Feminist Theories And The Discipline Of International Relations

In this reading reflection I want to talk about the chapter I have read about Feminism. At the beginning author emphasizes that feminist theories spread through the discipline of International Relations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the beginning the IR feminism was associated with the “third debate”. Over time IR feminists try to “test” this discipline and find out how their theories would be adjusted with global politics and society. Feminists thought that introducing gender analysis may have an influence on the state system.

Less than 10 per cent of the world’s heads of state are women. So feminist asked why it was the case and how it might affect the structure of global politics. This question is important for me either. So when reading this material I was looking for the reason of this situation. Later studies emphasized issues as military prostitution, diplomatic household, domestic service, etc. With this studies feminists wanted to demonstrate how important and valuable women are for global politics and international economics, so feminist scholars say that international politics seems quite different through the gendered lenses. I found out a totally different definition of gender in this writing. For feminists gender is a social construction and it describes what men and women ought to be. There are differences with characteristics of each gender. Strength, rationality, independence, and public are often associated with men, when for example: weakness, emotionality, relational, protected and private are common with women (femininity). But sometimes we meet the situation, which is vice-versa. I partially agree with this opinion, because I think that it is caused of each gender’s human nature. Besides that, as emphasized in this material, I also think that it is depended on place where these people live, and the time. For example, in the primacy, women’s duty was the general house-keeping, parenting, when men had to be strong enough to protect his family, feed his wife and children and made public decisions. So this situation was lasting for years and even centuries. Besides that, in different regions have different situations. For example in some Muslim countries, even today, wife is associated as husband’s property and, unfortunately, women have almost no rights.

While reading the materiel about IR feminist theories, the most interesting for me was the Liberal Feminism theoretical perspectives. Liberal feminists believe that if we need women’s equality, every obstacle, for example legal, which deprives them the rights or opportunities to be equal as opposite sex, should be abolished. Liberal feminists studied cases about refugee women, reasons of unequal income between men and women, they want to know how our world be if there would be more and more women in positions of power.

Mary Caprioli and Mark Boyer (2001) used social science method to found out if there was connection between gender equality and worldwide peace. Their study showed that as inner gender equality rises, states become more and more flexible and mild. In my opinion their studies and finds are near the reality. If the level of violence against women is higher in a certain state, I think, the state will not be able to act in accordance with the norms and requirements demanded by international organizations or even international society, because it is the strict violation of human rights. Besides that, the higher gender equality in country, the higher political end social equality, which means that the state is more peaceful and the chances, for example internal conflicts, decreases. Another interesting theory from the chapter was feminist constructivism. I have never thought that the two ideas, such as feminism and constructivism, should have any connections. The most catching thing in this part for me was Elisabeth Prugl’s ideas about home-based working women and international society. The author thinks that one of the most important feminism perspectives is to regulate home-based working as an employment. This kind of work is not often associated with ‘real work, ’ because of poor working conditions, also as a private reproductive sphere, it differs from well-paid and appreciated public sphere. Author believes that gender organizes power in the whole global society; it would be home, state or international system. In my opinion this discuss is totally true. As a rule, women are concentrated on activities such as domestic work, which is usually unpaid and less productive, or sometimes they have to work in the sector which is less secured. Besides that, personally I have seen women in science, engineering and this kind of jobs very rarely, when this sphere is one of the well-paid and respectful.

In conclusion, this reading material was very interesting and gave me a lot. Investigating gendered constructions of international concepts and restoring women’s visibility is one of the greatest achievements of feminists. Reading feminist theories strengthened my opinion that gender relationship is the integral part of world society and politics. I agree with the IR feminists and think that global society needs more gender questions. That is not the news that there is a lack of ‘women’s voice’ in our society. Main goal for everybody should be to de-gender global society, if we want to live in a better world. States should think more about security policies on women and marginalized people, think that gender subordination is one of the most common issue for moderns society, this issue is especially connected with the inside family situation. Women are violated, not only physically, very often they are victims of moral insult. And finally, society should reach the agreement that gender studies and problems does not mean only women common issues, also how the international society is formed and exists.