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Looking local, finding global: paradoxes of gender mainstreaming in the Scottish Executive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2010

AMANDA WITTMAN
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Abstract

Gender mainstreaming is portrayed as the next step in the global gender equality landscape and has been widely adopted internationally in a variety of governments and political organisations. However, the radical potential of gender mainstreaming to transform organisations has not been fulfilled. In this article, I explore three paradoxes which are inherent in the intent, implementation and institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming. I argue that we cannot fully understand these global paradoxes without a better understanding of local experiences which underpin them in the everyday working lives of those people involved in advocating gender mainstreaming. Using results from an institutional ethnography of the implementation of the Gender Equality Duty by gender mainstreaming advocates in the Scottish Executive, I show that bureaucratic practices, fossilised norms and the continued reliance on soft measures to promote mainstreaming are reflections at the local level of barriers to the advancement of global gender mainstreaming. By taking seriously the local practices and knowledge of those who do gender mainstreaming, we can reflect on the inherent tensions within gender mainstreaming that prohibit its ability to truly transform the gender landscape at both the local and global level.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , January 2010, pp. 51 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

Introduction

Gender mainstreaming is touted as the next step in the gender equality puzzle – as the most ‘modern’ form of gender governance, yet this belies the questions still raised by feminist commentators as to mainstreaming’s actual and practical usefulness to achieve material equality for women.Footnote 1 This article starts from the standpoint that gender mainstreaming has the potential for fundamentally transforming global policy and global governance. However, this potential is limited by what I call ‘the radical potential paradox’ whereby inherent paradoxes in the intent, implementation and institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming hinder its progress as a radical agenda. The first section of the article lays out the radical potential paradox which sets the stage for a reflexive discussion of possibilities of operationalising this paradox. The third section examines how the paradoxes play out in a case study of gender mainstreaming in the particular case of the Scottish Executive which helps uncover connections between local and global gender politics.Footnote 2 I conclude with a reflection on the importance of looking at multiple levels to fully understand the process of gender mainstreaming in the global policy realm.

Gender mainstreaming hopes to help deal with the very ‘genderedness of organisations’Footnote 3 by focusing on transforming institutional structures which have gendered effects. As such, it is an approach towards gender equality which has been taken up by policy officersFootnote 4 international organisations like the UN and EU and feminist international relations scholars.Footnote 5 Combined, the insights these various people bring to gender mainstreaming highlight that it is not just a policy, or a method, or a set of governing tools but rather a combination of all of these that aims to transform how politics and governance is done in organisations. The aim of gender mainstreaming is to take the onus off of individuals to ensure that gender equality happens, and transfer it to organisations in a holistic way. Mainstreaming is predicated on the idea that if we can transform organisational standard operating procedures, policy processes and other cultural norms then we do not have to worry about the organisation being feminist or not. Instead gender is mainstreamed into the everyday life of the organisation in such a way that it is included regardless.

Importantly, gender mainstreaming is an equality approach that has been taken up globally and is now the focus of the international gender equality landscape. The UN, the EU, the WTO, other international NGOs, and aid organisations have adopted gender mainstreaming as their main tactic to combat gender equality. Yet, the very important work to actually implement and ‘do’ gender mainstreaming occurs at very local levels, by individuals who work in small units within these organisations. Thus, I argue, in order to better understand the global nature of gender mainstreaming, we must uncover and be curious about the local aspects of gender mainstreaming – how it is done, who does it, what types of work go into making gender mainstreaming happen, what the daily experiences are of people who implement gender mainstreaming. These local aspects of gender mainstreaming can be seen through an investigation of local level processes, practices and everyday work that goes on in relation to gender mainstreaming.

I will argue that ethnography can provide some of the analytical and methodological links to help researchers make the connections between the global and local levels of the politics that surround gender mainstreaming. I found that any ‘breach’ between the politics of the everyday work going on in organisations and international politics is not as broad as I had first assumed it might be when I started my research at the Scottish Executive. Individuals who I worked with were aware of the ways that their everyday work was bound up with work being done internationally in regards to gender equality. And certainly, the entire point of mainstreaming is predicated upon the idea that individuals (usually women) get ‘stuck’ doing gender work, and, therefore, there is a need to move towards an institutional approach which understands organisations, particularly bureaucracies, as gendered. However, actually being able to empirically study this relationship can be difficult. I found that the sociological method proposed by Dorothy Smith, institutional ethnography, provides useful methodological and analytical tools for connecting the local and the global.Footnote 6 In this article, I will elaborate on her concept of relations of ruling and explore how this helps us contextualise everyday practices, norms and measures which people go about in relation to gender mainstreaming in the Scottish Executive. The analytic question that looking at relations of ruling leads to is: what are the ruling ideas and practices which stop gender mainstreaming from being effective? This question is further explored in the last section of the article.

My specific case study is the implementation of the Gender Equality Duty (GED) in the Scottish Executive.Footnote 7 The GED is a legislative duty introduced by the Equality Act 2006 which came into effect throughout the UK in April 2007. The GED requires public bodies to take responsibility for ensuring gender equality by removing the onus of responsibility from individuals to make complains about sex discrimination. Instead the organisations themselves must prove that they are proactively working to end gender inequality. In Scotland, there are specific duties placed on the Scottish Government, Scottish ministers, and Education authorities as well as more stringent requirements for consultation, action and reporting by all public bodies.Footnote 8

The GED is an example of gender mainstreaming in devolved Scotland. Looking at its implementation sheds light on the interplay and the ways that the day-to-day lives of women (and men) interact with and are implicated in the international world. This analysis of local experiences of gender mainstreaming in the Scottish Executive gives us a new perspective on the international trends surrounding gender mainstreaming as it connects the local level of everyday politics to the global level of international relations. I argue that by taking seriously the local practices and knowledge of those who do gender mainstreaming, we can reflect on the inherent tensions within gender mainstreaming that prohibit its ability to truly transform the gender landscape at both the local and global level.

I spent nine months in the Scottish Executive, where I watched civil servants who were equalities experts (who were generally, although not exclusively, women) negotiate the fact that they had been successful in ensuring the passing of this legislative Duty which gave legal strength to promoting gender equality. This was a step forward for the gender mainstreaming agenda. They celebrated this victory and were proud of the achievement; at the same time, they had to figure out how to make the Duty a reality in their own place of work. In their own day-to-day experiences of implementing the Gender Duty and attempting to go forward with a gender mainstreaming agenda, the equality experts I worked with were part of a larger movement in the international gender equality landscape of those trying to puzzle out the nuances of gender equality.

The radical potential paradox

Analysis of the everyday workings lives of those involved with the Gender Duty and gender mainstreaming at the Scottish Executive results in useful insights about what I term paradoxes of mainstreaming at the broader level. I argue that the literature on gender mainstreaming highlights three paradoxes, which I call the paradoxes of intent, implementation and institutionalisation. These are paradoxes in the way mainstreaming is conceptually conceived, paradoxes with the various ways it’s actually practiced and paradoxes inherent in its success. The paradoxes are contradictory viewpoints which structure the ways people talk and think about and do gender mainstreaming.

I understand a paradox to be a situation which presents itself in a self-contradicting or contradictory way. In this article, I use the idea of paradoxes as a conceptual and organisational tool to move through the contradictions which people must maneuver as they attempt to go about the process of gender mainstreaming. Using the concept of the paradox helps me to uncover the multiple meanings working through mainstreaming, and to highlight the various ways mainstreaming is used by policy makers. The paradoxes of gender mainstreaming can be seen in three areas: there are paradoxes in the way mainstreaming is conceptually conceived, paradoxes in the various ways it is practiced and paradoxes inherent in its success. I call these the paradoxes of intent, implementation and institutionalisation. When scholars refer to the intentions behind mainstreaming, they justify it either with a rationale which highlights good governance terminology which focuses on modernisation and the business case for equalitiesFootnote 9 or they use a social justice framework which calls upon a rights-based view of justice.Footnote 10 When thinking about the implementation of GM policies, the literature points to technocratic forms of implementation, which include gender schemes, gender-disaggregated statistics, or gender impact assessments as one way to approach implementation. An alternate way is through a version of gender mainstreaming which appropriates deliberative, participative methods of inclusion and privileges evidence-based policy making.Footnote 11 Lastly, when understanding the process of institutionalisation, which I understand to refer to achieving change, there are also contradictory ways of thinking about mainstreaming. The first puts forward mainstreaming as a policy which moves towards radical and transformational change.Footnote 12 The other sees it as simply part of the status quo – an integrationist policy that modern governments and institutions use to optimise efficiency and utility.

What all these paradoxes imply is that gender mainstreaming might be inherently paradoxical and that its successful implementation is hindered by the contradictions which occur in the theories underpinning the agenda. Gender mainstreaming refers to a set of policies aimed at radically altering traditional institutions and the policy making process through a process which is inherently de-radicalising. This paradox can be and is often negotiated successfully, but it acts as a barrier to gender mainstreaming which must be overcome through conscious and specific feminist understandings and organising. Being aware of the paradoxes which occur in gender mainstreaming can help advocates work through them successfully.

The paradox of intent

The paradox that lies at the heart of the way gender mainstreaming is conceptualised revolves around the difference between thinking of it as a revolutionary and specifically feminist policy and one which frames it as a tactic of good governance. Although mainstreaming is the product of radical feminist thought and organising,Footnote 13 it can be co-opted by those in power to fit the needs of neoliberal governance strategies.Footnote 14 Although gender mainstreaming is touted by feminists as a potentially radical way of thinking about and making policy, this is certainly not the only (or even the most common) reason given to explain the rapid accommodation of mainstreaming by these institutions.

Various authors suggest that competing frames underpin the concept of gender mainstreaming have been articulated in various contexts. In a discussion of gender mainstreaming in NGOS in India, GeorgeFootnote 15 sums up these two frames in her discussion; one, she argues, focuses on gender mainstreaming as a tool of governance, the other highlights the radical potential for change that feminists argue is the point of gender mainstreaming. She examines how gender mainstreaming is made meaningful through local implementers and emphasises aspects that ‘resonate with the feminist origins of what has become a process of global governance’.Footnote 16 Beveridge, et al Footnote 17 break down states’ responses to mainstreaming in two similar ways, calling one response the ‘expert/bureaucratic approach’ which focus heavily on the expertise of experts and the establishment of mainstreaming as a routine process in the bureaucracy and the other response the ‘participatory/democratic approach’ which aims to include and empower disadvantaged groups through the policy process. Others highlight the transformative role of gender mainstreaming while comparing it with a frame that presents it as just another gender equality tool, which ignores the structural aspects of gender and narrows down the definition to simply mean women.Footnote 18 In addition, both TrueFootnote 19 and SquiresFootnote 20 suggest a competing concept of the point of gender mainstreaming which revolves around the neoliberal frame of competition and market growth that can co-opt and disorient gender mainstreaming to fit neoliberal objectives.

These varied reasons given for gender mainstreaming to be taken up by governments and governmental organisations are contradictory and competing. Framing gender mainstreaming as simply a tool of good governance does not result in the change that feminists want mainstreaming to bring about. In order to promote this transformation, the reasons for doing gender mainstreaming should include aspects of social justice and feminist politics. Yet, because mainstreaming needs to be framed in a way which ensures that it is adopted by organisations, feminists have in some cases used existing discourses – like governance and expertise – and ‘fit’ the purposes of mainstreaming in to them. This gives more traditional actors a way to understand the intent behind gender mainstreaming.

One example of this can be seen in feminist work done on gender and global governance which gives attention to gender mainstreaming. When feminists focus on governing institutions, they question the very nature of the state (local, national and international) and its ability to constitute gender relations in discursive, economic and legal ways. While maintaining scepticism about the possibility that the state will co-opt feminist aims and goals, there was a move in the 1990s to engage with and embrace state institutions as a way to encourage equality in governance.Footnote 21

Specifically, Rai argues that through participation in political institutions, women’s organising and the development of networks to feed into policy decisions and debates, feminist activism seeks to develop a framework of global governance that is participatory and democratic.Footnote 22 This ‘feminist framework on global governance’ (p. 590) draws heavily on the work of Myer and Prugl (1999) who identify three important areas in the study of gender and global governance: institutional structures and international organisations where women ‘have found or carved out niches for themselves and their interests as women’ (p. 4), social movements and critical actors who ‘propel diverse policy processes in the interstate arena’ (p. 5), and the rules and discursive practices which contain powerful versions of masculinity and femininity that play out in the global context. What is important about this framework, argues Rai, is that ‘we find an alternative understanding of global governance, which focuses on macro-level changes taking place in the international system and political economy, but grounds these in the local and global struggles’Footnote 23 important to feminists. Gender mainstreaming is thus an important part of the gender and global governance framework. It is a result of feminist engagement with institutional structures, and it promises a change in the discursive practices and norms which act so powerfully in the international arena.

These rationalisations behind gender mainstreaming fall into two camps. The first one is based on a social justice model; the second revolves around arguments of good governance. The vision of gender mainstreaming which highlights the power of institutional constraints placed on gender relations that feminists point to, is inherent in its social justice framework. Conversely, the version of mainstreaming as a toolkit or a series of routines that can be implemented and followed falls within a good governance framework. And while a dedication to good governance can lead to better governing and policy, which in turn can lead to improved situations for women, the good governance framework does not carry with it the transformational aspect of the social justice framework.

Thus, there is a tension between the two frameworks that most often underpin gender mainstreaming efforts and this tension constantly bubbles over into the intentions behind mainstreaming. It is useful to have different rationales for mainstreaming that can be used with different audiences – the ‘business case’ of equalities, for example, can be highlighted when explaining to public sector the necessity of implementing mainstreaming measures while a description of the ways mainstreaming works to relieve individuals of the burden of proving institutional discrimination may appeal more to a group of activists. However, when the good governance rationale is deployed at the expense of the social justice framework, much of the good work done to understand the complex and nuanced nature of gender gets lost. The good governance rationale can undermine and neutralise the potential inherent in the social justice rationale.Footnote 24 This tension has the potential to overwhelm gender mainstreaming in its practice and implementation. As clearly seen in the daily world of implementing gender mainstreaming, the competing frames can lead to a variability which can render both the idea and the approach of gender mainstreaming feeble and inarticulate. These rationales are not separate. In fact, they are used interchangeably, but consciously, by gender mainstreaming advocates depending on the audience. However, it is important to understand that framing gender mainstreaming as a strategy devoid of feminist and social justice goals can end up making gender issues invisible.

The paradox of implementation

This paradox highlights at the different ways that mainstreaming is implemented. When I use the concept of implementation, I refer most simply to how people go about doing gender mainstreaming. I am interested in the implicit understandings and assumptions which people associated with gender mainstreaming maintain when they implement gender mainstreaming. Some of these assumptions, I argue, prove to be more concerned with radical transformation of organisations and institutions than others. In the context of implementation, the paradox is that GM measures are designed with a radical goal in mind but often get downgraded to mere technocratic exercises.Footnote 25 Implementation of gender mainstreaming may then be deemed successful by organisational measures but it is a version stripped of the ability to transform. Another paradox of implementation is that in order for it to work as a radical, transformational measure it has to be taken out of the hands of gender experts and advocates. This is difficult for two reasons: first, experts in gender mainstreaming – generally feminists within organisations who have been charged with implementing gender mainstreaming – have to be willing to give it up; second, those without the passion or expertise have to be willing to take it on. Lastly, transformative implementation may paradoxically still fail due to the everyday gendered practices of an in a particular organisation, no matter how much support the policy has on paper and in words from upper management, or indeed legislative support. Like the intent behind gender mainstreaming, its implementation is also riddled with tensions and paradoxes.

As has been discussed consistently and thoroughly in the literature, gender mainstreaming should not be considered merely to be the tools by which people go about mainstreaming.Footnote 26 To implement gender mainstreaming is not to simply put in place gender reviews, gender schemes, gender assessments or gender statistics, instead ‘mainstreaming entails a paradigm shift in thinking towards to development of policy and practice […] being able to see the ways in which current practice is gendered in its construction, despite appearing to be gender neutral’.Footnote 27 Yet, paradoxically, the rationale for doing gender mainstreaming places a heavy focus on these technocratic tools, giving them credence as the most effective way of implementing gender mainstreaming.

As mentioned in the previous section, various rationalisations are given for the adoption of mainstreaming. These often are split between ones which focus on the social justice aspect of the policy, and ones which argue for the adoption of mainstreaming based on a technocratic and good governance perspective. These rationales have corresponding impacts when it comes to implementation. I focus here on the ‘expert-bureaucratic’ and ‘participative-democratic’ models put forward by Nott,Footnote 28 as this is a common distinction in the implementation literature.

The expert-bureaucratic mode of implementation focuses on using technocratic methods to carry out gender mainstreaming. These include gender audits, gender schemes, gender-proofing budgets, etc. The strength of this approach is that it generally fits neatly with the prevailing norms and discourses of an organisation, thus making it easier to streamline gender into prevalent policies and processes. Those in favour of this method argue that taking this approach allows gender to become an aspect of the system of the organisation that is simply ‘done’ as a matter of course, not questioned or stopped by debates about the theoretical nature of gender, feminism and gender equality. This can be quite detrimental to the gender mainstreaming project as well, since the expert-bureaucratic model places a strong emphasis on providing for and setting up the tools of mainstreaming rather than exploring the underlying causes of gender inequality. Arguably, gender issues are fundamentally different from other issues dealt with in bureaucracies and thus ignoring the theoretical understandings of gender and gender mainstreaming will never allow the organisation to undergo any type of real, positive change in regards to gender equality.

The participative-democratic model of mainstreaming is much more interested in allowing fluidity and voice into the implementation process. The aim is to include and incorporate the voices of feminists from both within and outwith the organisation in the setting of the agenda of mainstreaming, thus avoiding the possibility that an organisation might enact a policy or process in the name of mainstreaming that actually goes against feminist ideas and goals.Footnote 29 This model is much more closely aligned with the social justice model, in that the tools of mainstreaming are seen as important, but so is ensuring that a democratic and deliberative process occurs throughout the implementation process. In this model, implementation means much more than the simple measures by which mainstreaming is done; rather it calls into question the underlying gendered assumptions that organisations are built upon in an attempt to change them. The strengths of this model are that it is much more explicitly focused on the radical potential of gender mainstreaming. However, it is also much more difficult to introduce and sustain this type of implementation in traditional organisations. Thus the paradox of implementation stands, in that the model more easily adopted by organisations is the one which does not actually lead to transformational and radical change.

In addition, moving the gender mainstreaming agenda forward, even after more than a decade, takes the work and dedication of passionate advocates. The reality of the work that must be done to ensure the success of the participative-democratic model of implementation leads me to the second paradox of implementation, which examines the underlying tension between mainstreaming as a concept and the reliance of gender advocates and experts as one of the strongest practical realities of the way mainstreaming is most commonly implemented.

It was commonly accepted in the early days of gender mainstreaming that bringing in outside gender experts to assess organisations and help train staff on gender issues was an effective way of learning and getting a mainstreaming programme off the ground.Footnote 30 These gender experts were often brought in to work with and train staff working in women’s policy units or departments already set up within governmental and organisational structures, as it seemed natural that these units would be the logical home for a policy focused on changing gendered patterns and systems. However, the concept of mainstreaming is predicated on the idea that eventually gender would move out of the hands of the experts and into the everyday working lives of everyone in the organisation. Little is said in the initial literature of what would happen when this happened, and surely feminists did not think that the success of mainstreaming would spell the end of all work for those working in women or gender units. However, what has consistently been found is that gender mainstreaming remains in the hands of gender experts, those individuals who are committed to moving the gender equality agenda forward.Footnote 31 Often they are feminists who find themselves drawn to gender equality work within the organisation. Gender advocates continue to do the bulk of the work regarding the implementation of the policy, from being responsible for gender-proofing budgets to putting together gender schemes to being the organisation’s gender representative to outside stakeholders. Paradoxically, the implementation of an agenda which was supposed to be spread throughout governmental organisations to people who did not previously imagine themselves dealing with gender has stayed firmly located with those people already possessing the expertise and passion to drive GM programmes forward, leading to a situation where the mainstreaming agenda has not been diffused any further than those already interested in the area.

This tension is made even more difficult due to the practical realities of implementation. On the one hand, in order for mainstreaming to be mainstreamed, those currently in charge of it must be willing to hand it over to others who may not have the same amounts of passion, knowledge or specific training. On the other hand, there has to be some willingness from others in the organisation to take up mainstreaming. Even if mainstreaming was implemented through an ‘expert-bureaucratic’ model and was successful in becoming just ‘another’ system, others without an interest in gender matters would have to take part in and uphold the system. Neither of these situations is likely in most organisations, thus the paradox remains.

Fundamentally, no matter how strong the formal commitment is to gender mainstreaming, everyday and informal practices are the key to successful implementation. Importantly, these practices both aid and hinder implementation. The continued practice of utilising tools of mainstreaming and the fact that gender mainstreaming itself as an approach is gendered, in conjunction with relying on gender advocates, highlights the paradox that mainstreaming is a policy which aims to transform the global gender equality landscape, but systems and organisations are bounded by their local, everyday practices and politics.

The paradox of institutionalisation

It makes intuitive sense that if attempts at changing individuals leave institutional barriers untackled, then a new approach is needed which focuses structural and institutional obstacles to equality. This brings with it the promise of opening up the landscape to incorporate both individual and institutional change, promising a radical revolution in the way policy is made and executed. Yet, there are also tensions in using the process of institutionalisation to implement radical change. As we know from the literature on gender and organisations,Footnote 32 institutions where gender mainstreaming is introduced are already strongly gendered places. Thus, in order to be successful in already gendered organisations, those committed to gender mainstreaming must contend with the institutionalised barriers already in place. When examined from the everyday perspective of those responsible for gender mainstreaming, the possibility of undermining those entrenched barriers with new institutional norms diminishes as the process of institutionalisation took over.

Recent studies of gender mainstreaming highlight the difficulties that those involved with gender mainstreaming have faced as they have attempted to institutionalise the radical aspects of the agenda. Woodward suggests that there may be ‘a weakness in the strategic marketing of gender mainstreaming’Footnote 33 in the EU due to enlargement, changing legal frameworks and reconfigured conceptions of equality and discrimination although she goes on to argue for gender mainstreaming as ‘a useful strategy that still has much more to delver’.Footnote 34 Pfister (2008) compares Germany, the UK and Hungary and their approaches to the activation of the European Employment Strategy by focusing on their approaches to mainstreaming gender as a way to reduce gender inequality in social and economic policies.Footnote 35 He suggests that ‘the continuous loss of visibility [of gender equality] has led to a significant loss of detail on problems of gender inequality, concrete institutions on how to promote gender equality and the clarification of the strategy of gender mainstreaming’.Footnote 36 More specific to the paradox of institutionalisation, Benschop and Verloo conclude from their study of the integration of gender mainstreaming into HR at the Ministry of the Flemish Community in Belgium that gender mainstreaming is barred from radical success because in order to move forward, it must include actors who are not invested in the radical agenda.Footnote 37 In their study, they also found that ‘the necessity for compromise with existing attitudes hinders its transformative potential’.Footnote 38 These studies point to paradox that, while being incorporated into public policy and global governance, gender mainstreaming as a policy approach, much less as a radical policy approach, has yet to be institutionalised fully.

Social movement theories give us a starting point for beginning to explore the connections between change and institutionalisation. Studies of social movements often look at the relationship between movements and state machineries of government, exploring the processes by which movements attempt to influence and infiltrate state politics. The traditional view on this process is that the institutionalisation of a movement equals its de-politicisation.Footnote 39 Yet GoldsteinFootnote 40 and othersFootnote 41 suggest that the relationship is far more complex and that the outcome need not always be seen in a negative light for the social movement. Goldstein instead lays out a spectrum of possible outcomes for the ways that state may respond to social movements.Footnote 42 This suggests that while institutionalisation sometimes results in de-radicalisation for social movements, other options exist.

This work can be a starting point for thinking about questions of institutionalisation and gender mainstreaming. In no way do I consider gender mainstreaming to be a social movement, yet there is something to be gained from this social movement perspective. Social movement theorists’ keen focus on outcomes opens up a way of looking at issues of institutionalisation within gender mainstreaming. By thinking about the possibility that there are a range of outcomes which come from gender mainstreaming, we may be able to move beyond the paradox of institutionalisation.

The paradoxes of intent, implementation and institutionalisation highlight the complex nature of the radical potential paradox of gender mainstreaming, especially in its transmission from a global policy framework to becoming meaningful at the local level. Yet, these paradoxes which occur from a close reading of the literature are difficult to see in practice. In the next two sections, I outline one method for operationalising the paradoxes which draws on insights from ethnography and the gender and organisations literature.

Ethnography: operationalising the paradoxes

In Gender and Bureaucracy, Savage and Witz argue for a recognition of how bureaucracies are both shaped by and take part in shaping gendered configurations or bureaucracies.Footnote 43 They contend that gender is ‘embedded in power relations’.Footnote 44 Their framework of power utilises insights from patriarchy, but also looks at more discursive, Foucaultian notions as well. They frame change in organisations against the fact that ‘organisations are the embodiment of different forms of patriarchal power relations’Footnote 45 which constantly set the parameters for change. This collection is part of the work being done to articulate a move from ‘gender and organisations’ to a theory of ‘gendered organisations’. As part of this move, feminists have considered ways to study gendered organisations.Footnote 46 These works are notable for locating their levels of analysis at the local/organisational level and for being aware of the ways everyday levels of gender are substantiated and negotiated through the organisation because of global gender politics that infiltrates policy making processes and structures.

Knowing intellectually that these levels of analysis are connected and wanting to understand further the paradox of gender mainstreaming discussed earlier, a method is needed a way to operationalise the connection between the global and local levels. Ethnography is often used in the gender and organisations literature, particularly by sociologists interested in the topic, and it is also increasingly used by feminists within the discipline of International Relations ‘with the goal of making certain women’s lives more visible’Footnote 47 by starting with the everyday experience of women and asking questions not usually asked in IR. Ethnography can help us problematise day-to-day realities which often get overlooked and provide the data to draw up a detailed picture of the relationship between the micro and macro levels of politics.

Outside of gender mainstreaming, feminist International Relations scholars have taken up the call to connect individuals, organisations and the international system.Footnote 48 Katharine Moon has consistently used interpretive methodologies to make women’s lives more visible within the larger discourses important to the field of IR such as national security, development and nationalism.Footnote 49 In recent work, Moon argues that ‘before we focus on the state, we need to address how and why certain organisations’ agendas and political interests rise from the grassroots to the institutional level’.Footnote 50 Focusing on the micro-world of women’s experiences with prostitution and US soldiers, she makes connections to the macro-world of citizen’s activism and its power in transmuting Korean-American relations. Carol Cohn’s work on national security discourses is another demonstration of investigating the everyday in an effort to understand international questions about the ways that gender affects national security paradigms, policies and practices.Footnote 51 She takes seriously the data that she collected while spending time doing participant research in a variety of locales where national security was thought about, looked after and done and spends time understanding how the actual words that people say have a great impact on the ways national security happens.

Feminist scholars and activists are often interested in the experiences of individuals, of women, of those people who are often overlooked in the research of so-called high politics, and of the micro, everyday level of politics and it is exactly in these areas where ethnography excels as a method. These examples highlight the possibilities of interpretive, ethnographic methods for feminist scholarship on international politics. They assign analytical importance to the gendered everyday experiences of people within the international system.

Acker points out that ‘to understand global transformations, connections must be established between the local and global or the binaries themselves must be deconstructed’.Footnote 52 Drawing from ConnellFootnote 53 and Gibson-GrahamFootnote 54 she suggests thinking about the local as an ‘ethnographic moment embedded in ongoing, complex processes linking the moment into webs of relations extending into global processes’.Footnote 55 She believes that ‘the local exists within the global; local sites exist within the locations of global power [thus] we need accounts of practices and processes in these places’.Footnote 56 In referring to webs of relations, she also brings in the work of Dorothy Smith, whose method of institutional ethnography, I argue, is extremely useful in operationalising the local-global connection. Her ideas of relations of ruling, work knowledges, and institutional discourses, along with an explicit focus on power, proved to be excellent concepts upon which to base my research design.Footnote 57

Institutional ethnography

Recent attempts to move from theories of women in organisations to gender and organisations have led us to recognise the gendered nature of the organisation itself. Gender is not something that is simply brought into an organisation through individuals, it is part of the structure of organisations. Joan Acker attempted to describe this in the early 1990s with her ‘theory of gendered organisations’.Footnote 58 Her aim was to synthesise findings of feminist researchers about women, work and organisations into a theory that shed better light on how they interact. She attempted to show ‘organisations as gendered processes in which both gender and sexuality have been obscured through a gender-neutral, asexual discourse, and suggest some of the ways that gender, the body, and sexuality are part of the processes of control in work organisations’.Footnote 59 Since then, extensive work has been done to develop the idea of gendered organisations and think through ways of studying these connections empirically.Footnote 60 Institutional ethnography is one method which can be used to analyse local experiences in order to understand questions of global significance.

As Campbell and Gregor state for institutional ethnographers, ‘analytically, there are two sites of interest – the local setting where life is lived and experienced by actual people and the extra or trans-local that is outside the boundaries of one’s everyday experience’.Footnote 61 Institutional ethnographic approaches to studying organisations emphasise the holistic processes of gender production and highlights that understanding everyday, routine and micro-level practices sheds light on broader issues. It provides methodological and analytical tools which can be used to draw together everyday experiences with broader social realities through an explicit focus on power. Institutional ethnography supplies the practical tools to see gender and gendered practices, and to analyse upwards and outwards through the idea of relations of ruling. Relations of ruling are a powerful concept to mobilise in the data analysis process. This is partly because it moves the starting point of the research to ‘begin in the actualities of people’s lives’Footnote 62 with the problematic, partly because it challenges authoritative ways of knowing and explores how ‘knowing relates to power [and the] study of how one’s knowing is organized – by whom and by what’,Footnote 63 and partly because it allows me to connect micro and macro levels of politics dynamically.

Smith's relations of ruling tease out the ‘actual practices and activities through which people’s lives are sociallyFootnote 64 organised’.Footnote 65 Relations of ruling are the often invisible and hidden exercises of power that shape people’s actions and their lives. Thus, institutional ethnographies ‘attempt to uncover, explore and describe how people’s everyday lives may be organized without their explicit awareness but still with their active involvement’.Footnote 66 Implicit in this statement about relations of ruling is that it is an interactive process. This opens up the possibility that although relations of ruling bind actors, actors also have the potential for changing those relations of ruling at the local level.

In addition, institutional ethnographers focus on processes, an important aspect of gender mainstreaming. As Campbell and Gregor point out, ‘in focusing on social relations and the institutional processes organising them, this form of analysis identifies and then illuminates the actual workings of the setting. From an interest in blame, research interest shifts to analysis of processes and practices. How participants are, or were, involved can be made clear’.Footnote 67 In order to follow the process of gender mainstreaming in the Executive, rather than attempted to analyse its relative success, Smith’s method gives us a framework and perspective to analyse the practices and processes of my data. Institutional ethnography presents both a methodological and an analytical framework to operationalise and analyse the paradoxes of gender mainstreaming at the Scottish Executive.

Relations of ruling: bureaucratic practices, fossilised norms and soft measures

Returning now to the analytic question that I laid out at the beginning of the article: what are the ruling ideas and practices which stop gender mainstreaming from being effective? I argue that examining this question using the results of my own institutional ethnography of the Scottish Executive and the findings of others, leads to three lessons that we can learn about why institutionalising gendered change is so difficult. First, gender mainstreaming requires a mindset which operates in direct conflict with many bureaucratic practices and norms. Second, the existence of pervasive fossilised norms concerning gender hinders gender mainstreaming advocates’ ability to promote radical change. Third, the continued reliance on ‘soft’ measures to promote gender mainstreaming feeds into the web of ruling relations which continues to de-prioritise gender equality. I will now go on to discuss these three relations of ruling, with ethnographic evidence of their existence and a focus on how these relations hinder the mainstreaming agenda.

Fossilised norms and the paradox of intent

Some ruling relations maintain more obviously gendered ideals. ‘Fossilized norms’Footnote 68 concerning gender, including a commitment to gender-blind policies, people’s personal politics and the continued existence of old-fashioned patriarchy, continue to pervade organisations and effectively hinder change. In their article exploring whether or not gender mainstreaming can escape the genderedness of organisations, Benschop and Verloo identify ways that gender mainstreaming attempts to rectify ‘existing – fossilized – gender norms and routines’.Footnote 69 Their findings point to ways that gender mainstreaming has been successful in opening up discursive spaces of organisational change in the Ministry of the Flemish Community in Belgium. They claim that gender mainstreaming moves beyond equal treatment and equal opportunities approaches because ‘it addresses fossilized norms and complex power relations’.Footnote 70 I find their concept of ‘fossilized norms’ to be a useful way of describing some of the ruling relations which still govern the everyday life of the Scottish Executive. These include a commitment to gender-blind policies, personal politics that do not include gender equality, and the continued existence of patriarchal norms.

The research highlights one fossilised norm is the reluctance by many in the Executive to recognise that gender inequality is still a ‘real’ problem. Many in the Civil Service prefer to believe that the ‘gender problem’ is already solved. To use Connell’s terms, there is ‘gender denial’ and a sense of ‘gender elsewhere‘.Footnote 71 This is seen when Civil Servants not focused on gender mainstreaming and equalities pointed to the number of women in Parliament, to the increased number of women in the Executive, and to specific policies and programmes which target women to prove that gender concerns have been dealt with. In addition, many preferred to take on a gender-blind outlook, which glossed over the gendered nature of the organisation through the assertion that gender is not a relevant perspective through which to approach policies and practices in the Executive. As one equality advocate within the organisation warned me, ‘here many men believe themselves to be “objective” but in reality are simply conservative. And if a policy report is neutral, it often leaves out equality issues and assumes a homogeneous population’.Footnote 72 This reflects both bureaucratic norms which pervade the organisation, as well as the feeling amongst gender advocates that gender continues to be ignored by many in the organisation. The reliance of individuals in the Executive on gender-blind principles reflects a larger trend in government and society to view gender as dealt with and no longer an issue. It is a persistent myth that makes it easy for people to ignore the gendered nature of systems, organisations and practices.

My findings resonate with other analyses of gender and public organisations. This type of gender-blindness is a situation found in various political organisations.Footnote 73 It is a result of the fossilised norm of ‘objectivity’, which is connected to the pervading masculinisation of bureaucracies. While I found evidence of the power of the Civil Service to translate equality intentions, practices, processes and norms into instructionally acceptable ones, in her study of public sector organisations, Connell found that ‘for much of the time, across much of the public sector, gender is regarded as a non-problem’.Footnote 74 Her study highlights how people located gender issues in the past or elsewhere in the present and she connects this with ‘movement towards the goal of a gender-neutral workplace’.Footnote 75 This goal of gender-neutrality often ignores or makes invisible real gender issues still pertinent to the daily life of the organisations, and re-centres gender problems away from being organisational and back towards prejudiced individuals. Connell claims that this ‘gender denial’ and sense of ‘gender elsewhere’ found in the Executive and seen elsewhere is ‘partly produced by looking out from a state agency where gender neutrality is assumed (rightly or not) towards a social world where gender neutrality is very definitely not a reality’.Footnote 76 This fits with my own findings, which highlight the fossilised assumptions of objectivity and neutrality as salient and highly regulatory cultural norms. This reliance on gender-blindness allows people not interested in gender mainstreaming to maintain their distance from the agenda. By believing and acting as if gender were a non-issue, they are not forced to question their own beliefs and working practices. The denial of gender as a system which underpins relationships, actions and practices allows civil servants to stay ‘objective’ within the confines of the Civil Service and to continue to function without needing to question the core working norms upon which the system is built. The practical result of this is that it allows people ‘to get on with their jobs’ without questioning the assumptions upon which their jobs are built.

This disjuncture between the goal of gender neutrality in the workplace and the lack of gender neutrality in the wider social world also sheds light on a fossilised norm in the Executive which continues to allow personal politics which do not include gender equality into the workplace. This norm conveys the idea that ‘the personal is not political’ in the everyday practices of the organisation. As opposed to the feminist and equalities norm which places gender and the personal centrally within a conception of politics, this fossilised norm is one where gender practice is not recognised as salient in the political life of the organisation. Personal political practices, including ones around gender, are rendered invisible because they are seen as subjective and non-neutral. Evidence of this norm was seen in a double burden that individuals working on the mainstreaming agenda carried as they negotiated both personal and institutional politics. This highlights the extent to which non-gender advocates continue to work without a gender consciousness. Although many Civil Servants subscribe to the idea that they should be impartial and objective, and that they should separate their personal politics from their work life, the reality is that personal politics structure many people’s everyday life at work. For example, the men around me often talked football but consistently left me out of the conversation even after I had expressed interest and knowledge about the topic. I found this to be an instance when personal gendered beliefs about what women and men talk about was brought into the workplace. No one questioned that women would be responsible for sending around birthday cards or that men would make up a greater number of statisticians than women. Attitudes towards gender and gender inequality are not generally perceived to be personal politics, unless it is made clear by an individual that it is.

This is not surprising; feminists have done good work pointing out ways that personal and private beliefs about gender bleed into work and public areas.Footnote 77 Yet the vehemence with which people adhere to the idea that personal politics does not impact work done in the Executive shows just how entrenched this belief that the personal is not political is within the organisation. The lack of attention paid to the ways that personal politics operates within the organisation means that some people are not aware of gender issues, others ignore them, and some may actively work in opposition to gender equality. Many people’s personal politics do not include heightened gender awareness, and thus thinking about gender in the ways asked for by gender mainstreaming is difficult. Most tend to just gloss over it, which means that the radical potential of mainstreaming is left unfulfilled. There is little discussion in the Executive of how social mores seep into the organisation and not much reflection on how people’s personal politics may impact their work. As Martin explains, ‘to be reflexive about gender entails the thoughtful consideration of one’s options and following through with actions that one intends to produce’.Footnote 78 This entails an awareness of the ways that a person’s personal beliefs are part of the options of professional life. Instead, in the Scottish Executive, the prevailing assumption is that Civil Servants do not come to work with personal agendas and politics. This hides the ways that personal politics do get involved and makes invisible the existing structures and practices of domination and subordination which are always at play in the Executive.

PatriarchyFootnote 79 is the last fossilised norm which makes up the relations of ruling which hinder the success of gender mainstreaming. Patriarchal practices and norms are still an everyday part of working life at the Scottish Executive, seen both formally and informally. Like in many other organisations, sexism may not be as overt as it once was, but patriarchy is still a force which must be recognised and dealt with before gender mainstreaming can fulfill its radical promise. While it may not be quite the norm that it once was, patriarchy is a fossilised norm which still impacts the ruling relations of the Executive. Patriarchy continues to organise many aspects of working life in the Executive. Formally, it is seen in the pyramid effect, where men hold more of the positions further up the ranks in the Executive and the Civil Service as a whole. At the UK level, the Office of National Statistics July 2007 report which contains data from the year ending in September 2006 reports an almost equal number of women (24,650) and men (24,270) working in the Civil Service in Scotland. At the UK level, the proportion of median women’s salaries to that of men’s was 81.0 per cent, rising from 79.1 per cent in 2005. Over half of all Civil Servants were women (52.9 per cent), although they continued to be clustered in junior administrative grades (61.5 per cent of junior administrative employees are women). Women still make up less than 30 per cent of all Senior Civil Servants.Footnote 80

Informally, one way patriarchy can be seen is through the sense of masculinity that pervades the organisation. Understanding that masculinity is not tied to men’s bodies and that women participate in upholding masculine norms, there is a widespread occurrence of traditional bureaucratic norms and values which make up one type of masculinity that continues to dictate the everyday world of the Executive. However, this is not the only type of masculinity which exists. I found evidence of competing masculinities which I came to think about as particular to the Blue Suits, the New Men and the Footballers. While there are other types of masculinity at play in the Executive, I found that The Footballers, the New Men and the Blue Suits were interesting archetypes which brought out the differing ways men and women interacted with various masculinities. For example, the Footballers – men who tended to be in administrative jobs and who did not identify as career Civil Servants – had a social relationship with other men and a purely professional relationship with women. The Blue Suits – career Civil Servants – were already in charge so they carried a legitimacy and authority with them into their relationships with both men and women, which neither the New Men nor The Footballers managed. The New Men – the new generation of Civil Servants who defined themselves against the Blue Suits – brought with them a fresh approach to the Executive which appealed to many women. At the same time, men, particularly those who fit the Blue Suit mould, were not as comfortable with the New Men. Perhaps the new sense of masculinity which the New Men brought with them was frightening to their superiors who very much bought into and represented the traditional Civil Servant.Footnote 81 These examples of modern-day patriarchy act as strong barriers to effectively framing gender mainstreaming in a radical way.

Fossilised norms are integral to the institutional context within which the gender mainstreaming agenda must be conceptualised. The wider paradox of intent is translated to the local level of the Executive through fossilised norms in ways which limit the ways that gender mainstreaming advocates can frame the agenda. The environment of the Executive relies on accepted attitudes that deny gender inequality as a real problem within the organisation, perpetuate unreflexive personal politics that do not include gender politics, and maintain patriarchy, all of which limit the ways that feminists interested in advancing gender mainstreaming can name and frame the intentions of the agenda. These fossilised norms which are part of the institutional context are not seen by most as gendered principles and the gendered consequences of encouraging such values are not articulated by the majority of civil servants. In this context, gender mainstreaming – a change agenda with the goal of radically overhauling the policy making process by pinpointing and renegotiating these types of values with a gendered outlook – does not fit within the local institutional context. The paradoxical consequence of this is that the radical, feminist intentions and understandings about gender and gender equality policy get subverted within fossilised norms which better fit the institutional context.

Bureaucratic practices and the paradox of implementation

Ruling relations concerned with bureaucratic practices are predicated on gender-neutral ideals which work to make gender invisible in the organisation. First, bureaucratic practices such as neutrality and objectivity work against an equality perspective which requires a different focus on subjectivity and difference. Organisational practices in the Civil Service and other organisations form a wide web of ruling relations around those looking to implement gender mainstreaming, forcing them to work within, among and around an institution that is grounded in maintaining the status quo. Within the Scottish Executive, investigating gender mainstreaming highlighted practices which many people do question, although they are in fact heavily gendered. These included impartiality, objectivity, neutrality and a commitment to generalist knowledge. The commitment by most people within the Scottish Executive to these ruling concepts structured relations between the organisation and gender mainstreaming in powerful ways.

These ideals of impartiality, objectivity, neutrality, and generalism are powerful norms in the Civil Service and the Scottish Executive. Importantly, they are also gendered norms, which often go un-noticed by those who practice them. In Western state bureaucracies, evidence points to strong commitments to norms which are treated as non-gendered, but which in fact have strong normative and gendered implications.Footnote 82 There has been a strong focus on the norm of bureaucratic ‘neutrality’ and the ways it is used to uphold masculine ideas within bureaucracies.Footnote 83 Stivers also finds bureaucratic values such as objective expertise, autonomy, and professionalism deeply gendered. Her argument is that the traditional conception of a public administrator or civil servant is one which ‘privileges masculine characteristics while denigrating and/or suppressing feminine ones’.Footnote 84 It is possible for women to manage these characteristics however, ‘they have virtually never done it without constant effort to manage their femaleness on the job and without continuing to balance work and home responsibilities’Footnote 85 in ways which simply do not concern men. Other gendered norms, including ideals of impartiality, objectivity, neutrality, merit and career generalism also operate powerfully as masculine, whilst ‘othering’ feminine traits such as subjectivity and passion.Footnote 86 The unquestioned acceptance of those norms as non-gendered, suggests a worldview which ignores differing experiences and subjectivities.

I encountered these ideals very early in my research, when I participated in a staff Away Day. One of the activities was to decide what kind of animal you would be based on a variety of values, then to decide what kind of animal the division should be based on the same values. The values included impartiality or advocate; generalist or specialist; pragmatism or ideals; rigour or speed; strategic or responsive. We had to place ourselves individually on a sliding scale between the ends of the spectrums, and then work in teams to come up with divisional attributes. My team consisted of a male statistician and the male head of the division, and I found myself on almost complete opposite ends of the spectrum from both of them – I was an advocate where they were impartial; I believed in specialism while they argued for generalist knowledge; I was an idealist rather than a pragmatist. In the end, we laughingly agreed that I was new to the Executive and the Civil Service, and thus could be forgiven my ‘non-traditional’ beliefs. However, the assumption was that I would change my values to match theirs the longer I stayed in the organisation.Footnote 87

These deeply gendered concepts make up the core of Civil Service values, yet they often go unrecognised as being gendered. The consequence of this relation of ruling which ignores the gendered nature of fundamental Civil Service values significantly impacts the ways people can practice gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming, as advocated by feminists and social justice advocates, requires a subjective stance to effectively implement the agenda. Even though toolboxes, checklists, tick boxes are used to help non-gender experts do mainstreaming, my research overwhelmingly showed that these are ineffective without a combined effort to deepen policy makers understandings of gender – the ways gender works relationally, how it is more than just about women, the fact that it is a structural system that effects people at levels beyond the individual. These deeper understandings are at direct odds with ruling relations within the Scottish Executive which privilege objectivity and neutrality, and instead ask policy makers to make judgments based on potentially impartial facts. It asks people to understand that not all people are equal, not all people start from the same place in life and that government needs to take a proactive role in ensuring equality. Gender mainstreaming requires people to make policy decisions which may be in favour of some people at the expense of those already in power, it asks them to see beyond their gender-blind concepts of impartiality, objectivity and neutrality and act in new ways.

The resistance to which this inherent request made by gender mainstreaming shows just how strongly these seemingly gender-neutral norms are embedded in the Executive as relations of ruling. The resistance highlights just how much they rule the policy making process and gives us insight into the ways that the legacies of the Civil Service’s routines, processes and practices which are in direct competition to those practices that the gender mainstreaming agenda demands.. Even though making the decisions that gender mainstreaming asks for and thinking in the ways it promotes is current government policy, getting people past their resistance to ‘fluffy and subjective’Footnote 88 issues is a major hurdle. Slow moving compliance, overt refusal to address gender issues, subtle complaints about HR measures to increase diversity in the organisation, and passing off of gender and equality tasks to gender advocates were all ways I observed civil servants continuing to uphold the organisational belief and reliance on less than modern concepts.

These everyday bureaucratic practices act as ruling relations which impede the ‘successful’ implementation of gender mainstreaming and highlight the paradox of implementation at the local level. Since the gender mainstreaming agenda entails changing bureaucratic work practices, but these practices are already embedded with inherent ‘sticky’ gendered meanings. This leads to the paradox whereby gender mainstreaming needs the same practices to succeed as a policy that attempts to change. The norms of the Civil Service regarding impartiality, objectivity, neutrality and generalism get enacted as gendered practices, but are ignored as having any gendered consequences by the majority of civil servants. Thus, everyday gendered practices limit organisational actors’ ability to implement radically different practices within the organisation because work practices surrounding gender and equalities work are undervalued in most areas of the organisation. Therefore, in order to maintain a sense of legitimacy, mainstreaming advocates attempt to implement the policy using the same stereotypical gendered work practices, technology, and unreflexive terms about gender and sex that are already everyday practice in the Executive. The pervasive ‘stickyness’ of gender in these practices continues to frustrate the radical and successful implementation of gender mainstreaming and highlights the importance of considering the genderedness of organisations when attempting change.

Soft measures of mainstreaming and the paradox of institutionalisation

Bureaucratic practices and fossilised norms constitute two realms of ruling relations in which advocates of gender mainstreaming must work. Third, there is a continued reliance on ‘soft’ measures for implementation and institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming. Soft measures include non-binding measures like training and education, using networks of supporters to disseminate and promote gender mainstreaming, and token gestures of reporting and enforcement. This approach continues to lack legislative and political ‘teeth’ which leads to lack of support and follow through.Footnote 89 Hard measures, on the other hand, include binding, legislative targets that are specific and targeted, required progress reports with named departments or people who are responsible for ensuring monitoring and assessment, and the real threat of enforcement.Footnote 90 There is evidence that more hard measures are being used in conjunction with gender mainstreaming in areas such as the legislative requirements necessitated by the Gender Equality Duty, the requirement for gender balanced budgets, and other formal requirements to lay out and assess progress on gender equality.Footnote 91 However, soft measures are still the preferred type of policy used by non-feminists and equality advocates.Footnote 92 At the institutional level, this dependence on soft measures to promote gender mainstreaming are part of the relations of ruling which form barriers to gender mainstreaming. Soft measures have traditionally been the methods by which equality experts have attempted to maneuver mainstreaming into place within organisations.Footnote 93 This is due to the awareness that more direct attempts to deal with gender inequality would most likely be met with greater resistance, along with a faith in the usefulness of soft measures to do the work needed to implement and institutionalise mainstreaming policies.Footnote 94

This focus on soft measures can be seen as part of the overall strategy by gender mainstreaming advocates to implement change. Since gender mainstreaming is often considered part of the three-pronged approach to gender equalityFootnote 95 which utilises hard, legal measures such as quotas and equal opportunity legislation to ensure compliance, there has been a hesitancy to also push gender mainstreaming in such ways. As gender mainstreaming advocates in the Executive told their colleagues ‘using the stick of legal responsibility to beat others into submission seems to go against the ethos of gender mainstreaming’Footnote 96 which is more focused on distilling gender aware practices and principles among all members of an organisation rather than forcing the organisation to rely on gender experts in order to comply with legislation. Mainstreaming seemed to be so common-sense for feminists and equality activists as a way to help move the gender agenda forward in the Executive that there was hope that soft measures would be enough to ensure the success of the policy.Footnote 97

Using soft measures is part of the web of ruling relations whereby feminists attempt to enact change through backdoor and more subversive means. However, there was a growing sense by my colleagues that this approach lacked legislative and political ‘teeth’ which then led to a lack of high-level support and follow through. At the institutional level, this dependence on soft measures to promote gender mainstreaming represented a ruling relation that formed a real barrier to the institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming. After nearly a decade of soft measures and no radical change in gender equality, there has been a substantial shift towards formalising gender mainstreaming through legal measures. More countries are moving towards legislative means to support mainstreamingFootnote 98 and in the UK the Gender Equality Duty now provides the legal backbone for ensuring compliance with gender mainstreaming practices. Although as of yet there has been little research on the effectiveness of the GED in the UK, it is indicative of the move towards using formal and legal measures to promote the gender mainstreaming agenda.

My colleagues also recognised the continued use of soft measures as a reaction to the double burden which mainstreaming advocates felt as they stepped softly around people’s personal politics while also attempting to institutionalise broader innovations. Consequentially, because equality actors have encountered resistance to a mainstreaming approach which makes equality a routine aspect of policy making, they have attempted to use soft measures to make the idea more approachable. This leads to a partial and uneven institutionalisation of the approach that still relies on individual actors to be compliant, willing and committed. The strong resistance to the mainstreaming agenda resulted in an unexpected need to continue to rely on committed actors within the organisation. Locally, this continues to hinder the full institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming which perpetuates the paradox seen at the global level.

Conclusion

The paradoxes of intent, implementation and institutionalisation serve as an organising framework to lay out some of the reasons why gender mainstreaming has not been as radically transformational on either the local or global scale as hoped for by its advocates. The paradoxes point to the ways that gender mainstreaming is conceptualised in flawed ways which make it difficult to ‘do’ by mainstreaming advocates within institutions. The tension between a social justice model and a good governance model of intention behind gender mainstreaming too often results in muddied understandings of the mission of the gender mainstreaming agenda. The implementation of gender mainstreaming can succumb to informal processes and practices which are needed to work successfully in bureaucracies, but paradoxically leave the work of gender mainstreaming in the hands of those who already are committed to the agenda. Lastly, in order to become institutionalised, any change agenda must take on some traits of the institution, thus ridding itself of its potential to radically transform the institution. This is often seen in gender mainstreaming practices, where advocates strategically attempt to work within institutional bounds, but in doing so divest gender mainstreaming from its radical, feminist and change based ideals. The paradoxes of gender mainstreaming highlight some of the reasons why ‘doing’ gender mainstreaming is so difficult.

Yet, to fully understand why gender mainstreaming faces barriers, it is not enough to just look at the global equality landscape – we must also look at the local level and investigate the everyday experiences of those who work with the mainstreaming agenda on a daily basis. Using ethnography and the concept of ruling relations allows me to analyse barriers to gender mainstreaming at the very local level. In my attempt to place gender mainstreaming within larger relations of ruling related to bureaucratic practices, fossilised norms and the reliance on soft measures, I highlight the ways that organisations, especially political organisations, structure and maintain gendered social relationshipsFootnote 99 and point to the reality that organisations make up and take part in a global gender order which is still resistant to radical gender change. It cannot be forgotten that the Scottish Executive, while an organisation in its own right, is inhabited by people who are largely responsible for implementing policy with implications almost completely out with the Executive itself. Thus, the organisation as a political entity has a large role to play in determining attitudes, practices and policies towards gender in the broad Scottish context.

An investigation and analysis guided by institutional ethnography reveals that ruling relations in organisations hinder the success of policies aimed at changing gender relations. By bringing the paradoxes of gender mainstreaming into view at both the global and local levels of implementation, this article highlighted some of the processes which are responsible for perpetuating the organisation of knowledge surround gender mainstreaming. This suggests that paying attention to the ‘stickyness’ of gender within the institutional context, the everyday practices and the actors in an organisation will help gender mainstreaming advocates transcend the barriers which exist within bureaucracies where gender mainstreaming is attempted. This analysis also highlights the use of ethnography in politics as a potent way to explore micro-level political issues, particularly demonstrating the possibility of using institutional ethnography in political science research. It confirms the literature which discusses the difficulties of institutional change. The Civil Service’s staunch adherence to the concepts of objectivity and neutrality and fossilised norms function as ruling relations to connect the everyday working world of the Executive to broader political and social gender orders. These function at a local level to hinder gender mainstreaming. At the institutional and global levels, the soft approach to gender mainstreaming means the approach lacks teeth and support.

The analysis of local experiences of gender mainstreaming in the Scottish Executive gives us a new perspective on the international trends surrounding gender equality as it connects the everyday level of everyday politics to the global arena of international relations. In addition, it adds to our knowledge of the gendered nature of organisations and moves forward the methodological discussion, asserting the need for ethnography in politics. I argue that by taking seriously the local practices and knowledges of those who do gender mainstreaming, we can reflect on the inherent tensions within gender mainstreaming that prohibit its ability to truly transform the gender landscape at both the local and global level.

References

1 See, for example, M. Daly, ‘Gender Mainstreaming in Theory and Practice’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 12 (2005), pp. 433–50 and Judith Squires, The New Politics of Gender Equality, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Press, 2007).

2 This research is part of an ongoing PhD research project.

3 Y. Benschop and M. Verloo, ‘Sisyphus’ Sisters: Can Gender Mainstreaming Escape the Genderness of Organizations?’, Journal of Gender Studies, 15 (2006), pp. 19–33.

4 Sylvia Chant and Michael Gutman, Mainstreaming Men into Gender and Development: Debates, Reflections, and Experiences (Oxford: Oxfam, 2000).

5 J. True, ‘Mainstreaming Gender in Global Public Policy’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 5 (2003), pp. 368–96; T. Rees, ‘Reflections on the Uneven Development of Gender Mainstreaming in Europe, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7 (2005), pp. 555–74; Squires, New Politics of Gender Equality.

6 Dorothy Smith, Texts, Facts and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling, (London: Routledge, 1990); Dorothy Smith (ed.), ‘Writing the Social: Critique, Theory and Investigations’ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999); Dorothy Smith, ‘Institutional Ethnography’, in T. May (ed.), Qualitative Research in Action (London: Routledge, 2001); Dorothy Smith, ‘Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People’ (Oxford: AltaMira Press, 2005); Dorothy Smith, ‘Institutional Ethnography as Practice (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006).

7 For more information see: {http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/forbusinessesandorganisation/publicauthorities/Pages/PublicauthoritiesGenderequalityduty.aspx}.

8 Great Britain, Equality Act 2006, c. 84. Available at: {http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060003_en_1}.

9 J. Shaw, ‘Mainstreaming Equality and Diversity in the European Union, Currant Legal Problems, 58 (2005), pp. 255–312; Squires, New Politics of Gender Equality.

10 Mona Lena Krook and Judith Squires, ‘Gender Quotas and Gender Mainstreaming Competing or Complementary Representational Strategies?’, Paper presented at the Fifteenth International Conference of the Council for European Studies, Chicago, IL, 29 March–2 April 2006.

11 For further discussion, see C. Bacchi and J. Eveline, ‘Mainstreaming and Neoliberalism: A Contested Relationship’, Policy and Society: Journal of Public, Foreign and Global Policy, 22 (2004), pp. 98–118.

12 E. Lombardo, ‘Integrating or Setting the Agenda? Gender Mainstreaming in the European Constitution-Making Process’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 12 (2005), pp. 412–32; T. Rees, ‘Reflections on the Uneven Development of Gender Mainstreaming in Europe, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7 (2005), pp. 555–74; A. Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming? Taking Stock in Brussels’, Journal of European Social Policy, 18 (2008), pp. 289–302.

13 Rounaq Jahan, The Elusive Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Development (London: Zed Books, 1995); Lombardo, ‘Integrating or Setting the Agenda’; J. Squires, ‘Is Mainstreaming Transformative? Theorizing Mainstreaming in the Context of Diversity and Deliberation’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 12 (2005), pp. 366–88; Sylvia Walby, Theorising Patriarchy (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1990).

14 Squires, New Politics of Gender Equality. Bacchi and Eveline, ‘Mainstreaming and Neoliberalism’.

15 J. George, ‘Gender Mainstreaming by NGOs in India: A Comparative Ethnographic Approach’, Gender, Place and Culture, 14 (2007), p. 679–701.

16 See note 14 above, p. 697.

17 F. Beveridge, S. Nott, and K. Stephen, ‘Making Women Count: Integrating Gender into Law and Policy-Making’ (Dartmouth: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 269–70.

18 M. Stratigaki, ‘Gender Mainstreaming vs Positive Action: An Ongoing Conflict in EU Gender Equality Policy’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 12 (2005), pp. 165–86.

19 True, ‘Mainstreaming Gender in Global Public Policy’.

20 Squires, New Politics of Gender Equality.

21 Shirin Rai (ed.), Mainstreaming Gender, Democratizing the State? Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); S. Rai, ‘Gendering Global Governance’, International Journal of Feminist Politics, 6 (2004), pp. 579–601.

22 Rai, ‘Gendering Global Governance’.

23 Ibid., pp. 591–2.

24 See True 2003; Daly 2005; Stratigaki 2005; Squires 2007.

25 Benschop and Verloo 2006.

26 See, for example, Rees 2005; Shaw 2005; Squires 2007.

27 T. Rees, Mainstreaming Equality in the European Union: Education, Training, and Labour Market Policies (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 194.

28 S. Nott, ‘Accentuating the Positive: Alternative Strategies for Promoting Gender Equality’, in Fiona Beveridge, Sue Nott and Kylie Stephen (eds), Making Women Count: Integrating Gender into Law and Policy-Making (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).

29 Squires, New Politics of Gender Equality.

30 Fiona Mackay and Kate Bilton, ‘Learning From Experience: Lessons in Mainstreaming Equal Opportunities’ (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Governance of Scotland Forum, 2000).

31 Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming?’; Benschop and Verloo, ‘Sisyphus’ Sisters’.

32 See, for example, J. Acker, ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Institutions. Gender and Society, 4 (1990), pp. 139–58; J. Acker, ‘From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions’, Contemporary Sociology, 21 (1992), pp. 565–9; Michael Savage and Anne Witz (eds), Gender and bureaucracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); R. W. Connell, Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002); P. Y. Martin, ‘Practising Gender at Work: Further Thoughts on Reflexivity’, Gender, Work and Organisation, 13 (2006), pp. 254–76.

33 Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming?’ p. 296.

34 Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming?’ p. 298.

35 T. Pfister, ‘Mainstreamed Away? Assessing the Gender Equality Dimension of the European Employment Strategy’, Policy & Politics, 36 (2008), pp. 521–38.

36 Pfister, ‘Mainstreamed Away?’ p. 531.

37 Benschop and Verloo, ‘Sisyphus’ Sisters’.

38 Ibid., p. 31.

39 M. F. Katzenstein, ‘Stepsisters: Feminist Movement Activism in Different Institutional Spaces’ in D. Meyer and S. Tarrow (eds), The social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998); J. Goldstone (ed.), States, Parties and Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); R. Morgan, ‘On Political Institutions and Social Movement Dynamics: The Case of the United Nations and the Global Indigenous Movement’, International Political Science Review, 28 (2007), pp. 273–92.

40 Goldstone, States, Parties and Social Movements.

41 P. Burstein, R. Einwohner, and J. Hollander, ‘The Success of Political Movements: A Bargaining Perspective’ in J. Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans (eds), The Politics of Social Protest (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Morgan, ‘On Political Instiutions’.

42 Goldstone, States, Parties and Social Movements, pp. 21–4.

43 Savage and Witz, Gender and Bureaucracy.

44 Ibid., p. 56.

45 Ibid., p. 57.

46 See, for example, Acker 1990, 1992; Connell 2005; Martin 2006. Also. M. Flood and B. Pease, ‘Undoing Men’s Privilege and Advancing Gender Equality in Public Sector Institutions, Policy and Society, 24 (2005), pp. 119–38 and T. Schofield and S. Goodwin, ‘Gender Politics and Public Policy Making: Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality’, Policy and Society, 24 (2005), pp. 22–41.

47 A. Tickner, ‘Feminism Meets International Relations: Some Methodological Issues’, in Brooke Ackerly, Maria Stern and Jaqui True (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 36.

48 M. Zaleweski, ‘Distracted Reflections on the Production, Narration, and Refusal of Feminist Knowledge in International Relations’, in Brooke Ackerly, Maria Stern and Jaqui True, (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (2006), pp. 19–41.

49 Kathy Moon, ‘Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations’ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); K. Moon, ‘South Korean Movements Against Militarized Sexual Labor’, Asian Survey, 34 (1999), pp. 310–27; K. Moon, ‘Resurrecting Prostitutes and Overturning Treaties: Gender Politics in the South Korean ‘Anti-American’ movement, Journal of Asian Studies, 66 (2007), pp. 129–57.

50 Moon, ‘Resurrecting Prostitutes’, p. 134.

51 C. Cohn, ‘Motives and Methods: Using Multi-Sited Ethnography to Study US National Security Discourses’ in Brooke Ackerley, Maria Stern and Jackqui True (eds), Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 92.

52 J. Acker, ‘Gender, Capitalism and Globalization’, Critical Sociology, 30 (2005), p. 22.

53 R. W. Connell, Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).

54 J. K. Gibson-Graham, ‘Beyond Global vs. Local: Economic Politics Outside the Binary Frame’, in Andrew Herod and Melissa Wright (eds), Geographies of Power: Placing scale. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002).

55 Acker, ‘Gender, Capitalism and Globalization’, p. 22.

56 Ibid., pp. 22–3.

57 Marie Campbell and Frances Gregor, Mapping Social Relations: A Primer in Doing Institutional Ethnography (Aurora, Ontario: Garamond Press, 2002). Also, Smith 1990, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006.

58 Acker 1990, 1992.

59 Acker, ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies’, p. 140.

60 See, for example, D. Britton, ‘The Epistemology of the Gendered Organisation’, Gender and Society, 14 (2000), pp. 418–34l; P. Y. Martin and D. Collinson, ‘Over the Pond and Across the Water’: Developing the Field of ‘Gendered Organisations’, Gender, Work and Organisation, 9 (2002), pp. 244–65; K. Ashcroft and D. Mumby, ‘Organizing a Critical Communicology of Gender and Work’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 166 (2004), pp. 19–43.

61 Campbell and Gregor, Mapping Social Relations, p. 29.

62 Smith, Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People, p. 22.

63 Campbell and Gregor, Mapping Social Relations, p. 15.

64 And politically.

65 Campbell and Gregor, Mapping Social Relations, p. 30.

66 Ibid., p. 43.

67 Ibid., p. 101.

68 Benschop and Verloo, ‘Sisyphus’ Sisters’, pp. 31.

69 Ibid., p. 29.

70 Ibid., p. 31.

71 R.W. Connell, ‘The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations’, Gender, Work and Organization, 13 (2006), pp. 446, 448.

72 Informal interview, field notes, 20 July 2006.

73 Catherine Itzen and Janet Newman, Gender, Culture and Organizational Change: Putting Theory into Practice (London: Routledge,1995); Camilla Stivers, Gender Images In Public Administration: Legitimacy and the Administrative State, 2nd ed. (London: Sage, 2002).

74 Connell, ‘Gender Change’, p. 444.

75 Ibid., p. 447.

76 Ibid., p. 448.

77 See for example, Liisa Rantaliaiho and Tuula Heiskanen, Gendered Practices in Working Life (London: Macmillan, 1997); P.Y. Martin, ‘Practicing Gender at Work: Further Thoughts on Reflexivity’, Gender, Work and Organization, 10 (2006), pp. 227–40; J. Newman, ‘Regendering Governance’ in Janet Newman (ed.), Remaking Governance: People, Politics and the Public Sphere (Bristol: Policy Press, 2005), pp. 81–100.

78 Martin, ‘Practicing’, p. 260.

79 For further discussions of the pros and cons of using the concept of patriarchy, see Walby, Theorising Patriarchy. F. Colgan and S. Ledwith, ‘Women as Organisational Change Agents’ in Sue Ledwith and Fiona Colgan (eds), Women in Organisations: Challenging Gender Politics (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1996); R.W. Connell, Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), p. 110; Cynthia Cockburn, In the Way of Women: Men's Resistance to Sex Equality in Organisations (London: Macmillan, 1991).

80 D. Livesey, C. Taylor and P. Jones, ‘Civil Service Employment Statistics, 2006’, Economic & Labour Market Review, 1 (2007), pp. 36–40.

81 Field notes. Sept 2006 – Feb 2007.

82 R. W. Connell, ‘Advancing Gender Reform in Large-Scale Organisations’, Policy and Society, 24 (2005); Connell, ‘Gender Change’; Louse Chappell, Gendering Government: Feminist Engagement with the State in Australia and Canada (Vancouver, UBC Press, 2002); L. Chappell, ‘Comparing Political Institutions: Revealing the Gendered ‘Logic of Appropriateness’’, Politics & Gender, 2 (2006), pp. 223–5; Stivers, Gender Images.

83 Chappell, Gender Government; Chappell, ‘Comparing’; Stivers, Gender Images.

84 Stivers, Gender Images, p. 52.

85 Ibid., p. 54.

86 Chappell, ‘Comparing’.

87 Field notes, 19 July 2006.

88 Field notes, meeting minutes, 8 Feb 2007.

89 Emilie Marie Hafner-Burton and Mark A. Pollack, Mainstreaming Gender in the European Union: Getting the Incentives Right (2008). Available at SSRN: {http://ssrn.com/abstract=1287859}.

90 F. Beveridge, S. Nott and K. Stephen, ‘Mainstreaming: A Case for Optimism and Cynicism’, Feminist Legal Studies, 10 (2002), pp. 299–331; Hafner-Burton and Pollack, Mainstreaming Gender in the EU.

91 Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming?’, p. 297.

92 Hafner-Burton and Pollack, Mainstreaming Gender in the EU.

93 S. Mazey, ‘Gender Mainstreaming Strategies in the EU: Delivering an Agenda?’, Feminist Legal Studies, 10 (2002), pp. 227–40.

94 U. Liebert, ‘Europeanising Gender Mainstreaming: Constraints and Opportunities in the Multi-level Euro Polity’, Feminist Legal Studies, 10 (2002), pp. 241–56.

95 Daly 2005; Rees 2005; Squires 2007.

96 Field notes, Equality Impact Assessment training session, 2 Feb 2007.

97 Field notes, informal conversation after training, 2 Feb 2007.

98 Woodward, ‘Too Late for Gender Mainstreaming?’.

99 Beveridge and Nott, ‘Mainstreaming: A Case’, p. 310.