FEMINISM
14 JUNE 2010
What is the Theory of Feminism?
• Introduced gender as a relevant
empirical category and analytical tool
for understanding global power
relations as well as a normative
position from which to consider
alternative world orders.
Example of Influential Feminism
Approach
• Cynthia Enloe:
• Where are the women? (1988) : women often
there, even where we might not expect them.
• Bananas, Beaches, and Bases (1989), exposed
how international politics frequently involves
intimate relationships, personal identities and
private lives.
Strategic Claim
• Women experiences are systematically
different from men’s.
• All social relations are gendered.
Variant Politics of feminism
• Liberal feminism : seeking an end to women
exclusion from under representation in office,
power and employment
• Radical feminism: see women’s subordination
as universal, sex class.
• Cultural feminism: see women more nurturing
and peaceable.
• Socialist feminism: Put together class and
gender.
Variant Politics of feminism
• Socialist feminism: Put together class and
gender.
• Third World feminists: accused white feminist
of ignoring race, culture, and colonial relation
as affecting women, too.
• Post-modern feminists.: who speaks for
women?
The development of Feminism in IR
Theory
• Flourished since mid 1980’s.
– Until the 1980’s IR studies the causes of war
and conflict and global expansion of trade
and commerce with no particular reference
to people.
– Gender relations were rarely a necessary
part of the analysis.
– In the Third debate (post positivist).
The development (Cont)
• First generation of Feminism in IR late 1980’s:
– Contested the exclusionary, state-center and
positivist nature of the discipline primarily at a
meta-theoretical level. (Tickener, 1992, Pettman
1996)
• Second generation:
– Developed feminist IR by making gender a central
analytic category in studies of foreign policy,
security and global political economy. (Moon
1997, Whitworth 2004, Stern 2005)
Example of Feminism research
• Gender and international security
• Feminist analysis of the gendered impacts of
war and peace
• Quantitative analysis using gender as a
variable to explain aspects of state behaviour
and international conflicts
• Alternative methodological approaches to
research on global politics
Typology
• (1) Empirical feminism: focus on women and
/or explore gender as an empirical dimension
of international relations;
– Documented how male bias in the development
process has led to poor implementation of
projects and unsatisfactory policy outcomes.
– Women are not only victim they are empowered
by it.
variant
• (2) analytical feminism, that uses gender as a
theoretical category to reveal the gender bias
of international Relations concepts and
explain constitutive aspects of international
relations.
– Deconstruct the theoretical framework of IR
– Undermines the division between individual, state
and international system
Variant (Con…)
• Normative feminism, that reflects on the
process of theorizing as part of a normative
agenda for global social and political change.
– Bring s the experiences of women’s activism to
bear on debates about international ethics,
humanitarian aid and intervention and human
rights instruments.
Contribution (Claim)
• Dispels the assumption that Powers is come
out from barrel of the gun, or ensues from the
declaration of the statesman.
• to reinterpret power suggest that
international relations scholars have
underestimated the pervasiveness of power
and precisely what it takes, at every level and
every day, to produce a grossly uneven and
hierarchical world order (Enfloe 1997)
Contribution (Cont…)
• Feminism reconceptualizations of power and
attention to the margin of global politic have
allowed IR to recognize and comprehend new
political phenomena
• More inclusive view of globalisation
Critics
• Analytic use of gender as a concept have
forms of oppression prevalent in global
politics.
• Universal concept of gender cannot be applied
globally.
• No feminist ‘high ground’ from which to
theorise about international relations.
• Feminist identity and solidarity are
problematic.
Sourcess:
• Jacqui True, 2009, Feminism, in Scott Burchill and
Andrew Linklater (eds.) Theories of International
relations, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan,
• Jan Jindy Pettman, 1998, Gender Issues in John Baylis
and Steve Smith (eds), The Globalization of World
politics, pp.483-496.
• Ann Tickner and Laura Sjoberg, 2007, Feminism,in
Tim Dunne et,all (eds), International Relations
Theories, New York: Oxford University press, pp.185202