1. Hungarian Association of Women Judges (HAWJ Regional Conference, Budapest 2011 Gender Equality in a European Policy Landscape: Recent Developments and Challenges Violetta Zentai Central European University

2. Structure of lecture:  European policy space and within that gender equality thinking  State of affairs, recent developments  The promises and drawbacks of gender mainstreaming  The puzzle of intersectionality  Surprise topic

3. European policy making space:  Community law and MSs law; soft law  Decision making and governance structure (multilevel governance)  Institutional architecture  Financial instruments  Open Method of Cooperation (good practice, peer review, monitoring, etc.); voice of civil society

4. Sources of and inspirations to European gender equality thinking:  US human rights and anti-discrimination legal culture and policy  European anti-discrimination norms and legal framework  Global/transnational gender equality thinking (UN mechanisms: CEDAW, Beijing Platform of Action) and international women’s movement  Broader equality considerations (welfare, social inclusion, diversity, etc.)

5. Main policy mechanisms and instruments: Transposition of community law (directives): monitoring of implementation EU regulations and recommendations on MS institutional machinery Soft law measures: roadmaps, reports, statistics, recommendations, etc. Consultation mechanisms (experts groups, civil society interfaces: European Women’s Lobby)

6. Current state of art in gender equality policy :  Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015; COM(2010) 491 final  European Pact for Gender Equality (2011-2020) 7166/11; March 2011,  Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims 2010/0065 COD PE-CONS 69/10  European Parliament resolution on priorities and outline of a new EU policy framework to fight violence against women (2010/2209(INI)); April 2011

7. Gender mainstreaming:  Extraordinary (transformative) potentials  Initial conditions: political will, institutional backing, human resources, monitoring, etc.  Hard and soft versions vs efficiency  Risks and setbacks (losing gender equality content, bureaucratizing equality thinking )

8. Intersectionality  Conceptualizing multiple inequalities (feminist critical debates, European policy progress)  Difference across the grounds of equality: on the dimension of choice the dimension of visibility, and dimension of change. The categories are also differently situated as to legal institutions such a family law and various institutionalized group-based rights to self- determination.  Better fit to positive action than to anti-discrimination  Institutional changes induced: single equality bodies in Europe

9. Ranking countries by gender equality framing index (QUING)

10. QUING project: www.quing.eu

11. THANK YOU! Comments welcome: vzentai@osi.hu