Gender and the Economic Crisis: Political Parties as Sites of Feminist Struggles

This article analyses the spaces provided by political parties for feminist knowledge about the economic crisis. The novelty of the article lies in applying theories about affects and emotions to traditional gender and politics debates. The article focuses on political parties’ campaigns at the time of European parliamentary elections in Finland (May 2014). The empirical research material consists of in-depth interviews with MEPs and MPs and participatory observation in election panels on gender and the EU organized by women’s movement actors and gender equality advocates. The findings illustrate an interplay between expert and affective knowledge and their contradictory effects.