Getting Feminist Foreign Policy Wrong

I have been involved recently in some activities labeled “feminist foreign policy.” A podcast on “the intricate world of feminist foreign policy” caught my eye, not least for the strange adjective.

The page for the podcast, along with the promotion above, which came in an email, are not promising. The two featured speakers are men: William Alberque, the Director of Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control for the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and Louis Reitmann, a Research Associate from the Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation since 2022. Both are given short bios. And oh yes, also included are Mara Zarka and Federica Dall’Arche, identified as Reitmann’s colleagues at the Vienna Centre. That’s all that is said about them. No titles, no bios.

I checked the Vienna Centre’s website. Mara Zarka is a Research Associate and Project Manager and has been at the Centre since 2013. Federica Dall’Arche is a Senior Research Associate and an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy. Looks like both are senior to Reitmann.

The structure of the podcast echoes that emphasis. The two men talk for twenty minutes before the women are allowed into the conversation. To be fair, the women get 2/3 of the time, but the conversation is directed by Alberque sharing his ideas about what feminist foreign policy must be – peace and disarmament, no? The women, as many of us have done, gently suggest that the purpose of a feminist viewpoint is to critique existing structures and perhaps disrupt them. Alberque tries hard to get an affirmation that deterrence might serve peace and fails. He’s also concerned that that word “feminist” maybe puts people off and should be replaced by “human rights.”

So yes, one more man who doesn’t get it doing his best not to get it. Two more podcasts are said to be in preparation for this series.

The term “feminist foreign policy,” however, to some degree supports Alberque’s misreadings.

As in many fields dominated by men, the phrase “foreign policy” has been taken to imply “objective foreign policy.” The absence of women, people of color, and others from the field has produced gendered thinking, and that gender is male. The field is also dominated by white Europeans and Americans. That is changing slowly. Adding an adjective like “feminist” makes it less.

Critiques of foreign policy are possible from many points of emphasis. Realist critique of foreign policy. Ecological critique of foreign policy. Monetarist critique of foreign policy. Humanitarian critique of foreign policy. Feminist critique of foreign policy.

But when an adjective is added to “foreign policy,” it limits the topic and suggests a program: Realist foreign policy, ecological foreign policy, monetarist foreign policy, humanitarian foreign policy, feminist foreign policy. Some in the field of feminist foreign policy develop programs and policies. But, as the women in the podcast point out, the field also includes a critique of existing foreign policy. Feminism as an analytic tool can point out where things are going wrong and how policies might be improved.

The critique has been neglected but is badly needed. Foreign policy has been dominated by men since its inception as a field, and remains overwhelmingly male today.

The podcast contains some useful information. But its structure comes right out of the old playbook for keeping women down, and neglecting to identify them on the page is an insult. Not too long ago, IISS had a strong woman as Deputy Director-General, Kori Schake. Apparently things have changed.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner