Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is about systematically and holistically implementing policies that increase gender equality and the full enjoyment of human rights of all women and girls. It is based on knowledge and reality. And overwhelming evidence tells us that a feminist foreign policy is the only way forward. A McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that $12 trillion could be added to global growth by advancing women’s equality. Increasing gender equality has positive effects on food security, extremism, health, education and numerous other key global concerns that are of national and global interest. Existing facts show this and we are working closely with Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in order to further develop world gains from applying a feminist perspective to national as well as international affairs.  

Gilsinan writes that two years after the [Swedish Foreign Ministry] launched it, it is still not clear what Sweden’s feminist foreign policy means. But the fact is that we have not only produced tangible results but also started a process of changing the way the whole Foreign Service operates. Our feminist foreign policy is not a thematic issue, it’s an integrated part of daily operations guiding the work of more than one hundred embassies, delegations, representations and departments. As part of this broad effort a Swedish and a Nordic mediators’ network of women have been founded, several initiatives have been taken to support women’s participation in peace processes (e.g., in Syria and Colombia), and the Swedish government has successfully lobbied for the installment of a gender advisor in the EEAS, EU’s diplomatic service.

Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is modern, pragmatic, and clear. In practice, it means Sweden is assuming a leading role internationally in allocating development funds to projects contributing to gender equality, and in advocating for sexual and reproductive health and rights for women. It also means promoting a gender perspective in all negotiations, including the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and various trade agreements negotiated by the EU.  Yet another priority is to fight sexual and gender-based violence in conflicts and other emergencies. Efforts in this vein should be a key concern when addressing collective security issues and peace building. Sweden works hard to end impunity, help survivors and address the root causes of these sickening acts of violence that tear societies apart.

Sweden is not alone in the efforts to put gender equality on the global agenda. On countless occasions in her role as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton asserted that promoting the rights of women and girls is integral to the achievement of every U.S. foreign policy goal. In 2015, John Kerry stated that fighting gender-based and sexual violence is not just a moral issue, but a question of collective security. Feminism is a component of a modern view on global politics, not an idealistic departure from it. It is about smart politics which includes whole populations, uses all potential and leaves no one behind.

And a hearty amen to that. I think there’s actually very little Wallstrom and I disagree on here. Almost as soon as I started looking into the question of whether women lead countries differently than men do within the global arena, I was confronted with two problems. First, not enough women have done it for us to be able to draw firm conclusions one way or the other. Second, it’s not at all clear how stereotypically “feminine” traits (empathy, for example, or disinclination toward violence) might be translated from an individual woman to the behavior of an entire foreign-policy bureaucracy she might run. What if she herself doesn’t exhibit those traits? What if she does, but the bureaucracy in charge of implementing the policy remains overwhelmingly male-dominated? Or what if organizational behavior is pretty much insensitive to gender stereotypes one way or the other? (To the extent men are stereotypically aggressive and dominant, there are plenty of foreign policies run by men that are perfectly empathetic and pacifist. The pope is a man, for God’s sake!)

Indeed, that’s why I called the piece “The Myth of the ‘Female’ Foreign Policy.” I wouldn’t ask what a “male” foreign policy would look like. As Wallstrom points out, “men have been in charge of politics for hundreds of years,” and it’s clear that there are all kinds of “male” foreign policies—some of them great, some of them terrible. There’s no reason to expect that a “female” foreign policy wouldn’t exhibit to the same variety, given the chance to be better tested in the world. What’s likeliest, I concluded, is that women conduct foreign policy like human beings.

But there’s a deeper issue here that Wallstrom is right to point out. Even if we could answer these questions, so what? As she writes: “Political representation is about rights … [n]ot about gendered characteristics ... but about exercising your democratic right to participate in decision-making that affects you and your society.” A hearty amen to that, too.

I don’t remember much from the Taliban years, having been a kid then—I remember there was a picture in the calendar in which a Talib was shooting a woman in a stadium, and I remember when my father buried his library’s books in the village to hide them from the Taliban. But the post-2001 period was when I started opening my eyes to the world. Afghanistan was a ravaged land, but our hopes and determination to rebuild it then seemed unmatched by any obstacle. Afghan and Indian music was everywhere (the Taliban had banned music), and postcards of Bollywood movie stars decorated the windows of music shops and the back covers of school notebooks. Families ran into markets to buy second-hand Western clothing, and that was, to me, a testimony of how much people had disliked the Taliban; how easily they gave up on their supposedly “Afghan” uniforms.

Fifteen years later, the legacy of the bombs that were supposed to bring voice and light is mixed for me. International money and blood has helped millions of students like me get an education, allowed millions of women like my sister pursue their dreams and raise their voices. It brought a free media and a vibrant civil society to keep the government accountable. Afghanistan has one of the most liberal constitutions in the region and a political structure that has the potential to be democratic and transparent.

But the other side of this “shining city” is a hell. Hundreds of thousands of people have died, and the bloodshed doesn’t look set to end anytime soon. The Taliban, who were supposed to be part of a dark history, are now the solid reality of our present and the imminent threat to our future. Survival is still the primary concern for Afghans. This summer, after I survived a critical injury in an ISIS attack in Kabul, my father told me he was happy I was returning to the U.S., where I’m getting my master’s degree. His foremost concern was not that I get a quality education at an elite institution, but that I stat alive and safe so that his life invested in me wouldn’t vanish in despair.

In one afternoon, after a short day at university, I prepared a meal of leftovers and sat to watch TV, happy to have made it home before sunset. Then and there, in live broadcast, like watching an asteroid descend on Earth, I saw the second plane smash into the second tower.

Disbelief was not an option. Anger was not enough. I remember well that one question burned in my mind: If the USA is not safe, where will I be safe? How was I to believe that one or a few could injure the mighty USA? It was like that scene from Indiana Jones, when a tribesman unwillingly and by mistake injured the King and caused him to bleed, so the myth of God-King vanished and the bleeding king became fair game and unworthy of worship. The mighty USA just lost the cap and became a man wearing tights. Who was to save us then? Where would we go? What life were we to build?

Downsizing was the next life strategy: Don’t dream big, don’t expect much, don’t fight long, don’t resist much … be a good boy and play along.

Jennifer Tope, an American reader who was traveling in Botswana, knew that 9/11/01 was going to be significant—because it was the date of her master’s graduation. She didn’t find out about the attacks until a day later and didn’t get more details until a day after that:

On September 13, I was finally able to catch a little of the news coverage at a bar in Zimbabwe, mostly filled with locals. Everyone laughed when the reporter said that southern Manhattan still did not have hot water. We had no water at all that morning in Zimbabwe so this did not seem to us the catastrophe the American reporter seemed to think it was.

I rarely saw the news in the next few weeks so never learned very much about the attack, and as a result, I feel embarrassingly ignorant about what happened. I also got an outsiders view of the events and did not understand why people suddenly seemed to love Bush and were buying so many American flags. Why were they singing “God Bless America” at baseball games?

One more reader, Lisa Woerly, was on a plane on 9/11, heading from Paris to Omaha. Hers was one of 38 flights diverted to Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada, when the U.S. closed its airspace in response to the attacks:

I remember being about 3 hours into our flight when I felt the plane change directions. Then the plane changed directions again. I remember looking at the person across the aisle from me, and we both had a look of confusion on our faces. Soon, the pilot came on the intercom, telling us only that there was a problem and we were going to land in Gander. I’d never even heard of Gander.

Once we finally landed, we still didn’t know what was going on, just that we had attempted to fly back to Paris and were denied. Then we had headed to Greenland but were denied that entry as well. That explained the different directions we kept going in.

We spent all of Tuesday on the plane, surrounded by dozens of other planes on the tarmac. By then, the pilot had told us what had happened. We were all oddly silent for the rest of the day and night on the plane. I remember just trying to figure out where our world would now be headed.

On Wednesday morning, we were finally allowed off. Then we were bused to the Masonic Lodge. I slept on the floor that night. Cots were provided for the next night. The people of Gander rallied, feeding us three meals a day and opening their homes for us to shower.

I walked constantly, unable to sit still. I walked to and from Wal-Mart numerous times each day for something to do. I was alone, with no way to call anyone in the States to let them know I was alive. The local phone company got banks of phones together on Thursday morning, and I stood in line for my turn to make a five-minute call to my mother. Forty-eight hours had gone by before she knew I was alive.

There is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t think of the people of Gander. They dropped their lives to take care of thousands of us who landed in their backyard that week.