Gender Sensitive Practices as Effective Tools for Implementing the Equality Policy: The Experience of Ukrainian Universities

The article is based on the experience of creating a gender sensitive environment at Sumy State University in order to integrate the gender aspect into policies, programmes and projects related to learning activities and research, as well as other areas of the university's life. This experience is analyzed on the example of the implementation of the “Family friendly university” initiative and the practice of conducting a partial gender audit of the university's activities. The relevance of this direction is determined by the fact that, despite the existence of legislative bases and state programmes on gender equality, there is a lack of initiatives in Ukraine, which really contribute to it. There is a lack of practical tools that would help identify weaknesses in achieving gender equality and could also be used to make a real positive move towards overcoming this gender gap. As an effective tool for introducing a gender sensitive environment, we also consider gender audit, which is both a tool and a process based on participatory methodology and aimed at organizing training on gender sensitivity, both at the individual level and at the level of the structural units and administration of the university. We are confident that the procedures of gender audit allow to bring the whole complex of the organizational and communication mechanisms inside the university to the new level of efficiency and significantly expand the circle of people who are conscious and interested in being involved in the promotion of gender approaches. Gender audit can be considered as a truly universal and effective means of promoting the gender equality policy, as it allows for a complex implementation of a number of important tasks: monitoring, evaluation, communication, implementation of gender sensitive work methods, education, etc. In the future, it is expected that, through the acquaired experience, knowledge and successful gender audit practices, the HEIs will increase their efforts to create equal opportunities. As an achievement, it will be possible to assess the dissemination of the “Family friendly university” initiative as an opportunity to combine study/work in a high school with family responsibilities. It is this model that serves as a marker of gender-sensitive policies, social protection and targeting of services for vulnerable groups – students-mothers with young children and other members of the team having family responsibilities.