In the wake of the financial crisis, the adoption of austerity policies and new mechanisms of economic and political coordination such as the European Semester, have placed pressure on the EU social model and its gender equality ambitions: research has documented how policy makers often see economic imperatives and gender equality measures as incompatible.
Using a Gender Knowledge Policy Process Analysis, this paper presents 1) an initial analysis of the processes and documents through which the European Parliament’s FEMM committee has attempted to affect post crisis economic policy and 2) some of the institutional and interpretative barriers which restrict its effectiveness.
This enables an examination of the challenges which increasingly dominant economic and/or neo-liberal or logics present for gender equality advocates in the post-crisis context.
