Intersectionality is one of the top contributions of feminist and gender theory beyond gender and politics scholarship. Still — after several decades of fruitful theoretical and practical development — implementing intersectionality into gender equality work remains a challenge. That applies to gender equality governance as well. This paper examines to what extent intersectionality became implemented in gender equality polities worldwide. Gender equality polities are organizational entities within national states, designated to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality. I focus on intersectionality in design and practise of those women’s policy agencies. Is intersectionality mainstreamed into permanent state engagement for gender equality in global perspective? Which categories of oppression, such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, or disability, are considered in design and practise? Are traditional pioneers in gender equality doing differently from traditional laggards or does the EU-membership make a difference?
The qualitative analyse of 151 countries applies content analysis to determine the intersectional character of the institutional design and the practise (the activities) of women’s policy agencies globally. The comparison of different women’s policy agencies within countries and between countries gives an overview about the situation for particular countries and different forms of women’s policy agencies.
The results show that intersectional state action is widespread in the practise of gender equality polities, but rarely in their design. Full implementation of intersectionality in both, institutional design and practise, is rare. While single women’s policy agencies became intersectional to some extent, the gender equality polity at large did not become an equality polity. If there are attempts to integrate intersectionality, then they only apply to a reduced set of axis of inequalities.
