Johanna Kantola

RETHINKING WOMEN'S SUBSTANTIVE REPRESENTATION

This article seeks to rethink how scholars have traditionally studied womens substantive representation. It outlines a framework that aims to replace questions like ‘Do women represent women?’ with ones like ‘Who claims to act for women?’ and ‘Where, how, and why does the substantive representation of women occur?’ Arguing that representation occurs both inside and outside legislative arenas, the article calls attention to the wide range of actors, sites, goal, and means that inform processes of substantive representation.

Changing State Feminism

The second wave of feminism challenged the state in post-industrial democracies with its demands; in response, states set up women’s policy agencies to improve women’s status. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s have shown that ‘state feminism’ exists: many agencies are important in realizing women’s movements’ demands in policy-making and in gaining access for women to decision-making arenas. The starting point for this book is the restructuring of the political context, where state feminism is situated, over the last decade. As a result, both ‘the state’ and ‘feminism’ have changed in significant ways. On the one hand, there have been major developments, such as globalization, regionalization, welfare state restructuring, privatization and the rise of multilevel governance. On the other hand, state feminists have to deal with new gender equality policies that include a focus on diversity and gender mainstreaming. Both developments demand rethinking state feminism and new empirical research and comparative analysis on the topic.

From state feminism to market feminism

This article argues that the concept of ‘state feminism’ no longer adequately captures the complexity of emerging feminist engagements with new forms of governance. It suggests that ‘market feminism’ offers a new conceptual framework from which feminist engagements with the state can be analysed and evaluated, and the changes within state feminism can be understood. The article documents the growing feminist embrace of the logic of the market, which manifests itself in changed practices and priorities. The article gives examples of ‘market feminism’ and argues that the move from state feminism to market feminism impacts on both the political practices and policy priorities of women’s policy agencies.

Discourses Surrounding Prostitution Policies in the UK

This article examines discourses invoked in the UK debates about prostitution and trafficking in women. The authors suggest that there are three striking features about these discourses: (1) the absence of the sex work discourse, (2) the dominance of the public nuisance discourse in relation to kerb-crawling and (3) the dominance of moral order discourses in relation to trafficking. At a time when the UK is about to revise its sex laws, it is important to consider the discourses that frame prostitution policies in other European countries, with a view to broadening the range of policy options. In this context, the authors compare the UK with the Netherlands, where a sex work discourse has framed debates. This comparison indicates that UK prostitution discourses could be shaped by discourses other than those of public nuisance and moral order and may open up new policy options.

Institutionalizing Intersectionality in Europe

This Special Issue analyses the current transformations in anti-discrimination and equality policies in Europe. As a result of the expansion of European Union (EU) law to combat discrimination, a number of European countries have reformed their equality bodies and law. This has resulted in the creation of ‘single equality bodies’ in, for example, Britain, Norway and some Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). Part of the argumentation for such reform is based on tackling multiple and intersecting discriminations more effectively. Our aim in this Introduction is to provide theoretical and contextual background for the two key research questions addressed in this Special Issue: in what ways is ‘intersectionality’ being institutionalized in equality bodies and law in Europe? What political and legal implications does this have for tackling inequalities? In particular, we discuss these pan-European developments in relation to feminist debates on intersectionality. While current legal and institutional innovations seem to provide some answers to the theoretical and practical issues posed by intersectionality, we seek also to highlight the challenges facing ongoing processes in the EU and its member states. Drawing a distinction between ‘intersectionality’ and ‘multiple discrimination’ we argue that the EU focuses on the latter, hence favouring anti-discrimination policy as opposed to other measures in furthering equality, thereby narrowing down the debate.

Gender and the state: From differences between to differences within

The article argues from a Nordic, feminist and poststructuralist position that feminist state theories need to be developed methodologically. This claim is based on both theoretical arguments as well as empirical arguments arising from a case study on care politics in Denmark. In contrast to answering questions about the essence of the state, the aim of the article is to provide some analytical tools for studying the state. First, it focuses on two paradigms of feminist analyses of the state: differences between states (Nordic feminists), and differences within states (poststructural feminists). The article argues that each of the approaches has its merits and problems in terms of feminist engagements with the state. The second part explores an empirical case study on care politics in Denmark. The study illustrates the inadequacies of feminist approaches to the state to date. State discourses and policies on home-helpers are shown to have both empowering and disempowering effects on the women concerned. T...The article argues from a Nordic, feminist and poststructuralist position that feminist state theories need to be developed methodologically. This claim is based on both theoretical arguments as well as empirical arguments arising from a case study on care politics in Denmark. In contrast to answering questions about the essence of the state, the aim of the article is to provide some analytical tools for studying the state. First, it focuses on two paradigms of feminist analyses of the state: differences between states (Nordic feminists), and differences within states (poststructural feminists). The article argues that each of the approaches has its merits and problems in terms of feminist engagements with the state. The second part explores an empirical case study on care politics in Denmark. The study illustrates the inadequacies of feminist approaches to the state to date. State discourses and policies on home-helpers are shown to have both empowering and disempowering effects on the women concerned. The third part of the article suggests a framework of three concepts believed to be helpful when analysing gender and the state: hegemony, contradictory effects and boundaries. The concepts are generated from the case study. Department of Social Sciences, Roskilde University, Bvld 25.3, Box 160, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Email: hmdahl@ruc.dk University of Helsinki, Department of Political Science, PO Box 54 (Snellmaninkatu 14), FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: Johanna.Kantola@helsinki.fi

Constituting Women's Interests through Representative Claims

The promotion of ‘women’s interests’ is a central focus and concern of advocates of women’s political representation. Examining the policy priorities and initiatives of female office-holders, existing research seeks to establish whether there are links between women’s presence and policy outcomes favorable to women as a group. Building on recent work critical of this traditional approach, this paper seeks in three key points to rethink the nature and process of political representation. First, it observes, dynamics of representation are not limited to elected bodies; rather, actors in multiple sites articulate policy demands. Second, in the course of their lobbying efforts, these actors make claims about who ‘women’ are and what ‘women’ want. Third, analyzing the multiple sources of claims-making highlights the need to distinguish between ‘women’s issues’ (a broad policy category) and ‘women’s interests’ (the content given to this category by various actors). The implications of this new approach are illustrated via four case studies, pointing to substantial within- and cross-case variations in the issues and interests identified as relevant to women as a group, as well as the actors claiming to act for women. On this basis, the paper concludes that ‘women’ and ‘women’s interests’ are constructed through, and not simply reflected in, political advocacy on their behalf.

State Feminism Finnish Style: Strong Policies clash with Implementation Problems

In international comparisons, Finland is regarded as one of the Nordic ‘women-friendly’ welfare states. In gender equality policy, Finland has been a runner-up which has followed the pioneers Norway and Sweden. Although Finland established its first gender equality machinery, the Council for Gender Equality, simultaneously with them in 1972, it was the last Nordic country to introduce a gender equality law in 1986. In a Nordic comparative analysis of the effectiveness of gender equality policy in the mid-1990s, Finland was placed in the third tier after Sweden and Norway, but before Denmark and Iceland. However, it was also observed that Finland deployed the least money per capita on its gender equality machinery and personnel (Borchorst, 1999, pp. 182, 184–5).

Women's Political Representation in the European Union

Feminist studies of the European Union seek to make sense of a field that has become enormously complex. Gender equality has been an issue in the EU since the inclusion of Article 119 on equal pay in the Treaty of Rome 1957 but has since widened to the recognition of equality between women and men as a fundamental principle of democracy for the whole EU. Gender equality is present both in gender-specific policies, such as womens participation in the labour market, sexual harassment and reconciliation of work and family, as well as informing the basic principles and functioning of the EU institutions wherever gender mainstreaming is implemented. Feminist explorations of the EU have tended to overlook one aspect of EU gender policies: womens political representation in the EU institutions. This article seeks to address this gap.

The European Union: Initiator of a New European Anti-Discrimination Regime?

The key aim of this chapter is to explore the possibilities and constraints that the complex setting of the European equality regime poses for ‘institutionalizing intersectionality’. That the EU has an impact on national equality law and policies is beyond question, but a study of various EU power instruments, institutions, and political actors is needed for a better understanding of the workings and the outcomes of the process. We pay attention especially to the complexity of EU equality law and policies, which involve multiple dimensions of equality and more or less compelling means of influencing the member states. We also show how intersectionality figures in these instruments, institutions, and policies of EU influence. We claim that the mandatory EU anti-discrimination law has compelled member states to adopt a minimum regulation of combating discrimination on several ‘status’ grounds. However, explicit statements on combating intersectional discrimination are located in soft law instruments or in policy programmes. Such instruments do not aim at a complete harmonization of equality law and policies, but rather promote convergence by methods that rely on national and ‘stakeholder’ processes. The ‘soft’ approach, we assume, allows differentiation within the EU and at the national level. Here diversity of traditions and policies becomes important.