Fish Fingers and Measles? Assessing Complex Gender Equality in the Scenarios for the Future of Europe

Abstract

In 2017, at a time when the EU was experiencing a triple crisis, the European Commission published a White Paper containing five scenarios outlining potential ways out of it. In his State of the Union address Commission President Juncker added a sixth. Although the Commission refers to fundamental values it neglects gender equality and reduces equality to the harmonization of the quantity of fish in fish fingers and EU‐wide access to vaccination against measles. Despite the neglect of gender equality, the scenarios are not gender neutral. A feminist institutionalist analysis unpacks the potential direct and indirect positive and negative gendered consequences of each scenario and illuminates how the choice of scenario makes a difference as to their gendered impacts and as to the access for feminist actors to bring gender issues to the table.

Great Expectations, Structural Limitations: Ursula von der Leyen and the Commission's New Equality Agenda

“…These developments at least ‘tilled the policy field’ (Hartlapp, 2017) for von der Leyen's plan for a Commission strategy on anti‐discrimination. But Juncker's idea for the future of gender equality in the EU were, at best, very limited (Ahrens and van der Vleuten, 2019).…”

Adjusting venues and voices: populist and right-wing parties, the European Parliament and civil society equality organizations 2014–2019

“…Second, as outlined above, the overall political and societal climate for promoting gender equality and sexuality rights altered negatively. Third, gender mainstreaming as a policy approach stalled in the Commission which also lowered policy output and initiatives in this policy field (Ahrens & Van der Vleuten, 2019a;Jacquot, 2015;Walby, 2018). Finally, women's and feminist movements found new CSO players like pro-life groups grabbing places in the field with the expansion of discrimination grounds that intersected with gender (such as migration and gender or sexuality issues).…”

“…The European Union (EU) has booked vast achievements on gender equality (Abels & Mushaben, 2012). However, researchers and civil society activists are increasingly critical about the present slow pace of the EU in promoting gender equality (Ahrens & Van der Vleuten, 2019a;Debusscher & van der Vleuten, 2017;Jacquot, 2015). In many EU member states, the growing strength of populist and right-wing parties and their presence in parliaments and government led to massive challenges for national equality machineries and civil society actors.…”

The Fragmented Inclusion of Gender Equality in AU-EU Relations in Times of Crises

“…In 2017, acknowledging the impact of the economic, migration and legitimacy crises, the European Commission (2017d) presented a proposal for renewing the EU offering ‘Reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025’. The few gender equality norms it contains reflect a market-making logic, arguing that women are talents whose potential should be better mobilized to keep the economy afloat (Ahrens and Van der Vleuten, 2019). Overall, the scenarios are predominately gender-blind (Walby, 2018), confirming Galligan (2017) who finds that a gender perspective ‘flows in and out’ of EU politics depending on the push by feminist actors and institutional power plays that undergird gender equality’s policy salience.…”