Week 8: Feminism and gender

Université Sorbonne Nouvelle

Fall Semester 2022
What is feminism? (I)

● Feminism is part of constitutive theory (the world is

intrinsic to and affected by theories of it)
● There is no one single definition of feminism
● Feminism is fundamentally rooted in an analysis of
the global subordination of women—which can occur
economically, politically, physically, and socially—and
is dedicated to its elimination
 What is feminism? (II)

● Feminism informs both theories and social movements

● The interplay among theorists, practitioners, policies,
and practice is vital to its definition
● Feminism is an interdisciplinary theory
● Feminism is concerned with the social construction of
gender
● Without feminism and feminist movements, women’s
experiences and roles would have remained of little
importance or interest to states
 Feminism as IR theory

● Concerned with exposing both positivist and post-positivist

theories of IR as partial, biased, and limited because they
reflected only certain (men’s) experiences, roles, and status
● Advocate not simply to expand the scope of the field, but to
radically alter its predicates
● Feminist IR theories are deconstructive and reconstructive
● Feminist theorists crucially demonstrated that the tradition of
thought that forms the basis of conventional IR theories is
fundamentally predicated on the absence and insignificance
of women
 Liberal feminist IR theory

● Advocate that the rights and representation conventionally

granted to men be extended to women
● Regard gender inequality as a major barrier to human
development, which leads to greater incidences of war
and violence
● They suggest that a more comprehensive approach must
address questions regarding the genesis, justification, and
use of differences between the sexes, rather than
presuming that we know in advance what these
differences are
 Critical feminist IR theory

● Highlight the broader social, economic, and political

relationships that structure relational power
● Draw from Marxist theories to prioritize the role of the
economy
● They identify gender and class oppressions as
interdependent, and intertwined
● Critical feminist theories are wary of gender
essentialism
 Postcolonial feminist IR theory

● Postcolonial feminism seeks to situate historical knowledge

of colonialism and post-colonialism as intersecting with
economic, social, and political oppression and change
● Argues that the feminism of the global North is rooted in and
dependent on discourses of rights and equality of
pre-eminent concern to Western Europe
● Resist the image of ‘Third World women’ as in need of
paternal (Western) ‘relations of protection’
● Argue policies on climate change are another manifestation
of the legacies of imperialism
 Poststructural feminist IR theory

● Illuminates the constitutive role of language in creating

gendered knowledge and experiences
● Draws specifically from Judith Butler
● She argued, that sex is constructed by gender rather than the
other way around
● Premised on the concept of gender performativity: gender is not
what we are, but rather what we do
● Socially, one becomes a woman by taking on the imperative to
identify with the female/femininity and to desire the
male/masculinity
● This requires constant iteration
 Sex and gender in international perspective (I)

● Gender inequalities (expressed in cultural, social, economic,

and political asymmetries) do not stem from an original and
immutable biological division
● Instead, when we think about appropriate ways to be a man
or a woman we are obeying societal norms/rules
● Scholars therefore distinguish between sex (biological
characteristics, primarily genital and reproductive) and
gender (the social codes that express masculinity and
femininity)
 Sex and gender in international perspective (II)

● Gender shapes temperament (our personality), role (our

activities), and status (our importance/influence on others)
● Society is organized in relation to, and stratified by, gender:
obeying by gender norms results in privilege and reward;
their rejection often means exclusion and shame
● Understanding gender means analyzing 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 sexual
binary
 Sex and gender in international perspective (III)

● Gender is a global power structure, often embedded in other

global power structures (intersectionality)
● So gender matters internationally because the
masculine/feminine categorization is key to the operation of
political power:
The personal is political
The personal is international
● Patriarchy, ‘the rule of men’, is one term often used to
describe such inequalities
 Global gender relations

● Because gender is organized through diverse, malleable,

and contested social norms, it is best understood not as the
property of specific persons but as a situated interaction of
concepts and practices
● Both men and women therefore perform gender
● Gender is a relational concept; the meanings of masculinity
and femininity are not fixed but established in interaction and
contrast to each other
● Gender is multiple, not binary
● Concepts of gender change over time
Source:

Chapter 9 and 17 from The Globalization of World Politics: An

Introduction to International Relations (8th ed.) by Baylis, Smith &
Owens