The Economic Case for Gender Equality in EU Policy: Women's Groups' Reaction and Adaptation

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the cooptation of feminism by neoliberal institutions. It focuses on the strategies employed by transnational women's groups to access the EU policymaking process and funding opportunities in a context where the neoliberal master frame is dominant. The framing of gender equality in economic terms in the EU has received a lot of attention in the last decades (Kantola 2010; Lewis 2006; Ostner 2000; Stratigaki 2004; Young 2000) and more recently there have been claims that the economic case for gender equality is now the main justification for the pursuit of equality between women and men in the EU (Elömaki 2015). If the former narrowed gender equality goals into simply a more efficient participation of women in the labour market, the latter justifies the pursuit of gender equality according to the macroeconomic benefits that it brings. The goal of this paper is to understand how the use of the neoliberal master frame to justify gender equality in the EU – be it through economic framing or through the economic case for gender equality – shapes advocacy strategies of women's groups towards the EU institutions and their ability to survive by adapting to funding programmes that make the economic case for gender equality a requisite for application.