FEMINISM

INTRODUCTION

Feminism in international relations is a

broad term given to works of those
scholars who have sought to bring
gender concerns into the academic
study of international politics.
 DEFINITION
It is a branch of Critical Social Theory that
seeks to explore how we think, or do not think,
or avoid thinking about gender in international
relations. Feminists argue that traditional IR
thinking has avoided thinking of men and
women in the capacity of socially constituted
subject categories by subsuming them in other
categories (e.g. statesmen, soldiers, refugees),
too readily accepting that women are located
inside the typically separate sphere of
domestic life, and retreating to abstractions
(i.e. the state) that mask a masculine identity.
 CYNTHIA ENLOE: BANANAS,
BEACHES AND BASES
This text sought to chart the many
different roles that women play in
international politics - as
plantation sector workers,
diplomatic wives, sex workers on
military bases etc. The important
point of this work was to
emphasize how, when looking at
international politics from the
perspective of women, one is
forced to reconsider his or her
personal assumptions regarding
what international politics is 'all
about'.
• However, it would be a mistake to think that
feminist IR was solely a matter of identifying how
many groups of women are positioned in the
international political system.
• From its inception, feminist IR has always shown
a strong concern with thinking about men and, in
particular, masculinities.
• Many IR feminists argue that the discipline is
inherently masculine in nature.
• For example, in her article "Sex and Death in
the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals",
Carol Cohn claimed that a highly masculinised
culture within the defense establishment
contributed to the divorcing of war from human
emotion.
The study of feminist IR involves
looking at how international
politics affects and is affected by
both men and women and also at
how the core concepts that are
employed within the discipline of
IR (e.g. war, security, etc.) are
themselves gendered.
HISTORY OF FEMINISM
 Women Can Practice Realism
Based On
Autonomy,sovereighty,anarchy,
territory,
Military Force And All The Rest As
Men Can
 FIRST WAVE OF
FEMINISM

18th – 20th centuries

Suffrage
Virginia Wolf
“A Room of One’s Own”
Amendment to US Constitution in 1919
Granted Right to Vote
 SECOND WAVE OF
FEMINISM
 1915-1980’S
 Gender equality
 Law and Culture
 Betty Freidan 1963
 Feminine Mystique
 Society Responsible for failure of
Women
 Not Being Adapted to Women’s
proper Role
 THIRD WAVE OF FEMINISM

 1990’s
 Lesser Reactive
 Focused on different achievements of Women
SUCCESS
• Gender Issue became
International
• Women won
protection from
unemployment ,
discrimination, laws,
media and equal
access to school
• Women worked
together to achieve
their goals.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
FEMINIST
• 1988-Milestone
• Second wave of feminism was at its height
• Private problem into a public issue
• UN Decade of Women
• Mobilized the movement
• Women’s Studies Journal
• British International Studies Association
• International Studies Association
• To pen up a professional space for IR Feminist
(Spike Peterson ,Ann Tickner )
• 1990
• FTGS (feminist theory and gender section)
• Journal, the international feminist journal of
politics (IFJPS )
• a place where the diverse interaction of gender
and power would be explored.
• Discussions were made multinational
• Encouraged men to serve as journal’s
advisorary board
• Headquarters' was to be in the US
WHY GENDER MATTERS?
 Why Gender Matters
• Feminist scholarship in various disciplines seeks to
uncover hidden assumptions about gender in how we study
a subject.
• Some feminist IR scholars argue that the core assumptions
of realism especially of anarchy and sovereignty reflect the
ways in which males tend to interact and to see the world
• foreign policy decision making, state sovereignty, or the
use of military force is run by male properly
• The critique upon gender is somewhat complex.
• Because the vast majority of heads of state, diplomats, and
soldiers are male, it may be realistic to study them as
males
• Then feminist critics arise a question to those
scholars who explicitly recognize the gender
nature of their subject rather then implicitly
assuming all actors are male
• Gender identity affects their views and decision
processes.
• Feminist scholars often challenge traditional
concepts of gender as well.
• In IR, these traditional concepts revolve around the
assumptions that males fight wars and run states,
• Whereas female are basically irrelevant to IR.
• Such gender roles are based in the broader
construction of masculinity as suitable to public
and political spaces,
• Whereas femininity is associated with the sphere of
the private and domestic.
What is missed when women are
ignored?
• Feminist, by academic researchers have revealed that many
forms of public and private power are dependent for their
operation, legitimization and perpetuation on controlling the
thoughts and bodies of women and on controlling notions
of femininity.
• The international powers dynamic and institutions remains
incomplete and unreliable on the floor of International levels
when women are ignored.
• So many researchers have presumed that women are
insignificant in the public arena.
• Feminist-informed political researches have discovered that
women have often letdown efforts to shape their actions and
thoughts in ways that served their would-be manipulators
• Women are not confining themselves to the ‘domestic’
sphere and on the public sidelines where they are
‘supposed’ to be playing their support roles.
• For example, take the dramatic history of the International
Political economy of sugar.

• Feminist British historian Midgeley has conducted innovative

research into the late-eighteenth to early nineteenth-century
British and American transatlantic antislavery movement.
• This movement ultimately radically altered the globalize trade
of sugar and as well as basic notions of human rights.
• Midgeley uncovered women’s critical role in both the
intellectual and the strategic evolution of this international
political movement.
• She discovered that several British women who took active
part in the antislavery movement, due to international boycott
of sugar refused to allow sugar from slavery departments.
• As a result of such behavior uncovered a key to the success of
the international boycott.
 Types of Feminism
• Liberal Feminism
• Socialist Feminism
• Radical Feminism
• Ecofeminism
Liberal Feminism

• Liberal feminism is characterized

by an individualistic emphasis on
equality.
• According to this philosophy,
opportunities have to be opened
up to allow women to become
equals in society.
• In the United States and much of
the Western world, liberal
feminism is the most mainstream
form of feminism.
Socialist Feminism

• Socialist feminism (sometimes known as Marxist feminism) is

different than liberal feminism
• It emphasizes that true equality will not be achieved without
major overhauls within society-- particularly economic
overhauls.
• Socialist feminists argue that there are fundamental
inequalities built in to a capitalist society because power and
capital are distributed unevenly.
• According to socialist power needs to be redistributed
throughout society.
• Liberal feminists focus on individual empowerment, while
socialist feminists focus on collective change and
empowerment.
Radical Feminism

• Radical feminism is similar to

socialist feminism
• It emphasizes the need for
dramatic social change in order to
achieve genuine equality for
women
• A minority of radical feminists are
separatist feminists, who believe
that men and women need to
maintain separate institutions and
relationships
Ecofeminism

• Ecofeminisim draws from

and links together both
the women's movement
and the environmental
movement.
• Ecofeminism draws
parallels between the
domination and
exploitation of both
women and nature.
WOMEN IN POWER
 ANGELA MERKEL

• Germany
• Only current
woman leader of a
great power; put
limits on German
troops with NATO
forces in
Afghanistan
 MARGARET THATCHER

• Britain
• First Woman to lead
a great power in a
century; went to war
to recover Falkland
Islands from
Argentina
 INDIRA GANDHI
• India
• Led war against
Pakistan.
 GOLDA MEIR
• Israel
• Led war against
Egypt and Syria
 TANSU CILLER

• Turkey
• Led a harsh war to
suppress Kurdish
rebels.
 CASE STUDY: UN
SANCTIONS ON IRAQ
• In 1991 Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait.
• The United Nations declared Iraq’s invasion
illegal and ultimately used military force to eject
Iraq from Kuwait.
• This is known as the First Gulf War.
• At the end of the war, UN Security Council
Resolution 687 left Iraq under a strict export and
import embargo.
• This sanctions regime originally intended to last
about a year, stretched over thirteen.
• Throughout the 1990’s Iraq remained under one
of history’s longest and most strict economic
sanction regime.
• In the mid1990’s popular opinion turned
against the sanctions due to the tragic
humanitarian consequences.
• The USA and UN Security Council blamed
Saddam Hussein for Iraq’s non-compliance,
while the Iraqi government blamed the UN.
• The sanctions regime was a humanitarian
disaster and its impacts extensive.
• Iraqi gross national product fell by 50% by
the first year of sanctions and declined to
less than $500 in the following years.
• By 2000 Iraq was the third poorest country in
the world.
• Economic decline caused a sharp decline
in wages and widespread unemployment.
• With no income, a crippled infrastructure,
and an international law against both
imports and exports, Iraq had a difficult
time acquiring food.
• The result was catastrophic malnutrition.
Households rarely had enough food and
women were often the last to eat.
• These deprivations also had severe medical
impacts.
• Child morality rate skyrocketed and the
cancer rate rose by 400 per cent.
• It is estimated that the sanctions imposed on
Iraq led to the death of about 1 million
people, half of them children and another 30
per cent women.
• In a country which had previously
possessed a world class medical system,
curable diseases and starvation were now
the primary causes of death.
• The sanctions had sent Iraq back to the
stone ages.
 VIEW OF
FEMINIST ON
IRAQ WAR
• Imposition of Sanction Regime
• War on Iraq’s Citizens
• Impact on individuals and communities
• War on Iraq to hurt its citizens
• To force them to change their government
• View how both the gender’s were affected
• Introduced gender as a category of analysis
 • NO FEMALE HEAD WAS
PRESENT IN THE UN SECURITY
COUNCIL MEMBER STATE
• Sanctions can be
use as policies to
force the weaker
actor to submit to
its will
 CRITICISM
• International
Relations value
masculine values
over feminist ones
 IS FEMINISM ONLY
ABOUT GENDER?

• Look into solutions

• Question of responsibility
• Gender responsibility
• Gender subordination
• Gender international Security policy
• Made gender relationship visible
• Feminism not only about women
• Way International Politics is framed, studied and
implemented
CONCLUSION