Les contradictions des perspectives de genre en urbanisme

Gender Mainstreaming addresses the relations between different genders, aiming to reduce inequalities and create equal opportunities. However in urbanism practice, ‘gender mainstreaming’ is often understood as ‘treating women as specific target group’. For a successful implementation of equal opportunity policies, urbanists need to have a clear understanding of gender mainstreaming. Pilots programs and publications of gender-aware approaches are circulating since the 1980s. However, in the current practice of urbanism, the understanding of ‘gender’ has not advanced structurally, and Gender Mainstreaming still creates much resistance. With the aim to look for ways out of this deadlock, this contribution analyses several types of contradictions inherent to the tension between gender as a theoretical concept and a category for urbanism practice.