Men in European Union’s gender equality policies

Abstract

Gender mainstreaming is designed to address the social roles of both women and men. How are men included in gender equality policies? I conduct an analysis of all gender equality strategies and annual reports of the European Commission – a global leader in this field – since 1982. I find that, since the mid 1990s, the Commission has included men as contributors to gender equality (‘problem solvers’). Yet, men’s disadvantages in education and health were only addressed between 2006 and 2015. Later on, men’s problems have been ignored, as they have been increasingly portrayed as a uniformly privileged group, undeserving of European policies. This withdrawal from addressing men’s problems exposes the tension between legitimising policies for one group (women) and addressing the needs of a complementary group (men). A novel approach to gender equality policies should revive the global debate on their meaning and implications. My findings also raise new questions about the power of the European Commission to construct policy target populations.