Hello fellow feminists!
The holidays are almost behind us as we get ready to settle into a new year and a new decade. 2020 will be a big year for our collective and we anticipate that it will be a big year for feminist foreign policy overall! With that in mind, we want to reflect on the work we have all done as part of this collective and individually. What have you done in the past year that you're proud of? What do you want to share with your fellow feminists? How can we continue to support one another as we carve out our vision for a feminist future?
To keep ourselves moving forward, we have created a feedback form for collective members to fill out. You can fill out the form at the link below. Let us know what you'd like to see from us in 2020 and how we can improve.
In solidarity towards a feminist future,
Caty Seger
- A Feminist Alternative to Trump’s Chest Beating on Iran - "A feminist foreign policy is not imperialism in disguise. Justifying war based on women’s rights, as President Bush and many others did in Afghanistan, is not feminist foreign policy. Instead, the policy places the rights and outcomes of all people (for whom war is surely harmful) at the forefront of strategic considerations." (Foreign Policy in Focus)
- What The New York Times Got Wrong on Bolivia - "By endorsing a military coup against a democratically elected government, the Times betrayed its values and its journalists." (The Nation)
- How Feminist is the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy? - "Sweden continues exporting arms to states in conflict areas, and to regions where women are denied even their most basic human rights, such as Saudi Arabia." (Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy)
- Zapatista women’s gathering begins - "'This year, the number of violated, disappeared and murdered women has not stopped, it has increased, and we as Zapatistas see this as very serious,' Comandanta Amada emphasized upon making a call to women that it doesn’t matter what your thinking or your way is." (Chiapas Support)
- The Year in Protests - "People around the world took to the streets in outrage and hope in 2019, challenging authority, calling for equal rights, and demanding democracy." (Foreign Policy)
- Speak, memory: Tales from the siege in Kashmir - "The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster." (The Polis Project)
- Violence Against Women: Beyond Multilateral Virtue Signaling - "An abundance of lofty rhetoric, however, obscures a paucity of actual change. UN peacekeepers have often contributed to the violent phenomena against which they are tasked to fight, as demonstrated by the rise in allegations against the United Nations as of March 2019." (Council on Foreign Relations)
- U.N. Peacekeepers in Haiti Said to Have Fathered Hundreds of Children - "While the United Nations has acknowledged numerous instances of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers in Haiti and elsewhere, the study on Haitian victims went further in documenting the scope of the problem in that country — the Western Hemisphere’s poorest — than had been previously known." (The New York Times)
From Shailja Patel: "What Her Hands Do" in Adi Magazine
I will never forget how her hands cut melody lines out of air, sharp and precise as a tailor turned sword-warrior.
Adi Magazine's newest issue focuses on the freedom of movement. Read other pieces in this issue here.
From Yifat Susskind of MADRE: MADRE Condemns Turkish Offensive in Syria and US Complicity
Feminist Review: Call for Papers
We welcome full-length articles (up to 8000 words in length) and Open Space submissions (up to 3000 words in length, but may also consist of images, poetry or fiction), book reviews and visual submissions.
Full articles and Open Space pieces must be submitted by 8 April 2020.
Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy's Needs Input on UK Foreign Policy Manifesto
As we begin the process of drafting the manifesto, we want to make sure that we too hold ourselves accountable to this standard and that as we brainstorm how to structure and develop our manifesto we keep the process as open as possible for continual feedback.