A Liberal Society Stands or Falls with its Conception of Equality – 5in10 with Meret Plucis
Meret Plucis completed her legal education at Humboldt University Berlin, Panthéon- Assas University in Paris (LLM), and the University of Amsterdam (LLM). Early on during her studies, she developed a focus on European Union law. In her Master’s thesis on the construction of motherhood in EU employment law, she began working with aninterdisciplinary approach, combining language-focused methods and feminist legal theory. She has continued this interdisciplinary orientation in her doctoral research at Humboldt University, conducted within the DFG-funded research training group “DynamInt”. Her PhD project is a discourse analysis of the role of the rule of law in EU integration narratives. With her re:constitution fellowship, she returns to a more applied angle: examining how gender equality is strategically reinterpreted in retirement and labor law, connecting constitutional theory with on-the-ground legal realities. Her professional and personal interests are centered around feminist issues.

How would you explain your research to someone who is not an expert in the same field?
I study how laws that claim to “protect women” can, in practice, reduce women’s agency and reinforce traditional gender roles. Using Poland’s retirement age reform as a case study, I show that the way equality is defined and enforced determines who can be socially, economically and institutionally present in public life. In this sense, our conception of equality is inseparable tied to how we understand and are able to protect democracy and the rule of law.
What were academic or personal inspirations that led to your current research?
I am a feminist through and through. My interest has always been centered on women*. Seeing the world from this perspective, it was always obvious to me that a liberal society stands or falls with its conception of equality. For that reason, I consider it crucial to connect today’s debates on democratic and rule of law backsliding with a materially grounded understanding of equality. This means moving beyond formal non-discrimination and focus on how equality affects lived realities within our democracy and rule of law: who is visible in public institutions, who is economically independent, who can de facto claim rights and who is pushed back into the private sphere.
Which stations of your professional journey were particularly formative to you?
I come from the German legal system, which remains very male dominated. In lecture halls, it is predominantly men who speak – both as professors and as students. This is not because German women* have less to say but because the space is rarely designed for our voices to be heard.
It was only abroad, during my Masters in Amsterdam, that I experienced a more open and noticeably more female academic environment, in which I started to find my own voice. In particular, the experience of writing my thesis under the close supervision of a woman, Dr. Sabine Mair, motivated and inspired me in a lasting way. Similarly, the open and interdisciplinary atmosphere at the EUI in Florence, where I was able to spend a research stay during my PhD and later return for my re:constitution fellowship, proved deeply formative for my work.
Do you think that academic mobility changes the way in which research projects are conceptualized/developed/carried out? What are your personal experiences in this regard?
Yes, definitely. One aspect of it I have just mentioned. Beyond that, I think academic mobility is particularly important for scholarship on the EU. It is difficult to write meaningfully about “Europe” without ever stepping outside one’s national academic environment. Leaving familiar institutional and intellectual settings challenges what we may see as normal and neutral and it creates the comparative perspective that EU research builds on. At its best, mobility broadens our horizons through genuine exchange and make us learn from each other.
What book, article, film, exhibition or song would you recommend, and why?
“A litany for survival” by Audre Lorde. My favorite poem.
Citation: Meret Plucius, I am a Feminist Through and Through – 5in10 with Meret Plucius, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 12.02.2026, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/64283
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (February 12, 2026). A Liberal Society Stands or Falls with its Conception of Equality – 5in10 with Meret Plucis. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved March 10, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15oat


