The Feminist Challenge and Gender in Global Politics

Learning Objectives:
Understand how Feminists describe global politics, and why Describe ways in which global politics is gendered Explain the impact and relevance of Feminist and gendered concepts in global politics.

The Feminist Challenge and Gender in Global Politics

Core Principles Feminism and Power The Dominance of Liberal Feminism Gender and Global Politics

Intellectual Origins
First Wave:
Mary Wollstonecraft; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthony

Second Wave
Betty Friedan; Cynthia Enloe

Third Wave
Rebecca Walker; Gayatri Spivak; Angela Davis; Chandra Mohanty; Carol Adams

Core Principles
Focus on gender: gender matters Inequality of women Marginalization of women in IR Differences in female experience Social relations are gendered Question: where are the women?

Feminism and Power

Power is inseparable from gender relations Criticism of Realism

The Dominance of Liberal Feminism

Liberal Feminism

The Liberal Feminist Program

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) Optional Protocol to CEDAW (1999) United Nations Commissioner on Women United Nations Commission on Discrimination Against Women UN Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) Womens NGOs

The Dominance of Liberal Feminism

Liberal Feminism Socialist/Marxist Feminism Postmodern Feminism Radical Feminism

The Feminist Challenge and Gender in Global Politics

Women and war Women and NGOs Women and poverty Women in development Women and human rights Women and work Women and international health and education

Summary
After the class on Feminism, you should have a good understanding of how feminists describe global politics and the role of gender in that description. You should be able to identify the feminist view of power and explain how this power is relevant in global politics. You should be able to compare and contrast feminism with Liberalism, Realism, Marxism, and Postmodernism/Constructivism. You should be able to explain the Liberal Feminist agenda, and the importance of the gendered perspective for global politics. In the next unit of the course, we will examine decision-making in global politics.

And So
No agreement on describing global politics and explaining why things happen (Realist and Liberal perspectives dominant) Different views on nature of the problem Different views on power Policy flows from theory: differences on how to avoid war, achieve security, role of non-state actors, etc. Theories are also analytical tools