Gender mainstreaming going intersectional
After the CEMR-conference in Bilbao in June 2018, we wrote a blog post where we reflected on our impressions from all the workshops, discussions and encounter. One of these themes was the difficulties of dealing with more than one form of discrimination at a time when talking about systematic gender equality work. The main issues have to do with lack of competence and motivation, the difficulties of measuring and, thus, following up, and methods for identifying problems and finding solutions.
I would like to lift one aspect of this, not often thought of, but that might be key in opening the way forward. Intersectionality is not only about taking various forms of discrimination into consideration. It is also about looking into the situation where it takes place. A certain “set up” of discrimination grounds can have very different meanings in different contexts and if this is ignored, you can’t say you’re working with intersectionality.
Taking this into consideration, maybe intersectional gender mainstreaming work cannot be governed in the same way as “simple” bi-gender mainstreaming. Maybe “we” – the target group of the Bilbao conference: gender professionals set to administer the gender mainstreaming work of the organisation – need to let go of a bit of control.
If the problem we want to solve varies with context, maybe the best suited to address it are the ones working locally. And, as administrators, our task is rather to support than to control. Maybe the controlling system needs to work bottom-up, instead of top-down?
I imagine that a central administration governing THAT and providing competence and support, in combination with a front line administration formulating WHAT and HOW, would be a winning concept.
But that would take quite a lot of rethinking in many cases. After working for years with controlling chains, target formulations and the importance of following up in traditional forms, we would need to let go and let flow, allow mistakes and allow the possibility of nothing really happening at some places, while others will flourish.
Do we dare to do this?