Women, Gender, and Politics

N19 - Security and Foreign Policy

Date: Jun 14 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 1065

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Leigh Spanner (MSVU)

Troubling Feminist Policies: Assessing the (in)securities of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy: Juliana Crema (York University)
Abstract: Over the last 30 years, attention to issues of gender equality have risen. Terms and tools such as ‘gender equality’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ have been increasingly employed by both the international community – in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security adopted in 2000 – and in national governments. For example, in 2017 – under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, who notably introduced a gender parity cabinet ‘because it’s 2015’ – Canada implemented its Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), identifying empowering women and girls as a means to eradicate poverty and increase global stability. Building on existing critiques of development programmes that are based upon neoliberal logic of economic growth as a means to reduce inequality, this project problematizes the economic and developmental focus of FIAP, questioning how effective can the FIAP be in empowering women and girls and, secondly, how its success can be defined and measured. A critical feminist perspective of security studies is employed to analyse the FIAP through a ‘security-development nexus’, which critiques how underdevelopment is targeted to avoid increased risk of conflict and insecurity (Peoples & Vaugh-Williams, 2021). Through this lens, Canada’s FIAP is revealed as a policy that works to further entrench Western power over developing nations, contradicting its feminist aims. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this paper reveals connections between gender equality policies and economic and security goals, and critically fills the dearth of feminist analyses of development policies from a security perspective.

Perpetrators, silencers, and oppressors: A transnational feminist assessment of Men’s roles in the FIAP: Brianna Parent Long (Carleton University)
Abstract: The shift to a feminist foreign policy in the Canadian government was seen as a pioneering transformation that centered gender equality at the core of international assistance initiative. Critiqued for its feminist credentials and neoliberal orientations, along with a notable absence of addressing diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, expressions, and sex characteristics (Aylward and Brown 2020; Parisi 2020), a fundamental question remains: Where are the men in Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP)? Defined in comparison, rather than relationally to women, men and boys are overwhelmingly displayed as perpetuators at the root of the gender inequality which overlooks the reciprocal and relational components necessary to addressing gender inequality (Connell 2003). Using a transnational feminist framework, this paper seeks to disentangle and evaluate the persisting colonial, gendered narratives embedded within the FIAP that unduly bracket gender equality as predominantly a "women's issue" that women and girls are responsibilized to fix. Through a thematic analysis of framing in the Canada’s foreign policy documents and statements given by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the paper searches, evaluates, and critiques the framing through which roles of men and boys are articulated and understood. I argue for the crucial need to reposition men and boys not merely as perpetrators but as indispensable catalysts in disrupting and altering gender inequality narratives. This paper posits that unraveling and critically reflecting upon these gendered and colonial policy narratives is paramount to crafting a more holistic, inclusive, and transformative international assistance approach that transcends binary and western-centric ideological formulations.

Fostering Change: WPS Initiatives and Collaborations Between Academia and Security Organizations: Stéfanie von Hlatky (Queen's University / CIDP [Centre for International and Defence Policy]))
Abstract: Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has been a surge in research collaborations that bridge the gap between academics and security organizations. This collaboration is exemplified by initiatives such as the Human Terrain System (HTS), operated by the US Army from 2007 to 2014, a case that is ripe for lessons learned. HTS aimed to leverage the specialized knowledge of anthropologists to increase the cultural awareness of deployed members of the Armed Forces. Similarly, NATO's Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) policy introduced in 2007 also opened the door to expert consultations with academics and civil society to increase the gender awareness of NATO forces on operations, which predictably, was accompanied by some organizational resistance. Our current research aims to understands how this resistance plays out, with a specific focus on women's experiences within the context of NATO operations, with special attention paid to women in the armed forces, academia, and civil society. Our research uses a variety of methodologies such as participant observation, life stories and semi-structured interviews, drawing on different reflexive, intersectional and intersubjective approaches. Drawing from our preliminary findings, we will analyze the perspectives and experiences of academics and practitioners involved in NATO missions where WPS standards have been implemented and adapted, to advance scholarly work on military operations, but also inform methodological and ethical guidelines for applied research, taking into account lessons learned from HTS and comparable cases.