Feminist foreign policy

This event will explore why a feminist foreign policy benefits everyone.

Members event, Panel
8 March 2022 — 6:00PM TO 7:00PM
Online

In 2014, Sweden declared it would pursue a feminist foreign policy. In practice, this means that a significant cultural shift has taken place in the Swedish foreign service with changes in recruitment measures, resulting in an increase in women managers and the proportion of women managers now close to 50 per cent. Gender is now at the heart of Sweden’s policymaking with trade agreements and financial assistance considered through the lens of gender equality. 85 per cent of Swedish bilateral development aid is gender-mainstreamed or has gender equality as a main objective.

While the pandemic risks reversing progress in gender equality, nonetheless, countries including Canada, France, Luxembourg, Spain, Mexico and Germany are following Sweden’s lead. France prides itself on being the world’s fourth most gender-balanced military in the world. President Emmanuel Macron has made gender balance one of the ‘top national causes’ for his term. He has appointed a powerful female Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, who has escalated the drive for gender balance to a top priority across all France’s armed forces.

This year’s event will look at how feminist foreign policies are critical to the economic and social empowerment of societies as a whole:

  • How can politics be reformed to be more inclusive of women?

  • What practical measures can governments take to adopt a feminist foreign policy?

  • How does a feminist foreign policy benefit everyone?

  • What measures should governments take to address the rising gender inequality as a result of the global pandemic?

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