Feminism Kritik

Overview: The Role of the Negative

The Sole Burden of the Negative is to Attack the Affirmative Advocacy

van Eemeren, Professor of Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam, writes1:

A debate in the North American style centers around “propositions.” As Austin Freeley described in his
prominent book, Argumentation and Debate (1993), in a debate two parties attempts, with the help of argumentation, to
justify or refute to a judge a statement about which a difference of opinion exists. The affirmative side defends the
statement in conflict; the negative side attacks it. The statement that is defended and attacked is
called the debate proposition, or proposition (1993: 38). The affirmative side has the burden of proof of
the proposition. This means that they need to justify the proposition convincingly to the judge.
The negative has no burden of proof; their only task is to attack the proposition.

A. Link
The Affirmative’s Conception of Government, The State, and International Relations Re-
entrenches The Hegemonic Masculine Domination of the Patriarchy

Link One: The State

The Evolution of Modern States is Rooted in an Exclusionary Masculine Ideology

Tickner One, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, 19992:

The modern state was created as an instrument for increasing the capacity of princes to wage war .
States in 16th and 17th century Europe were identified with the sovereign king. In 17th century Europe,
war brought adventure and reputation to kings and princes. Fame, wealth, and women were
prizes to be won in battle. For the typical prince, war was a means to reputation and glory. Hobbes's
depiction of the Leviathan, a man in armor carrying a sword, serves as a visual representation of this early form of sovereign
authority. International relations were relations between kings and princes whose foreign
policymaking was conducted in isolation from their populations.

With the advent of republican forms of government in the 18th and 19th centuries , the state
became associated with the will of the people rather than the crown. Yet the identity of the
"people" was limited: in no state were women incorporated into republican forms of government
on equal footing with men. Even today, when women have achieved formal equality in many
states, this historical legacy still inhibits women's voices in foreign policymaking. In contemporary
neo-realism, where states' identities are hidden behind the unitary actor model, the characteristics that neo-
realists attribute to states are quite similar to masculine images of sovereignty.

1
van Eemeren, Frans. Crucial Concepts in Argumentation Theory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2001. 39. Web.
2
J Ann Tickner. (1999). Searching for the princess? Harvard International Review, 21(4), 44-48. Retrieved August 21,
2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 47034966).
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Link Two: International Relations

Modern Neo-Realist Conceptions of International Relations Have Depersonalized State Behavior
And Excluded Feminist Perspectives

Tickner Two, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, 19993:

At least we can agree with Regan that the"human interest stuff' has not been the business of international
relations scholarship. In neo-realism-a more parsimonious and "scientific" devolution from classical realism [,]
human beings have disappeared altogether. This point leads to the second reason why the
discipline is inhospitable terrain for feminist perspectives. In their search for mechanistic laws,
international relations theorists have typically preferred explanatory theories that favor a
structurally determined level of analysis; the international system is a world in which , as political
theorist jean Elshtain observes, "No children are ever born, and nobody ever dies ... There are states, and
they are what is." Rational choice theory, modeled on the behavior of firms in the marketplace,
has further reinforced this depersonalization of state behavior. Explanations that focus on social
relations, a space where gender relations could be analyzed, are considered reductionist and ,
therefore, unable to shed much light on the behavior of states in the international system.

Link Three: Rationality

3
J Ann Tickner. (1999). Searching for the princess? Harvard International Review, 21(4), 44-48. Retrieved August 21,
2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 47034966).
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Reason and Logic Are Functions of the Patriarchy, Particularly In International Relations

Tickner Three, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California,

19994:
Besides the state of nature discussed earlier, another important legacy of Hobbes for contemporary international relations has
been the strong commitment to the "heroic" model of science, the notion that the world can be discovered through
mechanistic laws of nature. Feminist theorist Spike Peterson claims that the scientific revolution of the 17th
century marked a shift in our understanding of "the world" and the position of "man" within it.
Beginning in the 17th century, scientific reasoning was explicitly constructed as "male" and
promoted as superior to and exclusive of that which was marked as "female." Man, the knower,
was identified with science and reason; women were associated with emotion and irrationality.

The claim that women have been absent from the construction of knowledge has been particularly
true in the discipline of international relations. As mentioned earlier, realism and neo-realism claim to
have developed a "science" of international politics whereby the behavior of states in the
international system can be explained in terms of universal, objective laws.

international relations draws on experiences

Feminists writing about international relations have suggested that
more typical of men than women under the guise of objectivity. For example, rational choice
theorists' explanations of the instrumentally competitive behavior of states in an anarchical
international system parallel the self-interested behavior historically associated with men as actors
in the marketplace. Favorable attributes of states, such as independence, strength, autonomy, and
self-help, resemble the characteristics of the sovereign man, the defining figure of the heroic
model.

B. Impacts

4
J Ann Tickner. (1999). Searching for the princess? Harvard International Review, 21(4), 44-48. Retrieved August 21,
2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 47034966).
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Impact One: Extinction And No Value To Life

Patriarchal Conceptions of International Relations Do Not Favor Species Survival And Deny
Value to Life

Clark, Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, 20045:

The more intense a confrontation becomes abroad, the more extreme is the rhetoric at home, and
the less diverse is the public dialogue. When "patriotism" slips into a self-righteous nationalism
that claims moral superiority, it narrows the focus and limits the quality of public discourse to
increasingly simple ideas, expressed in emotionally-charged language. Journalist Jonathan Rowe argues
that the success of George W. Bush as a "leader" rests on his ability to appeal to the emotions of his listeners, and his use of
the simplest language-"like they use." (10) Linguist George Lakoff notes that Bush embraces those American values
characteristic of a "strong-father family": authority, discipline, individual enterprise, and personal responsibility. (11) It is a
tactic that fits smoothly into the image of a hierarchical, competitive, yet nonetheless virtuous society. American democracy,
it is implied, has succeeded in overcoming the dark side of a highly competitive, dog-eat-dog existence-although "non-
democratic" societies definitely have not. At home, Bush thus takes on the image of the protective father, not just defending
America but vigorously exporting her best virtues to all peoples he identifies as "oppressed," whether by force of arms or
imposed religious beliefs.
This simplified, almost sound-bite rhetorical approach is accompanied by a narrowing of the
world view available to the American electorate. Mass culture, purveyed by television in the form of fast-
moving, intellectually undemanding, popular entertainment--including so-called "news--closets the watcher's mind
into an escape world of virtual reality that lacks connectedness with real peoples and events in the
"non-TV" world. The "enemy people" never have the opportunity to communicate with ordinary
Americans about their daily lives, their perspectives, their beliefs and goals and values. For most
Americans, they remain faceless, distant, and unimportant-to the point of not even existing in any
consciously perceived way.

This state of affairs, I believe, is the result of a world now connected by trade (mostly cheap imports from
poor countries to rich countries) and by media (mostly exports from rich countries to poor countries), without any
significant people-to-people contact. Instead, both trade and media exchanges occur via
impersonal, hierarchical institutions, the giant corporations that, in fact, construct most of "reality"
today for the average American.

Our problem is that power-military, political, economic, and informational-is located at the top of
institutionalized hierarchies scattered around the planet. The "logic" of this hierarchical order
has created a cul-de-sac for humankind. The purpose of hierarchical structuring of ever-larger
societies is to increase power vis-a-vis a competing other-which means there is constant threat and
insecurity and potential for violent struggle. The meaning of life for an individual human being, as
an accepted member of a community of others, disintegrates under this enormous burden. Human
nature is not being well-served in today's "masculine hegemonic" world. To put it bluntly,
patriarchy does not favor species survival, because it blocks the one thing that is necessary for
human beings to overcome their differences and live peaceably together-namely, open, dialogic
communications.

Impact Two: Imperialism and International Security

5
Clark, Mary E. "Rhetoric, patriarchy & war: explaining the dangers of 'leadership' in mass culture." Women and Language
27.2 (2004): 21+. Student. Web. 8 Aug. 2010.
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The Hegemonic Masculine Domination of the Patriarchy Causes Imperialism and Escalates
Conflict

Tickner Four, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, 19996:

When women are absent from foundational theories, established gender biases extend into
contemporary international theory. The two theorists mentioned earlier, Hobbes and Machiavelli, have
constructed some traditional stories of international politics. Although Hobbes's description of
human behavior in the state of nature refers explicitly to that of adult males, contemporary
realism has taken this behavior as constitutive of human nature as a whole. Such analogies have
appealed to international relations' gloomy picture of the unsocialized behavior of states in an
international svstem of anarchy. But as feminists remind us, if life was to go on for more than one
generation in the state of nature, other more cooperative activities, such as child rearing, must
have also taken place. Bringing this assumption to contemporary international politics, we might
conclude that states are engaged in cooperative as well as competitive activities.

Returning to Machiavelli, we find danger not in the unsocialized behavior of men in the state of
nature, but in the wild spaces inhabited by the capriclous goddess Fortuna. The feminization of
dangerous spaces outside the territory of the state has been a metaphor frequently called upon to
justify defense budgets or the policies of expansionary states. Feminist theorist Cynthia Enloe describes
pictures of native women on postcards sent home from Africa and Asia in the early part of this century, which depicted
appealing images, while making clear that these alien societies needed the civilizing government that only whites could
bestow. Former colonial states and their leaders have frequently been portrayed as emotional and
unpredictable, characteristics also associated with women.

This discourse, which associates danger with those on the outside, is frequently framed in
gendered terms. Feminists have suggested that, in today's world of advanced technologies, very
militaristic definitions of security may actually decrease the security of both women and men,
directly due to the likely level of destruction should war break out, and indirectly as it decreases
resources for other uses.

Impact Three: Thought

Masculine Domination Irrevocably Distorts Human Thought.

6
J Ann Tickner. (1999). Searching for the princess? Harvard International Review, 21(4), 44-48. Retrieved August 21,
2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 47034966).
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Hintikka, Philosophy Department at Florida State University, AND Harding, Professor of

Women’s Studies at the University of California, 19837:

What counts as knowledge must be grounded on experience. Human experience differs according
to the kinds of activities and social relations in which humans engage. Women’s experience
systematically differs from the male experience upon which knowledge claims have been
grounded. Thus the experience on which the prevailing claims to social and natural knowledge
are founded is, first of all, only partial human experience only partially understood: namely,
masculine experience as understood by men. However, when this experience is presumed to be
gender-free- when the male experience is taken to be the human experience- the resulting theories,
concepts, methodologies, inquiry goals and knowledge-claims distort human social life and human
thought.

C. The Alternative
The Alternative is to Reject the Affirmative

Michael Foucault writes8:

Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. We have to
imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of [a] political 'double bind', which is the
simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures. The conclusion would
be that the political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try and liberate the
individual from the state, and from the state's institutions, but to liberate us both from the state
and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state. We have to promote new forms
of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed upon us for
several centuries.

D. Off-Case: The Kritik Functions Pre-Standards

Evaluate the Kritik first for four reasons.

1) The logic of the affirmative resides in patriarchal conceptions of internatonal relations. As such, the
Kritik precludes the AC by disproving these conceptions
7
Harding, Sandra, and Merrill Hintikka. Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics,
Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. 2nd ed. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Netherlands, 2003. p. xxx. Web.
8
Godiwala, Dimple. "The Western patriarchal impulse (1)/Batinin ataerkil guc birligi." Interactions 15.1 (2006): 77+.
Student. Web. 8 Aug. 2010.
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2) My Hintikka-Harding evidence precludes the ability of the AC to be true.

3) My Hintikka-Harding evidence disproves the ability to judge the round via a standard. Any pre-
alternative standard is rooted in patriarchal ideology.
4) I outweigh the AC. My impacts occur in the real-world.