Ep. 045: Kristina Lunz

Transcript

SUSAN: Kristina, it is. It is such a pleasure to find you. Really. I mean, it's so funny to me in the world, how we can be in this on this planet together so many interesting people doing things that are related and not run into each other for a while. And then when I ran into I went, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I found you know, this woman is doing amazing, amazing work. So thank you so much for joining us on The Peacebuilding Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So you know you have founded something called and let me make sure I have the name right. The Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and you are based where am I finding you right now?

KRISTINA: Well, right now and during this pandemic, in the Bavarian countryside in Germany, and but normally I'm based in Berlin.

SUSAN: Okay. Yeah, I know all of us are in our homes and how is how is this been going for you this craziness that we are all living with?

KRISTINA: Um, I mean, I personally um, yeah, I'm really well off and I'm very privileged like to have my family here in the countryside, so that I could kind of escape Berlin and do my bit about staying inside and running into other people to kind of flatten the curve. And so I'm personally really well, I'm in my work and well  last concerned about what this current crisis means to different aspects, and I'm well. Yeah.

SUSAN: Yeah. I mean, I also when I thought about it, You know, what's the best I can do? And I thought, well, the best I can do probably is stay out of the hospital system and stay out of people's way, and do the best possible work I can about what I'm doing because it is related. It's not immediately related to the crisis, but it's certainly related in the big term to the crisis. So why don't we launch right in and you tell me something that I'm sure you answer all the time? What is a feminist foreign policy? How would you describe that?

KRISTINA: So feminist foreign policy for us, it's like a tool to analyze power. Like it goes back to the concept of social power. So like, who gets to set the agenda whose lived experiences needs are taken into consideration and who's making decisions? So for us for my organization, feminist foreign policy, means that kind of in a first step, we acknowledged that inequalities, and gender inequality is one of them, exist globally. And in a second step, we demand that all tools are foreign and security policy are used to eradicate those inequalities because we know because research shows that the most significant factor towards whether a country is peaceful within its own borders or towards other countries is the level of gender equality. So if that's, I mean, it's pretty easy, it just means that there won't be any peace without feminism.

SUSAN: Let me just highlight what you just said. Because on this podcast, we've been saying pretty consistently that the most impactful peacebuilding initiative that could be undertaken is to get get gender right, but gender equality really, you know, when you look at the, the relationship between what happens in the home and workplaces in the world, if you get gender right, suddenly you have a very different world. And I think that's what you just said if I heard you, right.

KRISTINA: Exactly, Exactly that and it wasn't only this week that but Emma Watson published this interview she did with Valerie Hudson and Valerie Hudson and her work, the professor from Texas. And her work has been really instrumental and important for our work because like she she's done lots of research on the link between what's happening in the home and the power relations in the home. And like kind of this first political order what she calls and how this translates to, and, and relationships within a country, but also interstate relationships. So exactly what you said. Yeah, yeah.

SUSAN: What's her name again?

KRISTINA: Valerie Hudson, okay. I highly recommend her.

SUSAN: I have to say personally, I almost I almost did start to cry when I was looking, I was looking at your website is so great. It's got so many wonderful things on there. But I was going to I was looking at the history of feminist foreign policy, and that was really moving to me and particularly because I have some very close Swedish friends and we're often talking about you know, I grew up in a very patriarchal family, in the heart of Wall Street, you know, surrounded by all of it, you know, the Vietnam War and and my undergraduate degree was basically in imperialism though we didn't call it that, but that was basically it. And, but, you know, when I was looking at the history of feminist foreign policy, I was so moved by just that Sweden. I guess it was at the at the ground floor of this and says something like equality between women and men is a fundamental aim of Swedish foreign policy. Ensuring that women and girls can enjoy their fundamental human rights is both an obligation within the framework of our international commitments, and a prerequisite for reaching Sweden's broader foreign policy goals on peace and security and sustainable development. I don't know. I mean, I just because I think and I'm interested in your view on this I, maybe because I'm a US citizen, I feel like my, it's, it's part of what motivates me to do, what I do is that I have been right at the heart of the heart of the beast. But I'm a woman, and that affected me really differently. Power was I was a second class citizen, I was there to serve not to be the one who's going to be the dominator. And, and I feel like my country really is been, you know, in terms of, well, I guess I would say that if my country were to engage in a feminist foreign policy, that would be quite a shift on the planet.

KRISTINA: Right, there would be quite something.

SUSAN: Right. So what are your thoughts about that? What are your thoughts about?

KRISTINA: Um, I mean, I can maybe that's interesting to some of the listeners like a little overview of the history of it.

SUSAN: I would love to hear that I think it'd be really, it's very interesting. And it was news to me and I've been trying to pay attention. Maybe that's my bad but it was still news to me. So I'd love to hear about it.

KRISTINA: And so yeah, you mentioned Sweden. So in 2014, indeed, after Sweden had already called itself a, like a feminist government in 2014. They also introduced a feminist foreign policy, and was Sweden and Margot Wallstrom, the then foreign minister, and she like credit is to her definitely. And because they're the first country that officially announced the feminist foreign policy, but but also it's I think it's important to acknowledge and in that regard, the incredible work of feminist organizations that had been done, like decades before Sweden announced their feminist foreign policy. So it was, it was like, like 100 years ago that in The Hague during the First World War, and 1500 feminists all over the place, countries came together in The Hague, for the International Congress of women to demand an end to the First World War and, and published a set of resolutions to avoid another world war one they included, for example, the dismantling of the industrial military complex and the prioritization of mediation for conflict resolution, and the democratization of foreign policy and many more. So feminist feminist civil society organizations had been doing incredible work, and based on all this research and knowledge, and then in the 80s, feminists, international relations theory became more prominent. And like based on on this in 2014, Margaret rostrum was strong as feminist and vocal as she is she has been had been for many years, she announced Sweden's First, the world's first feminist foreign policy in Sweden. And then very shortly after well in the beginning and when you read into your so

SUSAN: How was that received it?

KRISTINA: Yeah, yeah. Good question. Like when it's funny like when you listen to her and she speaks about it and she says like in the beginning there were lots of giggles people, didn't take her seriously. And her country and others were like, like, this is funny foreign affairs, foreign policy. I don't remember an article bout. It's called something like Swedish women against Putin or something like that. And everyone was confused, like, what the hell is feminist foreign policy? So she did so much explaining, but like, very soon after other countries started following so it was in 2017, that Canada announced their feminist international assistance policies or feminist development policy. And then, in 2019, last year on International Women's Day, France announced the feminist diplomacy and in Mexico, in January this year they announced their feminist foreign policy

SUSAN: I was that was really heartening to see that actually

KRISTINA: the amazing right really first country of the global south to announce a feminist foreign policy and that

SUSAN: I like the fact that both of my neighbors to the north and the south have done this, putting on the squeeze.

KRISTINA: And and now because, I mean, we have a small organization we've just looked like intensively into like the history because we just submitted a report on EU European Union feminist foreign policy commissioned by the Green Party in the European Parliament, a report and feminist foreign policy and what EU feminist foreign policy should look like. And in this process we looked into and the history so like, currently, there are more countries as for example, like very recently, Luxembourg and Spain and Cyprus and Malaysia, all of them announced that they're looking thoroughly into either announcing a feminist foreign policy or a gender equal foreign policy, and even the German Foreign Ministry and yet the German foreign ministry in March on the occasion of International Women's Day, they presented in a holiday conference, the Minister himself presented a report on German foreign policy and gender equality. That was the first of its kind. So there's this interesting did Germany have a feminist foreign policy? I don't know. No, no. So that was kind of the first very prominent step into like, I wouldn't like it. Germany definitely does not have a feminist foreign policy, but they are they've been doing very good work, especially women peace and security for the past one and a half years and beyond a little bit. So like this report, was really interesting to see and it's a self critical because the German Foreign Ministry, like so many other ministries around the world, I mean, they excluded practically excluded women from the diplomatic service for until the 50s. In other countries that was even beyond that. And yeah, it's impressive steps even in Germany is such a conservative country.

SUSAN: So not to make this too focused on the United States, but because I think I am. That's my passport. That's my home. I'm curious of your perspective on the US in all of this.

KRISTINA: So I'm with and let me mention that research because it might be interesting for listeners as well. The two researchers Bigio and Vogelstein in at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, and Washington, DC. They very recently, like few weeks ago, they published their research on it's called Gender Equality in Foreign Policy. So they've looked at the different initiatives around the world. And I'm pretty sure it was the US who had the very first Ambassador role on women peace and security. So and I mean, it was Hillary Clinton who said the famous words of like women's rights or human rights and like she, as Secretary of State, she initiated a couple of really interesting initiatives. And then we all know it went way downhill and things that on kind of economic empowerment of, of women, especially led by Ivanka Trump, that is what feminist organizations called like pink washing, and so there's nothing hopeful in that regard happening at the moment. But there are organizations who were pushing and who we're working with. One of them is the International Center for Research on Women that is based  in Washington DC as well, and together with ICRW, in my organization, but also representatives of those governments that have a feminist foreign policy. And we recently published a kind of the golden standard framework on feminist foreign policy. And we presented a during a press conference early, early March in New York, and they this organization, the International Center for Research on Women, and they're currently working on a on what would you call it like a proposal or advocacy paper on what a feminist foreign policy for the US should look like. And they want to have it ready once the new hopefully new president starts their work. I know. And so they are really leading the work on feminist foreign policy. The US

SUSAN: Thanks for that. You know, one of the things I'm noticing around the world is that every time some somebody is bold in their language, I get more bold and hopefully vice-versa and I just loved how you you put out right on your website “the foreign policy status quo is rooted in patriarchal values and perpetuates systemic violence through capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. These systems negatively impact different people in different ways based on their gender, race, ethnicity, class, socioeconomic status, sexuality and more” You know, I thought when I was interviewing I interviewed a young woman in South Sudan Ria Yuyada, who's amazing activist and I noticed how her language my language, we're both like, you know, encouraging each other. We're different age groups, but it's just encouraging each other to get more clear about calling things what they are. And now I'm also noticing in with Covid 19, that is also making me a little bit to throw caution to the wind and just say I am calling things as I see it, and but I wanted to ask you about you, because you've got some real fire in the belly, I can feel it and that as we say, and I wanted to just hear a little bit about your background, like what made you think this is maybe a longer story, but some highlights about what made you a feminist? What gave you the fire in the belly? What has given you voice, because I think for so many women finding their voice, is such a big challenge.

KRISTINA: It is such a big challenge. And it is precisely because of this, like, tiring patriarchal society out there and like I mean, we, I'm going to properly respond to your question in a second, but just this thought, like, This, again, is research by the Council on Foreign relations, but also by, by a German NGO who's recently looked at civil society around the world. The group that receives the most hatred and attacks, it is feminist organizations, and it's women politicians and women activists. Like every time a, a woman, a feminist speaks up about the status quo and challenges something like there's all this hatred coming your way. So, it is it's just so frustrating So

SUSAN: well, you know, I mean, I think fundamentally, it's that we are cheap labor fundamentally, and, and, and men and of course many men are really are feminists but I think in general, the system of patriarchy supports a whole system of labor that is that is unpaid, cheaper, supportive of men in power. And so yeah, it would be it would be threatening, you know, yeah, tearing that apart.

KRISTINA: Exactly. And it's based on the idea that, that especially like that, that women as opposed to stay in the private and men in the public sphere, so whenever we challenged that as women, as feminists, and make our voices heard, and there's like all this attempts to silence those voices, and for me, I mean, I've had my fair share of like hatred and like rape threats and threats against my family because I've been involved in feminist activism for a couple of years now. And I wasn't raised as a feminist. I was I grew up in a tiny village in the south of Germany in the countryside. 80 people live here. And so it's wonderful working class background family, and it's I had the best childhood here. But here in Bavaria, it's conservative and the idea of those who, who work hardest, would get the best positions in society. It's like really ingrained in society here. So no understanding of biases and structural discrimination and all of this, And then took me until my my postgraduate education that I first properly learned about human rights and globalization and structural discrimination and feminism. Kind of once I did, it was like my feminist awakening, I started seeing so many things and I started realizing that many things that made me uncomfortable when I grew up, especially like here as well like things like the fact that all power positions in my village and around that means the mayor and that the teacher the, in the tiny school here and the head of the supermarket and like you know all these like power positions in the village. They will obviously be occupied by men but on top, very often by men like the driving school teacher here, and some others who, who made us young women, girls very uncomfortable very often. I'd like the annual Sports Association party or something like they did things and approached us in a way that made us uncomfortable, but then realizing at the same time that they get so respected by others, that really always left me with like a very, very uneasy feeling. And then later in my early 20s, when I did learn about feminism and patriarchy and how the whole history and how society developed and how power has been distributed, and I am I got very, very angry and I started with I set up this campaign against Europe's most influential and powerful newspaper that is incredibly sexist and portrays always men as actors and like powerful people and women only in a sexualized way, objectified way, so I started this campaign and it received quite some attention by national international press and from then on, I was involved in like different feminist activism during my studies. And

SUSAN: you know, you said you got angry. And that even that sometimes is a challenge for people to connect to their anger and then act on it. And anger is such an important emotion, a source of change. What do you think allowed you to connect to your anger and then move with it?

KRISTINA: Hmm. Um, I guess to a big part, the people in my life at that time and I it was around the time when I I was studying in the UK was whilst I was doing the activism in Germany, and that also gave me some distance I guess that was needed at the time. And so when I started with all this kind of activist work and the status quo, challenging work, and I met a woman In the UK, her name is Dr. Scilla Elworthy

SUSAN: I interviewed her. Yeah,

KRISTINA: Of course you did.

SUSAN: She's wonderful, really wonderful.

KRISTINA: Amazing. So Scilla. Scilla is three times Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and built several organizations focusing on nuclear disarmament and localized peacebuilding and feminism. And so Scilla came into my life at this very important point. And like, we've been very, very close friends ever since. And she's been my mentor, She has had one of the most profound impacts on my life. And so having someone like her who was like, I will never forget, like back then when I first felt this anger and like many different feelings, like fear and anger, and I was in sadness when all those people men attacked me and she said to me, she said to me, Kristina you know, anger is like fuel. If you just like spray it around uncontrolled, it can cause a lot of harm. But if you channel it in a way that it can be, it can kind of be that fuel for your motor, and it can do amazing things. And so, yeah.

SUSAN: A couple of things, I'm curious what your parents think about what you're doing. And just because sometimes, well, that's always an interesting thing how you have had because whether you've had to extract yourself from some of your core conditioning, or whether they have been able to be really supportive of you.

KRISTINA: Oh, so pretty much like, pretty much at the same at the time when I started getting involved, like in feminist activism. It was when my dad passed away, unfortunately. So looking back I think like this overwhelming, like, incredibly overwhelming sadness and grief that I felt because I'm like I'm a daddy's girl. And so the the sadness that I felt then it kind of also this, like strong feeling was also part of kind of the fuel for me, it like looking back going in my head I'm thinking about like how my dad passed away and then I went back to London to continue studying and went to Oxford and stuff and, and, and feeling all those feelings and but one would still want to do something and like channel those feelings into something meaningful and that in a way was like a big part of it. And then my mom,

SUSAN: he was he was supportive of you? he was empowering to you?

KRISTINA: regarding the feminist work, I would actually be curious I think because those

SUSAN: I’m guessing he would be, I just looking at you and thinking about it. I'm guessing he would be but who knows? Yeah.

KRISTINA: But what if everything else? Yeah, yeah. He was, like literally one of the last things he learned about me because I was I came back home from my studies in London to be here during his last couple of weeks. And one of the last things he learned was that I was accepted to Oxford. And whilst he had no idea what Oxford was he, he confused it with Harvard, like he told some of his friends. I was listening to that conversation. Yeah, my daughter got accepted to Harvard.

SUSAN: Yeah, same idea

KRISTINA: So but he was very proud and extremely supportive.

SUSAN: I found it really interesting over the years, when I was doing work in Afghanistan, with women leaders and in different places. And in my own life, just seeing when fathers are supportive of daughters what a huge difference I think it often makes in terms of them, finding their voice and then being able to step out into the world.

KRISTINA: Yeah, exactly like, whilst he and he didn't know me like he, I never will. Unfortunately, we never talked about feminism because it was not one of my topics back then. But I would be really curious but like, he didn't know much about these things, but like, every time I was when I was studying in London, and then I was completely overwhelmed with everything. Every time I called him, he was like, come on, Tina. Don't let them get you down. You can do it. You can do it. And yeah, he was he was just amazing. And he always said, If anyone like annoys you speak up. Like you find your voice and like you tell them tell them off. And don't let anyone put you down.

SUSAN: Yeah, there you go. You go. There you go. There's the message. That's wonderful. Yeah.  And you were saying, I don't know if you want to say anything about your Mom.

KRISTINA: She's really cute. And she, she also like, it's like feminism the idea and like concepts like patriarchy like, all those heavy subjects. It's like s a huge relevance here and conversations in the village. But my mom and she, she keeps asking, asking, and only recently like she was like, seen as Oh, what exactly are you doing? And how can I translate it into German when I want to explain to someone so and she, like she mainly things that I'm doing good things for women's rights, and she's very proud of that. And that's, that's enough. So, yes, she’s very proud.

SUSAN: So, you know, I think, I'm heavily gestalt trained, and one of the things in terms of intervening in or in organizational systems, is we're always talking about, you know, having a very compelling vision, if you have if you have a very compelling vision, lots of times the system will move towards it. And, I wondered if you could, as best you can, as simply as you can, you know, because it's obviously probably a long conversation, articulate the vision? What are you moving towards What's the point in the future? What's the positive thing that you would like to create here?

KRISTINA: Mm hmm. So I personally but also with our organization, um, we are we're trying to contribute to a world and a future that is based on the on a fair distribution of power and that simply means that all groups of society like to the extent that they are represented in society should have access and also the right to influence policymaking and especially decisions about their own security. And once the variety and this beautiful variety of like different needs and ideas and lived experiences, makes it into policymaking and I am we are convinced that we managed to create a world where there will not be racism and sexism and misogyny and, and this like huge gap between the super rich and the very poor. Yeah, that's kind of the vision. Yeah.

SUSAN: So Rianne Eisler has been a guest on my show a couple of times and has, you know, talk to I don't know if you know, her know her work, but about sort of dividing the world into models of domination and models of partnership and, with the vast majority of human history actually being models of partnership, which William Ury also, who's an anthropologist from Harvard has underscored as well. But I think what Rianne talks about which makes so much sense to me, and I think I said in the beginning is is the connection between what's going on in the family and then what happens in the global arena and if you have and the connection to all the isms? I think so often people, particularly in this country, were race is such a such a deep issue. Often there isn't as much of a connection as I would like to see to what's happened around gender because I think if you are a kid in a home and you learn from the beginning that there is one parent that is more important than the other, you learn a one up one down kind of constellation, which is the heart of patriarchy, essentially, it's the heart of patriarchal learning. And then you can apply it to all kinds of things like okay, well then people who are light skinned are more important than people who are dark skinned and people who are you know, gender queer are not as important as people that are gender normative and all the all those kinds of one ups one downs. Does it make sense to you what I'm saying

KRISTINA: very much very much and, and the professor that I mentioned Valerie Hudson, her new book just came out. I haven't read the whole book yet, but like an article she wrote for us, and it's exactly in this she calls it The First Political Order exactly what you just mentioned.

SUSAN: You know, I have to say right now in the middle of Covid 19, I find myself getting pretty angry about all of this because Stephanie Savelle was also a guest on the show. And she's from The Costs of War Project at Brown University. And they've done some amazing work about tracking, mostly US military spending. But when you look at just the US around military spending, and you can look at it globally too. But the US, of course, has been the biggest military spender. We've been spending our money on the military and military things that will not affect climate change will not affect something like Covid, cannot protect us from a pandemic. And yet, my country's has been so like, I don't know, like caught up in the, I guess the PR of all this, that we just go ahead and do it. And at this point, we're spending at least 57 cents of every dollar on military solutions and there it's not, it's not doing anything for us, except for coming up with more fancy bombers that we're not using and sometimes fancy video games that is like acculturating little boys and sometimes little girls, but mostly little boys so that they can be the warrior, the next round of warriors in this whole militaristic scheme. And I think the more women I guess I have a thing. Women from the global north, particularly sometimes I'll just speak for my country I, I feel sometimes like I want to light a fire under all of us to kind of look at this because I don't, I don't think I don't think women, if they're given the purse strings, I don't think they spend money. At least the experts tell me that we don't spend money quite the same way. And so I think the more that women are really in charge of looking at budgets, the more we're going to say, No, actually, we're not going to spend money like that. We're going to spend money on meeting people's needs, which is what we need to do. We're going to meet and spend money in this country and having a public healthcare system so we can prevent future pandemics like that. But

KRISTINA: yeah, for me, someone like an outsider looking at the US Just it was lacking words pretty frankly, quite often I was

SUSAN: in terms of what's happening with the pandemic?

KRISTINA: With covid, but also your like the lack of like a health care system and, and health care insurance. And so I was in I spoke at a conference at Harvard, early March and then from Boston went to New York for another event, but it was closely checking on the situation and already felt really weird about being there in the first place. But then being in New York and not realizing that almost no one early March like three weeks ago was talking about Covid , did this one Instagram story , where I just like took a picture and like people everywhere at night, I wrote like this country or the city is like, sleepwalk into a catastrophe. And like this complete lack of leadership in this crisis now and on on a national level. It's, it is absolutely incredible. So one, and I can't I can't get my head around the fact that even if people get like to the hospital and will survive, who would if they had been infected that many of them will not be able to pay their bills like that as someone who grows up in Germany, I'm I, I can't I can't grasp the fact that a country cannot provide health insurance for this. It's like it's beyond imagination. For me, um, and so regarding Covid and like, feminist issues and exactly what you mentioned, right, the the, the whole thing about so much money being spent on militarism, and, and one of the core issues of feminist foreign policy, is disarmament. And in organizations like the Women’s International league for Peace and Freedom for more than 100 years, I've now been calling to move the money to move the money. from military to what keeps people really safe like to human security and that is healthcare education that is housing like all those topics. And one of our we have an as an organization, we have this incredible advisory board and one of our advisory, one of our advisory board members, Sanam Anderlini, who is the Director of the London School of Economics, Center for Women Peace and Security, and also the founder of an organization called International Civil Society Action Network and Asana published this widely read post last week [KL1] on what has feminism to do with women peace and security. And those who made it very clear like, she posed the question like how, how can it be like she's half American, half Iranian.  And she said, like, how can it be that we are awash with weapons, and but we do not have enough masks like to provide our health care workers with like, what This world we're living in. And so, the my center for feminist foreign policy, we've been doing quite some communication work around why covidis like a feminist issue. And so we we've created, we've built this page on our website with all this all collected lots of resources and identified like a couple of main themes like intimate partner violence, violence against women that is rising hugely and the and the unfair distribution of unpaid care work and but also and the deep prioritization of sexual reproductive health rights and more, but also how the like, what keeps people really safe and that we that all this money is now lacking in those human security systems because money had been spent over decades in on militarism. And we were currently the organization The organization in conversations with a Ministry in Germany because we'll be doing some work with them on how to mitigate the gendered impacts of Covid and what can be done about that. And, and when the knowledge is all out there feminists are saying so many years and I think

SUSAN: I think, you know, also for women everywhere, bringing it inside and because obviously we can look outside but also I think the more that women really, really take, take their leadership into their, you know, into their hearts understand when we're raising, we're raising kids, we're doing a lot of things. we're not the only ones raising kids now, but there's so many things we can do to shift this equation if we really if we really want to do it. And I think that you know, the thing everything has gotten too dicey with climate change, and it's time I mean, I love the women in Afghanistan, the women I work with, they're calling themselves Mother's of Afghanistan and I feel like that's what  i'm a fierce Mother! You know, I really was fierce about my kids and now I'm feeling fierce about the whole damn thing. So what is I guess just to because we're running out of time now but what is most exciting to you in terms of what's unfolding and what are the next steps that can lead this forward and how can people be most supportive to you to scale this work?

KRISTINA: Hmm. Um, whilst the state of this world is difficult, and from like, for many reasons, and we just mentioned couple of them and there are good things unfolding, and one of them definitely the like internationally the rising like the increasing strength of the feminist movement that we can see everywhere. And especially in feminist foreign policy, like all the countries that I mentioned before that have either adopted a feminist foreign policy, or are looking into feminist foreign policy and, or that are not doing any of them but still collaborating with organizations like mine because they find it important. That's only been like five, six years. And so many countries have gotten involved. And so that is really encouraging. Because more

SUSAN: I find that really exciting. I mean, just really so like I said, when I went to your website, and I saw that I saw the 2014, Sweden and then saw different countries doing then I thought, wow, this is very cool. This is very cool,

KRISTINA: it is. Yeah, it is brilliant. And so there's, there is quite some traction. And and we as an organization that was I mean, we are tiny, like my co founder is in London. I have a co director in Berlin and then we have a handful of contractors and volunteers and we only like, we were really young and but we receive, like, comparatively and so much interest and

SUSAN: tiny but with a very big message and voices.

KRISTINA: exactly. And like all the, like the ministries and governments that approach us and but also young women who say, it's the first time that I feel like international affairs is also for me. And because how foreign affairs international politics, diplomacy, I studied diplomacy at Oxford and I always thought like Oxford is like the place and there were so many things lacking still. And I never felt that diplomacy is for me as well. Um, but so we are the world's first organization on feminist foreign policy. And we are standing on so many shoulders of giants and, and I can already see that so many others take inspiration from us. So it's like this, this movement is getting stronger, and we're collaborating beyond national borders and beyond continents, and it's just really encouraging. Yeah. And so last question. how people can support us? we have a membership program. Yeah. And we've made for everyone joining us as

SUSAN: a member. What does that mean to do that? And how do they do it?

KRISTINA: And so if you go on our website, that's the centerforfeministforeignpolicy.org/membership. By

SUSAN: the way, I really like this website. It's wonderful to spend some time just, you know, touring around in it. There's a lot in there.

KRISTINA: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you can become a member like different types of membership and that way you can support us financially and we share lots of like inside information and specific newsletter and they are

SUSAN: Well, Kristina, thank you so much for your time. As everybody seems to be saying these days stay safe, stay strong. Stay home.

KRISTINA: Right? All of that.

SUSAN: But I hope this is not the first time we cross paths. And I hope that I can be supportive to you and your work. And we can collaborate because I'm really just so impressed with what you're doing. And so glad you're putting this on the agenda because I, you know, for many, many years, I spent years at Columbia University and around the School of International Public Affairs and which, you know, I have, I'm very grateful for many things that happens there and very aware of also how deep some of the patriarchal structures are in a lot of those institutions. And it's time to time to start, you know, breaking them up, moving things around, and I will say I just think the world for men, women, for people, will be so much more pleasurable for it. You know, I think having a son who is just such a beautiful soul and watching how patriarchal structures have molded him, limited him. He's fighting against it. But boy just so limits what men what men can feel and do and be. And so feminism is a very, I think a very, very luscious thing for all people. Yeah.

KRISTINA: Well, it's definitely exactly, exactly. Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you.