Egalitatea de gen în politicile publice pentru romi [Gender Mainstreaming in Public Policies for Roma ]

The way in which the gender equality is treated in public policies is symptomatic for the Romanian society. A conservative society would undertake measures to assure the gender perspective in areas as education, social security, health and labour market. The Strategy to improve the roma situation as a public policy adopted by the Romanian government makes no difference from this path. The present article analyzes the strategy to improve the roma situation in Romania and how the gender perspective was integrated within the Strategy, what were the reasons for adopting measures to assure the equal opportunities between roma women and the factors of success or the failure of these measures. Thus the measures undertaken by the Strategy follow the same pattern of collective privileges in the detriment of individual needs, wanting to prove that its members (men and women) have the same needs and are affected in the same way by the social inequities. As for the areas where roma women are present, this are traditionally associated with women, restricting the role of women in public sphere or other areas of activity. There is a causal link between the strategy for equal opportunities and the strategy to improve the roma situation that leaded to confusions in defining and implementing the gender equality for roma minority. As to sustain this theory, the article demonstrates that as long as we will continue to treat separately the issues of roma minority and equal opportunities, the gender perspective for roma minority will not exist.

Keywords: gender equality, roma, public policies