Gender equality in an algorithmic society: re-engineering gender mainstreaming as a legal principle for fair AI

Raphaële Xenidis and Birte Böök

Chapter Spotlight 9 in Research Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming, 2026, pp 314-317 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Automation and digitalisation increasingly shape public and private decision-making, yet these practices risk exacerbating inequalities. While fairness interventions and interdisciplinary debates have emerged to address these harms, the principle of gender mainstreaming has received limited attention in artificial intelligence (AI) governance. This spotlight explores gender and equality mainstreaming as a transversal legal tool to embed equality considerations throughout the AI lifecycle. Drawing on European and international legal frameworks, it examines how gender and equality mainstreaming could guide risk assessments, standardisation and policy-making, bridging technical and legal understandings of fairness and discrimination. The analysis highlights the potential of gender and equality mainstreaming to promote an intersectional and sociotechnical perspective on how AI systems reflect and reinforce social hierarchies. Although the principle remains underexplored in recent AI regulations, this spotlight argues that it could serve as a critical governance instrument to ensure that digitalisation contributes to substantive equality rather than deepening existing inequalities.

Keywords: Gender Mainstreaming; Artificial Intelligence; Equality; Non-discrimination; Algorithmic Bias; Fairness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035353415
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035353422.00043 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:24172_32

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().