Things you should know about gender mainstreaming

What does “mainstreaming” mean? Mainstream, defined by a dictionary, means “that which is common; the norm”. So mainstreaming can be seen as turning something to be the norm.

Gender mainstreaming is a concept promoted by many different organizations, and by the United Nations already decades ago. UN Women defines it: “Gender mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities – policy development, research, advocacy/dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programmes and projects.

Mainstreaming is not about adding on a “women’s component” or even a “gender equality component”, to an existing activity. It involves more than increasing women’s participation. Mainstreaming situates gender equality issues at the centre of policy decision, medium-term plans, programme budgets, and institutional structures and processes. Mainstreaming entails bringing the perceptions, experience, knowledge and interests of women as well as men to bear on policy-making, planning and decision-making. Mainstreaming can reveal a need for changes in goals, strategies and actions to ensure that both women and men can influence, participate in and benefit from development processes. It can require changes in organisations – structures, procedures and cultures – to create organisational environments which are conducive to the promotion of gender equality.”[i]

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has a good guide to gender mainstreaming food security projects: Guide to mainstreaming gender in FAO’s project cycle.[ii]

We could also think of mainstreaming as integrating gender equality as a fundamental part of all policies. If we want to succeed in this integration, we first have to give attention to gender perspectives in all activities across all programmes. And what does “gender perspectives” mean? It means that whatever policies, programmes, or advocacy we do, we first think of the implications of the planned actions for women and men, girls and boys. It is making gender visible in the planned activity.

It sounds very simple but it can be a little tricky, as we have to figure out beforehand how the planned action will effect different people. And to be able to do that, we need to know the situation of people now, before the action. But not only this: we need to know the situation of boys and girls, women and men. For this reason it is really important to have gender-disaggregated data. Another important thing is not to take stereotypical assumptions of the situations of men and women as the baseline. All information must base on facts.

As a way to evaluate a project or programme from a gender perspective, ask the following questions[iv]:

1. Of what sort is the problem that you are trying to solve, seen from the perspectives of men and women, girls and boys?

2. Will the actions or consequences of the planned project target people?

3. Are there clear differences between women and men, boys and girls in the activity that the project is focusing at?

4. What is the ratio of men and women, girls and boys, in the planned target groups of the project?

5. To achieve the planned outcome, will actions, which differ according to gender, be needed?

6. Will the planned project actions target women and men, boys and girls differently, and are the consequences different for these groups?