Summary

 

The European institutions have placed special emphasis on combating gender inequalities. The EU has long pursued a policy on equal opportunities for women and men, based originally on Article 119 of the EEC Treaty (a right of “equal pay for equal work”), and more recently on a series of Directives on equal treatment for women and men at the workplace. Since 1990s the EU moved beyond its previous emphasis on equal treatment on labour markets by embracing positive action and gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming aims to enable the state to deliver gender-sensitive policy and transform gender relations. Its point of departure is an acknowledgement of the differences between women and men. It holds the revolutionary promise of taking women’s issues out of a narrow policy community and spreading the concerns of women across the entire spectrum of EU public policies. 

   

This study places a particular emphasis on gender mainstreaming in European Employment Strategy. Women’s employment remains a key to women’s economic autonomy and has a direct impact on the position of women in society as a whole. Therefore, European employment policies are a core mechanism foe achieving equality between women and men. Furthermore, the EU recognizes that increasing women’s economic activity is essential for European economic development and has defines equal opportunities between genders as one of the priorities within the European employment policy. The study presents the gendered perspective on the European strategy for employment based on four main pillars: employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equality of opportunity. To avoid reproducing old-fashioned gender stereotypes and to achieve the goals set in the European  Employment Strategy, there is a need for a more consequent and methodical implementation of gender mainstreaming at all levels and in all areas.

 

Lithuania as well as other new member states has made a considerable progress in incorporating Europe’s existing legal norms of gender equality during the last decade. Despite such progress, equality in day-to-day life is still undermined by unequal access to rights experienced by women and men in practice. This study analyzes the data of representative survey of Lithuanian population on EU Enlargement and Its Commitment to Women in Lithuania, which was carried out  in the country in July, 2004. It reveals the attitudes of Lithuanian population on gender roles and gender meanings in Lithuania and EU as well as their expectations about the changes in Lithuanian gender regime, which EU enlargement can bring to the country. The study also analyzes an opinion of Lithuanian gender experts about the causes of gender inequality at work in Lithuania, gender policy in the country, their notion of gender mainstreaming.

 

The final part of the study analyses main obstacles to the implementation of gender mainstreaming in employment policies of different national contexts. An analysis of EU national reports reveals that gender mainstreaming approach confronts the various national welfare systems with respect to their diverging gendered welfare paths. The specific national cultural elements, welfare and employment systems, discussions and measures of the last several decades have already transformed gendered social and employment policies and have led to divergent national paths in pursuit of “equality between the genders”.