Mainstreaming gender in European Commission development policy: Conservative Europeanness?

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“…After the Beijing Conference of 1995, the Council of Europe took the initiative to further elaborate on gender mainstreaming by creating a number of handbooks. These were later taken up by the European Community's policymakers, NGOs and practitioners (Debusscher, 2011).…”

Gender mainstreaming and tackling human trafficking in the European Union

“…The aim of gender mainstreaming is to achieve results from which both women and men would benefit, with regards to the socio-cultural environment inherent to the policy. The previous "women-indevelopment" approach, as Petra Debusscher (2011) calls it, ignored the underlying societal problems stemming from gender relations; therefore, a new approach had to be construed. Many of the policies based on the women-in-development approach (before the advent of gender mainstreaming) simply overlooked the gender implications of discrimination.…”

“…These were later taken up by the European Community's policymakers, NGOs and practitioners (Debusscher, 2011).…”

“…Moving away from a purely distributive understanding of gender inequalities led to a new understanding of women and gender bias. As Petra Debusscher writes in her analysis of gender mainstreaming strategies, there is a considerable difference between the previous women-in-development approach, which deemed women to be the problem, as well as the solution of inequalities, and the new approach of integrated gender mainstreaming (Debusscher, 2011). As Kiczková and Pietruchová conclude, " [T]he whole approach to women has changed, since they are no more the source of the problem, it is not their insufficient education, or low self-esteem.…”

“…Lombardo and Meier argue that EU policy has been reluctant and eager at the same time to intervene in the gendered issues of its Member States, finding its "windows of opportunity" in framing some of the issues as falling within EU's remit (Lombardo and Meier, 2008: 107). Debusscher writes that applying gender mainstreaming into EU employment policies found its legitimacy to boost economic growth (Debusscher, 2011). Meier and Lombardo argue, in the same sense, that the majority of EU policy on domestic violence is framed as a public health issue (Lombardo and Meier, 2008).…”