The Duck of Minerva

Here are some common misperceptions of feminist IR; the "truth" is below the "fold" ...1. Feminist IR is a paradigmatic alternative to other IR paradigms - there's realism, liberalism, constructivism, poststructuralism, and then ... feminism. It is its own "ism," and therefore should be a chapter in each textbook proposed as a dialogue with and/or critique of International Relations. 2. Feminists are whiners - either the field of IR see, e.g., this debate nor global politics (see, e.g., Barbara Ehrenreich's discussion of Abu Ghraib) are sites of rampant gender subordination. 3. Women are...

So I've been accused elsewhere in the blogosphere (not linked here because of profane language) of just posting a lot of overlong (language cleaned up) definitions in service of a poststructuralist cause which is "irrelevant (insert choice words here)." I could get all defensive or argumentative (insert sarcastic comment about feminists here), but I think that I'll those comments as proof that perhaps the explaining needs to continue. I posted all those definitional discussions because it would be easy to misread what came after them without that foundation, which is not obvious or intuitive...

In the last post, I discussed gender as a system of symbolic meanings. People understood to be "men" are often expected to be "masculine" and associated with masculinity/ies; while people understood to be "women" are expected to be feminine, and associated with femininity/ies. Traits associated with masculinities and femininities are often also transposed onto ideas, concepts, and things, in everyday life and in global politics. Masculinities and femininities are often salient in political, economic, and social life.But, like all good political "scientists," you ask the "so what?" question -...