gender, nations and states in a global era

7/28/2019 Gender, Nations and States in a Global Era

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Nations and Nationalism 6 (4), 2000, 523-40. 0 SEN 2000

Gender, nations and states in aglobal eraSYLVIA WALBY

Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds,Lee& LS2 9JT

ABSTRACT. Nations and national projects are gendered in different ways. Feministtheory has raised im portan t questions a bo ut the concep tualisation of difference. Thisarticle develops the conceptualisation of the different ways in which nations andnational projects are gendered, arguing for a mid-level conceptualisation of genderrelations. It argues against, on the one hand, the excessive fragmentation of gender,and on the other, too simple dichotomies of mordless unequal gender relations. Thisdraws on a theorisation of gender relations which connects the different dimensionsinto specific kinds of gender regimes, either public or domestic gender regimes. Thisenables us to conceptualise different nation al projects as having a more o r less publicor domestic gender project. Th e conflicts between different nationa l projects and withother polities, such as states, a re then conflicts between differently gendered projects.The usefulness of this mid-level conceptualisation is demonstrated through examplesof the competing relations between the U K , Ireland, the EU and the C atholic Churchin a global era.

IntroductionNations and national projects are gendered projects. Whether alreadystabilised within a nation-state, or energetic political movements aspiring fora state of their own, they hold ideals as to the proper place of women andmen in society which will often be in conflict with those of other nationsand nationalisms. There is a need for coherent conceptualisation of thedifferent forms of gender relations at an analytic level similar to that ofnations in order to understand these conflicts. Gender is not a simpleconcept, nor is it sufficient to add it in as a separate dimension. There aresignificant differences between women, such as those based on nation,ethnicity and race, which means that it is inappropriate to generalise fromone group alone. We need a robust conceptualisation which enables us toaddress the different forms of gender relations at this macro level. In an eraof globalisation, the political communities within which people can claimeffective citizenship are changing. Since political communities articulate theinterests of component social groups in different ways, so these changesimpact on changing social divisions.


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524 Sylvia WalbySeveral of the dilemmas in theorising the relationship between gender an dnation an d other forms of difference rest on the extent to which it is possible

to generalise, to be able to go beyond the empiricism of describing thedetails of a specific gendered national project, while yet not succumbing toover-generalised and essentialised conceptions of womanhood and nation-hood. On the one hand, much recent gender analysis has been concerned toavoid the dangers of essentialism and instead to show a sensitivity andappreciation of difference. While on the other, there are problems in toogreat a concentration on descriptive detail which can result merely inempiricism. I shall address this dilemma by utilising a vocabulary of mid-range concepts, which facilitate both sensitivity to context and ability tocompare across a range of cases. This is a development of earlier work ontheorising gender regimes (Walby 1997), on the transformation of the formsof patriarchy (Walby, 1990) and on the operationalisation of these theoriesin comparative analysis (Walby 1994) to issues of competing nationalprojects. The concept of gender regime captures the notion of genderrelations at a m acro level, while distinguishing between dom estic and publicforms separately from the degree of gender inequality enables us toconceptualise differences in gender regime without succumbing to unwar-ranted ethnocentric assumptions.

This article is an argument for a new way of addressing key theoreticaldebates ab ou t difference which are now central t o social theory an d feministtheory ( Ca lhoun 1995; Felski 1997). But the renewed focus on th e politics ofrecognition, which emerged as a response to problems of overgeneralisationfrom the experiences of the dominant group (Taylor et al. 1994; Young1990), is contested by both those w ho consider that identity politics can bemerely an ot he r form of essentialism, reifying cultural gro ups (Squires 1999),and those who argue that this move to recognition politics is at the neglectof processes of transformation (Fraser 1995). Further, there has been atendency in the feminist analysis of difference to examine ever finerdistinctions, ever smaller units of analysis, in order to include an ever widervariety of forms of difference, and in order to avoid the perceived problemof essentialism (Spellman 1988; Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989), and inorder to capture the standpoint (Smith 1988; Harding 1986, 1991) of evermore finely differentiated groups of women. In contrast, more traditionalwork which has recently introduced gender has a tendency to treat genderinequality too simply as if it were simply a matter of greater or lesserinequality between wom en an d men (Castells 1997; M ann 1986). Here, bymeans of an analysis of difference at the level of nations and states I amattempting to ground an analysis of difference on a new analytic plane,which adequately captures the social, collective, contested nature and scaleof the processes involved.Though traditionally national projects have not been seen as gendered(see Gellner 1983; Kedourie 1966; Smith 1971, 1986), today such analysesare so generally seen as lacking in important components that this point


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Gender, nations and states 525

does not need rehearsing here. The contemporary question is rather how, inwhich way, and to what effect are national projects gendered. While there isan extensive body of literature on the relationship of gender and ethnicdifference (Felski 1997; hooks 1982; Mirza 1997), the literature on nationalissues has been less well developed. Recently, however, there has been adeveloping concern with the gender dimension of nations and relatedpolities. This has addressed the gender dimension of: international relationsespecially in relation to the military (Enloe 1983, 1989); the crossing of linesof conflict in zones of ethnic/nationdl strife by women (Cockburn 2000); theextent to which the gendering of nationalist projects is influenced by theWest (Jayawardena 1986); the intersection of religion, the state and nationalprojects (Kandiyoti 1991); and the mutual construction of gender, nationaland ethnic projects (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989, Yuval-Davis 1997); andvariations in the form of patriarchy (Kandiyoti 1988; Moghadam 1993).The focus in this article is on national projects, but in the context of therelationship of these to other polities, such as states.

The increasing rate of globalisation creates a context which demands theraising of the level of abstraction of gender relations from the micro to themacro level. The fragmentation of the concept of gender by the postmoder-nist impulse has gone too far (Benhabib 1999). In order to addresscontemporary patterns of gendered change in a globalising world we needconcepts which do not retreat to ever smaller units, but which are able tomake reference to a wider horizon of events. The global frame of referencerequires that we look at larger scale phenomena, rather than continuing theever finer splitting of differences. Specific projects now often refer to a widerglobal framework (Soysal 1994). Globalisation is a frame within whichmany contemporary polities act, and indeed reflexively acknowledge this,even though its impact is variable (Roberston 1992; Held 1995), incomplete(Hirst and Thompson 1996), and contested (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998),rather than uniform (Ohmae 1995).Here I am arguing that it is useful to develop a set of mid-range concepts,and thereby to re-focus the analysis of difference. Nations, and otherpolities, such as states, supra-states and organised religions, are importantin the organisation of gendered differences. By examining the way thatnations and other polities are gendered, and the gendered conflicts andcompromises which occur at this level, we can see how to analyse in newways the transformation of various specific forms of gendered difference.

There are four steps to my argument in this article. First, nations andnational projects are gendered projects, as are also other polities. Second,gender needs to be conceptualised at a macro level which is then able toarticulate at a similar scale to that of nation. Third, conceptualisations ofgender are needed which do not capture merely greater or lesser inequalitybut also qualitatively different forms of gender regimes. Fourth, to illustratethe power of this reconceptualisation using various instances of genderedforms of overlap and contestation between nations, states, and religious


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Yuval-Davis focuses on what women can do for nations, rather than onwhat nations can do for women. There is a tendency to reduce women tothe level of pawns or political symbols, with a consequent reduction in theeconomic content of different patterns of gender relations. This is reflectedin the low priority accorded by Yuval-Davis to economic issues in theanalysis of gender and nation. Women are seen as being used to buildnationalist projects in that women are seen as symbols of nation, and areused to reproduce the group. Yuval-Davis makes little reference to theeconomic costs and benefits of different national projects for women. Herfocus on nation, rather than on the reciprocal relations between gender andnation, contributes to the tendency to splinter the category of gender. Butthe extent to which this occurs is actually problematic, as Kandiyoti (1989)points out. Kandiyoti (1989) draws attention to the way that women are notonly symbols and pawns but actors in their own right. As I shall showbelow, the material content of different national projects has importantimplications for the form of gender relations and the degree of genderinequality. This has implications for the extent to which women, or certaingroups of women, support different, and sometimes competing, nationaland state projects.

In order to understand the gendering of nations and related social entitiesit is necessary to have concepts which enable us to grasp and comparegender relations at the level of nation, for which we need a typology offorms of gender relations at this macro level. When gender is splintered andfragmented into so many multiple forms of difference it precludes effectiveanalysis of its relationship with national projects.

PatriarchalismIn contrast to the fragmentation of the category of gender, Castells (1997)and Mann (1986) introduce the macro concept of patriarchalism. Whiletheir introduction of this macro concept to capture gender inequality is tobe' welcomed, their development of this concept does not allow sufficientspace for differences in the form of patriarchy. They address genderrelations in a simple way, as involving either greater or lesser inequality, ina manner which pays too little attention to the diversity of form of genderrelations.

Castells (1996, 1997, 1998) presents a wide-ranging account of theinformation age, globalisation and their intersection with nations, states andsocial movements. He considers that the processes involved with globalisa-tion are leading to the demise of patriarchalism. He suggests that there is asimultaneous decline in the patriarchal family and increase in women'semployment with the development of globalisation. Castells conceptualisesgender relations in terms of a system, patriarchalism, which can have agreater or lesser degree of inequality.


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528 Sylvia WalbyCastells account of the development of information technology andglobalisation and its interconnection with processes around the world is

impressive. However, his concern to be comprehensive has meant that hisanalysis is less nuanced in some places than others. In relation to gender histreatment of it as a system is too simple. There are differences betweensystems of patriarchy which are additional to that of greater or lesserinequality. In particular, Castells (as also did Mann) inappropriatelyconflates the transformation of the family with the end of patriarchy. Thisfollows from the over simple specification of the system of patriarchy. Oneof the consequences of this conceptualisation is that there is little analyticspace to consider whether the increase of employment may for some womenunder certain circumstances not lead to a reduction in gender inequality.There is an extensive literature, neglected by both Castells and Mann,especially in gender and development, which debates whether, how and inwhat way, increases in womens paid employment impacts on otherdimensions of gender inequality (Boserup 1970; Leacock and Safa 1986;Elson and P earson 1981; Stan ding 1989). The decline of the traditional formof the family and the m ovement of women into the public sphere should n otbe analytically conflated with the end of patriarchalism. It may not alwaysbe the case that these phenomena are so closely and tightly inter-related.Much work in development studies has long problematised simple assertionsabout the impact of womens employment (Standing 1989; Boserup 1970;Leacock 1986). Ra ther we need a m ore com plex specification of the form ofgender relations w hich analytically distinguishes between the form of genderregime and the degree of gender inequality in order to understand macrolevel changes such a s those in the relationship between gender an d n ation .Theorising genderTh us we need to conceptualise gender using a range of mid-level concepts inorder to facilitate the analysis of mid-level social phenomena, such asnations, states and other polities such as organised religions, as genderedentities. The concept of gender regime is used to denote a system of inter-related gender relations. A gender regime is composed of six componentstructures or domains: paid employment, household production, the polity,male violence, sexuality and cultural institutions. These are interconnectedin a systematic manner. It is possible to distinguish two main forms ofgender regime - a domestic gender regime and a public gender regime (for afuller account see Walby 1997). (These concepts are the same as thosedenoted by the terms private and public patriarchy, developed andelabo rated in (Walby 1986, 1990, 1994)). These two fo rms of gender regimesare distinguished by different relations between the six domains listedabove. In the domestic or private form women are typically subordinated byexclusion from the public domain and confined to the household; in


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Gender, nations and states 529contrast, within the public form women are not excluded from the publicarena although they are subordinated there. In the domestic form the mainpatriarchal strategy is exclusionary; in the public it is to segregate andsubordinate. The separation of the form of the gender regime from the issueof the extent of the inequality between women and men is important in theanalysis of the diversity of patterns of gender relations (Walby 1994). Itavoids the conflation of the degree of gender inequality with the form ofgender regime, which is so problematic. It avoids possibly ethnocentricassumptions that the more public form is necessarily the more egalitarianone.

This set of concepts enables the conceptualisation of both diversity andchange in gender relations at macro and meso levels. They facilitatecomparative analysis because of the way that they provide a frameworkwithin which to analyse diversity. For instance, the concepts facilitate anunderstanding of the changes in gender relations in specific countries overthe last century. During the last 100 years or so, the U K and much of theWestern world has been experiencing a transition from the domestic to apublic gender regime. This has been a consequence of the destabilisingeffects of the increased demand for womens waged labour and the impactof capitalist development on household production together with the role offirst wave feminism and the political citizenship which this feminist wavewon for women.

This process of transformation from a domestic to a public genderregime is uneven, between countries and between regions, over both spaceand time. This has meant that there are different forms of gender regimes indifferent countries, although there has been a transition in most of theWestern world in the form of gender regime. In some locations some of thedomains have been transformed more rapidly than others, creatingvariations in the forms of gender regime (Walby 1994). Thus there isvariation and unevenness in the forms of gender regimes across nations,states and religions and other large-scale social entities.

Each polity (e.g. nation, state, organised religion) contains a differentform of gender project, a different form of gender regime. The interactionbetween nation and other entities such as the state is a gendered relation-ship. It is a relationship between bodies which usually have different formsof gender regimes. The focus of analysis here is then not so much on theinter-relationship between gender and nation. But rather that betweendifferently gendered national (and other) projects. Men and women do notalways share the same goals for a national project, nor even share the sameboundaries to such a project. There is a struggle to define what constitutesthe national project, and women are, typically, heard less than men in thisprocess. Gender relations are important in determining what is constitutedas the national project.

Concepts of nation and other polities have been used largely todifferentiate between groups of men. But the concepts which denote


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530 Sylvia Walby

difference between men are not necessarily the same as the concepts whichusefully denote difference between women. Womens political interests maybe represented in different polities differently from those of men. Differentissues come into focus as the sites of conflict between polities when gender isforegrounded, while different institutions may provide the focus for differentpolitical projects. These themes will be developed in relation to some specificexamples, in particular, the gendered relationship between Ireland (both asa nation and as a state), the UK, the EU and Catholicism.

Women, nation and EuropeThe shifting relations between these polities - states, the U K and Ireland;nations, the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and the English; and a supranationalbody, the European Union (EU) - illustrate the issue of different boundedunits having varying gender regimes. Gender, religion, ethnicity and classhave different relationships to such polities as the nation, the state,organised religion and to supranational state-like institutions. This isbecause the determinants of gender, class and ethnicity are different. Hencethe nation-state has a different place in their construction.

There are two sets of differences which are important in the under-standing of the gendered relationship between the EU and EU memberstates: first, the EU has a different gender project from that of most of itsmember states; and second, the nature of the powers of the EU are differentfrom those of the member states. The EU has a more public gender regimeand a more egalitarian gender regime than that of the UK and most EUmember states, though probably less public and egalitarian than that in theScandinavian countries. The EU is a different kind of state from aconventional nation-state, with different capacities and powers. It is bothmore and less powerful than conventional nation-states, depending on thefield under consideration. Its regulations are supreme in the regulation ofthe economic market, including the labour market, and are less powerful inthe fields of taxation and the military (Walby 1999a; Hoskyns 1996).

The gender regime of the EU is public rather than domestic. Further, thishas been articulated through policies which have sought the equal treatmentof women and men, and thus sought to reduce the extent of genderinequality in so far as this is related to labour market processes. Thefounding Treaty of the EU laid down in 1957 in Article 119 that womenand men should be paid the same. During the 1970s a series of legallybinding directives were created which developed this principle of equaltreatment between women and men. The 1975 Equal Pay Directiveinterpreted the meaning of equal pay broadly so that it encompassed notonly equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value; the1976 Equal Treatment Directive extended equal treatment of women andmen beyond pay into many areas of employment including training and


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working conditions; the 1978 Directive on Equality on Social Securityextended the principle of equal treatment into social security measures. TheSocial Charter (the Community Charter of the Fundamental Rights ofWorkers, 1989) and Social Chapter of Maastricht were further developmentsof the core idea of Article 119. With the Treaty of Amsterdam these legalprovisions not only have been reinforced, but further developed, deepeningthe level of commitment and broadening its range beyond employment.Article 2 of this new Treaty makes the promotion of equality betweenwomen and men part of the mission of the EU, while Article 3 states thatthe Community shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality,between women and men (Gregory 1987; Hantrais 1995; Hoskyns 1996;Pillinger 1992; Women of Europe, 1998).These measures on the equal treatment of men and women in the labourmarket and related areas went much further than the legislation of most ofthe member states. The only exceptions here are the Nordic countries, ofwhich only Denmark was a member of the EU during this period ofdevelopment of these Directives, with Sweden and Finland joining only veryrecently. The EU took the lead on equal treatment and member states wereobliged to follow the direction of the European Commission and theEuropean Court of Justice (Pillinger 1992; Hoskyns 1996).

The EU does not have the same powers as a conventional nation-state.The EU does not have an independent military force, nor does it have morethan marginal powers to raise taxes and hence to dispense benefits, such asincome support, to EU citizens. These features have led some commentatorsto suggest that the EU is not significant in the field of social policy. Indeed,there is considerable controversy as to whether it is appropriate toconceptualise it as a state, or whether it is merely a committee of nation-states. There is debate rather than agreement as to how to conceptualise itsdegree of fusion and fission (Boye, van Steenbergen and Walby 1999;Kapteyn 1996; Leibfried and Pierson 1995; Moravcsik 1993).Nevertheless, the 1980s saw a revitalisation of the European Unionproject under the leadership of Delors. This project was that of increasedintegration of the single market together with the building of a significantsocial dimension (Bornschier and Ziltener 1999). While the EU has minimalpowers to tax and spend to support a social dimension, the EU does havesignificant powers to legally regulate markets. It is a regulatory state.Within its remit, the EU has supremacy over the legislation of its memberstates. These legal powers of the EU reside in the European Court of Justicewhich has the powers not only to make member states revise their domesticlegislation to come into line with its rulings, but, the Treaties and Directivesof the EU have direct effect on every citizen of the EU. The Treaties are ade fucto constitution of the EU, and thus of its member states to which allEuropean citizens can make direct appeal over the head of their nationalgovernments (Curtin 1989; Fitzpatrick 1992; Majone 1993; Pillinger 1992;Walby 1999a; Weiler 1997).


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532 Sylvia W albyThe significance of the powers of the EU should not be underestimated,even though they do not follow the same form as those of a nation-state.

While many nation-states appear to be victims of globalisation, in the senseof the curtailment of their power to effectively act, the powers of the EUhave strengthened as it responds positively to the challenges of g lobalisation.It has taken on the role of a regional hegemon, playing a strategic roleintervening and shaping the nature of the globalising process as well asbeing shaped by it. Because of the perception that the EU is a more effectivelevel of polity to respond to the challenge of globalisation, its member stateshave ceded important powers to it. These are powers especially to createand regulate a single market within the EU. This responsibility includes theregulation of the labour ma rket, an d it is here that the EU s most significantinterventions into gender relations have occurred.There has been significant contestation between the UK (and othermember states) and the EU over the appropriate policies to be followed inthe regulation of markets. While agricultural policy, not least the BSE crisisover British beef, has perhaps the highest profile, there have been significantdisputes over a wide range of issues. Gender policy, especially tha t of equalopp ortun ities policies, has been a significant area of conflict between the E Uand the U K . The E U won (Walby 1999a, 1999b).

In 1979 infringement proceedings were taken in the European C ou rt ofJustice by the Commission against Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg,Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK who had refused toimplement the 1975 Equal Pay Directive. After the success of the Com mis-sion, these member states were obliged to change their domestic legislationto bring it into line with the rulings of the ECJ. In the case of the UK, theConservative government under Thatcher was obliged to introduce anamendm ent allowing women to take equal pay cases on the basis of work ofequal value, not only when there is a man doing the same work. Here in thecontestation between Thatchers project for the political autonomy of theBritish nation and EU interventionism over labour market conditions forthg whole E U, the nationally specific project lost. It w as the determ inationof the doctrine of direct effect of European law for individuals in the caseof Defrenne v Subena (the Belgian airline) heard in the ECJ in 1979, whichwas perhaps even more important than Commission instigated proceedingsin establishing the supremacy of European law above domestic law,providing a faster and more effective route of change, since it meant thatcomplainants could take cases directly utilising European law withoutwaiting for the Commission to force changes in domestic legislation. Theimportance of the underpinning legal interpretation has been shown by theway important aspects of full-time rights for part-time workers were grantedin the UK, by the House of Lords, despite the Conservative governmentsopt-out of the M aastrich t Social Ch apter, because it rested on A rticle 119 ofthe Treaty of Ro m e ( Cu rtin 1989; Fitzpatrick 1992; Grego ry 1987; Pillinger1992).


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Gender, nations and states 533Thus the contestation between the UK and the EU has been a contest in

which gender has been a significant dimension. The EU gender regime,which is both more public and more egalitarian, has emerged supreme inthis contest. The EU gender model is one in which women are fullyemployed, while the UK has only recently moved to such a position in itsofficial policy. The UK, while in transition to a more public form of genderregime, has been resistant to that change taking place in a form whichreduced inequalities. The UK state does not resist the increasing entry ofwomen into employment, indeed a flexible labour market is consistent withthe growth of a low pay, low skill, non-permanent sector of womens part-time working. However, during the 1980s it did attempt to resist the equalopportunity regulations spreading from the EU. In order to understand thenature of the conflict between the EU and the UK it is necessary todistinguish between the form of gender relations and the degree of genderinequality.

However, for those few countries, the Scandinavian and Nordic coun-tries, which already had a public gender regime and one which was lessinegalitarian, the impact of the EU is more mixed. Here the tighter fiscalregime and the different prioritisation of employment and inflation policiestogether with a domestic neoliberal political reaction combined to producepolicy initiatives to curtail welfare provision. Welfare provision rather thanlabour market regulation had been the primary Scandinavian route to apublic gender regime, so the impact of the EU on gender relations in theScandinavian countries is therefore mixed. Nevertheless, the point that therelationship between the member state and EU is a gendered one still holds.Indeed women have been more opposed to joining the EU than men, inDenmark and Sweden, largely as a result of its perceived effects on theirwelfare regime (Dahlerup 1997; Hoskyns 1996).

The relationship between polities is gendered, having different outcomesdependent upon the nature of the prior gender regimes, the nature of thepolities, and their relative strength. The nature of the gender regimes whichare being contested need to be understood not only in terms of whether theyare domestic or public, but also as to the extent of gender inequality.

Ireland and other politiesIreland has been subject to overlapping and competing polities, an under-standing of which is essential to the understanding of its history. The mainpolities here are the Irish nation, Irish state, the British state, the EU andthe Catholic Church, though there are further influences including Gaelicand Celtic ethnic identities and the role of the Irish diaspora, especiallyfrom the United States. Each of these polities has a different preferredgender regime. It is a further example of the need to engage with thecontestation and overlap between different kinds of polities in order to


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534 Sylvia Walbyunderstand the development of gender relations. The gender regimes ofthese various polities are very varied. Relatively speaking, the CatholicChurch has the most domestic form of gender regime; the EU the mostpublic form; with both the Irish nation and the U K undergoing atransformation or transition from domestic to public during this period.T he EU has had a more egalitarian form of gender regime than Ireland orthe UK. The overlap and contestation between these polities has been agendered struggle. Sometimes the gendered dimension is at the fore,sometimes it is in the background. The nature and significance of thepowers of each of these polities is obviously quite different. Religion,nation, state and suprastate engage rather different kinds of power,operating at different social levels with different kinds of governance. Inparticular, religious and state power are not equivalent. Further, they areuneven in the extent to w hich som e have power over others.Ireland was a colony of the British state at the beginning of the period(Munck 1993) an d thus subject to the gender regime of the British state, butboth have been subject to the EU since 1973 (W hyte 1988). Catholicism w asclosely associated with the Irish nation dur ing the struggle for independencefrom the UK (Larkin 1975), but its governance is centred in the Vaticanrather than in Ireland. It is often argued (e.g. M iller 1973) that religion wasa badge of nation in the case of the relations between Ireland and Britain inthat religion was the primary (though not only) demarcator between Irishand British in the absence of any visual identifier, any racialised markings.The Catholic Church is larger than the Irish nation, a transnational politybased in the Vatican. An additional political element was that of first wavefeminism, centred loosely aro un d the N or th Atlantic area, which introduceda competing anti-patriarchal discourse (Ward 1989, 1991).The implication for gender regimes is that the Irish national project inthe late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew heavily on thedomestic gender regime of the Catholic Church. This was not uncontested,no t least by those w ho w ere involved in first wave feminism an d the strugglefor womens suffrage. Indeed several of the leading figures of the Irishnational m ovement were women who sought to combine their feminism andtheir nationalism. However, they lost and were pushed aside in therepresentative structures formed immediately after independence (Ward1989, 1991). In the period immediately before a nd after th e independence ofthe so uthe rn Ireland from British rule in the 1920s the Irish n ationa l projectadopted a primarily domestic gender regime. The Irish constitution writtenin the 1930s consolidated th e dom estication o f women (Farrell 1988;Scannell 1988). Indeed, in the 1950s the C atho lic Church hierarchy inIreland resisted the development of services by the Irish state, even that ofhealth care for mothers and babies, on the grounds that this was the propermatter for families (Whyte 1971), such was the intensity of the determina-tion to hold o n t o a dom estic version of a gender regime.But the inward looking economy based on the father headed family


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farms did not flourish and by the 1960s Irish political leaders lookedoutwards towards the international arena to develop their economy (Clancyer al. 1995; Goldthorpe and Whelan 1992). As part of this move, Irelandsought to join the European Union and became a member in 1973. TheEuropean Union had a more public gender regime than Ireland. By joiningthe EU Ireland acceded to the EU regulation of the market, including equalopportunities laws. The superior legal standing of the EU to the Irish stateon labour market regulation was a key factor in the dramatic and rapidtransformation of the gender regime, starting with the labour market. Irishentry into the EU was conditional on Ireland signing the EU Treaties andDirectives. One of the first changes was the removal of the marriage barwhich had prevented married women working in certain occupations. TheIrish were also obliged to grant women the legal right to equal pay, and theend of discriminatory closure against women on the labour market (Curtin1989; Pyle 1990; Whyte 1988).

The implications of the single market have been profound, and more far-reaching than employment relations. In particular, there was a majorconstitutional crisis over the issue of abortion, which had been banned inCatholic Ireland but which, under normal EU regulations governingmarkets, was a service which, under the single market, should be availableto be sold to Irish women from other member states. Attempts at specialexemptions for the Irish under the Maastricht Treaty heightened andextended the nature of the constitutional conflict. Legal cases were profiledin the media, referenda fought, and there was extensive public debate as tothe reconstruction of the appropriate proper relationship between churchand state. The conflict with the Catholic Church has been cataclysmic, andthe constitutional battles over abortion and also over divorce wereeventually lost by the church. Further the church lost its special protectionby the state, following the willingness of the government to cover up apaedophile priest which led to such a political outcry that the governmentitself fell. The relationship between church and state is being fundamentallyrestructured, and the conflict over gender relations is at the heart of thisconflict (Reid 1990, 1992; Smyth 1992). In this way the defence by theCatholic Church of one of the most domestic gender regimes in WesternEurope was undermined.

The gender regime of the Irish nation is in extremely rapid change. Thisis not simply an endogenous process, although there are some importantelements of internal modernisation and reconstruction. Key elements in thechange in gender regime result from its changed position in relation to othergendered polities. In particular, the impact of the European Union and thedeclining influence of the Catholic Church. The focal point of theextraterritorial systems of governance of Ireland, beyond Dublin, have thusshifted from London to the Vatican to Brussels. These are the headquartersof the other polities with which the Irish nation has had to deal.

Each of the polities has a different kind of gender project. Each of the


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536 Sylvia W albypolities has a complex history of the development of its gender regimewhich result from a number of different factors. Most importantly, thisincludes the context and the nature of the other domains of the genderregime, including paid work, housework, male violence, sexuality andculture. However, it also includes the mode of governance of the polity.Each mode of governance itself has a different history of social divisionsand gendered contestation. One of the proximate causes of this is the variedgender composition of the key decisional committees and assemblies, notleast national parliaments (G ardiner 1993; Inter-Parliamentary Un ion 1997;M ann ing 1978; Norris a nd Lovendusk i 1995). This is related to th e extentto which each of these polities is democratic. Those modes of governancewhich are more democratic are more likely to havc a higher proportion ofwomen in their key decisional arenas. For instance, the Catholic Churchdoes not allow women into membership of its key governing bodies, becausethey are women. Women are not allowed to become priests, or bishops, orcardinals nor pope. This is no t to say th at wom en d o not have a place in thegovernance of the Catholic Church. As nuns and women religious, theyhave a place, and when the church was significantly involved in the runningof schools and hospitals this was a significant source of influence (Clear1987; Luddy 1995). Nevertheless, despite womens devotion in Catholiccountries, women are not allowed into membership of the key governingcommittees, which are confined to men. The extent to which women areallowed into key assemblies and positions is a factor in the gendered natureof the polity. However, it is not the only one, since economic structures, theextent to which women work in the waged or domestic economy, andcomplex relations with other dimensions of gender relations, especiallysexual mores, harassment of women, and culture are also relevant. Thenature of the gender regime of these polities is embedded in complex waysin the other dom ains of gender relations.

ConclusionsPolities ar e gendered in different ways, an d the com petition an d contestationbetween polities is simultaneously a competition and contestation betweendifferent forms of gender regime. Gender regimes can be usefully conceptua-lised along two axes of first, a c ontinuum of domestic an d public, a nd second,in the degree of inequality. There have been major changes in the nature ofgender regimes in recent years an d, in many W estern countries there has beena transformation or indeed transition from a domestic to a public genderregime. This has sometimes been accompanied by changes in the degree ofgender inequality, though this has varied considerably between differentsocial groups, especially according to age, education an d class location

Nations exist alongside and in complex connections with other polities,such as states, organised religions and suprastates. Polities exist in time and


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Gender, nations and states 537space and thus have different temporal and spatial reaches. Some come andgo or are transformed quite rapidly, while others last for centuries. Somehave larger spatial reaches than others, for example, the E U encompasses itsmember states, and some national diaspora live far from their originallocation. Some polities are more powerful than others.

The gendering of nations and national projects is best understood withinthis context. We need a conceptualisation of gender at a level which enablesan analysis at the level of nation. This needs to be neither too specific andlocal, as has been the case of a lot of recent feminist theorising, nor toosimple and undifferentiated, as has been the tendency in the more traditionalliterature.

There are complex articulations between these gendered polities. Theseare often crucial to the changes in gender regime. That is, changes in genderregime are not always, nor indeed usually, endogenous processes, that is,processes which are contained within a specific unit. Rather, the contesta-tion and changing relations between polities has an important impact on thenature and timing o f changes in gender regimes. Nations are one of a seriesof overlapping intersecting polities, each of which has its own distinctivegender regime. Gender relations in any one location can be subject to morethan one polity: a nation, a state, a religion, a suprastate, as well asperceived global pressures. There is not a simple unit of analysis, rathercomplexity deriving from multiple power sources some of which are incompetition with each other. The processes of change are today rarely oneswhich are primarily endogenous, because of the significance of competitionand conflict with partially overlapping polities. Indeed it is hard even toidentify a robustly independent unit over a long period within which suchchange could occur, so frequent are the changes in relevant polities andpolitical boundaries.

Women are not simply pawns or symbols of nations, but activeparticipants in the struggles to define and change national projects and toprioritise one polity over another. Gendered interests are differentlyrepresented in different polities and gender is a component of the strugglesbetween them. These gendered interests need to be analysed in their ownright and not reduced to effects of other phenomena.

The development of political projects, of political identities and strategies,takes place within the context of competition between and within polities. Itis inappropriate to focus on a detailed level of analysis to the exclusion ofthese wider and larger processes, especially in the current context ofglobalisation. It is inappropriate to separate issues of recognition from thoseof struggle over material goods and for equality, since, at least in thecurrent period and in the topics under analysis here these so often gotogether, albeit in complex ways. Gender relations are undergoing transfor-mation in most Western countries, rather than oscillating between twoalternative gender regimes. The competition and contestation betweengendered polities is an important element in these changes.


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538 Sylvia Walby

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