The Future of Foreign Policy Is Feminist E-Book

Kristina Lunz

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 703

Beschreibung

As old white men continue to dominate the national and international stages, the needs of women and minorities are constantly ignored. International politics are shaped by a ruthless competition for advantage, and the world is full of conflicts, crises and wars. Things have to change. Activist and political scientist Kristina Lunz is on a mission to do just that. In her work from New York to Bogotá, from Germany to Myanmar, she became aware of a stubborn unwillingness to think past the status quo and to embrace new, innovative voices from marginalized groups. She also saw that the tradition of feminist activism combined brilliantly with diplomacy: both require grim tenacity, boundless creativity and a solutions-oriented approach. In her attempt to reconfigure the field of foreign policy, she aims to set in motion a paradigm shift, replacing grandiose displays of military might with feminism, solidarity and climate justice. A feminist foreign policy requires the promotion of equal rights in the handling of foreign affairs and security matters worldwide, with a particular focus on marginalized and politically underrepresented groups. Ultimately, this is nothing less than an inclusive, visionary policy for the twenty-first century, one where security and prosperity, health and climate justice are possible - in other words: where peace is possible for everyone, everywhere.

Leseprobe

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Endorsements

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Preface to the 2023 edition

Begin Reading

Index

End User License Agreement

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Praise forThe Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist

‘I have known Kristina for several years – as a co-conspirator, critic and ally. Over the years, we have celebrated feminist civil society’s wins, had thought-provoking conversations, and brainstormed the ways that all of us in our various manifestations – activists, civil society actors, feminist academics and allies – can create systemic change. I’ve also challenged and debated her and seen her grow as a person and as a feminist and leader. Now, I am honored and pleased to be writing this comment on her book – the first of many yet to come, no doubt. I believe that this book will make you question the status quo of security and foreign policy and rethink it in a more humane, effective and inclusive way. It illustrates the connections and intricacies of the most pressing issues of our time – the climate crisis, pandemics, growing inequalities and inequities at every societal level – and emphasizes what feminist civil society knew for a long time: there’s no peace without feminism and no policy decision should be made without those it affects – nothing about us without us.

Kristina is a remarkably bold thinker in foreign policy. She’s persistent, hard-working, well-reflected, empathetic, determined, and doesn’t take no for an answer. Crucially, she is aware of the shoulders she stands on and the work of those that came before her. She knows that it’s not individuals but social movements that change history and make herstory. Kristina and the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, now an internationally renowned organization she built from scratch, challenge the status quo of foreign policy – a status quo that works for the few and marginalizes those it affects most – while offering sustainable intersectional feminist solutions for a better future: a future built by and for all. In short, Kristina knows that the future of foreign policy is feminist!’

Madeleine ReesSecretary-General of the Women’s InternationalLeague for Peace and Freedom

‘The future of foreign policy is feminist. When I announced Sweden’s feminist foreign policy as foreign minister in 2014, making Sweden the first country in the world to adopt and pursue a feminist foreign policy, I didn’t imagine that, by now, many countries, including Mexico and Canada, would follow suit. Today, we stand on the shoulders of all the trailblazing activists who have paved the way for a new sustainable and human-security focused vision of foreign policy: feminist foreign policy. Frankly, we cannot speak about foreign policy without speaking about feminist foreign policy.

I am grateful that civil society persistently continues to push and expand the feminist foreign policy agenda further. Kristina’s book and the work of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy does exactly that – it describes a bold vision for a sustainable future that centres human security. Kristina challenges the status quo of foreign policy and security and explores the tensions and opportunities that lie at the nexus between diplomacy and activism. She portrays leading thinkers in foreign policy and inspires readers to demand a foreign policy serving those affected by it. In this book, she illustrates what a feminist foreign policy entails, explains why it is the most effective way to address the challenges of our time, and emphasizes the imperative for all countries to adopt a feminist foreign policy.’

Margot WallströmFormer Foreign Minister of Sweden

‘Kristina Lunz shows the possibility of a more just and secure world – and thus a way out of the current crisis.’

Emilia Roig, founder and Executive Directorof the Center for Intersectional Justice

‘Kristina Lunz puts her finger on the wound and makes an eloquent and astute case: A feminist foreign policy is urgent and necessary.’

Kübra Gümüsay, author of Speaking and Being

‘There is only one sustainable and safe future: one without indiscriminate weapons, violence and the destruction of our ecosystem. Kristina Lunz shows how this is possible.’

Beatrice Finh, former Executive Director ofInternational Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,2017 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

‘The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist is a timely and thought-provoking exploration of the vital role that feminism plays in shaping the international landscape. Drawing on her expertise, Lunz highlights the urgent need for feminist approaches in foreign policy to address the root causes of conflict and build sustainable peace.’

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Centre forCivil Liberties, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

‘Kristina Lunz’s The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist tackles the pressing questions that feminism brings to power and global politics in a comprehensive and conscientious way. With her nuanced and persuasive arguments, Lunz inspires us to reimagine what foreign policy can be and to work towards a more equitable and beautiful world.’

Minna Salami, author of Can Feminism be African? andSensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

‘Kristina Lunz is an innovative, forward thinking, creative and resilient leader – something the world needs now more than ever. This book, and her vision throughout it, demonstrates every one of these qualities. It brings to life a new way of seeing and believing in the world we live in.’

Jennifer Cassidy, diplomatic scholar at the University of Oxford

‘Through an impressive combination of rigorous research, keen analysis and personal reflection, Kristina Lunz has produced a persuasive critique of the dominant paradigm of international relations. More importantly, she offers a compelling alternative vision “fit for purpose” for the twenty-first century, based on feminist principles and values including respect for all life, justice, empathy and humility. Only if we are guided by these principles and values are we likely to manage successfully the profound challenges of our times – violent conflict, the climate crisis, the denial of basic human rights, pandemic disease and deep economic disparities. Lunz shows us that we can be robust in our military support for Ukraine while pursuing longer term strategies focused on building a better and safer world. Men, above all, should read this book.’

Stephen Heintz, President & CEO, Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Dedication

The door has been pushed open. I hope many will walk through it.For all those whose expertise is dismissedbecause they dare to imaginea new – feminist! – society,moving away from the patriarchal status quo,towards justice.They are the only hope we have.

THE FUTURE OF FOREIGN POLICY IS FEMINIST

KRISTINA LUNZ

Translated by Nicola Barfoot

polity

Originally published in German as Die Zukunft der Außenpolitik ist feministisch© Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin. Published in 2022 by Econ Verlag

This English edition © Polity Press, 2023

All illustrations © Katie Turnbull

Excerpt from ‘The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action’ in Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde included by permission. Copyright © 1984, 2007 by Audre Lorde

Excerpts from The Mother of All Things by Rebecca Solnit, Haymarket Books, 2017, used by permission of the publisher

Excerpt from My Seditious Heart, page 204, by Arundhati Roy, 2019, included by permission of Roam Agency

Excerpt from Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. Copyright © 2019 Caroline Criado-Perez. Used by permission of Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS, New York. All rights reserved

Excerpt from Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez published by Chatto & Windus.Copyright © Caroline Criado Perez, 2019. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5784-4

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2023931484

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many wonderful people without whom this book would not exist. First and foremost the trailblazers, the pioneering thinkers and visionary women on whose shoulders I stand.

The book would definitely not exist without the two women who helped me hands-on to bring it into the world: my editors Silvie Horch (from Econ – the whole Econ/Ullstein team is amazing!) and Heike Wolter. I’ve learned so much from both of you – thank you! And the English version would not exist without the wonderful team behind my English publisher Polity Press, first and foremost Elise Heslinga and Nicola Barfoot.

My Berlin team at the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy contributed a lot of the research and facts and figures mentioned in the book. That’s not all, though; they also offered enthusiastic support throughout the writing process. Thank you to Nina Bernarding, Damjan Denkovski, Anna Provan, Sheena Anderson, Annika Droege and Annika Kreitlow.

The book could not have come about without the experts who shared their knowledge with me, time and time again. Thank you for your generous support and patience, Louise Arimatsu, Heidi Meinzolt, Leonie Bremer, Juri Schnöller, Emilia Roig, Alice Grindhammer, Aron Haschemi, Tiaji Sio, Laura Hatzler, Jutta von Falkenhausen, Thomas Grischko, Gotelind Alber, Janika Lohse, Lea Börgerding, Kaan Sahin, Nicola Popovic, Elvira Rosert, Aleksandra Dier, Annette Ludwig and Madeleine Rees. For the German paperback edition I also received fantastic support from Sarah Farhatiar, Nahid Shahalimi, Gilda Sahebi, Katharina Rietzler, and government employees of the states that already have a feminist foreign policy. I’m very grateful.

Thank you Nes Kapacu for the fabulous cover – and special thanks for your patience!

And a huge thank you for your love, your emotional support, and your help in deciding on the title and cover design of the original German edition: Beggy, Nina, Kaan, Alice, Waldemar, Bianca, Yara, Jeannette, Lisa, Sophia, Jutta and Mama. Love you.

ABBREVIATIONS

ACLED

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project

ACLJ

American Center for Law and Justice

ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union

ADF

Alliance Defending Freedom

Afd

Alternative for Germany

AFD

Agence Française de Développement – French Development Agency

ATT

Arms Trade Treaty

BIPoC

Black, indigenous & people of colour

CAT

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

CCW

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

CDU

Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands – Christian Democratic Union of Germany

CEDAW

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

CEPI

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness

CFFP

Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

CPED

International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

CRC

Convention on the Rights of the Child

CRPD

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

CSW

UN Commission on the Status of Women

DGAP

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik – German Council on Foreign Relations

DoC

Diplomats of Color

ECLJ

The European Center for Law and Justice

FARC

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

FDP

Freie Demokratische Partei – Free Democratic Party

Gavi

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization

GBD

Global Burden of Disease study

ICAN

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

ICERD

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

ICESCR

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ICRW

International Center for Research on Women

IMA

Interministerielle Arbeitsgruppe im Auswärtigen Amt – Interministerial Working Group in the Federal Foreign Office

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IUCN

International Union for Conservation of Nature

JCPoA

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

KADEM

Women and Democracy Association (Turkey)

LGBTQ+

lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer and other orientations and identities

LSHTM

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

MAPA

most affected people and areas

MEP

Member of European Parliament

NAP

national action plan

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NDG

nationally determined contribution

NTD

neglected tropical disease

OECD

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

OHCHR

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

OSCE

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

P5

Permanent 5 – permanent members of the UN Security Council

SAP

structural adjustment programme

SGBV

sexual and gender-based violence

SIPRI

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

SPD

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands –Social Democratic Party of Germany

SRHR

sexual and reproductive health and rights

TPNW

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

UDHR

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNFCCC

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

UNHRC

United Nations Human Rights Council

UN OCHA

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

UNSCR

United Nations Security Council Resolution

WCAPS

Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation

WHO

World Health Organization

WIDF

Women’s International Democratic Federation

WILPF

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

WPS

Women, Peace and Security – UN Resolution 1325 and its related resolutions

WTO

World Trade Organization

PREFACE TO THE 2023 EDITION

‘Totally out of place and yet highly topical’:* this was the comment in a TV item on my book shortly after it was published early in 2022. To be precise, the date of publication was 24 February 2022, the very day on which Vladimir Putin began his war of aggression against Ukraine. The numerous newspaper, radio and TV interviews scheduled for the book’s publication ended up focusing almost exclusively on the war and paying little attention to the vision of a feminist foreign policy. On 27 February 2022, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced a ‘turning point’ (Zeitenwende)in foreign policy and a €100 billion special fund for the armed forces. This seemed to define the general direction of future foreign policy activities: more militarization and a greater emphasis on military security. In an emergency such as the murderous war in Ukraine, when one particular response predominates and appears to be the only right thing to do (in this case, more weapons and a stronger army), then other ideas for the future and possible solutions are quickly rejected and the people associated with them attacked and vilified. This is exactly what happened to me, and others had similar experiences. One of these was Beatrice Finh, who had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 on behalf of her organization, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), for their work towards the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. On 27 February 2022, online news portals announced that Putin had put his nuclear forces on high alert. Overnight, organizations that had campaigned to end nuclear deterrence for decades were dismissed as pointless. For me, however, these events made it clearer than ever that the work of organizations such as ICAN is exactly what we need – and we need much more of it, not less.

There is no doubt that people who are acutely affected by brutal and deadly violence need help – help that meets their demands and enables them to defend themselves as effectively as possible. At the same time, however, it is both true and empirically evident that more weapons and militarization today will lead to more violence, wars and conflicts in the future. The hypermilitarized state of our world is not a law of nature but the result of decades – centuries! – of old political decisions. In 2021 (in the middle of the pandemic, when money was too tight to distribute vaccines equitably worldwide or to provide sufficient hospital beds and medical personnel), more than $US2 trillion was spent globally on defence and militarization – the highest value ever recorded.* In contrast, only about $6.45 billion was made available in June 2022 for the UN’s peacekeeping operations for the year. That’s less than 0.4 per cent of the military spending. Albert Einstein supposedly said that problems can’t be solved with the same thinking that caused them. But this is exactly what our society attempts to do – again and again.

Feminists in foreign and security policy are very good at distinguishing between short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. In a hypermilitarized world, supplying arms to help people in imminent danger is the right thing to do in the short term. At the same time, more sustainable solutions are needed in the medium and long term. These include special funds for civil crisis prevention, (nuclear) disarmament, the strengthening of international law and human rights, and support for human rights defenders and (feminist) civil society worldwide.

This edition of the book incorporates answers to the many questions I have been asked since the outbreak of war. It contains numerous updates to the previous German version and new (sub)chapters. In chapter 13, which is completely new, I both take a closer look at Putin’s war in Ukraine and the feminist revolution in Iran and write about the relevance and practice of feminist foreign policy in times of war and conflict. The earlier edition, with a copy deadline of early December 2021, was also unable to deal fully with another important development that was taking place in Germany. In late November 2021, the new government announced in its coalition agreement that Germany would henceforth pursue a feminist foreign policy. Since then, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock – the first female foreign minister in the 151-year history of the Federal Foreign Office – has consistently drawn attention to the rights of women and minorities and has emphasized human security as a crucial expansion of the narrow focus on military security. Since the announcement of Germany’s feminist foreign policy, Baerbock has repeatedly led the German Foreign Office in new and unaccustomed directions. One example is the appointment of the former head of Greenpeace, Jennifer Morgan, as state secretary and special envoy for international climate action. Another is the successful proposal (with Iceland) of a UN Human Rights Council resolution to investigate the violence of the Iranian regime against protesters. I scrutinize Germany’s feminist foreign policy in the revised chapter 7.

We must not forget that humankind was facing a multitude of simultaneous crises even before the Russian war of aggression: the long-standing climate catastrophe, the pandemic, and the steady rise in armed conflicts involving states. In the last ten years, the number of such conflicts has nearly doubled, from thirty in 2010 to fifty-six in 2020. In the same period, the number of people killed in conflicts and wars has doubled, as has the number of refugees. In 2010, there were 41 million displaced persons worldwide; in 2020 this figure had risen to 82.4 million.* Russia’s war is exacerbating all these trends. When, if not now, will we as a society finally realize that ‘business as usual’ is not an option and that traditional political approaches do not lead to a fair, peaceful or sustainable world? We have to finally stop applying ‘solutions’ that will become tomorrow’s problems.

Kristina LunzBerlin, January 2023

*

MDR Artour, 3 March 2022,

www.mdr.de/tv/programm/sendung-733162.html

.

*

www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2022/world-military-expenditure-passes-2-trillion-first-time

.

*

www.sipri.org/research/peace-and-development/environment-peace

.

1PROLOGUE:THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

What I most regretted were my silences… .And there are so many silences to be broken.

Audre Lorde, ‘The transformation of silence into language and action’, in Sister Outsider (Feasterville Trevose, PA: Crossing Press, 2007)

It helps to be naive. Sometimes it’s even a blessing. If I’d realized, in 2014, what happens when a woman takes a public stand and calls out injustices, I probably wouldn’t have started a campaign against sexism and the degradation of women in Germany’s top-selling tabloid, Bild. But I was naive. I had no idea of the extreme hatred and violence that confronts women in the public arena – especially when they criticize the status quo.

Not knowing all this, in October 2014 I launched the petition ‘Zeigt allen Respekt – Schluss mit Sexismus in BILD!’ (Show respect for everyone – no more sexism in Bild!). The campaign was born of the tremendous anger I felt towards the newspaper. ‘Anger at injustice and inequality is in many ways exactly like fuel’,1 writes Rebecca Traister in Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. Here she shows how the anger of women – from the suffragettes to the legendary Black* civil rights activist Rosa Parks, #MeToo or the Women’s March – unleashes a transformative force. This has also been the experience of my friend and mentor Dr Scilla Elworthy. Born in Scotland in 1943, founder of numerous organizations and three times a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, she gave me this insight: anger is like gasoline. If you spray it around thoughtlessly it can spark a fire and cause massive destruction. But if you use it carefully, it can serve as fuel for your inner motor.

My feminist awakening …

So there it was, the anger. I was in my mid-twenties and studying for my first master’s degree at University College London. That in itself was surprising, given that my parents hadn’t been to university. In Germany, parents’ income and level of education are the main determinants of their children’s career path. While 79 per cent of the children of university graduates go to university, only 27 per cent of the children of non-graduates do so. Only 11 per cent of the children of non-graduates do a master’s degree, as opposed to 43 per cent of the children of graduates. The class we’re born into determines our life to a significant extent. Individual social capital – the social group we belong to, the people we know – is a door-opener.2

In London I was overwhelmed by pretty much everything: the size of the city, the language, and the elite environment. I was intimidated and had a constant feeling of inadequacy. My fellow students had done their undergraduate degrees at Cambridge, Oxford, or other international universities; I came from an ordinary university in Germany. I buried myself in books; I had a lot of catching up to do. My main reading material was feminist literature: I’d barely had any contact with this before, but for many of my fellow students it was standard fare.

My struggles were partly to do with my origins. I grew up in a village of eighty inhabitants in a picturesque corner of Bavaria as the youngest of three children – my twin brother is five minutes older than me. It was a sheltered childhood, in a very loving and warm-hearted family. In my teens, however, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable in my surroundings. Everything about the community was very traditional. All the positions of power – the priest, the pub owner, the heads of the sports clubs, the mayor, the doctor, the driving instructor – were (and still are) occupied by men, and these men were treated with great respect. At the same time, some of them failed to show respect for me and other young women. At village festivals or sports days, they stood much too close to us at the bar, made sexualized allusions, and overstepped boundaries. When I wanted to gain my driving licence, it was an open secret that young women shouldn’t take their lessons with the head of the driving school, who was widely known to have wandering hands. But in my time no one did anything about it – it was the norm.

Respect was a core tenet of my upbringing: it was extremely important to my parents to teach me and my siblings to treat our fellow humans respectfully. Dismissive terms such as ‘idiot’ were not used in our home. Even if there were differences of opinion, there was never any shouting or disparaging language. Appreciation, reliability and helpfulness were the virtues we were measured against. My father, during his lifetime, worked long hours but was always there for the family and other villagers if they needed help in the evening or weekend – whether it was tying a necktie or laying cables (he was a trained electrician). The word ‘kindness’ is probably the best description for the feeling our parents gave us. And it was this that I found hard to reconcile with the highly unpleasant feeling that many men inspired in me as a child and teenager. On the one hand, a great deal of respect was paid to these men in positions of leadership; on the other hand, it seemed that some of them exploited this status and behaved in a manner that was anything but kind – particularly towards us young girls and women. Yet my father’s example showed me, even as a child, that there was another way.

In London, thanks to feminist literature and an international, cosmopolitan environment, a new world opened up to me. All at once, there were concepts and explanations for the many unpleasant situations and injustices that I’d sensed for years but had never been able to frame or even articulate. The time in London was my feminist awakening. I learned, for example, that whenever a group of people is collectively objectified – by sexualization, for example – these individuals are dehumanized. This objectification makes it easier to inflict violence on them. In early 2021, a study by UN Women in the UK showed that 97 per cent of women aged eighteen to twenty-four had experienced sexualized violence in the form of harassment in public spaces.3 Girls in Brazil are between nine and ten years old, on average, when they first experience sexual harassment.4 Almost none of the perpetrators are ever held accountable. In Germany it is estimated that fewer than 1 per cent (!) of all rapists (not just those whose victims report them) are brought to justice.5 Also in Germany, one man attempts to kill his female partner or ex-partner every day. Every second to third day, one of them succeeds. It is a scandal that femicide is not a specific criminal offence, punished with the utmost severity, in German courts.

In short, I was far more aware of the malign influence of the patriarchy by the time I returned home at the end of my first term in London. Paying for petrol, I saw the Bild newspaper lying in front of me at the checkout. The front page showed photos of the cleavage of famous women and an invitation to vote for the ‘best bosom on German TV’. I was disgusted by the degrading treatment of these celebrities – and of women in general. As one of Germany’s top-selling newspapers, Bild contributes to the preposterously high rate of male violence against women. At the time, I had no idea what activism was, or how to change things. But I wasn’t prepared to tolerate this discrimination and sexualization of women, however widely it was accepted in our society.

When I talked to friends and acquaintances about my anger, many of them thought I shouldn’t make such a fuss. After all, it was normal. But who defines what is normal and accepted? I remembered my feeling of powerlessness as a young girl, when I’d see Bild lying on my grandmother’s kitchen table in front of my assembled family, male members included. The front page showed news stories – mainly about men – and the ‘Bild girl’, the German version of the page 3 girl, the sexualized representation of a female body. I felt ashamed, sullied and humiliated. Would I be ogled later in life, like them? Would my body be commented on and sexualized? Would I be seen as an object, while the men around me were valued as subjects, playing active and dominant roles in politics, business, society and culture?

I sat down at my desk and wrote an open letter to Kai Diekmann, the editor-in-chief of Bild at the time. This became the start of a petition and a campaign. I wrote: ‘It’s time all people were treated with the same respect in Bild and Bild.de: women are not society’s sex objects!’ Nearly 60,000 people signed. It was a much needed step to counter the silencing of women, which the patriarchy – smothering every truth that does not serve it – has practised for millennia.

This is also shown by the many examples of sexualized violence against women that have been discussed in public – as well as all the anonymous or unreported cases. It is shown by experiences such as those of Chanel Miller (raped by Brock Allen Turner on the campus of Stanford University in 2015), Nafissatou Diallo (who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the IMF, of sexual assault in 2011), Christine Blasey Ford (who accused Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 2018) and Nika Irani (who accused the rapper Samra of raping her in June 2021). And it goes on – for example, with the many women harmed by the film producer Harvey Weinstein and by Donald Trump, and the countless survivors of Bill Cosby’s violence. Every time women stand up to their male tormentors, they and their credibility are called into question; it is not uncommon for them to be threatened with rape (again) and murder. And yet we wonder why 90 per cent of rape victims do not report the crime. This is part of the strategy of patriarchal societies: hold your tongue or you’re in for even more violence.

Tabloids such as Bild and rappers with lyrics like ‘Ich fick sie fast tot, sie liegt im Wachkoma’ (I fuck her nearly to death, she’s a vegetable now)6 show how widespread misogyny is. Men are the doers; women become sex objects. This toxic masculinity, visible in media, politics and culture, is tolerated by society and is also played out in private and professional settings. So it comes as no surprise to learn that the former editor-in-chief of Bild, Julian Reichelt, abused his power over young female employees. The scandal was first revealed by the news magazine Der Spiegel in March 2021, in an article entitled ‘Vögeln, fördern, feuern’ (Shag, promote, fire), but did not lead to Reichelt’s dismissal from Bild until the New York Times* ran the story in mid-October 2021. Why would someone responsible for the devaluation of women in a mass medium treat them any differently in real life? And the more powerful the man, the greater the impact: Donald Trump, accused of sexual abuse by at least twenty-six women, began his term of office with presidential decrees that radically restricted women’s rights.7 Of course it is not just these individual misogynists who are the problem – it is entire systems, patriarchal systems, which protect and tolerate these men, allowing them to act.

Back then, in my naivety, I didn’t know what feminists, female activists, and women taking a stand in public had to put up with on a near daily basis. I wouldn’t learn until later that 88 per cent of the internet users who had witnessed digital violence said that the hate was aimed at women;8 that 58 per cent of the girls and young women questioned in a 2020 study by Plan International had been harassed online;9 or that, in a survey of 70 million reader comments in 2016, The Guardian had found that eight of the ten journalists subjected to the most threats were women, and that the two men among the top ten were Black. The person who attracted the most hatred and attacks was the feminist writer Jessica Valenti.10 White men are not exposed to this violence.

If I’d known all this, who knows whether I would have dared to raise my voice. As it was, a wave of digital violence rolled over me when Kai Diekmann mocked me and my petition on his Twitter account, inviting me to procure him more ‘Bild girls’. My inboxes and social media accounts filled up with messages from men who hoped I would be raped or threatened to rape me themselves and inflict violence on my family. I felt paralysed; I broke down and cried a lot. At first I was convinced that my future role would be limited to silent observation of the oppressive patriarchal system. I couldn’t understand that my request for a respectful representation of women had been met with graphic descriptions of the sexual abuse men wanted to inflict on me. It was only the solidarity of other women activists that gave me the courage to carry on. And the knowledge that using (online) violence to silence me as a woman was exactly what those men wanted. I refused to give them that satisfaction. I wasn’t just angry and hurt, I was determined.

… and where it led

Solidarity with other women and women activists meant that I refused to be silenced, in spite of this violence. In 2000, scientists from the University of California in Los Angeles found that the conventional ‘fight or flight’ narrative – the notion that people under stress either attack or flee – was incomplete. Their study11 showed that women were more inclined to ‘tend and befriend’: to care for each other, show solidarity, and offer each other support and advice. This gives protection, reduces stress and consolidates networks. To this day, the first place I turn when I need support is my network of wonderful women. And whenever one of us needs the same thing, I do my very best to offer her this protection and a place of emotional refuge. Talking and listening, sharing experiences (especially of violence) and supporting each other: this is the strength of friendships among women. ‘[T]he women’s movement was born of women talking to each other’,12 wrote the great feminist Gloria Steinem. And this is also what enables the feminist movement to grow stronger. ‘We are volcanoes’, the US author Ursula K. Le Guin once said. ‘When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.’13

Just as landscapes are gradually altered by pressure from climate and tides, the ‘Bild girl’ was eventually abolished under Julian Reichelt in 2018. The tabloid’s explanation was: ‘In recent months we’ve had the feeling that many women see these pictures as offensive and degrading, both in our editorial team and among our female readers.’14 Various media outlets saw a connection with my campaign.

The campaign against Bild was the beginning of my feminist activism. Many other campaigns followed. After the sexualized attacks on hundreds of women on New Year’s Eve 2015–16 in Cologne, I joined a feminist collective of twenty-one women. Under the slogan ‘Against sexualized violence and racism. Always. Anywhere. #ausnahmslos’ (‘NoExcuses’), we formulated fourteen demands for politicians, society and the media. We wrote: ‘It is harmful for all of us if feminism is exploited by extremists to incite against certain ethnicities, as is currently being done in the discussion surrounding the incidents in Cologne. It is wrong to highlight sexualized violence only when the perpetrators are allegedly the perceived “others”.’ When we issued the press release at the beginning of January, our appeal was published on the online front pages of most of the major media outlets. A few weeks later we received the Clara Zetkin Prize for political intervention, awarded by the German Left Party (Die Linke) and named after a famous early twentieth-century communist, pacifist and feminist. Ours was the first intersectional feminist campaign to attract so much attention. On that day, we made feminist history.

In the months that followed, the campaign #NeinheißtNein (No Means No) gained momentum. I advised UN Women Germany and helped to devise their campaign to change German criminal law. We wanted to introduce a new criterion for the definition of ‘rape’, which would finally make lack of consent for the sex act the decisive factor. Instead of the victims (in most cases women) having to defend themselves physically against their (usually stronger) attacker, the word ‘no’ would suffice. At the start of the campaign I wrote, in an article for Zeit Online: ‘There is no rational argument against this, except for the desperate attempt to preserve a system in which the rights of men count more than those of women.’ When the German Bundestag (federal parliament) voted unanimously to tighten the law on sexual offences in July 2016, there was great jubilation in feminist civil society. Some organizations, such as the Deutscher Juristinnenbund (German Women Lawyers Association), the Deutscher Frauenrat (National Council of German Women’s Associations) or bff – Frauen gegen Gewalt e.V. (bff – Women Against Violence e.V.), had been fighting for years to achieve this important milestone for the feminist movement.

While campaigning on feminist issues in Germany, I was living in Oxford. I first went there to study diplomacy, on a full scholarship from the university, then worked briefly for the Blavatnik School of Government, an institute for research and teaching on international politics and the government sector.

My studies offered a complete contrast to my political activism. At university I listened to lectures about fragile states, development policy and diplomacy, all from a fairly traditional perspective, and learned about ‘great’ diplomats such as Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). This historian and philosopher, one of the first influential diplomats, saw male qualities as the prerequisite for developing and guiding relations between states. And he was just one example of the lack of diversity in the diplomatic realm – it almost seemed as if the world hadn’t changed at all in the last five hundred years.

In my course I was frequently amazed at the absence of any perspectives from people outside the ‘old, White, male’ category. My questioning was reinforced by campaigns such as #RhodesMustFall, aimed at the decolonization of the curriculum. Inspired by students in South Africa, this movement reverberated as far as Oxford, where I became a supporter.

Certain formative political events took place in 2016 and 2017. In autumn 2016 I spent a few months working for the feminist organization Sisma Mujer in Bogotá, Colombia. Sisma played a major role in ensuring that the peace treaty between the guerrilla group FARC and the Colombian government, aimed at ending one of the longest-running civil wars in Latin America, was framed in historically inclusive terms. Unfortunately, the agreement was narrowly rejected by the population in a referendum one day after my arrival (though the government and the FARC agreed on an amended version some weeks later). During my time in Bogotá we regularly took to the streets with thousands of people to demonstrate for peace and tried to stand up to anti-democratic and antifeminist attacks on the peace process.

In 2016 I was also very much preoccupied by Brexit and Donald Trump’s election victory. On the day of his inauguration in January 2017 I landed in New York City, where I would be working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the next few months. I booked a flight that would allow me – a few hours after my arrival in the middle of the night – to catch one of the many buses going to Washington, DC, for the historic Women’s March. The day gave me hope; it electrified me. On that day, Women’s Marches were taking place on every continent, and millions of people were chanting feminist demands. It was a tremendous, historic example of the resistance that will change our society.

In spring 2017 I moved to Yangon, Myanmar, to continue my work for UNDP. It was the year of the genocide committed by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the western state of Rakhine. So I was working for the United Nations, an organization officially committed to ensuring that genocide – ignored by the international community – would never happen again. And I was in a country where genocide was happening again, and the UN was repeatedly accused of not doing enough to protect the population. A feeling of powerlessness dogged me in my work, and I felt a loss of confidence in international provisions for the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of minorities. Sexualized violence and rape as a weapon of war were widespread. This same military carried out a putsch in February 2021 and declared a two-year state of emergency. In the months that followed, thousands of people were killed in protests against the military coup. Feminists have played a prominent role in the resistance against the military; Nandar, whom I know personally, is one of them. Nandar, one of the best-known feminists in Myanmar, was among the first to stand up to the military. As she and other feminists know, the military is one of the worst manifestations of the patriarchal state – especially when it turns against its own population.

My years of expertise as a feminist activist, coupled with my experience in the field of international politics in the UK, Colombia, the USA and Myanmar, inspired an increasingly strong desire to bring feminist critique into the field of diplomacy and international politics. It was more important to me to change attitudes in these areas than to continue to pursue a career in an established organization. I still remember one of the triggers for this: the UNDP Christmas party in December 2017 in Yangon. It was summer, and we were standing barefoot in the garden of the UN building. Outside, Myanmar was in turmoil, with hundreds of thousands of people murdered or forced to flee. A representative of senior management thanked us, the staff, for the ‘sacrifices’ we were making to help the people in this economically poor country. I felt a strong sense of discomfort. Sure, many people at UNDP were undoubtedly working very hard to support the country’s development. But I don’t think that ‘making sacrifices’ is an appropriate term for this – not for the privileged Western staff. As employees or consultants with UN contracts, we were earning very well, paying above average prices to live in the nicest apartments and houses, eating out in the city’s best restaurants and buying the finest products. We were contributing to the distortion of rents and the emergence of a two-tier society: the mainly White aid workers on one side and the mainly poor local population on the other. These are typical patterns which are still very much present in ‘development cooperation’ today.

These North–South relations, which I experienced for myself at the Christmas party in Myanmar, and the resulting financial and political dependency are often referred to as ‘neocolonialism’. Imperial colonialism ended in most countries with the wave of decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s (or as early as the nineteenth century in Latin America), yet dependence, exploitation and repression continue to exist, and it is always the former colonies who suffer. This takes many forms, such as loans and debt programmes with international financial institutions, the shipping of waste to poorer countries, the exploitation of raw materials, the lack of say in major international committees such as the UN Security Council, or nuclear weapons testing on the territory of former colonies. All these things consolidate the power imbalance between North and South and therefore White domination.

My desire to integrate feminist critique into international politics became a reality in 2017, when I decided to found the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP) with Marissa Conway. Marissa was an American living in London, whom I’d met digitally through a mutual friend while I was working in New York. I’d already published work on feminist foreign policy, and Marissa had launched a Twitter account and a website entitled A Feminist Foreign Policy just a few months earlier. In 2018 CFFP was also established in Germany, where I direct it in tandem with my second co-founder, Nina Bernarding (since 2022 CFFP has existed exclusively in Germany).*

The founding of CFFP has turned my life upside down. Never before have I done anything that has been so overwhelming and so fulfilling at the same time. Founding an organization or business, taking responsibility for employees, formulating strategies that will enable the organization to survive and thrive, and simultaneously dealing with hostility and hurdles because we’re challenging the status quo – all these things are exhausting. Yet at the same time, it’s the greatest gift I could ever have been given. I would never want to give up the freedom of thought and action that I’ve gained from developing and leading CFFP.

At the end of 2022, in our fourth full year of operation, the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy gGmbH in Berlin consisted of sixteen employees. We’re enormously proud of this, given that female founders and feminist work receive little or no funding, and civil society groups as a whole are systematically underfunded and undervalued. New grassroots political organizations and charities founded by women with little capital, challenging the status quo, are virtually non-existent; the patriarchy doesn’t fund those who want to overthrow it.

The men in the village where I grew up who abused their power and overstepped boundaries are ultimately no different from the Putins, Bolsonaros, Trumps and Erdoğans of this world. They have different degrees of impact, but their attitude of entitlement is the same. This is because they know that their behaviour will have no consequences in our patriarchal society and will probably go unpunished. I’m not prepared to accept their influence, their destructiveness; I’m not prepared to be discouraged. There will always be naysayers who find countless reasons why something shouldn’t be attempted. Whatever campaign or initiative I’ve started, whatever I’ve done in my life – in the beginning, the small number of people who encouraged me were vastly outnumbered by those who explained, in great detail, why my plans were stupid, naive, and doomed to failure. And yet we need more people who are curious, more people who question what we see as the ‘norm’ (nuclear weapons in foreign policy, for example) and why we see it that way. People who then consider whether there are better options and act accordingly. People who are able to think long term and formulate visions for the future. People who are not afraid to be seen as ridiculous and to make waves. This is my personal aspiration, both in my day-to-day work as co-CEO of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and in this book. I hope it will provoke readers, bring joy and inspire criticism. Constructive and sympathetic criticism allows us to develop ideas and advance whole subject areas. We need people who can turn their vision into reality – people prepared to take a leap into the unknown. After all, society only changes when people call it into question.

I therefore hope that this will be only the first book on feminist foreign policy, and not the last. I liked what Kamala Harris said when it became clear in November 2020 that she would be the first woman – and the first woman of colour – to become vice president of the USA: ‘I may be the first, but won’t be the last.’ For me, her statement means that the door has been pushed open and that the first steps, however imperfect, have been taken. But at least the door is now open for others to follow – all those who were previously excluded, along with their ideas, with all the force of the patriarchy’s interpretive sovereignty and dominance. Of course this book can’t be compared to a vice presidency. Nonetheless, Kamala Harris’s words meant a great deal to me as I wrote the German edition of this first book on feminist foreign policy, and I’m grateful for them. I’m also grateful for the intellectual work already done in this area, which underpins my work.

I’m not perfect, and the same goes for this book. There’s a limit to how much a single person can read, research, reflect and write. And yet the field of foreign and security policy, with its history, its international agreements, its different actors, and its thematic and regional areas of expertise, is so extraordinarily wide-ranging that it would take several standard works on feminist foreign policy, each thousands of pages long, to rethink every single sub-area. I’m therefore hoping that this book will be constructively criticized, and that we will begin to write those standard works on feminist foreign policy together. If the book could be read with an attitude of ‘Yes, and …’ rather than ‘Yes, but …’, we would be taking a huge step forwards. Vilifying women and denying their professionalism is as old as the patriarchy; baseless accusations, insinuations and defamatory statements – which I’ve already experienced during the writing process and even more after the book was first published in German – have no place in the debate about a new approach to foreign policy. Every such attack costs us, as women operating in the public sphere, vital emotional resources which could be better used elsewhere.

I’m writing this book about diplomacy and foreign policy even though my CV is rather different from that of most actors in this field. In fact that’s exactly why I’m writing this book. For all those people who, at the age of twenty, had no idea what a diplomat actually did. For all those people who have a certain interest in foreign policy but are repelled by the ideas and the basic assumptions behind foreign policy actions. For many years, I myself did not see foreign policy as a subject area that might be relevant for me or one where I might have a place: too elitist, too far removed from the reality of my life and my origins, pervaded by ideas and beliefs that utterly horrified me. For example, the idea that the deadliest weapons invented by humanity – weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear bombs – contribute to international security. This idea is so abhorrent to me that I almost completely ignored foreign policy topics for years. If you’ve ever felt the same way, this book is for you.

For more than two hundred years, the feminist movement has been extraordinarily successful in bringing about radical and lasting social change. Just over one hundred years ago, feminists began to radically rethink international politics. I want this book to be a contribution to the feminist movement within international relations. Because the greatest challenges of our time – be it wars and conflicts, attacks on women’s and human rights, (nuclear) arms proliferation, the climate crisis or pandemics – can only ever be resolved internationally, not nationally. And, without a feminist approach, all attempted solutions would exacerbate existing injustices and power imbalances. The future of foreign policy, then, can only be feminist.