LECTURE NOTES
Feminist Theory and International Relations
figuring out how to make the state more efficient
innate nature explains the innate nature of states→ represents the international order as a whole
Thomas Hobbes: we need to understand the nature of man, life is nasty brutish and short, individuals should prioritize their own securities over anyone else’s governments should not do anything but provide security in this sort of conceptualization= realist view
unipolarity v bipolarity
one overwhelmingly strong power, acts essentially as world peace
the thing that makes peace is strength, being able to overpower challenges
bipolarity= two balancing powers, one cannot overpower the other, balance creates peace
gender traits, why do people behave differently
1920s: emphasis on these traits
1960s: emphasis on sex roles (gender as a performance)
1980s: emphasis on systems of power (gender as collective, not just personal phenomena)
“The Third Debate”
the study of international relations began to move away from security and foreign policy as sources of global order in the 1960s
competing paradigms on the nature of the world ought to be subjected to empirical testing to avoid over-ideologizing academic study
feminism emerged as one of the new departures from standard conceptualizations (realism, idealism, structural-functionalism, etc.)
feminists theorizing is “an ongoing critical engagement with the world,” from the perspective that equal rights and freedoms ought to be enjoyed by people of all sexes
liberal feminism: women were owed equal legal protection and treatment due to their innate rights under natural law
marxist feminism: women’s liberation must be part of a wider struggle against capitalist (class-based) exploitation
radical feminism: women’s oppression is perpetrated by patriarchy rather than capitalism
socialist feminism: women’s oppression is promoted by complex systems
psychoanalytic feminism: women’s sense of being has been defined as what they are NOT rather than what they are
A feminist curiosity reveals power relationships more directly, by asking
Where are the women?
How are women’s and men’s roles are constructed, sustained, and made (in)visible
how women’s and men’s role are constructed, sustained, and made invisible
all of the major functions/behaviors/structures of states are gendered
assuming men’s dominance in “official state politics” casts the bulk of IR as masculine
(same goes for its study)
Enloe’s feminist take on IR reveals the importance of
bananas (global agriculture)
beaches (tourism, women’s labor, and sexualized roles), and
bases (military installations and the women who work around them)
Enloe’s intervention: the personal is political international is local
women’s lives are central to how international politics work
Nationalism and masculinity
sex and gender are central to how states and nations imagine themselves and legitimize political projects
yet, people (esp. women) are often controlled, idealized, or excluded in ways that reinforce male dominance
how does nationalism depend on and reproduce specific ideas of gender, or specific sex-based expectations?
Enloe: Nationalism and Masculinity
sex and gender are central to how states and nations imagine themselves and legitimize political projects
yet, people (esp. women) are often controlled, idealized, or excluded in ways that reinforce male dominance
how might nationalism depend on and reproduce specific ideas of gender, or specific sex-based expectations?
gendering of sex roles in international politics
nationalism: pride, united under one identity
a desire to preserve this identity
nation v state
ethnic group v government entity/geographical boundaries
people v system
nation-states
state that governs a single nation
multinational state a state that governs multiple nations
an emotional attachment an attempt to create nation states IS nationalism
cultural legitimization of the state
states have a government (monopoly on legitimate use of force, provide security and safety), population, territory, borders, recognition of other states
Peterson: critique rather on masculinism
its the hierarchy thats the problem
“feminist theories then are not only about advancing some group called ‘women’ buy also interrogating the power to specify insiders-outsiders, movement agendas, and even the progressiveness of theory and practice that claim to be feminist.”
traditionalist peace and conflict studies has been critiqued for
disciplinary preferences, norms, and boundaries that prioritize objectivity, hierarchy, and exclusion
these norms have also been found to reinforce male/masculine dominance, anglo/eurocentrism
androcentrism: centered around man
limiting the scope of what constitutes conflict, largely by prioritizing war as its most elevated form
binarizing perpetration and victimhood in the experience of conflict
masculinizing its central concepts (authority, order, strength)+ focusing on public-sphere activity
correlates of war data
what defines war
length of time
reason
collective action that is organized violence
episodic
disruptive/emotional investment
Hooks: feminism as relational critique
is conflict between women at the margin and women at the center is necessary for feminist progress?
black feminists: manufactured tension
socialized into “other”
position of what they are not as opposed to what they are
people do not naturally exist on margins
relational critique
systems rather than individuals
decolonial feminism
black feminism→ black women specifically American black women, an alternative
forms of standpoint feminism
take their point of departure
standpoint feminism
women’s experience
Hooks, Collins feminism as a Relational critique
a feminist sensibility that embraces Black and decolonial feminist methods of knowing, teaching, and learning encourages a broader, deeper co-construction of knowledge about gender and political conflict
Ethics of Feminist Study
feminist research foregrounds the power relations between researchers and their subjects
it also highlights the ethical and political commitments that we bring to bear on knowledge production
research is not feminist because it focuses on women and gender
feminist research always embeds ethics, reflexivity, and accountability into the knowledge building process
ethics exist beyond procedural compliance; it reflects relational, political responsibilities to acknowledge and respond to power dynamics
IRB: Institutional Review Boards
ethics=relational experience
reflexivity means ongoing critical self-examination about how one’s positionality, assumptions, and choices shape the research process
linking between material justice
Attentiveness to power relations
1) story being told by a more socially visible persona, seen as less of an important story, historical erasure of black transgender history2) status, person with higher status recognizing someone’s status could dictate whether or not the public considers this an issue in this case it is a white male investigative reporter who was once a senior editor of Newsweek versus a grassroots activist who was a self-identified drag queen and was black
3) intersectional approach
ongoing negotiation of ethics
better engaged in France’s response
Personal Reflection
identity, trust, and representation:
power dynamics: men often obtaining higher positions of power
accountability and reciprocity: we could be able to accomplish this by constantly reminding one self that labels do not matter, ultimately we must break down barriers to knowledge by ridding ourselves of these stereotypes. We could do so by attending cultural fairs, watching documentaries from multiple different filmmakers, reading novels from multiple different authors
Hutchings Reading Epistemic Justice
working to rethink or remake how knowledge is created=epistemic justice
remaking the concept of international relations→ the way we think about knowledge within international relations
three forms
transformative
restorative
recovering lost or excluded perspectives/voices/contributions
correcting the historical record
inclusive
adding previously excluded voices
not recovering what had been lost, actually doing the work to including what was previously left out
moving the center
epistemic responsibility
Narrating the Gendering of Conflict with Story-Mapping
war is ugly
it is important to see conflict with your own eyes that is why war images are significant
How do we think about the value of the visual?
there is no universal experience when it comes to engaging with war
distinctions between men and women and how they perceive war
if we don’t see it we cannot address it
“all photos are framed”- what you are seeing is the conflict through her eyes (Sontag) they are always from the perspective of the person producing the photo
Does the framing of imagery or the framing of knowledge about conflict changes what I can know?
audio without visual
what is the relevant context?
we should be looking at people who are directly affected by conflict
people who are also being indirectly affected by the conflict
maps, war propaganda, official messages
avoid shorthand definition
What is Story Mapping
an interactive form of storytelling
combines creating original content (writing) with collecting/presenting primary and/or secondary media (images, video, audio) to present a narrative
multidisciplinary application of digital technologies to social scientific questions and approaches
Executive Decision Making and Gender
hooks on stereotypes and tropes in feminist thought
stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing
trope: a figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression
both tropes and stereotypes reduced individuals to only their simplified form
head of government:
head of state: ceremonial/symbolic who represents the nation to the world and embodies national unity, while the head of government is the executive leader who manages the country’s daily operations, makes policy decisions, and runs the government’s administrative and legislative activities
Understanding the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda
October 2000: UN adopts USCR 1325
recognizing the disproportionate impact of armed conflict on women and girls
calling for increased participation of women and girls in conflict resolution and peace-building
providing a gendered framework for understanding the causes and effects of armed conflict
security council resolutions
veto power
have to vote on these policies
less hard to enforce them, especially when it has to do with armed conflict, binding
not just suggestions but roadmaps of how states should change their behavior
identifying threats of international security
October 2000: UN adopts USCR 1325
unanimous passage of a binding resolution!
four pillars of making women in peace and conflict an active part of the UN’s global security agenda
participation
protection
prevention
relief and recovery
once we get to 1960: we focus in on gender more so than just women’s victimization
“The WGS agenda has to some extent moved away from its feminist demilitarization and anti-war roots”
to instead focus on “making war safe for women.”
it likewise advances an outsized focus on increasing women’s participation in militaries, police forces, and uniformed peacekeeping worldwide
rather than opposing and transforming the conditions that lead to violence
securitization: the process of framing political issues and identities as threats to national and global security
its main implication: providing justification for the use of state resources and actions to address those threats
“militarization is a specific subset of securitization, referring to the use of and support for military means to respond to issues being securitized
gender mainstreaming does not always mean increasing gender equality
adding a focus on women and girls to CVE programming does not counter other forms of inequality that these paradigms may promote
it may also encourage essentialist and overly-reductive interpretations of non-Western women’s politics
Sexuality and Soldiering
Steans (1998)
The “Warrior Hero” and the Patriarichal State
gender inequalities in IR are not only about rights and resources buyt also about how states and societies imagine themselves and the duties of their members
These ideals help define
who counts as a citizen
who has legitimate political power
who has voice in national identity and security
historically, many conceptions of citizenship have linked political membership (or full citizenship rights) with the capacity or willingness ot bear arms or participate in combat
the “warrior hero” ideal contains valor, duty, sacrifice, courage, prowess, in battle as masculine-coded
because women have typically been excluded from combat roles, they often been conceptually and materially excluded from full citizenship
Sjoberg “Warrior Heroes” vs “Beautiful Souls”
adrocentric: focused on men
Thomas and Bond
Many have asked Why Men Rebel. Why do women?
we know that sex and gender influence the makeup of rebel militaries as well
Many scholars have focused on women’s unique
biography: life histories, political histories
pscychology: gender identifications, effects of gender norms
biology: stress and stimulus responses
and women’s unique pursuits of
revenge
representation
social role fulfillment
What is the authors’ response to this representation of women’s political interest in organized political violence?
a huge determining factor is the way in which rebel organizations structure themselves
Miller piece
TQILA Syria
series of armed conflict concerning political rebellions
armed conflict in Syria has undergone many phases, though all ties to Kurdish autonomy and regional politics
historically marginalized and subject to human rights abuses, Syria’s Kurdish population is concentrated in the north and northeast
Kurdish forces became the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against ISIS in the late 2010s, backed by a U.S led coalition
incorporated under the Assad governing regime, the Autonomous Adminstration of North and East Syria (AANES) governs much of northeastern Syria
The Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army of the International Revolution People’s Guerrilla Forces 2017-2018
Gender Violence, Gendering Victimhood:
Wells 2011 and excuses for lynching 10/27
What narrative did she highlight as the source of this “excuse”
lynching is not exclusively being done to women or predominantly black men
they utilize the white woman as a way to justify extraordinary violence against black people
objecting women’s agency
its creating natural victims of those who are not naturalized as victims “needing to be saved”
black men= only individuals who are natural recipients of lynchings
Carter 2012 On Vigilante violence in the U.S
“While the etiquette of lynching’ required an actual infraction against the prevailing racial order, it was clear that lynching itself became far more fixated on the eradication of black masculinity.” (417)
the sex and gender of victims of lynching were as important as their race
Carter argues that this is because both white and black Americans have been “invested in a certain patriarchal narrative of history.”
narrative: “Men can’t be raped”
McAlister Reading
How would we know if the kids are alright…
young people are generally under-explored in the study of political violence
work focused on all children tends to do so not in relation to physical health and child development
How do the authors define agency in relation to young women in violent/politically volatile contexts?
How do we reconcile survival strategies with the concept of agency in such settings?