ABSTRACT
The literature that addresses interactions between gender and European Union (EU) shares some of the main features which characterize European studies. The term "velvet triangle" was forged by Alison Woodward to describe the advocacy coalition that was formed since the 1970s around the EU gender equality policy. The "velvet triangle" is a very useful analytical tool to understand the functioning of the gender equality policy domain at the European level, particularly during its "golden age" of the 1980s and 1990s. EU gender equality policy analyzed the "Europeanization" of national policies even before the term made its appearance in the early 2000s. James Caporaso and Joseph Jupille compare the transposition of European directives on equal pay for men and women in the UK and France. According to him, among all the critical approaches of European integration, they "are the strongest in terms of participants and contribution, but the most discriminated against in terms of exclusion from tradition EU political science".
