10 reasons why we need feminist foreign policy

There is no room for complacency.

I count myself lucky to live in a country like New Zealand where we have a
proud history of speaking out on gender issues and equality for women both at
home and internationally. This year we are celebrating 125
years of women’s suffrage after becoming the first country to give women
the vote in 1893.

But what does that achievement mean today? It means advocating strongly for
women in international forums and working hard to meet our obligations in
relation to the status of women. These include the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women and the Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action,
which sets goals for the global advancement of women.

New Zealand consistently ranks highly in respect of gender equality. We are
placed 9th out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2016. There are 46 women in the current parliament,
38.4 percent of the total 120 MPs, which is the highest representation in our
history.

But there is no room for
complacency. Women’s over representation in statistics on violence and low
wages is still too high. We
continue to work on closing the gender pay gap, reducing domestic violence,
supporting more girls in education and training, removing barriers to
women contributing to a fair and sustainable economy, encouraging and
developing women leaders, and ensuring women and girls are free from violence.

This work will continue until we have equality.

Jacinda Ardern is the
prime minister of New Zealand.

A feminist foreign policy challenges power.

Feminism
always investigates power with the
goal of transforming it.

A
feminist foreign policy views conflict through a gendered lens and sees how
patriarchal structures fuel violence and conflicts, especially in societies
where masculinity is militarized. Therefore, a feminist foreign policy should
be anti-militaristic and put human security at the centre. It recognizes the
gendered impacts of weapon proliferation, where unequal power structures, both
in the home and in society, become even stronger when men are armed. It chooses
diplomacy over the use of force, preventing violent conflict instead of waging
war.

The main
challenge for implementing a feminist foreign policy is lack of consistency. There
is a clear conflict between Sweden’s strong standpoint for women’s rights and
democracy and its weapons export to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates and Thailand. And why did the Swedish government buy helicopters
that are too expensive to fly, while women are being forced to give birth in
cars because the closest hospital has been shut down? The failure lies in the
lack of political will, as well as not putting your money where your mouth is. A
feminist foreign policy does not allow other interests, such as economic ones,
to override women’s irreversible human rights.

This
also ties in to who are seen as legitimate actors. You often find women in civil
society, partly because of exclusion from official power. Listening only to officials
will lead to signs of conflict being ignored, misdirected investments in aid
programs, and to peace agreements that cement inequality. This will uphold,
instead of breaking down, existing power structures. A feminist foreign policy listens
to a wide range of local and national women’s movements, recognizes them as
actors in all policy areas, and creates platforms for them to act. And yes, it
provides resources for women to organize.

Feminist
policy is about walking the walk and not just talking the talk.

Elin Liss is the
communications manager at the Swedish section of Women’s International League
for Peace and Freedom, WILPF. She holds a degree in political science. WILPF is
an international feminist peace organization working on conflict prevention,
the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and disarmament.

Examples of feminist leadership are already all around us.

The earth has shifted under the status of
women. Economist Jeffrey Sachs said it first: “The status of women and the
economy are directly related; where one is flourishing so is the other, where
one’s in the ditch, so is the other.”

It’s a wise government that responds to the
vast challenges for women and directs its foreign policy accordingly. Announcing
to the world that the federal cabinet would be 50 percent women “because it’s
2015” was one step. But it was another giant leap to dedicate a $650
million fund to assist women around the world immediately after Donald
Trump used his woe-begotten power to undermine women’s health with the ‘global gag
rule’ that stripped health care to women and cut services for infant and child
health.

The president of the United States stands with crackpots like the Taliban, ISIS and Boko Haram on hateful policies toward women. The rest of the world has installed foreign policy that addresses the fact that women are propelling changes so immense they are altering intractable files such as poverty, conflict and violence — files that can turn the economy around. Feminist leadership looks like Lebanon repealing the law that gives a rapist impunity if he marries the victim, Chile relaxing its abortion law, India banning Islamic instant divorce and Iceland making equal pay the law.

The Canadian government has even weighed into internecine battles by providing funds for women as change makers, such as Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, who are getting Afghan girls to school so they can learn to think for themselves, and to Journalists for Human Rights, who are training women journalists in South Sudan to take on injustices and alter the status quo along with the direction of the civil war.

That’s feminist foreign policy. That’s what feminist leadership looks like. Rewards are sure to follow.

Sally Armstrong is the author of several books including Ascent of Women: A New Age is Dawning for Every Mother’s Daughter.

Feminist leadership is
the responsible and accountable use of power to empower others.

A feminist foreign
policy is a policy that transcends the general notion of inclusion of women and
aims to transform all spaces for an integrated world. 

It is deliberate,
positive and direct in providing a robust intervention in societies’ affairs
that addresses not only deep-rooted historical and structural issues that
hinder inclusion and equality but promotes, in both design and application, a
transformative approach to development. It is an emerging area of public policy
that can be radical but also innovative.

Power as we know it,
whether political or positional, is vested in traditional institutions such as
government and corporations. To restore equilibrium in society and create
meaningful participatory engagement in the evolving global world, a feminist
foreign policy draws attention to people, not structures. Where decision-making
is skewed towards a few to the detriment of the majority, or fostered by a
majority to the almost obliteration of a minority or alternative narratives, it
creates one perspective as ‘the’ perspective, which is equally limiting as it
is inherently false. When it concerns status and gender relations between men
and women, patriarchal values elevate the status of men to the detriment of
women. A feminist foreign policy must therefore direct attention to areas that
enhance the active participation of all people, especially women.

A feminist leader is
one that is responsive to the needs of others. It is not about people-pleasing
but rather listening to, affirming and finding ways to capture each person’s
contribution and viewing it in relation to others to arrive at a decision. A
feminist leader is accountable by example and deals with wrongs fairly, in a
non-judgmental way. A feminist leader recognizes and acknowledges strengths in
differences but also celebrates diversity. Feminist leadership, in my opinion,
is the responsible and accountable use of power to empower others while
fostering an environment of mutual respect and gender equality.

Osai Ojigho is a
human rights lawyer and director of Amnesty
International Nigeria.

The Women20 shows us how male-dominated organizations
can change.

The G20 had once been representative of what we
perceived as male-dominated economic governance. The establishment of Women20 (W20)
as an independent engagement group in 2015 was thus essential to counter the
structural gender imbalances inherent in G20 deliberation. Still, when we were
asked to chair the W20 in 2017 as
representatives of the National Council of German Women’s Organisations and the
Association of German Women Entrepreneurs, we were doubtful whether W20 would
be able to go above and beyond its symbolic role of “adding” female
representatives to G20 discussions.

The outcome of last year’s G20 communiqué proved the
opposite. Thanks to the important groundwork of our predecessors involved with W20
Turkey and W20 China, the W20 has managed to commit the G20 to concrete action
to achieve labour market, financial and digital inclusion of women. For the
first time in the G20’s history, the leaders’ communiqué
contained an entire section dedicated to women’s empowerment, which elaborated
on three specific initiatives related to gender equality: the #eSkills4Girls
initiative, the Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (We-Fi) and the
establishment of a business women leaders’ task force in close cooperation with
the W20 and Business20.

Chairing the W20, we aimed to offer a different,
gender-sensitive perspective to G20 deliberations. The W20 is not a group meant to bring
some colour into the negotiations. It is a strong and diverse network bringing
together women representing all parts of society. Together they are pressing the
heads of states and government to change perspectives, to tackle stereotypes,
to end discrimination and to integrate “women’s empowerment” as a cross-cutting
issue to finally achieve gender equality in the G20 and beyond. We will continue
down that road, thanks to Argentina’s strong
leadership in 2018.

Mona Küppers is the co-chair of Women20 2017 and
president of the National Council of German Women’s Associations. Find W20
Germany (@WomenTwenty_Ger) & W20 Argentina (@W20_Argentina) on Twitter:
#W20.

This is a
first step in a longer journey.

Canada has
adopted a feminist approach because we believe that women and girls have the
ability to achieve real change in terms of sustainable development and
peace. For decades, women around the
world have led the struggle for gender equality. Local women’s organizations
that advance women’s rights, particularly at the grassroots level, play an
important role in raising social awareness and mobilizing communities to change
laws, attitudes, social norms and practices.

That is why I have launched the Women Voice and Leadership initiative as part of our new Feminist International Assistance Policy, to support the crucial work of these local women’s group in the Global-South. 

As we implement this new policy, I will continue to engage with all Canadians and our stakeholders, because the launch of this policy is not the end of the process but rather a first step in a longer journey to achieving the best international assistance results. We cannot reach those results if we leave half of the population behind and that is why we need a feminist approach to reach the sustainable development goals by 2030. 

Marie-Claude Bibeau is Canada’s minister of international development.

No country can get ahead without the full
participation of women.

A feminist foreign
policy recognizes that democracy, peace, prosperity and social progress need
the full participation of women. No country can get ahead if it leaves half its
people behind.

When Margot Wallström
took office as Sweden’s foreign minister in 2014, she adopted the world’s first
explicitly ‘feminist’ foreign policy. For her, this meant three Rs: rights;
representation in decision-making; and resources fairly allocated to women.

Wallström gave a name
to the approach of Hillary Clinton. When she became secretary of state in 2009,
Clinton proclaimed the rights of women and girls as a cornerstone of the United
States’ foreign policy and vital to American national security
interests. To ensure the institutionalization of gender into US foreign
policy, President Barack Obama created the position of ambassador-at-large for global
women’s issues — a position which I was honoured to hold. 

Now, Canada’s government
has joined a small but growing number of nations in elevating women’s rights to
the core of its foreign policy.

Advancing equal rights
is a moral imperative — but it’s strategic too. There is a wealth of research
and data to show that investing in women is critical for economic, social and
political progress. A foreign policy that puts women at its core — whether
explicitly called feminist or not — helps tackle the most pressing global
challenges.

Melanne Verveer is the executive director of
Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace & Security. Ambassador Verveer served as the first US
Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, a position to which she was nominated by
President Barack Obama in 2009. President Obama also appointed her to serve as
the US representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

The inclusion of
women is at once strategic and just.

In 2017, Canada, like
Sweden before it in 2014, announced it was pursuing certain aspects of
a feminist foreign policy, emphasizing international assistance to women’s
rights organizations and supplying more women soldiers to
UN peacekeeping operations. An important dimension of any feminist foreign
policy should be decreasing arms sales, particularly sales of the types of
weapons that kill civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.

To pursue a feminist foreign policy, states should implement
the provisions of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security agenda, outlined in UNSC resolution 1325 and
seven subsequent resolutions. These include the participation of women in
security sector institutions and in peace building; the protection of the human
rights of women and girls with a particular emphasis on eliminating gender-based
violence; and the inclusion of women as agents in relief and recovery
operations.

The inclusion of women in diplomacy and peace building relies
on two types of arguments: a rights-based approach, which claims that women
deserve to be included, and an instrumental approach, which argues women bring
something valuable to peace building, and that development goals more generally
are more likely to be met if women’s development is prioritized.

In 2010, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed:
“The subjugation of women is a threat to the common security of our world and
to the national security of our country.” Clearly, then, a feminist foreign
policy is a smart foreign policy. It is one that can be pursued by both female
and male leaders, and it involves taking women’s (as well as men’s) security
seriously.

J. Ann Tickner is a distinguished
scholar in residence at American University and professor of international
relations with Monash University’s Gender, Peace and Security Centre.

A feminist policy can guide all policymaking.

Canada’s prime
minister and government are openly feminist, and ‘feminist foreign policy’ is
the new buzz phrase on Parliament Hill. Is a feminist foreign policy what
Canada most needs?

The answer is
absolutely yes — one centred on addressing the historical and structural gender
power imbalances at the root of gender inequality, and their intersection with
race, ethnicity, and other identity factors. This implicitly involves
alleviating symptoms of inequality such as violence, early and forced marriage,
lack of access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, and
barriers to participating in politics, peace processes, and the labour force.

Collecting disaggregated data on gender inequality and using it to guide gender-sensitive programming and policy-making is part of implementing a feminist foreign policy. But implementation also involves upholding international human rights laws and standards for all people, being inclusive of gender-diverse individuals, maintaining strong partnerships with rights holders and civil society organizations, and transparent decision-making.

A feminist foreign policy is the lawful thing to do to uphold international human rights standards. It is the smart thing to do to promote global peace and security, given that research shows peace processes are more lasting when women are involved. It is the prudent financial thing to do to address root causes, rather than perpetual band-aid solutions that address only the symptoms of inequality. 

Equally, Canada must be held to the same rigorous standards as other countries to address the root causes of persistent gender inequality here at home. To quote American poet Emma Lazarus: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Canada certainly does need a feminist foreign policy. But what it needs more is a feminist policy to guide all of its policy-making and programming, to end gender inequality both in Canada and abroad.

Jayne Stoyles is the executive director of Amnesty International Canada (English branch).

Choosing the evolution of society requires all of us
as the driving force for change.

In order to face a volatile and
complex world, with rapid changes, marginalization, greed and environmental
damage, both innovation and creativity are needed. This will be possible only
if there are different points of view and more diversity in decision-making, which
is why we need to incorporate women’s voices.

We need women to stand up and to be
examples for others, and for more of them leading in every level, sector,
industry and organization.

We also require men who are aware of
the importance of sharing housework and the care of children and older adults,
willing to go hand in hand with women who surround them, letting them grow and
develop just as men are able to do. There won’t be an equal world until
productive and reproductive tasks are shared by every person, no matter their
gender.

We need all people, of all genders,
of every organization, in order to change paradigms and beliefs.

This is not only an issue of rights
but also an opportunity for the world, for every country, every business, every
human being…this is progress for everyone.

The future of our businesses,
institutions, organizations, and of each nation is up to us. Nothing is going
to evolve if we do not modify our attitudes and our minds. Choosing the
evolution of society as a whole in pursuit of a better future requires all of
us as the driving force for change.

As co-chair of W20 Argentina, I want
to tell you that I am more than happy to have this role and the enormous
responsibility. I believe we can challenge statistics working with civil,
public and private organizations, as we are doing now. We are all behind a
common objective — inclusion and equal opportunity for everyone — because we
deserve to choose what we want for our lives. To have such liberty, the W20 bases its work around the necessity of women
being economically independent, being capable of having their own income and
living the lives they have chosen on their own.

Andrea Grobocopatel is
the co-chair of the 2018 W20 and president of FLOR, the foundation for
leadership and responsible organizations in Argentina.