Suchergebnisse

This article explores the impact of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the position of women in the EU. The context of the paper is current debates about women's rights and constitutionalism in Europe. The discussion outlines the development of EU women's rights, the introduction and development of Union citizenship within the Treaties and the launch of the Charter at the Nice Summit. The paper thus explores the position of equality and women's rights in the Charter, with particular emphasis on the Commission and Treaties' commitments to mainstreaming. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the power of mainstreaming as a theory and political strategy for the pursuit of substantive equality within the EU.

This article looks at the role of the European Union in promoting substantive equality for men and women in the European labour market. For this purpose it looks at the assumptions about gender roles and gender divisions of labour enshrined by EU directives on maternity rights and parental leave. The article presents a theoretical discussion of the role of EU policies in protecting women's rights and thus promoting a socioeconomic model that allows men and women to reconcile work and family life. The main policies at the heart of this research are the 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive, the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, the 1992 Childcare Recommendations and the 2000 Council Resolution on Balanced Participation in Work and Family Life. The article thus assesses the gender biases of EU policies and the ensuing implications for the future of gender relations and socioeconomic trends in Europe.

The EU has been a key actor in shaping European gender regimes in post-war Europe. There is a substantial amount of work on the role of the EU as a gender actor, particularly in employment and social policy. The adoption of and consistent referral to equality as a fundamental value of the EU raises important questions about the way the EU promotes 'soft' values in an international setting, through its security and defence policy, particularly as the EU is trying to promote itself as a normative actor. Hence, this article sets out to analyse where gender equality, as a policy frame, is located within the European External Action Service (EEAS). Through an investigation into whether the core normative principles of gender equality and mainstreaming have permeated this policy domain, we then focus on how the EEAS reflects the EU's gender regime, which is informed by Walby's framework, and how this shapes mainstream security and defence policies. We find that the neo-liberal foundations of the EU permeate the way the EEAS incorporates the principle of equality, leading to a shallow understanding that focuses on adding women into existing structures.

The EU has historically sought to project outwards its identity, values and raison d'etre during times of uncertainty and crisis. One of the core values stated to be at the heart of the EU's identity is gender equality. Yet, whilst gender equality features more visibly in the EU's external discourse as it seeks to position itself as a global leader in equality and human rights, the internal challenge posed by crisis presents a real obstacle to future developments in this area. This article examines digital diplomacy, specifically twitter presence, as a discursive site for constituting meaning. We thus take the digital space afforded by Twitter as a site where the EU's internal and external identity is constructed in a process of articulation and contestation. Digital diplomacy is now a salient part of public diplomacy, increasingly prioritised over 'traditional' approaches. Using data gathered from Twitter on the EU's 60th anniversary and International Women's Day in 2017 this paper provides the first in-depth study of the EU's approach to digital diplomacy. We find the marginalisation of gender issues from the EU's core narratives bringing into question the place of gender equality as a core value of the EU.

This article explores the gendered nature of the process of withdrawing from the European Union. Considering the EU is widely accepted as a gender actor, particularly in the context of employment policy, the marginality of these issues in current debates reflects a hierarchy in the value attributed to different policy areas that crystallizes the high-low politics binary. European led initiatives have undoubtedly changed the nature of equality policies in the Member States. Recent studies have also outlined how, and to what extent, EU policy contributes to shifts in gender regimes, gender policy and gender relations at the national level. Women in the UK have benefited greatly from membership of the EU/EEC; thus, looking at Brexit as a process provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the relationship, and patterns of influence, between European and national legislation.

This article explores some of the medium term implications of the EU Referendum on the position and future of women's rights in the UK. Using process tracing, the article explores the complex relationship between EU and UK legislation in the area of maternity rights. Specifically, it argues that considering the UK government's opposition to the original Pregnant Worker Directive (1992) and later to the abandoned Amendment Directive, we can expect these regulations to become watered down. The economic and political environment that shaped the EU Referendum campaigns will frame the UK's negotiations to leave the EU in favour of de-regulation. The UK's withdrawal from European institutions increases the vulnerability of marginal groups and interests as layers of representation are taken away. Moreover, the invisibility of gender issues and the largely strategic deployment of women in the actual campaigns is likely to compound the impact of the well-established position of the UK on equality matters, as highlighted by negotiations on the pregnant worker directives.