Efforts to strengthen gender equality and embed gender perspectives in multilateral disarmament and arms control are facing unprecedented pressure.
Recent political shifts – most notably the Trump administration’s resistance to initiatives promoting gender, diversity, or inclusion – have lent momentum to anti-gender narratives. This has fuelled opposition to gender-inclusive language and intensified the contestation of gender equality policies in multilateral disarmament and arms control diplomacy.
“Gender backlash in disarmament and arms control: Safeguarding progress amid rising resistance” by ELN Policy Fellow Jana Baldus examines the gender backlash in multilateral disarmament and arms control, and its implications. It finds that resistance by even a small number of powerful states could erode hard-won gains. If unaddressed, the backlash could lead to a failure to tackle the gendered impacts of weapons violence, reduce space for civil society engagement, and erode normative commitments on gender equality across multiple disarmament and arms control fora. Gender perspectives are integral to credible, effective, and inclusive disarmament and arms control.
Gender perspectives are integral to credible, effective, and inclusive disarmament and arms control. Jana Baldus
In this context, undermining gender perspectives would not only weaken the legitimacy of multilateral processes; it could also trigger broader setbacks for humanitarian and human-centric approaches and further marginalise underrepresented voices. Safeguarding progress on gender equality and gender perspectives is therefore a strategic imperative.
States, international organisations, and civil society must therefore act collectively to defend and further advance gender perspectives.
To this end, this policy brief proposes a two-track strategy:
- First, countering the gender backlash through protective action, including systematic monitoring and early detection of regressive developments, strategically framing the backlash as a security risk, and pursuing active diplomacy to prevent regression;
- Second, building long-term resilience by embedding gender perspectives structurally and normatively across disarmament and arms control regimes, and by strengthening broader networks of like-minded states and civil society.
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated in this policy brief represent the views of the author rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
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