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In the Netherlands-as probably elsewhere-policies at the national level are seen as gender-neutral; it is presupposed that needs and claims of men and women are not gender-specific and do not conflict. This paper shows that this presupposition does not hold. The assumed gender-neutrality of government policies is often closer to myth than to reality. And because government policies are not gender-neutral, they may have unintended, unforeseen but important and mostly negative effects on the gender relations in a society.

This paper introduces a new policy instrument intended to address this problem. Gender impact assessment is an instrument designed to analyze potential effects of new government policies on the gender relations in Dutch society. The Dutch government decided to create this gender impact assessment instrument in 1992. On the basis of the design and the theoretical framework, various …