State intervention and families definitions in Argentina Social Policies: Gender mainstreaming and its local translations

AGUILAR, PAULA LUCIA

Montreal, Canada

Congreso; Social Policies: Local Experiments, Travelling Ideas; 2009

International Sociology Association Research Comitee 19

This paper seeks to understand which are the consequences of gender categories being increasingly incorporated to Social Policies. It is divided in four sections. In the first part I give a brief account of the introduction of women and inequality – later identified with gender – into the development discourse and the rise and spread of gender mainstreaming as a broaden strategy of addressing social problems. In the second section, I give a short review of the institutionalization of “gender expertise” in Argentina, and its effects in feminist field of action. Third, I examine three dimensions (personal trajectories, policy diffusion patterns and cultural translation) that can help to understand the process of incorporation of gender as traveling idea to academic and social policy realms. To conclude, the paper draws attention to the importance of gender as category for critical analysis and broader terms of cultural translation political challenges