By. Henry Moskov
The United States is no stranger to leveraging its position on the global stage as a superpower for foreign intervention, should that be manifested in humanitarian aid, military action, or diplomacy. Despite a long history of international influence, action taken in female empowerment has remained a relatively understated policy objective. While strides have been made under conducts similar to the 1973 establishment of the Women in Development Office under USAID, or the 2019 Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, feminism has not moved past the hems of United States foreign policy.
One may conclude the central reason for this long-standing apathy is that female empowerment is not intrinsically tied to national interest. The mere ideological attraction of equity is not enough to grasp the attention of policymakers if lacking in quid pro quo. However, gender equity is intrinsically tied to national interest, because national interest is intrinsically tied to peace, which is intrinsically related to gender equity. The Global Peace Index found that one of the most trenchant indicators for a stable and peaceful society is their ability to address gender inequity, over GDP per capita, promotion of democracy, or even the rule of law. Women taken out of their peripheral status means a certain peace in society that can be felt globally. A holistic national security plan that works towards the United States’ interests must include, beyond hard military power, espousing previously underemployed methods of women taking hold of a nation’s resources.
It is crucial to understand that “female empowerment” is not a single issue, but an umbrella term for a multiplicity of cross-cutting methods that must be employed to work with and unravel global gendered hierarchies. A UN body identified the areas that link women with human security to be: violence against women; gender inequalities in power and decision-making; women’s human rights; and recognition of women as actors, not victims. Under these couplings, the themes of power inequality, economic inequality, and social inequality emerge, under the guidance of the general goals of actively transferring resources and social clout from men to women in equitable distribution. A US foreign policy that understands these roads to individual female empowerment to reach wider societal change (and the many embedded nuances) will have the tools integral to enact such change.
Of the 193 UN member states, only 59 have held a female head of state, less than one-third; as of March of 2023, the number sits at 13, less than one-tenth. The feminization of leadership has, despite its traditionally peripatetic nature among world leaders, profound impacts on what constitutes a state’s actions in both internal and external policy. King’s College Global Institute for Women’s Leadership found that compared to their androcentric counterparts, governments with strong contributions from female decision-makers seem to make for more equitable and caring societies. The necessity of diversity in global leadership brings in differing perspectives on priorities in governance. This can manifest in hitherto undervalued policies benefiting the most vulnerable in society, such as healthcare, education, and welfare. Terrorism, organized crime, militias, and other violent non-state actors emerge and thrive in societies marked by instability, inequality, and poverty. Progressive policies that address these social issues foster a socialization process that puts the perceived self-conception of non-state armed groups into an existential crisis. The force used in counter-violence is more likely to increase the support, recruitment capacity, and overall strength of terrorist organizations, rather than effectively fight them. Institutional transitions are needed, rather than the band-aid solutions of male-led counter-insurgencies that plant more weeds in an already infested garden, so to speak. The policy guidance of women and the encompassing new perspectives on strategies toward stability are needed for such necessary structural changes. The expansion of women taking on roles of political leadership and decision-making over men is arguably the most straightforward path out of the paths laid out for gender equity, which makes its progressive shortcomings most visible.
The beneficial trends observed in empowering female policymakers are likewise indisputably applicable to a society’s economic growth. However, unlike the global patriarchal systems of leadership where women have to fight for inclusion, women are already included in economic activities yet have to fight for the fruits of such activities. The most rudimentary conception of gender roles in an economic context dictates the provision of resources as the prerogative of men, and the task of home preparation assigned to women in service of men. This is flawed. Anthropologist Margaret Meadsummarizes that “the home shared by a man or men and female partners, into which men bring the food and women prepare it, is the basic common picture of the world over. But this picture can be modified, and the modifications provide proof that the pattern itself is not something deeply biological.” While it is true that the preparation of food is a monopoly of women in nearly all cultures, the allocation of it differs from society to society. In her cross-cultural examination of patriarchal household trends, economist Ester Boserup attests that, more often than not, the women of society take more of an active role in such allocation. Despite the proactive involvement women take in household activities and enhancing a nation’s GDP, the economic decisions of the home are almost always dictated by the men. The University of London found that a nation’s nominal GDP can be expanded exponentially more through various transfers of economic resourcesto women, from unconditional cash transfers to grants to household enterprises. Like the indications of leadership empowerment, women taking charge of the economic resources in the home results in the use of money that often promotes familial stability which paves the way for future generations of economic contributors.
The last of the potential paths where transfers are most needed is conceivably the largest- the transfer of social clout. Women’s othered position in society is a case of historical perception as “less than man” perpetuated by patriarchal discourses. Shifting societal authority from men to women is thus a matter of a wide change of perception. When women are othered in a social context, it manifests itself into neglect, and when attention is given, abuse. Amitav Acharya articulates “Women become targets… because they serve as a social symbol.” Threats to female well-being, such as the many forms of violence against women perpetrated in the family, community, or condoned by the state are manifestations of the “symbol” of the woman in society being desecrated. Violence, or at least the potential for it, conditions every woman’s life and dominates the lives of millions of women, impeding both their personal development and the contribution they can make to society. However, a potential danger in focusing only on accounts of victimization regarding reputational power is to only perceive women as victims of rape, as displaced people without options, as widows without resources, as mothers who have lost their sons, and as powerless community workers excluded from the core of society. This pitfall is in situations where empowerment issues are dealt with as “add-ons” to the main discussions, rather than incorporated into the basic understanding of societal equity. Without participatory methodologies and positive perceptions of women’s role in society, it is impossible to conceptualize other methods of shifting resources.
The United States is still uniquely positioned on the global stage to have both the power and will to provide the necessary aid to male-to-female transfers of social and economic assets. US foreign policy can learn from missed opportunities to build sustainable peace by promoting transfers and exercising its influence on the global landscape by instituting a feminist foreign policy. The approach prioritizes power, economic, and social equity, offering alternatives to the use of force in foreign interventions, and challenging patriarchal systems of power. Disallowing the female legacy of peripheral status will take mounting female-centered foreign policy efforts, likely over decades. However, should these pragmatic changes take place, equitable distribution of resources is intrinsically equipped to become a global tangibility.
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