Want National Security? Focus on Women's Safety: A Discussion of the Hillary Doctrine

In the last seminar of the academic year, WAPPP welcomed Valerie Hudson to discuss research explored in her latest book, The Hillary Doctrine: Sex and American Foreign Policy. Hudson, the George H. W. Bush Chair of The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, is well known for her work on bare branches, the theory that violence is increasingly caused by skewed sex ratios within a society. She has long argued that the security of women is vital to the security of the nation, which - though largely accepted now - was considered a revolutionary concept at the time.

Research for the book began in 2010, and the content was largely written in 2013, after Hudson's co-author Patricia Leidl completed fieldwork in several countries. Hudson emphasized the role that qualitative data played in their research. Data on cultural norms, customs, practices and laws were missing from the current research, so Hudson and Leidl created a massive database to fill this niche.

One might wonder why the idea that women's security affects national security is called the Hillary Doctrine. Hudson explains that though Clinton was the third female Secretary of State, she was the first woman in that role who made women’s issue priorities for the Department. The book, though not about Secretary Clinton herself, explores the effects that her belief in this idea has had on American foreign policy.

Source: Associated Press

The book is presented in three parts. The first focuses on the history of how women came to matter in American foreign policy, starting with the Nixon administration. Hudson explained that Ambassador Swanee Hunt, who wrote the book's foreword, was instrumental in informing this portion of the research.

The second section focuses on the theory and cases that explore whether the Hillary Doctrine is justified. Hudson argues that her past research reveals the doctrine is in fact based on a solid premise. She presents the theoretical argument for what she terms fempolitik, arguing that the realization that women’s security is closely linked to national security is a pillar of clear-eyed realpolitik. She argues that male-female relationships are a foundational issue, while poverty, explosive violence, ill health and other widespread problems are the macro consequences of women's insecurity.

The third and last section of the book focuses on the implementation of the Hillary Doctrine from 2009-2013. Jen Klein, advisor to Secretary Clinton on global women’s issues, explained in an interview for the book that the State Department adopted four initial principles to guide their work on women. These principles stated that their work (1) would be non-partisan, (2) would not impose U.S. views or laws on others (indeed, the policies focused on the agenda enshrined in CEDAW, which the U.S. has not ratified), (3) must be based in evidence, even though the Department also thought it was the right thing to do, and (4) must demonstrate that the benefits created by such policies also apply to national security, not just women’s security. Though these principles were paired with strategic frameworks from major government organizations, Hudson explained that the disconnect between high-level policy and the actual work on the ground manifested itself in a fairly predictable fashion, citing some terribly ineffective initiatives.

Hudson closed by sharing some of the top items off the book’s “to do” list. These included using the bully pulpit to discuss women's issues, developing hard targets and performance benchmarks on women's inclusion, focusing on male accountability, and adding a jus ex bello element to the just war theory, one that focuses on the harms after war has ended that disproportionately affect women. She also emphasized the importance of Presidential will to work on this issue, quickly adding, “depending on who is elected the next President, maybe we won’t have a problem in the will department.” 

Role Models as "Social Vaccines"

Do you have everyday role models? Successful people in your field who look like you and aren’t superhuman?


Though I have become comfortable at male-dominated tables, I always look for fellow women in politics. I don’t just mean Hillary Clinton. She certainly inspires me, but she is a super star! It’s the regular women – the chiefs of staff, the policy advisors, and some Members of Congress – that I can look to and think “yeah, that could be me in a few years.”

Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta, Professor of Psychology at UMass Amherst, demonstrates that exposure to such role models can act like a “social vaccine” against negative stereotypes. This kind of vaccination by inspiration is especially important for minority groups in high-achievement fields – think women in politics, business, or science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers.


Professor Dasgupta and her team tested the Social Inoculation Model with numerous quasi-experimental studies in the real world. They focused on women in the STEM field, which is increasingly going to drive the economy. In STEM careers, women are both a numeric minority and a group facing negative stereotypes (perceptions that women are bad with numbers, etc).

In one study, unsuspecting college students signed up for a calculus class – a required gateway course for all STEM majors. There were 7 female and 8 male professors teaching 15 sections. The professors were also unaware of the experiment’s hypotheses. They had similar experience levels and teaching styles. The syllabi and tests were the same and the grading was done blindly by all professors across the sections.

Twice during the semester the researchers measured students’ attitudes toward math, their self-confidence with math (what grade they thought they would get), and their personal identification with the professor. They found that the female students taught by male professors were less likely to self-identify with math than did their female peers in the sections taught by female professors. Female students were also found to have negative attitudes toward math in sections taught by men, but not by women.

Women in male-taught sections were less self-confident about their mathematical ability – they estimated a lower final grade than did women in the sections taught by women. It is striking that with their final grades the female students in this study significantly outperformed men, regardless of their professor’s gender.

These women obviously had the aptitude for math, but they doubted their own competence...unless their professor was female.


Professor Dasgupta conducted a number of other studies to test various aspects of her theory, trying to understand the mechanisms by which the “social vaccine” worked. She also looked at effects of peers, exposure to experts through media and the effects of the teacher’s gender on students of younger ages.

Drawing on her experiments and the body of related literature, Professor Dasgupta makes a compelling case that for underrepresented groups in high-achievement fields ability alone is not sufficient to succeed. Exposure to relatable role models can mean the difference between staying in and dropping out.

That is why being able to look around and think “sure, I can do what she does” is so important for me and other professional women outnumbered in their fields. And it is even more important for the young girls considering a career in STEM, politics or business.


Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.

The Conversation Continues

In the last month, a couple of important things happened in the world of gender news:

1. U.S. Department of Defense removed the ban on women serving in combat roles.
2. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - arguably the most powerful woman in American politics - ended her tenure at the State Department, highlighting gender equality as "the unfinished business of the 21st century."
3. WAPPP Wire ran its first guest blogger series, inviting men to write about gender. 

Ok, one of these things is not quite as high-profile as the others, so if you missed #3, please take a look at the statistics in "Why Diversity Matters in Medicine" and read the story of a brave woman named Pashtana in "Providing a Voice to Afghan Women". I would like to thank Robert and Dan for taking the time to engage in this conversation. I hope that by adding their voices to the discussion, they reached a new audience of American men, like Pashtana did with Afghan women.

To continue the conversations on gender issues affecting all of us, I hope more HKS men will attend the weekly WAPPP Seminars held on Thursdays at 11:40am in the WAPPP Cason Seminar Room. This semester's line-up will range from the Olympics to the boardroom to "questionable behavior." Intrigued? Come this Thursday, February 7 (there is lunch too!).

And if you (man or woman) have an idea to contribute to this blog, please contact me at anya_malkov@hks13.harvard.edu, and let’s keep talking about gender!


Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.