Critique of Feminist International Relations - Essay Example

Critique of Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions’ Much has been written about feminism as scholars still trying to conceptualise the feminism theories into various sectors, regarding women welfare and protectionism. Feminism being a collection of social theories, moral philosophies, and political movements aim at liberating women, which originated in 19th century due to the women suffrage, social, economical and political inequalities among men and women. This notion led to more feminists believing that these inequalities are socially constructed and favour male gender. Feminists disagree over the sources of inequality, how to attain equality, and the extent to which gender and gender-based identities should be questioned and critiqued (Feminism Theories, Wikipedia, 2007). More and more theories are emerging in this field as contemporary feminists are now campaigning for reproductive issues – right to safe prenatal and postnatal care, protection from gender violence being street harassment, rape, discrimination and domestic partner violence to mention a few. Due to the women oppression in various areas globally, feminists now are arguing that the movement should be borderless tackling crosscutting issues like female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa, women oppression in Muslim countries and glass ceiling in developed countries. Though feminism has taken a big step in liberating women, much has been focused on women and politics, the right to vote, women placement either should be placed in public or in private like most of them are subjected now. It is common phenomenon that women’s place is in private of her house/home meaning focusing on domestic chores of raising children and other households stuff, while men taking public positions of being leaders either in big organisations or political leaderships positions. Due to its global effect, feminism now has been mainstreamed into International Relations aspects whereas more and more scholar are writing and evaluating feminism theories in concept of IR. One of these scholars is Annick T.R. Wibben, in Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions, looking back on the feminism theories and IR, with its effects on IR and how progressive these theories have helped in improving women status with IR. Feminism International Relations is becoming more and more integrated in humanities studies as established subfield with more development in overall display in feminist IR scholarships. Structurally, Wibben has categorized his article into three, firstly looking at the IR feminism history, where it is coming from and its progress. Giving general view, Wibben mentioned the integration of feminism in IR started in conferences in 1980s and 1990s, with more discussions of how feminism can be mainstreamed into the field. “The main focus being put on whether feminism about whether the field should choose to identify itself as ‘doing’ women in IR, gender and IR, or feminist IR, the examination concludes by arguing for a mature feminist IR. Conceiving the field as such also entails an acceptance of the (feminist) political project at its base.” (Wibben A, 2004). Historically, Wibben gave a detailed account of the evolution of feminism in IR by mentioning feminists pioneers like Anne Tinker, Cynthia Enloe, Christine Sylvester and many other more for the job done in developing theories on Feminism and IR, but stating that it has come late into the field of IR. Taking different approaches, feminists have always come to the same objective of liberating women and mostly have focused on women and militarism. Feminism has encountered challenges with which feminists scholars are still trying to come up with more theories of mainstreaming it into IR and most of have been looking into the women and peace researching and protection against violence. Wibben criticize the efforts of feminists as saying despite the efforts, the field like IR is still male dominant field. Though feminism in IR had evolved during the third-wave feminism era, whereby poststructuralist feminists have turned attention into analysing issues concerning gender and sexuality by deconstructing definition of men and women; Wibben focused on evaluating Robert Keohanne’s article of ‘International Relations Theory: Contributions of a feminist standpoint’, along with evaluation of Fukuyama’s article of ‘Women and the Evolution of World Politics’ criticising Fukuyama in his theory of combining biology and social distinction of male and women. Furthermore, Wibben analyses Fukuyama that he used male as aggressive while women peaceful one based on biology. Apart from centring mostly on arguments on Koehane article, Wibben managed to review the growth of feminism in IR and how it is progressing now by giving new directions for it. Wibben in reviewing the concept of feminism in IR recounted what previous scholarly writings and theories about it, their success, failures and way forward. However, there has been too little appreciation for the implications of considering gender as a dynamic social construction. Further, rarely is the centrality of innovative feminist methods to the production of feminist knowledges recognized or even noted ((Wibben A, 2004). Adding that these themes continue to revolve around the similar themes, while feminists are not encountered on their own ground in mainstreaming into IR. In debating the concept of feminism in IR, Wibben stated that despite the development of feminism theories, there is no particular perspective in addressing IR with gender. “Their task is to of identify the various roles that women occupy in the international, many of which had rarely been taken into account by the field of international relations prior to the introduction of feminist approaches. (Wibben A, 2004). Due to the power struggle between men and women in political leadership positions, which has become the focus of political project and by assessing it globally women nowadays are being given more positions. According to Wibben, so, while they might not agree on how this should be done nor on what exactly the label ‘woman’ encompasses, they want to dismantle current hierarchies and reduce gender inequalities. Recognizing power struggles, not just over material goods, but over meanings, they have a dynamic research agenda that continually questions established frameworks—in this case those of the discipline of IR. Giving a way forward, Wibben criticised feminists of campaigning for feminism practises while in reality mostly they are resisted, making clear distinctions between practices and theories. Besides disciplinary practices (such as the insistence on testable hypotheses in IR) hindering feminists research, in most parts of the world access to knowledge-producing institutions continue to be limited to select parts of the (male) population, unlikely to foster a feminist awareness. Consequently, in addition to an examination of contents of knowledge, attention also needs to be paid to who gets access to knowledge, who disseminates it, and how these practices are a product of, and reinforce larger patriarchal structures. (Wibben A, Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions, 2004, pg 97 - 114). Nevertheless, Wibben also give another insight about feminism in IR as uncovering feminist knowledges where science denied their existence. As a consequence of being articulated in particular locations, feminisms always entail a tension between what is (the challenges faced in everyday lives) and what ought to be (their long-term goals and aspirations). (Wibben A, Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions, 2004, pg 97 - 114). With the methodology is making scholars talk in this article, and by reviving the evolution of feminism in IR, Wibben has managed to give concise work on the subject by giving its history, what transpired during the emergence of the feminism in IR and what is being debated of the field and gave the new direction and what should be amended so as to produce better feminism theories in IR. Despite the positive aspect of the feminism in IR, Wibben cautioned the trend of adding more women instead of challenging its structure of the theory. Wibben’s position on the topic was to make it clear the significant impact feminism has already made in the IR discipline, removing doubts some scholars have about the importance of mainstreaming feminism into IR. As Wibben say return to some of the old debates and a clarification of the issues at stake might be useful, if not for those that continue to deny the relevance of feminist interventions, at least for students of International Relations (IR). With the goal of exploring the limits these scholarly themes have in debates on feminism and mainstream IR for over 15 years ago since its conception. In assessing the positions of women in International Relations, Wibben had valid points. Taking for example the involvement of women in war, it is common knowledge how women are treated being discriminated, raped and mistreated in war zones. Beginning in the second-wave feminism where the role of women after Second World War II was regarded as prostitutes and or victims of rape and other forms of violence, this led to more campaigns in liberating women from these oppressions. This can be verified by various scholars who have written about gender violence in war like what happened in Bosnia how Muslim women were raped as Julie Stone Peter and Andrew Wolper describe in ‘Women Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspective.’ The horror of genocidal rape has led into a call for feminists reconceptualising and role of women in war and how can they be protected. “One way into this topic entails considering differential gender receptivies to violence, warfare, and peace. Some argue that womens biology and-or habitual social assignments as mothers and caretakers position women against the violence of war as a means of settling disputes.” (Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and Gender Studies in International Relations). A lot has been documented in gender and war where women are portrayed as victims of rape, discrimination and violence. Women are seen as a disadvantaged class, unjustly dominated and exploited by men. Taking women in public/private distinction is another argument driven by Wibben in the article which concurs with other feminists scholars. One reason of first-wave feminism was women suffrage in 1919 whereby in fighting for women’s right politically feminism movement was conceived. In this movement, feminist IR sought to involve women at the sub-state level—in the hope that this would lead to womens involvement in the international level. “Women were seen as confined to a private, domestic sphere: either practically confined, by their responsibilities for childcare and housework, or conceptually confined by an imaginary that could only perceive women in their capacity as wives or mothers and persistently failed to register their presence elsewhere. Women were associated with the private, and men with the public worlds of politics and work, and so long as this separation held, there was little prospect of women taking their place as full and equal citizens. Winning the equal right to vote was never going to be enough to achieve the necessary equalisation.” (Phillips Anne, Gender Institute, London School of Economics). This was taken as a means of addressing exclusion of women in politics, as women were not particularly excluded from politics rather than their activities were the ones excluded from the line of politics definition. But with the feminism themes in IR, more and more countries are now encouraging women into politics and not only due to their merits, but also by being empowered through capacity building. There is an increment in number of women in parliaments across the globe, with recently House of Representative in United States of America elected Nancy Pelosi as Speaker as a first woman to hold that top position. This shows how important feminism has played its role in IR. “People more commonly talk of the significance of new social movements or the importance of associations in civil society, and in doing so, they share with that earlier feminist critique a recognition that politics is about more than what goes on in parliaments and political parties. Yet with all the changes, women still felt written out of the story, and feminists have increasingly identified the indifference to gender difference (as indeed to other kinds of difference) as a crucial part of the tale.” (Phillips Anne, Gender Institute, London School of Economics). Though there have been some improvements in women empowering and having top positions, some feminists still argue that the number is still low compared to men. Some of scholars apart from researching women’s role in international role turned in analysing the women role and how feminism themes are practised within the IR as discipline. This was due to dissatisfaction they get from researching the role of women in international arena. This led to challenging the feminism themes in IR where as some criticised the practices while look at the failures in achieving the desired goals of liberating women. “Feminist International Relations (IR) has emerged in the past decade as a key critique within the discipline of international relations. The initial impetus of this critique was to challenge the fundamental bases of the discipline in highlighting the ways in which women were excluded from analyses of the state, international political economy, and international security. These traditional concerns were revealed to be male biased in resting upon Enlightenment tenets of the acting male subject in a state–centric world. Writers such as Cynthia Enloe helped to forge a feminist agenda that claimed the international as personal and questioned the primacy of the state as an international actor. The efforts of major feminist voices in the discipline have undoubtedly had an impact, both in terms of research and in the teaching of IR theory.” (Eleanor O’Gorman and Vivienne Jabri, 1999) Destabilisation in the field much are contributed by the challenges critiques facing the feminism in IR, as more and more scholarly are coming with shortcomings in the theories. Among the challenges facing feminism in IR is the integration of feminism into mainstream IR and seeing women as victims who lack agency. “The rise of feminism in international relations has been central to the critical turn in the discipline. Part of this postpositivist challenge is to write the discipline beyond the conventional triad of IR theory, namely, realism, liberalism, and structuralism. In common with other reformers, feminists have sought to question the boundaries of the discipline in terms of understanding the international and in terms of problematizing the nature and effect of relations at the level of the international.” (Eleanor O’Gorman and Vivienne Jabri, 1999) this goes concurrently with Wibben in the argument about researching within international relations with feminism themes. Despite the fact that critical feminist theories in international relations have contributed much to its burgeoning in the world politics, mainstream international relations theories address very little about gender. The stand which Wibben has taken in giving an account on the challenges facing feminism themes with IR, is by criticising Koehane who treats feminist IR as subject to be studied and not the way of studying IR. She also pointed out that Koehane look at feminist IR as threat to cumulative social sciences unlike other feminists who look at feminist IR with structural regularities such as gender and patriarchy. Charli Carpenter in ‘Gender Theories in World Politics’ supports Koehane and differ with Wibben as by saying that “The distinction between gender and sex is the underlying principle of feminist theory and the core ammunition against the reification of gender hierarchies. It is generally the first thing outlined in a paper on feminist theory, much as realists outline the principle tenets of realism in defining the framework of their analysis. Nonetheless, the most common inconsistency within the field of feminist theory, and increasingly in popular parlance, is the confusion of the variable “sex” with the variable “gender.””. Feminist IR has been repeatedly defined by its attention to gender rather than its normative and methodological commitments, suggesting that gender theorists are by definition feminists. This has reduced incentives for scholars not committed to feminism to take gender seriously. This is an unfortunate state of affairs because mainstream scholars both deprive themselves of an important conceptual tool, and deprive knowledge on gender of non-feminist insights. Nonetheless, confusion in definitions whereby feminist IR scholarships tend to associating women’s experiences and feminist struggle has contributed much to the limitation of women studies. Women and feminism are terms used interchangeably despite the fact that some women if not most of them do not consider themselves as feminists and may have very different standpoints than feminist scholars. “But the key purpose of feminist theory is to investigate and argue for improvements in the wellbeing of women, and in much feminist work it is women, not interactions between states, which are the dependent variable. The study of gender as an independent or constitutive cause of international relations defined conventionally can be enriched by the work of non-feminists.” (Carpenter C, 2002). The argument that is being opposed by Wibben as she says, that matters of ontology, epistemology, and methodology are always already political. Feminists, as members of social/symbolic/political orders deeply infused with structures of gender, race, class, and cultural hierarchies, need to provide “practical everyday and long-range efforts to eliminate all these forms of domination. However, more patriarchy is practiced in Muslim world such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq to mention a few, where women are subjected to male dominance which is mainly equated with culture and religion. In addressing this particular issue feminists though worked hard feminists have been met by obstacles in liberating women hence achieving slow progress. “For example, there has been much criticism by Third World feminists of Western feminists’ inclination to speak for them. One of the positive aspects of this is the emergence of African-American and post-colonial feminist theories. This has also been a big issue around the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy—the view that women “over there” are helpless victims to whom we need to reach out and offer our enlightened ideas.” (Tinker Anne, October 2003,) Feminist theory uses gender as a lens but its focus is on women and its goal is the improvement of their status, however this is controversially defined by various feminist approaches. In conclusion, though there are more criticism in the feminist IR, changes have been noticed which led into showing little consideration on indicating that gender is socially constructed. Wibben in her analytical articles concluded by indicating various aspects that need to be addressed like developing dynamic approaches that will be constantly revised, that can adapt to evolving events and issues, and that are imaginative enough to capture subtleties. Though feminism apart from taking different approaches towards liberating women all have one thing in common of making life better for women, campaigning for gender equality in various areas such as politic, economic and other social activities. More modern feminists today are campaigning for women’s rights especially those in grassroots with collision on traditions and modernity this may have much negative influence on women especially in patriarchy world. 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