Stuck at the Cross-Road: Intersectional Aspirations in the EU Anti-Discrimination Legal Framework

This paper seeks to critically assess the way the EU guarantees the protection of individuals who are discriminated on multiple grounds. As EU law does not recognise that multiple identities can intersect, it is argued that the current anti-discrimination legal framework is not adequate to deal with claims of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Recent legislative developments have, however, raised the issue of multiple discrimination and intersectional disadvantage but they remain guarded and often take a simplistic, rather than an intersectional approach. The EU anti-discrimination legal framework appears to be at a cross-road and choices made by the legislator to promote the concept of multiple discrimination over that of intersectional disadvantage will have profound consequences for the EU anti-discrimination legal framework as a whole and its future developments

What part did the EU play in raising women’s pensionable age?

Women born in 1954 or later now have to wait longer to claim their pensions in order to bring them into line with men. Annick Masselot, Roberta Guerrina and Bridgette McLellan explain how the UK implemented an EU directive requiring the sexes to be treated equally for social security purposes. They argue that although, on average, women are worse-off in old age and many regard the change as retrograde, the principle of gender equality stands

Between a rock and a hard place:The EU's gender regime in times of crisis

This article applies Walby's Gender Regime Theory to examine the EU's role as a gender actor in the context of crisis. We build on Walby's analysis of the EU as a public gender regime to understand continuity and change as the European Commission sought to lead the EU and its Member States through one of the most existential crises faced by the organisation: the Covid-19 pandemic. Gender Regime Theory provides a useful way to think about the impact of multiple and overlapping crises on the European gender acquis and the way it contributes to the development of a European gender regime. In order to understand the way the EU gender regime has evolved, and is continuing to evolve, we bring together two distinct bodies of literature, GRT and Feminist EU Studies in order to understand the interaction between national and EU gender regimes and the ways in which these are intertwined in the EU's Covid recovery plan

Walking into the Footprint of EU Law: Unpacking the Gendered Consequences of Brexit

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

Does European Union Studies have a Gender Problem? Experiences from Researching Brexit

On International Women’s Day 2017, EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans and High Representative Federica Mogherini claimed, “the European Union stands by women in Europe and around the globe today, as it did at the time of its foundation.” Indeed, (gender) equality has long been used as a foundational narrative of the EU (MacRae 2010). If we take these claims seriously, then gender-sensitive analysis should have a central place within EU studies. So, why do (gender) equality and the insights of feminist scholarship remain largely marginal to the EU studies canon? And how has the United Kingdom’s decision to exit the EU (Brexit) amplified this marginalization? By drawing on our experiences of researching and writing about the gendered impact of Brexit, we draw attention to significant blind spots at the heart of our discipline. This analysis ultimately highlights disparities in focus that reproduce disciplinary hierarchie

The emerging childcare strategy in European Union law : the struggle between care, gender equality and the market.

This thesis explores the European Union’s (EU) emerging engagement with childcare law and policy. It assesses the extent to which the EU has adopted a childcare strategy which responds to the need of caregivers (who are predominantly but not exclusively women), the requirement of gender equality and the well-being of children, whilst also supporting the EU’s economic aims. The institutions of childcare in EU law are analysed respectively from two broad perspectives: the interrelated and complementary provisions relating to childcare services and the rights of caregivers are considered separately based on their different legal bases. Although the building of an EU childcare strategy designed to set minimum common standards around childcare services appears to be relevant to employment and economic growth, this thesis argues that the EU has made little progress in relation to the adoption of such a coordinated strategy. It acknowledges the difficulties of regulating childcare services at EU level because of the lack of clear competence alongside heavily socio-cultural influences and some resistance from the Member States themselves. It shows that the role of the EU is mainly limited to encouraging Member States to adopt (preferably publicly subsidised) available, affordable and quality out-of-home childcare provisions as well as to provide a forum for information sharing. The thesis then moves on to provide a critical perspective on the Barcelona targets and the subsequent policies which, it is demonstrated, have failed to contribute effectively to gender equality and other EU values. It concludes that the EU’s ability to influence childcare regulation is limited to principle setting. Nonetheless, the thesis does establish that the EU actively addresses the rights of caregivers (especially mothers). The thesis notes how the EU has developed these rights along two broad areas - while rights to work-life reconciliation have mainly contributed to supporting the employment of women in the labour market, the Court of Justice of the EU has tied the concept of care to that of citizenship - and how the development of parents’ rights in these areas signifies the EU’s commitment to supporting childcare and the work of caregivers. However it is also clear that the rights to protect and empower caregivers have been patchy, insufficient and, in some areas, legally uncertain