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The Power of EU Masculinities: A Feminist Contribution to European Integration Theory
Author(s) -
Kronsell Annica
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
jcms: journal of common market studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.54
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1468-5965
pISSN - 0021-9886
DOI - 10.1111/jcms.12328
Subject(s) - masculinity , context (archaeology) , identity (music) , gender studies , power (physics) , institution , gender identity , sociology , relation (database) , feature integration theory , political science , gender relations , psychology , social science , geography , computer science , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , database , acoustics , cognitive psychology
This article advances feminist analysis in the study of European integration through a focus on gender power in relation to masculinity constructs. It takes issue with the fact that gender studies tend to equate gender with women. It sketches a feminist contribution to integration theory, where the EU is perceived as gender regimes at multiple levels. Gender identity constructs – masculinities and femininities – rely on difference and are shifting across time, levels and sectors. Yet the variations of identity constructs are limited by well‐established ideas – gender binaries – providing continuity and path dependences to maintain the gender system, for example through the ‘EU protector masculinity’ in the EU CSDP. European integration thus is a process whereby EU masculinities and femininities are constructed through EU relations to other states in the global context and in EU policy‐making and institution‐building.