Nurses’ Perspectives on Gender Equality Policies During the COVID-19 Response Phase

The European Union (EU) has been characterized as a “gender regime” with its distinctive patterns of gender (in)equalities and path dependencies. Gender equality policies have developed as a genuine policy field over the past decades from a single treaty article to a comprehensive legal and political framework dealing with multiple sources of discrimination. Besides, gender equality policies are frequently linked to other political projects and policy goals. Gender equality is often presented as a foundational value of the EU with reference to the Treaties of Amsterdam and Lisbon. Research has pointed out that it is an important aspect of the foundational myth of the EU. The development of gender equality policies has been characterized by alternations between progress and stagnation. These policies are also met by resistance. However, a general conclusion is that EU institutions have been important catalysts in shaping women’s economic, political, and social equality in Europe and in putting equality rights into effect. Historical, political, and sociological interpretations of the EU’s gender equality policies illustrate these dynamics. Gender equality policies are described in terms of the following phases: the 1970s (associated with women’s civil and economic rights and equal treatment), the 1980s (equal opportunities, positive action), and the 1990s (gender mainstreaming in the whole union and for all policy areas). Since the 2000s, a fourth phase of new policies against multiple discrimination has been developing. These different stages of EU gender policy continue to coexist. When the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force in 1999, the EU committed to a new approach to work for gender equality through mainstreaming. Gender equality and nondiscrimination became guiding legal principles of the union. The Treaty of Lisbon reflects core vaues of the EU such as democracy, human rights and gender equality. One can approach gender equality policies as situated between concerns for gender equality and multiple discrimination on the one hand and priorities of economy and finance on the other. Critical voices in the literature have pointed out that these priorities have outperformed ideas about gender equality. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, EU austerity policies represent a “critical juncture” that could undo the long-term progress achieved in gender equality in Europe. Besides, gender equality policies suffer from a gap between institutionalization on the one hand and a lack of consistency and full political commitment on the other. In a context of a more permanent crisis scenario in the EU, gender equality policies are undergoing transformations and they are subject to change to the worse. A key point is that dynamic gender relations, multiple discrimination, and women’s various roles in society matter for understanding the EU and European integration. This raises questions about the EU’s role as a driving force for gender equality and against multiple discrimination. What happened to gender equality policies and to gendered effects of other policies as a result of the various crises in the EU?

Gleichstellungspolitik in der Schweiz: Einführung in ein umstrittenes PolitikfeldFuchs, GesineOpladen, Verlag Barbara Budrich (2019), 263 p., ISBN 978‐3‐8474‐0

Similar to many creative (and other) industries, the film and television industries have for long been permeated by male norms, and by the male worker as the norm. In this context, women workers have always been considered "oddities" – unless they have acted in front of the camera. To a large extent, women have been (and still are) image (Fischer, 1976; Mulvey, 1975). Women's work behind the camera have been counteracted, not least through efforts to exclude them from positions characterized as "creative" or "above-the-line" such as director, producer, and script writer. Further, women have been met with pervading difficulties in allocating finances for their projects and with circumscribed possibilities to have their work screened in the cinema. And although (a few) women are key through their function as "image," films with a woman protagonist are usually provided with a lesser budget than films with a male lead, and women actors get distinctly less paid than their male counterparts (SFI, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2017/08/22/full-list-the-worlds-highest-paid-actors-and-actresses-2017/?sh=2e1c961f3751). Let us give an example of the former: in the Swedish film industry, recently hailed worldwide of being one of the most gender equal screening industries, feature films made between 2013 and 2016 differed in terms of budget depending on the whether the protagonist in a film was male or female. Films with a male lead had on average a 33% higher budget than films with a woman lead. In that same period, women feature film directors had on average a budget ranging between 66% and 86% of the budget of films with a man as director (SFI, 2018). The report published in 2018, by the Swedish Film Institute, concluded that: "[films with women in] key functions generally have overall lower budgets than men" (SFI, 2018, p. 17). Following the international impact that the #Metoo-movement has had and still has, and the recent demands for a 50/50 dispersion between men and women on above-the-line positions in the film industry, gender issues have advanced to the forefront in discussions dealing with the working situation in the film and screen industries. These discussions have appeared in various national contexts in print and social media, as well as in academic work (see, e.g., Jansson et al., 2020; Liddy, 2020; Marghitu, 2018; Meziani & Cabantous, 2020; O'Brien, 2019). It has become obvious that gender inequality pervades all screen industries, large and small, and that women screen workers in different national screen contexts share similar experiences. As film and television production is becoming more and more globalized, with single productions often being the outcome a variety of regional and national industries, finances and competences, working and gendered experiences of being in the industry are also becoming increasingly globalized. Still, there are regional and local differences in how women screen workers experience their work and career situation and these need to be addressed. There are also various aspects of screen work that remain to be tended to academically. Hence, this special section offers a sample of national and local studies that all investigate how gender and equality work is done in four different contexts. It is our hope that this small sample may inspire not only more studies of national contexts, but also inspire to future cross-national studies. Before discussing how various academic fields have engaged with the screening industries in terms of work experience and representation, we wish to point out that film and television, as two available media formats reaching large and heterogeneous audiences, constitute two of the most central expressions of our time, and that both contribute to reflect and mold our understanding of society, of others – and of ourselves (de Lauretis, 1987; Dyer, 1993). Questions about who is allowed to make film and TV and what messages and images are presented and conveyed are thus politically important and imperative. The long-standing male dominance in the industry, together with the realization that images do matter, has sparked an interest in studying gender in the screen industries. The gender conditions in the film industry have attracted scholarly attention across the variety of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities, and this special section is a vivid example of this cross-disciplinary scholarship. Three specific, but interrelated fields stand out when it comes to the study of gendered work and inequalities in these industries: production studies, management and life work studies, and studies of women's presence and conditions in screen work. In management studies and work life research, the early 2000s saw an increased interest in focusing and exploring the working conditions in the screening industries, alongside the growing interest for working experiences in what often referred to as the creative industries (see, e.g., Blair, 2001; Delmestri et al., 2005; Ebbers & Wijnberg, 2009; French, 2020; Jones & Pringle, 2015; Meziani & Cabantous, 2020; Soila-Wadman, 2003; Sörensen & Villadsen, 2014). This strand has also included a certain focus on how film can be used as a tool for instruction on how to exert leadership (see, e.g., Bell & Sinclair, 2016). Parallel to this development is the emergence of production studies, emanating from film and television studies. This field explores film and media as cultural practices of media production, and it does so from a variety of perspectives and with various methods. Of particular pertinence here is the sub-field of feminist production studies. This field engages in studying how "routines and rituals […], the economic and political forces […] shape roles, technologies, and the distribution of resources according to cultural and demographic differences" (Mayer et al., 2009, p. 4) in order to understand how "power operates locally through media production to reproduce social hierarchies and inequalities at the level of daily interaction" (Mayer, 2009, p. 15). One of the field's most important contributions here is the critique of the "auteurist" view that films are the "voice" of one single artist, most often the director. Instead, they argue that films are the result of collective work. Departing from this insight, production studies scholars have noted the importance of studying the work that is carried out in the margins, to question the differentiation between "creative" and "craft" professions in film making, and to pay attention to the work done "below-the-line" by workers in the film industry who are seldom credited, but without whose work films would not be produced (see, e.g., Banks, 2009, 2018; Banks et al., 2016; Mayer, 2009, 2011; Mayer et al., 2009). Alongside these two areas of research, there is a third, and more recent, strand that is dedicated to studying women's presence, analyzing policy measures targeting gender (in)equality along with studying impediments to gender equality in the film industry and women's conditions in a male dominated screening industry. This strand of research comes out of feminist media studies as a rather broad field, encompassing both the humanities and the social sciences. While research in both management studies and productions studies constitute important foundations for any research conducted on gender and screen work, for this special section, it is this third strand that is of most relevance, taken that it embraces and explores both local and the global aspects of women's conditions in the male dominated screening industries. Let us therefore shortly present this strand a bit more – and the issues it has raised – in order to give a contextualization of this special section and its four articles. Studies of women's presence in the film industry have mapped the number of women behind the camera, sometimes also including an intersectional analysis and identified gendered budget-gaps and other impediments to gender equality (Cobb, 2020; Lauzen, 2019; Liddy, 2020; Smith et al., 2013). Much of this research is conducted in the United States, discussing the conditions in a film industry that is exclusively driven by private, and most often commercial, stakeholders. In other commercially focused film centers such as Bollywood in India and Nollywood in Nigeria, women behind the screen are reported to be few and the representation of women on screen stereotypical (Mukherjee, 2018; Prakash, 2020; Ukata, 2020). In other contexts, such as Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, where there is public support for film production, gender equality is often proclaimed to be a goal. For instance, the Council of Europe (2017) declared its dedication to gender equality in film production in the so-called Sarajevo-declaration, and according to a mapping carried out by the European Audiovisual Observatory in 2019, 15 EU countries have introduced gender equality measures (EAO, 2019, p. 16). In a recent anthology collecting evidence from a number of countries, media scholar Susan Liddy concludes that while demands for gender equality has been voiced by women in all contexts, public funding institutions range from those being "gender blind… to those who theoretically commit to equality but prevaricate on the best measures to implement change to others who have introduced formal gender policies and intervention strategies" (Liddy, 2020, p. 2). Scholars have pointed to several problems with gender equality policies and reforms in the film sector: they are often vague and without a plan for implementation (Thorsen, 2020), they only reach those who are involved in projects actually funded by public means (Cobb & Williams, 2020), and they lack intersectional intention and reach (Cobb & Williams, 2020; Thorsen, 2020). Further, when reforms are implemented, problems arise because making films include a range of different stakeholders and parties, which are out of reach of government policies (Jansson, 2016), and because the film industry is entrenched with institutionalized norms and values that is difficult to change and which tend to reduce the effects of policies (Jansson, 2017; Jansson & Wallenberg, 2020). Scholars investigating women's conditions in the film industry have for a long time indicated that the way the industry is organized both formally and informally benefits white men. The sexual division of labor in the organization is manifested in women being found on positions such as script supervisors, costume designers, and make-up artists, as well as in various below-the-line positions. Many below-the-line professions are dominated by men, and the female dominated positions such as the ones mentioned above, tend to have lower status (Banks, 2009). Scholars have also noted differences in status among above-the-line professions. For instance, while male directors and scriptwriters are considered to be able to "carry" a movie, women directors and scriptwriters are not considered to do so (Bielby & Bielby, 1996, Eikhof and Cole in this issue). The trope of the male genius has been discussed as a hindrance to gender equality in several studies (see, e.g., Lantz, 2007; Marghitu, 2018; Regev, 2016; Schatz, 1988; and by Jansson et al. in this special section). Studies have also looked into how other features of the way the film industry is organized affects gender and concluded that the outcome of networking differs substantially to the favor of men (Grugulis & Stoyanova, 2012). Moreover, mothering duties limits women's possibilities in an industry where long days and extremely intense periods of work away from home are considered to be the normal procedure (Liddy, 2017; Liddy & O'Brien, 2021; O'Brien, 2015, 2019; Wing-Fai et al., 2015; Wreyford, 2013). Considering all these past (and recent) studies, there is no doubt that the screening industries – as production sites and as workplaces – are of definite interest to scholars within different disciplines. This special section aims at addressing some of the issues that recent scholarship has touched upon and tried to tackle, and it does so from four different national and cultural contexts. At the center of all four articles included in the section is the analysis of women's conditions in the screening industries, including their experiences of working and trying to get by – and of how these industries continue to foster the notion of women film workers as "oddities" in an industry that continues to uphold the idea of the genius as male. Let us now turn to the four articles included in this special section. In our first article, "The price of motherhood in the Irish film and television industries," media scholars Susan Liddy and Anne O'Brien discuss the continuous problems that surround motherhood and screen work, finding in their material evidence that there is a systemic bias against mothers, not only as women, but also as women and mothers, and that mothers have internalized the marginalization that comes from their maternal status. They have also found that many mothers adapted ways that would help them to sustain their working lives, but they were rarely supported in those adaptations by the screen production industry. In "'Almost a European, but not quite': Experiences of Female Employees in the Lithuanian Film Industry from the Postcolonial Point of View," authors Lina Kaminskaite and Jelena Salaj discuss how the women filmmakers experience their conditions in a film industry that is still marked by the transformation of Lithuania from being part of the Soviet union to becoming a country which is a member of the EU. They argue that the Lithuanian film industry is characterized by being in a postcolonial state. While the opening up of Lithuania has meant new possibilities for women film workers, it has also presented difficulties and the negotiation of new identities and new mode of film production. Doris Ruth Eikhof and Amanda Cole focus on how women are considered a risk in film production and how this leads to precarious conditions for women in the industry. In their article named, "On the basis of risk: Screen directors and gender inequality," they use the intersectional risk theory to understand how gender inequality is related to risk management practices in the screen industry. Studying two specific gender equality initiatives in the Canadian film industry, they show how risk management is gendered, and they argue that risk plays an important part in decision making in the industry. By understanding how risk is gendered, they argue, it is possible to change the processes that decides how risk is understood. The last article included in this special section departs from the much-debated aspect of film production, namely the final saying over a film's final format. In "The Final Cut," authors Maria Jansson, Frantzeska Papadopoulou, Ingrid Stigsdotter, and Louise Wallenberg discuss how the relationship between film director and producer serve to reproduce gendered relations that position the male creator and producer as norm – even in contexts where both director and producer are women. Departing from a series of interviews made with mostly women working in these two professions, the authors show how these two above-the-line professions are still governed by the malestream and that they tend to be constructed in relation to masculinity. Clearly, even in a country like Sweden, often hailed for its equality work, the gender equality measures that are undertaken are not sufficient to come to grips with gender inequalities and the male norm. Taken together the four articles shed light on different aspects of the film industry. The evidence provided from the different countries indicate that there are many similarities in the challenges that women in the film industry face. However, there are also differences depending on context. The article about Lithuania shows the importance of situating the film industry in a historical and political context. O'Brian and Liddy show in their article, the importance of understanding the specific context of how child care and the welfare state play out in order to capture women's conditions in film and television work. Eikhof and Cole's article demonstrates the necessity of applying an intersectional approach in order to also see differences in conditions between women, even if they work in the same industry and the same country. The article on Sweden, finally, looks deeper into how specific gender equality policies targeting the film industry plays out, and what problems remain, after having been implemented for almost 20 years. We believe that this special section is one step toward a deeper understanding of how gender shapes the working conditions in the film industry, and hope that it will inspire further research that takes a wider, more inclusive and possibly also more comparative grip on women screen worker's experiences and work conditions. This work was supported by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond under Grant no. P17-0079:1. No conflict of interest has been declared by the authors. The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and/or its supplementary materials.

IntroductionGendered practices of working life create gender inequalities through horizontal and vertical gender segregation in work, which may lead to inequalities in health between women and men. Gender equality could therefore be a key element of health equity in working life. Our aim was to analyze what gender (in)equality means for the employees at a woman-dominated workplace and discuss possible implications for health experiences.MethodsAll caregiving staff at two workplaces in elder care within a municipality in the north of Sweden were invited to participate in the study. Forty-five employees participated, 38 women and 7 men. Seven focus group discussions were performed and led by a moderator. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the focus groups.ResultsWe identified two themes. "Advocating gender equality in principle" showed how gender (in)equality was seen as a structural issue not connected to the individual health experiences. "Justifying inequality with individualism" showed how the caregivers focused on personalities and interests as a justification of gender inequalities in work division. The justification of gender inequality resulted in a gendered work division which may be related to health inequalities between women and men. Gender inequalities in work division were primarily understood in terms of personality and interests and not in terms of gender.ConclusionThe health experience of the participants was affected by gender (in)equality in terms of a gendered work division. However, the participants did not see the gendered work division as a gender equality issue. Gender perspectives are needed to improve the health of the employees at the workplaces through shifting from individual to structural solutions. A healthy-setting approach considering gender relations is needed to achieve gender equality and fairness in health status between women and men.

Lyčių lygybė yra siejama su lygių galimybių užtikrinimu moterims ir vyrams veikti viešojo ir privataus gyvenimo sferose. Istoriškai susiklostęs stereotipinis mąstymas ir patriarchalinės nuostatos lėmė tai, kad visuomenėje vis dar pastebima diskriminacijos apraiškų lyčių pagrindu: moterų ir vyrų atlyginimų disproporcija, nelygios galimybės įsidarbinant, retesnis moterų dalyvavimas priimant sprendimus. Lyčių lygybės problemos yra ne tik nacionalinių valstybių politinėje darbotvarkėje, bet plačiai akcentuojamos ir Europos Sąjungoje (ES), o lyčių aspekto integravimas yra vienas pagrindinių „Europa 2020“ strategijos tikslų. Lyčių balansui pasiekti įvairiose gyvenimo srityse reikia užtikrinti moterų ir vyrų lygias galimybes ne tik de jure, bet ir de facto. Lietuvoje vis daugiau dėmesio skiriama lyčių lygybės politikai, tačiau pasie­kimai šioje srityje yra vidutiniški. Skandinavijos valstybėse lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimas vyksta sklandžiai – tai turėtų tapti pavyzdžiu kitoms valstybėms. Nors vyrų ir moterų lygias galimybes Lietuvoje įtvirtinta įstatymai, o institucijos lyčių lygybės klausimams skiria vis daugiau dėmesio, tačiau lyčių lygy­bės politikos įgyvendinimas Lietuvoje nėra toks sėkmingas kaip Švedijoje. Todėl straipsnio tikslas – pa­lyginti Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės politikos įgyvendinimo panašumus ir skirtumus, atskleisti lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas Lietuvos ir Švedijos lyčių lygybės poli­tikos įgyvendinimas ir lyginami šalių lyčių lygybės politikos ypatumai. Švedija lyginamajame kontekste pasirinkta kaip gerosios praktikos pavyzdys Lietuvai. Švedijos ir Lietuvos lyčių lygybės politikos lyginimas padėjo atrasti lyčių lygybės politiką reglamentuojančių įstatymų ir juos įgyvendinančių institucijų pana­šumus ir skirtumus bei išryškinti moterų ir vyrų proporcijas valdžioje. Atlikus lyginamąją analizę pateikia­mos įžvalgos dėl priežasčių, lėmusių lyčių lygybės politikos raidą abiejose šalyse. Nors Lietuva atsižvelgia į ES lyčių lygybės politikos standartus, o teisinis lygių galimybių reglamentavimas yra panašus kaip ir Švedijoje, tačiau vis dar yra pastebimas atotrūkis tarp formalios ir realios lyčių lygybės.

This longitudinal evaluation of gender inequalities and economic growth addresses key questions in the evolving debate over the character of gender differentiation and the goals of womens empowerment. These questions include: 1) whether the impact of strategies of economic growth served to enhance or undermine the status of women; 2) whether changes in the status of women were accompanied by significant changes in gender inequality; and 3) the implications for existing debates. Section I reviews several sets of literature pertinent to the questions using three general approaches: modernization-neoclassical women in development and gender and development. Section II presents the data and methods used in the evaluation. The research assessed the contending interpretations reviewed in the first section by combining another set of cross-sectional and longitudinal data on womens status and inequalities between men and women with other existing indicators. Section III discusses the results in the following order: 1) cross-sectional patterns in womens status; 2) trends in womens status; 3) cross-sectional patterns in inequality between men and women; 4) trends in inequality between men and women; and 5) conclusion. Finally section IV presents an overall discussion of the findings of the whole longitudinal evaluation.

Understanding women’s roles, experiences and barriers to participation in ocean science education in Kenya: recommendations for better gender equality policy

Strategies to improve women's participation in politics and to promote their full citizenship not only focus on the physical presence of women on the political scene, but also address the achievement of gender equality through public policies. Public policies can indeed help women to overcome barriers to their entry in the political sphere, but they are especially targeted at achieving gender equality in society at large. For a long time, gender equality policies were limited to ensuring equal treatment of both sexes in legislation. Later on, they developed into what are often called specific gender equality policies. While the former approach was meant to correct existing discrimination (in legislation) and to make citizens formally equal, the latter recognised that equal rights do not necessarily mean equal opportunities or even equal outcome, because of the structurally different starting positions individuals face in everyday life. Specific measures, such as positive action, were introduced to mitigate structural, though not legal, inequality and to promote equality (Nelen and Hondeghem, 2000). Since the fourth UN women's conference held in Beijing in 1995, gender equality policies have increasingly been reoriented towards a broader and more structural approach of gender inequalities, with countries like the Netherlands being precursors in this field. Next to specific or targeted gender equality policies, other public policy areas are also meant to promote gender equality, not the least by recognising how previous and current policies contain biases (re)producing gender inequality and how these can be overcome. Gender mainstreaming is in sum meant to gender the mainstream public policies.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruptions in healthcare systems and societies and exacerbated existing inequalities for women and girls across every sphere. Our study explores health systems responses to gender equality goals during the COVID-19 pandemic and which role these goals play in pandemic recovery policies. Methods We apply a qualitative comparative approach. Country case studies (expert information, secondary sources) were collected in March/April 2022. The sample comprised Australia, Brazil, Germany, United Kingdom and USA, reflecting conditions of high to upper-middle income countries with established public health systems, democratic political institutions and gender equality policies. Selected topics: maternity care/reproductive services, violence against women, and gender equality/female leadership. Results All countries tried to keep essential maternity and reproductive services open, but strong limitations applied especially for prevention and counselling services; at the same time, digitalisation/telemedicine supported service expansion. Violence against women and children strongly increased during the pandemic. Routine services were partly kept open and new helplines occasionally established, but no action was taken to scale-up mental health support and respond to new demand. A push-back of gender equality was observed across countries in all areas of health and social care, often coupled with strong increase in intersecting social inequalities; participation of women in decision-making bodies was generally weak and not monitored. Conclusions Across countries, gender equality policies cracked under the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic; this is true for countries with male and female political leaders, and for different areas of SDG5 and health. There is an urgent need for more effective intersectional gender equality policies and improved participation of women in global health and in health system recovery plans. Key messages • Health systems failed to take action to protect SDG5 goals; gender and intersecting inequalities strongly increased during the pandemic. • Building back better after COVID-19 will only be possible with an intersectional gender equality programme and feminist policy approaches.

Women are an important social force that comprehensively influences the country's development. Therefore, it is very important to clarify, supplement and perfect policies and laws, and promote the implementation of gender equality for women participating in social activities. In addition to the successes in gender equality, over the past time, gender stereotypes still exist, causing gender inequality, making women still a disadvantaged group in society. Therefore, in order to clarify, supplement, and perfect policies and laws on gender equality, at the same time, it is very important to promote the implementation of gender equality for women in social activities, which needs to prioritize and put first. On the basis of studying the State's legal documents, gender equality policy, and gender equality situation, this study proposes solutions to improve gender equality policy in Vietnam.

We need to make sure telecommuting does not exacerbate gender disparity

Building feminist alliances has always been an important feature of supranational European Union (EU) gender equality policy and politics. Historically, a so-called ‘velvet triangle’ consisting of feminist actors inside and outside of EU institutions committed to promoting gender equality has been the most tangible and best-researched network. Overall, feminist and women’s movements have played a major role in shaping the relationships between EU institutions and civil society and equally the content of EU gender equality politics and policies. The chapter provides an overview of: first, the history and formal rules of EU-civil society relationships; second, crucial changes to supranational alliances in gender equality; and third, current challenges to gender equality alliances in EU governance.

This paper discusses the approaches to study gender equality policies and presents a scheme of best ways to study gender equality policies. Looking to the literature, there are three main approaches to study gender equality policies. First of all, there are studies which focus on one, two or small numbers of issues of gender equality policies such as abortion policies, domestic violence policies or day care policies and examine the country dynamics either in single case studies or large and small-N comparative studies. Secondly, sectoral approach to study gender equality assumes that gender equality policy is a separate sector of government policies which includes various subsectors such as representation policies or reproduction policies. Lastly, international organizations such as the United Nations applied aggregation strategy by combining different indicators of gender equality policies into an index. These kinds of indexes are widely used by scholars with the aim of comparing countries’ responsiveness to gender equality. This study questions strengths and weaknesses of each approach and proposes a scheme to determine the best use for each approach. In doing that this paper also presents new and original scales to study different dimensions of gender equality and includes an empirical analysis of gender equality policy indicators for 84 countries’ responsiveness to gender equality.

Gender equality, interpreted as the just treatment of men and women in any area of social life, is a priority in the contemporary policies of many countries. The article presents the issues of equal gender opportunities in media companies and in journalism. The issues of journalism as a profession of equal opportunities are discussed, and the limitations faced by female journalists presented. The multi-dimensional and complex position of women in the media is a result of many important historical, social, cultural, political and economic circumstances. The article also presents diversity management in media companies and defines the major indicators of gender equality in editorial team policies. The conclusions pinpoint the need for diversity, counteracting unequal treatment and considering both men’s and women’s rights in the policy of media organizations with respect to recruitment, remuneration, professional promotion and social benefits.

The supranational gender equality regime of the European Union (EU), in place since the 1990s, affects gender-related social policy including the so-called ‘gender-neutral’ policy fields such as the common agricultural policy and rural development policy. Especially, the implementation of gender equality in all policy fields through the strategy of gender mainstreaming in EU Structural Funds and Rural Development Programmes has become a key challenge for political and administrative players and stakeholders. Analysis reveals that the existing institutional, political and social barriers for an effective implementation of gender equality in rural development policy are manifold. Instead of promoting rural women's agency and empowerment, Rural Development Programmes and processes in Austria are preserving and perpetuating traditional gender roles and patriarchal structures in rural society.