Gender and Brexit: moving beyond the EU’s focus on women’s employment rights

The EU has long championed women’s employment rights (though not always for feminist reasons), says Roberta Guerrina. The presence of senior women at the European Commission has helped to ensure the ‘equality agenda’ is not forgotten. Yet it should not substitute for wider discussions about the lack of a gender dimension in many areas of EU politics. The focus on economic and political rationalities in the Brexit debate is relegating women’s concerns to the areas of social policy – ‘low politics’.