Policy and Society

ISSN: 1449-4035 (Print) 1839-3373 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpas20

Gender Politics and Public Policy Making:

Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality

Toni Schofield & Susan Goodwin

To cite this article: Toni Schofield & Susan Goodwin (2005) Gender Politics and Public Policy
Making: Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality, Policy and Society, 24:4, 25-44, DOI: 10.1016/
S1449-4035(05)70067-9

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Gender Politics and Public Policy Making:
Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality
Toni Schofield and Susan Goodwin

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a re-envisioning of gender politics in public
policy making by applying a new approach to understanding them. Our approach is
based on, and illustrated by, a study of gender dynamics in policy-making processes
in the NSW public sector in Australia. The study draws on theoretical developments
in the sociological study of gender arrangements in large organisations. Central to
the analysis is the concept of gender regime (Connell 2002). The study finds that gender
dynamics in policy making are not played out in a uniform and generalised way that
stifles opportunities for resistance and change. Nor, however, are they random and
contingent. There are various structures of gendered policy-making practice that
suggest both possibilities for, and obstacles to, the advancement of gender equality
in policy making. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a new method and
language for studying, and advancing change in, gender and policy making in public
sector settings.

Introduction
This paper makes a new contribution to understanding gender
politics in public policy making. Significant changes in public institutions
over the last two decades have made it increasingly difficult to read and
interpret the shape and direction of gender dynamics. Public sector
workers are now more likely to be operating in environments where
women are present and where gender issues have become institutionalised.
Women’s employment in senior positions and participation in policy
making have increased, EEO and anti-discrimination legislation to
combat gender discrimination have been introduced, and men and
women avail themselves of “family-friendly” provisions to enable
them to combine both work and family responsibilities (Whitehead and
Moodley 1999; O’Connor, Orloff and Shaver 1999; Williams 2000). At
the same time, powerful public discourses have emerged suggesting
that men and boys suffer disadvantage that is comparable to women’s
but is widely neglected in the face of the women’s movement (Schofield
et al 2000; Schofield 2004). Such developments have made it difficult
for practitioners within state agencies to analyse and understand what
2 - Schofield and Goodwin

gender inequality is, how and why it is a significant issue, and how it
might be addressed.
This paper applies the method described in the previous paper
(see Connell) – a “gender regimes” approach – and proposes a new
language for making sense of gender dynamics and inequality in the
public sector. At its heart is the finding that distinct organisational gender
regimes occur in specific policy-making processes. Such an approach permits an
understanding of gender within the state as varied and patterned. Since
the 1970s, broad and homogenising designations such as “the patriar-
chal state”, “malestream policy” and “the women-friendly state” have
been employed to characterise the gendered nature of public institu-
tional processes (Pateman 1989; Hernes 1987; Lister 1997). The gender
regimes approach, by comparison, presents a range of new distinctions
that show variously configured gender dynamics prevailing in different
parts of the state at the same time. Such a conceptual tool allows gender
equality practitioners and researchers to analyse and understand local
and distinctive gender arrangements that operate in specific public sector
organisations and processes, and the opportunities such arrangements
present for advancing gender equality.

Studying Gender Politics and Public Policy Making:

Approach and Method
The specificity of our approach to studying gender politics and gender
equality in public policy and institutions is well illustrated by comparison
with the predominant approach. The latter is informed by theories and
methods developed mainly by political science, especially those used
in international comparative analysis of the policies and politics of
nation states. The ongoing and large-scale study, established in 1995 by
a transatlantic network of scholars (Research Network on Gender Poli-
tics and the State) to explore “routes to feminist policy formation” in
political institutions (Mazur 2002), exemplifies this approach. Its main
purpose is to explore whether, how and under what conditions women’s
policy machinery and women’s movement activism in policy making
in Europe and North America are associated with achieving “posi-
tive policy outcomes”1.. It does so by examining correlations of policy
outcomes and actions among a range of players, including government
and stakeholder officials (Research Network on Gender Politics and
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 3

the State – RNGPS 2005). On the basis of these findings the RNGS
researchers suggest a kind of taxonomy of the types of political alli-
ances among women’s movement actors, women’s policy agencies and
other government players that can achieve “positive policy outcomes”.
However, the study’s methodology does not permit the researchers to
explain why and how successful alliances develop to advance “positive
policy outcomes”, and why and how they may not.
Louise Chappell’s (2002) study of gender politics in Australian
and Canadian political institutions is also informed by the methods and
theories of political science. She draws strongly on neo-institutionalist
approaches to the state, examining the interplay of a number of state
institutions over time and between two polities, to determine how they
influence feminist political action (Chappell 2002, 4-9). According to
Chappell, it is the “gendering” of this interplay that creates opportu-
nities for or constraints on feminist action. Chappell argues that this
derives from the operation of “gender norms”. But it is not clear exactly
how these influence political behaviour. One reason is that the meaning
of “gender norms” is not fully elaborated in theoretical terms. Sylvia
Walby (2004, 8) has suggested that the lack of theoretical explanation
is an inherent characteristic of the “gender norms” approach generally.
A second reason is the absence of systematic empirical analysis of the
relationship between “norms” and the political action discussed. As a
result, “gender norms” and political action are connected as a correla-
tion that implies a particular institutional gender dynamic (or dynamics)
by which the correlation is produced. Yet the dynamic (dynamics)
itself is not explored to explain exactly how and why particular “gender
norms” and political actions are linked and produced within institu-
tions.
The approach to the study of gender politics in public policy
making that we present in this paper addresses and redresses the kinds
of limitations found in currently prevailing analyses of the type outlined
above. It identifies and analyses the institutional dynamics by which
gendered political action is produced. It adopts a sociological approach
since the dynamics of political institutions are played out through
the social relations and practices that constitute them. In particular, it
draws on recent sociological study of gender and large organisations
(see, for example, Mills and Tancred 1992; Hearn and Parkin 2001;
4 - Schofield and Goodwin

Connell 2005).
Such an approach emerged in the course of a study to identify
and analyse specific gendered configurations or patternings of policy
making processes within public sector organisations that promote or
obstruct political action towards gender equality. The study was part of
the GEPI Project described by Raewyn Connell in the previous paper.
In conducting it, we applied the gender regimes model that she has also
elaborated there.
Four public sector agencies participated in the study: a public
utility, two human services organisations and an economic services
department. As a group, these were significant service providers to
the people of the State. Policy making in these agencies is associated
with large-scale and vital human resource distribution. Representa-
tives from each of the agencies identified two policies produced by
their organisation: one gender-specific and the other “mainstream”2.
The gender-specific policies were distinguished from their mainstream
counterparts insofar as the former were mainly concerned with the
human and economic service needs of public constituents explicitly in
terms of gender. The mainstream policies engaged with determining the
most pressing, supposedly generic, needs of their constituents and the
means by which they would be addressed.
The agency representatives nominated people whom they consid-
ered the most significant contributors to the development of each of
the eight policies. There were sufficient numbers of significant contrib-
utors identified to ensure that in most cases ten participants could be
interviewed for each policy. Seventy-three interviews were conducted,
with both men and women, and from different organisational levels.
Four interviewers – all women – collected the data. Interviews were
semi-structured, and followed a set of topics designed to elicit from
respondents their:
• accounts of the principal objectives of, and organisational
processes associated with, the policies in which they were involved
at the formulation stage;
• understanding of the gendered implications, if any, of the policies’
main objectives and of the processes involved in their formula-
tion; and
• understanding of gender and gender equity.
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 5

The gender regimes model was then adapted to work as a data

analysis tool by turning the four dimensions into questions to be applied
to the interview material. The aim of the questions was to identify if
and how gender operated in the policy-making process. Thus, the first
category, division of labour (1) was operationalised in the data analysis by
becoming the question, who were the main participants (men/women)
and what did they do in relation to the process?
The second category, power and authority (2), became the question,
who exercised power or authority in the process, and in what ways?
The third, emotional relations (3), was applied to the analysis as, what
sorts of feelings did the men and women show among themselves and
towards each other in the process? Finally, symbolisation or representation
(4) was addressed through the questions, how did respondents under-
stand what is meant by the term, gender, and how did they view it as
relevant to the policy process in which they were involved, if at all?
Each of the four categories/questions was applied to each of the
73 transcripts one by one. Thus, each transcript was read and analysed
at least four times, with each reading requiring a different focus, namely
that determined by the particular regime category. The aim of each
reading was to identify any comments or responses that were relevant
to the particular category or question.
The preliminary results of these analyses were presented in eight
draft working documents: a mainstream and a gender-specific case-
study report for each of the participating agencies. Each case-study
was approximately 5,000 words in length and followed a standard
pattern linked to the interview agenda and the analytical framework.
The draft case-study reports were discussed with representatives of the
agencies concerned, to correct factual errors and misinterpretations.
These were then circulated to the members of the study working party
for comment, discussion and revision. The reconsidered case studies,
finally, became the basis for development of a typology of policy
processes in gender-relations terms.

Results: Varying Configurations of Gendered Policy

Making and Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality
In aggregate, that is, looking across the eight policy processes, the study
found that policy making continues to be heavily male-dominated. The
6 - Schofield and Goodwin

men in our group of respondents tended to be over-represented in the

top-level management of policy making. Yet the way that gender operated
in the policy-making processes was far from uniform and generalised. Considering
the results as combinations of the four dimensions in each of the policy
processes enabled us to identify three distinct patterns of gender relations, or
gender regimes.
A gendered pattern was defined when the same combination
could be identified in at least two of the eight policy processes studied.
In other words, a pattern existed where a combination of the four
categories was replicated in one or more policy process. The three
patterns identified were derived from six of the eight policy processes
involved. These occurred in the two human service agencies and the
economic service organisation.
In what follows, we describe the three patterns and argue their
status as specific types of gender regimes. Each regime description has
been organised in terms of the four dimensions: gender division of
labour, power and authority relations, emotional relations, and repre-
sentations and understandings of gender. The three types of gender
regime are then analysed and discussed in terms of the specific possi-
bilities and constraints associated with advancing gender equality.
1. The Regime of Masculine Hegemony
This pattern emerged from the two generic policy-making processes in
the human services agencies. We have characterised it as a regime of
“masculine hegemony” because, as Raewyn Connell has commented
(see previous paper), this helps in capturing and grasping the gestalt
of a distinctive organisational process. It suggests, from an integrated
perspective, the overall prospects that the combined structures of
practice involved in the policy-making processes offer for social change
(see Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality below).
Division of labour: The regime’s most distinctive feature was
women’s negligible participation in both processes. Agency-based men
performed virtually all the work involved.
Power and authority: Community-based stakeholder participation
was not considered relevant. Agency-based men also determined how
the policy-making process would be conducted, what the nature of the
policy problem was, and what were the directions and actions to be
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 7

adopted in addressing it. Clearly the exercise of power and authority in

the process was the preserve of senior-level men.
What was particularly remarkable about men’s dominance of
these processes was that nobody saw it as exceptional. As one of the
senior-level men commented:
Yeah, I think it would be fair to say probably the vast majority of people
that have been involved in a direct way have been predominantly male...I
don’t think there’s ever been much discussion about this.

Emotional relations: Corresponding with this agency-based male

dominance in the division of labour and in the exercise of power and
authority was the overall absence of expressed emotion in the policy
making process. Most respondents were unable to recall any significant
emotional expression or episode associated with the proceedings. One
or two remembered a hostile exchange between a man and a woman that
occurred at a committee meeting, and that involved discussion about
the explicit inclusion of the needs of men and boys in the policy. These
respondents recalled that the senior manager chairing the committee
defused the issue by excluding all mention of gender from the policy.
They and others – all men – spoke admiringly of his leadership.
Understandings of gender and gender equity: There was a marked
consensus among all but a few participants in both processes that
gender and gender equity were not relevant to the policies in which
they were involved. As a senior male policy officer reported:
We have never actually sat down and said we must make sure this policy
is equitable for both sexes.

Most saw gender as a separate “issue” that needed to be addressed

in gender-specific policy. Gender simply never entered mainstream
human- service policy-making deliberations, as the following extract
of interview suggests:
Interviewer (I): Does the committee ever get caught up in discussion or
debate about men and women (or boys and girls)?

Respondent (R): Never that I can think of.

I: So has gender ever entered the committee’s discussion in any way in

terms of need?
8 - Schofield and Goodwin

R: No, it has not, because we are looking at the relative distribution of

resources between (human service) regions...All the areas have got basi-
cally the same sex profile (so)...adding it in won’t add anything to the
model mathematically. It will just neutralise out across everybody. You
don’t need it in the model because you only want to put in factors that
discriminate between areas.

As participants understood it, gender referred to sex differences.

This meant that both sexes had certain sex-specific needs but that these
were generally separate from, and ancillary to, the needs of constitu-
ents that generic policy addressed.
All participants recognised that the policy processes in which
they were involved were heavily male-dominated. However, all but one
woman and one man believed this to be the outcome of a historical
legacy that would probably be righted over time. Participants did not
attribute women’s limited presence in policy making to current gender
discrimination – something they understood as the explicit or deliberate
exclusion of women from participation. Rather, it was understood as a
feature of a systemic reality for which nobody was really responsible as
the following comment, by one of the few women senior-level policy
makers, illustrates:
The (policy) participation process reflects decision making and manage-
ment structures in the department in general. The gender make-up of
the executive (involved in this process) reflects this.

The following extract from a further interview respondent

discloses a similar, if more overtly political, view:
I: So were you aware of any sort of gender implications associated with
the production of the policy?
R: Not really.
I: In terms of the composition of the committee?
R: Oh, well, no, I mean of course it was gender biased in terms of its
composition. I mean, the fact is that men run the (human services) sys-
tem, not so much in some places but, you know, men still dominate.

The vast majority of participants believed that the main criterion

for being included in policy-making processes was simply expertise and
experience in the technocratic and quantitative discourses that were
employed, as the following suggests:
I think (the process) is technical and the females don’t seem to like the
technical stuff.
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 9

Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality

The combination of all four categories associated with the two main-
stream policy-making processes in the human service agencies consti-
tutes a “worst-case” scenario in terms of advancing gender equality
in policy making. Indeed, the combination suggests a policy-making
process that might best be understood in terms of Antonio Gramsci’s
(1971) concept of hegemony. At its heart is the normalisation of political
dominance and the generalisation of dominant interests as the common
interest. Through this process, the interests of a dominant minority
come to be seen and accepted as securing those of the majority. This
usually occurs through the routine practices that prevail in social insti-
tutions (including the institutions of the state). These practices are
informed by social principles that disavow partisanship. A hegemonic
situation therefore arises when power associated with enduring rela-
tions of dominance and subordination is exercised in such a way that
the social divisions involved are naturalised. Hegemony, then, is one of
the most powerful mechanisms by which social hierarchy is maintained
and reproduced because it is quintessentially consensual. Those who are
accorded power in this way have no need to be coercive.
The configuration of gender relations examined here constitutes
a distinctive gender regime in which masculine presence, constituted
by male dominance of the process, goes hand-in-hand with a culture
of policy making in which women’s exclusion from participation is
normalised and in which gender inequality is excluded as a concern
for mainstream agenda setting. The specificity of the regime’s gender
dynamics derives from a combination of the four structures of
gendered practice that produce an organisational process characterised
by relations of gender inequality and the erasure of gender as a generic
policy concern, both of which are rendered normatively acceptable.
Overall, the regime can be characterised as a case of masculine hegemony
at work. This means that in terms of the possibilities for political action
to advance women’s interests in policy making, such a configuration
imposes formidable, if not impossible, constraints.
2. The Regime of Feminist Presence and Masculinist Backlash
A second gendered configuration emerged from the two gender-
specific policy-making processes located within the human service
10 - Schofield and Goodwin

organisations.
Division of labour: A rough balance of numbers between men and
women was found in both. Yet the agency-based women were concen-
trated in the lower positions while most of the men were employed in
management or in senior executive positions. Only one woman occu-
pied a senior executive position. An obvious reproductive distinction
thus characterised the organisation of the work involved.
Power and authority: Accompanying this division was men’s domi-
nance in exercising power and authority and women’s resentment about
being excluded, as the following comment by a senior women’s policy
officer suggests:
One of the big things for me was the enormous workload in women’s
(human services). (My responsibility for) policy was always the last thing
on the list. I was always running. But I never saw my male superior
stressed. The women (in the women’s unit) were really dumped on. I had
all the responsibility but no authority to sign off on things.

This situation was complemented by male-dominated, commu-

nity-based stakeholders who exercised political pressure on the male
ministers presiding over both processes to address the needs of men
and boys. This dominance was challenged by two groups of women
participating in the processes. One involved feminist policy officers,
staff and consultants employed in researching, writing and liaising
with stakeholder groups. The other was comprised of community-
based women stakeholders who supported the feminist policy workers’
approach. Both felt their concerns were being ignored and sidelined as
the following comment by a senior feminist policy officer indicates:
There was a business plan driven by the male head of the division and he
wanted an overall picture of the main divisional priorities. The (human
service priorities) of the women’s unit were left off! I was purple with
anger (and went to my male supervisor). He fixed it up but we were never
thought of as a priority. Unless I raised it, it was never really noted.

Emotional relations: Not surprisingly, this conflict was played out in

emotional relations. This was more pronounced in one agency. Here
the women established solid friendships in order to deal with what they
felt was an aggressively masculine process. The co-ordinator of the
women’s policy unit in this agency remarked:
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 11

The management (of the departmental policy process) was all male but
I had a very supportive team of colleagues in the women’s unit who,
you know, supported me very well, so I wasn’t alone…We would often
process what was said over a cup of coffee or glass of wine. That’s how
I coped with it.

Meanwhile, the men involved were enthusiastic and supportive

of each other in advancing their approach. There was no such open
polarisation in the other agency. This appears to reflect the influence
of the one woman in senior management who was involved. She had
over twenty years’ experience in gender equity policy, at both national
and State levels, and was assigned to oversee the entire process. In this,
she worked closely with the women policy staff, a diverse ministerial
advisory committee, and the high-level group of male decision-makers,
including the minister. She was widely respected by all three groups
and, according to various respondents, a consummate manager of the
complexities they brought to bear upon the process.
Understandings of gender and gender equity: The gendered divi-
sion of power and authority that at times erupted in overt conflict in
these policy-making processes was inextricably related to the gender-
divided understandings that prevailed: both of gender itself and how
gender should be addressed in gender-specific policy. Both agencies
sought to resolve this division but in different ways. One adopted a
“pigeon-pair” approach, producing a men’s and a women’s policy. The
other sought to solve the problem with one policy that would address
both sexes. Previously, both agencies’ gender-specific policies were
explicitly concerned with addressing the specific human service needs
of women and girls.
In both policy-making processes, the agency-based women who
were involved in producing the policies maintained adherence to a
feminist understanding of gender as a system that produced disadvan-
tages for women and girls following from their limited social, economic
and political participation. They were forced, however, to accept a
competing understanding. In the second model, gender meant that
human service constituents were divided into sexually differentiated
categories, both of whom had specific human service needs. A senior
male manager of one of the gender-specific policy-making processes
explained it this way:
12 - Schofield and Goodwin

The previous women’s (human service policy) did not deal with gender.
All it did was deal with the needs of women. It left men out completely.
When one talked about gender in any discussion, nobody actually put
men in the picture for consideration, you know what I mean? It was a
women’s issue. Gender was a women’s issue…But it’s not simply a men’s
issue (either). It is a men’s and women’s issue. I think that is an important
point to make.

From this perspective, both women and men suffered disadvan-

tages associated with their gender and with the ways in which it “inter-
acted” with other “social factors” such as socio-economic status and
ethnicity. According to the men who proposed such a view, this was
evident in statistical data that measured sex differences in outcomes that
they claimed were indicators of human service need that the organisa-
tion was required to address. The following extract of an interview
with a senior male policy manager illustrates the approach:
R: When you look at the outcomes (of our service provision)…across
almost the full spectrum (of statistical indicators), men were worse off
than women…According to almost all indicators men were doing (sic)
worse off…(Our agency) was providing the same service to men and
women but they were not providing an equal service to both men and
women…So few people in the system, the planners or policy makers,
actually knew the facts.
I: About?
R: About the difference between men’s and women’s experiences and
their…outcomes (associated with the agency’s services).

So keenly was this view adopted in the agency with the “pigeon-
pair” approach that the women’s policy was criticised by the full range
of management – all men – as failing to provide scientific evidence for
its claims. One of the female officers involved in the gender-specific
policy reported:
(Staff from the women’s unit) have to struggle with the department to
get their voices heard. The department said that we had to come up with
strategic directions and outcomes and that we had to follow the overall
departmental format. This had to include (large-scale, quantitative) re-
search, statistics etc but the women’s unit staff and community-based
women’s organisations had a different idea. They wanted to express
women’s social experience.

This gendered division in understandings of gender, as it related

to the needs of constituents, also prevailed in relation to whether the
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 13

gender-specific policy-making process discriminated against women.

Most women respondents believed that their concentration in subordi-
nate positions was the outcome of a lack of political will on the part of
senior management to include a critical mass of women at senior level.
The one woman occupying a senior management position agreed and
described the upper decision-making levels of her agency as a “boys’
club” that excluded women. Men, on the other hand, saw no discrimi-
nation against women involved in the policy- making processes. They
believed that women’s lower position in the hierarchy was attributable
to historical barriers associated with women’s inferior labour market
and educational opportunities. In any case, said one manager, women
outnumbered men overall in the ranks of policy researchers and offi-
cers in his agency. According to him, it would simply be a matter of
time before they made their way up the ladder alongside men.
Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality
When the four structures of practice operating in gender-specific
policy-making processes are combined, it is evident that the gender
regime that emerges differs markedly from the regime of masculine
hegemony. This second configuration is a more dynamic pattern of
gender relations in which a masculine presence confronts a robust
feminist presence that, in turn, is forced to engage with a rear-guard
action in the form of a masculinist backlash! This scenario suggests
a number of possibilities and constraints in relation to the advance-
ment of gender equality in policy making. One is that gender-specific
policy making that is feminist in intent faces serious obstacles when
confronted by masculinised power and authority that is not only indif-
ferent to gender equality and the advancement of women’s interests,
but actively hostile.
It is important to recognise the role that community-based stake-
holder groups can play in fuelling and supporting executive hostility to
feminist claims. In contrast to mainstream policy-making processes in
the human services agencies, gender-specific policy making involved
community-based stakeholders. These were drawn mainly from politi-
cally organised, gender-based constituencies – the men’s movement
and the women’s movement. These have been active participants in the
development of human services policy in Australia but their participa-
tion has rarely been mutual and collaborative (Schofield 2004). The
14 - Schofield and Goodwin

division between them in the case of gender-specific policy making

in human services in NSW was especially acute with men’s movement
activists achieving high-level support for their goals.
In the face of senior-level hostility, feminist presence in gender-
specific policy making is important because of its resistance at the level
of the symbolic, especially in challenging representations of gender
that are categoricalist and masculinist. Feminist presence in gender-
specific policy making demands that it foregrounds gender inequality
and women’s inferior status. In this specific situation such a practice
was ultimately defensive. Yet, in the context of the gender regime that
prevailed as a whole, it was a form of resistance to masculine inter-
ests. Such a gender regime could thus be understood as ambiguous
and contradictory because it was characterised by structures of practice
that both maintained and challenged ‘the rule’ of masculine interests.
3. The Regime of Feminist Gender Mainstreaming
A final pattern was discernible in the gender-specific and mainstream
policy-making processes within one agency – the economic services
organisation. Both of these processes exhibited significant similarities
that, together, constituted a distinctive regime.
Division of labour: What was immediately evident in both processes
was the approximate balance at all levels in the numbers of men and
women who participated. Men’s and women’s presence was roughly
equal.
Power and authority: This meant that women were robust partici-
pants in the exercise of power and authority, and one that was strongly
supported by the male minister. Having appointed a woman to the
most senior position in the agency, he encouraged her to undertake
a staff reorganisation that would break up concentrations of men in
policy making and its management. She described this situation in the
following way:
I thought the assistance available to me by way of departmental policy
officers was poor and particularly so in respect of issues affecting wom-
en. They either were reasonably inflexible in terms of what they thought
was appropriate once they had formed a view…and they didn’t under-
stand they had a responsibility to their minister…I thought on more
than one occasion that they needed to be kicked in line a bit, especially
in relation to issues concerning women…Anything about women, well
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 15

(they thought) that was a matter for the women’s unit and the real stuff
was done in the policy area.

Women, especially those from feminist advocacy groups, were

also well represented alongside men in participation by community-
based stakeholders in both processes. A similar balance prevailed in
relation to participation by various members of the public sector and
elected officials involved in both processes. Also in both, staff from a
specialist gender equity unit established within the agency were centrally
involved. As one senior woman participant commented:
Everything was filtered through the (agency’s) women’s unit.

These staff were assisted by an expert from the sector-wide unit

responsible for gender equity.
Emotional relations: A further outstanding feature of the main-
stream and gender-specific processes in the agency was the level of
emotional solidarity that prevailed. Some gendered hostility erupted
when the male-dominated policy making unit was reorganised to
make it more gender-balanced. However, the relations between all the
women involved and the men in senior managerial and advisory posi-
tions, especially the minister, were friendly and respectful. Relation-
ships among the women involved were similarly supportive, as were
those that prevailed among the minister and the most senior men.
Understandings of gender and gender equity: Arguably the most
significant dimension of these two agency-based processes was the
dominant understanding of gender and its relevance to both policies.
All the women and the senior men, especially the minister and his most
senior consultant adviser, agreed that gender involved unequal partici-
pation by men and women in social life that disadvantaged women.
They believed that this was a central issue for mainstream as well as
gender-specific policy. According to one of the most senior women
involved in drafting the mainstream policy:
the real catalyst for the gender equity provisions in the (mainstream poli-
cy) was the minister’s most senior consultant adviser. (He was a specialist
technician employed at professorial level.)…He said to the minister, let’s
not make gender equity something we tack on but something as embed-
ded within the provisions of the policy itself.

All the women participants and the senior men interviewed also
16 - Schofield and Goodwin

agreed that the agency’s policy-making processes had discriminated

against women in the past, and that there was a need in the generic and
gender-specific processes to include both women and men. Though
a technocratic discourse was used in the generic policy to formulate
the problem and strategies to address it, this did not exclude gender
equality and the advancement of women’s interests as a primary objec-
tive. This was closely linked to, and informed by, further refinement
and development in the gender-specific policy.
Prospects for Advancing Gender Equality
Policy making in the economic services agency was characterised by
a gender division of labour and relations of power and authority that
produced a rough gender parity. Feminist understandings of gender
equality were integrated in both mainstream and gender-specific poli-
cies. On the basis of these features, such a policy-making regime could
be described as one that had successfully “gender mainstreamed”.
However, given the significant feminist criticisms that gender main-
streaming has attracted (Staudt 2003; Bacchi and Eveline 2004), it is
important to emphasise that the mainstreaming of gender involved
in these policy-making processes featured systematic integration of
women’s policy machinery and other feminist measures.
Staff from the agency’s women’s policy unit participated throughout
both policy-making processes. They were assisted by a senior manager
from the public sector’s central women’s office. Community-based
feminist advocates worked closely with these agencies in participating in
both processes. High-level feminist political support was also engaged
with the participation of senior women parliamentarians in endorsing
the policies, especially in relation to the advancement of women’s inter-
ests, and in supporting their carriage through legislative processes.
It may be said from the analysis of the gender regime in the
economic service policy-making processes that the overriding gender
dynamic that emerged was therefore one of feminist gender mainstreaming.
Such a regime exemplifies the ways in which public policy-making
processes can maximise opportunities for and minimise constraints on
action to advance gender equality and women’s interests.

What Works in Advancing Gender Equality in Policy

Making
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 17

Several significant conclusions can be drawn from this study. The most
obvious is that the relationship between gender and the policy-making
process is not uniform across public sector policy making. Gender
operates in diverse and specific ways within policy making, both main-
stream and gender-specific. This specificity derives from the ways in
which participation and the exercise of power and authority in policy
formation are organised, combined with the mode of conceptualisation
and analysis of the problem of gender, and the kinds of emotional
associations that are made in the process.
Each particular regime identified provides a map of the gender
dynamics at play in any given policy-making field. It charts the struc-
tures that shape the opportunities for and constraints on policy practice
to advance gender equality. It allows analysts to evaluate the prospects
for gender change through policy-making processes.
A second major conclusion generated by the study concerns the
type of gender regime in policy making that is most likely to support
action towards the advancement of gender equality. In this study, the
“feminist gender mainstreaming” regime in the economic services
policy-making processes was the most conducive. The “masculine
hegemony” of the mainstream policy-making processes in the human
service agencies, by comparison, offered the least prospects.
In terms of identifying specific conditions for advancing gender
equality and women’s interests in policy-making processes, the study’s
findings suggest that no one condition is sufficient. Rather, a combination
is required. In this case, the combination was characterised by:
• approximate parity in women’s and men’s participation at all
levels;
• an integrated approach to policy making such that mainstream policy
is developed co-extensively with gender-specific policy and vice-
versa;
• participation by community-based, feminist advocacy groups
throughout the process;
• engagement throughout of gender equity/feminist policy
machinery in both generic and gender-specific policy processes;
• active and unequivocal support for the advancement of gender
equality and women’s interests in policy making by the most senior
figures involved, both in elected and appointed positions;
18 - Schofield and Goodwin

• adoption of feminist understandings of the problem of gender

inequality as acceptable conceptual currency in the formulation
of policy, both mainstream and gender-specific.

Implications for Policy Makers: A New Approach and

Language for Understanding Gender and Policy Making
The GEPI project was not simply designed to generate new ideas and
insights into gender dynamics in public institutions. One of its main
intentions was to identify approaches and methods that could be devel-
oped to bring about change towards the goal of gender equality. In this
regard, the study of gender dynamics and policy making involved the
application of a conceptual approach that had not been tried before,
and the development of a new language that could be applied to specific
public sector settings.
This approach and language has been introduced to feminist prac-
titioners but in a very limited way to date. For example, the NSW TAFE
Women’s Advisory Group and gender equity unit have participated
in workshops on the gender regimes approach in the public sector.
Reflecting on their own experience, these practitioners have been able
to identify examples of masculine hegemony, and of feminist pres-
ence and masculinist backlash; and they have made clear distinctions
between gender mainstreaming and feminist gender mainstreaming.
They have applied the tools that the model offers for understanding
the gendered character of the specific policy-making processes with
which they are involved by asking: who are the main participants? who
exercises power and authority? what sorts of emotional relations exist
between men and women? how are gender and gender equity/equality
understood and represented?

Conclusions
Advancing gender equality in public policy making demands the
development of a thoroughgoing understanding of the gender poli-
tics involved in the process. The findings of the study on which this
paper is based suggest that gender politics are shaped by the gender
dynamics that prevail in the social relations and practices that consti-
tute the policy-making process. Significantly, gender dynamics and,
 Gender Politics and Public Policy Making - 19

in turn, gender politics, are not generalised and uniform throughout

the public sector. Their diversity is patterned according to the specific
configurations of gendered organisational practices associated with
the division of labour, the relations of power and authority, emotional
relations and symbolic representations that characterise policy making
processes. Specific configurations of gendered practice – or gender
regimes – in policy making produce both opportunities for and barriers
to the advancement of gender equality.
The approach and method developed in the course of the study
may be adopted by policy makers and researchers to analyse and
identify the gender politics associated with policy making in specific
public sector settings and, on this basis, to determine the viability for
advancing gender equality.

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all the colleagues and participants in the GEPI
Project, and the various funding bodies that permitted it to be
undertaken, primarily the Australian Research Council and the NSW
Premier’s Department. We are especially indebted to Raewyn Connell
who worked closely with us in producing continuity between her paper
and ours. The opinions expressed in the paper, and any flaws or errors,
however, are entirely ours.

Endnotes
1. According to the researchers, “positive policy outcomes” in policy making are
those that advance gender equality and are indicated by: the inclusion of demands by
women’s movement actors in a final policy decision, and the introduction of gender
into policy debate by a women’s policy agency.
2. The term, “mainstream”, appears in quotation marks here to indicate our reserva-
tions about the extent to which such policies are sufficiently inclusive of women’s
needs and interests to justify their description as mainstream.

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