EU equality bodies and their tweeted narratives: Reflections on the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

EU equality bodies and their tweeted narratives: Reflections on the neoliberal capture of f “gender equality”

Tommaso Trillo University of Lodz GRACE Project In/Equalities Conference Central European University, Budapest 4-5 May 2018

Twitter as a space for political engagement

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to

• Create a semi-public profile for themselves and ‘follow’ other users
• post short messages known as ‘tweets’ (140 characters, expanded to

a 280)

• Broadcast their tweets to a community of ‘followers’
• Participate in aggregate conversation on specific topics via ‘hashtahs’

The social media platform ‘Twitter’ is owned by the for-profit corporation Twitter Inc., that capitalizes on user’s time and unpaid labor on the platform through different forms of targeted advertising (Fuchs 2013).

Why tweets by Equality bodies matter

asymmetrical political attention economy of capitalism: “Social media do not constitute a public sphere or participatory democratic space, but are rather colonized by corporations, especially by multimedia companies that dominate attention and visibility” (Fuchs 2013: 101) “Those who have a lot of reputation, fame, money or power tend to have many more followers than everyday people. Their tweets also tend to be much more

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re-tweeted than common people’s tweets” (Fuchs 2013: 192) “attention and

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visibility that enable meaning-making are asymmetrically distributed so that everyday users are at a disadvantage and celebrities and powerful organisations at an advantage” (Fuchs 2016: 172)

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95.6 Million Followers 25,000 Followers 324 Followers Pro-equality bodies enjoy more visibility than private users, but their visibility remains negligible when compared to that of entertainment-related profiles. While ‘resistant’ to an environment that is indifferent/hostile towards pro-equality arguments, EU Equality bodies are ‘hegemonic’ within the pro-equality milieu.

Vera Jurova (@VeraJurova)

• Commissioner for

Justice, Consumer rights, and Gender equality

• 25,000 followers
• ≈ 150 tweets on

equality issues last year FEMM Committee (@EP_GenderEqual)

• European Parliament’s

Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

• 7,500 Followers
• ≈ 190 tweets on

equality issues last year EIGE (@Euogender)

• European Institute for

gender equality

• 9,600 followers
• ≈ 490 tweets on

equality issues last year

Neoliberalizing feminism

The process through which selected feminist ideas are integrated into neoliberal rationales and logics (Prügl 2015)

• equality as part of economic restructuring

(e.g. the business case for equality)

• integration of feminism into neoliberal ideology

(e.g. ‘empowerment’ as self- entrepreneurialism)

• ‘feminist’ tools of governamentality

(e.g. mainstreaming toolkits, indexes, gap measurements, etc.) ‘governance feminism’ (Halley 2006) ‘faux-feminism’ (McRobbie 2009) ‘free market feminism’/ ‘hegemonic feminism’/ ‘imperial feminism’/ ‘managerial feminism’ (Eisenstein 2009) ‘transnational business feminism (TBF)’ (Roberts 2012) ‘market feminism’ (Squires and Kantola 2012) ‘post-feminism’ (Elias 2013)

Feminism as part of economic restructuring

Growth and social fairness must go hand in hand. Combating #GenderPayGap is a priority #EuropeanSemester (@VeraJurova, 16 November 2016) "all the indicators show that greater involvement of women boosts economic well-being and employment" @EP_President #IWD2017 (@EP_Gender Equal, 8 March 2017) EIGE´s study shows how #EIGEeconomicBenefits of #GenderEquality lead up to millions of more jobs by 2050 - http://europa.eu/!Mj33FX (@Eurogender, 4 April 2017)

Empowerment and self-entreprenurship

I end my busy #IWD2017 meeting wonderful young ladies with passion for #Tech. We have 2 encourage #GirlsInICT& #WomenInTech because #GirlCode (@VeraJurova, 8 March 2017) Stepping up women’s economic empowerment in private and public sectors: good for gender equality & boosting economy https://t.co/v3zXvHpebA (@EP_GenderEqual, 7 July 2017) EU-backed microcredits help #women, young people and migrants become entrepreneurs http://bit.ly/2mdU2Mz #IWD2017 #WomenEntrepreneurs (@EIB, 7 March 2017) That's good news! Looking for some more #goodpractices on #womenentrepreneurs? Check out EIGE's pool here - http://europa.eu/!MY66fn (@Eurogender, 7 March 2017)

Measuring, selling, consuming equality

EIGE's study estimates that every year #VaW costs the EU 226 billion euro - https://t.co/bQBi0g8CJ5 #UNGA https://t.co/xlF2NNMaEH (@Eurogender, 22 September 2016) Do you know what gender discrimination means? Check the definition in #EIGE's #GenderEquality Glossary & Thesaurus - http://bit.ly/2r2aIYm (@Eurogender, 10 July 2017) #FridayFact: Did you know that you can build a Gender Equality Plan in five steps? Find out how here - http://europa.eu/!jv43MR #ShiftGEAR (@Eurogender, 28 October 2016)

Conclusions

EU Equality bodies participate in the neoliberalization of feminism (Prügl 2015) via their tweeted narratives, either by

• Embedding ‘feminist’ ideas into projects for economic restructuring
• e.g. business case for equality
• In particular, subordinating equality to macro-economic goals
• Presenting ‘empowerment’ as a form of self-entrepreneurialism
• e.g. ‘women in tech’ and ‘women entrepreneurs’ discourses
• Offloading the responsibility for un- or under-employment on women
• Developing ‘feminist’ tools of governamentality
• e.g. EIGE’s products as tools of governmentality
• Producing and governing the gendered subjects and her alleged needs

Thank you!!!

Tommaso Trillo University of Lodz GRACE Project tommaso.trillo@uni.lodz.pl Twitter: @TommyTrillo