They mischaracterize FFP – the alt calls for a lens of inclusion that extends to everyone affected by policymaking
Gabrielle Kohlmeier Samm Sacks 2021 “EVEN LESSONS FOR INCLUSIVE ANTITRUST FROM FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY” https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/8-Seven-Lessons-for-Inclusive-Antitrust-from-Feminist-Foreign-Policy-By-Gabrielle-Kohlmeier-Samm-Sacks.pdf As Market General Counsel, Gabrielle leads legal teams supporting Verizon Consumer Markets across half of the United States, including all Pacific Coast, non-continental, Coastal Plains, and Atlantic South states. Her work involves leading on everything from consumer law, physical and cybersecurity, privacy, AI, regulatory, network, and legislative matters. She is a founding member of Verizon’s AI Policy team, co-chair of its DEIB Council, and leads numerous legal transformation projects. Samm Sacks is a Research Scholar in Law and Senior Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. Her research examines China’s information and communications technology (ICT) policies, with a focus on China’s cybersecurity legal system, the U.S.-China technology relationship, and the geopolitics of data privacy and cross-border data flows. Previously, Sacks launched the industrial cyber business for Siemens in China, Japan, and South Korea. Prior to this, she led China technology sector analysis at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group and worked as an analyst and Chinese linguist with the national security community. She is a frequent contributor to the media and her articles have appeared in outlets including The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Slate. She has testified multiple times before Congress on China’s technology and cyber policies.//stobo
Diversity is a start, but beyond a box-checking or optics exercise, any initiatives aimed at creating inclusive leadership must give voice to different perspectives. This requires both critical mass of diversity, and leadership that creates psychological safety for differing opinions and viewpoints to be brought to the table. The focus on creating not only diverse representation but also a lens of inclusion is likewise key. Given the spectrum of identities, especially when considering intersectionalities,35 no team can ever fully represent consumers or competitors or society broadly. What matters then instead is that the team is both diverse and constantly exploring blindspots and unpacking assumptions. For teams to be inclusive – no matter how diverse they are – they should be constantly increasing their awareness of different experiences, and apply that learning in a regimented way. The example set by the Mexican government, which trained all of its foreign service officials in one model, is to be emulated, especially if the training is ongoing and not expected to deliver all benefits after one session. The Canadian government’s GBA Plus offers another model – one which has already been applied in the competition law and policy context.3 Broadening the aperture of what is examined and prioritized involves not only representation in places of power, but also input from sources beyond just those sitting at the table. This includes seeking information from affected people, rather than assuming that the experts at the table making decisions for others inherently know best.37 In the FFP context, this broader perspective lies in particular contrast to traditional “realist” foreign policy approaches. Yet as proponents of FFP describe, more diverse perspectives from girls and women (in or outside the decision room) lead to more options and ideas brought to the decision-making discussion, which leads to more peace.38 It also opens the doors to others beyond women and girls. Creating a gender lens through FFP, for example, has led to questions about who else is not represented, along with demands for greater input from other underrepresented groups - including racial minorities, people with disabilities, the elderly, and other underrepresented groups. The European Parliament, for example, has expanded FFP’s purview to include LGBTQ rights.39 Opening that door also brings attention and efforts to issues that have been men’s issues but were not previously discussed. For example, men have been victims of sexual assault in the military and sexual violence as a tool of war for millennia, but did not raise these as key policy issues until women spoke out and action was demanded to address this “women’s issue” – which then led to men coming forward as well.40 Similarly, in the antitrust context, focusing on “women’s issues” such as childcare markets may more directly impact women, who bear most of the child care burden - but will directly impact single fathers or other men with primary or equal childcare responsibilities, and will indirectly impact virtually all men (those with children, those working with women with children, those relying on the work of people with children, etcetera). In other markets, men may benefit from the greater price sensitivity of women if that sensitivity is disaggregated and considered in enforcers’ antitrust analyses.41 Inclusive antitrust could extend this lens to other underrepresented groups as well. As the foregoing makes clear, FFP is not about advantaging women to disadvantage men; in nearly all cases, all benefit from inclusive policies. Men benefit as a whole from more comprehensive solutions to cross-border issues such as armament, health pandemics, climate change, and digital regulation. FFP also does not mean reducing funding for other priorities, instead it focuses on spending resources more effectively in a way that “is inclusive in its reach and benefits, and therefore accelerates progress towards global security and prosperity.”42 FFP notes the two way street of a feminist foreign policy: it focuses on promoting gender equality, but it also yields better foreign policy outcomes.43