Gender Equality and Austerity: Vulnerabilities ... - Wiley Online Library

bs_bs_banner

Gender, Work and Organization doi:10.1111/gwao.12173

Vol. 24 No. 1 January 2017

Gender Equality and ‘Austerity’: Vulnerabilities, Resistance and Change Sue Durbin,* Margaret Page and Sylvia Walby

F

eminist challenges to austerity and the wider crisis have been much under-estimated. The documentation and analysis of the variety of forms in which feminist projects have been ‘working the spaces of power’ (Newman, 2012) is the purpose of this special issue. The focus here is on gendered challenges to austerity situated within critical analyses of wider neoliberal regimes of gender and of capitalism. In their contributions to this special issue, authors investigate the challenges and characteristics of these emergent forms of organised resistance to gendered austerity in a variety of political, discursive and organisational contexts. They analyse the ways in which collective political agency critically engages with but are not limited by neoliberal discourses and practices. Authors explore the challenges of sustaining a gendered focus within coalitions of intersecting projects that challenge class divisions, gendered and raced inequalities and those concerning migrant communities. They raise timely questions about how equality machinery and public service institutions developed over the previous decades within government have responded in times of neoliberal austerity. The new forms of collective agency that have emerged, both within and independent of the state, trade unions, and anti-austerity campaigns, are subject to investigation. The papers examine the myriad of ways in which feminist researchers and activists are engaging with the political forces promoting austerity, the constructs of gender that underpin their engagement, the forms of organised resistance that are emerging, and how these are shaped in specific institutional contexts. Thus the special issue challenges the suggestion (Fraser, 2009; Eisenstein, 2009) that feminism has disappeared and been incorporated into neoliberalism. Since 2008, the impact of the neoliberal politics of austerity has deepened and extended, widening class, gender and raced inequalities and opening divisions between and within communities (Walby, 2015). The migrant crises, failure to engage with climate change, tensions in the European Union (EU), illustrate the failure of state institutions to engage with these issues. In response, new forms of organisation in civil societies and social movements continue to emerge, offering scope for new forms of struggle and challenging the shape and concept of democracy. Feminist social scientists and social movements have effectively exposed the gendered dimensions of austerity politics and proposed alternative strategies, and subjected neoliberal economic policy to substantial critique. Despite their success in introducing the gendered dimensions of neoliberal austerity measures into public discourse, neoliberal austerity politics continue to predominate within western democracies. Despite government claims that ‘we are all in it together’, there is evidence that vulnerable demographic groups, vulnerable geographies and vulnerable organizations are bearing the brunt of national and international austerity measures (Leschke and Jepsen, 2012; Pearson and Sweetman, 2011). The groups most vulnerable to the impact of austerity are not homogeneous due to multiple intersections of gender with inequalities based on class, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship and migration status (Durbin and Conley, 2010; Verloo, 2006; Williams and Bradley, 2013; Walby, 2009). Within the United Kingdom (UK), the House of Commons Library (2010) found that women more Address for correspondence: *Professor Susan Durbin MCIPD, Centre for Employment Studies Research, Faculty of Business and Law, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Frenchay Campus, Bristol BS16 1QY; [email protected]

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

2

GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

than men bore the impact of the cuts in expenditure concerning benefits and tax credits in the 2010 UK budget. The cuts to income and public services at the heart of austerity policies were disproportionately borne by those with intersecting disadvantages of poverty, disability, ethnicity and age (young and old) (Fawcett, 2013; Women’s Budget Group, 2014, 2015). Moreover, government strategies of reducing regulation (‘cutting red tape’) as well as public expenditure, appeared to be reducing the scope of equality legislation and institutional mechanisms to promote gender equality and diversity (Conley and Page, 2010, 2014). There was concern for the fate of the ‘Third Sector’ in this context. Some of the public and voluntary sector organisations that provide and advocate for services to women in crisis appeared to be casualties of austerity (Women’s Resource Centre, 2013). The increasing use of competition rather than democratic accountability as a principle mechanism for organising public services had changed the environment in which public and third sector organisations are working (Breitenbach et al., 2002; Clarke and Newman, 1997). These organisations included services supporting women, some of which, such as refuges and rape crisis centres (Walby and Towers, 2012) have been supported by state funding and have emerged from state activism. In this challenging context, there has been a resurgence of the feminist project using a variety of traditional and non-traditional forms within the UK, the EU and internationally (Walby, 2011) even if the term ‘feminism’ has become controversial for some younger women (Kelan, 2014). Equality advocates, non-governmental organisations, social movements and trade union activists, are developing new ways of organising, and of defending democratic accountability in relation to public services and the state, and women are playing a lead role in many of these initiatives (Newman, 2012). In addition, women’s self-organising has long provided a space for women to articulate their concerns and strategise (Needleman, 1998) and has been linked to women’s politicization, selfesteem and confidence (Briskin, 1999). Women’s networks can be important sources of mutual support but women’s desire to fit in with highly masculinised cultures can sometimes mean rejecting participation in women-focused activities (Wright, 2016; Durbin, 2015). Among these, within the UK are groups initiating a variety of forms of anti-austerity protest actions at local and national levels, such as UK Uncut, UK Feminista, Fawcett, Southall Black Sisters, The Women’s Resource Centre, the Women’s Budget Group and the European Women’s Lobby. Networked, intersectional and lateral forms of organisation are extending the scope of gendered political engagement, and developing new forms of feminist political practice, locally and transnationally (Conway, 2013; Franzway and Fonow, 2011). Cuts in public expenditure have been far reaching and disproportionately affect women. Women are more likely to experience ‘in and out of work’ poverty, aggressive cuts in welfare benefits and public sector employment and services, than men. In addition, wages have been frozen or reduced and pensions are under attack, especially for public sector workers. Cuts to state-funded services have disproportionately affected organisations set up to support women at a time when women need these services most. Measures to promote equality have become increasingly contested in a political climate that has undermined the case for supporting equality groups and weakened mechanisms for compliance with equality legislation. These measures have far-reaching implications for gender equality (Fawcett Society, 2013; Pratten, 2014). While an important and critical body of research on the impact of gendered austerity has become established (Rubery and Karamessini, 2012; Women’s Budget Group, 2015; Public Services International, 2014) we know less about resistance and challenges to gendered austerity measures and in what ways individuals, organizations and feminist activists are responding to and challenging the cuts. We also know little about how responses to austerity vary or coalesce within different countries. In this special issue we bring together conceptual and empirical papers that investigate these issues, with a focus upon emergent feminist organization, resistance to gendered austerity measures and their discursive and organisational forms. The authors make a substantial contribution to feminist scholarship in relation to the crisis and ensuing austerity measures. Their papers investigate the emerging forms of agency and organisation to challenge the gendered dimensions of neoliberal austerity, calling into question the distinction between radical and liberal agendas for gender Volume 24 Number 1 January 2017


▪▪▪

3

equality and challenging the tendency in feminist research to conflate feminist struggle with feminist identity. In ‘Revisiting the Politics of Jewson and Mason: the Politics of Gender Equality in UK Local Government in a Cold Climate’, Hazel Conley and Margaret Page revisit the feminist theoretical distinction between radical and liberal approaches to equality in their analysis of the politics and organisational practices of embedding a business case for gender equality within public services. Drawing from research in five local authorities’ interviews with specialist equality teams, trade unionists and independent feminist activists at the beginning of a period of neoliberal attacks on public services, they find that equality advisors in each case skillfully used both radical and liberal discourses, supplemented business case processes and procedures, to protect and promote the embedding of equality in organisational practice. Change in each case was driven by key actors’ mobilization of the predominant business discourse, as the turbulent political conditions and change in equality climate mediated against a longer agenda. Traces of radical and explicitly feminist discourses were evident in local authorities with a strong tradition and ties to feminist and working class organisation, and in these cases negotiation of the tension between feminist and neoliberal business discourses was explicit. Emmanuela Lombardo in ‘The Spanish Regime in the EU Context: Changes and Struggles in the Wake of Austerity Policies’, analyses how the Spanish gender regime (Walby, 2009) has changed, in response to neoliberal austerity policies and feminist and civil society struggles against anti equality and austerity measures. She analyses changes in the Spanish equality machinery, welfare and employment policies, and demonstrates how EU policy implemented by a conservative government introducing neoliberal and conservative measures has pulled back on social democratic advances made by the Zapata government,. She demonstrates how, despite this feminist national and transnational mobilizations have supported the maintenance of a public gender regime in Spain, successfully contesting conservative ideologies and engaging with joint anti austerity struggles with civil society. Feminist struggles, she argues, have been revitalized growing out of joint political democratic and anti-austerity struggles with other civil society groups. She draws out implications for the theorization of gender regimes in times of austerity, the need to take into account inter and supranational dynamics, to consider changes in welfare regimes and equality machinery. Vanessa Puig-Barrachina develops a parallel analysis in her article, ‘How to Resist Austerity: the Case of Gender Budgeting in Andalucía’. The paper focuses upon conditions supportive of the development of gender equality policies, rather than the gendered impacts of austerity neoliberal style. She presents a case study of a progressive regional government in Spain, arguing that while most countries have imposed austerity policies which risk jeopardizing progress towards gender equality, there are European regions that have maintained or strengthened gender equality policies. She identifies factors sustaining the gender budgeting strategy (GBA) of the regional government of Andalucia in the context of austerity measures deployed by the Spanish national government through interviews with policy-aware/issue-knowledgeable individuals in government and the broader policy community. She finds that the existence of a strong left-wing government, the previously institutionalized GBA and its low cost, political commitment mainly from femocrats in leadership positions in regional government and the Socialist Party have been the main factors allowing the maintenance of the GBA. The GBA emerged from connections and dialogue between key social actors, policy makers, feminist social movement and women’s associations, and feminist academics and experts in the equality field, including feminist academics, and these connections and dialogue she argues were crucial to the adoption of the GBA and its implementation. In ‘Paradoxes of Anti-Austerity Protest: Matters of Neoliberalism, Gender and Subjectivity in a Case of Collective Resignation’, Magnus Granberg explores collective resignation by specialist nurses in Sweden, in the context of the restructuring of health care. Drawing from interviews with nurses who did and did not take part in collective resignation, he explores opportunities for collective action, offering a picture of local conflict where activists retreated from formulating interests and demands in terms of gender equality and instead adopted an ethic and rhetoric of care. The analysis intriguingly shows how in a neoliberal context nurses found a way to transform individual action into a form of © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Volume 24 Number 1 January 2017

4


collective agency. Nurses in this case navigated the tensions between care and collective action, and this both reproduced and challenged established forms of gendering. Emma Craddock investigates the difficulty for feminist activists of developing feminist solidarity with anti-austerity campaigns. ‘Caring About the Cuts: a Case Study of the Gendered Dimensions of Austerity and Semi Austerity’ in a local British context, defines austerity as a ‘feminist issue’ given its disproportionate impact on women. Based on research interviews with a number of local activists in a British city, she found that key anti-austerity groups in the city neglected the gendered dimension of austerity. In response, women formed their own anti-austerity groups to provide practical support to women affected by the cuts. She explores the invisibility of gender within these groups by identifying gendered exclusions and barriers to participation in activism experienced by women, concluding that there is a need to challenge perceived tensions between activism and care, and to develop forms of activism that are based on organisation of practical support with women experiencing the negative effects of austerity in local communities. Pauline Cullen in ‘Gendered Mobilisations against Austerity in Ireland’ examines the impact of the crisis in Ireland and how this shapes the political agency of women and feminist organisations in the context of Irish austerity. Her focus is on how political agency is exercised through a variety of gendered mobilisations to resist austerity. She finds that neoliberal projects can be partially subverted, and that strong political agency coexists with the disproportionately negative effect of austerity politics on gender equality infrastructure, services and supports. In case studies of resistance against cuts in welfare benefits, and of mobilization in trade unions, she analyzes the gendered dynamics of collective resistance in a range of diverse organizations. From this analysis she develops a typology of how gender is constructed through processes of resistance. Gendered mobilizations against neoliberal austerity can, she concludes, be partially subverted even if such mobilization exposes tensions in maintaining a focus on gender in broader campaigns. However there are limits to gender mobilization supporting marginalized women and promoting intersectional solidarity in times of austerity. Collectively, the authors in this special issue challenge the gendered impact of austerity. The special issue should be of interest to individuals and groups from academia, civil society, the public and private sectors, who are actively promoting gender equality and who are committed to positive change. It analyses the impact of gendered austerity measures, support services and advocacy with a focus on forms of feminist organization and other emergent forms of resistance.

Editorial team The editors thank participants in several events they organized on the theme of the special issue, including: the panel on ‘Gender and the Crisis’ for RC02 Economy and Society, International Sociological Association in Yokohama, Japan, July 2014; a conference stream at GWO 2014, ‘The impact of austerity on women: vulnerabilities and resilience’; research workshops for activists and researchers on ‘Gender and Austerity: The Impact of Recession on Women’ and contributions to gender equality networks and campaigns.

References Breitenbach, E., Brown, A., Mackay, F. and Webb, J. (2002) (eds) The Changing Politics of Gender Equality in Britain, Basingstoke and New York, NY: Palgrave. Briskin, L. (1999) Autonomy, diversity, and integration: union women’s separate organizing in North America and western Europe in the context of restructuring and globalization, Women’s Studies International Forum, 22,5, 543–54. Clarke, J. and Newman, J. (1997) The Managerial State: Power, Politics and Ideology in the Remaking of Social Welfare, London: Sage. Conley, H. and Page, M. (2010) The Gender Equality Duty in Local Government: The Prospects for Integration. Industrial Law Journal, 39,3, 321–5. Conley, H. and Page, M. (2014) Gender Equality in Public Services: Chasing the Dream. London: Routledge. Conway, J. (2013) Edges of Global Justice: The World Social Forum and its Others. London: Routledge. Durbin, S. (2015) Women Who Succeed: Strangers in Paradise? London: Palgrave Macmillan.



▪▪▪

5

Durbin, S. and Conley, H. (2010) Gender, Intersectionality and Labour Process Theory. In P. Thompson and C. Smith (eds) Working Life: Renewing Labour Process Analysis. London: Palgrave. Eisenstein, H. (2009) Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labour And Ideas To Exploit The World. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Fawcett (2013) Cutting Women Out. Available at: www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/2013/03/cutting-women-out/ Fawcett Society (2012) ‘The Impact of Austerity on Women’ Fawcett Society Policy Briefing. Available at: http:// www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-Impact-of-Austerity-on-Women-19th-March2012.pdf Franzway, S. and Fonow, M.M. (2011) Making Feminist Politics: Transnational Alliances between Women and Labor. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Fraser, N. (2009) Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. New Left Review. 56, 97–117-. House of Commons Library (2010) June Budget: Direct Taxes, Benefits and Tax Credits — Gender Impact. London: House of Commons Library. Kelan, E.K. (2014) From Biological Clocks to Unspeakable Inequalities: The Intersectional Positioning of Young Professionals. British Journal of Management 25,4, 790–804. Leschke, J. and Jepsen, M. (2012) Introduction: Crisis, policy responses and widening inequalities in the EU. International Labour Review, 151, 289–312. doi: 10.1111/j.1564-913X.2012.00150.x Needleman, R. (1998) Women Workers: strategies for inclusion and rebuilding unionism. In G. Mantsios (ed.) A New Labor Movement for the New Century. London: Routledge. Newman, J. (2012) Working the Spaces of Power: Activism, Neoliberalism and Gendered Labour. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Pearson, R. and Sweetman, C. (2011) (eds) Gender and the Economic Crisis. London: Pratten, B. (2014) Stepping Up: Investing in Women in Post-Recession UK. The Barrow Cadbury Trust. Public Services International (2014) ‘Putting women’s rights to decent work, quality education and quality public services at the heart of the post-2015 Agenda’. Available at: http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/ documents/research/english_guf_jointstatement_2014.pdf. Rubery, J. and Karamessini, M. (2012) (eds) Women and Austerity: the Economic Crisis and the Future for Gender Equality. London: Routledge. Verloo, M. (2006) Multiple inequalities, intersectionality and the European Union. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 3, 211–29. Walby, S. (2009) Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities. London: Sage. Walby, S. (2011) The Future of Feminism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Walby, S. (2015) Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Walby, S. and Towers, J. (2012) Measuring the impact of cuts in public expenditure on the provision of services to prevent violence against women and girls. Safe: The Domestic Abuse Quarterly, 41, 14–17-. Williams, S. and Bradley, H. (2013) Globalisation and Work. Cambridge: Polity Press. Women’s Budget Group (2014) ‘Impact on women of Budget 2014: No recovery for women’. Women’s Budget Group. Available at: http://www.wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FINAL-WBG-2014-budgetnnnpdf. (last accessed 1 June 2016) Women’s Budget Group (2015) ‘Plan F: A Feminist Economic Strategy for a Caring and Sustainable Economy’. Available at: http://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PLAN-F-2015.pdf (last accessed 1 June 2016). Women’s Resource Centre (2013) The Impact of Public Spending Cuts on Women’s Voluntary and Community Organisations in London. London: WRC. Wright, T. (2016 ) Gender and Sexuality in Male-Dominated Occupations: Women Workers in Construction And Transport. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Biographical notes Susan Durbin is Professor of Employment Studies, University of the West of England. She researches gendered employment, specifically women in male dominated jobs and industries. She has published her work in a number of journals, including: Work, Employment and Society; Gender, Work and Organisation; Human Resource Management Journal: International Journal of Human Resource Management and New Technology, Work and Employment. She is the author of Women Who Succeed: Strangers in Paradise? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). She is an Associate Editor of the journal, Gender, Work and Organization and works closely with organisations in the public, private and not-for-profit organisations. She is a founding member of alta, a bespoke mentoring scheme for women/by women, in the aviation and aerospace industry.



6


Margaret Page is Senior Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Business and Law, University of the West of England. Her publications are concerned with critical inquiry into discourses and practices for promoting gender equality within public services in the UK. They include book chapters and peer reviewed journal articles in Gender Work and Organization, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, Management Learning, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. She is co-author with Hazel Conley of Gender Equality in Public Services; Chasing the Dream (Routledge, 2014). She is a researcher and local activist and currently interested in emerging forms of local organization against gendered austerity. Sylvia Walby is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and UNESCO Chair in Gender Research at Lancaster University. Her publications include Crisis (Polity, 2015), Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (Sage, 2009) and The Future of Feminism (Polity, 2011). She was editor of a previous special issue of Gender, Work and Organisation on the gender of the knowledge society. She organised a panel on ‘Gender and the Crisis’ for RC02 Economy and Society of the International Sociological Association in Yokohama, Japan, July 2014. The focus of her current work is violence, including the increase in violent crime since the crisis, driven by violence against women and domestic perpetrators.

