FEMINISM AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS
COURSE CODE : POLS4008
COURSE NAME : THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS

DR. NARENDRA KUMAR ARYA

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
MAHTAMA GANDHI CENTRAL UNIVERSITY,
BIHAR
 CONCEPT OF FEMINISM
Feminism is basically a movement and
ideological position that aim to define, establish,
and achieve the political, economic, personal, and
social equality of the sexes .
feminism is about achieving equal rights for
both men and women with no intended biased
advantages to women.
Society believes that woman and man are
different.
Feminism seeks to investigate stereotypes and
biases based on genders and believes these are
created and perpetuated by patriarchal system.
Feminism says this inequality is not due to
their biological or sex-based differences
rather conceptual category of ‘gender’
Millions of people manifestly or covertly
believe the idea that there should not be
equal rights and equal opportunities for men
and women.
Feminism does not depend upon mercy or
realization of male conscience for acceptance
of equality of both sees.
 ……….In a Nutshell
• Feminism feels that society should
view, recognize and respect
women’s experiences, identities,
knowledge and strengths crucial to
their social being and they demand
and deserve empowerment rights
to actualize this vision.
FEMINISM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Feminists examine
Inclusivity is vital to
gender stereotypes
feminism. It also talks
in international
of Intersectionality.
relations.

Like race, age, class,

Intersectional feminism is socioeconomic status,
acknowledging the interplay physical or mental
between gender and other ability, gender or
forms of discrimination: -
sexual identity,
religion, or ethnicity.
Mind-Map of Intersectionality
in Feminism
Feminism, together with the new
approaches mentioned above, contested
the power of the mainstream.
Feminism challenged the ontological and
epistemological foundations of IR and
tried to expose the gender biases in the
central terms such as power, autonomy,
rationality, security and state.
Challenges mainstream’s understanding
of critical concepts
• There is no single Feminist IR Theory but be it
Marxist, Liberal or Post-Structuralist, feminists
aim to realize one of the three feminist projects
in IR identified by V. Spike Peterson (Peterson
2004).
• Classical Realism builds its assumption on human
nature but human nature under discussion in the
works of Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes is
the nature of man (Shepherd 2010, 6).
• Feminists argue that IR scholars continue to
theorize global politics in a way that make
women invisible.
• Feminism in IR owes its emergence to reflectivism
its other offshoots -: constructivism, post-
structuralism, and postcolonialism.
• Feminist theory has challenged women’s near
complete absence from traditional IR theory and
practice.
• This absence is visible both in women’s
marginalization from decision-making .
• It is assumed that the reality of women’s day-to-
day lives is not impacted by or important to
international relations.
• Women are almost half of the planets human
occupants and affected badly by conditions of
war, battles ,conflicts and violence.
 • One of the most influential
works in feminist IR is Cynthia
Enloe's “Bananas, Beaches and
Bases.” (1989)
• She also critiques global as well
as U.S. militarization,
specifically the roles women
play in combat.
• She argues that the U.S.
military model trains men to be
the protectors of women and
then produces an environment
Cynthia Enloe in which women are the victims
Leading Feminist in IR
of physical violence.
• A major goal of feminist IR (Cohn 2013; Eager,
2014; Tickner 1997) is to analyze, highlight and
even out gender inequalities often ignored in
masculine or male-centric international theory.

• As J. Ann Tickner noted about the discipline of

IR in 1992: “Why are there so few women in my
discipline? If I teach the field as it is
conventionally defined, why are there so few
readings by women to assign to my students?
Why is the subject matter of my discipline so
distant from women’s lived experiences? Why
have women been conspicuous only by their
absence in the worlds of diplomacy and military
and foreign policy-making (1992: 1)?”
 Facts Lead to Positions
• Feminist employ method of deconstruction to question
prevalence of patriarchy in IR.
• By challenging assumptions about masculine and feminine
gender roles usually responsible in deciding what women and
men should or can do in global politics.
• Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’ in his ‘UNiTE’
drive figured out that up to seven out of ten women
experience violence at some point in their lives, interestingly
against 600 million women due to cultural reasons this
violence is not yet considered a crime.
• Violence against women is prevalent globally and is not
specific to 63 International Relations Theory any particular
political or economic system.
• It is argued if women have significant voice in IR or High-
Politics as decision-makers and influencers than IR could
attain new orientations.
• in 2015 the World Bank estimated that globally women
made up just 22.9% of national parliaments.
• Diana Thorburn notes, “there can never be a truly
singular voice of feminist foreign policy simply because
of the diversity of views within feminism itself.”
• Tickner argues that IR is gendered to “marginalize
women’s voices,” and stresses “that women have
knowledge, perspectives and experiences that should be
brought to bear on the study of international relations.”
• The wars in ex-Yugoslavia that began in
1991 draws special attention to the role of
rape, as a symbol of subjugation and
humiliation, a means of propagating the
superior race, and a theme for mobilizing
ethnic rage.
• However it has been argued that “women
are not more pacific than men in their
attitudes toward international conflict”.
• Feminist scholarship on war emphasizes that men are
seen as the sole actors in war while Women are seen
just as acted upon throughout conflict and conflict
resolutions. Its victims as grieving widows and
mothers, selfless nurses and anti-war activists. (Swati
Parashar(Gender Matters in Global Politics).
• Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick in their article “Feminist
Ethical Perspective on Weapons of Mass Destruction,”
(2003) proposed “anti-war feminism”: A position tat
opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction either
for military, political, or deterring purposes, without
completely rebuffing all forms of warfare.
• Feminism in IR seeks to explore how gender issues and
values could and do play a role within international
relations ?
• For example, In challenging the concepts of a
state defending its national interests, feminists
would ask: who is defining the national interests?
If women were included in such discussions,
would the national interest be interpreted
differently, and if so, how? How would such an
outlook change foreign policy?
• The dispute over the role of women on active
duty in the US invasion of Panama and in the Gulf
War (where 30,000 women were among the half
million US soldiers deployed) served to underline
how much resistance to change there is on this
question by the military apparatus and the public,
as well as the complexity of the underlying issues,
not least from a feminist perspective.
 …………To Conclude
• Gender as a variable can’t
completely claim to explain the
complex and multidimensional
global politics on its own, still has
sought attention to hidden,
unexplored and ignored aspects and
provided new perspectives to the
Mainstream IR.
 THANK
YOU
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