165–76. equality diversity and inclusion at work

150 Equality, diversity and inclusion at work to management consultants competing to dei ne gender competence and to ascertain who can claim successfully to be gender competent. Gender politics has existed as an institutionalised i eld of politics since the end of the 1970s: in the form of anti-discrimination and equal opportunities policies in favour of women. In Germany and in many other European countries, the institutionalised actors are women’s representatives in public administrations and in private enterprise. In recent years the name has changed to ‘representatives for gender equality’ Gleichstellungsbeauftragte. Very often the work of the women’s or gender representative is additional to the incumbent’s ‘normal’ work. Until the recent past, the core criterion in recruiting personnel for these positions was the candidate’s engagement in women’s politics. There was no special and codii ed knowledge, authen- ticated by a certii cate. Access to the position of the women’s representative had not been formalised. Even if there were women’s representatives on a full-time basis, the work that they did was not seen as a profession. The women’s representative was more a function than an occupation or a profes- sion. The professionalisation of gender politics had not taken place within this context, at least in Germany. This estimation is based on the dei nition of ‘profession’ in the sociol- ogy of profession. According to the ‘classical’ dei nitions of Goode 1957, 1969 and Parsons 1968; see also Macdonald 1995, professional work is characterised by the following features: its frame of reference is the current state of a specii c scientii c ● knowledge; professions strive for independence founded in the authority of ● science; members of a profession usually have an academic degree; ● new members are recruited by established professionals according to ● the principle of co-optation; the quality of professional work is assessed by colleagues, that is, ● by the profession itself, not by the state. Professional associations, ethical principles of professional work and ethics committees are the central means of professional self-control; and professional work is guided by collectivity orientation, not by ● self-orientation. GENDER MAINSTREAMING During the last few years the professionalisation of gender politics has begun. It has taken place in the new i elds of gender mainstreaming and ‘Gender competence’: Germany 151 managing diversity. Gender mainstreaming is a concept that is open to dif erent interpretations. According to the widely quoted dei nition of the Council of Europe, gender mainstreaming is ‘the reorganisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making’ Council of Europe 1998: 15. According to this dei nition, gender mainstreaming is understood as a cross-sectional task. It has i a personnel dimension – all members of an organisation are involved, ii a thematic dimension – all programmes and decisions have to be checked with respect to gender equality, and iii a formal dimension – all levels of an organisation’s hierarchy are involved. The complexity of the area of responsibility and the inclusion of poten- tially all members of an organisation account for why gender politics tends to become professionalised under the auspices of gender mainstreaming. There is a growing demand for gender competence on the side of the organisations, so that it is economically worthwhile to develop and to of er a specii c gender expertise. The responsible actors within the organisations – and these are not only the women’s representatives – are usually not equipped with the knowledge that is necessary to start gender mainstream- ing processes ef ectively. This circumstance and the political pressure to implement gender mainstreaming have led to a growing demand for gender expertise Bock et al. 2004: 248; Schambach and von Bargen 2004: 283. GENDER EXPERTISE Gender mainstreaming and managing diversity have created a new market, and those who of er their services on this market try to professionalise their expertise. A new professional proi le is emerging: the gender expert. The shape and the course of this process are well known from research in other i elds of professionalised work, where we can observe the i rst steps of an academic approach to knowledge transfer as well as initiatives to found a professional association. In 2004, a professional association for gender training and gender counselling was founded in Germany. Established professional associations of education and counselling are aiming to inte- grate the gender issue into their professional activities, for example the German Association for Supervision or the German Association of Adult Education. The Professional Association of German Sociologists has also taken up the gender issue. 1 Various institutions are involved in the academic approach to knowl- edge transfer. The most prominent German institution is the Gender