Between survival and relevance: remaking 30 years of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26686/pq.v11i1.4528Keywords:
Ministry of Women’s Affairs, feminist policy agency, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), domestic violence, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ‘doctrinal’ mattersAbstract
Since its establishment in 1984 the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has had a controversial profile.1 What began as a feminist policy agency in the public sector discernibly transitioned, in the course of a decade, into a mainstream policy agency whose function is to focus on issues of relevance to women (Curtin and Teghtsoonian, 2010). The ministry’s distinctive location at the crossroads of policy and gender places it in a maelstrom of contradictory expectations; like other women’s policy agencies elsewhere in the world, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has historically been caught between expectations from community to be its advocate, on the one hand, and requirements from the public sector to conform to the standards of new public management on the other.
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