ACT on Resistance to Gender Equality

Research has identified how gender equality initiatives and policies in R&I can often fail during the phase of implementation (Palmén and Kalpazidou Schmidt, 2019) thereby resulting in an absence of deep-seated change and the failure to effectively challenge gender norms (Powell et al, 2018). In the phase of implementation resistance has been identified as one of the main reasons as to why gender equality initiatives in R&I may fail to create and sustain effective change. This often manifests itself through the all too discernable gap between ‘saying’ and ‘doing’ (Powell et al, 2018). Whilst there seems to be a general consensus as to the benefits of a greater gender equality at the level of discourse it is often at the level of actions or practice that these initiatives begin to run into a series of problems that stymie their potential to effect real change, one of the most important being resistance.