Feminism: Principles, Politics & International Relations

Key Principles of Feminism

• Feminism asserts that women lack equal rights and prospects compared to men
• Feminism promotes comprehensive changes to achieve social justice worldwide

Feminism and Politics

• Historically, the most influential political positions have predominantly been held by men.
• Defense and security strategies have traditionally been based on a masculine perspective that normalizes war and violence.
• There exists a correlation between violence against women and the use of violence in foreign policy.

Feminism and International Relations (IR)

• IR studies and theories have often overlooked women, treating them as invisible – This is reflected as if world politics involved men exclusively. – IR was also treated like women and men were equally involved and impacted by world politics, thus negating the need to analyse it with consideration to gender.
• The women's movement significantly contributed to the emergence of feminist IR scholarship.
• This enabled women to pursue careers outside traditional gender roles, such as law, academia, and politics.
• The women's movement highlighted the significant impact of social constructs in comprehending social, political, and economic realities.
• Disparities persist despite the removal of legal obstacles.
• Women do not receive equal pay for equal work.
• Women lack sufficient representation in economic and political leadership roles.
• The feminist perspective highlights the existence of gendered world views.
• Female experiences are often marginalized or dismissed in various fields, including history, political science, economics, and even the natural sciences.
• Feminist scholarship examines how gender influences international relations.
• Feminist analysis focuses on women's and gender issues in transnational politics.
• Feminist perspectives investigate the causes and repercussions of unequal relationships between men and women.
• Feminist IR scholars explore issues beyond state interactions in the international system.
• Feminist IR has brought attention to sex slavery, human trafficking, sexual violence, lack of protection in war zones and AIDS.

Integrating Women into IR

• Feminist approaches challenge the notion that existing theories and conventional IR methods can easily incorporate women.
• Integrating women into existing theories without critically examining gender dynamics may reinforce existing hierarchies.
• Highlighting exceptional women, like Thatcher or Meier, who conform to masculine norms can imply women are absent due to inherent shortcomings.
• Focusing on women in "women's spheres" like peace groups can perpetuate restrictive gender stereotypes.
• This reinforces the false idea of women being inherently more peaceful.
• The effects disempower both women and peace efforts.
• It labels women unrealistic/naive, undermining their influence in foreign policy.

A New Feminist Approach

• Gender hierarchies reinforce socially constructed institutions/practices which perpetuate unequal role expectations.
• These expectations contribute to gender inequalities in international politics.
• Gender as a central analytical tool transforms knowledge beyond simple inclusion.
• Women cannot be studied separately from men.
• Feminist perspectives and women's activism provide more inclusive views of international politics,
• Mainstream IR theorists often fail to appreciate the value of gender-sensitive perspectives.
• An article by Ann Tickner, "You Just Don't Understand.", explored the divide between feminist and mainstream IR.

Historical Perspectives of Women in IR

• Thucydides noted that a woman's excellence is to be least spoken of among men.
• Thucydides said Platæans sent away wives, children, and noncombatants to Athens.
• Thucydides noted women valiantly assisted with a fortitude beyond their sex.
• Aristotle considered a woman an "impotent male" incapable of producing semen
• Machiavelli compared Fortuna to a woman needing to be beaten into submission.
• Donald Regan, US National Security Advisor in 1985, said women would rather read human interest stories than understand missile throw-weights.
• Kant said laborious learning destroys the merits of a woman's sex even if she succeeds.

Core Assumptions of Gender and Patriarchy

• The existence of a hierarchy is one in which masculine issues (security and economic) dominant over issues deemed feminine (social).
• The goal is to address the impact that masculine issues have on women.
• Human nature encompasses both masculine and feminine aspects
• Femininity is considered subordinate to masculinity within IR.
• The focus lies on dominance patterns determined by gender within societies.
• Most international relations actors exhibit either masculinist qualities or are controlled directly by men.
• Radical change is the ultimate goal.
• Key theorists: Tickner, Peterson, Whitworth

Defining Gender in Feminist Theory

• Feminist theory philosophically analyzes gender and sexual difference.
• It challenges the idea that biology determines gender.
• Feminists distinguish "sex" (biological) from "gender" (social construct).
• Sex viewed as biologically determined characteristic.
• Gender socially constructed, historically conditioned phenomenon.
• Jill Vickers: Childbearing as a dimension of sex, childrearing as a dimension of Gender

Masculine vs Feminine Traits

• Masculine: strength, independence, rationality, and public presence.
• Feminine: weakness, dependence, emotionality, and private sphere.
• Both men and women tend to value masculine traits more positively.
• Definitions of masculinity and femininity are relational and mutually dependent.
• Real men defined by absence of womanly weaknesses.
• Social construction of gender allows individuals like Margaret Thatcher to adopt traditionally masculine traits.
• Many feminists argue that such behaviour is necessary for success in international politics
• Gender affects interpretations and world's understanding, even without fitting typical ideals.
• Gender relations vary across cultures but tend to be unequal.
• Gender, is a primary way of defining relations of power in the structural sense.
• Gender is constructed through institutions that "naturalize" and legalize women's inferior status.

Women in Politics and Corporate Leadership

• There is data for the percentages of women in lower or signal houses of parliament selected countries in 2023.
• There is data for the percentages of women on corporate boards selected countries in 2021.

Addressing the Absence of Women

• Women are underrepresented in foreign service and strategic studies.
• Feminist empiricism attributes the absence of women to social biases.
• Social biases historically restricted women's legal and political rights.
• Historical biases prevented women from owning property, voting, or serving in combat.
• Extending legal rights (property, suffrage, military service) can overcome these biases according to liberal feminists.
• Cynthia Enloe seeks to find "the women" in IR (international relations).
• Women in IR are Secretaries, low-paid workers in export processing zones, domestic serves abroad and unpaid wives of diplomats performing tasks in embassies
• Necessary to foreign policy, global market efficiency
• Providing labor sustains power structures of states and markets.

Ann Tickner's Feminist Critique

• Ann Tickner published Gender in International Relations in 1992.
• Ann Tickner challenged Hans Morgenthau's realism.

Realism vs Feminism: Morgenthau's vs Tickner's Perspectives

• Morgenthau perspective is of politics governed by objective laws, Tickner's perspective is that objectivity is associated with masculinity
• Morgenthau perspective is where states act in terms of interest defined as power, Tickner perspective is the national interest being multidimensional and can't be reduced to power alone
• Morgenthau perspective says power = essence of politics, Tickner says power involves domination, control, and collective empowerment
• Morgenthau believes there's tension between morality and political action, while Tickner asserts all political action possesses moral significance
• Morgenthau perspective of moral aspirations not to be confused with moral laws; Tickner advocates for universal principles for de-escalating conflict
• Morgenthau perspective states Realism maintains' political autonomy, Tickner perspective states Building boundaries narrowly defines politics, excluding some contributions

Feminist Perspectives on Security

• Security stands as a core element within IR since creation.
• Feminists who write about IR see security as important, with each having unique perspectives.
• Realists define security in political/military ways, protecting state boundaries/values from hostile international threats.
• Feminist IR theorists broadly define security in multidimensional as reducing all violence forms, structural and ecological.
• Human security
• These definition focus on the individual or community not state-centric or systemic approaches.
• Feminists challenge realist boundaries, emphasizing interrelation of insecurity across levels of analysis
• Feminists suspicious of state-centric security, "women's space" inside households has been beyond the reach of law in most states,
• Spike Peterson is an important feminist
  • Spike Peterson wrote Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory (1992) and Global Gender Issues (1993)
  • Spike Peterson developed the protector/protected dichotomy

Understanding Protector/Protected Dynamic

• Protection is when obedience/sub ordination exchanges for promise of security
• "Examines how state systems reconfigure the meaning of system-wide security."
• The protected are dependent and cannot choose to defend themselves.
• Dependent relationship leads to feelings of low self-esteem, little sense of responsibility in women.
• Able bodied being are seen as dependent can contribute to misogyny
• Threat which one is being protected from the protector exaggerates to the exaggerate the threat
• the distance of the protected from defensive activities assessment of risks and threats to protectors, frequently, protection is simply not in fact possible
• Protectors sometimes identify more with other protectors than the protected
• Status depends on structural demands, embodiment

Feminist Critique of Military and War

• Feminists disagree military capability being against threats of the state.
• Militaries seen as against individual particularly women's security
• In the competition for resources for social safety nets on which women depend disproportionately to men
• Defines a militarized usually denied to women type of citizen
• Legitimators of a kind of social order that can sometimes even valorize state violence
• Women's oppression perpetuates male coercion/violence/system based on domination and war.
• Patriarchal relations are the basis for the war system, which consolidates patriarchal relations.
• Political/military dimensions of security, feminists tend to focus on war's consequences, not causes For example: increased targeting of female populations, refugees, rape, prostitution

Explore the main ideas behind feminism to understand how it views the world. This includes looking at how feminism relates to politics and its impact on international relations, aiming to promote equality and justice globally.