Feminist Foreign Policy

Advances and limitations based on the Mexican case (2020-2024)

Abstract

In the last decade, some countries have defined a strategy to unify efforts for gender equality in foreign policy and have begun to adopt a Foreign Policy that explicitly calls itself “Feminist”. Mexico claims to be the first Latin American country to  adopt a feminist foreign policy in 2020, explicitly. In addition to presenting the action plan adopted by the Mexican government in this direction, this article seeks to analyze the evolution and results of Mexico's Feminist Foreign Policy, the limitations of this approach, and the barriers imposed by reality. Among the preliminary results, the use of the feminist agenda and women's rights in the international context contributes to the acquisition of political capital and potential soft power, which are difficult to measure, but  mobilize the discourse of government authorities. Even so, the mismatch with a domestic reality of serious violations of women's rights could delegitimize the Feminist Foreign Policy in the eyes of both national and international public opinion, which could bring consequences for its implementation. Finally, the importance of incorporating into this debate the issue of citizen participation and the democratization of foreign policy in general was also reiterated.