A Women's Lens
on Foreign Policy
and Foreign Assistance
As part of the Coalition's initiative to explore U.S. women's interest in and potential for impact on U.S. foreign policy making, on June 4, 1996, IWHC co-sponsored with the Council on Foreign Relations a roundtable discussion at the Council's headquarters in New York entitled, "A Women's Lens on Foreign Policy: Different Values, Different Views, New Policy?" The panel was moderated by Peggy Dulany, President, Synergos Institute and co-chair, Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Program, The Council on Foreign Relations. Panelists Barbara Crossette, United Nations Bureau Chief, The New York Times, Adrienne Germain, IWHC's Vice President & Program Director, Celinda Lake, President & CEO, Lake Research, Dorothy Thomas, Director, Women's Rights Project, Human Rights Watch, and Angela Wakhweya, Fellow, Health Policy Research, The Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College examined the potential for reframing U.S. foreign policy around issues once viewed as "women's issues", but now understood as key components of human security, including economic empowerment, health, the environment, education, and human rights. They also offered ideas for how to increase the influence of women on foreign policy, and to bring more women into decision making roles in all parts of the foreign policy making apparatus -- government and private. The panel provided essential "brain trust" for a Spring, 1997 symposium IWHC will hold in Washington, DC to explore these ideas further. IWHC staff wrote a summary report of the panel that is posted on the Council's World Wide Web site, and we published an edited version in December, 1996. The end goal of this work is to activate a constituency of women in support of foreign policy and foreign assistance that make central the principles of recent United Nations conferences in Cairo, on population and development, and in Beijing on women.