Summary
On September 21, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy hosted German foreign policy thinker Kristina Lunz in an event jointly hosted with the McCloy Scholarship program and the German American Conference.
Lunz is one of the most prominent advocates for a feminist foreign policy and is co-founder of the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy in Berlin, an organization devoted to both advocacy and research in this field.
The goal of feminist foreign policy is not only to make sure women have equal access to careers in foreign policy, development policy, and other adjacent fields, but also to make sure that the vital interests of women in society are protected, their concerns taken seriously, and their voices heard. Making sure all this happens requires nothing less than a large-scale dismantling of patriarchal structures in organizations and in society writ large — a goal that, once articulated, typically meets fierce resistance from men.
With that goal, connections to other groups that are typically negatively affected by patriarchy are easily made, especially to People of Color and LGBTQI+ groups. Indeed, once this ambitious agenda is in sight, it is also clear that in its details, feminist foreign policy affects domains ranging from healthcare (including reproductive rights) and social policy to security policy and climate change.
Kristina Lunz’s book, The Future of Foreign Policy Is Feminist, is out now in English, and is very much worth reading. The book is wide-ranging and very inclusive in terms of giving credit to the many who have contributed to the emergence of a feminist foreign policy. This includes several individuals affiliated with the Carr Center: Samantha Power (the founding executive director of the Carr Center), Kate Manne (formerly a teaching fellow at ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø, now a professor at Cornell and author of the widely debated book Downgirl, a thorough assessment of misogyny), and Tiaji Sio (an MPP ’23 graduate and McCloy fellow, a German woman of African descent who founded a network of diplomats of color in the German Foreign Service).
To learn more about Kristina Lunz’s book, The Future of Foreign Policy Is Feminist, click the link below.
The will be held October 27-29 and will include programming on feminist foreign policy.