Mobilising, and shifting norms and behaviours for gender equality

Abstract

This study examines the mobilisation and shifting of norms and behaviours for gender equality in the African Union (AU). By focusing on mobilising and implementing the AU Women’s Decade 2010-2020, this thesis surfaces African women’s ideas, voices and actions in the defining of gender equality for African women across multiple arenas – AU Member States and transnational women-focused civil society organisations. Using liberal feminist and social constructivist theories, the study surfaces how multilateral institutions, like the African Union, can be socialised for gender equality. The findings of this study show that transnational women-focused civil society is important in placing gender into the agenda, providing the AU with grassroot perspectives of the challenges that face African women, and to monitor the implementation of gender equality programmes. The study finds that African women have succeeded in mobilising within their states, across states and across multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, to ensure that gender equality is a principle by which the AU defines itself in the context of a liberal international order. While the norm of gender equality has been codified, there remains a wide gap between codification and implementation. This study finds that the absence of concrete measurements of implementation to assess the performance of member-states and the lack of funding for the Women’s Decade 2010-2020, shows the lack of political will to achieve gender equality. Thus, failure to deliver the objectives of the Women’s Decade shows the “add and stir” approach to gender mainstreaming, where gender is added into the agenda of the AU without significant shifts in the behaviour to transform heteropatriarchal institutional cultures and practices. Therefore, the study shows African women have socialised the AU to codified gender equality, while substantive gender equality and feminist multilateralism remains elusive.