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1. Local feminist perspectives as transformation levers for sustainable development in Ukraine in the context of ongoing defence

Author:
Olena Strelnyk, Liudmyla Yuzva, and Tamara Zlobina
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
The research in this discussion paper explores the significant role of feminist perspectives and actions in fostering sustainable gender-transformative changes within Ukraine, particularly during the ongoing defence against Russian aggression. It highlights the ability of feminist movements to catalyse long-term shifts towards gender equality and social inclusion, with a focus on women’s and LGBT+ rights. Despite the challenges of war, feminist activists continue to push for transformative policies that not only address immediate wartime needs, but also lay the foundation for gender-responsive defence, inclusive recovery and post-war reconstruction. This study examines the impact of feminist actions and perspectives on various sectors of Ukrainian society, the barriers they face and the opportunities that remain for strengthening feminist policies during and after the war. The research timeline spans 2014-2024, corresponding to the duration of Russia’s war against Ukraine, with a particular emphasis on the period of the full-scale invasion from 2022 to 2024.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Feminism, LGBT+, Russia-Ukraine War, Sustainable Development, and Gender Equality
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine

2. A Feminist Foreign Policy in Practice: Introducing an Institutional Framework for Implementation in the Post-Yugoslav Sphere

Author:
Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)
Abstract:
In the past few years, a growing number of policy- and decision-makers seem to have heeded the tireless efforts of gender advocates: there is a strong interest in feminist perspectives and gender equality efforts, at least rhetorically. In their 2021 coalition agreement, the German government announced that they wanted “to strengthen rights, resources and representation of women and girls globally and support social diversity” […] “in line with a feminist foreign policy” (Bundesregierung 2021), picking up on a model of Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) first introduced by the Swedish government in 2014. On International Women’s Day in 2023, Slovenia also rhetorically committed to FFP, being one of the most recent countries to announce a feminist approach to foreign policy and the first in Central-Eastern or Southeast Europe. While feminist foreign policies are mushrooming across the globe, strong anti-feminist alliances and anti-gender discourses are simultaneously re-gaining meaningful influence and mainstream appeal with palpable legal consequences, for example, through restricting reproductive rights for women.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Feminism, and Gender Equality
Political Geography:
Europe and Balkans

3. Ten Recommendations for Germany’s Feminist Development Policy

Author:
Ina Friesen and Alma Wisskirchen
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
In early 2022, Germany’s development minister Svenja Schulze announced the adoption of a feminist development policy. With this announcement, Germany joins a growing group of governments that have adopted or declared the adoption of an explicitly feminist perspective in their external policies. Drawing on these governments’ policies and the observations and recommendations by civil society and researchers, this Discussion Paper outlines ten key recommendations for Germany’s first feminist development policy. The first three recommendations focus on the conceptual foundation of the policy and lay out the importance of 1) an inclusive definition of gender, 2) a clarification of the feminist approach and the policy’s overall goal as well as 3) the need for an intersectional approach. The second set of recommendations concerns the implementation of the policy and stresses the importance of 4) a permanent cooperation with gender-focused and feminist organisations and 5) the necessity to increase funding for gender-related objectives in general and 6) for feminist organisations in particular. Further recommendations include 7) widening the range of sectors that target gender equality through a transformative approach and context-sensitive programming and by providing mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the strategy’s goals, objectives and activities. The last three recommendations emphasise institutional aspects and the importance of 8) creating an institutional environment that best supports gender equality within the development ministry and its main implementing organisations, 9) the necessity of a coherent feminist approach between the different ministries, and 10) the importance of addressing possible challenges the ministry might face in the implementation of its feminist development policy.
Topic:
Development, Inequality, Feminism, and Gender
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

4. New Labour, New Britain: Professor Sarah Childs

Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
In the first session of the Mile End Institute's New Labour, New Britain conference on 'Modernisation and Change in the 1997 campaign', Professor Sarah Childs reflects on the 'watershed' importance of New Labour in advancing the number of women in Parliament and considers whether New Labour fundamentally changed how women feel about politics and Britain's political institutions.
Topic:
Governance, Domestic Politics, Feminism, Gender, and Labour Party
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

5. Women’s Liberation in Soviet, Sino, and American State Building: Theory and Practice

Author:
Emily B. Finley
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
Women’s liberation is a concept that is almost always found at the heart of revolutionary thinking. Plato, devising the ideal state in which all perform work according to inborn ability and hold goods in common according to the dictates of justice, very soon discovers that marriage and the nuclear family are hindrances to the perfectly just republic. Plato’s plan for abolishing the traditional family pertains to the guardian class and exemplifies a deep suspicion of the family as fostering attitudes detrimental to building the just state. Plato was the opposite of an egalitarian, but the view of the family as a harbinger of “private morality” would in the modern period characterize radically egalitarian philosophies that envision an all-dominating public consciousness and a corresponding collective activism. Family life, especially for women, is not naturally suited to this political objective. The construction of Plato’s perfectly just city entails the assurance that women worthy of being “guardians” can outsource childcare and can freely produce guardian-worthy children.
Topic:
Women, Feminism, State Building, Gender, and Liberation
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

6. Defining Feminist Foreign Policy in Germany’s National Security Strategy

Author:
Serafine Dinkel, Dana Schirwon, and Leonie Stamm
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Writing a National Security Strategy (NSS) in an acute crisis requires concision and priority-setting. Pairing the NSS with feminist foreign policy (FFP) – two novelties for Germany, which is formulating an overarching strategy for the first time – might seem risky for the government in Berlin. How can FFP serve as an enduring compass for the NSS in diverse policy areas? And how can the NSS process help flesh out FFP and prove its efficacy in addressing major security issues?
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, National Security, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

7. Book Talk. #WomenofBiH

Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Please join the Harriman Institute for a talk with Amila Hrustić Batovanja and Masha Durkalić, two co-authors of the book #WomenofBiH, now newly available in English. Dijana Jelača (Brooklyn College) will participate as a discussant with Tanya Domi (Harriman Institute) as moderator. #WomenOfBiH is an artistic, activist, and research initiative comprised of biographies of over fifty BiH women who have broken stereotypes and advocated for women’s rights and emancipation. Each woman was illustrated by a different woman illustrator/designer/artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a book about first female artists, writers, poets, social workers, national heroines, directors, scientists, musicians, doctors, activists, professors, and other exceptional women from BiH. The initiative was started with the goal of increasing the visibility of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to encourage similar educational initiatives. It celebrates women who were trailblazers and pioneers in women’s rights and emancipation, who achieved worldwide fame in their respective fields of work and are some of the greatest treasures of BiH. The book was published in 2019 and has since traveled to more than fifty countries. The publishing of the book was financed by Open Society Foundation and by more than 500 crowdfunding supporters from all over the world. In 2020, the second edition of the book was published in Bosnian, as well as an English edition of 650 copies, supported by OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Topic:
Women, Feminism, Activism, and Gender
Political Geography:
Europe and Bosnia and Herzegovina

8. Book Talk. La Nijinska by Lynn Garafola

Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Overshadowed in life and legend by her brother Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska had a far longer and more productive career. An architect of twentieth-century neoclassicism, she experienced the transformative power of the Russian Revolution and created her greatest work - Les Noces - under the influence of its avant-garde. Many of her ballets rested on the probing of gender boundaries, a mistrust of conventional gender roles, and the heightening of the ballerina's technical and artistic prowess. A prominent member of Russia Abroad, she worked with leading figures of twentieth-century art, music, and ballet, including Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Poulenc, Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Frederick Ashton, Alicia Markova, and Maria Tallchief. She was also a remarkable dancer in her own right with a bravura technique and powerful stage presence that enabled her to perform an unusually broad repertory. Finally, she was the author of an acclaimed volume of memoirs in addition to a major treatise on movement. Nijinska's career sheds new light on the modern history of ballet and of modernism more generally, recuperating the memory of lost works and forgotten artists, many of them women. But it also reveals the sexism pervasive in the upper echelons of the early and mid-twentieth-century ballet world, barriers that women choreographers still confront. Lynn Garafola is Professor Emerita of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University. A dance historian and critic, she is the author of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance, and the editor of several books, including The Diaries of Marius Petipa, André Levinson on Dance (with Joan Acocella), José Limón: An Unfinished Memoir, and The Ballets Russes and Its World. She has curated several exhibitions, including Dance for a City: Fifty Years of the New York City Ballet, New York Story: Jerome Robbins and His World, Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath, and, most recently, Arthur Mitchell: Harlem's Ballet Trailblazer.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Feminism, Russian Revolution, and Gender
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

9. Military Culture 2.0: The Female Cadet’s Approach, Feminine Competencies, and Pan-Critical Feminism - Drawing examples from American and Norwegian Special Forces

Author:
Mariah Loukou
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Military values of honour, courage and loyalty are synonymous to male soldiers due to the association of the military with the alpha-male narrative. However, the everchanging nature of war urges for a new approach. One that is identified with female cadets and feminine competencies. The article explores examples from the U.S. and Norway to show practically how military training and education can benefit from the female soldiers’ approach. To back this argument, the author, explores feminist institutionalism and body politics. The author then suggests a new theoretical tool, pan-critical feminism, as the means to incorporate female values and competencies to represent the changing cohort of military institutions. The article finally discusses military culture through the lens of organisational culture to show that there is space for testing this idea, even though social perceptions create barriers to its implementation.
Topic:
Culture, Armed Forces, Feminism, and Military
Political Geography:
Europe, Norway, North America, and United States of America

10. Make Foreign Policy Feminist. A Feminist Foreign Policy Manifesto for Germany

Author:
Nina Bernarding, Kristina Lunz, Sheena Anderson, Antonia Baskakov, Damjan Denkovski, Annika Kreitlow, and Anna Provan
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
Abstract:
This manifesto intends to encourage and support those inside the next government to begin the process of systematically changing how Germany’s foreign policy operates, whom it is made for, and whom it is informed by. It introduces what a Feminist Foreign Policy would look like for Germany, including a proposed definition of a German Feminist Foreign Policy. We analyse existing German Federal Foreign Policy and outline principles of a German Feminist Foreign Policy and its priority areas, presenting action items (recommendations) for a radically different way of conducting foreign policy. Among many other topics, we address climate justice, demilitarisation, health, trade and peace & security.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Government, Health, Feminism, Peace, Trade, Climate Justice, and Demilitarization
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany