Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society - recent issues

Patterns of Development in Work/Family Reconciliation Policies for Parents in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK in the 2000s

Lewis, J., Knijn, T., Martin, C., Ostner, I. — 2008-09-05

Work/family reconciliation policies have increasingly become part of employment-led social policy at both EU and Member State levels. Given this trend, we expected to see more attention to policies that unequivocally promote women's employment: childcare provision and the promotion of flexible working, together with reform of leaves that permit labour market exit in order to care for children. Our examination of the nature of change in policy goals and instruments finds that developments have not been this straightforward, and that they can be related to existing (and differing) patterns of labour market behaviour and attitudes towards parental involvement in work and care.

Demography as a Push toward Gender Equality? Current Reforms of German Family Policy

Henninger, A., Wimbauer, C., Dombrowski, R. — 2008-09-05

The paper analyzes the policy objectives and (potential) outcomes of one of the recent reforms in German family policy, the new parenting benefit. The reform introduces not only a new policy instrument that puts a stronger focus on the labor-market activation of mothers but also a new policy objective: an attempt to raise the birth rate. We argue that this indicates a paradigm shift in German family policy, as it changes the interplay between (de)familialization, (de)commodification, and stratification. While the new paradigm offers better opportunities for highly qualified parents, it also leads to increasing social inequalities between families and, more specifically, mothers.

The Comparative Political Economy of Parental Leave and Child Care: Evidence from Twenty OECD Countries

Lambert, P. A. — 2008-09-05

What explains the variation in policies that support working women and mothers? This question has important implications for the social, economic, and political equality of women. In order to better understand the politics of government effort to support working mothers, I develop an index of maternal employment policy for twenty Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in the mid-1980s, mid-1990s, and 2002 and test competing hypotheses drawn from the welfare state literature. I find that political and economic institutions and the percent of women in parliament are key factors that shape the degree to which states encourage maternal employment.

Quota Laws for Women in Politics: Implications for Feminist Practice

Krook, M. L. — 2008-09-05

More than fifty countries have adopted quota laws to regulate the selection or election of women to political office. This suggests that states have begun to identify quotas as a new state-led strategy for incorporating women into public life and, by extension, for promoting feminist aims to improve women's overall social, economic, and political status. This article explores the reasons why quotas have been so readily adopted in diverse countries around the world, as well as possible implications for women as political actors and for women as a group, to gauge the broader meaning of quotas for feminism in practice.

Questioning Women's Movement 'Strategies': Australian Activism on Work and Care

Andrew, M. — 2008-09-05

Women's movements are often described as adopting "strategies" but studies rarely question how and to what extent movement decisions are actually made. This case study considers the Australian second-wave women's movement's "choice" to pursue workforce participation over care-centred approaches. It finds that the movement was too diverse and decentralized to make any such collective strategic decision. Action was geared to growing the movement and expressing the concerns of the women involved, not forming political platforms. Nevertheless, a pragmatic strand emerged, in which some groups took significant pro-work decisions to counter the risk of reinforcing traditional sex roles.

Writing Women Out, Folding Gender In: The European Union "Modernises" Social Policy

Jenson, J. — 2008-06-10

Over the last fifteen years, most of the countries with liberal and social democratic welfare regimes have redesigned their social policy. This trajectory can be labeled the LEGO policy paradigm. In it, the definition of the best policy mix often targets children and youth and redeploys policy instruments to achieve goals for the future. There is a growing commitment by the European Union to this supply-side understanding of social policy. Thus, while the machinery of gender mainstreaming and equality remains in place, nonetheless, two mechanisms are at one work in the social policy field: one of writing women out of the plot and folding gender into other stories.

Crafting a New Conservative Consensus on Welfare Reform: Redefining Citizenship, Social Provision, and the Public/Private Divide

Mayer, V. — 2008-06-10

This article traces the development of conservative welfare discourse in the United States, beginning in the 1970s when a new cohort of conservative intellectuals re-articulated previously competing social and economic projects in ways that allowed their proponents to support a common welfare reform agenda. I analyze how these writers used race and gender images associated with categories from American political tradition to re-imagine citizenship and to shift the public/private boundary. In conclusion, I note how this new conservative reform project displaced the liberal understanding of citizenship that had anchored the entitlement to public assistance and promoted the simultaneous communitization and marketization of public welfare institutions.

Expanding the Subject: Violence, Care, and (In)Active Male Citizenship

Kershaw, P., Pulkingham, J., Fuller, S. — 2008-06-10

We explore the implications of an employment-oriented vision of active citizenship for the gendered dimensions of welfare regimes, observing how this vision distracts attention from male violence against women and male neglect of childrearing which precipitate entrance onto welfare for many lone-mothers. We therefore question policy logics which presume that welfare dependency by lone-mothers reflects primarily a deficient work ethic. In place of this presumption, we argue for reconceptualizing active citizenship around norms that demand men to act differently, without recourse to individualized, patriarchal, racialized, and classist discourses that currently inform much fatherhood and family values rhetoric.

Geographies of Transnational Feminisms: The Politics of Place and Scale in the World March of Women

Conway, J. — 2008-06-10

This is a study of the World March of Women, a newly emergent and innovative transnational feminist network. Through this study, I aim to contribute to scholarship on transnational feminist practices, grounded empirically in an account of the spatial praxis of the World March of Women, and enriched analytically by critical concepts in geography. I begin by problematizing conventional grammars of the local-global and transnational in feminist studies of movements, networks, and organizing. I proceed to introduce more complex theorizations of space, place, and scale imported from critical geography. I then provide an account of the emergence of the World March of Women, with an eye to analyzing its spatial praxis. I conclude by considering both the political significance of this praxis and theoretical implications for feminist analytical work on the transnational.

Who Defines Babies' "Needs"?: The Scientization of Baby Food in Indonesia

Kimura, A. H. — 2008-06-10

Introduction: The Challenge of Gender and Multiculturalism: Re-examining Equality Policies in Scandinavia and the European Union

Williams, F. — 2008-03-26

National Security versus Moral Responsibility: An Analysis of Integration Programs in Malmo, Sweden

Scuzzarello, S. — 2008-03-26

This article proposes that people working with integration projects in Sweden are driven by a wish to help immigrants integrate into the host society. At the same time, however, the practices of multiculturalism tend to reproduce narratives that depict immigrants as threats to the host society and as inherently different from it. This tension can be analyzed through the intersections of a dilemma of security versus moral responsibility. Secondly, this article argues that integration programs in Sweden tend to reproduce and maintain articulations of nation, culture, gender, and race, and thus contribute to the construction of a harmonious and singular sense of the Swedish self.

A Scandinavian Model? Gender Equality Discourses on Multiculturalism

Langvasbraten, T. — 2008-03-26

Along with the other Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are often perceived of as gender equality pioneers with comprehensive gender equality policies. But how does the governmental gender equality policy of today reflect that their populations have become more culturally diverse during the last decades? My analysis, based partly on governmental action plans for gender equality 2000–2005, including the related parliamentary debates, points to some similarities but also to major inter-country differences. In all three countries, there is expressed a clear concern for the agency of women and girls of ethnic minority background, centered on violence and oppression. But, while ethnic minority and gender equality is highly prioritized in the Danish gender equality policy, the same is not true for the Swedish equivalent in the period studied. Also, the Danish case gives the clearest example of what is believed to be conflict between minority cultural traditions and "Danish" equality norms, whereas the Swedish governmental rhetoric is dominated by theories of ongoing patriarchy, seemingly indifferent to cultural diversity. While Norway is characterized by a lack of overall gender equality action plans and parliamentary gender equality debates during this period, its policies towards gender and multiculturalism have been managed largely as discrete issues.

Gender, Class, and Family: Men and Gender Equality in a Danish Context

Christensen, A.-D., Larsen, J. E. — 2008-03-26

The aim of the article is to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of men's different conditions and choices in contemporary Danish society. The article is based on interesectionality and diversity thinking as it distinguishes between options available to men in different social positions. The primary focus is on various types of empirical data that illuminate the intersection of gender, class, and family in terms of public discourses on men and equality, differences in living conditions, and in coping capabilities. The article has three sections: Section one presents the theoretical framework and the two key concepts: hegemonic masculinity and intersectionality; Section two discusses a differentiated equality concept based on Amartya Sen's concept of equality, which emphasizes the different options available to particular groups of men; Section three is the empirical part of the article where we outline the specific characteristics of the intersection of gender, class, and family. Here we first discuss how middle-class men have dominated the Danish equality discourse on men. Second, we explore both inter and intra difference in living conditions for men and women in relation to different class and family positions. Third, we explain the specific characteristics of a Danish gender profile with an extreme polarization between men in the top and the bottom of society. We elaborate this in final perspectives by presenting three possible scenarios for different types of masculinities and their realistic "choices" and potential capabilities to develop sustainable coping strategies.

Actualizing the "Democratic Family"? Swedish Policy Rhetoric versus Family Practices

Ahlberg, J., Roman, C., Duncan, S. — 2008-03-26

In this article, we examine empirically a key element of individualization theory—the democratic family. We do so using the "acid test" of family policy, and family practice, in Sweden. First, we review the progress of family policy in Sweden since the 1960s, which has expressly promoted an agenda of gender equality and democracy in families, with individual autonomy for both adults and children as one key element. We then turn to family practice, looking particularly at negotiation and adult equality, lifelong parenting after separation, and children's autonomy. While Swedish policy makers and shapers seem to have developed the idea of the democratic family long before the sociologist Anthony Giddens, the results in practice have been more ambivalent. While there has been change, there is more adaptation to pre-existing gender and generational norms.

Framing Gender Equality in the European Union Political Discourse

Lombardo, E., Meier, P. — 2008-03-26

In the last decade, the European Union (EU) approach to gender equality has broadened to new concepts, such as gender mainstreaming, and new issues, such as "family policies", "domestic violence", and "gender inequality in politics". However, the frame analysis of policy documents in these new areas shows, first, that each issue has developed its own particular features, and, secondly, that the broadening of the EU-political discourse on gender equality has not led to a deeper framing of the issues in terms of gender equality. The lack of EU competence in these areas, the status of the policy documents, and differences in the actors having a voice and being referred to in the documents are proposed as possible explanations for its framing.