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(Laura, The Numbers Do(n’t) Always Add Up: Dilemmas in Using Quantitative Research Methods in Feminist IR Scholarship Politics & Gender 5(3) 2009 )

In this sense, sex is an empirical category and gender is an analytical one, because as Jackson (2002, 499) notes, sex disaggregation of statistics in itself does not amount to gender analysis or, I would add, feminist analysis. However, as Helen Kinsella (2003, 296) argues, to identify sex as an empirical category is deeply problematic because it presumes the naturalization of the biological sex binary and obscures how the categorization of sex (as well as gender) is politically produced and regulated. One way to respond to Kinsella’s position would be to reject the use of sex disaggregated data (and associated quantitative models) altogether. Another way to look at this position is that it also allows for interrogation of the process of data construction, collection, and analysis that is not informed by feminist IR (and other feminist) theorizing. It is this tension raised by feminist IR scholars that enables me to conclude that due to the parameters of such data, my findings do not shed much light on how globalization, economic development, and democratization help shape and sustain gender ideologies that serve to oppress all those identified with the feminine, whether they be women or men. I concur with V. Eudine Barriteau (2006), who argues that much of the sex disaggregated data, gender indexes, and models place too much emphasis on the material relations of power to the exclusion of the social and ideological relations of power. In this sense, there is indeed a formidable disjuncture between IR feminist theorizing and the currently available data. Despite this problem, we can use feminist IR analysis to explain why this is so and to frame interpretation of statistical findings. (416)

Perhaps because of these problems, feminist IR scholars rarely use the word ‘structure’ and even more rarely discuss the relationship between gender and structure in global politics explicitly. While that reaction is understandable, I argue that failing to engage ‘third image’ theorizing directly assumes either that there is no ‘structure’ in Waltzian terms in global politics, or that gender is irrelevant to understanding that structure. This article, with a majority of scholarship in IR, finds the question of international system structure worth exploring. Borrowing from feminist literatures in sociology and women’s studies, it argues that gender can be seen as structural. As such, it contends that feminist ‘third image’ theorizing is not only called for but imperative, as there is a structure to the international system and that structure cannot be understood without gender analysis. One cannot, however, engage in feminist ‘third image’ theorizing without having a sense of which third image theorizing to engage first.5 This article starts with Kenneth Waltz’s understandings of structure, in part because Waltz’s work serves as the foundation of much of IR’s history of structural theorizing but also because ‘structural realism is a far richer sociological theory of international politics than its critics and defenders usually recognize’ (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 10). In Waltz’s conception of structure, ‘action is a social and relational category’ where interaction is ‘the product of discrete and irreducible systems,’ which can be seen working in the interaction of component parts (Goddard and Nexon 2005, 15, 16). Such an approach emphasizes the material and authoritative aspects of international system structure over the social or cultural elements.6 This approach may be ‘hard case’ for gender analysis in global politics (which many consider to be exclusively social), but could also serve as foundational for feminist engagements with the structuralist literature in IR from its foundations to its present manifestations. This article, then, takes a feminist ‘third image’ approach to theorizing critiquing and building off of Waltz’s notions of structure. This article begins by briefly reviewing Waltz’s analysis of the meaning and function of structure in causing war, as well as objections raised by critics of structure realist approaches. It then introduces gender analysis in IR with a focus on its theorizing of war(s). The third section, with reference to the work in feminist sociology on gendered organizations and cultures, sketches an approach to theorizing international system structure through gendered lenses. It is followed by a section that makes an initial plausibility case for the argu- ment that the international system structure is gender-hierarchical, focusing on its influence on unit (state) function, the distribution of capabilities among units, and the political processes, which consistently govern unit interaction. A fifth section outlines the implications of an account of the international system as gender-hierarchical for theorizing the causes of war generally and wars specifically, while a sixth section focuses on some places where the Waltzian account of international structure and my own feminist account might predict different outcomes in the making and fighting of wars. The article concludes with some ideas about the potential significance of a theorizing gender from a structural perspective and of theorizing structure through gendered lenses.

To conclude, I review how gender identities, ideologies, and institutionalized practices interact to normalize domination and mobilize violent practices. No one escapes gender socialization and its historically sedimented norms of heterosexism. We cannot help but be invested in identities that our culture deems appropriate, necessary, and worthy of esteem. While we are not locked into unchanging or monological scripts, following paths of least resistance is easier than not conforming—much less actively criticizing “the way things are.” Because the naturalized “given” of binary sex difference is coded into gender identities and ideologies, it gives the status quo inordinate power to obstruct critique and transformation. Females are cast as, and socialized into, subjectivities and roles that feature dependence, accommodation, lack of personal autonomy and power, and implied consent to male domination. The effects of conformity seem to invite ideologies of protection, if not contempt. Women who defy the stereotypes are deemed suspect, social problems, and unnatural (African American “matriarchs,” “anti-family” career women, “man-hating” feminists, “depraved” torturers). Males are no less—and in important respects, more abusively—socialized into subjectivities and roles that feature aggression, being in control (emotionally, physically, politically, economically), and denying anxiety, ambivalence, and vulnerability. Conforming to gender expectations costs men—and women and societies—dearly. As “compensation,” men are accorded a sense of entitlement: to autonomy, power, and sexual access. Objectified and subordinate “others” may require protection but are also “at the disposal” of their superiors. This is the central dilemma constituted by gendering: the specific qualities of (weak, agentless) femininity are seen to demand a corollary exercise of (powerful, entitled) masculinity. Not surprisingly, most men attempt to comply, often at high personal cost. Because the edifice of masculinity is a mythic construction, the pressure to “prove” one’s manhood is relentless. However much individual males struggle to sustain their identification as sufficiently masculine, it is perpetually subject to challenge. One can be “unmanned” (feminized) by any evidence, or worse yet, simply the accusation of “gayness,” weak- ness, or lack of control. Potential failure, and the despised vulnerability it invokes, is ever present. This is true for all masculinities, no matter race or class. This relentless pressure is particularly acute on the stage of political and military power. The stakes are high, especially in the context of impending or ongoing war. Leaders and soldiers respond accordingly, with displays of hypermasculinism: President Bush “must” prove himself and U.S. invincibility, civilized nations “must” assert cultural superiority, soldiers “must” torture to secure intelligence, suspect others “must” be detained, civilians “must” be patriotic, critics “must” be silenced, deeper questions “must” be postponed. Official war stories not only camouflage the agenda of power wielders during war; they also obscure the reproduction of hierarchies in everyday life. Their tacit (and sometimes explicit) manipulation of gender coding does the political work of normalizing, hence, depoliticizing how gender operates to perpetuate inequalities and the violence that attends them. The core dilemma of gender plays throughout: constructing women and feminized others in ways that demand masculinized identities and action. This is so taken for granted that alternative—to say nothing of structurally “equal”—arrangements are rendered unthinkable. In the “war on terror,” gender coding reproduces feminized others who must be protected, con- trolled, detained, or eliminated by masculinized agents of ruling states. Like advocates of neoliberal capitalism are forever telling us: there is no alternative. The systemic effects constitute a tragic drama of global pro- portions: hypermasculinized identity investments, arrogant ideological claims, and excessive—arguably depraved—military practices. Critics of imperialism have exposed how the idealization of Western femininity has been manipulated to justify Western wars to “save” “other” women. Understanding feminization as devalorization affords an additional insight: that marginalized men more generally are subject to this crusading and protectionist logic—in colonial wars to “modernize” gender relations, nationalist wars to promote idealized families, invasions to “liberate” oppressed groups, wars on terror to eliminate the (perceived) irrational religious, wars on poverty that demoralize the (racialized) underclass, and battles against HIV/AIDS that demonize gay men. In sum, official war stories not only camouflage political agendas but also suppress critical thinking about institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. By obscuring the reciprocal constitution of valorized masculinity and vilified femininity, these stories avoid critique of gender itself, with the effect of reproducing multiple forms of subjection and violence. My thinking through intersectionality tells a different story. It too is limited by its perspective, commitments, erasures, and excessive generalizations. My story casts emotional commitments, cultural productions, and material practices as mutually constitutive. It foregrounds investments in gendered identities and gender ideologies not to privilege them but to explore how militarism and war making depend on them. I do not claim that mine is the superior story, though I believe it is an urgent one. I do claim that gender matters, and especially for “thinking through” militarism and war. More pointedly, I am arguing that we can neither adequately analyze violence, nor effectively advance intersectional analyses, if we ignore how feminization devalorizes.

(Marysia, Well, What is the feminist Perspective on Bosnia?, International Affairs Vol 71 No 2, April)

It is not enough rhetorically or theoretically to ‘add women and stir’. In order to think seriously about women, gender and human rights, international relations scholars need to question just how much nations, states and societies naturalize and depend on beliefs about gender differences which all too frequently become reified as disadvantage. This in turn poses a serious challenge to prevailing conceptions of authority and sovereignty in international relations itself.32 States’ claims to self-determination and non-intervention are easily manipulated in order to ‘hide and avoid dealing with the abuses of women within their borders’.33 State security often has little meaning when the struggle for bodily integrity is a daily challenge. (348)

(J. Ann, Continuing the Conversation... , International Studies Quarterly 42)

My third point relates to Keohane’s last section on research directions. Keohane uses my suggestion, that investigating states as gendered constructs is not irrelevant to understanding their security-seeking behaviors, to propose a research program similar to that on the democratic peace. My suspicion is that such an endeavor would produce mixed results when given a conventional statistical treatment; we need richer ways of exploring such cultural and social phenomena. As I suggest in the section of my article on feminist perspectives on security, many post-positivist feminists would be unlikely to participate in such conventionally formulated research programs. Their definitions of peace often go beyond the absence of interstate war to include the diminution of both personal and structural violence as well as military conflict. Therefore, the questions they ask and the ways they go about answering them are likely to be different. For example, in her analysis of the Gulf War, Cynthia Enloe (1993:161-200) moves from the personal to the international in her discussion of Filipino maids in prewar Kuwait as crucial players in reducing global tensions generated by the politics of international debt. Looking at the crisis from the perspectives of its least significant participants, her micro analysis of the voices of women from the U.S. and the Gulf offers a “bottom-up” or “inside-out” analysis of the politics of the war; she concludes by arguing that we cannot make sense of this war, or of world order issues more generally, without considering the politics of gender. Inspired by Enloe’s work, Katharine Moon’s (1997) interviews of Korean prostitutes serving American soldiers tell how these women were drawn into the process of foreign policy implementation at the highest level. She notes that a statist definition of national security is irrelevant to these women’s lives and that Korea’s dependent external relationship with the United States abetted its authoritarian control internally at the grass-roots level. Both these studies look for the general in the particular and rely on interpretive strategies and micro analyses to tell us something new and constitutive about war. I am not denying that research on the democratic peace is telling us something important about international relations. But, given their methodological preferences, which exist for reasons I outlined in my article, it is more likely that most IR feminists would choose an Enloe/Moon research strategy rather than the one Keohane proposes. To conclude, Keohane ends his comments with the claim that we will only “understand” each other if IR scholars are open to the important questions that feminists raise, and if feminists are willing to formulate their hypotheses in ways that are testable—with evidence (Keohane, 1998:197). For reasons emphasized both in my article and in this response, it appears that Keohane is asking feminists to do more of the moving on his continua. It is less consequential to broaden one’s research agenda to include new questions—such as the operation of military brothels or the hiring practices of Japanese multinational corporations in the U.S., and treat them in conventional comparative ways—than it is for feminists to give up epistemological positions which they believe are better suited to uncovering oppressive gender hierarchies supporting such practices. Feminists are not averse to good evidence; however, the evidence they bring to IR is frequently seen as irrelevant to its disciplinary concerns. Having offered a choice of methodological positions (Keohane, 1998:195), Keohane concludes by asking feminists to join an American “science” of which Marchand, from her European perspective, seemingly disapproves. Broadening our theoretical, epistemological, and ontological parameters, and respecting difference, which both Keohane and Marchand call for in different ways, is especially difficult. It cannot be achieved without an understanding of, and respect for, knowledge traditions now on the margins, or outside of the social sciences, traditions many feminists believe are more suited to answering the kinds of questions they ask about international politics. (208-9)

(J. Ann, Continuing the Conversation... , International Studies Quarterly 42)

Let me begin by complementing Robert Keohane on his understanding of gender relations and his agility in deploying feminist rhetoric against my argument. Keohane’s replacement of my dichotomies with continua (Keohane, 1998:194) and his claim that the ends of these continua are not the optimal places to rest one’s perspective—that a sophisticated view of science overcomes dichotomies and “forces the investigator to make interrelated choices about purposes, subject matter, and methods” (Keohane, 1998:195)—is a welcome opening to the recognition of the validity of critical perspectives. His description of late positivist or “neopositivist” scientific inquiry is a refreshing effort to take the positivist/post-positivist debate to a higher epistemological level. It is in this spirit that I critique Keohane’s response, suggesting several points which I will then integrate with Marchand’s. First, in arguing for areas of agreement between critical and problem-solving theories, Keohane is proposing an “inclusive middle”; he is more inclined to deny epistemological differences than to celebrate them. While acknowledging the usefulness of certain critical work, such as that of some constructivist scholars, 4 Keohane remains committed to an albeit broad definition of the basic method of the social sciences—formulating and testing hypotheses, making conjectures about causality, et cetera. It is precisely this epistemological orientation and many of its associated methodologies that many critical theorists and feminists critique and/or reject. A commitment to causal analysis does not acknowledge that interpretive traditions, or “understanding,” to use Hollis and Smith’s (1990) term, can also be scientific. Besides devaluing much recent feminist IR, this conception of social science also devalues European IR, much of which is neither positivist nor neopositivist.5 Since these epistemological divides are so fundamental, an “inclusive middle” is problematic, more so than Keohane would have us believe. In the U.S. at least, where to locate oneself epistemologically or methodologically depends not only on the condition of world politics, the state of knowledge, and the nature of the problem to be investigated, as Keohane claims, but also on deeper issues of disciplinary legitimacy and career risks to which I referred earlier.6 Since, as I stated in my article, methodologies relevant for the construction of sophisticated interpretive analysis are not generally taught in U.S. IR graduate programs, the choice is often either not available or undertaken at considerable extra cost and effort. Robert Cox’s distinction between critical and problem-solving theory is also deeper than Keohane would have us believe. Keohane and I agree that Hans Morgenthau did not accept the prevailing order of Europe in the late 1930s. Nevertheless, Morgenthau’s attempts to explain these and other forces of aggression accorded with the realist position of acknowledging certain “universal truths” about humanity and the enduring structures of the international system and then searching for generalizable laws which can better explain them. The normative goal of this theoretical endeavor is an honorable one: that by better understanding the world we can more knowledgeably try to influence it and avoid its worst aberrations, such as those of the 1930s and 1940s7 Problem solving is important and necessary; few would deny this. Nevertheless, feminists and other critical theorists would want to address policy issues more critically and interpretively. A contemporary illustration of the related distinction between explanatory and interpretive theorizing8 can be found in the U.S. military’s recent report on the investigation of widespread sexual misconduct in its ranks. As solutions to these problems, the report urges more active leadership as well as better screening and training of drill sergeants (New York Times, 1997). While welcoming the military’s efforts to act, most feminists would claim that these problems are unlikely to go away until deeper gender hierarchies, out of which they arise, are diminished. These hierarchies are evident in somewhat extreme forms in a militarized masculinity characteristic of all or most armies as well as the society from which soldiers are drawn; they cannot be fully solved merely through better leadership selection and training. Unequal gender structures arise out of social practices deeply embedded in everyday life;9 ending them requires understanding how they are constructed and maintained by power structures that rely on “common sense” knowledge for their legitimation. The differences between problem solving and critical theorizing are, therefore, more fundamental than those largely methodological issues that Keohane addresses. (207-8)

‘Living in the Margins’: Why the Asia-Pacific Region? In probing both the ontological and methodological boundaries of international relations, critical feminist IR scholars find themselves located (or exiled) on the margins of the discipline. An innovative shift in this collection, however, exists in the recognition that feminist IR sits on the margins of international relations by choice. We argue that the margins of IR have not only produced exciting and challenging academic work, but also offer a productive and provocative location. It is these ‘borderlands’ that provide a fresh perspective and provoke the critical distance that is necessary for feminist IR scholars to engage both the tradition of IR and the global politics extending beyond its boundaries. It is within the margins of IR that these innovative explorations of the boundaries of the global take place. Here feminist IR scholars investigate new methodologies37 and issues not considered within the confines of traditional approaches to the discipline. These new paths are illuminated through transgressions into different ways of thinking and seeing the world. Moreover, the margins are perhaps the most useful location for this collection as it seeks to probe two issues marginalized by IR: gender and the Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region reveals the familiar features of forced marginalization. Traditional IR’s focus on the Asia-Pacific, in scholarship produced in North America, Europe, and Australia, has primarily offered state-based perspectives and promoted or analyzed each state’s geopolitical, strategic, and economic ambitions in the region.38 In her analysis of this dynamic, Jindy Pettman points out how the politics of difference plays a large role in shaping the West’s, particularly Australia’s, relations with Asia.39 These exclusionary approaches by traditional IR contribute to the conceptualization of ‘East and West’ that simultaneously tells the story of ‘who we are’ and ‘who is not us.’ This, in turn, serves to marginalize the Asia-Pacific within IR and stifles emancipatory possibilities for those who call this region home. While a number of critical IR scholars are attentive to this bias,40 the gendered political discourse marginalizes minorities, particularly women (but also ‘colonized and therefore feminized’ men)41 for a second time. As such, critical scholarship of the region is attentive to the marginality of poverty-stricken com- munities, refugees, internally displaced populations, and religious and ethnic minorities.42 These groups are marginal because of their location on the boundaries of marginalized states, and are often silenced because of power inequality. A critical feminist investigation of this space further reveals that gender intersects with all of these marginalized identities. The dual marginalization of women (as members of marginalized communities and as members of the disadvantaged gender) makes the struggle for emancipatory and empowered ‘feminist futures’ even more complex.43

(Catherine, Policy Discourse Analysis: Negotiating Gender Equity, J. Education Policy 15:2)

This detailed and earthy recounting of GEP illustrates lessons for policy analysts. First, policy issues emerging from the margins, presenting challenges to central policy arenas are important issues. We must not limit ourselves to analysis of these margins. Second, challenges from the politics includes the vibrant counter publics outside the hegemonic, formal, elected officials and agencies; as counter-narratives emerge, debates over philosophy and strategy are the micropolitics at the margin. From discourse among the challengers emerge the coalitions that articulate demands and gather momentum and power. Neglecting the politics from themargin is neglecting one-half of the politics. Finally, the politicking that occurs in talk is powerful. Challengers with counter-narratives, likeGEP workers, learned tomanage discourse. They know to select spokespersons that counteract denigrating words. They knew to banter and use humor, to settle their differences, to construct coherent counter-narratives lest powerful forces undermine their momentum. Their counterpublics coalesced around unanswered needs of parents, women teachers, feminists and unions and from weak ties among them, they found strength for social action. Cultural traditions (`fair go’), international feminism, womens Electoral Lobby and union strength become the unifying forces which commanded the respect of heretofore resistant policy arenas. Equity activists, too, can learn lessons from this analysis. First, the (retrospective) lessons of Australian gender activists identify ways to open policy windows, form coalitions, connect to concerns of more established groups (e.g., parents, unionized teachers) and to manage their image and discourse, maintain networks, and keep disputes private. Second, once legitimacy and constituency for the equity movement is established, working forcefully within the power centres is the challenge. Subtle tools include: identify budget sources; maintaining equity staff; widening research, evaluation and monitoring to expand equity agendas; and maintaining relationships both within policy arenas and externally, with activists who still agitate from the margin. Third, as culture values shift, as national policy priorities are redefined, and backlash against equity occurs, equity workers work with institutionalized structures (e.g. research and monitoring) and find ways to insert equity into new, popular priorities (e.g. quality assurance, `the boys movement’ ). They modify philosophical stances to fit equity into programs (e.g. anti-violence) which will be funded and supported when gender evokes or provokes that backlash. They move to jobs where they maintain their power in order to find quiet and subtle ways to continue GEP work. These equity policy strategists can reflect on this Australian case to identify stages from opening the window, pushing from within, to maintenance through backlash. Policy analysis will be enriched and gender equity activism will be more successful if these lessons are heeded. (150-1)

(Catherine, Policy Discourse Analysis: Negotiating Gender Equity, J. Education Policy 15:2)

Feminist critical policy analysis, assuming that hegemonic policy arenas aremanaged and controlled primarily by, and for, white males, defines how women’ s needs and perspectives are marginalized, so policy analysis must be pursued differently. With patriarchy embedded in state practices `the grounding for research, policy, and action is the political choices and power-driven ideologies and embedded forces that categorize, oppress, and exclude’ (Marshall 1997b: 13). Policy philosophies. When looking at gender, different feminist philosophies undergird policies. Each philosophical stance points to policy implications.13 Power and Politics feminisms recognize that women are placed at the margin of policy arenas, whereas liberal feminisms assume that governments can correct sexism by eliminating barriers to womens’ access to opportunity and `Women’s Ways’ feminisms focus on women’ s different values and choices and socialization. Increasingly, feminist philosophies incorporate sophisticated understanding of how race, sexuality and class biases are intertwined in gender regimes. They further recognize the error of essentializing women, putting all women in a group (e.g. in policies that suppose that equity for women can be doled out simplistically). Thus, analysis of GEP must identify debates and choices among philosophies. The special nature of equity policy. Any policy focus on gender, race, and class inequities redistributes goods and benefits; such policies take away the ensconced and institutionalized privileges.14 Resistance and backlash will be fierce as policy is proposed and as it implemented. Analysing discourse in challenges to hegemony. Policy studies that focus on discourse ± the ways words and symbols are mobilized in power plays in policy formulation ± can identify ideological politics (Ball 1990). But women and women’ s needs are kept out of public discourse (Pateman and Grass 1987, Eisenstein 1993, Blackmore 1989: 11, Marshall 1997b). So, when looking for the ideological politics and the discourses surrounding GEP activity, one must look at the margin of the mainstream policy arena. The evidence will appear as counter-narratives, among counterpublics: `members of subordinated groups who invent and circulate counterdiscourse to formulate opposition interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’ (Fraser 1994: 117). Such politics occur more often in micro-interactions, outside of legislative bodies, and in non-official documents that challenge current governmental practices than in traditional political arenas. Education policy directs schools, as major socialization instruments, in curriculum, testing, governance ± to reinforce the hegemonic view. Parents and educators cannot see the limitations of stereotyped views of masculinity and femininity. Instances of girls and women lowering their aspirations because of the informal and formal curricula in schooling are invisible problems; they are `non-events and areas of silence’ (Anderson 1989). They are not seen as legitimate issues; hegemony places gender issues at the margin, or belonging to the private sphere, where family, emotion, nurturance and relationships belong.15 Words, labels, and symbols are manipulated so that GEP proposals may be viewed as irrelevant, impractical, incompetent, inefficient, irrational and silly. Thus gender/schooling issues may be labelled unimportant, and asserted by marginal groups. Thus, GEP analysis must ask: What were the counter-narratives and -publics? What happened at the margin? What discourse politics occurred? How did gender equity emerge as a public issue, a real event, unsilenced? Analytic questions, then, are expanded to focus on:What feminisms framed policy development? How did counternarratives and counterpublics become more mainstream, noticed, visible participants, unsilenced? As one Australian activist said: `making people talk about gender . . . with different groups in key positions forcing that dialogue will get people aware and making decisions they wouldn’ t otherwise have made.’ Analysis for GEP, then, must incorporate feminist debates, politics from themargin, and discourse politics while benefiting from more traditional concepts, like `policy windows.’ (128-9)

(Marysia, "Women's Troubles" Again in IR in Gender and International Relations International Studies Review Vol 5 No 2)

We know feminism is really feminisms. Its boundaries, such as they exist, are supple and pliant; its remit unbounded. Yet, two conjoined practices endure within IR: one involves the restriction of feminism’s possibilities; the other relates to its necessary abandonment. Put another way, despite the widespread acknowledgment of feminism’s unbridled diversity, the aspiration to confine it within distinct and ‘‘proper’’ parameters appears irresistible, evoking the ensuing logical affirmation that feminism is ultimately futile. Despite the lively controversy within feminism regarding its relationship to and with ‘‘woman,’’ as Helen Kinsella notes in this forum, it is this category that draws the disciplinary attention of those who crave feminism’s containment. Feminism becomes, simply, about women. As Charli Carpenter (2002:159) comments, ‘‘feminist approachesFeven though rich, diverse, and a much needed critiqueFare substantively narrow as their emphasis is women.’’ Similar references to ‘‘the’’ feminist project (Carpenter, this forum), or feminism’s ‘‘focus on women’’ (Carver, this forum), or that ‘‘feminism is an on-going political project about gender oppression’’ (Carver, this forum) reinforce the vision of feminism’s limitations. A similar point might be made in relation to the research intentions and possibilities of feminist scholarship. Here, the issue of gender as a tool or an explanatory framework (Carver, this forum) is salient, as is the apparently unrelenting adherence to the idea that there is a meaningful distinction between normative and explanatory theory in IR. The swath of postfoundational theorizing (feminist and not) over the past few decades has thoroughly discredited this spurious distinction. As such, the value awarded to supposedly ‘‘purely explanatory work’’ in IR versus the ‘‘merely normative’’ work of feminism (Carpenter, this forum) is untenable. Relatedly, the notion that feminism is political and IR is not is unsustainable and, therefore, cannot act as a basis on which to bestow favor on one (that is, IR) at the expense of the other (that is, feminism). Despite this discussion, the appeal of representing feminism as diminutive persists. With spurious boundaries in place, feminism is criticized for its illusory narrow remit. What might we learn from the persistent anxieties provoked by feminism’s interventions into IR that are indicated by the maneuvers to diminish it? Terrell Carver is surely correct in stating that gender is ‘‘marked’’ on women. Indeed, with some confidence, we can say that feminism’s use of gender has an intimate relationship with women and woman. Yet, how does the ensuing remarkable idea emerge that gender and feminism’s association with women implies frailty and limited intellectual mobility? A frequently suggested remedy for these alleged weaknesses has been the move to ‘‘gender studies’’ or the reliance on the concept of gender, as opposed to focusing on women or feminism. There is insufficient space in this short essay to discuss the ineffectual character of the move from ‘‘women’’ to ‘‘gender,’’ most notably its failure to escape the dilemma of identity politics. Nor is there room to expose the illusion of the idea that gender implies a critical expansion over the category of woman (Wiegman 2002). However, it is pertinent to consider further the twin ideas that theorizing women is narrow and that studying gender in IR might be fruitfully served by casting it adrift from its feminist theoretical moorings. (291-2)

(J. Ann, Feminist Security Studies: Celebrating an Emerging Field Politics & Gender 7(4))

Finally, a word about the problems and possibilities of dialogue with the security studies mainstream. Because security studies is a particularly masculinized field in which there are very few women, this is a particularly challenging issue. The publication of a special issue of the journal Security Studies in 2009, edited by Sjoberg, was a milestone event in this regard. Feminists are investigating very different issues, many of which would not be considered security issues by the mainstream, many of whom are readers of this journal. I do think, however, that there is some opening in this respect. Issues such as trafficking and violence against women in war are now more prominent on the agendas of national governments and international organizations and, consequently, are coming to the attention of mainstream scholars. Answering the kinds of questions about insecurity asked by much of the research I have described, however, involves much deeper epistemological study than adding issues to the research agenda of security studies. Expecting feminists to present their ideas about gender identities and the implications of the deeply masculinized structures that pervade security thinking and policy in ways that are intelligible to social scientists is deeply problematic. Security studies scholars must recognize that there are many valuable and legitimate ways of conducting “scientific” research outside of positivist social sciences practices. This is evident in the stimulating and important work that feminists who work in the field of security studies are doing. It is evident also in the rich and innovative work of authors in this volume, whose research is broadening and deepening our understanding of the multiple insecurities faced by people around the world. (580)

(Mary, Prof @ Rutgers, Policy discourse as sanctioned ignorance: theorizing the erasure of feminist knowledge Critical Policy Studies Vol. 3, Nos. 3–4, October–December 2009 )

Drawing insights from post-positivist philosophy of science, feminist scholars have advanced trenchant critiques of positivist conceptions of objectivity, but they have not abandoned conceptions of objectivity tout court. Feminist scholars have pointed out that traditional conceptions of objectivity have relied upon adherence to research methods designed to control for individual idiosyncrasy as the key to attaining objective knowledge, that is, knowledge free from distortion, bias, error, self-interest, and caprice. Yet, observations, beliefs, theories, methods of inquiry, and institutional practices routinely labeled ‘objective’ fall far short of the norm. Challenging the conviction that the central problem of objectivity lies with the emotional and perceptual quirks of the subjective self that distort, confuse, and interfere with objective apprehension of reality, feminists scholars have pointed out a remarkable uniformity in the kinds of distortion that impede the acquisition of truth. Shared cultural values such as racism, sexism, and heteronormativity pose powerful obstacles to the achievement of objectivity. Incorporated within the consciousness of individuals within a particular society, these values easily escape detection precisely because they are shared. When objectivity is defined as ‘intersubjective corroboration’, as it is in the dominant approaches to philosophy of science, the distortions introduced by shared social values escape detection. Feminist philosophers have advanced an account of ‘social knowledge’ (Longino 1990) as a key hindrance to the attainment of objectivity. The conviction that the central problem of objectivity lies with the emotional and perceptual quirks of the subjective self that distort, confuse, and interfere with objective apprehension of phenomena neglects the social dimensions of inner consciousness. Situating the issue of objectivity in a contest between the inner self and external reality masks the social constitution of subjectivity. The recurrence of a profound degree of sexism and racism that filters perceptions, mediates philosophical arguments, structures research hypotheses, and ‘stabilizes inquiry by providing assumptions that highlight certain kinds of observations and experiments in light of which data are taken as evidence for hypotheses’ (Longino 1990, p. 99) indicates a remarkable uniformity in the kinds of distortion that impede the acquisition of truth. Such uniformity challenges the myth of radical idiosyncrasy. One need not be committed to the full implications of Foucault’s view of subjectivity as normalizing practice to accept the feminist argument that even one’s innermost consciousness is culturally freighted. If social values incorporated within individual consciousness present an important obstacle to objective knowledge, then norms of objectivity that blind the individual to their role or assure the individual that intersubjective consensus is a sufficient remedy will fail to produce objective accounts of the world. For if certain social values structure conceptions of self and perceptions of the social and natural worlds, then neither isolated acts of pure intellect nor intersubjective testing will suffice to identify them. On the contrary, the belief that idiosyncrasy is the fundamental obstacle to objectivity will preclude detailed investigations of shared assumptions and observations as well as intersubjectively verified theories. Rather than being perceived as a potential source of error, values such as sexism and racism that are widely held will escape critical reflection. Their very popularity will be taken to certify their validity, thereby truncating further inquiry into their merits. Feminist scholars have illuminated the numerous points at which social values infiltrate scientific discourses. Helen Longino (1990) has drawn upon these insights to develop an account of objectivity that can coexist with a clear understanding of the social and cultural construction of science. Longino identifies the crucial role played by social values in framing research questions, characterizing the objects of inquiry, accrediting forms of explanation, demarcating credible evidence, structuring modes of argumentation, and reducing a discipline’s vulnerability to maverick claims. The point of Longino’s investigation is not to demonstrate the impossibility of objectivity, but rather to illuminate the complexity of attaining it. Only heightened awareness of the multiple sources of error and the complexity of problems of knowledge can sustain adequate strategies to achieve objectivity. And only repudiation of naive faith that adherence to a simple method can guarantee the acquisition of truth can help cultivate the sophistication essential to objective inquiry. At the heart of this feminist conception of objectivity is a conception of cognition as a human practice, a conception that recognizes the complex interaction among traditional assumptions, social norms, theoretical conceptions, disciplinary strictures, linguistic possibilities, emotional dispositions, and creative impositions in every act of cognition. Operating in the context of cognition as complex social practice, the quest for objectivity entails the cultivation of the intellect. To track the multiple sources of error in a specific field of inquiry requires far more than intellectual engagement within a narrow sphere of specialization. Sensitivity to distortion and bias presupposes an intellect informed by systematic study of a chosen field, familiar with strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of methodological tools, and sufficiently knowledgeable across disciplines to analyze the role of social values in constituting the research object (Hawkesworth 1989, Alcoff 2000). A capacity for critical reflection is central to this feminist conception of objectivity, but it is not the sole requirement. Intersubjective critique also plays a key role. ‘A method of inquiry is objective to the extent that it permits transformative criticism’ (Longino 1990, p. 75). The point of intersubjective criticism within this framework is not the confirmation of shared assumptions about what is normal, natural, or real, but rather to subject precisely what seems least problematic to critical scrutiny. Awareness of the role of social values in naturalizing oppressive practices, leads feminists to emphasize the importance of a particular version of critical intersubjectivity in probing tacit assumptions and foundational beliefs of various disciplines. If objective inquiry is dependent upon systematic probing of precisely that which appears unproblematic, then who does the probing may be a matter of central concern to those committed to objective inquiry. For what is taken as given, what appears to be natural, what seems to fall outside the legitimate field of investigation may be related to the gender, race, class, and historical situatedness of the investigator. Feminist scholars have argued that the attainment of objectivity by means of probing and sophisticated intersubjective critique has implications that transcend the quest for an appropriate intellectual procedure. Convinced that ‘methodological constraints are inadequate to the task of ruling values out of scientific inquiry’ (Longino 1990, p. 15), feminists have argued that objectivity demands inclusivity. Objective inquiry cannot be attained within the preserve of privilege – whether it be the privilege of whites, Westerners, the middle class, or men. The feminist argument for the inclusion of women and people of color within academic disciplines can thus be understood in terms of the demands of objectivity. To the extent that social values mediate perception and explanation, exclusionary practices can only help insulate questionable assumptions from scrutiny. A commitment to objectivity conceived as sophisticated intersubjective critique embraces diversity as a means. More and different guides to the labyrinths of reality may help us to confront the contentious assumptions most deeply entrenched in our conceptual apparatus. The inclusion of people from different social backgrounds, different cultures, different linguistic communities, and different genders within science and philosophy cannot guarantee, but might foster, sustained critique of problematic assumptions long entrenched in the academic disciplines (Alcoff 2000). A feminist conception of objectivity does not offer an authoritative technique that can guarantee the production of truth. In lieu of a simple method, it calls for the cultivation of sound intellectual judgment. It demands a level of sophistication that can be cultivated only by sustained study across an array of disciplines. It presupposes a reconceptualization of the relation between inner self and external world. Moreover, it demands the expansion of the scientific and philosophical communities to encompass formerly excluded groups. Thus this feminist conception of objectivity cannot be easily attained. It remains at odds with the excessive specialization of contemporary academic training, with the naive conviction that truth lies in the application of an accredited method, and with the renewed commitment to preserve white, middle-class, male hegemony in philosophy, science, and society at large. Despite such marked differences from dominant trends, the strength of this feminist conception of objectivity lies in its promise of fostering the benign aspirations and objectives of objectivity where traditional conceptions have failed. (281-3)

Gender has been talked about as authoritative (e.g. Shepherd 2008) and as changing (e.g. Enloe 2010) in the feminist IR literature. Work using both of those approaches has often focused on uncovering the gender hierarchies that make women invisible in conventionally told histories not only of global politics but of the field of IR (Tickner 2001, 5). This article uses both approaches, arguing that there is a constant presence of gender hierarchy in the international system, and that genders along that hierarchy are sticky but fungible. Like other feminist research on gender, this research serves two purposes: the feminist political purpose of identifying and redressing gender injustice, and the intellectual purpose of knowing as much as we can about what we study. Feminists have argued that, when scholars ignore women or gender in their IR analysis, they are not just reifying gender hierarchy, but giving themselves an incomplete picture of events in and the constitution of global politics. Gender ‘matters’ in global politics in a number of ways, feminists argue, including but not limited to the tendency of the gendering of nationalist and ethnic iden- tities to exacerbate conflict; the links between masculinity, virility, and violence in militarized cultures; the ways that feminization maps onto racial, ethnic, and class conflicts; and the distribution of socioeconomic benefits on the basis of gender (Tickner 2001, 6–7).

When Sandra Harding called for an epistemology of science whose systematic attention to the gendered status of epistemic agents renders it ‘less partial and distorted’ than ‘traditional’ epistemologies, some commentators recoiled in horror.1 Propelled by ‘a mad form of the genetic fallacy’2 they said, she descends ‘the slide to an a rational account of science.’3 On a less melodramatic reading, feminist epistemologies such as Harding’s advocate not irrationalism, but senses of rationality more expanded than those which they associate with ‘traditional’ epistemology. Our goal in this paper is to try to make coherent the possibility of these less horrifying feminist epistemologies. We begin by working to isolate and articulate that strand of ‘traditional’ epistemology which Harding and other feminist epistemologists have considered too constricted. We then enlist a set of unlikely allies — in particular, Aristotle, Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell — with the end of finding alternatives to the model of rationality that accompanies traditional epistemology. We consider how these untraditional rationalities may or may not be deployable in feminist epistemological projects. Finally, we consider the widespread worry that making room for genuinely ‘gendered’ epistemology would be tantamount to giving up objectivity as a regulative ideal governing epistemic practices, and we argue that this ideal need not and should not be sacrificed by those adhering to the model of rationality that we develop in the most detail. Our aim is not to induce mass conversion to feminist epistemology, but to indicate the substantive issues upon which the viability of a particular species of feminist epistemology depends.

Rarefied Rationality

Inclusion and Exclusion: Problem-Solving vs Critical Approaches

Reflecting on the attacks of 9/11 and the impending US led War in Iraq, Steve Smith, in his 2003 Presidential Address to the International Studies Association, argued that International Relations (IR) scholars are “complicit in the constitution of this world of international relations,” asserting that “the discipline has helped to sing into existence the world…by reflecting the interests of the dominant in what were presented as being neutral, and universal theories” (Smith 2004, 499). He went on to provocatively argue that scholars of IR held some share of culpability in world events because of what the discipline excluded or ignored—structural violence, economic inequality, and gender and racial injustices—all of which were issues viewed as lying outside the core concerns of the discipline. Urging scholars to beware of “political assumptions masquerading as technical ones,” he went on to reflect on how the theories and methods that scholars use are closely connected to their own position within the global system (Smith 2004, 503).

The concordance between this list and the means by which gender inequality is typically maintained in human societies is clear. Gender roles lead to highly differential possibilities for personal security, development, and prosperity, even in today’s world. An example of this kind of exploitation occurs when women “naturally” receive less pay than men for equal work, or when domestic violence is considered “normal.” The second component, manipulation of consciousness to ensure acquiescence, is maintained through socialization, gender stereotyping, and a constant threat of domestic violence—all of which insidiously identify women as inferior. The perpetrators of female infanticide, for example, are virtually all female. The third component, fragmentation, is easily effected from women’s circumstances of patrilocality and greater family responsibilities (and in some cases, the practice of physical purdah), thus minimizing social access that could otherwise be used to build net- works with other women. And finally, marginalization serves to clearly distinguish men and women, with no doubt as to the relative status of each sex. Galtung posits that structural violence arises from cultural violence, that is, the day-to-day use of overt or implicit force to obtain one’s ends in social relations. Thus, while structural violence may obviate the need for open violence in the public sphere, it is based on open or implicit violence in the private sphere of the home. Norms of cultural violence diffuse within religion, ideology, language, and art, among other aspects of culture. “Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right—or at least not wrong,” writes Galtung.44 Violent patriarchy is the primary basis of cultural violence in human collectives: although women have become active agents with notable success in the struggle for equality in many states, violence re- mains an enduring component of relations between men and women in the private sphere the world over, providing a natural wellspring for social diffusion.45 Gendered hierarchies also help explain the violence associated with nationalism, for the hierarchized difference between men and women that is at the root of structural inequality and violence diffuses to become an integral aspect of nationalism. Evolutionary theory tells us that clan or national identity is al- most exclusively male-defined, for in the evolutionary landscape, it was males who defined who was a member of the in-group, and who belonged to out- groups, based on male reproductive concerns. “Gender relations are a crucial, not peripheral, dimension of the dynamics of group identities and intergroup conflicts,” writes Spike Peterson,46 thus helping to explain the inherent nationalist antipathy toward feminist goals. Given this linkage between violent patriarchy and nationalism, any reforms of the cultural distribution of power between men and women will be viewed as a threat to nationalist efforts to protect or unify the community.47 Legitimized by gendered structural and cultural violence, patriarchal nationalism provides justification for advancing state interests through the use of force. In that light, we would expect that neither a meaningful decrease in societal violence nor a sustainable peace among nations is possible in human society without a decrease in gender inequality.48 But is that possible?

Leonard: In your judgment, we have entered a crisis of care. What does that mean and how have we arrived here?

Fraser: In capitalist societies, the capacities available for social reproduction are accorded no monetized value. They are taken for granted, treated as free and infinitely available “gifts,” which require no attention or replenishment. It’s assumed that there will always be sufficient energies to sustain the social connections on which economic production, and society more generally, depend. This is very similar to the way that nature is treated in capitalist societies, as an infinite reservoir from which we can take as much as we want and into which we can dump any amount of waste. In fact, neither nature nor social reproductive capacities are infinite; both of them can be stretched to the breaking point. Many people already appreciate this in the case of nature, and we are starting to understand it as well in the case of “care.” When a society simultaneously withdraws public support for social reproduction and conscripts the chief providers of it into long and grueling hours of paid work, it depletes the very social capacities on which it depends. This is exactly our situation today. The current, financialized form of capitalism is systematically consuming our capacities to sustain social bonds, like a tiger that eats its own tail. The result is a “crisis of care” that is every bit as serious and systemic as the current ecological crisis, with which it is, in any case, intertwined.

In spite of this increased violence, and the inequality that is inherent in neoliberalism, in the last quarter of the twentieth century the world's institutions reached a consensus: they joined together in hailing the goal of gender equality. Ironically, this was at the very moment when we were witnessing the limits, the exh- austion, of the equality paradigm. The notion of equal opportunity was, in any case, incapable of withstanding the structures of gender: the sexual division of labour, and violence as a resource in the making and doing of masculinity. But with the collapse of the postwar consensus on welfare states and the mixed economy, the equality paradigm is now being defeated by the counter-revolutionary, neoliberal priorities of the world's financial institutions. They preach equal opportunity, but in practice produce a 'regressive modernisation' that reshapes but continues the patriarchal division of labour, and of traditional masculinities and femininities. So, beware the liberation language of global capitalism: it rules the world, and it deploys the language of freedom, choice and competition to oust solidarity, cooperative creativity and equality. After the deluge of state communisms, the world is quivering with resistance but struggles to find new ideological and institutional forms for those great values of solidarity, co-operation, creativity and equality values that are crucial for gender equality. In this moment of capitalism's hegemony --its apparent inevitability, invincibility and normality--the language of the marketplace appears not only to govern the economy, but life itself. It is a lie, of course. Capitalism does not do life. And that lie is never more exposed in the twenty-first century than when we bring to it the light of gender and the unsaid--the silences and secrets that are knotted in the articulation of capitalism and patriarchy. 'Woman' as commodity, as carer, as producer and reproducer (though rarely hailed, it appears, as taxpayer and never as citizen) is positioned anew as Other; the sovereignty of ideologies of masculinity is simultaneously rattled and reinstated. Gender, uniquely, exposes the limits of this articulation, its contradictions and --most important--its unsustainability. The old sexual contract is recognised as unsustainable but retained in modernised form. Neoliberal neo-patriarchy is the new articulation of male domination. But gender, uniquely, exposes the limits of neoliberal hegemony, its contradictions and--most important--its unsustainability. Though neoliberal neo-patriarchy is hegemonic, it is an unstable site of torrid angst, complaint and trouble --and radical alternatives. As Leonard Cohen saw: There is a crack in everything There's a crack in everything That's how the light gets in (Anthem). Although gender remains an often invisible, or at best marginal, theme in radical and party political discourses, it takes us to the fissures and fault-lines, to the unsustainabilities, of the new, global capitalist settlement. For gender, like nature, is omni-relevant: it is everywhere, in everything. The new global settlement is nothing if not a new sexual settlement. Global capitalism works with patriarchal principles, institutions, cultures and psyches. So, our liberation from this tragedy is inconceivable--it is, literally, unthinkable--without feminism. Before returning to the theme of patriarchy's violence, I want to turn now to talk about the continuing sexual division of labour within Britain. I then look at the ways in which the global reach of neoliberalism is undermining equality and reconfiguring gender in Asia and South America.

What are the roots of conflict and insecurity for states? When the international system is relatively stable, attention turns to differences in state attributes. Some scholars argue that civilizational differences, defined by ethnicity, language, and religion, are an underlying catalyst for conflict and insecurity.1 Others have spoken of the importance of differentiating between democratic and nondemocratic regime types in explaining conflict in the modern international system.2 Still others assert that poverty, exacerbated by resource scarcity in a context of unequal access, is at the root of conflict and insecurity at both micro- and macro-levels of analysis.3
 In this article we argue that there is another fundamental and powerful explanatory factor that must be considered when examining issues of state security and conflict: the treatment of females within society. At first glance, this argument seems hardly intuitive. How could the treatment of women possibly be linked to matters of high politics, such as war and national security? The two realms seem not to inhabit the same conceptual space. Yet in 2006, Secretary-General of the United Nations Koa Annan opined, “The world is . . . starting to grasp that there is no policy more effective [in promoting development, health, and education] than the empowerment of women and girls. And I would venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict, or in achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended.”4 It is possible that views such as Annan’s are just a nod to political correctness, which can be ignored without consequence by security scholars and policymakers. Yet it is also possible that security scholars are missing something important by overlooking the situation of women in the study of security. In this article we examine the question: Is there a signiacant linkage between the security of women and the security of states? When a coauthor of this article raised this question in a departmental research meeting, the answer offered was a swift and certain: “No.” Violence wrought by the great military conflicts of the twentieth century was proof that security scholars would do best by focusing on larger issues such as democ- racy and democratization, poverty and wealth, ideology and national identity. Along a scale of “blood spilt and lives lost” as the proper location of concern for security studies, colleagues queried, Why would one ever choose to look at women? Taken aback by such professed certainty that we were on the wrong course, it took some time for us to articulate an answer. How to explain, for ex- ample, that the death toll of Indian women due to female infanticide and sex- selective abortion from 1980 to the present dwarfs by almost fortyfold the death toll from all of India’s wars since and including its bloody independ- ence? Perhaps, we reasoned, it would be instructive to consider the scale upon which women die from sex-selective causes. Using overall sex ratios as a crude marker for a host of causes of death by virtue of being female (female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, egregious maternal mortality rates, disproportion- ate childhood mortality, and murder/suicide rates), we would and ourselves contemplating the numbers in figure 1 in comparison with the great slaughters of the twentieth century. Because the death tolls for the wars and conflicts listed above include deaths of women as both civilians and combatants, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that the “blood spilt and lives lost” over the last century have been, in the first place, that of females. When thinking of war and peace and national security, many picture a uniformed soldier—male—lying dead on the field of battle, gendering these important issues male. Perhaps fresh vision, such as offered in agure 1, would turn thoughts to the girl baby drowned in a nearby stream or the charred body of a young bride burned in a “kitchen are” of her in-laws’ making. To pose the question more conceptually, might there be more to inquire about than simply the effect of war on women—might the security of women in fact inouence the security of states? Theoretically, there are strong reasons for believing that there is a relation- ship between the security of women and the security of states. Gender serves as a critical model for the societal treatment of difference between and among individuals and collectives. A long tradition in social psychology has found three basic differences that individuals notice immediately when they encoun- ter a new person almost from infancy: age, gender, and race.5 Although there is some preliminary evidence that recognition of racial differences can be “erased” when such differences are crossed with coalitional status, no one has shown a similar disabling of gender recognition.6 Indeed, the psychologist Alice Eagley asserts, “Gender stereotypes trump race stereotypes in every so- cial science test.”7 In this way, gender, like age, becomes a basic category of identiacation and a profound marker of difference.8 Gender and age categorizations play variant roles in society. Everyone will someday move into another age group; in general, however, this cannot be said of gender groupings. Gender difference is arguably the primary formative axed difference experienced in human society,9 and sexual reproduction is the strongest evolutionary driver of human social arrangements.10 Concurring with these insights from psychological and evolutionary research, French phi- losopher Sylviane Agacinski reoects, “It is always the difference of the sexes that serves as a model for all other differences, and the male/female hierarchy that is taken as a metaphor for all inter-ethnic hierarchies.”11 Societal-based differences in gender status beliefs, reflected in practices, customs, and law, have important political consequences, including consequences for nation-state security policy and conflict and cooperation within and between nation-states. After outlining our theoretical framework, we survey the existing empirical literature linking the situation of women to the situation of states. We then present an initial empirical investigation of the framework’s propositions. [figures omitted]

Masculinities in many societies, even in times that appear to be ‘peaceful’, are socially constructed through activities such as competitive sports and computer games in a form that is readily adaptable to serve well in war conditions. James McBride suggests that in the USA football is an allegory or metaphor for war, sharing its pursuit of male territorial gains. ‘Football, like war,’ he writes, ‘is a form of male aggression, consciously played out in a variety of cultural practices’ (McBride 1995: 4). He notes that domestic violence by men against women surges during significant football events and at the onset of wars. With its male bonding rituals, McBride writes, ‘the game of football reinscribes war and the concomitant values of the warrior as a tem- plate for the identity of football enthusiasts – the vast majority of men in America’ (McBride 1995: 86). An elite group of men continually engaged in readying the USA for war are the defence intellectuals who debate and plan the country’s nuclear weapons policy. Carol Cohn, a feminist social scientist, was shocked to find, during participant observation among such a group, that these articulate, charming, humorous and decent men routinely discussed the most horrific possibilities of vaporized cities and mangled bodies in light-hearted, abstract and euphemistic terms, revealing an ‘astounding chasm between image and reality’ in their techno-strategic language (Cohn 1990: 34, see also Chapter 1). The linking thread in the discourse of this nuclear ‘priesthood’, as she terms them, was sexism. It was their masculinity that enabled them to distance themselves from the actual death and destruction implied in their work, inescapable to anyone engaged with everyday human care and concern. It is not only masculinity, however, that keeps a society trapped on the continuum of war. Femininity plays its part too. Painful examples of women, deeply embedded in conventional patriarchal gender relations, urging their men to fight, and even to rape enemy women, were given above. Many less dramatic but quietly pervasive processes have been observed in which civilian women are induced to play an unquestioning part in support of societal militarization. Taking a country into war The moment of entry into war can be specially revealing of the causal effect of gender. Italian fascism and German National Socialism were able to draw on a radicalized masculinity emerging from the First World War, to reconstruct a sense of national community and prepare for the Second World War. More recently, it has been suggested that patriarchal masculinity was at the root of the erroneous political decision to take the USA into war against the Communist regime in Vietnam. Robert Dean found the policy makers of the time to have been ‘a small and strikingly homogenous group’, strongly formed by their shared class and gender belonging. He shows how those foreign policy decision makers ‘incarnated an imperial masculinity tied to patterns of class and education’. They shared a background in exclusive male-only institutions, such as boarding schools, Ivy League fraternities and secret societies, elite military service and metropolitan men’s clubs, ‘where imperial traditions of “service” and “sacrifice” were invented and bequeathed to those that followed’. They served to imbue men with a particular kind of manhood, indoctrinate them in an ‘ideology of masculinity’, ritually creating ‘a fictive brotherhood of privilege and power’ (Dean 2001: 4–5). These were the patriarchal gender relations that, intertwined with those of economic class and nationalism/imperialism, disposed a group of men to lead their country into a doomed war. Training men to fight In certain widespread and influential male subcultures, the masculinity fostered and rewarded is aggressive and violent. We see this in computer games, in certain forms of music, in popular film and in the fascination knives and guns hold for men and boys. These cultures predispose young males to see themselves as potential fighters and to consider armed conflict normal, even a fulfilment of their manhood. John Horne made a study of masculinity in war and politics over the hundred years from 1850. He proposes that to fully understand war we need to explore ‘the dense associative life of men’ (Horne 2004: 27). It is through hard cultural work, the shaping and manipulation of that sociality, that military managers create their armies. Those destined to be leaders are educated in an authoritative masculinity in officer training courses, while those destined to be the rank-and-file are subjected to acquisition of a different masculinity in the disciplinary torture of ‘boot camp’, where drill sergeants prepare their recruits for war by reinforcing their racism, misogyny and homophobia, annihilating any vestige of the feminine in them. War fighting A feature of many, if not most, wars is mass sexual violence inflicted by men on women – and on some men (see Chapters 10 and 11 for fuller discussions of this issue). It occurs in phases of fighting that afford particular opportunity for it, such as invasions, occupations and the imposition of state terror on political insurgencies. Many authors have explored the relationship of so-called ‘peacetime’ rape and war rape. Rape in both circumstances may be opportunistic and ‘recreational’, a product of the deep misogyny among men (and unfortunately among many women) characteristic of societies in both conditions. However, we are now more alert to situations where military commanders make deliberate use of mass rape by their soldiers to demoralize enemy communities, a strategy that is the more effective the more these are known to value female chastity as a property of masculine honour (Seifert 1995). Negotiating peace Declarations of peace usually involve a victorious and a defeated side. While this provokes a crisis for the defeated, it can also be a demanding moment for the victor, for he must ensure that the defeated enemy is not totally reduced. Patriarchy as a generalized system of masculine authority demands at least a partial restitution of the defeated male’s masculine dignity. This imperative is apparent in the fact that in contemporary armed conflicts there is a clear reluctance to remove responsibility for the negotiation of peace from the hands of the men who made war, even though they may, due to their part in the conflict and by experience and training, be inappropriate for the task. The passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000, on Women, Peace and Security, which among other things calls for women to be included in peace negotiations, recognizes this problem. The Resolution can be seen as an interestingly anti-patriarchal measure introduced, under organized pressure by women, by the most masculine and authoritiative body (the Security Council) in the United Nations system (see also Chapters 12 and 14). Recovery from defeat After the ignominious withdrawal from Saigon in 1975, the shock to the US psyche of the defeat of its massive military power by a small guerrilla force brought about a kind of national trauma, felt as a collapse of manly pride and self-respect. This post- war period has interested several gender researchers. James Gibson and Susan Jeffords for example analyse novels and films of the period, and dwell in particular on the characteristic ‘lone hero’ of post-war culture. Rambo and others like him are hyper- masculine warriors with a vicious and insatiable appetite for destruction, ‘the epitome of masculine power and self-development, and combat as the only life worth living’ (Gibson 1994: 32). These authors see such cultural productions as part of a strategy of remasculinization, invoking a masculine bond across class and colour, excluding women from the masculine realm, and taking revenge on the state and the anti-war movement, both despised as effeminate and effeminizing. Jeffords is emphatic that we should not perceive and respond to war as merely the antithesis of peace. Rather, we should see the discourse of warfare as the primary vehicle for the stiffening of masculine resolve in American society (Jeffords 1989). Constituting citizenship as masculine and military In some cultures the link between masculinity and war is highly explicit and is not dependent on an imminent war. Since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk brought the modern Turkish state into being in 1923, Turkey has seen itself as not merely a nation but a ‘military-nation’. The Turkish man has been visualized before all else as a soldier. Ayse Gul Altinay shows the two-way productiveness of gender and militarization in Turkey through analysing the militarizing role given to schools and the educating role given to the military. She suggests ‘that the practice of compulsory military service has created a major gender difference administered by the state, and that the decision-makers were well aware of the gender implications of this practice from the very beginning’ (Altinay 2004: 7). Others have suggested that the modern national armies of nineteenth-century Europe both were made by and were makers of gender relations. One study has pointed to a connection between male suffrage and conscript armies in the making of citizenship. When working-class men got the vote it enabled them to enter for the first time into relations of notional equality with men of other classes, while simultaneously male citizenship was being constructed crucially around military service in the new conscript armies. Increasingly, these authors say, masculinity was ‘virilized’, differentiated ever more emphatically from femininity (Dudink and Hagemann 2004: 11). Modern armies were ‘established through strongly gendered discourses’ and were at the same time ‘co-producers of a universalising discourse of sexual difference’. As such they became ‘the pillars of social and political order’ (Dudink and Hagemann 2004: 17).