Divesting of Gender Equality: The Euro-Crisis and and Its ‘Gender’ Silence

In principle, gender equality is a foundational value of the European Union (EU). In order to ensure that gender equality is realized, the EU relies on gender mainstreaming as a means of incorporating a gender perspective into all policies. Nonetheless, as numerous scholars have highlighted, while gender equality may be considered during the policy making process, the resulting policies frequently bear limited evidence of this consideration. While these cases are troubling, it is perhaps even more disturbing to note that quite critical decisions are made that disregard gender mainstreaming entirely. It is these instances of inaction, which prove particularly difficult to analyze. How do we analyze an obligatory consideration, such as gender mainstreaming, when it fails to be considered?  We draw on the notion of ‘silencing’ to think about such non-occurrences. In this paper, we take up the dilemma of gender equality’s sidelining during the restructuring of the financial institutions during the Euro-crisis. While in the wake of the crisis, a myriad of voices stressed that the crisis could be used as an opportunity to restructure the EU’s economic infrastructure in a more gender-equitable fashion, these calls went unheeded.  The six pack, two pack and European semester exhibit a virtually wholesale silence around gender equality considerations which, we argue, brings to the fore the major challenges inherent in gender mainstreaming.