The concept of "backlash" in neoliberal europe

Abstract

Rights and gender equality progress in an alternation between advances and set-backs. The concept of "backlash", developed by the American feminist Susan Faludi in 1991, ten years after the arrival in power of the neo-conservatives, expresses well the complexity of the phases of set-backs. This concept can be helpful today to understand the European context, where, while the neo-liberal attack on the welfare system is destroying the lives of thousands of women and cuts in public services block any activity for the associations and non-governmental organizations, the European Commission has kept a discourse of gender equality and recommends and invites governments to promote female employment, while unemployment affects 50% of young Greeks, Spaniards and Italians.