Gender in Public Administration, Brazil

Synonyms

Feminism; Gender equality; Public policy; Representative burocracy; Women; Women’s rights

Definition

Gender in public administration refers to institutional arrangements to implement public policies to ensure just opportunities for men and women, to promote women’s rights, and to guarantee equal representation in the public sector.

Introduction

The concept of gender was first used as a tool to express social relation between men and women and organization of knowledge in the 1980s in Social Sciences, especially in feminist studies (Scott 1986). In the center of the discussion are the oppression and subordination that women have been historically submitted in their relation to men. Another important concept to understand when discussing gender inequality is intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberle Creenshaw, law professor, to bring light to the varied types of oppression women experience according to their race, sexual orientation, class, and other dimensions of identity....