Legal approaches to gender issues

Abstract

Gender issues represent a complex and multifaceted set of challenges that require a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach. Historically, legal frameworks have been used to perpetuate gender inequality. However, legal reforms and landmark cases have gradually changed this paradigm, and current international and a growing number of national legal frameworks support gender equality. The role of international organizations and mechanisms, including gender mainstreaming, is of fundamental importance in the promotion of gender equality. Intersectional legal frameworks to address gender inequality have been developed to address the specific needs and challenges of marginalized individuals and groups (Crenshaw, 1989, Grabham et al. 2008, Kantola & Lombardo 2017). Legal changes occurred mainly in connection with gender identity and expression, gender-based violence, reproductive rights and gender equality in decision-making. Despite significant progress, there are several challenges to the adoption and actual implementation of gender progressive norms, including social and cultural norms, institutional barriers, and conservative resistance to change. Numerous social and cultural norms reinforce gender inequality and stereotypes significantly limit women's opportunities for advancement (Lorber & Farrell, 1991). Institutional policies and practices, such as the pay gap and lack of support for work-family balance, are biased against women (Catalyst, 2021). Significant numbers of the population, politicians, and businesses perceive efforts to promote gender equality as a threat to their own status and power, which may be manifested in open hostility towards persons who challenge traditional gender roles (Kováts & Põim, 2015; Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017). Conservative and populist discourse can be critical in shaping public opinion and policy agendas (Baker Beck, 1998; Wesley, 2013; Graff & Korolczuk, 2022) can hinder the adoption of positive measures to promote gender equality, such as gender quotas (Krook, 2018) and fuel gender violence (Manne, 2017). Significant barriers can also be found in academia, including anti-feminist discourses that ridicule and delegitimize legal feminist theories and scholars and directly or indirectly exclude them from academic curricula and publications (Stefancic & Delgado, 1996; Clark et al., 2014; King, 2015). Finally, there is a prominent legislative gap between the formal adoption of laws and their real application and effectiveness at the international as well as national level. The presented panel offers a range of articles related to the above-mentioned issues. Two panel articles focus on the analysis of socio-political dynamics and public debate related to gender legislation, both progressive and restrictive. The first case analyzes the long and contradictory processes of approving "trans" laws at the national and regional level in Spain, and the second case deals with the heated public debate following the ban on fathers' participation in childbirth in the Czech Republic. Two other articles look at the effectiveness of gender positive actions - gender quotas in business in Germany, and internal gender policies including quotas in the UN, Council of Europe and the EU. The final article offers an analysis of the anti-feminist peer review practices of law journals, which represent a significant barrier in the development of feminist research in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Title	Details
Negotiating what it means to be “free”: gender equality and governance in North and East Syria	View Paper Details
Political dynamics, conflicts and straitjackets surrounding Spanish “Trans” legislation: a multiscalar and intersectional analysis	View Paper Details
Legal Expertise, Emotions and Gendered Public Discourse: A Debate on Ban of Fathers' Presence at Childbirth in the Czech Republic	View Paper Details
Are Corporate Governance laws in Germany effective in reducing the gender pay and career gap in male-dominated industries?	View Paper Details
Internal gender equality of International Organizations - role models or hypocrites?	View Paper Details