Gender and Diversity

This section invites papers, and especially, panel proposals that explore collective action, legal developments, and policy practices that affect both policy outputs and actual outcomes related to gender and diversity. We seek proposals from a variety of disciplines. We welcome contributions that either focus on EU developments or deploy a comparative perspective to analyse policy issues related gender and diversity in the context of European integration. While a new gender equality strategy has been launched in 2020, the Commission has acknowledged that the global pandemic has disproportionately hurt women, notably on the labor market and with respect to domestic violence – women were often “on the frontline” in the care sector or others where jobs are precarious and underpaid. This is an occasion to reflect on mobilizations around gender including when they intersect with other causes such as class, race or migrant status. Regarding the broader EU anti-discrimination agenda included in the Treaty since 1997 in Amsterdam, policy developments in member states continue to undermine the rights of minorities. The question of diversity also concerns non-EU nationals and migrants or asylum-seekers in the context of restrictive borders policy and heightened polarization. As a new “Cold War” along the lines of gender equality and antidiscrimination divides the EU, the section also invites proposals discussing the root causes of this European crisis in a global context. While the European Council and Parliament have called for urgent legal action and reduced budget allocation against member states such as Hungary and Poland bridging “EU values, principles and laws,” we welcome submissions discussing the limits of this approach. We welcome contributions that assess EU equality policy and comparative developments regarding gender and discrimination of other social groups.