The limits of sex equality law in the new Europe

pp. 126-141

in: Ian Ward, The margins of European law, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

Abstract

It has become almost commonplace now to establish sex equality as an unarguable good, and then to decry the failings of European law adequately to effect this good in the European Community. In this chapter I want to subvert these preconceptions, because, like all preconceptions, they are infinitely deconstructible , and their deconstruction, rather than threatening their veracity, can only serve to strengthen them. In the first part of the chapter, I want to introduce some of the basic tenets in contemporary feminist jurisprudence which have tended to enjoy dominion in the current debate surrounding the nature of sex equality in the Community. At the same time, I want to introduce an alternative, explicitly post-modern feminist approach which, I shall suggest, takes feminism well "beyond" the now rather stale "limits' of the sex equality debate. In the second part, I shall place this jurisprudence within the specific context of European Community law and suggest why the post-modern alternative might offer something more in the new Europe.