Feminist Perspective
●It came into the international relations field in the 1980s
●Gender-sensitive lens
●Gender is a social construction
○Masculine characteristics are seen as more valuable
●Gender bias shapes the “study” and “practice” of international relations
○Study→ International relations has been disproportionately filled by male
scholars in composition
○How states conduct international relations→ Male decision-makers are more
likely to go to war than female decision-makers
Gendering War
●If you are a feminist scholar in international relations, how would you challeneg the way
we see war?
●“Protection Myth” → Men fight wars to protect women and children
●Women are subject to rape and prostitution
●Rape as a weapon of war
●The myth has made women’s roles in war invisible
Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation (Tickner
1988)
●Politics is governed by objected laws that have their roots in human nature, which is
unchanging
○A feminist perspective believes that objectivity is associated with masculinity.
Objective laws of human nature are based on a partial masculine view of human
nature
●A state’s interests are defined in terms of power. (rational, objective, and unemotional)
○A feminist perspective believe thate the national interes is multidimensional and
contextual contingent. It cannot be solely defined in terms of power
●Interest defined as power is an objective category which is universally valid. Power is the
control of man over man
○Power cannot be infused with meaning that is universally valid. Power as
domination and control privileges masculinity and ignores the possibility of
collective empowerment
●Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of
the tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political
action
●Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the
moral laws that govern the universe
