Emanuela Lombardo

Gender Mainstreaming in the EU Incorporating a Feminist Reading

This article explores the extent to which a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming is incorporated in the EU political discourse by analysing how family policy and gender inequality in politics are framed in EU policy documents. Gender mainstreaming is treated as an open signifier that can be filled with both feminist and non-feminist content. The article provides a set of criteria to assess whether a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming has been adopted. The frame analysis of EU documents on family policy and gender inequality in politics reveals but a partial adoption of a feminist understanding of gender mainstreaming and only in the area of gender inequality in politics.

Institutionalizing Intersectionality in the European Union

European Union (EU) policies are a good case to explore with regard to the extent to which intersectionality has been institutionalized, given that the EU has broadened its equality agenda from the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty onwards and can be expected to impact on the trajectories of institutionalization in member states. Situated in an analysis of the EU legal framework and machinery on gender and anti-discrimination, this article explores the interface between European institutions and civil society in relation to the treatment of intersectionality by analysing alliances and competition between groups representing different inequalities and the positioning of institutions in the debate. It also investigates whether the EUs current institutionalization may encompass positive developments in the treatment of previously neglected inequalities and thus promote more inclusive equality policies, or may create barriers between and exclude different inequalities. The article concludes that the EU legal framework is merely juxtaposing inequalities rather than intersecting them, and is not giving equal importance to the different inequalities. Debates on the creation of recent institutions, such as the European Institute for Gender Equality and the Fundamental Rights Agency, show that tensions exist between different positions and groups. Dynamics of interaction within European civil society reveal evidence of both contestations and alliances.

The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies: A Discursive-Sociological Approach

This article argues that a discursive–sociological approach to study Europeanization is particularly apt for understanding the dynamics of policy change in Europe. It does so by bringing closer the agenda of discursive institutionalism (DI) and gender policy analysis, drawing upon the recent sociological and discursive turns in the study of the domestic impact of Europe, and the long-term interest of gender policy analysis for discursive framings, norm diffusion, actors’ interactions and EU soft policy instruments. Challenging the limitations of Europeanization studies that only focus on convergence, the article explores the contribution that both Schmidt’s DI and discursive gender approaches make to the understanding of policy change in Europe. While seeing the two approaches as complementary in the study of Europeanization, the article discusses the added value of gender approaches for improving our understanding of policy change in Europe.

Discursive Dynamics in Gender Equality Politics: What about ‘Feminist Taboos’?

Discursive dynamics play an important role in shaping the meanings of gender equality. The article discusses the relation between hegemonic discourses on gender equality policies and feminist taboos. It suggests that feminist scholars could paradoxically be trapped in hegemonic discourses on gender equality policies that may lead to taboos about particular approaches to and interpretations of such policies. Three main feminist hegemonic discourses are considered to act as taboos. They deal with the possibility to overcome patriarchy, the role of elites and other groups of actors in processes of gender transformation and the merits of incremental change. The article further discusses the implications of the postulate about hegemonic discourses and taboos on gender equality for feminist knowledge production and reflects on the potential of Bacchi’s notion of ‘reflexivity’ to overcome them.

Gender Mainstreaming and Resistance to Gender Training: A Framework for Studying Implementation

Resistance expressed by both organizations and participants in processes of gender training that are conducted to mainstream gender into policy-making poses a key challenge for gender mainstreaming. However, such resistance is relatively under-studied. This article explores resistance to gender training that emerges during the implementation of gender mainstreaming by determining the types and forms of resistance to gender training and by finding out just what this analysis of resistance tells us about the problems arising in the implementation of gender mainstreaming. We argue that analysing resistance to gender training—and identifying the types and forms of such resistance—can contribute to diagnosing problems in the implementation of mainstreaming and furthermore be used for improving this implementation. This study is based on data from participant observation in training processes and from the work conducted in two European research projects, QUING and TARGET, both of which debated the issue of gender training in expert meetings and forums made up of trainers, policy-makers, and academics.

The quality of gender equality policies: A discursive approach

Can the quality of gender+ equality policies be defined in ways that apply across different policy contexts and different policy moments? In light of different scholarly debates and empirical material from gender violence policy debates especially in Southern and Central Eastern Europe, this article discusses dilemmas around defining the quality of gender+ equality policies. It proposes a two-dimensional model. The first dimension links quality to procedural aspects: empowerment of women’s rights advocates at different stages of the policy process, and transformation with reference to prevailing contextual legacies. The second dimension is more substantive, and includes genderedness, intersectionality and the structurally transformative focus of policies. The article illustrates how within the framework set by these criteria, the quality of gender equality policies is constructed through policy debates in ways that are dependent on the different discursive, institutional and structural factors specific to various policy contexts.

Contentious citizenship: feminist debates and practices and European challenges

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities, recognition of different voices, and critiques of the public and private dichotomy, are particularly suited for dealing with the challenges of contentious and contested processes of citizenship. We argue more specifically that feminist debates and practices provide fruitful contributions for the citizenship challenges that the European Union must face.

Gender Inequality in Politics

Abstract This article explores how the issue of ‘gender inequality in politics’ is framed in Spain and in the European Union (EU), asking to what extent policy discourses on the issue address gender bias in political institutions. Drawing on research carried out within the European project MAGEEQ, it discusses how the problem and solution to gender inequality in politics are framed in the two cases, to what extent policy discourses are gendered, which actors have a voice in the debates, and who are deemed to be the ‘problem holders’ and target groups of the measures taken in response. The comparison between Spain and the EU, which is based mainly on the analysis of official policy documents, shows that policy frames on gender inequality in politics present a similar pattern in the two cases, and that they address inequality but not always in the most gender-sensitive and consistent ways.

Power and Gender: Policy Frames on Gender Inequality in Politics in the Netherlands and Spain

This article studies a potential barrier for women in political decision‐making: the way in which policy documents frame the concept of power. Our study covers a selection of Dutch and Spanish policy documents on the issue of women in political decision‐making. Drawing on Steven Lukes, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault, we examine what policy actors say about the concept of power and we analyze existing power mechanisms in the text, even when the concept of power or the power relations between the sexes is not explicitly discussed. Policy documents do not really discuss power, but yet they (implicitly) accept and reproduce existing power relations between the sexes. This lack of problematization of existing power relations might present an important discursive barrier for women to positions of decision‐making.

The Participation of Civil Society

One of the favourite terms in the public language of the Constitutional Convention was ‘civil society’. References abound to the need to listen to citizens’ views (CONV 14/02, 25 March 2002), to the importance of establishing ‘a genuine dialogue … with civil society’ (CONV 7/02, 11 March 2002), and to the intention of using civil society’s contributions ‘as input into the debate’ (Laeken Declaration). The aim of this chapter is to explore the extent to which these promising claims were put into practice in the deliberative process of the Convention in order to assess whether there was a substantive shift on the part of the Union towards the creation of a more democratic and pluralistic European public sphere.