Obeying organizational 'rules of relevance': Gender analysis of policy

Abstract

There is considerable research showing that gender is deemed irrelevant to organizations and to policy. This paper examines the results of a research project that sought to reverse those 'rules of relevance'. The project required policy actors in several public sector organizations to undertake a gender analysis of their policies. We found that it was through the collaborative work of doing the gender analysis that policy actors came to see why such an analysis was needed. This necessarily meant seeing the relevance of gender to the policies they dealt with, which could also highlight gender bias in their organizations. Yet, a bureaucratic and gendered division of labour ensured that those who got to do the gender analysis were those in relatively powerless positions, predominantly women. We draw on the 'turn to practice' in organizational studies and feminist strategies of 'sudden seeing' to consider what our results might offer future projects of gender analysis and organizational intervention.