Gender in International Relations PDF

J Baylis, S Smith & P Owens (eds), The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations., Oxford University Press Oxford, 2020, 271-286. Gender  Gender  Gender is a relatively new issue...

J Baylis, S Smith & P Owens (eds), The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations., Oxford University Press Oxford, 2020, 271-286. Gender  Gender  Gender is a relatively new issue for the discipline of International Relations (IR).  The first works to critically evaluate the international role of gender came from feminist IR scholarship.  It is still primarily feminists who study gender, although there are also scholars who investigate gender dynamics and prefer not to use the term feminist, as well as scholars who might think of themselves first and foremost as constructivists, Marxists, or liberals but who incorporate gender into their research.  Gender  Sex vs gender  Gender is socially constructed  Being a woman does not automatically make you a better cleaner, carer but this is what is expected from women in most societies.  Gender  Understanding gender means analysing how masculinity and femininity are constructed in relation to men and women,  while always being conscious that gender norms and ideologies are not reducible to the dichotomy of a sex binary.  Gender  Of course, gender does not work in isolation. At every point, gender combines with other structures of power such as race, class, or nation.  What opportunities and obstacles individual people face, what freedom and violence, depends not just on their gender, but on many other factors.  The interaction of different structures of power mean that there are always multiple and complex positions of political authority and subservience to consider.  Gender  The gendered histories of discrimination, violence, education, empowerment, trade, diplomacy, community, and love are global.  They take place across physical borders, in the interaction of different political communities, and in the imagination of the foreign and the familiar.  Hence the adaptation of the feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’ to ‘the personal is international’.  Gender is personal, political, and international.  Gender  Gender is not a synonym for women. Men both have and perform gender. The most widely adopted framework for understanding how masculinities regulate the behaviour of men is that of hegemonic masculinity.  What is hegemonic masculinity?  Complicit masculinity?  Subordinate masculinity?  Marginalized masculinity?  Gender  Nation is often defined as an image of virginal womanhood in need of protection from foreign invaders.  The body of the strong nation is stereotypically masculine—muscular and heterosexual—and colonialism, occupation, revolution, and national interest are frequently conceptualized through metaphors of manly resistance, feminine submission.  Populations in apparent need of defence are shown in feminine form, while their defenders appear upright and stereotypically masculine.  Gendering global security  Gender scholars ask questions about what role masculinity and femininity play in the practice of war.  The stereotypical representation of the soldier is that of a man.  Gender and feminist scholars widely accept that masculine ideals are historically central to the training of warriors.  Military training regimes frequently stress the loss of feminine qualities and the enhancement of masculine—even hypermasculine— ones.  Gendering the global economy  Gender matters in both kinds of economic activity: the formal and the informal.  What is formal economy?  What is informal economy?  What is reproductive economy?  How does reproductive economy make productive economy possible?