Today, the implications of gross gender oppression for peace and human security have come into sharp focus. As persistent gender inequalities continue we need to rethink concepts and strategies for promoting women’s dignity and rights. National security interests, when they are defined narrowly as military security fundamentally thwart emerging notions of human security. The latter emphasizes sustainable development, gender justice, human rights, and democracy….
In governmental and non-governmental organizations, efforts toward organizational change for gender equality have often involved putting in place gender-equitable policies, organizational mechanisms to steer this work, building specialist technical expertise for gender equality work, and advocating greater resource allocation to women’s programs and women’s interests – what we call the four holy cows of gender work…
However, many of us have come to believe that we need to think more deeply about institutions, that is, the rules of the game underlying organizational forms. Just as you don’t ‘add the idea that the world is round to the idea that the world is flat’ (Minnich, 1995) — trying to ‘add gender’ to the existing structure and work of organizations is ultimately futile. We have set out therefore to review illustrative interventions of organizational change for gender equality, to analyze useful conceptual and methodological approaches, and to offer some key perspectives on how to move the work forward, drawing on our experiences and writings and those of colleagues. It is important to acknowledge that the particular significance of these issues will depend on local histories, contexts and conditions. Nevertheless we believe that by identifying important linkages in different contexts we can deepen our understanding and articulate new questions to further the overall process.