While attending the 2012 Executive Yuan High-level Forum on Gender Equality today, Premier Sean Chen said gender mainstreaming is not simply a concept but a dynamic process for building equality between women and men. The forum, organized in the theme of a "World Cafe," brought together ROC government officials for vigorous discussions on assessing, incorporating and implementing the concept in public policies.
The idea of gender mainstreaming was first proposed in 1985 at the U.N.'s Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, and later featured as a formal concept in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, said the premier. It is a strategy for addressing inequality between the genders in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels. Governments should actively promote mainstreaming gender perspectives in all policies and programs so that an analysis is made of the effects on women and men before decisions are made.
The premier remarked that when a society develops to a certain level, it becomes necessary to take action to foster gender mainstreaming. Even the United States Military Academy at West Point, for instance, has begun incorporating the views of female cadets to promote better leadership, said Chen.
According to the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, today's event is the first Executive Yuan forum for high-level officials focusing on gender mainstreaming. Participants discussed such issues as government assistance for female entrepreneurs and job seekers, and recommendations on eliminating gender-based discrimination.