Feminism, a lecture for a Global Studies theory class

Feminism in IR Theory

Key terms:

Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Bases and Beaches.

V. Spike Pearson, “Feminist Theories Within, Invisible to, and Beyond IR.”

Marysia Zaleski

Origins:

  • I’m not going to begin by discussing the 19th century origins of feminism or the suffragettes
  • I’m also not going to discuss Selma James and some other early leaders in the labor and socialist movement
  • I need to be very focused for this brief lecture
  • I’m going to focus on IR
  • So I just want you to be aware that feminism has a long history, and is a diverse theoretical school
  • We are just doing a brief survey of one particular school today
  • So let’s start with IR
  • The first feminist scholars began writing about international affairs in the 1970s through 80s. 
  • A period when the global leadership politically and economically was almost entirely male
  • Look at photos of the Kremlin or U.S. cabinets and they were entirely male
  • These scholars began to ask why that was?
  • A series of questions about global politics
  • Was there something different fundamentally between men and women?
  • Why was it assumed that leadership positions would be male?
  • How did ideas about masculinity shape global politics?
  • How could scholars begin to study women’s involvement in politics without only portraying them as victims?
  • The early literature tended to focus on global politics
  • Since then the field has expanded
  • Cynthia Enloe, who wrote in the 1980s, talked about tourism, the gendered nature of work, sex tourism
  • The field expanded to look at a host of issues, such as the gendered nature of nationalism
  • Irony: the field was very much dominated by voices from the developed world, as you could see from Mohanty’s article
  • That has changed since the 1980s when Mohanty wrote, especially after the millennium
  • The Half the Sky Movement now has tried to focus global attention on women’s issues, as being key to economic development, and a more just society
  • Profound changes in a short period
  • To move forward I have to talk a little bit about the character of feminism in IR

The Character of Feminism as a Theory

  • There is no single theory of feminism in International Affairs
  • There is a profound range of different voices, which focus on how differences related to sex and gender influence global affairs
  • Most of these are critical theories, which are explicitly concerned with issues of social justice
  • The field is post-positivist in this sense
  • The field is typically interdisciplinary as well
  • Feminists don’t tend to give much weight to disciplinary boundaries, in part –perhaps- because they give so much weight to their communities outside of academia
  • So what do feminist theorists of Global and International Studies share
  • Spike Peterson points to three factors that I want to discuss
  • There are three key projects that feminist scholars are working on, in Peterson’s view
  • ONE: the extent and effects of a masculinist bias
  • How are women missing in key studies or discussions?
  • How are men presented as the norm in different settings?
  • How are the academic subjects that people study defined by male concerns and perspectives: the extreme focus on security as a topic, military strength, warfare, etc
  • SECOND: adding women and their perspectives to existing frameworks
  • Authors in this tradition examine women’s lives and the private sphere
  • A greater focus on everyday life as opposed to high politics
  • What is the background to the main story that we have traditionally been taught?
  • The typical question in this school is “where are the women?”
  • How are women affected by war?
  • How do women shape economies?
  • How do women’s decisions affect demographics?
  • This school of thought tries to depict women as actors and activists
  • It most of all tries to make women visible
  • One critique is that this approach does not go far enough
  • In other words, from a mainstream perspective the agents in a feminist account are neither powerful players on the global stage, nor are they of central importance
  • From this perspective, mainstream theorists might argue that this approach does not fundamentally change existing paradigms
  • Feminists argue that in fact this perspective show that existing theories are fundamentally gendered
  • They are designed to take into account primarily the male experience
  • Adding women in does not just add some more information to a data set
  • It leads us to question our fundamental theoretical assumptions
  • In other words, women cannot be just added to projects that are fundamentally masculine
  • In this way, feminists argue, the second project is more disruptive and important that it may initially seem.
  • They point to the fact that many IPE theories do not focus on gender, and yet many economies are profoundly gendered
  • How can you understand how these economies function if you do not study gender?
  • Large migrations of women from Sri Lanka to the Gulf to work as domestic assistants
  • In some areas of West Africa markets are dominated by women
  • Capital flows and markets can be gendered
  • I would also note that women also impact military affairs
  • The decisions of Afghan women about whether or not to go to school may have as much of an impact on Afghanistan’s future as some military struggles.

Demography:

  • Women are also key to demographics.
  • You have places in the world that have entered a significant demographic decline
  • This has huge economic impacts, as in Japan, where the population is rapidly aging
  • In Russia the falling population means that Russia’s status as a great power is at risk in the long term
  • Even Germany is very concerned about its demographic future
  • Long ago, Bismarck said that demography is destiny
  • There is truth to this
  • In Taiwan, which has the lowest fertility level on the planet, it is difficult to see how the island can maintain its political separation from China as its population steadily shrinks
  • And Europe is also undergoing through a demographic transition
  • For all the focus on Greece and the Euro, one could argue that Europe’s fundamental problem is a demographic transition
  • There used to be a well known blogger for the Asia Times named Spengler, who write an article about Italy’s future
  • Said that it would be a Disneyland for tourists, much as Sparta had been in classical times
  • A grain of truth to what he said
  • Most of Europe will face a long demographic decline
  • How can you talk about the future of the great powers without talking about women?
  • And how can you understand the future of Great Power politics without understanding demography?
  • Yet demography largely depends on women’s decisions
  • Most policy decisions to address the demographic decline don’t show a sophisticated understanding of gender
  • And yet, for all of this, feminist theorists in the second school seem to be making little headway
  • This has lead to a third theoretical project among feminist IR theorists

Three: Reconstructing theory

  • Feminist theorists begin with the basic assumption that sex is not gender
  • Gender is a historically contingent social construction
  • It dichotomizes behaviors in a binary fashion between male and female
  • As a construct, gender is not natural or given, but an institutionalized feature of social life
  • Some feminist theorists focus on gender as an analytical category that refers to construction of masculinity and feminity
  • They look at how gender defines structures of power and authority, divisions of labor, compensation and much else
  • They take existing analyses, and tend to shift the focus from sex to gender
  • They look at the significance of gender to how we think as well as how we act
  • There is careful study of how research questions are asked, and how they involve assumptions about gender
  • These theorists may a few key points: claims about feminity are also claims about masculinity
  • These are interdependent constructs
  • For this reason the study of men and masculine activities also entails the study of women and feminine activities
  • In this way, feminist theorists also try to change how we think about men
  • Feminists thus argue that their work is central, not peripheral, to IR theory
  • gender as a construct is said to pervade our conceptual world, which necessarily has political effects
  • feminist qualities are devalued, and this devaluation is naturalized, so that people don’t perceive it
  • feminists believe that you cannot talk about gender without talking of domination, and the ways in which this domination is masked
  • feminist qualities are denigrated in order to depoliticize oppressive relations
  • interesting point: feminist IR theorists in the third school also argue that theories and schools of thought can also be viewed as more or less masculine, and therefore valued
  • in general, masculine theories are conceived to define themselves as being more objective, quantitative, formal and scientific
  • IR scholars often praise work in this school as being “hard.” Feminist scholars argue that even this discourse is sexualized and somewhat childish.
  • feminists argue that when they criticize masculinist theories, they are attacked because of the “demasculinization” that their theories entail
  • in order for any critique of IR theory to be effective, therefore, it must take seriously how masculinist ways of thinking are priviledged

Perception of these projects in IR

  • if you look at the these three different projects, it is the third –reconstructing theory- which is the most radical, and which would have the biggest implications
  • these theories are transformative: if you were to accept them, they would fundamentally change the way that you do theory
  • for this reason, there is great interest in the third project of feminist theory
  • but it is the most controversial in IR theory
  • the reality is that the feminist project is on the margins of IR
  • Why?
  • Feminist theorists argue that it is because IR is dominated by men, who focus on masculized activities
  • Think about realism: its emphasis on the state, great power politics, and armies: very male
  • Seriously looking at how gender operates would be very disruptive to this approach
  • Feminist theorists argue that male theoreticians don’t want to see their assumptions questioned, because it might undermine their position of academic privilege
  • They also argue that IR is not sufficiently reflective
  • In the US, advocates of mainstream theorists don’t like to wrestle with  epistemological or ontological debates
  • They also argue that IR is isolated from general intellectual trends
  • Most IR theorists are reluctant to problematize objectivity, reframe research agendas, and thinking about the real-world implications of their theories
  • In traditional IR, war is seen as the central international question
  • Why is that the case rather than poverty?
  • Starting to question these assumptions would lead to a radical change in priorities that some scholars are uncomfortable with
  • All these factors, feminists argue, explain the resistance to their theories
  • But their theories are critical to understanding the world
  • On a practical level, how do you respond to a refugee crisis unless you take into account women and families
  • How can you understand a nation’s economy if you don’t know how the work is gendered.
  • Some feminist theorists have moved outside of the field, to other programs that are most receptive to their arguments
  • Feminist theorists point out that the global population is 51% female
  • For most people, poverty and water are more pressing issues than security
  • They say that their approach is the future

Enloe:

  • One of the readings for this week was Cynthia Enloe
  • I assigned her because she was central to early work on feminism in IR
  • If you are interested in learning more, you can go to the same “Theory Talks” website that had her interview and you well see another one,

#28 Zalewski,” which you found interesting

  • Enloe really challenged traditional ideals in the field
  • Looked a military bases- talked about sex work, etc.
  • Talked about global tourism, and the way in which it was gendered
  • Theorists often are overly abstract
  • Her writing is very clear
  • It is dated- but the underlying ideas are still relevant
  • Her work is a good starting point to look at feminism in IR
  • I want to come back to the point at which I started
  • This lecture focused on one small aspect of feminism, which is it’s role as a school of thought in IR
  • It is a much broader school of thought
  • You might want to consider taking a class in Women’s Studies if you are interested.

Discussion:

  • Can you think of some major issues in IR where there is not enough attention to women?
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