In Portugal, the economic crisis and austerity policies led to significant political and institutional changes that impacted the lives of women and families. But only recently have policy debates started to address how women were affected relative to men. Particularly, the effects of austerity policies on gender equality in employment, on what the retrenchment of the welfare state represents for women, on increasing domestic violence, and on the decline of birth-rates. These are four of the main gendered dimensions put forward by politicians and activists regarding the impacts of the economic crisis and austerity policies on women. However, we know very little about the process of how these specific dimensions gained visibility vis-á-vis other potential gender concerns. In fact, there is little research addressing how discourse about women is constructed and reinforced by the different political actors during the economic crisis or how gender equality discourse is included or excluded from hegemonic discourses on macroeconomic policies. The impact of budget cuts, the restructuring of the gender equality machinery, the proposal of new gender programs, and the contestation of anti-austerity movements also sheds light into competing political discourses about women during the crisis. The analysis reveals that political discourse in parliament was mostly ungendered and focused on how the crisis impacted families and on the decline of birth-rates, without specific policies directed at women. The anti-austerity movement, on the other hand, did insert into the discourse a much more complex and gendered framing regarding the disproportionate impact of the economic crisis on women.
