Feminist Critiques in International Relations

This essay discusses the influence of feminism in international relations and the importance of gender equality. It explores feminist critiques and their impact on global politics.

Feminist Critiques in
international
Relations

Table of Contents
Topic: “Feminist Critiques in international Relations.”..................................................................3
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Topic: “Feminist Critiques in international Relations.”
INTRODUCTION
Feminism is termed as an ideology which aims to attain economic, social, political and
personal equality in terms of gender. The respective term “Feminism” is determined as the most
influential term in international politics too. Apart from this, International relation is an academic
discipline which focus on interaction of people within international politics, including both states
and non-states people like United Nation, International Monetary funds, World Bank as well as
Amnesty international. This essay is based on topic “Feminist Critiques in International
relation.” it will going to discuss this topic in proper manner by covering its each and every
aspects within effective manner.
MAIN BODY
Feminism is termed as an ideology which aims to attain economic, social, political and
personal equality in terms of gender (Zalewski and Parpart, 2019). Feminism simply believes
that women within the society are not getting equivalent educational and professional
opportunities like men as they are treated unfairly within the society. The respective term
“Feminism” is determined as the most influential term in international politics too. International
relations is mainly termed as the initiative taken by the company to develop their relationship
with the other countries so that they can easily execute their business activities at global scale
with each others support. This corporation among the nations also contributes in resolving
international issues such as terrorism, environmental problems etc. Along with this, it can be
further said that international relations also holds strong command over the range of nation
oriented things like international laws, politics, governance, politics, diplomacy, security,
economics etc. Feminism critiques is termed as an essential force within International relation
discipline. From the last two decades it has been determined that gender inequality is seen as the
most highlighted topic within the politics (Tickner, 2019). Here, it has been seen that numerous
of movement associated to women and equality for them have been initiated with the main
motive of proving that society is valuing them and also providing equivalent opportunity which

will contribute in their success. While relating the term feminism with International relations it
has been seen that politics has been taking range of initiatives to serve society equally. The
political parties also ensures that all individual who are working with them are treated equally so
that they can easily serve their proportion of contribution in corporation among the society. Ira
also follows the belief of gender blindness as its core discipline that states that none of the
member or individual would be discriminated in terms of their historical or biological
differences. In order to prove this, international politics have fairly provided opportunities to all
women belonging to this stream. Regular based initiatives taken for improvising growing
influence of feminism as well as women centric approaches it has been seen that IR has mainly
focused on providing equivalent opportunity to all women so that they can grow equally like
males and contribute in the development of society (Ross, 2019). Apart from this, it has also
been seen that the how effectively International Relation emphasises on war topics but at the
same time the equivalent priority is provided to the issues which are mainly associated with the
girls and women. This simply means that IR is taking its own proportion of initiative to serve the
society in best manner so that issues across the globe can be resolved.
International relation is an academic discipline which focus on interaction of people
within international politics, including both states and non-states people like United Nation,
International Monetary funds, World Bank as well as Amnesty international. In addition to this
international relation also include study of several things like foreign policy, international
conflicts, negotiation, war, international trade and development etc.. It has been founded that
there is absence of women's in international relation and they are not involved within decision
making process of global politics (Baylis, 2020).
According to the view point of Sarah Smith, 2018 it has been identified that feminist
theory has challenged feminist in their overall absence from traditional international relation
theory as well as practices. Absence of women is visible within decision making as well as also
in assumption that daily basis lives of women will not important to international relations. Apart
from this, contribution of feminist in international relation will be easy to understand by
deconstructing gender. This simply means that it is important to understand role of feminine
gender which help in deciding what men and women can do within global politics as well as
what will be count as an crucial in building international relations (Gardiner and et. al., 2019).
This overall assumptions help in shaping up the procedure of global politics but it will also

impact on lives of women's and men's both. Furthermore. Traditional international relation was
gender neutral which means IR and gender both are two separate area which don't have impact
on each other. In relation to this, traditional theory related to feminist reflect that international
relation is gender blind and this have no idea bout that how gender will impact in IR.
It is important to make women visible within political decisions as well as institutional
structures which will only possible when absence of feminist will highlighted from these two
activities. For instance, in 2015 is was estimated by World Bank that their was only 22.9% of
women of national parliament (Introducing Feminism in International relations theory, 2018).
This is very less percent and it will only improve when absence of feminist will highlighted
within these areas. Thus, in simple words it can be said that it is important to give equal
opportunities to women's as well and involve them in decision making or an structuring process.
Because they are also part of society and their contribution will play important role in effective
decision making at global politics level (Kinsella and Shepherd, 2019). This issue of women's
invisibility only resolve by making them visible. In this early contribution of feminist theory is
that women were habitually exposed to gendered violence. Making violence against visibility of
women's, in relation to this international system which tacitly accepted huge violence in relation
of women as they are normal state of affairs was also exposed.
In international relation, relationship within gender and feminism is important. When it
comes to gender first individual think about the ways within that gender is classified which is
masculinity and feminine. Moreover, aim of feminism is to recognise fundamental alteration
within gender through transferring present power relation in favour of women's. In simple term
it can be said that, it I related to realising gender concept which is important to understand it
because people mistake women's right as human rights (Harman, 2019). But both of these
concepts are different from each other because human rights includes civil, social and rights of
people. On the other hand, women rights are those which have to be provided to every particular
person irrespective of gender. In addition to this, human rights are more centric in relation of
particular whereas, rights of women turned around the aspects in which women take in their
feminine rights. In simple terms it can be said that feminism is not simply a word which create
awareness within women's but it is the term which most importantly reflect within men's. It is
major issue in relation to that men of society have yo be aware about that because human run this

which is not based on single gender. Thus, it is essential to have presence of women's in
international relation as well as also in decision making.
Feminist approach in term of international relation had introduced gender as an important
tool for understanding interaction within states in international framework (Gentry, 2019). For
developing effectual international relation theory feminist analysis had impact at very little level
on international politics because decision as well as policies makers look confident in dismissing
ideas related to feminist.
CONCLUSION
After going through entire discussion it has been summarised that, women's are not
visible within international relation in decision making process or any structuring. Thus, there
are several major steps which people are taking for making women visible within international
relation. One of the major step is to show their invisibility which help in overcoming with this
issues within effective manner. In simple term it can be said that, it is essential to make feminism
visible at international level within global politics.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cohn, C. 1987. Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. Signs: Journal of
women in culture and society, 12(4), 687-718.
Halliday, F., 1994. Hidden from international relations: women and the international arena.
In Rethinking International Relations (pp. 147-169). Palgrave, London.
Tickner, J.A., 1988. Hans Morgenthau's principles of political realism: A feminist
reformulation. Millennium, 17(3), pp.429-440.
Zalewski, M. and Parpart, J. eds., 2019. The" man" question in international relations.
Routledge.
Tickner, J. A., 2019. Gender Research in International Relations. In Gender Innovation in
Political Science (pp. 153-171). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Ross, A. A., 2019. 2 Emotion and experience in International Relations. Methodology and
Emotion in International Relations: Parsing the Passions, p.2.
Baylis, J., 2020. The globalization of world politics: An introduction to international relations.
Oxford University Press.
Gardiner, R. A., and et. al., 2019. Politics Versus Policies: Fourth Wave Feminist Critiques of
Higher Education’s Response to Sexual Violence. Journal of Women and Gender in
Higher Education. 12(3), pp.319-336.
Kinsella, H. M. and Shepherd, L. J., 2019. ‘Well, what is the feminist perspective on
international affairs?’: theory/practice. International Affairs, 95(6), pp.1209-1213.
Harman, S., 2019. Seeing politics: film, visual method, and international relations. McGill-
Queen's Press-MQUP.
Gentry, C. E., 2019. Anxiety politics: creativity and feminist Christian realism. Journal of
International Relations and Development. 22(2), pp.389-412.
Online
Hidden From International Relations: Women and the International Arena. [Online]. Available
Through: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/03058298880170030701>.
Introducing Feminism in International relations theory, 2018.[Online].Available
through<https://www.e-ir.info/2018/01/04/feminism-in-international-relations-theory/>