This paper first presents the established republican model. Next, the analysis examines
how important changes in the social and political context created unprecedented conditions
around 2000 for a sea change in the way gender equality issues are discussed and addressed in
public policy. The third section assesses the degree to which the new model is concretely
driving recent state action that explicitly aims to strike down gender-hierarchies and promotes
women’s status, right or conditions; in other words feminist policy. At the center of this
discussion, is a perennial issue for feminist policy formation --to what degree are formal policy
statements actually implemented in authoritative policy that close the gap between men’s and
women’s status and right.
The Gender-Biased Universalist Model
A gender-biased universal approach to sex equality issues has been inextricably linked to
the emergence and consolidation of the Republic and the welfare state. This approach contains
two quite contradictory aspects: gender-blind universalism and gender-biased attitudes about
women’s and men’s roles. The “equality principle”, since the Revolution of 1789, has
emphasized pure equality between individuals and not groups, unless class interests are
concerned, where equal treatment is accentuated over equal opportunity. From this deeply
imbedded standpoint in political culture and the operating principles of mainstream political
actors both inside and outside of the state, the identification of citizens in terms of specific group
affiliation undermines the core principle of equality. This rejection of articulating policy and
rights in terms of group interests part of the well-established jacobin suspicion of “special
interests”.
The insistence on universalism makes it difficult to formally target women as a group
when there is the need to assess how women’s and men’s different situations lead to inequality.
As many contemporary feminists argue, it is fundamental to identify the differences in men’s and
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Convention