Gender and Brexit: moving beyond the EU’s focus on women’s employment rights

The EU has long championed women’s employment rights (though not always for feminist reasons), says Roberta Guerrina. The presence of senior women at the European Commission has helped to ensure the ‘equality agenda’ is not forgotten. Yet it should not substitute for wider discussions about the lack of a gender dimension in many areas of EU politics. The focus on economic and political rationalities in the Brexit debate is relegating women’s concerns to the areas of social policy – ‘low politics’

‘Legsit’ is no joke. It’s symptomatic of a reactionary Brexit political culture

The Daily Mail’s ‘Legsit’ headline was defended as ‘only a joke’. Not so, writes Roberta Guerrina: it is symptomatic of a political environment in which women politicians are forced to prove their femininity and forces opposed to progressive politics – like the Mail – are newly emboldened. The Great Repeal Bill gives government the chance to roll back EU equality legislation and the press knows it

What did ITV’s EU referendum debate say about the role of women in the campaign?

The impact of EU membership on women has not played a major part in the UK’s referendum campaign. Following a TV debate on 9 June that featured five female politicians, as well as Boris Johnson, Roberta Guerrina assesses how the EU has affected factors such as women’s employment rights and how these issues could be better covered in the wider debate about Brexit

Understanding the gender regime in the European External Action Service

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

Is it really that hard to find women to talk about the EU?

The significant absence of expert women’s voices from media debates and academic events related to the EU Referendum has been widely reported. Roberta Guerrina, Toni Haastrup, Katharine Wright share a list of women EU experts and argue there are in fact many women voices on these issues and they are not difficult to find. More work needs to be done by political institutions, campaigns, and the media to engage women experts and their contributions in a mature and meaningful way

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

Women in the Brexit debate: still largely confined to ‘low’ politics

Despite a few more women making an appearance in the TV referendum debates, the campaign continues to be dominated by male ‘experts’ and a presumption that women will vote on the basis of emotive issues of special interest to them, such as maternity leave policies, write Toni Haastrup, Katharine Wright and Roberta Guerrina. But true gender equality considers the impact of social policy on every part of society. We can and must challenge the perception of “high” and “low” politics that marginalises particular discussions and effectively sidelines women

Is it really that difficult to find women to talk about the EU Referendum?

The significant absence of expert women’s voices from media debates and academic events related to the EU Referendum has been widely reported. Roberta Guerrina, Toni Haastrup, Katharine Wright share a list of women EU experts and argue there are in fact many women voices on these issues and they are not difficult to find. More work needs to be done by political institutions, campaigns, and the media to engage women experts and their contributions in a mature and meaningful way

Brexit: gendered implications for equality in the UK

How can we seek to unpack the complex and gendered dynamics of Brexit amid a deeply divisive and fast-paced debate? We argue that to not address this question is a cost too high. The challenge, given the scope of our intervention here, is to disentangle the work that gender is doing as a structure of power that shapes every aspect of our daily lives. As feminist scholars, we know that gender structures and norms will permeate the myriad possibilities for what Brexit might look like. Therefore, we take as our starting point the nature of the process itself, both pre- and post-referendum, to consider whose voices and what issues have been prioritised. This, we argue, is our best opportunity to consider what the final settlement is likely to look like and how it might shape gender regimes in the UK in future. We also consider current government responses to the crisis, in particular, austerity and its impact on gender equality, arguing that if austerity has been gender-blind, Brexit will be too.Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin