Chapter Five indicated that the time-related problems and disadvantages faced by women require collective, political solutions. The form these might take depends on the extent to which the political processes and structures of contemporary welfare states are open to feminist intervention: this is the focus of this chapter.

The first section draws on recent feminist state theory to argue that effective feminist politics requires both engagement with the state and autonomous activity. It also finds that policy outcomes can have an important long-term impact on gendered identity and time norms. The second section returns to the welfare regime theories discussed in Chapter One. After showing that a woman-centred perspective highlights temporal issues, it focuses on time-related policies in the Nordic welfare states, as although these are not uniform and have mixed impacts, they all recognise that citizens need time for their caring responsibilities. The third section links this to women's political representation, finding that female politicians have a good track record of promoting ‘women-friendly’ work-time policies. The fourth section explores the mixed implications of globalisation for a feminist politics of time, identifying the potential for linking local, national and international concerns in a global politics of ‘solidarity in difference’. In drawing these issues together, the chapter's conclusion reaffirms the need to recognise the historically specific ideological, political and socio-economic contexts that can facilitate or constrain the development of a feminist politics of time; it also identifies the individualistic liberal culture of the US as particularly hostile to feminist claims.

Feminist perspectives on welfare states

Feminists have long debated whether man-made states are inevitably hostile to their goals, or whether they can be used to pursue them (for an overview, see Bryson, 1999b). Recent feminist state theory moves beyond such dichotomous thinking to see political institutions in terms of processes, fragmentation and discourse, rather than as stable and monolithic entities. Variously framed as ‘feminist comparative policy’ (Mazur, 2004; Mottier, 2004), ‘comparative discourse analysis’ (Kantola, 2004, 2006) and ‘gendered or feminist institutionalism’ (Randall, 2000; Kenny, 2006), this work highlights the variable, dynamic, context-dependent and fractured nature of power and political processes. It indicates that, rather than attempting to analyse ‘the state’, we should focus on the comparative analysis and investigation of particular states. It also indicates that we can expect to find fluidity and variations both within and between structures, which may be more or less open to feminist interventions.