Minority Intersectional Constituencies and Women’s Collective Mobilization at the European Level

Abstract

Transnational civil society at the European level is characterized by a plurality of organizations and diversity of their interests and demands when it comes to gender equality and the definition of “women’s interests.” I argue that transnational mobilization holds constraints in itself—of economic and political nature—though the possibility of organizing at this level is both enabled and hindered by the EU and its institutional and financial framework. The empirical reality shows that majority and minority women’s organizations mobilizing transnationally in Europe differ not just in terms of their constituencies but also in relation to their demands, claims-making efforts, and, not least, their ways of dealing with diversity internally and externally. In particular, I focus on majority organizations’ strategies for addressing minority issues, and minority intersectional organizations combining ethnicity and gender identities and claims as well as their interrelations with majority organizations. Thus, the chapter assesses the potential of the transnational, European civil society panorama in terms of defining and representing the diversity of women’s collective interest vis-à-vis the EU.