1. From Equal Rights to Gender Mainstreaming: Feminist Politics in German Agriculture.
- Author
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Prugl, Elisabeth
- Subjects
- *
EQUAL rights , *FEMINISTS , *AGRICULTURE , *GENDER , *CIVIL rights - Abstract
The paper seeks to conceptually develop the notion of gender mainstreaming through a systematic comparison with the equal rights approach that preceded it. It takes as an example the agricultural policy arena in Germany, comparing the development of pension rights for farmwomen in the early 1990s to the implementation of gender mainstreaming at the turn of the century. Experts charged with implementing gender mainstreaming have argued that the notion is conceptually unclear and leads to confusion in its application. Movement activists, in addition, have charged that gender mainstreaming has become an excuse to cut funding for programs that favor women. The observations of these feminists show that the implementation of gender mainstreaming takes place and gains meaning in political contexts. Gender mainstreaming has become a new, unique site of gender politics. The paper will survey organizational theory to develop propositions about gender politics in the German agricultural ministry and its political environment. In particular it will probe the following questions: -How do the organizational discourses on equal pension rights differ from those on gender mainstreaming? -How do organizational networks charged with implementing equal pension rights differ from those charged with implementing gender mainstreaming? -In these organizational discourses and networks, how are gender hegemonies and gender hierarchies reconstructed? The purpose of the paper is to employ an outsider’s perspective and a political science perspective to assess the significance of gender mainstreaming for feminist movement politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004