By Lilia Hajialian

In recent years, the idea of feminist foreign policy has gained traction, promoted as a more ethical, inclusive, and fair approach to global relations. Countries like Sweden and Mexico have led the way with official policies that center gender equality in diplomacy. However, despite their progressive framing, these policies often fail to address the racial and colonial foundations of the international system itself. Without confronting these deeper structures, feminist diplomacy risks reinforcing the very global inequalities it seeks to dismantle.

Charles Mills’ The Racial Contract provides a critical lens through which to examine this issue. Mills argues that global systems of power are not race neutral, they were constructed through an unspoken “racial contract” that privileges white Western interests while systematically excluding and dehumanizing nonwhite populations. This racial contract supports the modern international order, shaping who is included in global decision making and whose suffering is made visible. When countries such as Sweden implement feminist foreign policies without acknowledging their own roles in colonial history or the ongoing racial hierarchies that affect the Global South, their efforts become incomplete. Such approaches prioritize gender while abandoning race, thus limiting the transformative potential of feminist diplomacy.

Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy, introduced in 2014, advocates for gender equality, the protection of women’s rights, and the inclusion of women in peace building. While these goals are significant, the policy often treats gender justice as a universal struggle with a common starting point. It rarely acknowledges how the legacy of colonialism, economic dependency, and racial oppression complicates gender issues for women in formerly colonized and marginalized nations. By contrast, Mexico’s feminist foreign policy, introduced in 2020, places greater emphasis on intersectionality, Indigenous rights, and regional solidarity. As a Global South nation, Mexico’s approach reflects a broader understanding of how gender, race, and class intersect in foreign policy. Nevertheless, it too faces criticism, particularly around issues such as the high rates of femicide and the treatment of migrants at Mexico’s southern border. These tensions highlight the gap between feminist rhetoric and implementation, and the need for deeper accountability beyond surface level commitments to gender equality.

Recent global events further reveal the limitations of current feminist diplomatic frameworks. The ongoing war in Gaza, for instance, has prompted muted responses from Western nations that promote feminist diplomacy. The lack of vocal concern for Palestinian women and children, who are disproportionately affected by violence and displacement, highlights the selectivity of feminist advocacy when race, religion, and geopolitical interests are involved. As Nira Yuval-Davis explains in her work on intersectionality, feminist politics must incorporate an understanding of how gender operates alongside other axes of power, such as race, nationality, and class. Without this, feminist foreign policy will lead to be a tool of exclusion rather than liberation.

Additionally, the structural dynamics of global capitalism must be considered. As William I. Robinson describes in Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity, neoliberal globalization has intensified inequality through what he calls “21st century fascism”, a synthesis of transnational capital, militarized state power, and xenophobic nationalism. Women of color in the Global South are often the most affected by this system, subjected to exploitative labor, ecological degradation, and militarized displacement. Yet feminist foreign policies rarely critique the underlying economic models that generate these conditions. Feminist policies that avoid examining capitalism’s global impact can quickly turn into meaningless empowerment rhetorics that ignore the real political issues at hand. This critique reiterates the work of Thomas Pogge, who argues in his text “World Poverty and Human Rights” that the current global economic order, largely shaped by affluent countries, actively perpetuates poverty and inequality. Any foreign policy that claims to prioritize justice and rights must also challenge the global economic rules that enable exploitation, especially when these rules are legitimized through gendered and racialized development narratives.

Moreover, legal frameworks such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) offer critical foundations for promoting equality and human rights on a global scale. These legally binding treaties obligate states to combat systemic discrimination based on gender and race, respectively, and establish formal mechanisms for reporting and taking accountability. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23, for instance, calls for women's full participation in political and public life, not only within national boundaries but also in international forums where diplomatic and economic policies are shaped. This recommendation affirms that women must be central actors in foreign policy and global governance, rather than passive recipients of development aid or humanitarian assistance. However, despite their formal authority, these frameworks often fall short in practice. Enforcement mechanisms are weak, and compliance is largely voluntary, resulting in many governments treating these conventions as aspirational rather than mandatory. In addition, powerful states can evade accountability due to political leverage, while less powerful countries are disproportionately scrutinized. Feminist and anti-racist advocates have long argued that without binding enforcement or clear consequences for non-compliance, these treaties risk becoming symbolic gestures, tools that provide legitimacy to states without requiring them to tackle structural reforms. As a result, the transformative potential of CEDAW and ICERD is undermined, particularly in contexts where national interests and geopolitical power outweigh human rights obligations.

In essence, a transformative feminist foreign policy cannot be built on surface level commitments or vague calls for inclusion. It must dismantle the deep-rooted systems of power that perpetuate inequality, systems grounded in racial capitalism, colonial legacies, and geopolitical double standards. True intersectionality demands more than the presence of women at negotiation tables, rather it requires a fundamental rethinking of who gets to shape the rules, whose voices are prioritized, and whose suffering is politically inconvenient to acknowledge. When feminist diplomacy ignores the structural violence inflicted by global economic policies or remains silent on cruelties committed by powerful allies, it becomes complicit in the very injustices it claims to oppose. To avoid becoming an extension of the existing racial and imperial order, feminist foreign policy must hold all states accountable, especially those that weaponize liberal values while violating human rights abroad. Anything less is not diplomacy for justice, but a rebranding of the same existing system.

Lilia Hajialian is an undergraduate student at George Mason University, currently studying government and international politics with a concertation in international relations.