While research increasingly links sexist attitudes to far-right support, public debates have moved well beyond women’s equality to encompass LGBTIQ+ rights. Yet studies have been slow to follow, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of attitudes toward trans, intersex, and non-binary people and how they associate with party choice, especially beyond far-right support. Drawing on original data from the German Social Cohesion Panel (2022/23), we are, to our knowledge, among the first to investigate a broader range of gender-related attitudes and find, first, that these constitute two empirically distinct dimensions, binary and non-heteronormative gender issues, that while conceptually intertwined, warrant separate examination. Second, while support for binary gender issues is widespread, non-heteronormative issues remain highly contested. Third, these dimensions relate differently to vote choice: attitudes toward binary gender issues show partisan sorting across the left-right spectrum, while attitudes toward non-heteronormative gender issues reveal a specific antagonism between the Greens and (center-)right parties. Finally, considering both dimensions together uncovers an asymmetry: voters of (center-)right parties form a cohesive conservative bloc, while supportive voters with different attitudinal profiles disperse across (center-)left parties.

In this contribution, the author develops a feminist account of an EU Law of the everyday by examining how European migration and labour law structurally produce the invisibility of migrant women. Drawing on the story of Nazneen, an Afghan migrant featured in Ben Judah’s This is Europe, the author argues that her experiences of restricted mobility, informal labour, and gender-based vulnerability are not marginal to the law but shaped by it. The analysis shows how legal regimes, particularly the Common European Asylum System and labour markets structures, generate “everyday borders” and sustain precarious forms of work on which sectors of the European economy depend. These regimes operate through a logic of selective visibility. They recognise certain individuals as having rights while rendering others legally and institutionally invisible. This is further reinforced by the gender-blindness of asylum and labour law, which fails to account for the specific risks women face on migration routes. By proposing a feminist approach to the law of the everyday, this paper calls for a reorientation of EU law away from abstract, market-oriented subjectivities and towards the lived experiences of those on the margins of society. Such a reorientation exposes the extent to which European legal and economic orders rely on, and reproduce, the invisibility of vulnerable individuals.

Men and women differ in which characteristics they prioritise when choosing a romantic partner (e.g., on average, women place greater emphasis on the ability of partners to provide resources, and men place greater emphasis on physical attractiveness and youthfulness). However, researchers have disagreed over whether these gender gaps in partner preferences vary across cultures, specifically in relation to national levels of gender equality, given the inconsistencies in the previous literature. Here, using an open-access partner preference dataset (14,399 participants from 45 countries), we examined whether gender gaps in partner preferences correlate with the restrictiveness of societal gender norms, estimated via the Gender Social Norm Index. The analyses showed that the gender gap in preference for ‘good financial prospects’ was larger in countries with more restrictive gender norms, and the size of the age gap between self and partner exhibited the same pattern. These relationships were not replicated when using cultural tightness as a measure of the restrictiveness of social norms in general, which suggests that the findings specifically relate to gender norms. These results, which support the hypothesis that partner preferences are sensitive to local cultural contexts, are discussed in relation to evolutionary psychology and biosocial models of partner preferences.

Evidence that gender-based pay inequity is higher when pay is secret has led governments to prohibit pay secrecy clauses and give employees the right to discuss and disclose their pay. However, the effectiveness of regulations prohibiting pay secrecy may be constrained by social and organisational norms that preclude discussion of pay, including employee fears of the implications of pay transparency. This article provides insights from interviews with 32 employees and managers from a large Australian financial services company, revealing that perceptions of pay transparency are shaped by organisational rules, social norms, trust in the employing organisation, and fear of the repercussions of knowing pay is unequal. The implications for the effectiveness of the pay transparency measures in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022 (Cth) are discussed.

While the agenda setting literature largely focuses on how issues gain the attention of policy-makers, the strategies used to keep certain issues off the governmental agenda remain underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by examining agenda denial in the context of LGBTQ+ equality policies. It analyzes how opponents of such policies employ both strategies of avoidance and non-confrontation, as well as strategies of attack and issue redefinition, in order to prevent LGBTQ+ equality from advancing on the policy agenda. The opponents examined in this study are anti-gender actors, who have increasingly positioned themselves at the forefront of the backlash against gender equality, forming alliances across political and civil society sectors to push back or halt progress on LGBTQ+ policies. By dissecting their opposition arguments, this study examines how they strategically mobilize reason (evoking empirical proofs and factual evidence) and emotion (evoking sensibilities and feelings) to sustain their denial strategies. Focusing on Italy, where parties of the right-wing bloc and anti-gender organizations are increasingly intertwined and have gained significant influence, this study utilizes qualitative, interpretive content analysis of parliamentary debates on laws against homotransphobia, as well as organizational documents from anti-gender actors. The paper contributes to the literature by linking gender studies with agenda denial theory, offering fresh insights into gender backlash dynamics from a public policy perspective.

This study examines how grassroots gender NGOs in China navigate online fundraising amid tightening regulations and declining external funding. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of 463 crowdfunding projects by 124 gender NGOs on Tencent Charity, it shows how these organizations pursue gender equality under pressure from the state and the platform economy. The study identifies two interrelated strategies: (1) strategic conformity through issue reframing to ally with state agendas for algorithmic visibility and (2) strategic stealth in intersectional boundary-spanning, calibrating (in)visibility while leveraging cross-sectoral collaboration to sustain gender advocacy. These practices reflect how gender NGOs continually negotiate visibility, legitimacy, and autonomy. The findings suggest that digital philanthropy, rather than diversifying fundraising, often reproduces hierarchies of attention and access. Conceptualizing strategic stealth in intersectional boundary-spanning as adaptive, issue-expanding practices, this study deepens understanding of NGOs’ constrained agency and highlights platform governance as a key force channeling state priorities in civic fundraising.

Citizen-generated data (CGD) is increasingly embraced as a strategy for filling data gaps to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5, Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Existing frameworks to guide the design and use of CGD, however, do not reflect the unique considerations of CGD projects addressing issues of gender inequality. Answering recent calls for study of “data practices,” this article analyzes common CGD principles through findings from an action research project to address gender-based violence at the Colombia–Venezuela border. We suggest that while existing frameworks provide generative pathways forward, several principles around which consensus appears to be emerging are too rigid or insufficiently nuanced to account for the dynamics that many gender-focused CGD projects confront. These include dynamics such as physical security, the role of emotion in shaping project implementation, unequal access to resources, and political will. We suggest that this rigidity truncates the utility of these frameworks for CGD actors navigating highly sensitive issues in risky environments where serious violations of women’s human rights are taking place—and where the generation of gender data is one of several motivating factors for the work being done. This article reads gender into these frameworks to broaden the range of sustainable development issues for which CGD can help catalyze progress.

This article introduces the new module Gender in Contemporary Europe: Rethinking Equality and the Backlash developed for Round 11 of the European Social Survey (ESS). The module represents the first large-scale, cross-national effort to comprehensively map contemporary gender attitudes using both established and innovative measures. It captures five interrelated contemporary concepts that have rarely been included in prior cross-national surveys available for public use: gender identity, sexism (hostile, benevolent, and modern), perceived and experienced gender discrimination, the salience of gender equality as a social value, and support for gender equality policies. Pretesting and cognitive interviews conducted across a group of participating countries highlighted both the value and the complexity of measuring gender-related constructs, particularly in relation to translation challenges, perceived item bias, and social desirability effects. As we introduce the new data set, we highlight four critical challenges for gender research: bias, gendered translation, response bias, and cross-national measures of sexism. We also provide details on how the module development tackled each of these.

In Zambia, religious nationalists exploit legal and policy ambiguities to construct abortion and LGBTI+ rights as un-Zambian and un-Christian. This delegitimization narrows the scope of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) to family planning. Drawing on forty-five in-depth interviews with Zambian stakeholders and international aid officials, we argue that while these ambiguities constrain reproductive justice, they also allow activists to advance SRHR by building coalitions that connect advocacy for abortion rights, LGBTI+ rights, and reproductive justice to promote health service access and bodily autonomy for all. In Zambia and elsewhere, such activism and coalition building merit greater attention and support.

Despite shifting attitudes towards men taking up unpaid work, there remains a persistent gender gap in informal caregiving for older adults. We investigate how individual gender role attitudes of women and men influence their provision of care to parents and whether this relationship is moderated by the national context. Using data from the Generations and Gender Survey and logistic regressions with country-fixed effects to a sample of nine European countries, we find that individual gender egalitarian views correspond with a significant decreased likelihood of providing care among women, but not with an increased probability among men. While we find some support for the moderating effect of country contexts for women, their role in increasing male involvement in care appears to be limited. Changing behaviours through shifts in individual gender role attitudes alone may not be sufficient to bring about greater gender equality in care for older people.

Women’s employment, as a critical dimension of gender equality, is conditioned on national family policies. Using panel data from the China Family Panel Survey, this article analyses how family policies affect multi-dimensional employment outcomes of women in China, where recent reforms in family policy are highly fertility-oriented. Findings show that extended maternity leave exerts negative effects on women’s wages and occupational socioeconomic status among all Chinese female employees, irrespective of motherhood. By contrast, the negative effect of maternity leave on female labour force participation is much less prominent. Furthermore, funded childcare has a protective but limited effect on women’s employment. Our findings suggest that family policy may influence not only mothers but all women due to the realised or potential fertility, thus affecting the gender disparity in the labour market to a broader extent. Implications for work-family reconciliation and gender equality are also discussed.

This article critically appraises the UK Labour government’s early approach to parental leave reform following the 2024 election, comparing pre-election promises with post-election policy directions. Drawing on Daly’s conceptualisation of care as a policy good (Daly, 2002), we analyse Labour’s reforms across three overlapping dimensions central to their pre-election pledges: access and pay levels, leave design and entitlements, and inclusion of diverse families. We argue that Labour’s current approach adheres to liberal welfare principles, with market-oriented reforms prioritising economic productivity over care provision, perpetuating implicit maternalism while systematically excluding working-class, minority ethnic, and self and precariously employed families. In contrast, care-centred approaches pioneered elsewhere in Europe demonstrate that gender equality, social inclusion, and economic productivity are mutually reinforcing rather than competing objectives. Echoing calls from the Women and Equalities Committee for transformative change, we argue that Labour’s incremental approach cannot achieve reforms that work for parents or the economy without embracing care-centred policies.

How do citizen interest groups influence policy in domains dominated by political and economic elites? Recent research suggests their success hinges on outsider strategies to pressure policymakers, such as mobilizing public opinion. In contrast, a feminist platform named Platform for Equal and Non-transferable Birth and Adoption Leave (PPiiNA) built insider alliances with female politicians across party lines to make paternity and maternity leave equal and non-transferable in Spain in 2019. This article explores this case in depth by tracing almost 20 years of policy evolution through parliamentary documents and interviews. Against employer opposition and the absence of trade unions, the case corroborates the relevance of women in politics by illustrating how descriptive representation can open insider channels of influence to feminist advocacy groups. Nonetheless, the approval of the reform ultimately depended on left-wing governing power, while policy formulation was dominated by political elites and employer groups, limiting the capacity of cross-partisan feminist alliances to shape final policy output.

Notwithstanding the improvement in gender equality in political power and resources in European democracies, this study shows that, on average, declared interest in politics is 16 per cent lower for women than for men in Europe. This gap remains even after controlling for differences in men's and women's educational attainment, material and cognitive resources. Drawing on the newly developed European Institute for Gender Equality's (EIGE) Gender Equality Index (GEI) and on the European Social Survey (ESS) fifth wave, we show that promoting gender equality contributes towards narrowing the magnitude of the differences in political interest between men and women. However, this effect appears to be conditioned by the age of citizens. More specifically, findings show that in Europe gender‐friendly policies contribute to bridging the gender gap in political engagement only during adulthood, suggesting that childhood socialisation is more strongly affected by traditional family values than by policies promoting gender equality. In contrast, feminising social citizenship does make a difference by reducing the situational disadvantages traditionally faced by women within the family and in society for middle‐aged people and older.