Equality Governance via Policy Analysis?

Abstract

Gender impact assessment has been both celebrated as a beacon of hope for the cause of gender equality and criticised as being ineffectual. More than 20 years of gender mainstreaming have demonstrated that equality governance with and through impact assessment is an intersectional and still evolving process. Arn T. Sauer's study examines the instruments of gendered policy analysis and the conditions under which they are being used by the Canadian federal government and the European Commission. Interviews with experts from public administration and instrument designers as well as document analyses reveal benefits and challenges and show that the success of equality governance depends upon whether knowledge about gendered policy and appropriate administrative practices are embedded, embodied and entrenched in public administration.

Sex and gender approaches in environmental health research: two exemplary case studies of the German environment agency

“…But the integration of sex/gender perspectives suffers a paradoxical mandate: on the one hand, it is essentially a critique of gaps in the knowledge production by pointing out the limitations of believing in gender-neutral scientific truth , while demanding the inclusion of sex/gender and avoidance of (erroneous) gender-binary assumptions, and at the same time taking intersectionality into account as well. So, if we agree upon the necessity to add such complex understandings of sex and gender to produce better science, we require nothing less than the ‘transformation of epistemological frames’ in research and policy advice (Sauer 2018, 441). For providing sound and effective policy advice, our citizens depend on such open-minded, innovative research, and on the research communities at the UBA and beyond that are able to deliver state-of-the-art knowledge.…”