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In its 76th session held in September 2022, the UN General Assembly by consensus declared 24th June to be annually observed as the International Day for Women in Diplomacy, to celebrate the significant contributions of women, advocating for their increased representation in key decision-making positions and their role in shaping multilateral agendas. Diplomacy has traditionally been dominated by men, with women's contributions frequently overlooked throughout history. The male-dominated IR has largely focused on conflict and security in their traditional forms, i.e. militarized way, while women’s roles have been restricted to that of care-giving and aid. The UN General Assembly has had only 4 elected women Presidents in its history of 77 years. The UN Security Council presently comprises one-third of women members which is slightly above average. The United Nations reports that women make up 41.8% of personnel across all levels, representing 196 nationalities, and women now head the UNSC and other UN subsidiary bodies and various agencies including ECOSOC. However, this won’t suffice to mainstream the gender perspective in foreign policy discussions. The Concept of Feminist Foreign Policy has emerged in the last decade to systematically bring women to the forefront of peace and political processes at the international level. The debate has gained momentum because as we look across the globe, the institutions and theories we have been operating under cannot respond to the present issues and conflicts in foreign policy dilemmas, and reflect the modern reality of how we look at the world.
Definition, Genesis, and the Status Quo
A Feminist foreign policy, at one level, aims to increase the participation and representation of women in decision-making roles at the international level. On the other hand, it offers a framework to question and challenge established global power systems, to include historically marginalized and subaltern voices, and to promote alternative courses of action, advocating gender-just policies. So FFP is more than just increasing the number of women in current institutions and processes but also rethinking how to transform these institutions and processes.
The origins of feminist foreign policy can be traced back to the United Nations' declaration of 1975 as International Women's Year, observed to discuss the status of women. The subsequent decade, 1976-1985, known as the UN Decade for Women, facilitated global and regional dialogues as increasing transnational solidarity laid the groundwork for FFP. The decade was marked by women taking the lead in peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and peacemaking in various conflict zones around the World. The concept was further developed when the UN Security Council endorsed Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), highlighting the crucial role of women in conflict prevention and management. But again, foreign policy is much more than peace, security, and conflict resolution. A comprehensive FFP provides a unifying political framework for various gender-related strategies implemented by the government in all the fields concerning the nation’s position at the global level, including trade and development.
It is important to understand that there is no single definition of feminist foreign policy, as each country has its unique outlook, challenges, experiences, and concerns. Each nation navigates its foreign policy history and perspectives on gender equality and feminism. However, Stephanie Foster and Susan Markham, in their book “Feminist Foreign Policy in Theory and in Practice,” outline four fundamental principles in common that each feminist foreign policy tends to have - promoting gender equality and sensitivity; incorporating a broadened definition of national security; elevating diverse set of voices; and addressing historical imbalances of power. Furthermore, a feminist foreign policy, as exemplified by Sweden, raises questions about the 3Rs of feminism - Rights, Representation, and Resources.
In 2014, Sweden, under the leadership of Margot Wallström, the then Foreign Minister of Sweden, for the first time, explicitly adopted a Feminist Foreign Policy. Since then, over the last 10 years, many countries including Germany, France, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Chile, Colombia, Liberia, and Luxembourg have done the same, in some way or other. There have been talks of initiating an FFP in major world powers like the US and the UK. Some countries, like Norway and Australia, have not adopted a feminist foreign policy but have both a national action plan on women, peace, and security and a foreign policy gender strategy. In January 2022, the Swedish Foreign Minister announced a Feminist Foreign Policy Plus (FFP+) Group which initially included 16 countries. However, to the world’s surprise, later in the same year, the newly elected government, in Sweden, abandoned the FFP on the grounds of concern that labeling the country's foreign policy as "feminist" may compete with the priority of Swedish values and interests rather than reflect them, raising doubts about the sustainability of FFP. One thing to notice here is that this list comprises developed countries belonging to the Global North, putting them in the position to provide a framework for policy development for the rest of the world. The developing and underdeveloped countries have yet to fully engage with the concept, and make it their own, possibly due to a lack of resources or the ascendancy of concerns about other pressing security or development issues. However, one should not assume that such countries are reluctant to develop gender-sensitive policies, as many women-led peacekeeping and policy development efforts have originated from the Global South. For example, Namibia was the country that introduced the original Resolution 1325.
“Today’s complex societal challenges – from climate change to pandemics to human rights violation, to sustaining peace, to inflation and economic uncertainty– cannot be resolved unless women leaders are equally represented, and gender equality principles integrated across the board.”
Is India heading towards a Feminist Foreign Policy?
Indian Foreign Services have been admitting women since independence. From Vijay Lakshmi Pandit to C. B. Muthamma to Hansa Mehta, Indian women have been at the forefront of representing the nation during critical times. As of 2022, women made up 37.8% of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) cadre, an increase of 6.6% from 31.2% in 2014. India has had women ambassadors to countries of strategic importance like China, the USA, France, Germany, etc. But is that enough to say that India has a feminist foreign policy? Not really. While women have been pioneering peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts by India globally, their participation has often been limited to support. For instance, in Liberia, when India sent an all-women police unit to the UN peacekeeping mission, the participation of female officers was centered on support and caregiving roles and not on the military core of the mission. This further leads to the much-discussed debate on “ethics of care,” focusing on care as the only basis of ethics, which has been criticized for reinforcing traditional gender traits and being detrimental to feminism by labeling women as eternal nursemaids.
India has extended its support to the UNSCR 1325 agenda, aimed to promote equal participation of women at all levels of decision-making efforts, but has failed to develop or adopt any National Action Plan to achieve the agenda domestically. So far, the Indian government has not articulated any explicit national policy on conflict prevention or participation of women in the WPS agenda by the UN. Thus, India has shown her enthusiasm towards engaging with gender-sensitive policies at the international and national levels but has hardly put any effort to mainstream them.
One of the possible reasons for India's reluctance to adopt a feminist foreign policy or commitment to the UNSCR 1325 agenda could be its concern about its national sovereignty and focus on traditional forms of security. There is a feeling of apprehension that ending global violence against women could be used to justify militarized interventions within its national boundaries, thus gender-washing imperialist intentions, just like in Afghanistan. Another reason could be the deep-rooted patriarchy in its culture, hindering the empowerment of women at all levels. For India to have a feminist foreign policy, it needs to deconstruct the established dominant power of structures and craft policies advocating inclusion of all the marginalized voices, and diversity.
India, however, falling to rank 148 in Women’s participation in parliament, in June 2024, and being an inherently patriarchal society with surging crimes against women, needs to reflect on its foreign policy as well as domestic policy strategy to include more women at the agenda-setting powers and craft out policies to advocate women’s greater role in conflict management, peace, and security. With the creation of a Working Group on Empowerment of Women, under India’s G20 Presidency, in September 2023, and designating “women-led development” as one of the central focal points of the Summit, one could see India progressing towards adopting gender-sensitive foreign policy, if not a feminist one.
The Road Ahead
As the well-known feminist shibboleth goes, “personal is political,” which implies that peace starts at home. The role of women in peace and security negotiations cannot be ignored. Countries with a gender-sensitive foreign policy tend to be less engaged in conflicts, sign more international treaties, and lead peacemaking efforts. As mentioned above, the FFP broadens the traditional notion of security to include food insecurity, climate crises, the impact of migration, global pandemics, and human rights violations. The achievement of global peace is not possible if there exists some or the other kind of human suffering in any corner of the world. FFP provides a powerful lens through which we can counter violent systems of power like patriarchy, racism, imperialism, and militarism that leave most of the population in a perpetual state of vulnerability and despair. The systematic mainstreaming of a gender perspective in the implementation of the 2030 agenda is crucial, especially since SDG 5 calls for women’s equal participation in decision-making.
But is having a feminist foreign policy in place and employing more women in decision-making positions enough to ensure gender-just practices at the international level? Highly unlikely. Firstly, true feminist principles have often been diluted in the practice of FFP, and a gap between the rhetoric and the actual implementation is obvious in most countries. For example, Canada adopted its version of the FFP, Feminist Assistance International Policy (FIAP) in 2017, but no budget allocations were made to bring it into effect. In many of the nations that claim to have FFP, women are still barred from exercising agenda-setting power in military and security. Secondly, a nation’s foreign policy reflects its domestic policies. To mainstream the gender perspective at the international level, it is crucial to do the same at the local and national levels first. We need societies to recognize the importance of gender-sensitive foreign policy and its role in peacebuilding and security. Thirdly, there is a need to engage more and more men in the discussions revolving around FFP so that they can recognize its importance. Countries like Sweden and Spain’s FFPs have somewhat limited their scope by restricting the intersectionality only to women, excluding other marginalized groups. Policy decisions should be made with the people affected in mind, incorporating the diverse voices of all the historically marginalized groups, and setting in place measures to assess progress. As more and more countries are inclining towards adopting a feminist foreign policy, it is crucial to discuss some of the measures to assess the progress of their commitment to promoting gender equality, to ensure the achievement of a broader vision of FFP, and not just improving women’s representation and rights.
References
“Feminist foreign policies: An introduction.” United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), 2022. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2022/09/brief-feminist-foreign-policies. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Thompson, Lyric. “Feminist Foreign Policy: A Framework.” International Centre for Research on Women, 2020. https://www.icrw.org/publications/feminist-foreign-policy-a-framework/. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Brechenmacher, Saskia. “Germany Has a New Feminist Foreign Policy. What Does It Mean in Practice?” Carnegie, 8 March 2023. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/03/germany-has-a-new-feminist-foreign-policy-what-does-it-mean-in-practice?lang=en. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Khillare, Tisya. “The Feminist Foreign Policy Agenda: What is It and Why Should India Engage with It?” Heinrich Bol Stiftung, 30 January 2023. https://in.boell.org/en/feminist-foreign-policy01. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Patel, Vibhuti. “Analyzing the Impact of Feminist Foreign Policy in India: A Critical Perspective on South Asia.” Impact and Policy Research Institute, 16 July 2023. https://www.impriindia.com/insights/analyzing-ffp-impact-india/. Accessed 10 July 2024.
Puri, Lakshmi. “What’s in a name? India’s march towards a feminist foreign policy.” The Sunday Guardian, 5 November 2023. https://sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/whats-in-a-name-indias-march-towards-a-feminist-foreign-policy. Accessed 10 July 2024.
Khullar, Akanksha. “A Lukewarm Commitment: India and Gender Equality in Security Affairs.” The Diplomat, 23 January 2020. https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/a-lukewarm-commitment-india-and-gender-equality-in-security-affairs/. Accessed 10 July 2024.
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