Gender mainstreaming of an activity commonly entails a number of strategic choices regarding what to do and how to organise the work.
Some choices are easy and require little reflection. Others may, at first glance, seem almost impossible.
Researchers who monitored the Programme for Sustainable Gender Equality (run by the Swedish Association of Local and Regional Authorities) identified certain questions that lacked simple solutions and have, instead, come to be regarded as continuous dilemmas in gender mainstreaming.
No right and wrong
There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ solution to these dilemmas. The most productive approach in these cases has been to reflect regularly on the various advantages and disadvantages of different approaches and, through practical efforts, seek to achieve a balance between them.
For development to be sustainable, i.e. bringing long-term effects rather than just short-term results, dilemmas must be tackled with care.
It is not a matter of ‘either… or…’ choices. Instead, the solution usually involves ’both… and…’, i.e. overcoming and remedying the contradiction pinpointed by the dilemma.