integration of feminist security studies and feminist global political economy.

This article examines the development of the EU's gender equality framework of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law, including the incomplete gender mainstreaming of the European Employment Strategy. It highlights contradictions, rooted in political tensions between the social democratic principles which underpin the European Social Model, and the promotion of neo-liberal economic policies. It assesses the UK's role in shaping this European framework, and the framework's impact on the UK's employment policy. It concludes that Brexit will harm the pursuit of gender equality in the UK due to decoupling from the EU's equality framework and policy pathway. An additional risk is greater insularity in UK policy making through reduced exposure to the Open Method of Coordination. Brexit may, however, help progress gender equality in the rest of the EU if the outcome is greater unity focussed on an inclusive employment policy without the UK dragging its heels in favour of deregulated flexibility.

There is considerable research showing that gender is deemed irrelevant to organizations and to policy. This paper examines the results of a research project that sought to reverse those ‘rules of relevance’. The project required policy actors in several public sector organizations to undertake a gender analysis of their policies. We found that it was through the collaborative work of doing the gender analysis that policy actors came to see why such an analysis was needed. This necessarily meant seeing the relevance of gender to the policies they dealt with, which could also highlight gender bias in their organizations. Yet, a bureaucratic and gendered division of labour ensured that those who got to do the gender analysis were those in relatively powerless positions, predominantly women. We draw on the ‘turn to practice’ in organizational studies and feminist strategies of ‘sudden seeing’ to consider what our results might offer future projects of gender analysis and organizational intervention.

This paper examines the extent to which the influence of Confucianism on the welfare of women erects barriers to the gender mainstreaming (GM) of childcare policy in Hong Kong. GM is a global strategy adopted by the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. Adopting a context-sensitive approach in understanding the translation of the international concept of GM in the policy formation and practice in Hong Kong, we find that the Confucian welfare model has profound impact on women's welfare and the effectiveness of GM in Hong Kong. First, childcare support for the family is far from adequate due to the perception of childcare as the individual family's responsibility rather than as a citizen right. Second, the gender-neutral discourse commonly accepted by the policy-makers in Hong Kong reflects the inadequate gender-sensitivity training of government officials. Third, GM has been “watered down” as a technical tool instead of transforming gender inequality in the society.

The European Union (EU) was an influential voice in advocating the adoption of gender mainstreaming by the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Since then gender mainstreaming has become a central policy plank of gender justice globally, but progress has been variable and modest. This paper examines the unfolding of gender mainstreaming in the EU, which was one of the early adopters as reflected by its commitment to gender mainstreaming in 1996. The objective is to identify patterns that may have implications for gender justice on a broader scale. The lenses are the European Employment Strategy dating from 1997 and targeted gender equality initiatives dating from the Community Framework on Gender Equality (2001–2005). Drawing on documentary analysis of these sources constraints on moving form aspiration to policy practice and outcome are identified. These are intensified by the multilevel structure of decision-making in the EU, which means that commitments agreed at the EU level are not pursed with the same fervour by all member states. But constraints are inherent in gender mainstreaming because of the contested and vague nature of the concept, the context of cross-cutting inequalities and the structural basis of these inequalities.

This paper explores gender mainstreaming in the context of health policy and health variations between women and men. Despite the adoption of gender mainstreaming at international, regional and national scales since the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995, gender inequalities in health persist. The paper argues that the translation of gender mainstreaming as a global policy paradigm across and between policy scales has significance for health policies aiming to address gender. The paper suggests that while gender mainstreaming originated to address women's needs, the paradigm is founded on goals that do not translate in health policy; that the representation of the problem of gender in this global paradigm is problematic in a health context; and that the role of global networks in policy translation as part of this paradigm has led to the replacement of transformative ideals with technocratic solutions which shift the focus away from gender relations of power.

The paper is set to examine the state of gender equality in Central Eastern European Countries (CEECs) since accession to the European Union (EU) following the two enlargements in 2004 and 2007, which saw 10 CEECs join the EU. In this context, the paper addresses some implications of transformation, which challenge gender regimes across CEECs. The paper looks at the nature of the policies adopted to ensure gender equality in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and, in particular, using Hungary's and Poland's family policies as a case study, it evaluates whether EU gender equality measures have had an impact on gender equality and justice in CEE and, more generally, whether they have led to new gender equality paradigms.