Policy Press

EJPG Student Reading List: Theme Four

Dynamics of intersectional inequalities and opposition to the equality project

Our last set of articles tackles the topic of inequality from two angles: how inequalities intersect and how the growing opposition to the equality project mobilises. This selection of articles encourages us to think of inequality in a broader way looking beyond a purely economic focus. The articles look into gender, racial, migration status and sexual orientation-based inequality. Taken together, the articles raise important societal and policy-relevant questions: how all these potential sources of inequality might intersect and interact; how different societal groups might take opposing positions on issues of inequality; how groups come to oppose measures to reduce inequality, and even support measures to deny groups fundamental rights.

All of the articles in this reading list are free to access until 31 December 2020.

Redressing harms to migrant domestic workers: global and regional spaces 

Rianne Mahon uses the concept of the depletion of social reproduction as a specific harm to which migrant domestic workers (mainly women) and their left-behind families are subjected. Her argument is that in using this concept it is possible to reveal harms which everyday gendered norms conceal. When migrant domestic workers leave their families to take up work in the destination country, a source of social reproduction is stripped from their households. There is one less person bearing the responsibility of biological reproduction, of keeping the household together by providing physical-sexual, emotional and effective care. There is one less person doing the work of welding wider social ties by reproducing cultural and ideological norms. This is multiplied a thousand times and more as increasing numbers of domestic workers migrate. This depletion of social reproduction, through international migration, harms both migrant domestic workers and their families. Mahon considers ways in which such harm may be mitigated and concludes that only quasi-legal approaches can replenish the social reproductive resources stripped from domestic migrant workers’ families and country of origin. These approaches must include national action in the domestic migrant worker’s country of origin; bilateral agreements between their country of origin and destination country; and international conventions such as CEDAW.

LGBTIQ Roma and queer intersectionalities: the lived experiences of LGBTIQ Roma

Lucie Fremlova’s article is based on empirical data generated through interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Therefore, it provides readers with a fresh approach to understanding Romani identities and how they are shaped by interlocking axes of inequality. Lucie Fremlova wishes to move away from approaches in Romani studies which explain identity primarily through ethnicity. Instead, the author relies on the lived experiences of LGBTIQ Roma in order to explore their identities and finds that the latter are fluid, not fixed and that many of those who self-identify as Roma also claim identities based on sex/gender, sexuality, class. Lucie Fremlova argues that using a ‘queer intersectionalities’ approach allows for non-normative understandings of Romani identities as not being caught in fixed ‘groupness’ or essential difference, alongside the capacity to challenge asymmetric power relations which produce inequalities and binary social norm(ativitie)s. The author also concludes that the experiences of LGBTIQ Roma disrupt dominant constructions of Roma as ‘anachronistic’ or ‘antithetical’ to modernity and Europeanness. Lucie Fremlova’s article won the 2019 Best Article Award from the Gender and Sexuality Research Network of the Council for European Studies.


The fight of the Religious Right in Europe: old whines in new bottles

Martijn Mos illustrates precisely the how the issues of gender and sexuality are being contested within the EU. Notwithstanding the formal recognition of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation as core to the EU, Mos examines how the Religious Right can exploit the EU ‘democracy mechanisms’ to challenge these fundamental values. European Citizens’ Initiatives, as the name implies, enable EU citizens to put particular issues on the EU’s political agenda. In respect of two initiatives, one on sexual and reproductive health rights and one on marriage and the family, the Religious Right mobilised to further its own highly conservative ends. Yet, rather than contest the content of these initiatives – by deploying anti-choice, homophobic and religious arguments – their strategy was to raise technical queries. This approach nevertheless counts as normal contestation: the Religious Right is seeking to ‘subtly’ redefine EU values over time. The lesson from Martijn Mos is clear: there can be no complacency over who is considered the recipient of European ‘rights’ in the longer term.

If you haven’t had enough reading yet, why not have a look at other Gender Updates related to inequalities and opposition to equality?

Gender Updates on populist attacks against gender+ equality

Explore the other themes in the EJPG Student Reading List