Published as:
“The Emerging Field of Gender
and International Relations.”
The emergence of the field
of Gender and International Relations
Introduction:
The rapid growth of the field of Gender and International Relations
The
cover of a recent introductory text to gender and international relations
features a photograph of a woman striking a decidedly confident pose as speaker
on a platform, surrounded by other women, juxtaposed against a battalion of
heavily armed male soldiers in fatigues. The significance of this description
is not only that it is attempts to convey a simplistic and literal image of
gender (with the picture of women) and international relations (armed
soldiers), but that this image graces the cover of an introductory text focused solely on gender and international relations (Steans 1998). The inclusion of gender and international
relations not only in, but also as
mainstream texts can be considered a mark of the extent to which this sub-field
has become a part of the mainstream discourse.[1]
Another
mark of the arrival feminism to international politics is the proliferation of
articles in mainstream international relations journals, such as Foreign Affairs, International Organization, and indeed in this journal, SAIS Review. At the same time,
monographs and edited volumes have proliferated in the past six to seven years,
since what is considered the first volume in the field was published in 1988.[2]
The International Studies Association has a section on Feminist Theory and
Gender Studies, and its 2000 Annual Congress featured not only panels
specifically on Gender and International Relations, but also on other topics
that were addressed from a feminist perspective, such as the role of the
internet in international relations.
In
just over a decade, Gender and International Relations, or, as it also called,
Feminist International Relations, has situated itself in the discipline of
International Relations at many different levels—from critiquing the mainstream
theoretical approaches to international relations, to arguing alternative
perspectives and conceptualizations of international relations, to inserting
women into the international relations discourse. Given the exponential growth
thus far witnessed, particularly of the theoretical aspects of Feminist
International Relations, and what appears to be increased interest in the
field, one might venture that it is in the process of becoming fully
consolidated as an accepted and legitimate sub-field of International
Relations, throughout the academy.
The
term gender, in its current usage, refers to the complex social construction of
men’s and women’s identities. One’s gender reflects not one’s fixed biological
characteristics, but culturally specific notions of men’s and women’s behavior,
particularly in relation to each other. Fundamental in the discourse on gender
is the notion of power, and the power dynamics between genders. A feminist approach, then,
aims to reveal the gendered dimensions of theories, structures and actions; in
the context of international relations, this amounts to an epistemological
approach of interrogating International Relations theory and, in so doing, placing and/or bringing to light women’s and gender issues in foreign
policy and in the international arena in general. As Marysia
Zalewski (1995) put it quite simply, this approach
asks two main questions: “What work is gender doing?” And, “Where are the
women?” The
ultimate result—or at least the objective—is to bring to the study and practice
of International Relations a more critical and grounded understanding of the
world and the way it works, as well as to better understand the gender dynamics
that augur for inequities between men and women.
Origins
of Feminist International Relations
The emergence of a feminist approach in the
field of International Relations can be traced to different sources. First is
the international feminist movement of the early 1970s, both in the academy and
in the field of women and development as marked by the first United Nations
Conference on Women in 1975 and the UN Decade for Women 1975-85 (Thorburn
1997). The emergence and growth of the Women in Development (WID—now evolved
into Gender and Development, GAD) movement initiated a process of academic and
policy research that, by the end of the Decade, led to the understanding that
women’s lives cannot be understood separate and apart from a gender approach
that looks at the power relationships between men and women. Further, that
these gendered power relationships affect and are affected by global economic
and political processes that are themselves inherently gendered.
A second factor in the emergence of Gender and
International Relations is the end of the Cold War. The shift of issues and
priorities from the militaristic and ideological confines of the East-West
divide opened up a space in which other international relations issues and
approaches can be explored and considered. Gender is but one of the “new”
elements of this trend, which also includes considerations of the environment,
the drug trade, economic globalisation, demographic issues, and ethnicity.[3]
Another development that has augured well for
feminist work in International Relations is the fact that as the subject matter
of international relations changes in the post-Cold War era, and issues of
human rights, the environment, migration and democratization move to the fore,
women’s issues cannot be ignored. Consider, for example, the issuance in 1995
of new guidelines on gender by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service,
in recognition that women suffer persecution and human rights violations in ways
different from men.[4]
This in response to requests for asylum by women fleeing various forms of
gender-related oppression, such as genital mutilation, domestic violence and
forced marriage. So that not only has international relations opened up to new
issues, but women and gender feature predominantly in these new issues.
A fourth way of considering the beginnings of
feminist international relations is as a matter of natural progression—that
feminist incursions into International Relations are merely the final
‘crumbling’ of this last ‘bastion’ of the social sciences. International
Relations theory, itself a relatively new discipline, is comprised of various
aspects of social science theory that have been interrogated by feminist
approaches since the early 1970s. Yet only in the late 1980s has it become
subject to feminist inquiry. This is most likely due to the dominance of men
and a male perspective in the field (Byron and Thorburn 1998: 211). To take but
one example: the role of the state, a principal actor in international
relations. The state is one of the most important subjects of feminist study,
where it has long been argued that the foundations of the state are based on a
patriarchal and gendered sexual division of labour that subordinates women (Grant
1991). As Kathleen Staudt put it: “Women had little
or no hand in the process of state formation and consolidation. Yet male
control over women—specifically, their labor,
sexuality, and reproduction—was central to laws and policies that governed the
gender realm” (1997, 5).
The fifth rationale behind the growth of
feminist approaches to international relations is the increasing presence of
women in the international arena as political actors. This could be considered
an outcome of the abovementioned factors. As women’s societal and gender roles
continue to be redefined, and as women participate more in the public and
political sphere, their presence as actors in the international arena is
inevitable. Recent research suggests that while a “hegemonic masculinism” still pervades International Relations, more
women in the field not only allows for the opening up of norms and behaviors that are typically characterized as “feminine”,
but also to a discourse freer of gendered restrictions in general (Van Glaanen Weygel 1999). While it
cannot be said that there is equal, or even near equal representation of women
to men in governmental and foreign policy decision-making positions, their
numbers have increased. For example, the number of women ministers world-wide
doubled from 3.4% in 1987 to 6.8% in 1996, and in 1997, 15 countries had
achieved 20-30% women at the ministerial level (United Nations 1997).
Finally, international women’s organizations and feminist groups have
been a part of the growth of the international non-governmental sector,
facilitated as it has been by the rapid developments in communications and
information technology. These groups work on many of the “new” international
relations issues, such as the environment and refugees, and have proven themselves
able to mobilize at the global level, as evidenced by the massive gathering at
the parallel NGO conference at the UN World Conference on Women in
A Brief Review of Some of the Literature
These developments have all come together and coalesced into what could
now be argued is a legitimate and coherent sub-field in International
Relations. A review of main texts that so far comprise the Feminist
International Relations discourse shows two trends. These correspond to
theoretical issues in International Relations, and secondly to more “material”
foreign policy issues. At both levels writers point to the absence of women’s
lives and experiences, and of gender issues. Beyond stating the obvious, the
analyses have found that, rather than a gender neutral discipline as some
claim, the theoretical foundations of International Relations are male-defined,
and are constructed around male-female dichotomies which define female as
“other”. Joan Wallach Scott (1988), a leading
feminist theorist, locates gender and its power dynamics in international
relations theory and practice, arguing that the power relations inherent in
international structure and politics are legitimised in terms of relations
between male and female, and that the legitimising of war has been carried out
in gendered terms.
Writers such as J. Ann Tickner (1991), Rebecca Grant (1991) and Christine Sylvester (1994) have turned to the theoretical foundations of International Relations to understand the absence of women’s and gender issues. They argue that these issues shape and are shaped by international forces, though up to now, they have been seldom considered, if at all. Using a “gender lens” these writers have broken down the discipline into its largely social sciences components, and then built them back up to what is now known as International Relations. They have discovered that, each component on its own, and the way the components were brought together, has resulted in a study entrenched in gender bias. As such, feminist understandings of the state, of war and of security also differ widely from the androcentric understandings that shape mainstream international relations.
Fred Halliday (1991)
and Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland (1991) have suggested areas of inquiry which
arise out of the gender bias inherent in International Relations theory. Halliday delineates three main areas for feminist inquiry
in international relations: the gender-specific consequences of international
processes, women as actors on the international scene, and gender components of
foreign policy issues. Grant and Newland propose that feminist concerns in
International Relations include migration issues, the gendered international
sexual division of labor, women and development, and
women’s rights as human rights.
Cynthia Enloe,
foremost in the field of feminist international relations, argues that gendered
stereotypes of masculinity and femininity provide the basis upon which the
international system is maintained and operated (1989, 1993). Her empirical
work on US foreign policy attempts to show how women—in their roles as
diplomats’ wives, prostitutes at overseas military bases, secretaries in UN
missions, and migrants who work as domestic servants to middle class North
American—comprise the international system in fundamental ways, as they provide
the means for the conduct of “official” international relations. The point is
that these are not the only women actors in international relations, but that
accounting for the social construct of gender is essential to a complete
understanding of the workings of foreign policy. Enloe’s
second work looks at the militarization processes of the Cold War, elaborates
on Scott’s (1988) argument that militarization, security and war are based and
dependent on gender dynamics.[5]
A third stream in the literature falls under
the broader definition of international relations, looking at non-state
actors—what might be called here international feminism. Christine Sylvester’s
feminist analysis of international relations theory brings her to the
conclusion that a feminist international
relations has different understandings of cooperation and reciprocity (1994).
Further, a feminist international relations refutes the basic realist tenet
that the international system is fundamentally anarchical. She suggests that a
feminist international relations is more aptly understood as “relations
international”—beyond inter-state relations to “inter-people” relations, such
as that manifested by the extensive transnational networks of international
feminist and women’s organizations.
As Sylvester’s work suggests, the main
difference between the international feminist literature and the Feminist
International Relations literature is the much broader scope which the former
applies.[6]
International feminists treat topics and issues of an international nature, as
well as inter-state issues, while Feminist International Relations is more
restricted to state/government level actions and processes. Another difference
is the weight that is given feminism as a perspective and as a focus. Tickner, for example, starts with “established”
International Relations from a feminist perspective. International feminists
tend to begin with feminism and feminist theory, and apply an international
perspective. Like Sylvester, writers such as Nalini Persram (1994), have concluded that a feminist
international relations is better understood as a critical international
feminist theory of politics.
Finally, and most recently, perhaps unimaginable even
five years ago is the publication of a book entitled, The “Man Question” in International Relations (Zalewski
and Parpart, eds, 1998),
which takes a true gender approach by looking at the role of men and
masculinity in International Relations.
Gender and International Political Economy
Related to the development of Feminist
International Relations is the field of Gender and International Political
Economy. This area of study can be traced more directly to the WID and GAD
movements, which began as questions about women’s role in development and the
impact of development policies on gender dynamics in general and women in
particular. The main issues under consideration in Feminist International
Political Economy are the gender dimensions of economic globalization, neoliberal
adjustment, and the politics of development.[7]
There is also a consistent focus on interrogating the state as a locus of male
power, a reproducer of gender hierarchies and in terms of its bureaucratic
barriers to gender equality.[8]
This approach has found particularly fertile ground in the third world, where
international relations is primarily comprised of domestic and external
economic issues, such as trade, development aid, and poverty, and has been
supplemented by new developments in feminist theorising in economics.
How far can Feminist International Relations
go?
The knowledge that international political and
economic forces influence women’s lives and gender issues, and that women’s
lives and gender issues fundamentally shape international political and
economic forces, is not necessarily new—what is new is that this perspective is now considered in the mainstream
study and practice of International Relations. Though it is significant that
this sub-field appears to have made significant gains in the academy, much
remains to be done in terms of theorising and empirical research—particularly
in terms of inquiries into whether or not the field has made any impact beyond
the ivory tower. Indeed, the most important question to be answered is: Has
foreign policy or international economic policy changed at all because of the
theoretical and empirical work done by those using feminist approaches to these
subjects?
It is important to remember that there can
never be a truly “feminist foreign policy” simply because of the diversity of
views within feminism itself. In terms of significant feminist influence over
policy, the prospects are not all sanguine if one considers the field’s
forbears—the WID/GAD movement, which, despite decades of organization and
attempts at changing development policy has seen results far disproportionate
to its efforts. Nevertheless, just as the US feminist movement of the 1960s has
had effects on American society and politics that are not immediately
recognisable, and not always quantifiable, in the long term one can envision,
at the very least, small but meaningful progression towards making
International Relations more real, more inclusive, and more effective in
addressing the world’s problems and challenges.
References
Ashworth,
Bakker, Isabella, ed. 1994. The
strategic silence: Gender and economic policy.
Burchill, Scott, Andrew Linklater, Richard Devtak,
Matthew Patterson and Jaqui True, eds. 1996. Theories of international relations.
Byron,
Jessica and Diana Thorburn. 1998. “Gender and international relations: A global
perspective and issues for the
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 1987. Women and War.
Enloe, Cynthia. 1993. The
morning after: Sexual politics at the end of the cold war.
_____________ . 1990. Bananas,
beaches and bases: Making feminist sense of international politics.
Grant,
Rebecca. 1991. “Sources of gender bias in international relations theory.” In Gender and international relations,
edited by Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland, 8-26.
Grant, Rebecca, and Kathleen Newland. 1991.
Introduction to Gender and
international relations, edited by Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland,
1-7.
Griffith,
Martin. 1999. Fifty key thinkers in
international relations.
Halliday, Fred. 1991. “Hidden from international relations: Women
and the international arena.” In Gender
and international relations, edited by Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland,
158-169.
Jarvis, Darryl. 1999. International relations and the challenge of postmodernism: defending
the discipline.
Klare, Michael. 1996. “Redefining security: The new
global schisms.” Current History 95:
353-8.
Marchand, Marianne. 1995. “Reconceptualising ‘Gender
and Development’ in an era of globalisation.” Millennium Journal of International Studies 25 (3): 577-603.
Persram, Nalini.
1994. “Politicizing the féminine, globalizing the feminist.” Alternatives 19: 275-313.
Scott, Joan Wallach.
1988. “Gender as a category of historical analysis.” In Women’s studies international:
Staudt, Kathleen. 1997. “Gender politics in bureaucracy: Theoretical issues in
comparative perspective.” In Women,
international development and politics: The bureaucratic mire, edited by
Kathleen Staudt, 3-34.
Staudt, Kathleen, ed. 1997. Women,
international development and politics: The bureaucratic mire.
Steans, Jill. 1998. Gender
and international relations: An introduction.
Sylvester, Christine. 1994. Feminist
theory and international relations in a postmodern
era.
Thorburn,
Diana. 1997. “Gender, regionalism and
Tickner, J. Ann. 1992. Gender in
international relations: Feminist perspectives on achieving global security.
United Nations. 1997. Women 2000: Women and decision-making.
Van Glaanen Weygel, Jeanelle. 1999. “Gender
identity and international relations: A study of women’s participation in
international negotiations.” M.Sc. thesis. University of the
Zalewski, Marysia. 1995. “Well,
what is the feminist perspective on
Zalewski, Marysia and Jane Parpart. 1998. The
“man question” in international relations.
Diana Thorburn is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American Studies at
[1] Three examples aree Jarvis 1999, and Burchill, Linklater et al (eds) 1996, which both have sections on feminism, and the inclusion of a section on gender and feminist international relations in a recent volume entitled, Fifty key thinkers in international relations (Griffith 1999).
[2] These were the papers presented at the 1988 Symposium held at the London School of Economics, published as a special edition of Millenium: Journal of International Studies 17, 3, and later as a text, Grant and Newland 1991.
[3] This approach has been labeled the “third debate” in International Relations theory. See, for example, Klare 1996.
[4] Mann,
Judy. 2000. A desperate woman is denied asylum.
[5] A similar argument is made in Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Women and War (1987).
[6] For example, see Ashworth 1995.
[7] Marchand 1995, and Bakker 1994 are two examples.
[8] See, for example, Staudt 1997.