Links between different equality struggles, general anti-discrimination

frameworks vs specific strategies: Concepts, Issues and challenges for the

women’s movement

Mieke VerlooRadboud University Nijmegen and IWM Vienna

EWL SEMINAR Brussels, 26 January 2009

Filling the Gender Equality Gap in European Legislation And Tackling Multiple Discrimination

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Intersectionality?

How to understand the links between the struggles for equality or justice?• Thinking about inequalities

• Thinking about strategies to abolish them

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Inequalities

Our societies are ridden with inequalities along many different axes or dimensions

Our societies differ in whether and how they see these inequalities to be important, problematic, in need of action

Civil society, social movements and politics engage in various activities towards abolishing various inequalities

The strength of these political actors varies tremendously

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How inequalities relate to each other in society

The discussion what is the most important/ encompassing inequality in a certain context is inevitably political

How the relation between different inequalities is conceptualized is crucial

Some of the most important ways of conceptualizing the relation between inequalities are: singling out one as the most important, additive, and intersectionality

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Thinking about gender & …. The history of the women’s movement shows

that there have always been internal struggles on how to see and what to do with other inequalities than gender:• Class: first wave divide between bourgeois and

socialist women• Sexual orientation: the expulsion of lesbians from

some of the second wave organisations and the emergence of the lesbian movement

• Race/ethnicity: exposing racism within the women’s movement

• And others: disability, age, citizenship

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Thinking about gender & ….

Feminist theory has developed the concept of intersectionality to enable debates and the development of political practices that are acknowledging that different inequalities are constitutive of each other.

This means that we should think about gender as made by and shaping class, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, disability….

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Intersectionality Crenshaw’s useful distinction between

structural and political intersectionality

Structural intersectionality: • inequalities and its intersections are relevant at the

level of experiences of people in society

Political intersectionality: • inequalities and their intersections are relevant at the

level of political strategies

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Understanding intersectionality Intersectionality should be understood as dynamic and

institutional or interactive (McCall 2005; Hancock 2007; Marx Ferree 2009).

Rather than identifying points of intersection, we should see the dimensions on inequality themselves as dynamic and in changing, mutually constituted relationships with each other from which they cannot be disentangled (Walby 2007).

This gives historically realized social relations in any place or time an irreducible complexity in themselves, from which the abstraction of any dimension of comparison (such as “race” or “gender”) is an imperfect but potentially useful conceptual achievement of simplification, not an inherent property of the world (Marx Ferree 2009).

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Understanding intersectionality The “intersection of gender and race” is not any number

of specific locations occupied by individuals or groups (such as Black women),

but a process through which “race” takes on multiple “gendered” meanings for particular women and men (and for those not neatly located in either of those categories) depending on whether, how and by whom race-gender is seen as relevant for their sexuality, reproduction, political authority, employment or housing.

These domains (and others) are to be understood as organizational fields in which multidimensional forms of inequality are experienced, contested and reproduced in historically changing forms (Marx Ferree 2009).

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Political intersectionality Intersectional struggles and positive attention for intersectionality have

always been present in inequality movements, certainly in the women’s movement.

The movements that have developed around different inequalities have very different framings of what the problem is and what should be done about it

They have very different levels of institutionalization and power That includes very different historical legacies of intersectional

struggles within the movements These struggles are about intersectional bias in the movements: about

privileges and exclusion within the movements

All this structures the patterns of possible alliances between movements and the possible emergence of an “Oppression Olympics” (Martinez 19931)

1. Martinez, Elizabeth. 1993. “Beyond Black/White: The Racisms of our Times.” Social Justice 20 (1/2): 22–34.

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Political intersectionality The policies and laws that have been developed around

different inequalities also have very different framings of what the problem is and what should be done about it

They have very different historical legacies of institutionalization of policies addressing different inequalities and intersectional struggles, resulting in very different levels of institutionalization and power

There is always intersectional bias in the policies and laws addressing inequalities, inequality policies are often creating ‘new’ privileges and ‘new’ exclusions

The current European developments create a momentum and a need for reflection on the possible and desirable strategies to deal with structural and political intersectionality

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A closer look at how intersections are seen…

In terms of when and where intersections matter

In terms of what movements and politics have taken up

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Table 1. Comparing four social categories that are linked to inequalities (Verloo 2006)

Representations of social categories

Gender Race/ethnicity Sexual orientation

Class

Range of positions Dichotomous Multiple Three/Four or more

Dichotomous

Origin of social category

Contested: Nature /Nurture

Contested: Nature/ Culture

Nature[constructed]

Socio-economic construct

Location of inequality

Organization of labor, intimacy and citizenship

Organization of citizenship and labor [intimacy]

Mostly organization of intimacy and citizenship

Organization of labor

Mechanisms (re)producing inequality

Material (resources)Discursive (norms)(Sexist) Violence

Discursive (norms)Material (resources)(Racist) violence

Discursive (norms)[material, violence]

Material (resources)

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Comparing political and policy activities as connected to four social categories (Verloo)

Representations of social categories:

Gender Race/ethnicity Sexual orientation

Class

Political cleavage Social movement

Social movement Social movement

Parties

Institutions Many Growing Few Many

Goals Equality, difference and deconstructionMultiple goals

Equality; assimilation vs. multiculturalism is a hot topic

Equality, difference, deconstructionMultiple goals

Accepting abolishment of class difference as a goal

Claims Redistribution and recognition

Redistribution and recognition

Recognition Redistribution

Political strategies Struggle for equal treatment, positive action, mainstreaming

Struggle for equal treatment, positive action, mainstreaming

Struggle for equal treatment

Redistribution, some positive action

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Intersectionality in theory and practice There is more than we see It is a useful exercise to think how our understanding of gender

is made through our understanding of class, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity.. age, disability

The differences in how movements, citizens and politics see the range of positions across inequality dimensions, the origins of the categories made, the locations that are most important, or the mechanisms that (re)produce inequality are best seen as historically made

It is useful to wonder about these differences, not because they are ‘true’, but because they structure possible alliances

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Intersectionality in theory and practice

It is even more useful to keep in mind the differences at the level of political mobilization:

in the degree to which inequalities have translated into political cleavages, institutions, in the range of their goals, their claims, and their political strategies

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Current developments at European levelThe new EU Directives ‘ fix’ a particular understanding of inequalities A ‘widened’ set of inequality categories that get attention Sex, racial or ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, disability and sexual

orientation Denying intersectionality, talking about multiple discrimination

A ‘shrunk’ understanding of ways of dealing with inequalities as compared to gender equality policies

Gender equality policies in the EU currently do include attention for: the level of social structures and institutions; the level of states or EU institutions, and for the private sphere…

The EU approach to multiple discrimination lacks all this. The main problem causing inequality is seen to be discrimination, to

be addressed by equal treatment, preventing discrimination, and some positive measures

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Current EWL strategies

Since the beginning of this debate the EWL has been asking the EC to ensure a uniform protection for all grounds of discrimination, including a strengthening of European gender equality legislation in order to avoid a hierarchy of rights between the different grounds of discrimination.

EWL has also stressed the need of gender mainstreaming in any new EU anti-discrimination directive.

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Thinking about strategies

Differentiating between different strategies:

Equal treatment: no unequal protection Positive action and targeted activities:

differentiation useful? Mainstreaming: differentiation useful?

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Thinking about strategies How to think about differentiation? Use ideas on the different range of positions across

inequality dimensions, the different origins of the categories made, the different locations that are most important, or the different mechanisms that (re)produce inequality

Be very much aware of different ideas in movements and interest groups, of the differences at the level of political mobilization, the degree to which inequalities have translated into political cleavages, institutions, in the range of their goals, their claims, and their political strategies

Be aware of the privileged position of gender in terms of institutionalization…

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Calls for action so far

Expose and fight intersectional bias Reframe and stretch existing legal provisions

and policies (Sattertwaite 2005) Equality mainstreaming Deliberation? Or struggle? No answer yet to whether single bodies or

separate bodies work best, yet differentiation seems key

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This means: pioneering work ahead…

Looking forward to the discussions!

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References Hancock, Ange-Marie 2007. When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition:

Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm. Perspectives on Politics, 5(1): 63-79.

Marx Ferree, Myra 2009. Inequality, Intersectionality and the Politics of Discourse: Framing Feminist Alliances, in Emanuela Lombardo, Petra Meier and Mieke Verloo. The discursive politics of gender equality. Stretching, bending and policy making. Routledge

McCall, Leslie 2005. The Complexity of Intersectionality. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30 (3): 1771-1880.

Satterttwaite, Margaret L. 2005. Crossing Borders, Claiming Rights: Using Human Rights Law to Empower Women Migrant Workers, YALE HUMAN RIGHTS & DEVELOPMENT L.J. pp.1-66.

Verloo, Mieke 2006. Multiple Inequalities, Intersectionality and the European Union. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3): 211–228.

Walby, Sylvia 2007. Complexity Theory, Systems Theory, and Multiple Intersecting Social Inequalities. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 37( 4): 449-470.