Our social constructivist view of gender isn't essentialist

(J. Ann, You just Don't Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists , International Studies Quarterly 41)

Given that most contemporary feminist scholarship takes gender—which embodies relationships of power inequality—as its central category of analysis, the fact that the meaning of gender is so often misunderstood is, I believe, central to problems of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Almost all feminists who write about international relations use gender in a social constructivist sense, a move that many see not only as necessary for overcoming gender discrimination, but also as a way of opening avenues for communication by avoiding some of the threatened responses illustrated above. As Sandra Harding (1986:17-8) has suggested, gendered social life is produced through three distinct processes: assigning dualistic gender metaphors to various perceived dichotomies, appealing to these gender dualisms to organize social activity, and dividing necessary social activities between different groups of humans. She refers to these three aspects of gender as gender symbolism, gender structure, and individual gender. Feminists define gender, in the symbolic sense, as a set of variable but socially and culturally constructed characteristics—such as power, autonomy, rationality, and public—that are stereotypically associated with masculinity. Their opposites— weakness, dependence, emotion, and private—are associated with femininity. There is evidence to suggest that both women and men assign a more positive value to masculine characteristics. Importantly, definitions of masculinity and femininity are relational and depend on each other for their meaning; in other words, what it means to be a “real man” is not to display “womanly” weaknesses. Since these characteristics are social constructions, it is entirely possible for Margaret Thatcher to act like an iron lady or a “real man”; in fact, many feminists would argue that such behavior is necessary for both women and men to succeed in the tough world of international politics. As Tannen (1990:43) claims, girls and boys grow up in different worlds of words, but gender goes beyond language: it is a symbolic system that shapes many aspects of our culture. As Carol Cohn (1993:229) has suggested, even if real men and women do not fit these gender “ideals,” the existence of this system of meaning affects us all—both our interpretations of the world and the way the world understands us. As Joan Scott (1986:1069) claims, while the forms gender relations take across different cultures may vary, they are almost always unequal; therefore, gender, in the structural sense, is a primary way of signifying relationships of power. Although gender is frequently seen as belonging in the household and, therefore, antithetical to the “real” business of politics, a reason why it is often seen as irrelevant to IR, Scott argues that it is constructed in the economy and the polity through various institutional structures that have the effect of “naturalizing,” and even legalizing, women’s inferior status. Recent feminist writings that deal with issues of race and class problematize these power relationships still further.9 Individual gender relations enter into and are constituent elements in every aspect of human experience (Flax, 1987:624). Jane Flax reminds us that, while feminism is about recovering women’s activities, it must also be aware of how these activities are constituted through the social relations in which they are situated. Therefore, gender is not just about women; it is also about men and masculinity, a point that needs to be emphasized if scholars of international relations are to better understand why feminists claim that it is relevant to their discipline and why they believe that a gendered analysis of its basic assumptions and concepts can yield fruitful results. (614-15)