Feminism as a Tool for Peace

As nuclear disarmament becomes a growing priority for many countries, a Corporation-supported report considers feminism as a tool for shaping better policymaking

By Carnegie Corporation of New York February 14, 2022

Nuclear Threats

How can feminism help shape nuclear policy? According to a framework known as Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP), “for decades, nuclear weapons treaties, policies, and practices have been developed and negotiated in deeply patriarchal and elitist spaces, reinforcing unequal social and political power structures around the world.” Based on this premise, feminist activists have been coalescing and FFP has developed to counter inequalities.

FFP originated out of Sweden, which first developed and applied this framework to their foreign policy in 2014. It initially focused on the rights of women and girls, effectively resourcing gender equality initiatives, and increasing the representation of women and girls in leadership. Several governments, including Canada, Spain, and Mexico, have since followed in Sweden’s footsteps and have made similar commitments.

The Corporation-funded report Finding Feminism in Nuclear Policy explores the influence of feminist activism and the ways the themes and concerns identified by FFP are being addressed in nuclear policymaking. The report aims to share knowledge, expertise, and historically marginalized perspectives to better enable FFP advocates to identify successful paths to policy influence and change.

In the report, published by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy in the UK, the authors Rosanagh Fuller, Robyn Harris, and Marissa Conway begin with a historical account of feminist activism, research, literature, and analyses. They focus on the case studies of South Africa and Mexico to center low- and middle-income country perspectives and indicate the steps, lessons, and pathways to achieving nuclear disarmament. Specifically, as newer initiatives like the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons consider large-scale change, the report shares knowledge, expertise, and historically marginalized perspectives to better enable FFP.

Based on these findings, the report makes six recommendations for states that possess nuclear weapons to interrogate the purpose and impact of nuclear policy:

Information about nuclear policy must be made more accessible. Language about nuclear weapons and policy is highly jargonistic and abstract — such language also reflects and maintains specific patriarchal hierarchies. To increase shared understanding and knowledge about nuclear weapons and nuclear policy, research and policy documents must be simplified, with no room for ambiguity or jargonistic language that can easily invoke militaristic, violent tropes that further normalize patriarchal power dynamics.
We need to ask different questions about nuclear policy. Nuclear narratives have been crafted around the same dated ideologies since their inception in the 1940s. Those considerations must be inclusive of current available data and involve fact-based discussions that are open to new perspectives and partnerships.
Nuclear policymakers must design inclusive spaces to ensure a greater diversity of voices and perspectives. The responsibility to implement innovative solutions to ensure inclusive and diverse spaces falls to policymakers and leaders on nuclear policy, who lead by example. It is important to actively hear and take seriously historically marginalized voices – both individuals and states. States that possess nuclear weapons have a particular responsibility to engage with perspectives they may not agree with and solicit input from states that do not possess nuclear weapons. Policymakers must also take seriously the responsibility to represent the views of civil society in their work.
Women and historically marginalized groups must be meaningfully involved in decision-making processes at senior levels. Although the representation of women and historically marginalized people has been slowly increasing, it is largely still concentrated in junior roles without significant decision-making power. In Mexico, for example, only three Heads of Mission have been women. In wider peacebuilding efforts, data supports that when women and civil society representatives are involved in negotiations, the resulting agreements are more durable, sustainable, and 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years. And generally, the lack of women involved in peace processes over the last 30 years has meant that only 20 percent of peace agreements contain references to women, girls, and gender at all, despite disproportionately suffering conflict and post-conflict-based violence.

Nuclear policy leadership is typically viewed as demanding traditionally masculine characteristics but successful policymaking requires discussing the very real emotional impacts of the human and environmental destruction influenced by nuclear policy. Increasing women and marginalized people in nuclear policy must be intentional and women leaders must send a message that gender inequality will not be condoned in international negotiations.
Nuclear weapons must be regulated like other weapons of mass destruction. Building the capacity for violence generates more violence. The real danger of having weapons is more prescient than the imagined danger of having to use them. Therefore, the first step is to outlaw the weapons before eliminating them. Historically, only weapons that have been destroyed by law (such as the Cluster Munitions Convention or the Chemical Weapons Convention) were prohibited explicitly in international law.
Nuclear possessing states must be subject to significant systems of accountability and checks and balances. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the U.S., Russia, China, the UK, and France, collectively known as P5) are also nuclear-possessing states, meaning that attempts to eliminate nuclear weapons ultimately fail due to their veto power. The Security Council needs to be reformed, and all members subjected to term limits in order to impose checks and balances on P5 states regarding nuclear policy.

The authors propose that the role of all policy, filtered through a feminist lens, “must focus on rebalancing power inequalities, eliminating systems of oppression, and actively supporting the needs of the most marginalized in society.” Only then, they argue, can we begin to build a world in which more people can experience wellness and peace.

To learn more, read the full report Finding Feminism in Nuclear Policy.

TOP: Annalena Baerbock (center), foreign minister of Germany, looks at her Norwegian counterpart Anniken Scharning Huitfeldt before the start of a meeting of the Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament in December 2021. The 16 countries of the Stockholm Initiative have been working for nuclear disarmament since 2019. (Credit: Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)