| European institutions have begun to elaborate a distinctive gender regime. Relying on a largely liberal understanding of equality, European measures are frequently at odds with established policies in a number of member states, especially those where a male breadwinner/female caregiver regime predominates. This thesis examines the way in which European initiatives, inspired by the liberal gender regime, have fed into policy debates and reforms in Germany, a notoriously resilient male breadwinner state and a "laggard" in European gender policy. Three case studies---on the regulation of equal pay, pornography and parental leave---are used to explore tensions between the nascent European gender regime and Germany's. The findings suggest that Europeanization of the German gender regime has been uneven and incomplete. While European measures in labour policy have been widely drawn into the German policy frame, in other aspects of gender policy they have prompted a stubborn response to resist the spirit, if not the letter of the law. Thus the male breadwinner/female caregiver gender regime has not, as a whole, been displaced Rather, German legal and political structures have responded to Europeanization by incorporating European gender policy largely alongside the broader set of German laws and norms. Although the German gender regime cannot thus be said to have been transformed, the changes that have been introduced are contributing to the emergence of a hybrid regime, incorporating aspects of both the male breadwinner and the dual earner model. |
