Author Kristina Lunz in an interview

Frankfurt, Dusseldorf Kristina Lunz, born in 1989, co-director of the Berlin Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, which she co-founded. The Future of Foreign Policy is Feminist is her first book. In an interview with the Handelsblatt, the Oxford graduate and former advisor to the Foreign Ministry talks about her recently published book, about Vladimir Putin and weapons of mass destruction. In the patriarchal understanding, these are “something positive, because the right of the stronger applies”. According to Lunz, on the other hand, a feminist foreign policy is based on the assumption that armament will “always lead to more destruction, to more death”.

Handelsblatt: Ms. Lunz, it is clear from your book that you see disarmament as one of the most important goals of feminist foreign policy. But Putin is now forcing the world back into rearmament. Does that ruin your aspirations?
Kristina Lunz: On the contrary, there is a very clear consensus among humanitarian and human rights organizations. The fact that a violent person has so much destructive power and brings so much suffering is a very clear sign that a militarized, armed world will always lead to maximum catastrophe. Sustainable can only be a preventive approach for an international system that focuses on disarmament, the strengthening of human rights and multilateralism, on international law and de-escalation in the medium and long term.

Putin has always liked to present himself in particularly masculine poses and has himself photographed shirtless while riding or hunting. To what extent does his war of aggression reflect his image of masculinity?
Putin acts very consistently as a person who has internalized a toxic masculine image, based on his understanding of gender hierarchies, which is shown, for example, in the massive oppression of LGBTI communities in the country or the decriminalization of domestic violence.

This subjugation of women and all things feminine on the one hand, and portrayal as defenders and protectors of the people on the other, fits perfectly with a patriarchal understanding of how men and women should be. Gender researchers in international relations have already clearly shown how toxic masculinity in the person of Putin will lead to more and more violence and wars.

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For example, Valeria Hudson, an American professor who sits on the advisory board of the CFFP, researches how patriarchal structures and the oppression of women within states are directly related to the willingness of the representatives of these states to fight out wars and conflicts. We now see the confirmation of this research on our screens all day long.

So far, talks between Russia and Ukraine have achieved little. What solutions does feminist foreign policy offer in such a deadlocked situation?
I will not be able to resolve the situation because we are not working with regional but with thematic priorities. The top priority in a feminist approach to foreign policy is to focus attention on those who are most affected and marginalized. Of course, this also includes women and other politically marginalized groups. It is important that humanitarian work is gender-based.

Kristina Lunz

The author advocates a feminist foreign policy.

(Photo: AEDT Star Press/aedt)

What added value does your work offer then?
I see my and our role in Germany in helping to offer a counter-narrative to the prevailing narrative that says: diplomacy and de-escalation are useless. Even though Germany has now opted for 100 billion special funds and a “turning point”: rearmament and weapons will always lead to more destruction and death.

Couldn’t that be called humanitarian or values-based? What exactly is feminist about disarmament and de-escalation?
A feminist understanding of foreign policy is highly nuanced and detailed, addressing the complexities of life. Feminism means action against patriarchal structures. In the state and in families, men rule, and underneath we have built hierarchies that are maintained by force and arms.

But just because we make some state borders safe or promote state institutions doesn’t make people safe within states. In the patriarchal understanding, weapons of mass destruction, for example, are something positive because the law of the strongest applies.

Feminists in foreign policy then say: are you kidding us? They see the connection between the violence that women and politically marginalized groups experience on a daily basis and the institutions of international politics and ask: How do you get the crazy idea that we will be safe if we arm ourselves? That will not happen, and that is what feminist foreign policy says.

Kristina Lunz: The future of foreign policy is feminist.
Econ publisher
Berlin 2022
448 pages
22.99 euros

With Annalena Baerbock, a woman now occupies the most important foreign policy role in the state. How is she doing so far?
She brings in a different style of politics. No matter where she speaks, she always brings the stories and focus of individuals to the highest diplomatic stage and says things that no one has said before, for example that Germany wants to make arms exports more dependent on the human rights situation, especially women’s rights, locally.

And she listens to local women and feminists who have very concrete suggestions on how to tackle patriarchal violence. This is what makes feminist foreign policy: namely, listening to civil society and local feminist civil society and responding to their demands.

Globally, however, foreign policy is still dominated by men. What would they gain from a feminist foreign policy?
Everyone has a lot to say about feminist foreign policy and feminism in general. It’s not just that feminism needs men. Men need feminism even more. Feminism is always directed against the patriarchal system, in which men benefit disproportionately, but in which many men suffer quite a lot. In wars and conflicts in particular, most of the victims are men, with the violence almost always being perpetrated by men.

The less patriarchal a society is, the less violent it is towards men. What’s really crazy is that families are being torn apart at the Ukrainian border because it’s assumed that men have to fight and women are allowed to run away. These are all consequences of patriarchy, proving that the world would be a lot more comfortable for men too if they joined feminism and feminist foreign policy.

Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock speaks to the United Nations

With Annalena Baerbock, a woman now occupies the most important role in foreign policy in Germany.

(Photo: Reuters)

Annalena Baerbock recently said that for her, feminist foreign policy embodies the “three Rs”: rights, representation, and resources. However, she allegedly knew nothing about the 100 billion budget for the Bundeswehr. What good is their feminist foreign policy when other actors in the same government are giving so much money for the opposite?
A transformation to a fairer society through feminist politics can only have a lasting effect if we have it coherently in all areas. In patriarchal societies, power is where women are not, which is why it is imperative that we break patriarchy. I hope that other, rather less feminist ministers in this government – such as the Ministry of Finance – will recognize this.

In general, I just want to be represented by politicians who are humane, who are humane and want to shape politics in a way that ultimately contributes to more justice. And that there is this coherence throughout the government and that those who have understood this also convince other parts of the government.

What budget does a feminist foreign policy need then?
That’s difficult to quantify. However, we need to turn away from the fact that annual spending on defense and armament has been many times higher than spending on peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peacebuilding for decades.

If the EU had been further along in terms of feminist foreign policy, could it have defuse the Ukraine conflict sooner? Or does the approach only work if both sides in the conflict understand this concept for themselves?
It would be very dubious to say that this and that would have happened if we had had a feminist foreign policy for some time. But what can actually be said is that feminists in foreign and security policy, human rights defenders, and feminist organizations have never underestimated aggressors like the federal government has for decades.

They would not have filled the coffers of an aggressor to such an extent if, after the annexation of Crimea, after participation in Syria, and after human rights violations in their own country, they would not have pursued such a soft Russia policy without a clear stance, which ultimately gave a violent person so much leeway to act .

Feminists in foreign policy have a completely different understanding of how patriarchal structures within countries relate to international conflicts, and know that aggressors who violate human rights on this scale do not shy away from doing so on a much larger scale.

What would be a concrete next step in this regard?
As a society, we need to understand how climate dependencies are related to the financing of war chests, how access to health worldwide is related to the lack of security for people, and how the exploitation of nature will lead to pandemics even more easily in the future. If at some point in the world’s foreign ministries it is recognized how everything is connected and that in all these crises it is always the politically marginalized who are hit the hardest, we would be a whole step further.

Ms. Lunz, thank you very much for the interview.

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