German Imperialism Rebranded As Feminist

Translated by Julia Damphouse, Magdalena Berger writes:

The German Foreign Office first announced its guidelines for a “feminist foreign policy” back in March 2023, yet public debate over the meaning of this policy has never been more heated than in the past month. On October 21, the international research organization responsible for the development of the concept, the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP), along with the human rights NGO HÁWAR.help, hosted a press conference on the topic “preventing femicides, legalizing abortions.” German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, of the Green Party, took center stage at the conference, along with other high-profile women from the worlds of politics and culture.

These sorts of demands are the lowest common denominator of all feminist movements — and yet hostility was stirring both inside and outside the event, mainly due to Baerbock’s presence. Someone in the audience stood up in protest and shouted, “Stop the genocide of Palestinian women!” and was eventually removed by security. Outside the conference, women protested with signs reading, for example, “Women’s rights shouldn’t mean white privilege.”

The images and videos from the conference and the associated protests have trigged strong responses on social media: the founders of the CFFP were accused of “white feminism,” and prominent international feminists have since resigned from the organization’s advisory board.

This debate has brought to the surface an issue that has been simmering for some time: even though the German Foreign Office claims in its guidelines for a feminist foreign policy to “focus on the rights, representation and resources of women and marginalized groups,” in practice it undermines exactly those rights. In practice, feminist foreign policy is simply meant to give the German government a progressive veneer. The fact that ultimately there is nothing feminist about Baerbock’s policy is made perfectly clear by her policy toward Gaza.

Baerbock Is No Feminist Champion

The founder of the CFFP, Kristina Lunz, tried to justify the foreign minister’s participation in the press conference to the liberal-left newspaper taz by emphasizing that Baerbock “is one of the few politicians currently advocating for abortion.” Indeed, Baerbock has long campaigned against the criminalization of abortion. The fact that abortion is still technically a criminal offense in Germany is “completely out of touch with the times,” the leading Green politician said this summer. It is true that Baerbock has a clear profile and legitimate claim to feminist credentials on this issue. But she can only be considered a feminist in general if you choose to completely ignore her actions in her own ministry.

After the United States, Germany is Israel’s most important arms supplier. Between August and October 2024, Germany approved more than €94 million worth of arms deliveries to Israel. The foreign minister’s near unconditional support for Israel, even when its army attacks schools and other civilian infrastructure, was made clear when she falsely claimed last month that “civilian sites could lose their protected status [under international law] if terrorists abuse this status.”

Baerbock’s words are completely at odds with the reality on the ground in Gaza and Lebanon. A UN report released just a few weeks ago has stated that it could now take 350 years to rebuild Gaza if the coastal strip remains under blockade. In Gaza, more than half a million women are affected by food insecurity, and 175,000 are exposed to life-threatening health risks. In no other conflict in the last two decades have as many women and girls been killed in just one year as in Gaza. If these facts aren’t clear enough, even the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has recently begun taking legal action against German’s arms deliveries to Israel.

In 2023, Germany’s “center-left” governing coalition set a record for arms exports, and this year it could be exceeded again. Besides Israel, these weapons are being sent to countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, showing that rhetoric about “the fight against Islamism” in the name of protecting women’s rights doesn’t have to be taken too seriously if and when it upsets Germany’s geopolitical and financial interests. The weapons sent to Turkey are also being used, among other things, to crush the Kurdish liberation movement and thus the women’s revolution in northeast Syria. Ironically, German foreign policy has probably never been as un-feminist as it is now, even if it has written out its feminist guidelines.

German feminists must resist this “feminist” government’s policy at every opportunity. As an independent organization, the CFFP has itself tentatively tried to do this. They spoke out in favor of a cease-fire in Gaza early on and said (probably also in response to the protest at the press conference) that Germany must stop exporting arms to Israel. The problem is: What credibility does an organization that continues to share a stage with the foreign minister have? Consciously or unconsciously, the CFFP does little else than ensure that politicians like Baerbock can continue to coat themselves in a superficial feminist veneer.

Criticism From the Left

Left-wing feminists have been formulating criticism of the government’s feminist foreign policy ever since the concept entered German political discourse. Political sociologist Rosa Burç has explained that feminist foreign policy runs the risk of “creating a new space for legitimizing interventionist foreign policy.” The feminist writer Hêlîn Dirik wrote that “a capitalist and imperialist state will not challenge the conditions that drive women and queer people worldwide into poverty, exploit them, subject them to violence and marginalize them.” It follows that it doesn’t matter whether German foreign policy calls itself feminist. Ultimately, Germany’s foreign policy interests are capitalist interests, which are based on the exploitation of the oppressed, who are often women and girls.

This self-image makes it impossible to be receptive to criticisms that point out the colonial dimensions of feminist foreign policy. It would mean taking into account the economic and social changes necessary to achieve women’s liberation. To do so would mean, in principle, dissolving or at least restructuring the purpose of the CFFP so drastically that it would no longer be seen as suitable for a seat at the table of power. The seat of power would be rightfully seen as the political opponents of a genuinely universally feminist vision for the world.

However, the contradictory actions of organizations like the CFFP have become so clear that they are even sometimes expressed by people with institutional ties to international organizations or mainstream political parties. One such critic is Kavita Nandini Ramdas, the former president of the Global Fund for Women. Together with Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, director of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), she publicly announced that she was leaving the CFFP advisory board, partly because she had been silenced due to her positions on Gaza. The advisory board has since been dissolved.

Yet the main focus of her statement was not criticism of feminist foreign policy per se, but criticism of the absence of Gaza in these discussions. In a statement (since deleted), the CFFP denied having restricted the members of its advisory board in expressing opinions on Gaza. A few days later, an open letter was also published by former employees, who, among other things, accuse the organization of systematically discriminating against marginalized female employees, especially when they advocate for the rights of Palestinian women.

In the days following the event, the CFFP first dismissed the criticism as a misogynistic “shitstorm.” But they are not the only ones who are wrong: whenever women’s actions trigger internet discourse, it can always be expected to trigger genuinely sexist responses, and the resulting arguments are regularly dismissed in a misogynistic manner. Interpersonal and social grievances make their way into online discussions, and legitimate criticism is mixed with disproportionate attacks and occasionally misinformation. It is not always possible to separate one from the other.

Yet attempts to brush aside the political character of the criticism is part of the classic liberal-feminist bulwark against critiques from the Left. In the name of peace and keeping up appearances, feminists are called on to hold back on criticizing “each other.” At the end of October, it seemed that the CFFP might really be open to some criticism, declaring that it intended to address the legitimate criticism “amidst the hatred and lies,” but the post was deleted shortly thereafter, and the CFFP website has since been taken down for “maintenance.” It is unlikely that we will see an honest political debate that goes beyond addressing personal and identity-based grievances. Perhaps the best we might expect is that next time we speak about “feminist foreign policy,” a Palestinian woman will be allowed to share the stage with Baerbock.