An interdisciplinary group of European feminist scholars critically explores the European
gender policies from the founding of the European Community to the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam.
They offer different interpretations of the contradiction between the exceptional development
of gender equality policy within Community social policy and actual gender inequality. Analysis
of the EU policies on the equality of women reveals their central role in the making of the
common market and the Community's modernizing action to reform employment patterns and welfare
systems. From different and at times contrasting feminist perspectives the contributors
propose new policies to challenge the current situation and overcome the EU juridical defect in
women's rights which exacerbates the European citizenship deficit and democratic deficit.
