Gender Mainstreaming in European Union Development Policy toward Latin America Transforming Gender Relations or Confirming Hierarchies?

An examination of gender mainstreaming in the Latin American development policy of the European Union through quantitative and qualitative analysis of policy programming documents suggests that the transformative potential of this approach has been neglected. The language used in the documents is more the typical "Women in Development" language than one that reflects the inclusion of both women and men in the planning for the achievement of gender equality. Exclusion of women's organizations from the drafting process and the gap between civil society's and the European Union's framings of gender (in)equality in Latin America may be responsible for this situation.