According to the Council of Europe, “Gender mainstreaming is the (re) organization, improvement, development and evaluation of decision-making processes, with the aim of incorporating the perspective of equality between women and men in all fields and at all levels, by the actors generally involved in the implementation of policies”.
“Gender mainstreaming” therefore implies that we take into account the differences socially constructed between men and women, as well as their potential impact, in all areas and at every stage of the policy process – development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Indeed, political decisions still apply to men and women and it often happens that a male perception of things implicitly influences political decisions. In other words, each political decision includes a gender dimension, the impact of which must be assessed positive or negative terms, so that decisions are made with full knowledge of the facts.
A policy that integrates the gender dimension is a policy within the framework of which the situation of the women and men concerned has been examined in a comparative manner, any inequalities between the sexes have been identified, and an attempt has been made to reduce or eliminate them.
This innovative and ambitious approach, which aims to concretely strengthen the equality of women and men while improving public power assessment skills has been consecrated by many international bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union or the Council of Europe.
