Gender Mainstreaming

Gender Mainstreaming can be done in many levels:

Gender in the City
Providing equal opportunities for men and women is one of the Green party’s main goals. One way to achieve this is through appropriate planning of the city’s budget and public space.

City budgets and investments are gender biased: some forms of spending favour women, others favour men. It is not hard to guess that “male favoured” spending is more common. However, the European Union places certain demands on countries, and these include the promotion of gender equality in all aspects of life by recognising the differing needs of the sexes. This EU policy of gender mainstreaming aims to change family structure, social life and the work environment in such a way as to achieve real and permanent gender equality.

Conservative politicians reject gender mainstreaming. They only try to meet men’s and women’s needs within the traditional division of roles, thus strengthening the division. For example when planning urban investments, they would consider the building of children’s play areas as spending on women, because it is women who take care of children.

For the Greens, a policy of gender equality is about counteracting stereotyping while meeting the needs of both sexes. For example, investing in children’s play areas can be seen as an implementation of gender equality politics only when action is simultaneously taken to strengthen partnership attitudes in the division of childcare responsibilities. When building new sports facilities for young people, the level of activity of both girls and boys must be taken into account.

You Can Do It!

 * find out whether your city uses gender budgeting
 * find out whether your city promotes and implements policies aiming to achieve gender equality. For example, is the number of women employed in prestigious, highly paid positions in the city council similar to the number of men in similar positions. And similarly, what is the proportion of men andwomen employed in the less prestigious, less well paid positions, for example among cleaners, secretarial workers etc.
 * support non-governmental organisations campaigning for equal opportunities for men and women.