Denmark: Gender equality as a politics of declaration

This article draws on the research results for Denmark’s participation in the WIME project and has two aims: firstly, it throws light on the specific Danish research results, including the results from the TV monitoring phase, and discusses these results in their Danish context; second, it reflects on the kinds of gendered understanding that underline research surveys like the WIME project and discusses the potential limitations of this approach to gender analysis. Furthermore, it discusses the benefits and potential problems of applying gender inclusive policies to media institutions by drawing upon Sara Ahmed’s critique of the ‘politics of declarations.’ (2004) Ahmed has shown how declarations of anti-racism are performances which admit to potential negative racist practices, after which the admission itself becomes a positive practice and hence mistakenly interpreted as an anti-racist practice. Using this concept, this article critically discussed diversity policies and gender equality policies as they apply to media institutions.