Gender justice and global policy paradigms

Over the past decade, gender equality and gender mainstreaming principles have been adopted by a number of international and regional organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and the European Union (EU), in what has been described as the “unprecedented” or “extraordinary” global spread of the concept (True & Mintrom, 2001; Woodward, 2008). The papers in this Special Issue seek to further develop our understanding of the multi-scalar dynamics through which sets of ideas can and do develop considerable coherence and persistence at the international level, contributing to the framing of ideas, language and discourse and transnational consensus building. The overarching issue of gender equality, together with gender mainstreaming as the strategic instrument have come to comprise an influential and almost “taken-for-granted” global policy paradigm which has moved, transformed and been translated across different scales, geographies and levels of policy-making. However, whilst there have been some gains and improvement in the status of women around the world and moves towards gender equality, it is clear that inequalities between men and women remain and that there has been a failure to translate the global policy paradigm of gender equality into the everyday lives of many men and women. Obstacles and barriers to gender mainstreaming and gender equality persist, as well as disjuncture between the ideal world of the policy paradigm and the lived experience. Thus, in the context of the global spread of the concept of gender equality and gender mainstreaming, the papers in this Special Issue are concerned with identifying, exploring and explaining the dynamics of, and obstacles to, gender justice, as well as potential strategies to overcome these.