Intersectionality in European Union policymaking: the case of gender-based violence

Abstract

Inclusiveness of different social groups and responsiveness to the needs of increasingly diverse societies are key criteria for policy analysts to assess the quality of public policies. We argue that an intersectional approach attentive to the interaction of gender with other inequalities is particularly apt to deal with equality and diversity in policymaking. By analysing a selection of European Union policy documents on gender-based violence in the period 2000–2014, we attend to the question of what intersectionality can bring to policymaking in terms of strengthening inclusiveness and address the methodological question of applying an intersectional approach to policy analysis.

“Moroccan youngsters”: category politics in the Netherlands

“…Our findings on intersectionality in the parliamentary documents are based on the references to markers we coded in the texts. These reveal the occurrence of intersectional ideas and the extent to which these are articulated (Lombardo and Rolandsen, ). Some intersections like national background and age are explicitly articulated, whereas the link to other markers of class and gender remain more inarticulate.…”

European Integration and Disintegration: Feminist Perspectives on Inequalities and Social Justice

“…To account for such integrative dynamics, European integration theory needs to include the study of empowering intersectional coalitions of equality projects. An analysis of EU policymaking from intersectional perspectives also contributes to European integration theory by showing the extent to which EU policies are inclusive of different people and therefore capable of promoting further integration among the people of Europe's increasingly diverse societies (Lombardo and Rolandsen, ).…”

How Does the European Union Talk about Migrant Women and Religion? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Agenda on Migration of the European Union and the Case Study of Nigerian Women

“…Through the Critical Frame Analysis and the sensitizing questions used to analyze the document, we noticed that women were not mentioned in the document as a whole, not even in sections discussing "vulnerable categories" (such as children, which were on the other hand mentioned), nor in sections addressing smuggling and trafficking. We expected women to be at least mentioned in linkage with care, domestic violence, sexual violence, health, and human trafficking with a particular emphasis on sexual exploitation (Walby et al 2016), as these are usually the main policy fields the EU is likely to present from a gender perspective, as other scholars have previously noticed (Agustín 2013;Lombardo and Agustín 2016). However, mentions of migrant women are completely missing from the text as a whole, which makes it impossible to speak about a "gender perspective" of the policy document, forcing us to determine that this document is primarily gender neutral and lacking gender mainstreaming.…”

“…The case of Nigerian women forced into prostitution and smuggled with the use of religious indoctrinations, such as that of Voodoo practices, is one of the most compelling ones in modern mixed migration flows and shows the need to implement a strong gender perspective when drafting migration policies such as the European Agenda on Migration ( Scholars have recently started to direct their attention to the framing of gender issues in different policy fields at the European Union level. 1 With a particular interest on the question of intersectionality and the way in which it is narrated or omitted from political discourses and documents, researchers in the field of gender equality and women's rights have looked at how the intersection of gender and ethnicity, or gender and religion, is framed and institutionalized in the gender equality architecture of the EU (Agustín 2013;Agustin and Siim 2016;Lombardo 2013;Lombardo and Giorgio 2013;Lombardo and Forest 2015;Lombardo et al 2009Lombardo et al , 2017Lombardo and Agustín 2016; Van der Haar and Verloo 2013). Issuing and becoming in a space feminism(s), social movement and academy intersectionality provides and represents not only an analytical tool but also a political project to underline and amplify discriminations within a social justice orientation (Mügge et al 2018).…”