“Importing Gender: Feminist Analyses of EU Law”

Shaw, Jo. (1999) “Importing Gender: Feminist Analyses of EU Law”. In: UNSPECIFIED, Pittsburgh, PA. (Unpublished)

Preview

PDF Download (1770Kb) | Preview

Abstract

This paper attempts to consider the intersection of gender and EU law. It does so in the context of the endeavour to go “beyond Article 119.” In other words, it looks beyond the most obvious engagement of EU law with the legal status of women (and men) as actors within the market place for labour, which takes the form of a treaty-based and fully legally enforceable guarantee of equal pay for equal work, plus an associated legal framework for equal treatment in other aspects of employment and related matters. That is not to say that the whole realm of sex discrimination law should suddenly be dismissed as unimportant. On the contrary, inevitably the legal regulation of equality and the creation of a regime to guarantee non-discrimination on grounds of sex under the law will feature prominently in any analysis of the gendered nature of EU law. However, the basic proposition from which I start in this paper is that there is a substantial difference between, on the one hand, studying, analysing and presenting a field of law defined by reference to specified legal categories such as ‘non-discrimination’ or ‘the right to equality’ and, on the other hand, beginning an analysis with a non-legal category such as ‘gender.’

Actions (login required)