State Transformation: Creating a Women’s Policy Machinery Infrastructure

Abstract

Feminist theories of the state are broadly divided between those that conceptualize the state as “a masculine construct, which offers nothing to women,” and those who view the state “as the primary terrain in the struggles for the advancement of women” (Craske, 1999: 84). Whereas some studies emphasize the resources the state can offer women (e.g., women’s refuges, health clinics, childcare facilities) (e.g., O’Connor et al., 1999), others focus on the constraints women face within male-dominated bureaucracies, especially their concentration within caring-related ministries and in lower professional ranks (e.g., Staudt, 1997; Stevenson, 2000). As Rai suggests, “the state is a fractured and ambiguous terrain for women, needing complex negotiation and bargaining by those working within its boundaries, as well as those on the outside” (2003: 19). Straddling this complexity, WPMs have been identified as an important tool for advancing women’s status and challenging gender hierarchies:

Before ordinary officials could not understand what we [femocrats] were talking about, but after the establishment of the Women’s Focal Points they try to listen and even ask for idea … I think women’s leadership in the focal points is essential … Men cannot understand women’s issues as women do because they do not lead women’s lives. We have our own experiences and that kind of experience makes a person persuasive.

Nam, 2001 interview