Opposition to Gender+ Equality in Europe and the role of the EU: A Case Study Analysis

The rise of opposition against gender+ equality in Europe in the last decade has placed the EU at a crossroads, in which its political commitment to inclusive democracy, human rights and gender and sexual equality is being put to a test. And yet, the occurrence of such opposition at EU level remains largely understudied. This paper outlines the theoretical framework and research design of my project, "Opposition to Gender+ Equality in Europe and the role of the EU: A Case Study Analysis", which aims to fill this research gap, bringing together three bodies of literature that rarely interact: the recent literature on opposition to gender+ equality in Europe, on morality politics and on European values, to unravel a) the role that the EU plays as both a site and an actor in the current dynamics of opposition to gender+ equality in Europe and b) the impact that such opposition has on its own governance dynamics, policies and polity status. To do so, the project conducts a case study analysis of the political struggles around four contested morality issues on the gender+ equality agenda of the EU: abortion, surrogacy, homophobia and transgender rights.