Gender Mainstreaming

The international term gender mainstreaming can be translated as the guiding principle of gender justice. The guiding principle of gender justice aims at taking into account the different effects on the life situations of women and men in all social and political projects.

This approach, for which the term gender mainstreaming has become internationally established since the United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995, is based on the realisation that there is no gender-neutral reality and that men and women can be affected in very different ways by political and administrative decisions. Obligations to implement an effective gender equality policy in the sense of gender mainstreaming arise from both international law and national constitutional law.

On the one hand, gender mainstreaming is enshrined in the Treaty of the European Union (EU). On the other hand, the German Basic Law stipulates the state's obligation to specifically promote equal rights for women and men. In 2020, the Federal Government adopted for the first time a cross-departmental gender equality strategy that formulates the gender equality policy goals of the entire Federal Government and specifies measures for their implementation.

In order to determine the current status of gender equality in Germany and to gain new impetus for gender equality policy, the Federal Government has commissioned an expert commission to prepare an expert report for the Federal Government's Gender Equality Report every legislative period since 2008.
[Source: Gender Mainstreaming - BMFSFJ]