Gender, Diversity and Public Policy

Gender, one of the most complex and important concepts in social theory, remains one of its most controversial. Gender carries two related yet analytically distinctive and highly contested implications - that the power differentials between women and men seen in most societies are a consequence of the different and specialised capacities of the two groups; and that differential outcomes in life chances for women and men are a consequence of men's organising broader social relations to their own advantage. When gender is applied to the realm of cultural diversity, both of these dimensions come under further scrutiny, and invite continuing argument. 'Intersectionality' has come to describe approaches that explore the interaction of gender with ethnicity, with class, with age and with disability status. This chapter draws on intersectionality to interrogate the relationship between gender and multicultural theory and policies, and the subsequent outcomes in Australian society.