Resistance to Implementing Gender Mainstreaming in EU Research Policy

This article analyzes the implementation of gender mainstreaming in the European Union through the study of ‘resistance’ to gender equality initiatives in the EU research policy. Contributing to feminist institutionalist theories, it identifies resistance to gender initiatives within the Directorate General Research and Innovation, showing that there have been obstacles to an effective implementation of gender mainstreaming in the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme (FP6). It is argued that the encountered resistances reveal tensions between the European Commission’s official mandate of mainstreaming gender equality into all policies and its actual implementation, which results in the evaporation of transformative gender equality goals. To operationalise the analysis, a typology of ‘resistances’ was developed that is briefly presented in the article.