Tensions, Challenges, and Opportunities: Internal Networks Supporting Gender Equality Policy Processes and Structural Change in Universities

This article explores the role of internal networks supporting gender equality (GE) policy processes in universities, highlighting the tensions, challenges and opportunities encountered while seeking an adequate balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches. Parting from a Feminist Institutionalist perspective, we draw upon structural change literature, feminist social movement, and social network studies to better understand how collective agency may be leveraged or constrained by processes of institutionalization and of centralization- decentralization. The institutionalization of GE structures and the decentralized approaches to GE plan formulation and implementation are considered key for gendered structural change. Using two illustrative cases from universities in Spain, where internal GE networks are not obligatory yet increasingly form part of the GE infrastructure of universities, we explore both the struggles encountered, as well as the benefits and potential pitfalls of this in practice. We rely on interviews, documents, and focus groups, exploring the role of these networks as perceived by gender change agents themselves. Tensions exist between institutionalization and feminist activism, coordinated action and idea generation, local ownership of actions and change agents’ lack of authority to drive changes, as well as governance changes and continuity of actions, network unity and representativeness. Challenges include how to achieve institutional recognition whilst maintaining a feminist sensibility, shedding light on the importance of training and nurturing of affect for empowering network members. We emphasize the transformative power of resistance and the need to identify and capitalize on the opportunities specific to each university context for advancing a structural change agenda.