Constituting and Reconstituting the Gender Order in Europe

Abstract

The existence of a European gender order is intrinsically connected with the creation and development of the European Union. The construction of this order -a combination of values, laws and practices seeking to give effect to gender equality -is contested at both supranational and nation-state levels. This article takes Ostner and Lewis' 'two needles eyes' thesis to discuss the European and national constraints on the adoption of and compliance with the directives that constitute the 'hard law' of this transnational gender order. It examines the evolution of the legal order on gender equality, noting that the Amsterdam Treaty ushered in a more expansive context for the application of gender norms and practices. It also explores the extent to which member states have been open to the Europeanization of national gender regimes. It finds that challenges continue to exist at European and domestic levels to the extension, and implementation, of laws, policies and practices facilitating gender equality. It also finds, though, that the pattern of compliance in the Eastern enlargement countries is not out of step with the implementation patterns in older member states, even though social conditions are very different. In general, the study concludes that although the context for the construction of a gender order in Europe has changed, supranational and national challenges to gender equality persist.

The Power of EU Masculinities: A Feminist Contribution to European Integration Theory

“…The multi‐level setting of the EU is likely to organize gender power in various sites, resulting in multiple sources of authority and power (Bedford, ). Angelika von Wahl () suggested that there is convergence into a EU gender regime in the employment sector that has its own sets of rules, institutional features and practices (see also Clavero and Galligan, ). It is unique and not a simple convergence of national regimes.…”

The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies

“…5 This particular study is especially challenging from the point of view of this volume: firstly because of the 'politics of ranking' it endorses (see Verloo and Van der Vleuten, 2009); secondly as it includes the field of gender equality policies in the labour realm; 6 and thirdly because studies of the Europeanization of gender equality policies in post-accession countries, such as those of and Clavero and Galligan (2009), have provided a more refined picture of the enforcement of EU norms in both Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), which Falkner and Treib placed in the same 'world of dead letters' (see Chapter 3).…”

“…We have argued in Chapter 1 that the Europeanization of gender equality policies challenges ideas about the implementation of EU norms in old and new member states (Clavero and Galligan, 2009), thus alerting us to the possibility of classifying countries on the basis of their specific Europeanization cluster. Chapters in this volume bring further elements to the argument that the classification of countries in clusters that would suggest what to expect from states in terms of policy adaptation and norm transposition raises some concerns about its validity.…”

The intersectional politics of bullshit

“…Gender plays a role in constructing our shared language, and, simultaneously gender is itself constructed through language (Butler, 2011;Fraser, 1989). The establishment and enforcement of gender categories, and the hierarchy between them is clearly a discursive practice (Clavero and Galligan, 2009;Pearse and Connell, 2015). Language forms part of the everyday expression of gender ideologies, whether through reinforcing a binary understanding of gender, or by denigrating concepts, actions and norms that are associated with the feminine (Lazar, 2007a(Lazar, , 2007b.…”