Should foreign policy be feminist?
Sweden certainly thinks so and wants the rest of the world to follow suit: recently, they released a handbook as a resource and guide for other nations to put the equal rights at the forefront of their strategies abroad.
But what does a feminist foreign policy look like and why should other countries care?
According to the handbook, “gender equality is an objective in itself, but it is also essential for achieving the Government’s other overall objectives, such as peace, security and sustainable development.”
In other words: feminism is good for everyone.
It’s not just Sweden that knows this: the data shows that improving gender equality would add jobs for both women and men, that women are integral to successful peacemaking, that gender inequality is linked to conflict and violence and that “if women were to participate in the economy identically to men, they could add as much as $28 trillion or 26 percent to annual global GDP in 2025.”
