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Obeying organizational ‘rules of relevance’: Gender analysis of policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Joan Eveline  and
Carol Bacchi
Joan Eveline
Affiliation:
UWA Business School, University of Western Australia, Crawley WA, Australia
Carol Bacchi
Affiliation:
Politics Discipline, School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA, Australia
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Abstract

There is considerable research showing that gender is deemed irrelevant to organizations and to policy. This paper examines the results of a research project that sought to reverse those ‘rules of relevance’. The project required policy actors in several public sector organizations to undertake a gender analysis of their policies. We found that it was through the collaborative work of doing the gender analysis that policy actors came to see why such an analysis was needed. This necessarily meant seeing the relevance of gender to the policies they dealt with, which could also highlight gender bias in their organizations. Yet, a bureaucratic and gendered division of labour ensured that those who got to do the gender analysis were those in relatively powerless positions, predominantly women. We draw on the ‘turn to practice’ in organizational studies and feminist strategies of ‘sudden seeing’ to consider what our results might offer future projects of gender analysis and organizational intervention.

Keywords

Gender mainstreamingPublic sector organizationsGender relevanceSudden seeingGender analysis of policyGender lensGender blindness
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 15 , Issue 5 , November 2009 , pp. 566 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2009

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Footnotes

†

Joan Eveline died on 8 July 2009, sadly prior to publication of this, her last journal article (though she did know that it was coming out in this issue). Joan’s important work on gender mainstreaming, including this article, will appear in a forthcoming (2010) book entitled Mainstreaming Politics: Gendering Practices and Feminist Theory (Adelaide SA: University of Adelaide Press). Queries about the book may be directed to Carol Bacchi (carol.bacchi@adelaide.edu.au)

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