Gender Experts and Gender Expertise

Abstract

One of the remarkable outcomes of the feminist movement of the late 20th century has been the development of specialized knowledge about gender relations and the packaging of this knowledge as expertise. As international organizations and governments adopted gender mainstreaming, gender equality laws demanded compliance, and organizations of all kinds embraced ideas of gender parity, they also created a demand for experts to help them realize their objectives. The result has been the formation of an international cadre of gender experts who market their ideas in multiple spaces of government and governmentality. In the process they are defining a new body of knowledge and defining a new profession. This panel addresses the following questions: • On gender experts: What does it mean to be a gender expert? How do gender experts constitute themselves as a profession? What kinds of networks do they establish, with what kinds of hierarchies and hegemonies? How do they assert their technical authority? • On gender expertise: What is the content of gender expertise in different issue areas, institutions, and domains of government/governmentality? What causes and solutions does it define and what ends does it identify? What techniques does gender expertise employ and how do these techniques shape outcomes? • On the circulation of gender expertise: How does gender expertise travel and how is it transformed in such travels? • On experts and movements: How does gender expertise relate to feminist movement knowledge? And what is the relationship between feminist experts and activists?

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