•HRES 209 IH 
structures and inequalities based on intersecting systems 
of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of 
race, age, language, socioeconomic status, physical or 
mental ability, sex, including gender identity or expres-
sion and sexual orientation, indigenous identity, religion, 
ethnicity, citizenship, and nationality or migrant status; 
Whereas foreign policy reflects how a government defines and 
prioritizes peace and security, structures international 
trade, provides humanitarian aid and development assist-
ance, and works with other nations and non-state actors; 
Whereas feminist foreign policy is the policy of a State that 
defines its interactions with other States, as well as 
movements and other non-state actors, in a manner 
that— 
(1) prioritizes peace, gender equality, and environ-
mental integrity; 
(2) enshrines, promotes, and protects the human 
rights of all; 
(3) seeks to disrupt colonial, racist, patriarchal, and 
male-dominated power structures; and 
(4) allocates significant resources, including re-
search, to achieve that vision; 
Whereas feminist foreign policy is coherent in its approach 
across its levers of influence, anchored by the exercise of 
those values at home and cocreated with feminist organi-
zations, movements, and stakeholders, at home and 
abroad; 
Whereas women’s rights are human rights and foreign policy 
in the United States should be representative, inclusive, 
responsive, and accountable to stakeholders, and should 
take an intersectional approach, utilizing a power-based 
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analysis that reveals, acknowledges, and seeks to correct 
for inequalities; 
Whereas feminist foreign policy includes a focus on key the-
matic priorities of bodily autonomy, peace, environmental 
integrity, and justice, which are often left behind in for-
eign policy development and discourse; 
Whereas, although women and girls make up approximately 
half of the world’s population, they face considerable dis-
parities relative to men and boys in their access to rights, 
resources, and agency around the world, and— 
(1) as of 2022, women had on average three-quar-
ters of the legal rights as men worldwide; 
(2) the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender 
Gap report for 2022 estimates that at the current rate 
of change, it will take 132 years for there to be gender 
parity across the four dimensions it examines: health and 
survival, economic participation and opportunity, edu-
cational attainment, and political empowerment; 
(3) there are 1,800,000,000 young people in the 
world and approximately half of them, 900,000,000, are 
adolescent girls and young women; 
(4) as early as age 6, girls’ levels of ambition and 
self-confidence in their abilities are impacted by gender 
discrimination and harmful stereotypes, and girls aged 12 
to 17 are more at risk of dropping out of school than 
boys around the world; 
(5) in 2022, around the world women held only 22.9 
percent of parliamentary seats and 16.1 percent of min-
isterial positions; 
(6) approximately one-third of women globally have 
experienced gender-based violence, which increases in set-
tings of crisis, conflict, and humanitarian emergencies; 
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(7) in 2021, 81,000 women and girls were killed 
worldwide, 45,000 of them by an intimate partner or 
family member; 
(8) in 2021, only 5.8 percent of military contingents 
and 14.4 percent of uniformed police units in United Na-
tions peacekeeping missions were women; 
(9) 
in 
low- 
and 
middle-income 
countries, 
218,000,000 women want to delay or prevent pregnancy 
and have an unmet need for family planning services and 
supplies, which can lead to unintended pregnancies and 
health complications, and limit women’s and girls’ oppor-
tunities to pursue education, economic, and civic engage-
ment; 
(10) women face more constraints than men do in 
accessing foreign markets; 
(11) immigration law itself tends to marginalize 
women, relying on outmoded models of family, migration 
patterns, and economic mobility that often fail to account 
for the reality of women’s lives when migrating; 
(12) women and girls face increased risks in crisis; 
and 
(13) in the past decade, women provided over 43 
percent of the agricultural labor in low- and middle-in-
come countries, yet comprised more than 60 percent of 
the world’s chronically hungry people; 
Whereas in a world in which there is gender equality and 
women can fully participate in all spheres of life— 
(1) global gross domestic product could increase by 
$28,000,000,000,000 over 10 years; 
(2) the percentage of hungry people could be re-
duced by 12 to 17 percent if women had equal access to 
agricultural resources; and 
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(3) peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to 
last over 15 years when women are at the negotiating 
table; 
Whereas as foreign assistance by the United States helps 
tens of millions of people each year, often providing life-
saving aid while accounting for approximately 1 percent 
of the United States Federal budget, a smaller amount 
supports gender equality, and— 
(1) about 3 percent of assistance in 2020 was re-
ported as specifically for gender equality programs; 
(2) only about 19 percent of assistance in 2020 was 
reported as including key components to address gender 
equality issues within projects that have a primary focus 
other than gender equality across all sectors; and 
(3) an even smaller amount of aid funding finds its 
way to local, women-led and feminist organizations and 
grassroots gender equality movements, and in 2020, the 
United States only disbursed $1,000,000 to women’s 
rights organizations and institutions, and as of 2021, in 
the past 10 years has not disbursed more than 
$10,000,000 in a year; 
Whereas a feminist foreign assistance policy in the United 
States would promote gender equality and focus on the 
experience of women and people who experience multiple 
and intersecting forms of discrimination, such as gender- 
based violence, lack of access to sexual and reproductive 
health, rights, and justice, lack of access to education, 
and the burden of unpaid care responsibilities; 
Whereas the long-lasting impacts of the COVID–19 pandemic 
highlighted the need to take a feminist approach to for-
eign policy with many impacts disproportionately affect-
ing women and girls, including— 
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(1) the United Nations Educational, Scientific and 
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) finds that over 90 per-
cent of students were affected by pandemic-related school 
closures, that approximately 1,500,000,000 students had 
their 
learning 
disrupted, 
and 
that 
approximately 
11,000,000 girls were put at risk for permanently drop-
ping out of school by the pandemic; 
(2) the economic impact of the pandemic has had a 
disproportionate effect on women, and the 780,000,000 
women who rely on informal employment lost on average 
60 percent of their prepandemic income in the first 
month of the pandemic; 
(3) on average, the ratio of women’s employment to 
population dropped more than that of men due to the 
COVID–19 pandemic according to the International 
Labour Organization; 
(4) UN Women, the United Nations Development 
Programme, and the University of Pardee Center for 
International Futures estimated that the COVID–19 
pandemic put 388,000,000 women and girls at risk of 
falling into extreme poverty in 2022, compared to 
372,000,000 men and boys, worsening the already exist-
ing gender-poverty gap; 
(5) worldwide, women have shouldered the bulk of 
unpaid care and domestic work resulting from the pan-
demic, and even prior to the pandemic, women on aver-
age performed more than three times the amount of un-
paid work relative to men; 
(6) the COVID–19 pandemic disrupted efforts to 
end child marriage, and could result in an additional 
13,000,000 child marriages taking place between 2020 
and 2030 that would otherwise have been averted; 
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(7) nearly 12,000,000 women lost access to family 
planning services and 1,400,000 unintended pregnancies 
in low- and middle-income countries occurred in just the 
first year of the pandemic; 
(8) an estimated 243,000,000 women worldwide 
were subjected to sexual or physical violence by an inti-
mate partner between April 2019 and April 2020, and 45 
percent of women have been exposed to at least one form 
of violence against women either directly or indirectly 
since the start of the pandemic; and 
(9) due to the disruption of programs to prevent fe-
male genital mutilation in response to COVID–19, an ad-
ditional 2,000,000 female genital mutilation cases will 
need to be averted to eradicate the practice by 2030; 
Whereas, in mid-2022, over 100,000,000 people were dis-
placed from their homes due to violence, disaster, con-
flict, and persecution, more than 339,000,000 people will 
be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2023, and tools 
and initiatives to center women, girls, and people of all 
gender identities in humanitarian responses, such as Safe 
from the Start and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee 
Gender Handbook for Humanitarian Action, should be 
used to respond; 
Whereas trade is a necessary and vital component of a na-
tion’s economic success and growth and a key part of its 
engagement with other nations, and— 
(1) in 2022, United States exports and imports to-
taled 
approximately 
$3,009,700,000,000 
and 
$3,957,800,000,000, respectively; and 
(2) a feminist trade policy would promote women’s 
rights and equitable and dignified labor practices 
throughout the value chain, as well as reduce and miti-
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gate the harmful impacts of climate change associated 
with trade; 
Whereas feminist diplomacy fosters increased collaboration 
and cooperation among State and non-state actors, in-
cluding championing equality and supporting the institu-
tions and mechanisms that facilitate cooperation, non-
military conflict resolution, and peaceful competition, and 
that mitigate the effects of climate change; 
Whereas a total of 13 governments have implemented or an-
nounced an intention to implement feminist foreign poli-
cies and the G7 has recognized ‘‘feminist development, 
foreign and trade policies’’ and has committed to 
strengthen the rights, resources, and opportunities for 
women and girls in all their diversity in every sphere; 
Whereas defense efforts support the goal of a more peaceful, 
equitable, and healthy planet, with peace as the ultimate 
aim of defense, and a military policy that prevents and 
responds to gender-based violence in conflict and that 
meaningfully includes women and those who face dis-
crimination in security forces, peace negotiations, and 
postconflict rebuilding, in accordance with United States 
commitments to the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 
2017 (P.L. 115–68) and its necessary implementation; 
Whereas migration remains a global and growing phe-
nomenon, and— 
(1) the number of international migrants reached an 
estimated 281,000,000 persons in 2020; 
(2) women constitute nearly half of global migrant 
flows; 
(3) the United States is the leading country of des-
tination, hosting 50,632,836 foreign-born people, includ-
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ing over 613,700 naturalized citizens in fiscal year 2022; 
and 
(4) a feminist approach to immigration would inte-
grate an analysis of the impact of immigration policy on 
women, children, people of all gender identities, and in-
digenous people; and 
Whereas strong transparency and accountability are critical 
to ensuring that promises to advance a feminist approach 
are honored through full funding and include the develop-
ment of participatory approaches to policy formulation 
and implementation, the setting and reaching of specific, 
time-bound and measurable goals that do no harm and 
are desired by and beneficial to those impacted, and 
transparent reporting on the progress toward goals: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) supports the goals of a feminist foreign pol-
icy; 
(2) supports the adoption of policies that pro-
mote gender equity and women and girls’ participa-
tion in public life, including women and girls’ edu-
cation, equitable access to health care, representa-
tion in public office, economic security and oppor-
tunity, access to rights and resources, inclusion in 
foreign markets, and participation in peacekeeping, 
military, and diplomatic missions; 
(3) recognizes that a whole-of-government effort 
that ensures coherence of a feminist approach across 
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all streams of foreign policy is necessary to achieve 
those goals, and must include— 
(A) high-level leadership with a mandate to 
design and implement a feminist foreign policy 
with clearly articulated objectives; 
(B) commitment to gender parity, diver-
sity, equity, and inclusion, both internally 
among leadership and staff and externally, co-
created with civil society groups and other 
stakeholders outside of government; 
(C) the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy 
on gender-based violence and workplace harass-
ment, immediately eliminating policies that 
allow abusers to move from one post to another 
once accused without facing consequences re-
lated to their employment or promotion; 
(D) training and capacity-building to en-
sure robust implementation; 
(E) gender analysis underlying all aspects 
of foreign policy; 
(F) adequate resourcing to ensure all of 
the above; and 
(G) regular and public reporting on efforts 
and outcomes; and 
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(4) commits to work with civil society groups 
and other stakeholders inside and outside of govern-
ment to advance a more feminist foreign policy in 
the United States. 
Æ 
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