Feminizing World National Security

Ivanka Trump was speaking at the 2019 Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (WeFi) in Côte d’Ivoire, hosted by the World Bank Group. She traveled with a U.S. delegation including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) +wife, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), USAID rep Mark Green, FCC officials, and National Security Council officials. Opened in French, said she was there to promote gender equality by 2020 and the 1st ever "all of of government approach" to women's economic empowerment in the developing world, 50 million women by 2025. She spoke about a National Security Presidential Memorandum President Trump signed in 2017, along with the "The Women Peace and Security Act" which mandated that women be involved with all national security peace negotiations. Passed by GOP Congress, but Link: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-c... CFR Report on it: "The participation of women and civil society groups in a peace negotiation makes the resulting agreement 64 percent less [Quoting UNWomen.org] likely to fail and 35 percent more [Quoting InclusiveSecurity.org] likely to last at least fifteen years. Research shows that higher levels of gender equality are associated with a lower propensity for conflict, both between and within states. And data from countries around the world demonstrate that women’s inclusion in peacekeeping units, police forces, and the security sector improves accountability and decreases abuses against civilians" Link: https://www.cfr.org/blog/three-things... According to the Center For Family & Human Rights (C-Fam) the National Security Council is coordinating the implementation guidance for this to the Departments for Defense, State, Homeland Security and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The bill passed the GOP Congress only after Democrats agreed to drop references to the Obama-era plan. The law’s Republican champion, outgoing House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, sent a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo earlier this year explaining that Congress expects a new strategy and not a repeat of the Obama document. C-Fam claims some career staff members are seeking to make Trump’s strategy resemble the broader international feminist agenda. The agenda, also called “The Hillary Doctrine” for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was reflected in the Obama plan which included such things as abortion and transgender training at the nation’s war colleges. During its tenure on the UNSC, the Obama administration sponsored new WPS resolutions focused on sexual violence rather than women’s participation and empowerment. While some feminists are leery of casting women primarily as victims, the focus buttresses a broader feminist claim to an international right to abortion for women raped in conflict and humanitarian settings. The emphasis on sexual violence also underpins an effort to transform the agenda toward an LGBT focus.