Feminist Foreign Policy

The world’s first feminist foreign policy was launched in 2014 by Sweden, whose then-Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom described it as “standing against the systematic and global subordination of women” and a “precondition” for achieving Sweden’s wider foreign development and security policy objectives. Since that time, two more countries—Canada, in 2017, and France, in 2019—have officially proclaimed foreign policies feminist.

But what does that mean? What definition can capture its complexity, its nuances? And how do we ensure the focus is not just on women but on power relations and gender equality more broadly, using an explicitly rights-based and intersectional understanding of feminism? ICRW has committed to working with feminists in the United States and around the world to define the emerging field of feminist foreign policy. As such, we are conducting research, convening with experts and building a global campaign that will surface recommendations and develop an action plan for making this vision a reality.

On this page, we are compiling our emerging research, consultation reports, policy recommendations and additional resources that we hope will advance and inform this important emerging area of foreign policy.

A Working Definition

As an intersectional movement, certainly one of the most readily apparent is the tendency of governments to use the word feminist when they mean “women and girls.” This reinforces the binary and undermines work to overcome white, ethnocentric and western-centric, cis feminism’s historical (and current) sins. Even when policies focus on gender equality, and not simply women’s empowerment, much of the literature critiquing existing feminist foreign policies points to a lack of attention to intersectional forms of discrimination and marginalization such as race, ethnicity, disability, class, or refugee status.

In order to start building up a platform to highlight feminist foreign policy, we first needed a definition that ensures intersectionality is centered before moving forward.

In this brief, we attempt to define feminist foreign policy after taking a wide range of perspectives into account and narrowing down to a definition that works. We first take a close look at the world’s few existing “feminist” (Sweden, Canada, France) approaches to foreign policy and build on that foundation.

Click here to read more in English. Translated versions: Arabic  |  French  |  Spanish

Journal Publications

As part of the 20th volume of the Journal of Diplomacy, ICRW’s Rachel Clement and Lyric Thompson discuss what it will take to move beyond a definition of feminist foreign policy.

Read Is the Future of Foreign Policy Feminist? by clicking here.