The Flexit project, funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, started on March 1, 2023, and is a collaboration between the researcher and a host organization. In this case, the host organization is the municipality of Lund, which is also co-funding the project. When Malin Espersson arrived at the municipality, work on gender mainstreaming had already begun. The model is based on the premise that gender equality should be an integral part of the governance and management of the organization, rather than something that is handled separately.
“The problem is that you lose focus on the actual gender equality challenges in the organization. What problems do we have? What issues are important in our municipality? Instead, work is put into producing statistics, policies, and action plans, and never gets to working on the actual challenges,” says Espersson.
Espersson conducted an ethnographic study in which she followed public servants, participated in meetings, and analysed documents. She realized early on that there were too few people actively working on gender mainstreaming and that the commitment from management and politicians was low. To get a broader perspective, she interviewed public servants and politicians from other municipalities and regions, which gave a more nuanced picture.
"Something that came up time and time again was that there was a lot of talk about how important gender equality is, and when the organizations presented their progress at the learning meetings, everything seemed to be hunky-dory. But in interviews with public servants without decision-making influence, there was a unanimous feeling that they faced challenges in their work, with little support and low commitment from politicians and managers. They work in isolation and spend much of their time trying to understand the context and boost motivation and commitment in their organizations"
She describes the phenomenon as “hypocrisy” – when organizations maintain an image of being committed to a particular issue or task, even though the practical work is not leading to progress. Politicians' words and decisions did not lead to them acting in accordance with them. Instead, gender equality became a problem that was managed, rather than solved.
"Since public servants are the ones who most clearly drive the issue of gender mainstreaming, they become the bearers of hypocrisy. Instead of their work leading to change, it is used as a way to maintain the legitimacy of the organization, where the impression and image to the outside world are more important than solving the challenges."
How can organizations get away from this?
”If you are serious about increasing gender equality, you must first look at the challenges. It is a matter of political priorities and resource allocation. It would be better for organizations to start with a challenge and solve the problems from that angle, rather than trying to solve it through governance and management processes”.
The first article about the project, The Hypocrisy of Gender Mainstreaming in Public Administration, has been published in the journal Gender Work & Organisation. The article can be read online here.
