Policy framing and resistance: Gender mainstreaming in Horizon 2020

Introduction

Despite the European Union’s (EU) official commitment to include gender mainstreaming (GM) in all EU policies since the 1990s, the actual implementation of gender equality has not been executed (Cavaghan, 2017; Hafner-Burton and Pollack, 2009; Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014). By addressing this gap between rhetoric and practice, in this article I seek to contribute to the discussion regarding the (non)implementation of GM in the EU through the following question: ‘What is GM achieving in Horizon 2020 work programmes?’ The article explores how gender inequality as a social problem and GM as a possible tool to combat gender inequality is problematised by the advisory group experts and what has been achieved in the work programmes from 2014 until 2016. To do so, this article employs an innovative two-fold approach to the analysis of GM implementation. Firstly, it differentiates four types of policy frames of gender equality in the implementation of GM as follows: (1) the fixing frame of gender equality; (2) the women-centred frame; (3) the broadening frame of gender equality; and (4) the economic frame of gender equality. Secondly, as the study of opposition to gender equality is still limited (Verloo, 2018), in drawing on the concept of resistance (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014), this article also gives new insights on why there is a gap between GM in principle and practice.

I begin by discussing the literature on EU gender equality policy with a specific reference to GM and feminist institutionalism to analyse the actual implementation of GM and the possible resistance to the strategy in the EU as well as feminist economic policy research, which has addressed the economising effects of gender equality in EU policies. In the second section, I look at how GM is discursively constituted in Horizon 2020 by unpacking the advisory experts’ policy frames of gender equality and their possible individual opposition to the successful execution of GM in the Commission’s institutional context.

Resistance to gender mainstreaming in the EU: Institutions, actors and policymaking procedures

Since its conception, EU gender equality policy has been fitted with the embedded neoliberalism of the EU social model which did not address the structural causes of gender inequality and, therefore, gender equality was always justified ‘for the market’ (Jacquot, 2015). This means that gender equality mechanisms are already invested with political rationalities that undermine their efficacy for emancipatory needs due to the EU’s neoliberal governmentality which deploys gender as an apparatus of power for modifying human behaviour (Repo, 2015: 2). Neoliberal governmentality refers to ‘the rationalities and practices of governance that seek to subject all social, political, and economic phenomena to economic calculus by the extension of market values into everyday values and practices’ (Brown, 2005: 40). As a result, gender equality became a mode of the EU’s neoliberal governmentality by regulating and optimising the reproduction of labour and life of men and women as biopolitical subjects through the EU’s economic priorities, such as economic and social cohesion, sustainable growth and competitiveness (Repo, 2016: 307–308).

Despite the EU’s widening focus on gender equality beyond employment, such as violence against women and trafficking, research policy as well as external relations in the 1990s, this did not lead to a deeper framing of gender equality (Lombardo and Meier, 2008). Moreover, while gender equality was historically promoted ‘for the market’ being subsumed to the economic goals of the EU, since the 2008 economic crisis, gender equality was no longer subordinated to other goals and priorities but became a truly secondary object ‘despite the market’ (Jacquot, 2015: 170–171).

While the previous definition and practice of equal opportunity as equal treatment ¹ handled public policy as gender neutral, the introduction of GM served the goal to challenge this conception and from this time GM – no longer as a recommendation, but as a principle – became integrated into EU policy developments (Pető and Manners, 2006: 100). Contrary to equal treatment and positive action, ² GM is ‘the systematic integration of equal opportunities for women and men into the organisation and its culture, into policies, programmes and projects, into ways of seeing and doing’ (Rees, 2001: 246). Therefore, GM is designed as a transformative policy strategy that is supposed to bring about structural changes in equality between men and women by going beyond the disadvantaged position of women in respect to the privileged position of men with the ambition of subjecting all policy areas to gender equality practices.

Nonetheless, disappointment has grown in feminist literature about the realisation of the transformative potential of GM (Brouwers, 2013; Daly, 2005; Woodward, 2008). These critiques are centred on two issues. One of them is the fact that GM cannot be translated into practice in achieving gender equality in society, due to its utopian nature. GM is often seen as an ‘ideal but impractical’ strategy (Brouwers, 2013: 29–30), or as ‘the mythical beast which takes for granted the social change it is intended to produce’ (van Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014: 303). The other critiques on GM are related to the lack of political will, the forces of capitalist appropriation and institutional constraints (Lombardo and Meier, 2008; Mazur, 2007; Walby, 2011). Indeed, the EU has adopted an integrationist approach to GM by solely integrating gender issues within existing policy priorities while pre-existing practices assume the irrelevance of gender issues, as well as by judging the success of mainstreaming according to technical guidelines and tools (Cavaghan, 2017; Hafner-Burton and Pollack, 2009).

To understand what GM is achieving, it is essential to look at the EU’s institutional context as well as the role of its individual actors – a research direction noticeably ignored in feminist literature (see van Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014). Due to the Commission’s cultural context and its economic focus, it has constrained the policy development on mainstreaming (Booth and Bennett, 2002: 438). The Commission’s integrationist view is actually the outcome of the strategic choices of mainstreaming advocates, who traditionally framed and ‘sold’ gender mainstreaming as an effective means (Pollack and Hafner-Burton, 2000: 452–453). In these cases, ‘the blindness of gender mainstreaming to “policy as a site for resistance and contestation” can easily undermine the realisation of fundamental transformation’ (van Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014: 313). However, I reclaim the transformative potential of GM by arguing that the reason for the disappointing implementation of GM in EU policy comes from the technocratic, integrationist, and somewhat non-participatory EU decision-making policy mechanisms that pose the real barriers to making GM a transformative and agenda-setting policy incentive. I define GM as a transformative policy tool for real social change that has a strong focus on the deeper structural conditions of relations between women and men by also developing a comprehensive connection of gender to other inequality issues, such as race/ethnicity, sexuality, age and class.

Concerning the policy frames of gender equality during the implementation of GM in Horizon 2020, I distinguish four main frames of gender equality, as follows: the fixing of gender equality, the women-centred frame, the broadening frame of gender equality and the economic frame of gender equality. Fixing of gender equality freezes the temporality of gender equality by making gender and gender equality an example of the social dimension of EU research policy. The women-centred frame narrows the concept of gender equality to solely women, describing them as disadvantaged individuals compared to men, with the use of gender balance achieved through positive action. Both the women-centred and the fixing frame lead to the loss of the reflexivity that stems from a partial understanding of gender equality as they fail to address important structural issues, including challenging power relations between women and men. Even if broadening the concept of gender inequality towards other inequality grounds (age, disability and race/ethnicity, etc.) might help in developing a deep structural understanding and analysis of gender with other grounds of inequality, it often leads to filtering out gender equality in favour of other grounds of equality, equality in general or diversity (Lombardo et al., 2009b: 5). Unlike the three other frames, in the economic frame of gender equality, gender equality is no longer presented as a political goal to achieve social justice in either the diagnosis or the prognosis. Instead, this frame adjusts the concept of gender equality to make it fit the EU’s economic goals, such as economic growth.

To demonstrate how opposition to gender equality is constituted in policymaking processes, feminist institutionalism helps to understand policy change, and thus offers insights on the issue of implementation. By particularly focusing on resistance to implementation, I aim to contribute to contemporary scholarly analyses of opposition to gender change, an underrepresented and theoretically neglected area of scholarship (Cavaghan, 2017; Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014; Verloo, 2018). I define resistance to gender change as an individual or institutional opposition to accepting and executing a normative change, which GM as a transformative strategy attempts to realise, to alter decision-making processes and rules by introducing new norms and principles. To unpack the unsuccessful execution of the strategy in the Framework Programmes before Horizon 2020, I use Mergaert and Lombardo’s classification of resistance. They differentiate two main types of resistance, including institutional and individual resistance and within those, they also distinguish implicit and explicit resistance (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 9). As gender equality becomes everybody’s responsibility with the ‘obligation’ of applying gender mainstreaming into EU research policy, which is conventionally male-dominated, gender-neutral and often gender-biased, GM has become a subject of significant resistance from the Commission and its bureaucrats (Lombardo and Mergaert, 2013; Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014; Vida, 2017). Mergaert and Lombardo illustrate how resistance influenced the implementation of GM in the Sixth Framework Programme (2002–2006) and the Seventh Framework Programme (2007–2013) before Horizon 2020. Their work reveals that the Commission’s institutional resistance against executing mainstreaming in the framework programmes came from explicit opposition to the goal of gender equality or a lack of – or insufficient – capacity (e.g. the lack of access to gender expertise), which is an implicit form of institutional resistance (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 15). This resistance was also deeply interconnected with individual resistance in explicit or implicit ways. Individual resistance was caused by non-interest in gender equality or by the lack of knowledge, both of which made the execution of mainstreaming impossible in the Sixth Framework Programme (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 13). In the Seventh Framework Programme, the systematic inclusion of gender became ‘too burdensome’ for some officials in the Commission and it was ‘too much gender’ for the research community (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 11–12). This close interconnection of institutional and individual forms of resistance eventually led to the eradication of gender from the Seventh Framework Programme. Due to the contestation of GM and resistance against the strategy in the EU and in its research policy, it is crucial to note that ‘gender mainstreaming is an on-going political struggle, in which policymaking and institutions are objects of change’ whose commitment is never permanent (van Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014: 312–313). Instead, GM implementation is exposed to different contestations and types of resistance from different institutions and actors.

Methodology

To highlight the complexity of policy framing and the advisory group experts’ constellations during the implementation of Horizon’s work programmes, I use a methodological triangulation. By applying the ‘what is the problem’ approach (Bacchi, 2009), this methodology comprises content analysis, critical frame analysis (Verloo, 2005) and semi-structured individual interviews with the advisory group experts. This methodological triangulation is a powerful technique that facilitates validation of the collected policy documents through cross-verification from three different sources, which means that the sample will be rich, comprehensive and well-developed and also makes the research findings bias-free, reliable and generalisable.

In the policy analysis, I explore how gender equality and the transformative frames of mainstreaming are framed as both the diagnosis of the problem (what is the problem?), and the prognosis in the work programmes (what are the solutions?) (Bacchi, 2009; Verloo, 2005) both horizontally and vertically. I consider a gender equality frame transformative if gender equality is a political goal in itself, and if it is well-articulated in both the diagnosis and prognosis, which is why it is the only frame that would make the successful implementation of GM possible. In addition to using a ‘what is the problem?’ policy approach (Bacchi, 2009), I use the following sensitising questions, developed within critical frame analysis: Whose problem is gender inequality? Who caused it? How is gender related to intersectionality, and where is the diagnosis and prognosis located in the work programmes (Verloo, 2005: 30–31)? This helps to explore the different ways of how gender equality is framed as discourse since ‘policy frames are not descriptions of reality, but specific constructions that give meaning to reality, and shape the understanding of reality’ (Verloo, 2005: 20). Here is where the interviews come into focus. While content analysis and critical frame analysis of the work programmes provide a solid pragmatic grounded theory, I use the interviews as valuable interpretive sources since the advisory group experts, who are active agents in implementing the normative visions of gender equality in Horizon 2020, also produce their own frames of gender equality. This original approach gives a deeper insight into the meanings and contestations of gender equality that the advisory group experts as individuals attach to their expertise, experiences, social processes, practices and events while designing the work programmes, which casts more extensive light on individual and institutional resistance to the implementation of GM.

All 15 of the advisory group experts I interviewed between 5 November 2015 and 15 January 2016 were involved in designing the work programmes 2014–15 and 2016–17 for Horizon 2020. Thus, in the complex framing processes of gender equality in Horizon 2020, I primarily focus on the outcomes of the planning and negotiation phases of Horizon 2020. The interviewed experts are independent experts who were randomly chosen from the overall 19 advisory groups, established by the Commission, which are assigned to various topics in the main Horizon 2020 work programmes (e.g. finance, security, climate action, health, energy, transport and space and engineering, business and career development) and its horizontal activities (e.g. science and society, spreading excellence, gender). As the work programmes are firstly prepared by the Commission’s Directorate-General through the Horizon 2020 legislation and a strategic programming process integrating EU policy objectives into the priority setting, the advisory group experts’ main responsibility is to provide high quality advice to the Commission during the preparation and the final drafting of the work programmes.

The selected interviewees were members of the Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership, Societal Challenges and Gender advisory groups. There were nine male and six female interviewees. Two female experts were involved in the Gender advisory group’s work as gender experts, while the rest of the candidates have various industrial, research and civil society backgrounds, including engineering, architecture, biology, physics, history, economics and public-sector innovation. Many of the advisory group experts were appointed by simply registering themselves on the Commission’s expertise database called Register of the Commission Expert Groups and Other Similar Entities due to their work in the framework programmes prior to Horizon 2020 (or in research in general). This shows that the appointment of the advisory group experts is highly political, and due to their various sectoral and professional skills, they may represent different interests and political agendas. The only common characteristic found between all the advisory group members interviewed is their experienced senior professional positions.

Common frames, diagnoses and prognoses

In this part of the analysis, I look into the four main frames of gender equality – the fixing frame of gender equality, women-centred frame, broadening frame of gender equality and the economic frame of gender equality – in the diagnoses and prognoses of gender inequality.

In fact, the general introduction of the main work programmes 2014–15 and 2016–17 already introduces a normative shift in seeing gender inequality as a social problem which should be abolished by GM. The demand for incorporating gender equality as a horizontal priority is stated in both the diagnosis and prognosis of the general introduction. It explicitly addresses gender inequality as a social problem in science and equality, however, with the use of the economic frame of gender equality, it conceptualises gender equality as a possible means to ‘build smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ while overcoming the economic crisis in the EU (EC 1 2014: 5). The text reveals that ‘in Horizon 2020, gender will be addressed as a cross-cutting issue to rectify imbalances between women and men, and to integrate a gender dimension in research and innovation programming and content’ as well (EC 1 2014: 17). Hence, in the diagnosis, the women-centred frame is dominant due to women’s inequality compared to that of men which is represented as the very social problem that creates inequalities between men and women. This shows that gender equality becomes part of positive action instead of developing transformative frames of GM which would address the structural causes of gender inequality. In contrast, the introduction of the main work programme 2016–17 only classifies gender equality as one of the cross-cutting priorities in humanities, social sciences and sustainability (EC 1 2015: 6). As gender equality is fixed as an additional element among other horizontal issues, it is left out from both the diagnosis and the prognosis of considering gender inequality as a political problem. Moreover, as ‘providing new insights for policymaking towards reversing inequalities and promoting fairness’ (EC 1 2015: 6) is indicated in the text, gender equality is broadened towards inequalities. Accordingly, as gender inequality is missing from both the diagnosis and the prognosis, the advisory group experts’ visions during framing the work programmes as an explicit resistance can also be captured. A male expert of the Excellent Science advisory group argues that ‘gender is not my first perspective when planning and executing H2020’ (Interviewee 1). This fact is also confirmed by a male expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group. He says that ‘there was no gender perspective from my side in the planning process of the work programme’ (Interviewee 2). Another male expert of the same advisory group confirms that his ‘objectives are simply to advance the objectives of the initiative for the benefit of research’ (Interviewee 3). The interviewees thus admit that they pushed their gender-neutral scientific agenda, revealing that their knowledge is based on pre-existing assumptions that see equality in research and innovation as irrelevant (Cavaghan, 2017: 57).

Due to the advisory group experts’ general lack of interest, gender inequality is rarely mentioned in the prognosis. This shows an inconsistency between diagnosis and prognosis in all thematic sections of Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges as well as the work programmes of Science with and for Society. The only GM tools can be found in the evaluation criteria of the research applications in two thematic sections of Excellent Science (Future and Emerging Technologies and Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions). Nevertheless, the documents indicate only a possibility to evaluate gender ‘where appropriate’ as a mark of excellence (EC 2 2014: 28; EC 3 2015: 61–64). Indeed, the systematic integration of GM is generally lacking in all reviewed work programmes. Fortunately, the 15 interviewees fill the voids of GM tools in the documents as a complementary process to the identified frames in the work programmes. They either confirm that gender equality is not evaluated and monitored, or they do not have information on the matter. Two female experts asserted that within the advisory groups, monitoring gender equality is ignored by other advisory group experts. A female expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group claims that ‘the gender perspective has not been discussed extensively by the AGE [Advisory Group on Energy]’ and adds that ‘gender experts are rarely taken into account’ (Interviewee 4). A female expert of the Gender and Societal Challenges advisory groups states that her transformative visions on implementing gender equality as it is supposed to be executed were ignored by colleagues in the advisory groups. She says that despite her specific gender expertise, ‘none of my suggestions – including mainstreaming gender into all calls and having a call for institutionalising gender studies in the EU – were taken into consideration’ (Interviewee 5). A male expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group states that, ‘gender aspects are duly and correctly taken into consideration on behalf of policy makers at the EC’ (Interviewee 6). However, he has no idea how gender equality is monitored. A male expert also claims that gender equality is part of the discussions in the advisory group, but he has ‘no idea whether policy makers at DG [Directorate-General] levels then take into account the advice of gender experts’ (Interviewee 7). Another male expert of the same advisory group asserts, ‘I have at least not met any “gender experts” during our meetings’ (Interviewee 8), which inevitably also undermines any successful monitoring of gender equality in the work programmes. Furthermore, these contradictory responses of the advisory group experts also highlight the lack of the compulsory consultation with gender experts as well as the experts’ non-engagement despite their extensive rhetorical commitment to GM (Cavaghan, 2017; Vida, 2017).

Shaping the meanings of gender equality – shifting frames of gender equality

In accordance with the advisory group experts’ agenda on gender (in)equality and its inclusion in the two main work programmes, I explore how the four frames of gender equality are created in the documents and their various thematic sections. I show that the four frames are built on the Commission’s institutional local experts’ conscious frame-production and individual resistance to executing GM. In this process, gender is intentionally fixed as an example of social dimension in research, to serve the experts’ purposes to make gender equality as a synonym of women and broaden the concept of gender equality to fit their economic goals. The 2014–15 version of the work programmes often reduces gender equality to the unitary category of ‘women’ as part of positive action measures (EC 2 2014: 5; EC 3 2014: 3). In contrast, in the work programmes 2016–17, gender equality is indicated in terms of ‘along the same line’ and ‘as well as’ other horizontal activities of Horizon 2020 or other inequalities, such as age, disability and ethnicity (EC 2 2015: 17–18; EC 3 2015: 5; EC 8 2015: 6). Two experts also use this fixing frame of gender equality in a list of other priorities while talking about their objectives. A female expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group puts gender equality as one of Horizon 2020 priorities: ‘the objectives of my studies on efficiency, innovations, sustainability, civil society, gender equality, etc., are quite close to those of the Horizon 2020 work programmes’ (Interviewee 9). Likewise, a female expert of the Industrial Leadership advisory group admits that, ‘my objectives are and were to consider the horizontal issues in all technology planning topics and to adapt foresight as a tool for cycles of knowledge generation. Gender is embedded in this’ (Interviewee 10). These replies imply that gender equality is seen as one of the horizontal priorities of Horizon 2020 and not as a cross-cutting priority as promoted in the Commission’s rhetoric. Gender is also often placed into a separate paragraph in the 2016–17 texts, or it is included in the Commission’s guidance on ‘Gendered Innovations: For Guidance on Methods of Sex/Gender Analysis’ in the 2016–17 texts (EC 9 2015: 12; EC 5 2015: 7). A female expert of the Excellent Science advisory group argues that, ‘FET [Future and Emerging Technologies] AG included a short paragraph on gender aspects in the WP [work programme]’, adding that ‘the AG was almost perfectly gender-balanced’ (Interviewee 11). The fixing and women-centred frames of gender equality imply that gender equality becomes important in administrative terms – e.g. guidance and tools – as a technical issue, not as a political issue (Lombardo et al., 2009a: 201). This perception comes from the Commission’s integrationist and technical approach that regards GM an administrative issue and not as a transformative strategy to eradicate inequality. As a complementary process to fixing gender balance as a positive action initiative, gender equality is shifted to mean ‘women’, ‘diversity’ and ‘equal opportunities’ between males and females in the work programmes 2014–15 and 2016–17 (EC 5 2014; EC 16 2014; EC 16 2015). The work programmes generally depict women as either ‘useful workers’ – not as persons – or as vulnerable individuals and ‘mothers’ who are in need of help (EC 14 2014; EC 14 2015). As women are generally depicted as neutral and merit-based economic subjects whose human capital should be maximised, this warns that gender equality is only seen as an efficient tool that can contribute to economic growth, a neoliberal notion that depoliticises gender equality. Indeed, ‘by promoting a “de-gendering” of issues, depicting individuals as neutral subjects, and by prioritising focus on the labour market, the underlying EU discourse proves resistant to the articulation of gender equality as a policy issue’ (Lombardo and Meier, 2008: 119). The documents also tend to shift between neutral individuals (e.g. citizens, researchers and engineers) and infrastructures and institutions (e.g. institutions, research centres and small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs) (EC 4 2014; EC 4 2015; EC 7 2014; EC 7 2015). These individuals are described as static categories who are being addressed for their ability to aid with increasing educational and employment rates. This gender-neutral language entails de-gendering as it reinforces the implicit male norm and neutralises the gendered structure of institutions (Rönnblom, 2009: 114). Despite the analysed documents sometimes addressing non-discriminatory participation, which could open up an opportunity to politicise gender equality, transformative mainstreaming initiations to challenge power relations between men and women are not developed (EC 2 2015; EC 16 2015). Accordingly, the texts fail to target the role of responsible actors and specific mechanisms and measures and to demonstrate any transformative aspects challenging (male) privileges that are needed to tackle gender inequality as a political goal.

In accordance with the simplification of gender equality through the women-centred and fixing frame of gender equality as well as with the more dominant economic frames of gender equality, the interviewees’ comments reveal further information regarding the concept and use of gender. A female expert of the Gender advisory group points out the lack of familiarity with gender issues, which can be conceptualised as an implicit form of individual resistance. She argues that members of the Industrial Leadership advisory group ‘are very willing to include gender, but they do not get what exactly that is, and what it implies’ (Interviewee 12). This is what a female expert of the Excellent Science advisory group reflects on: ‘I could have spent more time to explain the gender perspective to my colleagues in FET [Future and Emerging Technologies] in order to include more gender aspects’ (Interviewee 11). A male expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group states that, ‘the gender issue is a non-issue: all colleagues with whom I collaborate (male or female) are ranked and judged by me in my attitude and behaviour towards them, on merit and merit alone’ (Interviewee 13). This lack of understanding is related to the Commission’s Directorate-General’s incapacity to provide guidance for its experts, a lack which can be considered to be a type of implicit institutional resistance (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 8). As was apparent in the previous framework programmes, ‘the research community did not want to deal with gender issues, which would be perceived as distracting from the “real research” that resulted in a gender-biased and purely merit-based preference in policy texts’ (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014: 12). At the individual level, the Commission’s institutional incapacity can also be associated with non-interest in gender equality, as it is not a goal or priority for them. This is a form of explicit individual resistance: ‘gender is a non-issue, only merit matters’ (Interviewee 13). The male expert of the Industrial Leadership advisory group reinforces the economic framing of gender equality, stating that ‘we only have “business perspective” in mind when advising on H2020 matters, as from a pure business perspective gender issues do not play any role’ (Interviewee 14). The female expert of the Gender and Societal Challenges advisory groups supports the presence of this explicit individual resistance. She reveals that, ‘when I mentioned two times that maybe we should also include gender to the European challenges’, she was told ‘it is very counterproductive that you are constantly mentioning gender. We know what gender is’ (Interviewee 5). She also recalls that ‘a Polish delegate said: we all love women, but gender is not always important’ (Interviewee 5). In another situation, she says that, ‘in the meeting room, the sitting order was already set when the experts went into the room. My place was behind the chair so he could not see me raising my hand. So I had to get up, go one meter towards the centre, try to catch his eyes and raise my hand. It was humiliating but it gave me visibility’ (Interviewee 5). Contrary to her statement, a male expert of the same advisory group claims that ‘from time to time there were some discussions between some male and some female members of SC6 (Societal Challenges 6) Advisory Group over how much priority should be given to some issues of gender equality. But none of them were too important that would make me remember them’ (Interviewee 7). Another female expert of the Societal Challenges advisory group recalls a hostile situation she experienced: ‘When I was elected chairperson of the AGE [Advisory Group on Energy], I was approached by a male expert in a very rude and insulting way, telling me that a female person is not able to fulfil such a job, followed by other remarks’ (Interviewee 4). A female expert of the Societal Challenges states the opposite. She asserts that ‘the Members of Advisory Groups have a real opportunity to present their visions [at] the meetings, which visions after that are summarised and presented as outcomes of the respective work programme’ (Interviewee 9). She further stresses that gender expertise is taken into consideration ‘almost to a maximum extent’ (Interviewee 9) during preparing the work programmes and she controversially reproduces the Commission’s official rhetoric. She argues that ‘I do not have specific recommendations, because the gender perspective is [a] well integrated theme in the EC [European Commission] Seventh Framework Programme, as well as the gender equality policy [being] a major subject [worked] into the Horizon 2020 work documents’ (Interviewee 9).

In line with the normative shift from gender equality as a political goal in the documents 2014–15, gender equality is consistently further broadened towards ‘inequalities’ in the work programmes 2016–17. The most common broadening areas include age, disability, and ethnicity and migrant background due to the EU’s security measures (EC 13 2015; EC 14 2015). However, due to stigmatising these groups based on their membership and the lack of analyses as regards the relation of gender to other inequalities, the texts generally fail to establish a more nuanced perception and deep structural understanding (EC 8 2014; EC 13 2014; EC 13 2015). Additionally, within the same work programmes, as the different inequalities become part of the ‘diversity’ of ‘inequalities’ throughout the rest of the texts, this reduces the importance of special rights and issues of ‘vulnerable populations’ (EC 9 2014; EC 13 2014; EC 13 2015). This conflicting framing misses putting the responsibility on men to do something about gender inequality, which leads to the fact that combating gender inequality remains women’s and multiple-discriminated women’s problem, described as vulnerable and homogeneous groups. The diversity of considering different grounds of inequality comes from the ambiguous EU agenda that enables the shifting from gender equality towards multiple inequalities (Verloo, 2007: 214). Even if the broadening of gender equality might help in developing deep structural understanding and analysis of gender with other grounds of inequality (Lombardo et al., 2009b: 5), the interviewees use this frame to change the essence of the concept. The male expert of the Excellent Science advisory group uses this broadening frame of gender equality, pointing out that instead of dealing with gender equality, ‘equal rights and equal opportunities should really mean “equal” rather than preferential for either gender’ (Interviewee 6). He argues: ‘frankly, [the] gender perspective has not been an aspect requiring special treatment on my behalf (in contrast to the definite requests having been emphasised by the EC [European Commission] officers in some cases)’, although he ‘accepted and followed the percentage requests of the EC’ (Interviewee 6). A female expert of the Excellent Science advisory group adds the importance of keeping in mind ‘the mission of respecting diversity and providing equal opportunities to women scientists’ (Interviewee 15), rather than dealing with gender equality. This is what the female gender expert warns: ‘women are easy to incorporate as a vulnerable social group, but gender will be out in the 2018 programming period’ (Interviewee 5).

Conclusion

EU gender equality policy has always been embedded in the logic of the market as the EU has developed and disseminated gender equality discourses compatible with the goals of economic growth and competitiveness (Elomäki, 2015: 290; Walby, 2004). In turn, this process leads to eradicating the structural frames of gender equality which could open the possibility of developing and implementing GM as a transformative policy tool. It is not a surprise that GM, the EU official strategy, remains more of a promise than a reality in EU policies. Instead, as the EU’s expertise and scope became broader and more diverse in terms of policies, actors and institutions, GM became more exposed to shifts and (re)negotiations and it loses its political, feminist and transformative potential during the implementation process, because of individual and institutional resistance, and ends up as a policy tool of legitimising the neoliberal logic behind the structure of the EU (Repo, 2015, 2016).

By analysing the Commission’s specific institutional context and its advisory experts’ political agency at the micro level within the scope of Horizon 2020, this article has also contributed to the limited number of feminist analyses on institutional and individual oppositions to gender change (Verloo, 2018) and feminist institutionalism, which primarily focuses on high-ranking Directorate-General bureaucrats (Mergaert and Lombardo, 2014). By looking at how the advisory group experts as local policy actors negotiate frames of gender equality, I have offered novel insights: I have shown that local actors’ roles become crucial, as they have the power to reshape the Commission’s Directorate-General’s gender equality agenda in accordance with their own visions through their explicit and implicit resistance to gender change, which are based on gender-neutral scientific or economic reasons, making the gendered nature of research irrelevant. Such visions enable the continuation of the Commission’s rhetorical commitment to GM’s visibility in Horizon 2020. By adopting a pragmatist-interpretivist approach to gender equality policy, I have demonstrated that the conflicting frames of gender equality used by advisory group experts that are being imported into the work programmes overall undermine the quality and successful execution of GM as a policy tool for real social change. Furthermore, the work programmes show a normative shift from transforming gender equality as a horizontal issue to only a social dimension of research, and as an efficient tool in the 2016–17 versions of the texts in line with the EU’s neoliberal governmentality (Repo, 2015, 2016) and the economisation effects of gender equality since the 2008 economic crisis (Elomäki, 2015; Jacquot, 2015).

In conclusion, Horizon 2020 is not only a backlash, but also an embodiment of a new gender equality agenda in EU research policy that is strategically based on replacing gender equality with economic goals. As I have explored in the article, this recent paradigm shift of depoliticising gender equality is the outcome of both the Commission’s institutional and the advisory group experts’ individual resistance to introducing the normative change that GM aims to substantialise. Unfortunately, this can easily lead to gender being diminished from Horizon 2020, as also occurred with its forerunner, the Seventh Framework Programme (2007–2013). More feminist research should be carried out on the role of institutions and individual actors at different policy levels to further improve our understanding of how forms of resistance can contribute to the unsuccessful implementation of GM in the EU.