This project seeks to shape the lobbying strategy for the adoption of gender mainstreaming in US policy.
Left to right: Jennifer Piscopo, Nancy Cohen and Natalia Vega Varela
Award: Flexible Funding
Academic: Professor Jennifer Piscopo
Department: PIR
Context and Underpinning Research
Jennifer’s recent work looks at Gender Mainstreaming (GM) implementation during the COVID-19 response recovery. As part of this work, she has analysed GM templates used by the Canadian federal government as well as by EU member states. The findings from these analyses suggest that disaggregating budget expenditures by gender results in more funding for social insurance and other programs that benefit women.
Project Overview
Jennifer partnered with the Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI) - the United States’ first think tank dedicated to implementing GM. GM requires policymakers to evaluate and design policies in ways that promote equity for diverse groups of women and men, and the US is among the few advanced democracies that does not use GM in policymaking. This project was therefore designed with the intention of shaping GEPI’s advocacy strategy, with the long-term aim to adopt GM in the United States, at the state and federal levels.
Outcomes and Impact
During Jennifer’s time at GEPI’s office in Los Angeles she delivered two in-person training sessions. The first explored the presence of GM across the globe, discussing examples of countries and cities that have implemented GM and to what success. The second focussed on how to conduct research on GM so that GEPI staff can better access and interpret policy documents and technical materials.
Being in Los Angeles also enabled Jennifer to work alongside GEPI’s policy director Natalia Vega Varela to co-produce a policy brief on GM across the globe. They then presented the brief to GEPI’s president, leading to a series of dynamic revisions and collaborations, made possible by working together in person.
SSIA funding has allowed the project team to produce the brief as well as promote the brief to American audiences. A key step in using the brief as an advocacy tool is getting media attention as well as convincing policymakers to ‘take the meeting’. This strategy includes receiving media training and coaching alongside public relations support to generate media coverage and media interviews. GEPI contracts a media consultant to facilitate the public relations strategy and SSIA funding was crucial to covering this cost.
Next steps:
Jennifer and the team at GEPI are getting ready to promote the final policy brief. If you have an interest in this research area, please get in touch with Jennifer at jennifer.piscopo@rhul.ac.uk
