Showing papers in "Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society in 2008"
TL;DR: Work/family reconciliation policies have increasingly become part of employment-led social policy at both EU and Member State levels as discussed by the authors, and they can be related to existing (and differing) patterns of labour market behaviour and attitudes towards parental involvement in work and care.
Abstract: Work/family reconciliation policies have increasingly become part of employment-led social policy at both EU and Member State levels. Given this trend, we expected to see more attention to policies that unequivocally promote women's employment: childcare provision and the promotion of flexible working, together with reform of leaves that permit labour market exit in order to care for children. Our examination of the nature of change in policy goals and instruments finds that developments have not been this straightforward, and that they can be related to existing (and differing) patterns of labour market behaviour and attitudes towards parental involvement in work and care.
258 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the European Union approach to gender equality has broadened to new concepts such as gender mainstreaming, and new issues, such as "family policies", "domestic violence", and "gender inequality in politics".
Abstract: In the last decade, the European Union (EU) approach to gender equality has broadened to new concepts, such as gender mainstreaming, and new issues, such as "family policies", "domestic violence", and "gender inequality in politics". However, the frame analysis of policy documents in these new areas shows, first, that each issue has developed its own particular features, and, secondly, that the broadening of the EU-political discourse on gender equality has not led to a deeper framing of the issues in terms of gender equality. The lack of EU competence in these areas, the status of the policy documents, and differences in the actors having a voice and being referred to in the documents are proposed as possible explanations for its framing.
107 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the World March of Women, a transnational feminist network, has been studied, grounded empirically in an account of the spatial praxis of the world march of women, and enriched analytically by critical concepts in geography.
Abstract: This is a study of the World March of Women, a newly emergent and innovative transnational feminist network. Through this study, I aim to contribute to scholarship on transnational feminist practices, grounded empirically in an account of the spatial praxis of the World March of Women, and enriched analytically by critical concepts in geography. I begin by problematizing conventional grammars of the local-global and transnational in feminist studies of movements, networks, and organizing. I proceed to introduce more complex theorizations of space, place, and scale imported from critical geography. I then provide an account of the emergence of the World March of Women, with an eye to analyzing its spatial praxis. I conclude by considering both the political significance of this praxis and theoretical implications for feminist analytical work on the transnational.
96 citations
TL;DR: More than fifty countries have adopted quota laws to regulate the selection or election of women to political office as mentioned in this paper, which is a new state-led strategy for incorporating women into public life and by extension for promoting feminist aims to improve women overall social economic and political status.
Abstract: More than fifty countries have adopted quota laws to regulate the selection or election of women to political office. This suggests that states have begun to identify quotas as a new state-led strategy for incorporating women into public life and by extension for promoting feminist aims to improve womens overall social economic and political status. This article explores the reasons in three parts. The first section identifies three kinds of quota policies: party quotas reserved seats and legislative quotas. Focusing on the latter two types of measures it outlines the basic features of legal strategies to increase the number of women in political office as well as similarities and differences in the motivations and circumstances surrounding their adoption. The second section draws on the broader literature on gender quotas to distill four explanations for quota adoption which it then uses to "map" quota campaigns to explore how feminist and non-feminist actors are involved in various kinds of quota debates. The third section considers how these origins may affect the meanings of quota reforms and in turn their implications for women as political actors and their impact on women as a group. The final section concludes with some thoughts regarding the contributions and challenges of quota laws to feminist practice. (excerpt)
88 citations
TL;DR: In the last fifteen years, most of the countries with liberal and social democratic welfare regimes have redesigned their social policy as mentioned in this paper, and the definition of the best policy mix often targets children and youth and redeploys policy instruments to achieve goals for the future.
Abstract: Over the last fifteen years, most of the countries with liberal and social democratic welfare regimes have redesigned their social policy. This trajectory can be labeled the LEGO policy paradigm. In it, the definition of the best policy mix often targets children and youth and redeploys policy instruments to achieve goals for the future. There is a growing commitment by the European Union to this supply-side understanding of social policy. Thus, while the machinery of gender mainstreaming and equality remains in place, nonetheless, two mechanisms are at one work in the social policy field: one of writing women out of the plot and folding gender into other stories.
84 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an attempt to analyze the transformation of the Islamic headscarf from being a private question of piety to a public question of freedom of religious expression was made, and it was argued that such a transformation constitutes not only the foundations of the emergence of the issue but also what we call headscar-skepticism.
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to analyze the transformation of the Islamic headscarf from being a private question of piety to a public question of freedom of religious expression. It argues that such a transformation constitutes not only the foundations of the emergence of the headscarf issue but also what we call headscarf-skepticism. The long-lasting headscarf issue has reached a point of deadlock once again due to the reactions of the secular sections of society to the recent efforts of the government to lift the headscarf ban. Different uses and meanings of the Islamic headscarf have reached an increased complexity since the foundation of the republic. It is argued that this complexity is due first to the elements of the history of the Turkish Republic, second to the emergence of new state–society relations, and third to the accelerated developments in the conflict between Islamists and secularists.
68 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on how solidarity-across-difference is understood: as a strategic alliance around multiple axes of difference or as using the state as an ally to help "other" women address their special needs.
Abstract: As European nations grapple with when and how to extend inclusive citizenship to their Muslim minorities, the parameters of Muslim women's citizenship have jumped to the forefront of feminist concern. Much of the debate internationally has revolved around veiling, but we argue that this is only one element of how ethnic, religious, and other differences among women are addressed. In this paper, we choose two cases which highlight political choices surrounding intersectionality for German feminists: headscarf laws and antidiscrimination laws. Both laws are inherently intersectional, with significant and differential impact on Muslim women, but German feminists have engaged in these two issues quite differently. The so-called headscarf debate has drawn intense feminist involvement but changes in antidiscrimination law are rarely discussed in feminist media. We attempt to explain this difference by focusing on how solidarity-across-difference is understood: as a strategic alliance around multiple axes of difference or as using the state as an ally to help "other" women address their special needs.
65 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the gender equality policies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway in the last decade and found that the Danish case gives the clearest example of what is believed to be conflict between minority cultural traditions and "Danish" equality norms.
Abstract: Along with the other Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are often perceived of as gender equality pioneers with comprehensive gender equality policies. But how does the governmental gender equality policy of today reflect that their populations have become more culturally diverse during the last decades? My analysis, based partly on governmental action plans for gender equality 2000–2005, including the related parliamentary debates, points to some similarities but also to major inter-country differences. In all three countries, there is expressed a clear concern for the agency of women and girls of ethnic minority background, centered on violence and oppression. But, while ethnic minority and gender equality is highly prioritized in the Danish gender equality policy, the same is not true for the Swedish equivalent in the period studied. Also, the Danish case gives the clearest example of what is believed to be conflict between minority cultural traditions and "Danish" equality norms, whereas the Swedish governmental rhetoric is dominated by theories of ongoing patriarchy, seemingly indifferent to cultural diversity. While Norway is characterized by a lack of overall gender equality action plans and parliamentary gender equality debates during this period, its policies towards gender and multiculturalism have been managed largely as discrete issues.
60 citations
TL;DR: The authors traces the development of conservative welfare discourse in the United States, beginning in the 1970s when a new cohort of conservative intellectuals rearticulated previously competing social and economic projects in ways that allowed their proponents to support a common welfare reform agenda.
Abstract: This article traces the development of conservative welfare discourse in the United States, beginning in the 1970s when a new cohort of conservative intellectuals re-articulated previously competing social and economic projects in ways that allowed their proponents to support a common welfare reform agenda. I analyze how these writers used race and gender images associated with categories from American political tradition to re-imagine citizenship and to shift the public/private boundary. In conclusion, I note how this new conservative reform project displaced the liberal understanding of citizenship that had anchored the entitlement to public assistance and promoted the simultaneous communitization and marketization of public welfare institutions.
40 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the diverging policy-strategies by focusing on structures and institutions that account for Austria's tolerant approach towards veiling and argue that it is the legacy of Austria's "pluralistically inclusive" state-church relation, which provides special institutional structures and procedures to deal with religious issues as well as the dominant framing that constitute the tolerant context for Muslim practices.
Abstract: Austria has one of the most tolerant regulations concerning the expression of religious beliefs and practices in the public realm in Europe. Concerning the headscarf, the Austrian legislation does not know any restrictions on wearing headgear—neither for cultural nor for security reasons - if wearing a veil is clearly related to religious reasons. These liberal legal regulations have even been strengthened during the recent years. In line with this legal framework, public disputes over religious attire worn in public institutions have remained rather modest in Austria compared with other Western liberal democracies. However, the tolerant legal regulations are contrasted with rather palpable racist attitudes within the Austrian population, the recent adoption of restrictive immigration and integration policies and right-wing parties that systematically foster sentiments against immigrants. This paper explores these diverging policy-strategies by focusing on structures and institutions that account for Austria's tolerant approach towards veiling and argues that it is the legacy of Austria's "pluralistically inclusive" state-church relation, which provides special institutional structures and procedures to deal with religious issues as well as the dominant framing that constitute the tolerant context for Muslim practices. By focusing on the current headscarf debates, the paper indicates that this silent compromise is getting fragile due to the re-framing strategies of right-wing parties in the context of an ethno-cultural citizenship regime that describes Muslims in Austria as cultural or ethnic and not as religious others.
29 citations
TL;DR: Recently, there has been a broad shift in the discourse of the Third World food problem from food quantity to food quality, from hunger to “hidden hunger,” and from famine to micronutrient deficiencies.
Abstract: Recently, there has been a broad shift in the discourse of the Third World food problem from food quantity to food quality, from hunger to “hidden hunger,” and from famine to micronutrient deficiencies. In this new framing, Third World countries might have enough food, but they do not have “quality” food, where quality is signified by the amount of micronutrients. Micronutrients refer to vitamins and minerals that are essential for physiological functions, such as vitamin A, iron, and iodine. Micronutrient deficiencies, often called “hidden hunger,” refer to the lack of those micronutrients. Infants and pregnant and lactating women are particularly vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies. In particular, vitamin A deficiency (VAD), iron deficiency anemia (IDA), and iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) among the “vulnerable populations” have become major concerns (Uvin 1999). To combat these micronutrient deficiencies, an increasingly popular tool, promoted by development experts, is the fortification of baby food with micronutrients. Fortification refers to the process of adding micronutrients, typically at the site of production. Fortifying various types of food for babies, such as formulas, snacks,
TL;DR: The British Veil Wars map the space of the British debates on Islamic women's apparel and identifies the political conditions and structures that direct the non regulation of its practice in public institutions, such as schools as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The British Veil Wars maps the space of the British debates on Islamic women's apparel and identifies the political conditions and structures that direct the non regulation of its practice in public institutions, such as schools. The article argues that despite the poignant political dilemmas caused by the 2006 'veil debate' on the niqab (face veil) statutory regulation against its practice was not foreshadowed and the reasons most succinctly identified against its non - regulation is due to not only Britain's citizenship regime but also because of the church and state establishment as well as Article 9 of the European Commission of Human Rights. The article leads to reflections about the process by which the veil became constructed as a response to the political imperatives and failures of British multiculturalism.
TL;DR: For feminist scholars and activists who live outside the Scandinavian and Nordic countries, their “woman-friendly” policies are both a source of envy and an exemplar we can present to our policy-makers.
Abstract: For feminist scholars and activists who live outside the Scandinavian and Nordic countries, their “woman-friendly” policies are both a source of envy and an exemplar we can present to our policy-makers. “Look”, we say, hand on hip, arm outstretched, “the Swedish state has done it—it has invested in child care, generously supported maternity and paternity leave—and its economy has not suffered. It is possible!” To begin, therefore, to identify in those countries areas of slow progress, or equality discourses which produce subordinating effects, or dissonances between equality policies and everyday practices, may appear to undermine the case for political optimism. But it should not. To begin with, intellectual vigilance helps us better understand the difficulties that lie in wait for the pursuit of policies for equality; it adds to our understanding of
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the Australian second-wave women's movement's choice to pursue workforce participation over care-centred approaches and find that the movement was too diverse and decentralized to make any such collective strategic decision.
Abstract: Women's movements are often described as adopting "strategies" but studies rarely question how and to what extent movement decisions are actually made. This case study considers the Australian second-wave women's movement's "choice" to pursue workforce participation over care-centred approaches. It finds that the movement was too diverse and decentralized to make any such collective strategic decision. Action was geared to growing the movement and expressing the concerns of the women involved, not forming political platforms. Nevertheless, a pragmatic strand emerged, in which some groups took significant pro-work decisions to counter the risk of reinforcing traditional sex roles.