Framing Gender Equality in the European Union Political Discourse

Notions of equal opportunities and positive action have become increasingly common in EU-policy documents on gender equality, along with an increased emphasis on gender mainstreaming, with a 'broader approach' that considers gender in contexts that are not only specific to women. This paper asks whether this broader focus has improved the quality of gender policies. It asks: 'How gendered are the new EU-gender equality issues: do they approach the equality of women in relation to changes in the position, status, and behaviour of men - acknowledging the need to tackle structural relations between the sexes, or do they merely focus on women?'
The article considers these questions through an assessment of the way gender equality has been framed in EU-political discourse. 'Framing' refers to the way in which gender has been included in policy documents and decision-making, for example: the types of problems and solutions identified and the extent to which both women and men have a key role in shaping policy decisions. The paper finds that the broader focus supported by a gender mainstreaming agenda entails the introduction of an equal opportunities perspective in a broader range of policy areas and discourses but there has been no challenge to gender relations or gendered practices of inequality. For example, disproportionate attention has been paid to issues of family politics than domestic violence. A possible explanation given is that, within the EU, certain issues may have been associated more closely with other policy areas- for example, domestic violence may be framed primarily as a public health rather than a gender equality issue.