The feminist critique of contemporary global issues offers a crucial lens through which to understand and address challenges like conflict, poverty, climate change, and human rights. At its core, this critique argues that traditional analyses of global issues often overlook or marginalize the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of women, and fail to recognize how gendered power structures shape these issues. Feminists contend that the international system, largely built on patriarchal norms, perpetuates inequalities that disproportionately affect women and other marginalized groups.

Regarding conflict, feminist scholars highlight how wars impact women differently, from sexual violence as a weapon of war to their exclusion from peace negotiations, despite often being key agents of peacebuilding. In terms of poverty and economic development, the critique points to how global economic policies, often driven by neoliberal agendas, can exacerbate gender inequalities by exploiting women's labor, limiting their access to resources, and burdening them with unpaid care work. On climate change, feminists argue that women, particularly in the Global South, are often the most vulnerable to its impacts due due to their reliance on natural resources and existing social inequalities, yet their voices are frequently absent from policy discussions. Furthermore, the feminist critique challenges the state-centric view of international relations, emphasizing the importance of non-state actors and grassroots movements, and advocating for a more inclusive and human-centered approach to global governance. Overall, the feminist critique calls for a fundamental re-evaluation of power dynamics, a recognition of intersectionality, and the integration of gender perspectives into all aspects of global policy-making to achieve more equitable and sustainable solutions.