Re-gendering the United Nations: Old Challenges and New Opportunities

This chapter portrays the experiences of feminists confronting institutionalised discrimination within the UN bureaucratic machine. It documents how over four years of difficult negotiations, feminist advocates inside and outside the bureaucracy contributed to the successful merger of four UN organisations into a new UN entity: UN Women.

The chapter vividly portrays the conundrum that femocrats committed to transforming institutions face in balancing the dual aspirations of advancing women's rights worldwide, while transforming the patriarchal and bureaucratic cultures of the organisations in which they work.