If you were to ask a stranger what someone in a foreign policy leadership role looks like to them, more often than not, they will describe someone who is male, white, strong-willed and able-bodied. Whilst this is not always a reflection on their personal prejudices, it still serves as a deeper reflection on how what someone is exposed to, can drastically alter how someone generalises key areas of an effective democracy.

Disparities within representation are often the root cause of the systemic prejudices within and about foreign policy and international politics, especially in regards to gender. Women are largely underrepresented in foreign policy and international politics due to a combination of societal expectations that place invisible/literal borders around women, a lack of universal support and the inconsistent acknowledgement of how gender intersects with other areas of life.

The combination of these limits that are placed around women in foreign policy not only affects them as individuals, but it has the ability to also affect diplomatic and national interests on a global scale. This article works to briefly explore how deep the implications of underrepresenting women in foreign policy leadership roles go, and what consequences that can have on global international politics.

Gender bias cycle

Foreign policy and international politics are by nature, notoriously difficult to define due to their ability to encompass so many different areas of human life, but some scholars such as Karin Aggestam and Jacqui True have loosely described foreign policy as an "actor-orintated practice… that is expressed in the form of explicitly stated goals". These 'goals' within a country's foreign policy often include matters of state security, and diplomatic/national interests, meaning there is often a large focus on the effectiveness of the outcome rather than effectiveness of the decision-making process itself. As stated by Aggestam and True, this results-driven decision making process within foreign policy tends to ignore the aspect of 'human agency', which gender is a considerable part of.

This lack of sustained recognition of how gender dictates people's lives serves as the catalyst for the gender bias cycle that is present within foreign policy as it causes the majority of gender prejudices to be ignored. Ignorance can then cause accountability for inequality to be virtually non-exsistent and detrimental social systems, such as the patriarchy, are allowed to flourish without much resistance.

This gender bias cycle is not a concept that is only applicable to 21st century foreign policy, but to the early/mid 20th century as well, as displayed rather notably in 1943 by British Labour Party MP Harold Nicolson. Nicolson stated to the House of Commons that "women are singularly ill-adapted to diplomatic life". This notion was based on the idea that women possess too many unsuitable "virtues" that can cloud the rational judgement required for high-level roles in foreign policy, such as intuition and sympathy.

This blatantly shows how easy it is for the general scrutiny against women to somehow be intertwined with their suitability within foreign policy and international politics.

Effects on international politics

Whilst there are many 'reasons' put forth as to why many people view women as being generally unsuitable for high-ranking roles in foreign policy, I would argue that theories that are similar to the ones expressed by MP Harold Nicolson in 1943, have been the most detrimental to women's participation/representation in foreign policy and international politics.

These types of prejudices that are based on particular emotions are often created by men, and then internalised by women, meaning that whilst men are often discouraging women not to be a part of foreign policy, women are also discouraging themselves if they happen to possess the qualities that are seen as 'unfavourable'. This, among many other factors, has caused widespread and generational discouragement towards women wanting to partake in international politics, and led to large fundamental gaps in representation of women in foreign policy leadership roles that we are now seeing today.

According to the United Nations, as of January 2026, only 22.4% of cabinet ministers that are the head of certain ministries/leading a policy area, are women. In a generalised context this means that there is over a 70% chance that a ministry such as foreign policy will be led by a man, meaning women will often not be included, or will be but in very low numbers, in discussions around state security and the protection of national/diplomatic interests. This was shown rather evidently in a study by the US-led think tank The Council on Foreign Relations, which found that an increase of the inclusion of women in peace negotiations (which is a large part of foreign policy) would make the generated agreement 64% less likely to fail.

This means there would be potentially a lower chance for wars, civil conflicts and large economic fluctuation to occur if women's representation was increased within foreign policy.

Combined with studies from Aggestam and True surrounding FPA (Foreign Policy Analysis), as well as statistics from the United Nations and the European Parliamentary Research Service, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests that increasing women's representation in foreign policy has the potential to make for a "less conflictual world".

This suggests that if women's representation in foreign policy is not increased, then there is a larger potential for global instability to ensue. Undoing foreign policy's past mistakes of discouraging women to participate, will unfortunately take many years to undo, but if we do not act now, the opportunity for equal representation becomes an even more distant possibility.

Reference list

Aggestam, K., & True, J. (2020, March 6). Gendering Foreign Policy: A Comparative Framework for Analysis. Foreign Policy Analysis, 16(2), 143-162. https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orz026

Bashevkin, S. (2018). Women as Foreign Policy Leaders: National Security and Gender Politics in Superpower America. Oxford University Press. https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6WBmDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=women+in+foreign+policy&ots=LmhzMuJrLs&sig=MKDdyTE64In5A7qgBsnaduxWGtA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Foreign policy. (n.d.). Diplo. Retrieved May 19, 2026, from https://www.diplomacy.edu/topics/foreign-policy/

Lazarou, E., & Zamfir, I. (2021, March). Women in foreign affairs and international security: Still far from gender equality. European Parliamentary Research Service. Retrieved June 17, 2026, from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/689356/EPRS_BRI(2021)689356_EN.pdf

United Nations Women. (2026, March 11). Facts and figures: Women's leadership and political participation. United Nations Women. Retrieved June 17, 2026, from https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-womens-leadership-and-political-participation