Feminist reading to IR started to enter World Politics academia late in time in the late 1980’s. Examining this perspective within IR helps explore fresh ideas about the discipline, notably the argument advanced by many feminists that World Politics is gendered and have been monopolized for a while by men and the male perspective.
A Historic Overview on Feminist Contribution to IR
Feminists started to appear in IR-related Conferences and issue their writings in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s (Wibben 2004, p.98). This is illustrated in such classic books as Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Women and War (1987), Cynthia Enloe’s Bananas, and Beaches and Bases (1989) (Wibben 2004, p.98). These are early female contributions to IR academic and the
In terms of conferences, the theme of gender and politics was being explored in conferences. This is perhaps helped shed light onto feminist thought because conferences, by virtue of their interactive character, help disseminate thought. Accordingly, female perspective into IR was introduced to the academic platform through such conferences as the 1988 Millennium special issue: Journal of International Studies conference at the London School of Economics, the 1989 conference at the University of Southern California, and the 1990 conference at Wellesley (Wibben 2004, p.98-99).
These are briefly the debuts of a minor stream in IR, the feminist, within a male-dominant stream. The Millennium special issue, afore-mentioned, in particular has marked a turning point. The significance of it lies in that feminist writings having become recognize as literature (Steans 2006). A school of thought has been initiated, allowing the discipline of IR that had been monopolized by men’s writing to have some space. Taking advantage of this space, feminist IR scholars have tried to demonstrate that IR can be approached from a gender perspective.
The Gendering of IR: Examination of the Feminist Perspective
IR is a multi-dimensional discipline. It touches upon various sub-issues: international politics, international economics, international institutions and so on and so forth (Steans, 2006, p.03). Correspondently, there are many issues that feminist IR scholars have studied. Perhaps the most important ones are the ones related to international which, stereotypically, represents the subject of predilection for male scholars.
First of all, although the label feminism is attributed to female IR writings, one must say that there is nothing such as a homogeneous corpus of feminist writings. One may find, for instance, a stream that starts out from the premise that there should be equality between males and females (liberal feminists) while there is another that stresses the difference between genders (Steans, 2006, p.12). However, all schools brought fresh perspectives to IR by adding a dimension not present before- gender.
Female scholarship brought about new formalization of the nature of IR. Whereas the Westphalian reading into IR has prevailed academe for decades, female perspective drew the attention to matters beyond boundaries between states to that of matters related to the individual and the citizen. Hence, their contribution has allowed opening a space for interrogations of our knowledge claims, we begin to ask questions relating to who we are as subjects and how we relate to others in our societies and to those “outside” (Jabri and O’Gorman, 1999, p.1).
Moreover, issues related to global inequality and distributive justice, human rights, cultural diversity, and democratic practice became the focus with feminist IR. This has misplaced, somehow, the state-centric readings that have come to characterize international politics writings. In discussing such issues, they tried to critically analyze them, in order to show how they affect and transform international relations Jabri and O’Gorman, 1999, p.1). So have a new focus with feminist writings, new areas explored or rather explored more deeply than by their masculine counterpart.
Their contribution has included a revision of notions that are well widely accepted within international politics, namely sovereignty and security. Feminists find that the concept f sovereignty, having been established by men, is highly masculine. In this respect, they criticize the fact what John Hauffman insightful capture as a male definition of sovereignty: “states [as] the expression of patriarchal power [and correspondently] state sovereignty is gendered by its assertion that leadership is monolithic, hierarchical, and violent” (Youngs, 2004, 83). The violent component in particular has been questioned. Violence is not intrinsic to statehood or relations among states. On the contrary, international relations should allow for exploring themes that are transnational such as human rights.
Furthermore, they are interested in the effect of war and the like issues on individuals. They investigate the effects of war at a micro-level. Wars in IR have long been studied as a security issue, overshadowing that war implies the pitting of peoples against each other not only states. It is not only states as the abstract level or states as leadership that are concerned with war. Rather, it is children and women who suffer from war. There is a move from supra-structure to infra-structure of a state.
Conclusion
The feminist gendering into IR has been beneficial because it has brought a fresh perspective. On the one hand we have a dislocation of the concept that IR and International Politics, in general, are the domains of male. Once this dominance has been broken, women explored the field differently. This is illustrated for instance in the way sovereignty is redefined as not necessarily a concept that conjures violence. Moreover, state, security, and war are all notions that have been looked from a new perspective. There is more focus on individuals rather than leadership with feminist IR.
Bibliography
Wibben, Annick T.R, 2004, ‘Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions, The Brown Journal Of World Affairs, 2004 , Volume X, Issue 2, pp.97-114.
Steans, Jill, 2006, Gender and international relations: issues, debates and future directions, Jabri, Vivienn, O’Gorman, Eleanor, 1999, ‘Locating Differences in Feminist International Relations’ In Women, Culture, and International Relations (online), Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
Feminist International Relations: a contradiction in terms? Or: why women and gender are essential Youngs, Gillian, 2004, ‘Feminist International Relations: a contradiction in terms’, International Affairs, 80, pp 75-87.