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 19^th 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?