What are the origins of gender mainstreaming?
To start, the concept of gender mainstreaming originated in a women’s and development policy context, notably in the World Conferences on Women in the 1980s and 1990s. In these contexts women discussed the fact that achieving gender equality and developing equal opportunities between the genders cannot solely be accomplished through policies for women and/or families, but that elements of these concepts must be integrated into all fields of politics – thus the term mainstreaming. Mainstreaming means integration into the prevailing structures, thus it is nothing less than introducing such gender policies as a point of intersection across all political arenas. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 marked a milestone – it was a huge success for international women’s policies and the trigger for countless national initiatives for more gender equality and equal opportunity. Not only is the principle of gender mainstreaming anchored in the Beijing Platform for Action, but i
