Theorizing European Gender Systems

Abstract

This article describes and evaluates three different strands of theorizing European gender systems on a comparative basis. Each strand is associated with a particular concep tual, empirical and disciplinary context. The first strand, 'gendered welfare modelling' is centred around feminist critiques of compara tive social policy and seeks to add gender into the theorization of state welfare regimes. The second strand, 'differentiated patriarchy' is more sociological in origin and attempts to de velop the concept of patriarchy to take account of geographical differences. The final strand, developed in the context of feminist critiques of Scandinavian political science and social history, attempts to delineate different 'gender contracts' on what men and women are, think, expect and do. The paper criticizes all these theorizations for neglecting regional and local processes of gender differentiation, and con cludes that a combination of the 'differentiated patriarchy' and 'gender contract' strands hold the greater promise for accounting for geo graphical difference in systems of gender in equality.