The problem, then, is not only underrepresentation but the systemic barriers that keep women\u2019s knowledge from shaping decisions. Testimonies are doubted, softened, or redirected. The bar of \u201cevidence\u201d shifts depending on who speaks. And when the risks of speaking\u2014social, professional, or even legal\u2014are too high, people self-limit. Philosopher Kristie Dotson calls this testimonial quieting (choosing not to speak) or testimonial smothering (trimming one\u2019s words to fit what an audience will accept). Both are strategies of survival in environments where listeners are unwilling\u2014or unable\u2014to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indicators and models reinforce these silences. Policymakers privilege what can be easily counted\u2014employment rates, growth figures\u2014while overlooking what sustains life: unpaid care, ecological resilience, safety in the home. Eurocentric frames cast the EU as leader or protector, setting the terms of recognition and positioning others as passive pupils. And even feminist language can be hijacked. The rise of femo-nationalism shows how \u201cprotecting women\u201d can be turned into a nationalist rallying cry, erasing women\u2019s agency and redeploying feminism as a weapon of exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When these barriers persist, \u201cunity in diversity\u201d becomes a slogan rather than a standard. Policies may be technically sophisticated, but they rest on truncated foundations. They cannot deliver justice because they are built on partial knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blind spots in action<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The consequences are hiding in plain sight. The European Green Deal, for all its ambition, casts Europe as saviour while overlooking the grounded, care-based knowledge of women resisting ecological destruction in Turkey\u2019s Akbelen Forest. In peacebuilding too, the EU has sidelined women\u2019s organisations, weakening not just participation but the durability of peace itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even within EU institutions, progress is fragile. Ursula von der Leyen\u2019s presidency showed how much leadership matters: near-parity in the College of Commissioners, a Gender Equality Strategy, a directive on violence against women. But it also showed the limits. Numbers and titles do not equal transformation. Women in power do not automatically dismantle the structures that silence women\u2019s knowledge. Without sustained change, breakthroughs risk becoming symbols rather than substance. Meanwhile, quieter silences persist. Indexes count jobs but not unpaid care. \u201cGender equality\u201d is softened into the paternalistic language of \u201cgender justice.\u201d And feminist rhetoric is hijacked, repurposed to serve nationalist agendas rather than emancipation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet resistance endures. During the pandemic, feminist activists in Turkey forced gender-based violence and reproductive rights onto the public agenda. Their message was unmistakable: lived experience is not anecdote\u2014it is evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What feminist epistemic justice would mean<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what would it take to build an EU that practices what it preaches? Feminist epistemic justice offers a path forward. It means reshaping how knowledge is generated, validated, and mobilised. First, it means valuing lived experience as knowledge. Care, survival, and everyday expertise must be treated as evidence, not side notes. That requires spaces where testimony can be shared safely, without the risk of quieting or smothering. Second, it means rethinking what counts as \u201cobjective.\u201d Strong objectivity insists that policies tested only against the perspectives of the powerful are not neutral\u2014they are skewed. Rigour lies in integrating the standpoints that power routinely excludes. Third, it means reconfiguring the circulation of knowledge. Who sits on editorial boards, who reviews articles, who allocates research funds all shape which ideas reach decision-makers. Feminist epistemic justice insists on breaking these pipelines open to feminist, decolonial, qualitative, and participatory work. Finally, it means guarding against co-optation. Feminist language stripped of its emancipatory force and repurposed to legitimise exclusionary projects is not progress\u2014it is epistemic oppression in disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At FEJUST, we experiment with what this looks like in practice: students using participatory methods such as film and photography to bring lived experience into the classroom; collaborations that bring undergraduates, NGOs, and established scholars together to co-create research; publications that embed feminist epistemic justice into public debate. These are not the whole answer, but they are glimpses of what is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funding note: This work was supported by the European Commission\u2019s Jean Monnet Programme (Jean Monnet Chair: Feminist Epistemic Justice in the EU and Beyond\u2014FEJUST, Project 101085368) and Bah\u00e7e\u015fehir University co-funding. The European Commission\u2019s support for this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained herein. (PI: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rahime S\u00fcleymano\u011flu-K\u00fcr\u00fcm, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bah\u00e7e\u015fehir University, \u00c7\u0131ra\u011fan Caddesi, Osmanpa\u015fa Mektebi Sokak, No. 4\u20136, Istanbul, T\u00fcrkiye. Email: rahime.kurum@bau.edu.tr<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The European Union celebrates \u201cequality\u201d and \u201cinclusion.\u201d Its treaties, policy papers, and speeches are filled with these words. Yet one question remains unresolved: whose knowledge actually counts in policymaking and in the study of Europe? This is not just a numbers game. Saying \u201cwomen\u2019s perspectives are missing\u201d is not about how many women sit in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":14662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[486,504],"tags":[653],"class_list":["post-14657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-europe","tag-international-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cofunded.png\")
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