Feminist Foreign Policy

Feminism is an Ideology, a Political Movement and a Social movement that shares a common goal — “ To define, establish and achieve — Political , Economic, Personal and Social equality of sexes”. In its original form it is a progressive and healthy ideology improving both social condition and economic condition of countries as well as women and adolescent children around the world. As women are ~50% of the world population, Mckinsey Global Institute Report finds that $12 trillion could be added to Global GDP by 2025 by advancing women equality ($12 trillion is the nominal GDP of China) . Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for -”capturing the magnitude of gender base disparities and tracking their progress over time”. Its 4 key parameters are- a) Health, b) Education, c) Economy and d) Politics. Currently the average progress stands at 68%, meaning the Global gender gap is of 32%, which is a huge gender gap to fill. At present Scandinavian countries have the least Gender Gap with four listing in top 5 countries that are- 1) Ice Land, 2) Norway, 3) Finland,4) Rwanda and 5) Sweden.
Rwanda being a Sub Saharan country has worked exceptionally towards women empowerment and had 61% women in country’s legislature in 2017. Rwanda was a victim of civil war during 1994 , which severely disturbed the gender ratio of the country to 30:70(male:female). The Genocide had led more women being in the country, therefore, they had to take roles which were typically reserved for the man. The government of Rwanda created numerous programs to uplift the women like — Girls Education Task Force, Committee to Gender Based Budgeting, appointment of Gender monitoring Officer and organisations like Rwanda Women’s Network fight against domestic violence. However, there is much more to be done as the prejudices are still there, even today working women has fulfill all her domestic duties and women are subjected to men.
A Feminist Government is a Government of a State which has declared itself to be a Feminist Government. So far Sweden and Canada have declared their Government to be Feminist. Sweden has gone Feminist both in foreign policy and domestically, however, Canada has only Feminist Foreign Policy. According to Swedish Government -”Gender Equality implies not only equal distribution between men and women in all domain in society, it is also about Qualitative aspect ensuring that the knowledge experience of both men and women are used to promote progress in all aspect of society”. According to Magrot Wallstorm (Minister of Foreign Affairs Sweden), the current approach has failed and to get Gender Equality-”We need to shift our Focus from Response to Prevention and Approach from Reactive to Proactive”. She has given 3 Rs as the pillar of Sweden Foreign Policy i.e Rights for equal rights , Representation in leadership at all level of decision making and Resources for equal distribution of resources and economic independence for all adults.
However Canada is lagging behind Sweden and only declared its foreign policy as Feminist in Aids to other countries such that the money goes for the welfare of women, an attempt to decrease the Global Gender Gap.
Gender Gap is not only the issue of developing or under developed countries but this issue can be found in many developed countries like in 2017 Japan ranked 114, Singapore ranked 65, India ranked 108, Italy ranked 82, USA ranked 49 being the strongest economy in the world. Hence we should all come together and welcome such initiatives from the governments and encourage our governments to do the same and to bring Global Gender Gap from 32% to 0%.
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