As the global movement for feminist foreign policy grows, the European Parliament votes in favour
The European Parliament has just voted (according to EUObserver) to approve the idea of a feminist foreign policy for the EU (477 MEPs voted Yes, 112 voted No, and 94 did not vote). It was based on a report commissioned by two Green MEPs, Germany’s Hannah Neumann and Spain’s Ernest Urtasun, from the Centre For Feminist Foreign Policy.
A feminist foreign policy aims to think of gender equality in all areas of the field: aid, trade, diplomacy, defence and security (but scroll down for a more detailed definition).
"An EU feminist foreign policy should make sure to prioritise gender equality in all activities, guarantee women access and participation at all levels, and allocate significant financial and human resources to achieve that vision," Urtasun said.
The European Parliament does not have legislative authority on this issue, and its report was non-binding. Still, Neumann said it sends out a strong political signal to other EU institutions and to member states.
"If we want our foreign policy to be successful, we need to empower women both abroad and in our own structures. Our report makes this very clear. The time to start taking action is now," she said.
By introducing its feminist foreign policy in 2014, Sweden set in motion a growing movement, based on rights, representation, and resources.
Today, Canada, France, and Mexico also have a FPP. Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland have a strong focus on gender equality, while Cyprus, Luxembourg, and Spain have announced an intent to either develop a feminist foreign policy or to make gender equality a priority [see p. 22-3 of Feminist Foreign Policy paper]
Foreign policy is typically dominated by men. For example, only three ministers of foreign affairs in the EU are women, while the rest are men.
"Diversity makes political decisions better. That is especially true in war and crisis situations. This is why women need to sit at the negotiation table. The reality shows, however, that they are severely underrepresented - in the military, in diplomacy, in high-level negotiations - and this is also true for our own EU institutions and missions," said Neumann, who also sits on the EP's foreign affairs committee and its security and defence sub-committee.
The Centre that produced the paper has a comprehensive statement on what a feminist foreign policy might be:
We believe foreign policy has the potential to be a mechanism for equality, justice, solidarity, and peace.
But there can't be peace without feminism.
A Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) is a political framework centred around the wellbeing of marginalised people and invokes processes of self-reflection regarding foreign policy’s hierarchical global systems.
FFP takes a step outside the black-box approach of traditional foreign policy thinking and its focus on military force, violence, and domination by offering an alternate and intersectional rethinking of security from the viewpoint of the most vulnerable.
It is a multidimensional policy framework that aims to elevate women’s and marginalised groups’ experiences and agency to scrutinise the destructive forces of patriarchy, colonisation, heteronormativity, capitalism, racism, imperialism, and militarism.
CFFP believes a feminist approach to foreign policy provides a powerful lens through which we can interrogate the violent global systems of power that leave millions of people in perpetual states of vulnerability.
An intersectional feminist perspective has been increasingly implemented in academia and activism, but less so in policy practice. CFFP draws on lessons from critical feminist and race scholarship so that we can:
Develop actionable policy recommendations in order to make foreign policy more accessible and democratic.
Challenge the dominant neoliberal underpinnings of international political discourse.
Facilitate structural and hierarchical change to end patterns of oppression and discrimination.
Elevate the voices of those who’ve suffered most from militarised security.
Emphasise historicised, context-specific analyses of how destructive dichotomies play out in practice.
Interrogate domestic and foreign policy decisions to push for a more just global order.
More here. The CFFP have a lively list of projects and reports - we particularly want to read their report on Killer Robots.
Thanks to EU Observer's reporting for detail in this blog