Can Feminist Foreign Policy Truly Transform Global Power? Or Is It Reproducing The Same Old Inequalities?

Jahnvi Borgohain

Over the last two decades, ideas from feminist philosophy have slowly made their way into global politics. Governments worldwide now speak of Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP), and the United Nations promotes its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. These frameworks promise to challenge patriarchy in international relations and build a more equal and just world. On paper, it sounds revolutionary, but when we take a closer look, we find a troubling pattern. Even as states and international bodies adopt feminist
language, they often reproduce the same inequalities and power dynamics they claim to fight. Why does this happen? This article explores these questions by bringing together feminist philosophy, postcolonial thought, and critical perspectives on global governance. It asks whether FFP has the potential to transform world politics, or whether it risks becoming yet another symbolic gesture that ends up offering recognition without redistributing real power.

The Promise and Pitfalls of Feminist Foreign Policy

Feminist Foreign Policy is a framework where a country commits to conducting its
diplomacy and international engagement in a way that promotes gender equality. Instead
of focusing on military strength or national dominance, FFP prioritizes the rights and
safety of women and marginalized groups.
However, scholars like Cynthia Enloe and Laura Shepherd, who study how gender
operates in international politics, warn that when feminist ideas enter government
systems, they often become watered down. What begins as a radical call to rethink global
power structures turns into a bureaucratic checklist, more symbolic than transformative.
Their work shows how governments often prefer the language of feminism without taking on the political discomfort of genuinely shifting power.
This pattern is visible in the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Launched in 2000 by the United Nations, WPS aims to ensure women are included in peace negotiations and conflict-prevention strategies. While this was groundbreaking at the time, it still relied on the traditional ways states think about “security,” which was mostly through militaries, borders, and national interests. Women were invited into the process, but the system itself didn’t change. This raised yet another crucial question: Is simply involving women enough, or must the very definition of peace and security be transformed?

Understanding Epistemic Injustice: Whose Knowledge Counts?

To understand why FFP sometimes fails, we can turn to philosopher Miranda Fricker and
her idea of epistemic injustice. The idea behind this term is simple: Epistemic injustice happens when certain people are not taken seriously as knowers. This happens when their experiences and insights are dismissed or ignored in favour of others.
For example, when Indigenous women describe security in terms of land protection and community wellbeing, but policymakers only consider military threats, a form of
epistemic injustice occurs. Their knowledge is treated as less valuable.
In global feminist policymaking, this often means that Western, English-speaking and
liberal feminist perspectives dominate, while feminisms from the Global South, Indigenous communities, or religious and cultural minorities are overlooked. FFP, therefore, must grapple with the difficult task of not just including more women, but making room for more ways of knowing.

Postcolonial Feminist Critique: The Problem of “Saving” Others

Another set of thinkers, Chandra Mohanty and Saba Mahmood, offer tools to understand how feminist policies sometimes repeat colonial patterns. Chandra Mohanty argues that Western feminists often treat women in the Global South as a homogeneous group of
victims needing rescue. This stereotype strips them of agency and ignores local histories
of resistance. Similarly, Saba Mahmood shows that not all women seek empowerment in the same way. Some women may find meaning in religious observance or community roles, which the Western feminism might mistakenly label as “oppressive.”
Together, they warn us that feminist interventions can become paternalistic, that is, a form of “we know what is best for you.” It becomes easy for feminist foreign policy to slip into a pattern where wealthy nations try to “help” poorer nations in ways that reinforce global hierarchies rather than dismantle them.

Recognition Without Redistribution: Nancy Fraser’s Warning

Political theorist Nancy Fraser offers another simple but powerful idea: the difference
between recognition and redistribution. According to her, recognition means being
acknowledged and represented while redistribution means changing who holds real
economic and political power.

Fraser argues that modern politics often focuses on recognition by celebrating diversity
and increasing representation without actually addressing the deeper inequalities that
shape people’s lives. Applied to FFP, this means that governments may add more women
to national committees, or use feminist language in their speeches, or may highlight
gender equality in official documents. But if the underlying systems like military
spending, colonial economic relationships, global supply chains, or geopolitical power
structures remain unchanged, the feminism becomes symbolic rather than
transformative. Representation without redistribution, Fraser warns, is not justice.

Why Mexico’s Approach Matters

Much of the discussion around FFP centres on Sweden and Canada, but Mexico’s feminist
foreign policy offers a different model. Unlike the Western approaches that lean heavily
on liberal feminist ideas, Mexico grounds its policy in decolonial thinking. This means it
explicitly acknowledges the colonial histories that shape current inequalities. It also
values the knowledge and customs of its indigenous people, and acknowledges the need
to change not only who participates in policymaking, but how knowledge and authority
are understood.

Mexico’s approach proves that feminist foreign policy doesn’t have to look the same
everywhere. Instead, it can be shaped by local experiences and feminist movements.
Towards a More Just and Decolonial Feminist Foreign Policy
For Feminist Foreign Policy to fulfil its transformative promise, it must move beyond
symbolic inclusion and confront the deeper power structures that shape global
governance. This means expanding whose voices count as knowledge, challenging
militarized and state-centric ideas of security, and finally, addressing the economic and
political inequalities that underlie global injustice. It also requires resisting paternalistic
narratives that make Western feminism the universal standard, and instead embracing
diverse, locally rooted feminist perspectives, as Mexico’s decolonial approach
demonstrates.

About the author

Jahnvi Borgohain is a postgraduate in Philosophy from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. Her academic interests span Gender Studies, Ethics and Feminism. At the core of her writing is a belief in the power of philosophical ideas to reshape systems and structures.