Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives of J. Ann Tickner

Abstract

According to feminism, the discipline of international relations (IR) a decade ago had, and indeed still has, connotations similar to ‘maleness’. This maleness is not based strictly on individual personalities, but on a ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that expresses what masculine men should be in opposition to femininities, which are less valued. Women are not a strong factor in the discipline, and knowledge gained from women’s experiences also remains at the periphery of the discipline’s analysis. It is clear to Professor J. Ann Tickner that there are gendered perceptions in IR, hidden by purported ‘gender neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’. In other words, although women and gender are both important parts of the daily operation and scholarship of IR, this presence is neither debated nor analysed by most theorists. The goal then of feminist IR is two-fold: to recognise gender where it exists in IR, and to move beyond gendered ideas into collaborative scholarship. In this way, feminist IR theory challenges other strands of IR theory on a number of levels, contributing to the major theoretical debates in the discipline and raising new areas of analysis.