—Meret Plucis, re:constitution fellow
The global backlash against so-called “gender ideology” has not spared the EU (see here and here). Progress in gender equality across Member States is stalling – and in some cases, reversing. Often while (ab)using gender equality language, right-wing actors promote a return to traditional gender roles, suggesting women should prioritize motherhood over employment. That these narratives resonate particularly with younger generations becomes evident on social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram, where content celebrating the lifestyle of so-called “trad wives” regularly goes viral (see here and here). Women are already underrepresented in the European labor market with a gap of more than 10% (see here) and the rise of traditionalist narratives threatens to deepen this disparity.
But this development is not only the result of misogynistic backlash. These narratives resonate because they touch a raw nerve: for decades, mothers have been expected to succeed professionally under unequal conditions, while still assuming the bulk of unpaid care work at home. This double burden leaves many women not empowered, but exhausted. Conservative actors have sized upon this tension. Policies like Germany’s Mütterrente (see here) or Poland’s reduced retirement age for women (see here) appear to value women’s care work, but in practice reinforce the idea that a woman’s “natural” place is the home. By rewarding caregiving without redistributing responsibility, these actors engage in abusive feminism (see here) – co-opting feminist language about valuing care work but hollow out its egalitarian substance. The result is the reinforcement of patriarchal norms and constraint of female agency under the guise of female empowerment.
Against this backdrop, the EU seems like the lighthouse in the night for gender equality. While there is significant divergence among the Member States in their visions for gender equality, the EU holds the potential to act both as a harmonizing and emancipatory force. Employment and social policy, governed by Titles X and XI TFEU, are central areas of EU law. Largely based on Article 157 TFEU, the EU has established a legal framework to promote gender equality. Recent legislative initiatives such as the Work-Life Balance Directive 2019/1158 (see here) and the Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970 (see here) are examples. These instruments show that the EU is not powerless in the face of gender equality backsliding. Yet many of these measures are underpinned by economic logic rather than feminist commitment. Article 157 TFEU, for example, entered the Treaty of Rome not out of the EU’s commitment to feminist causes but because France, which had already equal pay provisions, feared competitive disadvantages (see here, pages 20-22). Likewise, the Work-Life Balance Directive was promoted as a remedy to €370 billion GDP loss due to women’s underemployment (see here).
While such economic framing may bolster political support, it risks reducing the EU’s version of equality into a productivity tool. If the aim is simply to integrate more women into paid labor without addressing underlying structures, “equality” may succeed in form but certainly will fail in substance. As a result, unsurprisingly, some women grow disillusioned and turn toward seemingly simpler, yet illiberal, alternatives.
This is where legal interpretation, especially by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), becomes crucial. Law not only reflects society; it constructs and consolidates subjectivities and social expectations. Though EU law does not define motherhood, the concept runs like a silent threat through decades of case law. By tracing how the ECJ has interpreted equality law over time, we can better understand the assumptions shaping women’s experiences today. Moreover, it allows us to develop a sensitivity to recognize the different underlying competing visions that shape equality law – an especially urgent task in times when we need to learn how to resist the (ab)use of equality rights and language by illiberal actors who simultaneously condemn feminist ideas and co-opt their vocabulary and potential for illiberal ends (see here)
In the early 1980s case of Commission v. Italy (see here) the Court upheld a national rule reserving adoption-related leave for mothers only, despite biological differences between mothers and fathers playing no role in the adoption process. The reasoning invoked the mother’s unique role in the “delicate initial period” after adoption, enforcing a concept of motherhood in which women have responsibility without the power to determine their own experiences of mothering.
Although later rulings moved away from treating care work as biologically innate to women, the Court nevertheless treated it as a social fact – in other words, it turned from nature to nurture. By the 1990s, EU institutions had begun to promote female employment (see here), a shift that also appeared in ECJ jurisprudence. In Abdoulaye (see here), fathers challenged a childbirth bonus granted only to women. The Court upheld the policy, citing women’s professional disadvantages. Although the plaintiffs were all fathers, their role as potential caregivers was entirely absent from the Court’s reasoning – the word “father” doesn’t appear once. While the Court did well in noticing the double burden women face as both caregivers and employees, in its framework, parenthood appears only as an event for the mother. The fathers were neither expected nor encouraged to take time off from work to assume carework as well. With goodwill, it might nevertheless be possible to read Abdoulaye as the Courts strengthening of mothers’ causes. Yet such reading becomes difficult in context with the ECJ’s broader jurisprudence. In Gruber (see here) a mother who resigned due to lack of childcare availability was denied termination pay, because Austrian law did not recognize this as a “serious reason”. Despite clear gendered effects, the Court declined to recognize indirect sex discrimination.
Similarly, in Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund (see here) the Court upheld rules that treated voluntary military service more favorably than parental leave in calculating termination payments, siding with the argument that the military serves the public good, while parental leave is a personal choice.
In these rulings, the Court reproduced a problematic public-private divide, long criticized by feminists. The assumption that carework is a private choice, rather than a public good, is not neutral. It reflects a cultural vision of motherhood that limits substantial gender equality.
A landmark shift occurred in Roca Álvarez (see here). Here, the Court struck down a policy that excluded fathers with self- or unemployed partners from baby-feeding leave. Crucially, the Court distinguished between biological needs and social roles, recognizing that unequal leave entitlements, which cannot be justified by purely biological conditions, not only disadvantage fathers, but also burden mothers.
This judgment nourished hope, yet the momentum was short-lived. In Syndicat CFTC (see here), the ECJ reviewed a policy granting extended leave only to mothers. It accepted the policy as justified to protect postnatal health, but failed to distinguish clearly between biological recovery and gendered assumptions. By leaving this ambiguous, the ECJ re-opened the door for national authorities to reproduce traditionalist care roles under the guise of biological necessity.
These cases show that law is not just technical interpretation – it is part of the broader conversation about who women are allowed to be. The question now is how newer measures like the Work-Life Balance Directive will be interpreted – to reinforce the double burden by continuing to treat care work as a mothers’ private choice, or promoting its redistribution as a shared societal obligation. So far, the signals are mixed.
However, looking ahead, it is important that EU gender equality law be guided by a robust feminist vision that treats gender justice as a fundamental goal in itself, rather than a mere instrument for economic growth. This vision is in line with Article 2 TEU, which lists (gender) equality as a core commitment of the European project. Especially in times of democratic and rule of law backsliding, a focus of substantive equality is crucial: without genuine equality in practice, neither democracy nor the rule of law are meaningful. Illiberal actors have already proven adept at co-opting equality rights and language to justify their regressive agendas. It is hence all the more important for the EU to insist on the substantive and emancipatory equality Article 2 TEU calls for. Ultimately, upholding substantive equality is not only about protecting women’s rights – it is about safeguarding the very integrity of the Union’s democracy and rule of law against erosion.
Suggested citation: Meret Plucis, From Equal Pay to Trad Wives? How EU Equality Law Risks Fueling a Backlash, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Nov. 20, 2025, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/from-equal-pay-to-trad-wives-how-eu-equality-law-risks-fueling-a-backlash