Feminism and International Relations - Essay Example

? FEMINISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BY COLLEGE PRESENTED TO Feminism and International Relations Feminism seeks to champion ideologies that result in gender equality and involvement in areas such economic empowernment and political processes. Feminists face various challenges regarding the international relations such as exclusion of women as political actors, under representation and gendered character of political institutions processes. However, there are no agreed standards on how to achieve the equality standards. While most problems in international relations field are considered to reveal around the issue of war and security as most realists assume, there are numerous groups that are liberal in nature, which are concerned in human rights groups, civil society, international political economy, development in the social space among others. For many years, realism and liberalism have been the two main theorists that address issues in international relations. Vibrant societal networks with entrenched confidence and practice leads lead to acknowledgement of important objectives in the country’s systems.The feminist movements and groups do influence international relations decisions by advocating new and better approaches to global to promote justice, equality, and maximise the value of humanity in globe affairs. Literature Review Feminism is currently a political movement and continues to challenge traditional approaches of conceptualising politics in the society and the political disciplines (Randall 1995, 118). There are two types of feminism: radical and Marxist feminism that had a revolutionary mind while the liberal feminists have portrayed themselves as reformists in international relations. As a result, in most western countries, the reformist mindset has won the political space, with many women, feminists included, making an impact in political institutions and professions (Randall 1995, 118). Feminist empiricism advances the perspective that states and interstate relations have been governed by dominating gendered structures, and interactions that have been neglecting women in leadership. Feminist standpoint is that women in their varied experiences in life have gained expertise and knowledge in the political life, which offers different perspectives on social issues that provide reliable and effective solutions to most problems in the world political system (Keohane 1989, 245). Therefore, the role of feminisms in international relations is to criticise any patriarchal thinking and introduce gendered structures in the society. The social and political integration have an impact on women discrimination since they diversify foundation of political competition and contribute to formation of diverse identities and understanding among citizens. Societal revolutions such as relocation from rural to city resolution areas, speedy population change, democratic politics, and improvement affect women rights. The political protests by women aim at convincing authorities of particular policies as well as create social norms through endorsing particular social behaviors. Problems Feminist Face in International Relations Women discrimination narrows the potential range of policy responses, undermines the capacity of the society to respond autonomously to the demands of their citizenry thereby weakening the legitimacy of traditional political intermediaries and state authorities. These new arrangements promoted the diffusion of new values of good governance, human rights, institutional structures, policy formulation, and democracy. One of the major problems that feminists have sought to deal with is in sovereignty of nations. For many years, sovereignty has been related to reciprocity (Keohane 1989, 247). In other words, as Koehane explains, while states have to claims their sovereignty, such states have a duty to respect the sovereignty of other states. These traditional international relation perspectives were discriminatory and tend to separate a nation from others. As Cohn (1987, 690) observed, while most men leaders in the global arena are more interested in cold-bloodedness in declaring their superiority and sovereignty in global politics, the feminist theorist emphasise that such hardliners have to indulge a new and different perspectives. In other words, feminists insist on the need to consider the repercussions of any decisions taken by leaders not only to the country, but to other sovereign people as well, and discourage the war-minded perspective among leaders. Cohn (1987, 690) remarks of a war hungry class of leaders who despite talking of nuclear war, they do not think of the grievous repercussions that such weapons might have not only to the victims, but also on the global scale. Chon’s remarks are congruent with Randall (1995, 121) who noted that males dominated politics are marked by competitiveness, aggressiveness and are exclusively concerned with the interests of the males, ignoring the interests of others. In such a case, feminism has played an important role in advocating for leadership that promotes the purpose of humanity and the need to have dynamic objectivity making design that would have far-reaching effects in international relations (Keohane 1989, 247). Most feminists suggest that most discussions in international relations have been constrained and thwarted by those who do not consider women as active participants in global politics as they do not value and consider the importance of the perspective of women in the society (Thorburn 2000, 3). Today, feminism is a political movement in that it points out the problems in political relationships between gender and power and has a strong effect in political science. However, the mainstream political science may not pay any special attention to the theorists (Randall 1995 100). This article investigates the contributions of feminism to international relations, and its approaches in solving problems in other international relations methods as well as its successes and failures in meeting these objectives. The Gendered Character of Political Institutions Processes Feminism in global politics has helped in creating world order through streamlining of competitive politics and modern science-based innovations. Weber (1994, 339) remarked that the use of feminist lenses involves considering the modern scientific approaches in different perspectives. Feminists through the feminist lenses are able to consider the social world, and as a result, create approaches that would transform the perceived world’s views, towards attaining a better society. Male dominated approaches as Weber observed have been responsible for creating an unequal society. On the other hand, through feminist international relations, such world leaders attain discipline and reluctantly or willingly accept the need to use their authority to draw the limits on what is important to the society and what is not; such leaders have to act under the feminist threat (Weber 1994, 340). Feminists have not succeeded fully in meeting this objective and do meet severe restrictions. Sometimes, male and conservative leaders have forced and channeled women and other feminists to take up roles that are perceived as women issues, leaving the security issues as a preserve of male dominated committees where conservative ideologies against feminism come to play (Abzug 1986, 279). Despite raising the important issue, Abzug faced such hostility from antifeminists who pushed for an aggressive ideology in facilitating relations with Vietnam. Moreover, the society has misgivings in having women play an important role in matters that they consider sensitive to national security, as they are perceived to be emotional and unable to have a grip on sensitive matters (Boston Globe 1987, 1). With these roadblocks from the policy makers and lack of confidence within the society, feminists face a daunting challenge towards imparting meaningful changes in international relations. Feminist groups have been vocal in championing for the support of education in improving literacy levels across the globe. Civil groups have challenged developed countries to support education-based programs in developed and underdeveloped countries, with more focus in girl child education. This is contrary to traditional relations that have been focused on trade, leaving social issues to individual countries to solve. This has led most western countries to pump huge amounts of investments to support education, which improves international relations between these countries. Alcoff & Potter (1993, 1) in demystifying feminist epistemology with regard to the role of gender observed a growing belief in feminist philosophy, which explains that, marginalized groups have the right to knowledge. Moreover, feminists have furthered the argument that knowledge has to begin with the women’s world (Smith 1999, 5) and the importance of basing knowledge projects in women’s lives (Oakley 1998, 715). There have been concerns among many feminists that knowledge in academic and popular levels is designed and revolves around the life of a man. To feminists the learned knowledge and the way of thinking articulate the problems of a man, living women out of any discussion about knowledge. For instance, Smith (1974, 7) remarked that sociology by itself was based on and constructed around the man’s social world. Exclusion of Women as Political Actors For many years, academicians have neglected the role of women and their responsibilities such as domestic work, childcare, and the role of the elderly among others. Furthermore, any time women are studied; the studies are based on male lenses and not women perspectives (Smith 1974, 7). The effect is that the identity of women has been hidden and relegated to the background in the academic world for many years. Through the development of feminist epistemology, such issues have been unearthed and scholars are working towards improving women studies in the society and recognizing the contribution of women in creating knowledge. However, feminists in coming up with objective standards in education that do not revolve around the world of men, they are faced with major challenges. Some of the challenges involve determining the differences between good and feminists research (Kirsch 2005, 2163), an approach that threatens the identity of feminist knowledge. Therefore, though feminists have not yet succeeded in accumulating a coherent body of feminist epistemology that is objective enough, channeling of contemporary education and knowledge has helped to bring out the role of women in creating knowledge and in improving education standards especially in third world countries where women continue to be ignored. Marxist Theory on International Relations Marxist and Neo-Marxist theories on international relations are paradigms which eliminate the liberal outlook of state collaboration and instead emphasize on social-economic concepts. These theories maintain that the economic aspects look down on other components that allows for the elevation of certain category as the main of area of concern. Positivist critiques include Marxist and Neo-Marxist ways as well as certain conservative thinking of societal constructivism (Walby 1990, 17). The positivist critiques include; poststructuralist and postcolonial. The most important Marxist theories in international relations are dependency theory and world-systems theory. According to Marxists, the globe is partitioned into economically resolute classes as opposed to politically determined nations as viewed by critiques of Marxism theory. Consequently, the concept of politics does not take over from economic perspective but rather economics replaces political agenda. Marxists argue that realism and liberalism are self philosophies initiated by economic powerhouses to preserve and substantiate global disparities. Intervention Measures Due to globalization and increased income levels among women, there is a huge difference between earning, saving and consumption trends of women in the western world compared to those in third world countries where feminism is yet to succeed in changing the status of women in the society (Peterson 2007, 11). This achievement has been made possible by liberal feminism, which has facilitated considering women’s interests and concerns on an international level, where women can have a voice and vote in international relations (Steans 1998, 12). However, Steans (1998, 12) noted that there lacks any feminist approach or feminist theory of international relations within political circles, which suggest that feminism has not attained the required level of success in influencing international relations. Lack of a feminist theory particularly in offering an alternative perceptive in international relations hampers feminism form attaining its objectives. Feminists have a broader approach on issues while considering the society and the impact of any decisions has to the society. As a result, feminism has had major influence ion international relations. Some of the problems that feminism seeks to solve in other international relations approaches include encouraging corrective responsibility among nations and discouraging to separation, having more women in leadership positions to benefit from gendered structure of leadership. Others include women participation in the economic front to improve trade and standards of living across countries and harmonizing education across the globe in eliminating illiteracy. Therefore, feminism has been responsible for introducing a different perspective in patriarchal political science resulting in improved justice and promoting the purpose of humanity across the world. Conclusion Even if women do not realize political freedom, they were able to achieve moral recognition and political constitution. Societal systems need to respond, adapt and dynamically endeavour to shape its political environment in order to realise a significant effect in improving the socio-economic well-being of female citizens. Many researchers point out that such discrimination on gender is a reflection of the existing conditions and practice in the society. It had been prevalent in the family, work place, political system and education system. 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