An interdisciplinary group of European feminist scholars critically explores the European gender policies from the founding of the European Community to the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam. They offer different interpretations of the contradiction between the exceptional development of gender equality policy within Community social policy and actual gender inequality. Analysis of the EU policies on the equality of women reveals their central role in the making of the common market and the Community's modernizing action to reform employment patterns and welfare systems. From different, and at times contrasting, feminist perspectives, the contributors propose new policies to challenge the current situation and overcome the EU juridical defect in women's rights, which exacerbates the European «citizenship deficit» and «democratic deficit».