Conservative claims on women’s interest representation in the context of the European Parliament. Actors, understandings and mobilization

Within the context of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) of the European Parliament (EP), women’s interests are continuously being (re)defined by discursive and deliberative processes. In recent years the FEMM Committee as a feminist stronghold has been challenged among other things through the inclusion and legitimation of new civil society actors with a conservative underpinning. Increasingly, diverse understandings of gender equality and women’s interests are being articulated in Committee and parliamentary debates (see Rolandsen Agustín, 2012). The aim of this paper is twofold; on the one hand it analyses the ways in which conservative MEPs represent women’s interests in EP debates in selected policy areas as well as the role of conservative critical actors in the advancement of women’s interests on the transnational, European level. The policy areas selected refer both to political debates marked by divergence between left and right wing parties at the European level, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights, and debates marked by convergence, like the example of gender quotas. On the other hand, a key question concerns the mobilization around conservative notions of gender equality in a participatory perspective. This refers specifically to the alliance-building between conservative MEPs and conservative women’s organizations within European civil society. In other words, the main research questions addressed in the paper are 1) how conservative MEPs have represented women’s interests over time and across policy areas within the context of the EP, and 2) the extent to which they form and build on alliances with European women’s organizations defending a conservative interpretation of gender equality in order to reassert themselves. The paper contributes to the emerging research into gender perspectives on conservatism and conservative parties, to which the panel proposal refers. It adds a transnational perspective on current empirical and theoretical developments in terms of the diverse representation of women’s interests. Theoretically the paper builds on recent developments within women’s substantive representation, focusing particularly on the role of critical actors (see Celis et al. 2008; Childs & Krook 2009). This is combined with social movement theory in order to theorize alliance-building mechanisms between women’s organizations and female politicians, in this case MEPs. At the transnational level, the agenda of women’s organizations defending women’s participation on the labour market as a primary goal of gender equality policies has resonated with dominant EU policies. Increasingly, however, conservative women’s organizations are mobilizing on the European level around a more traditional understanding of gender roles and the primary promotion of women’s right to choose to stay at home fx. Moreover I will discuss the simultaneous emergence and strengthening of conservative women’s organizations at the European level and the potential window of opportunity, for the advancement of conservative understandings of gender equality, defined by the FEMM Committee presidency of MEP Anna Zaborska from the conservative party (2004-2009). However, informants also report that there has, historically, been a significant representation of conservative MEPs with a gender equality agenda inscribed within a more general consensus within the FEMM Committee, thus advancing feminist goals beyond party lines. These ‘committed’ women may have increasingly disappeared. These empirical reflections relate to the theoretical discussion of the role of critical actors and the diverse understandings of women’s interests and leads to a nuanced discussion of the role of conservative MEPs acting within the context of the EP and whether or not we see a potential change over time, influencing or influenced by the simultaneous mobilization of conservative women in transnational civil society. Empirically the paper is based on policy documents and parliamentary debates from the EP as well as interviews with informants from EU institutions as well as transnational, European civil society organizations. References: Celis, Karen et al. (2008), “Rethinking Women’s Substantive Representation”, Journal of Representative Democracy, 44(2), pp. 99-110. Childs, Sarah & Mona Lena Krook (2009), “Analysing Women’s Substantive Representation: From Critical Mass to Critical Actors”, Government and Opposition, 44(2), pp. 125-45. Rolandsen Agustín, Lise (2012): ”(Re)defining women’s interests? Political struggles over women’s collective representation in the context of the European Parliament”, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 19(1).