DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING IN EUROPE AND GENDER MAINSTREAMING: CHALLENGES AND GOALS FOR WOMEN

The aim of the thesis is to analyze the challenges and limits of the strategy of gender mainstreaming during the democratic backlash in Europe. The political trends of the last decade in the western regions against the principal values of democracy are driving to a backlash in women's rights. Even in Europe, where the European Union institutions have been among the pioneers of women's human rights, promoting gender equality among member states is today an insidious task. The strategy of gender mainstreaming, defined by the European Institute of Gender Equality as the "strategy towards realizing gender equality that involves the integration of a gender perspective into the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies", is considered by the European Union as the best strategy to tackle gender inequalities. However, since its creation in the 1980s, gender mainstreaming showed some difficulties in its application and adoption by member states, and today, with the democratic regression, applying gender mainstreaming is even more challenging. With this thesis, after reconstructing the different strategies used by the European Union institutions to promote gender equality and the path towards the creation of gender mainstreaming, I will try to answer to the question "is the strategy of gender mainstreaming enough to promote and protect women's human rights during a democratic backlash?", by analyzing what are the difficulties and the limits of gender mainstreaming, and what role have institutions and Member States in applying and promoting it.