Gendering the EU's Western Balkan Enlargement

2022 ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
Sinem Bal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Balkan Countries ◽  
Fair Market

The EU's extra-territorial, value-driven practices are often conceptualized as normative power. However, the diffusion of norms is strongly contested in terms of human rights. This is particularly true of gender equality, which the EU uses as a conditionality tool to promote human rights, consolidate democracy, and develop a well-functioning fair market economy in other countries. Using a feminist lens and drawing on the literature and official documents, this chapter questions the balance between these three aims and the extent that Europe's normative power can mainstream gender norms in Western Balkan countries. Backsliding of equality patterns and the EU's exclusive concern on producing instruments to encourage women's labour market participation indicate that it promotes more market-engaged gender equality norms instead of creating normative change in socially constructed roles in Western Balkan countries.

scholarly journals Engines of Patriarchy: Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Times of Illiberal Backlash Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-342
Author(s):  
Hendrik Schopmans ◽  
Jelena Cupać
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Ai Ethics ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Rules And Standards

AbstractIn recent years, concerns over the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) have mounted. In response, international organizations (IOs) have begun to translate the emerging consensus on the need for ethical AI into concrete international rules and standards. While the path toward effective AI governance faces many challenges, this essay shifts attention to an obstacle that has received little attention so far: the growing illiberal backlash in IOs. Prompted by Poland's recent rejection of a European position on AI due to the document's mention of “gender equality,” we argue that Poland followed a strategy that illiberal actors now regularly employ in IOs. To combat gender norms and women's rights across issue areas, illiberal contesters first identify the progressive language in international documents and then threaten to veto those documents—unless such language is watered down or removed. This spoiling strategy, we argue, may not only lead to the compromising of fundamental human rights norms but may also prevent much needed rules for AI from being adopted altogether. Against this background, we urge scholars and practitioners concerned with AI ethics to pay closer attention to illiberal backlash politics. IOs are emerging as spaces where progressive AI rules and standards are increasingly contested—and where they need to be defended to safeguard fundamental rights in an age of rapid technological change.

scholarly journals GENDER AND THE “FAITH” IN LAW: EQUALITY, SECULARISM, AND THE RISE OF THE HINDU NATION

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-431
Author(s):  
Ratna Kapur
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
Judicial Reasoning ◽  
Indian Supreme Court

AbstractThis article analyzes how concepts of gender, gender equality, and secularism have been addressed by the higher judiciary in India in cases dealing with matters of religion. The discussion focuses on three landmark decisions of the Indian Supreme Court on gender equality. The cases involve challenges to discriminatory religious practices that target women in the Muslim-minority and Hindu-majority communities. In each case, gender equality is taken up in relation to religion in ways that produce several outcomes for women that are problematic rather than ones that are unequivocally progressive or transformative. The judicial reasoning in each case resonates with the Hindu Right's approach to gender, gender equality, and secularism. Each concept is used to advance the Hindu Right's majoritarian and ideological agenda, which seeks to establish India as a virile “Hindu” nation. Ironically, interventions by progressive groups, including feminist and human rights advocates opposed to the Hindu Right's makeover of the Indian nation, have not proved to be disruptive of gender norms; nor have they pushed back the tides of Hindu (male) majoritarianism that are increasingly determining the terms of engagement on issues of gender and faith in law.

Equality and the right to education: let’s talk about sex education

2018 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Meghan Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
The Right

This chapter addresses the challenges girls face in accessing human rights-based sex education. Sex education sharply brings into focus the discriminatory gender norms that influence and undermine a girl's right to education and the accountability challenges that are becoming increasingly pervasive throughout all of education. The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the prominent legal instrument on women's rights, offers new ways of conceptualising and addressing these challenges. There are specific obligations referring to sex education in the treaty and most importantly there is a positive obligation on the state to provide sex education to fulfil the fundamental rights of girls and women. Indeed, sex education is a necessary measure to ensure girls and women's right to life, health, education, gender equality, and freedom from violence.

scholarly journals Discrimination, labour markets and the labour market prospects of older workers: what can a legal case teach us?

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally A. Weller
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Flight Attendants ◽  
Ageing Population ◽  
Gender Typing ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
And Gender

As governments become increasingly concerned about the fiscal implications of the ageing population, labour market policies have sought to encourage mature workers to remain in the labour force. The `human capital' discourses motivating these policies rest on the assumption that older workers armed with motivation and vocational skills will be able to return to fulfilling work. This article uses the post-redundancy recruitment experiences of former Ansett Airlines flight attendants to develop a critique of these expectations. It suggests that policies to increase older workers' labour market participation will not succeed while persistent socially constructed age- and gender-typing shape labour demand. The conclusion argues for policies sensitive to the institutional structures that shape employer preferences, the competitive rationality of discriminatory practices, and the irresolvable tension between workers' human rights and employers' property rights.

scholarly journals EU’s Gender Equality Dilemma: A Human Rights or a Market Economy Instrument?

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Sinem Bal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
World Politics ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
External Relations ◽  
Similar Vein ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Eu ◽  
International Women

In the early stages of the European Integration, gender equality related policies were narrowly tackled due to the economic recovery priority of the Union. Although there was a rise of national and international women movements all around Europe, gender equality, particularly as a new paradigm, had not gained priority until the 1990s, when the EU was newly building a political presence in the world politics. Since the Copenhagen Criteria were presented in 1993, gender equality embedded titles have proven to be more promising as they are declared as a part of the EU’s human rights norms and the EU’s self-image towards ‘Others’. In a similar vein, specifically in that period the EU has contributed several international women conventions and has undertaken responsibilities in terms of promoting equality between men and women in its external relations. However, the explanations how a gender equality norm matters in the EU are yet unsatisfied due to the continuity of gender blind policies and strategies. This paper scrutinizes the content within which the EU has constructed gender equality norm inside its borders and then exported it as a Europeanization norm in its relations with Turkey. In light of the EU’s official documents and imposition of gender equality as an accession criterion, it can be argued that instead of creating an ideational change in the unequal conception of gender roles, the EU constantly instrumentalizes gender equality as a regulatory mechanism for market economy both inside the Union and throughout its enlargement process. Hence, despite its gender sensitive image, the EU falls short in internalizing

scholarly journals The Interface between Childcare, Family Support and Child Poverty Strategies Under New Labour: Tensions and Contradictions

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Family Support ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Support Provision ◽  
Educational Achievements ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Support Strategies ◽  
Labour Market Participation

New Labour's national childcare and family support strategies have been aimed at improving mothers' labour market participation and children's future educational achievements. As such, they constitute a key component of the child poverty agenda. HM Treasury has assumed a pivotal role in furthering the strategies' objectives. This article explores whether the mixed market economy selected as the vehicle to deliver childcare and family support provision, promotes separate markets for the poor and the better off, while hindering the achievement of child poverty strategy outcomes.

Signaling Similarity in the Icelandic Labour Market: How Can Immigrants Reduce Statistical Discrimination?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-356
Author(s):  
Kari Kristinsson ◽  
Margret Sigrun Sigurdardottir
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Statistical Discrimination ◽  
Hiring Decisions ◽  
Market Participation ◽  
Job Experience ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Signal Similarity

Research on immigration has emphasized the role that statistical discrimination plays in hiring decisions. A better understanding of how immigrants overcome this type of discrimination might lead to better interventions to improve their labour market participation. In this paper, we use qualitative interviews to examine how immigrants can reduce statistical discrimination by signalling their similarity to employers in their job applications. Specifically, we find that immigrants who demonstrate signal similarity to employers in the type of education, job experience and religion tend to reduce their statistical discrimination by employers. We suggest how further research can build on these results to provide possible tools for immigrant integration.

Exploring gender digital divide and its effect on women's labour market outcomes in South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 85-108
Author(s):  
Kehinde Oluwaseun Omotoso ◽  
Jimi Adesina ◽  
Ololade G. Adewole
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Internet Usage ◽  
Market Participation ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Broadband Internet ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Labour Market Outcomes

Technology plays a significant role in bridging gender gap in labour market outcomes. This paper investigates gender differential in broadband Internet usage and its effects on women‘s labour market participation. Employing an instrumental variable approach, findings suggest that exogenously determined high-speed broadband internet usage leads to increases of about 14.1 and 10.6 percentage points in labour market participation for single women and married women with some level of education, respectively. Moreover, further analyses suggest that married women are generally less likely to use the Internet to search for job opportunities and this could partly explains their low labour market participation rate. The findings suggest that more policy effort is required to bridge gender differentials in digital technologies and employment opportunities in South Africa.

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