Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock believes she is on the same wavelength as Sweden. She emphasized this at the meeting with her counterpart Tobias Billström. But does the Swede see it that way too? Unlike Baerbock, Billström is not a supporter of feminist foreign policy.
One of his first official acts less than a month ago was to say goodbye to it. He didn’t think much of the terminology, instead he wanted to strengthen Swedish interests, he said at the time. Women’s rights should therefore no longer play an important role for the new right-wing government in Stockholm.
Billström is currying favor with the anti-feminists in the country. Those who associate feminism with empty symbolic politics. To forgo feminist values and a bit of symbolism in these times is cynical. In the Ukraine war and in the Tigray conflict, reports of sexualized violence are piling up, the protests in Iran are being led by women, and in Afghanistan they are being increasingly oppressed.
Foreign policy must not only make this an issue, but also needs a feminist focus on such crimes.
Baerbock must therefore not allow himself to be misled by the clumsy anti-feminism of his new colleague, who only wants to keep the right-wing hardliners in Stockholm happy. Because they also got him into office. And don’t forget: those who publicly declare feminist foreign policy to be superfluous are themselves engaging in symbolic politics. In Sweden and elsewhere.
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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