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Gender mainstreaming research and practice in Hong Kong are uniquely advanced in East Asia societies, and deeply rooted in its social, economic and political environment. Out of pursuit on gender equality and in line with the gender mainstreaming agenda proposed on the international level, Hong Kong started its own research in 1985 with the establishment of the gender research center at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The institutional exploration took place later in 1996, with sharing responsibilities and political transition among administrative bodies.


 * Definition

The definition of gender mainstreaming in Hong Kong has been generated and enhanced by Women’s Commission of Hong Kong, from the Definition by UN Economic and Social Council in the context of local practices. In the gender mainstreaming guidebook published by Women’s Commission in 2015, Gender mainstreaming is ‘to mainstream the consideration of women´s and men´s perspectives and experiences into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of legislation, public policies and programmes, so that the gender-specific needs and concerns of women and men can be addressed by those legislation, public policies and programmes. Through this gender-sensitive deliberation, gender mainstreaming seeks to achieve gender equality by ensuring that women and men have equitable access to, and benefit from, the resources and opportunities available in society’. In 2000, the Chinese terminology of gender mainstreaming begun with 性別觀點主流化 (Gender perspective Mainstreaming, interpretively), then slightly shifted to 性别主流化 (Gender Mainstreaming, interpretively). The later term has been used consistently in official documents and institutional practices since 2013.


 * Institutional practice
 * The history of processing gender mainstreaming

Today, the administrative work of government of Hong Kong on gender mainstreaming is out of concerns on enhancing conductivity towards good governance and meeting policy commitment. Starting with the Equal Opportunities Commission (the EOC) as the only department working on gender issues in 1996, gender mainstreaming practices have been developing legislatively and institutionally in Hong Kong. After the political transaction in 1997, Hong Kong became the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China. Its gender mainstreaming practices continued with its first HKSAR government policy statements on women report to the UN in 1999; the second report to the China’s central government in 2004 and presented at the UN conference in 2006


 * Women’s Commission

The HKSAR government relented and announced its intention to establish one special department for gender issues to Beijing Plus Five review at UN in 2000, and Women’s Commission of HKSAR was established in 2001. The current five major applications and working methods of Women’s Commission are gender mainstreaming checklist, gender data, gender focal points, training and online resources, and advice from bureau and relevant organizations. The purpose is to enhance gender sensitive policies, as a part of international practice and policy commitment.

Role of Women’s Commission and applications of gender mainstreaming Based on annual statistical census and report on gender data, gender mainstreaming checklist has been designed by Women’s Commission Since 2002. However, it was not widely used in all bureau and departments of HKSAR until 2012. In the whole administrative system, gender focal point networks have been set up to guarantee integration of the gender perspective, via policies and actions with gender sensitivity. Gender focal points serve as a networking led by Women’s Commission, offering advices to evaluate gender impacts, via working with Labour and Welfare Bureau (main actor), the EOC, NGOs, women’s groups and gender experts, from both internal and external points of view. Moreover, updated training and online resources are generated and designed by Women’s Commission for learning and practice among both administrative bodies and the public from 2001.

Gender related practice In the guidebook published by Women’s Commission, the recent practice of integrating gender mainstreaming in administrative departments work are listed, like Gender-specific risks and needs programme for female persons in custody; appointment policy of advisory and statutory bodies; batterer intervention programme against domestic violence; and tabaco control publicity campaign for female smokers. The sex discrimination Ordinance and CEDAW However, as a main issue to tackle by gender mainstreaming action, practice and development of CEDAW in Hong Kong was criticized that the extent of activity since 1998 have not been consistently integrated into practical governmental policies, with gender-sensitive norms, in which further bottom-up trajectory is suggested.


 * Gender equality status in Hong Kong

The statuses of women in Hong Kong and gender equality are embedded in its own political, economic and cultural environments. As soon as gender mainstreaming was proposed as a key political orientation and settled institutional setting in Hong Kong, attentions and reflections from other fields have been started on seeking for local problems and opportunities towards gender equality, through annal reports, government-led research program, and critiques.


 * Research orientation and findings
 * Research orientation and findings
 * Research orientation and findings

Local gender mainstreaming research is based in the gender research center of CUHK, which defined gender mainstreaming as ‘an evidence-based knowledge of gender equality, grounding the advocacy of stakeholders and decisions of policy makers’. These researches serve as a support role to locally generated practice through examinations, policy advices and critiques on the current welfare system.

Mainstreaming Gender in Hong Kong Society (2009) edited by Cheung and Holroyd was designed for examining gender changes in Hong Kong society, consisting a full review of gender mainstreaming practices in Hong Kong for the past decade. Following that, Gender and change in Hong Kong (2011) offers a deeper exploration on changes of diverse groups. Focusing on housing issues, Social construction of gender inequality in the housing system (2019) analyses the unequal distribution of public housing and urban designing lacking of gender sensitivity. Through these detailed examinations and situated understanding, life experiences with gendered impacts are paid a lot attention by the academic discourse, in which groups, activities with historical marginalized experiences and vulnerable conditions in the present society are understood through the lens of socio-economic structure.


 * Woman workers

The situation of female workers in Hong Kong is tightly interlinked with education status, globalization, and the open of free market in China and so on. During the period of industrial restructuring, women workers are founded with economic burdens caused by employment instability, job-seeking frustrations and the involuntary retreat into domesticity, which generally lead to a sense of demoralization (Lee, 2011).

Chan’s analysis (2019) of housing system experience in Hong Kong expands the discussion of housing experience from physical meaning to the design and provision of community and facility in New towns. Her findings point out that the assumption on women as the care role of the family and multi-member family size limits social service in community level. Furtherly, weak public transportation condition and inflexible employment environment make women, especially lone mothers hard to live a balanced life between work and family, within the current housing system.
 * Women and housing system


 * Confucian welfare system and Patriarchal ideology

Confucianism is a popular social policy and sociological discussion in context of East Asia society, so as Hong Kong society. Scholars like Leung (2014; 2014a) strongly argues that Confucianism and patriarchal ideology blocks the way for gender mainstreaming in policy making. Specifically, it limits the design of welfare system to reach adequate level of gender sensitivity, equal welfare orientation and political commitment.


 * NGOs’ participations

As a group of active participants on local gender mainstreaming research and actions, NGOs play their role in examining political actions, bridging needs and resources to programs aiming at gender issues, building capacities of organizations and individuals as well as communicating international policy agenda in the local practices. For example, Association for the Advancement of Feminism (新婦女促進會) regularly reports on the outcomes of gender mainstreaming in Hong Kong; Oxfam in Hong Kong also consistently publishes reports on the equal issues and vulnerable groups, and offers suggestions and comments on government reports on CEDAW practice. At the same time, NGOs are also devoted in public education and empowerment on gender equality, like HER Fund (婦女動力基金) and Hong Kong Federation of Women’s centers (香港婦女中心協會). In working environment, Hong Kong confederation of trade unions focus on working against all kinds of discrimination and violence based on gender difference.


 * Voices from the media

However, voices discussing about gender mainstreaming or gender issues in general are not very common in local media. It offers short critiques on development of gender equality, like the weak integration with current welfare system, and to what extent should Women’s Commission should be more active at, compared to current working methods. During the 2019-2020 protest, scholars and journalism also pay attention to the role of women and gender structure of Hong Kong society. Some suggest that it changes the stereotype of women but increases the risks of violence and sexual harassment due to gender difference, while feminist scholar Ho believes that it exposes problems within the patriarchal structure of Hong Kong.