The alternative is to decenter the “masculine subject” at the center of the 1AC’s depiction of policymaking– only the alternatives feminist revisionism can interrupt their masculine project.

This discussion will demonstrate, in the ways outlined above, the depth and range of feminist perspectives on power—a prime concern of International Relations and indeed of the whole study of politics. It will illustrate the varied ways in which scholars using these perspectives study power in relation to gender, a nexus largely disregarded in mainstream approaches. From feminist positions, this lacuna marks out mainstream analyses as trapped in a narrow and superficial ontological and epistemological framework. A major part of the problem is the way in which the mainstream takes the appearance of a predominantly male-constructed reality as a given, and thus as the beginning and end of investigation and knowledge-building. Feminism requires an ontological revisionism: a recognition that it is necessary to go behind the appearance and examine how differentiated and gendered power constructs the social relations that form that reality. While it may be empirically accurate to observe that historically and contemporaneously men have dominated the realms of international politics and economics, feminists argue that a full understanding of the nature of those realms must include understanding the intricate patterns of (gendered) inequalities that shape them. Mainstream International Relations, in accepting that because these realms appear to be predominantly man-made, there is no reason to ask how or why that is the case, stop short of taking account of gender. As long as those who adhere to this position continue to accept the sufficiency of the appearances and probe no further, then the ontological and epistemological limitations will continue to be reproduced. Early work in feminist International Relations in the 1980s had to address this problem directly by peeling back the masculinist surface of world politics to reveal its more complex gendered (and racialized) dynamics. Key scholars such as Cynthia Enloe focused on core International Relations issues of war, militarism and security, highlighting the dependence of these concepts on gender structures—e.g. dominant forms of the masculine (warrior) subject as protector/conqueror/exploiter of the feminine/feminized object/other—and thus the fundamental importance of subjecting them to gender analysis. In a series of works, including the early Bananas, beaches and bases: making feminist sense of international politics (1989), Enloe has addressed different aspects of the most overtly masculine realms of international relations, conflict and defence, to reveal their deeper gendered realities.3 This body of work has launched a powerful critique of the taboo that made women and gender most invisible, in theory and practice, where masculinity had its most extreme, defining (and violent) expression. Enloe’s research has provided one of the most comprehensive bodies of evidence for the ontological revisionism required of mainstream International Relations, especially in relation to its core concerns. When Enloe claimed that ‘gender makes the world go round’,4 she was in fact turning the abstract logic of malestream International Relations inside out. This abstract logic saw little need to take theoretical and analytical account of gender as a social force because in practical terms only one gender, the male, appeared to define International Relations. Ann Tickner has recently offered the reminder that this situation persists: ‘During the 1990s, women were admitted to most combat positions in the U.S. military, and the U.S. president appointed the first female secretary of state, but occupations in foreign and military policymaking in most states remain overwhelmingly male, and usually elite male.’5 Nearly a decade earlier, in her groundbreaking work Gender in International Relations: feminist perspectives on achieving global security,6 she had asked the kinds of questions that were foundational to early feminist International Relations: ‘Why is the subject matter of my discipline so distant from women’s lived experiences? Why have women been conspicuous only by their absence in the worlds of diplomacy and military and foreign policy-making?’ Tickner, like Enloe, has interrogated core issues in mainstream International Relations, such as security and peace, providing feminist bases for gendered understanding of issues that have defined it. Her reflection on what has happened since Gender in International Relations was published indicates the prominence of tensions between theory and practice. ‘We may have provided some answers to my questions as to why IR and foreign policymaking remain male-dominated; but breaking down the unequal gender hierarchies that perpetuate these androcentric biases remains a challenge.’7 The persistence of the overriding maleness of international relations in practice is part of the reason for the continued resistance and lack of responsiveness to the analytical relevance feminist International Relations claims. In other words, it is to some extent not surprising that feminist International Relations stands largely outside mainstream International Relations, because the concerns of the former, gender and women, continue to appear to be subsidiary to high politics and diplomacy. One has only to recall the limited attention to gender and women in the recent Afghanistan and Iraq crises to illustrate this point.8 So how have feminists tackled this problem? Necessarily, but problematically, by calling for a deeper level of ontological revisionism. I say problematically because, bearing in mind the limited success of the first kind discussed above, it can be anticipated that this deeper kind is likely to be even more challenging for those in the mainstream camp. The second level of ontological revisionism required relates to critical understanding of why the appearance of international relations as predominantly a sphere of male influence and action continues to seem unproblematic from mainstream perspectives. This entails investigating masculinity itself: the nature of its subject position—including as reflected in the collective realm of politics— and the frameworks and hierarchies that structure its social relations, not only in relation to women but also in relation to men configured as (feminized) ‘others’ because of racial, colonial and other factors, including sexuality. Marysia Zalewski and Jane Parpart directly captured such an approach as ‘the “man” question in international relations’.9 I would like to suggest that for those sceptical about feminist International Relations, Zalewski’s introductory chapter, ‘From the “woman” question to the “man” question in International Relations’, offers an impressively transparent way in to its substantive terrain.10 Reflecting critically on the editors’ learning process in preparing the volume and working with its contributors, both men and women, Zalewski discusses the various modifications through which the title of the work had moved. These included at different stages the terms ‘women’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘feminism’, finally ending with ‘the “man” question’—signalling once again, I suggest, tensions between theory and practice, the difficulty of escaping the concrete dominance of the male subject position in the realm of international relations. The project’s starting point revealed a faith in the modernist commitment to the political importance of bringing women into the position of subjecthood. We implicitly accepted that women’s subjecthood could be exposed and revealed in the study and practice of international relations, hoping that this would also reveal the nature of male dominance and power. Posing the ‘man’ question instead reflects our diminishing belief that the exclusion of women can be remedied by converting them into subjects.11 Adding women appeared to have failed to ‘destabilize’ the field; so perhaps critically addressing its prime subject ‘man’ head-on could help to do so. ‘This leads us to ask questions about the roles of masculinity in the conduct of international relations and to question the accepted naturalness of the abundance of men in the theory and practice of international relations’ (emphasis added).12 The deeper level of ontological revisionism called for by feminist International Relations in this regard is as follows. Not only does it press beyond the appearance of international relations as a predominantly masculine terrain by including women in its analysis, it goes further to question the predominant masculinity itself and the accepted naturalness of its power and influence in collective (most significantly state) and individual forms.