Abstract Do female heads of government make different policy choices? In this article, we show that gender matters in the definition of international trade policy. We focus on an increasingly used instrument of trade policy, namely contingent protection, that is decided unilaterally by governments. Using panel data covering 149 countries over the period 1995–2019, we provide evidence that female heads of government have been significantly more intensive users of contingent protection. Our results suggest that this gender effect is unlikely to stem from gendered preferences against free trade but rather from an incentive for female heads of government to overcome gender stereotypes in international relations.