Gender mainstreaming or diversity mainstreaming? The politics of "doing"

Abstract

Amongst recent debates about whether it is preferable to campaign for gender mainstreaming or diversity mainstreaming this paper makes the case that both proposals involve fields of contestation. Either reform, it argues, could be taken in anti-progressive directions. Hence, we redirect attention to the processes and practices that give an initiative content and shape, which we call the politics of “doing”. The argument here is that the actual “doings” involved in producing reform initiatives are key sites for social change. Hence, in order to produce reforms responsive to the needs and wishes of diverse groups of women, attention ought to be directed to ways of making those “doings” inclusive and democratic. Specifically we highlight the importance of privileging the views of marginalized women in any such policy deliberations and respecting their perspectives on the usefulness of appeals to identity. We introduce the concepts of “coalitions of engagement” and “deep listening” to generate discussion around these contentious issues.