Critiques and Challenges in Contemporary Gender Training

Abstract

This chapter sets out the key critiques of gender training from the academic literature, such as the claim that gender training has become a ‘normalising technology’ (Davids and van Eerdewijk in: Bustelo et al. (Eds.) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender Expertise, Palgrave Macmillan, Abingdon and New York, 2016, 87) or that debates over gender inequalities are pushed from the realm of politics into the realm of expertise (Kunz in: Bustelo et al. (Eds.) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender Expertise, Palgrave Macmillan, Abingdon and New York, 2016). In response to these critiques, the chapter engages substantively with some of the key challenges of gender training from the perspective of reflexive practice, exploring some of the issues that stop gender training contributing to transformative change. The main point highlighted here is the need to work strategically within the constraints of gender training processes and scenarios.