‘Tokenism’ or ‘common sense’: Rule change in parliamentary gender mainstreaming in Fiji

In 2014, the Parliament of Fiji revised its standing orders to require that all parliamentary committees consider the ‘principle of gender equality’ in their work. The United Nations defined gender mainstreaming in 1997 as a strategy to eliminate gender-based discrimination through the design, implementation and review of all legislation, policies and programmes from a gender perspective (or adherence to the principle of gender equality). While government agencies have been instrumental in pursuing gender mainstreaming efforts, parliaments have had less success in applying the concept in their review of legislation, policy and programs. Indeed, the Fijian Parliament represents one of the very few examples in the world where such a rule has been implemented. This paper contributes to a growing scholarly interest in the localised translation of global norms of gender sensitive parliaments (Palmieri and Baker 2020). It considers the process by which Standing Order 110(2) was developed and instituted as a mechanism for gender mainstreaming, and assesses the extent to which it has been socialised within the parliamentary committee community in Fiji, including the larger ‘gender equality-focused’ community of non-government organisations. We show that there are significant points of difference between perceptions of the rule change inside and outside the parliament. We identify lessons learned in gender mainstreaming that may be useful to the global parliamentary community.