A growing influence of business feminism within the European Women's Lobby?

What is the political influence of professional women's networks such as BPW (business and professional women), AIMF (international association of women doctors), GEFDU (European group of women university graduates) on the European Women's Lobby? Based on interviews and documentary analysis (of the EWL archives, positions papers, strategic framework, and membership’s evolution), and fieldwork inside the French and Belgian EWL coordinations, this paper compares the influence of these networks in the European Women's Lobby with that of other international women's networks (such as the International Council of Women - ICW) with an equally long-standing and 'moderate' feminism, or with that of networks with a more 'radical' feminism, marked on the left and stemming from second-wave American self-help groups (such as the European Coordination of Women or the European Forum of Socialist Feminists) or even the women's section of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Since the European Women's Lobby was founded in 1990 by women with a very homogenous profile (graduates, white, middle-class) and successive integrations (the EWL now has members in 33 countries, compared with only 12 in 1990), the influence of the International Council of Women has clearly diminished, and the more "radical" feminist networks have rapidly disappeared. On the other hand, business and professional women’s networks such as GEFDU and BPW are still very influential, both within the European Women's Lobby and with the European institutions, at European level (via member organisations with a European dimension) but also at national level (with European Women's Lobby national coordination in each country). Women’s business or professional networks seem to have a growing influence on the framing of the lobbying agenda over the last thirty years, with a consensual strategic priority on women's access to positions of responsibility. Despite this, the European Women's Lobby, which did not claim to be feminist until the 2010s, is now very assertive about it, and sometimes even targets neoliberalism as the cause of many gender inequalities. We will then study this apparent contradiction.