Väärinymmärryksiä ja vastustamista : sukupoulinäkökulman valtavirtaistamisen käytännön ongelmia

Kirjoittajat

• Hanna Ylöstalo

Abstrakti

Gender mainstreaming has been celebrated as a new policy strategy for change in gender relations. Gender mainstreaming aims at promoting equality between women and men in all activities and policies at all levels. However, its transformative potential seems to disappear in the process of implementation. This article examines the problems concerning implementation of gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming in the Ministry of Defence, Finland, is used as an empirical example. There are two interlinked problems concerning gender mainstreaming in practice. Firstly, the bureaucrats that are responsible for implementing gender mainstreaming share confusion about what gender mainstreaming means and why it should be done. Secondly, gender mainstreaming, as well as all gender equality work at workplaces, faces resistance among people who are responsible for carrying it through in their organization. Gender mainstreaming concerns gender and gender equality, which are about power, privileges and inequality. Therefore, gender mainstreaming is not a harmonious process that can be carried out smoothly and with little effort. It requires knowledge about gender and equality among those who are responsible for implementing it. This knowledge might also help reduce the resistance gender mainstreaming faces at the organizational level.