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Gender mainstreaming as a global policy paradigm: barriers to gender justice in health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Sarah Payne
Sarah Payne*
Affiliation:
School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, 8 Priory Rd, BristolBS8 1TZ, UK
*
*Email: sarah.payne@bris.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper explores gender mainstreaming in the context of health policy and health variations between women and men. Despite the adoption of gender mainstreaming at international, regional and national scales since the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995, gender inequalities in health persist. The paper argues that the translation of gender mainstreaming as a global policy paradigm across and between policy scales has significance for health policies aiming to address gender. The paper suggests that while gender mainstreaming originated to address women's needs, the paradigm is founded on goals that do not translate in health policy; that the representation of the problem of gender in this global paradigm is problematic in a health context; and that the role of global networks in policy translation as part of this paradigm has led to the replacement of transformative ideals with technocratic solutions which shift the focus away from gender relations of power.

Keywords

gender mainstreamingglobal policy paradigmpolicy translationgender equalitygender equityhealth policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 30 , Issue 1: Gender justice and global policy paradigms , February 2014 , pp. 28 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis

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