ABSTRACT

As an emergent international norm, gender sensitive parliaments offer parliamentarians and parliamentary staff a new lens through which to consider all aspects of their institutional culture and work practices. In this article, I consider the origins, application and remaining gaps in one particular aspect of gender sensitive parliaments: gender mainstreaming legislation across its entire ‘life cycle’. I begin with a reminder of the international mandates for gender sensitive legislation (GSL), acknowledging a historical emphasis on the responsibility of political institutions to ensure legislation, policy and programmes address – rather than exacerbate – gender inequality. I then assess the tools that have been developed over the past 20 years to support GSL and discuss enduring limitations in its implementation, relating to political will, the collection and analysis of quality data, and inadequate parliamentary opportunities and mechanisms for gender sensitive scrutiny.

摘要

作为一项新兴的国际规范，对性别问题敏感的议会为议员和议会工作人员提供了一个新的视角来考虑其机构文化和工作实践的各个方面。在这篇文章中，我考虑了性别敏感议会的一个特定方面的起源、应用和仍然存在的差距：贯穿其整个“生命周期”的性别主流化立法。我首先要提醒人们注意性别敏感立法 (GSL) 的国际授权，承认历史上强调政治机构有责任确保立法、政策和计划解决——而不是加剧——性别不平等。然后，我评估了过去 20 年来为支持 GSL 而开发的工具，并讨论了其实施中与政治意愿相关的持久限制，