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Ann Tickner came to Wellesley, specifically to our peace and justice class. She gave a talk and since it has so many provoking ideas, I dedicate this journal to her thoughts.
This is me typing down fiercely so lack of coherence and structure is regretted. Reader apology is asked for the inconvenience.
Since Professor Tickner is primarily an International Relation thinker, she gave an overview of how IR became a course. International Relations is usually taught as a part of political science. It originally began as an interdisciplinary course; to understand why wars occurs and what scholars can do to prevent or end war. While the primary areas of study focused on wars and security, it has since evolved into a study of economics and human rights as well.
Goldstein became interested in one characteristics of war. All societies have engaged in war, overwhelmingly fought by men but nobody has looked at the question of why is it only men who talks about war, why, despite having 1000 books of war, not one of them links war to masculinity.Not one of them has been curious enough to explore this relation. He reaches the conclusion that war is not due to men's inherent aggression and therefore decides to further analyze the association of war and masculinity.
States go to war for reasons. However, decision makers, who are charged with implementing military policy has been generally men. Why? A heroic citizen warrior has always been a celebrated image in Greek tradition, where manliness is associated with citizenship and warrior. It is still part of our society. For example, to die for one's country is patriotic. Until recently, this "duty" has been denied to women. Military service carries first class citizenship-politicans play up their military service career even if it is not so much relevant and the president of the US naturally becomes the commander of chief. It is interesting to note how Obama fits into the image of a commander of chief.
The discipline of IR has also been field largely populated by men- particularly in security studies, there has been very few women. It is true of peace research as well- a field mainly dominated by men.
Society has a way of defining Gender that illustrates the set of social structure of unequal power. Masculinity and Men, Femininity and Women where social construction of characteristics-protector, rationality, power are associated with men. The opposite weaknesses are associated with women and femininity. If you are protecting, you are not being protected- opposite yet dependent.. Positive values are part of masculine characters. Individual men and women does not necessarily embody one or other set of characteristics- it is possible for women to display masculinity and men to be feminine- however, it is easier for women to wear pants than men to wear skirts- so this gendered view is not only against women but also against men who are feminine.
Looking at IR and Security studies, in the beginning of 20th century, there were various school of thoughts within IR. One of them calls themselves REalists, with a capital R. a name chosen by themselves. Most of security studies has been conducted by realists- they discusses power politics- great powers in International systems- they believe that states have to be autonomous and look after themselves- anarchy does not mean that everything is in chaos- it means there is not sovereign body overstating to preside rules- great power ends up prescribing rules- it is almost like a soccer game without a referee- this creates a potential for a dangerous world.
Realists have a lot of attributes which fits well with masculinity- States also behave in more cooperative ways, but the realists do not talk about that- it gives us a one sided picture of State behavior- Feminists argue that this has real world consequences- the way we study about war affects the way we behave. It is interesting to see that a lot of foreign policy makers has been professors of IR- Kissinger, Rice- they were all Realists- is Something going on there?
The term women is still not in congruent with National Security- women have little of interest- Hilary Clinton is the secretary of State- nuclear arms treaty discussions are led by women- still, national security carries very masculine connotations- argues Clinton has to display masculine character to get into this field.
IR and Gender Studies- Why has feminist theories have a hard time getting together- It is also true that people in women studies are not interested in IR- Because these were two different fields- feminist theories have different goals and draws from different traditions than IR- Realism draws primarily on Inter-state relations- talks of States as individual units in asocial environment- feminist is much more social- starts at the level of individual ( social economic individual)- IR talks more about States than individuals- primary focus of IR is to explain the behavior of states- Feminist is to understand women subordination in order to prescribe strategies to end it- Feminist movement comes out of political realities- IR don’t think improving the world should not be part of theory and focus on behavior of State- Feminist thinks these two are inter-related.
Feminist IR-1980s- feminist theories into the discipline of IR- Ford sponsored conference- well known scholars of IR and some from Feminists- mostly feminists who were trained in IR- Book came out edited by Spike Peterson- launched the field- Ford came back after 10 years- Conference under auspices of Ford- Wellesley is an important place- Keohane-it has grown into a series of
Feminists IR has been questioning concepts of IR- the way it defines it- questions about States and citizens- areas such as global economy, human development- now more feminists look at security- in a different way- they are not talking about wars between states- looking at war at a more micro-level, concerned with what goes on during wars, the impact of war on women and civilian generally- end of cold war, when feminism started- focus on religious and ethno-national conflicts- conflicts with small arms- involve killing of large no. of civilians- feminists have a lot to contribute- because it is about ethnic and religious identities- feminists are suited as they have been studying gender as an identity
Examples: Feminists talk a lot about rape in war- War Crimes Tribunal- Yugoslavia has been first to confess rape as a strategy of war- another issue is military prostitution- Moon called “ sex among allies”- South Koreans clean and making the prostitutes more attractive around US camp to persuade US military to stay at Korea- extraordinary.
What does these stories tell us about the role of the state, the protectors and protected- a lot of today’s world, women killed in huge numbers- whole sense of protectionism needs to be thought through- state as a security – provider- not all states necessarily offer security to its citizens
How does these themes fit into IR- interesting topics- they say it is not really IR-What is and is not IR- not the real business of national security- particularly with aggression and men- worry that feminism are raising good women and bad men. A problem in the discipline- most contemporary feminists reluctant to embrace the simplistic notion of women and peace, if gender is a social construction, this is not taken at face value
Association of women with peace in a passive sense- devalue women-devalue the way we talk about peace- quite often, peace is associated with passivity- unrealistic- so remember the IR Realists- against idealists who are more peaceful- a problem here- peace is non violent struggle for justice- how the passive idea of peace is associated with feminism- IR feminists have new ways of thinking about war and security- useful in conflicts today like ethno-national ways-
IR feminist use the word security differently- usually it is about military- feminists define it in economic and environmental issues- multidimensional- provide security for everyone- Goldstein- he concludes suggesting no men are more aggressive- cant separate biology and social relations- Goldstein- a father of boys- primarily socialization effects of men and women that affects men’s participation in wars- not optimistic about changing them- it is hard to overcome- harder to overcome than biology-
Definition of Masculinity does change- feminists Cooper- Masculinity and State- different types of masculinity- less warrior like masculinity- linked to globalization- Bill Gates and its sweater- there are other models- in 1990s, emphasis on UN peacekeeping forces- use of military for peace- strikes a different image of what military do- gays in military- this is all tied up.
If we want to think about security in more positive ways- overcome the gender dichotomies- valorization of warrior masculinity-devaluation of conflict resolution- get to the point that comfortable thinking about these things- so that you can be valorized to be a peace maker than to be a warrior-
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