Lesson 1. Why gender mainstreaming matters
Back to: Introduction to Gender Mainstreaming
Why gender mainstreaming matters
In this lesson
You will see why gender mainstreaming exists as a strategy, where it came from, and what it requires.
Three sections follow:
- The problem this strategy responds to
- The history of how it emerged
- What it requires to work
The problem
This lesson includes interactive steps marked with a star. Complete each one to finish the lesson.
Before reading on, consider this question:
If gender inequality were the result of individual bias alone, what would be enough to fix it?
Gender inequality is structural.
It is not the by-product of one bad policy or one missing programme. It reproduces itself through institutions:
- How organisations recruit and promote
- How budgets are set
- How policies are designed
- What counts as evidence
- Whose priorities make it onto the agenda
If gender inequality were the result of individual bias alone, individual training and a few targeted programmes would be enough. They are not.
The strategy
Gender mainstreaming embeds gender equality across institutions and programmes.
It is the main strategy adopted worldwide to pursue gender equality through the mainstream work of governments, international organisations and other actors. It works to change how policies, programmes, procedures and organisations operate. The aim is to make gender equality a routine part of the main work, not a parallel or separate effort. The next section sets out where the strategy came from.
The lineage
Three framings shaped how the international community has approached gender and development. Click each tab to explore.
Women in Development
Integrating women into existing development programmes.
Women in Development (WID), 1970s
The first major framing.
Focus: integrating women into existing development processes.
Approach: women were excluded; inclusion is the solution.
Limit: adding women to systems that produce inequality does not change those systems.
What changed next: a new analytical framing, Gender and Development, responded to the limits of WID. Click the 1980s tab.
Quick check
WID came first. GAD came next. What does gender mainstreaming add?
The requirement
If gender mainstreaming is a strategy, what does it require to work? Click each track in the diagram to explore.
Adapted from UN Women, 2022, Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming for Gender Equality Results, p. 19.
Track 1. Integrated action. Bringing attention to gender equality into all policies, programmes and procedures across an institution, so that gender becomes a routine part of the main work.
Track 2. Targeted action. Dedicated programmes, policies and resources aimed at the specific gender equality constraints that integrated action alone cannot reach.
Gender mainstreaming requires both, running together.
Without integrated action, gender equality stays in a parallel silo. Without targeted action, mainstreaming risks diluting attention to constraints that need dedicated effort.
In the UN system this is called the twin-track approach. In the EU it is the dual approach. The terminology is different; the logic is the same. Lesson 4 returns to this in more detail.
Reflect
Can you think of an example of an integrated action and a targeted action?
Activity and further reading
Activity
To complete this lesson you will take a quiz. You will see three short statements describing different approaches to gender and development. For each, you choose whether it best describes WID, GAD, or gender mainstreaming.
Further reading
Sources cited in this lesson
- United Nations 1995, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. United Nations, New York.
- Razavi, S. and Miller, C. 1995, From WID to GAD: Conceptual Shifts in the Women and Development Discourse. UNRISD Occasional Paper No. 1, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva.
- UN Women 2022, Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming for Gender Equality Results. UN Women, New York.
