Gender and The Economic Crisis in Europe: Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality

Gender and the
Economic Crisis
in Europe
Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality
GENDER AND POLITICS
Edited by
Johanna Kantola
Emanuela Lombardo
Gender and Politics
Series Editors
Johanna Kantola
Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Sarah Childs
Professor of Politics and Gender
University of Bristol
Bristol, United Kingdom
The Gender and Politics series celebrates its 5th anniversary at the 4th
European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2015 in
Uppsala, Sweden. The original idea for the book series was envisioned by
the series editors Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in
Belfast in 2009, and the series was officially launched at the Conference
in Budapest in 2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the
series, together with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the
very best international writing. It publishes world class monographs and
edited collections from scholars - junior and well established - working
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tionalism, governance and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set
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The series can also include books published as a Palgrave pivot.
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Johanna Kantola • Emanuela Lombardo
Editors
Gender and the

Economic Crisis in
Europe
Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality
Editors
Johanna Kantola Emanuela Lombardo
Department of Philosophy, History, Department of Political Science and
Culture and Art Studies Administration 2
University of Helsinki, Finland Faculty of Political Science and
Sociology
Madrid Complutense University, Spain
Gender and Politics

ISBN 978-3-319-50777-4 ISBN 978-3-319-50778-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50778-1
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Acknowledgements
It has been a real pleasure to put together this collection of chapters on

the politics of the economic crisis in Europe from a gender perspective.
The economic crisis and the way that it has been framed in Europe has
very much shaped our own lives and research on gender, politics, equality
policies and the European Union for nearly a decade now. Our greatest
thanks go to our fellow researchers and authors of the chapters of this vol-
ume Leah Bassel, Rosalind Cavaghan, Anna Elomäki, Akwugo Emejulu,
Roberta Guerrina, Sophie Jacquot, Heather MacRae, Ana Prata, Elaine
Weiner, Stefanie Wöhl and Ania Zbyszewska. Thank you for all the hard
work you put into the chapters, for revising and rewriting them according
to our suggestions and for bearing with us in relation to our never-ending
requests!
This collection grew out of our discussions on the topic and our
research collaboration in Madrid in the winter of 2015 when Johanna was
Visiting Scholar at Madrid Complutense University and we were working
on our ‘other book’, Gender and Political Analysis. We are very grateful
to Rosalind Cavaghan and Sylvia Walby not only for sharing their path-
breaking research and talks on the crisis with us but also because they
were pivotal in putting together and discussing panels and workshops on
the gendered impact of the economic restructuring in the EU in which
many of the chapters of the book were presented. Particularly inspirational
was the workshop organized by Rosalind at the University of Nijmegen
‘Feminist Politics in Times of EU Austerity: Challenges and Strategies
in a New Political Landscape’ 17–18 September 2015, which brought
together scholars and activists working on gender and the crisis in the EU.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to all the participants and to Mieke Verloo in particular

for her inspirational critical thinking about the times we are in, support,
enthusiasm and friendship.
Other important and inspirational moments included the European
Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in Uppsala in June 2015 and
we thank the conveners of the ECPR Standing Group on Gender and
Politics Isabella Engeli, Elisabeth Evans and Liza Mügge for the huge
work that they put into coordinating the Standing Group and organiz-
ing these conferences, which continue to provide important platforms
for discussing feminist research. The book also benefited from the ECPR
Standing Group on EU (SGEU) Conference in Trento, in June 2016,
the workshop on Gender and the Economic Crisis that Andrea Krizsan
organized in Budapest in September 2016, the seminar that Ainhoa Novo
organized in Bilbao in May 2013 on ‘Gender Equality Policies in Times of
Crisis’, and the CRonEM Conference on ‘Sex, Gender, and Europe’ that
Roberta Guerrina organized at the University of Surrey in June 2014. We
are also very grateful to the anonymous reviewer of this book proposal
for the extremely supporting and helpful comments we received and to
the editors and anonymous reviewers of Feminist Theory for their con-
structive comments on a paper that articulates the ideas we develop more
extensively in the book. Emanuela also thanks the editors of Gender, Work
& Organization and anonymous reviewers of a paper which the chap-
ter on gender and the crisis in Spain draws from. Johanna’s research was
funded by the Academy of Finland five-year Academy Research Fellowship
(decision no 259640). Emanuela wishes to acknowledge the travel fund-
ing received from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
through the Evanpolge research project (Ref: FEM2012-33117), from
the European Commission QUING research project and Erasmus teach-
ing mobility fund, and the University of Helsinki.
Our thanks also go to our colleagues and feminist networks at the
University of Helsinki and Madrid Complutense University, which we
have had the chance to share with one another during the past four years
of our research collaboration. Emanuela would like to thank her Spanish
colleagues Eva Alfama, María Bustelo and Julia Espinosa for the important
special issue and debate they coordinated in 2015 on ‘Public Policies in
Times of Crisis: a Gender Analysis’, to Margarita León for co-authoring
a joint paper on the issue, to Alba Alonso and Natalia Paleo for their
stimulating research on the role of conservative ideology in times of aus-
terity, and to Marta Cruells and Sonia Ruiz for their pioneer work on
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
intersectionality in Spanish anti-austerity movements. She is also grateful

to her Esponjadas group of feminist friends in Madrid for most empow-
ering debates on the crisis as an opportunity for personal and collective
change, right at the time in which austerity politics was hitting hard on
Spanish peoples’ lives. Johanna would like to thank all her colleagues at
the University of Helsinki Gender Studies: especially Johanna Oksala for
reading the Introduction, and Marjaana Jauhola, Marjut Jyrkinen, Milja
Saari and Ville Kainulainen for joint research projects, publications, sup-
port and academic friendships. Her special thanks go to Anna Elomäki,
Anu Koivunen and Hanna Ylöstalo for shared feminist struggles, activism
and research around and about the austerity politics in Finland in Tasa-
arvovaje and for the many inspirational moments together.
We would like to thank Sarah Childs as the editor of Palgrave’s Gender
and Politics Book Series, and Ambra Finotello, Imogen Gordon Clark
and Britta Ramaraj at the Palgrave Macmillan for their professional and
kind support during the editorial process. We received valuable support
from Elisabeth Wide who worked as a research assistant at the University
of Helsinki and helped us to finalize the manuscript. We thank Bàrbara
Boyero for providing us with an inspirational photo for the cover of the
book from one of the Spanish feminist demonstrations against auster-
ity politics. We dedicate the book to such actions and spirit: ‘¡Contra
l’Ofensiva Patriarcal i Capitalista: Desobediéncia Feminista!’1
Helsinki and Madrid, 1 November 2016
Note
1. ‘Against Patriarchal and Capitalist Attacks: Feminist Disobedience!’
(translation from the Catalan).
Contents
1 Gender and the Politics of the Economic Crisis in Europe 1

Johanna Kantola and Emanuela Lombardo
2 A Policy in Crisis. The Dismantling of the EU Gender

Equality Policy 27
Sophie Jacquot
3 The Gender Politics of EU Economic Policy: Policy

Shifts and Contestations Before and After the Crisis 49
Rosalind Cavaghan
4 Opportunity and Setback? Gender Equality, Crisis

and Change in the EU 73
Elaine Weiner and Heather MacRae
5 Gendering European Economic Narratives: Assessing

the Costs of the Crisis to Gender Equality 95
Roberta Guerrina
6 Gendering Poland’s Crisis Reforms: A Europeanization

Perspective 117
Ania Zbyszewska
ix
x Contents
7 The Gender Dynamics of Financialization and Austerity

in the European Union—The Irish Case 139
Stefanie Wöhl
8 The Visibility (and Invisibility) of Women and

Gender in Parliamentary Discourse During the
Portuguese Economic Crisis (2008–2014) 161
Ana Prata
9 Whose Crisis Counts? Minority Women, Austerity

and Activism in France and Britain 185
Akwugo Emejulu and Leah Bassel
10 Austerity Politics and Feminist Struggles in Spain:

Reconfiguring the Gender Regime? 209
Emanuela Lombardo
11 Austerity Politics and Feminist Resistance in Finland:

From Established Women’s Organizations to New
Feminist Initiatives 231
Anna Elomäki and Johanna Kantola
12 Conclusions: Understanding Gender and the Politics

of the Crisis in Europe 257
Index271
List of Contributors
Leah Bassel is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Leicester. Her

research interests include the political sociology of gender, migration, race and
citizenship and she is the author of Refugee Women: Beyond Gender versus Culture
(2012). Her forthcoming co-authored book, with Akwugo Emejulu, is The Politics
of Survival. Minority Women, Activism and Austerity in France and Britain. Bassel
has also conducted an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project
exploring migrants’ experiences of the UK citizenship test process. She is Assistant
Editor of the journal Citizenship Studies.
Rosalind Cavaghan is a postdoctoral fellow at Radboud University, Nijmegen,
where she arrived in 2013 as a Marie Curie Intra European Fellow. Her research
combines the broad themes of European governance, public policy, gender and
feminist political economy. She completed her PhD in Edinburgh, where she
worked as a policy consultant, prior to commencing academic research. Her forth-
coming monograph Making Equality Happen: Knowledge, Change and Resistance
in EU Gender Mainstreaming, theorizes gender change and resistance using a new
approach, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis.
Anna Elomäki is a post-doctoral research fellow in Gender Studies at the
University of Helsinki. Her research interests are related to the interconnections
between gender, politics and the economy. Her current research project focuses on
the economization of gender equality policies and advocacy in the European
Union.
Akwugo Emejulu is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Her
research interests include the political sociology of race, gender and grassroots
activism. Her book, Community Development as Micropolitics: Comparing Theories,
xi
xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Policies and Politics in America and Britain, was published in 2015. Her forth-
coming co-authored book, with Leah Bassel, is The Politics of Survival: Minority
Women, Activism and Austerity in France and Britain.
Roberta Guerrina is Professor in Politics and Head of the School at the University
of Surrey. She is a specialist in gender politics, with a particular interest in women,
peace and security, EU politics and social policy, citizenship and gender equality.
She has published in the area of women’s human rights, work-life balance, identity
politics and the idea of Europe. She is the author of Mothering the Union (2005)
and Europe: History, Ideas and Ideologies (2002). Her work has appeared in
International Affairs, Women’s Studies International Forum and Review of
International Studies.
Johanna Kantola is Academy Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki. Her
books include Gender and Political Analysis (with Lombardo, Palgrave 2017),
Gender and the European Union (Palgrave, 2010) and Feminists Theorize the State
(Palgrave, 2006). She is one of the editors of The Oxford Handbook on Gender and
Politics (2013) and Palgrave Gender and Politics Book Series.
Emanuela Lombardo is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science
and Administration 2 of Madrid Complutense University in Spain. Her latest
books are Gender and Political Analysis (with Johanna Kantola, Palgrave 2017)
and The Symbolic Representation of Gender (with Petra Meier, 2014). Recent arti-
cles can be found in Politics, European Political Science, Gender, Work and
Organization, and Comparative European Politics.
Heather MacRae holds a PhD from Carlton University, and she is the Jean
Monnet Chair in European Integration and Associate Professor in Political Science
at York University, Canada. Her research focuses on gender politics in the European
Union. She recently co-edited the volume, Gendering European Integration
Theory: Engaging New Dialogues (2016), with Gabriele Abels. Her articles have
appeared in journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, West European
Politics and Women’s Studies International Forum.
Ana Prata is Assistant Professor at California State University Northridge,
United States. She specializes in European women’s movements, political repre-
sentation, gender and democratization, and issues of bodily citizenship. She is
currently working on a research project entitled ‘Southern European Women and
the Economic Crisis – Assessing Problems, Policies and Practices’.
Elaine Weiner (2003, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) is Associate
Professor in Sociology at McGill University, Canada. Her research interests lie at
the intersection of gender, work and Central and East European societies. She is
the author of Market Dreams: Gender, Class, and Capitalism in the Czech Republic
(2007). She has published in European Journal of Women’s Studies, European
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xiii
Integration Online Papers, Social Problems, Social Politics, and Women’s Studies
International Forum.
Stefanie Wöhl Dr phil., is Senior Lecturer and Head of the City of Vienna
Competence Team on European and International Studies at the University of
Applied Sciences BFI, Austria. Her research interests and publications focus on
European integration, gender, international political economy and state
transformations.
Ania Zbyszewska is Assistant Professor at the Warwick Law School. She researches
on regulation of work, law and gender, and law and politics in EU context and in
times of ‘transition’. She authored Gendering European Working Time Regimes:
The Working Time Directive and the Case of Poland (2016).
List of Figures
Fig. 8.1 Utterances of ‘Austerity’ and ‘Economic Crisis’

(Parliament 2008-2014) 170
Fig. 8.2 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ within the overall debate
(Parliament 2008-2014) 172
Fig. 8.3 Breakdown of the ‘women and gender’ category 173
xv
List of Tables
Table 8.1 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ compared 171

Table 8.2 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ within the overall debate
(Parliament 2008-2014) 172
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Gender and the Politics of the Economic

Crisis in Europe
Introduction
Since 2008 the Western world has lived through one of its most serious
economic crises. What started as a financial crisis in the US with the col-
lapse of the Lehman Brothers, spread to Europe as a general banking cri-
sis that brought down national economies of countries such as Iceland,
Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. The gendered consequences
of the crisis are significant and are analysed in gender scholarship from
different disciplines. Feminist economists show that as a result of the
cuts to the public sector services, benefits and jobs, women’s unemploy-
ment, poverty and discrimination have increased across the countries
with minority women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds or
with disabilities being disproportionately affected (Karamessini 2014a;
J. Kantola (*)
Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of
Helsinki, Finland
E. Lombardo
Department of Political Science and Administration 2, Faculty of Political
Science and Sociology, Madrid Complutense University, Spain
© The Author(s) 2017 1

J. Kantola, E. Lombardo (eds.), Gender and the Economic Crisis in
Europe, Gender and Politics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50778-1_1
2 J. KANTOLA AND E. LOMBARDO
Pearson and Elson 2015). Feminist political scientists and sociologists

document how the harder economic climate has been combined with
conservatism as evidenced, for example, by hardened attitudes in the
European Parliament and Spain towards abortion, increases in the levels
of domestic violence as well as women entering prostitution (Kantola
and Rolandsen Agustin 2016). The rise of the populist right and left
parties, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic sentiments as well as racism and
resentment towards migrants have included attacks on migrant women
and veiled women (Athanasiou 2014). At the same time progressive
gender and wider anti-discrimination policies, policy instruments and
institutions that might counter these trends have suffered from signifi-
cant cuts to their resources (Lombardo 2017). Feminist cultural studies
analyse the ‘commodification of domestic femininities’: the idealization
and promotion of female resourcefulness at times of recession and cuts
in family income in various television programmes and series (Negra and
Tasker 2014: 7).
The aim of this book is to analyse how the economic and social crises
are deeply intertwined with political ones. Indeed, it makes sense to write
about crises in plural as opposed to a single financial or economic crisis
(Hozic and True 2016: 12; Walby 2015). A politics perspective shows
the shifting boundaries between politics and economics, where economic
power has taken ever more space from political decision-making with its
dominant rhetoric that ‘we have no alternative’ to austerity (cf. Hay and
Rosamond 2002). Such rhetoric and policy choices reflect the neoliberal
political ideologies of governments and EU politicians (Pontusson and
Raess 2012) and have led to processes of de-democratization in EU’s
political and economic decision-making (Klatzer and Schlager 2014).
The long-standing crisis of democratic legitimacy of the EU has reached
new heights with the crumbling of social rights of European citizens, for
example, in Greece, with the troika of the European Central Bank (ECB),
European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
dictating austerity politics on member states. A politics perspective further
highlights how political institutions—such as two-party systems—have
been challenged with populist responses from both political left and right
in the European states. Civil society movements and activists have mobi-
lized in masses to resist austerity politics across Europe, proving the resil-
ience of counterpower forces in European societies. In the polity of the
EU, economization, de-democratization and politicization are intercon-
nected European processes. In this way, the institutional and policy shifts;
GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN EUROPE 3
their top-down and bottom-up Europeanization through hard and soft

law and discourses; and political resistance by civil society actors are at the
core of political analyses of the crisis.
This book charts these developments in relation to gender. The book,
first, asks how the political and economic decision-making institutions
and processes of the EU have changed as a result of the economic cri-
sis and with what consequences for gender equality and gender equality
policy. Have the EU’s austerity politics been gender mainstreamed to take
into account their differential impact on women and men? How has EU’s
long-standing gender equality policy been affected by the economic cri-
sis? Second, the book analyses processes of Europeanization as gendered.
These expose the gendered impacts of interdependent dynamics between
EU and domestic politics in times of crisis. How are member states’ gen-
der equality policies, institutions, regimes and debates Europeanized in
times of crisis? What changes does EU austerity politics produce in mem-
ber states’ gender equality institutions and policies? Third, the chapters
of the book focus on the feminist resistances and struggles around the
economic crisis. Civil society’s resistance against austerity politics and in
favour of democracy shows that political contestation is at the core of
this crisis and has important gender dimensions. What is the role of gen-
der and intersectionality in civil society’s anti-austerity struggles? What
are feminist strategies of mobilization against neoliberal, conservative and
racist politics?
This introductory chapter sets the scene for these complex issues about
the gendered politics of the economic crisis in Europe. In this chapter, we
first map different feminist approaches to analysing the crisis. We show how
different gender conceptualizations and analytical strategies change the
object of analysis in relation to the crisis. Second, we explore the gendered
politics of the crisis: institutions of the EU, processes of Europeanization,
and resistances and struggles. Finally, we introduce the book’s chapters.
Feminist Approaches to Analysing the Economic

Crisis
Feminist scholars adopt different analytical approaches to the gendered
politics of the economic crisis and each analytical perspective sheds a dif-
ferent light on the questions. We focus on five feminist perspectives: (i)
women and the crisis, (ii) gender and the crisis, (iii) deconstruction of
gender and the crisis, (iv) intersectionality and the crisis and (v) post-
deconstruction of gender and the crisis (see also Kantola and Lombardo
2017a, b). The adoption of any of these approaches changes one’s defini-
tion on the key concepts of this book—politics, institutions and intersec-
tionality—and one’s definition of the crisis itself. The distinctions between
the approaches are analytical as most research combines them in a quest
to answer empirical real world puzzles. We suggest that analytically frame-
works such as these help to discuss the underpinnings of the approaches
and their compatibility.
A number of feminist economists map the effects of the crisis on women
by using an approach that we call a women and the crisis approach. This sig-
nifies analysing the different waves of the crisis where men’s employment
in the private sector, for example, in construction businesses, was worst
hit at first, and how in the second wave, the public sector cuts started to
erase women’s jobs, as well as the public sector services and benefits that
women relied on (Bettio et al. 2012; Karamessini and Rubery 2014). In
the field of politics, this has signified studying the numbers of women
and men in economic decision-making and banking. Walby’s (2015: 57)
question, ‘Would the financial crisis have been different if it had been
Lehman Sisters rather than Lehman Brothers?’, makes us ask whether a
more diverse composition of corporate boards would have moved financial
leaders to take less risky decisions (for a critical discussion see Prügl 2016;
True 2016). Feminist scholars have argued that it has been a men’s crisis
in the sense that men have been the dominant actors in the institutions
that have inflicted the crisis and attempted to solve it (Pearson and Elson
2015: 14). Whilst taking ‘women’ and ‘men’ as relatively unproblematic
and unitary categories, the approach has the strength of providing fac-
tual evidence for policy makers about statistical patterns of the crisis as
well as arguments for activists about who is represented in the institutions
involved in solving the crisis and whose voice is heard in policy making.
Second, a lot of the feminist research draws upon a gender and the crisis
approach where the focus is on the gendered impacts on the crisis. A focus
on gender as opposed to women calls for an understanding of the wider
societal structures that reproduce the continuing patterns of domination
and inequality. Gender norms underpin the three spheres of economy:
finance, production and reproduction resulting in women’s overconcen-
tration in the reproductive sphere (Pearson and Elson 2015: 10). The
neoliberal policy solutions to the crisis that require cutting down the
public sector rely on and reproduce traditional gender roles that delegate
major responsibility of care for women. This leads to shifts in the national
and European gender regimes (Walby 2011, 2015) and the EU austerity
policies represent a ‘critical juncture’ that could revert long-term progress
achieved in gender equality in Europe (Rubery 2014). Gender policies—
including gender mainstreaming in the EU—and gender equality institu-
tions have been downscaled in a number of countries at a time when they
would be needed the most to counter the gendered effects of the crisis
(Klatzer and Schlager 2014). A gender analysis that illustrates the patterns
of the feminization of poverty and increases in gender violence points to
the ways in which the economic, political and social consequences of the
crisis are gendered in complex ways. At the same time there is increasing
space in gender and crisis approaches to understand how gender intersects
with other categories of inequality such as race and ethnicity, disability and
class to result in differentiated impacts of the crisis.
Third, deconstruction of gender and the crisis approach discerns the ways
in which the crisis is discursively constructed and how these construc-
tions are gendered and gendering. The approach makes it possible to
understand how some solutions are favoured over others and how gen-
der is silenced, sidelined or employed in particular ways. In other words,
discursive constructions of gender offer particular subject positions and
close off others. These constructions have effects, they can politicize or
de-politicize the crisis in particular ways and they impact on perceived
solutions. With this feminist approach scholars inquire: who defines and
narrates the crisis, and how is the crisis constitutive of new and old politi-
cal identities, institutions and practices? (See Hozic and True 2016: 14.)
How is knowledge about the crises conditioned and informed by pat-
terns of power? (Griffin 2016: 180). Penny Griffin suggests that there is
a prevalence of governance responses that ‘centralise women’s “essential”
domesticity or fiscal prudence, prevailing representations of men as public
figures of authority and responsibility, and techniques of governance that
exploit these’ (Griffin 2015: 55). Such techniques include, according to
Griffin, gender quota systems based on the assumption that the presence
of women’s bodies balances out hypermasculine behaviour, or austerity
measures that are instituted on the foundational assumption of women’s
reproductive work as inferred but unpaid.
Fourth, intersectionality approaches explore the inequalities, marginal-
izations and dominations that the interactions of gender, race, class and
other systems of inequality produce in times of crisis, such as the differen-
tiated impact of austerity policies on migrant minoritized women or men
(Bettio et al. 2012), female refugees in countries like Greece (Athanasiou
2014) and younger unemployed women and older women who see their
pensions reduced or cut (Bettio et al. 2012; Karamessini and Rubery
2014). Heteronormativity is deeply implicated in the dominant narratives
about the economic, social and political crises although their implications
are detrimental to LGBTQ communities (Smith 2016: 231–232). For
example, in the UK, there has been a silence about the impact of the
government’s austerity policies on sexual injustices with the issue of same-
sex marriage dominating the agenda (Smith 2016: 232). Intersectionality
shows how different organizations and movements representing differ-
ent groups can be pitted against one another in a seeming competition
for scarcer resources, or, alternatively it can point to new alliances and
solidarity at times of crisis (Bassel and Emejulu 2014). Populist right par-
ties seeking to protect ‘our people’ can resort to racist or even fascist dis-
courses that challenge the human rights of racialized others in European
countries (Norocel 2013). European media and politicians continue to
demonize Greeks as ‘whites but not quite’ drawing on racialized construc-
tions of otherness, underpinned by presumed ‘laziness’ and ‘criminality’
(Agathangelou 2016: 208).
Finally, post-deconstruction and the crisis approach has yet to enter
gender and politics research (see Kantola and Lombardo 2017a). We
use the term post-deconstruction to signal a diverse set of debates on
feminist new materialism, corporealism and affect theory that come ana-
lytically (not chronologically, Lykke 2010: 106) ‘after’ reflections on the
deconstruction of gender (Ahmed 2004; Hemmings 2005; Liljeström
and Paasonen 2010). These approaches are interested in understand-
ing what affects, emotions and bodily material do in gender and poli-
tics, beyond discourses. The economic crisis makes the analysis of issues
such as the material underpinning of the current political economy, its
entrenched relations to neoliberalism, states’ biopolitics and emotions
and affects and their bodily impacts particularly important (Coole and
Frost 2010; Athanasiou 2014). Emotions and affects, such as anger,
shame, guilt and empathy circulate in the economic crisis—think of the
rage of Spain’s Indignados movement and how important these emotions
are to understand socio-political developments around the crisis. Post-
deconstruction analyses suggest that these emotions are not individual
but social and involve power relations (Ahmed 2004). For instance,
the neoliberal ‘austerity’ agenda has been accompanied by a moralizing
discourse ‘that passes on the responsibility to citizens together with a
feeling of guilt, making easier for governments to impose public expen-
diture cuts and to increase social control of the population’ (Addabbo

et al. 2013: 5). Another example is that of Northern women politician’s
expressing empathy towards ‘the other women’ in the South, that can
read as an affective expression of power that fixes the Southern coun-
tries’ economic and gender policies as failed (Kantola 2015; Pedwell
2014). Feminist analyses using these approaches show that neoliberalism
and violence constitute the vulnerabilities of the bodies affected by the
crisis and protesting against it (Athanasiou 2014). Popular left and right
parties whose popularity the crisis has increased play with emotions and
affects too with tangible results for many.
Gendering the Politics of the Crisis
Authors in this book take different perspectives on gender and the pol-
itics of the crisis. While we have not suggested a particular theoretical
framework or gender approach to them, we asked them to be reflexive of
the theories that underpin their analyses of the crisis. We have, instead,
focused on three issues that, in our view, significantly capture the political
dimension of the crisis from gender perspectives: (i) austerity politics and
institutional and policy changes in the EU before and after the 2008 eco-
nomic crisis from the analytical perspective of gender and intersectionality;
(ii) the political dynamics of interaction between the EU and the member
states or the Europeanization of gender equality and policies in times of
crisis and (iii) the gender and intersectional patterns of resistances and
struggles against austerity politics.
Austerity Politics, Institutional Changes and Gender Equality

Policy in the EU
The first ‘political’ aspect of the crisis that this volume addresses from a
gender perspective includes the policy and institutional changes that took
place in the EU during the economic crisis. Following the financial crisis,
the EU and its member states have pursued an austerity agenda, strength-
ening the deregulatory impetus within a new economic governance regime
that has marginalized the values of gender and wider social equality within
the EC’s ‘Europe 2020’ economic strategy1.
The book chapters analyse the institutional changes that these policy
shifts have resulted in the EU and member states particularly, asking ques-
tions such as: how are the shifts in the EU economic governance regime
in crisis times and in the EU institutional balance affecting gender equality

policy agendas and struggles for wider equalities?
The political response applied in Europe after the 2008 economic cri-
sis has been that of austerity politics. Austerity policies are a ‘set of mea-
sures and regulatory strategies in economic policies aimed to produce
a structural adjustment by reducing wages, prices and public spending’
(Addabbo et al. 2013: 5). Feminist and other scholars have criticized both
the rationale behind austerity politics and its social and political conse-
quences. According to this critique, austerity solutions are based on the
transformation of a financial crisis—the result of an overfinancialization of
the economy and the prioritization of the requirements of financial capital
at the expense of paid and domestic economies (Walby 2015)—into a pub-
lic debt crisis (Rubery 2014; Busch et al. 2013; Bettio et al. 2012). The
conversion of the financial crisis into a public debt crisis pushed European
states to buy out the unsustainable levels of banks and household debts
built up within the financial sector—bailing out failing banks—in an effort
to restabilize the markets, which in turn then began questioning the abil-
ity of states to finance them (Rubery 2014), thus rendering borrowing on
newly established sovereign debt increasingly expensive and unsustainable
(Karamessini 2014a; Busch et al. 2013). This has had implications for the
repertoire of policy responses, which policy makers could conceive of and
the kind of impacts, which policies have subsequently had. In Busch et al.’s
words, the EU, in line with neoliberal economic analyses, ‘has interpreted
the main cause of the crisis as debt and, based on this reversal of cause and
effect’ it has implemented severe austerity rather than growth measures,
especially in the Eurozone countries, with negative social and equality
impacts for the already indebted Southern European states (Busch et al.
2013: 4).
The EU’s neoliberal economic regime and its emerging institutional
configuration have heavily influenced the policies adopted in the after-
math of the crisis, by constructing a new economic governance regime
that has reorganized the coordination of economic policy along the lines
of ‘disciplinary neoliberalism’. The latter ‘involves both a discourse of
political economy and a relatively punitive program of social reform’ (Gill
and Roberts 2011: 162). Strict rules of fiscal and monetary policies in
this system are imposed on member states that have bailed out failing
banks. The main institutional actors contributing to shape this new eco-
nomic governance regime are the European Council, the ECB, ECOFIN
or the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers, the EC, and political
leaders of the member state governments, Germany enjoying the greater

relative power in this process (Klatzer and Schlager 2014). The European
Parliament has limited voice in this new economic governance regime,
for instance it does not control the European Stability Mechanism and
the European Semester, as the surveillance of member states’ economic
policies tends to be jointly conducted by the ‘troika’ (EC, ECB and IMF).
EU policy responses to the crisis have first and foremost comprised
efforts to encourage and coordinate states’ reduction of sovereign debt,
through various instruments and discourses designed to enforce states’
reductions in public spending. The austerity agenda includes measures
that promote deregulation and liberalization of the market, including the
labour market, through the reduction of labour rules, the decentralization
of collective bargaining from state to enterprises and cuts in wages (Busch
et al. 2013; Klatzer and Schlager 2014). The EU new macroeconomic
governance regime comprises institutions, rules and procedures to coordi-
nate member states’ macroeconomic policy. ‘Europe 2020’, the European
Commission Strategy on employment, productivity and social cohesion,
sets the framework for the surveillance of member states’ economic poli-
cies through new governance mechanisms. These are the ‘Euro Plus Pact’,
the ‘Stability and Growth Pact’, the ‘Fiscal Compact’ and a ‘Six-pack’ of
EU regulations that tie member states into a commitment to keep their
annual budgetary deficit below 3 % and their debt below 60 % of GDP,
targets established with the adoption of the European Monetary Union
(EMU) (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Maier 2011). The new economic
governance tools challenge representative democracies by moving powers
from parliamentary to executive branches of polities both at the national
and supranational levels (Bruff and Wöhl 2016: 98).
In particular, the ‘Stability and Growth Pact’ includes expenditure and
debt rules and severely increased sanctions for Eurozone countries. The
‘Macroeconomic imbalance procedure’ gives the EC and ECOFIN the
power to guide member states’ economic policy and sanction incompli-
ance. The ‘Fiscal Compact’ is an international treaty that severely con-
strains member states’ (except UK and Czech Republic) fiscal policy and
imposes debt reduction. The ‘Euro Plus Pact’, adopted in 2011 by the
initiative of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, puts pressure on member states to adopt reforms in
the labour market, health and pension policies with the aim of achiev-
ing greater market liberalization. It sets the basis for the EU interven-
tion in wage policy, since it considers wage policy as a key factor for
promoting competitiveness (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Busch et al.

2013). A so-called Six-pack of EU regulations has entered into force
in 2011 to implement the ‘Euro Plus Pact’ with the objective of
‘enforcing measures to correct excessive macroeconomic imbalances
in the euro area’ (see Bruff and Wöhl 2016: 98–99). The ‘European
Semester’ has reinforced the EU surveillance of member states’ eco-
nomic and budget policy procedures and decisions, establishing an
annual cycle of preset economic targets that member states have to
achieve (Europe 2020), translation of these targets into country objec-
tives through National Reform Programmes, which go together with
Stability Programmes (where each member state plans the country’s
budget for the coming three or four years), EU recommendations to
member states, and European Council and Commission monitoring of
implementation and imposing of financial sanctions to member states
in case of incompliance. The ‘European Stability Mechanism’, through
an intergovernmental treaty adopted in 2012, establishes the rules for
providing EU financial support to member states in economic diffi-
culty; loans are subject to strict conditionality and structural economic
reforms through a process controlled by the EC, in cooperation with
ECB and IMF.
While these macroeconomic policies aim to stabilize the European
economy, stimulate growth and achieve price stability, they also aim to
narrow the definition of the role of government in the macroeconomic
arena, thus reducing the ability of the state to act as the financier and
employer of last resort (Rubery 2014; Maier 2011). These policies are
not therefore politically uncontested, due, among other things, to the
high social costs in terms of increasing inequality (Klatzer and Schlager
2014; Rubery 2014). Indeed, gender analyses of EU policy responses to
the crisis criticize that gender has not been mainstreamed either in policy
design or implementation of ‘crisis measures’ (Karamessini and Rubery
2014; Bettio et al. 2012; Villa and Smith 2014; Villa and Smith 2011;
Klatzer and Schlager 2014). This is an issue discussed by Elaine Weiner and
Heather MacRae in this volume (see Chap. 4). Only in 9.8 % of the cases
of national policies implemented in response to the crisis was there some
assessment of the measures from a gender perspective (Bettio et al. 2012;
Villa and Smith 2011). The European Employment Strategy, which had
formerly integrated gender into its agenda, has progressively made gen-
der invisible, so that it would have disappeared completely from EU2020
if it had not been reinserted in the last minute after amendments from
specific member states (Villa and Smith 2014). Even the European
Economic Recovery Plan makes no mention of ‘gender’, ‘women’ or ‘equal-
ity’, a fact that was criticized by the Commission’s Advisory Committee on
Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. As gender experts denounce,
‘the “urgency” of a response to the crisis seems to have pushed gender
mainstreaming further down the priority list’, including the basic presenta-
tion of gender-disaggregated statistical data (Bettio et al. 2012: 97–98).
Despite broad consensus in the European Parliament’s FEMM Committee
(Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee) about the importance
of tackling the gendered aspects of the crisis, political contestations came
into play and shattered this consensus between the diverse political groups
about the importance of gender perspective further undermining the role
of the European Parliament in promoting a gender perspective to the aus-
terity politics (Kantola and Rolandsen Agustin 2016).
In Chap. 2, Sophie Jacquot analyses the fate of the EU gender policy
in the midst of the economic crisis and arrives at a rather bleak conclusion.
The economic crisis has exacerbated the already ongoing stagnation in EU
gender policy (see Jacquot in this volume). Parallel to the shifts in the EU
macroeconomic governance regime in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, EU
gender equality policies experienced a number of institutional and policy
shifts that locate the EU as ‘the most striking example of a U-turn in the
importance attached to gender equality as a social goal’ (Karamessini and
Rubery 2014: 333). Although gender was not effectively mainstreamed
into the EU macroeconomic policies even before the crisis, as Villa and
Smith (2014) argue, it was indeed mainstreamed in the EU employment
policies in the 1990s through the European Employment Strategies.
However, the EU has shifted its priorities and gender equality is not
treated as a social goal and it is not integrated in employment policies any
longer. The shift in context, according to Villa and Smith (2014) helps to
understand this gender invisibility in the EU employment agenda. In the
1990s, the rise in women’s employment improved labour market perfor-
mance in the member states and was thus considered important for the
EU economy, the neoliberal model was accompanied by developments in
the social democratic model, and the entry of gender equality supporters
such as Sweden and Finland all favoured the integration of gender into
the EU employment policies. The economic crisis context is less favour-
able to gender equality, not only due to a stronger neoliberal ideology
in member governments, but also because ‘the key actors in favour of
gender equality had been sidelined both internally in the Commission and
e xternally among member states’ (Villa and Smith 2014: 288), a develop-
ment we discuss in more detail below.
In this respect, a significant shift in the institutionalization of gender
equality in the EU occurred in the EC in January 2011, when responsibil-
ity for gender equality moved from DG Employment, Social Affairs and
Equal Opportunities to DG Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship,
together with two dedicated units on gender equality policies and on legal
matters in equal treatment. The responsibility for gender equality in the
workplace is still in DG Employment, but there is no longer a dedicated
unit on gender equality left in the DG (Woodward and Van der Vleuten
2014). This administrative shift, which occurred in the second Barroso
Commission in 2010, unrooted the portfolio for equal opportunity and
non-discrimination from their traditional base in DG Employment and
Social Affairs, provoking deep political and strategic consequences on EU
gender equality policies (Jacquot 2015).
The shift might be detrimental to gendering European integration in a
moment in which a new EU economic governance regime is being built in
response to the 2008 financial crisis to strengthen the coordination of national
economic, labour market and social policies (Klatzer and Schlager 2014). It
came precisely at the time in which the Council and the Commission, through
mechanisms such as the European Semester and the ‘Six-pack legislation’,
tightened control over member states’ economic and employment policies,
with the consequence that the institutional shift of gender equality from DG
Employment to DG Justice ‘distanced gender equality from employment
policy and spread gender equality input thinly across the Commission’ (Villa
and Smith 2014: 288). This could weaken the EU Equal Opportunities
unit’s capacity of mainstreaming gender into economic and social initiatives.
While the institutional shift from DG Employment to DG Justice
boosted new developments in ‘justice’, evident in the legally bind-
ing directives2 against gender-based violence, Jacquot (2015 and in this
volume) argues that it contributed to locate gender equality even more
within a legal perspective of rights, and it changed the interconnected-
ness of the administrative, political, academic and activist actors specific
to the functioning of the ‘velvet triangle’ of EU gender equality policy
(Woodward 2004). In relation to the rights-approach, the change risks to
address EU gender equality only through a reactive, individually based,
anti- discrimination approach, rather than through a proactive, group-
based, preventive approach, as that exemplified by positive action and gen-
der mainstreaming measures (Lombardo and Bustelo 2012). With respect
to the gender expert networks, the shift destabilized the ‘velvet tri-
angles’ constructed around DG Employment in decades because some
of the historical experts were specialist in gender discrimination in the
labour market. It also promoted a more managerial approach in which
the Commission considered these experts, rationalized in 2011 from the
former three networks (Legal Experts Network, EGGE Expert Group
on Gender and Employment and EGGSIE Expert Group on Gender,
Social Exclusion, Health and Long-Term Care) into one single network
as European Network of Experts on Gender Equality ENEGE, to save
costs and improve management. Moreover, the gender expert networks
are hired to provide information and services to the Commission rather
than as scientific and legal experts that advise the Commission on how to
advance the cause of gender equality, as they formerly did (Jacquot in this
volume).
The increased weight of member states in times of economic and insti-
tutional crisis, with a greater role of the Council of Ministers, also blocked
developments in EU gender equality policies, as exemplified in the with-
drawal of the revision of the maternity leave directive proposal and the
blockage of the women on corporate boards directive proposal (Jacquot in
this volume). The enlargement to Central and Eastern European countries
further favoured the spread of neoliberal ideologies and, in some cases,
more traditional notions of gender equality (see chapter on Poland by
Zbyszewska in this volume; Villa and Smith 2014: 288). This shifting con-
text, radicalized by the urgency to respond to the Eurozone crisis, tilted
the balance between economic and egalitarian goals towards a promo-
tion of neoliberal economic goals. In the crisis context the EU shifted its
priorities and seemed to forget its commitments to gender equality goals
(Karamessini and Rubery 2014).
The Europeanization of Gender Equality and Policies in Times

of Crisis
The second aspect of ‘the political’ that this volume analyses is the politi-
cal dynamics of interaction between the EU and the member states or
the Europeanization of gender equality and policies in times of crisis. This
includes the analysis of member states’ gender equality context, the politi-
cal and institutional changes in domestic equality institutions and policy
making that are related to EU policy responses to the crisis, and the study
of how austerity politics and its gender and intersectional dimensions are
constructed differently by different actors. The chapters challenge the nor-

mative underpinnings of the EU austerity politics and its domestic impacts,
asking questions such as: how are gender and other inequality policies,
politics and regimes of production and reproduction Europeanized in cri-
sis times? How do the domestic debates on austerity politics construct
political priorities and articulate the balance between competing economic
and equality ideologies?
Europeanization refers to the dynamic interaction between the EU
and the member states that allows to explain the domestic impact of
Europe through the analysis not only of the transposition of EU directives
(Radaelli 2004; Börzel and Risse 2000), but also of the soft mechanisms
of policy learning, norm diffusion through financial incentives, actors’
interactions and discursive usage of the EU (Lombardo and Forest 2012;
Liebert 2003; Eräranta and Kantola 2016). Applying gender approaches
to Europeanization during the crisis allows us to explain both convergent
and differentiated impacts of the EU austerity measures in the member
states, that are due not only to transposition patterns, but also to interac-
tions between national and EU actors and domestic discursive usages of
the crisis and of the EU (Lombardo and Forest 2012; Lombardo in this
volume; Zbyszewska in this volume). As suggested above, EU’s policy
responses to the crisis have important gendered implications in the mem-
ber states, not only for gender equality, but also for equality policies, in the
direction of the dismantlement and restructuring of equality institutions
and policies in different member states (Bettio et al. 2012).
The impact of EU policy responses to the crisis on member states’ gen-
der equality varies depending on factors ranging from the characteristics
of gender regimes, especially in relation to women’s integration in waged
labour and extent to which employment and social policies are able to
free women from unpaid work of care (Karamessini and Rubery 2014;
Wöhl 2014; Walby 2009); gender differences in employment, particularly
because, despite women’s increased integration in the labour market, their
higher presence in public sector occupations (education and health) and
their greater involvement in part-time and temporary jobs, make women
more vulnerable to be made redundant in times of recession and aus-
terity (Rubery 2014); and intersectional differences of class, migration
(e.g. migrant women encounter more disadvantages in the labour mar-
ket than native women), nationality, geographical location (e.g. regional
disparities in women’s employment rates) and age (e.g. young women’s
difficult integration in the labour market and old women facing higher
retirement ages due to pension reforms) (Karamessini 2014b; Karamessini

and Rubery 2014).
The gendered impact of EU policy responses to the crisis on the mem-
ber states has worsened gender equality in Southern European coun-
tries. In Greece it has provoked the ‘deterioration of employment and
social conditions of both women and men’ (Karamessini 2014b: 183).
This is because fiscal and structural adjustments are spreading part-time
among male workers, while the ‘crisis has interrupted women’s progress
towards gender equality in paid work through their better integration in
employment’ and the restructuring of the welfare state will negatively
affect women (Karamessini 2014b: 183). Changes in wage determina-
tion system, employment and welfare state have impoverished vulnerable
and middle-class women and men, increasing the proportion of jobless
households. In Spain, from 2010 onwards, gender equality institutions
have been downgraded or eliminated at the central and regional levels,
and care and gender equality policies dismantled and reoriented towards
more traditional goals (Lombardo in this volume; Lahey and De Villota
2013). This could reverse significant progress achieved in gender equal-
ity policies in Spain in the last 20 years (González and Segales 2014). In
Italy, Verashchagina and Capparucci (2014) warn that most policy reforms
adopted during crisis will reinforce existing gender imbalances, in a con-
text of high gender pay gap and gender segregation in the employment.
Budget cuts will reinforce traditional gender roles in family division of
paid and unpaid work because ‘By cutting childcare and elderly care, funds
for disabled and immigrants the entire burden of missing welfare is shifted
to women’ (Karamessini 2014b: 266).
Also in the UK, EU austerity policies have increased labour market
problems for both women and men. As Rubery (2014: 139) states:
‘Women’s prospects of both secure employment and reasonable pay and
conditions are being eroded by the shrinkage and downgrading of public
sector employment while labour market opportunities for lower skilled
men are also converging towards those found in the female-dominated
private services, with lower pay and more non-standard employment often
taken up on an involuntary basis.’ The biggest falls in disposable income
as the result of austerity policies since 2010 have been experienced by the
most vulnerable women—lone mothers, single women pensioners and sin-
gle women without children (Pearson and Elson 2015). Working-age cou-
ples without children have been least affected (Pearson and Elson 2015).
Despite state cuts in care policies, women are not voluntarily exiting the
labour market, thus dual earner households are currently resisting, though
in conditions of increased labour exploitation for both women and men,
and care exploitation for women (Walby 2015). In Poland, despite a com-
paratively good economic performance at the outset of the crisis, the gov-
ernment imposed strict austerity policies, unpopular to citizens and labour
unions and detrimental to women due to the increased privatization of
care provoked by public cuts. Polish politicians’ willingness to belong to
the ‘EU neoliberal vanguard’ revealed that the crisis was functional to
the consolidation of the country’s ongoing neoliberal reform project (see
Zbyszewska in this volume). Even in the Nordic countries, such as Finland,
neoliberal austerity politics have arrived later than in other European states
but in 2015 have hit the women-friendly welfare state with severe cuts in
the public budget that will shift the burden of care from the state to fami-
lies, that is, women (see Elomäki and Kantola in this volume). There too
the ‘political usage of the EU’ is discernible, namely justifying domestic
austerity politics informed by political ideologies of governing parties with
reference to the EU requirements (Kantola 2015).
The EU-member states dynamics in times of crisis has also implied
a turn to conservatism and de-democratization in the member states,
which have gendered and racialized consequences (Verloo forthcoming).
Governments of the member states worked to formulate austerity politics
out of the reach of public democratic debate and civil society contesta-
tions. From Finland to Spain, governments of the member states adopted
new laws to transpose the EU requirements about limits to budget deficit
into national law, with negative consequences for women, who are espe-
cially affected by public cuts, and for social and gender equality policies. In
Spain, the undemocratic reaction of the conservative government to citi-
zens’ anti-austerity struggles has been a restriction of freedom of expres-
sion and other human rights through the 2014 ‘Law of citizens’ safety’,
which civil society has strongly opposed, renaming it the ‘Gag law’ (see
Lombardo in this book).
In Finland, the 2015 conservative right government combined a neo-
liberal programme of austerity politics with conservatism and racism,
especially promoted by the populist right party The Finns in the coalition
government, with detrimental consequences to gender equality and gen-
der equality policies. The Finns party adopted anti-immigration policies,
refused to agree to the European common compulsory refugee alloca-
tion policy and a quota mechanism during the 2015 refugees’ crisis, and
developed a gendered racist rhetoric in which Finnish women were to
be protected from the violence of other culture’s men (see Elomäki and
Kantola in this volume). In UK and France, minority women’s daily expe-
riences of economic, social, gender and race inequality before and after
the 2008 crisis move Emejulu and Bassel (in this volume) to speak of
‘routinised crises’, that is ‘persistent, institutionalised and ordinary hard-
ships in everyday life’. As the authors write: minority women’s ‘persis-
tently high unemployment and poverty rates are not “exceptional” and
not necessarily problems to be addressed through policy action since they
are indicators of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy operating as
intended. Once we understand minority women’s precarity as the banality
of everyday life we can begin to understand the fallacy of the construction
of the 2008 economic “crisis”.’ The crucial question that intersectional
analyses of the crisis such as Emejulu and Bassel raise is: a crisis for whom?
Gender and Intersectional Struggles Around Austerity Politics

in Europe
The third ‘political’ dimension of a gender and intersectional analysis of
the crisis in Europe that we explore in this book is that of civil society’s
intersectional struggles against austerity politics. A number of countries
have witnessed dramatic changes in civil society activism and political
party systems as a result of the crisis. New forms of resistance include, for
example, new political parties, such as the rise of left populist parties like
Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, or the strengthening of radical
right populist politics in other parts of Northern and Eastern Europe,
France or the UK. At the same time as some groups and peoples have been
empowered others have been further marginalized reflecting, for instance,
the existing gendered and racialized inequalities. The book explores these
aspects of the resistances and struggles against austerity politics. What
is the role of gender equality and intersectionality in civil society’s anti-
austerity struggles, as well as in the new populist parties’ politics?
Feminist scholarship has studied how neoliberalism has fundamen-
tally shaped the context where feminisms operate and explore governance
feminism and market feminism to grasp their changing forms and prac-
tices (Prügl 2011; Kantola and Squires 2012; Evans 2015). Penny Griffin
(2015: 51) coins the term ‘crisis governance feminism’, which is a ‘form of
feminist strategy friendly to existing neo-liberal governance and supportive
of the resuscitation of neo-liberal global finance’. The concepts illustrate
how feminisms may have adapted to the neoliberal context by adopting a
role of providing gender expertise into existing policies rather than engag-
ing in more radical political forms of critique. Although one could inter-
pret the economic crisis as a crisis of neoliberalism, this has not been the
case (Crouch 2011). Instead neoliberal economic policies have become
entrenched as discussed above in relation to the EU. On the one hand,
this could have the potential to transform feminist resistance: new forms
of feminist autonomous movements appear (see Elomäki and Kantola in
this volume), and the strengthening of national and international femi-
nist alliances (Lombardo in this volume). On the other hand, the cri-
sis may generate new challenges for feminist and intersectional struggles
for equality in the harder political climate (see Emejulu and Bassel; and
Jacquot in this volume).
As formerly noted, austerity politics in the EU has been accompanied
with a trend of de-democratization. The new forms of economic gover-
nance—discussed above—are closed off from democratic debate, partici-
pation and civil society lobbying. It has indeed become harder for many
feminist organizations to lobby governments and the EU. As economic
austerity discourses are dominant equality needs to give way to the per-
ceived economic necessities. There is a powerful discursive construction
of exceptional times when equality cannot be afforded and is for the good
times. Moreover, changes in the new economic governance regime of the
EU and new undemocratic regulations in the member states, such as the
constitutional securing of the annual budget deficit below 3 % and the
‘gag law’ in Spain, have made political institutions especially impenetrable
for citizens and activists.
The hard climate of neoliberalism and austerity has been combined
with overt racism in European societies, brought to the surface with the
so-called refugee crisis since 2015 and, for example, the UK’s Brexit vote
in 2016, and gender conservatism pushing women away from the labour
market. Whilst institutional racism has underpinned European societies
before the crisis, few would dispute that racist incidents have surfaced
across Europe and been legitimized by the radical right politics of politi-
cal leaders. In their chapter, Emejulu and Bassel (in this volume) show
how minority women’s struggles for equality have been made harder and
more invisible in such a context. At the same time, these negative trends
in terms of feminist organizing may spark new forms of activism and alli-
ances, which has been the case in a number of European countries includ-
ing Spain and Finland (see Elomäki and Kantola; and Lombardo in this
volume).
As a result of the economic crisis NGO and civil society funds have
been reduced at national and European levels with very concrete conse-
quences for feminist resistance and lobbying. This is not a unified trend as
some actors might have benefited and others not. In her chapter, Sophie
Jacquot (in this volume) suggests that competition is rife at the EU level
between organizations in the areas of gender equality, anti-discrimination
and social inclusion and protection for the decreasing levels of funding.
Citing Pauline Cullen’s research (Cullen 2014) she suggests that the once
powerful European Women’s Lobby (EWL) may be one of the organiza-
tions that has lost some of its former legitimacy and power.
The Content of This Book

This chapter has introduced the theme of the book, which is the ‘politi-
cal’ implication of the current economic crisis in Europe from a gender
and intersectional perspective. This has meant introducing the three main
issues developed in the chapters: (i) EU austerity politics and related insti-
tutional and policy changes, (ii) the Europeanization of gender equality
and policies in times of crisis and (iii) the gender and intersectional pat-
terns of resistances and struggles to austerity politics.
Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 focus on EU austerity politics and the gendered
institutional and policy changes that are connected to it. Sophie Jacquot
analyses the most recent process of change with regard to the EU gender
equality policy (institutions, instruments, interests and ideas), tracing the
‘dismantling’ of this policy field. Her chapter illustrates how this disman-
tling process does not originate in a planned and deliberate decision. It
rather stems from a medium-term policy trajectory, which has been made
even more acute by a fundamental external factor—the effects of eco-
nomic austerity since the end of the 2000s. Rosalind Cavaghan develops a
theoretical and methodological approach to analyse the political contesta-
tions around gender mainstreaming in the EU financial crisis. Cavaghan’s
chapter provides an analytical and methodological framework for analys-
ing the processes through which the EU’s ‘u-turn’ in gender mainstream-
ing implementation has occurred. Elaine Weiner and Heather MacRae
use feminist historical institutionalism to argue that gender equality has
only advanced in the EU when it poses little, or no, threat to the ‘neolib-
eral project’. In the throes of crisis, economic restructuring represents the
indispensably important issue occupying the public realm, whilst the ‘fem-
inist project’ is cast off as an expendable, unimportant matter. Roberta
Guerrina analyses the effectiveness of feminist advocacy in keeping the

gender ‘question’ on the agenda of the EU by focusing on the FEMM
Committee of the European Parliament, the Commission’s gender unit
and the EWL.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 address the Europeanization of gender equality
policies, regimes and discourses in times of crisis. Ania Zbyszewska places
Poland’s crisis response against the backdrop of the EU’s macroeconomic
reforms on the one hand, and Poland’s own ongoing neoliberal transition
project and long-term development plans on the other, to reflect on the
extent to which gender implications of Poland’s anti-crisis measures were
adequately considered. Stefanie Wöhl discusses the EU gender dynam-
ics of financialization and austerity and its effects on the livelihoods of
households and especially women in the Republic of Ireland. She explores
political institutional change at the supranational and national levels and
resistance against austerity and evictions in Ireland. Ana Prata discusses
the economic crisis and austerity policies in Portugal and the political and
institutional changes that impacted the lives of women and families. Her
analysis shows that political discourse in parliament was mostly ungen-
dered and focused on how the crisis impacted families and on the decline
of birth rates, without specific policies directed at women.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 focus on another aspect of the EU-national
dynamics in times of crisis, which is that of feminist struggles against
neoliberal austerity politics, as well as against conservatism and racism.
Akwugo Emejulu and Leah Bassel use the conceptual lens of intersection-
ality to explore the material and discursive effects of the 2008 economic
crisis and subsequent austerity measures in France and Britain on the activ-
ism of minority women. Drawing on interviews with minority women in
Britain and France, the authors examine the opportunities for activists to
articulate a politics that names multiple forms of inequality—racism and
gender inequality and poverty accentuated by the crisis—and to build soli-
darity across different interest groups. Emanuela Lombardo argues that,
although the Spanish gender regime has experienced progress towards a
more public rather than domestic type in the first decade of the 2000s, EU
and Spain’s austerity politics enacted from 2010 onwards are changing
the Spanish gender regime in more neoliberal and conservative directions.
Feminist and civil society’s struggles against austerity and anti-equality
policies have offered political opportunities for resisting the changes in the
gender regime, preventing so far the redomestication of women. Anna
Elomäki and Johanna Kantola argue that the three governing parties of
the conservative right government in Finland represent neoliberalism,

conservatism and anti-immigration with detrimental consequences to
gender equality. They study the reactions to these gendered and racialized
policies by focusing on anti-austerity activism and feminist resistance in
Finland and show the inability of the established women’s organizations
to effectively resist austerity politics and the space that this creates for new
movement actors.
Finally, the concluding Chap. 12 by Johanna Kantola and Emanuela
Lombardo draws out the implications for understanding gender politics
and policy in Europe in times of crisis. The picture that emerges shows
patterns of political and institutional dismantlement of gender equality
policies, perpetuation of old gendered dynamics revitalized by the crisis
and pertaining to both new and old political formations and civil society’s
struggles against the neoliberal project and discourses.
Notes
1. See http://ec.europea.eu/europa2020.
2. Directive 2011/99/EU of The European Parliament and of the
Council 2011 on the European protection order. Directive
2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25
October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, sup-
port and protection of victims of crime.
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CHAPTER 2
A Policy in Crisis. The Dismantling

of the EU Gender Equality Policy
Sophie Jacquot
Introduction
“It is surely not a good period for gender equality”1
As in the above quote by a member of the European Union (EU) High

Level Group on Gender Mainstreaming, the understatement is probably
the most suitable way to describe the most recent changes in European
public policy on equality between women and men, marked by the impact
of the economic and political crisis since the late 2000s. Beyond rhetorical
figures, EU gender equality policy is facing the effects of this period of
austerity and what Peter Gourevitch designated as “politics in hard times”
(Gourevitch 1986). The EU gender equality policy as it was designed
and whose norms were established in the late 1970s tends to gradually
crumble and to refocus on legal instruments and more specific and tar-
geted activities.
S. Jacquot (*)
CEVIPOL, ULB,
Avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

28 S. JACQUOT
This chapter is based on a qualitative research aimed at analysing the

European interventions in the fight against gender inequalities since the
signature of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (Jacquot 2015). Its objective is
to explore the emergence, institutionalisation and evolution of the EU
gender equality policy. Within this long-term perspective and in line with
this edited book’s focus on the politics of the economic crisis, the goal of
this specific chapter is to systematically analyse the structural effects of the
crisis on EU gender equality policy, rather than only evaluating the direct
and strictly economic impact of austerity measures, and to integrate these
effects in the broader picture of the trajectory of the EU gender equality
policy.
The broad temporal perspective enables a focus on three different and
successive gender regimes of the EU. These are characterised by the rela-
tive weight given to gender equality with regard to the market within
the larger EU political regime and include: (i) the “exception model”,
(ii) the “anti-discrimination model” and (iii) the “rights model” (Jacquot
2015). The evolution from the first to the second one is a relatively classi-
cal example of progressive policy change. But the evolution to the “rights
model” is of a different nature. From the point of view of the mechanisms
of change, the transformation is rather gradual and incremental, however,
the results of the change are deeply transformative. The analysis of these
changes and their effects makes visible a process of marginalisation, pro-
gressive deconstruction of the European policy of gender equality which
can, after Bauer and his co-authors (Bauer et al. 2012), be described as
“dismantling”. This policy is indeed strongly affected by budgetary cuts
but also by deeper and more structural changes which tend to undermine
its functioning, modes and means of action, but also its very legitimacy,
beyond the formal provisions and declarations relating to the status of
equality between women and men as a common value and a fundamental
right.
Consequently, this chapter focuses on the most recent period of trans-
formation of the European policy of equality between women and men.
The period begins in 2007 with the signing of the Lisbon Treaty and goes
on until the new multiannual financial framework at the beginning of the
year 2014. The period coincides with economic and fiscal crisis in the EU
and makes it possible to focus on the role of the crisis in the drastic change
towards gender policy dismantling.
Following a “3 I” approach to policy analysis, which pays atten-
tion to the combination of institutions, interest and ideas (Hall 1997;
A POLICY IN CRISIS. THE DISMANTLING OF THE EU GENDER EQUALITY POLICY 29
Heclo 1994), and a policy instrument approach particularly relevant

at the EU level (Kassim and Le Galès 2010), this chapter explores the
different dimensions of this “not so good period”. The chapter analy-
ses the process of on-going change and its impact on specific policy
instruments (I), on institutions and the actors (II) and on cognitive
and normative structures (III) that make up the European policy of
gender equality today. This analysis is based on a fieldwork carried out
in 2012 and 2013 to collect three types of source material: written
(especially primary documentation such as legal norms, but also grey
literature from EU institutions, as well as administrative, parliamentary
and experts reports and specialised press), oral (around 20 interviews
with actors involved in the EU gender equality policy process, as well
as observations of meetings, parliamentary hearings, etc.) and budget-
ary (especially the annual budget of the EC/EU and the data from
the EU Financial transparency system database). The data collected
were analysed using a process-tracing method to best comprehend the
transformations of the policy process in terms of gender equality at the
European level (Mahoney 2012).
Towards a Rights Policy

With the crisis, the threefold equilibrium between equal treatment, equal
opportunity and gender mainstreaming (Booth and Bennett 2002),
which has characterised the EU gender equality policy since the 1990s,
was thrown into question. In the context of the economic and budget-
ary crisis, with less political attention for gender equality policy, the eco-
nomic and coordination instruments tended to fade into the background
while the spotlight remained on legal instruments. Legislation has always
been at the heart of the EU’s jurisdiction and its regulatory action in the
domain of gender equality. However, the specificity of this policy has been
in building itself around multiple pillars, combining law, funding for posi-
tive action programmes and integrating equality into all of the Union’s
policies. In this period of crisis, the budgetary instruments for gender
equality were seriously undermined and the coordination instruments and
gender mainstreaming were significantly weakened. Consequently legal
instruments have become the primary component of European gender
equality policy. The problem of refocusing on legislation is that the leg-
islative function itself is in crisis, as shown below (fewer advancements,
minimal prescriptions, blocked proposals).
30 S. JACQUOT
Born out of the failure of the proposed Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty,
signed on 13 December 2007 is often presented as an important step in
the recognition of the importance of the principle of gender equality and
non-discrimination. Although it provides a reminder of the place of equal-
ity in the values and missions of the EU, the modifications that it brings
to the European normative framework and the general approach to this
question remain very limited (Ellis 2010).
However, rather than on primary law, the impact of the crisis is to be
found in the legal domain in secondary law. If the period leading up to
the signature of the Lisbon Treaty can be characterised by a difficulty
in legislating, the period that followed was no different. Indeed this dif-
ficulty was even accentuated, but with the added justification of the eco-
nomic crisis to explain the blockage of texts and the adoption of minimal
requirements. Since the recast directive of 2006 (2006/54/EC), two
directives linked to the question of gender equality in the labour market
were voted in 2010. One took up the Framework Agreement on parental
leave negotiated by the social partners (Directive 2010/18/EU) and the
other dealt with equal treatment of self-employed workers and contrib-
uting spouses (Directive 2010/41/EU). These texts constitute revisions
to existing directives: that of 1996 on parental leave which had already
taken up a Framework Agreement by European social partners (86/613/
EEC), and that of 1986 on women and men in self-employed activities
(86/34/EEC). Their main acquis was the right to parental leave which
was extended from three to four months for each parent occupying a pro-
fessional activity, one month of which could not be transferred to the
other parent. It also established the right to maternity benefits for self-
employed women or the spouses and life partners of self-employed work-
ers. However, although these two directives laid out minimal requirements
and contained dispositions that brought certain improvements compared
to the previous texts, they were “rather weak” overall (Burri and Prechal
2010: 13) and the object of bitter negotiations—the employers invoking
the economic crisis as an argument in order to contain requirements to a
strict minimum.
The crisis and the “necessary” austerity measures were also at the heart
of the blockage of the proposition concerning the modification of direc-
tive 92/85/EEC on maternity protection. The revision of the “maternity
directive” seems characteristic of legislation in the area of gender equal-
ity in the labour market since the mid-2000s—involving the revision of
e xisting legal instruments whose application is limited by the context of

the economic crisis and funding cuts to systems of social protection.
The other directive proposal adopted by the Commission since 2007
does not contradict these general tendencies. Indeed the proposed direc-
tive on “improving the gender balance of non-executive directors of com-
panies listed on stock exchanges” is a relatively ambitious text that aims
to achieve 40 % of the “under-represented sex” in leadership positions.
Presented in November 2013, this proposal became the Commission’s
main legislative project in the defence of gender equality. This text is sym-
bolic of the recent shift towards the use of the law rather than funding
programmes as policy instruments to tackle public problems—initiatives
in favour of the participation of women in decision-making have been
undertaken at the EU level since the mid-1990s under the form of positive
action programmes. It is also symbolic of the current difficulty in legislat-
ing, since it is blocked at the level of the Council.
The expertise of the EU in terms of gender equality can no longer be
reduced to the social sphere and the labour market. When looking at sec-
ondary law, it is thus important to take into account two other significant
texts which emerged recently: Directive 2011/36/EU on the prevention
and fight against human trafficking and the protection of victims, and
Directive 2012/29/EU which outlines minimum norms on rights, sup-
port and protection for victims of crime. The latter notably includes vic-
tims of human trafficking and networks of forced prostitution. However,
the problem of human trafficking is not dealt with from the angle of gen-
der and male domination, instead it is treated from a criminal perspective
as a question linked to illegal immigration and trans-national organised
crime (Askola 2007; Goodey 2003). The structural causes of trafficking
and the role of male domination thus tend to be side-lined and the aspect
of gender equality takes a back seat.
Finally, when it comes to soft law, the Council has its own “European
pact for equality between men and women”, firstly for the period
2006–2010, and a second one for 2011–2020. The document is linked
to the Strategy for Europe 2020, but its implementation is not associ-
ated with any precise or numerical objectives. As for the Commission, the
“Women’s Charter” of 2010, the “Roadmap for Equality between Men
and Women (2006–2010)”, the “Strategy for equality between women
and men (2010–2015)”, and the “Strategic engagement for gender equal-
ity (2016–2019)” followed on from the five medium-term action pro-
grammes which covered the period between 1982 and 2006. However,
32 S. JACQUOT
these documents are not directly attached to funding programmes any-

more. Therefore, they remain primarily declaratory (Ahrens forthcoming).
If we turn to the financial resources of the EU gender equality policy,
budgetary analysis shows that the amount of the budget allocated to gender
equality as a proportion of the overall EU budget has regularly decreased,
starting in 2000. Within this general context, the 2007–2013 budget
period marks a first important levelling down, especially with the end of
the EQUAL programme,2 and a “historic drop” (Fondazione Giacomo
Brodolini 2012: 52) in resources dedicated to the reduction of gender
inequalities. Negotiated just after the consequences of the crisis started
to being felt at the EU level, the EU multiannual financial framework for
2014–2020 goes even further in this direction. In order to prepare this
new financial framework and “out of a desire for simplification and ratio-
nalisation” the European Commission (2011: 2) proposed the creation of
a single programme (combining several programmes, including the two
most important in terms of gender equality—DAPHNE and the “Gender
Equality” section of the PROGRESS programme).3 This new overarch-
ing funding programme aimed to achieve increased efficiency, to limit the
fragmentation of funding and reduce administrative charges. Although it
had an overall budget of 439 million euros, nothing was said in the pro-
posal about the allocation of funding between the different areas of action,
and the maintenance of previous funding levels remained in suspense. In
its statement, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) cal-
culated that the 439 million euros actually represented a decrease relative
to the previous budget, and “this represents a weakening of the European
Union’s commitment to improving the situation of people experiencing
discrimination” and “the Committee is very clear that the budget pro-
posed is below the level of support needed to maintain continuity of the
work set out in the previous programme”.4 Along with the EESC, the
European Parliament also noted this further drop in funding, as well as the
fact that combatting violence against women no longer figured among the
objectives laid out in the Commission’s proposal, even though DAPHNE
was integrated into the new programme.5
A similar logic was at work concerning the EU’s development policy
and the transformation of its funding framework for the period between
2014 and 2020. The Communication of the Commission on the proj-
ect proposed to reorganise existing funding. Gender equality was men-
tioned as a major axis of the new budgetary programming. However,
the budget line specifically dedicated to gender equality disappeared in
favour of integrating the gender dimension into all the EU’s development
programmes and policies. In sum, the process of rationalisation largely
amounts to a severe reduction of the gender equality-specific budget and
of the visibility of public problems linked to gender inequalities.
An equivalent dismantling process has also been at work concerning
the third pillar of gender equality policy, that is to say, coordination
instruments. This process is caused partly by the near-total evaporation
of concern with the fight against gender-based inequalities in the major
multiannual action plans of the EU. It is also partly caused by the weak-
ening of the gender mainstreaming strategy and its operational mecha-
nisms. Adopted in 2010, the Europe 2020 strategy followed on from the
Lisbon Strategy (2000–2005, and then in its revised form 2005–2010)
in order to coordinate the economic policies of the EU member states.
In terms of gender equality, although we can see continuity between the
Lisbon Strategy and Europe 2020, it takes the form of an increasingly
significant decline in the place of these questions within macro-level
coordination. The Lisbon Strategy had already contributed to progres-
sively erasing the specific problems women face in the labour market, in
favour of a model centred on a neutral “adult worker” (Annesley 2007;
Jenson 2008). With Europe 2020, the importance of taking gender
into account was so diminished as to nearly disappear entirely. Although
there are a few mentions of the specific situation of women in the labour
market, or elderly women in terms of poverty, scattered throughout the
Commission’s Communication on the subject,6 the awareness of this
situation is never integrated into the rationale, the objectives or even
the indicators of the Europe 2020 strategy. The employment rate objec-
tive itself is a neutral, exclusively quantitative goal, set at 75 % for the
whole population aged between 20 and 64 years old. Moreover there
is no mention of a general commitment to gender mainstreaming, as
was the case in the Lisbon Strategy. This means that gender inequalities
are not considered in the evaluation of national policies and in macro-
economic developments or in the elaboration of recommendations for
member states. Nor are they taken into account in the National Reform
Programmes or even in the other coordination processes that are now
contained within the Europe 2020 strategy (such as the employment and
social open method of coordination processes).
One of the goals of implementing gender mainstreaming was that gen-
der would become part of “normal” public policies and be integrated in
the typical European political process. In this respect, it seems—rather
34 S. JACQUOT
ironically—that the promoters of this instrument achieved more than they

had bargained for. Since the end of the 1990s, gender mainstreaming has
been raised to the level of a legitimate and institutionalised public action
instrument at the European level. However, this process of routinisation
has occurred more in a context of (polite) disinterest than in one of the
deconstruction of gender norms and the transformation of dominant
power structures. Overall, this approach was envisaged from an almost
exclusively technical perspective and was incorporated into existing policy
processes without challenging the gender norms and power relations that
were at the heart of these processes (Kantola 2010: 146–147). More spe-
cifically it was taken into account by administrative managers who did
not have genuine expertise in this area and it was not opened up to par-
ticipation from civil society. Finally it was developed via new modes of
governance in a non-binding form, not particularly propitious for intense
political engagement and commitment. As a result, the impact of gender
mainstreaming on the transformation of gender relations and the nature
and degree of inequalities between men and women was limited and gen-
der mainstreaming was not able to cushion the diverse legislative and bud-
getary changes and cutbacks that developed since the mid-2000s.
Institutional Shifts and Interests Evolution:

Structures and Actors in Gender Equality
Since the beginning of the 2000s, the EU gender equality policy was char-
acterised firstly by the phenomenon of professionalisation of the actors,
which led to the marginalisation of activist and feminist involvement in
the development of gender equality policy. Secondly it was marked by
a phenomenon of normalisation of the institutional and administrative
specificities of this policy, which were increasingly seen as inappropri-
ate for the standards of “good governance” of European public action.
In this context, the crisis hit the EU gender equality policy while the
cause-based coalition traditionally supporting it was being eroded and
undermined. The interconnectedness of different types of actors (admin-
istrative, political, academic, activist) specific to the functioning of the
“velvet triangle” (Woodward 2004) of gender equality policy is disap-
pearing. This section will review the transformations undergone since
the mid-2000s by the main members of the “velvet triangle” within the
European Commission, the member states, the European Parliament
and civil society.
One of the major destabilising factors of the gender equality sector

and the upheaval of its way of functioning was the Equal Opportunities
Unit being moved, on 1 January 2011, from DG Employment and
Social Affairs, to DG Justice. This administrative transfer came immedi-
ately after changes to the portfolios that accompanied the arrival of the
second Barroso Commission in February 2010. The portfolio for equal
opportunity and non-discrimination thus left their traditional base in DG
Employment and Social Affairs and joined DG Justice, the transfer of all
services concerned followed a few months later, and then a few months
after that the management of certain budgetary lines was also transferred.
Far from being a simple material shift, this move would have profound
consequences on European gender equality policy, its mode of action, its
nature and even its very definition.
The publication of the first annual report on gender equality after this
transfer, in 2011, condenses a certain number of the effects of this new
affiliation. It firstly awards a significant place to the fight against sex-based
violence, as a reminder that in joining DG Justice, the Equal Opportunities
Unit also gained responsibility of this issue and thus improved the organ-
isational coherence of the policy. Then, this annual report on gender
equality, which had previously had the status of a Communication by the
Commission, was published, on the decision of the Commissioner’s cabi-
net, as a working paper of the Commission, attached to the annual report
on the application of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. This
is an important institutional shift because it thus marks the new ground-
ing of gender equality policy in the perspective of rights. It was a symbolic
manifestation of the understanding of gender equality policy not as an
objective in itself, but as one ground for discrimination among many, from
a primarily legal perspective.
This enforced decision to attach the annual report on gender equality
to the Charter of Fundamental Rights reveals the tensions that accompa-
nied the change in administrative affiliation of this policy. It reveals the
disappearance of the autonomy the Equal Opportunities Unit previously
had. Finally, being attached to DG Justice also means no longer being
attached to DG Employment and Social Affairs: this implies having a
more remote and less self-evident access to European decision-making in
the social sphere, and thus to what continues to constitute the heart of
EU expertise in the area of gender equality. This last shift has a particular
significance in times of economic crisis. It is all the more difficult for the
Equal Opportunities Unit to infuse employment and social inclusion
36 S. JACQUOT
initiatives with a gender perspective, even if the consequences of the

crisis in this domain are deeply gendered (Bettio et al. 2012; Jepsen and
Leschke 2011).
The change in administrative affiliation also had an impact on the expert
networks financed by the Commission. This evolution happened in the
direction of an ever more significant management approach in which the
members of these networks were considered strictly as service-providers
rather than as trailblazers, partners, support or contacts at the national
level, as had been the case in the past. The organisation of thematic net-
works was rationalised. For the period 2007–2011 there were two other
networks alongside the Legal Experts Network, and then there has been
one single network (European Network of Experts on Gender Equality,
ENEGE, from 2011 to 2016). The objectives assigned to the expert net-
works changed; from a contractual perspective they were charged with
providing information to the Commission rather than using their scientific
or legal expertise to further a cause.
Besides the specific gender equality structure within the Commission,
the idea of establishing an independent structure, a place for coordina-
tion, exchange of information and knowledge was evoked in the mid-
1990s, supported by the Swedish presidency of the Union in 1999, and
then by the European Parliament with a resolution and a report in 2004.
It was formally proposed by the Commission in 2005, and finally estab-
lished by a Regulation by the Parliament and the Council in 2006 and dis-
posed of an operational and functional budget from 2007. The European
Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) became fully operational in 2010.
However, having begun its activities in 2010, the process of setting up the
new structure seemed very long and the dissatisfaction regarding its activi-
ties appears to have been—at least initially—very widespread (Hubert and
Stratigaki 2011). Firstly the installation in Vilnius, proof of geographical
decentralisation from the sites of power, significantly complicated the daily
functioning of the Institute. Secondly the composition of the instances
of governance internal to the Institute awarded a (very) large place to
representatives of member states and a (very) small part to civil society
organisations.7 These organisational aspects strongly hindered the ability
of the new institution to find a place in the “velvet triangle” of European
gender equality policy. The picture looks quite gloomy, yet it is also pos-
sible to consider that over time the Institute may have the possibility of
reinforcing the efficiency of EU actions in favour of gender equality, but
primarily thanks to contributions that are more technocratic than feminist.
The creation of this agency is thus part of a general trend towards depoliti-
cisation linked to a managerial dynamic that affects all of the organisations
responsible for equality, as well as a certain number of feminist organisa-
tions. In this context the Institute is made to produce technical knowledge
rather than to develop alternatives or a political vision8—even though it
was initially created to produce and distribute feminist expertise.
Another important change in the structure of the EU gender equality
policy since a decade has to do with an increasingly strong presence of
the member states in the design and monitoring of the policy. Over the
course of the period leading up to the Lisbon Treaty, the autonomy that
characterised European gender equality policy up until the beginning of
the 1990s—particularly within the European Commission—was progres-
sively questioned and normalised, notably due to the strong implication
of member states in piloting this policy from the beginning of the 2000s.
Today, we observe that the role of the three Presidencies in setting the
agenda in terms of gender equality has further increased, as has that of
the High Level Group on Gender Mainstreaming presided over by the
Commission but constituted of representatives of member states. It is the
latter that emerges as the strategic place for directing gender equality pol-
icy at the European level. However, although the role of the High Level
Group became more important in this period, the primary instance was
above all the Council of Ministers.
Although the general tendency towards an increased presence of mem-
ber states in the definition of gender equality policy was accentuated, this
was above all linked to a general context which affected all of the activities
of the EU. The increasing weight of member states was not so much due
to a specific desire to gain control of a policy that had escaped them—as
might have been the case in the previous period—as due to a more circum-
stantial conjuncture of the economic, budgetary and institutional crisis.
It is this situation, as well as the increased diversity in national gender
regimes, which more directly explains both the blockages in the Council
and the more prudent—even hesitant—attitude of the Commission (vis-
ible in the withdrawal of the revision of the maternity directive proposal,
and the blockage of the women on corporate boards directive proposal).
The Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee of the European
Parliament (FEMM Committee) has always been considered as one of the
essential elements in the “velvet triangle” of European gender equality
policy (Ahrens 2016). As such it is subject to the same difficulties as the
other points of the triangle—in particularly the fact of being “velvet”, and
38 S. JACQUOT
thus fragile and regularly challenged. However, since the beginning of the
crisis, the European Parliament overall appears to be the most important
institution driving the development of action in favour of gender equal-
ity. Nevertheless, the FEMM Committee remained one of the smallest
and less legitimate committees. It was also a committee that had to fight
for its opinions to be taken up in plenary sessions.9 The changes to the
internal rules of procedure in the European Parliament contributed to the
feeling of a challenge to the political style and functioning of the FEMM
Committee. The successive reforms to the internal regulations of the
Parliament aimed to streamline the plenary session and thus strengthen
the hierarchy between the reports, so that since 2012 only those deemed
“strategic” could be presented and voted on in plenary session—own-
initiative reports being among the least “strategic”. Yet the FEMM
Commission has always stood apart on its intensive use of own-initiative
reports in order to promote public debate on questions of gender equality
in a range of areas.10 Overall, the FEMM Committee continues to consti-
tute a protected, but increasingly isolated, institutional space. Moreover,
recent analysis by Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín (2016) underlines the
importance of party group competition that can have an impact on the
European Parliament and the FEMM Committee positions according to
specific issues and/or across the policy process.
The civil society actors (particularly women’s and feminist organisa-
tions) as well as social partners (in particular women’s committees) have
played a central role in the emergence of European gender equality policy
since the very beginning and have accompanied its development over the
years. The evolutions of this policy since the second half of the 2000s have
led to transformations within the system of representation of interests in
the gender equality sector. These organisations are indeed confronted
with a political and economic context that is less and less hospitable and a
political space that is more and more restricted.
The development of a broad policy of rights that includes gender
equality, the fight against discrimination and the promotion of fundamen-
tal rights leads to a thematic competition linked to the recognition of
the demands made by organisations working in each of these different
areas. This is shadowed by the financial competition linked to obtaining
European funding and subsidies, which is intensified in periods of bud-
getary crisis. Moreover, the establishment of European social dialogue,
as well as a dense system of interactions between European institutions
and civil society organisations is historically linked to the development
of the social aspect of the EU and its institutions (DG Employment and
Social Affairs, EPSCO Council). The stretching of these close preferential
ties due to the reaffiliation of the equality portfolio to questions of jus-
tice and fundamental rights necessarily contributed to the upheaval of the
landscape of interests in this area. As a result the actors were obliged to
redefine their place and their role within this system in crisis.
As far as the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is concerned, in 2011,
83 % of its budget came from subsidies awarded as part of the PROGRESS
programme.11 More generally, if subsidies to women’s organisations rep-
resented 12 % of the total subsidies paid within the PROGRESS pro-
gramme in 2007, in the following years they only accounted for 6 % on
average.12 As a result, competition is rife between organisations in the
areas of gender equality, anti-discrimination and social inclusion and pro-
tection. Relational analyses confirm that within this increasingly encum-
bered field, in which political space is rarefied and funding opportunities
are reduced, the position of the EWL is median; it is not marginal but it is
no longer at the heart of the game (Johansson and Lee 2013). The stakes
then lie in adapting to an environment that is increasingly complex and
difficult. How can it maintain its legitimacy and continue to be convinc-
ing in its demands and interpretations of public problems affecting gender
equality? Examining the different solutions explored by the EWL in order
to take into account this new environment, Pauline Cullen believes that
“as such, the organisation faces a crisis of capacity and perhaps purpose
where they are increasingly reduced to the role of feminist watchdog for
the insertion of the term ‘gender’ into EU discourse” (Cullen 2014). The
influence of feminist mobilisations is clearly limited in this period of crisis,
in a sector that is increasingly fragmented and no longer able to create its
own opportunities.
If women’s and feminist organisations have always sought the expansion
of the perimeter of European gender equality policy and its extension out-
side of the social domain, social partners have by definition been attached
to the social aspect of gender equality. The evolution of the centre of grav-
ity of this policy and the formal distancing from the DG Employment,
are thus potentially more destabilising for social dialogue than for civil
dialogue in this area. This impact operates in both directions: less con-
sideration for the social dimension in gender equality policy, but also less
integration of issues linked to gender equality in the EU’s social actions.
These general tendencies are reflected by the social partners, against the
backdrop of the austerity policies. Symbolically, the Framework for Action
40 S. JACQUOT
on Gender Equality that was jointly signed by the social partners in 2005
after two years of negotiations was not renewed nor followed by any other
shared action after 2009.
The New Cognitive Framework of Gender Equality

As argued so far, since the second half of the 2000s, European gender
equality policy has undergone a period of crisis that has affected its instru-
ments, its institutions and its public policy community. Its legitimacy has
waned, even as a simple objective subordinate to other objectives, par-
ticularly economic ones. This internal crisis, specific to gender equality
policy has been further amplified by the repercussions of the economic
crisis and the political dimensions that have affected all European policies.
The dominant beliefs and discursive representations relating to the place
and role of European public action in terms of gender equality reflect the
transformations of this inhospitable context. The consensus of the ends
and means, but also on the very definition of the equality principle, is
more difficult to find.
The first element of transformation of the cognitive framework of gen-
der equality is linked to the principle of equality itself and the fact that
there are a multitude of different understandings of this principle at the
European level. The principle of equality has experienced different forms,
over the course of the evolution of European gender equality policy (equal
treatment, equal opportunities, equal impact), which are superposed and
mutually enriching. However, although the means envisaged to deal with
the problems of inequalities may have been different (resorting to the law,
programmes to promote equal opportunities, gender mainstreaming), the
final goal was the same. There was a general agreement on the definition
of problems and representations of the place of women and men in society,
and the range of different understandings of equality (national, theoreti-
cal) were ultimately transcended by a specific European conception that
was quite progressive and upon which the EU gender regime was based. It
is this conceptual coherence that has been brought into question recently.
The multiplication of the cognitive frameworks of the principle of gender
equality is well documented by Lombardo et al. (2009). Their book pays
particular attention to the diversification of these conceptual constructions
underway at the European level. According to their analytic scheme the
shared meaning of gender equality at the European level is not fixed, that
is, established and unified, but is consecutively subject to processes that
shrink, stretch and bend its meaning in different areas. This gives rise to a
multitude of different manifestations of the equality principle.
This fragmentation of the shared conception of gender equality is clearly
a consequence of the increase in the number of member states within the
EU and the multiplication of national gender regimes (Walby 2004), of
which the increasing diversity weighs heavily on the specific gender regime
of the EU. The role of the institutional positioning also has a significant
impact on the way these problems are constructed and the solutions are
elaborated to deal with them. As a result, the shift from DG Employment
to DG Justice had a significant impact on the framing of this policy, which
went from being an all-encompassing social approach to a more abstract
approach based on rights. Moreover, the extension of the perimeter of
gender equality policy beyond its initial base and the opening up of new
problems and new sectors of public action (violence, trafficking, develop-
ment, environment etc.) have contributed to not only a fragmentation of
instruments and actors but also a fragmentation of dominant ideas and
representations.
Finally, the development of the anti-discrimination policy since the
beginning of the 2000s also represents a cognitive challenge that implies
reasoning in terms of intersectionality. Taking multiple discriminations
into account is still much more a discourse than a legal or institutional
reality at the European level (Lombardo and Verloo 2009; Krizsan et al.
2012). Yet its emergence leads the actors concerned to have to recon-
ceptualise the construction of the principle of equality and the place of
gender within it—a process that is still very much underway. Recently, the
cognitive framework of European gender equality policy, confronted with
an increasing diversity of meanings and the difficulty in agreeing on objec-
tives and strategies for action, became more shifting, more unstable and
consequently more vulnerable.
Beyond the internal transformations and the fragmentation of the
principle of equality, the context of economic and budgetary crisis also
contributes to destabilising the cognitive framework of European gender
equality policy. The fact that these are not “good times” for the EU gener-
ally has led to the reorganisation of public priorities and therefore the EU’s
agenda. As had started to be the case in the 2000s, the norm of gender
equality no longer had enough legitimacy in itself, it became subordinate
to other objectives higher up in the list of political priorities, particularly
economic ones. However, this configuration of “equality for the market”
has recently been accentuated and it seems that, even when subordinate to
42 S. JACQUOT
economic objectives, activities in favour of gender equality are in trouble.

As a result, equality has become an objective that is not only subordinate
but also genuinely secondary, or even incidental to the European project.
In this new configuration, equality can only exist “despite the market”. To
exist in spite of everything, the path for European gender equality policy is
that of reduced ambitions, restricting its focus to issues able to aggregate
the widest possible interests and which may hope to be the object of a
consensus in spite of the context of crisis.
The most emblematic examples of the mechanism for reducing the
gender equality issue are clearly the areas of reconciliation between work
and private life, the fight against female genital mutilation and the partici-
pation of women on the boards of listed companies. Recently the EU’s
action to promote equality in employment and in the labour market has
been engulfed by the question of reconciliation and seems to be entirely
reduced to it. Reconciling work and private life has thus become the
point of minimal (almost exclusive) agreement to which European gender
equality policy in employment and at work is reduced. Questions linked
to the quality of employment or equal participation are evacuated from
the debate. An initiative on the “challenges of work-life balance faced by
working families” has, for example, replaced the withdrawn maternity
directive proposal in 2015 (Roadmap 2015/JUST/012).
The reduction of the perimeter of the problem addressed at the
European level is also underway in the area of domestic violence. In its
strategy for gender equality (2010–2015) and its Women’s Charter of
2010, the European Commission committed to establishing a “compre-
hensive strategy on gender-based violence” as well as a “comprehensive
and effective policy framework to combat gender-based violence”. In 2008
a credit of 1.5 million euros was released in order to undertake prepara-
tory action for the unification of legislation. However, in Autumn 2010
the projects announced were abandoned and the activities were refocused
on the specific question of female genital mutilation, especially with a pre-
paratory public consultation launched in 2013. Although numerically this
question only represents a very small aspect of violence against women, it
has the advantage of being very consensual not only in its rejection of the
practices that it targets, but also in its definition and delimitation, whereas
the cognitive framework of violence against women is much less stable and
consensual (Kantola 2006; Locher 2007).
In the same way, the Commission’s directive proposal on equal oppor-
tunities and participation of women on corporate boards, set at 40 %, can
be considered a very restricted (or even restrictive) way of dealing with the
problem of women in decision-making. Making this proposal a priority in
terms of gender equality in this area means neglecting the bigger question
of the under-representation of women in positions of power, and focusing
on economic decision-making. This mechanism of reduction and refocus-
ing of priorities represents the only way of (trying to) develop gender
equality policy in a time of crisis.
Conclusion
If the cognitive frame of European gender equality policy has been charac-
terised by the reduction of the issues and the refocusing on certain aspects
of gender inequalities, this reflects a more general change that has been
occurring in this policy since a decade. The different mechanisms that
successively allowed its emergence, institutionalisation and normalisation
have broken down and no longer function. The cohesion of the “velvet
triangle”, the mobilisation of an avant-garde using the Court of Justice
as a relay of sovereignty, the development of non-binding instruments in
order to enlarge the EU’s area of expertise, the establishment of expert
groups with links to civil society in order to constitute a support base for
the policy, the elaboration of binding norms often more protective than
in most member states, the funding of positive action programmes allow-
ing this equality in law to be translated into facts: all of these activities and
strategies are—to varying extents—thrown into question.
Although the breakdown in these mechanisms appeared gradually, the
change that has resulted is no less profound. It effectively led to the “dis-
mantling by default” (Bauer et al. 2012) of European gender equality
policy. This dismantling is not a total destruction or a disappearance of
the policy. But it is nonetheless a significant reduction both in the density
(fewer actions and instruments) and intensity (smaller and lower level of
the perimeter of instruments and administrative and procedural abilities,
and of the possibilities for political coercion) of European public action in
the fight against gender inequalities (Bauer and Knill 2012). The direc-
tion taken by the recent modifications of the EU gender equality policy is
that of progressive extinction. Change is made without positive decision;
it has little visibility but all areas of policy are concerned (instruments,
institutional structures, public policy community, representations) and its
formal and substantial capacities are in dramatic decline. This dismantling
is not due to a deliberate decision or a political strategy aiming explicitly
44 S. JACQUOT
to end gender equality policy. Rather, it is the result of the continuation of

a public policy trajectory, sharpened by the economic crisis. Indeed, this
phenomenon of progressive dismantling has been accelerated and made
more critical by the situation of the economic and budgetary crisis which
hit Europe at the end of the 2000s and which started to take its full effect
with the 2014–2020 multiannual financial framework and the austerity
measures it implies. In other words, the economic crisis is certainly not
the only explaining factor for the dismantling of the EU gender equal-
ity policy, which is a complex and multifaceted process. However, the
Great Recession has had some direct (budgetary reduction) and indirect
(unwillingness to legislate and to commit to common standards, admin-
istrative rationalisation aimed at improving efficiency, increased competi-
tion among actors for scarce resources) effects which have transformed a
process of policy change into a process of policy dismantling.
Notes
1. Interview with a member of the High Level Group on Gender
Mainstreaming, April 2013.
2. EQUAL is a European Social Fund programme destined for com-
bating inequalities in the labour market, with a part dedicated to
equal opportunities between women and men. In the 2000s it rep-
resented on average 75 % of all funding in favour of gender
equality.
3. This new programme also includes the Fundamental Rights and
Citizenship Programme and the section “Antidiscrimination and
Diversity” and “Gender Equality” of the PROGRESS Programme.
4. Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the
“Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the
Council establishing for the period 2014 to 2020 the Rights and
Citizenship Programme” COM(2011) 758 final—2011/0344
(COD), 9 February 2012, rapporteur: Seamus Boland, OJ EU C
191/108 of 29 June 2012.
5. European Parliament, Report on the Daphne programme: achieve-
ments and future prospects (2011/2273(INI)), Committee for
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, rapporteur: Regina Bastos.
6. Communication from the Commission, Europe 2020: A strategy
for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, COM (2010) 2020
final, 3 March 2010.
7. The management board of the Institute (decision-making body) is

made up of a representative of the Commission and 18 representa-
tives of member states, rotating every 3 years. The Expert Forum
(consultative body) is made up of one qualified person (generally
from one of the organisations promoting equality at the national
level) appointed by each member state, two people appointed by
the European Parliament and three people appointed by the
Commission (one NGO representative, one union representative
and one employer representative).
8. See the opposition between feminist activism and gender expertise
analysed by Elisabeth Prügl (2011). See also Kantola and Squires
(2012).
9. On average 45 % of its opinions are voted in plenary sessions.
Commission for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, Main
activities in the Sixth Legislature Period, Notice to Members, 11
May 2009.
10. Since 1984, own-initiative reports systematically represented

between 75 % and 85 % of the Commission reports, compared to
only 15 % to 25 % of reports adopted in the context of consultation
or co-decision procedures (e.g. 19 own-initiative reports and 6
consultative reports in the 1994–1999 legislature, or 24 own-
initiative report and 6 co-decision reports for the 2004–2009
legislature).
11. http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?rubrique127&lang=
en (accessed 06/05/16).
12. 6.8 % in 2008; 5.8 % in 2009; 5.6 % in 2010; 6.8 % in 2011. Data
from the Financial Transparency System database: http://ec.
europa.eu/contracts_grants/beneficiaries_en.htm
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CHAPTER 3
The Gender Politics of EU Economic

Policy: Policy Shifts and Contestations
Before and After the Crisis
Rosalind Cavaghan
Introduction
This chapter addresses the political dimensions of the financial crisis in
two respects. Firstly, it places contestations around competing ‘gender
knowledges’ embedded in ‘mainstream’ policy centre stage and articu-
lates an analytical approach, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis
which makes these contestations, and their significance, visible. Secondly,
it uses this approach to apply insights of Feminist Political Economy in
an examination of shifts in EU economic policy before and after the
2008 crisis.
This analysis points out how the EU’s increasing emphasis on macro-
economic aims presents new barriers to the identification and contesta-
tion of gender inequalities produced by EU strategic economic policy.
The chapter contributes to gender analysis of the crisis by developing an
R. Cavaghan (*)
Department of Political Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for
Management Studies, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

50 R. CAVAGHAN
innovative theoretical and methodological approach to study of contesta-

tion involved in the development of the EU’s economic strategy, an area
of policy hitherto under-researched in Feminist EU Studies, despite its
central importance in EU integration.
This chapter proceeds as follows. First I locate the gendered impacts of
the EU’s crisis policy responses, in a discussion of on-going contestations
of the EU’s commitment to gender equality. I then introduce Gender
Knowledge Contestation Analysis explaining how this approach helps
reveal the collective policy processes insulating gendered policy impacts
from contestation, before introducing core insights from Feminist Political
Economy, which have highlighted how common disciplinary practices in
economics and economic policy, help to obscure gendered impacts of eco-
nomic policy from view. This approach is then applied to an analysis of
shifts in EU economic policy before and after the financial crisis, not-
ing differences between feminist and mainstream economic perspectives
in relation to the awareness of the gendering effects of economic policy
among EU policy makers, and the dominance of macro-economic aims in
EU policy after the crisis.
Data are drawn from secondary sources and documentary analysis of
Commission and Parliamentary reports and policies as well as advocacy
materials from organisations lobbying for gender equality. This is sup-
plemented with insights garnered from nine interviews undertaken with:
three members of the European Parliamentary Committee for Women’s
Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM); one permanent researcher in the
European Parliament; three ‘femocrats’ in the EU Commission1 involved
with the gender mainstreaming agenda; and two members of lobby organ-
isations based in Brussels. The researcher also attended a half-day ‘strategy
meeting’ for EU-based civil society organisations discussing their attempts
to influence EU economic policy.
Gender in EU Strategic Policy

Gender equality has enjoyed a unique place in the EU’s normative base
since equal pay was enshrined in the Treaties of Rome in 1957, with
the EU subsequently emerging as an international trend-setter, adopt-
ing strong rhetoric on gender equality in successive treaties, accompanied
by a comprehensive suite of policies (Hafner-Burton and Pollack 2000:
452; Kantola 2010: 2). Since 1996, gender mainstreaming has been the
EU’s flagship gender equality policy. Though the policy’s implementation
THE GENDER POLITICS OF EU ECONOMIC POLICY: POLICY SHIFTS... 51
has been patchy, its adoption has supplied rhetorical leverage for gender
equality activists in all of the EU’s policy areas, legitimating their engage-
ment with the gendered impacts of policies in all areas and helping to
support the development of gender expertise in many fields (see Cavaghan
2015; Pruegl 2012), particularly in employment (Hubert 2012; Villa and
Smith 2014a).
Since the onset of the financial crisis, however, gender equality advo-
cates have noted a sharp deterioration in the EU’s commitment to gen-
der equality and gender mainstreaming (European Women’s Lobby
2012a; European Women’s Lobby 2012b; European Women’s Lobby
2014; Klatzer and Schlager 2011: 64) noting that the EU’s major pol-
icy responses to the crisis, ‘austerity’, have been marked by a failure to
mainstream gender and on occasions to even mention women or gender
(Bettio et al. 2012; Leschke and Jepsen 2014: 13; O’Connor 2014: 73).
The negative impacts of austerity on women’s economic well-being have
however been well documented (European Women’s Lobby 2015; Harcourt
and Woestman 2010; Karamessini and Rubery 2014; Maier 2011), some-
thing gender equality advocates within the EU’s institutions, including
the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) in the
European Parliament (European Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights
and Gender Equality (FEMM) 2013a; European Parliament Committee on
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) 2013b) and some mem-
ber states (European Women’s Lobby 2014: 1) have sought to highlight.
Nonetheless, EU ‘austerity’ policies have continued not to acknowledge, anal-
yse or rectify these gendered impacts (European Parliament Committee on
Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) 2013b; Karamessini 2014:
333). Thus, where parts of the EU’s institutions had previously built knowl-
edge and expertise concerning the gendered aspects of many areas of public
policy, we seem to be witnessing a reversion to an un-apologetically gender-
blind EU strategic policy agenda, since the financial crisis. This has prompted
some feminist commentators to describe a ‘crisis’ or ‘U-turn’ in EU gender
equality policy (Jacquot 2015: 137; Karamessini and Rubery 2014: 333).
This chapter aims to deepen our understanding of how this ‘U-turn’
has come about, by building on perspectives that have argued for a focus
on the contestation of gendered meanings and assumptions embedded in
mainstream policy (Benschop and Verloo 2006) and bringing this to bear
on EU economic policies. To fulfil this aim, this chapter outlines a new
analytical approach Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis, applying
it in conjunction with insights from Feminist Political Economy (Bakker
52 R. CAVAGHAN
1994; Enloe 1989; Young et al. 2011), to analyse dynamics involved in

contestations around the relevance of gender in the EU’s policy responses
to the financial crisis.
Contesting Gender in ‘Mainstream’ EU Policy

In the last 20 to 30 years, three important premises have been established
in feminist theory. Revisiting these helps to provide a clear basis for our
attempts to unpick the EU’s apparent ‘U-turn’ on commitment to gender
equality. Firstly, feminist scholars have argued that far from being fixed or
natural, gender is socially constructed (Scott 1986: 1056) and fluid, varying
across time, culture and location and constantly subject to renegotiation
(Acker 2006). Secondly, feminist theory has argued that gender operates
as a basic organising principle of the social and political world (Locher and
Prügl 2009), structuring interpretations, conventions and practices even in
fields which, prima face, have nothing to do with relations between men or
women (Bacchi 2017; Connell 2002). Thirdly, feminist political scientists
have argued that the state and its policies operate as a powerful locus in
the institutionalisation of these interpretations and conventions, produc-
ing and maintaining gender inequality (Connell 1990: 519).
Feminist analysis of EU policy based on these gender theoretical
premises has illustrated how EU policies across the board produce and
maintain gender inequality, in fields ranging from employment (Woehl
2011) to agriculture (Pruegl 2012), climate change (Allwood 2014) and
migration and citizenship (Mushaben 2012). These kinds of analyses have
revealed how EU policies are usually premised on under-conceptualised or
stereotypical understandings of women’s lives, failing as a result to serve
women’s political interests (Abels and Mushaben 2012; Mushaben 2012;
Pruegl 2012). In line with feminist theoretical perspectives which under-
stand gender as fluid and constantly subject to local renegotiation, sector
specific analyses have found that (problematic) gendered assumptions and
gendering practices vary in each field of EU policy.
Ideally, the EU’s flagship gender equality policy, gender mainstream-
ing should institutionalise an on-going process where policy makers in all
fields recursively identify and tackle these problematic perspectives and
assumptions embedded in their daily work. However, empirical analysis
has repeatedly shown that gender mainstreaming in the EU (as in other
implementing organisations and states) has frequently delivered disap-
pointing results (Daly 2005; Weiner and MacRae 2014). The ‘structural’
diagnosis of gender inequality as a horizontal issue produced by public

policy, which is so central to gender mainstreaming’s intellectual heri-
tage, often disappears when the policy is implemented (Daly 2005). Staff
charged with implementing gender mainstreaming often display low com-
prehension of gender’s relevance to their own work, asserting that gender
should be dealt with elsewhere (Andresen and Doelling 2005; Benschop
and Verloo 2006; Connell 2006) or displaying an under-developed aware-
ness of the differences between men and women’s policy interests and/
or little commitment to servicing them (Mergaert and Lombardo 2014;
Schmidt 2005). The chance of meaningful, horizontal engagement with
gender inequalities is even further reduced when tackling them requires
interaction between sectors administrated by different parts of the EU
Commission, that do not share the same working assumptions, such as
development and climate change (Allwood 2013). The gendered assump-
tions and silences embedded in the day-to-day functioning of policy mak-
ing have thus often proved resilient even when gender mainstreaming
should help to expose them to contestation.
Existing findings from analysis of gender mainstreaming therefore pres-
ent us with a research problem, which is highly relevant to our efforts to
unpack the present decline in the EU’s commitment to gender equal-
ity. If we take feminist theoretical conceptions of gender as a constantly
renegotiated set of meanings seriously, then we must try and seek out the
processes through which the gendered meanings and gendering practices
imbedded within public policy are rendered vulnerable to contestation in
some contexts, whilst in others they remain resilient. If we relate this per-
spective to the current ‘crisis’ in the EU’s commitment to gender equality,
we are prompted to ask what dynamics underpin the reinvigorated refusal
to acknowledge, analyse and rectify the gendered impacts of the EU’s
strategic policies since the financial crisis.
Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis

Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis (Cavaghan 2017), is a method
drawing on Interpretative Policy Analysis (Colebatch 2009; Hill 2005;
Laws and Rein 2003; Yanow 1993) and the Sociology of Knowledge
(Callon and Latour 1981; Callon et al. 1986; Latour 1990) that enables
the identification of sector specific barriers to the effective contestation
of gender-blind and gender-biased policies. To this end, the approach
focuses specifically on the collective processes through which collective
54 R. CAVAGHAN
understandings concerning gender remain stable, or alternatively, are dis-

rupted, in mainstream policy.
Gender knowledge is an analytical category which throws our attention
on to differences in the ways people understand and think about gender,
and is defined as follows—‘explicit and implicit representations concerning
the differences between the sexes and the relations between them, the origins
and normative significance of these, the rationale and evidence underpin-
ning them and their material form’ (Cavaghan 2017, tbc). This definition
draws heavily on perspectives elaborated in Sociology of Knowledge litera-
tures which have emphasised that any statement is based on some method
of knowing, that is, a set of epistemic practices, which assign meaning to a
phenomenon (Law 2003: 2).
Assessing statements or opinions about gender as ‘gender knowledge’
entails analysing their qualitative content in conjunction with the rationale
and evidence underpinning them and the materials (e.g. speech, scientific
data points) that renders them visible to us.2 The emphasis on the ratio-
nales undergirding gender knowledge is of central importance because
it helps us to delve deeper into the collective dynamics rendering gen-
der assumptions implicit, obscuring them from view and protecting them
from contestation. Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis involves
operationalising this concept to trace competition between different ideas
about gender within policy processes.
Existing applications of Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis pro-
vide two key insights that are relevant for our analysis in this instance.
Firstly, the approach has been applied to empirically explore how pre-
existing day-to-day practices in policy making and implementation, such
as non-collection of gender disaggregated statistics, gender-blind mea-
surements of policy impact, the use of technical jargon and the exclusion
of stake-holders, maintain stable and collectively shared ways of seeing
that obscure gender inequality from view (Cavaghan 2017). This observa-
tion replicates existing findings in feminist political science and political
theory. However, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis emphasises
how these kinds of practices interact to stabilise modes of thought and
action within organisations, emphasising how this helps to exclude con-
troversies so that some issues are systematically marginalised, ‘relegated to
the realm of that which no longer needs to be reconsidered, those things
whose contents have become a matter of indifference’ (Callon and Latour
1981: 285, my emphasis). Gender and gender inequality is often one such
‘matter of indifference’.
This has political consequences. These bureaucratic practices create

advantages and inequalities for actors contesting policy issues. Anyone
whose preferred perspective is systematically replicated within an organ-
isation no longer needs to expend energy or resources arguing their case,
making themselves intelligible, or refuting others, with the same intensity
as their opponents (Callon and Latour 1981: 285; see also Latour 1986;
Rip 1986). Gender equality advocates by contrast are likely to become
embroiled in extremely resource intensive contestations where they con-
front a policy process characterised by, for example, gender-blind and
gender-biased rhetorical policy, implementation procedures and impact
assessment procedures, which must all be tackled simultaneously. These
interrelationships between different ‘stages’ of policy in an implement-
ing organisation, thus present a significant hurdle to gender equality
advocates trying to disrupt refusals to acknowledge, analyse and rectify
the gendered impacts of policy. By corollary gender equality activists
attempting to tackle gender inequalities stretching across sectors tradi-
tionally defined as separate, are likely to confront even greater difficulties
as their attempts at contestation confront multiple sites of policy making
and implementation marked by competing ways of defining and tackling
policy problems.
Secondly, existing applications of Gender Knowledge Contestation
Analysis have shown that not only bureaucratic practices, but also dis-
ciplinary (e.g. biology, law, economics, gender studies) assumptions and
epistemic practices shape how civil servants approach and understand gen-
der inequality. For example, analysis in Directorate General (DG) Research
within the European Commission has shown civil servants self-identifying
as ‘hard’ scientists contesting the notion that ‘social issues’, such as gender
inequality, could be approached or analysed in any kind of ‘scientific’ man-
ner (Cavaghan 2013). Directorates within DG Research predominantly
staffed by individuals with this kind of disciplinary background exhibited
a strong tendency to eschew gender disaggregated data or formal studies
of gender inequality in their field, dismissing them as inherently ‘unscien-
tific’ and thus irrelevant to their own work. Lacking any reference to data
or expertise, staff’s gender knowledge in these locations, routinely took
the form of essentialist assumptions about women’s qualities, premised
on the flimsy evidence base of personal one-off anecdotes. This gender
knowledge resulted in rather spurious interpretations of gender inequality
issues and a collective acceptance that the whole agenda could be ignored.
To colleagues sharing the same disciplinary background these perspectives
56 R. CAVAGHAN
appeared intuitively correct, whilst contesting voices attempting to refute

these interpretations were repeatedly dismissed as ‘unscientific’ or ‘non-
technical’ (Cavaghan 2017: tbc).
We can apply this approach to structure an analysis of the policy pro-
cesses involved in the formulation of the EU’s responses to the financial
crisis, asking what collective ways of understanding gender are presently
dominant in the EU’s strategic economic policy, how these are stabilised
and how they help to obscure gendered impacts and insulate them from
contestation. Here existing Feminist Political Economy supplies several
insights into common entrenched epistemic practices in economic policy,
which we are likely to encounter shaping policy makers’ gender knowl-
edge in our analysis.
Obscuring Gender Inequality in Mainstream

Economic Policy: Insights from Feminist Political
Economy
Although economics is not a unified field, Feminist Political Economists
have highlighted how ‘mainstream’ (as opposed to feminist) economic
frameworks across the board, hide gender inequality from view creat-
ing an illusion of gender neutrality (Elson 1994: 38; Maier 2011: 14).
Theoretical concepts, which discourage analysis of the interrelationships
between different levels and sectors of the economy, play a central role in
this obfuscation.
First amongst these is the standard use of macro, meso and micro clas-
sifications in mainstream economic approaches, which limit the potential
for mainstream economic thought to adsorb an understanding of gender
as a structural phenomenon. Elson argues that neo-classical paradigms see
voluntary individual contracts as the driver of the economy at all levels,
a ‘choice-theoretic’ understanding of the economy (Elson 1994: 39).
Within this paradigm, talk of analysis at the micro, meso or macro level
only entails description at varying levels of detail (Elson 1994: 33) where
the aggregate product of individuals’ activities is understood to add up
to an economy’s total market output and expenditure. This comprises
the ‘macro’ economy and it is mediated by firms and markets compris-
ing the ‘meso’ level. Thus, neo-classical approaches can acknowledge gen-
der in terms of differences in men and women’s behaviour or in terms of
discrimination, in analysis undertaken at the micro level, but not at the
meso or macro levels, because individuals (the key driver of the economy)
are per definition absent from these levels of analysis.
Critical economic approaches on the other hand such as Keynesian or
Marxist perspectives, which compete with neo-classical theories, contest
whether the macro economy is merely the aggregate product of individu-
als’ activities, arguing instead that the macro-economic level might have
dynamics of its own (Hoskyns 2008: 109) which may require intervention
and management. These approaches also take greater account of inequali-
ties between economic agents and norms shaping their behaviour (Elson
1994) and are therefore more readily open to analysis of actors as socially
gendered beings (e.g. Sen in Elson 1994).
However, Elson argues that even critical economists have great trouble
understanding gender except at the micro level where individuals are pres-
ent. Analysis undertaken at the macro level usually focuses on level of
demand and supply in markets, the interrelation between them and the
behaviour of firms, not with a view to understanding social outcomes,
but with a view to understanding the determinants of long-run economic
growth (Maier 2011: 11). Thus even within these ‘critical’ economic
approaches questions of individual welfare and income distribution are
usually relegated to ‘micro’-level analysis.
Feminist economic approaches by contrast, critique these assumed
divisions, arguing that individuals and their choices are regulated and
constructed by the state, at all levels of the economy emphasising that
gendered norms and outcomes operate across the board (Waylen 2006:
147). Empirical analyses seeking to underpin these arguments have, for
example, documented how changes in macro-economic policy, such as
reductions in state health, social or childcare and welfare spending have
gendered impacts (Elson 1994, 35–38; Grown, Elson and Catagay 2000;
Maier 2011; Elson 2002; Perrons 2005). These perspectives challenge
micro/meso/macro divisions, which so often structure mainstream eco-
nomic analysis and policy.
Feminist scholars have critiqued a further entrenched distinction in
mainstream economics—that between the ‘productive economy’, com-
prising monetised interactions such as wage labour or trade, and the
‘reproductive economy’, comprising the care which sustains individuals
and communities (Rai 2013). Feminists have stressed that mainstream
economic models ignore the interdependence between these two parts
of the economy, devaluing the reproductive sector as a site of production
(Elson 2002: 3) and implicitly assuming that it can function infinitely,
58 R. CAVAGHAN
no matter what pressures are placed upon it (Grown et al. 2000: 1148).
Feminist critiques have thus argued that social reproduction constitutes a
‘largely unrecognised subsidy to the economy as a whole’ (Hoskyns 2004:
4; Rai 2013; see also Rai et al. 2014). Within this literature this false divi-
sion between the productive and reproductive sphere and the defence of
corporate non-responsibility for social reproduction, is identified as fun-
damental organising principle for modern capitalist economies, which can
only be maintained by ignoring women’s lived economic experience as
both producers and reproducers (Acker 2004: 24).
The next section explores the shifting role played by these entrenched
economic disciplinary assumptions in EU responses to the financial crisis,
showing how the micro/macro-disciplinary split institutionalised within
EU policy-making processes, has taken on renewed significance for gender
equality activists in the wake of the financial crisis.
Gender Knowledge in EU Economic Policies

Before ‘the Crisis’
From 1997 to 2005 the traditional mainstream split between ‘macro’- and
‘micro’-economic policies could be observed structuring the institutional
division of labour within the European Commission, whereby ‘macro’-
economic policies (i.e. monetary policies and fiscal policies) and ‘micro’-
economic policies (focused on goods, services, labour markets and social
policies) were coordinated in separate directorates of the Commission, to
the extent that strategic goals were outlined in separate documents and
strategies (Maier 2011: 17).
This fragmentation was mirrored in the Commission, the Council
and at the member state level. The Council of Ministers for Finance
and Economics followed a macro-economic strategy, ‘Broad Economic
Guidelines’, communicating with Directorate Economics and Finance
(DG Eco Fin). The Directorate for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal
Opportunities (DG Employment) followed an employment strategy ‘The
Lisbon Strategy’, which was only loosely coordinated with DG Eco Fin,
the Eco Fin Council, MS level Finance Ministries and the EU’s Broad
Economic Guidelines (Maier 2011: 17).
Reviewing EU economic policy before the crisis, we can observe differ-
ent gender knowledges within the EU’s ‘micro’- and ‘macro’-economic
policy. In the EU’s ‘micro’-economic policy we can observe a burgeoning
awareness of gender inequality in the labour market and interconnections
between reproductive and productive labour. Gender knowledge embed-

ded in the EU’s ‘macro’-economic policy on the other hand is entirely
implicit—here strategic aims expressed in macro-economic terminology
gloss over the relationship between the productive and the reproductive
economy entirely, omitting any explicit conceptualisation of people.
EU ‘Micro’-Economic Policy: 1997 to 2005

The EU gained a new role in the development of employment policy
in 1997 when an Employment Chapter was added to the Amsterdam
Treaty (Visser 2009: 39). At this point the European Employment
Strategy adopted gender equality as one of the four ‘pillars’ of EU
employment policy (Jacquot 2015: 117). The successor economic strat-
egy, the ‘Lisbon Strategy’, in 2000, placed a commitment to gender
equality central stage. It targeted women as a key source of unused
labour supply, which could be deployed in the pursuit of its strategic
aim to make Europe ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge
based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth
with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (Council of the
European Union 2000).
The Lisbon Strategy’s targets included increasing women’s employment
to 60 % as part of an overall commitment to boost workforce participation
to 70 % and during the strategy’s early stages, promotional material and
speeches from the Commissioner for Employment, indicated an awareness
of women’s double burden as a barrier to employment (Colie and Galligan
2013). For example, efforts to increase female labour market participa-
tion were accompanied by commitments to improve childcare provision
and measures to redistribute caring responsibilities. These aspirations were
translated into quantified targets at the 2002 Barcelona Summit where
member states adopted targets to ‘remove disincentives to female labour
force participation and strive, taking into account the demand for child-
care facilities and in line with national patterns of provision, to provide
childcare by 2010 to at least 90% of children between three years old and
the mandatory school age, and at least 33% of children under three years
of age’ (Commission of the European Communities 2008: 2). The Lisbon
Strategy also made commitments to reduce gender gaps in unemployment
and pay (Directorate-General for Internal Policies Policy 2010: 31) whilst
the collection of gender disaggregated data ensured a growing body of
data on women and men’s employment situations and enabled learning on
60 R. CAVAGHAN
the effectiveness of new policies designed to target one or the other (Villa
and Smith 2014a: 274).
Between 1997 and 2005 we can thus observe an awareness of inter-
connections between different sectors of the economy within the Lisbon
Strategy and a gender knowledge, which explicitly recognises women’s
productive economic activity, and their reproductive activity, and the links
between the two. The role of (public) services, such as childcare, was rec-
ognised as a factor mediating women’s workforce participation.
EU ‘Macro’-Economic Policy: 1992 to 2005

The gender knowledge embedded in the EU’s ‘macro’-economic pol-
icy during roughly the same era looks very different. During the 1990s,
preparations for the construction of the Eurozone commenced and mem-
ber state level budgetary decision-making power began moving from the
member states to the EU level. Rule-based fiscal policies, consisting of the
‘Excessive Deficit Procedure 104’ and multi-lateral surveillance through
‘Broad Economic Policy Guidelines’ (article 99) aimed to lay the foun-
dations for the single market (Elizabeth Klatzer and Schlager 2011: 52)
by introducing strict limitations on deficits defined in the Stability and
Growth Pact; public debt not exceeding 60 % and budgetary deficit not
exceeding 3 % (the ‘Maastricht Criteria’) (Maier 2011: 16). These highly
technical policies aimed to stabilise the economy, stimulate growth and
achieve price stability. Premised on a completely impersonal level of analy-
sis, they contain no reference to gender equality or women’s economic
interests.
However, by limiting states’ fiscal policy through the imposition of
rules these policies, restrict the state’s freedom to provide or prioritise
public services, such as childcare or distributive justice and leave wage
setting as the only real mechanism for adjustment (Klatzer and Schlager
2011: 52). These macro-economic policies therefore do exert gendering
effects, but the rule-based approach ‘explicitly supresses’ consideration of
goals such as distributive justice or gender equality ‘in favour of abstract
concepts and rules that favour fiscal discipline’ (Elisabeth Klatzer and
Schlager 2011: 54, my emphasis).
Analyses of attempts made by feminist activists to contest the gender
blindness of EU macro-economic policy during this period recount DG
Eco Fin’s explicit hostility to gender mainstreaming, gender b udgeting
or attempts to insert gender pay gap indicators into the EU’s Broad
Economic Policy guidelines (Hoskyns 2008: 12). Interviews with activists

seeking to affect EU economic policy at the time similarly described the
difficulties of interacting with DG Eco Fin:
The kind of objections that were raised … were just a laughing matter. They …
they thought they would come in and teach us. They were so ignorant; they had
no idea about our perspective of gender equality—even the most obvious things.
(Gender expert/activist A)
It was clear by the end of the meeting that there would have been no dialogue—
[DG Eco Fin was] very resistant. (Gender expert/activist A)
Comparing Gender Knowledge in Micro-

and Macro-Economic Policies Before the Crisis
This very brief sketch of EU economic policy before 2005 enables us to
identify important differences between the gender knowledge visible in the
EU’s micro-economic policy, and its macro-economic policy and the disci-
plinary assumptions underpinning these differences. The Lisbon Strategy’s
rhetorical strategic aims included attention to social cohesion and quality
of work. Targets associated with it included some explicit awareness of the
links between public services, childcare and women’s employment, accom-
panied by the establishment of data collection processes which could sup-
port further exploration of gendered issues. Persons and social experiences
are incorporated into the development of this economic policy. However,
in line with expectations raised by Feminist Political Economists’ critiques,
the EU’s macro-economic policy, characterised by rules and convergence
criteria, focused on the creation of a stable economic area, conceived with-
out reference to persons or social impacts. Interrelations between the pro-
ductive and reproductive economies went wholly unacknowledged in EU
macro-economic policy at this time.
Policy Shifts in the Balance Between Micro-

and Macro-Economic Policies: The 2005 Integrated
Guidelines for Growth and Jobs
Until 2005, these two areas of economic policy were only loosely coor-
dinated with one another (Maier 2011: 17). The balance between the
EU’s micro- and macro-economic policy changed however in 2005 when
62 R. CAVAGHAN
negative assessments of the Lisbon Strategy’s progress prompted a mid-

term review in 2005. At this stage the Lisbon Strategy was restructured,
incorporating the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and Employment
Guidelines into one institutional framework titled the ‘Integrated
Guidelines for Growth and Jobs’ (2005–2008) (Directorate-General for
Internal Policies 2010: 31). Growth and Jobs targets were subordinated
to Broad Economic Policy within these guidelines (Directorate-General
for Internal Policies 2010: 50) constructing an asymmetrical relationship
where social policies were adopted in line with macro-economic targets,
but macro-economic policies made no mention of social impacts (Barbier
2012: 390).
In her analysis of the impact of the Integrated Guidelines for Growth
and Jobs, Maier (2011: 19) argues that this new framework the ‘Integrated
Guidelines for Growth and Jobs’, institutionalised a typically neo-classical,
denial of links between different sectors of the economy, whereby macro-
economic developments are assumed to exert no influence on employ-
ment. Insights of Feminist Political Economy literatures alert us to
problems which this kind of theoretical assumption is likely to create for
gender equality advocates when it structures processes of policy contes-
tation. Within this neo-classical conception of the economy ‘the labour
market is defined as the appropriate place to incorporate people into con-
siderations of economic growth and to prevent poverty through income
generation’ (Maier 2011: 19). However, this functions to systematically
insulate gendering effects of reductions in state spending and the dispro-
portionate effect they have on women, from contestation. Within the
conceptual assumptions of these neo-classical assumptions gender equality
interventions are only intelligible in relation to micro-economic policies.
These policy shifts within the EU’s own (micro/macro differentiated)
economic strategies provide cues for the subsequent downgrading of
gender equality commitments after the financial crisis, as policy priorities
were increasingly dominated by abstract, rule-based macro-economically
conceived goals, devised without attention to outcomes or aims conceived
of as ‘micro’ economic.
As the relationship between macro- and micro-economic policies was
altered, perspectives previously found in the EU’s economic policy during
the Lisbon era, which did engage with individuals, declined in importance
in the EU’s strategic economic policy. Disciplinary assumptions and epis-
temic practices, which enabled a comprehension of the notion that condi-
tions of employment and access to (state supported) childcare affected
women’s economic participation, thus, also began to be marginalised in

mainstream EU economic policy.
Policy Development and Contestation in EU Crisis

Responses 2009–2011: The Europe 2020 Strategy
In 2008–2009 EU member states agreed to ‘The European Economic
Recovery Plan’, which led to a 200 billion Euro agreement to address the
collapse in labour demand. The plan made no mention of gender differen-
tiated impacts of the spending boost, despite efforts from within the par-
liament to exercise oversight in this regard (Villa and Smith 2014a: 281).
By 2010 however responses to the crisis changed course moving away
from stimulus packages to focus on the reduction of debts and deficits
(Villa and Smith 2014b: 102). These policy aims are macro economically
conceived. Since then, EU policy responses to the crisis have continued to
be dominated by efforts to encourage reductions in states sovereign debt,
through instruments and discourses designed to enforce reductions in pub-
lic spending. ‘Europe 2020’,3 the strategy which superseded the Lisbon
Strategy, is accompanied by new mechanisms such as ‘The Euro Plus
Pact’, ‘The Stability and Growth Pact’, ‘The Macroeconomic Imbalances
Procedures’ and the ‘Fiscal Treaty to the European 2020 Strategy’ and
‘The European Semester’ (Bekker 2015; Zeitlin and Vanhercke 2014).
These mechanisms further tie member states into a commitment to keep
their annual budgetary deficit below 3 % and their debt below 60 % of
GDP (Maier 2011).
In contrast to the Lisbon Strategy, gender equality is not explicitly
named as a horizontal theme or objective in the Europe 2020 strategy.
Whilst equal opportunities for women are mentioned in parts, explicit gen-
der equality goals or actions to achieve them are absent. The EU’s wider
constitutional commitments to gender equality or gender m ainstreaming
have not been mentioned or honoured within the strategy (Villa and
Smith 2014a, 2014b). The gender knowledge once present in EU eco-
nomic policy developed in DG Employment and Social Affairs which actu-
ally included some conceptualisation of people, women and the linkages
between different sectors of the economy is no longer meaningfully repre-
sented in the EU’s strategic economic policy.
Analyses of the policy processes involved in the formulation of Europe
2020, starting with a consultation in late 2009 (Barbier 2012: 388) show
that policy development of the strategy proceeded under conditions of
64 R. CAVAGHAN
haste and an atmosphere of crisis, as member states struggled to respond to

the unfolding financial crisis. Systematic evaluation of the Lisbon Strategy
was not yet available and as a result was not used to inform the develop-
ment of Europe 2020 (Barbier 2012: 389; Villa and Smith 2014a: 282).
Under these conditions the rather positive outcomes of efforts of the
Lisbon Strategy’s impact on women’s workforce participation, were not
successfully mobilised in processes of policy contestations (Villa and Smith
2014a: 281). In fact, the initial draft of the 2020 strategy was drafted by
DG Secretariat General. DG Employment and Social Affair’s involvement
was limited, reducing opportunities for staff with gender expertise within
DG Employment and Social Affairs to contribute to its development (Villa
and Smith 2014a: 283). Although a number of member states made calls
to continue attention to gender equality, these were not integrated into
the next drafts of the 2020 Strategy—even gender disaggregated employ-
ment targets were resisted (Villa and Smith 2014a: 287). Through the
exclusion of these targets, explicit acknowledgement of, or engagement
with, gendered dimensions of the EU’s core economic policy responses to
the crisis has been avoided.
Conclusions
Applying a Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis to examine what
methods of thinking dominate in the EU’s economic policy and how this
shapes or restricts understandings of gender, thus supplies a useful perspec-
tive on processes through which the gendered impacts of EU economic
policy responses to the crisis, have been insulated from contestation. This
chapter has presented an argument that common theoretical premises
entrenched in mainstream economics as a discipline, which discourage
analysis of interrelations of different sectors and levels in the economy, are
replicated and institutionalised in the EU’s economic policies, with clear
political effects.
‘Macro’-economic approaches to economic analysis appear predict-
ably incompatible with structural conceptions of gender inequality.
Employment policy on the other hand, which is premised on common
understandings of ‘micro’-economic issues, did during 1997–2005 prove
more receptive to analysis of linkages between productive and reproduc-
tive sectors of the economy, in turn enabling a more realistic concep-
tualisation of women’s lives and factors governing women’s workforce
participation.
Barriers to the identification and contestation of gendered impacts of

economic policy have however steadily grown since the mid-term review
of the Lisbon Strategy in 2005. At this point, the relationship between
‘micro’- and ‘macro’-economic policy shifted so that macro-economic
aims were placed in a hierarchy over micro-economic ones. Whilst feminist
economists critique these conceptual divisions as arbitrary and obfuscat-
ing, these entrenched, collectively accepted, disciplinary conceptualisa-
tions of what micro-economic and macro-economic analysis is constitute
significant barriers to the identification and amelioration of negative gen-
dered impacts of the EU’s economic policies.
For most mainstream economists macro-economic policy and macro-
economic analysis are per definition impersonal, concerned with abstractly
conceived determinants of growth, pushing any discussion of gendered
impacts back into the EU’s employment policy, which is presently formu-
lated in subordination to macro-economic policy. This serves to insulate
the root causes of women’s declining economic well-being, retrenchments
in public services and gender equality machineries and cuts in wages from
meaningful contestation, rerouting demands for ameliorative action away
from the root cause. Thus, the widely accepted and entrenched micro/
macro boundary presents a significant conceptual barrier to any efforts
to make policy makers perceive and engage with the gendered impacts of
the EU’s own economic policy. The theoretical perspectives articulated
in Feminist Political Economy argue that this false division and the main-
tenance of a strategic silence (Bakker 1994) which ignore women’s lived
economic experiences as both producers and reproducers (Acker 2004:
24) play a central role in the constitution of unequal economic relations
between women and men.
Given that the EU’s rule-based macro-economic policies show no sign
of being loosened, findings suggest that feminist activists and research-
ers might be forced to begin sustained critique of the EU’s existing
conceptualisations of the economy so that gendered impacts of the EU’s
core economic agendas can be systematically contested. However, EU
economic governance also remains a moving target. More empirical analy-
sis is needed to see how faithfully states respond to the various demands
implied by EU’s 2020 Strategy and its core implementation mecha-
nisms. Existing analyses of the implementation of the European Semester
from 2011 to 2014 suggest expansions in the scope of Country Specific
Recommendations over time, which merit further investigation (Bekker
2015; Zeitlin and Vanhercke 2014). Similarly, the gendered implications
66 R. CAVAGHAN
of North/South asymmetries in the stringency with which the EU’s eco-

nomic governance regime is applied (Dawson 2015: 298) merit further
investigations. These variations in the real impacts of policy commitments
made at the EU level may yet provide scope for encouraging feminist
interventions.
Notes
1. All of these respondents specifically asked that their location within
the Commission not be revealed, one respondent had recently left at
the time of interview.
2. It should be emphasised therefore that gender knowledge is emphat-
ically not to be confused with expertise about gender or gender
inequality and that the use of the term ‘knowledge’ does not imply
any kind of legitimation or approval of any given statement. Because
gender is an omni-present and often implicit organising factor in
social and political life, gender knowledge often takes the form of
implicit assumptions embedded in wider working practices. Use of
Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis is intended to help
uncover these kinds of ideas and in this instance to reveal and chal-
lenge the collective processes insulating them from contestation.
3. See http://ec.europea.eu/europa2020 for an accessible summary.
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CHAPTER 4
Opportunity and Setback? Gender Equality,

Crisis and Change in the EU
Elaine Weiner and Heather MacRae
Introduction
The responses to the recession at the European and national level … repre-
sent an opportunity and transformational moment to modernize the labor
market and promote gender equality—Analysis Note: Gender Equality and
Recession, financed and prepared for the Directorate-General Employment,
Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities (Smith 2009: 2).
Funding for this research was provided, in part, by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight Grants Program). The views
expressed in this chapter are those of the authors.
E. Weiner (*)
Department of Sociology, McGill University,
855 Sherbrooke Street West, 712 Leacock Building, Montreal, QC, Canada,
H3A 2T7
H. MacRae
Department of Political Science, York University,
S672 Ross Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3

74 E. WEINER AND H. MACRAE
When the credit crunch triggered in 2008 in the United States evolved
into a full-scale economic and financial crisis, the recessionary effects
rippled across the globe. No economy escaped unscathed, but the eco-
nomic bust hit advanced industrialized economies, such as the European
Union (EU), harder than those emerging and developing (Karamessini
2013). The Eurozone crisis (also referred to as the European debt cri-
sis and the European sovereign debt crisis) gave rise to a profusion of
responses ranging from stimulus packages and bailouts to the imposi-
tion of austerity measures and increased scrutiny of national spending
plans. Though the market disturbances to EU member states varied,
their Common Market integration necessitated substantial supranational
policy redress in order to mitigate the financial contagion of the crisis
(Dornbusch et al. 2000). The European Commission, the EU’s execu-
tive arm, declared the importance of rapid and coordinated action early
on: “Quick and decisive action is needed to stop this downward spiral.
Europe must use all the tools at its disposal” (European Commission
2008: 4).
Notably, among “all the tools” available to policymakers to counter the
crisis in the EU was gender mainstreaming. Formally introduced in 1996,
gender mainstreaming involves bringing a “gender equality perspective”
to bear “in all [EU] policies, at all levels and at all stages” (Council of
Europe 1998: 5). Such an initiative led some to praise the EU as one of
“the most progressive polities” in the world (Pollack and Hafner-Burton
2000: 452). Gender mainstreaming augmented the EU’s existing efforts
to advance gender equality via directives on equal treatment and positive
action measures, instigated in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. Together,
they constitute a project to progress gender equality that reaches back sev-
eral decades. Though this project has made some inroads, the path of its
policy competencies has generally steered clear of policy realms most cen-
tral to exacting the four freedoms (i.e., unrestrained mobility of capital,
goods, services and people) which collectively represent the touchstone
and often-espoused raison d’etre of European integration (MacRae 2010:
161; see also MacRae 2013). Many feminist scholars and activists thus
point to these neoliberal foundational underpinnings as a major, if not the
main, impediment to the EU’s gender equality project (e.g., see Hoskyns
1996; MacRae 2010).
Though multiple interpretations as to the (true) cause of the EU’s
economic and financial crisis abound, many feminist scholars and activ-
ists shared in the indictment of its neoliberal capitalist logics as deeply,
OPPORTUNITY AND SETBACK? GENDER EQUALITY, CRISIS AND CHANGE... 75
if not inherently, flawed (Perrons and Plomien 2013; Walby 2012;

Wöhl 2011). The crisis opened to question this once resolute eco-
nomic architecture, seemingly opening it to challenge not only in the
EU but more globally (Grabel 2013; Young et al. 2011). The EU’s
institutional protagonists of its gender equality project such as the

European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social
Affairs and Equal Opportunities emphatically underscored the “oppor-
tunity” for policymakers to effect change, “building a strong economy
for the future” in ways that would be “more gender-equal in the future”
(2010: 7, 11). The European Women’s Lobby (2009) hailed the crisis
as a “moment of opportunity to reassert that another vision of the world
is possible” and called for “gender equality to be a core guiding prin-
ciple now.” The European Commission’s Advisory Committee on Equal
Opportunities for Women and Men (2009) reminded policymakers of
EU commitments to gender equality set forth in multiple European
Treaties.1
This transformation of the EU’s economic make-up, in the view of
these protagonists, meant prioritizing gender equality as “in times of
boom as well as bust” (Smith 2009: 2). Most immediately, it necessitated
mobilizing gender mainstreaming in crisis rescue and recovery. By 2012,
however, it was plain to see that in its policy responses to the crisis, the
EU had paid little heed to the supposed opening and reputed obligation
to advance equality between women and men. The European Parliament’s
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) chastised
the European Council, the European Commission and the member states
for failing to take “the gender dimension … into consideration in the
current and planned initiatives and policies aimed at exiting the crisis”
(2012: 7). In its 2012 report for the Directorate-General for Justice, the
European Network of Experts on Gender Equality (ENEGE) and the
Expert Group on Gender Equality, Social Inclusion, Health and Long
Term Care (EGGSI) reported the “disappointing finding regarding this
crisis and policymaking” that “gender mainstreaming has been side-
stepped both at the policy design and implementation stage” (ENEGE
and EGGSI 2013: 57). Effectively, the crisis served neither as an opportu-
nity to realize a more “gender just” economic alternative nor as an occa-
sion to respect its own Treaty obligations (Waylen 2013: 5).
In the early days of the crisis, the European Women’s Lobby (2009)
had warned of a likely “setback” to “gains women and society as a whole
have made over previous decades” should gender equality go unaddressed
in the economic and financial crisis. With gender mainstreaming’s omis-

sion realized, the FEMM Committee declared a “crisis of gender equal-
ity”—that is, a “crisis” of women’s hard-won “achievements”—borne out
of the bypass (2012: 25). The perceived magnitude of gender mainstream-
ing’s exclusion extended beyond these EU actors to feminist scholars who
variably interpreted it as “reversing gains of the past decades” (Klatzer
and Schlager 2014: 484), “a U-turn in the importance attached to gender
equality as a social goal” (Karamessini and Rubery 2013: 333) or reflec-
tive of a more global intensification of the “neoliberal project,” involving a
“sharply gendered attack” on many of the hard-won gains of the “feminist
project” (Walby 2012: 15).
In this chapter, we adopt a feminist historical institutionalist approach
to consider these two framings of change—potential (progress) and then
actual (regress)—in the path of the EU’s gender equality project. In our
view, both of these interpretations imply a major “turning point” in the tra-
jectory of the EU’s gender equality project, with the economic and finan-
cial crisis acting as a catalyst (Capoccia and Kelman 2007: 341). Though
we concur that gender inequalities have intensified since 2008, we are not
convinced that the institutional course of the EU’s gender equality project
in the economic and financial crisis has, or could have early on, fundamen-
tally changed course. Wearing feminist historical institutionalist lenses, we
look at the broader context—past and present—to better see what could
have potentially changed and what did actually change in terms of its path
in order to appreciate the pace and magnitude of its change (and lack
thereof). We hone in on the interplay of the social (i.e., gender equality)
with the economic (i.e., the market) to highlight oscillations borne out
of economic instability that have slowed or stalled the EU gender equal-
ity project throughout its history. Against this backdrop, we suggest, the
contemporary crisis and its implications for the gender equality project are
rendered less extraordinary.
Toward this end, we trace out this project’s path from the EU’s incep-
tion in 1957 through the EU’s core policy responses to the economic
and financial crisis in 2008–2012. This “macro sweep” means confining
our focus to the supranational level—that is, the EU member states’
shared core (Waylen 2009: 248). In doing so, we rely, in part, on a vast
trove of feminist scholarship, dating back to the early 1990s, that con-
siders the EU’s engagement with issues of gender inequality. We also
draw on opinions, reports and statements put forth by various EU insti-
tutional actors2 about gender equality and the crisis. Finally, we use EU
communications, memos and press releases regarding key policy

responses to the crisis.
We begin with a brief overview of feminist historical institutional-
ism, highlighting the main concepts on which it relies. We subsequently
detail the trajectory of the EU gender equality project from the outset of
European integration to the economic and financial crisis. We then sketch
out key policy responses to the economic and financial crisis in the EU
and underscore the general absence of a “gender equality perspective.”
We find that the EU’s neoliberal “logic of action” has long circumscribed
this project’s path, prior to and during the economic and financial crisis,
rendering sensibilities about its set back (i.e., a project in peril) not such a
ready conclusion (Streeck and Thelen 2005: 18).
Feminist Historical Institutionalism

In this chapter, we ground our analysis in an amalgam of feminist and
historical (new) institutionalist thought. At the core of new institutional-
ism—historical and otherwise—institutions are defined as the “rules of
the game” that “structure behavior” (Mahoney and Thelen 2010: 10). A
feminist take on institutions holds that gender relations are a “key dimen-
sion” of such formal and informal rules (Waylen 2014: 216). Feminists
scholars’ appreciation of the working of powers as gendered in both “nom-
inal” and “substantive” terms augments the explanatory capacity of most3
new institutionalist approaches (Waylen 2014). Nominally, it manifests in
access to power, where power is understood as command over resources,
privilege and opportunity (Chappell and Waylen 2013). “Gender bias,”
founded in “social norms” that are “based on accepted ideas about mascu-
linity and femininity,” reflects institutions’ substantive gendering (Waylen
2014: 215).
“[A]symmetries of power” or “power-distributional biases” further
play a prominent role in historical institutionalist analyses, making this
approach, in our view, particularly receptive to considerations of power
distribution along gender lines (Thelen 1999: 395). For historical insti-
tutionalists, institutions are primarily understood to be “the legacy of his-
torical processes” (Thelen 1999: 382). They emphasize the “importance
of overarching context” and focus on path dependency as a means of
bringing the broad “sweep” of history into purview (Waylen 2009: 248).
Notably, institutions’ origins (or foundations) are quite key to apprehend-
ing their evolution (Thelen 1999). The salience of past events for future
events (Mahoney 2000), however, means that institutional reform tends

to be slow in coming and cumulative in nature, eventually reaching a
“tipping point” (Pierson 2004: 85). More rarely, an “exogenous shock”
(e.g., military conflict, economic crisis) can create “institutional flux”
where the usual constraints on action are temporarily lessened so that “the
range of choices open to powerful actors expands substantially and the
consequences of their decisions for the outcome of interest are potentially
much more momentous” (Capoccia and Kelman 2007: 341, 343).
Historical institutionalism’s preoccupation with the contingencies of
power and path has often meant that its explanatory thrust is more on
institutions’ continuity than their change. However, institutions can and
do change. But, as Pierson argues, “when institutions have been in place
for a long time, most changes will be incremental” (2004: 153). Some
new institutionalist scholarship, more recently, works to unpack how
endogenous change itself unfurls, arguing that it can take four forms—
displacement, layering, drift and conversion (Streeck and Thelen 2005).
Displacement connotes a wholesale replacement during which existing
rules are discredited in favor of new ones. Although this is not necessarily
a slow-moving change, it can be. Layering refers to the layering on of new
rules—intentionally and unintentionally—“on top of or alongside” pre-
vailing rules which eventually alters the original institution (Lowndes and
Roberts 2013: 128). The purposeful neglect of institutional arrangements
in the face of changes in the external environment that alters the bearing
of rules in place is known as drift. Finally, conversion ensues when actors
strategically reinterpret existing rules in a novel fashion.
For feminist scholars, understanding the mechanisms that propel insti-
tutional reform is of central interest. In their apprehension of gender as
“constitutive” of institutions, they bolster new institutionalists, histori-
cal and beyond, in better explaining how institutions work (Lovenduski
2011: xi). Feminist scholarship has, by contrast, labored on occasion from
“put[ting] too much emphasis on women’s agency and not enough on
the structural constraints that can have negative effects on outcomes”
(Waylen 2013: 5). Historical institutionalism valuably reweights the
agency-structure rapport, enabling feminist scholars to better make sense
of an unrealized “transformative effect…hoped for” or others “undesired
and unpredicted” (Waylen 2013: 5).
We draw on feminist historical institutionalism’s toolkit to con-
sider the path of the EU’s gender equality project—historically, from
its beginnings and more contemporarily, as it met up with the recent
economic and financial crisis. We hone in on its interchange with the

EU’s economy, highlighting, in particular, a configuration of gen-
dered power—that is, of masculine make-up—which has worked (and
continues to work) to render the prevailing rules of the game remark-
ably difficult to alter in ways that enable gender equality’s institutional
entrenchment. The changes incurred via the EU’s gender equality proj-
ect, we find, largely assume the form of layering; that is to say, at times,
gender equality’s rules are permitted to co-exist in so far as they pose no
challenge to the enduring institutional order.
Historicizing the EU’s Gender Equality Project

In mapping out the main contours of the EU’s gender equality proj-
ect’s path, we focus in on the rapport between gender equality as a social
goal and the economic, free market-making, aspirations of the European
Integration project. We return to the origins of the EU’s gender equality
project (and the Integration project) in our effort to make sense of their
current interplay, borne out of policy responses to the 2008 economic and
financial crisis. In this section, we interrogate the pre-crisis period, look-
ing principally at the trajectory of EU efforts to advance equality between
women and men. Deliberate or not, there is a tendency among some
scholars to portray the development of the EU’s gender equality project
as ultimately ever advancing (Benshop and Verloo 2009), though others
have certainly judged it as stagnant at various points in time (Hoskyns
1996; van der Vleuten 2007). We underscore key moments in which eco-
nomic stability (and instability) in the EU have worked to motivate starts
and stops in the EU’s gender equality project. Effectively, in feminist his-
torical institutionalist terms, we highlight the dependence of the EU’s gen-
der equality project’s path on the EU’s economic oscillations. Notably,
the gender equality project has never been able to dislodge the reigning
neoliberally informed rules of the game. Instead, gender equality efforts
simply reflect adaptations to this constraint.
In her much-cited characterization of the evolution of the EU’s gender
equality project, Rees (1998) distinguishes three phases, “tinkering,” “tai-
loring” and “transforming.” For Rees, the passing of the first equal treat-
ment directive, in the 1970s, on equal pay for the same work or work of
equal value represents the start of “tinkering.” Importantly, however, for
our purposes, this principle of equal treatment had already been acknowl-
edged in Article 119 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, albeit with a somewhat
more limited application (i.e., solely to equal work). The article declared:
“Each Member State shall during the first stage ensure and subsequently
maintain the application of the principle that men and women should
receive equal pay for equal work.” By intent, Article 119 was designed to
deter unfair competition in the Common Market, with some states using
women to lower wages (Hoskyns 1996). Looking back, there are virtually
no indications that the Treaty framers—notably, all men—were guided by
any principles other than economic gain and fair competition. As Hoskyns
(1996: 57) affirmed, “[a]t no time are the interests of women considered
even obliquely or the issues of social justice raised.” Effectively, and per-
haps not so surprisingly, any concern for gender equality was absent in the
creation of the Common Market.
Nonetheless, the socially turbulent 1960s coupled with a growing
angst over increasing monetary instability, provoked calls for action in the
European Community to respond to what John Rey, then President of the
European Commission declared a “‘profound economic and social crisis’”
(Hoskyns 1996: 79). Among the emphases of response, was a “closer link
between the economic and social” (Hoskyns 1996: 81). This rapproche-
ment enabled the EU’s gender equality project to grow in the 1970s,
with the conception of equal treatment directives. These directives made
mandatory EU member states’ transposition of various anti-discrimination
laws. Notably, however, in their treatment of gender equality as same-
ness and the confinement of such remedies to the labor market, they
maintained (and promoted) the EU’s foundational priorities in their core
aim of encouraging women’s labor market participation (MacRae 2006;
Young 2000).
The opportunity that made possible the realization of several equal
treatment directives was short-lived, however, as the 1979 oil crisis set
off a global economic downturn. In the early 1980s, a “battle was fought
out within the European institutions” over the solution—that is, mar-
ket deregulation (regardless of the social costs) versus a “middle way”
that worked to mitigate the social effects (Hoskyns 1996: 140). In 1985,
the “deregulators” won out, with member states unanimously electing
to complete market liberalization (Hoskyns 1996: 140). In this “cold
climate” (Hoskyns 1996: 140) positive action measures such as women-
only training and family-friendly tactics including flexible working hours
were launched, thus “tailoring” women to fit into the Common Market
(Rees 1998). Unlike the equal treatment directives’ hard legal and judi-
cial modes of recourse, positive action measures were a soft corrective to
a Common Market originally established without women in mind,

and which instead presumed “a male standard of worker and citizen”
(Guerrina 2002: 63).
Gender mainstreaming’s official sanction in the late 1990s, for Rees,
constituted the “transforming” stage. Many see the Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action as creating the opening for gender mainstream-
ing in the EU (Jacquot 2015). Meanwhile, the tipping, in the latter
half of the 1990s, of many EU member states’ governments, toward
the center-left, worked to channel attention at the “social area” and
thus, gender mainstreaming’s entrée was secured (Jacquot 2015: 118).
Gender mainstreaming’s major innovation lies in its intended latitude; it
was to be ubiquitous. In feminist historical institutionalist terms, gender
mainstreaming—in its intended reforming of the modus operandi of EU
policy processes—seemingly augured a major change via displacement.
However, its transformative potential remains unrealized (Stratigaki
2005; Woodward 2008). In new institutionalist terms, gender main-
streaming, like its predecessors, has been layered on, to some extent, to
the prevailing institutional order.
Despite gaining ground in several EU policy domains such as develop-
ment and employment, gender mainstreaming’s utilization appears largely
contingent on a familiarity among their policymaking actors with the
EU’s broader gender equality project (Mazey 2000; Pollack and Hafner-
Burton 2000; Verloo 2005). More exceptionally, elite, feminist, female
politicians have used their leverage to orchestrate gender mainstreaming’s
success in previously gender-blind policy realms such as research, technol-
ogy and science, and justice (Stratigaki 2005).4 Gender mainstreaming
has not, however, made real inroads into policy spheres such as competi-
tion (Hafner-Burton and Pollack 2009), transport (Mazey 2002) or trade
policy where it could disrupt the neoliberal standard operating proce-
dure (True 2009). Taking a step back, it becomes apparent that gender
mainstreaming has been especially able to make some headway, that is,
“enabling policy environment[s] attuned to enhancing equality,” when
women possess some nominative power (Stratigaki 2005: 179). However,
even then, its maneuvering a course only transpires when it steers clear of
the reigning rules of the game.
Arguably, the EU’s virtually concomitant efforts to address other forms
of discrimination “in conjunction with each other” have also played a part
in shaping gender mainstreaming’s track (Kantola 2010: 168). Article 13
of the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty5 set in motion this widening of scope,
sanctioning the Council to “combat discrimination” on six bases, includ-

ing gender. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, in 2000, added
11 grounds. In so doing, gender inequality now sits—“some would
say diluted”—among multiple discriminatory grounds (Jacquot 2015:
177). Some, further argue, that “neoliberal thinking” heavily underlies
this expansion of the equality project, with the EU’s demand for work-
ers “necessitat[ing] ‘diversity management’” (Kantola 2010: 170; see
Schierup et al. 2006).
Ultimately, the EU’s gender equality project in the decades leading up
to 2008 has evolved slowly, its path dependent, in part, on the economy’s
vacillations. However, the changes incurred have almost exclusively taken
shape when they pose little or no challenge to the neoliberal conven-
tions of the Common Market. As such, its progress is heavily ghettoized
into particular policy spheres—most markedly, in employment and social
policy (Mazey 2002; Woodward 2003). Its forward pushes have mainly
succeeded when the reform at stake aligns with the Common Market’s
neoliberal “meta-rule” (Streeck and Thelen 2005: 18) or when a new rule
is made to fit as in the case of “reconciliation of work and family” which,
in its market-friendly rendering, connotes realizing more flexible forms
of work (Stratigaki 2005). Though the various mechanisms now in place
formally bring gender equality into the EU via hard (e.g., laws) and soft
tactics, it remains an add-on to the European Integration project (Abels
and Mushaben 2012).
In 2008, economic instability once again rocked the Common Market.
The turbulence was so great that neoliberalism’s undoing became, for
some, an imaginable possibility. Instead, however, EU policymakers, in
responding to the economic and financial crisis, worked resolutely to sal-
vage the Common Market’s neoliberal status quo, with gender equality’s
consideration achieving little import.
Core Policy Responses to the Economic

and Financial Crisis in the EU
EU policy reaction to the crisis was certainly multifaceted, taking shape

over the course of several years, and adapting to the crisis’ far-reaching
effects. We focus on supranational policy action between 2008 and 2012.
During this span, policymakers formulated—and then began implement-
ing—a series of defining macro-economic measures which together com-
prise the main policy actions undertaken, at the supranational level, to
cope with the economic and financial crisis. Though some would point
to neoliberalism as the main culprit in the crisis, many defended its right-
ness. In the EU, economic restructuring meant a tightening, rather than a
loosening up of neoliberalism’s grip. There would be no major upending
in the gendered distribution of power or dramatic deviation in its guiding
economic logic. In nominal terms, men continue to hold the reins on the
EU’s economy. Substantively, they have sought to reaffirm and strengthen
a rationale—neoliberal in nature—in place since the EU came to be.
In late 2008, the European Commission set out the European Economic
Recovery Plan (EERP) as the first major, collective reaction to the crisis.
The EERP constituted an action plan that aimed to limit the effects of the
global economic slowdown on the then 27 EU member states (European
Commission 2008). This was accomplished principally through fiscal stim-
ulus measures and countercyclical macro-economic policies (e.g., increas-
ing loans, equity, guarantees). However, when these measures did not
appear to achieve their goals and instead, national budget deficits began to
grow out of control, the EU looked to new crisis-containment measures.
Severe irregularities in Greece’s budget, in particular, sparked further con-
cern and led policymakers to turn to budget cuts, spending reductions and
widespread austerity measures to reduce deficit and debt. A set of longer-
term structural reforms, aimed at mitigating the destabilizing effects of
any future crisis, were subsequently added, further augmenting and defin-
ing the EU’s policy response to the crisis.
Notably, the EERP contained “no mention” of gender, women or
equality (ENEGE and EGGSI 2013: 18). Even the “prerequisites” of
assessing the gender impacts of the plan which only entailed “present[ing]
gender-disaggregated statistics”—a preliminary step for gender main-
streaming—never occurred (Bettio 2012: 11). This early neglect pro-
voked some internal censure. For instance, the European Commission’s
Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, in
2009, pointed to little account for “gender … when formulating policy
responses” and emphasized the imperative “to incorporate a gender per-
spective into all policies and measures being planned or implemented to
alleviate the crisis” (2009: 5–6). This committee would further go on
to cite negatively the dominance of men and dearth of women holding
decision-making authority in Europe’s financial institutions (p. 9). Early
on, the European Women’s Lobby also cited the “denial” of gender in the
crisis problem and in its policy solutions and stressed the “urgency” for a
“gender perspective” in the “post-crisis” framework (2009). Despite these
immediate criticisms and calls for policymaking reform, the gender dimen-
sion remained a lacuna in much of the EU’s subsequent policy responses
to the crisis.
In 2010, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the
European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM) were established,
albeit only temporarily, to function principally as a lending instrument
to EU member states experiencing (or at risk of) financial difficulties
prompted by the crisis.6 The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), put
in place in 2012, represents their permanent successor.7 Some see these
bailout tactics as the beginnings of a “new architecture” for EU gover-
nance (Bauer and Becker 2014), though such recrafting is likely most
clearly reflected in the introduction of the European Semester, and the
substantial restructuring of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) via the
Six Pack and Two Pack and the related Fiscal Stability Treaty (European
Commission 2013a).
The European Semester was introduced in 2010 as a means of insur-
ing policy coordination among the member states (European Commission
2011a). Prior to the crisis, economic policy coordination in the EU
was largely elective. Member states annually submitted their National
Reform Programmes, laying out their economic plans for the coming
year. However, no collective review of these national efforts occurred.
In contrast, the European Semester now makes the reporting of mem-
ber states’ budgetary plans mandatory and promotes “collective” and
long-term strategizing toward harmonizing the EU economy (European
Commission 2013b: 4).
The SGP has undergone numerous reforms since its beginnings in
1997. In 2011, the so-called Six Pack and Two Pack were introduced
as a means of substantially fortifying the SGP. The five regulations and
single directive that comprise the Six Pack strengthen both the preventa-
tive and punitive elements of the SGP’s initial formulation in a twofold
fashion (European Commission 2011b). First, they strengthen the coor-
dination of fiscal policy and second, they scrutinize and correct macro-
economic imbalances in the euro area. Two further regulations (i.e., the
Two Pack) were subsequently added, targeting budgetary coordination in
the Eurozone in an effort to avoid negative spillover effects among states.
Despite the expressed concerns about the gender blindness of the
EERP and manifold recommendations to rectify it in subsequent crisis
policy responses, invocations to consider gender equality in policies such
as the European Semester and the various reforms of the SGP were largely
disregarded. Indeed, in 2012, the European Parliament’s FEMM commit-

tee appealed to the EU “to reformulate … current responses” (2012: 11).
Their report unequivocally located the cause and consequences of the cri-
sis with men, declaring it “a disaster created by men” with insufficient
account for a “gender perspective” in a policy response also “decided by
men” (2012: 5). Yet, this too proved unremarkable in terms of effect-
ing alternative policy design. Whether in terms of “financial rescue plans,
stimulus packages and fiscal consolidation [measures],” any gender dimen-
sion proved largely absent (ENEGE and EGGSI 2013: 57).
Empirically, the gender blind spot in contemporary core policy responses
to crisis in the EU is readily manifest. Looking back, however, we suggest
this oversight is not especially out of character. To the contrary, it is rather
consistent with a long-standing “pattern of distributional advantage” in
the EU that “privileges certain positions and certain courses of action over
others” (Lowndes 1995: 95). Historically and contemporarily, men have
held and continue to hold far greater decision-making power relative to
women, and acutely so in terms of the EU’s economic and financial gov-
ernance (Schuberth and Young 2011).8 Here, gendered power, in men’s
favor, is unmistakably manifest. Though core policy responses to the eco-
nomic and financial crisis in the EU were gender blind, it is important to
recognize that such policymaking was still deeply gendered (Annesley and
Scheele 2011). The collective pursuit of a muscled economy—perhaps
most egregiously observed in the Six Pack’s naming—gave definitive
voice to the male monopoly of power (Lux and Wöhl 2015). Such power
has further fueled a normative, neoliberal guiding economic logic that,
although intermittently suspect in the EU’s weathering of economic
tribulations, repeatedly triumphs. Though the “ideational and material”
core of an institution can be “shaken” and potentially altered (Thelen
1999: 397), for new institutionalists—historical and others—institutional
change is far more likely to be gradual than abrupt. Looking back, the
structural constraints to gender equality’s entrenchment have been, and
continue to be, quite resilient.
Arguably, out of the EU’s stabilizing and stimulus efforts has come a
less democratic and a more technocratic mode of economic and finan-
cial governance, with the balance of power shifted away from member
states to the EU’s supranational bodies. In addition, among the EU’s
intergovernmental bodies, power has been consolidated in some, such as
the European Council, while weakened in others such as the European
Commission and European Parliament (Conceição-Heldt 2015; Dawson
2015; Degryse et al. 2013).9 Though this may signal the “rise” of a more
“authoritarian” type of neoliberalism (Bruff and Wöhl 2016: 98; Wöhl
2014) portending new challenges for the EU’s gender equality project, we
might remember this is not the first clash with a neoliberal logic of action.
Conclusion
Taking a feminist historical institutionalist approach, we have sought,
in this chapter, to consider the confrontation between the EU’s gender
equality project and a (global) economic and financial crisis set off in 2008
which hit the EU economy hard. Though, for some, 2008 opened up
the prospect for major change—upending the long-standing, neoliberal
rules of the game—policymakers instead elected to reinscribe the standing
institutional order. This is, in many ways, business as usual intensified. EU
policy responses to the crisis reaffirmed and fortified its collective neolib-
eral rationale and the stronghold of male power. Indeed, they went hand
in hand, mutually reinforcing one another. Without some recalibrating of
the gendered power imbalance, particularly in substantive terms—and the
logics so endorsed—any remaking of the EU’s economic infrastructure
seems more wishful thinking than plausible path.
While the reentrenchment of neoliberalism and its masculine supports
borne out of the crisis is disheartening to those seeking a more gender-
equitable reality, we find more consistency than not in terms of the EU
gender equality project’s foothold in the EU’s broader economic integra-
tion efforts. Despite decades of trying to institutionally entrench gender
equality, it remains on the sidelines. When gender equality poses no threat
to European economic integration or when it becomes functional to the
Common Market’s growth and competitiveness, it gains some traction.
The EU’s gender equality project has traversed a path but its own free-
dom to move is, and has always been, restricted. In tracing out the macro
contours of the EU’s gender equality project, we show how its progress,
and lack thereof, has been—and continues to be—significantly enabled by
the EU’s economic (in)stability. Its trajectory, therefore, from the incep-
tion of Europe’s integration efforts, has been quite uneven, marked by fits
and starts. The project unquestionably has its successes but these changes
have been layered on to the rules of the game, without any big institu-
tional transformation to lock in gender equality as part of the EU’s guiding
logic ever having transpired.
The recently proposed “European Pillar of Social Rights” whose purpose

“is to express a number of essential principles to support well-functioning
and fair labor markets and welfare systems” through “build[ing] on and
complement[ing], the existing EU-level social ‘acquis’” may enable a
restart of the EU’s gender equality project (European Commission 2016:
7). However, this post-crisis swing, in its “preliminary outline,” manifests
a familiar subordination of social to the economic (European Commission
2016). Meanwhile, the often-made proclamation that “The EU has a long-
standing commitment to promoting gender equality, enshrined in the
Treaty since 1957”10 remains a rather misleading and hollow statement. In
the EU’s earliest equalizing initiative, that is, Article 119, market-making
was the defining purpose. Over time, gender equality has achieved some
regard in “fair[er] weather” (Smith 2009: 20) or during “good times”
(EGGE and EGGSI 2013: 11), though still never considered universally
policy-wise (Smith 2009: 20).
Reading the gender equality project’s path through feminist histori-
cal institutionalist lenses makes glaringly visible the long-in-place, rather
institutionally intractable mechanisms that have meant the exclusion of
gender equality’s consideration in the most recent crisis. Importantly, inti-
mations that its omission in policy responses to the economic and financial
crisis reflect a reversal of course—a regress—are not in keeping with how
the project has historically navigated its way. Rather, the gender equality
project tends to progress during economically settled times, although still
remaining secondary to the Common Market’s primary (four) freedoms.
In more turbulent moments, it stalls as policymakers rally around righting
the EU’s economy. The lack of a gender equality perspective in this crisis,
understood in a wider context, is not without some precedent. Whether,
in fact, this recent crisis provoked a big change or served as a tipping
point for the EU’s gender equality project, already weakened in the move
toward mainstreaming and/or the address of multiple discrimination,
only time will tell.
Notes
1. See, for instance, the Treaty Establishing the European Community,
the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union and the Treaty of Lisbon.
2. In historical institutionalism, actors are more often referred to as
interests.
3. There is some debate about the (im)possibility of reconciling femi-

nist and rational choice of new institutionalist approaches (Kenny
and Mackay 2009; Mackay and Meier 2003).
4. For instance, Edith Cression, European Commissioner for
Research, Science and Technology (1995–1976), launched
“Women in Science” a “strategy and action plan” aimed at better
insuring women’s representation in research (Stratigaki 2005:
179). Anita Gradin, European Commissioner for Immigration,
Justice and Home Affairs (1995–1999), represents another exam-
ple. She orchestrated the DAPHNE initiative that strives to end
violence against women (Mazey 2002; Stratigaki 2005).
5. Consolidated version of the Treaty establishing the European
Community, OJ C 340/173-306, 10.11.1997.
6. EFSF was directed at Eurozone members and the EFSM at all EU
member states.
7. For more, see http://esm.europa.eu/about/index.htm.
8. Schuberth and Young (2011) have compiled female participation
rates in EU financial governance institutions and networks, reveal-
ing significant female under-representation (seldom in excess of
20%) and total lack of women as leaders (i.e., holding “chair” posi-
tion) in all bodies identified (p.140).
9. For instance, some reforms, such as the Six Pack, involved such
haste that adherence to prevailing institutional authority was
upended. For example, the role of chief mediator was taken on by
the Council Presidency rather than the European Commission
(Dinan 2012). For its part, the European Parliament was under
pressure to approve the Six Pack quickly, and according to some
MEPs this limited the effectiveness of its role (Dinan 2012).
10. This oft-written declaration is repeated in numerous EU texts. See,
for example, European Commission (2000).
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CHAPTER 5
Gendering European Economic Narratives:

Assessing the Costs of the Crisis to Gender
Equality
Roberta Guerrina
Introduction
Austerity has become the defining feature of EU politics over the last
ten years. The language of exceptionalism associated with the ‘the great
recession’ (Keeley and Love 2010) has proved to be fertile ground for
ideologically driven restructuring. Concerns about sovereign debt and
its impact of the stability of the Eurozone led to the establishment of
strict fiscal mechanisms aimed at ensuring member states’ compliance
and have led to the most systematic challenge to the European social
model to date.
The ensuing research agenda has focused primarily on sovereign debt
as a test for the political commitment of member states to the European
project. Inevitably, issues relating to economic governance and the future
of the European project have dominated the debate (e.g. Trichet 2010;
Vilpišauskas 2013; Dyson 2013; Menz and Smith 2013). The impact of
the current crisis on Europe’s foundational norms, for example, equality
between men and women, however, does not seem to have captured the
R. Guerrina (*)
Department of Politics, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK

96 R. GUERRINA
attention of mainstream scholars, despite the availability of data highlight-

ing the asymmetrical impact of current policies on women (e.g. Wörsching
2011; WBG 2010; Walby 2009; Karamessini and Rubery 2014).
The traditional split between high and low politics can partly explain
this silence, however it is also essential to look at the contribution of femi-
nist voices in shaping counter-narratives in times of crisis. This discussion
requires an analysis of opportunities and constraints for feminist advocacy
to emerge within the European institutions amidst ‘crisis’. A review of the
latest work on the crisis highlights the extent of disciplinary blindness to
the gendered nature of the crisis (e.g. Trichet 2010; Hodson 2013; Dinan
2012; Tosun et al. 2014). It is clear from these publications that economic
and social cohesions have become secondary to higher political/economic
priorities (Dinan 2012). This kind of narrow focus on economic gover-
nance was justified by the underlying assumption that economics override
social matters, particularly when national interest is at stake. Employment
rights, welfare rights and equality thus become secondary to ‘higher’ eco-
nomic and political imperatives.
The emergence and crystallisation of hegemonic narratives around ‘cri-
sis’ provides important insights into policy priorities and the silences that
these engender. This chapter does not seek to provide a detailed assess-
ment of the impact of austerity on women (see Karamessini and Rubery
2014 and the ILO 2012 report for a detailed analysis) rather, it seeks to
understand why and how this has remained one of the untold stories of
the crisis. It will provide an analysis of the efficacy of feminist advocacy in
keeping the gender ‘question’ on the agenda. Focusing on the emergence
of a counter-discourse at the European level based on feminist values and
strategies, it will assess the role and effectiveness of key actors in maintain-
ing gender on the policy agenda.
This chapter explores the role of key actors operating within European
institutions in supporting core values such as equality in times of crisis,
when the dominant political narrative has become blind to social politics.
First of all, the chapter will set out the key findings of feminist analysis of
the crisis in order to establish the availability of data on the asymmetrical
impact of the crisis. Then, it will explore the role and effectiveness of
feminist coalitions or triangles in keeping the issues of gender and equal-
ity on the policy agenda in the context of crisis. Finally, it will outline
the contribution of three institutional actors in shaping the debate: the
European Women’s Lobby (EWL), the European Commission’s Networks
of Experts and the FEMM Committee in the European Parliament. The
GENDERING EUROPEAN ECONOMIC NARRATIVES: ASSESSING THE COSTS... 97
analysis presented here will show that in the case of austerity and crisis,
feminist advocates were not able to influence the policy process and gen-
erate sufficient momentum for a counter-discourse on crisis outside of
narrow gender networks.
Gendering Austerity in Europe
Despite the invisibility of gender in mainstream analyses of the crisis, femi-

nist scholars have developed methodical and systematic critiques of the core
assumptions of economic governance, which are as follows: (1) economic
interests are gender neutral; (2) they should be privileged over other—for
example, social—interests; (3) they operate independently of social struc-
tures (e.g. Walby 2015; 2009; Annesley and Scheele 2011; Caglar et al.
2013; Karamessini 2014). As part of this critique, feminist scholars have
transposed the analysis of hegemonic masculinity in state structures to
capitalist structures and, in so doing, have challenged the male dominance
of financial institutions, thus coining the term ‘he-cession’ (Annesley &
Scheele 2011). This analysis reveals the reliance of neo-liberal economic
models, and associated financial structures, on gender divisions of labour
in the family. Far from being ‘gender free’, the market thus tacitly repro-
duces gender power hierarchies in the public and the private spheres, and
the crisis is lined to these same power structures (Annesley & Scheele
2011; Karamessini 2014).
Walby’s (2009, 2015) analysis draws attention to how gendered eco-
nomic and fiscal institutions not only shaped the current of the crisis,
but further marginalised equality in policy narratives. Exposing the link
between economic governance, women’s representation and social norms
can help to understand why little consideration has been given to the
asymmetrical impact of the crisis on men and women. Moreover, it also
highlights a different set of concerns about the inequalities within social
groups, for example, women, and the importance of women’s rights activ-
ists in political institutions at the national and European level.
Institutional inertia contributes to make gender invisible in the context
of the crisis. This occurs despite the availability of tools that ‘can be used
to make visible the gendering of these financial and economic policies,
including gender auditing and gender-sensitive budget analysis’ (Walby
2009: 15). From this perspective, gender is at the heart of the crisis in so
far as it (the crisis) has been the result of rewarding particular behaviours
(e.g. risk taking), by excluding different voices from decision- making
98 R. GUERRINA
processes (e.g. representation), and finally by placing a higher value on

economic and financial institutions than social cohesion (Walby 2009;
Karamessini 2014).
Organised civil society has an important role to play to raise awareness
and keep the issue on governments’ agenda. Reports by women’s rights
groups at the national and European level (e.g. EWL, 2012, the Fawcett
Society, 2010; and the Women’s Budget Group, 2010) highlight the
impact of institutional blindness to the asymmetrical impact of such mea-
sures on different social groups. Advocacy is key to promoting a gender
sensitive approach to managing economic crises. Such an approach bring
to the forefront the different position—and vulnerability—of economically
marginal groups. Institutional failure to acknowledge the impact of crisis
on women thus betrays the pervasive nature of traditional gender norms
in political and financial institutions political and financial institutions. It
also highlights the marginalisation of gender expertise and feminist activ-
ists in decision-making processes relating to the crisis at the national level.
In this context, international organisations provide an important site for
feminist resistance to national austerity policies. It is within international
organisations that feminist activists can find a voice and support for alter-
native policy agendas (Caglar 2013; ILO 2012).
Walby (2009, 2015) draws some very important conclusion about the
nature of the crisis and the impact of gender structures on shaping the
crisis. Various contributors to Karamessini and Rubery’s (2014) book
arrive at similar conclusions. They share a concern about the impact of
the narrow focus of member states’ negotiations in the midst of crisis on
the long-term trajectory of the European equality agenda. Member states
and European institutions adhere to a dominant narrative about the cri-
sis that is actively preventing consideration of the wider socio-economic
trends that have both contributed to the crisis—for example, asymmetri-
cal distributions of power in the financial markets, lack of representation
in decision-making bodies—and could provide new and innovative solu-
tions to the crisis—for example, reform of economic governance; gender
party in decision-making bodies (Villa & Smith 2013; Karamessini 2014).
One of the issues that has remained unexplored is the impact of advo-
cacy groups in representing the interest of traditionally marginal groups
in policy-making process. This is a critical juncture for the representation
of women’s interests in Europe. Relegating social justice to the back of
the policy agenda whilst member states and European institutions seek to
mitigate the effect on the European economy will have a long-term impact
on women’s rights in Europe. In this context, advocacy groups have an

important function to play raising awareness and mustering support for
alternative solutions.
Femocrats, Gender Actors and Feminist

Institutions: The Role of European Institutions
in Promoting the European Equality Agenda
National governments have demonstrated to be very close to feminist

arguments about austerity. International organisations have thus become
a site for feminist organising in response to the crisis (Caglar 2013: 250).
A positive force in promoting women’s employment rights, the EU has
benefited greatly from the input of feminist activists at three key sites of
influence in policy-making processes: (1) consultations, through advocacy
by a highly organised civil society network, the EWL; (2) policy develop-
ment, through the entrepreneurial work of femocrats in the Commission;
(3) decision-making, through check and advocacy work of the FEMM
Committee in the European Parliament.
The Eurocrisis and associated politics of austerity highlight the fragile
nature of feminist gains. The financial crisis caused a paradigm shift in
European rhetoric. Changing policy priorities and increasing focus on the
long-term success of the Single Currency have led to a decline in interest
in demographic trends, women’s activation and equality. This highlights
the inherent danger of the strategy adopted by the Commission and wom-
en’s rights advocacy groups that concentrated on engendering “buy-in”
by highlighting the costs of inequality. However, at the point in which
equality no longer benefits higher economic priorities, it becomes accept-
able collateral damage. It is therefore important to understand opportuni-
ties and constraints for women’s rights advocacy in this changed political
and economic climate.
The picture that has emerged in relation to the role played by different
institutions in promoting equality juxtaposes EU-level actors to the mem-
ber states. Whereas European institutions, namely the (EP), the Commission
and the European Court of Justice (ECJ), have served as advocates for the
advancement of women’s (employment) rights, the member states have been
reluctant partners at best. The fact that women activists have been able to
mobilise strategically actors within this system of multilevel governance to
put pressure on the Council and the member states, in what van der Vleuten
(2012: loc 1530) has defined as a ‘pincer action’, should not be mistaken for
100 R. GUERRINA
a substantial commitment to gendering EU policy action. It is for this reason

that Locher (2012) is critical of the role of the EU as a champion for gender
equality, particularly when it comes to its impact on socio-economic hierar-
chies. This analysis is important because it helps to explain why at critical junc-
tures, for example, the Eurocrisis, the EU has failed to champion women’s
economic rights.
Women working in the European Commission have been instrumen-
tal in the development of the gender acquis, particularly after the initial
stagnation of the 1960s and 1970s. Hoskyns’ (1996: 101) account of
“the ‘ad hoc’ group on women’s work” provides useful insights into the
way feminist voices and actors drove the policy process in the mid-1970s
to expand the principle of equality from equal pay to equal treatment.
The concerted effort of these femocrats in the Commission and civil soci-
ety activists has played a key role in the development of women’s rights
at times of institutional stagnation (Locher 2012: loc1597). As a critical
juncture in the history of European integration, the current crisis reopens
the question about the role of institutions in highlighting or obscuring the
gendered impact of austerity that draws attention at shifting patters within
institutions and new loci for women to exercise agency. It also poses a
question about responsiveness of these loci to advocacy, the development
of counter-discourses and the effectiveness of ‘multilateral feminist strate-
gies’ (Caglar et al. 2013) in advancing equal rights beyond mainstreaming.
Writing about another critical juncture, that is, enlargement, Locher
and Prügl (2008) test Woodward’s (2001, 2003) hypothesis that for
feminist advocacy to be successful a ‘velvet triangle’—made up of a con-
stellation or strategic partnership of women’s non-governmental organisa-
tions/civil society, institutional actors and experts/academics—needs to
emerge within the policy process. In the case of enlargement, Locher and
Prugle found that such triangle was not present to secure the representa-
tion of women’s interests during the negotiations. The ability of femocrats
to influence the work of the Commission in the area of women’s rights
substantiates Walby’s (2009) argument about the importance of gender
parity in European economic governance.
In terms of institutional structures, it is important to note that this shift in
political/economic priorities associated with the emerging crisis coincided with
a substantial restructuring of the European Commission. In particular, respon-
sibility for the European equality agenda was migrated from DG Employment
and Social Affairs to DG Justice. This move allowed for the broadening of
the policy agenda and the expansion of key competencies (Montoya 2013).
However, it also moved gender and equality further away from economic
concerns and drivers, so central in discussions of austerity and financial crisis.

As the number of issues covered increased and the EU’s strategy shifts from
legally binding provisions (directives and regulations) to soft policy measure
(Europe 2020), the actual impact and visibility of the provisions has declined.
This results from a decline in the importance of equality as the focus of discus-
sion moves from economic matters to citizenship. Europe 2020 is now the
most visible economic policy with a designated equality chapter.
Europe as a Gender Regime: Institutional Actors

Balancing Dominant Narratives
and Counter-Discourse
This ‘great recession’ poses a key question about whether the EU—or
selected institutions within the organisations—can maintain its role as a
gender actor and advocate for women’s (economic) rights during critical
junctures. The analysis presented in this section will draw on Woodward’s
idea of a velvet triangle to assess the efficacy of women’s rights advocacy
during the Eurocrisis. This will allow for an assessment of processes for
interest representation and institutional blindness to gender power struc-
tures in the context of crisis. Woodward’s work on enlargement provides
important insights into the processes that support effective women’s rights
advocacy at the European level.
In the context of EU politics, the complex interactions between differ-
ent stakeholders define the shape of key policies. This is why Woodward’s
velvet triangle and van der Vleuten pincer effect are necessary precon-
ditions for gendering to those areas traditionally viewed as gender neu-
tral or free. Van der Vleuten (2012: loc 1544) speculates that ‘gender
mainstreaming might actually increase the number of “privileged point
of access” to this complex system’. However, the evidence from the crisis
would indicate that mainstreaming has failed to increase women’s rights
activists access to the different loci of economic governance.
This section explores institutional reactions to the crisis as a locus for
‘multilateral feminist strategies’ (Caglar et al. 2013). It will focus on three
institutional actors that contribute to the establishment of a velvet triangle
for women’s rights advocacy: the European Parliament, the European
Commission’s network of experts and the EWL. The section will look at
each actor’s response to negotiations within the Council and mainstream/
malestream approaches to the Eurocrisis. This discussion will thus unpack
the emergence and effectiveness of counter-discourses in the context of
102 R. GUERRINA
crisis. In particular, it will provide a useful case study for the analysis of
international organisations as a locus of feminist advocacy. This analysis
provides important insights into the role of actors (i.e. EWL, femocrats
and expert groups) working within institutional frameworks, which ulti-
mately provide both opportunities and constraints for the enactment of
‘feminist strategies’ at the national and European levels (Caglar et al.
2013).
The chapter is based on the analysis of position papers, reports, official
opinions by the EWL, the FEMM Committee and the European Network
of Experts. The documents were selected for their focus on crisis and ana-
lysed to ascertain how women’s interest and concerns were represented
at the European level. Content analysis of the documents was carried out
to establish the emergence of a counter-narrative to the politics of auster-
ity and crisis. The documents were coded to establish the centrality of
women’s interests and a critique of European policies and member states
positions to the work of pillar of the triangle. Each actor or group was
chosen specifically to highlight how institutions and organised civil soci-
ety can come together to represent the interests of traditionally marginal
groups in European policy-making processes.
FEMM—The European Parliament Women’s Committee

In order to understand the role of FEMM as an advocate 27 documents
were examined looking at the way FEMM framed the discussion and
sought to push for greater inclusion of gender in policy actions aimed at
tackling the crisis. The documents were selected as they provide a detailed
overview of FEMM’s emerging position on the impact of crisis on women.
This section will explore the EP’s response to austerity by looking at two
reports produced by the Women’s Committee. These reports capture the
nature of the debates taking place within the EP, and the assumptions
informing the EP’s position in relation to women’s rights amidst crisis.
This is a particularly important analysis as the EP is emerging as the main
institutional advocate for women’s rights and equality during this period
of austerity.
The first set of documents to be explored relate to the EP’s Report Gender
Aspects of the Economic Downturn & Financial Crisis 2009/2204(INI)
first published on 26 February 2010. The formal report was published by
the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in May, and the
EP adopted it as a Resolution based on the report in June 2010. Framed
within the context of the European Equality Agenda, this resolution seeks
to draw attention to the gendered impact of the crisis. It considers a range
of issues from economic governance to unemployment, restructuring of
care services and migration. This resolution is important because it signals
increased awareness of the differential impact of the crisis on groups and
sectors of the economy.
The report tackles the issue of economic governance head on, looking
at the overall impact of women’s under-representation in economic and
financial decision-making bodies contributed to the onset of the crisis.
Paragraph C sets out the EP’s critique:
Whereas mainstream economists have pointed out that the credit crunch,
which started the recession, was quite literally a man-made disaster; whereas
responses at state and international level—which were not sufficiently
gender-inclusive—have also been decided upon mainly by men; whereas it
is important that women, who are generally better qualified than men, be
fully included in the decision-making process in the political, economic and
financial spheres as well as social partners agreements.
This argument was then supported by evidence on women’s education

attainment and participation in the employment market, with particular
reference to women’s representation in decision-making bodies.
The Resolution is significant in as far as it explicitly draws a link between
crisis, retrenchment of the welfare state (particularly in relation to the
function of care) and demographic trends (Paragraphs H and I). It then
goes to also state that far from being part of the problem, equality should
very much be seen as part of the solution. Interestingly, the EP sees this
crisis as a critical juncture, an opportunity to review and redefine hierarchi-
cal power structures and inequitable access to decision-making processes
and resources.
The Resolution explicitly calls upon European institutions and
the member states to adhere to the fundamental values of the EU. As
Paragraph 1 sets out,
equal treatment of women and men is one of the objectives of the EU and
therefore one of the key principles in any policy response to the economic
and financial crisis and the transition towards the post-crisis era.
What is significant in this opening paragraph is recognition of the long-

term repercussion of current policy myopia (Paragraph 4). This docu-
104 R. GUERRINA
ment represents a stark warning that the settlement of the crisis is likely to
crystallise a normative agenda that is rooted in gender power hierarchies
(Paragraphs 19 and B). The EP Women’s Committee is thus concerned
that this critical juncture is failing in implementing legal commitments
to mainstreaming and thus becomes an opportunity missed to shape
European governance. Given the recognition in the document of the gen-
dered nature of the factors leading to the crisis (e.g. Paragraphs B and
40), current negotiations could provide an opportunity to renegotiate the
gender contract at the heart of European welfare states and social models
(Paragraphs 18 and 34). The Resolution warns, however, that the current
direction of travel is unlikely to challenge these values as much as threaten
the progress of the last 40 years towards gender equality (Paragraphs 28
and 29).
The message in the explanatory note framing the Resolution is aligned
with much of the feminist literature (e.g. Walby 2009) and although it
does not openly speak of mainstreaming, it advocates a gender dimension
to policy-making at the European and national level.
Both feminist and mainstream economists have pointed out that the credit
crunch is quite literally a man-made disaster. The crunch has emboldened
advocates of boardroom diversity, who insist that, as a matter of urgency, we
need to have more women at the top of financial institutions. Male failure
might open up opportunities for women to smash through the glass ceiling.
(EP 2010b: 11)
The discursive nodes that dominate this document are: activation; repre-
sentation, economic governance, equality. Tackling rising levels of female
unemployment and increase in poverty levels of ‘at risk groups’, particu-
larly in view of changing socio-economic circumstances of households sets
out a reform agenda: ‘Europe can no longer afford to neglect its female
human resources by treating women as a back-up plan to boost the work-
force only when economic conditions dictate the demand’ (EP 2010b:
14). These objectives map nicely into the main the core values of the
European Equality Agenda, which underpins the main narrative of the
document.
The second European Parliament Report On the Impact of the Economic
Crisis on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights published in 2012 builds
on the previous debate. The Report broadens the reach of equality nar-
ratives to show increasing recognition of structural factors underpinning
gender inequalities. Calling on the institutions to remember that equality

between men and women is one of the fundamental values of the EU, it
sets out how to mainstream gender in the context of crisis. Focusing on
the asymmetrical impact of the crisis on women, particularly in relation to
the long-term consequences on women’s position in the official labour
market, it notes
that unemployed women are often not included in official figures because
they tend to withdraw from the labour market and to perform unpaid or
informal labour. (EP 2012 Paragraph C)
Once again the EP formally acknowledges the impact of public sector cuts
on women’s access to high-level employment (Paragraphs D and 8). What
is significant about this Report is the way it links women’s withdrawal
from the labour force with the retrenchment of the welfare state. It openly
identifies women as the main providers of unpaid care work, thus reliev-
ing the costs on the state for the provision of these services. It is for this
reason that it ‘calls on Member States to support job creation in the social
economy which is dominated by unpaid work by women’ (Paragraph 16).
It is in this context that it reiterates the importance of the Barcelona tar-
gets, particularly in relation to childcare.
The main point of departure from the 2010 Resolution is the focus
on gender budgeting. Calling for a gender impact assessment of austerity
measures, the report provides an important opening for detailed discus-
sions about mainstreaming in the context of crisis. It speaks to some of
the values that support institutional and policy myopia in relation to the
impact of the crisis on women: ‘More deep-rooted is the idea that male
unemployment is more serious than female unemployment’ (EP 2012: 9).
This impact assessment is linked to the explicit recognition that the crisis
and public sector cuts are likely to increase women’s double burden:
For women who remain in work, there is the question of reconciling work
with their private life. They have to combine their work with domestic tasks,
a major share of which falls to them, and also quite often with caring depen-
dents (children, parents, the sick or disabled). (EP 2012: 10)
Ultimately, the main achievement of this report is that it reinforces the

position of the EP as an advocate for women’s rights in the context of
crisis. It shapes the scope of the debate and squarely positions the EP as a
106 R. GUERRINA
lynchpin in the establishment of the feminist triangle that for Woodward is

so central to ensure women’s rights advocacy at critical junctures.
Over the last eight year the FEMM Committee has consistently worked
to raise awareness of the impact of austerity on women. The documents
analysed highlight how the Committee has sought to influence the Council
and encourage the Commission to be creative in its approach. Gender
budgeting (FEMM 2016, Cengiz and Beveridge 2015), the European
Semester and Europe 2020 (see for instance FEMM 2015, 2011) are the
focal point of the Committee’s action.
It is interesting to note that the FEMM Committee is taking on a kind
of advocacy role in relation to the position of equality in the context of
EU policy-making at a time of crisis. However, the critique of EU pol-
icy action is implicit and limited by the nature of multilevel governance.
Considerations about the impact of austerity on women’s economic rights
and position in society are often contextual, and although there is explicit
recognition of the impact of austerity on the role of the EU as a gender
actor, policy action arising from these is limited.
The European Commission—Femocrats and Epistemic

Communities
The role of the Commission as an advocate for women’s rights has
become increasingly complex. The move from DG Employment to DG
Justice shifted the priorities of this institution, whilst bringing the role of
epistemic communities closer to the heart of policy-making. The discus-
sion presented here is based on the analysis of 28 documents, including
Commission’s opinions, statements, as well as network of experts’ reports.
The European Commission 2010 Report on Equality Between Men and
Women provides a significant springboard of institutional recognition of
the impact of the crisis on equality and women’s position in the labour
market. Yet, the Commission has not assumed as active an advocacy role as
the European Parliament on this particular issue. The 2010 Report recog-
nised the potential of crises to undermine the achievements of the last four
decades, when it really should be seen as an opportunity for a new depar-
ture that is both inclusive and sustainable in the long term (European
Commission 2010: 7).
The 2012 Report produced by the expert groups on Gender and
Employment and Gender Equality and Social Inclusion paints a worry-
ing picture about the state of gender equality in Europe. Bettio et al.’s
(2012) extensive report covers a number of key areas starting from the
nature of the crisis through to paid and unpaid work, fiscal consolida-
tion and social exclusion. The study highlights something that has pre-
occupied feminist scholars for the last couple of decades, namely that
there is no homogeneous womanly experience. Crisis magnifies existing
trends, thus bringing to light that socio-economic status, culture, eth-
nicity interface in shaping women’s experiences of crisis and austerity.
The dominant view discussed earlier in this chapter that women’s labour
market participation is secondary and can be (more) easily absorbed by
households is based not only on gender ideologies about divisions of
labour and the social function of reproduction, it is also deeply rooted
in a middle-class ideal of the male-breadwinner model. Although domi-
nant, and responsible for shaping social policies towards work-life bal-
ance in post-war Europe, it is an ideal that many women from lower
socio-economic backgrounds have had to manage for decades, as they
are either the sole earners of the household or make a substantial contri-
bution to the household economy.
The report produces a number of key conclusions. The first one is per-
haps counter-intuitive as they found a ‘leveling down of gender gaps in
employment, unemployment, wage and poverty over the crisis’ (Bettio
et al. 2012: 11). This finding needs to be understood within the wider
context of the impact of the crisis on European employment rates. It is
indicative of increased poverty levels for both men and women in employ-
ment. Whereas gender segregation of the labour market—particularly the
low levels of women working in the financial industry—sheltered women
from the worst effects of the crisis, public sector adjustment, retrenchment
of the welfare state and austerity more generally have had a dispropor-
tional impact on women in the latter half of the crisis as costs associated
with women’s entry in the labour market—for example, childcare—have
started to increase (Bettio et al. 2012).
Their second conclusion concentrates on individual choices: ‘the labour
market behavior of women over the crisis has been similar to that of men’
(Bettio et al. 2012: 12). The data produced by the Commission again
highlights a very complex picture where diversity in women’s experiences
needs to be unpacked to produce a detailed analysis of the drivers and
norms underpinning the crisis and the policies that are supposed to resolve
or ameliorate it. From this perspective, women’s rights and equality are
not necessarily the target of a regressive policy agenda, but are likely to
become collateral damage. As Bettio et al. (2012: 12) explain:
108 R. GUERRINA
There are repercussions from the crisis that specifically concern women. The
rights of pregnant women to maternity leave and benefits have been cur-
tailed and discrimination against pregnant women has been documented in
at least four countries.
Gender ideologies for instance are likely to play a key role in shaping
decisions about hiring women, particularly in relation to concerns about
employers’ responsibilities and legal commitments.
The network of experts’ reports is both insightful and important as it
substantiates the feminist claims about the impact of austerity on the pres-
ent and future of the European Equality Agenda. It highlights the failure
of the member states to implement the legal commitments to mainstream-
ing thus undermining the work of European institutions when it comes
to transposing policies at the national level. Finally, this represents the
academic advocacy of Woodward’s velvet triangle.
The European Women’s Lobby

The third side of advocacy that needs to be considered is civil society
organisations. As the EWL is the umbrella organisation and has been
able to work the Commission and Parliament successfully in the past,
its response to Austerity and its effectiveness in lobbying European
institutions at this juncture will play a key role in ensuring that gen-
der remains visible in the midst of crisis. The discussion presented
here is based on the analysis of a range of document produced by the
EWL, including letters, reports and proposals. The focus of all the
documents is the impact of the crisis on women’s rights in Europe.
It provides useful insights into the focus of EWL advocacy during the
period 2008–2015. What is clear from this analysis is that the EWL was
the most vocal of the three actors examined here in lobbying member
states for the development of a gender-inclusive approach to deal with
the crisis.
Since the onset of the crisis the EWL sought to put forward a gender
sensitive critique and an alternative to the current European economic
model (see for instance Rickne 2015). As an umbrella group for wom-
en’s rights organisations across Europe, the EWL developed a mul-
tipronged strategy. Firstly it lobbied member states, particularly the
presidency, to raise awareness of the unintended gender consequences
of measures aimed at dealing with the crisis, for example, austerity.
Secondly, it produced a detailed report, The Price of Austerity, about

the gendered nature of the crisis. Thirdly, it sought to develop a coun-
ter-discourse to oppose the dominant narrative of crisis and its roots in
the neo-liberal model.
The first pillar of the EWL strategy highlights the importance of organ-
ised civil society for the representation of interests of traditionally mar-
ginal groups. The EWL tables statements to the office of the presidency
outlining the key priorities for advancing women’s position in society and
the economy. There are a number of key themes in these statements, for
example, ending violence against women and addressing the gender pay
gap. However, understanding the asymmetrical impact of austerity and the
crisis on women is now also a recurring theme.
The second pillar of the EWL’s approach is providing empirical evidence
to inform the debate and highlight the impact of Austerity on the women
of Europe. The 2012 Report, The Price of Austerity, is one of the most
significant accounts of the gendered impact of the crisis at the European
level. This report supports the findings of the Commission’s on report and
is intended to provide evidence for enhanced policy-making. The Report’s
key findings indicate that reducing the employment/unemployment gap
during the crisis should not be seen as a step forward for women’s rights as
much as a deterioration in the working conditions of both men and women.
It calls for a more nuanced and methodical analysis of employment data that
accounts for the marked increase in in-work poverty and precarious employ-
ment (European Women’s Lobby (EWL) 2012a: 7).
For the EWL ‘the Crisis has undermined years of progress towards
women’s integration in the labour market. The EU’s efforts to increase
women’s employment rates have been undermined in 22 EU member
states’ (EWL 2012: 2). This is a significant setback on the work and
achievements of the Lisbon Agenda. The main culprit of this retrench-
ment is public sector adjustment. As outlined earlier, directing austerity
measures primarily towards public sector services both reduces the pool of
high-paying jobs for women and diminishes the availability of key support
services, for example, childcare, that enable women’s participation in the
labour market.
At the heart of the problem are the expectations about women’s
availability to fulfil the primary care function. The commodification of
care and placing the onus on parents to find and finance care is likely
to increase pressure on families’ income and women’s double burden
(EWL 2012: 8). The Report effectively warns that re-establishment of
110 R. GUERRINA
the male-breadwinner model should not be discounted as the long-term

impact of the cuts become more apparent.
The Report’s conclusion feeds directly into the EWL’s advocacy strategy:
(1) Promote gender budgeting; (2) Protect key services at the national level.
The EWL also sees the Commission as playing a key role as women’s rights
and equality advocate. The report specifically speaks about the need for clear
leadership at the European level to protect and promote equality, as a fun-
damental value, at times of crisis. In particular it calls on the Commission to
Draft a new long-term vision for the future and replaced EU-level policies
aiming to achieve short-term fiscal stability with policies that will provide
equality and solidarity driven prosperity in the long term and safeguard the
economic positions of both women and men. (EWL 2012: 16)
Supporting women’s organisations at the European and national level will

remain a challenge during this crisis. Yet without these organisations, it is
not clear who will hold member states governments and European institu-
tions to account in relation to their equality duties.
The 2012 Report provides a useful starting point for a detailed critique
of the normative assumptions that have supported European employment
strategy. It also points to the EWL’s efforts to facilitate the development
of a counter-discourse about neo-liberal bias in European fiscal mea-
sures. Three documents are significant in this context: (1) Strengthening
Democratic Legitimacy of the European Semester: Civil Society Proposal
for Smart Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery 2012–13 (EWL 2012c);
(2) Ticking clocks—Alternative 2012 Country-Specific Recommendations
to Strengthen Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the Europe 2020
Strategy (EWL 2012b) and (3) Women’s Economic Independence in Times of
Austerity (EWL 2015). Taken together these three documents provide an
alternative vision of European policy priorities. This feminist vision focuses
on access and outcomes, and challenges the notion that growth without
equality can lead to long-term prosperity. As this extract summarises:
This is their response to bridging a democratic gap which is happening as

tensions arise between, on the one hand, pressure on Member States to
severely reduce public deficits and, on the other hand, the absence of a full
gender equality analysis (as well as a social impact analysis) to ascertain the
impact of public deficit reductions on (in)equality between women and men
as well as the impact on increasing inequalities, poverty and social exclusion
as a direct result of austerity. (EWL 2012b: 4)
The overall aim of the arguments presented in these documents is that the
current model not only fails women, but also society at large.
The analysis presented here highlights the continued importance of
civil society organisations in ensuring that gender is not dismissed in
favour of higher political priorities. It is therefore worrying that ‘Public
gender equality institutions are being destroyed on the pretext of austerity.
The erosion of the public gender equality machinery is an infringement
of EU ad international level commitments to women’s rights and gender
equality’ (EWL 2012: 14). The loss of expertise on gender equality at the
national and European level will ultimately undermine the ability of gen-
der actors to operate within an institutional framework, thus weakening
the advocacy and accountability mechanisms currently available.
Conclusions
The main conclusion of this analysis is that, despite a concerted effort by
the EWL and the FEMM committee to raise awareness about the asym-
metrical impact of austerity on women, mechanisms to support women’s
rights advocacy have not been successful in engendering effectively the
policy process. Dominant gender ideologies about men and women’s
role in the economy—and the family—supported path dependency in
intergovernmental negotiations thus skewing debates in favour of gender
blind measures. Taking stock of how the low levels of women’s represen-
tation in economic governance are linked to performance of hegemonic
masculinity on the Single Market must be the starting point of a femi-
nist account of the Eurocrisis. Understanding the interface between the
deeply masculine nature of neo-liberalism and the economic structures
in which we operate can provide solutions that are more sustainable than
austerity.
In terms of the future of the equality acquis, it is disappointing that the
European Parliament, the Commission and the EWL have not been effec-
tive in inserting gender at the heart of the current negotiations. Rather the
Eurocrisis has crystallised the distinction between high and low politics,
whereby equality and social cohesion are seen as the concern of institu-
tions only at time of affluence. Recognition of the importance of gen-
der budgeting can start to unpick these assumptions, but the road ahead
remains difficult as the normative nature of these discussions—that is, the
power of gender ideologies—continues to define political priorities. As
Rubery (2014) points out,
112 R. GUERRINA
the continued co-existence of competing ideologies with respect to women’s

roles can give rise to variable outcomes, depending on the extent to which
emergent ideologies of equality are pushed aside by the far from dormant
ideologies of subordination and difference. (Rubery 2014: loc 747–756)
The problem relates to the strategic approach endorsed by the three actors
covered in this article. During the 1990s, the EP, the Commission and the
EWL, adopted a strategic position that focused on raising awareness of the
cost of non-equality. Although this was a successful strategy to encourage
member states and social partners to invest in equality measures, it also
projected a view that policies for the reconciliation between work and fam-
ily life were directly aimed at women. This approach ultimately buys into a
neo-liberal discourse based on the commodification of care that mitigates
gender structures and divisions of labour, but it does not challenge them
at their very core. It is also a strategy that is no longer viable at a time of
austerity.
To conclude, Woodward’s velvet triangle is present in the context of the
Eurocrisis, but its key actors seem to have only limited purchase on policy-
making processes. Part of the reason for this relates to Walby’s assessment
of European economic governance. Women’s absence from the negotiat-
ing table, and the inability of European institutions to demonstrate leader-
ship at a time of crisis, is ultimately undermining the scope and reach of
the European equality agenda. Like in the case of Enlargement, the failure
to mainstream gender adequately at this critical junction will have long-
term repercussions for the ability of the EU and its institutions to operate
as a gender actor. Part of the problem is that much of the work produced
by feminist scholars seeking to gender austerity remains ghettoised. This
marginalisation reflects the struggle of feminist activists at the national and
European level to raise awareness about the asymmetrical impact of the
crisis on women.
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CHAPTER 6
Gendering Poland’s Crisis Reforms:

A Europeanization Perspective
Ania Zbyszewska
Introduction
The initial optimism that the 2007/2008 financial crisis could mark a
turning point in the neoliberal policy direction adopted by the European
Union (EU) was by 2010 replaced with a growing concern that, instead,
the broader economic crisis that ensued might be used to weaken the
‘European Social Model’ and undermine national systems of labour law
and social protection. The widespread deregulation of labour laws and the
adoption of austerity measures in many EU member states—prompted
by the memorandums of understanding signed between the ‘troika’ (the
European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International
Monetary Fund) and the Eurozone countries requiring bail-outs, as well
as the broader focus on budgetary discipline imposed by the EU’s 2011
‘six pack’ reforms1—largely confirmed these fears (see Introduction and
Weiner and MacRae’s chapters in this volume; Barnard 2012; Clauwaert
and Schömann 2012; Moreau 2011). As the reforms were unrolled
throughout Europe, feminists were among the first to scrutinize their
potential impact on women and men (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Rubery
2013; Karamessini and Rubery 2013; Bieling 2012; Leschke and Jepsen
A. Zbyszewska (*)
University of Warwick School of Law, Gibbet Hill Rd, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

118 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
2012; Annesley and Scheele 2011; Walby 2009) albeit focusing primarily
on the situation in EU countries most negatively affected by the crisis, and
thus, bearing the brunt of reforms. Somewhat less attention has been paid
to the situation in EU member states where the crisis was deemed less
severe, both in terms of the reforms adopted therein and their gendered
impacts (see Czerniawska et al. 2010; Łapniewska 2010).
This chapter contributes to the feminist scholarship on gendering the EU
crisis response by focusing on the case of Poland, a Central Eastern European
(CEE) EU member state that is not yet part of the Eurozone and was the
sole European country to register growth after the crisis began.2 Given this
unique status, Poland might not be the obvious case for examining whether
and how the EU macroeconomic governance and policy shaped the national
reforms, and with what gender consequences. Yet, the hegemonic neolib-
eralism that defined how the Eurozone members responded also framed
the crisis response there. Moreover, as this chapter illustrates, the Polish
response similarly lacked effective gender mainstreaming and was inatten-
tive to gender impacts that it might produce. As I show, however, rather
than being a clear case of policy convergence due to supranational (EU)
influence, a more complex interaction between the EU and national policy
agendas was at play. A contextual analysis of the reforms Poland adopted
reveals that while Europeanization played a role, the country’s response was
consistent with long-standing domestic restructuring trajectory embedded
within the post-1989 political-economic transition, and with the past prac-
tice of using crises to legitimate unpopular reforms. In effect, the Polish
response agenda converged with EU policy dictates in so far as the latter
resonated with local political preferences. With regard to gender policy, this
translated into inadequate mainstreaming of gender equality concerns in the
adopted anti-crisis measures. To the extent that gender and gender equal-
ity were considered, they were subordinate and largely filtered through the
neoliberal policy frame.
The chapter analyses the legislative reforms adopted in Poland between
2009 and 2014 intended to pre-empt or address the effects of the post-
2008 economic crisis. These include special bills amending the Labour
Code, an amendment to the laws governing the labour market institutions,
an amendment to the pension legislation, as well as a series of legisla-
tive measures designed to balance the national budget. The reforms are
interpreted against the EU response, as well as against the policy trajectory
of Poland’s post-1989 structural adjustment and Poland’s future develop-
ment plans as articulated by 2009 and 2012 strategic policy documents. In
GENDERING POLAND’S CRISIS REFORMS: A EUROPEANIZATION PERSPECTIVE 119
interpreting the anti-crisis measures and the strategy as a whole, particu-

larly their framing and underlying motivations, I also refer to the manner
in which the Polish government consulted with or disregarded the input
of social partner organizations (unions and employers).
The chapter is organized into four sections. The first briefly outlines the
literatures on Europeanization of national policies and gender as frames
of reference for assessing whether and how the EU influenced Poland’s
crisis response and how this response was gendered. Section two examines
the Polish crisis reforms between 2009 and 2014, assessing them both,
against the broader EU policy context and Poland’s own historical path of
neoliberal policy, with key political and social conflicts that accompanied
the reform process highlighted. The adequacy of gender mainstreaming
and consideration of possible gender impacts this response might gener-
ate are considered in section four. The last section draws conclusions on
the implications of the Polish case for understanding of Europeanization
dynamics, and possibilities for effectively mainstreaming gender in a policy
context dominated by neoliberalism.
Europeanization Theory, Central and Eastern

Europe, and Gender
Europeanization has been variously defined, but generally speaking it refers
to the process by which EU institutions, policy, norms, and discourses influ-
ence those that operate at the national and subnational level, and affect state
and non-state actors. Rationalist and constructivist Europeanism schol-
ars have proposed two alternative logics by which domestic change takes
place as being the ‘logic of consequence’ and the ‘logic of appropriateness’
(Börzel and Risse 2003). According to the former, decisions to comply
with EU norms are made on the basis of politically motivated, rational
cost-benefit analysis, with EU membership creating political opportunity
structures that local actors navigate with different levels of success. From
a constructivist perspective, EU is more likely to exert influence and effect
change when local actors recognize EU norms and deem them appropri-
ate and resonant with the local context. In this latter explanation, cogni-
tive forms of influence, socialization, and sharing of information, whether
through regular policy channels or through networks of experts or activ-
ists, are said to more adequately capture and explain the Europeanization
dynamic, especially in fields where the EU influence is already ‘soft’ due to
limited competence. These two logics are not mutually exclusive (Börzel
120 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
and Risse 2003) and Europeanization studies increasingly draw on both

rationalist and constructivist models to explain how policy change occurs
(Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Sedelmeier 2009; Lombardo and
Forest 2012). Contemporary approaches recognize also that the dynam-
ics involved in Europeanization are more complex and interactive, and
that influence is not a ‘unidirectional process’ (Krizsan and Popa 2012).
Rather, while national and subnational actors and norms adapt to supra-
national influence, EU actors and norms also adapt to local circumstances
(Krizsan and Popa 2012).
In relation to CEE countries, Europeanization research prior to and
following the EU’s 2004 Eastern enlargement focused primarily on the
domestic effects of ‘hard’ conditionality, especially adoption of, and com-
pliance with, acquis communautaire, and norm and policy convergence
under supranational influence. Rationalist mechanisms were considered
most adequate at capturing policy and norm transfer during the pre-
accession phase, though studies of administrative ‘misfits’ and enforcement
problems often noted ‘shallow’ Europeanization (Czernielewska et al.
2004) or a ‘world of dead letters’ (Falkner and Trieb 2008). However,
some scholars anticipated that sociological and cognitive mechanisms
might become more significant in explaining local change in response to
EU policies and norms post-accession; once new EU members become
active in policy development and implementation, and internalize the
European ‘ways of doing things’ (Goetz 2005; Sedelmeier 2009). More
recent research on post-accession, or on policy fields where the EU has
limited competence, confirms that such sociological processes are at play,
and that rationalist and constructivist mechanisms can be found often to
operate simultaneously (Krizsan and Popa 2012). Indeed, research on the
role of transnational expert networks and ideas in shaping national choices
of structural reforms and transition paths (Shields 2008, 2011) suggests
that such sociological factors may have played a role at the pre-accession
phase also. As will be shown with reference to the Polish case, national
governments might voluntarily adapt to EU policy and submit to coor-
dination mechanisms when doing so is also consistent with pre-existing,
accepted policy blueprints and preferences, and when it might help legiti-
mate unpopular ideas at home.
Studies on Europeanization of gender equality in CEE policies have
largely followed the pattern of scholarly development outlined above.
Like general Europeanization research, gender research on the pre-
accession period focused primarily on policy areas such as employment,
in which ‘hard’ conditionality of equality directives governed the pro-

cess, with consequentialism guiding adoption of EU rules (Sloat 2004;
Falkner, Trieb and Holzleithner 2008). Social learning as well as pol-
icy coordination and financial incentives associated with the European
Social Fund (ESF) or other forms of EU structural funding have been
identified as important drivers of Europeanization of equality policies or
mechanisms of gender mainstreaming since accession (Sedelmeier 2009;
Krizsan and Popa 2012). While these mechanisms have expanded the
scope of policy fields in which EU influence on gender equality can be
applied, feminists have not been uncritical about the EU’s instrumental
use of gender mainstreaming and invocation of equality or gender dis-
courses to support other policy objectives (like increasing employment or
fertility rates) to which the former are ultimately subordinated (Stratigaki
2004; Fagan, Grimshaw, and Rubery 2006; Lewis 2006). Feminists have
critiqued, for example, the way in which ESF funding allocation is made
contingent on state’s coordination of its policies with the strategic pri-
orities set at the EU level (Charkiewicz 2012; Schunter-Kleeman and
Plehwe 2006). Currently, much of ESF funding is allocated not for the
general objectives of improving women’s living conditions but for better
alignment and synchronization of labour supply with needs of the com-
petitive and efficient labour markets and economies (Charkiewicz 2012).
As will be shown here, the invocation of gender and gender equality in
the Polish crisis reforms demonstrates this sort of pattern of gender’s
subordination to other objectives.
Poland’s Anti-Crisis Strategy 2009–2014: Did

Europe Matter?
The outbreak of the crisis in Europe uniquely positioned Poland as the
only EU member state able to sustain economic growth during the first
years since its onset (Eurostat 2013). However, labour market effects of
Europe’s economic slowdown started to become evident in Poland already
by 2009. The unemployment rate, having dropped to 7.5 per cent in 2007
from its post-transition high in 2000 (when it reached beyond 20 per
cent), began to climb again, reaching 12.5 per cent in 2009 and 13.5 by
2012, with some of the most affected regions noting rates far in excess of
20 per cent (GUS 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013) and youth unemploy-
ment shooting up from 17.2 to 26.5 per cent between 2008 and 2012
(European Commission 2013).
122 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
In this context, reforms aimed at preventing job shedding and flexibil-

izing the Polish labour market became the Civic Platform government’s
main priority, with the imposition of fiscal consolidation being the other.
A key source of inspiration for these reforms were proposals made by the
2009 strategic report Poland 2030: Developmental Challenges (Poland
2030), subsequently elaborated in the mid-term National Development
Strategy 2020: Active Society, Competitive Economy, Efficient State3 (NDS
2020). These proposals included a neoliberal mix of taxation reforms, active
labour market policies, pension reforms, and enhancement of labour flex-
ibility through, among others, reform of the working-time regime (Boni
2009: 8). As such, they, and the adopted anti-crisis measures, were not
dissimilar from reform packages introduced also throughout the EU. As
will be shown, however, the Polish reforms—although certainly in reso-
nance with the EU policy and macroeconomic dictates—were also fairly
in line with the trajectory of reform initiated by Poland’s post-socialist
structural adjustment.
The 2009–2014 Reforms: Labour Market Flexibility

and Fiscal Consolidation
Poland’s first response to the crisis came in the form of the 2009 Anti-
Crisis Bill,4 a package of pre-emptive reforms the Civic Platform govern-
ment negotiated with the social partner organizations (representatives
of labour and employers) and designed to counteract the potentially
negative impact of the economic slowdown on Polish firms. The bill’s
core elements were measures relaxing the Labour Code provisions on
fixed-term work and working time. Specifically, the bill lifted the existing
two-time limit on a number of consecutive fixed-term contracts and dis-
pensed with the rule converting the third such contract into permanent
employment. It also created opportunities for longer and cheaper (for
employers) work hours, by permitting extensions of reference periods
for the calculation of average weekly work hours (and overtime) from
the usual limit of 4 months to up to 12 months; a possibility previously
restricted to a few industrial sectors. Polish employers welcomed this
long sought-after change5 while the unions sanctioned it on the basis
that it would be temporary, to expire by the end of 2011, and because its
introduction in specific workplaces required consultation with workers.
The trade unions also agreed to this provision as a trade-off for intro-
duction of ‘positive’ flexibility measures, including provisions enabling

workers to request reduced work hours or negotiate individual work
schedules, which they saw as beneficial.
However, in 2013, during the Civic Platform’s second term in the
office, the government introduced another Labour Code amendment, this
time making permanent the ‘temporary’ working-time flexibility provi-
sions introduced four years earlier. The government did so without social
partner cooperation because trade unions refused to sanction the amend-
ment and walked out of the Tripartite Committee meeting at which it was
being discussed (PAP 2013). Then, in April 2014, the government also
passed an amendment of the Act on the promotion of employment and labour
market institutions,6 which introduced a range of supply and demand-
side measures to support unemployed youth and workers above the age
of 50. In addition to the typical mix of activation policies, training, and
skills development measures, the amendment introduced a whole range of
subsidies and fee-waivers available to employers, effectively cutting the lat-
ter’s labour costs. Waivers of mandatory payments into the Labour Fund
and the Guaranteed Employment Benefit Fund, or subsidies for manda-
tory social insurance contributions for employers creating jobs for older or
younger workers, were key amongst them.
These employer subsidies came after a number of other business and
corporate subsidy measures introduced a couple of years earlier, as part
of a stimulus package. Among them were tax relaxation schemes and tax
cuts for businesses, changes to income tax thresholds and to corporate
tax accounting rules, and a 975 million euro subsidy for Poland’s only
national bank to support the refunding of interest rates and corporate
credit insurance costs in Western European banks (Charkiewicz 2011).
By contrast, already in early 2010, the government signalled that it was
planning to undertake a programme of major fiscal consolidation over the
next few years, with the view to reduce public debt from the 2010 level
of 53 per cent to 42 by 2015, and eventually to 40 by 2018. That same
year, the government reduced funeral subsidies, cut state contributions to
the fund assisting unemployed jobseekers, and froze income thresholds
for accessing social benefits (Rae 2012: 3). Deeper cuts in social spend-
ing, particularly in education, care, and social benefits, came in 2011, after
Civic Platform’s successful re-election (Rae 2012), when the government
announced that it would set stricter income levels for family tax relief eli-
gibility, eliminate tax breaks for creative and freelance workers, and cancel
internet-access subsidies. More controversially, it also declared plans to
124 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
abolish the special scheme that entitles farmers to lower-cost social and
health insurance (KRUS), and to facilitate commercialization and liberal-
ization of health and education services. Already in 2011, the Act on care
of children under 3 liberalized the rules for private care institutions and
made it easier for municipal governments to outsource publically funded
early-childhood education services to private operators (Skóra 2013).7
Also to consolidate spending, in May 2012 the Civic-Platform dominated
Parliament passed a highly unpopular bill raising to 67, and equalizing,
the age of retirement for men (from 65 by 2020) and women (from 60
by 2040), and reducing early retirement privileges for uniformed workers
(Rae 2012).
A Europeanized Response or a Legacy of Transition?
The reforms adopted in Poland between 2009 and 2014 were similar to
those undertaken by many other EU members. However, given Poland’s
comparatively good economic performance at the outset of the crisis,
Civic Platform’s decision to adopt austerity and unpopular labour law and
pension reforms at the risk of alienating labour unions and in the face of
significant public disapproval (Aksamit et al. 2013) raises questions about
the political motivations underlying these reforms. On the one hand,
budget cuts were indeed necessary to comply with the Fiscal Pact and
binding obligations under the bilateral agreement Poland signed with the
European Commission. In light of Poland’s non-Eurozone status, how-
ever, both commitments were in fact voluntarily adopted. While more
or less explicit EU pressure given Poland’s EMU candidacy may be one
explanation of this voluntarism, assessing the crisis response against the
backdrop of Poland’s longer-term policy choices suggests a more complex
dynamic.
Neoliberal policy blueprints, not unlike those imposed on Eurozone
countries requiring bailouts, have been guiding Poland’s transition to a
free market economy since the early 1990s. It is worth noting that the
country’s adoption of the harshest plan of structural adjustment (‘shock
therapy’) in 1991 was also voluntary, even if it was at the time presented
as the only alternative (Majmurek and Szumlewicz 2009; Shields 2008).
Importantly, despite retrospective criticisms surrounding that choice,
neoliberal economic and fiscal guidelines, in fact, remained a generally
accepted status quo by most post-transition governments (Grzymalala-
Busse and Innes 2003; Majmurek and Szumlewicz 2009; Ost 2005;
Shields 2011), with fiscal consolidation, gradual privatization of the public

sector, and labour law reforms aimed at liberalization of employment con-
tracts and facilitation of more flexible labour markets having been policy
constants since the early 1990s. The fact that the run-up to EU acces-
sion was a period of particular acceleration in labour market reforms sug-
gests ‘hard’ conditionality certainly mattered (Leiber 2007; Zbyszewska
2012, 2016a). But the Polish political establishment also used both EU
accession and ‘emergency’ legislation it framed as ‘necessary’ to legitimate
unpopular reforms that were part of a pre-existing agenda of building
a market economy according to neoliberal dictates (Zbyszewska 2016a).
The plan involving a familiar neoliberal policy mix proposed by the Poland
2030 strategic report resonated with the Europe 2020 strategy for ‘smart,
sustainable, and inclusive growth’8 adopted the following year, and con-
tained elements of the EU’s flexicurity agenda (Gwiazda 2011). But its
framing of the crisis as a key civilizational crossroads for Poland, much as
the decisive shift away from planned economy was seen two decades prior
(Boni 2009), suggests a combination between EU influence and continu-
ation of a longer-term domestic policy preference.
Against this historical background, Civic Platform’s post-crisis readi-
ness to adopt unpopular labour law measures and impose fiscal discipline
is somewhat less surprising and perhaps demonstrates Polish ambitions to
show leadership within the EU while using EU-level decisions regarding
fiscal discipline to legitimate its domestic actions. The fact that EU ‘six
pack’ reforms were adopted during the Polish Presidency of the European
Council may not be entirely coincidental either. These reforms were
driven by other EU member states, most notably Germany and France.
Yet Poland had early on set out a very clear programme for its term at
the helm of the EU, with the reform of EU fiscal and monetary archi-
tecture and surveillance being its key focus. Signing of the ‘six pack’ was
not only hailed as the biggest success of the Polish Presidency in Poland
(Maciejewska and Marszałek 2013: 11), Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s
subsequent appointment as the President of the European Council, a post
he assumed in December 2014, affirmed that his leadership was also rec-
ognized and approved at the European level.
As I show in the next section, the dominant neoliberal frame that the
Polish crisis response adopted is also evident when we consider whether
and how the reform plan took account of its potential gender implications.
I will also suggest that Europe played a role in strengthening a particular
conception of equality consistent with the neoliberal frame.
126 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
Gendering Poland’s Crisis Response

Gender blindness or disregard for gender consequences of austerity and fis-
cal consolidation is how feminist scholars generally diagnosed the EU-level
policy response post 2010 (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Karamessini and
Rubery 2013; Rubery 2013; Annesley and Scheele 2011; Walby 2009; see
contributions in this volume). Research on crisis-related policy develop-
ments suggests that the gender mainstreaming strategy has been signifi-
cantly undermined during this period, and that references to gender have
nearly completely disappeared from some key policy areas (Smith and Villa
2010; Walby 2009).
The Polish case confirms this, as gender mainstreaming also played an
inadequate role in how the Civic Platform government chose to tackle
the crisis. At the same time, a number of reforms adopted between 2009
and 2014 did reference gender (or women) or were even justified on the
basis that they would promote gender equality. Scrutinized more closely,
however, these reforms reveal a more instrumental approach, with gender
considerations invoked mostly in relation to measures aimed at increas-
ing women’s employment activation and labour market engagement, not
necessarily to promote substantive equality for its own sake. This was the
case also for Poland 2030 and NDS 2020 strategic plans from which the
2009–2014 crisis reforms took inspiration. Both of those documents
contained very few references to gender, and featured a rather truncated,
labour market-oriented conception of equality.
Half-Hearted Efforts or Outright Disregard

The labour law and pension reforms are a case in point, as gender was
indeed mainstreamed in both but in a way that was not deeply considered
or unproblematic. The 2009 Anti-Crisis Bill’s provision enabling employ-
ees responsible for care of a child under three to request reduced work-
ing time was a welcome change, especially given that balancing work and
family is indeed a problem in Poland where most people work full time
and institutionalized child-care is insufficient, and because the provision
sought to support work-family reconciliation for all workers, not only
mothers. However, this employee-friendly provision was a trade-off for
the bill’s sanctioning of another flexibility measure—which was in 2014
made permanent law—that permitted employers to significantly extend
work hours, even if temporarily, without the need for overtime compensa-
tion, although with approval of employee representatives. A scheduling
mechanism of this type is not family-friendly, yet this, or its other possible
gender implications (such as the fact that it might reinforce gendered divi-
sions within the workplace and the home since women are less likely to
be available for extended work hours while take-up of such hours by men
would render them unlikely to shoulder a higher share of domestic or care
work) were set aside. The priority of introducing a business-efficiency,
cost-cutting measure trumped gender considerations. That the family-
friendly and gender-neutrally framed possibility to reduce hours of work
was a poor trade-off, because it would not necessarily offset how long
hours of work reproduce gendered patterns of work and care, suggests a
rather partial, instrumental approach to gender mainstreaming.
Another effort at gender mainstreaming in the context of anti-crisis
measures was the aforementioned pension reform, which was also designed
to consolidate public funds. This is another example of gendering an area
related to employment activation, which is a perennial policy objective
nationally and at the EU level. The key gender components of this par-
ticular reform were the provisions phasing in an increase and equalization
of the retirement and pension eligibility age to 67 years, up from 65 and
60 years for men and women respectively. The reform was in part justified
on equal treatment grounds, and legitimated as necessary to address the
fact that women’s shorter and more interrupted work histories (particu-
larly vis-à-vis women’s longer life spans) regularly leave women with inad-
equate pensions and contribute to old age poverty. While this is indeed the
case, application of equal treatment and non-discrimination law does not
always yield results that are substantively equal or desirable (see e.g. Fudge
and Zbyszewska 2015).
For one, a requirement that men and women have equal job tenures
to gain pension eligibility validates only paid employment, and fails to
account for the socially essential yet unpaid care work most women per-
form during their lives. Second, there are practical labour market reali-
ties, such as the fact that women over 50 years of age are more likely to
be unemployed9 either because they are unable to retain or find work
due to discrimination or because they leave employment to provide care
for their grandchildren or older family members (Zbyszewska 2016b;
Stypińska 2014; Kłos 2011; Wilińska 2010). Under such circumstances,
increasing the age of eligibility for retirement pension by an additional
128 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
seven years can plausibly expose women to long periods of financial inse-
curity, especially if they cannot maintain labour market attachment. The
extent to which the Polish state-spending on education, skills training,
and activation of older workers can counteract these tendencies remains
to be seen. It was similarly unclear whether the levels of social expen-
diture that Civic Platform was prepared to maintain were sufficient to
indeed keep older women out of poverty and in good jobs, as envi-
sioned by the party’s Poland 2030 ‘vision’ for the country’s long-term
development.
While the work-family reconciliation measures of the Anti-Crisis Bill
and the pension reforms did represent some efforts at mainstreaming
gender, even if only in a narrow, market-oriented way, the Civic Platform
government’s fiscal consolidation agenda and budget cuts the govern-
ment introduced after 2010 showed a more open disregard for possible
gendered impacts. Family budgets were reduced through restructur-
ing of and cuts to benefits, and liberalization of public services (their
replacement with private delivery) placed child-care access out of reach
for many parents. Indeed, the latter was problematic even for the gov-
ernment’s own employment activation policy, not least because lack of
affordable and accessible child-care facilities was identified among the
key structural obstacles to women’s employment in Poland. The gap in
care provision is a legacy of the Polish transition,10 so it cannot be attrib-
uted to the Civic Platform government’s post-crisis measures alone. On
the contrary, during its administration, the number of child-care spaces
for the youngest children started to gradually increase (Płomień 2009)
since the Civic Platform vowed to see each child placed in a care facil-
ity by 2017 (IAR 2013). However, with liberalization and privatization
constituting the government’s primary strategy—in line also with its fis-
cal consolidation objectives—achieving that promise would be difficult,
especially given that in 2010 only 3 per cent of children under three
were enrolled in such a service (GUS 2010: 272). Indeed, inaccessibility
and unaffordability of the mostly private services meant that enrolment
numbers were also low for children under five, only 50 per cent of whom
were registered in kindergarten or early childhood education in 2011
(European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat 2014), with the
situation being even worse in rural areas where only 37.5 per cent of
children were enrolled in some form of care (public or private; versus 76
per cent of those living in city centres) (Skóra 2013, citing Sadura 2012:
12). These numbers improved by 2014, with the OECD reporting that
74 per cent of children in the three to five group (though only 57 per
cent of three-year-olds) were enrolled in some form of early childhood
education that year, but even that higher figure remained significantly
below the EU-28 average and the Barcelona targets (OECD Family
Database 2014). In addition to privatization of public care delivery, the
Civic Platform administration also continued the historic legacy of cuts
to public education.11 The Education Ministry reported that more than
2000 public schools were closed in a period of five years (from 2007 to
2012); some of these schools have since been replaced by private facili-
ties (Skóra 2013: 3).
Finally, not directly related to the crisis response but worth mentioning
because of its relationship with support for working parents and efforts
at gender mainstreaming, was the Civic Platform government’s 2013
maternity leave reform. Somewhat in contrast to the government’s fiscal
consolidation efforts, this reform enabled extension of the paid portion
of the leave—which is set at 26 weeks, or 6 months, with 100 per cent
income replacement—by an additional 26 weeks, or 6 months (60 per
cent income replacement). On the positive note, the reform permitted
parents to share the latter part of the leave, meaning that fathers could also
take additional time to top off the two-week paternity leave to which they
are entitled. Nonetheless, both feminist critics in Poland (Skóra 2013)
and the European Commission (2013) critiqued these leaves on the basis
that the funds they committed would be better spent on building and
administering more child-care facilities (European Commission 2013).
The Commission also questioned whether a longer leave—which will
most likely be taken up by women not men—was consistent with efforts
to increase women’s labour market participation (European Commission
2013).
Overall, evidence of gender mainstreaming in the context of anti-crisis
measures Poland adopted in the 2009–2014 period suggests a fairly lim-
ited and instrumental attention to how these measures might interact with
existing gender dynamics, or how they might be used to facilitate gender
equality. In so far as the latter, the emphasis on encouraging and sup-
porting women’s employment suggests that the crisis measures conceived
equality and gender mainstreaming fairly narrowly. Measures aimed at
work-family reconciliation or making older (also women) workers attrac-
tive to employers, as well as those in a more direct (coercive) manner
‘encouraging’ women to remain labour-market active for a longer period
of time to qualify for pension, all illustrate this point. At the same time,
130 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
other measures, like those focused on business-friendly working-time

organization, as well as the budgetary and fiscal measures, appeared to
have entirely disregarded how they might impact women (workers or not)
and families, and reinforce existing inequalities.
Did EU Gender Policy Matter?

Did EU policy matter in Poland’s partial effort at mainstreaming gender in
the crisis response? As noted already, gender concerns were not very domi-
nant in the EU-level crisis efforts, yet the manner in which gender was consid-
ered in Poland’s own anti-crisis reforms suggests a consistency with the more
general framing of gender and use of gender mainstreaming in EU policies.
Some feminist critics of EU’s gender mainstreaming strategy (Charkiewicz
2012; see also Schunter-Kleeman and Plehwe 2006) suggest that in its cur-
rent incarnation, it constitutes a key method of propagating and stabilizing
a neoliberal conception of equality. Following Stratigaki’s (2004) typology
of competing gender mainstreaming frames—one being ‘transformative’
and the other a ‘tool for implementation of gender in structural programs’,
which in EU-level practice tends to reduce the gender equality discourse to
the discourse of equal opportunities—Charkiewicz (2012) argues that, in
Poland, it is also this latter frame that dominates. She sees EU policy coor-
dination in this context, especially the use of structural funds, as a tool for
propagation and implementation of a development model based on growth
and competitiveness, and of a truncated, market-based equality (equal treat-
ment) that does not challenge structural and systemic gender injustices.
The dominance of measures aiming to support (or encourage) employ-
ment activation and labour market participation for younger and older
women, and parallel budgetary cuts to social support, both of which char-
acterized Poland’s reforms between 2009 and 2014, support this general
assessment of EU’s gender mainstreaming and its particular articulation
in the Polish context. In this sense, the Polish response can be seen as
indeed Europeanized, especially since the emphasis on work-family recon-
ciliation is a post-accession development that is certainly inspired by EU
policy in this area. At the same time, the pledge to expand care services
(itself a positive policy development) by way of liberalization and privatiza-
tion of public care delivery remains largely consistent with the post-1989
transition policy of privatization and shifting of responsibility for welfare
to families and individuals.
Conclusion
This chapter’s analysis of Poland’s crisis response measures adopted
between 2009 and 2014 sought to contribute a perspective from a CEE
country where the crisis was not as severe as elsewhere in the EU, at
least in the first years after its onset. The extent to which this response
was consistent with, and influenced by, the EU policy directions and
the macroeconomic policy coordination and oversight was considered,
with the view also to Poland’s longer-term process of political-economic
transition. Interpretation of the Polish legislative reforms from this
contextual perspective reveals that the EU’s influence was voluntarily
accepted by the Polish government because the EU recommendations
largely resonated with the already dominant and accepted neoliberal pri-
orities in Polish policy. At the same time, this framing made for an ide-
ational and institutional setting within which only some forms of gender
equality can be advanced.
In political terms, the Civic Platform government’s voluntary sub-
mission cast Poland as among Europe’s neoliberal vanguard, with
Tusk’s leadership recognized and rewarded with the European Council
President post in 2014. Yet, the decision to ignore the social opposi-
tion with which some of these reforms were met was politically costly
at home. The government’s failure to cooperate with trade unions, and
its decision to prioritize tight budgets, good economic performance,
and low unemployment figures over the course of the crisis rang hol-
low with Polish workers facing insecurity and precarious labour mar-
ket conditions. Given this climate, and with a highly fragmented Left
unable to offer a broadly appealing alternative, the call for change and
for more social redistributive and economic interventionist (anti-neo-
liberal) policies, which formed a key element of the incumbent Law and
Justice’s political message, resonated with voters in the run up to the
2015 Presidential and Parliamentary elections. In both, Civic Platform
was unseated by a party who freely combined the populist (and left-
leaning) socio-economic agenda with its hallmark mix of rigid, socially
conservative values, nationalist and Eurosceptic sentiments, and close
affinity with the Catholic Church. Significantly, among the party’s key,
popular promises were the rolling back of the Civic Platform’s retire-
ment age reform by restoring the previous gender-differentiated age lev-
els (60 and 65), and expanding state spending and support of working
132 A. ZBYSZEWSKA
families, including proposed new social transfers for parents, and lower
VAT. While some of the party’s proposals appear to challenge the domi-
nant neoliberal frame, its track record on gender issues is unlikely to
make for a more equality-friendly policy environment either.
Notes
1. Adopted in November 2011 and in force since 13 December 2011,
the ‘six pack’ consists of five regulations and one Directive:
Regulation 1175/2011 amending Regulation 1466/97 On
strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the
surveillance and coordination of economic policies (23 November
2011); Regulation 1177/2011 amending Regulation 1467/97
On speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive
deficit procedure (23 November 2011); Regulation 1173/2011
On the effective enforcement of budgetary surveillance in the euro
area (23 November 2011); Directive 2011/85/EU On require-
ments for budgetary frameworks of the Member States (8
November 2011); Regulation 1176/2011 On the prevention and
correction of macroeconomic imbalances (23 November 2011);
Regulation 1174/2011 On enforcement action to correct exces-
sive macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area (23 November
2011).
2. See After the Global Financial Crisis: The Road Ahead for Europe,
a 2010 speech by the Managing Director of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, www.imf.org/
external/np/speeches/2010/032910.htm
3. National Development Strategy 2020: Active Society, Competitive
Economy, Efficient State. Attachment to Resolution No 157 of the
Council of Ministers of 25 September 2012, Warsaw.
4. Act of 1 July 2009 r. concerning the Alleviation of the Effects of
the Economic Crisis for Employers and Employees, Journal of
Laws 2009, no. 125 item. 1035.
5. Right-wing Parliamentarians requested similar provisions on behalf
of Polish businesses during debates over a 2002 Labour Code
amendment. The proposal was rejected at the time. See: Members’
proposal concerning the amendment of the Labour Code (Poselski
projekt ustawy o zmianie ustawy Kodeks pracy oraz o zmianie
niektórych innych ustaw), Doc. No. 334 (12 February 2002).
6. (Ustawa z dnia 20 kwietnia 2004 r. o promocji zatrudnienia i insty-

tucjach rynku pracy), Dz.U.2013.674.
7. Budget cuts also affected primary and secondary schools, as lack of
municipal-level funding forced some local governments to close
schools. According to the Education Ministry, more than 2000
public schools were closed in a period of five years (from 2007 to
2012); some of these schools have since been replaced by private
facilities (Skóra 2013)
8. Communication from the Commission, COM(2010) 682 final.
9. According to Eurostat (2013) in 2013 the rate of employment for
women 55–64 in Poland was just over 30 per cent, which was the
fourth lowest rate in EU-27, and at least 10 per cent lower than
the EU-27 average. By comparison, the employment rate for
Polish men in the same age cohort was just over 50 per cent.
10. Between 1990 and 2009, the number of crèche spaces—for children
under 3—fell by two-thirds; from 96 thousand to 30 thousand
spaces. See Matysiak (2009); Skóra (2013: 3); World Bank (2004).
11. Similarly, schools have been affected by budget cuts, and this too
has been a long-term tendency. Administrative responsibility for
primary and secondary schools (gymnasiums) was transferred to
the municipal level in 1999, and subsequent lack of funding led
some municipalities—particularly in regions with lower popula-
tion—to close many schools (Balcerzak-Paradowska 2004).
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CHAPTER 7
The Gender Dynamics of Financialization

and Austerity in the European Union—The
Irish Case
Stefanie Wöhl
Introduction
The global financial crisis in the years following 2008 has once more
shown how the spheres of production and reproduction are deeply entan-
gled with one another. It highlighted how financialization came into the
realm of private households, as households have been struck by high mort-
gage, rent and credit debt and how financial products like private pen-
sion schemes are part of the social reproduction of households. Financial
markets, international development, international trade and international
direct investments are therefore directly connected to the sphere of pro-
duction and reproduction as Diane Elson has pointed out (Elson 2010).
While there has been much work on the effects of the financial crisis on the
sphere of production and how austerity measures have impacted on gen-
der equality policies and on the labour market participation of women due
to cutbacks in the public sector after 2010 (Rubery 2011; Kurz-Scherf
and Scheele 2013; Klatzer and Schlager 2014), there have been few gen-
S. Wöhl (*)
University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna,
Wohlmutstrasse 22, Vienna A-1020, Austria

140 S. WÖHL
dered analyses on how the politics of financialization is interwoven with

social reproduction and private households in the European Union (EU).
Women are disproportionally affected by austerity in Greece, Great
Britain, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia and other member states (Annesley
and Scheele 2011; Young et al. 2011; DG Justice 2013; Karamessini and
Rubery 2014; True and Hosic 2016). But few studies have looked at how
private households, gender relations and the nearer community have been
affected in the everyday by the economic and financial crises within the EU
(LeBaron 2010; Wöhl et al. 2015). Some have focused on more house-
hold care constraints during economic crises and its effects on women in
Italy and Spain (Toffanin 2011 and Toffanin 2015; Hererra 2012), or on
community responses in times of crises in Greece (Papadaki et al. 2015).
The gendered international political economy literature has stressed the
interconnectedness of financial markets and private households in the past
(Elson 2010; Young et al. 2011). This leads me to analyse the European
integration process from a perspective that includes key insights from the
gendered international political economy and to ask which political and
economic trajectories have become hegemonic before and after 2008. I
highlight these developments to show which effects they have on private
households and on gender relations so far.
The chapter begins by briefly retracing key policy developments on
the supranational level since the Maastricht Treaty and shows how they
have stabilized a neoliberal model of development that has brought finan-
cialization into the social reproduction of households within the EU. I
analyse these developments referring to key ‘hegemonic projects’ in the
EU (Bieling and Steinhilber 2001) such as the Stability and Growth Pact
from 1996 and economic governance measures developed after 2008.
I then turn to describe this neoliberal process of finance-led innovation
by looking at developments in the United States (US) after the sub-
prime mortgage crisis in 2008 in the second section, leading to similar
developments of financial and economic downturn comparable to the
EU. Households in the US were especially hit after the sub-prime bubble
burst, revealing that women of low-class status and women of colour were
affected and expulsed from their homes in many of these cases (Young and
Montgomerie 2011; Roberts 2013). But while the US has fostered a strat-
egy for recovery and growth concerning economic development, member
states of the EU, especially Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece still
have to face high levels of state debt, austerity, high unemployment and
staggering growth.
THE GENDER DYNAMICS OF FINANCIALIZATION AND AUSTERITY... 141
The chapter therefore relates the politics of financialization to private

households and austerity measures during economic and financial crisis
in the third section. It focuses especially on how private households are
affected by mortgage or rent debt and by austerity in a case study on the
Republic of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland has rising levels in GDP
growth since 2014 due to its specific economic and low-tax situation for
big corporations. While the Irish state sets an example within the EU,
there are several reasons why the Irish case reflects a further deepening
of neoliberal restructuring across intersectional dimensions of inequality
like class and gender. The last part of the chapter therefore asks which
strategies of popular resistance and feminist activism have evolved in this
situation.
Hegemonic Projects in European Integration

Until and During Financial Crisis
Hans-Jürgen Bieling and Jochen Steinhilber described the development of
the European integration project in a Neo-Gramscian approach as being
confined within certain ‘hegemonic projects’ (Bieling and Steinhilber
2001). This term does not describe hegemony as a structure of dominance,
as a (neo-)Realist approach understands it, but political projects as struc-
tured by consent within societies rather than by coercion. In times of crisis
though, this can turn to forms of coercion fostered by political institu-
tions (ibid., 102).1 During periods of economic stability political actors and
interest groups in civil society normally have to consensually agree on cer-
tain modes of production and reproduction to stabilize their own political
and economic projects. This is why ‘hegemonic projects’ describe concrete
political initiatives, which seem to foster solutions for social, economic
and political problems (ibid.). Hegemonic projects also combine ‘material
interests, strategic orientation, discursive and cultural meaning, ideologi-
cal conviction, feelings, etc.’ (ibid., 106). They follow certain phases such
as the initiative, Agenda-Setting, the political decision-making process,
public support and structural adjustment when implemented. In the EU,
they include the creation of the Single Market, which was focused on the
dissolution of trade barriers and a tight fiscal and monetary policy within
the restrictive Maastricht criteria of 1992, trying to keep inflation low and
prices stable through the Stability and Growth Pact from 1996. Monetary
stability was one of the main aims for a future currency union of the mem-
ber states, the second key hegemonic project resulting in the Euro.
142 S. WÖHL
Meanwhile, the Single Market in the fields of capital, goods and ser-
vices, and the job market, were deregulated, while monetary policies were
regulated far more strictly (Jessop 2006). In the wake of the Single Market,
more competitiveness was made possible for transnational companies by
the dissolution of non-tariff barriers to trade. Core elements of the imple-
mented policies included less state intervention, rigid budget restrictions
in the member states, a supply-sided employment policy and the consoli-
dation of the European financial markets, all of which were accompanied
by a partial privatization of social security systems, especially the pension
system. This concurred with the third hegemonic project of austerity after
2008 to stabilize economic and monetary policies by implementing fur-
ther budget deficit restrictions for member states and stabilized monetary
policies to keep inflation low. A finance-led regime was thus already estab-
lished throughout the 1990s and 2000s in the EU. Social protection and
gender equality were meanwhile subsumed under economic integration
and led to a gendered selectivity in the European integration modus which
has ever since been materially and discursively framed by liberalization and
competitiveness (Wöhl 2007; Verloo and van der Vleuten 2009).
Furthermore, Bieling and Steinhilber warned against a financialization
of markets into more and other terrains than normally assumed to be prof-
itable, namely housing and state-ownership assets as early as 2001. What
we have encountered as the financial crisis hit the EU after 2008 was a
trajectory well prepared for these financial investments. Financial deregu-
lation and the advancement of financial products into private households
took place as a strategy of financialization, similar as in already much more
liberalized market economies such as the US and Great Britain. Financial
products such as private pension schemes, privatized health and elderly
care provisioning entered households in the late 1990s and at the begin-
ning of the new millennium also in more coordinated market economies.
Terms of trade were far more liberalized by then, and a discourse of per-
sonal responsibility fostered welfare state debates into a direction, where
even people who normally did not speculate on financial markets wanted
to own assets to earn money more quickly. This process went hand in hand
with welfare state deregulation even in conservative welfare states like
Austria and Germany. The newly elected social-democratic government
in Germany under Gerhard Schroeder (1998–2005) fostered privatization
and a reregulation of the employment market and downsized welfare state
benefits after 1998. The conservative Merkel government and Wolfgang
Schäuble profited from these policies as Germany developed into the most
export lead country within the EU with zero deficit by 2016 and promot-
ing tight fiscal policies in the EU after 2008.
While credit debt has for a long time also been a form of trustworthiness
into personal payment capacities and credibility in the US, the discourse of
long-term personal savings in private bank accounts has for a much longer
time succeeded in countries such as Austria and Germany. Meanwhile,
the financialization of social reproduction into households and commu-
nities across Britain, Ireland and the US took place, fostering consumer
credit and micro-credit schemes (Allon 2014). Personal debt also rose in
countries that had not followed this path until the mid-2000s. In more
liberal market economies such as Ireland, the US and Great Britain, the
effect of this for households became evident after the sub-prime bubble
burst in the US in 2008, since very low-income households were adversely
affected by this. Especially the sub-prime credit market in the US showed
that credits were given to minority, low-income women as explored in the
following section.
Financialization of Social Reproduction

Through Homeownership and Credit
As Bakker, Elson and Young have remarked, sub-prime mortgages are
risk and creditor-biased forms of inequality towards women (Young et al.
2011). In these cases, risk is individualized towards the debtor and credi-
tor/debtor relationships have become highly asymmetric, giving more
power to banks when debtors lose housing, while banks have been recapi-
talized during the post-2008 financial crisis (Young 2014, 70). Risk bias
is especially present in economic and state institutions assuming gendered
divisions about risk. Since low-income women have no or little savings and
limited wealth they are more often in danger of risk. They are also seen
as risky consumers who have worse credit conditions than men leading
to a creditor bias (Schubert and Young 2010). This has led Diane Elson
to develop a theoretical framework to analyse the interconnectedness
between financial markets and financial products, production and social
reproduction in developing and industrialized countries in times of crisis
(Elson 2010). Elson argues that the economic and financial crisis is due
to an economic system where the financial market has become dominant
over the processes of production and reproduction (Elson 2012). The
financial sphere includes profit-oriented investment and savings banks,
insurance companies, hedge funds and their regulatory bodies, while the
144 S. WÖHL
sphere of production includes commodities, trade and services to be sold

on the market. It includes formal and informal wage work in different
sectors of the economy. The sphere of reproduction is not profit oriented
and includes mostly unpaid social reproductive work such as caring and
cleaning as well as paid work in the public sector of health and educa-
tion. All three spheres are connected with each other through financial
markets, international development, international trade and international
direct investment. All spheres include a certain representation of gender,
normative as well as in the gendered segregation of work.
While we have seen the effects of financial instability on the sphere of
production through job-losses for both men and women post-2008, it
is still not fully clear which effects the financial crash of post-2008 has
had on the sphere of social reproduction, due to a lack of time-use sur-
veys and lacking studies on gendered sub-prime credits. Adrienne Roberts
has retraced the financialization of social reproduction in homeownership
through rising mortgage debt for the US, stating that these mortgage
debts are highly gendered and racialized, as loans were given to women
of lower class status and ethnic minorities (Roberts 2013; Young and
Montgomerie 2011). In this context, Roberts argues that the basic needs
for social reproduction have become more and more privatized and have
led to a ‘reprivatisation of social reproduction’ (Roberts 2013, 22), such
as in privatized health care, privatized educational services and old age
security, among others. Credit and loans have become the means for an
individualized indebtedness that has led to the ‘use of mortgage debt as a
privatized form of social provisioning (…)’ (ibid., 23) intensifying gender
inequalities.
Other research on gender and financialization, such as Young and
Montgomerie (2011), has argued in one of the first studies on gendered
sub-prime credits that the sub-prime lending market only created the
myth of more democratic inclusion in markets and access of groups for-
merly excluded from credit. A conservative discourse of homeownership
and tax breaks for mortgage repayments in the US led to homeownership
often being the only way to accumulate wealth over a lifetime, a trade-
off between missing social support from the state against property as last
insurance against social exposure and risk of any kind (ibid., 6–7). This
also fostered an increase in house prices but not necessarily leading to an
increase of wealth for poor households. Low-income households often
experienced a devaluation of their property because interest rates fell and
households had to borrow against their home equity to buy other daily
necessities. Especially single mothers in the US already experienced a raise

of mortgage and consumer debt in the years from 1992 to 2007, going
along with an unsecure job market, more part-time or low-wage work,
and a decline in unemployment benefits as well as a low-wage work not
being eligible for benefits. The minimum wage also stagnated for over
ten years and health insurance was put in the hands of corporate finance
and insurance companies, meaning that the market became the primary
source of provisioning (ibid., 11). This actually led to a dis-accumulation
of wealth for many low-income households.
Similar trajectories can be found in Great Britain fostering homeowner-
ship. Under Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain already experienced a priva-
tization and financialization process, wanting especially workers to buy
their own housing as to foster their identity as property owners and to
promote market citizenship for privatization to be supported. This stands
in line with the above-mentioned argument that the European integration
process was confined to specific hegemonic projects, creating not only
certain neoliberal economic projects and policies in specific countries and
harmonizing terms of (financial) trade and services across the EU, but also
a hegemonic identity frame to create consent for these projects.
This neoliberal hegemonic project was especially fostered by the finance
ministers in the ECOFIN council, the European Council, the Commission
itself and governments across Europe after the post-2008 economic and
financial crisis, leading to even stricter budget deficit restrictions for mem-
ber states with high levels of state debt (see Introduction chapter). The
Fiscal Compact and the so-called Six-pack legislation were installed, assur-
ing a debt brake and even more monitored national household budgets
by the supranational level, the Commission, or new bodies of govern-
ment implemented within institutions of member states, supervising
countries’ state debt or structural deficit (Wöhl 2014). Member states that
signed the Fiscal Compact also agreed to let the European Commission
supervise their national state budget and respond to suggestions made
by the Commission for budget consolidation. Commission suggestions,
often bound to austerity measures, are sought even before the respective
national parliaments are consulted. Besides these procedures, the Court of
Justice of the European Union (CJEU) can be called upon by other mem-
ber states to guarantee that all member states align with their once agreed
measures. Even though the CJEU is supposed to uphold legislation in
the EU, it was not designed to intervene in member states disagreements.
Now, the CJEU can impose fines of 0.1% GDP, if signatory states do not
146 S. WÖHL
respect the provisions of the treaty (Wöhl 2016). The Six-pack legislation
meanwhile strengthens the Stability and Growth Pact through a process
of competitive restructuring (for details, Bruff and Wöhl 2016; see also
Weiner and MacRae in this volume). The effects of these economic gover-
nance measures led to a tightening of fiscal and monetary policies within
the EU, leaving no or little adjustments for member states not to follow
this trajectory or for gender equality policies to evolve further (Klatzer and
Schlager 2014).
Ireland was one of the countries seeking bailout from the supranational
level in November 2010 and whose budget deficit exceeded by far the
European state debt threshold. Four banks had to be nationalized to avoid
economic breakdown. In the following case study, the Irish economic and
political situation will be explored in more detail, focusing especially on
homeownership and credit indebtedness in the first part. I then situate
these developments within the broader politics of austerity implemented
in Ireland, asking if resistance against austerity measures is likely to occur
more in the years to follow and if a change of policies is about to happen
with the advent of a new government coalition elected in 2016.
The Financial and State Debt Crisis in the Republic

of Ireland
The Crisis of Mortgage- and Rent-Indebtedness

The pre-crisis economic situation of 2008 across the EU and in Ireland
seems to have been favoured by a new form of ‘accumulation by dispos-
session’ (Harvey 2004), which we have come to encounter post-2008 in
varying forms: the housing and construction market caved in after the
sub-prime bubble burst in the US, leaving many households in Europe,
especially in Ireland and Spain constrained, unable to repay their mort-
gages due to loss of employment and families also being evicted from
their homes because the mortgage law, for example, in Spain does not
include a debt relief even after foreclosure and eviction (Lombardo in this
volume; Lux and Wöhl 2015). A similar but different situation occurred
in Ireland, where many people are in arrear with their mortgage payments
in the urban areas, but also in the countryside. Across the country, house-
holds are in negative equity and people feel distressed because they are not
sure if mortgage repayment will be successful (Murphy and Scott 2013).
In both countries, many people lost their jobs or emigrated abroad in
the years between 2008 and 2013. Ireland had to nationalize the biggest
national bank in 2008 as a result of the financial crisis and pay-cuts and
pay-freezes in the private and public sector succeeded. By 2011, 75% of
sovereign debt was caused by bank debt. A total of 64 billion Euro of
taxpayer’s money was needed to recapitalize banks, which concurs with
40% of GDP.
The government in Ireland had to agree in 2010 within a Memoranda
of Understanding to lend money from the European Stability Mechanism
to stabilize the country’s economy. These Memoranda meanwhile impose
strict austerity measures, especially in public sectors like education, health
and care services, and on other public goods and services. This implies that
private households have ever since become the target for an ‘accumula-
tion by dispossession’, targeting households in countries which have long
traditions of buying rather than renting home property like in Ireland.
This has happened not only by households taking up credit loans and
mortgage payments, but also by the respective governments themselves
aligning with these neoliberal policies of financialization, for example, by
introducing new incentives and reduced taxes in Ireland for buying prop-
erty. Wage cuts and cuts to community services (similar as in Spain, Greece
and Portugal) were implemented after 2010, while more privatization and
public/private partnerships in Ireland’s housing sector evolved already
before 2008 (O’Callaghan et al. 2015). Creditors meanwhile have more
and more difficulties to pay back mortgages, but there is no case study yet
on gendered segregated data on sub-prime loans.
In contrast to Spain, there were no massive evictions, because only
credits taken up after 2009 allowed for banks to reclaim the property, but
this has changed recently. Evictions were relatively high, including illegal
evictions, especially in the private rent sector (DG Social Affairs 2016, 72).
Studies on mortgage arrears also show that recipients are often in arrear to
pay back their loans due to loss of income or unemployment (McCarthy
2014; Murphy and Scott 2013). Especially low-income families or single
parents have the most difficulties. Women were adversely affected by this
situation considering their low-income status. Female-headed households
were ‘2.6 times more likely to be in housing-related arrears’ (DG Justice
2013, 178). The government also reduced expenses for social housing
since 2008 by one-third. Rent supplements have been cut by 11%, which
means poor households and women will be troubled the most (TASC
2015, 15). Utility arrears rose by 30% between 2010 and 2013 (DG Social
Affairs 2016, 23). This situation is especially viral in the greater Dublin
148 S. WÖHL
area, where rents have increased massively. In July 2015, ‘almost 5,000
people were homeless…including 1,495 children’ (TASC 2015, 16).
Another feature of the housing crisis are the effects for social services
and support for women in need: the child and family agency Tusla reported
that 80% of women fleeing domestic violence in Dublin had to be turned
away because there was no accommodation for them (ibid.). Apart from
this, there have been cases where women committed suicide on the day
of their eviction (DG Social Affairs 2016, 35). There is a 17.6% increase
of evictions between 2010 to 2013 initiated by local authorities, but an
increase of 137.3% evictions by private rented tenancy boards and an 111%
increase by regulated mortgage lenders taking their property back (ibid.,
77). This concerns also the greater Dublin area. Courts in Ireland ‘regu-
larly suspend eviction proceedings on a discretionary basis, often with a
final date of execution up to two years later’ (ibid., 191). This might also
be the reason why the numbers of evictions have been relatively low up to
2015 in EU comparison.
All of these developments in Ireland are due to privatization and more
credit-based homeownership already during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years. They
foster competitiveness, privatization and less public spending. They align
with more power given to executive branches of states, and tightening
the scope for member states to take independent fiscal measures to reach
the new deficit goals (Bruff and Wöhl 2016). As described in the pre-
vious section concerning homeownership in the US, a similar trajectory
can be found in Ireland. Indebtedness through mortgage lending has
reached high levels in the years pre- and post-2008, especially in the urban
areas surrounding Dublin. In Ireland, mortgage lending has been widely
deregulated and real house prices already increased by 180% in the period
between 1995 and 2006, more than in Spain (105%), the US (69%) and
the UK (133%) in the same period (Murphy and Scott 2013, 36).
The rapid rise of mortgage debt in Ireland is also due to the fact that
buy-to-let property investments rose, mortgages without required deposits
and mortgages with longer durations were initiated, leading to liberalized
mortgage markets being a facilitator for home-owners in need of credit,
to home-owners being more financially exploitable. This situation fuelled
the rise of the construction market and residential and rural development,
leading eventually to property boom and bust in Ireland after 2008. The
Irish mortgage debt to GDP ratio was at the high level of 80% in 2008,
while the EU average was 50% at the time (ibid.). Tax reliefs had been cre-
ated for housing development in rural areas prior to 2008, to repopulate
the countryside, leading to an oversupply in a period already marked by

a construction boom. Homeownership is thus much more favoured than
renting in Ireland, leading to family homeownership through the market,
public-private partnerships or existing family ties.
As Murphy and Scott note, Ireland has much in common with Southern
European countries in this context, relying on weak state regulation and
more on the family as a source for welfare provisioning and housing
through intergenerational homeownership (ibid., 37). At the same time,
the expansion of mortgage credit increased also this form of savings for
households, relying on growing assets. As O’Callaghan et al. (2015) show,
financialization through urbanization was prevalent in Ireland already dur-
ing the Celtic Tiger years from 1993 to 2007, slowly unfolding neoliberal
paradigms with consent of much of the population. Lower income house-
holds also received more availability to credit, leaving households more
vulnerable after the property bubble burst and ‘latent problems of uneven
development’ (ibid., 37) after the crisis emerged, especially since invest-
ments in the public sector or infrastructure projects had not taken place.
Another feature of the Irish housing market in rural areas is the nega-
tive equity of their property households had to face after the financial crisis
hit Ireland. While households in rural areas seem to have taken up much
less credits with a high deposit rate, in average it was a 10% deposit, they
may in effect face less difficulties concerning financial hardship than their
urban housing market counterparts. In their study on rural development
and housing in the Irish countryside, Murphy and Scott (2013) found
that perceptions of stress for households concerning repayment of mort-
gage debt are nevertheless high also in rural areas after the housing boom
crash and the implementation of austerity measures. Distressed borrow-
ers are significant to have lost their jobs, have lesser income or a general
deterioration in their employment conditions (see also McCarthy 2014).
The educational status of borrowers in arrear of paying back is also much
lower than borrowers who are not in this situation, 48% of the latter have
a third-level education (ibid., 75).
Borrowers in fragile employment, up to 40% and mostly women, are
also the ones who are more often not able to pay back their credit and/
or have experienced a significant loss of their income. Sub-prime loans are
four times more likely to be in arrear than loans from traditional banks,
with almost 20,000 mortgage loans in arrear more than 90 days by the
end of 2014.2 After a parliamentary letter of inquiry from Fianna Fáil to
the government in 2014, assumingly over 50% of loans in the sub-prime
150 S. WÖHL
sector are in arrear more than 90 days. It seems that the sub-prime mar-
ket will pose serious social problems in the future, as mentioned by the
government response in 2014 to the parliamentary inquiry. People who
cannot afford a regular credit, have a poor credit history or need a credit
quickly are the main sub-prime lenders, meaning that women are likely to
be among them most often.
Sub-prime lenders are not regular banks and therefore do not fall under
the Mortgage Arrear Resolution Targets foreseen by the Irish govern-
ment. This is one of the main points of debate as well as the fact that
sub-prime lenders charge far higher rates than their banking counterparts
and follow an aggressive legal strategy if borrowers fall into arrear. Already
in 2008, Ireland had the second highest rent or mortgage arrears within
the EU-27 next to France (Russell et al. 2011). This is due to the fact
that tax incentives were given to property development and Irish lend-
ers ‘increased their lending by 466% to property and financial sectors’
(McCrea and Moran 2014, 3). This also had an effect on taxes, because
the state relied mostly on taxes on property and construction and gave
income tax reliefs in 2015, which people earning over 70,000 euros prof-
ited from the most (TASC 2015, 8 ff.). This means poor or middle range
income households and women with low income do not profit from this
situation. In 2008, a new guarantee was already given to banks that depos-
itors and bondholders both secured and unsecured were backed up by the
Irish state (McCrea and Moran 2014). Meanwhile, 38% of private house-
holds are still indebted in Ireland.
Austerity in Ireland
Ireland was considered as the ‘Celtic Tiger’ in the years between 1990 and
2001 and for a shorter period between 2003 and 2007 because of high
economic growth due to foreign direct investment and a fast-growing
construction sector. A wave of immigration led many people, especially
from Poland and other new member states, to come to work in Ireland
in this period. While more (neo-)liberal elements evolved in the 1990s,
the Irish welfare state still relies on the family and a strong catholic tradi-
tion with strict abortion rules (McLaughlin 1993). Wage cost reduction,
cuts in public spending and restricting union power in their capacity to
negotiate through the social partner model called ‘National Partnership
Agreements’ were already implemented in the Celtic Tiger years (Allen
2000, 15 ff.).
Since cuts in public spending and only moderate wage raises occurred
during the Celtic Tiger years, more and more people fell into poverty since
2008. Cuts in welfare services especially hit those on the lowest incomes
hardest by the budgetary changes (OECD 2014a). Health care expen-
diture by the government fell by 7% since the onset of the crisis (OECD
2014b, 52) and larger out of pocket payments, hitting vulnerable and
low-income groups most, augmented. Low-income households were also
adversely affected by the cuts to social transfers and by changes to taxa-
tion, specifically the introduction of the Universal Social Charge, widen-
ing of tax bands and reduction in tax credits (Barry and Conroy, 2014). As
women are concentrated in lower income groups, they suffered a dispro-
portionate impact. Everyday costs of living have augmented since 2010
especially those affecting women and private households such as childcare
costs, hospital services, monthly rent and bus fares (Oxfam 2014). The
maximum retirement age will be raised from 65 to 68 years of age until
2028 and pension entitlements have been reduced. Cuts have also been
made to care allowance, disability payment, one parent family payment
and a range of other former welfare services. In 2009 child benefit pay-
ments were not only reduced, but also restricted to a certain age. Since
the Irish welfare model still relies on a strong male-breadwinner norm,
reduction in childcare, state infrastructure and elderly care arrangements
especially hit women more than men.
Concerning employment, the loss of paid work was the highest in 2013
for both women (11% unemployed) and men (17,7% unemployed), hav-
ing increased rapidly since 2008, with a rise in youth unemployment up
to 30,8% until April 2013, the peak of unemployment in Ireland. The
long-term unemployment rate in Ireland was the highest in comparison
to all OECD countries between 2007 and 2012, with a 30% rise in the
more than one-year unemployed compared to the total unemployed in
Ireland within this time span. Involuntary part-time employment for men
rose up to the high level of 53,2% of the total part-time employment rate,
while women’s involuntary part-time employment rose by 8% between
2007 and 2012, and by 4% for men in the same years (OECD 2014b,
99). While there is an increase of full-time working hours, especially the
employment of immigrants fell in comparison to native-born Irish and
immigrants returned to their countries of origin because of job-losses. The
emigration of over 400,000 Irish citizens abroad from which 4 out of 10
were under 24 years of age also shows how hard the crisis has affected the
lives of young people (Oxfam 2014, 2). Meanwhile, 23% of households in
152 S. WÖHL
risk of poverty have a head of household in paid employment (Barry and

Conroy, 2014). While still more men have lost their job in construction
since 2008, the higher unemployment rate of men does not include the
unpaid work of women in private households and restraints women, espe-
cially single mothers, have to cope with. After a wave of housing evictions
in 2015, especially poor single mothers, or whose husbands left them after
eviction, are confronted with homelessness and families have difficulties to
feed their children (Oxfam 2014).
Protest Voting and Political Resistance in Ireland

While Spain has witnessed massive resistance against austerity and against
housing evictions as well as the rise of the new left-wing party Podemos
(see Lombardo in this volume; Lux and Wöhl 2015), the people in Ireland
have decided in February 2016 if they trust in change by voting for a new
government. The results mirror the discontent with the Labour party, for-
merly in a coalition government with Fine Gael since 2011, implementing
austerity, and the rise of independent parliamentarians and protest coali-
tions forming parties for the elections. These protest coalitions around
water charges and other single anti-austerity issues reflect the discontent
with the government and rising protest against austerity and evictions.
At the same time, the conservative party Fianna Fáil gained seats (from
20 to 44) at 24,3% and Fine Gael lost 16 seats down to 50 seats, but
remaining the largest party at 25,5%. Labour lost massively (from 33 to 7
seats) down to 6,6%. Independent parliamentarians gained 19 seats, the
‘Independents for Change’ gaining 4 seats and the Left-wing protest party
coalition ‘Anti-Austerity Alliance—People before Profit’ gained ground at
3,9% as the fifth strongest party coalition with 6 seats. Sinn Féin is up to
13,8%, with 23 seats in parliament. Thirty-five of all seats go to women,
raising the gender quota to 22% in 2016 from 15% in the 2011 election.3
Especially the rising indebtedness and households confronted with
foreclosure, unemployment and rising poverty levels have resulted in more
mobilizations against austerity and against newly installed taxes, such as
against a new tax on water and housing property introduced in 2013. But
why has there been no similar resistance as in Spain, where the Indignados
movement and the Platform against Housing Evictions (PAH) evolved
successfully? Cannon and Murphy (2015) mention reasons like the docile
media, the high rate of emigration and the feeling of guilt as debtor as to
why resistance hasn’t evolved on a high scale in Ireland. Political culture
and moral assumptions might play a role in the Irish case, but it cannot
be the only reason. Ireland has had a long history of uprising between
religious groups in the North and against displacements. The years prior
to the crisis of harsh neoliberal restructuring and tax evasion for big com-
panies have paved the way for a strong sentiment of injustice, since Irish
taxpayers have had to carry the burden of the banking crisis.
Cannon and Murphy identify several reasons why local actions focusing
on specific policies have taken place more than big-scale events, comparing
the Irish situation to Latin America, Spain and Greece. Ireland’s peripheral
locality and rurality led to a more authoritarian and conformity seeking
popular culture in civil society, they argue, creating a more ‘religious-
ethnic conceptualisation of nation’ than of representational citizenship
(Cannon and Murphy 2015, 12). This leads to an absence of broader new
social movements in regard to austerity. They define three main tenden-
cies why this has happened: ‘mainstream, state or business-led framing
and associational exercises supportive of neoliberalism; second defensive,
reformist and renovative associational and discourse exercises which seek
to reform the state and/or neoliberalism (…); and anti-capitalist groups
which seek to challenge the state, capitalism as well as neoliberalism’ as a
whole (Cannon and Murphy 2015, 13). But the latter were never able to
challenge the ideological framing of crisis responses by the government,
especially after the elections of 2011. Rather, progressive forces, which
sought to counter the narrative of neoliberal reform, were also ‘blamed
for the crisis (…) which vilified public sector workers and trade unions as
at least partially responsible for the crisis, pitting these against private sec-
tor, non-unionized workers’ (ibid., 13). Instead, welfare fraud was put up
against welfare recipients, distinguishing them from taxpayers who were
claimed to be citizens and supported by initiatives like ‘Your country, Your
Call’ which promoted entrepreneurial citizenship (ibid., 14).
Another feature was that Ireland had to seek a bailout under the condi-
tions of the former Troika, leaving little room for civil society organizations
to influence the agenda or the government on a larger scale. Ever since,
core executive branches of the state have established advisory councils and
boards, like the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council to monitor the fiscal targets
aligned within the Fiscal Compact Treaty and fulfilling conditions set by
the European Commission. A new ministry for Public Expenditure and
Reform (PER) was created and a new sub-cabinet comprising the Prime
Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and
Trade, the Finance Minister and Minister for PER (Cannon and Murphy
154 S. WÖHL
2015, 9). As in other countries such as Spain, equality institutions were

closed or included in other bodies of government, such as the Combat
Poverty Agency being included in the Department of Social Affairs, or
the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority downgraded
(ibid.). If counter-projects will evolve and if forces in this direction might
succeed in resisting neoliberal restructuring is also dependant on the belief
that people have the power for change. As many Irish feel rather a notion
of powerlessness and betrayal by political parties, the question remains if
People before Profit and the United Left Alliance will be strong enough
to influence government decisions as part of the new opposition in parlia-
ment in the future.
Still, pensioners surrounded the Irish parliament already in 2008 con-
cerning the withdrawal of health cards. Public sector workers protested
in 2009 against a pension levy and called for a one-day strike repeatedly,
which the union leaders called off (Allen 2014). The ‘National Partnership
Agreements’ ended in 2009, the private sector thus returned to company
bargaining while the public sector still has bargaining on the national
level (ETUI 2014). Unions have supported much of the government’s
policies after 2008, especially the biggest union SIPTU, led by a Labour
Party member, did not mobilize its member for resistance against actions
taken by the government. The Haddington Road agreement, additionally
‘cements the partnership arrangement between the state and the union
leaders until 2016. In addition, the government was able to use the threat
of the Revenue Commissioners forcefully extracting the home tax from
wages and social welfare to defeat the anti-property tax movement’ Allen
remarks (2014, n.p.).
Feminist networks like the Feminist Open Forum, the Irish Feminist
Network, Women of Debt Justice Action, ICTU ‘Fighting Back’ Biennial
Women’s Conference, the National Women’s Council of Ireland and oth-
ers have engaged in gendered responses to the crisis and some have in par-
ticular campaigned against changes to the One Parent Family Allowance.
As Mary Murphy (2012, 10) writes, ‘TASC produced a gendered budget
analysis (TASC, 2012) and NUI Galway initiated training in gender bud-
get analysis. The 35 per cent funding cut to the National Women’s Council
of Ireland in 2012 is indicative of this problem. Many other national and
local women groups are fire-fighting funding cutbacks and coping with
pressures on services (Harvey 2012).’ Lack of tenants associations also
made women organize in the newly established network against evictions,
the Irish Housing Network, which gained strong momentum in 2015
after a wave of evictions in the greater Dublin area. Especially women
and their children were evicted from rented housing. For this reason, the
network has also organized trainings together with the Platform Against
Housing Evictions movement in Spain, to learn from their experience. The
National Women’s Council of Ireland is also strong in criticizing the gov-
ernment concerning recent pension changes for part-time workers, which
would concern especially women if it comes into force. Across the country
and in the urban areas of Dublin, anti-eviction protest and movements on
different issues have evolved, including women’s reproductive rights and
the Irish Housing Network is seeking to include movements and unions
to join forces with other single issue movements (see in detail Cullen and
Murphy 2016).
Conclusions
As described, the politics of financialization in the EU as a whole and
in Ireland in particular have had twofold effects for policy making after
2008: On the one hand, hegemonic projects of neoliberal restructuring
within the EU had already paved the way for more privatization and pri-
vate households taking up consumer or credit debt and relying on more
privatized welfare services. On the other hand, the discourse on privati-
zation and finance-led innovation has led to a new identity framing of
citizens as consumers and customers rather than citizens with a right to
social protection and social cohesion. In the Irish case, this has led to a
politics of privatization on different levels concerning public-private part-
nerships in the housing sector, to tax havens for international companies,
including unions into this neoliberal agenda. At the same time, more and
more people have fallen into poverty in Ireland since 2008, with women
being especially affected by low-wage or part-time work and less funding
possibilities for daily care and public services. The social reproduction of
households has been massively hit by cuts to social services and by arrears
in mortgages, rent and sub-prime loans. Future gendered aggregated data
on (sub-prime) loans and research is necessary to investigate into gendered
household care constraints and gendered effects in social reproduction on
household and community levels to elaborate the gendered dimension of
the housing crisis in still more detail. Meanwhile, resistance against auster-
ity and housing evictions has gained ground, at least with the last election
of 2016, showing that a broader front against austerity has evolved, which
is not only focusing on single issues, such as the campaign against water
charges, but has a broader focus on the agenda. If this will lead to change
to a more equal society in the near future is still an open process though.
156 S. WÖHL
Notes
1. A situation we have experienced especially concerning Greece in
2015, when the newly elected government by Alexis Tsipras was
forced to accept more austerity measures in return for loans that
would allow Greece to avoid bankruptcy.
2. See http://www.thejournal.ie/sub-prime-loans-ireland-1996667-
Mar2015/ (last accessed 10.03.2016) for more information.
3. See http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2016/ (last
accessed 11.03.2016).
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CHAPTER 8
The Visibility (and Invisibility) of Women

and Gender in Parliamentary Discourse
During the Portuguese Economic Crisis
(2008–2014)
Ana Prata
Introduction
The recent economic crisis affecting Southern European countries has
been singular in both its intensity and complexity, and as such, it has had
a profound impact on the economic, political, social, and institutional
realms. However, we still know very little about how discourse regard-
ing the economic crisis and austerity policies was constructed by different
actors and about different actors.
Portugal suffered two consecutive economic recessions, one following
the international financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the other following
the European sovereign debt crisis. In 2011, the country received a bail-
out package from the international financial institutions—the ‘Troika’,
but in return had to commit to implement drastic ‘adjustment programs’
A. Prata (*)
Department of Sociology, California State University Northridge,
18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330-8318, USA

162 A. PRATA
that would rebalance its budget and meet fiscal consolidation demands
(Armingeon and Baccaro 2012, 254). This led to three years of large-scale
cuts in social expenditure, public sector reforms, and tax increases (Freire,
Lisi and Viegas 2015). Although the economic crisis is a complex phenom-
enon affecting both men and women, research has shown that austerity-
driven measures adopted to alleviate the crisis have had disproportionally
adverse consequences for women (Ferreira 2014; Karamessini and Rubery
2014). Indeed, a 2013 Eurobarometer poll1 shows that women, more
than men, perceive that the economic crisis led to an increase in the
pay gap, to more violence towards women, and to more job insecurity.
Moreover, data from the 2014 Gender Equality Report2 shows that it is
among Southern European citizens that gender inequality issues are more
of a concern.3
Recent policy debates in Portugal have started to address the impacts
of several years of economic crisis and austerity policies on women rela-
tive to men. Particularly, the effects of these policies on gender equality
in employment, on what the retrenchment of the welfare state represents
for women, on increasing domestic violence, and on the decline of birth
rates. However, we do not know how these specific dimensions gained
visibility vis-á-vis other potential gendered concerns. In fact, there is little
research addressing how discourse on women and gender has been con-
structed by politicians during the crisis. Was gender inequality mentioned
in tandem with a range of other social inequalities in Portuguese parlia-
mentary debates? Is there a perception that the recession affected women
more than men? Are female MPs, compared to male MPs, more actively
voicing the gendered impacts of the crisis? These are some of the central
questions this chapter engages with. The structure of the chapter is as fol-
lows, a theoretical overview regarding political discourse and discursive
representation; an assessment of women experiences during the crisis; a
methodology section; and the empirical section and analysis of parliamen-
tary discourse on women and gender.
Political Discourse and Women’s Discursive

Representation in Times of Crisis
Economic crises are mostly ‘events for which people seek causes and
make attributions’ (Coombs and Holladay 2004, 97). Therefore, in the
process of providing an evaluation of the economic crisis, parliamen-
tary members are key political actors that construct discourses about the
THE VISIBILITY (AND INVISIBILITY) OF WOMEN AND GENDER... 163
causes of the economic crisis, those responsible, those affected, and its
prospects. All of this with the intent to influence the public’s perceptions
and to construct a narrative regarding the most affected groups and the
most viable solutions (An and Gower 2009). As Freire (2013, 69) sum-
marizes it, the economic crisis is a phenomenon constructed by distinct
social, political, and economic actors and such constructions, such mean-
ings, are both descriptive and performative, they describe and create the
reality of the economic crisis. In Portugal, state actors and parliamentary
members are among the most influential political actors in the economic
crisis. In fact, Moury and Standring argue that discursively there was a
strengthening of the executive power during the economic crisis and
a de-legitimation of non-state actors (2015, 4–5). Thus, parliamentary
members appear as crucial actors involved in an ideological and gendered
construction of meanings to the public, in which they are both in a privi-
leged position to incorporate differences of power, and to give rise to
particular relations of power. Following a Foucauldian perspective, the
‘reality of the economic crisis’ cannot be known or interpreted outside of
discourse, since we must conceive ‘discourse as a violence which we do to
things, or in any case as a practice which we impose on them’ (Foucault
1984, 127).
I argue that silencing or voicing a particular social group is an active
construction of meaning and a performance in claim making (Saward
2006). If the political system does not address women’s reality, their
experiences, their struggles, women lack substantive representation
(Pitkin 1967) and do not see themselves in politics. Thus, the lack
of discursive representation impacts the substantive representation
of women and can further alienate women from the political process.
Dryzek and Niemeyer argue that democracy entails also the representa-
tion of discourses not just persons or groups (2008, 481). Therefore,
it is in the women’s interest that their experiences are accounted for in
parliamentary debates, since those both reflect and influence political
decision-making.
Women’s discursive representation can occur in two main ways, one
is through the recognition of women as a separate and relevant social
category. The second is through the acknowledgment of an unequally
gendered balance of power (Wängnerud 2000, 70). One facet of represen-
tation is defined as the ‘substantive acting for other’ (Pitkin 1967), so the
way in which women and gender inequality are captured in parliamentary
discourse, the kind of visibility given by MPs to women and to gender
164 A. PRATA
issues, is reflective not only of what representatives ‘do’, but also of the
creative and interactive process of constructing a narrative about the ‘real-
ity’ of the economic crisis and those affected.
Understanding Women’s Situation during the Crisis
Research on women in the era of post-crisis austerity has argued that the
global financial crisis has launched ‘a set of profound cultural shifts’ (Negra
and Tasker 2014), and that austerity policies represent ‘a critical juncture’
for gender and social regimes at the EU level and at the country and
regional levels (Karamessini and Rubery 2014; Paleo and Alonso 2015).
In Portugal, there has been some research on how the economic cri-
sis and women and austerity policies have impacted women and gender
equality. But there is far less work on political representation and political
discourse on women and gender (Espírito-Santo and Lisi 2015, 430). My
research addresses this gap and builds on the current literature on auster-
ity in order to understand how these challenges women were facing are
discursively constructed.
Most of the impacts during the crisis and austerity in Portugal affected
the labor market, labor relations, unionism, and the restructuring of the
welfare state and public sector (Costa 2014; Ferreira 2011; Guerreiro
2014; Leite et al., 2014; Natali and Stamati 2014). Male employment
was hit first by the crisis in 2009 (particularly the manufacturing and
construction sectors), while women’s employment started contracting a
year later, mostly due to job losses in agriculture, manufacturing and pri-
vate households (Ferreira 2014, 213–215). Unemployment affected men
and women of all age groups4 and impacted the consumption habits and
nutritional choices of families5 (Wall et al. 2015). As unemployment rose
throughout the crisis, it affected mostly those with less education, while
graduates were the least affected (Wall et al. 2015, 31; Ferreira 2014,
219).
The recession’s impact was not the same across all social groups.
Some economic sectors and groups were the worst affected by the cri-
sis: younger male and female workers, female self-employed workers, civil
servants, domestic employees, unpaid family workers, and fixed-term con-
tract workers (Ferreira 2014, 219).
Unemployment was a major contributor to poverty since the outset
of the economic crisis. Children (0–17 years old) were the age group at
the highest risk of poverty, a risk that increases considerably depending
on the unemployment status of parents or single-parent households (Wall

et al. 2015, 30–34). But unemployment was just one of the several fac-
tors impacting women’s lives during the crisis. The increase in the cost of
living, the reduction of family incomes, the retrenchment of the welfare
state, and overall cuts in social provisions, all contributed to the strains felt
by women and families during the economic crisis (Leite et al. 2014, 110;
Ferreira 2014, 224; Costa 2014). Some of the most dramatic measures
implemented following the Memorandum of Agreement6 targeted public
sector workers, a sector in which women are much more represented than
men. Some of these measures were: salary cuts, lack of career advance-
ment, decrease in pensions and retirement benefits, and an increase in
working hours (Costa 2014, 48).7 This added to an already tradition-
ally strenuous’ work-life balance of Portuguese women (Casaca 2012;
Crompton and Lyonette 2006; Perista 2002).
Austerity measures also curtailed the provision of social benefits and
cash allowances for families, raised direct and indirect taxation (with an
impact in the cost of living), deregulated labor markets leading to more
flexibility in the termination of work contracts and elimination of job
posts, and decreased unemployment subsidies, while demanding stricter
conditions to apply to those subsidies (Wall et al. 2015, 75; Ferreira 2015,
220; Costa 2014, 47–48). Ferreira also alludes to the ‘feminization of the
labor force’ during the crisis; the Portuguese male workforce was affected
in a way that made it resemble the female labor force more. That is, more
disposable, more flexible, more precarious (Ferreira 2015, 221).
Employment standards dropped during the economic crisis in a way
that was similar to how the female labor force was structured before the
crisis (Ferreira and Monteiro 2015, 60). Costa and Leite et al. also allude
to a similar point by noting how austerity policies contributed to an over-
all ‘devaluation of the individual worker’ and to the ‘decline of workers’
rights’ (Costa 2014, 49; Leite et al. 2014, 110). Since in Portugal the
women’s employment share has been traditionally high,8 this devalua-
tion of the worker is sure to have impacted women as well. Despite some
increasing similarities between the male and female labor force, there are
still significant gender asymmetries regarding pay, labor flexibility, and
part-time work. Women are underpaid compared to men and overrepre-
sented on short-term contracts and part-time work (Casaca 2012: 25–28).
These gender inequalities in the Portuguese labor market not only per-
sisted, but were strengthened by the economic crisis, thus contributing
to reinforce traditional gender representations of male and female roles.9
166 A. PRATA
The changes in labor relations, the increasing unemployment (with half

of the unemployed not eligible for unemployment subsidies), the loss of
social benefits, the cuts in family allowances and the overall decline in pur-
chasing power, all contributed to the ‘reinforcement of the informal wel-
fare society, whose main pillar is the family, or, in other words, the unpaid
work of women’ (Ferreira 2015, 225). Women, families, and the family
home, emerged as a support mechanism and as a protective space during
the crisis for the most vulnerable in Portuguese society (the unemployed
youth, the elderly, children).10 Women, as family members and neighbors,
played a central role in the family and in the networks of community sup-
port, since it was mostly them, not men, who provided economic redis-
tributive assistance and caregiving (Lima 2016, 82). Additionally, the
overrepresentation of women in the service sector, education, and social
services further reinforced gender roles that placed women in feminized
jobs, thus perpetuating gender segregation at work (Souza 2015, 261),
and contributing to a return to traditional gender roles (Negra and Tasker
2014).
The impact of the economic crisis was also felt on health, health sys-
tems, and particularly on the decline of mental health in countries adopt-
ing strict fiscal austerity (Antunes 2015; Silva 2012; Karanikolos et al.
2013). In terms of gender differences, women are more vulnerable to
stress, anxiety, and depression, while men more likely to commit suicide
and to increase alcohol consumption11 (Serra 2014, 130).
The media has also given considerable attention to the surge in domestic
violence in Portugal during the economic crisis. On average, five women
died a week due to causes connected directly or indirectly to domestic
violence (Almeida 2014, 5), and domestic violence was diagnosed as a
health crisis according to the IV National Plan Against Domestic Violence
(a state-sponsored plan).
The economic crisis and the austerity policies also have affected birth
rates (Nunan and Peixoto 2012; Padilla and Ortiz 2012). In compari-
son to other EU countries, Portugal is ‘less childless, more single child,
and less second births’ (Cunha 2014, 22), and has experienced a steep
decline in births in recent years that coincided with the economic crisis.12
Family-friendly policies are increasingly part of the political discourse
but have been unable to tackle low fertility and maternity postponement
in any effective way. This is probably because these issues are related to
broader ones, such as, job insecurity, the persistence of gender inequalities
in paid and unpaid work, and women’s workload with housework, family
care, and community support (Wall and Escobedo 2013; Amâncio 2007;
Monteiro and Ferreira 2015).
In conclusion, to better understand the total dimension of the gender-
specific impact of the economic crisis, one has to analyze not only its
impact on economic constraints, on changes in health care regimes, or
on the retrenchment of the welfare state, but also how all these changes,
in turn, influenced the social dynamics of gender relations. Santos (2011,
76) provides an example of just such a dynamic. When the state makes
substantial cuts in social provisions, society needs to balance the retreating
of the welfare state. Women then take on that role and are overrepresented
in doing so, but in the process, traditional gender roles are reinforced and
women tend to lose autonomy.
The Political System and Women’s Representation

The Portuguese democratic system tends to be highly centralized and
closed. It is not inclusive of new political or social actors, is rooted on a
feeble civil society, is characterized by weak women’s movements,13 and
few political opportunity structures for feminist actors (Monteiro and
Ferreira 2012; 14; Jalali 2007; Freire and Baum 2001). This political sys-
tem is dominated by highly centralized political parties, whose members
come mostly from educated urban elites mostly disconnected from its
constituents (Monteiro 2011, 33).
The political landscape of the economic crisis is characterized by an
overall decline of trust in the political class, the worsening of economic
conditions, and the perception of poor management by the government
(Teperoglou 2014, 459). Inside the political parties, women party mem-
bers are often underrepresented and lack real power compared to men
(Lisboa, et al. 2006, 178). This can be ascertained both by the exclusion of
women from decision-making processes and the reduced role of women’s
departments inside the parties (Jiménez 2009; Monteiro 2011, 41–45).
Even after 2005, with the implementation of gender quotas, women’s
representation in government was at the highest point only at 20%, while
in parliament women make up for just 30% of all MPs.14 As Verge and
Espírito-Santo pointed out, while the gender quotas led to a feminized
party office, the ‘core positions are still gendered and women are still
absent from decision-making arenas’ (2014, 11). Women do not hold top
political office, that is, Prime Ministers, Ministers, and Secretary of State,
and are mostly represented in middle-level positions15 (Lisboa, et al. 2006,
168 A. PRATA
182). Furthermore, women’s policy agencies (the state feminist branch)

and gender equality agendas tend to have a marginal status within the
governmental apparatus and programs.16 As Monteiro and Ferreira con-
clude, in Portugal the articulation between women’s movements and the
state women’s agencies has ‘not produced significant political outcomes
in terms of gender equality and mainstreaming’, and gender issues are still
perceived as having ‘limited relevance’ and ‘low political prestige’ (2012,
18–24).
Gender inequalities are not a source of electoral competitiveness and are
mostly absent from electoral programs and discourses17 (Jiménez 2009,
239). Krook argues that Portugal possesses one of the configurations that
generates low levels of women’s representation in Parliament, which is
‘[having] quotas, women’s low status, non-autonomous women’s move-
ments and weak new left parties’ (2010, 897). All of these factors tend
to lead to a political discourse on the economic crisis that is mostly the
ungendered discourse of male political elites. But one cannot assume that
parliamentary discourse is uniform across parties or insulated from the dis-
course of non-institutional actors or even everyday discourse (Chilton and
Schäffner 2002, 7). In fact, the indifference toward gender inequalities or
gender issues might not just be confined to political elites, but could also
be a characteristic of Portuguese society in general (Ferreira 2000).
Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis

This study investigates seven years of parliamentary debates on the eco-
nomic crisis and austerity policies combining Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA) and frame analysis as research tools. This approach concerns
how politicians accomplish specific personal, social, and political projects
through the use of language (Schiffrin, Tannen, and Hamilton 2001).
Thus, it is important to assess how meanings are expressed and con-
structed, by examining how the story is told and how group identities
emerge and reflect an understanding of reality that is created and mediated
through language. CDA assumes from the start that language is invested
and that meanings are constructed without neutrality. Thus, messages are
not just transmitted, but are instead a ‘communicative event’ constructed
in a particular way of understanding an aspect of the world, and operat-
ing as a representation of the agendas of the speakers (Fairclough 2001;
van Dijk 2001, 98; Phillips and Jørgensen 2002). The CDA approach
explores, and critiques, how the use of language is embedded in a social-
cultural practice and links that to how values and attitudes are presented
and how they express vested interests. This is a methodological approach
well suited for a gender analysis.
Frames are also a powerful mechanism that define, construct, and make
sense of causes, problems, and potential solutions regarding the economic
crisis and austerity policies. Discourse makes certain utterances possible
while it suppresses others—the ideological machination of discourse
(Ferree et al. 2002).
Data collection started with selecting within parliamentary debates the
main keywords for the study: ‘austerity’ and ‘economic crisis’. Once those
debates and documents were located, another set of words were searched
within that data. Those words were woman/women, wife/husband,
mother/father, gender, feminine/masculine/feminist, and female worker,
as well as the plural form of these words. Data were analyzed primarily by
looking at the utterance of these specific words, a unit smaller than the
debate or the document as a whole.
All parliamentary debates were available online through the Parliament
official website (http://debates.parlamento.pt/search.aspx?cid=r3.dar)
and data were collected online from February to May of 2015. The terms
austerity (austeridade) and economic crisis (crise económica) were searched
to determine low and high utterance of those terms per debate and per
year. Parliamentary debates with only one or two utterances were excluded
from the sample, but all the debates with three or more utterances were
included. All of the high-incidence debates were coded and analyzed for
both austerity and economic crisis. A total of 3956 utterances of the words
‘austerity’ and ‘economic crisis’ were coded and used to locate utterances
on ‘women and gender’.
Several coding instruments were used to trace political discourse. The
unit of analysis is the utterance in the parliamentary debates. An utter-
ance is the speech act or statement produced by a single speaker (Ferree
et al. 2002, 50). The coding procedure was to first code each utterance
with regard to the speaker (political party of the MP, in government or
opposition, gender of the MP), and second to code all the idea elements
contained in each utterance. Often times, ideas were grouped into clusters
of ideas that were similar even across different frames.
Once the data were coded, I also included framing typically used when
analyzing any type of crisis. I used a set of crisis frames and adapted those
to the economic crisis and austerity policies and how women and gender
enter the discourse.
170 A. PRATA
The Invisibility of WomenDuring the First Years

of the Economic Crisis
An analysis of parliamentary discourse reveals that the term ‘austerity’ is

far more popular than ‘economic crisis’ in parliamentary debates. Also, the
life-cycle of the two terms does not coincide in Parliament (Fig. 8.1). This
is to be expected, since the international financial crisis in 2007–2008 and
its potential impacts on Portugal, led to ‘economic crisis’ being debated
from early on. Austerity policies were only formally enacted in 2011, fol-
lowing the fiscal consolidation measures agreed with the Troika, so refer-
ences to austerity only began to take shape in 2010 involving discussions
about the national debt and the need to address it with a bailout.
One of the most striking findings is how women and gender were rarely
addressed in the first years of the economic crisis (Table 8.1). In fact,
‘women and gender’ were only mentioned 13 times in four years of parlia-
mentary debates. In order to have a better grasp of the relative importance
of ‘women and gender’, I also compare this category to other potential
groups.
Of a total of 1003 utterances on ‘economic crisis’ and ‘austerity’ in the
first four years, ‘women’ were only mentioned in 1.3% of total utterances.
In contrast, MPs mentioned ‘youth’ (8%), ‘families’ (34%), and ‘work-
ers’ (25%) more often; thus showing that any of these categories is more
salient than ‘women and gender’ in economic crisis debates. Women and
Fig. 8.1 Utterances of ‘Austerity’ and ‘Economic Crisis’ (Parliament 2008-2014)

Table 8.1. Utterances of ‘women and gender’ compared

# of Utterances 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total %
Economic Crisis + Austerity 43 139 269 552 1003 %

Women and gender 1 3 6 3 13 1.3
Youth 1 35 26 18 80 8.0
Family 23 77 113 132 345 34.4
Worker 11 52 89 101 253 25.2
gender inequality are not salient categories of inequality, victimization, or

any kind of politicization. Women and gender were politically ignored by
parliamentary members (of all parties) or implicitly subsumed into other
categories (families, the poor, the unemployed, etc.).
Additionally, in the first four years ‘women and gender’ were also men-
tioned mostly in conjunction with another group, not as a stand-alone,
relevant social category. Out of the 13 times ‘women’ were mentioned,
9 of those utterances were followed by a reference to another group. For
example, ‘(…) unemployment affects mostly the youth and women’18 or
‘(…) the government needs to protect… the children, the elderly, and sin-
gle mothers’.19 While the lack of utterances on ‘women and gender’ speaks
on how women were not politicized or deemed relevant in the overall dis-
course. Being mentioned mostly in conjunction with other victimization
groups (children/elderly) shows the low status of ‘women and gender’ as
a social category of inequality in the overall discourse, and reflects a lack of
discursive representation of women in Parliament.
The Gender Turn?

Parliamentary discourse from 2008 to 2011 was mostly ungendered, but
in the following years the discursive representation of women changed
considerably. While in 2011 there were only 3 utterances of ‘women and
gender’, in 2012 that number rose to 94 total utterances (Table 8.2).
As we see in both Fig. 8.2 and Table 8.2, utterances on the eco-
nomic crisis and austerity increased exponentially already in 2011, but
the increase in utterances on ‘women and gender’ only started in 2012.
Both in absolute and in relative terms, ‘women and gender’ are mentioned
more often in the parliamentary discourse of the last three years than in
the earlier period. What can explain these variations? Although a definite
answer might still allude us, a governmental change from the Socialists to
172 A. PRATA
Table 8.2 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ within the overall debate (Parliament
2008-2014)
# of utterances 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 TOTAL
Economic Crisis + 43 139 269 552 907 1210 836 3956

Austerity
Women and gender 1 3 6 3 94 86 44 237
Women and gender % 2.3 2.2 2.2 0.5 10.4 7.1 5.3 6.0
Fig. 8.2 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ within the overall debate (Parliament
2008-2014)
a center-right coalition government in the summer of 2011 is sure to have

contributed to these changes. Research has shown that it is mostly left-
wing MPs that tend to address gender concerns in Parliament (Celis and
Childs 2014; Lovenduski 2007; Monteiro 2011; Prata 2012). Therefore,
it is plausible that left-wing party opposition to the new government con-
tributed to the increase of utterances on ‘women and gender’. Mentioning
the social costs of tough austerity measures opened the door toward
the visibility of ‘women’ as one of the main social groups affected. But
2012 is also characterized by strong mobilizations of Portuguese citizens
(Baumgarten 2013, 3; Accornero and Pinto 2015), which probably also
produced spill-over effects on parliamentary discourse.
If there was indeed a ‘gender turn’ in parliamentary discourse in 2012,
how was discourse on ‘women and gender’ constructed and which speak-
ers were responsible for voicing it in Parliament? In order to answer these
questions, I take a dual approach to the empirical analysis. First, I look at
the main idea elements that are present when we break down the category
of ‘women and gender’ into all its components. Second, I look at what
were the most prevalent frames of ‘women and gender’ within the parlia-
mentary debates on the economic crisis and austerity. In both approaches,
speakers are taken into account in order to grasp who were the MPs sub-
stantively representing women in Parliament.
“Even in austerity there is gender discrimination!”—The construction of wom-

en’s economic victimization
References to ‘woman’ or ‘women’ considerably outnumbered all the other

components of the category (Fig. 8.3). This is to be expected because the
term ‘woman’ has much broader usage compared to the other terms.
MPs spoke of women in the context of the economic crisis and auster-
ity measures mostly as a way to underscore how women were victimized
economically. Utterances on women’s victimization display this group’s
particular vulnerability, specify their victimization process, those to blame,
and potential solutions. Likewise, the most prevalent framing on the
impacts of the economic crisis on women and gender was also economic.20
Here are some examples from parliamentary debates of how both wom-
en’s victimization and economic framing were constructed by MPs:
(…) we know that women are the biggest victims of unemployment among
this cataclysm of unemployment that the country faces. We know that
women have lower salaries than men. We know that women are subject
to greater precariousness… so naturally the Government has responsibility.
(Female MP, Green Party, DR 7/9/2014)
200
160
120
80
40
0
TOTAL
'woman' ‘gender' 'feminist'
'mother' 'father' ‘female worker'
Fig. 8.3 Breakdown of the ‘women and gender’ category

174 A. PRATA
(…) the Portuguese were the victims of a brutal increase in [price of] trans-
portation; yesterday we learned the record numbers of unemployment and
that women are the main victims of unemployment, precariousness and low
wages. Even in austerity there is gender discrimination! … the policies of
this Government have excavated the crisis and have made women its victims.
(Female MP, Left Bloc, DR 2/2/2012)
(…) the scenario is even darker and harder for women. We live in a profound
economic and social crisis, where once again women are in the front line of
unemployment, of precariousness, of low wages, and low pensions. Women
make up most of the 400 000 workers getting minimum wage. … Women
and children are the biggest percentage of those living below the poverty
line. (Female MP, Communist Party, DR 2/2/2012)
(…) grassroots organizations … that fight against domestic violence, they

tell us that it were the cuts in social provisions, the cuts in social benefits
that have substantially reduced women’s autonomy. What they say is that
austerity policies have led to the increase of these heinous crimes. (Female
MP, Left Bloc, DR 10/30/2012)
Women were mentioned as vulnerable and as victims, mostly in their role

as ‘women workers’. They were singled out by parliamentary members
as a relevant category of victimization, mostly through their presence in
the labor force. Even in the few instances when women were portrayed as
victims of domestic violence, economic reasons, such as, cuts in social pro-
visions or unemployment, were the main explanatory variables of women’s
victimization. In this context, it is the economic conjuncture of the cri-
sis and austerity measures that are to blame, not aggressive partners or a
patriarchal culture. Likewise, gender inequality in the labor market was
also mostly presented as the result of the economic crisis and not part of
an institutional work-culture that has long discriminated against women
even before the crisis. In fact, the economic framing regarding the impacts
of the economic crisis is not only prevalent, it is hegemonic. Both prob-
lems and solutions to gender inequality, labor market discrimination, or
a lack of women’s protections, were often presented almost exclusively
as economic or political, not cultural or institutional. In other words, for
the most part MPs do not acknowledge the unequal balance of power
between the sexes as part of the diagnosis or prognosis of women’s victim-
ization during the crisis.
Utterances of ‘gender’ and ‘feminist’ were scarce within parliamen-
tary debates (28 total utterances in 7 years). Gender was mostly utilized
in the context of domestic violence. MPs mentioned how we need to

fight against ‘this gender violence’, how we need to take on ‘a gender
perspective’ to solve the domestic violence problem, or on how we need
to promote ‘gender equality’. ‘Feminist’ is also used in similar ways. For
example, MPs mentioned how we need to commit to a ‘feminist vision
of society’, or how the Left Bloc is ‘committed to all feminist struggles’.
The construction of both gender and feminist appears in parliamentary
discourse often tied to intentions and to ‘what we ought to do’, and less
as part of an existing pressing reality or as part of the diagnosis of the
crisis.
References to ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ in parliamentary discourse on
the economic crisis are somewhat distinct. Similarly to women as ‘work-
ers’, women as ‘mothers’ are also mentioned in the context of economic
victimization and vulnerability caused by measures implemented by the
government.
They are victims when pregnant and they are victims when mothers, they
receive lower wages and when they don’t get fired—and being fired is recur-
ring in these situations—… they take a pay cut! These are unacceptable
discriminations. (Female MP, Left Bloc, 3/9/2013)
with the latest [price] increases announced… A family with a father, mother
and two children who live in central Lisbon spend over 36 euros more per
month on transportation. If they have to commute from Sintra to Lisbon…
the monthly fee increases to 100 euros. This is unaffordable! (Female MP,
Left Bloc, 6/22/2012)
As we see from the quotes, mothers appear in the discourse mostly in

conjunction with other victimized groups, such as children or the unem-
ployed, not as a relevant category on their own. Some of the utterances
on ‘father’, however, are distinct and introduce into the debate the idea of
who are to blame for the social and economic crisis.
The fathers of the financial, economic, and social instability of our country
now want to add to that legacy also political instability. (Male MP, Social
Democratic Party, 4/4/2013)
The illusion, the spending, and the debt are the progenitors of austerity,
and these politicians some of who speak here … are the biological fathers of
the strain the country is experiencing. (Male MP, Social Democratic Party,
10/31/2012)
176 A. PRATA
‘Father’ becomes a category used in parliamentary discourse also as a

metaphor about who was actively responsible for the economic situation
of the country. While ‘mother’ was presented mostly as a ‘passive’ con-
struction of victims. These constructions by MPs also reflect gendered
constructions of meanings of mother and father and a stereotypical and
patriarchal way of organizing political discourse.
While economic framing dominates the discourse on the gender
impacts of the economic crisis, ‘social justice’ also appears in the debates.
That is, framing the economic crisis and austerity measures as producing
socially unequal impacts. MPs who use this framing commonly juxtapose
those who seem to fare well during the crisis with those who do not, those
who should be blamed for the crisis, with those who are impacted by the
crisis. In this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy, the government, the Troika,
and rescued banks are the ‘them’, while women and other social groups
are presented as the ‘us’.
While social provisions are stolen and child benefits are taken away affect-
ing more than 1.25 million children, while women are pushed into
poverty and accept new forms of slavery such as the exploitation from
prostitution, and they accept it as inevitable in times of crisis. At the same
time, you give banks 12 000 million of euros… to some all sacrifices are
demanded while others are handed privileges. (Male MP, Communist
Party, 3/22/2012)
This ‘social justice’ frame is often used by left-wing MPs to questions the
priorities, the morality, and even the justice of the austerity policies of the
government.
In regards to speakers, we find some outstanding results. The MPs who
voice women’s victimization and women’s struggles in Parliament are
mostly female MPs and mostly from left-wing parties. In fact, more than
70% of all utterances on ‘women and gender’ can be traced back to MPs
from the Left Bloc, the Communists, and the Greens. Politically, voicing
women in Parliament is part of an on overall left-wing party strategy of
criticizing the policies of the center-right coalition government. This find-
ing is consistent with research from Freire, Lisi, and Viegas (2015, 406)
that demonstrates that MPs’ critiques of the economic crisis tend to follow
the traditional ideological cleavages of left and right. Thus, it is mostly the
left-wing parties (and the radical left-wing) that contest the center-right
coalition, while Socialists tend to be more cooperative.
Across all political parties, female MPs are the ones giving women’s
issues visibility. And among those, it was mostly the left-wing female
MPs who were responsible for most of the discursive representation of
women in the parliamentary debates on the economic crisis. Although
this group was a minority, compared to the majority of male MPs, or even
to the female MPs from the Socialist and Social Democratic parties, they
were nonetheless overrepresented as speakers within these parliamentary
debates.
Finally, another way ‘women and gender’ appear on economic crisis’
discourse is also through symbolic dates, collective actions of women’s
movements, and anti-austerity mobilizations. All these contributed to
increase the visibility of ‘women and gender’ in parliamentary discourse.
The Women’s International Day, the 25th of April, a petition from the
Women’s Democratic Movement, and anti-austerity mobilizations are all
examples of how political events or collective actions create opportuni-
ties for the discursive representation of women in Parliament. Here is an
example:
What do you have to say to those that demonstrated in the streets on the
15th and the 21st, and that will demonstrate this Saturday? How can you
tell the men and women that have no work, that can’t support their fami-
lies, that the government is honoring their word? (Female MP, Left Bloc,
9/28/2012)
Both events and collective actions all represent discursive opportuni-

ties that are connected to a dynamic institutional context. Therefore, as
mobilizations in the streets unfold, so thus the involvement of the Left
Bloc party in supporting social movement activity (Freire, Lisi and Viegas
2015, 406). Both of these played a role on how this party constructed
their opposition and their discourse in Parliament. Discourse always pos-
sesses an interactive dimension, which is made of the relation between dis-
courses and the institutional context in which they are embedded (Forest
and Lombardo 2012, 17–18).
Conclusion
In parliamentary discourse, ‘women and gender’ as issues have had their
own history throughout the economic crisis. From being neglected dur-
ing the first four years, to constituting a separate and relevant social cat-
egory in discourse after 2012.
178 A. PRATA
From 2008 to 2011, women’s experiences and struggles during the

economic crisis were silenced and women lacked discursive representation
in Parliament. This happened at a time when other social groups, such as,
youth or workers were already part of the discourse.
In 2012, following a governmental change, the Memorandum of
Agreement, and unprecedented civil society mobilizations, ‘women and
gender’ enter the parliamentary discourse on the crisis and austerity. But the
construction of women as a relevant social category was closely tied to valu-
ing women as ‘workers’ and as ‘mothers’. Both dimensions were instrumen-
tal for MPs to construct the victimization of women and for the recognition
of this social group as one impacted by the crisis. Women were victimized
first and foremost economically, by unemployment, by declining purchasing
power, by cuts in social provisions, by tax increases. Women gained visibility
mostly because of their participation in the labor force or through their fam-
ily roles. This happened while young women, migrant women, or retired
women still remained invisible. Likewise, only some dimensions of gender
inequality were made visible, while others were neglected. For the most
part, MPs ignored how the crisis and austerity measures created increas-
ing challenges with reconciliation, sexual harassment, reinforced traditional
gender roles, and contributed to women’s loss of autonomy.
I argue in this chapter that while the last three years of the crisis in
Portugal provided women with some discursive representation, women still
lacked substantive representation, since most MPs did not acknowledge the
unequally gendered balance of power or how the economic crisis affected
the dynamics of gender relations following the retrenchment of the welfare
state. In other words, ‘speaking of women’ is not the same as ‘speaking
for women’. The reality of the economic crisis created by the discourse of
parliamentary members was narrowly constructed and based mostly on the
discursive hegemony of economic impacts and economic victimization.
On a final note, this chapter also shows that while the discursive repre-
sentation of ‘women and gender’ increased in the Portuguese Parliament
as the crisis unfolded, overall the issue of gender equality was still of no
particular importance to most parliamentary groups. In fact, ‘women’
compared to ‘youth’ and ‘worker’ were always less politically salient. In
addition, the group that pursued gender equality issues more actively and
gave visibility to ‘women and gender’ as a social category was also relatively
small, those were the left-wing female MPs. This finding seems to support
the theory of the politics of presence (Phillips 1995, 66). Although this
group was not very big, it was made almost exclusively of women, speak-
ing for women.
Notes
1. The Eurobarometer report on this poll was accessed on 5/2/2013
and is available on the website http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
pdf/eurobarometre/2013/femme/synth_PT.pdf
2. Source: Special Eurobarometer 428, Gender Equality Report,
March 2014. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-
equality/files/documents/eurobarometer_report_2015_en.pdf
3. In Spain, Greece, and Portugal views on the ‘need to tackle gender
inequality’ and that ‘Equality between men and women is a funda-
mental right’ are the most widespread within the EU countries (97
% to 99 %).
4. From 2010 to 2013 the number of unemployed couples registered
in employment centers increased 688 % (Wall et al. 2015).
5. A few studies have begun to address how food-insecurity increased
in Portugal throughout the crisis (Duarte 2014; Wall et al. 2015)
6. Austerity measures were the result of the implementation by the
Portuguese government of what was agreed upon in the 2011
Memorandum of Agreement following the financial assistance
(78,000 million euros) provided by the IMF, the European Central
Bank, and the European Commission (the Troika). In return
Portugal had to commit itself to a fiscal consolidation strategy and
to make structural reforms in several sectors (labor market, judicial
system, health system, housing and services, etc.).
7. The Memorandum Agreement increases the weekly hours worked
by public workers from 35 to 40 hours.
8. From 1999 to 2010, 61.1% of Portuguese women were employed
(ages 15–64), while the EU average for the same time period was
59.5 % (Casaca 2012: 119).
9. Employers tend to offer part-time work mostly to women and
women due to ideological and practical constrains ‘opt’ for this
work (Casaca 2012:33).
10. Wall et al. also mention the crucial role of grandparents as part of
this support network that helped buffer some of the adverse conse-
quences of the economic crisis (2015:189).
11. Among the EU15, Portugal placed fourth on reported anxiety and
feelings of sadness, and third on citizens feeling depressed.
According to Serra this decline on mental health is undoubtedly
linked to the economic crisis and to the implementation of auster-
ity measures (2014: IX).
180 A. PRATA
12. Although it follows a long-term and steady reduction that has been
happening since the 1970s.
13. A notable exception was the significant mobilization of women’s
organizations during the struggle for abortion decriminalization
(Prata 2012).
14. Only in the small left-wing party, Bloco de Esquerda, women occupy
leadership positions and are represented above 30 % (Verge and
Espírito Santo 2014; Jiménez 2009, 236).
15. This happens independently of the ideological orientation of the
government, with no significant statistical difference if the govern-
ment is center-right or center-left. Women are only 7.1 % of all
nominations for top political office and they tend to be more rep-
resented when there is a one-party government instead of a coali-
tion (Lisboa, et al. 2006, 179–182).
16. Following austerity policies, significant cuts were made to the bud-
get of women’s state agencies. This resulted in eliminating or
defunding gender equality programs, and led to the restructuring
of the equality machinery (Monteiro and Ferreira 2012, 18).
17. In Portugal, the center-right PPD-PSD has often been the govern-
ing party, and its female party members have reported the pressure
to ‘act as male politicians’, and not to tackle gender-related issues
due to fears of damaging their political careers (Jiménez 2009, 259).
18. DR, 1/23/2010, n.25, p.18.
19. DR, 7/1/2011, n.3, p.13
20. The economic crisis/austerity is constructed in terms of the eco-
nomic impacts on women or gender issues.
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in the Swedish Riksdag. Scandinavian political studies 23: 67–91.
CHAPTER 9
Whose Crisis Counts? Minority Women,

Austerity and Activism in France and Britain
Akwugo Emejulu and Leah Bassel
Introduction
In this chapter, we examine the fate of minority women’s intersectional
activism against austerity measures. We explore how the 2008 economic
crisis and subsequent austerity measures serve to misrecognise and
oftentimes erase the experiences and perspectives of minority women in
Scotland, England and France. As a framework for understanding this
moment of political and economic uncertainty, we argue that minor-
ity women do not and cannot fit the hegemonic narrative of ‘the cri-
sis’ because the crisis names and legitimises the exceptional experiences
of the economically privileged (Strolovitch, 2013; Emejulu and Bassel
2015). Even though minority women have had to navigate what we call
A. Emejulu (*)
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick,
Social Sciences Building, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK
L. Bassel
Department of Sociology, University of Leicester,
Attenborough Tower, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

186 A. EMEJULU AND L. BASSEL
‘routinised crises’—ordinary, everyday and institutionalised social and

economic inequalities based on their race, class, gender, religion and
legal status—since well before 2008, they must be expelled from the
dominant representations of the crisis as their experiences and claims for
social and economic justice fundamentally question both policymakers’
and supposed ‘allies’ conceptions of precarity, inequality and solidarity.
We begin this chapter with a short overview of minority women’s insti-
tutionalised social and economic inequalities before 2008. We then move
on to discuss the 2008 economic crisis and the asymmetrical impacts of
austerity measures on minority women. We then turn to our empirical
findings and examine how minority women activists must negotiate and
counter disabling practices within civil society spaces that seek to cast
them as either ‘victims’ to be saved from patriarchal violence or neo-
liberal agents who must collude with the destructive forces of the free
market to address their inequalities. However, before we begin, we will
first discuss our theoretical framework and research methods that we
employed in this project.
Theory and Methods: Operationalising

Intersectionality
Intersectionality is at the heart of this project and we have operationalised
this framework for our data collection and analysis. For the purposes of this
project, we define intersectionality as ‘the study of the simultaneous and
interacting effects of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and national
origin as categories of difference’ (Bassel and Emejulu 2010: 518). We
have argued elsewhere that an ‘intersectional’ move is urgently needed to
challenge state representations of the crisis and the silencing of alternative
analyses that demonstrate its differential and asymmetrical impacts (Bassel
and Emejulu 2014; Emejulu and Bassel 2015). The idea of intersection-
ality forces us to confront and think about women and men in complex
and heterogeneous ways. Exploring how gender, ethnicity, race, class, dis-
ability, age, religion and sexuality interact in different ways, depending on
different cultural contexts, is crucial in seeking to construct a state and a
politics that supports and recognises the complex social justice claims of
minority women.
From September 2011 to May 2014, we conducted 55 semi-structured
one-to-one interviews with: minority and migrant activist women; directors,
WHOSE CRISIS COUNTS? MINORITY WOMEN, AUSTERITY AND ACTIVISM... 187
policy officers and development workers in anti-poverty, housing and

migrant rights third sector organisations; and civil servants and local
government officials with a brief for equalities and/or the third sector
in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Coventry, London, Paris and Lyon.
In addition, in a separate but related project about the impact of auster-
ity on different minority ethnic groups in Glasgow, we also conducted
three focus groups of approximately 7–10 participants each with minority
and migrant women about their experiences of austerity (for a detailed
analysis of these specific findings see: Sosenko et al. 2013). We also held
two knowledge exchange events—‘Whose Crisis Counts?’ in Edinburgh
in June 2013 and ‘21st Century London Outcasts’ in London in February
2014—over the course of the project which brought together 55 practi-
tioners, activists, civil servants and academics and fed directly into our data
collection and analysis.
All the interviews focused on three key themes: how participants con-
ceptualised the economic crisis and austerity; what impact they thought
the crisis was having on them and/or their organisation; what impact the
crisis was having on minority women’s activism; and what impact the cri-
sis and austerity were having on the ability to influence policymakers. All
participants’ names have been changed and any details that would allow
their organisations to be recognised have also been omitted. We brought
all these data together for the purpose of our analysis. As this is a rela-
tively small-scale qualitative study, we do not claim to represent the entire
national context in France, England and Scotland but instead we point
to differences in our data and consider what these differences may imply
more generally in relation to minority women’s anti-austerity activism.
We recruited ‘minority women activists’ into our study who identified
and described themselves in the following ways: in the English and Scottish
contexts, we included women who self-identify as ‘Black’, a label they
use politically; in the French, Scottish and English contexts, we included
women who self-identify as ‘refugee’, ‘asylum seeker’ or ‘migrant’ or who
refer to organisations with names including these labels; women who,
in the course of interviews, refer to their own identity or background,
for example, ‘of immigrant origin’ (‘d’origine immigrée’ in France); ‘my
family is from…’. Our participants also include self-identified advocates
of specific groups of women, for example, asylum seekers, refugees and
migrants. These advocates were sometimes white and sometimes also self-
identified minority women, or women who situated themselves as ‘advo-
cates’ though also belonging to a minority group they were discussing.
Some participants identified as minority women who, while minoritised

along some axes, were advantaged along others, in terms of a higher socio-
economic status through professional employment and higher education
qualifications. In some cases, more advantaged minority women specifi-
cally identified their status as a resource from which they could draw in
order to effectively advocate on behalf of other minority women (e.g.
from their own ethnic group).
‘Minority women’ is a term we have chosen to use in that we think it
travels best across our three cases and also across the different types of
women of colour we have included in our study. For instance, ‘Black and
minority ethnic’ is a term that predominates in Britain but is not used in
France. ‘Of immigrant origin’ is widely used in France but not in Britain
and we do not wish to reproduce problematic language when discussing
race and ethnicity in a European context. Thus ‘minority women’ seems
to be the best way of referring a heterogeneous group of women who
have differing migration histories and citizenship statuses. How to name
the women in our study matters and what we are interested in exploring
are the processes that produce ‘minority’ status rather than an essentialised
understanding of identity.
In our selection of ‘third sector organisations’ to include in our study
we wanted to ensure that we had sample that reflected the diversity and
the spectrum of activity that typically characterises the third sector in the
three countries.1 Thus we included organisations that are: traditional social
welfare service providers; hybrid organisations combining advocacy and
campaigning with service provision; organisations offering so-called mili-
tant provision—crisis relief and political organising for destitute and/or
undocumented migrants; and, finally, campaigning and policy advocacy
organisations that are not involved in service provision and are closer to
social movements in that they situate their activity at the edge of social ser-
vice provision and also as part of ‘a network of informal interactions’ (Diani
1992: 8). We intentionally have not made gender equality/feminist organ-
isations the focus of our sample because the bulk of research about wom-
en’s grassroots activism focuses on explicitly feminist organising (Sudbury
1998; Dominelli 2006; Annesley 2012) and we feel that the responsibil-
ity for recognising and advancing minority women’s social justice claims
does not only rest on feminist shoulders. Our focus is on the extent to
which social action and activism within so-called mainstream organisations
involve and intersect with minority women’s interests and activism.
We define ‘activism’ broadly in order to capture the diverse ways in
which minority women assert themselves as political agents. Minority
women have distinctive patterns to their political behaviour that are often
ignored, misrecognised or devalued in the wider political science litera-
ture and in the formal practice of politics (Sudbury 1998; Hill Collins
2000; Bassel and Emejulu 2014; Emejulu and Bassel 2015). ‘Political
behaviour’ is typically defined as political participation in formal institu-
tional structures and organised political activities. Thus voting, being a
political party or trade union activist, taking part in demonstrations and
standing for election are usually what counts as legitimate political action.
Because minority women are underrepresented in these traditional politi-
cal spaces it appears as if minority women are absent from politics, or
worse, operate largely as apolitical agents. It is only when we redefine
‘what counts’ as politics and political behaviour that the diverse ways
in which minority women undertake political action becomes visible. As
Patricia Hill Collins (2000: 201) argues ‘survival is a form of resistance
and…struggles to provide for the survival of…children represent the
foundations of Black women’s activism’. Certainly, Hill Collins is analys-
ing the particular history of African American women’s struggle but her
wider point about the need to recognise and value the political actions of
Black women in both public and private spaces is central to our under-
standings of minority women’s political behaviour in Europe. We will
now turn to explore minority women’s persistent precarity that predates
the 2008 economic crisis.
The ‘Invisible’ Crisis for Minority Women

Even before the 2008 economic crisis, minority ethnic groups and minor-
ity women in particular in France and Britain were experiencing persistent
economic and social hardships. The high rates of poverty and inequality
for minority groups are directly linked to their experiences of and relation-
ships to the labour markets in each country. Regardless of educational
outcomes, minority groups are more likely than their white counterparts
to be unemployed or underemployed (Emejulu 2008; Bassel 2012). As
the All Party Parliamentary Group for Race and Community (2012: 7)
noted in its inquiry into the labour market experiences of Black, Pakistani
and Bangladeshi women in Britain: ‘For all groups except for Indian men,
ethnic minority unemployment has consistently remained higher than the
rate for white people since records began’. In Britain, Black women (this
includes both African and Caribbean women) have an unemployment rate
of 17.7%, for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women it is 20.5% compared to
6.8% for white women.
Because France does not consistently disaggregate its socio-economic

data by gender and does not collect data on ‘race’, this makes it extremely
difficult to analyse the discrete experiences of different minority groups—
and minority women in particular—in the labour market. In France, one
measure of the unemployment rate for French ‘minority’ groups is about
17% compared to 11% to the white French ‘majority’ (Gobillon et al. 2014).
However, using another measure, ‘immigrant’ men have an unemployment
rate of 11.9% and ‘immigrant’ women of 15.1% in comparison to unemploy-
ment rates of ‘native born’ men of 7.2% and ‘native born’ women of 7.7%
(OECD 2010). In another measure based on geographical location, the
unemployment rate for minority groups in les banlieues is 40% (Rieff 2007).
For those minority women and men in the labour market, they must
negotiate a so-called ethnic penalty that depresses wages and concentrates
them in low paid, temporary and unstable work (APPG 2012). Minority
women, of course, must negotiate both an ethnic and a gender penalty
that over-concentrates them in low skilled, low paid and insecure work.
Importantly, in Scotland and England, minority ethnic young people leave
school with better qualifications and are more likely to go to university
than their white counterparts but they do not reap the benefits of their
qualifications in terms of labour market outcomes (Kamenou, Netto and
Fearfull 2013; APPG 2012; Crawford and Greaves 2015).
Minority groups’ precarity in the labour market is due to a number of
factors. Firstly and most importantly is the institutionalised racial and gender
discrimination minority women and men face which disadvantages them in
interviews and selection, promotion, professional development, redundancy
and firing processes. As has been well documented, job searching while Black
or Brown, means minority candidates with similar or better qualifications
than their white counterparts are less likely to be interviewed, hired or secure
equal pay (OECD 2008; Kamenou et al. 2013). Second, minority groups,
particularly migrants, are less likely to have their overseas qualifications and
professional experience recognised in Scotland, England or France, thus hin-
dering their labour market participation from the outset (Zikic et al. 2010;
APPG 2012; Netto et al. 2015). Finally, in all three countries, there is a prob-
lem of the spatial mismatch between where permanent, well-paying jobs are
located and where minority groups typically reside, creating an additional
barrier to accessing available employment opportunities. In general, minor-
ity ethnic groups tend to live in areas with fewer employment opportunities
(Patacchini and Zenou 2005; Gobillon et al. 2014; APPG 2012).
The economic and social impacts on minority groups, given these
unequal labour market experiences, are stark. In pre-crisis France, 21%
of ‘descendants of immigrants’ are poor, which is double the num-

ber of white French people who have white French parents (Lombardo
and Pujol 2008). Like other European countries (with the exception of
Britain), France does not consistently collect or disaggregate its socio-
economic data by race or ethnicity making it extremely difficult to cap-
ture variations between different minority groups. Furthermore, France
uses ‘place of birth’ as a proxy for race and ethnicity, which masks racial
disparities (Sabbagh and Peer 2008). Unhelpfully, French-born second
and third generation minority groups are clustered under the homogo-
nised category ‘of immigrant origin’ which, in itself, reveals how Black and
Brown French citizens are constructed as alien Others who exist outside
the French polity. Also, the category of ‘migrant’ is conflated, statistically
speaking, that includes European and non-European immigrants which in
turn masks the unequal economic outcomes of minority French citizens
who are sometimes classed as ‘non-migrant’ in official statistics (Fassin
2015; Faure & Vécrin 2015; Simon 2007, 2008a,b, 2010, 2012; Tin 2015).
In pre-crisis Britain, the poverty rate for minority groups was 40%,
double the rate of the white population (Kenway and Palmer 2007; Platt
2007). There are considerable variations of poverty between minority eth-
nic groups with Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African groups faring the
worst (about 70% of Bangladeshi children are growing up poor) and Indian,
Chinese and Black Caribbean groups faring better (Indian and Chinese
groups in particular are more likely to be educated to degree level and be
in professional employment). These differences in outcomes are attribut-
able to a number of factors including the differing labour market participa-
tion of women, household size and composition and residential locations
(Kenway and Palmer 2007). Whilst robust ethnic statistics are collected
in Britain, they are oftentimes situated in parallel to gender statistics mak-
ing ‘intersectional’ monitoring challenging. As the All Party Parliamentary
Group on Race and Community report notes, monitoring by ‘dual charac-
teristics’ of gender and ethnicity is not required under the 2010 Equality
Act or its guidance and is not addressed under the Equality and Human
Rights Commission’s statutory code on employment (APPG 2012: 11).
Routinised Crises and Constructing Minority Groups as Alien

Others
Twinned with these persistently economically hard times for minority
groups are the constructions of particular intersections of race, ethnic-
ity and gender as ‘problematic’ in political and policy debates (Hancock
2004). This re-enforces what we call minority women’s ‘routinised cri-

ses’: ordinary and institutionalised inequalities of which we will discuss
further below. Minority groups’ experiences do not prominently feature
nor inform discussions of policy problems or solutions unless groups are
interpellated in particularly racialised and gendered discussions of social
problems (Phoenix and Phoenix 2012). Here we see how minority groups
are simultaneously invisible and hypervisible in debates about poverty,
unemployment and inequality. For instance, the ‘public issue’ of minority
unemployment oftentimes only features in public and policy debate when
linked to periods of urban unrest such as the 2005 Paris riots or the 2011
English riots. Minority groups’ persistent poverty and unemployment is
typically only highlighted as a ‘public issue’ in the contexts of moral panics
in each country about ‘failed’ state strategies, whether in relation to mul-
ticulturalist (Britain) or assimilationist (France) policies.
For example, in reaction to the 2011 English riots, Professor David
Starkey opined on BBC2’s flagship news and current affairs programme
Newsnight that a ‘Jamaican patois’ had intruded upon English cities trans-
forming these places into foreign territories (Phoenix and Phoenix 2012:
62). For Starkey, deviant ‘black culture’ is contagious and has been adopted
by some white working-class people who he refers to with the pejorative
label of ‘chavs’ to argue ‘what has happened is that a substantial section
of the chavs have become black. The whites have become black’ (Phoenix
and Phoenix 2012: 100). As Phoenix and Phoenix argue, Starkey’s
explanation is intersectional ‘bringing together racialisation, gender and
(implicitly) social class’ (64) but always to pathologise Blackness without
addressing underlying social and economic and political causes—the pub-
lic issues—of the riots (65). Thus routinised unemployment and poverty
are defined as the private problem of the racialised poor and only become
a public issue when the everyday social order is disrupted.
For women in particular, the routinised crisis of poverty is privatised
and is only defined as a public issue when their ‘failed femininities’ lead to
family breakdown and public disorder (Allen and Taylor 17 January 2012).
The ‘troubled mothers’ and ‘failing riot girls’ of the August 2011 riots in
England embody the ‘[long-standing] condemnation of young working-
class women but in a new context. The gendering of the riots tells us many
things, but perhaps most importantly that classed and racialised distinc-
tions and boundaries of failed and ideal femininities are becoming more
accentuated’ (ibid.: 17 January 2012). Thus we can see how racialised
women and men are delicately balanced between a ‘normative absence
and pathological presence’ (Mirza 2015) and how this shapes both our
understanding of social problems and the public and policy debates about
possible policy interventions.
In France, we see similar issues at play in terms of racialised groups’
invisibility and hypervisibility in terms of policy recognition and action
on poverty and economic inequality. During the 2005 Paris riots, the for-
mer interior minister and president, Nicolas Sarkozy, infamously called
the rioters ‘racaille (scum) who needed to be hosed down by water can-
non’ (Winter 2008: 258). In this controversial statement, Sarkozy made
visible to rift between français de souche (white, native born French) and
français issues de l' immigration (second-generation immigrant French).
The deterioration of les banlieues, routinised police violence and the eco-
nomic inequalities that French people of colour experience are regarded
as the private, invisible problems of the racialised poor. When the social
order is disrupted, as we saw in 2005, French minorities become, in
themselves, a hypervisible problem of the failures of republican assimila-
tionist social policies. The debates over the hijab, the burkini and halal
food become key markers of anti-Frenchness and the policy of laïcité
(secularism) is weaponised as a disciplining device to defend authen-
tic (read: white) ‘Frenchness’ from alien Others (Bassel 2012; Delphy
2015).
The economic and social disparities that minority groups face are
hardly new and we have not outlined anything particularly groundbreak-
ing here for scholars of race and ethnicity. However, Dara Strolovitch
(2013: 169–170) helpfully reminds us that ‘it is not inevitable that a bad
thing will be defined and treated as bad, much less that it will be regarded
as a crisis’. She goes on to argue that minority groups ‘are thus regarded…
as the perpetuators of their own crises which are attributable to individual
defects or cultural dysfunctions’. Thus what is important here to remem-
ber when we think about minority groups and their ‘invisible’ crises of
unemployment and poverty is that the very ordinariness of their experi-
ences combined with the construction of some racial, ethnic and gender
intersections as problematic serve to help to privatise the public issue of
their persistent precarity. Lest that we attribute the privatisation of public
issues as solely a problem for minority groups, it is important to note how
the experiences of white working-class men and boys, in particular the
sharp declines in their educational and economic outcomes in England,
are also classified as a private trouble of cultural dysfunction brought
on by the (unsubstantiated claim of) intergenerational transmission
of fecklessness, low aspirations and a lack of self-responsibility (Jones

2011; Tyler 2013; MacDonald, Shildrick and Furlong 2013).
Given that minority groups, and minority women in particular, were
already in crisis before the 2008 global financial meltdown—but paradoxi-
cally were ignored and yet interpellated in deeply problematic ways during
periods of social unrest—we, as researchers, are faced with a dilemma.
Throughout our research project we have been constantly struck by the
contradiction of examining phenomena that appeared to be ‘new’ but
when placed in the context of minority women’s lives, these issues were,
in fact, a sharpening and a prolongation of these women’s ordinary and
everyday experiences of inequality.
Minority women experience what we call ‘routinised crises’: persistent,
institutionalised and ordinary hardships in everyday life. Their persis-
tently high unemployment and poverty rates are not ‘exceptional’ and
not necessarily problems to be addressed through policy action since they
are indicators of capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy operating as
intended. Once we understand minority women’s precarity as the banality
of everyday life we can begin to understand the fallacy of the construction
of the 2008 economic ‘crisis’.
To be sure, world financial markets were on the brink of collapse but
the naming of the crisis and the specific groups assumed to be affected
by the crisis is what interests us here. As Strolovitch (2013) argues, the
naming of the 2008 crisis is a power relation that focuses policy attention
and resources on the transformed economic landscape that the economi-
cally privileged must now negotiate. What the 2008 crisis signifies is that
middle-class groups are being drawn into precarious social and economic
circumstances in which minority women have always had to struggle. That
policy attention is now focused on the difficulties of securing a mort-
gage, the widespread introduction of zero hours’ contracts, the decline
in real wages and the hidden poverty and unemployment of those who
are self-employed denotes the ‘exceptional circumstances’ in which the
economically privileged groups find themselves. The problems of exploit-
ative pay and conditions, insecure work and the barriers to building wealth
have long been experienced by minority women but what is ‘new’ is that
middle- class groups’ social protections are now being systematically
eroded so that they resemble (but are not identical to) minority women’s
precarious circumstances.
Consequently, we think there is a damaging bias embedded within
the conception of the 2008 economic crisis and subsequent austerity
measures that makes it extremely difficult to recognise and take action

on minority women’s intersecting inequalities. The very ‘banality’ of
minority women’s disadvantage combined with the racist, sexist and dis-
paraging constructions of some minority women exclude them from the
European public sphere and, as we will demonstrate later in this chapter,
undermine their solidaristic efforts. Centring minority women’s routin-
ised crises can help us legitimise and make visible the particularities of
their inequalities and help to authorise their resistances. We will now
turn to explore how minority women are faring in the aftermath of the
2008 crisis.
The 2008 Economic Crisis, Austerity Measures

and Minority Women
The origins of the 2008 economic crisis can be traced back to the liber-
alisation of finance since the 1980s. The current crisis ‘derives from the
long-term consequences of a cluster of financial innovations that aimed to
separate credit decisions from their subsequent risks by splitting them into
various components’ (Boyer 2012: 285). In other words, the creation of
synthetic financial instruments—the now infamous credit default swaps
and collateralised debt obligations—separated investors’ decision-making
from their associated risks and this fuelled ‘a private credit-led speculative
boom’ (ibid.: 285) which ultimately proved unsustainable once the key
manifestation of supposedly risk-free speculation—America’s sub-prime
mortgage market—went into freefall.
What is important in our analysis of the effects of the economic crisis
on minority women is the way in which the causes of the crisis and the
range of possible policy responses to the crisis have been subsequently
misrepresented by institutional actors and financial elites in both France
and Britain.
The policies of austerity—deficit reduction through tax increases and
cuts to public spending—are typically framed as the painful consequence
of out-of-control state spending rather than as the result of states’ rescu-
ing irresponsible financial institutions. Consequently, austerity has been
represented by a range of institutional actors—from the European Central
Bank to the International Monetary Fund to the European Commission—
as the only viable economic policy in order to get states’ ‘fiscal houses
in order’.2 As Clarke and Newman (2012: 300) argue, policymakers are
undertaking ‘intense ideological work’ to reframe how the public thinks
about the causes of the crisis and win the public’s ‘disaffected consent’ for
deeply unpopular austerity measures.
Britain is undergoing the most extensive reduction and restructuring of
its welfare state since the Second World War (Yeates et al. 2011; Taylor-
Gooby and Stoker 2010; Taylor-Gooby 2011; Whiteley et al. 2014). During
the five-year Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government from
2010 to 2015, £80 billion spending cuts were announced that included,
£18 billion reduction in welfare spending (Brewer and Browne 2011:
4). These spending cuts are ‘larger than any retrenchment since the
1920s’ (ibid.: 4). With the unexpected Conservative victory at the polls
in May 2015, the then Prime Minister David Cameron and the former
Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced a further £12
billion reduction in social welfare spending.3 The Scottish National Party
Government at Holyrood opposes the Westminster austerity programme
and has an official policy of mitigating its impact in Scotland. Under the
current devolution settlement, however, the Scottish Government is
obliged to implement these drastic spending cuts.
Whilst France is not implementing stringent austerity measures in com-
parison to Britain, a key aim of the Parti Socialiste government is defi-
cit reduction and cuts to public spending. François Hollande’s troubled
government missed a 2013 budget commitment to cut the deficit to 3%
of GDP and his controversial revenue generation plans of a 75% ‘super-
tax’ on households with incomes over €1million and a new 45% tax for
households with incomes over €150,000 is currently under judicial review
(L’Express 28/9/12). The Socialist government is not opting for sweeping
cuts but instead, at the time of writing is making reductions via a freeze on
all government spending which amounts to an estimated €10 billion cut
in public spending. However, under further pressure from the European
Central Bank, Hollande is planning to extend austerity measures further.
What do the austerity regimes in France and Britain mean for minority
women? Under austerity, minority women are disproportionately disad-
vantaged due to their already existing precarity, as we discussed above,
which is compounded by their particular relationships with the social wel-
fare state. Minority women are more likely to be employed in the feminised
professions of the public sector (as teachers, nurses and social workers,
etc.), more likely to be sub-contracted to the state via private sector organ-
isations (as care workers, cleaners, caterers, etc.) and are also more likely
to use public services which are at risk of being cut or privatised because
of gendered caring responsibilities (such as libraries, afterschool childcare,
public transport) (Taylor-Gooby 2011; APPG 2012; Duhamel and Joyeux

2013; Seguino 2010). Therefore, austerity measures increase minority
women’s unemployment whilst simultaneously reducing the scope, cover-
age and access to public services. Given that the economic insecurity of
most of our activists is erased from popular and political understandings of
the crisis and austerity, in this chapter, we seek to centre minority women’s
experiences and resistances in Scotland, England and France—to which
we will now turn.
Minority Women’s Material and Discursive Crises

Under Austerity
We argue that the routinised crises minority women experience and resist
take material and discursive forms. In material terms, the crisis has taken a
toll on everyday life and the personal and collective resources for minority
women’s activism. Some minority women are particularly disadvantaged
due to precarious employment, legal status or greater reliance on dwin-
dling public services. The seemingly prosaic and routine hardships that
some of our participants experience have profound impacts on their activ-
ism—for instance, a lack of affordable childcare; diminished core fund-
ing for minority women-led organisations; the withdrawal of funding for
transport costs to attend meetings in rooms that are no longer freely pro-
vided. We argue that minority women need to navigate both material and
discursive obstacles—about whose crisis counts, who is a legitimate inter-
locutor and who can mobilise for social justice. As Janet Newman argues,
it is increasingly difficult for women activists to find time or resources
for ‘creative political work’ because ‘cuts in public and welfare services
are intensifying the time pressures…making it more difficult to reconcile
care work, paid employment, casual work, study, voluntary or charitable
contributions and political activity’ (Newman 2013: 217). For example,
a Scottish Pakistani woman volunteering at a minority women-led com-
munity organisation in Glasgow stated:
We’ve got a lot of stuff we have to do. Like the kids’ breakfast and stuff,
it’s mainly us women that are doing it. Bringing and dropping them off at
schools, even at the mosque, that’s mainly women that’s doing that. So it
[cuts to services] does [have an impact], it quite tires a woman out. When
it comes to the weekend when you want to spend time with the kids more,
you’re more reluctant, [you want] to be staying in bed.
A Black activist in England observes that the cuts are having a detrimental
effect on minority women’s activism:
If you’ve got a family, you’re a single parent, you’re a black woman who is
probably working two jobs [with] unsociable shifts, you’ve got tyrant-type
bosses who if you’re one minute late they’re ready to sack you and you’re
not in secure employment where they can just sack you and get you of the
door and get somebody in the next day, then you really haven’t got time and
you’re probably too tired to get up and start campaigning around things.
The severity of the cuts, however, acts as a double-edged sword, accord-

ing to this activist. She identified the ways in which these tough times also
galvanise minority women to action:
Having said that, I’ve also seen Black women who were not activists before
now involved because of how high the stakes are against us, stacked up
against us, and what we’re encountering, that it’s forced them to become
active, so there’s that aspect of it as well.
As we can see, these material inequalities generated by austerity measures

create real dilemmas for minority women’s activism. The personal costs of
activism are high and some women, quite rightly, make the choice to focus
solely on their family’s survival under austerity. However, our data also
indicate that other women seek to subvert their precarity by using it as a
springboard for organising and mobilising in their communities.
Disabling Discourses of Minority Women: Victims or

Entrepreneurs?
Minority women also experience ‘discursive crises’ that further problem-
atise the spaces available for their activism. In both France and Britain,
there appear to be two lenses through which the claims of minority
women are viewed: as victims or entrepreneurs. There is a long-standing
tendency to cast minority women solely as ‘victims’ of ‘patriarchal’ and
‘cultural’ violence in ‘their’ communities and for them to be listened to
selectively when they are making their social justice claims. However, in
the context of austerity, minority women are, paradoxically, also being
recognised as ‘enterprising actors’ simultaneously, which we will discuss
further below.4
As a Scottish Indian development worker at a minority women’s organ-

isation in Edinburgh observed, it was only around issues of racialised vic-
timhood linked to forced marriage and female genital mutilation that her
organisation was selectively heard by policymakers:
If they [policymakers] wanted to listen to us they would come to us when

they’ve written zero of their policy not when they’ve written 99% of it.
So when it comes to minority women’s issues or minority people’s issues
more widely, we are the afterthought, always…The only time that they have
involved us from zero is when there’s policy that disproportionately affects
minority ethnic communities. For example, the forced marriage legisla-
tion—everything else, we’re an afterthought.
In London, a migrant woman who works at a migrants’ rights organ-

isation acknowledged the importance of funding to combat issues such
as forced marriage and female genital mutilation. However, the problem
for her was trying to move beyond this victim category to obtain fund-
ing for minority women’s other social welfare interests and needs. As she
observes: ‘It’s much harder to find that sort of funding [for generic anti-
poverty work] in grants that will mirror the actual need…Women need
training. They need education.’
Similar issues are at play in France with minority women becoming
visible and audible only as victims of racialised violence linked to human
trafficking or rendered invisible if they do not conform to this identity. As
a French case worker who advocates on behalf of minority women in Paris
described it, the victim angle ‘works’ and is difficult to ‘refuse’:
One thing that’s certain is that the prism of foreign women [as] victims
of violence. We’re able to have more of an impact with politicians because
no one supports violence. So it’s an angle of attack that’s interesting [and]
useful.
This advocate has been able to successfully lobby civil servants, party offi-
cials and elected members in both the current Parti Socialiste (PS) and
former Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) governments to speak
about minority women’s precarity and domestic violence. Victimhood,
therefore, provides an opportunity for some participants in our study to
make minority women visible and to mobilise support for them across the
political spectrum.
In Scotland, England and France, constructing minority women as

victims is a way for some activists and their advocates to bring minority
women into the public sphere and highlight their inequalities as a public
issue requiring policy action. However, minority women pay a very high
price for this victim identity in that they must accept the role of a passive
and vulnerable object in order to be seen and heard by policymakers. We
name this identity construction as a discursive crisis for minority women
activists because it forecloses opportunities for activists to construct their
identities on their own terms and undermines their ability to develop and
sustain solidarity as equal citizens struggling for justice.
Alongside this discursive construction of minority women as victims is
a new identity of ‘enterprising actors’—we found this identity to be more
prevalent in Scotland and England rather than France. Activists’ critical
analyses of their complex inequalities are being reshaped and channelled
specifically into market-oriented social enterprises such as community
cafes, crèches and sewing groups as a way to address their persistent pre-
carity. For example, a white policy manager at an anti-poverty organisation
in Glasgow used the language of empowerment to justify the embedding
of neoliberal ideas and practices among activists with whom she worked.
She argued that social enterprises create:
A more of a level playing field [with the state]. It’s somebody commission-
ing a service and it’s somebody providing a service…The balance of power
in that is always really interesting…They’re [minority women and the state]
more business partners than they are donor and recipient and that is an
angle we would definitely like to try.
Several activist minority women we interviewed in Glasgow and Edinburgh

expressed deep scepticism of this approach because they were unconvinced
that micro-level enterprising work could have a meaningful impact on the
intersecting inequalities they experience such as discrimination within the
asylum system, everyday experiences of racism in their neighbourhoods
and labour market discrimination. As a West African migrant activist in
Glasgow noted: ‘The problems that minority ethnic women face are more
structured in nature and therefore beyond the power of the community
themselves to actually change.’
A white development worker for an anti-poverty organisation in
Glasgow, who works with the above activist, was pushing ahead with an
enterprising approach for the migrant women with whom she works,
despite the reservations articulated by the activists:
We’re shifting towards more enterprise oriented activities rather than just
grants…Grant funding isn’t the way the future’s going and self-generation
of funding is important…It’s helped communities experiencing poverty set
up their own enterprises and to get a toe-hold in the market system.
The issue here is about the disconnect between minority women’s expe-
riences and analyses of their precarity and the type of projects and pro-
grammes offered by neoliberal third sector organisations. Particularly in
Scotland, we found that minority women activists were not being listened
to and their views about the meaning and purpose of their activism was
misrecognised by many of their third sector advocates.
In England, however, we found a different process at play regarding
the space that is created for minority women’s activism by enterprising
third sector organisations. It seems that some minority women are able
to use social enterprises as a tool for advocacy and activism. In England, a
migrant woman chose to establish a social enterprise because she perceived
it to be a less bureaucratic and more responsive space for intervention.
Being a social enterprise, she argues:
Gives me the independence that I need. We need to earn our money through
the expertise we deliver…and [we] then [get] to decide [how] to spend the
money on the services that we feel are needed. So it gives me that indepen-
dence, not only that, although I have an advisory role I make the decisions
so it gives [organisation’s name] power to decide on its own.
This participant uses ‘information sessions’ organised by her social enter-

prise as an opportunity to move beyond explaining to people how they
will be affected by the government’s welfare reform programme to raising
awareness (particularly of single female-headed migrant households) of
their rights to contest decisions to cut their benefits, notably when evic-
tion looms as a result of loss of housing benefits and/or employment. As
she explains: ‘It’s very important to inform people, for them to understand
what their rights are, and whether they can join campaigns or whether
they can do something.’
This activist’s important work points to the possibility of subverting the
identity of being an ‘enterprising actor’ by using ‘enterprise’ as a cover for
advancing minority women’s social citizenship rights and anti-austerity
activism. This social entrepreneur is enacting her activism through an
enterprising approach and this has undoubtedly opened up opportunities
to address the asymmetrical impact of cuts on minority women.
In England, a South Asian social entrepreneur found freedom in an

enterprising identity. She argues that social enterprises are an important
form of activism and it is through her social enterprise that she experiences
a sense of belonging and agency:
We are a very unique organisation in terms of creating a culture of expres-

sive freedom…and don’t really see ourselves bound by the shackles of pub-
lic funding or partnerships. I think it’s [social enterprise] a very important
and effective tool in achieving change, activism, justice, increased eco-
nomic growth… You’ll find that people who work in social enterprises
have…a greater sense of belonging and feel they have the power to make
change.
However, as our Scottish data suggest above, taking an enterprising

approach does not necessarily always match minority women’s interests
and priorities. We question the extent to which enterprising work is open
to being shaped by minority women and their interests rather than an
enterprise logic dictating the terms of minority women’s activism. Indeed,
a more typical response to social enterprise in England was that of organ-
isational survival, rather than working for the interests of activists, as we
can see from a racialised woman at a social enterprise and third sector
organisation:
I would question whether, at the end of the day, their [third sector workers]
interest is in what’s the benefit of their service users or is it in the interest
of the people in their organization…I’m the same. I had this idea for the
cooking and the cleaning [service] but I never spoke to any women [with
whom she works] about it. I just thought what skills have the women got,
where they haven’t got high literacy or numeracy levels. They haven’t got
high levels of qualifications. But they can bloody cook.
Our two participants who found ways to subvert an enterprising identity

were unique among the activists we interviewed. That spaces are a vailable
for subverting the prevailing neoliberal logic of the third sector is impor-
tant to highlight and demonstrate that an enterprise can, perhaps, be a
vehicle for supporting minority women’s activism. Nevertheless, we are
concerned about how an enterprise logic crowds out minority women’s
intersectional social justice claims. The way in which minority women
can and do position themselves to resist the neoliberal logic of enterprise
requires further scrutiny and comparison.
Exclusions in Social Movements

It is important to look beyond the particular politics and constraints of
non-governmental organisations and explore the extent to which anti-
austerity social movements and activist networks recognise minority
women as legitimate political actors and make common cause with them.
Returning to the Black activist in England, she argues that the structure
of anti-austerity social movements excludes minority women’s concerns
from the outset. She reported experiences of racism and sexism in the
articulation of claims and in the representation of activists in these osten-
sibly radical spaces:
From the perspective of black women who perhaps are political, who do
want to campaign…if they look at the face of the anti-cuts movement and
see it’s quite male-dominated that may put them off getting involved, it may
not give them the confidence to get involved and just because it’s an anti-
cuts movement doesn’t mean to say there’s not racism within it.
In this participant’s view there is a particular category of white activists to

whom:
You have to explain it [racial and gender justice] and spell it out to them.
Now these are supposed to be people that are supposed to understand the
history… about the context, about what true equality means… but the real-
ity is they don’t really understand it because otherwise you wouldn’t have to
remind them over and over again, and you wouldn’t have to spell it out, so
it is quite a struggle, it’s quite tough.
In Scotland, there was a widespread perception among our activist partici-

pants that their neighbourhoods are hostile territories that undermine their
activism and attempts to build solidarity among different local groups. In
one focus group with activist migrant women in Glasgow, participants
were very doubtful they could build solidarity with their white Scottish
neighbours because of the everyday racism and violence they experienced
in their communities. As one West African migrant woman activist argued:
Ethnic minority groups [are] trying to drive in their humble way different
causes, but how do you link with the local people, the indigenous people?
It’s almost impossible…You don’t seem to find an avenue to join in when
people are doing their thing, so you somehow find yourself on the sidelines
all the time. Even if you did your thing, you won’t be able to attract them
[white Scots] to come with you [because] it’s so segregated.
Because some of the women we interviewed do not experience a real sense

of belonging and mutuality in their neighbourhoods, this appears to be a
significant barrier to building solidarity. This is particularly significant in
Scotland where the minority population is much smaller than in England
and France.
In France, however, some participants argued that austerity had spurred
new solidarities, particularly in the field of migrants’ rights and did not
voice concerns about exclusion from social movement spaces. On the con-
trary, one migrants’ rights advocate in Paris argued that the cuts have had:
A positive effect on militant action…This [action] isn’t achieved by those

financed by the state… People, refugees, asylum seekers, will turn more
toward solidarity in the receiving country, basic solidarity.
Thus, it remains an open question as to whether social movements are

solidaristic and democratic spaces and whether they can support and sus-
tain minority women’s anti-austerity activism.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have examined how the hegemonic framings of the
2008 economic crisis and subsequent austerity measures fail to capture,
explain and legitimate the invisible crises of minority women in Scotland,
England and France. We have demonstrated how minority women are
normatively absent in policy discussions about social and economic
inequality but are pathologically present when the social order is dis-
rupted as a result of these inequalities. Austerity measures cut minority
women’s already meagre social protections whilst simultaneously recast-
ing them as victims of racialised and patriarchal violence and/or as enter-
prising actors who should harness the power of capitalism to combat
their own poverty.
Centring the lived experiences of minority women is radical politics
because, as we have demonstrated throughout this chapter, their experi-
ences are misrecognised and/or erased in both European policymaking
and in civil society spaces and movements. Insisting on lived experience
recuperates and makes minority women visible political actors in a context
that asserts their passivity, absence and/or irrelevance. Minority women

are undertaking creative and radical actions that enable new political imag-
inations and solidarities for social justice. Questions remain as to whether
Europe is willing to hear them.
Notes
1. The French third sector is composed of three types of organisations:
cooperatives, mutuals and associations. Cooperatives and mutuals
are quasi-market organisations whilst associations are distinguished
by traditionally providing social services for those groups poorly
served by the centralised welfare state: the long-term unemployed,
undocumented migrants, women with experiences of domestic vio-
lence, and so on (Chanial and Laville 2004). We only included asso-
ciations in our study.
2. Because of the weak economic recoveries of the Eurozone, the so-
called Troika has been forced to rethink its austerity policies.
3. Given the surprise Brexit vote and the resignation of David Cameron
and the sacking of George Osborne, by the new prime minister,
Theresa May, the future of austerity measures is unclear at the time
of writing.
4. The concept of social entrepreneurship, marketised solutions to
social problems, has gone hand in hand with neoliberal policies tak-
ing hold in Britain since the 1990s (see: Emejulu 2015).
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CHAPTER 10
Austerity Politics and Feminist Struggles

in Spain: Reconfiguring the Gender Regime?
Emanuela Lombardo
Introduction
The Spanish gender regime in the first decade of the 2000s has experi-
enced progress towards a more public rather than domestic type. How are
the European Union (EU) and the Spanish government austerity politics
reconfiguring the gender regime in Spain? And what is the role of femi-
nist struggles in resisting shifts towards inequality in the gender regime?
This chapter analyses the political dimension of the 2008 economic crisis
in Spain by analysing: (a) changes that austerity politics produces in the
Spanish equality machinery, gender equality, and care and employment
policies; (b) the role of the EU in national policy changes, that is the
Europeanization of Spanish gender policies in times of crisis; and (c) femi-
nist and civil society struggles against austerity politics.
The interest in studying Spain is due to the fact that before the crisis
the country showed positive developments in its gender equality policies
and gender regime, especially during the socialist government of Zapatero
from 2004 to 2010 (Bustelo 2016; Valiente 2013; Calvo and Martín
2009). Although Spanish women still perform much of the unpaid care
E. Lombardo (*)
Science and Sociology, Madrid Complutense University, Spain

210 E. LOMBARDO
work, women’s employment rates have continuously increased, female

parliamentary representation has stabilized since 2004 around 36 per
cent, and gender equality policies have been progressively institutionalized
and consolidated (Lombardo and León 2015; Bustelo 2016; Lahey and
de Villota 2013). Yet, the country’s gender equality policies are endan-
gered by the policies adopted in response to the economic crisis in Europe
(González and Segales 2014; Bettio et al. 2012).
The argument developed in this chapter is that the interaction of EU and
national policy priorities in the post-crisis context is reconfiguring the gen-
der regime towards neoliberalization, but feminist struggles against auster-
ity and anti-equality policies, and women’s resistance to ‘go back home’
have so far blocked the redomestication of women. The methodology
employed includes content analysis of policy documents (National Reform
and Stability Programmes, Council recommendations, and national laws
and policy plans) and secondary sources. These allow us to explore policy
reforms that the Spanish government has enacted from 2010 onwards in
response to the EU anti-crisis guidelines, and their consequences on gen-
der equality policies. Signs of a reshaping of the gender regime considered
include budget cuts in gender equality policies, restructuring of the equal-
ity machinery, adopting neoliberal welfare and employment policies, halt-
ing progress in women’s representation, and restricting abortion rights.
The next section introduces the theoretical framework employed to
study shifts in the Spanish gender regime during the economic crisis. The
chapter then contextualizes the state of gender equality policies in Spain
prior to the crisis, relating them to developments in the Spanish welfare
state, equality machinery, and policies. Subsequently, it analyses from
a gender perspective the content of policy documents that the EU has
adopted in response to the crisis to guide member states’ policymaking. It
then explores the implications of Spain’s austerity policies on the gender
regime and feminist and civil society contestations of anti-crisis reforms.
Finally, the chapter draws conclusions for understanding policy changes
and struggles around Spain’s gender regime in times of austerity politics.
Theorizing the Spanish Gender Regime in the EU

Crisis Context
A gender regime is conceptualized in Walby’s (2009: 301) theory as ‘a set
of inter-related gendered social relations and gendered institutions that
constitutes a system’. Gender regimes vary in relation to the more or less
AUSTERITY POLITICS AND FEMINIST STRUGGLES IN SPAIN: RECONFIGURING... 211
unequal form of gender relations that they produce. The main difference,
according to Walby (2009), is between ‘domestic’ and ‘public’ gender
regimes. The domestic form tends to confine women to the sphere of
the household and exclude them from access to employment and political
representation. Domestic gender regimes present few women in waged
labour as compared to men, a heavy burden of unpaid work of care for
women, high percentages of men’s political representation compared to
low women’s percentages, and more difficult access to legal abortion.
In public gender regimes, women are more present in the public sphere
of employment and politics and have an easier access to legal abortion,
but they tend to be segregated in less influential and powerful positions.
Indicators of gender regimes include women in the workforce, gendered
inequality in employment, strength of equality legislation—to which I also
add the strength of equality institutions, public childcare provision for
children under three, women in Parliament, and legality of abortion.
The Spanish gender regime, according to Walby (2009), is in the middle of
a continuum between a domestic and a public gender regime, though closer
to a public regime. Although familialism and a traditional gender division of
work have maintained a heavy burden of unpaid care work in the hands of
Spanish women, women’s employment rates have continuously increased
from the 1980s, reaching a peak of 54.7 per cent in 2007, immediately
before the crisis (Statistical Office of the European Communities 2012).
However, women’s rates have always been lower than those of men (76.2
per cent in 2007), and of women in other EU member states (Peterson
2011; Statistical Office of the European Communities 2012). Moreover, the
quality of women’s jobs has also tended to be limited to fixed-term employ-
ment contracts for short periods, a prevalence of part-time jobs (80 per cent
in 2008, Lahey and de Villota 2013), while a high proportion of women’s
work is performed in the informal economy and thus not counted in official
statistics (Peterson 2011). Unemployment rates before the crisis also show a
difference between women and men, with 10.7 per cent women and 6.4 per
cent men (Statistical Office of the European Communities 2007).
The shift towards a public gender regime in Spain can be seen in the
stabilization of women’s political representation in national parliaments
from the 2004 elections around 36 per cent, with lower rates in the Senate
(IPU 2012). Zapatero’s socialist cabinets introduced parity governments
for the first time, with 50 per cent female ministers both in 2004 and
2008 (Bustelo 2016; Valiente 2013). Civil society’s struggles are key
for understanding changes in the gender regime, in particular feminist
212 E. LOMBARDO
struggles against austerity and anti-equality policies, and feminist alliances

with other political projects. Projects in Walby’s (2015) framework are
collective processes that provisionally bring together different actors of
civil society around particular social goals, creating new meanings through
debates and actions. Feminist struggles in Spain, for example, intersected
with other civil society struggles in common political anti-austerity proj-
ects in which gender, class, and other social inequalities interact (Cruells
and Ruiz 2014). Intersecting feminist and civil society struggles can create
new practices that generate social change, and new meanings of gender
regimes that, for example, may promote their public form.
The distinction between domestic and public forms of gender regime
according to Walby (2009) is a continuum from domestic to public gender
regime. Within the public form of gender regime, she differentiates between
more neoliberal and more social-democratic forms. The neoliberal supports
market deregulation, further reduction of state intervention in the econ-
omy, and cuts in state funding for social benefits and public services. The
social-democratic supports state regulation of finance, the active interven-
tion of the state to reduce inequalities through legislation and government
spending, particularly on the people who are the worst affected by the crisis
(Walby 2015). In Spain, the anti-austerity project offers a political opportu-
nity (McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996) for the alliance between feminist
and civil society struggles around the defence of democracy and social rights,
which would be in line with the social-democratic form of gender regime.
Gender regimes in EU member states are shaped by interactions
between the EU and national policymaking, known as Europeanization
processes (for a definition see Chap. 1 in this volume). In Spain’s crisis
context, the Europeanization of gender equality policies has been influ-
enced by changes in the EU economic governance regime towards stricter
norms and surveillance of member states’ economic policies (Klatzer and
Schlager 2014), in interaction with the conservative and neoliberal ideol-
ogy of the national government elected in 2011 (Paleo and Alonso 2015).
The EU pressure on member states to reform their welfare states dur-
ing the crisis, through a mix of ‘formal procedures’, ‘conditionality’, and
‘backroom diplomacy’, has produced a ‘retrenchment’ of welfare policies
in Spain (Pavolini et al. 2015: 4). Retrenchment is a concept employed to
refer to ‘policies that introduce cuts in social provisions’ (Pavolini et al.
2015: 2). These can be promoted through explicit cuts and privatizations
(Pierson 1998) or more hidden forms of privatization and small incre-
mental adjustments that gradually transform institutions in fundamental
ways (Streeck and Thelen 2005). The concept of retrenchment is helpful

to capture the kind of change that is taking place in welfare states due to
EU austerity politics in response to the crisis.
The concepts discussed so far provide helpful analytical tools to under-
stand how gender regimes change in times of austerity, what the role
of feminist struggles and political projects is in promoting or opposing
changes, and how the interaction of EU and national politics can contrib-
ute to change the gender regime.
Spain’s Pre-Crisis Welfare and Gender Contexts
Welfare State
The Spanish welfare state is a hybrid of conservative-familialist and social-
democratic features (Guillén and León 2011: 306). While health and edu-
cation until the crisis were universal rights, gender inequalities have been
maintained in a system characterized by familialism, reliance on women’s
unpaid work (93 per cent of women dedicate time to household and family
activities, as compared to men’s 70 per cent, INE 2007), and greater social
protection for those in paid work (Peterson 2011). Spain’s welfare state is
based on a traditional division of gender roles, as the unequal system of
parental leave regulations shows (Ciccia and Verloo 2012). While maternity
leave regulations grant mothers six mandatory and not transferable weeks
(ten can be transferred to the father, but there are no incentives for it, so
that traditional gender norms tend to prevent fathers from taking the leave),
fathers only enjoy two weeks of paternity leave. This ‘female caregiver model’
and ‘male breadwinner model’ of social policies, together with Spanish inad-
equate provision of welfare services, make it difficult for women to be freed
from the work of care and engage in paid work (Ciccia and Verloo 2012).
Spanish Gender Equality Machinery and Policies

Gender equality has been institutionalized in Spain since 1983, when
the autonomous Woman’s Institute (WI) was created by law under a
socialist government and facing international pressure before enter-
ing the European Community in 1986 (Valiente 2006; Bustelo and
Ortbals 2007). Women’s policy agencies developed in all Autonomous
Communities throughout the 1980s. The Spanish gender machinery was
reinforced and consolidated during the socialist government of Zapatero,
214 E. LOMBARDO
with the creation, within the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs,
of a higher rank (than the WI) Equality Policies General Secretariat in
2004, and the establishment of a higher rank Ministry of Equality in 2008
(Bustelo and Lombardo 2012).
The colour of the party in government has been particularly relevant at
the Spanish national level, as the development of gender equality policies
during the socialist government of Zapatero shows, with the adoption of
important laws against gender violence (Law 1/2004), allowing same-
sex marriage (Law 13/2005), promoting public care for dependent peo-
ple (Law 39/2006), and also gender equality in employment and other
areas (Law 3/2007) (Bustelo 2016). Steps towards a more equal sharing
of gender roles in care were taken through the Equality Law 3/2007
that introduced an individual right to two weeks of paternity leave. An
extension of paternity leave to four weeks had been planned through Law
9/2009 that was to be enforced in January 2011. Abortion rights were
extended in the second term of Zapatero through the adoption of law
2/2010 that granted women the autonomy to decide freely until the 14th
week of pregnancy, and until 22nd week in case of serious risks for the
health and life of women or serious anomalies of the embryo.
The influence of the autonomous feminist movement in Spain’s gender
equality machinery and policies has historically been rather limited (Bustelo
2016; Bustelo and Ortbals 2007; Valiente 2003). In this respect Clavero
(2015: 139) argues that women’s interests in Spanish politics ‘have been
more successfully organized and represented by trade unions and political
parties than by women’s civil society organisations’. However, in the issues
of gender violence and abortion, feminist mobilizations have been crucial
to policy progress (Bustelo 2016).
Austerity Politics Hits Spain

When the economic crisis hit Europe in 2008, the EU in turn hit Spain
and the other member states through a strict austerity politics, develop-
ing a new macroeconomic governance regime that includes institutions,
rules, and procedures to coordinate member states’ macroeconomic pol-
icy and promote the reduction of their sovereign debt (see Chap. 1 in
this volume; Klatzer and Schlager 2014). The European Semester has
reinforced the EU surveillance of member states’ economic and budget
policy procedures and decisions, establishing an annual cycle of pre-set
economic targets that member states must achieve to comply with the
EC 2020 Strategy. Targets are translated into country objectives through

National Reform and Stability Programmes, where each member state
sets the policies that it intends to implement to achieve the 2020 targets,
and plans the country’s budget for the coming three or four years. The
European Commission sends country-specific yearly recommendations
to member states, and monitors implementation imposing financial sanc-
tions to incompliant states. After this European Commission monitor-
ing, the European Council issues an individual recommendation to each
member state to guide further reform. Changes required to the member
states touch upon issues such as public finances, employment, education,
or pension reforms. These recommendations are a good example of the
kind of policy changes the EU is asking member states to take in response
to the economic crisis. They show how the EU guides Spanish policy
towards a more deregulatory approach and that gender is not integrated
in the suggested reforms. For these reasons the 2011 and 2012 Council
Recommendations to Spain have been chosen for analysis to exemplify the
role of the EU in pushing Spain towards austerity politics and away from
gender mainstreaming.
Fiscal consolidation and a strict control of public expenditure growth at
all levels of government are the main Council’s recommendations to the
Spanish government both in 2011 and 2012 (Council of the European
Union 2012, 2011). The 2012 recommendation, for instance, argues that
to comply with ‘the excessive deficit procedure (EDP), the objective of
the budgetary strategy outlined in the Stability Programme is to bring
the general government deficit below 3 per cent of the GDP reference
value by 2013’ and the main instruments to achieve this are ‘expenditure
restraint’ (Council of the European Union 2012: 6). Due to the decentral-
ization of Spanish public finances, the EU document recommends ‘Strict
enforcement of the Budget Stability Law and the adoption of strong fiscal
measures at regional level’, through a strong monitoring of regional pub-
lic expenditure (Council of the European Union 2012: 7).
The EU also prescribes deregulating the Spanish labour market. The
Council pushes Spain to ‘reform the collective bargaining process and the
wage indexation system to ensure that wage growth better reflects pro-
ductivity developments’ and ‘to grant firms enough flexibility to inter-
nally adapt working conditions to changes in the economic environment’.
It moreover recommends the Spanish government ‘to eliminate current
restrictions to competition’, ‘to implement measures aimed at improving
the business environment and enhancing competition in the product and
216 E. LOMBARDO
service markets, at all levels of government’, and ‘to reduce the adminis-
trative burden for enterprises’ (Council of the European Union 2011: 4).
Finally, the EU pushes Spain to reform the pension system, by extending
the statutory retirement age and increasing the number of working years
for the calculation of pensions (Council of the European Union 2011),
and to reform the tax system in the name of ‘efficiency’, by increasing
‘more growth-friendly indirect taxes’ (Council of the European Union
2012: 8).
The analysis of the 2011 and 2012 Council Recommendations to Spain,
and the studies of 2011 National Reform Programmes in the EU-27 con-
ducted by Bettio et al. (2012: 164, 97–98) and Villa and Smith (2011)
show that gender has not been mainstreamed in the design of policy
responses to the crisis in Spain, which might help to understand the detri-
mental consequences of these measures for gender regimes. Indeed there
is no intention in either of the Council documents on the need to assess
the impact of measures of fiscal consolidation from a gender perspective
and to ensure gender equity when planning the reforms to respond to the
crisis. Yet, a gender-sensitive analysis of EU recommendations on how
Spain should reform its labour market or tax system—which was not per-
formed—would put efficiency in relation to equity and would assess who
would benefit or suffer more from the consequences of the recommended
reforms. The response of the Spanish government to the Council recom-
mendations is its National Reform Programme of 2013, which follows
these recommendations by proposing an agenda of further austerity and
liberalization measures, such as cuts in welfare policies, tax increases, lib-
eralizations, and privatizations of public services.
Spain’s Austerity Politics Hits the Gender Regime:

Political Changes and Struggles
EU and Spain’s austerity politics in response to the crisis has promoted
a neoliberal agenda on the part of the EU, exemplified in the Council’s
Recommendations to Spain, and a neoliberal-conservative agenda on the
part of the Spanish government, that will be explored in this section. This
joint policy response to the crisis has had consequences for the Spanish
gender regime, pushing it towards a neoliberal and domestic form.
Women, feminist, and civil society groups have struggled against this neo-
liberal and conservative agenda.
Women’s Resistance to ‘Redomestication’

Employment and care conditions have worsened for women from the begin-
ning of the crisis. The unemployment rate in Spain has increased tremen-
dously as compared to other EU members (the total EU-28 unemployment
rate being 11 per cent in June 2013), reaching in 2013 a total of 26.3 per
cent, with higher peaks for women (women 27.2 per cent, men 25.5 per
cent) (Statistical Office of the European Communities 2013). In the first
years of the crisis, in 2008–2010, most of the lost jobs were male jobs related
to the construction sector (González 2011). However, from 2010 onwards,
adjustments in the public sector, job destruction for temporary employees
who are mostly women, and the fact that in Spain the social security employ-
ment benefits mainly advantage men, have increased women’s unemploy-
ment and worsened women’s labour conditions (Lahey and de Villota 2013;
González 2011). Thus, it is not just a matter of a fall in female employment
in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality (Bettio et al. 2012).
However, despite the worsening conditions, Spanish women so far are
resisting ‘redomestication’. An interesting fact for understanding post-
crisis shifts in the gender regime is that low-educated women, even with
children under six, have become more active in the labour market to com-
pensate for the loss of male income in households. This, on the one hand,
indicates that the public gender regime is holding, but, on the other hand,
it shows that further constraints are placed on these women, because it
adds the burden of precarious and low-income jobs (González and Segales
2014; Addabbo, Rodríguez and Gálvez 2013) to the burden of care and
family responsibilities. Domestic tasks are not equally shared with men
in Spain (91.9 per cent of women’s daily time is dedicated to household
and family activities, while men dedicate 74.7 per cent, INE 2010). The
gender pay gap was high in the pre-crisis period, but has increased from
2007, reaching in 2012 the peak of 23.9 per cent.1 Cuts in public employ-
ees’ wages (by more than 5 per cent on average) in 2010 and the block-
ing of public employment recruitment in 2011 have particularly impacted
on educated women, due to their high participation in the public sector
(González and Segales 2014). Yet, despite unemployment and the wors-
ening labour market conditions, feminist activist Begoña San José (2015:
199) claims that ‘Spanish women so far have resisted “going back home”’,
as women’s high activity rate confirms (53.4 per cent in 2014).2
Feminists have also criticized the Labour Reform (RD 3/2012)
approved by the Spanish government in 2012 because of its negative
218 E. LOMBARDO
impact on women. The Labour Reform increases unilateral opportunities

for employers to introduce more flexible employment conditions, without
having to respect collective agreements. This makes it easier for employers
to fire employees, especially those who take on most of the burden of care,
that is, women. It creates a type of temporal contract with no right for
workers to receive indemnification, for companies with less than 50 work-
ers, where women are predominantly represented. It further increases
the precariousness of part-time contracts, which mostly affect women.
The Labour Reform affects women not only indirectly, but also directly
because it limits workers’ rights to ask for a ‘shorter working day’ to care
for children or dependent relatives, limits breastfeeding rights, and elimi-
nates state financial incentives to companies when women are reincorpo-
rated in their former employment after having been on childcare leave.
This leads Ballester-Pastor (2012: 29) to conclude that ‘The reduction
of parental rights that has taken place with the 2012 Spanish legal reform
could have the effect of expelling people from the labour market who can-
not make their various responsibilities compatible with each other’.
While Spanish civil society has mobilized against the Labour Reform
due to the deterioration of labour rights, feminists have mobilized both
within trade unions and social movements. Feminist trade unionists have
criticized the Labour Reform due to the discrimination of women it pro-
motes and due to the elimination of existing positive actions to promote
gender equality in the workplace.3 The feminist movement has organized
feminist strikes to defend a broader concept of work that includes both
productive and reproductive (care and domestic) work, such as the Catalan
Vaga de Totes or Strike for All (women) that in 2015 mobilized 600 orga-
nizations from feminist and other civil society groups (García 2015).
Women are bearing a heavy burden of the crisis—as González and
Segales (2014: 245) make clear—through ‘double or triple workload,
in a context of family responsibilities not shared by men and of low
incomes and economic constraints’, with the ‘risk that they may leave the
labour market due to lack of support’ from the state to care for children
and dependents. The Zapatero government had planned, with its Law
9/2009, to extend paternity leave from two to four weeks in 2011. But
this measure has been postponed indefinitely in the name of austerity
(Peterson 2011). Budgetary cuts from 2010 onwards have also addressed
the 2006 Dependency Law, reducing the financial state support to people
that care for a dependent relative, and eliminating social protection for
non-professional carers (Lombardo and León 2015).
Disabled and feminist platforms have mobilized against the cuts in

the Dependency Law.4 The feminist platform ‘Impacto de Género ya!’
(‘Gender impact now!)’ in its analysis of the 2016 government budget
denounced that ‘although women are 66% of dependent people and
83% of carers, the official Gender Impact Report (…) does not analyze
the [gendered] impact of the budget on the redistribution of care’.5
Concerning early childcare provision, the government’s policy responses
to the economic crisis, from central to local levels, have enforced severe
cuts in public support of 0–3 childcare through reduction in family subsi-
dies and help for paying fees, which in a sector that was already privatized
or public but privately managed, has resulted in ‘increases in child-to-adult
ratios and fees, and the worsening of staff working conditions’ (Ibáñez
and León 2014: 9).
As regards welfare provisions, studies of the impact of austerity mea-
sures on the Spanish welfare state such as Pavolini et al. (2015: 18) indicate
explicit retrenchment through budget cuts in education, care, social assis-
tance, family policies, and health (e.g. by excluding foreigners who do not
have a regular residence permit from the National Health Services, except
for urgent cases). But they also signal ‘hidden retrenchment’ in educa-
tion and healthcare, which means that the government is giving rhetorical
support of universal coverage but is de facto limiting access to service and
progressively reducing budgets, as in the case of citizens’ copayment of
medicines and health services.
Dismantling Gender Equality Policies and Institutions

Austerity politics had a negative impact on gender equality policies and
institutions, promoting budget cuts and institutional restructuring. Bettio
et al. (2012: 113) in their report on the impact of the crisis on gender
equality in the EU warn that ‘the budget cuts induced by fiscal consol-
idation measures entail the concrete risk of downgrading the status of
equality policies or reducing the budgets allocated to them’. The central
government’s budget dedicated to gender equality policies decreased at
all governmental levels from the beginning of the crisis. Paleo and Alonso
(2015) compare the evolution of budgets dedicated to equality policies at
the central and regional levels before the crisis, from 2002 to 2008, and
after the crisis, from 2009 until 2013. The authors observe that while dur-
ing 2002–2008 the budget dedicated to gender policies shows a consider-
able increase of 57.2 per cent at the central level, in the 2009–2013 period
220 E. LOMBARDO
the budget decreases at all governmental levels (except for Andalusia),

reaching −34.1 per cent at the central level. The right-wing government’s
Secretary of State for Social Services and Equality justified cuts in gender
equality policies with the argument of the economic crisis and the suppos-
edly poor administration of the former government.6
As regards the impact of austerity measures on the restructuring of
the equality machinery, experts state that ‘The Spanish case rings alarm
bells as to the repercussions of this crisis on gender equality machinery’ in
terms of ‘downsizing and downgrading’ (Bettio et al. 2012: 113; 117).
The change of government that took place in Spain in 2011 had imme-
diate consequences on the institutionalization of gender equality. After
the socialist Zapatero government resigned, the conservative Rajoy gov-
ernment elected in November 2011 restructured ministries in the name
of ‘rationalization’ and ‘simplification’ in response to the economic crisis
and relegated the historic WI to be part of the new Ministry of Health,
Social Services, and Equality.7 In the new ministerial structure the former
State Secretariat for Equality was eliminated and a new State Secretariat
for Social Services and Equality has been created, with competence to
prevent and eliminate discrimination in the six grounds that EU directives
prescribe (sex, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, age, and dis-
ability). The new Secretariat has broad competencies, ranging from social
inclusion to family, children, dependent and disabled people, and equality.
The WI now depends on a Directorate General for Equal Opportunities
(located within the Secretariat for Social Services and Equality), thus it was
downgraded to being dependent from a DG while it was formerly depen-
dent on a higher rank State Secretariat. Moreover, from 2011 onwards
the budget for the WI has been reduced, while it is required to assume
new competencies on equal opportunities beyond gender (in 2014 it was
renamed the ‘Woman’s and Equal Opportunities Institute’). These insti-
tutional changes represent a counter-trend in the Spanish path to consoli-
dation of women’s policy institutions.
Already in 2010, under Zapatero, after a first socialist government of
remarkable progress in gender equality policies, there had been a reversal
in the institutionalization of equality, since the Ministry of Equality estab-
lished in 2008 was suppressed in October 2010, notwithstanding feminist
protests, as part of the anti-crisis budgetary cuts, and transformed into a
State Secretariat for Equality within the Ministry of Health, Social Policy,
and Equality. In both cases of restructuring of Spanish equality institu-
tions, as EGGSI experts claim: ‘The reason put forward for this change
was savings in administrative costs within the context of the fiscal austerity
demanded by the current economic crisis’ (Bettio et al. 2012: 114). At the
regional level, the downgrading or elimination of equality institutions has
taken place in Galicia, Murcia, and Madrid (Paleo and Alonso 2015). At
the local level, Law 27/2013 of ‘rationalization and sustainability of local
administration’ has eliminated article 28 of Law 7/1985 that granted local
government competence to realize activities for the promotion of women.
Feminist organizations, in their 2008–2013 UN Shadow Report, strongly
criticized both the budget cuts in equality policies and the restructuring of
the equality machinery at the central and regional levels.8
Feminist Struggles and Civil Society’s Political Projects

Feminist activism resisted the first governmental attacks on policies against
gender violence. Feminist mobilizations and petitions proved effective at
the regional level in 2011 in preventing the closing down of shelters for
battered women announced by the right-wing regional government of
Castilla-La Mancha, forcing the government to withdraw its plan of 41
per cent cuts in violence centres.9 However, the austerity agenda reached
all governmental levels. The national government’s 2013 reform of the
Law of Local Regime eliminates local competency on gender equality poli-
cies, threatening the provision of attention to women victims of violence
that is currently offered at the local level, including shelters for victims of
gender violence. Moreover, the central government’s 2016 Budget law
has cut 22.5 per cent of the funding dedicated to policies against gender
violence as compared to 2008, continuing the decreasing trend from the
beginning of the crisis (Gobierno de España 2015).
Abortion, a classic topic of the Spanish feminist movement (Valiente
2007), exemplifies well the struggles around the Spanish gender regime
between governmental and feminist actors in the crisis context. The 2011
right-wing government, to fulfil an electoral promise, presented a bill to
restrict the right to abortion by reforming the progressive 2/2010 Law
on sexual and reproductive health approved by the former socialist gov-
ernment. The bill, which was named ‘Law of protection of the life of the
embryo and of the rights of the pregnant woman’, would make abor-
tion illegal and provoke a deterioration of women’s autonomy and health.
Abortion, according to the bill, could be practised only if the life or physi-
cal or psychic health of the woman was seriously threatened (within the
first 22 weeks) or if it resulted from a crime against her sexual freedom or
222 E. LOMBARDO
indemnity (within the first 12 weeks and only if the crime was reported).
No free right of abortion for a woman within a set period would be
allowed. Rather, the bill put forward a long series of obstacles that would
make it almost impossible for a woman to have an abortion.
The feminist movement strongly mobilized against what it renamed a
‘counter-reformist’ bill, by organizing huge demonstrations, reactivating
platforms such as the National Platform of Feminist Organizations, and
forging national and international alliances (Alonso 2015; García 2015,
2014). The struggle to defend the right of abortion was a success story for
the feminist movement. Massive national and transnational feminist mobi-
lizations with ‘freedom trains’ converging on Madrid,10 criticism from
feminist members of the European Parliament, internal divergences within
the conservative party, and the government’s fear that the bill would have
a boomerang effect against the ruling party in the year preceding elec-
tions, led the prime minister to withdraw the bill, and forced the resigna-
tion of the minister of justice that proposed it.11 The campaign revitalized
the feminist movement and attracted more young women to the feminist
cause (Alonso 2015).
While the withdrawal of the restrictive abortion bill indicates that the
gender regime is not currently receding to a domestic form in this respect,
the struggle is not over for feminists. The Constitutional Court still needs
to dictate a sentence on the 2/2010 abortion law by former socialist gov-
ernment that the Popular Party contested in the courts, and the case is
in the hands of a pro-life judge. In September 2015, the conservative
government adopted a reform of the current abortion law making it more
restrictive of the rights of young women under 18 who will need to obtain
their parents’ consent to have an abortion. Moreover, at the regional level,
legal incremental changes are taking place that might eventually result in
the restriction of abortion rights. Along the same ideological line as the
withdrawn abortion bill, six Autonomous Communities governed by the
Popular Party have approved laws for the protection of pregnant women
that protect women as mothers, providing financial means for pregnant
women in difficult economic situations to continue their pregnancy, but
not to interrupt it, and whose aim is to guarantee the embryo’s right to
life (Paleo and Alonso 2015). These laws show a pro-life approach that
limits women’s right to self-determination. They also indicate that of the
few economic resources that will be dedicated to gender equality policies,
most of them will go to women as mothers, whereas women who are in
difficult economic situations but are not mothers will not benefit from
the funds. This political discourse shows conservative ideological connota-

tions aimed at reinforcing traditional gender roles and limiting women’s
autonomy, moving Paleo and Alonso (2015) to suggest that conservative
actors use the crisis in Spain to develop their own political agenda on
gender.
Concerning women’s political representation, while parliamentary data
show convergence with the pre-crisis 36 per cent women in Parliament,
with 35.4 per cent of women in the Lower house and 36.1 per cent of
women in the Upper house after the 2011 general elections, other data
show a decline in women’s representation. There was no parity govern-
ment when the conservative party was elected in 2011, rather a 31 per
cent of women ministers, which is better than former right-wing cabi-
nets, but is still a regression (Bustelo 2016). Women’s percentages have
slightly decreased from 2011 also in town councils and in bodies such as
the Central Bank, the General Council of Judicial Power, and Economic
and the Social Council. These results can be understood when put in rela-
tion with the ideological opposition to gender quotas of the governing
conservative party (Verge and Lombardo forthcoming).
Austerity has pushed Spanish feminist organizations to intensify their
transnational mobilization strategies to resist the anti-equality agenda.
The first CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women) Shadow Report was elaborated from 17
feminist organizations belonging to the platform Gender Impact Now!
only in 2008, the sixth edition of the shadow reports since 1993. For the
2008–2013 Shadow Report, a platform of more than 50 feminist orga-
nizations has been created, the Platform of Women’s Organizations for
Participation and Equality (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Mujeres
para la Participación y la Igualdad). This platform, through a two-year
participatory and decentralized process, produced a Shadow Report that
was signed by 277 Spanish feminist organizations (San José 2015). The
United Nations has drawn on this CEDAW Shadow Report to criticize
the Spanish government for the deterioration of gender equality in the last
years and to urge the government to comply with its international com-
mitments on gender equality.12
Feminists have not only mobilized on their own, but also as part of
joint political projects with Spanish civil society against the government’s
austerity measures and in defence of democracy and social rights. Massive
demonstrations, organized civic platforms such as the Platform of people
affected by housing evictions,13 and strikes of ‘citizens’ waves’ (mareas ciu-
224 E. LOMBARDO
dadanas), such as the ‘white wave’ to defend public health, the ‘green
wave’ to defend public education, or the feminist ‘purple wave’ that
mainstreams gender in the anti-austerity struggles, show that a growing
part of Spanish society is actively defending its welfare and equality rights.
These movements have blocked the privatization of public hospitals and
the eviction of families from their homes. The Indignados movement,
born on 15 May 2011, in the same year that similar social movements
were emerging in other countries (such as Occupy Wall Street in the
US), initiated the protest against the economic crisis and the deteriorat-
ing quality of Spanish democracy (Cruells and Ybarra 2013). Though
a heterogeneous social movement that includes intersecting economic,
environmental, feminist, and other struggles, it is nevertheless united by
a discourse that challenges political corruption and austerity measures
(Cruells and Ruiz 2014; Calvo 2013). Feminists have been active in the
Indignados and the ‘waves’ struggles, forging alliances with different civil
society projects, and in some cases leading important platforms. This
was the case with Ada Colau, leader of the Platform of people affected by
housing evictions, who would be elected mayor of Barcelona in the 2015
municipal elections.
The government’s undemocratic reaction to the civil society struggles
has been a restriction of freedom of expression and other human rights
through the 2014 ‘Law of citizens’ safety’, which civil society has strongly
opposed, renaming it the ‘Gag law’.14 The political scenario is continu-
ously changing, however, with the emergence of the populist left-wing
Podemos party and the victory of civic lists in the 2015 local and regional
elections, which led to the election of female leftist mayors in Madrid and
Barcelona. These new political actors, by opening institutional channels to
represent some of the Indignados movement demands (Calvo and Álvarez
2015), could alter the agenda of austerity and civil rights restrictions.
Conclusions
Austerity politics in response to the economic crisis adopted in the EU
and Spain is promoting a shift in the Spanish gender regime towards a
more neoliberal public form, but so far not a regression towards a more
domestic gender regime in Walby’s (2009) terms. Shifts towards a neo-
liberal public form of gender regime can be detected in neoliberal labour
reforms, privatizations, deterioration of the quality of employment, job
precariousness, growing inequality of the Spanish labour market, retrench-
ment of the welfare regime, cuts in public provision of social services,

privatization of childcare services under three years, and cuts in gender
equality policies.
However, feminist struggles and women’s resistance to ‘go back home’
have blocked so far the redomestication of women in Spain. Despite the
difficult employment conditions, made worse in times of crisis, women
are still active in the labour market. Feminist struggles have managed to
block the anti-abortion law in 2014.15 Women’s percentages of politi-
cal representation have been maintained so far around pre-crisis levels,
despite a sensible decline. These developments in economic, sexual,
and reproductive, as well as political areas show that feminist mobiliza-
tions have contributed to prevent a gender regime shift from public to
domestic.
Feminist struggles have grown out of the experience of joint politi-
cal democratic and anti-austerity projects with other civil society groups.
The resurgence of civil society activism that exploded with the Indignados
movement, the experience of local political activism in grassroots organi-
zations and citizens’ waves, and the participation in anti-austerity struggles
have empowered and revitalized the Spanish feminist movement, mak-
ing it more effective in the organization and representation of women’s
interests than former research had found (García 2015; Clavero 2015;
Alonso 2015; Bustelo 2016; Valiente 2003). The successful outcome of
feminist pro-abortion mobilizations, that is the withdrawal of the anti-
abortion bill, and the first CEDAW Shadow reports are good examples of
this revitalization.
Policy shifts and feminist struggles show that the economic crisis in
Europe has political implications that need to be studied from gender and
intersectional approaches. Power and counter-power are at the heart of
the economic crisis in Europe, and they have gender and intersectional
dimensions. This chapter has showed that intersecting feminist and civil
society struggles have been crucial for the maintenance of a public gender
regime in Spain under neoliberal and conservative attacks. While the EU
and Spain’s austerity politics has pushed the gender regime in neoliberal
and conservative directions, feminist contestations of conservative gender
ideologies, joint anti-austerity struggles with civil society, and women’s
resistance to ‘go back home’ have so far supported the maintenance of a
public gender regime in Spain. The political struggle is ongoing. It is yet
to be seen for how long a public gender regime, not least to say a social-
democratic one, will be able to endure such attacks.
226 E. LOMBARDO
Notes
1. See UGT trade union’s 2015 report http://www.ugt.es/
Publicaciones/INFORME_UGT_SOBRE_IGUALDAD_
SALARIAL_2015.pdf (accessed 01/09/2016).
2. See national statistical office http://www.ine.es/ (accessed
01/09/2016).
3. See Carmen Bravo, from Trade Union CCOO, at http://www.ter-
cerainformacion.es/spip.php?article34661 (accessed 01/09/2016).
4. See El País 2/12/2012 ‘Disabled help cry against the govern-
ment’s cuts’.
5. See http://impactodegeneroya.blogia.com/ (accessed 01/09/2016).
6. El País, 24 November 2012.
7. See RD 200/2012 of 23 January 2012, RD 1823/2011 of 21
December 2011, and RD 1887/2011 of 30 December 2011.
8. See https://cedawsombraesp.wordpress.com/ (accessed
01/09/2016).
9. See petition at https://www.change.org/p/salvemos-los-centros-
de-la-mujer-de-castilla-la-mancha (accessed 01/09/2016).
10. See http://www.eltrendelalibertad.com/ and http://eltrendelal-
ibertadfilm.blogspot.com.es/ (accessed 01/09/2016).
11. El País 24/9/2014 ‘The abortion law, story of a failure’.
12. See https://cedawsombraesp.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/
nota-de-prensa-la-onu-suspende-a-espana-en-igualdad-de-
genero/ (accessed 01/09/2016).
13. During the crisis a great number of Spanish people, especially

poorer families, were evicted from their homes because the mort-
gage law in Spain does not include a debt relief even after foreclo-
sure and eviction. The Court of Justice of the European Union in
its sentence of 14 March 2013 on the so-called Aziz case con-
demned the Spanish enforcement system of foreclosure due to the
breach of consumers’ rights it causes.
14. See survey conducted by Metroscopia for Avaaz.org http://noso-
mosdelito.net/sites/default/files/public_files/documentos/
encuesta_ley_de_seguridad_ciudadana_1_1_1.pdf (accessed
01/09/2016).
15. However, women’s autonomy is still under attack because young
women’s rights have been restricted, the Constitutional Court
needs to give a sentence on the 2010 progressive abortion law, and
laws that protect the embryo have been adopted at the regional
level.
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CHAPTER 11
Austerity Politics and Feminist Resistance

in Finland: From Established Women’s
Organizations to New Feminist Initiatives
Anna Elomäki and Johanna Kantola
Introduction
Finland represents a latecomer to the economic crisis in Europe. The “sus-
tainability gap” of public finances began to figure visibly in the politi-
cal debate in 2013. The new conservative-right government in Finland
significantly intensified economic austerity politics with its government
programme and measures to implement it in May 2015. Government’s
austerity programme involved immediate spending cuts, significant
structural reforms and an ultimatum that unless labour market organiza-
tions agree to reduce the cost of work to increase the competitiveness of
businesses and cut public expenses, additional spending cuts will be made.
The highly gendered austerity measures and competitiveness policies have
been complemented with the disappearance of gender equality from the
political agenda. With the populist right party The Finns in the govern-
A. Elomäki (*) • J. Kantola

Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies
University of Helsinki, Finland

232 A. ELOMÄKI AND J. KANTOLA
ment and the refugee crisis in Europe, the austerity politics is combined
with a harsh anti-immigration policy. We suggest that the three governing
parties represent—in often competing and contradictory ways—neoliber-
alism, conservatism and racism with detrimental consequences to gender
equality and gender equality policies.
In this chapter, our aim is to analyse feminist resistance to the gendered
and racialized austerity politics in Finland. Feminist resistance elsewhere has
revitalized politics in new social movements, bringing the gendered and
racialized consequences of the crisis to the attention of international actors
such as CEDAW and creating and curbing the spaces for marginalized femi-
nist groups such as those of racial and ethnic minorities (Bassel and Emejulu
2014 and 2017; Lombardo in this book). Finland has a relatively weak
feminist movement that has relied on institutionalized cross-party collabo-
ration between women’s organizations and close relationships with the state
(Kantola 2006). Thereby it forms a particular case for studying the role of
such a state-centred and consensus-oriented form of feminist activism at
times of austerity politics that challenge the prevailing gender regime that
the activism has relied upon. The feminist resistance to austerity politics
addressed in this study brings to light the political—that is conflictual—
dimension of austerity politics, in opposition to the more technical neolib-
eral framing of the crisis that the Finnish government has put forward.
We ask whether austerity and the political climate shaped by neolib-
eralism, conservatism and racism constitute a turning point for Finnish
feminism. We analyse the responses 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. How
have different feminist actors reacted to austerity and competitiveness pol-
icies and with what effects? How have they understood austerity and the
reasons behind it, which arguments have they used to criticize or reject it?
We are particularly interested in what differentiates the new feminist initia-
tives 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.
Our research material consists of documents, statements and social
media commentaries that women’s and feminist organizations and other
actors, such as the trade unions, have issued in relation to gender equal-
ity and austerity politics in 2015–2016. This research material has been
complemented with two semi-structured interviews with key actors in
the feminist movements (see Research Material listed at the end of this
AUSTERITY POLITICS AND FEMINIST RESISTANCE IN FINLAND... 233
chapter). Additionally we use participant observation as we ourselves

have followed these developments closely and been part of them as femi-
nist academics resisting against austerity politics in the Finnish context.
Methodologically, we apply close reading to our research material and
combine elements of textual analysis and discourse analysis. Close read-
ing is always informed by theoretical and methodological questions and
demands constant self-reflexivity (Liljeström and Paasonen 2010: 5–6).
The method requires the researcher to choose extracts for close scrutiny
and to bring her background and understanding of the contexts in ques-
tion into the analysis. This is a particularly helpful method for analysing in
a reflexive way data collected through participant observation.
Background: What to Resist and How?

Theoretically, we draw upon concepts of feminist organizing and resis-
tance. Feminist theory has debated the so-called in and out of the state
dichotomy in relation to feminist organizing and the state. Feminist schol-
ars ask whether it is more effective to critique the state practices from
outside with the danger of marginalization or from inside with the fear
of being co-opted (Ewig and Ferree 2013: 446–7). Finland represents a
strategy of close co-operation with the state with only a some exceptions,
and its key women’s organizations being funded by the state (Kantola
2006). In recent debates, feminist organizations are theorized to have
become professionalized in a process called, for example NGOization
(Ewig and Ferree 2013: 447) or gender managerialism (Evans 2015: 61).
Professionalization of feminist organizations raises questions about what it
means for their political critique when they concentrate on giving evidence-
based policy advice and receiving project funding from different national
or transnational donors (Kantola and Squires 2012). Angela McRobbie
(2009) suggests that feminist discourses have become safe and non-threat-
ening through their involvement in state procedures and policy making.
On the other hand, there is much scholarly interest in ‘post-feminism’
(McRobbie 2009) or ‘third-wave feminism’ (Evans 2015: 60; Ewig and
Ferree 2013: 448), terms used to characterize the different tactics adopted
by younger generations of feminists based on broader acceptance of indi-
vidualism and consumerism. Feminism here is politically relevant but also
‘fun’, and emphasis is placed on making feminism ‘sexy and stylish’ and an
‘ideology based on individual choices’ (Evans 2015: 63). Both trends are
theorized as embedded in the current neoliberal societal context. Elizabeth
Evans argues that in the UK and the USA, ‘whilst neoliberalism has pro-
vided a difficult context for mobilising effective collective resistance, femi-
nist movements have nonetheless managed it without needing to rebrand’
(Evans 2015: 60). This points to the elasticity and relevance of feminist
forms of organizing. Indeed, Evans suggests, feminist activism flourishes
exactly because of the economic and democratic crises.
In this chapter, we focus upon a political and economic moment in
Finland when the state has turned its back on gender equality. We argue
that Finnish austerity policy is based on the ideologies of neoliberalism,
conservatism and anti-immigration bordering racism. Neoliberalism has
signified reducing the role of the welfare state and increasing the role of
the market in all service production. It is a longer trend intensified under
the current conservative-right government (for an overview see Elomäki
et al. 2016a). The necessity of austerity became the main frame of political
debate during the parliamentary elections of spring 2015. The terms of
the debate were set by an assessment of the Ministry of Finance that the
level of “sustainability gap” was at 10 billion euro and that “adjustments”
should be made entirely through cuts instead of through increasing taxes.
Parties across the political spectrum accepted that “adjustments”, includ-
ing spending cuts, were needed. After the conservative Central Party won
the elections, the party leader Juha Sipilä—former businessman and a
newcomer to politics—made the state of public finances the key issue of
government negotiations. All other priorities and values were subjected to
the “10 billion challenge” and the need to put an end to the increasing
public debt (see also Elomäki et al. 2016a). The chosen coalition part-
ners, economic liberal Coalition Party and the populist the Finns, shared
this vision. The programme of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s government,
adopted on 27 May 2015, proposed immediate 4 billion euro cuts in pub-
lic spending and significant structural reforms aiming at another 4 billion
of savings. Critical commentators argued that the spending cuts, which
weakened the services and benefits of the woman-friendly welfare state
built in the 1980s and 1990, were bound to worsen women’s position
in the labour market, shift responsibility for care of children and elderly
from the public sector to the families—that is, women—and either cause
a turn from a dual earner model to a male-breadwinner society or increase
women’s double burden (Professorien… 2015).
Such neoliberalism has also signified a crisis of democratic debate and
forms of participation. Already the previous government had worked hard
to raise public awareness about the ‘crisis’ and to create the right atmo-
sphere for introducing austerity politics. The government was formulating

austerity politics partially out of the reach of political debate and contesta-
tion. Central to this strategy was to justify the measures with a discourse
of ‘EU requirements’ (Kantola 2015). The government enacted a new
law (so-called finance politics law no. 862/2012) to transpose the EU
requirements about limits to budget deficit into national law. Other new
governing tools for austerity politics included the General Government
Fiscal Plan (julkisen talouden suunnitelma) that sets binding spending
ceilings and deficit targets for all public finance, including the munici-
pal sector, for a four-year period. This too was justified with reference to
EU requirements and both mechanisms set tight monetary frames within
which the government had to act. In addition, the new steering model for
public finance was prepared in closed working groups in the Ministry of
Finance without political or public debate (Elomäki 2016). Indeed, femi-
nist scholars have argued that the new economic government regime at
the EU level is increasingly distanced from democratic processes and from
civil society participation (see Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Walby 2015).
Conservatism, in turn, is evidenced in the government’s gender ideol-
ogy. While the austerity measures merely intensified the line of the previous
government, in terms of gender politics Sipilä’s government represented
a clear break from the past. The government programme was the first in
20 years that did not mention gender equality as the goal of the govern-
ment and set priorities in this area. The programme contains only one
sentence about gender equality: “In Finland, women and men are equal,”
which reflects the common assumption in Finland that gender equality has
already been achieved (Jauhola and Kantola 2016; Kantola et al. 2012).
The invisibility of gender equality was largely due to the dominance of the
economy and the conservative family views of the Central Party and the
Finns, but on the background was also the general masculinization of poli-
tics. All three coalition parties had a male leader, and despite 40 per cent
representation in the Parliament, women were largely absent from the
government negotiations. The sidelining of gender equality was f acilitated
by a reform of the government’s agenda-setting process that Sipilä imple-
mented. In order to make the government’s work more effective and stra-
tegic, the government programme focused on a few over-arching priorities
instead of providing detailed sectoral goals and tied all policy content to
economic priorities (Elomäki et al. 2016a). We argue that it was the figure
of the three male political leaders stating that gender equality has been
achieved rather than the gendered austerity measures that in the begin-
ning motivated feminist resistance. The neglect of gender equality encour-

aged feminists to analyse the gender impacts of the government’s austerity
policies in more detail than those of the previous government.
The neoliberal and conservative austerity politics of the government was
further hardened by the anti-immigration stance of the right-wing popu-
list party the Finns in the coalition government. The Finns occupied some
key ministerial positions including the Foreign Affairs; Social Affairs and
Health; and Justice and Labour. Most importantly, the party was able to
set the political agenda and dominate the political discourse about immi-
gration and multiculturalism in the face of the increasing numbers of refu-
gees to Europe in the summer of 2015. The party worked to ensure that
Finland would not be an attractive country for refugees, reducing benefits,
legislating on stricter rules on family reunification (Pellander 2016) and
shaping Finland’s EU relationship by refusing to agree to the common
compulsory refugee allocation policy and a quota mechanism. The anti-
immigration policies and the racist rhetoric were gendered: Finnish women
were to be protected from the violence of other culture’s men (Keskinen
various). Neoliberalism, conservatism and racism form the political context
where the Finnish women’s and feminist organizations operate.
The Invisibility of Established Women’s

Organizations
In this section, we focus upon the resistance—or the lack of it—that the
established women’s organizations provided to the austerity politics. Our
argument is that the women’s movements’ responses to austerity measures
have been slow and weak. We suggest that austerity politics has formed a
difficult environment for established women’s organizations due to their
close relationships to political parties and the state. Lack of expertise in
economic policy, inefficient lobbying and communication and lack of
resources further explain their inability to form a strong and systematic
response to gendered austerity politics.
In Finland, the links between the state and political parties and the
women’s movement have been close and formalized in a number of ways.
This contrasts a number of other countries such as the UK or the USA
where the relationship is constructed through more distance and auton-
omy (Dean 2010; Evans 2015; Holli 2003; Kantola 2006). All political
parties in Finland have women’s organizations as a result of about 10
per cent of state party funding being dedicated to women-specific activi-
ties (Kantola 2016). The political parties’ women’s organizations work

together in a cross-party organization Coalition of Finnish Women’s
Associations (Naisjärjestöt yhteistyössä NYTKIS) along with other main
women’s movement organizations. NYTKIS too receives state fund-
ing along with two other women’s organizations, National Coalition of
Finnish Women’s Associations (Naisjärjestöjen keskusliitto NJKL) and
Monika—Multicultural Women’s Association (Monika-naiset liitto).
NJKL is an umbrella organization, whose nearly 60 members include
traditional women’s organizations and some political women’s organiza-
tions. Monika is a growing NGO that provides services and advocates
for immigrant women and was recently taken into the state budgetary
frame together with NYTKIS and NJKL. Feminist Association Unioni
(Naisasialiitto Unioni) in turn represents an autonomous and unequivo-
cally feminist organization with individual members that also takes an anti-
racist stance.
The close co-operation between the women’s movement and the state
has achieved lots of successes, mainly thanks to shared framings of the
political problems across the board (Holli 2006). More recent studies
on the political debates about gender illustrate how the spaces for con-
sensus among political women’s organizations and their shared framings
of gender policy issues have declined (Kantola 2016). For example, the
right-wing parties no longer support statutory childcare rights, which is in
stark contrast to the 1990s. Overall, political parties’ gender equality dis-
courses have become increasingly technical, gender equality is approached
through numbers and practical easy solutions are sought to complex issues
(Kantola and Saari 2014). Left-leaning parties continue to be more will-
ing to talk about gender structures and right parties place the emphasis
on individual achievements. The economic crisis and the ensuing austerity
politics have made these tendencies more evident and pose interesting
questions for feminist activism.
Elections, and more recently political process surrounding the draft-
ing of the coalition government programmes, have always constituted an
important moment for feminist lobbying. Before the elections, Unioni,
NJKL, NYTKIS and some political women’s organizations mobilized vot-
ers around gender issues, but did not succeed in influencing the public and
political debate that was dominated by economic concerns. In addition,
women’s organizations failed during the government programme nego-
tiations. Earlier in the spring the coalition body NYTKIS and the umbrella
organization NJKL had adopted “government programme goals”, lists of

gender equality issues they wanted to see in the programme (NJKL 2015a;
NYTKIS 2015a). To our knowledge, the organizations did not make use
of the unforeseen transparency of the government negotiations to lobby
these goals. Instead the organizations issued statements that called for
gender impact assessment of the expected spending cuts and for a govern-
ment gender equality action plan (NJKL 2015b; NYTKIS 2015b). The
statements did not challenge the austerity-driven agenda or take stance on
how the planned cuts should be made. For example, NYTKIS stated that
“economic reforms are sustainable only if the gender impacts of cuts and
stimulus packages are assessed” without clearly denouncing the expected
cuts or defending public services and the welfare state. Of the women’s
sections of government parties that had a real opportunity to influence the
government programme, the Coalition Party Women (Kokoomusnaiset)
consistently pushed for their main issues, the sharing of costs of parent-
hood among employers and parental leave reform, but without success
(Kokoomusnaiset 2015a, b).1 Although women’s organizations failed,
some other NGOs whose goals and discourses were better aligned with
the political parties undertaking the negotiations were able to get their
concerns in the programme. For example, a fathers’ rights group was
heard during negotiations and the government committed to improving
fathers’ rights in divorce situations.
The invisibility of the main women’s organizations during government
negotiations was followed by a slow and muted reaction to government’s
austerity and competitiveness measures. NYTKIS issued statements on the
government programme and the competitiveness package with a ten-day
delay. NJKL did not react to the government programme, but quickly
released a vague statement on the competitiveness package. Unioni com-
mented the proposals promptly in social media, but did not take clear,
official stance or provide in-depth analysis.
NYTKIS’ (2015c) statement on the government programme focused
on the lack of gender equality goals rather than on the spending cuts.
NYTKIS did not question austerity or make clear arguments about its
gendered effects. It merely required that government assess the gender
impacts of its decisions. Nor did NYTKIS link the spending cuts and
other proposed reforms to the bigger picture, the increasing acceptance of
neoliberal values and priorities and the undermining of the welfare state
(NYTKIS 2015c).
The same absence of straight arguments and critical analysis is visible in

reactions to the government’s competitiveness package. NJKL described
the proposed measures as “cuts in public, low-wage sectors” and it was
worried “about their effects on women’s earnings and pensions” (NJKL
2015c). NYTKIS argued that “state savings should not be paid by low-
income women” and proposed that “the government and social partners
should together look for ways to adjust the economy that do not worsen
the position of low-paid women but promote gender equality in the labor
market” (NYTKIS 2015d). Both organizations criticized the fate of low-
paid women, but not the weakening of labour standards as such. NYTKIS
even seems to suggest that cuts are fine as long as all sectors would be
equally affected by them. Both organizations frame the competitiveness
package as part of public sector savings. This reading sidelines the real
issue at stake, namely, that labour standards are being weakened in the
name of increasing the competitiveness of businesses. It is also misleading.
The proposed measures that were later withdrawn—turning some pub-
lic holidays into working days, cutting overtime compensation, reducing
social security costs of private employers and so on—would not have sig-
nificantly reducing state spending, because most of the savings that lower
labour costs would bring to the public sector were to be used to finance the
reduction of private employers’ social security contribution (Hallituksen
esitykset… 2015). What is left out, again, is the bigger picture.
Despite the drastic effects of government’s policies on gender equal-
ity, established women’s organizations have been more occupied with
violence against women and misogyny than with austerity. These issues
emerged in public debate following the increasing anti-immigration senti-
ments and open racism that the so-called refugee crisis has emphasized.
As racist and populist actors use women’s safety as an argument against
refugees, women’s organizations have reclaimed themselves as those who
define the terms of the debate. They have successfully used the excessive
media interest in the often falsely reported rapes and sexual harassment
committed by refugees as a means to show that sexual harassment and
violence are deeply rooted in the Finnish culture. As an openly anti-racist
feminist association, Unioni in particular has been active in this debate,
but also NJKL and NYTKIS have issued statements on the topic.
We suggest that the first reason for the slow and muted reactions to
austerity are women’s organizations’ close relationships to political parties
and the state. NYTKIS’ decisions are made in consensus among the mem-
ber organizations. Although the consensus principle has been changed so
that the disagreement of an organization does not prevent NYTKIS from

acting as part of international coalitions, in its own statements NYTKIS
must still have consensus between all member organizations. The reason
behind the slow reactions and watered-down content was the inability
to agree about the message among the members that included women’s
organizations of the coalition government’s political parties. These orga-
nizations were not willing or able to endorse overt critique of the govern-
ment and its policies. This shows in how NYTKIS, instead of blaming the
government for not seeing gender equality as important, merely suggested
that “the part where the government tells how it plans to prevent violence
against women or promote equal pay has been left out of the programme”
(NYTKIS 2015c). Although NJKL is officially politically unaffiliated, its
hands have been tied for a similar reason. NJKL’s members include wom-
en’s sections of some right-wing political parties but not those of the left.
In addition, NJKL has preferred politically connected presidents, which in
practice has meant that the organization has been led by MPs of right-wing
parties. During the time discussed in this chapter, NJKL’s president was an
MP of the Central Party, the leading party of the government coalition.
Although the autonomous Unioni is freer to criticize the government, it
has not been able to fill the demand for a strong, consistent feminist voice
against austerity. Unioni has an open anti-austerity stance (Interview 1) which
it has made public through social media commentary and through support-
ing the anti-austerity movement Joukkovoimaa and participating in anti-aus-
terity demonstrations (discussed below). Unioni has been the only women’s
organization to denounce a specific spending cut, that is, the limiting of chil-
dren’s subjective right to childcare (Unioni 2015a). Although the creation of
this right was one of the main achievements of women’s cross-party collabo-
ration in the 1990s (Kantola 2006), NYTKIS has, instead of defending this
achievement, merely required government to assess the impacts of the plans
on women’s employment (NYTKIS 2015c; NYTKIS 2015e). Despite con-
sidering austerity an important feminist issue, Unioni has not adopted offi-
cial position or analysis of austerity measures or advocated for its views. The
main reason is the lack of resources: with its limited budget and staff, Unioni
has not been able to devote as much time to austerity-related advocacy as it
would want to, partly because of the simultaneous debate on gendered vio-
lence and racism. In addition, on the strategic side, Unioni prefers fast social
media commentary over drafting statement (Interview 1).
The second reason for the weak reaction of the established women’s
organizations is that they have approached the economy mainly from the
perspective of women’s economic independence and have had little to say

about economic policy apart from the demand that the gender impacts
of economic policies should be assessed. In Finland the debate on gender
impacts of economic policy and feminist economic strategies lags behind
in comparison to the UK or Sweden, where researchers and activists have
tackled these issues for years (e.g. Pearson & Elson 2015).
As a politically polarizing topic, economy has been a difficult issue for
women’s cross-party collaboration. Finnish women’s movement has often
failed on issues located in the economic sector, which display a strong left/
right conflict that prevents women’s organizations from framing issues as
gender issues in a similar way (Holli 2006). Our experience in the board of
NYTKIS confirms the difficulty to reach consensus on economic issues.2
Violence and harassment have been easier topics for cross-party collabo-
ration. Furthermore, women’s organizations do not consider themselves
as experts in economic policy and are not acknowledged as such by the
media and decision-makers. Before the elections, NYTKIS and NJKL had
no real economic programme, and they have not proposed alternative eco-
nomic strategies. As board members, we have encouraged NYTKIS to
speak more about the economy, and under this pressure NYTKIS included
the gender impact assessment of economic policy measures in its govern-
ment programme goals. In contrast, some political women’s organizations
have developed gender aware positions on the economy that, depend-
ing on the party, defend the welfare state and investment in children and
young people (Vihreät naiset 2015) or emphasize the meaning of gender
equality for economic growth (Kvinnoförbundet 2015). Before the elec-
tions, Unioni initiated public debate about the economy from a gender
perspective (Unioni 2015b, c), but the debate did not turn into concrete
proposals and advocacy or analysis of the government’s spending cuts and
competitiveness measures.
To sum up, due to their close relationships to political parties and lim-
ited expertise on economic issues, the women’s organizations’ critique
of austerity and competitiveness measures has been technical rather than
political. Their main demand—that the gender impacts of government’s
proposals should be assessed—does not directly question these proposals.
Although requiring gender impact assessments is important, this alone is
a limited feminist response to austerity in a situation where these impacts
are evidently negative. In addition, the critique of established women’s
organizations remains entangled in the government’s analysis of the situ-
ation and its neutral-sounding although highly ideological concepts such
as “sustainability gap”, “reforms”, “adjustments” and “savings”. They

do not set the government’s proposals into the broader picture of dis-
mantling the welfare state or promoting business interests. In a situation,
where economy sets the political agenda and economic policies turn back
progress on gender equality, the inability of women’s organizations to
engage in economic policy debate from a gender perspective limits their
ability to promote gender equality.
New Feminist Initiatives Fill the Void
New feminist initiatives have emerged to fill the void left by established
women’s movements’ slow and watered-down reaction to austerity.
Feminist researchers and activists—us included—were frustrated by the
government’s neglect of gender equality and the gendered austerity mea-
sures as well as with the weak reaction of the established movement. The
new feminist initiatives launched in response to Sipilä’s government and
the broad context constituted by neoliberalism, conservatism and racism
differ from established movements in terms of their ways of organizing
and practices and have challenged their position as the primary advocates
and commentators on gender equality. The most visible new initiatives
were a preliminary gender impact assessment of the government pro-
gramme signed by almost 90 professors and specialized researchers, and a
new, open citizen’s movement for gender equality TASAN!.
The preliminary gender impact assessment signed by well-known aca-
demics (Professorien… 2015) turned into a media event that brought the
gender impacts of austerity into public and political debate and forced
politicians to react. Based on the preliminary analysis, the professors
required an in-depth gender impact assessment of the proposed cuts and
reforms and the cancelling of plans that have a negative impact on gender
equality, as well as for a new government gender equality action plan. The
professors did not take a clear anti-austerity stance or expose the neo-
liberal and conservative undertones of the government’s proposals, but
they exposed the systematic and cumulative gender bias of the proposed
measures. The main conclusion was that the government’s proposals that
transfer responsibility for care from the society to individuals and families
and weaken women’s labour market position may lead to a return to a
male-breadwinner society. We were ourselves, together with two other
colleagues, behind this initiative that took the neutral and objective posi-
tion of academic expertise and relied on the prestige of well-known aca-
demics (Professorien… 2015; Elomäki et al. 2016a.) Unlike women’s

organizations’ statements, the researchers’ initiative attracted the atten-
tion of media, wider public and decision-makers. In the aftermath of the
public debate that followed, the government made several commitments
to gender equality, including an announcement that the government will
adopt a gender equality action plan (Elomäki et al. 2016a).
The sidelining of gender equality and the highly gendered spending
cuts have inspired a new citizens’ movement for gender equality. TASAN!3
was initiated in June 2015 by active feminist women from trade unions.
The original purpose of the movement was to “oppose government’s
plans that weaken women’s position and increase inequality and to create
or become part of a broad citizens’ movement against austerity”.4 The
preliminary anti-austerity agenda never became part of the official face
of the campaign. Instead, the main goal of TASAN! is “to bring gen-
der equality back to common national goals” (TASAN! 2015a). To reach
this goal, TASAN! adopted an instrumentalized and positive rhetoric that
emphasizes the contribution of gender equality and women to national
success and selected employment, competitiveness and entrepreneurship
as its main themes. In the launch seminar of TASAN! entitled “Gender
equality into a success factor for Finland”, the initiator of the campaign
argued in her opening speech: “A gender equal Finland benefits the indi-
vidual, the society as well as companies. We need the best forces to the
right tasks at the right time, irrespective of gender, not because of it”
(TASAN! 2015b). Even without financial resources and fully relying on
voluntary work, TASAN! has become a visible and recognized actor in the
field of gender equality. For example, in September 2015 it was invited to
the workshop on government gender equality action plan.
Several other forms of feminist activism have been initiated in 2015 and
2016. In February 2016 some MPs created a network of feminists in the
Parliament. Austerity and the broader political context have also sparked
local feminist action groups, for example, the Helsinki-based action group
HelFem was created in response to the increasing racism and misogyny.
Individuals have participated in the emerging feminist resistance through
creating and spreading social media memes that criticize the government
in a strong and affective way.
In addition to being reactions to the political context, the new ini-
tiatives have grown out of frustration with the invisibility of established
organizations. Before seeking individual signatories for the preliminary
gender impact assessment of the government programme, we had offered
the idea for NYTKIS and the Finnish Gender Studies Association, which
declined the idea. Behind the creation of HelFem was frustration with
the established organizations “who have all the power and do nothing”
(Interview 2). The network of feminists of the Parliament was created in
order to provide a more active and ideologically unified platform than the
long-standing network of women MPs, which was instrumental in push-
ing through gender equality reforms in the 1990s, but has become more
conservative due to the diminishing consensus on gender equality issues.
The new initiatives have challenged the monopoly of established women’s
organizations as the main advocates and exchange partners in matters of
gender equality. Researchers’ initiatives and TASAN! have been visible in
the media, and their representatives have met with decision-makers.
Although many of the new initiatives share with established orga-
nizations the goal to influence policy and public debate, their ways of
organizing and practices differ. The new initiatives do not have heavy
organizational structures, such as boards, annual meetings and statutes,
which guarantee the legitimacy of the established organizations but make
individuals’ participation and fast reactions difficult. For example, TASAN!
explicitly encourages individuals to take part in shaping the campaign and
organizing activities. One does not have to become a member to partici-
pate, and decisions are made in open internet-based working groups and
regular meetings open for everyone, not in closed meetings of an elected
board. Unlike established organizations, the new initiatives do not search
legitimacy through claims of representativeness, and they do not attempt
to speak in the name of “women”. The professors who participated in
the gender impact assessment initiative only represented themselves, and
TASAN! reminds that its activities and views are the sum of the individuals
who take part in formulating them. While both initiatives have individual-
ized features, they are, nevertheless, results of collective feminist action.
The new initiatives have taken a more proactive and imaginative approach
to communication than established organizations. The researchers’ initia-
tive effectively used mainstream media to deliver its message. The profes-
sors’ claims and demands were made public through the main national
newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, which published an article “Tens of profes-
sors criticize the government: women pay the savings” on 11 June 2015
(Kauhanen 2015). The story was picked up by all main newspapers and
many radio and TV channels and shared in social media more than 15,000
times. A key factor in this success was the reliance on the prestige of indi-
viduals, which is a relatively new strategy in feminist activism in Finland.
The media coverage reveals the importance of this approach: the number
of the signatories and their status gained more attention than the content
of their criticism. The news coverage focused on the conflict between con-
cerned professors and ignorant government, not between the government
and the women who were to pay the bill (Elomäki et al. 2016a).
A distinctive feature of TASAN! is the playful and imaginative approach
to campaigning. The name of the campaign is a pun, and its slogan “but
we are like two berries”, which draws on the Finnish simile to the English
“like two peas in the pod”, shows that it does not take itself too seriously.
According to TASAN!-activists, the rhetoric and thematic choices of the
campaign are conscious efforts to ensure that decision-makers and the
wider audience hear the message. By packaging the message about gender
equality differently than established women’s organizations, TASAN! may
reach people who normally shut their ears. The different approach may
also encourage new actors to join a feminist cause.
Apart from Unioni that mainly communicates through social media,
the established women’s organizations have not made full use of the pos-
sibilities of social media. TASAN!, in contrast, operates mainly through
social media and has more followers than NYTKIS and NJKL. Social
media has been a crucial part of the feminist response to austerity also
in terms of the memes that criticize the government. One of the most
popular of these was a picture of the three male government leaders with
the caption “Men who hate women”, the Finnish title of the first book
of Stig Larsson’s popular Millennium crime novel series. This and other
references to misogyny in feminist reactions to austerity are connected
to the broader political context, where the increasingly open racism in
Finland has been paired with misogyny (Keskinen 2013). The memes have
drawn the attention of the wider public more effectively than the positions
of established organizations and they have also shaped the media debate.
For example, the TV channel MTV3 published on its website a story on
the competitiveness package with the headline: “Cuts cause anger in social
media”: “Men who hate low-paid women” (MTV3 9.9.2015).
In sum, the new feminist initiatives that have filled the void left by the
invisibility of established women’s organization have been able to react
faster and reach public, media and even decision-makers more effectively,
due to their less-hierarchical ways of organizing and new ways of commu-
nication. Despite their relative success as forms of feminist resistance, how-
ever, the most visible of these new initiatives—researchers’ gender impact
assessment initiative and TASAN!—are both embedded in the neoliberal-
ization of public policy and deploy strategies and discourses that draw on
those of the government. The researchers’ initiative takes advantage of the
increasing reliance on evidence-based policy making that has been seen as
part of the expansion of neoliberal governance in public policy. By speak-
ing through the expert position and relying on research-based evidence,
the initiative makes use of the government’s own rhetoric of knowledge-
based leadership and effectiveness. TASAN! has packaged gender equality
in a manner that builds on the nationalist rhetoric of the government and
its competitiveness-agenda, which is partly to blame for gender equality
getting sidelined in the first place. It seems, that the critique and alterna-
tives proposed by the two initiatives remain entangled within the govern-
ment’s neoliberal agenda: the former embraces aspects of its approach to
governance, the other reiterates its competitiveness-agenda.
Trade Unions Defend Low-Paid Women

Government’s austerity programme and competitiveness measures were fol-
lowed by several demonstrations and citizen’s movements around specific
issues as well as the creation of a broad anti-austerity movement Joukkovoimaa.
Only two hands-movement (Vain kaksi kättä) against the cuts in child care
organized a demonstration on 10 June 2015, and students took to the streets
for the first time on 15 June 2015. Joukkovoimaa-movement against austerity
was created in summer 2015, and it has organized two large demonstrations,
on 22 August 2015 and 12 March 2016. Trade unions organized a large
demonstration and almost a general strike on 18 September 2015 in reac-
tion to the government’s competitiveness package. The gendered impacts of
austerity and competitiveness measures were not officially part of the agenda
of the first demonstrations, but feminists took part in them and were vis-
ible on the streets. Naisasialiitto Unioni officially supported Joukkovoimaa-
movement and participated in the Joukkovoimaa-demonstration and the
trade unions’ demonstration and encouraged through social media femi-
nists to participate (Interview 1). In both many demonstrators carried signs
that criticized the government’s gender politics. Feminist concerns were
more visible in the second Joukkovoimaa-demonstration that had a separate
Feminist politics block and feminist activists as its main speakers. The par-
ticipation of feminists in the broader anti-austerity movement has not been
without problems. Feminist views have been belittled, and some feminist
activists have left the movement (Interview 2).
Finland can be characterized as a corporatist country where trade
unions and employers’ organizations continue to exert considerable
power in labour market policies and beyond. Debates about the demise
of this power have been taking place for over a decade now (see Saari and
Kantola 2016). There is a strong public discourse about the backwardness
and old-fashioned character of the trade unions in particular, where they
are constructed as attached to defending a past of welfare benefits that is
no longer economically sustainable (Mannevuo 2015). Paradoxically the
government’s austerity politics came to rely on the successes and negotiat-
ing skills of the corporatist actors.
The record of the trade unions remains as mixed as its past in advanc-
ing gender equality (Kainulainen and Saari 2014; Saari 2016; Saari and
Kantola 2016; Savtchenko 2015). The central organizations have gender
equality policies and working groups, and participate in drafting govern-
ment policies and law that pertain to gender equality and the labour mar-
ket. However, many of the good practices remain non-implemented and
the decision-making structures male dominated and the culture masculine.
In relation to feminist resistance and austerity politics, we discern three
trends, where, first, the trade unions have come to the defence of the
‘low paid women workers in the public sector’. Second, the unions have
continued to negotiate and make deals in all-male panels about issues that
are highly gendered and impact on women’s labour market participation.
Third, the government failure to take an active stance on gender equal-
ity has opened a critical space for the trade unions to develop their own
gender policy agendas, for example in relations to reforming the parental
leave system.
First, the low-paid women—especially in the public but also in the
private sector—were a central figure in the demonstrations and public
statements by union leaders in the media. In addition to mass demon-
strations against the government’s austerity politics, the national labour
confederations issued a very long and detailed joint statement on govern-
ment policies (SAK, STTK and Akava 2015).5 The figure of the low-paid
woman worker in the public sector played a central role in these joint
statement too (cf. Elomäki et al. 2016a). The unions pointed out the gen-
dered effects of the government policy and the fact that there was no gen-
der impact assessment of these policies (p. 1, p. 15). The gendered effects
included the burden that women—who in Finland characteristically work
full-time and not part-time as in many other European countries—would
bear of increasing the working hours in terms of reconciling work and
family due to their bigger care role (p. 15). Cutting the holiday pay, holi-
days and sick leave pay in the public sector would according to them hit
especially women as they are a majority among the public sector workers
(p. 18).6 All of these cuts, the statement argues, have detrimental effects
on the gender pay gap (p. 19, p. 20).
Second, despite this strong discourse about gendered austerity poli-
tics, the masculine character of the corporatist negotiation process came
into play in the all-male negotiations that the labour market organiza-
tions (employer and employees’ unions) held for a contract to enhance
the country’s competitiveness (kilpailukykysopimus). The centre-right
government had pushed for the two parties to negotiate for a contract
that would reduce the costs of companies to employ workers and hence
create a competitive edge for the whole country. This could form an alter-
native to the harsh government austerity measures. The contract that was
reached and signed by the three parties includes a transfer of social insur-
ance payments from employers to employees, an increase in the work-
ing hours without compensation in pay (24 hours annually), 30 per cent
reduction in holiday pay for public sector workers (2017–2019), and a
freeze in all salaries for a year. The government, in turn, backed down on
some of its controversial austerity measures and promised tax reductions
to compensate for the transfer of social insurance payments from employ-
ers to workers. Commentators have noted that the contract is historical as
the workers agreed to worsen their contracts. Especially the trade union
PAM, which represents low-paid women in the service sector (so-called
pink-collar workers), came close to rejecting the contract, which, in turn,
would have destroyed it. PAM argued that the contract worsened signifi-
cantly the working and pay conditions of its female-dominated part-time
workers.
Third, the trade unions have also managed to make new openings in
gender equality policy at a political moment when the government is fail-
ing to do them (for the government failure see Elomäki et al. 2016a, b).
Two most prominent examples include SAK’s new model for parental leave
arrangements and Akava’s model for the social security of self-employed.
SAK’s model gathered positive comments from feminist politicians and
women’s movement organizations. Akava in turn, tried to highlight the
‘gender equality problems of highly educated women’ (Fjäder 28.2.2016).
Conclusions
Although austerity and the general political context of neoliberalism,
conservatism and racism are catastrophic for gender equality, they have
opened a space for a strong feminist discourse about inequality, racism
and power. The contradiction between what the government says—“in

Finland women and men are equal”—and what it does—its all-male-panel
and gendered austerity and competitiveness policies—has challenged the
persistent myth of achieved gender equality. Sipilä’s right-wing govern-
ment has inadvertently helped to fracture the Finnish culture of gender
neutrality, which has in the past made speaking about women or gen-
dered power difficult. The Finnish social arena has thus been repoliticized
through the questioning of the neoliberal privileging of technical over
political solutions to policy problems.
Our analysis of the austerity-related activities of established women’s
organizations and new feminist initiatives reveals that the triangle of neo-
liberalism, conservatism and racism compartmentalizes feminist resistance.
Organizations and initiatives tend to focus on one side of the triangle
rather than address it as a whole. For example, established organizations
have focused on the debate on gender-based violence sparked by racism
and increasing immigration. While austerity is acknowledged as an impor-
tant feminist issue, it has been sidelined by other pressing concerns due to
scarce resources, the difficulty of economic issues for cross-party collabo-
ration and lack of expertise in economic issues. Furthermore, searching for
a common women’s voice across the political spectrum, which in the past
has been a successful strategy in pushing through gender equality reforms,
has proven to be disabling in the current political context.
The invisibility of established women’s organizations has been one rea-
son for the emergence of new forms of feminist activism, which tend to
take the form of open and loose networks of experts or citizens without
established organizational structure. These new actors have utilized the
space opened for them in different ways: some new initiatives have focused
on conservatism, racism and misogyny (HelFem), others have addressed
austerity (researchers’ gender impact assessment) or the political neglect
of gender equality (TASAN!).
The long-term effects of the feminist resistance have been poor. The
government gender equality action plan was delayed, and the text adopted
in May 2016 waters down or neglects key aspects of the Finnish gender
equality policy (Elomäki et al. 2016b). The action plan includes a promise
to assess the gender impacts of the state budget and some reforms, but the
government has to-date not assessed the cumulative gender impacts of its
cuts and reforms. Although some specific measures with negative gender
impacts have been withdrawn (e.g. cutting Sunday and overtime compen-
sation, weakening the housing subsidy for pensioners), many others have
been passed in the Parliament (e.g. weakening the quality and accessibil-
ity of childcare). What is interesting in terms of feminist resistance is that
when the government cancelled the planned cuts in Sunday and overtime
pay that would have hit low-paid, female-dominated professions, its head
was not turned by established women’s organizations, research-based
knowledge or trade unions, but individual experience. According to Prime
Minister Sipilä, the decision was influenced by a TV-interview where two
midwives explained how the cuts would effect their lives (Yle 28.9.2015).
One year after the coming into the power of the austerity government, in
June 2016, a meeting to establish a new Feminist Party was held in Helsinki.
The party filed its application for official registration in December 2016, after
gathering the required signatures of 5000 supporters. Whilst gaining inspira-
tion from its Swedish counterpart, the Feminist Initiative (F!) that gained
its first MEP in the European Parliamentary elections in 2014, the current
political and economic context of Finnish austerity politics has created a fer-
tile ground for such new forms of feminist resistance. The politics and the
impact of the Feminist Party in Finland remain to be seen and studied.
Notes
1. A proposal to share the costs of parenthood through a one-off pay-
ment paid to employers of mothers when mothers return to work
after parental leave was added to the competitiveness package in
September.
2. Kantola was an executive board member from 2008 to 2014 and
Elomäki from 2015 onwards. Both were representing the Finnish
Gender Studies Association.
3. The name of the campaign is an intended pun that is difficult to
translate. Literally it means equally/evenly distributed, but the word
can also be used to highlight the determinedness of the speaker or
the urgency of something. For example, “tasan nyt” means “right
now”.
4. Private email correspondence 12 June 2015.
5. SAK, STTK and Akava are the national labour confederations in
Finland. SAK is a confederation of 20 trade unions in industry, the
public sector, transport, private services, and cultural and journalis-
tic branches. It represents about 1 million members, 54 per cent
men and 46 per cent women. STTK represents salaried employees in
Finland and has a membership of about 550,000; 74 per cent of its
members are women, 26 per cent men. Akava is the Confederation

of Unions for Academic Professionals in Finland, has 600,000 mem-
bers, 50 per cent women and men respectively (Sources: homepages
of the organisations, accessed 2 June 2016).
6. Women form 80 per cent of the workers for example in the munici-
pality sector.
Research material
Fjäder, Sture. 2016. Tasa-arvo on vielä harhaa. Verkkouutiset, February 28.
http://www.verkkouutiset.me/tasa-arvo-on-viela-harhaa/. Accessed 2 June
2016
Interview 1, Secretary General of Naisasialiitto Unioni, 12 May 2016.
Interview 2, activist involved in Joukkovoimaa and Helfem, 12 May 2016.
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CHAPTER 12
Conclusions: Understanding Gender

and the Politics of the Crisis in Europe
In this concluding chapter, we summarize the content of this book and

discuss how the different chapters contribute to our understanding of
gender and the politics of the crisis in Europe. What can we learn about
the crisis in Europe when we explore its political dimensions with feminist
approaches? What do the chapters say about the EU policy shifts at times
of crisis; about the Europeanization of member states’ equality policies,
institutions, regimes, and debates; and about feminist struggles and resis-
tances against austerity politics?
Contributions in this book use, and differently combine, the five dif-
ferent feminist approaches for doing political analysis of the crisis that we
introduced in Chap. 1, thus revealing multiple facets of the economic
crisis in Europe. The crisis itself looks fundamentally different depend-
ing on the approach that is used to analyse it (see Kantola and Lombardo
2017a). The chapters use the focus on ‘women’ to show women’s under-
representation in political and economic decision-making and the crisis’s
J. Kantola (*)
Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of
Helsinki, Finland
E. Lombardo
Science and Sociology Madrid Complutense University, Spain

impact on women and men. Analysing gender and the crisis is the most
popular approach used by the chapters. The gender approaches enable
analysing the underlying deep societal structures of the crisis that lay in
capitalist and patriarchal power. A number of chapters draw on decon-
struction approaches by analysing how neoliberal solutions to the crisis are
constructed as hegemonic while other solutions are marginalized. They
destabilize gender essentialisms showing that the crisis can be constructed
in multiple gendered ways that have powerful effects on subjects.
Analysing the crisis through an intersectionality approach is central for
the whole book. The strength of intersectional approaches is to show the
interacting systems of domination that are at work in the crisis, produc-
ing differentiated impacts of austerity policies on, for example, migrant
minoritized women, and to advance more inclusive policies. Finally, as
we have suggested elsewhere (Kantola and Lombardo 2017a, b), post-
deconstruction approaches would contribute to the debate by relocating
attention to the material underpinnings of the neoliberal political econ-
omy that caused the crisis, and the emotions and affects that circulate dur-
ing this event and cement gendered and racialized inequalities. However,
despite their potential contributions, much like in gender and politics
debates in general, the approaches do not figure prominently in the chap-
ters of the book.
Feminist analyses of the politics of the crisis, from different approaches,
have much to say about institutional and policy changes, Europeanization
of gender equality and policies, and political struggles against austerity
and in defence of equality and democracy. The volume shows how the
economic crisis is deeply intertwined with a political one and how this
has gender and intersectional dimensions. Jointly, contributions in this
book address ‘the political’ dimension of the crisis. Since the political has
to do with the ‘distribution, exercise, and consequences of power’ (Hay
2002, 3), exploring the political dimension of the crisis in Europe from
gender and intersectional perspectives means addressing ‘power relations’
and their gender and intersectional dimensions (Kantola and Lombardo
2017a, b).
Political theory has addressed power from many different approaches.
Power has to do with conflict between political actors (Mouffe 2005;
Lukes 2005). State power involves domination and the use of coercion
(Weber 1919/1994), but also the shaping of consensus through cultural
hegemony (Gramsci 1971). Power produces subjects through discourses
and practices that shape people’s ways of thinking and behaving (Foucault
CONCLUSIONS: UNDERSTANDING GENDER AND THE POLITICS... 259
1978). At the same time it triggers actors’ dynamics of ‘counterpower’

and ‘empowerment’ to resist domination (Allen 1999, 18). It therefore
includes collective action around a common goal (Arendt 1970), and
struggles of transformation of unequal relations in the public and private
spheres (Pateman 1983), and between different inequalities (Crenshaw
1991). All aspects of power highlighted in these well-known approaches
are very important in the feminist analysis of the political dynamics of the
economic crisis in Europe that are developed in this book.
Policy Shifts, Europeanization, and Struggles

In the introduction to this book we set ourselves the task to explore the
political dimension of the crisis in Europe by analysing (i) EU policy shifts
in times of crisis, (ii) the Europeanization of member states’ equality poli-
cies, institutions, regimes, and debates in times of crisis, and (iii) femi-
nist struggles and resistances against austerity politics. In relation to the
institutional and policy shifts, first, we wanted to ask: how the political
and economic decision-making institutions and processes of the EU have
changed as a result of the economic crisis and with what consequences
for gender equality and gender equality policy. Have the EU’s austerity
politics been gender mainstreamed to take into account their differential
impact on women and men? How has EU’s long-standing gender equality
policy been affected by the economic crisis?
EU Policy Shifts in Times of Crisis

There is little doubt that the times are not good for gender equality
policies in the EU. The chapters in the book have shown how the eco-
nomic crisis, new economic governance mechanisms, and austerity poli-
tics have reversed some of the gains that gender equality had made by
the mid-2000s. The key contributions of the chapters of the book lie in
thoroughly discussing these changes both at the EU level (see Jacquot,
Cavaghan, Guerrina, Weiner, and MacRae in this volume) and at the
member state level (see Wöhl, Emejulu and Bassel, Prata, Zbyszewska,
Lombardo, and Elomäki and Kantola in this volume). The multifaceted
focus illustrates both commonalities and variations, grounds for pessi-
mism for the present and future of gender equality in Europe, and also for
optimism, the latter in terms of feminist and intersectional struggles and
resistances.
When asking what was gained and what was lost in terms of gender
equality institutions and policies, we see that some institutions have
persisted and resisted the downward spiralling trend in gender equality
policy. Whilst discrimination against young women in the labour market
has increased,1 the anti-discrimination law banning this is still there. At
the same time, there are less resources for implementing and monitor-
ing this legislation as gender equality ombudsmen, agencies and institu-
tions have been amalgamated with other state bodies as for example in
Ireland or Spain (see Wöhl and Lombardo respectively). There are also
less resources for women’s movements both at the EU and national levels
to hold governments and state agencies into account in relation to their
gender policies.
To explain the roots of these hard times for gender equality in the EU,
Weiner and MacRae employ feminist institutionalist theories to present
European integration as a male-dominated project whose neoliberal logic
of action is prioritized above the values of gender equality both prior to
and during the economic crisis. In their view, ‘the gender equality project
has never been able to dislodge the reigning neoliberally-informed rules
of the game’. In contrast to this understanding of power as domination,
Jacquot maps dynamics of both domination and empowerment in the
evolution of EU gender equality policies. Her analysis shows how the pol-
icy achievements of gender equality advocates during phases of empower-
ment were progressively dismantled in times of crisis due to shifts in the
policy instruments, the balance of power between EU institutions, the
gender advocate networks, and the prioritization of discourses of ‘rights’
and ‘economy’ over ‘gender equality’ and ‘social cohesion’.
The economic crisis represents a normatively and discursively challeng-
ing moment for gender advocates, different chapters argue. Women and
gender are made more invisible in post-crisis Parliamentary debates, argues
Prata in the case of Portugal. Cavaghan suggests that feminist activists lack
economic expertise which would enable them to actively and confidently
engage in macroeconomic policy discussions at the EU level. Elomäki and
Kantola illustrate how this is the case with the traditional women’s orga-
nizations in Finland who have difficulties in engaging with the economic
austerity discourse. By contrast, Lombardo shows that feminist actors in
Spain have actively taken part in collective anti-austerity struggles against
the government’s economic discourses and policies.
There is particular scholarly, activist, and political disappointment in
the lack of gender mainstreaming of the austerity politics. This is the focus
of several chapters in this book (Jacquot; Cavaghan; Weiner and MacRae;

Guerrina), which provide thorough discussions about the gender main-
streaming strategy in the EU prior to and during the crisis. Effective par-
ticipatory gender mainstreaming could have gone some way in illustrating
the uneven impact of the economic policies on women and men, where
women from low income backgrounds, single parents, minority women,
or women in precarious positions suffer most. It could have provided the
entry point for gender advocates to the austerity and economic debates.
However, argues Guerrina, feminist advocacy coalitions in the EU, such
as the FEMM Committee in the European Parliament, the network of
gender experts of the European Commission, and the European Women’s
Lobby, lacked efficacy to mainstream gender in the EU policymaking in
times of crisis, with the result that the latter was completely gender-blind.
Weiner and MacRae question whether gender mainstreaming was ever
as effective as it was suggested to be. This in turn raises the question,
whether it can ever play a central role in making the ways that the crisis is
handled more gender equal both in terms of policies and decision-making
structures. Feminist answers to this question differ. Wendy Brown (2015)
argues that neoliberalism permeates states to the extent that it challenges
democracy altogether. The non-democratic solutions favoured in Europe
to solve the crisis, that the chapters illustrate, exacerbate the tendency in
the EU and its member states. Does it make sense to gender the main-
stream or insert a gender perspective into fundamentally flawed and prob-
lematic practices?
Jacquot’s chapter shows how the EU’s gender regime has moved from
the ‘exception model’ via the ‘anti-discrimination model’ and to the cur-
rent ‘rights model’. In practice this means that legal instruments have
become the primary component of European gender equality policy.
Jacquot suggests that the problem is that the legislative function itself is
in crisis—quite independently from the economic crisis. The key question
then becomes whether the rights model, which places gender equal-
ity questions in the dominant frame of justice, is adequate for tackling
the gender inequality problems that the crisis has caused. The evidence
coming from the other chapters of the book—gendered housing crisis,
increases in the levels of feminized poverty, precarization of female labour,
and privatization of care—which focus on the member states, suggests
that it is not and a broad range of gender equality policymaking tools
would be required.
A key question at the EU level, from a feminist perspective, becomes,

to what extent these transformations were inherent in or embedded in the
EU’s institutional norms, structures, and practices. Cavaghan’s chapter
relates this to the EU’s renewed emphasis on narrowly defined macro-
economic goals, illustrating how this shift in priorities has presented new
barriers for the articulation of a meaningful gender mainstreaming agenda
The feminist advocates she interviewed talked about the impenetrability
of economic language and its tendency to hide people and actual impacts
of policies. The gender advocates described how engagement requires sig-
nificant economic technical expertise that they lack. Cavaghan’s chapter
uses feminist economics to illustrate how the EU addresses gender only
in relation to its microeconomic policies, whilst EU macroeconomic poli-
cymakers proceed on an assumption that macroeconomic policy is unre-
lated to gender equality. As a result, interrelations between the productive
and reproductive economies go unacknowledged. The repercussions of
this are explored in detail in Wöhl’s case study of social reproduction in
Ireland. Guerrina’s chapter in turn explores how traditional feminist advo-
cacy in the form of the so-called velvet triangle has stopped functioning in
relation to the crisis.
The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policies

The book analyses, as a second political issue, processes of Europeanization
as gendered. These expose the gendered impacts of interdependent dynam-
ics between EU and domestic politics in times of crisis. The questions we
asked are: How are member states’ gender equality policies, institutions,
regimes, and debates Europeanized in times of crisis? What changes does
EU austerity politics produce in member states’ gender equality institu-
tions and policies?
The book chapters cover EU member states from the South to the
North and East to the West. Previous feminist research has focused on
countries worst affected by the crisis, while our selection includes not only
badly affected countries such as Ireland and Spain, but also some usually
omitted such as those that are late-comers in the political responses to the
crisis such as Finland, or those that have survived relatively well in the cri-
sis context, such as Poland. The book looks at cases such as UK and France
from the perspective of minority women, making visible impacts of the
crisis that would not appear without an intersectional approach that takes
gender, race, and class into account. It also addresses the cases of Spain
and Portugal from approaches so far unexplored in research on gender

and crisis for these countries, which consider respectively the changes and
struggles around the gender regime that EU and national austerity politics
provoke, and the visibility of women and gender in parliamentary debates
on the crisis.
Whereas not all of the chapters focus on the direct effects of the EU’s
austerity measures and demands on the member states, the over-all
European policy context and climate is indeed an important framework for
all countries. This is well captured in debates about soft Europeanization,
which works through the diffusion of norms and good practices and can in
some cases be as powerful in transforming policies and outcomes as ‘hard
Europeanisation’ through law (Lombardo and Forest 2012). National
applications—or political usages to use the terminology of Europeanization
debates (Woll and Jacquot 2010)—vary, which illustrates how the EU’s con-
ditionality can be used in very different ways. Sometimes policy solutions
appear strongly national and insulated and other times there is reference to
EU requirements if this makes it easier for national politicians to say that the
pressure for unpopular reforms comes from the EU and they had no politi-
cal choice. For example, Zbyszewska’s chapter shows how Polish leadership
used EU decisions about fiscal discipline to legitimate its domestic actions.
All chapters illustrate the gendered effects of the EU austerity politics,
and all illustrate that specific groups and minority women face particular
challenges. In the case of Ireland, low-paid women and single mother
have been particularly effected by the housing crisis, which Wöhl discusses
in terms of the ‘financialization of social reproduction’. Wöhl traces the
gender and class impacts of the EU and Ireland process of financialization
and austerity on Irish women, which shows in women’s increasing poverty
since 2008, the deterioration of their job and housing conditions, and the
lack of state support for care and social benefits.
In Spain, austerity politics has had negative consequences for both
low- and high-educated women workers. The crisis has placed fur-
ther burden on low-educated women. These women have increased
their labour activity in jobs made more precarious and low income
by a neoliberal Labour Reform, to compensate for the loss of male
income. However, they are still the main responsible for care and fam-
ily responsibilities. Educated women, whose participation is high in the
public sector, have been negatively affected by austerity cuts in public
employees’ wages and the blocking of public employment recruitment.
In Portugal, the sectors and groups worst affected by the crisis have
been younger male and female workers, female self-employed workers,

civil servants, domestic employees, unpaid family workers, and fixed-
term contract workers. In Finland, the debate has centred on low-paid
women in precarious jobs and in the public sector, whose working con-
ditions are made worse in order to increase national competitiveness.
The interaction between EU and domestic political dynamics in times
of crisis has strengthened the hegemony of neoliberal projects. Wöhl’s
study of the gender dynamics of financialization and austerity in the EU
and Ireland develops a Neo-Gramscian political analysis of the crisis that
discusses neoliberalism in the EU as a ‘hegemonic project’ aimed at eco-
nomic and monetary stability. Neoliberalism structures European societ-
ies through consent in times of economic stability, but which becomes
strongly coercive in times of crisis, as shown in the strict austerity measures
imposed on Greece and Ireland in return for loans and the severe bud-
getary restrictions imposed on countries of the Eurozone. Wöhl shows
how the neoliberal hegemonic project is implemented in Ireland through
material and discursive resources. While the EU enacted policy reforms
that deregulated the Irish market, created tax havens for international
companies, and privatized the housing sector and welfare services, the
‘discourse on privatization and finance-led innovation’ has legitimated this
neoliberal restructuring, through the ‘framing of citizens as consumers
and customers rather than citizens with a right to social protection and
social cohesion’.
In post-transition Poland, the neoliberal hegemony is so strong, argues
Zbyszewska, that the country has voluntarily enacted the EU auster-
ity politics in spite of its good economic performance in times of crisis.
The EU policy recommendations of budget restraints, liberalization, and
privatizations ‘largely resonated with the already dominant and accepted
neoliberal priorities in Polish policy’. However, gender was not main-
streamed in Polish austerity policy, and the few references to gender in
policies adopted after 2008 were selectively aimed at a concept of equality
that appeared instrumental to enhance the productivity of the labour mar-
ket rather than to achieve substantive gender equality.
Increasing women’s labour market participation remains a goal in
countries such as Poland and Finland. However, it interacts with other
ideologies such as conservatism, which prevent more thorough reforms
that would actually change gender regimes to more equal directions. In
Finland, the three male political leaders in government not only repre-
sented rather conservative views about the family, but they also stated
that gender equality has been achieved in the country, which discour-
aged the development of policies to achieve gender equality, especially
in harder times of austerity. In Poland, a supposedly ‘family-friendly’ and
‘gender-neutrally framed’ measure that allowed workers to reduce work-
ing hours to care for a child under three years, was dynamited by a parallel
anti-crisis measure that allowed employers to extend work hours without
the need for overtime compensation, resulting in the reproduction of tra-
ditional gender patterns of work and care. Zbyszewska argues that the
Polish policy response in terms of work-life reconciliation was definitely
Europeanized, but the shift from a public to a privatized care, that put
the welfare responsibility on families and individuals, was based on an EU
model of development that promotes ‘growth and competitiveness, and
a truncated, market-based equality (equal treatment) that does not chal-
lenge structural and systemic gender injustices’.
In Spain, EU austerity politics aligned with the conservative govern-
ment’s neoliberal priorities and produced gender impacts such as the
increase in the gender pay gap, unemployment, and the deregulation and
worsening of labour market conditions for workers. The country’s gender
regime shifted to a more neoliberal form in times of austerity. However,
the increased constraints for women in the labour market and the per-
sistent unequal gender division of domestic work have not yet pushed
Spanish women back to the domestic sphere, as women’s high activity rate
testifies. Conservative actors have nonetheless been active in reinforcing
traditional gender roles and limiting women’s autonomy. The conserva-
tive project in Spain has manifested through the Popular Party’s promo-
tion of a pro-life approach to abortion, shown in the anti-abortion bill at
the national level and the adoption of laws on the protection of pregnant
women and the rights of the embryo at the regional level.
In Portugal, neoliberal politics leading to a deregulated labour market,
salary cuts, an increase in working hours, lack of career advancement, and
cuts in social benefits, made both the female and male labour force more
precarious and flexible. However, gender disparities in pay, precarious, and
part-time work increased during the economic crisis. The hegemony of
the neoliberal economic discourse in Parliamentary debates made gen-
der inequality problems seem unimportant, and when gender inequality
was discussed it was always in relation to the economy. The diminishing
state support in times of economic hardship provoked a return to more
traditional gender roles in the family, as women increasingly took the role
of community support, caregiving, and redistributive assistance to com-
pensate for the loss of economic and welfare support. Yet, the impact of
austerity politics on the reinforcement of traditional gender roles is absent
from Portuguese parliamentary debates.
Europeanization dynamics in times of crisis also led to the downscal-
ing and curtailing of gender equality institutions and policies in Spain and
Ireland. The consolidation of the Spanish institutional framework on gen-
der equality was abruptly interrupted with the elimination, at the central
level, of the Ministry for Equality and location of all equality issues in a
new Ministry of Health, Social Services, and Equality, the replacement of
the former State Secretariat for Equality with a new State Secretariat with
broader competences on social services and equality, and the downgrad-
ing of the historic Woman’s Institute to be dependent from a lower rank
institution. The broadening of competences of the equality institutions
was inversely proportional to the budgets they were allocated, with cuts
in gender equality policies at both national and regional levels, while the
local level lost its competence for developing activities for the promotion
of gender equality. Also in Ireland, equality institutions were eliminated or
integrated in other governmental bodies, as shown in the inclusion of the
Combat Poverty Agency in the Department of Social Affairs, or the down-
grading of the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority.
Feminist Resistances and Struggles Around the Economic Crisis

Third, the chapters of the book focus on the feminist resistances and strug-
gles around the economic crisis. Civil society’s resistance against austerity
politics and in favour of democracy shows that political contestation is at
the core of this crisis and has important gender dimensions. What is the
role of gender and intersectionality in civil society’s anti-austerity strug-
gles? What are feminist strategies of mobilization against neoliberal, con-
servative, and racist politics? Contributions show intersectional dynamics
of power and counterpower at work in Europe’s context of crisis.
The chapter by Emejulu and Bassel makes visible the struggle existing
between racist, sexist, and classist power at work in the UK and France
context of crisis, and ethnic minority women’s counterpower action. The
chapter illustrates how the current economic crisis is premised on a rheto-
ric that makes the everyday and ongoing crises—the ordinary and institu-
tionalized inequalities—faced by minority women invisible. The economic
crisis is exceptional to the privileged white middle classes who now face
the precarious economic and societal conditions that constitute the nor-
mality for minority women. In other words, discussions about both the
effects and the struggles against the crisis foreground the experiences of
the hegemonic white majority in Europe. The political actions of minority
women become either invisible or hypervisible in relation to some issues
that are constructed as problems of minority cultures.
In Spain, argues Lombardo, the EU and domestic neoliberal and con-
servative politics promoted an intensification of feminist and civil society’s
struggles against austerity and in favour of democracy, gender, and social
equality. Spanish feminist movement was part of the broader Indignados
social movement asking for real democracy and defending public health,
housing, and education policies from neoliberal attacks. While making alli-
ances with other social movements, feminist organizations also developed
their own agenda, strengthening their national and transnational mobi-
lization strategies to resist the curtailing of gender equality policies and
institutions, to defend women’s autonomy and self-determination, and to
redefine the concept of work as including both productive and reproduc-
tive activities.
Austerity politics provoked changes in the Finnish feminist movements.
The chapter by Elomäki and Kantola illustrates how the traditional wom-
en’s organizations, representing majority women, have had particular dif-
ficulties in resisting the Finnish government’s austerity politics. This has
created space for new women’s movement actors and trade unions. They
too have tended to prioritize resisting the austerity politics and failing
to tackle the racism that underpins the government actions. The case of
Finland illustrates the linkages between neoliberalism, conservatism, and
racism, which result in challenges for feminist struggles and resistance.
The politics of the crisis can be captured through analyses of discur-
sive power contestations. Cavaghan argues that the political dimension of
the EU financial crisis consists in making contestations around competing
gender knowledges visible. In her chapter, she grasps the differences in
the feminist and the mainstream economic discourses in relation to the
hegemony of macroeconomics in EU policy after the crisis. Taking the EU
arena as a space of ‘knowledge contest’, she documents the difficulties that
feminist activists within the Parliament, the Commission, and civil society
experience, finding the appropriate technical vocabulary in a post-crisis
context dominated by macroeconomic aims and jargon. Cavaghan’s chap-
ter importantly reflects on how these processes of discursive hegemony of
macroeconomic language have ‘insulated from contestation’ the gendered
impacts of EU economic policy responses to the crisis.
The political debate in times of crisis is gender-blind in Portugal too,

argues Prata, but when gender makes its appearance in parliamentary
debates it is through two main patterns: the victimization of women and
the hegemony of the economic framing. Women are portrayed as victims
of a problem of domestic violence that is attributed not to patriarchal
culture or violent perpetrators but to unemployment or cuts in social pro-
visions. Women are also presented in Portuguese parliamentary debates
as victims of gender inequality in the labour market that is constructed
as the result of the economic crisis, rather than of cultural, employment,
and institutional patterns of gender discrimination that pre-existed the
crisis. The hegemonic economic crisis framing is discursively used in such a
way that it avoids questioning the ‘unequal balance of power between the
sexes’ (Prata in this volume) that was in place before the economic crisis.
Conclusions
Feminist analyses of the political dimension of the crisis in Europe devel-
oped in this book have employed and differently combined approaches
that focused on women, gender, intersectionality, and deconstruction of
gender. These analytical perspectives have allowed contributors to grasp
the multiple facets of power that are at work in policy responses to the eco-
nomic crisis in Europe. EU policy shifts in times of crisis have shown the
increasing dominance of the neoliberal project (Walby 2015). This trend
is reflected in the Europeanization of member states’ equality policies,
institutions, regimes, and political debates, with detrimental consequences
for gender equality, institutions, and policies.
EU and member states’ neoliberal austerity politics has promoted
practices and processes of de-democratization that negatively affect
the fates of democracy and gender equality (Verloo forthcoming). As
Walby (2015: 117) argues ‘The neoliberal project of deregulation is a
project of de-democratization’ because it removes from public demo-
cratic accountability ‘t]he governance of major public services, such as
finance, health, education and care’ (2015: 116). De-democratization is
exemplified in the shift in the balance of institutional powers in the EU
that attributes an increasing weight to the member states, especially the
Council of Economic and Finance Ministers, while new regulations on
‘strategic’ reports have reduced the chances for the Parliamentary FEMM
Committee, that has always had a key role in advancing gender equality,
to see its own-initiative reports presented and voted in plenary sessions.
Democracy is at stake in Europe when spaces for public deliberation on

economic issues are reduced in countries such as Ireland or Finland, or
freedom of expression is limited such as in the Spanish ‘gag law’.
The curtailing of spaces for public deliberation not only goes against
democracy (Walby 2015) but also tends to ‘insulate from contestation’
(Cavaghan in this volume) the harmful impacts of austerity politics on
women and men. The neoliberal project in Europe is at times interacting
with conservative and racist power, as shown in the position of Finnish
populist right party against migrant people, the restriction of sexual and
reproductive rights in Spain, and the negative impacts of austerity on
minority women in France and the UK.
However, despite the challenges it poses to equality and democracy
in Europe, austerity politics has also revitalized civil society and feminist
struggles and alliances to defend social justice, equality, and democracy.
It has prompted the emergence of autonomous feminist movements that
challenge the gendered impacts of austerity. It has triggered the further
questioning of existing privileges based on gender, race, and class. When
looked from feminist political lenses, the crisis opens both opportunities
and challenges for democracy and gender equality. In times of crisis, neo-
liberal, conservative, and racist powers place Europe’s democracy under
pressure. A revitalized European democracy—feminist political analyses in
this book argue—relies on the politicization of the public arena including
economic decision-making, the accountability of governments’ decisions
in processes of public deliberation, the democratic governance of public
welfare services, voices and participation of minoritized people, gender
balanced political and economic decision-making, and the effective main-
streaming of gender in all policymaking.
Note
1. For reports on increased discrimination in Europe see: International
Labour Conference, 101st Session 2012, Report of the Committee of
Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations,
Greece, ILO Conventions 98, 100, 102, 111, and 156: http://www.
ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:11003:0::NO and FEMM
(2010) Report on gender aspects of the economic downturn and finan-
cial crisis (2009/2204(INI)), (12 May 2010) and FEMM (2013a)
Report on the impact of the economic crisis on gender equality and wom-
en’s rights (2012/2301(INI)), (28 February 2013).
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Index
A Amsterdam Treaty, 59, 81

academics, 12, 34, 100, 108, 187, Anti-Austerity Alliance–People before
233, 242, 251n5 Profit, 152
accession, 120, 121, 125, 130 Anti-Crisis Bill, 122, 126, 128
activism, 17, 18, 20, 21, 141, anti-immigration, 16, 21, 232, 234,
185–205, 221, 225, 232, 234, 236, 239
237, 243, 244, 249 anti-Semitic, 2
advocacy, 20, 50, 96, 98–102, 106, APPG. See All Party Parliamentary
108, 110, 111, 188, 201, 240, Group for Race and Community
241, 261, 262 (APPG)
African, 189, 191, 200, 203 Austria, 142, 143
African American women’s struggle,
189
age, 14, 15, 59, 123, 124, 127, 131, B
133n9, 144, 151, 164, 186, 216, bailout, 74, 84, 124, 146, 153, 161,
220 170
alliance, 6, 18, 152, 154, 212, 222, Bakker, Isabella, 51, 65, 143
224, 232, 267, 269 Ballester-Pastor, 218
All Party Parliamentary Group for Bangladeshi, 189, 191
Race and Community (APPG), banking, 1, 4, 150, 153
189–91, 197 Barcelona, 59, 105, 129, 224
Alonso, Alba, 164, 212, 219, 221–3, Barcelona Summit, 59
225 Barroso Commission, 12, 35
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

Europe, Gender and Politics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50778-1
272 INDEX
Bassel, Leah, 6, 17, 18, 20, 185–205, Catalan, 218

232, 259, 266 Catholic Church, 131
Bauer, Michael W., 28, 43, 84 Cavaghan, Rosalind, 19, 49–66,
Beijing Declaration, 81 259–62, 267, 269
Bettio, Francesca, 4–6, 8, 10, 11, 14, CDA. See Critical Discourse Analysis
36, 51, 83, 106, 107, 210, 216, (CDA)
217, 219–21 CEDAW. See Convention on the
Bieling, Hans-Jürgen, 117, 140–2 Elimination of All Forms of
Black African, 191 Discrimination Against Women
Black and minority ethnic, 188 (CEDAW)
Black Caribbean, 191 CEE. See Central Eastern European
Blackness, 192 (CEE)
Black women’s activism, 189 Central Bank, 2, 117, 179n6, 195,
boomerang effect, 222 196, 223
Brexit, 18, 205n3 Central Eastern European (CEE),
Britain, 20, 140, 142, 143, 145, 118, 120, 131
185–205 Charkiewicz, 121, 123, 130
Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, childcare, 15, 57, 59–62, 105, 107,
60, 62 109, 151, 196, 197, 211, 218,
Brown, Wendy, 261 219, 225, 237, 240, 250
budget cuts, 15, 83, 124, 128, 133n7, children, 15, 59, 105, 124,
133n11, 210, 219, 221 127–9, 133n10, 148, 152,
Budget Stability Law, 215 155, 164, 166, 171, 174–6,
Busch, 8–10 189, 191, 211, 217, 218, 220,
business, 4, 86, 123, 127, 130, 132n5, 234, 240, 241
153, 200, 215, 231, 234, 239, citizenship, 12, 44n3, 44n4, 52, 101,
242 145, 153, 188, 201
Bustelo, 12, 209–11, 213, 214, 223, civic platform, 122–6, 128, 129, 131,
225 223
civil society, 2, 3, 16–21, 34, 36, 38,
43, 50, 98–100, 102, 108–11,
C 141, 153, 167, 178, 186, 204,
Cameron, David, 196, 205n3 209–12, 214, 216, 218, 221–5,
Cannon, 152, 153, 193 235, 266, 267, 269
Capparucci, 15 CJEU. See Court of Justice of the
care, 4, 13–16, 57, 75, 103, 105, 109, European Union (CJEU)
112, 123, 124, 126–30, 140, Clarke, 195
142, 144, 147, 151, 155, 167, class, 5, 14, 15, 107, 140, 141, 144,
196, 197, 209, 211, 213, 214, 167, 186, 192–4, 212, 262, 263,
217–19, 234, 242, 246, 247, 266, 269
261, 263, 265, 268 coalition, 16, 34, 96, 146, 152, 172,
Caribbean, 189, 191 176, 180n15, 196, 234–8, 240,
Castilla-La Mancha, 221 261
INDEX 273
Colau, Ada, 224 D

Combat Poverty Agency, 154, 266 DAPHNE, 32, 88n4
Committee on Women’s Rights debt, 8, 9, 60, 63, 74, 83, 95, 123,
and Gender Equality (FEMM), 139–41, 143–55, 161, 170, 175,
11, 20, 37, 38, 50, 51, 75, 76, 195, 214, 226n13, 234
85, 96, 99, 102–6, 111, 261, deconstruction, 3–6, 28, 34, 258, 268
268 democracy, 3, 163, 212, 223, 224,
Common Market, 74, 80–2, 86, 87 258, 261, 266–9
community, 40, 43, 80, 87n1, 140, DG Eco Fin. See Directorate
147, 155, 166, 167, 189, 191, Economics and Finance (DG Eco
197, 200, 213, 265 Fin)
competitiveness, 10, 86, DG Employment, Social Affairs and
130, 142, 148, 168, Equal Opportunities, 12, 35, 39,
231, 232, 238, 239, 241, 63, 64, 73, 75, 100, 220
243, 245, 246, 248, 249, DG Justice, Fundamental Rights and
250n1, 264, 265 Citizenship, 12
conflict, 78, 119, 241, 245, 258 DG Research, 55
conservatism, 2, 16, 18, 20, 21, Directorate Economics and Finance
232, 234–6, 242, 248, 249, (DG Eco Fin), 58, 60, 61
264, 267 Directorate-General for Equal
Constitutional Court, 222, 226n15 Opportunities, 12, 35, 58, 73,
constructivist, 119, 120 75, 220
Convention on the Elimination of All Directorate-General for Justice, 75
Forms of Discrimination Against disciplinary neoliberalism, 8
Women (CEDAW), 223, 225, discourse, 3, 6, 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 39,
232 41, 63, 96, 97, 100–12, 119,
Costa, 164, 165 121, 130, 142–4, 153, 155,
Council of Economic and Finance 161–80, 198–202, 223, 224,
Ministers, 8, 268 233, 235–8, 246–8, 258, 260,
Council of Ministers, 13, 37, 58 264, 265, 267
Council of Ministers for Finance and discrimination, 1, 2, 12, 13, 19, 28,
Economics, 58 30, 32, 35, 38, 39, 41, 56, 80–2,
Council Recommendations, 210, 215, 87, 108, 127, 173–5, 190, 200,
216 218, 220, 223, 260, 261, 268
Country Specific Recommendation, diversity, 37, 41, 44n3, 82, 104, 107,
65, 110 188
Court of Justice of the European domestic, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 16, 20, 42,
Union (CJEU), 145, 226n13 105, 118–20, 125, 127, 148,
Coventry, 187 162, 164, 166, 174, 175, 199,
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), 205n1, 209, 211, 212, 216–18,
168–9 222, 224, 225, 262–5, 267, 268
Cruells, Marta, 212, 224 domestic violence, 2, 42, 148, 162,
Cullen, Pauline, 19, 39, 155 166, 174, 175, 199, 205n1, 268
274 INDEX
Dryzek, 163 ENEGE. See European Network of

Dublin, 147, 148, 154, 155 Experts on Gender Equality
(ENEGE)
England, 185, 187, 190, 192, 193,
E 197, 198, 200–4
Eastern Europe, 13, 17, 118–21 enlargement, 13, 100, 101, 112, 120
EC. See European Commission (EC) enterprise, 9, 200–2, 216
ECB. See European Central Bank EPSCO Council, 39
(ECB) Equality and Human Rights
ECOFIN, 8, 9, 145 Commission’s statutory code on
Edinburgh, 187, 199, 200 employment, 191
education, 14, 103, 123, 124, 128, equality law, 214
129, 133n7, 147, 149, 164, 166, equality policies, 3, 7–16, 19–21,
188, 199, 213, 215, 219, 224, 27–45, 50–2, 121, 139, 146,
267, 268 209, 210, 212, 214, 219–22,
EERP. See European Economic 225, 232, 247–9, 257, 259–68
Recovery Plan (EERP) EQUAL programme, 32
EESC. See European Economic and Espírito Santo, 164, 167, 180n14
Social Committee (EESC) ethnicity, 5, 107, 186, 188, 191, 193,
EFSF. See European Financial Stability 220
Facility (EFSF) EU2020, 10
EGGE. See Expert Group on Gender EU Equal Opportunities Unit, 12
and Employment (EGGE) EU Financial transparency system
Elomäki, Anna, 16–18, 20, 231–51, database, 29
259, 260, 267 Eurobarometer, 162
Elson, Diane, 2, 4, 15, 56, 57, 139, European Central Bank (ECB), 2,
140, 143, 241 8–10, 117, 179n6, 195, 196
Emejulu, Akwugo, 6, 17, 18, 20, European Charter of Fundamental
185–205, 232, 259, 266 Rights, 35
empathy, 6, 7 European Commission (EC), 2, 8–10,
employment, 4, 9–15, 33, 35, 39, 41, 12, 29, 30, 32, 34, 37, 42, 55,
42, 51, 52, 58, 59, 61–5, 73, 75, 58, 74–5, 80, 83–5, 87, 88n9,
81, 82, 96, 99, 100, 103, 105–7, 96, 100–1, 106–8, 117, 121,
109, 110, 120–3, 125–30, 124, 128–9, 145, 153, 179n6,
133n9, 142, 146, 149, 151, 152, 195, 215, 261
162, 164, 165, 179n4, 188, 190, European Commission’s Advisory
191, 197, 198, 201, 209–11, Committee on Equal
214, 215, 217, 218, 224, 225, opportunities for Women and
240, 243, 263, 268 Men, 75, 83
Employment Chapter, 59 European Commission’s Directorate-
Employment Guidelines, 62 General for Employment, Social
EMU. See European Monetary Union Affairs and Equal Opportunities,
(EMU) 75
INDEX 275
European Commission Strategy, 9 Eurozone, 8, 9, 13, 60, 74, 84,

European Community, 80, 87n1, 88n6, 95, 117, 118, 124, 205n2,
213 264
European Council, 8, 10, 75, 85, 125, Evans, Elizabeth, 17, 233, 234, 236
131, 145, 215 everyday life, 17, 194, 197
European Council President, 131 evictions, 20, 146–8, 152, 154, 155,
European Economic and Social 201, 223, 224, 226n13
Committee (EESC), 32, 44n4 EWL. See European Women’s Lobby
European Economic Recovery Plan (EWL)
(EERP), 11, 63, 83, 84 Excessive Deficit Procedure 104, 60
European Employment Strategy Expert Group on Gender and
(EES), 10, 59, 110 Employment (EGGE), 13, 87
European equality agenda, 98–101, Expert Group on Gender, Social
103, 104, 108, 112 Exclusion, Health and Long-
European Financial Stability Facility Term Care (EGGSIE), 13
(EFSF), 84, 88n6
European Institute for Gender
Equality (EIGE), 36 F
Europeanization, 3, 7, 13–17, 19, 20, Fáil Fianna, 149, 152
117–33, 209, 212, 257–9, 262–6, family, 2, 15, 82, 97, 111, 112, 123,
268 126–30, 148–51, 154, 164–6,
European Monetary Union (EMU), 9, 171, 175, 178, 187, 192, 198,
124 213, 217–20, 235, 236, 247,
European Network of Experts on 263–5
Gender Equality (ENEGE), 13, family-friendly, 80, 127, 166, 265
36, 75, 83, 85 Fawcett Society, 98
European Parliament, 2, 9, 11, 20, feminism, 17, 232, 233
21n2, 32, 34, 36–8, 44n4, 45n7, Feminist Open Forum, 154
50, 51, 75, 85, 88n9, 96, 99, Feminist Political Economy, 49–51,
101–6, 111, 222, 250, 261 56, 62, 65
European Pillar of Social Rights, 87 FEMM. See Committee on Women’s
European Semester, 9, 10, 12, 63, 65, Rights and Gender Equality
84, 106, 110, 214 (FEMM)
European Social Fund (EFS), 44n2, FEMM Committee (Women’s Rights
121 and Gender Equality Committee
European Stability Mechanism (ESM), of the European Parliament), 11,
9, 10, 84, 147 20, 37, 38, 44n5, 50, 51, 75, 76,
European Treaties, 75 85, 96, 99, 102, 106, 111, 261,
European Women’s Lobby (EWL), 19, 268
20, 39, 51, 75, 83, 96, 98, 99, Ferreira, Virginia, 162, 164–8,
101, 102, 108–12, 261 180n16
Euro Plus Pact, 9, 10, 63 finance, 4, 8, 17, 36, 58, 73, 109,
Eurosceptic, 131 140, 142, 145, 153, 155, 195,
276 INDEX
204, 212, 215, 231, 234, 235, Glasgow, 187, 197, 200, 203
239, 264, 268 González, Elvira, 15, 210, 217,
Finland, 11, 16, 18, 21, 231–51, 260, 218
262, 264, 267, 269 Gourevitch, Peter, 27
Fiscal Compact, 9, 145, 153 governance, 5, 7–9, 11, 12, 17, 18,
Foucauldian, 163 34, 36, 65, 66, 84, 85, 88n8,
Framework Agreement, 30 95–101, 103, 104, 106, 111,
Framework for Action on Gender 112, 118, 140, 146, 212, 214,
Equality, 39 246, 259, 268, 269
France, 17, 20, 125, 150, 185–205, Great Britain, 140, 142, 143, 145
262, 266, 269 Great Recession, 44, 95, 101
Freire, Andre, 162, 163, 167, 176, Greece, 1, 2, 5, 15, 17, 83, 140,
177 147, 153, 156n1, 179n3, 264,
269n1
Greens, 176
G Griffin, Penny, 5, 17
Gael Fine, 152 growth, 8–10, 44n6, 57, 59–63, 65,
Gag law, 16, 18, 224, 269 84, 86, 110, 118, 121, 125, 130,
Galicia, 221 140, 141, 146, 150, 202, 215,
Gender Aspects of the Economic 216, 241, 265
Downturn & Financial Crisis, Guaranteed Employment Benefit
102, 269n1 Fund, 123
gender equality,, 3, 27, 50, 73, 100, Guerrina, Roberta, 20, 81, 95–112,
118, 139, 162, 188, 209, 231, 259, 261, 262
258 guilt, 6, 152
Gender Impact Now!, 219, 223
Gender Impact Report, 219
Gender Knowledge Contestation H
Analysis, 49–51, 53–6, 64, 66n2 health, 9, 13, 14, 57, 75, 124, 142,
gender mainstreaming, 5, 11, 12, 19, 144, 145, 147, 151, 154, 166,
27, 29, 33, 34, 37, 40, 44n1, 167, 179n6, 179n11, 213, 214,
50–3, 60, 63, 74–6, 81, 83, 101, 219–21, 224, 236, 266–8
118, 119, 121, 126, 127, 129, High Level Group on Gender
130, 216, 260, 261 Mainstreaming, 27, 37, 44n1
gender regime, 5, 14, 20, 28, 37, 40, Hill Collins, Patricia, 189
41, 209–27, 232, 261, 263–5 Hollande, François, 196
Gendered International Political Holyrood, 196
Economy, 140 homeownership, 143–6, 148, 149
General Council of Judicial Power, household, 8, 15, 16, 20, 104, 107,
223 139–47, 149–52, 155, 164, 165,
Germany, 9, 125, 142, 143 191, 196, 201, 211, 213, 217
INDEX 277
housing, 142, 143, 145–9, 152, 154, J

155, 179n6, 187, 201, 223, 224, Jacquot, Sophie, 11–13, 18, 19,
249, 261, 263, 264, 267 27–45, 51, 59, 81, 82, 259–61,
Human Rights Commission and Equal 263
Authority, 154, 266 Jamaican patois, 192
I K
Iceland, 1 Kantola, Johanna, 1–21, 34, 38, 42,
ICTU Fighting Back Biennial 45n8, 50, 81, 82, 231–51,
Women’s Conference, 154 257–69
immigrants, 15, 151, 187, 188, 190, Karamessini, Maria, 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11,
191, 193, 237 13–15, 51, 74, 76, 96–8, 117,
immigration, 31, 88n4, 150, 193, 126, 140, 162, 164
236, 249 Keynesian, 57
Impacto de Género ya!, 219
implementation, 10, 19, 31, 50, 54,
55, 65, 75, 120, 130, 132n1, L
149, 167, 179n6, 179n11, 215 Labour Code, 118, 122, 123, 132n5
Independents for Change, 152 Labour Fund, 123
India, 189, 191, 199 labour market, 9, 11–16, 18, 30, 31,
Indignados, 6, 152, 224, 225, 267 33, 42, 44n2, 58, 59, 62, 105–7,
institutionalism, 19, 77–9, 87n2 109, 118, 121–31, 139, 189–91,
insurance, 123, 124, 143–5, 248 200, 215–18, 224, 225, 231,
Integrated Guidelines for Growth and 234, 242, 247, 248, 260, 264,
Jobs, 61–3 265, 268
Integration project, 79, 82, 141 Labour Party, 152, 154
International Labour Organisation Labour Reform, 217, 218, 224, 263
(ILO), 96, 98, 269n1 Latin America, 153
International Monetary Fund (IMF), law, 3, 16, 29–31, 40, 43, 54, 55, 117,
2, 9, 10, 117, 132n2, 179n6, 124–7, 131, 146, 213–15, 218,
195 219, 221, 222, 225, 226n13,
Interpretative Policy Analysis, 53 226n15, 235, 247, 260, 263
intersectionality, 3–7, 17, 20, 41, Legal Experts Network, 13, 36
186–9, 258, 266, 268 Lehman Brothers, 1, 4
Ireland, 1, 20, 140, 141, 143, Lehman Sisters, 4
146–55, 260, 262–4, 266, 269 Leite, Jorge, 164, 165
Irish Feminist Network, 154 León, Margarita, 210, 213, 218, 219
Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, 153 LGBTQ, 6
Irish Housing Network, 154, 155 Lisbon Strategy, 33, 58–65
Italy, 1, 15, 140 Lisbon Treaty, 28, 30, 37
278 INDEX
Lisi, Marco, 162, 164, 176, 177 Merkel, Angela, 9

lobbying, 18, 19, 50, 108, 236, 237 migrant women, 2, 14, 178, 187, 190,
local, 52, 118–20, 133n7, 148, 153, 200, 203, 237
154, 187, 203, 219, 221, 224, minimum wage, 145, 174
225, 243, 266 minority women, 1, 17, 18, 20,
Locher, Birgit, 42, 52, 100 185–205, 261–3, 266, 267, 269
Lombardo, Emanuela, 1–21, 40, 41, Monteiro, Rosa, 165, 167, 168, 172,
53, 120, 146, 152, 177, 191, 180n16
209–27, 232, 257–69 Montgomerie, Johnna, 140, 144
London, 187, 199 mortgage, 139–41, 143–50, 155, 194,
Lyon, 187 195, 226n13
mothers, 15, 126, 145, 152, 169, 171,
173, 175, 176, 178, 192, 213,
M 222, 250n1, 263
Maastricht Criteria, 60, 141 Moury, Catherine, 163
Maastricht Treaty, 140 Murcia, Galicia, 221
MacRae, Heather, 10, 19, 52, 73–88, Murphy, Mary, 146–9, 152–5
117, 146, 259–61
macroeconomic, 9–11, 20, 33, 118,
122, 131, 132n1, 214, 260, 262, N
267 National Health Services (NHS), 219
Macroeconomic Imbalances National Partnership Agreements,
Procedures, 63 150, 154
Madrid, 221, 222, 224 National Platform of Feminist
mareas ciudadanas, 223 Organizations, 222
Marxist, 57 National Reform and Stability
masculinity, 77, 97, 111 Programmes, 210, 215
McRobbie, Angela, 233 National Women’s Council of Ireland,
media, 6, 152, 166, 232, 238–47 154, 155
Meier, Petra, 88n3 Neo-Gramscian, 141, 264
Memoranda of Understanding, 147 neoliberal, 2–4, 6, 8, 11, 13–132, 140,
Memorandum of Agreement, 165, 141, 145, 147, 149, 153–5, 186,
178, 179n6 200–2, 205n4, 210, 212, 216,
men, 3–5, 11, 15–17, 27, 28, 30, 31, 224, 225, 232, 233, 236, 238,
34, 40, 44n2, 52, 53, 56, 65, 75, 242, 245, 246, 249, 258, 260,
79, 80, 83, 85, 95, 97, 103, 263–9
105–7, 109–11, 117, 124, 127, neoliberalism, 6–8, 17, 18, 21,
129, 133n9, 143, 144, 151, 152, 83, 86, 118, 119, 153, 232,
162, 164–7, 173, 177, 179n3, 234, 236, 242, 248, 249, 261,
186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 211, 264, 267
217, 218, 235, 236, 245, 249, network, 13, 31, 36, 75, 88n8, 96, 97,
251n5, 258, 259, 261, 269 99, 101, 102, 106, 108, 119,
INDEX 279
120, 154, 155, 166, 179n10, populist, 2, 6, 16, 17, 131, 224, 231,
188, 203, 243, 244, 249, 260, 234, 236, 239, 269
261 Portugal, 1, 20, 140, 147, 161–6,
Newman, Janet, 195, 197 168, 170, 178, 179n6, 179n11,
NGO, 19, 45, 237 180n17, 260, 263, 265, 268
Niemeyer, Simon, 163 post-deconstruction, 6, 258
Nordic, 16 post-feminism, 233
Northern, 7, 17 poverty, 1, 5, 17, 20, 33, 62, 104,
107, 110, 127, 128, 151, 152,
155, 164, 174, 176, 189, 191–4,
O 199, 201, 204, 261, 263
O’Callaghan, 147, 149 power, 2, 6, 7, 9, 19, 34, 36, 43, 60,
Occupy Wall Street, 224 77, 78, 81, 83, 85, 86, 97, 98,
OECD, 128, 129, 151, 190 101, 104, 111, 143, 148, 150,
Osborne, George, 196, 205n3 154, 163, 166, 167, 174, 178,
194, 200–2, 204, 223, 225, 244,
247, 249, 250, 258–60, 266–9
P Prata, Ana, 20, 161–80, 259, 260,
Pakistan, 189, 191, 197 268
Paleo, Natalia, 164, 212, 219, 221–3 precarious, 109, 131, 165, 194, 197,
Paris, 187, 192, 193, 199, 204 217, 261, 263–6
part-time, 14, 15, 145, 151, 155, 165, precarity/precariousness, 173, 174,
211, 218, 247, 248, 265 186, 189, 190, 193, 196, 198,
paternity leave, 129, 213, 214, 218 200, 201, 218, 224
Pavolini, Emmanuele, 212, 219 pregnant, 108, 175, 222, 265
pay, 15, 28, 40, 50, 59, 60, 79, 80, President of the European
100, 109, 147, 149, 165, 175, Commission, 80
190, 194, 200, 217, 240, 245, President of the European Council, 125
247, 248, 250, 265 privatization, 16, 125, 128–30, 142,
Phoenix, Aisha, 192 145, 147, 155, 212, 216, 224,
Phoenix, Ann, 192 225, 261, 264
Platform Against Housing Evictions PROGRESS programme, 32, 39,
(PAH), 152, 155 44n3
Platform of people affected by housing property, 144, 145, 147–50, 152
evictions, 223, 224 Prügl, Elisabeth, 4, 17, 45n8, 52, 100
Podemos, 17, 152, 224 Public Expenditure and Reform
Poland, 13, 16, 20, 117–33, 150, 262, (PER), 153
264, 265 public sector, 4, 14, 15, 105, 107,
political behaviour, 189 109, 125, 139, 144, 147, 149,
political parties, 17, 154, 167, 169, 153, 154, 162, 164, 165, 196,
177, 189, 214, 236–41 217, 234, 239, 247, 248, 250n5,
Popular party, 222, 265 263, 264
280 INDEX
public spending, 8, 9, 63, 148, 150, Schäuble, Wolfgang, 142

151, 196, 234 Schroeder, Gerhard, 142
Scotland, 185, 187, 190, 196, 197,
200, 201, 203, 204
R Second World War, 196
racism, 2, 16, 18, 20, 200, 203, 232, Segales, Marcelo, 15, 210, 217, 218
234, 236, 239, 240, 242, 243, sexual, 6, 186, 220, 221, 225, 269
245, 248, 249, 267 sexuality, 186
Rajoy, 220 SGP. See Stability and Growth Pact
refugee, 5, 16, 187, 204, 236, 239 (SGP)
regional, 14, 15, 164, 215, 219, 221, Single Currency, 99
222, 224, 227, 265, 266 single market, 60, 111, 141, 142
resistance, 3, 7, 17–21, 61, 98, 141, Sintra, 175
146, 152–5, 189, 195, 197, 210, Sipilä, Juha, 234, 235, 242, 250
217–19, 225, 231–51, 257, 259, six pack, 9, 10, 84, 85, 88n9, 117,
266–8 125, 132n1, 145, 146
retirement, 15, 124, 127, 151, 165, Slovenia, 140
216 Smith, Mark, 10–13, 51, 60, 63, 64,
retrenchment, 65, 103, 107, 109, 73, 75, 87, 98, 126, 216
162, 165, 167, 178, 196, 212, Smith, Mitchell P., 95
213, 219 Smith, Nicola, 6
Rey, John, 80 social benefits, 123, 165, 166, 174,
rights, 2, 6, 7, 16–18, 21, 28–35, 38, 212, 263, 265
39, 41, 96–102, 105–11, 155, socialists, 171, 176, 177, 196, 209,
176, 187, 199, 201, 204, 210, 213, 214, 220–2
212–14, 218, 221–4, 226n13, social justice, 80, 98, 176, 186, 188,
231, 234, 237, 238, 240, 241, 197, 198, 202, 205, 269
243, 260, 261, 264, 265, 269 social movements, 153, 177, 188,
Roadmap for Equality between Men 203–4, 218, 224, 232, 267
and Women, 31 social reproduction, 58, 139, 140,
Roberts, Adrienne, 8, 144 143–6, 155, 262
Rolandsen-Agustín, Lise, 11 social structures, 97
Rubery, Jill, 4–6, 8, 10, 11, 13–15, Sociology of Knowledge, 53, 54
51, 76, 96, 98, 111, 112, 117, solidarity, 6, 20, 110, 186, 200, 203,
121, 126, 139, 140, 162, 164 204
Ruiz, Sonia, 212, 224 South Asian, 202
rural, 128, 148, 149 Southern, 7
Southern European, 8, 15, 149, 161,
162
S Spain, 1, 2, 6, 15–18, 20, 140, 146–8,
San José, Begoña, 217, 223 152–5, 179n3, 209–27, 260,
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 9, 193 262, 263, 265–7, 269
INDEX 281
Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), 9, Union pour un Mouvement Populaire

60, 63, 84, 140, 141, 146 (UMP), 199
Starkey, David, 192 United Kingdom (UK), 6, 9, 15, 17,
Steinhilber, Jochen, 140–2 18, 148, 234, 236, 241, 262,
Strategy for equality between women 266, 269
and men, 31 United Nations (UN), 221, 223
Strategy for Europe 2020, 31 United States (US), 1, 74, 140,
Stratigaki, Maria, 36, 81, 82, 88n4, 142–6, 148, 224, 234, 236
121, 130
Strolovitch, Dara, 185, 193, 194
struggle, 3, 8, 17–21, 112, 163, V
176, 178, 189, 194, 203, Vaga de Totes, 218
209–27, 257–60, 263, 266, van der Vleuten, Anna, 12, 79, 99,
267, 269 101, 142
surveillance, 9, 10, 60, 125, 132n1, velvet triangle, 12, 13, 34, 36, 37, 43,
212, 214 100, 101, 108, 112
Sweden, 11, 241 Verashchagina, Alina, 15
Syriza, 17 Verge, Tania, 167, 180n14, 223
Verloo, Mieke, 16, 41, 51, 53, 79, 81,
142, 213, 268
T Viegas, José Manuel Leite, 162, 176,
tax, 123, 144, 148, 150–5, 162, 178, 177
195, 196, 216, 248, 264 Villa, Paola, 10–13, 51, 60, 63, 64,
temporary, 14, 122, 123, 190, 217 98, 126, 216
Thatcher, Margaret, 145 Vilnius, 36
trade unions, 122, 123, 131, 153, violence, 2, 5, 7, 17, 32, 35, 41, 42,
189, 214, 218, 232, 243, 246–8, 88n4, 109, 148, 162, 163, 166,
250, 250n5, 267 174, 175, 186, 193, 198, 199,
Treaty of Rome, 28, 79 203, 204, 205n1, 214, 221, 236,
troika, 2, 9, 117, 153, 161, 170, 176, 239–41, 268
179n6, 205n2
True, Jacqui, 2, 4, 5, 81, 140
Tusk, Donald, 125, 131 W
wage, 8, 9, 15, 57, 60, 65, 80, 107,
144, 145, 147, 151, 154, 174,
U 175, 190, 194, 215, 217, 263
UK. See United Kingdom (UK) Walby, Sylvia, 2, 4, 5, 8, 14, 16, 41,
unemployment, 1, 17, 59, 103–5, 75, 76, 96–8, 100, 104, 112,
107, 109, 121, 131, 140, 145, 118, 126, 210–12, 224, 235,
147, 151, 152, 164–6, 171, 173, 268, 269
174, 178, 189, 190, 192–4, 197, Weiner, Elaine, 10, 19, 52, 73–88,
211, 217, 265, 268 117, 146, 259–61
282 INDEX
welfare state, 15, 16, 103–5, 107, 142, Women’s Economic Independence in
150, 162, 164, 165, 167, 178, times of austerity, 110
196, 205n1, 210, 212, 213, 219, Women’s International Day,
234, 238, 241, 242 177
West African, 200, 203 women’s movements, 167, 168, 177,
Western European, 123 236, 237, 241, 242, 248, 260,
Westminster, 196 267
WI. See Woman’s Institute (WI) Woodward, Alison, 12, 34, 81, 82,
Wöhl, Stefanie, 9, 10, 14, 20, 75, 85, 100, 101, 106, 108, 112
86, 139–56, 259, 260, 262–4
Woman’s Institute (WI), 213, 214,
220, 266 Z
Women of Debt Justice Action, 154 Zapatero, 209, 211, 213, 214, 218,
Women’s Budget Group, 98 220
Women’s Charter of 2010, 31, 42 Zbyszewska, Ania, 13, 14, 16, 20,
Women’s Democratic Movement, 177 117–33, 259, 263–5

Gender and The Economic Crisis in Europe: Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality

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Gender and the

GENDER AND POLITICS

More information about this series at

Gender and the

Gender and Politics

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016962498

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration by Barbara Boyero Rabasco

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

It has been a real pleasure to put together this collection of chapters on

We are grateful to all the participants and to Mieke Verloo in particular

intersectionality in Spanish anti-austerity movements. She is also grateful

1 Gender and the Politics of the Economic Crisis in Europe 1

2 A Policy in Crisis. The Dismantling of the EU Gender

3 The Gender Politics of EU Economic Policy: Policy

4 Opportunity and Setback? Gender Equality, Crisis

5 Gendering European Economic Narratives: Assessing

6 Gendering Poland’s Crisis Reforms: A Europeanization

7 The Gender Dynamics of Financialization and Austerity

8 The Visibility (and Invisibility) of Women and

9 Whose Crisis Counts? Minority Women, Austerity

10 Austerity Politics and Feminist Struggles in Spain:

11 Austerity Politics and Feminist Resistance in Finland:

12 Conclusions: Understanding Gender and the Politics

Leah Bassel is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Leicester. Her

Fig. 8.1 Utterances of ‘Austerity’ and ‘Economic Crisis’

Table 8.1 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ compared 171

Gender and the Politics of the Economic

© The Author(s) 2017 1

Pearson and Elson 2015). Feminist political scientists and sociologists

their top-down and bottom-up Europeanization through hard and soft

Feminist Approaches to Analysing the Economic

diture cuts and to increase social control of the population’ (Addabbo

Gendering the Politics of the Crisis

Austerity Politics, Institutional Changes and Gender Equality

in crisis times and in the EU institutional balance affecting gender equality

leaders of the member state governments, Germany enjoying the greater

promoting ­competitiveness (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Busch et al.

The Europeanization of Gender Equality and Policies in Times

constructed differently by different actors. The chapters challenge the nor-

retirement ages due to pension reforms) (Karamessini 2014b; Karamessini

Gender and Intersectional Struggles Around Austerity Politics

The Content of This Book

Guerrina analyses the effectiveness of feminist advocacy in keeping the

the conservative right government in Finland represent neoliberalism,

Bettio, Francesca, Marcella Corsi, Carlo D’Ippoliti, Antigone Lyberaki, Manuela

Liljeström, Marianne, and Susanna Paasonen. 2010. Feeling Differences. In

A Policy in Crisis. The Dismantling

“It is surely not a good period for gender equality”1

As in the above quote by a member of the European Union (EU) High

© The Author(s) 2017 27

This chapter is based on a qualitative research aimed at analysing the

Heclo 1994), and a policy instrument approach particularly relevant

Towards a Rights Policy

e­ xisting legal instruments whose application is limited by the context of

these documents are not directly attached to funding programmes any-

ironically—that the promoters of this instrument achieved more than they

Institutional Shifts and Interests Evolution:

One of the major destabilising factors of the gender equality sector

i­nitiatives with a gender perspective, even if the consequences of the

The New Cognitive Framework of Gender Equality

economic objectives, activities in favour of gender equality are in trouble.

1 Gender and the Politics of the Economic Crisis in Europe 1

2 A Policy in Crisis. The Dismantling of the EU Gender

3 The Gender Politics of EU Economic Policy: Policy

4 Opportunity and Setback? Gender Equality, Crisis

5 Gendering European Economic Narratives: Assessing

6 Gendering Poland’s Crisis Reforms: A Europeanization

7 The Gender Dynamics of Financialization and Austerity

8 The Visibility (and Invisibility) of Women and

9 Whose Crisis Counts? Minority Women, Austerity

10 Austerity Politics and Feminist Struggles in Spain:

11 Austerity Politics and Feminist Resistance in Finland:

12 Conclusions: Understanding Gender and the Politics

Table 8.1 Utterances of ‘women and gender’ compared 171

promoting competitiveness (Klatzer and Schlager 2014; Busch et al.

e xisting legal instruments whose application is limited by the context of

initiatives with a gender perspective, even if the consequences of the

negative assessments of the Lisbon Strategy’s progress prompted a mid-

communications, memos and press releases regarding key policy

What is significant in this opening paragraph is recognition of the long-