Abstract
This article analyses the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) (EY 2010) with the aim of identifying the nature of gender diversities in European Union policies. We argue that the European Union handles issues related to gender and diversity in particular ways; this approach is characterised by non-citizen/citizen and redistribution/recognition divisions. Employing intersectionality as the methodological approach to gender diversities, the article shows how gender and ethnicity are articulated in the policy-making process which led to the adoption of EY 2010, the activities undertaken during EY 2010 and the evaluation of EY 2010. The case study is suitable for developing a dynamic multi-level model for analysing gendered diversities at the transnational level: It illustrates how the EU policy framework interacts with particular national contexts in promoting or hindering the advancement of policy contents which pay attention to the intersection between gender and diversity.
Keywords
Introduction 1
This article analyses the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) with the aim of identifying the nature of gender diversities in European Union (EU) policies. We argue that the EU as a gender-and-diversity entity is characterised by non-citizen/citizen and redistribution/recognition divisions. Employing intersectionality as the methodological approach to gender diversities, the article shows how gender and ethnicity are articulated in the policy-making process leading to the adoption of the Year, the activities undertaken during the Year as well as its evaluation. The study of the Year is suitable for the purpose of developing a dynamic multi-level model for gendered diversities at the transnational level because it highlights the way in which the EU policy framework interacts with the particular national contexts in the construction of both barriers and potential affecting the possibilities of developing gender-and-diversity policy content.
In recent years, debates around gender and diversity from a transnational European perspective have intensified in scholarly literature (Liebert, 2007; Squires, 2007). Particularly interesting are the ways in which intersections between differences based on gender, ethnicity and race, among others, are explored theoretically and analytically (see Brüll et al., 2012; Siim and Mokre, 2013). The issue of multiple inequalities was put on the EU agenda with the adoption of Article 13 in the Amsterdam Treaty against discrimination based on ‘sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation’. This has inspired the organisation of citizens' groups, for example the European Women's Lobby (EWL) and the European Network against Racism (ENAR) (Pristed Nielsen, 2013; Rolandsen Agustín, 2013b).
In this article we attend to the dual challenge of diversity and transnationalism, as identified in the literature, by focusing on the way in which gender and ethnonational diversity are articulated in and around the ongoing European integration process. This pertains especially to the inclusion of minority groups, such as migrant women, in policies but also to the potential development of institutional models for including a variety of (intersectional) voices. In this regard, the notion of intersectionality has become present in European gender research and has influenced European policy debates on gender and diversity (Kantola and Nousiainen, 2009; Lombardo et al., 2009; Verloo, 2006, 2007).
The article explores the interface between institutions and actors in the European public sphere from a dual perspective of participation and deliberation. The interrelation between collective mobilisation and institutional structures may facilitate the expression of a diversity of voices as well as the national/transnational interaction. We are particularly interested in understanding what diversity means in the EU context and whether and how gender diversities are taken into account in EU policies. Thus, the aim is to analyse the nature of gender diversities in EU policies, as we ask what kind of ‘gender-and-diversity’ entity the EU is. The main research question is thus what kind of intersectionality the EU practises through civil society funding and interaction. The focus is on the participation and deliberation of different civil society actors in the practical implementation of policies as well as on the way in which ‘intersectionality’ is practised in EU-initiated activities at the member state level. We analyse how actors use the discourse on social exclusion and poverty and which issues and whose problems are in/excluded from EU gender diversity policies. The latter concerns especially the extent to which policies open up for ‘inclusive deliberation’, i.e. make room for differences in policy preferences and interpretations (not least between minority and majority groups) and facilitate plurality in the participation of civil society actors in policy-making dialogues and processes.
We have selected the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) for a more detailed analysis of the role of civil society actors in the EU public arena. The research questions are: what kind of ‘gender-and-diversity’ entity is the EU, and what are the particularities of EU intersectionality? The article addresses the ways in which gender and ethnicity are articulated in the policy-making process leading to the adoption of the Year, and the activities undertaken during the Year as well as its evaluation. The focus is especially on gender and ethnocultural diversity, since the intersections of gender equality with recognition of the culture and religion of ethnic minorities have become a major political issue across Europe (Meret and Siim, 2013). The general objective is thus to understand the EU approach to gender diversity as expressed in key policy documents and agenda-setting actions such as the European Years (EYs).
The EYs are selected because they are to a certain extent a reflection of agenda-setting struggles at the EU level and because of their inclusion and funding of civil society actors which facilitates collective mobilisation, thus including the public sphere perspective of analysis. The EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion is particularly relevant for the purposes of our analysis since it focuses on some of the dimensions which are deemed relevant for the articulation of gender and diversity at the EU level, namely employment, labour market relations and thematic issues such as the gender pay gap. Furthermore it ‘disguises’ another important inequality or difference, namely that of class, which is typically euphemised at the EU level in terms of ‘social exclusion’, for instance.
The article employs intersectionality as the methodological approach to analyse gender diversities. The intersectionality approach aims to move beyond unitary models of equality policies, focusing either on gender, class or race as the primary analytical category, and instead examines multiple diversities and inequalities through intersectional models (Hancock, 2007). 2 Intersectionality is a contextual concept, since the key categories, class, race and gender, acquire particular meanings in different national contexts (Christensen and Siim, 2010; Ferree, 2009; Knapp, 2005). 3
We have argued elsewhere that intersectionality must evolve further from a transnational context and that the transnational level provides new opportunities for rethinking the European public sphere from the perspective of diversity (Rolandsen Agustín and Siim, 2013). Here we pursue this argument further in relation to the European public sphere by analysing the articulation of gender and diversity in the context of the EU inspired by reflections on the Eurosphere project (see Siim and Mokre, 2013).
The article is based on discursive policy analysis, which has proved useful for analysing how actors can influence the meanings of policies on national and transnational levels, for example combating poverty and social exclusion. Lombardo et al. (2009: 10) define the discursive approach to politics as ‘the intentional and unintentional engaging of policy actors in conceptual disputes that result in the meanings attributed to the terms and concepts employed in specific contexts’. In particular, they address the dominant discourses with a focus on the barriers for achieving gender equality. The starting point for the analysis of gender diversities is thus that EU has institutionalised ‘multiple inequalities’, i.e. through the Amsterdam and Lisbon Treaties, which have also encouraged institutionalisation of multiple inequalities in the member states (Krizan et al., 2012). Here we focus on opportunity structures which combine the dimensions of policy ideas (as articulated in key documents), agents (EU institutions and civil society organisations) and the institutional and political context in which policy-making and in/exclusion of voices take place in our analysis of the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
First we trace how ‘intersectionality’ is institutionalised at the EU level through the policy and civil society interface and situate ourselves in the academic debate on diversity, gender equality and intersectionality. The focus is on the tensions and potential conflicts between claims for gender equality, claims for equality and recognition of ethnocultural and religious rights for minority and migrants groups. This section provides the background for the subsequent empirical analysis of recent EU policies potentially targeting multiple discriminations. Through the empirical analysis we aim to move beyond the level of policies by analysing how intersectionality is practised within a framework of potential deliberation and participation in the European public spheres. We ask how policies of multiple discriminations, especially related to immigrant and ethnic minority women, are implemented in the member states through the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. This includes civil society funding and interaction with member states. Finally, we present our conclusions which relate the particularities of intersectionality in the EU setting to a broader view on intersectional approaches to inequality grounds.
The academic debate about gender and diversity in the European public sphere
EU's unique multi-level institutional framework has inspired competing interpretations of and approaches to (gender) equality policies, which often highlight specific aspects of EU equality and diversity policies. Scholars have started to analyse diversity in the EU context characterised by complex diversity 4 (Kraus, 2012), complex inequalities (Walby, 2009), multiple and overlapping inequalities (Verloo, 2006, 2007) and multiple anti-discrimination policies (Kantola and Nousiainen, 2012). Until recently there has, arguably, been a gap between gender models concerned primarily with gender inequality and diversity models concerned primarily with ethnocultural or religious differences (Siim et al., 2011). The academic debate has analysed the tensions between the previous EU approach to gender equality and the more recent approach to recognise diversities by addressing multiple inequalities through antidiscrimination legislation (Mokre and Borchorst, 2013).
Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty (1997), which envisages EU actions regarding the combating of six grounds of discrimination, i.e. sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, became a turning point in the concern for multiple discrimination in EU equality policies. Kantola and Nousiainen (2012) argues that the Amsterdam Treaty offers a new legal basis for anti-discrimination directives and widens the basis of equality from gender and nationality to race and ethnicity, religion and belief, age, disability and sexual orientation. Efforts to balance or even out the protection against discrimination between the different inequality grounds have been made and institutionally the European Commission (EC) encouraged member states to set up integrated equality bodies for dealing with multiple discrimination. Previously gender was the most protected ground of discrimination; now, race/ethnicity is on the top of the inequality hierarchy. However, so far the results in terms of intersectionality have not been convincing: concerns for how the different inequality dimensions interact are not prominent; instead an accentuated competition between the various discrimination grounds in terms of the level of protection is playing out. Results from the Quality in Gender+Equality Policies (QUING) project 5 indicate the difficulties in analysing multiple inequalities. Lombardo and Verloo (2009) observe that there is hardly any presence of intersectionality in gender equality policies at the state level across Europe. As regards EU gender equality policies in particular, intersectionality is characterised as ‘embryonic’ (Lombardo and Rolandsen Agustín, 2012). Kantola and Nousiainen (2012) conclude that there are still many barriers to ensuring citizens' formal rights and to combat multiple and intersectional discrimination in the EU.
Feminist scholars debate whether the move towards multidimensional equality policies and the adoption of the anti-discrimination doctrine is a means to strengthen gender equality. There are conflicting interpretations: multiple discrimination policies can either be perceived as a threat to gender equality goals, by marginalising them, or be seen as an opportunity to develop greater sensitivity towards intersectional dimensions (Squires, 2007). Kantola (2010) mentions two positive aspects of the development: EU legislation on other inequality grounds than gender may be brought up to the same level of protection as gender (‘upward harmonisation’), and the institutions gain increased competences in handling cases of multiple discrimination when all discrimination grounds are considered together. Sceptical accounts focus on the marginalisation of gender, the competition between grounds and the inadequacy of using the same tools for discrimination grounds which are different in nature (Kantola, 2010). Multiple discrimination can thus provide new conditions for combating multiple inequalities and for giving voice and influence to diverse and marginalised social groups (Squires, 2007), or it may become a barrier for gender equality, giving priority to diversity claims over gender equality (Verloo, 2007).
Verloo's approach (2005, 2006) has presented the strongest criticism of the recent EU move from a primary focus on gender equality towards policies that address multiple inequalities. The critiques point towards three basic concerns: (a) the assumed similarities of inequalities; (b) the need for structural approaches and (c) the political competition between inequalities (see Verloo, 2006: 214). According to Verloo, the ‘one size fits all’ approach to multiple discriminations is problematic since it ‘is based upon an incorrect assumption of sameness or equivalence of social categories connected to inequalities and of mechanisms and processes that constitute them’ (Verloo, 2006: 223).
Judith Squires has summed up the contradictory aspects of the new European ‘diversity agenda’ and the concern with multiple inequalities (Squires, 2007: 160). She finds that the diversity agenda can be used as a potential strategy to empower women who have not been part of the dominant gender equality discourses, for example immigrant, minority women. From this perspective Squires has proposed a participative-democratic model to gender and diversity mainstreaming based upon an integrated approach to gender and diversity mainstreaming: ‘for without inclusive deliberation as to what gender equality entails – and therefore what form gender equality policies should take – the pursuit of gender equality can itself become an exclusionary process, undertaken for considerations of utility rather than justice' (Squires, 2007: 177–178).
We find that ‘inclusive deliberation’ to gender equality is an attractive normative model, although it raises questions about the necessary conditions for implementing this model in practice. The aim of the empirical analysis is therefore to explore how the policies of multiple discriminations, especially related to immigrant and ethnic minority women, are implemented in the member states through the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.
A transnational and dynamic approach to gender diversities
We have argued that the EU's particular history and its multi-level institutions present a unique opportunity to explore a contextual and dynamic approach to intersectionality further from a transnational perspective (Rolandsen Agustín, 2013a; Rolandsen Agustín and Siim, 2013). Arguably the EU has a unique discursive opportunity structure characterised by the interface between the EU and a variety of national welfare, gender and migration regimes' gender equality and anti-discrimination policies (Mokre and Borchorst, 2013). This has shaped the intersections between key categories such as gender, race and class and has affected the political actors' potentials (as well as barriers) for participation and deliberation and for making alliances between national and transnational networks and organisations. Discursive opportunity structures can be perceived as a ‘complex playing field [which] provides advantages and disadvantages in an uneven way to the various contestants in framing contests’ (Ferree et al., 2002: 62), thus making certain framings more acceptable than others, depending on whether they are resonant or not with dominant discourse(s).
Ferree's (2008) approach contributes to a comparative and transnational understanding of the framings of equality in the EU model. She has recently characterised the EU as a complex hybrid, shaped by historical conflicts and struggles, arguing that this opens up the possibility for creative combinations for dealing with inequalities and differences. The hybridity of the EU model has opened struggles between diverse models of Europeanization, which can incorporate competing senses of transnationalism: ‘an orientation to neo-liberalism and economic competitiveness on the global level, and a specific regional claim to the distinctive success of “Europe” as a model of modernity and social progress’ (Ferree, 2008: 237). The particular EU framework has implications for the approach to gender equality/equity. Comparing the framing of inequalities in the EU and the US, she finds that conflicts in the EU are played out mostly in relation to citizen/non-citizen differences and struggles over migration/integration and group differences. The class analogy, ‘gender being as class’, for making claims for women as a collective group is prevalent. This is different from the US context where the race dimension has been prevalent for framing inequalities (Ferree, 2008).
We consider the evolution of EU gender equality and diversity policies to be particularly marked by the prevalence of the gender dimension whereas the ethnicity/race dimension gained strength in the 90s. This makes the intersection between gender and ethnicity/race particularly interesting in terms of the articulation of gendered diversities in EU policy and institutional processes. It is interesting to what extent the hybridity of the EU structure in relation to gender, race and class, as argued by Ferree, opens potentials for gender politics, especially linked to the social and democratic aspirations of the European member states. One of the main problems is that the distinction between citizens and non-citizens often tends to frame ‘the other’ in an exclusionary manner, depicting the non-citizens, i.e. the non-Europeans or those outside the EU, as less modern and less gender equal.
Ferree's comprehensive and innovative approach to the EU emphasises the potential for an active framing of gender politics by feminist advocacy networks and points towards the specific intersections of gender, class and race/ethnicity within this institutional framework. This raises important issues for transnational and comparative analyses which need to be addressed in greater detail through empirical analyses.
One set of questions concerns the different meanings and dynamics between the key categories, gender and diversity, within different national contexts. How does the EU's multi-level framework affect the understanding of gender politics and the meaning of diversity? One hypothesis could be that diversity in the EU context cannot exclusively be understood as a liberal category associated with the individual, as in the US, but that diversity acquires particular meanings in the EU, for example associated with claims for recognition from ethnonational diversities and minority groups. Another set of questions concerns the influence of regional and national specificities on the understanding of the key categories, i.e. gender, race/ethnicity and class. It is important to study in what ways the histories and various national frameworks have shaped the political gender and diversity models in specific countries within Western and Eastern, Southern and Northern Europe. And finally, it is important to study to what extent, and in which ways, feminist advocacy networks negotiate active framings of gender policies within the European public sphere, and to what extent they are able to interact with anti-racist, migration and class-based networks.
Our starting point is that the multi-level and transnational EU institutions, history and equality framework are unique, and the aim of the following analysis is to understand intersectionality from the particular European policy context. Inspired by Ferree's approach we propose a dynamic intersectionality approach, which focuses on the interface between institutions and citizens as well as between different groups of citizens and non-citizens (Ferree, 2009). We add that this approach is premised on conflicts, struggles and contestations. The research strategy thus focuses on the intersections between specific institutions and civil society actors as well as on multiple inequality creating categories inherent in EU gender diversity policies. From this perspective the academic debate needs to develop further, for example through case studies exploring the barriers and potentials for gender diversities in the European public sphere acknowledging the EU's particular multidimensional and transnational contexts.
Research from the Eurosphere project has contributed to highlight the interactions, and negotiations of European social movements, for example between the EWL and the ENAR (Pristed Nielsen, 2013). The EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) provides a chance to address the intersections of national and transnational policy arenas and their concern for different inequalities as well as the interactions between civil society organisations and the nation states. Against this background we argue for the need to pay increased attention to the influence of the discursive opportunity structures for gender diversities within the framework of the EU. The EU's unique transnational institutional framework is particularly challenging for equality policies from the perspective of gender and diversity groups. We propose that the gradual move from a focus on gender equality (on the labour market) to multiple (in)equalities poses particular problems and opportunities for gender diversity policies.
The next section links the theoretical perspectives discussed earlier with an empirical case study of the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. It particularly addresses the way in which intersectionality is practised in EU equality policies in the interaction between member states and the EU.
Practising intersectionality in the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion
Each year the EU chooses a particular topic to be a focus point for planned activities at national and European levels. The aim is that of ‘raising public awareness of and drawing national governments’ attention to a specific issue' (europa.eu). 6 In October 2008 the European Parliament (EP) and the Council decided to denominate 2010 the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (1098/2008/EC). A number of campaign- and project-related activities concerning this issue were subsequently prepared. Here we analyse the way in which gender and diversity are articulated in: (1) the policy-making process leading to the adoption of the Year; and (2) the national activities implemented during the Year.
Adopting the decision: The policy-making process
Decision No 1098/2008/EC on the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion (2010) was adopted by the EP and the Council through the co-decision procedure on 22 October 2008. The policy-making process was initiated in December 2007 when the EC issued an initial legislative document (COM(2007)0797). In May 2008 the EP Committee on Employment and Social Affairs adopted a report on the proposal for decision (A6-0173/2008), and in June that same year a legislative resolution amending the proposal was adopted by the EP plenary.
The gender equality objective is present throughout the documents and gender is a constant dimension, though it is clearly strengthened as the proposal goes through the legislative process. The initial legislative document from the EC mentions the ‘gender dimension of poverty’ and the ‘integration of immigrants and the social and labour market inclusion of ethnic minorities’ as themes of focus. It is clearly the EP which adds the ‘gender flavour’ to the policy. This is perhaps not surprising, since the EP through the FEMM Committee has proved to be especially pro-active on gender issues. 7 The Committee report points to the need of producing gender-disaggregated data, whereas the legislative resolution adds gender mainstreaming as a requirement in the implementation of the EY 2010. The resolution points to intersectional concerns in that it mentions ‘gender and age dimensions of poverty’ as well as single-parent families as focus points. The latter is also mentioned in the Committee report which states that the EY 2010 should ‘take into account the different risks and dimensions of poverty and social exclusion experienced by women and men, specifically in single-parent families which are particularly exposed to the risk of social exclusion’ (A6-0173/2008).
The decision adopted focuses in general on poverty and social exclusion, inclusive society, economic growth, more and better jobs, and greater social cohesion. The guiding principles revolve around recognition of rights, shared responsibility and participation as well as cohesion, commitment and concrete action, i.e. mobilisation. Concerning the gender dimensions, in-work poverty is linked to the gender pay gap and women's higher risk of poverty is emphasised. Among the most vulnerable groups, the gendered target groups of single parents, young women and women victims of violence are mentioned. The priorities remain the same, namely to tackle the gender and age dimensions of poverty as well as overcome discrimination and promote social inclusion of immigrants and ethnic minorities. The need for gender-disaggregated data collection and gender mainstreaming is also mentioned, and the annex of the decision underlines the attention to ‘multiple dimensions of poverty and social exclusion (especially among women and children)’ (1098/2008/EC).
All in all, the policy-making process resulting in the Decision adopting a EY on Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010 shows a minimum model of policy gendering, meaning that gender mainstreaming is mentioned as a requirement but this is not elaborated upon. It is a EY with a strong focus on multiple discriminations even though this is usually reflected through lists of specific target groups with no additional comments on the discrimination suffered or the specific relation between different inequality grounds.
Implementing the decision: The national activities
The implementation of the EY 2010 was divided between three levels: the EU (and more specifically the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the EC) took care of the overall coordination and policy framework; at member state level, national implementing bodies (NIBs) were appointed to elaborate national programmes and priorities; and each NIB then organised events (through decentralised tendering) with EU/member state co-funding. The NIBs issued calls for proposals for projects to be funded; they determined the award criteria according to the national priorities and selected the final projects for funding. The budget of the EY 2010 was 17 million Euros total, with 9 million Euros for activities to be implemented at the national level. Although this is a relatively small amount, the EY case is a good example of the EU's complex discursive opportunity structure. It illustrates how the implementation of multiple inequalities is affected by diverse national contexts, including the actors who participate in the projects. The budgets were allocated nationally based on the vote weighting of each member state in the Council.
In terms of civil society participation, the annual programmes and their implementation should be carried out in close consultation with those affected, their representative organisations and other concerned civil society actors. At the European level, 40 transnational partners were identified, covering organisations from a wide range of fields such as charity organisations, antipoverty networks, religious associations, humanitarian organisations, transnational umbrella organisations, health organisations, homeless people's organisations, think tanks, trade unions as well as organisations focusing on human rights, children's rights, solidarity, inclusion and social economy.
The EWL is the only organisation among the official partners which focuses particularly on women and on gender. The ENAR as well as The Policy Center for Roma and Minorities (think tank) are the only ones explicitly addressing the ethnicity dimension. Also, among the civil society organisations ultimately selected for co-funded projects at the national level in relation to the activities carried out during the EY on Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, relatively few are women's or minority organisations. None of these is intersectional in their outlook, i.e. they do not attend to more than one inequality dimension. Within the area of gendered projects, most civil society actors funded are non-governmental organizations from a broad variety of fields (from sports associations to institutions within the field of education, youth and social services), some trade unions, municipalities/public authorities and research centres.
In our analysis of the EY 2010 we focus primarily on how priorities, activities and projects are gendered and which diversity dimensions are taken into account. The analysis of the national programmes setting the priorities for the activities to be carried out at member-state level during the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010 shows that the policy framework established at the EU level, with its focus on gender and age, influences the general priorities set forward by the NIBs and the focus points or vulnerable groups mentioned. The national programmes are typically gendered in the sense that they focus on elderly women and single mothers as well as on violence against women (VAW). They reproduce the EU level silencing of ethnic minority and migrant women; they are downplayed in the national programmes at large.
Gender mainstreaming is applied in a very narrow sense; in the majority of cases the NIBs display gender mainstreaming as a rhetorical exercise by mentioning the requirement in the programmes but nothing further. Eleven of the participating countries show what we call a ‘minimum model’ of gender equality; they follow the EU content by stating the gender mainstreaming requirement (as attention to specific gendered risks and dimensions of poverty), the need for gender statistics and the will to implement gender balance in recruitment of EY personnel.
At the level of the projects selected for funding under the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010 the same patterns as in the national programmes are apparent. However, a few new target groups are mentioned as well; this regards women victims of violence and women from immigrant backgrounds. Seven countries have more than 10% projects focusing on women as a target group or on gender as a factor; 16 countries have less than 10% and six lack information altogether. According to the final EC report to the Council and the EP on the implementation, results and overall assessment of the 2010 EY, the gender dimension was not strongly perceived by key 2010 players and gender-disaggregated data were not systematically produced. 8
A special analysis of national projects in Denmark and Norway illustrates that national priorities matter. In Norway only three out of 24 projects had an explicit gender focus and only one project was concerned with ethnic minority women: the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association had two integration projects: the SESAM (Styrt Engasjerende SAMtale) project and the Refugee project. 9 In Denmark seven out of 38 projects had a more-or-less explicit gender aspect. These projects had four gendered themes: Boys and Education, Family and Single Mothers, Ethnic Minority Women and Victims of Violence. The two projects targeting ethnic minority women had a dual focus on awareness-raising and network-building workshops and emphasised ethnicity as the main inequality ground combined with gender (Høwisch Kristensen, 2012).
Based on our findings we conclude that the national contexts matter precisely in the way in which migrant women (or the intersection between gender and ethnicity or gender and citizenship status) are highlighted in a few national cases. The focus on migrant women is downplayed in EU policies and documents concerning the EY 2010 but present in national priorities in Denmark, Germany, Norway and, to some extent, Iceland. Other target groups which are only mentioned in the national documents, and not in the EU documents, are unemployed women, working poor, women from disadvantaged regions and, to a lesser extent, young women. In general, the projects focus on awareness raising, counselling, network building and workshops. The projects related to migrant women focus on counselling, networks and self-help in order to combat isolation, for example (Denmark) and family perspectives in terms of strengthening parental skills (Germany).
The overall picture, interpreting the gender-and-diversity focus across the European, national and civil society/project levels, shows that, in relation to this specific policy area (Poverty and Social Exclusion), the EU documents emphasise age as the main inequality ground combined with gender (see Figure 1). Elderly women and young women, as well as single mothers and women victims of violence, are the main target groups and this perspective runs through all three levels. The national level, through the programmes and priorities established by the NIBs, adds economy as an inequality perspective by focusing on unemployed women, working poor and disadvantaged regions. Finally, at the project level, ethnicity and citizenship status are the main diversity dimensions intersecting with gender as integration is emphasised as a key perspective of gender, poverty and exclusion. Here migrant women are mentioned as a main target group in some of the participating countries.
Target groups and (in)equality focus at EU, member state and project levels.
The figure illuminates EU's complex discursive opportunity structures. It illustrates that national contexts matter by influencing the way in which the projects are structured. It indicates that labour market integration is the most important aim behind the Danish projects and combating isolation through counselling, networks and that self-help is conceived as the way to reach the aim. This contrasts with the German projects, which focus on immigrant women as mothers, i.e. emphasizing the family perspective. It also indicates that the EY did open opportunities to address poverty and social exclusion from the perspective of multiple inequalities through the NIBs, which, at the same time, enabled civil society actors to focus on gender and ethnic minorities.
Conclusions: The EU intersectionality mix and barriers for gender diversities
Previous research shows that gender has been the frontrunner in the development of EU equality policies. Recently scholars have noticed that, with the focus on diversity, gender is to some extent falling behind in terms of level of protection vis-à-vis other grounds of discrimination, particularly race/ethnicity. Research has documented that there is a spillover concerning multiple inequalities from the EU level to the national level, where integrated equality bodies taking into consideration all grounds of discrimination are encouraged (Krizan et al., 2012). The present EU approach to gender diversity, which rests on multiple discriminations and intersectionality, is still underdeveloped in the sense that the nature of the relations between the different inequality grounds remains to a large extent unexplored or unarticulated. Furthermore, the EU/civil society interface does not facilitate intersectional demands; rather it focuses on separate inequalities and the collaboration between transnational umbrella organisations in each field.
Our analysis of the EY supports this interpretation of the dynamics of gender and diversity policies in the EU and confirms the main interpretations. When it comes to the more economically oriented policy areas and especially, as in this case, the issue of poverty and social exclusion, the gendered ethnicity and citizenship status dimensions tend to be excluded from the policy framework which focuses instead primarily on elderly, single mothers and unemployed. These categories are no doubt particularly exposed to poverty but seen from an intersectional perspective, adding the dimensions of ethnicity and citizenship status to the mix would potentially show increased levels of vulnerability among these groups (for example the isolation of elderly migrant women or the labour market exclusion of non-citizens). Previous analyses of the dynamics of intersectionality in EU gender equality policies also confirm the increased attention to the intersection of gender and age within the areas of employment and labour market policies (Lombardo and Rolandsen Agustín, 2012).
The question then remains what the strengthened focus on civil society at the national level, which we have introduced here, brings to the analysis, especially in terms of the potential of the national and local levels to include intersectional concerns and intersectional civil society actors to a further extent than that which is currently the case at the transnational level. Our main point has been to show how the EU policy framework interacts with the particular national contexts in the construction of both barriers and potential affecting the possibilities of developing gender-and-diversity policy content. In terms of policies we find that the focus on migrant women is getting increasingly strong in some policy areas (such as VAW for example, see Montoya and Rolandsen Agustín, 2011) and in some national contexts as we have seen at the level of projects selected for the EY for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010. The civil society perspective which is prominent in the implementation of the EY 2010 through the selection of projects for funding does not call for economic perspectives. Activities are to a large extent individualised, i.e. addressing women's own role in combating isolation for instance, and information related, i.e. focusing on awareness-raising among vulnerable groups.
Feminist scholars have argued that the turn to diversity in equality policies has provided new possibilities for including minority voices in policy-making as well as developing the gender-and-diversity perspective through multidimensional equality policies. In this article we have taken this approach one step further and proposed a dynamic multi-level model for gendered diversities at the transnational level, which rests on inclusive policy-making by taking into consideration the contributions from diverse groups of citizens situated in different contexts. The study of the EY in particular is suitable for the purpose of developing such a model because it highlights three crucial dimensions, i.e. those of the interaction between the national and transnational levels, the intersection between gender and other diversities as well as the interface between civil society actors and member-state institutions. We propose that this particular mix can contribute towards a democratic intersectionality perspective as a normative goal, which involves all concerned actors. At the same time, the EY case also points towards the practical barriers for gender equality policies imposed by the discursive opportunity structures emerging through the interaction between national and European policies and institutions.
The empirical analysis has demonstrated that the question is not primarily whether there is a focus on ethnicity or not; both EU policies and national priorities, as set forward by the individual NIBs, focus on ethnic minority and migrant groups. The question is rather how intersectionality is articulated in the sense that ethnicity in the EY case is not gendered except at the level of projects. The EU's gender-and-diversity approach is characterised by the non-citizen/citizen and redistribution/recognition divisions. We argue that what matters in terms of barriers for gender diversities are precisely these divisions. Gendered non-citizens are excluded at the policy level and it depends on the national contexts how the individual projects deal with this intersection. Even though the EU policy documents state that recognition of rights is a central aim of the EY 2010, policies tend to focus on intersections relevant to a context of welfare and social services, thus emphasising gender and age as the main intersection (services for the elderly as well as the child-care perspective and to some extent, the unemployed). Policies do not cover gender and ethnicity or gender and citizenship status since the migrant perspective is not covered in terms of economy and, much less, illegal immigrants as economically marginalised groups. Furthermore, we argue that the particularities of the EU intersectionality approach depend on the level of implementation (European, national and local) as well as the particular policy area.
In the present economic and financial crisis, one interesting question to be explored further is what the move to an increasing focus on multiple discriminations in the EU means for understanding the intersections of gender and class. Another crucial (and related) question is what the influence of the diversity of national gender, migration and welfare regimes means for the practical implementation of the EU's approach to multiple discriminations. One controversial issue: is it desirable and, if so, how far it is possible to develop the intersectionality of gender and class further as long as social politics and economic redistribution remain the prerogative of nation-states?