Quality in gender+ equality policies: State of the art and mapping of competences report: Lithuania

Abstract

In Lithuanian academic discourse, the focus on gender and gender equality developed within the context of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the transition to a market economy, and Lithuania’s integration into the European Union. The emerging scholarly work in Lithuania on gender in the 1990s can be characterized by emphases on: the Soviet-era gender order and gender roles carried over from this period, and the (re-)emergence of traditional, conservative, and neo-familial ideologies that have been concerned primarily with redefining public/private boundaries and the gender roles within this dichotomy. Gender, as analytical category, became the subject of inquiry among social historians and scholars of literary and cultural studies who published academic articles in the journal Feminism, Society, Culture, in 1999-2002. Much academic research challenging traditional gender roles has been completed by sociologists, social demographers, and some by legal scientists during the EU enlargement period. It should be noted that research on gender equality by political scientists and economists is limited in Lithuania, except for a very few that deal with women’s political rights and participation in public and with gendered budgeting. In general, the development of an academic discourse on gender equality in Lithuania has been shaped by the importing of international (western) theoretical discourses. These theories have been used to analyze empirical data on the participation of women and men in the public sphere, legal instruments, and institutional mechanisms for preventing discrimination against gender and public opinion on gender equality.