Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RE-WIRING (Realising Girls’ and Women's Inclusion, Representation and Empowerment)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-05-31
To prevent and reverse inequalities and promote girls’ and women’s inclusion, representation and empowerment, the root causes of gendered power hierarchies and gender gaps across political, social, economic and cultural spheres have to be identified. RE-WIRING’s aim is to contribute to practical, sustainable and structural institutional change, through evidence-based understanding of cumulative effects of gender stereotyping underlying gendered power hierarchies and multiple forms of discrimination and disadvantages. RE-WIRING project develops innovative responses to the challenge to properly identify how the interrelations of power and barriers shape gender (in)equality and exclusion within different spheres and how these can be effectively changed. The project thus aims to ‘re-wire’ institutions so as to dismantle the structural root causes of gendered power hierarchies, by
(i) developing a new theoretical approach, including the institutional, experiential and symbolic levels of gender (in)equality in the spheres of decision-making, laws and policies, work, enterprise, education and media. A Transformative Equality Approach (TEA) is developed, which adds to the state-of-the-art mono-disciplinary approaches, by integrating amongst others legal, political science, economic, gender studies and social sciences perspectives on gender inequality and exclusion.
(ii) taking intersectionality, culture and crises into account as relevant contextual factors for making such an approach as effective as possible across different groups, place and time. Second, the project develops and tests this TEA with a variety of stakeholders and co-creates practical solutions with them, innovative tools and policy responses for the effective mainstreaming of transformative equality in public and private institutions.
Extensive research is done in six countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Poland and the UK, in collaboration with different stakeholders. The methods include qualitative data collection, media discourse analysis, legal policy analysis, surveys, interviews and other interventions, including exhibitions.
(i) developing a new theoretical approach, including the institutional, experiential and symbolic levels of gender (in)equality in the spheres of decision-making, laws and policies, work, enterprise, education and media. A Transformative Equality Approach (TEA) is developed, which adds to the state-of-the-art mono-disciplinary approaches, by integrating amongst others legal, political science, economic, gender studies and social sciences perspectives on gender inequality and exclusion.
(ii) taking intersectionality, culture and crises into account as relevant contextual factors for making such an approach as effective as possible across different groups, place and time. Second, the project develops and tests this TEA with a variety of stakeholders and co-creates practical solutions with them, innovative tools and policy responses for the effective mainstreaming of transformative equality in public and private institutions.
Extensive research is done in six countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Poland and the UK, in collaboration with different stakeholders. The methods include qualitative data collection, media discourse analysis, legal policy analysis, surveys, interviews and other interventions, including exhibitions.
The project management infrastructure has been established (WP 9 and 10). Also, the multidisciplinary theoretical basis of the RE-WIRING TEA has been laid, by determining, (i) the taxonomy of concepts of gendered power hierarchies, (ii) the ethics of doing research on gender and (iii) the research and methodology template comprising the RE-WIRING Checklist and Implementation Strategy (WP1). Root causes of and transformative equality approaches towards enhancing women’s representation in decision-making and leadership have been identified. Gendered law- and policymaking processes, their root causes and outcomes have been analysed and compared and a policy checklist to address them has been made. In the domain of education, the institutional, experiential and symbolic agents in educational choices were identified and tools aiming at de-biasing gendered educational choices have been compared (WP 3). A systematic literature review mapped and analysed existing practices successfully addressing the gender gap in representation in the finance, sustainability, and health sectors (WP 4). The planning of exhibitions about unstereotyping gender and workplace is in an advanced stage (WP 5). A case study template has been designed to investigate the impacts of the climate, financial and health crises on advancing gender equality and women’s inclusion and empowerment (WP 6). The comparative review of selected sectors of work is in the starting up phase (WP 7). For all work packages, relevant stakeholders have been mapped, at national, European and international levels (WP8).
The results so far underscore the great need to shift the focus to institutions’ responsibility to implement a multidisciplinary transformative equality approach to remedy structural root causes of gender inequality, as they reveal that current approaches and solutions are still predominantly geared towards ‘fixing the women’ and putting the burden of change primarily on them. A lack of institutional awareness, commitment, appropriate infrastructure, funding, knowledge and expertise has also been established throughout the different researched spheres.
The findings are also indicative of persisting lacks to properly take into account the intersectional, decolonial and crisis dimensions of gender equality in law- and policymaking, education, work and enterprise and art and media representations. The RE-WIRING research identifies different pathways to make these dimensions part of the analysis of and solutions to gender inequality, exclusion and disempowerment.
The theoretical, multidisciplinary RE-WIRING TEA provides enhanced scholarly underpinning of transformative equality approaches that are being developed in the past years by various international bodies, including the OECD and UN Women. In cocreation with these stakeholders, we works towards the establishment of a practical policy approach for the effective implementation of the RE-WIRING TEA.
In the next steps of the project, it is key to further enhance the direct engagement with business stakeholders and to build further institutional support to develop and co-create a variety of tools for the effective implementation of the RE-WIRING TEA. In the longer run, there will also be a need for further research into the analysis of their effectiveness in practice and to expand the spheres covered.
Another key step would be further investigation into the harmful genderedness of both EU and national law- and policymaking and how this can be counteracted.
The findings are also indicative of persisting lacks to properly take into account the intersectional, decolonial and crisis dimensions of gender equality in law- and policymaking, education, work and enterprise and art and media representations. The RE-WIRING research identifies different pathways to make these dimensions part of the analysis of and solutions to gender inequality, exclusion and disempowerment.
The theoretical, multidisciplinary RE-WIRING TEA provides enhanced scholarly underpinning of transformative equality approaches that are being developed in the past years by various international bodies, including the OECD and UN Women. In cocreation with these stakeholders, we works towards the establishment of a practical policy approach for the effective implementation of the RE-WIRING TEA.
In the next steps of the project, it is key to further enhance the direct engagement with business stakeholders and to build further institutional support to develop and co-create a variety of tools for the effective implementation of the RE-WIRING TEA. In the longer run, there will also be a need for further research into the analysis of their effectiveness in practice and to expand the spheres covered.
Another key step would be further investigation into the harmful genderedness of both EU and national law- and policymaking and how this can be counteracted.