Anna Elomäki

The economic case for gender equality in the European Union: Selling gender equality to decision-makers and neoliberalism to women’s organizations

Scholarship on gender and the European Union (EU) has consistently pointed out that EU gender equality policies have always been embedded in the logic of the market and that the economic framing has had negative impacts on the content and concepts of these policies. This article provides novel insights into this discussion by combining a discursive approach focused on framings with insights of feminist economists and examining how the relationship between gender equality and the economy has been conceptualized in EU policy documents from the 1980s up until the present day. The article identifies the key actors and processes behind the escalation of economic arguments for gender equality and makes visible the economic assumptions that underpin EU gender equality policy. It argues that in recent years the European institutions have intentionally developed and propagated a market-oriented gender equality discourse, the economic case for gender equality, which highlights the macroeconomic benefits of gender equality. The economic case reaffirms the gender-biased assumptions of neoclassical economic theory and legitimizes the EU’s current economic priorities and policies, many of which are detrimental to gender equality. The European Commission represents the argument that gender equality contributes to economic growth as an innovative way to promote gender equality. However, the economic case represents a risk for gender equality advocates, because it may tame the emerging feminist criticism of the EU’s economic policies and governance.

Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards: Depoliticizing Gender and the Economy

Abstract Gender quotas for corporate boards can be seen as a way of drawing attention to gendered power within the economy as well as a way to democratize the economy, yet the debate about them has focused on the economic and business benefits of gender equality rather than on gender justice or democracy. This article examines how women’s under-representation in economic decision-making was constituted as an economic problem in the European Union’s gender-equality policies and how the economization of the debate on gender quotas for corporate boards affects understandings of gender equality and the economy. The article contributes to research on gender and neoliberalism through developing an approach for analysing the depoliticizing effects of economized gender-equality discourses. It argues that the depoliticized understandings of gender and the economy put forward in the debate water down the politicizing potential of the proposed EU gender-balance directive and that the debate about gender quotas has enhanced the neoliberalization and corporatization of EU gender-equality discourse.

Austerity Politics and Feminist Resistance in Finland: From Established Women’s Organizations to New Feminist Initiatives

In this chapter, we analyse feminist resistance to gendered austerity politics in Finland. We ask whether austerity and the political climate shaped by neoliberalism, conservatism and racism constitute a turning point for Finnish feminism. We analyse the reactions of established women’s organizations and trade unions as well as new feminist initiatives that have emerged in response to the government’s neoliberal and conservative agenda. We are particularly interested in what differentiates the new feminist initiatives from established women’s organizations and study the old alliances and new formations to explore the kinds of political activism that become possible in times of crisis.