EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The EU as a Gender Equal Polity: Myths and Realities

Heather Macrae

Journal of Common Market Studies, 2010, vol. 48, issue 1, 155-174

Abstract: Gender equality is an important aspect of the foundational myths of the European Union (EU). However, despite a number of equality policies, the gender myth has been largely unsuccessful in creating a sense of loyalty among European women. This article draws on two cases studies, parental leave policy and liberalization of the airline industry, to investigate why the myth of gender equality has not resonated with European women. The first case demonstrates that, if the European gender narrative runs up against contending national myths, the EU narrative may be undermined. The second case shows that if EU gender initiatives are forced to compete with dominant narratives in the economic sphere, they are quickly undermined. In other words, the EU gender myth, though well grounded in legislative reality, is too weak to create the gender equal polity that it envisions.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2009.02046.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i:1:p:155-174

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0021-9886

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Common Market Studies is currently edited by Jim Rollo and Daniel Wincott

More articles in Journal of Common Market Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i:1:p:155-174