Description
Ideas of feminism and gender within policymaking often remain contested. Whilst some states, international organisations and individuals are increasingly eager to use this language to discuss their work and have heavily invested in feminist policymaking, questions over what policy is feminist, if and how policy can ever be feminist, and the limitations, exclusions, and complicities of liberal feminism on the one hand are set against the backdrop of powerful rejections of feminism and gender ‘ideology’ on the other. Much academic interest has been focussed on this division between pro- and anti-gender expressions at the heart of policymaking. Yet, beyond this dichotomy there are interesting new innovations in policymaking (feminist foreign policy being one such prominent example) and points of pressure and change in unexpected locations. This panel explores these developing innovations and the contentions within feminist policymaking, with case studies including Chile, Sweden, France and NATO.
