Synopsis:
This article covers the press conference held in Montreal in 2018 in which Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland and EU foreign minister Federica Mogherini announced a commitment to ‘feminist foreign aid’ in the future to counteract the bigoted, racist, misogynistic policies coming out of Western politics recently. Freeland’s understanding of Canada’ Feminist Foreign Assistance Policy was the guarantee another conference in 2020, while Mogherini announced no actually goals for the initiative.
This article acts as a critique to Canada’s supposedly feminist foreign policies. Specifically, the author notes how feminism has lately been used as a “branding tool rather than a realignment of power relations” upheld by the hegemonic Canadian state (Zakaria). The author attributes the failure of this conference and several reports regarding this topic that came out around the same time to the apolitical nature of them.
Rationale:
This article is important because it calls out the Trudeau government and current Canadian foreign politics as not taking a transnational approach to their ‘feminist’ politics. Transnational feminism is intersectional, political, post-structural, and they challenge current hegemonic power systems. The sentiments stated by Trudeau, Freeland, and Mogherini in the long run do not dismantle violent systems of power. Having something be feminist does not mean it simply involved women, it must reevaluate all systems of power.
Zakaria specifically mentions how Canada’s framing of women’s financial empowerment is staunchly apolitical. This gets at the core of this white-washed, first-world feminism that has infiltrated both corporations and Western governments that past decade or so: it doesn’t actually address the institutional systems of power that cause financially inequality in the first place. Rather, this style of foreign aid fixes the results of this system and doesn’t try to restructure what exists.
Keywords: Canada, foreign aid, foreign policy, Trudeau, international politics
Author: Kaelin Blanchard
The press conference accomplished goals of the Canadian government in that it gained positive press and branding on a global stage and set out a future low bar promise of a future meeting without having to provide financial backing. This allows Canada as a nation state to have a surface level media coverage that portrays Canada as being a progressive, and accepting global leader by having Freeland, a white woman, hold a high cabinet position. While in media and photos this reinforces a positive image, it is used as cover to allow the gender and racial inequalities that continue to exist in Canada.
A promise of a future meeting without any set out attainable goals until then show that Canada…
I think that this article is a great addition to the work that we have been doing as a class. The fact that Freeland is so loosely using the word ‘feminism’ without having any actual plans to put in work is frustrating. I agree with your comment that including women is not what makes something feminist. True feminist foreign aid would be strongly based in decolonial actions. It is vital that we read between the lines of what is being said, and hear what the actual plans are.