1NCs

Generic
International relations are based on patriarchal norms states
are constructed and legitimized through masculinity making
violence inevitable
True 15
Jacqui True (Professor of Politics & International Relations and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at
Monash University, Australia. She received her PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada and has held academic
positions at Michigan State University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Auckland. She is a
specialist in Gender and International Relations.), June 2015, A Tale of Two Feminisms in International Relations?
Feminist Political Economy and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, Critical Perspectives, Politics & Gender, 11
(2) (2015), pg. 419-421, Accessed: 7/10/16

A photo depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin in chivalrous fashion, placing his
coat around the shoulders of Chinas first lady at an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) dinner made headline news around the world in November 2014 (Allen-Ebrahimian 2014).
Surely this is not the serious stuff of international politics, IR colleagues commented in social media forums? But
from a feminist perspective that pays attention to the pervasive gendering of IR, the
image was not at all surprising or trivial. Indeed, the gender symbolism of the image
reveals the patriarchal foundations of international politics. Putin, for his part,
personifies the linkages between the figure of the male provider at the heart of
global economic governance and meetings like APEC and the figure of the male
protector of womenandchildren (Enloe 1993) at the heart of the security state
system. Feminist political economy (FPE) analysis reveals the analogy between male heads
of households and the masculine state. Both equally control the lives of dependents
under the guise that it is in their best interests. Their unequal power is violent, but
the violence is masked by virtue and love (Young 2003, 6). Such analysis helps to explain the
prevalence of mens violence against women in the private household as well as the
male dominance of state-sanctioned war and conflict. Modern forms of patriarchal
households themselves were formed through the force of industrialization and
regime of accumulation in and for the formation of warring sovereign states (Mies
1986; Peterson 1992). However, the gendered division of labor between economic production
in the market and social reproduction in the household has obscured mens violence
vis a` vis dependents inside households compared with mens violence outside vis
a` vis other enemy groups. Through a feminist political economy perspective we can see how the
security state is constructed and legitimated through the masculine role of the
provider in the patriarchal family-household and how the state appears a legitimate
protector writ large to citizens when it uses force abroad, often in the name of
women and children. This essay advances the case for an integrated feminist analysis
of international relations inspired by the multidimensional account of womens security in
IR feminist scholarship. Crucially, FPE makes the link between the male provider and the male protector in
explaining the prevalence of mens violence from the private household to the public realm and in state-sanctioned
war and conflict. The importance of an FPE approach to international security is illustrated with respect to the UN
Such an approach opens up new areas of research
Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda.
and ways of addressing IR challenges. GENESIS OF FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS The FPE
approach is no news to many IR feminist scholars and indeed harks back to the earliest articulation of a feminist
perspective on IR. Cynthia Enloe, for instance, makes feminist sense of global politics,
integrating the study of political economy and security politics with ethnographic methods and her trademark
curiosity-driven inquiry. Enloe (2010) analyzes the fallout of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the political regime
changes ensuing from the Arab Spring from the perspective of womens lives. She does not separate these distinct
 her
events as matters of international political economy or international security respectively. Instead
gendered lens explores the similarities across them, highlighting their masculinist
logics and disproportionate gendered effects. Ann Tickner (1992, 55 56, 66) mounts a powerful
argument contra IR realism, pointing out that international security must encompass ecological,
economic, and physical security at all levels individual, state, and global. She
(1992, 23) states that because of the sexual division of labour, mens association with
violence has been legitimated through war and the instrument of the state. Thus, she
argues that IR feminist perspectives must introduce the issue of domestic violence
and analyze how the boundaries of public and private, domestic and international,
political and economic are permeable and interrelated. Crucially, the linkage of war to
violence against women should be part of any comprehensive account of security
(Tickner 1992, 55). Following the lead of these trailblazing scholars, IR feminists are examining so-called
private or domestic forms of violence against women and not just that violence through the prism of security
studies, war, and conflict. Theyare confronting regimes of unequal entitlements, masculine
hegemonies that hold hierarchical political economic orders together at every level.
One of the things the state should be is a protector but today this means that all states are
expected to pass laws prohibiting domestic and sexual violence, for instance. States, even authoritarian ones,
must be seen to doing something to address gendered violence to respond to the now
globalized social movements that are making this violence visible.

Violence becomes the normal expression of masculinity under

patriarchal paradigms
Hans in 2010 (Asha Hans is the former Director, School of Womens Studies, and
Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, India. She is the author and editor of many
publications related to womens rights, the latest being The Gender Imperative, coedited
with Prof. Betty Reardon (2010). Her book Gender, Disability and Identity (2003) is a globally
recognized seminal work coedited with Annie Patri. An advocate of womens rights, she has
participated in the formulation of many conventions in the United Nations. A leading
campaigner of womens rights in India, she has initiated many campaigns on the inclusion of
women with disabilities in the mainstream womens movement. She is also the founder of
Women with Disabilities India Network. 14 Human Security the Militarized Perception and
Space for Gender The Gender Imperative pages: 384 409)

Fear and Domestic ViolenceThe connection between highly militarized societies and domestic
violence has been well established. Besides rape, there are other types of violence perpetuated against
womens bodies. During shelling, when tension increases and women show fear, men
assault them physically. In Drass, the wife of a policeman related that she is regularly beaten up by her husband as
she screams whenever the shells fall. When there are problems in accessing basic
necessities, it also leads to domestic violence. The women and girls of
Kargil feel that their inferior status in society, dependence on men and the
discrimination that they face are causes for violence. We cannot work nor
sit quietly at home. We cannot do anything. Whatever we do is not right,
there is always tension at home. It is brought in by our husbands,
frustrated with the awam (nation) can we do anything to stop this violence? Unemployed
husbands losing dominant positions at home, discussions of war in public
spaces frequented by men and humiliation by outsiders have resulted in
aggressive masculinity. Zorica Mrscevic analyses a similar situation in former Yugoslavia, where domestic
violence is caught in a vicious circle of mutual consequences and
causation along with patriarchy and war (2000: 42). The community shrinks during war as travel is
limited and in nuclear families there is no one to act as a barrier to the domestic violence faced by women. In a situation where the
military plays decisive roles, violence is a way of life, and women and children live in fear of violence from within and outside the
Violence against women in the private has been kept outside the legal
home.
framework of most countries, thus providing legitimacy to the acts. States such
as India have now started to recognize it as a crime. During confl ict no conceptual distinction emerges between public and private
and violence becomes a continuing threat against women in both spheres. This normalization of violence against women as
observed in the cases of Okinawa and the women of Jordan (see the articles by Kozue Akibayashi and Suzuyo Takazato, and Norma
Violence
Nemeh) must be avoided as in long term-military presence it remains a constant threat to womens human security.
cannot be considered only as a crime but a human rights abuse, as the
women of Okinawa demonstrated. Violence and Masculinity in Conflict Situations In any conflict
situation, national chauvinism exalts both militarism and masculinity. In this
situation, violence becomes the normal expression of masculine identity.
Heroes, patriots and martyrs are projected in terms of power and honour .
Each nation state at war adds on to these two structures on which masculinity is endorsed. In this environment, patriarchy emerges
This culture of
as a significant marker of militarist nationalism, where men hold power and control over women.
power is part of the masculine discourse and mainstreamed into the
natural, not viewed as an aberration of human nature. All countries at war produce their
own version of the masculinist approach. In the South Asian subcontinent, on the borders of India and Pakistan, local versions of
masculinity emerge during conflict to be used by leaders and supporters of war. In October 2001, for instance, after the loss of the
Kargil War, President Musharraf of Pakistan was still sending messages to the Indian counterparts through the media of continuing
the war, declaring that: We in Pakistan have not worn bangles (The Tribune 2001). Bangles are worn by women and denote
femininity and weakness. Prime Minister Vajpayee replied in a public address: In Punjab men also wear kada [steel bracelet] worn
Masculinity is not an
by the Sikhs a martial race (The Tribune 2001). The kada is the religious epitome of Sikh valour.
overarching homogeneous attribute. It has its own complexities which the war
system makes use of to sustain it. As methods of war change, the masculine
determinants modify. The new wars enclose within themselves new methods such as increased use of intelligence
agencies, or terrorism war then becomes good and can be used for protecting civilians
from both external and internal elements which are intermingled . The internal security
becomes closely linked to the external as it did in the USA after 11 September. It happened in many countries such as in Sri Lanka
and India (both in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East), where security forces play an important role in protecting national security.
This removal of lines between war and peace affect womens in daily lives.

The alternative is to view international relations through a

gendered lens. A gendered view of IR is necessary to
conceptualize security and the relationship between nations
and provide an alternative to present patriarchal system.
Hans and Reardon in 2010 (Asha Hans is the former Director, School of Womens
Studies, and Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, India. She is the author and
editor of many publications related to womens rights, the latest being The Gender
Imperative, coedited with Prof. Betty Reardon (2010). Her book Gender, Disability and
Identity (2003) is a globally recognized seminal work coedited with Annie Patri. An advocate
of womens rights, she has participated in the formulation of many conventions in the United
Nations. A leading campaigner of womens rights in India, she has initiated many campaigns
on the inclusion of women with disabilities in the mainstream womens movement. She is
also the founder of Women with Disabilities India Network. Introduction Challenging
Patriarchal Violence The Gender Imperative pages: 1-4)

It is past time to begin a serious consideration of alternatives to war and the

multiple forms of state-sanctioned violence of the militarized political,
economic and social structures that comprise the global security system .
So, too, it is time to recognize that this global system of violence is the manifestation
and mainstay of patriarchy. The wellbeing and survival of the human family make it imperative that this
 Approaching the imperative through the lens of gender
system be challenged.
with particular reference to the experience of women clearly reveals the
multiple and severe human security deficits of the present international
system of state security. Many feminists and other peace advocates welcomed the emergence of the
concept of human security as the idea that would instigate the long awaited and much needed scholarly and public
discourse on alternative security systems. The notion of alternatives to the war system is one that has held the
attention of a narrow sector of the international peace research community since its founding in the early 1960s. In
the decades immediately following World War II several serious plans for legally constituted international
institutions capable of preventing war, and ultimately abolishing it, were circulated among academics and other
citizens in proposals for a stronger United Nations advanced by groups such as the World Federalists, a movement
that followed in the tradition of western philosophy that had for several centuries explored the problematic of
permanent peace. However, this same tradition of political thought also produced political realism and its assertion
of the need for force to maintain order and resolve conflicts. Tragically, the political realism so characteristic of
patriarchal thinking that has governed the modern world has consigned these proposals even the most practical
One of the core purposes of this book is to
and well detailed to the political Siberia of Utopia.
reclaim utopia in its original sense, as a diagnosis , indeed, a denunciation of the injustices
and follies of the dominant order. It will approach this purpose through a
challenge to the present international security system in an assessment of
the systemic and constant insecurity to which it subjects the worlds vulnerable populations, most particularly and
universally, women. The myriad ways in which women have suffered gender-specific,
negative affects of war and armed conflict have been thoroughly documented in the
literature of women, war and peace as will be seen in the references to the various articles. This volume is an
attempt to build on that well laid foundation with an exploration of human security as a
conceptual framework for an alternative to the present dangerous and
destructive militarized state security framework. The articles included in this volume
seek to contribute to opening discussions that go beyond the assessments and lamentations of imposed,
unnecessary suffering under the extensive and excessive global system of militarization by encouraging inquiry into
the achievement of human security through the demilitarization of the present system. Suggestions to facilitate
such an inquiry appear in the Conclusion. The contributors female and male feminist scholar-activists hope to
widen and deepen the current discourse on human security by demonstrating that the welfare perhaps the
survival of the worlds vulnerable and most probably even of the powerful requires the demilitarization of state
security. We hope to open discussion on the construction of systems of authentic national security based on the
The present
human security of peoples rather than the protection and perpetuation of the interests of states.
patriarchal state security system is at best prejudicial to women, and at worst openly oppressive
of half the human family. Through consideration of the most essential gendered aspects of security
that derive from the multiple forms of the global patriarchy, this volume provides both challenging and promising
perspectives on the most severe threats to the human future. The contributions are constructed within a
comprehensive feminist framework of human security, the conceptual core and basis of the gender imperative. This
human security derives from the experience and
conceptual core is the assertion that
expectation of wellbeing of persons, communities and the planet which
sustains them. Human wellbeing, it asserts, depends upon four essential
conditions for the maintenance and continuation of human life: a life-
sustaining environment; the meeting of essential physical needs; respect
for the identity and dignity of persons and groups; and protection from
avoidable harm and expectation of remedy for unavoidable harm . Each article
addresses one or more of these four fundamental elements, demonstrating that women have unequal or no access
to the elements addressed, and illuminates the integral relationship of these elements to the human security, not
only of women but of all human beings. The major assumption that influences the analyses and the arguments for
change presented here is that patriarchy, the hierarchy of power and privilege which advantages men over women,
rich over poor and heavily armed over the defenceless, is the germinal paradigm from which most major human
institutions such as the state, the economy, organized religions and the social relations of the family and
community have evolved. The present security system functions to maintain this global patriarchal hierarchy, the
Gender
most severe manifestation of which is constant, pervasive and often lethal violence against women.
violence is a daily occurrence in virtually all societies. Its severity and
frequency is always heightened by regular presence of military, war and
armed conflict. A second significant assumption of the framework and analyses is that the
fundamental inequalities inherent in the multiple contemporary forms of
patriarchy, evident in most of the worlds cultures and institutions, pose
obstacles to the realization of the human security of such vast numbers of men and
women as to threaten human survival. It is argued that these inequities must be challenged for the
sake of survival, equality and security, each of which we assert to be integral one to the other; and
that the approach to that challenge so fundamental and essential to its success as to be imperative is gender. A
third central assumption is that the frustration of the experience and the expectation of human wellbeing is a
continuing cause of armed conflict and war. War, in this time of weaponry of unprecedented destructive capacity
that produces irreparable environmental damage and infrastructure destruction at enormous economic cost, poses
the widest and most serious threat to wellbeing and to the very survival of all life on earth. These assumptions lead
to our central assertion that the present highly militarized global system of state security is not only incompatible
with human security, but represents the foremost barrier to planetary security. Human security, we assert, cannot
be achieved within this system. The challenge raised here is a call to the transformation of the present system into
one intentionally and specifically designed to achieve human security. The articles included in this volume highlight
the assumptions, assertions and arguments of the framework by demonstrating the patriarchal nature of militarized
security systems, documenting the systems gendered effects, offering examples of approaches to human security,
identifying obstacles to its achievement and describing efforts and initiatives toward overcoming the obstacles. It is
our hope that this book will encourage people to think critically and systematically about militarized security,
particularly the ways in which it threatens human wellbeing and survival; to provide evidence to refute the utility
and viability of the dominant patriarchal paradigm; and to offer a gender analysis that challenges the current
system so as to encourage inquiry into ways toward transformation and change through consideration of
alternatives to militarized security. Toward the fulfilment of these purposes we have organized the book into four
sections. The three articles in the first section provide a theoretical foundation, focusing on the conceptualization of
human security and outlining the comprehensive feminist security framework which provides the analytic lens for
reflection on the following sections. The second section offers evidence from various societies, establishing the
integral relationship between patriarchal violence and the state security system. The third section recounts
instances of efforts to seek authentic security in actions and strategies to roll back the patriarchal violence of
militarized state security. The fourth and final section describes alternative ways of thinking about striving toward
We conclude
human security, working within the constraints of the present system yet seeking to transform it.
with a sample inquiry to facilitate reflection on and discussion of the human security
implications examined by suggesting the kinds of queries that might help to initiate
a process of communal reflection and action of the kind we believe to be
essential and integral to assessing possibilities and strategizing for
transformational change toward the actual realization of positive visions
of human security, liberating the concept from the Siberia of Utopianism
into the reality of practical politics.
Links
Engagement Links
 China
Their construction of China as a threat props up notions of the
U.S. as a protector saving other nations from a hypermasculine
China
Kumar 15 (Sudeep Kumar has a PhD in Chinese Politics from the School of
International Studies, JNU, Theorising Chinese International Relations and
Understanding the Rise of China: A Preliminary
Investigation,http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/GSCIS%20Singapore
%202015/Archive/31650ede-d07e-41a9-aafd-62808c765cbb.pdf, accessed
7/11/16//KR)
In response to the rationality as an ontological base of Western IR theories, the relationality is an ontological base of Chinese IR
theories. Qin Yaqing (2012: 78-81) is propounder of the concept of relationality. He suggests that a theory consists of three main
components under interactive approach: process in terms of relations, the meta-relationship, and relational governance. It argues
firstly that process is ontologically significant and is defined in terms of dynamic relations. It also identifies the meta-relationship,
which according to Chinese dialectics is the yin-yang relationship. It is the relation of relations, and represents the essential nature
of all relations, including relations between humans and nature itself. Here, norms and institutions are like co-theses differing at the
beginning, interacting through a harmonising process, and integrating into a new synthesis realised through Zhongyong or the
mutually inclusive way. It then discusses relational governance, which places emphasis on managing relations between individual
actors for the purpose of establishing order. The definition of relational governance is mainly derived from Confucius philosophy,
sociological theories and business management: Relational governance as a process of negotiating socio-political arrangements that
manage complex relationships in a community to produce order so that members behave in a reciprocal and cooperative fashion
with mutual trust evolved over a shared understanding of social norms and human morality (Yaqing 2011: 133). Confucian
philosophy has certain distinct elements to contribute. Three of them are crucial to a Confucian model of governance. They are:
relationality, morality and trust. Relationality constitutes the nature of society and therefore is the key to governance; morality is the
guiding principle for behaviour towards harmonisation of social relations; and trust works as the guarantee for good and sustainable
governance of relations. This tripartite structure of relationality, morality, and trust reflects the essence of the relational approach to
governance, which is social in nature. In Chinese society, the way of thinking embedded in Chinese culture and society is based
upon groups, i.e. the family, the country, and the world. Hence, relations is the pivot of the social groups; social relations, therefore
is the key to governance. Quality relations constitute the most significant factor for effective governance. Mediating, coordinating,
and harmonising relations thus become the fundamental means to relational governance (Yaqing 2011: 134). Non-Western
IR does not even have an identity or when new approaches like feminism or
reflexivism arrive, established scholars insist they conform to scientific research
methodology and criteria like testable hypotheses and research programme. There are
international relations scholars around the world working on the conceptualisations under non-western IR theories. Lily Ling
(2002) conceptualises the Daoist yin/yang dialectics and gender-as-analytic under nonWestern IR perspective. She argues that
Daoist dialectics recognise the counterpoint between centers and peripheries, West and rest as well as self and other in post-colonial
terms to jointly produce the complicities because of the mutual conflicts that endure despite and sometimes that tear them apart.
The yin/yang dialectics which represent a living tradition came through food, medicine, religious/spiritual practices, literature and
conceptualises
many more. It challenges Westphalia worlds assumptions of universality, objectivity, and autonomy. It also
the gender-as-analytic, which reminds us that who and what we are. Without
understanding the value of the feminine in relation to the masculine, power favours
those who rule. Gender-as analytic also clarifies that race serves as a descriptor
without understanding the gender relations. Globalisations border-crossing complex flows intensify this
inter-subjective process but it has been accumulating from above and below, inside and outside, centre and periphery. Hence, it
binds Westphalia world and multiple worlds despite their obvious divergences. She also says that the China threat thesis is wrong or
inaccurate; it is that China does not yet qualify as a threat. Of course, one implication is to keep China from qualifying. This implies a
whole host of policies and strategies that either portents violence or induces it. What should happen when China does qualify as a
Gender-as-analytic intervenes here and exposes foreign policy as a
so-called threat?
sexualised play. She gives the example of military bases in Asia, hypermasculanise
both the US and the China in relation to others in the region, where China becomes
the rapist, the US the protector. Whether it is Japan, India, or Singapore, it will
experience prostitution, rape, assault, theft, and other kinds of violence, where
states are involved in addition to individuals. Participation in these schemes for
China means turning it into a rapist, for others their hyper-feminisation into helps
victims and only the US can get benefit. Conclusion The existing dominant Western
international relations theories are colonial in nature and thereby deny space for the
localised voices and experiences from the non-Western world. Knowledge is the
function of power especially when warfare strategy among the nation-states has
been transformed completely in the twenty first century. There are many Wests
within the so called West but still they are successful in projecting themselves as a
singular, homogenous and universal category. This raises a concern about the whole
task of theorising, methodology, ontology and the epistemological bases of Western
international relations theories.
 Discourse
We have to focus on new materialism- focus on discourse and
security fails to address the cultural, political, and material
creation of oppressive structures, and the physical and
political consequences of these structures on the oppressed
Heidi Hudson 2015 (Re)framing the Relationship between Discourse and
Materiality in Feminist Security Studies and Feminist IPE Heidi Hudson is a
Professor of International Relations in the Centre for Africa Studies at the University
of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa and a Global Fellow of the Peace
Research Institute Oslo Politics and Gender: Volume: 11 Issue: 2
While feminists usually try to ground the meanings that they study, theorizing the mundane or the everyday may
very well represent a detour or even a dead end if bread-and-butter issues related to the security and
economic well-being of ordinary women and men are ignored. What value does feminist theorizing (even if it draws
from womens lived experiences) have in war-affected contexts where meeting immediate needs is paramount? At
what point does the theorizing of the body under such circumstances become a means to satisfying intellectual
fetishes? Theorizing the everyday is messy because it has to contend with the
immediate social setting in which popular culture is inseparable from the economic
materiality of the conditions of oppression. In response to this dilemma, my aim is to
argue for a productive rather than a reductive relationship between Feminist
Security Studies (FSS) and Feminist (International) Political Economy (FPE), achieved
through a reframed relationship between discursive subjectivity and a structure-
centred materiality. I argue for a more systematic feminist analysis that reunites FPE and cultural FSS
critiques. This analytical synthesis is based on an understanding of the co-constituted
agency of discourse and materiality underpinned by a postcolonial-feminist
attention to the politics of space. After the Cold War, security became a catch-all concept for critical
variants of IR, but instead of working against disciplinary fragmentation, security has settled into each new camp
For FSS the main concern is to underscore the
in particularistic ways (Sylvester 2013, 618).
conceptual necessity of gender to understanding security. Although scholars have
also emphasized the theoretical and methodological diversity of FSS, I contend that
there is an implicit hierarchy of sorts when it comes to which critical tradition
matters more theoretically or epistemologically with a subtle but distinct
privileging of the discursive as evidenced by the influential contributions of, among
others, Judith Butler (1993), Karin Fierke (2013a), Lene Hansen (2006), and Laura
Shepherd (2008). FSS thus tends to focus on the gendered, discursive construction
of forms of violence with less attention paid to materialities of economic insecurity.
In contrast, FPE tends to avoid the security frame and its discursive implications and
concentrates more on gender as a social relation of inequality and the gendered
effects of capitalism or economic globalization. Poststructuralist scholarship in FSS insists that the
discursive is not privileged over the material and that objects in the material world and human subjects both take
their forms and agencies relationally, as they are embedded within particular locations. Similarly, gendered and
embodied security is theorized to be the outcome of relational processes performed in, by, and through those
relations. Theory thus makes practice (Foucault 1972). Yet, thinking about our bodies as cultural constructs,
produced as objects in security discourse, has a high level of abstraction. Before we can analyze discourse about
bodies, shouldnt we first make the bodies from other worlds, rooted in everyday struggles of CRITICAL
PERSPECTIVES 415 human insecurity, feature in IR? How is attention to contextualized discourses of individuals or
groups without considering their basic needs different from what liberal feminists are doing, namely treating those
whose security is at stake as abstract, silent, rights-bearing individuals with no culture? Moreover, for all this talk
about interactions between language and matter (as if they were equal), language remains the star of the show,
as evidenced in Karin Fierkes claim that embodied security is ... fundamentally bound up in the interaction
between humans and their material environment, both of which are constituted in and through language (Fierke
2013b, 16). Theoretically, materiality should gain agency through the fact that it
cannot ontologically be separated from discursive forces but in practice discourses
treat material practices (bodies) as effects (objects) rather than causes (subjects),
and consequently maintain agency (Wilcox 2012). A subtle hierarchy is therefore
imposed. Reversing the starting point of the inquiry may succeed in troubling dualistic thinking but does not
transcend it. We may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater when we privileged
the effects of cultural constructions of gender difference at the expense of the
material effects of bodies, economic justice, and security (see Fraser 2013). There
are clearly limits to discursive analysis, especially when it comes to connecting
physical insecurity and the materiality of insecurity linked to structures. We must
therefore look to the so-called new materialisms on posthumanist agency
(Connolly 2013), material feminisms (Hughes 2013), and Feminist IPE. Feminist IPE
as a diverse body of scholarship studies structures, social practices, and the
meanings of the global political economy (Griffin 2010; Peterson 2007). The
emphasis falls on specifically gendered bodies while also foregrounding differences
that are based upon material and structural inequalities as well as intersectional
relations of disadvantage (e.g., gender, institutionalized racism, or ethnicity) . In this
regard, FPE may find itself closer than FSS to a radical definition of human security as everyday life experiences
embedded in global structures of inclusion and exclusion and can keep FSS honest by guiding it back to a concern
with everyday (economic) insecurities. While FPE reminds us to consider the global picture of inequality, a
systematic feminist political economy theory of security/conflict/violence is yet to emerge. That said, revisiting the
material conditions that influence the socioeconomic production of gender as a relation of inequality is a potentially
agency-inducing factor that could complement 416 POLITICS & GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) (together with attention to
new materialisms) the discursive analytics of FSS, as will be shown in the discussion that follows on sexual and
FSS research has highlighted
gender-based violence (SGBV) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
the harmful discursive misrepresentations that characterize international attention
on rape as a tool of war in the DRC (e.g., Baaz and Stern 2013). However, feminist
poststructuralism on its own is not a suitable lens to understand the hybridity of how women in the DRC adapt SGBV
discourses to fit in with local cultural practices and to fulfil particular sociomaterial needs within their specific
To keep the international community
context. One needs a postcolonial feminism for that.
interested and maintain the status that funding brings, womens organizations in
the eastern DRC tend to emphasize the brutal and extensive nature of SGBV. The
outcome is not straightforward womens victimhood is reinforced but at the
same time, it could mean that so-called victims fight back, negotiating the global
patriarchal bargain from below, simultaneously engaging with discourse and the
material aspects of socioeconomic justice and empowerment (Jean-Bouchard 2013).
This case also underlines the necessity to consider a broad range of materialities
(i.e., not only those that are discursively produced, but also conventional political
economy materialities during and after war). During war, rape as a form of
gendered accumulation by dispossession was used in Mozambique and Rwanda to
strip women of their productive and reproductive labor power, as well as their
possessions and access to land and livestock. Postwar, Baaz and Stern (2013) found
that Congolese men rape due to a complex mix of cultural and political economy
perceptions about masculinity, women as property, and a sense of entitlement to
sex as compensation for their loss of status as providers. Borrowing Claudia Cards
(2003) term social death to describe the cultural shame as a consequence of
rape, I argue that the loss of social vitality is not just a loss of identity and meaning
for ones existence, but also a deeply material loss of political, economic, and social
relations. Both FSS and Feminist IPE should therefore pay more attention to the
political economy of social relations and inequalities of the everyday. In the context
of the political economy of violence and (in)security, gendered bodies interact with
posthuman materialities in differential ways. Safe transportation, roads, placement
of water points, lighting, communications, and energy supplies have specific
gendered implications for women. Privatized security infrastructures (high walls
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES 417 and compounds to protect aid workers as well as DRC
assets such as mines, airports, and telecommunications companies) shift from being
metaphors of separation and inequality to becoming real infrastructures of rule
with gendered impacts. Beyond the safe world of critique there is potential for FSS and Feminist IPE to
engage more meaningfully around issues of spatial politics. I have argued that the perceived semio-material
dualism can be used as a rallying point for such analytical synthesis. Figure 1 is an attempt at such a synthesis.
Drawing on a postcolonial-feminist understanding of the connectedness between power, discourse, political
institutions (structural violence), and practices within a particular space, I propose the FRA2MES acronym: It
combines three elements: a postcolonial-feminist emphasis on resistance to particular representations (politics of
identity/discourse) (FR); an emphasis on materialities (of matter and socioeconomic relations) related to the
political economy of violence and peacebuilding (MES); and an A2 located at the apex to signify the importance of a
shared and squared agency, as it seeks to integrate both anatomical/affective (body/emotion) and
analytical/attentive (mind/cognitive) dimensions. I am not suggesting that feminist analyses should include these
Starting with feminist analyses
elements equally, but the acronym does propose a particular sequence.
of position, gendered discourses of representation should encompass the full gamut
of human security discourses, globally and locally. Discourses of resistance from
below, as in the DRC, bring discursive materialities closer to analyses of condition.
The sequencing FIGURE 1. FRA2 MES for semio-material synthesis. 418 POLITICS &
GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) of posthumanist, economic, and social materialities (MES) is
also deliberate, as it compels a systematic shift from matter (M) to the materiality of
economic scarcity (E) and back to the sociomateriality of cultural relations (S), thus
completing the circle. The envisaged end state is a thick agency of body and
mind as they interact with structures and objects.
 National Security
The national security apparatus is violent and hazardous to
marginalized individuals, particularly womenonly
deconstructing the national security paradigm through a
gendered lens allows us to truly put the well-being of
individuals first
Hans in 2010 (Asha Hans is the former Director, School of Womens Studies, and
Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, India. She is the author and editor of many
publications related to womens rights, the latest being The Gender Imperative, coedited
with Prof. Betty Reardon (2010). Her book Gender, Disability and Identity (2003) is a globally
recognized seminal work coedited with Annie Patri. An advocate of womens rights, she has
participated in the formulation of many conventions in the United Nations. A leading
campaigner of womens rights in India, she has initiated many campaigns on the inclusion of
women with disabilities in the mainstream womens movement. She is also the founder of
Women with Disabilities India Network. 14 Human Security the Militarized Perception and
Space for Gender The Gender Imperative pages: 384 409)
In the last two decades feminist writers and activists have been trying to draw attention to problems associated
with the national security paradigm. Built on unifying and centralizing norms of
nationalism and state power, the rhetoric and practice of national security
constructs globally an explicit militarized nationalism. This militarization meant
to protect citizens has become a source of extreme threat to them . In a
globalized economy, as arms productions increase and weapons are easily available,
many states find themselves vulnerable and consequently increase their own
arsenals. The result of this inane arms race as been the excessive violence
used against civilians, especially on borders which become only
cartographic spaces signifying no difference between ones own citizen
and the enemy. The national security system has been found to be
hazardous to the marginalized and excluded, especially women. We, therefore,
need to deconstruct the national security paradigm so that we can draws
attention to the violence perpetuated against women in these territorial
spaces. This dominant culture of force has already been challenged by
feminists as being patriarchal in nature and based on masculinity . Feminist
scholars have rejected this paradigm and, in an effort to transform the militarized
state to a peaceful space, have created new discourses on alternatives security .
The deconstruction of national security would facilitate the introduction of
human security as an alternative paradigm which would provide an
enabling environment of peace. Human security has emerged as a
significant theme in feminist and other writings to replace the national
security paradigm. This security system based on the quotidian principles (see Betty A. Reardons article)
provide people as the nucleus of its objectives. It is peoples wellbeing and not that of the
territory that is central to this alternative suggestion. Its core principle is
non-violence and is aimed at removing militarized patriarchy in the state .
Some feminist writers on States (see Mesfi n G. Ayeles article) as well as the United Nations (see Lisa S. Prices and
Soumita Basus articles) have adopted human security as an alternative to national security. As the canvas of
acceptance enlarges the concept and framework changes, producing a new standard very different than the one
produced by feminist writers. This article analyses one such attempt made by the military in India. The concept of
human security has been adopted by the army for implementation in the border region between India and Pakistan
 a high conflict zone. This raises questions about its legitimacy and usage.We need to interrogate
the participation of citizens, specifically women, in the armys programme
related to human security. We need to ask whether human security promoted by
the army has provided the four requirements of human security on which his book is
based meeting basic needs, protection of the environment, protection of women
from physical harm and whether women have been able to keep intact their dignity
and self esteem (see Reardons article). There are also the extended issues of respect of religious and cultural
diversity. In this promise of a human security paradigm in coexistence with national security, we need to
enquire into the functionality of the system to highlight womens
insecurities under a national security system dependant on armaments
and to see how the system constraints womens autonomy. This chapter will
attempt to analyse the concept of the human security paradigm as developed by the armed forces called Operation
Goodwill (Sadbhavana)1 within the context of the national security paradigm. While answering the above questions
we need to know whether it is a new alternative designed for a peoples based security or a co-opting of a theme
which does not spell change in the lives of those who live on the borders. This is especially of concern to women
who face multiple levels of violence and are deprived of the core components of a feminist human security
paradigm.

The discourse of security allows IR-oriented politics to

determine our political strategy. This focuses all knowledge
and study of politics on the public sphere, at the expense of
politicizing private familial relations, closing off a better
understanding of foreign policy. The impact is the suppression
of sexual difference and continued structural violence
Peterson in 2000 (V Spike, Associate Professor of Political Science @ Arizona,
SAIS Review, 20.2, rereading public and private: the dichotomy that is not one,
project muse)
I read the public-private dichotomy as emphasizing the
In the first variant,
governmental and coercive features of the public/state , which are dominated by men
and comprise stereotypically masculine activities. This public is contrasted with what goes on within the
state, which is called domestic politics in IR, but actually refers to civil, socio-cultural, and economic relations
that are "private" (when distinguished from the public/state). In conventional IR discourse, domestic politics
is deemed irrelevant to relations between states, which are of a different order. Here, the public is
highly visible--as the state in IR discourse--while the domestic is obscured.
Security is understood in the paradigmatically masculine terms of national
interest and protecting sovereign state power through assertive leadership
and military might. Economics is understood as "private"--business and market activities--
and internal to states; it does not include re/production within
households/families. This discourse reinscribes the modern privileging of
(men's) market activities, at the expense of marginalizing that private which
refers to familial/household relations. One effect of this construction is the dominance
of explanatory frameworks in international relations that exclude all reference to
activities associated with the familial domestic sphere: subsistence maintenance,
affective relations, identity/subject formation, cultural socialization, and sexual and social
reproduction. 18 Even as advocates of the "domestic analogy" join feminists in criticizing IR's dismissal of
internal politics, they typically define domestic as economic and socio-cultural issues (within the state),
distinguished from the private sphere of family and affective relations. Hence, they reproduce one version of
the public-private even as they challenge the dichotomy's conventional boundaries in IR. Gender-
sensitive accounts go beyond this by bringing everyday practices, reproductive
processes, and the politics of subjectivity into relation with states, security, and
political economy questions. For example, conventional neglect of the family
impoverishes our understanding not only of how reproductive labor keeps
our worlds "working," but also of how individual and collective identities ,
cultural practices, divisions of labor, group ideologies, and socio-cultural [End Page 18] meaning
systems are (re)produced and resisted. In various ways, some more direct than others, these
are crucial factors in sustaining (and contesting) the state and its legitimacy. Consider that the
family/household is the primary site of reproductive labor that makes all societal reproduction possible, of
subject formation and cultural learning that naturalizes ideologies and encourages group identifications
(religious, racial/ethnic, national), and of gender-socialization that encourages boys to be independent,
competitive, in control, and "hard," and girls to be relationship-oriented, non-aggressive, nurturing, and
"soft." 19 Moreover, neglect of the private (as familial and personal) has prevented IR
theorists from taking desire and emotional investments seriously. Modernist
dichotomies fuel this bias by casting reason as antithetical to-- rather than inseparable from--emotion. Our
fear of "contaminating" objective reason and research by acknowledging the
role of emotion and commitment has impoverished our study of and knowledge
about major social dynamics. As a consequence, in regard to security
studies, we are tragically ill-informed in the face of often violent social
forces such as nationalism, neo-fascism, and fundamentalism, in part because
scholars avoid dealing with the power of emotional engagement and its
effects on political identification and allegiance. Regarding political economy, we deny the
effects of subjective identities in structuring labor markets, job performance, and national productivity. And
we are only beginning to grasp the interaction of desires and identities with consumption patterns and hence
the global political economy. Even less familiar, but increasingly salient: we are ill-prepared to
analyze the dependence of financial markets on psychological phenomena
(risk-assessment, "trust" in the stock market), and what we must acknowledge are "non-
rational" features of the international financial system. Regarding security
issues--a focal point of IR inquiry--feminists argue that gendered identities
are key to manifestations of violence. Empirical evidence indicates that,
worldwide, most acts of direct violence are committed by men . 20 Yet not all men
are violent, and societies vary dramatically in exhibiting violence, which suggests that biologistic
explanations are, at best, nave. 21 Whatever else is entailed in accounting for
systematic violence, it is absolutely [End Page 19] remarkable--one might even suggest
irrational--that so little attention has been devoted to assessing the role of
masculinity in this male-dominated arena. Feminists insist that our
investigations of violence--from war atrocities to schoolyard killings and domestic battering--
take seriously how masculinity is constructed, internalized, enacted, reinforced, and
glorified. In IR, such recognition requires that we seriously consider the question: Is militarism without
masculinism possible? 22 An extensive literature confirms two key observations: first, that cultures vary
significantly in how they construct masculinity (hence, war-making and rape are not universal), and second,
that more violent societies evidence more systematic cultivation of gender
polarity, rigid heterosexism, male power in physical and symbolic forms, and
ideologies of masculine superiority. 23 To ignore this correspondence is to
impoverish our understanding of violence and the security questions it
raises.
 Omission
Examining hierarchies of power is a crucial first step in
understanding the different ways individuals are bracketed out
of politicsanalysis of intersections is key to undoing
masculine power over politics
Enloe 14
Cynthia, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Clark University. Bananas, Beaches
and Bases. University of California Press. 2014. Pp 353-356. MiLibrary.
This is why the ten politically savvy women who might come together for Theresas imagined Manila workshop start
It has taken power to deprive women of land titles and pressure
with their domestic lives.
them to leave home to work as domestic workers abroad or to stay on banana
plantations. It has taken power to keep women marginalized in their countries
diplomatic corps and out of the upper reaches of central banks and finance
ministries. It has taken power to exclude women from labor bargaining. It has taken
power to keep questions of inequity between local men and women off the agenda s
of many nationalist movements in industrialized as well as developing societies. It
has taken power to keep diverse women in their separate places for the sake of the
smooth running of any military base. It has taken power to ensure that UN treaties
do not recognize the rights of sexual minorities. It has taken power to ensure that
the UN treaties that do take account of violence against women are not
implemented. It has taken power to construct popular cultures through films,
advertising, school curricula, television, books, music, fashion, the Internet that
reinforce, rather than subvert, globally gendered hierarchies. The international is
personal, combined with a sustained feminist curiosity about womens lives and the
workings of masculinities, provides a guide to making sense of the WTO, the ILO,
the IMF, the Group of Eight, the Group of Twenty, the World Bank, the EU
Commission, the Vatican, the Qatar emirate, the Chinese Politboro, the UN Security
Council, the International Crimes Court, the African Union, and the Arab League . The
international is personal is a starting point for making sense of Gap, Apple, Disney, Foxconn, Chiquita Banana,
Deutsche Bank, and H&M, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross, CARE, OXFAM, and Human
To make realistic sense of international politics, we need thorough,
Rights Watch.
feminist-informed gender analyses of each of these organizations and more. One
can do a feminist-informed gender analysis of anything. And each will make us
smarter about how this world works, or fails to work. Taking seriously the assertion
that the international is personal means that women in all their diversity must be
made visible, analytically visible, in our investigations of every one of these
organizations, and in the relationships between these organizations . If it is true that
cooperative as well as hostile relations between governments, corporations, and
international organizations rely on constructions of women as symbols, women as
providers of emotional support, women as both unpaid and low- paid workers,
women as voters, and women as token participants, then it does not make sense to
continue analyzing international politics as if women were a mere afterthought . It does
not make sense to collect ungendered data on refugees, private security personnel, earthquake victims, militia
members, corporate executives, factory owners, journalists, or peace negotiators. It does not make sense to treat
women as if they made eye-catching photo images but do not need to be interviewed. International policy-
making circles may at times look like mens clubs, but international politics as a
whole has required women to behave in certain ways. When enough women have
refused to behave in those prescribed ways, relations between governments and
between governments and corporations have had to change . That is, women are not
just the objects of power, not merely passive puppets or unthinking victims . As we have
seen, women of different classes and different ethnic groups have made their own
calculations in order to cope with or benefit from the current struggles between
states. These calculations result in whole countries becoming related to one
another, often in hierarchical terms. In search of adventure, the physical and intellectual excitement
typically reserved for men, some affluent women have helped turn other women into exotic
landscapes. In pursuit of meaningful paid careers, some women have settled in their
governments colonies or hired women from former colonies. Out of a desire to appear
fashionable and bolster their sometimes shaky self-confidence, many women have become the prime
consumers of products made by women working for low wages in dangerous
factories. And in an effort to measure the progress they have made toward
emancipation in their own societies, some women have helped legitimize
international global pyramids of civilization and modernity . Therefore, when asking Where
are the women? and following up with How did they get there? Who benefits from their being there? and
What do they themselves think about being there? one should be prepared for complex answers. Acting out
of a new awareness that women, especially in poorer countries, need to be made
visible and audible on the international stage, one can risk painting over the
important differences between women. The widening economic class differences
between Chinese, for instance, are alarming even to Beijings male political elite .
Those gaping inequalities are sharpening the differences between rural and urban
women, between women married to politically connected businessmen and women working on the assembly
lines in those mens factories. Noting inequalities among women is not just a comparative
statement, for instance, noting that urban girls are more likely to reach secondary school than rural girls, or that
affluent women are more likely to have access to the Internet than working-class women do. It is a
comparative statement with relational consequences. Womens diverse experiences
of social class as well as of race and ethnicity can translate into often surprising
differences in understandings of femininity , in marital economics, in relationships with particular
men, and in encounters with the state . In the United States, China, India, Turkey,
South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, Malaysia, Iraq, and Egypt, these widening
material and political inequalities between affluent women, middle-class women,
urban poor women, and rural poor women, especially when exacerbated by racism
and ethnocentrism, present daunting challenges for any women who are working to
create and sustain a vibrant national or transnational womens movement .
 Space
Solving inequalities on Earth must come before we further
expand into space because space programs enhance the elites
ignorance of harsh realities on Earth
Sturgeon 09
Nol Sturgeon (professor of Womens Studies in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender &
Race Studies at WSU. She is also a member of the Universitys Graduate Faculty in American
Studies. In 2010-2011, she spent a term at York University in the Faculty of Environmental
Studies as a Fulbright-York University Chair.), 2009, Environmentalism in Popular Culture:
Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, The University of Arizona Press,
Chapter 3: US Militarism in Space, Pg. 98-99

Because of its connection to militarized wastelands on Earth ,

the creation of militarized wastelands
and colonies in space is an environmental justice issue ; that is, it requires an analysis
that puts the effects of racism, colonization, and resulting political and economic
inequalities at the center of our thinking. Granted, not every impulse toward discovery is colonialist;
not is the desire to achieve more knowledge, to develop better technology, to boldly seek out new experiences,
new understandings, new worlds even, somehow always imperialist, militarist, and patriarchal. As a child of science
fiction (perhaps more than most, even in my baby-boomer science fictional generation), I could never completely
deny or reject that heady mix of science and adventure, anthropological curiosity and creative audacity, that
accompanies the desire to find out new things, to go beyond the bend, to be immersed in other culture, to live in
other environments. Nevertheless, contemporary space programs depend on the continuation
and acceleration of the creation of toxic landscapes in areas of national sacrifice
inhabited by indigenous peoples, as well as the increased violence of
environmentally destructive wars partially directed from space that will be suffered
disproportionately by poor people and peoples of the Global South , whether they are
soldiers or civilians. As projects presently justified by frontier rhetorics, stories of
masculinist adventure, and evolutionary determination, space colonization and
militarization are extraterrestrialist ventures with terrifying consequences. For
environmentalist who treasure the fragile image of the whole Earth, such rhetorics should give one
pause. So far, the abstracting of the Earth through the universalizing view from space
has not produced encouraging results . Karen Litfin (1997, 38) writes, In an unequal world,
globalism-including global science-is all too likely to mean white, affluent men
universalizing their own experiences. Global problems are amenable to large data
banks, to Big Science, to grand managerial schemes . . . . [T]he view from space
renders human beings invisible, both as agents and as victims of environmental destruction. It also
erases difference, lending itself to a totalizing vision. The global view cannot
adequately depict environmental problems because the impacts of these problems
vary with class, gender, age and race . . . . [T]he global view removes problems from
the realm of immediacy where meaningful action is possible and most likely to be
effective. Seeing the Earth from space as an object to be saved puts the viewer in a godlike
position separated from the Earth, rather than the more humble and pragmatic position of
being integrated into local and global ecological and social systems of which we are a part
and to which we are responsible. Furthermore, the socially useful capabilities of extraterrestrial
technologies will only live up to their promises if inequalities on the Earth are
addresses. For example, the ability to foresee the disasters of the Indian Ocean tsunami
in December 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 was to a great extent
created by our technological development of space. Had the poor countries ringing
the Indian Ocean been able to afford them, devices called tsunameters could have
warned of the devastating wave by beaming a signal to a satellite. Instead, more than 110,000 people
were killed. Similarly, weather satellites clearly tracked the birth, growth, and
trajectory of Hurricane Katrina. For days beforehand, television news programs were filled with the
dramatic satellite pictures of Katrinas growing strength. But despite the evacuation order given as a result of the
space- based information, those who were too poor to leave were abandoned in New Orleans to
face the devastation alone and without help . The fact that most of the poor were
black was compelling visual evidence of Americas most institutional racism. Both of
these natural disasters are environmental justice issues because, on this actual Earth, how badly
someone is hurt by a disaster depends on how many resources he or she has and
whether those in power value that particular life. Rather than a gods-eye view
empowering a small elite, the extraterrestrialist view of Earth seen from space has
to be firmly connected to realities of power on the ground. Unless we correct social
inequalities, unless we think of planetary security as crucial to us as national
security, unless we portray adventures in global justice as exciting adventures in
space, we doom ourselves to a world fatally dominated by the idea of Forever New
Frontiers.

The AFFs expression of space domination supports white

hegemonic masculinity- reinforces gender roles and the
promotion of gendered violence
Sturgeon 09
Nol Sturgeon (professor of Womens Studies in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender &
Race Studies at WSU. She is also a member of the Universitys Graduate Faculty in American
Studies. In 2010-2011, she spent a term at York University in the Faculty of Environmental
Studies as a Fulbright-York University Chair.), 2009, Environmentalism in Popular Culture:
Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Natural, The University of Arizona Press,
Chapter 3: US Militarism in Space, Pg. 85

The 2001 example shows us that, on the one hand, extraterrestrialism is simply another
variation of the frontier myth, the legitimization of expansion into space and
domination over the whole world. On the other hand, it is particular to a post-1960s
myth of escaping the Earth to control it- the kind of logic that Nancy Hartsock (1983)
identifies as peculiar to late-twentieth-century white hegemonic masculinity,
especially in the context of normative ideals of the suburban family. Hartsock argues that
under conditions in which men, as commuting breadwinners, are absent from the family, do
not participate in childbearing intimate, daily ways, and still have economic and personal dominance
within the home, gender roles for boys and girls are differentiated by the
requirement that the boy identify with an abstract masculinity, while the girl identifies
with a real person involved in her everyday care. The boy must strenuously reject the set of
characteristics (nurturance, daily housework, intimacy) that are identified with femininity, even though
those may be more real to him than the characteristic associated with the
masculine role (competition, willingness to use violence, control). The underlying logic of
extraterrestrialism is separating from the mother, claiming independence from her,
putatively admiring her from a distance but in reality violently rejecting any
possibility of identification with femininity and its connection to the body, the earth,
and the messy, unpredictable qualities of the basics of reproductive work. Extraterrestrialism
is thus deeply connected to the desire for control of nature (and women),
particularly the promotion of violence (as LeGuin points out) as an adventurous, heroic, and
necessary aspect of human evolution and achievement (Garb 1990; Litfin 1997; Sofia 1984).
 State
State centered approaches to human securitization fails to
include womens voices, only alternative is using a gendered
lens on securitization logic absent state action
Hans in 2010 (Asha Hans is the former Director, School of Womens Studies, and
Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, India. She is the author and editor of many
publications related to womens rights, the latest being The Gender Imperative, coedited
with Prof. Betty Reardon (2010). Her book Gender, Disability and Identity (2003) is a globally
recognized seminal work coedited with Annie Patri. An advocate of womens rights, she has
participated in the formulation of many conventions in the United Nations. A leading
campaigner of womens rights in India, she has initiated many campaigns on the inclusion of
women with disabilities in the mainstream womens movement. She is also the founder of
Women with Disabilities India Network. 14 Human Security the Militarized Perception and
Space for Gender The Gender Imperative pages: 384 409)

Conclusion The security system globally is highly militarized and national security, as we
have seen, is placed at the core where the state and not the people come
first. Boundaries have been more important than the humans living on
them. It is therefore not surprising that in Kargil, from a military perspective, the protection of
borders was of foremost importance and people were marginalized. The
animosity of the people became central in the states relationships to its
borders. When the system attempted change, the peoples militarist response that they were willing to die/fight
for Ray was not surprising. The aim of the article is not to be critical of the work done by
the person who created the change but to analyse its importance and its
relationship to the concept of human security, especially from a gendered
perspective. Does Goodwill fit into the feminist paradigm? If we take into account the four
components most well-known feminist constituents of human security agree upon,
i.e. physical security, environment security, daily needs and dignity, it will provide
us with the guidelines to analyse Goodwill . To begin with, the importance of Goodwill to
the nation state is that it controls militancy so the security of its borders is
achieved. Goodwill, Ray said, created trust between the armed forces and
civilians on the border and brought the two civilians on both sides of the
border closer. In the context of this book, the human security paradigm as used by
General Arjun Ray in Kargil is the use of the vocabulary of human security but when
it stipulates that human security is a core element of national security, it goes
against the core element of human security as projected by feminist writers . So though
Goodwill provides more developmental space to the citizens on the border, more equality to women, educational
Though it
and health opportunities, the question that arises is that does it fulfil womens human security needs?
can be considered as a commendable attempt in the context of understanding the
other religion, its sustainability is questionable without which it becomes a half-
hearted attempt by those who continue to use it. Though termed a socio-politico
strategy for conflict prevention, it stops short of even attempting to do this. Using the
terminology of culture of peace and human security is not enough, especially as the approach is narrow and the aim
is basically only to stop opposition. One of the advantages of this has been projected as the number of people from
this region joining the armed forces. This is militarization, an opposing force in womens search for security.
Militarization is not easily tackled as states deliberately use it not only
through the armed forces but as an ideology of power which influences
the society and civilian life as a whole. In its process of implementation patriarchy plays an
 ideological manifestation of power relations between state and
important role. This
citizen internalizes militarist values, including the use of force and reinforcement of
patriarchal norms. A human security system would, unlike national security, endure
confrontation rather than suppress it with armaments and do further harm. It would
create space for non-violent protest and not wipe out its own populations together
with that of the opposition across the border. Goodwill speaks of a non-violent
rights-based approach, of disarmament, of sustainable, endogenous, equitable
human development and in the same breath of military security . Though Goodwill is based
on the reasoning that guns and tanks do not provide security and is a brand name for trust and restoring hope and
effective border management, Ray also speaks of security as being a human defence line that can serve as its
eyes and ears on the border. In this concept the villager turns out to be the central point of focus to manage the
border areas and build a functional communityarmy relationship. The visibility of the projects would create
Goodwill and provide a positive image of the army, an important objective but in reality much has not been done to
achieve it. Unless the warlike situation stops on the border, security cannot be achieved. Ray does not mention a
Can the states hegemonic control shift
time frame when the army would leave the borders, if at all.
from the military to the people? We recognize that as the conceptualization of
human security challenges the large expenditures on the armed forces, in a market-
oriented economy it will be difficult to get states to agree to it . Armaments are where the
money lies. At this point we need to remind the state that soon after independence in the 1950s, it sponsored
policies of non-aggression and promoted policies of collective security and displayed faith in the UN. As the power
of the country increased, the more radical its national security determinant became. Above all justice is important,
as the military expenditure is at the cost of other sectors, especially social sectors such as education, health and
gender inequality, the factors which influence the notion of justice. Any order which is not just has to be challenged
the hegemonization of the state which has patriarchal
and changed. Among this is
tendencies and so marginalizes the weak and especially women. The other
vulnerable sections are the minorities, especially religious and ethnic
communities. A human security paradigm to work must facilitate the
creation of these changes. Can this alternative suggested by Ray create the space for change? It is
obvious from womens concerns even after human security was
implemented by the army that womens security was excluded. They still go
without fulfilment of health and other needs and their bodies are violated. In this framework provided by Ray,
human security is achieved through provisions of education, health,
gender equality and community development programmes. The
programmatic approach is not enough; if these are to be provided it must
be to all citizens in conflict zones, but it stops short of universalization in
implementation. Further, the culture of peace and space for shared values of tolerance, solidarity,
democracy and economic development that Goodwill wanted to achieve fits into the feminist human security
paradigm. At the same time, in keeping with its links to national security, it falls short of visioning what it means to
women. A human security paradigm would aim for the wellbeing of the people and avoid the harmful effects of
national security, as seen earlier What kind of a world of peace can we visualize? Can human security as a
paradigm be adopted by states? What is needed to add to this emerging paradigm is a pragmatic non-violent
approach to replace national security through our understanding of human security. About adoption of non-violence
by states, Mahatma Gandhi said that it is a blasphemy to say that non-violence can only be practiced by individuals
and never by nations which are composed of individuals. Thus, he suggests the role of non-cooperation which he
argues is an attempt to awaken the masses to a sense of their dignity and power. Women need to adopt these
What we require is disseminating the
practices when state power threatens their rights.
information on what a feminist perception of human security is. This
should be at all levels, in general education and civil society teachings. We
need to include in our research the linkages that emerge between
violence, masculinity, gender and human security, to create a culture of
peace that will replace the violence in our lives.
Attempts to include feminist ideology in state climate
practices fail- WWC and the UN proves
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
Although the first stirrings of women's environmental defense were introduced at
the United Nations 1985 conference in Nairobi, through news of India's Chipko
movement involving peasant women's defense of trees (their livelihood), women's
role in planetary protection became clearly articulated in November 1991, when the
Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) organized the World
Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami, Florida (Resurreccin, 2013; WEDO, 2012). Seen as
an opportunity to build on the gains of the United Nations Decade forWomen and to prepare a Women's Action
the World
Agenda for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro,
Women's Congress drew more than 1500 women from 83 countries. But while its
leaders alleged that the resulting Women's Agenda 21 had been built through a
consensus process, for many of those sitting in attendance, listening to one elite
speaker after another, it was not clear how our views shaped or even contributed to
this process of agenda-formation. Participatory democracylong a valued strategy
in grassroots ecofeminist tacticswas reduced to two dubious threads: a series of
break-out discussion groups held throughout the conference, and a Report Card
for participants to take home and use to evaluate specific issues within their
communities and mobilize a local response (shaping the issues themselves had no
place on the report card). Along with other ecofeminists, I felt a mix of energy,
dismay, and frustration at this gathering.1 While the women leaders from many
countries were valuable participants and decision-makers in the upcoming
conversations at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, that
weekend in Miami, too many speakers discussed women's feminine gender roles,
our influence on decision-makers, and the need for reforms to the present
systemall introduced and capped with the essentializing motto, It's Time For
Women to Mother Earth. Despite these flaws in rhetoric and democratic
participation, WEDO's 1991 World Women's Congress has been hailed as the entry-
point for feminism into the UN conferences on the global environment, opening the
way for later developments bridging feminist interventions and activisms
addressing climate change. The following year, UNCED's Agenda 21 did not in fact
include the most transformative recommendations from the Women's Agenda 21
the analysis of environmental degradation as rooted in military/industrial/capitalist
economics, for exampleor even the more reformist proposals such as
implementing gender equity on all UN panels, an issue which has been taken up again at the 2013
Council of the Parties (COP) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Warsaw,
Perhaps WEDO's Women's Agenda 21 had already been undermined
Poland (See Fig. 2).
by the 1987 report from the World Commission on Environment and Development,
Our Common Future, led by Brundtland, 1987. This report established sustainable
development as a desirable strategy, defined as development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needswhich sounds reasonable enough, until one reads the document's
renewed call for continued economic growth on a finite planet, a fundamentally
unsustainable endeavor. The report completely omits discussion of the First
World/North's2 over-development and its high levels of production, consumption,
and disregard for the environment (Agostino & Lizarde, 2012). Nonetheless, the
Brundtland Report's sustainable development concept has shaped climate change
discourse for the subsequent decades, producing techno-solutions such as the
green economy that have perpetuated capitalist and colonialist strategies of
privatization, and fail to address root causes of the climate crisis (Pskowski, 2013). In the
two decades since WEDO's Women's Agenda 21, feminist involvement in global environmentalism has developed
from a 19801990's focus on women, environment and development (WED), women in development (WID) or
gender, environment and development (GED) to an emphasis on feminist political ecology in the 1990s2000s
Initially, discussion of women and
(Goebel, 2004; MacGregor, 2010; Resurreccin, 2013).
environment focused on women in the global South, whose real material needs for
food security and productive agricultural land, forest resources, clean water and
sanitation trumped more structural discussions about gendered environmental
discourses (i.e. Leonard, 1989; Sontheimer, 1991), although these structurally
transformative elements were equally present in other texts (i.e. Sen & Grown,
1987). The focus on women rather than gender tended to construct women as
victims of environmental degradation in need of rescue; their essential closeness to
nature, cultivated through family caregiving and through Fig. 1.subsistence labor, was
argued as providing women with special knowledge, and their agency as laborers
and leaders in environmental sustainability projects was advocated (Mies & Shiva,
1993; Shiva, 1989). Clearly, this rhetoric instrumentalized women and ignored the
cultural limitations of the woman-nature linkage (cf. Dodd, 1997; Leach, 2007; Li,
1993); it was also significantly silent on the roles of men, and the ways that gender
as a system constructed economic and material resources that produce victims
(MacGregor, 2010; Resurreccin, 2013). The shift to a feminist political ecology (Goebel,
2004) involved a macro-level exploration of the problems of globalization and
colonization, a micro-level examination of local institutions for their environmental
management, a critique of marriage institutions for the ways these affect women's
access to natural resources, and an interrogation of the gendered aspects of space
in terms of women's mobility, labor, knowledge, and power. The shift from women
as individuals to gender as a system structuring power relations has been an
important development in feminist responses to climate change. Moving forward from this
herstory, I bring an ecofeminist perspective to examine the ways that climate change phenomena have been
analyzed primarily from the standpoint of the environmental sciences and technologies, and how this standpoint
forecloses the kinds of solutions envisioned.3 I examine both liberal and cultural ecofeminist perspectives
highlighting the ways women have been both excluded from climate change policy discussions and
disproportionately affected by climate change phenomena, and summarize Fig. 2. Comparing Women's Agenda 21
(1991) and the UNCED Agenda 21 (1992). (Data source: Br Bistuer & Cabo, 2004). 22 G. Gaard / Women's Studies
International Forum 49 (2015) 2033 proposals drawing on women's special knowledge and agency as decision-
makers and leaders in solving the problems of climate change. Noting the popular utility as well as the limitations of
these perspectives, I examine both climate change phenomena and climate justice analyses. In organizing this
inquiry, I am inspired by feminist activist and scholar Charlotte Bunch, founder of Rutgers University's Center for
Women's Global Leadership, whose landmark essay, Not by degrees: Feminist theory and education (1979)
proposes four tactical steps for using feminist theory to understand situations, place them in a broader context, and
evaluate possible courses of action. Simply stated, Bunch's theory suggests we ask, what is the problem?, how did
it originate?, what do we want?, and, how do we get there? (Bunch, 1987).
 Traditional IR
Their conception of politics is too narrowtreating domestic
politics, international relations, and personal experience as
separate arenas denies the ways in which violence in each of
these affects violence in all of them and reproduces that
violence
Enloe 14
Cynthia, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Clark University. Bananas, Beaches
and Bases. University of California Press. 2014. Pp 348-353. MiLibrary.
One of the simplest and most disturbing feminist insights crafted in recent decades
is that the personal is political. It is a profound theoretical statement that can be transferred to a T-shirt
or bumper sticker. Asserting that the personal is political is disturbing, intentionally
disturbing, because it means that relationships we once imagined were (and many
of our friends and colleagues still prefer to think are) private or merely social are in
fact infused with power. Furthermore, those allegedly private, personal relationships are infused with
power that is unequal and backed up by public authority. But the assertion that the personal is
political is like a palindrome, one of those phrases that can be read backward as well as forward. Read
as the political is personal, the assertion suggests that politics is not shaped merely
by what happens in legislative debates, voting booths, political party strategy
sessions, court rooms, or war rooms. While men who dominate public life in so many
countries have told women to stay in the proverbial kitchen (not travel to workshops
in Manila, not organize, not theorize), those same men have used their myriad
forms of public power to construct private relationships in ways that have bolstered
their own masculinized political control . Without these deliberate gendered
maneuvers, men hold over political life might be far less secure. Without these
gendered maneuvers, moreover, most mens seeming expertise in politics would
look less impressive. A 2013 cross-national survey of citizens political knowledge
found that in virtually every one of the ten countries studied, women know less
about politics than men regardless of how advanced a country is in terms of gender
equality. The authors of the study speculated that this gender gap in political information might be due to the
fact that few women play prominent roles in news journalism and elite political life, which discourages many women
viewers and readers from seeing how current news accounts are relevant to themselves. While this possible
a British feminist
explanation for the country-by-country political information gaps appears feasible,
journalist analyzing the same ten-country study offered an additional explanation:
perhaps the researchers definitions and measures of what counts as politics were
too narrow. 3 Perhaps what many women do pay attention to, and do store information
about, is encompassed by a broader, some might say more realistic, map of politics,
for instance, the availability of affordable child care, the condition of public parks,
the accessibility of public transport, the readiness of police to treat a woman with
respect when she brings a rape charge, the governments willingness to use
sexualized pictures of local women to lure foreign tourists, and the impunity with
which employers abuse women on the job. That is, perhaps if the map of what is counted
as political were redrawn by feminist-informed cartographers, the gap between
womens and mens political knowledge would shrink dramatically. Explaining why any country
has the kind of politics it does should motivate us to be curious about how public life is constructed out of struggles
 Accepting that the political is personal prompts one to
to define masculinity and femininity.
investigate the politics of marriage, the cheapening of womens labor, ideologies of
masculinity, sexually transmitted diseases, and homophobia not as marginal issues
but as matters central to the state. Doing this kind of research becomes just as
serious as studying military weaponry or taxation policy. In fact, insofar as the political
is personal, the latter categories cannot be fully understood without taking into
account the former. To make sense of international politics, we have to read power
backward and forward. Power relations between countries and their governments
involve more than troop maneuvers and diplomatic emails . Read forward, the personal is
international insofar as ideas about what it means to be a respectable woman or an
honorable man have been shaped by colonizing policies, international trade
strategies, and military doctrines. Today it has almost become a clich to say that the world is
shrinking, that state boundaries are porous: think of KFC opening in Shanghai, sushi eaten in Santiago, Czannes
hanging on walls in Doha, a Korean pop star drawing crowds in New York, and Russian weaponry propping up a
We frequently persist, nonetheless, in discussing personal power
Syrian autocrat.
relationships as if they were contained by sovereign states. We frequently consider
violence against women without investigating how the global trade in Internet
pornography operates, or how companies ordering sex tours and mail-order brides
conduct their business across national borders. Similarly, we try to explain how
women learn to be feminine without unraveling the legacies left by colonial officials
who used Victorian ideals of feminine domesticity to sustain their empires ; or we try to
trace what shapes childrens ideas about femininity and masculinity without looking at governments foreign
investment policies that encourage the global advertising campaigns of such giants as McCann Erickson, BBDO, or
Saatchi and Saatchi. Becoming aware that personal relationships have been internationalized, however, may make
one only feel guilty for not having paid enough attention to international affairs. You should know more about the
IMF, Dont switch channels when experts start talking about climate change, Find out where Guam is. While
new international attentiveness by itself is not sufficient. It leaves
useful, this
untouched our conventional presumptions about just what international politics is
and where it takes place. Coming to realize that the personal is international
expands the politically attentive audience, but it fails to transform our
understandings of what is happening on the multiple stages of international politics. The implications
of a feminist understanding of international politics are thrown into sharper relief
when one reads the personal is international the other way around: the international
is personal. This calls for a radical new imagining of what it takes for governments
to ally with each other, to compete with and wage war against each other. The
international is personal implies that governments depend on certain kinds of
allegedly private relationships in order to conduct their foreign affairs . Governments need
more than tax revenues and spy agencies; they also need wives who are willing to provide their diplomatic
husbands with unpaid services so those men can develop trusting relationships with other diplomatic husbands.
They need not only military hardware but also a steady supply of womens sexual services, as well as military
To operate in the international
wives gratitude, to convince their male soldiers that they are manly.
arena, governments seek other governments recognition of their sovereignty; but
they also depend on ideas about masculinized dignity and feminized sacrifice to
sustain that sense of autonomous nationhood. Thus the international politics of
debt, investment, colonization, decolonization, national security, diplomacy, trade,
and military occupation are far more complicated than most conventional experts
would have us believe. This may appear paradoxical. Many people, and especially women,
are taught that international politics are too complex, too remote, and too tough for
the so-called feminine mind to comprehend . If a Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, Michelle Bachelet, or Christine Lagarde enters, it is presumably because she has learned to think like a man.
Conventional analyses stop short of investigating an entire area of international
relations, an area that feminist-informed researchers in the still-expanding field of
gender and international relations are pioneers in exploring: how states depend on
particular artificial constructions of the domestic and private spheres to achieve
their political goals. If we take seriously the politics of domestic servants, of women living on or near a
military base, or of women who sew Gap and Zara apparel, we discover that international politics are more
explanations of
complicated than non- feminist analysts imagine. This is worth saying again:
international politics that are devoid of feminist questioning are too-simple
explanations. Such non-feminist explanations shy away from complexity. They
underestimate power. A feminist investigatory approach exposes a remarkable
assortment of the kinds of power it takes to make the complex international political
system work the way it currently does. Admittedly, conventional analysts of interstate
relations do talk a lot about power. In fact, they put power at the center of their
commentaries. These are the sorts of commentaries that are presumed to be most
naturally comprehended by manly men; women, especially those women presumed
to be conventionally feminine, allegedly do not have an innate taste for either
wielding or understanding power . However, feminist-informed explorations of
agribusiness plantation prostitution, foreign-service corps sexism, and repeated
attempts to tame outspoken nationalist women all reveal that, in reality, it takes
much more power to construct and perpetuate international political relations than we
have been led to believe. One result of feminists insight is that they do not erect false
barriers between the fields of security studies and international political economy.
Feminists realize that the actual workings of gendered politics routinely blur these
artificial fields of investigation.

A realist perspective on international relations precludes an

understanding of the way the decisions made by states can
influence the welfare of individuals in the periphery. We need a
feminist understanding of international relations to
understand the often invisible forms of violence that occur as a
result of a flawed method for view international relations.
Tickner in 2001(J. Ann, Professor, School of International Relations, University
of Southern California Gendering World Politics, Page 1-4)
The dramatic changes in world politics in the last ten years have fueled a disciplinary ferment in the field of
international relations (IR), and new issues have stimulated new ways of understanding them. The end of the
Cold War and the consequent decline in the predominance of military-security issues, defined in terms of the
nuclear arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, have contributed to the decline
of national-security studies, the heart of the discipline, at least in the United States, since 1945. With war
between the great powers being unlikely in the near future, many IR scholars
are focused on states economic, rather than strategic, relationships.
Previously obscured by the East/West rivalry, a variety of new issues are now
preoccupying the international relations security agenda . Ethnic conflicts and the
clash of civilizations defy traditional statist categories and balance-of-power or interest-based explanations;
they demand additional understandings of changing collective identities and the role of culture in defining
both identities and interests. Issues related to economic globalization and democratization are also taking
center stage. While none of these issues is new, the IR discipline is taking increasing notice of them, and
ways to understand and explain them are proliferating. Many of these new disciplinary areas of focus are
ones where women scholars and students of world politics seem to feel more at home than in strategic
studies; they are also areas where gender issues, such as the differential rewards of the current
 It may
manifestations of economic globalization and democratization, seem more obviously relevant.1
not be coincidental, therefore, that feminist perspectives on world politics
entered the discipline at about the same time as the end of the Cold War ; over
the last ten years, they have been given increasing recognition. Certain introductory IR texts are now
including feminist approaches in their overview of the discipline, and edited volumes and some anthologies
have begun to include a chapter on feminist approaches.2 The title of this introduction, Gendering World
Politics, both reflects some of these changes and conceptualizes a worldview into which feminist
approaches fit more comfortably. While international relations has never been just
about relations between states, an IR statist focus seems even less justified
today than in the past. International politics cannot be restricted to politics
between states; politics is involved in relationships between international
organizations, social movements and other nonstate actors, transnational
corporations and international finance, and human-rights organizations, to
name a few. Decrying the narrowness of ColdWar IR, Ken Booth has suggested that the subject should
be informed by what he calls a global moral science that entails systematic enquiry into how humans
might live together locally and globally in ways that promote individual and collective emancipation in
harmony with nature. He goes on to suggest that the state, the traditional frame for IR,
might be seen as the problem of world politics, not the solution. 3 Since
women have been on the peripheries of power in most states, this broad
conception of world politics seems the most fitting disciplinary definition in
which to frame feminist approaches. Their investigations of politics from the
micro to the global level and from the personal to the international, as well
as their analyses as to how macro structures affect local groups and
individuals, draw on a broad definition of the political. Using explicitly normative
analysis, certain feminists have drawn attention to the injustices of hierarchical social relations and the
effects they have on human beings life chances. Feminists have never been satisfied with the boundary
constraints of conventional IR.4 While women have always been players in international politics, often their
voices have not been heard either in policy arenas or in the discipline that analyzes them. If the agenda of
concerns for IR scholars has expanded, so too have the theoretical approaches. The scientific
rationalistic tradition,5 associated with both neorealism and neoliberalism,
is being challenged by scholars in critical and postpositivist approaches that
grow out of humanistic and philosophical traditions of knowledge rather
than those based on the natural sciences. While certain scholars applaud
this flowering of a multiplicity of approaches and epistemologies ,6 others see a
discipline in disarray with fragmentation and pluralism as its essential characteristics. Kalevi Holstis claim,
in the early 1990s, that there is no longer agreement on what constitutes reliable or useful knowledge and
how to create it still holds true today.7 It is in the context of this intellectual pluralism and disciplinary
ferment that feminist approaches have entered the discipline. In spite of the substantial
growth and recognition of feminist scholarship in the last ten years, it still
remains quite marginal to the discipline, particularly in the United States,
where neorealism and neoliberalism, approaches that share rationalistic
methodologies and assumptions about the state and the international
system, predominate.8 Apart from occasional citations, there has been little engagement with
feminist writings, particularly by conventional IR scholars.9 There is genuine puzzlement as to the usefulness
of feminist approaches for understanding international relations and global politics. Questions frequently
asked of feminist scholars are indications of this puzzlement: What does gender have to do with international
politics and the workings of the global economy? How can feminism help us solve real world problems such
as Bosnia? Where is your research program?10 While the new feminist literatures in IR are concerned with
understanding war and peace and the dynamics of the global economy, issues at the center of the IR
agenda, their methodological and substantive approaches to these questions are sufficiently different for
scholars of IR to wonder whether they are part of the same discipline. It is this lack of connection that
motivates many of the issues raised in this book. While I have attempted to site feminist perspectives within
the discipline, it will become clear from the topics addressed that IR feminists frequently make different
assumptions about the world, ask different questions, and use different methodologies to answer them.
Having reflected on reasons for these disconnections, as well as the
misunderstandings over the potential usefulness of feminist approaches
raised by some of the questions above, I believe that they lie in the fact that
feminist IR scholars see different realities and draw on different
epistemologies from conventional IR theorists. For example, whereas IR has
traditionally analyzed security issues either from a structural perspective or
at the level of the state and its decision makers, feminists focus on how
world politics can contribute to the insecurity of individuals , particularly
marginalized and disempowered populations. They examine whether the valorization of
characteristics associated with a dominant form of masculinity influences the
foreign policies of states. They also examine whether the privileging of these
same attributes by the realist school in IR may contribute to the
reproduction of conflict-prone, power-maximizing behaviors .11 Whereas IR theorists
focus on the causes and termination of wars, feminists are as concerned with what happens during wars as
well as with their causes and endings. Rather than seeing military capability as an
assurance against outside threats to the state, militaries are seen as
frequently antithetical to individual security, particularly to the security of
women and other vulnerable groups. Moreover, feminists are concerned that
continual stress on the need for defense helps to legitimate a kind of
militarized social order that overvalorizes the use of state violence for
domestic and international purposes.
Advantage Links
 Climate Change Effects
The effects of climate change are felt by marginalized
populations the hardest- less food, male migration, less
resources, higher infant mortality rate, and sex crimes
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
The scientific evidence of climate change should be alarming: since the Industrial Revolution (variously dated as
beginning between 1760 and 1840), when the density of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was just 280 parts per
million (ppm), humans began burning coal, gas, and oil to produce energy, provide transportation, and fuel
Carbon dioxide increased gradually until 1900, when greenhouse gases
machineries.
and global temperatures began to skyrocket, as shown in Michael Mann's hockey
stick graph included with the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) summary for policymakers (Appell, 2005). Fast forward to the summer of
2012, by which time half of the Arctic sea ice had vanished. In May 2013, Hawaii's Mauna Loa
Observatory recorded carbon dioxide levels at 400 ppm, exceeding all historical records, and continuing to increase
The ecological consequences of climate changerising
at a pace exceeding 2 ppm per year.
sea levels, melting ice sheets and receding glaciers, vanishing coral reefs, extreme
weather events (i.e., hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, heat waves),
accelerated species migrations or extinctions, the spread of insect-borne diseases
are already evident. Produced by the planet's most developed countrieswith
China, the U.S., Russia and India leading the way in the highest emissions, and the
U.S., Australia, Canada, and Saudi Arabia leading with the highest per capita
emissions7580% of the effects of climate change will be felt by the global
South/Two-Thirds world, and those effects are most harsh because material poverty
means weaker infrastructures of support for housing, clean water, food security,
health care, and disaster preparedness/response. Make no mistake: women are
indeed the ones most severely affected by climate change and natural disasters,
but their vulnerability is not innate; rather it is a result of inequities produced
through gendered social roles, discrimination, and poverty. According to CARE, an
international NGO, women work 2/3 of the world's working hours, produce half the
world's food, and earn 10% of the world's income; of the world's one billion poorest
people, women and girls make up 70%.4 If there were an unimpeded correlation between hard work
and earnings, women would be the world's highest earners. Instead, structural barriers of gender put womenand
Around the world,
childrenamong the world's poorest people, situated on the front lines of climate change.
gender roles restrict women's mobility, impose tasks associated with food
production and caregiving, and simultaneously obstruct women from participating in
decision-making about climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and decisions
about adaptation and mitigation. In developing countries, women living in poverty
bear the burden of climate change consequences, as these create more work to
fetch water, or to collect fuel and fodderduties traditionally assigned to women.
When households experience food shortages, which occur regularly and may
become more frequent due to climate change, women are the first to go without
food so that children and men may eat. As rural areas experience desertification,
decreased food production, and other economic and ecological hardships, these
factors prompt increased male out-migration to urban centers with the promise of
economic gain and wages returned to the family; these promises are not always
fulfilled. In the short-term, and possibly long-term as well, male out-migration
means more women are left behind with additional agricultural and household
duties, such as caregiving. These women have even fewer resources to cope with
seasonal and episodic weather and natural disasters.5 Gender inequalities mean
that women and children are 14 times more likely to die in ecological disasters than
men (Aguilar, 2007; Aguilar, Araujo, & Quesada-Aguilar, 2007). For example, in the 1991 cyclone and flood in
Bangladesh, 90% of the victims were women. The causes are multiple: warning information was not sent to women,
who were largely confined in their homes; women are not trained swimmers; women's caregiving responsibilities
meant that women trying to escape the floods were often holding infants and towing elder family members, while
husbands escaped alone; moreover, the increased risk of sexual assaults outside the home made women wait
longer to leave, hoping that male relatives would return for them. Similarly in the 2004 Tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra,
more than 75% of those who died were women. In May 2008, after Cyclone Nargis came ashore in the Ayeyarwady
Division of Myanmar, women and girls were 61% of the 130, 000 people dead or missing in the aftermath (CARE
Canada, 2010). The deaths of so many mothers lead to increased infant mortality, early
marriage of girls, increased neglect of girls' education, sexual assaults, trafficking in
women and child prostitution. Even in industrialized countries, more women than
men died during the 2003 European heat wave, and during Hurricane Katrina in the
U.S., AfricanAmerican womenthe poorest population in that part of the country
faced the greatest obstacles to survival (Aguilar et al., 2007). Women who survive
climate change disasters are then faced with the likelihood of sexual assault: for
example, after Hurricane Katrina, rapes were reported by dozens of survivors and
mentioned in news stories, but there was no discussion of rape support teams being
included with the rescue teams, and no mention of reproductive health services that
should have been made available to women who had been raped (Seager, 2006).
Moreover, the likely assaults on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered queer
(GLBTQ) persons went unreported. Climate change homophobia is evident in the
media blackout of GLBTQ people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, an
unprecedented storm and infrastructure collapse which occurred just days before
the annual queer festival in New Orleans, Southern Decadence, a celebration that drew
125,000 revelers in 2003 (ecesis.factor). The religious right quickly declared Hurricane Katrina
an example of God's wrath against homosexuals, waving signs with Thank God for
Katrina and publishing detailed connections between the sin of homosexuality and
the destruction of New Orleans. It is hard to imagine GLBTQ people not facing
harassment, discrimination, and violence during and after the events of Katrina,
given the fact that Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi lack any legal protections for
GLBTQ persons and would have been unsympathetic to such reports. Queer and
transgendered persons already live on the margins of most societies, often denied
rights of marriage and family life, denied health care coverage for partners and their
children, denied fair housing and employment rights, immigration rights and more.
Climate change exacerbates pressures on marginalized people first, with economic
and cultural elites best able to mitigate and postpone impacts; as a global
phenomenon, homophobia infiltrates climate change discourse, distorting our
analysis of climate change causes and climate justice solutions, and placing a
wedge between international activists .
 Climate Change Discourse
Framing climate change as a problem for all humanity ignores
its magnified effect on feminine bodies, particularly those in
the Global Southa gendered interrogation is a prerequisite to
policy solutions
Sultana 14
Farhana Sultana (Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and
Public Affairs of Syracuse University and a faculty affiliate/associate in the Womens and Gender Studies
Department, Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC), Center for
Environmental Policy and Administration (CEPA), South Asia Center, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, Tolley
Humanities Faculty, International Relations Program, Democratizing Knowledge Collective, and Asian/Asian-
American Studies.), Gendering Climate Change: Geographical Insights, August 2014, The Professional
Geographer, 66(3) 2014, pages 373374

In recent years, a veritable industry has emerged in relation to climate change vis-a`-vis research, reports,
conferences, and projects. Despite more recent controversies and politicized debates on credibility of science, data,
and predictions, the general consensus among scholars is that anthropogenic climate change has uneven and
uncertain impacts. The contextual nature of climate change and the specificities of responses have been repeatedly
highlighted in the milieu of generalizations and globalized discourses, and academics have responded with new
research. Hazards geographers and political ecologists are increasingly contributing to climate change research, but
Hulme (2008), Bailey (2008), and Moser (2009) have argued that geographers need to engage more critically and
geographers
forcefully with climate change policies and politics. In responding to such a call, I posit that
need to further engage with the gendered implications of climate change across sites and
scales, given the paucity of emphasis on such issues in the current literatures. Feminist geographers,
especially feminist political ecologists, I believe, have much to contribute to these debates. Few
scholars have focused on the ways that gender is a key factor in impacts,
adaptation, or mitigation in the voluminous literature on climate change . Men and
women experience, understand, and adapt to climate change in different ways, and
it is important to understand changes currently taking place, and likely to happen in the near
future, from a gendered perspective. Climate change is likely to exacerbate gendered
vulnerabilities and differential abilities to cope with changes on multiple fronts .
Although climate change is often framed as a global problem for all of humanity, the
heterogeneity of its manifestations, impacts, and responses has to be carefully
considered. Even though climate change is often portrayed as affecting the poor
uniformly in the Global South, this is further complicated by gendered power
relations that are intersected with other social differentiations (e.g., class, race, ethnicity,
etc.). Implications for livelihood, survival, poverty, and social power relations can have subtle and overt gendered
A focus on the various patterns of changes that
outcomes, which have to be analyzed in context.
exacerbate gender relations in livelihood opportunities, vulnerabilities, hardships,
and survival can provide more comprehensive understanding of the ways that
climate change impacts households and communities. Such analyses also shed further light on
the ways that emerging adaptation programs are influenced by gender dynamics and are complicated by gendered
power relations. Recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of heeding gender in climate change
discourses, programs, and projects (Dankelman 2010). Such scholarship draws from insights gained in the disaster
risk and reduction (DRR) literatures that have predominantly focused on case-specific events and empirical findings
and have contributed to greater understandings of the role of gender in disasters and recovery. More broadly, the
At the
emerging gender and climate change literature draws from insights of gender development literatures.
policy level, the clarion call of No climate justice without gender justice has
become popular since the Bali COP conference in 2007, bringing attention to the fact that
climate change is gendered in impacts, mitigation, adaptation, and policy
processes. Although still nascent, scholarship in gender and climate change has drawn attention to the
gendered differences in perceptions, responses, priorities, abilities, and preferences in the ways that climate
change is understood in mitigation and adaptation discourses (Dankelman 2002, 2010; Denton 2002; Masika 2002;
Nelson et al. 2002; Brody, Demetriades, and Esplen 2008; Terry 2009; Agostine and Lizarde 2012; see also the
GenderCC Network). For instance, a study of women in South Asia found that poor women
were particularly vulnerable to dramatic shifts in environmental change (e.g., erratic
monsoons, extreme floods, etc.) but were knowledgeable about the needs and requirements
of their households and communities to cope with changes as well as about alternative livelihood strategies
(Mitchell, Tanner, and Lussier 2007). The constraints they faced were also articulated along
class, gender, locational, and institutional lines, however. Feminist geographers and feminist
political ecologists can add much to the ongoing debates in the climate change and adaptation literatures,
explicating the textured ways that space, place, identities, and lived experiences are intersected by a range of
gender is often
processes and social relations. Seager (2006) and Mac- Gregor (2009) pointed out that
selectively given attention, or not, in any research or policy context . Demetriades and
Esplen (2008) and Nelson and Stathers (2009) further argued about the crucial importance of context-
specific and complex gender analysis in climate change debates, so as not to
reproduce the women only narratives that portray women simultaneously as
victims and as solution providers, thereby increasing the long list of caregiving roles women are
already assigned to. The collapsing of gender-as-women has been common in the existing
gender and climate change literature, which is often written for and by the development practitioner
and policy community. MacGregor (2009) pointed out that a lack of critical gender analysis or
theorization of gender limits such literature, even while bringing very important
attention to gender by privileging certain framings in the international arena. For
instance, as Dankelman (2010, 1112) indicated, it is important to look at women as a group as
well as gender as a construct but pay greater attention to the experiences of
women and focus on women in climate change debates. This might be strategically
important, but it also has the potential to limit the attention to the complex ways
that masculinities and femininities are constructed, negotiated, altered, and
transformed through climate change processes. There can also be the tendency to
essentialize women as a homogeneous group and overlook the multiple processes
that constitute gendered subjects, identities, and bodies. The dominant focus has been
on the impacts of climate change on women, but greater attention is needed to how
gender is intersected by other axe s (e.g., class, caste, age, etc.) as well as a relational
analysis of both women and men across social categories in a changing climate .
Given the importance of inclusion and equality, however, it is important not to
romanticize women, womens knowledge, or womens participation in climate
change mitigation or adaptation plans but to recognize their roles, responsibilities,
constraints, and opportunities. Balancing inclusion without essentialization is thus
crucial, albeit challenging. Such critiques resonate with those of feminist political ecologists and feminist
scholars who have long argued that genderenvironment relations risk being essentialized and reified without
careful, con- textual, and fluid understandings of gender as a power relation (e.g., Agarwal 1992, 2000; Jackson
1993; Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Wangari 1996; Nightingale 2006; Leach 2007; Sultana 2009b). Few feminist
geographers have forayed into the climate change debates (e.g., Seager 2009; Bee et al. 2012). To this end,
scholars can contribute to the analyses and framing of debates, bringing forth the complex ways that gender
environment relations are produced, performed, contested, and lived. Feminist political ecologists have argued that
gendered dynamics of environmental change must be analyzed in ways that integrate subjectivities, scales, places,
spaces, ecological change, and power relations (Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Wangari 1996; Elmhirst 2011;
Hawkins and Odeja 2011). Broader contexts and constraints that influence gender are crucial to understand and
Given the gaps in the literatures on climate change
address in processes of climate change.
that engage with recent advances in feminist theories, it becomes imperative to
bring such insights to bear on the important work that has been accomplished by
gender advocates in their sustained and tireless efforts in the development and
policy circles. In this regard, feminist analyses of the impacts of climate change remain
important but also must be broadened to examine the ways in which gender
complicates the assumptions made, the analysis proffered, and adaptation solutions pursued in any
climate change program. Such insights can enrich the burgeoning literature on gender and climate change that is
relevant to academia and policy circles. In this article, I highlight some key issues. Although my regional emphasis
is on South Asia, the analyses and geographical insights are relevant elsewhere.

Current discourse of climate change excludes feminine

perceived bodies a masculine dominated scientific field and
globalized climate policy means feminine perceived bodies
dont have a voice in policy implementation
Macgregor 13 (Sherilyn Macgregor is a Reader in Environmental Politics at University of Manchester,
Only Resist: Feminist Ecological Citizenship and the Post-politics of Climate Change, Hypatia, Volume 29, Issue 3,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hypa.12065/full , accessed 7/13/16//KR)

Most approaches within the broad feminist environmental tradition share basic
principles of feminist epistemology, namely that the social situation of the knower
matters, that gender as a social category plays a role in epistemic norms, and that
gendered, material, and political relations lie behind all knowledge-making
practices. Interrogations of these topics by scholars such as Donna Haraway and Lorraine Code have shaped
ecofeminist epistemological approaches in significant ways. What should we make of the dominant
framing of climate change from this perspective? Does it matter that the definition
of climate change as an existential threat, the research being done, and solutions
being devised, rest principally in the hands of an elite group of mainly male , mainly
white European and Anglo-American scientists from the affluent West? What are the
implications of a situation where the choice is between accepting climate science as
uncontested (inconvenient) Truth or being dismissed as a skeptic (or stupid)? Since the 1970s,
the climate change phenomenon has been defined by a relatively small number of natural scientists. As Eugene
Rosa and Thomas Dietz write, [s]cience provides the framing and discourse for the problem and scientific elites
promote the discourse (Rosa and Dietz 1998, 442).For feminists, it matters that the majority of
climate scientists are men from affluent parts of the world. Armed with their UNFCC
and IPCC documents, men also dominate in the global climate policy arena and as
prominent spokespeople whose worldviews and vested interests serve to construct
the issue in stereotypically masculinized ways. For example, not only is the issue
constructed in a way that demands techno-scientific solutions, from which there is
money to be made, it is also presented as a threat to national and international
security, for which a reinforcement of militarism is the answer. In both cases, there
is certainty about the inevitability of climate change and a managerial program that
serves elite male interests. Also relevant from a feminist epistemological perspective
is that climate science operates at a global level, aggregating and calculating facts
in ways that are often detached from local experience. This results in an
impersonal, apolitical, and universal imaginary of climate change that is taking
over from the subjective, situated, and normative imaginations of human actors
engaging directly with nature (Jasanoff 2010, 235). Its definition as global masks alternative voices
that fundamentally challenge Western ways of knowing, being, and doing (Smith 2007, 198). The exclusion
of ways of knowing that challenge mainstream science means that the scope for
meaningful feminist participation in the environmental arena may be reduced.
Feminist epistemology has always aimed to critique Western science, and yet it is
increasingly difficult to ask questions about climate science. This is not an argument
in favor of climate change denial, but it is an expression of concern for what the
presentation of an incontestable set of predictions about the future might do to a
feminist green politics that is at once critical and visionary. Will ecofeminists join the growing
number of movements dedicated to resilience and transition that appear to assume a set of conservative socio-
environmental relations designed to ensure survival? Or can they maintain a principled stance for climate justice
Those invoking apocalyptic and survivalist discourses , such as
and a radically different future?
the Transition Town Network, arguably want to turn back time, accepting a notion that we need to
return society back to a steady-state, before the great ecological disruption to
restore natural order as quickly as possible after disturbance (Catney and Doyle 2011, 190).
Will feminists be able to express deep reservations about the assumptions being
made about humans and nature in the scientized and securitized climate discourse ?
Resistance is difficult when the climate consensus has a tone of unquestionable scientific-moral authority. In the UK,
those who disagree with the Science, or who refuse to change their carbon-emitting ways, have been labeled
eco-sinners. In 2006 the Bishop of London made headlines for declaring it a moral obligation to eschew
environmentally unfriendly practices. He said, making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large
car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where
people ignore the consequences of their actions (Barrow 2006). Mouffe laments the encroachment of this kind of
moral argumentation into the properly political sphere when she writes: What is happening is that nowadays the
political is played out in the moral register. In place of a struggle between right and left we are faced with a
With climate change, there is little room for
struggle between right and wrong (Mouffe 2005, 5).
ecofeminist critiques of scientific knowledge when an inaccessible, authoritative,
and moralistic science sets the parameters of the issue.

Mere acknowledgment that the effects of climate change are

worse for feminized and racialized bodies continues to collapse
into essentialist solutionsa more complex understanding of
what creates vulnerability in the first place is required
Resurreccin 13
Bernadette P., Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Asia Centre, Thailand, Gender
& Development Studies, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. Persistent women
and environment linkages in climate change and sustainable development
agendas. Women's Studies International Forum 40 (2013) 3343.
Two historical moments define the global environmental agenda at the edge of the new millennium and henceforth
have transformed it: the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and the subsequent and ongoing meetings and
deliberations around the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP). This paper has inquired into the nature and extent of
the feminist agenda within these environmental watershed events and processes. From this paper's exposition of
key and summarised aspects of discursive practices prior to, during and after these events, I am led to conclude
thata strong womenenvironment linkage has sustained the feminist agenda,
despite the increased adoption of alternative and complex perspectives on gender
relations and power in natural resource management sectors like forestry and water
management towards the end of the 1990s (Leach, 2007). Climate change debates have reinstated
the women environment discourse, thereby demonstrating its resilience . This paper
does not claim to disparage the women environment linkages in environment and climate change political
discourses, or to dismiss the merits of a politics based on social difference. What the paper suggests is that learning
we see that problematic outcomes usually emerge when the
from the past,
simplifications that fuel politics segue into policy and programming . Thus in the hope of
raising awareness on the traps that these simplifications may create, I have instead opted to explain the resilience
of womenenvironment linkages despite their intellectual practical shortcomings, by investigating, On
what
basis, at different times and in different places, does a non-fixed identity become
temporarily fixed in such a way that particular groups and individuals behave as a
particular kind of agency? (Dirks et al., 1994: 32). Three reasons emerge. First, the pragmatic
need for simplification in conducting climate and environmental politics, where a
centred feminine subject who is both climate-vulnerable and agency-endowed,
captures the imagination of institutions that are otherwise mired in technological
minutiae and political deadlocking in the delicate task of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To create
a visible gender platform, feminists had to locate politically viable entry points that were
more or less acceptable to scientists, policy makers and fellow social movement
colleagues, as well as to their agenda for transformation. The discourse that links women with
the environment stood up to this requirement. Through the essentialised qualities of
women's close ties with environmental resources, feminists were able to make
claims to a specific space in this political arena . Further, feminists coalesced around an
ontological, fixed, simplified and centred feminine subject, simultaneously
vulnerable but with change agent qualities. This claim to an essential feminine subject tied
to nature homogenises other women subjects, blurring the possibility of more
context-specific subjectivities rooted in class, ethnicity, age, eco-zones,17 and so on
and denying the range of climate-related experiences possible, where positive opportunities may also inadvertently
the discourse of climate change vulnerability has proven to be a strategic
lie. Second,
entry point for feminist advocacy. Inevitably, this will have to capitalise on sharp
gender differences on the adverse impacts of climate change . WED and ecofeminist
discourses have plenty to show insofar as women being a prime constituency of the hardest hit environmental
The history of feminist engagement with
victims and environmental protection stakeholders.
global institutions shows us that this is fraught with difficulties since feminist
advocacies and discourses are often blunted to suit and shoehorn into these
institutions' hegemonic designs and discourses . Under such circumstances, the storyline of
women being most vulnerable to climate change effects more easily dovetails with
the pervasive positivist framing of most climate change discourses that measures
impacts, counts victims, and looks for opportunities for mitigating actions . And finally,
the inertia associated with WED projects since the 1990s has re-instated the WED
women environment discourse in contemporary climate change discussions and
possibly, future localised interventions in climate mitigation and adaptation. That
said, this brings me to policymaking, or the crafting of concrete responses to a claimed deficit: that is,
how do we ensure that climate change does not increase the vulnerability of women
and people more generally? This brings us to briefly consider the policy implications
of adopting more useful approaches to gender, environment and climate change .
From Cornwall (2007), we learn that it may be more useful to implement policy that is not
premised on gross essentialisms or a priori differences and fixed oppositions
between women and men in their dispositions towards environmental and climate
change action, but to instead focus on the actual cultural, discursive or political
practices that create such inequalities, vulnerabilities and constitute differences in
the first place.18 In short, it may be more useful to address the drivers of gendered
vulnerability as well as other types of vulnerability, rather than aim for focused
targets of women's participation in projects , per se. This will shift the lens towards the
practices that materialise the marginalisation, difference, and vulnerabilities of
types of women, of certain categories of men and of particular ethnic groups,
instead of designing programmes that are one size fits all. These practices are the
elements worth mitigating, rather than creating programmes foisting responsibilities
on women (only), tapping an imagined special and distinct agency, and thus
passing on to them the additional burden of climate-related action which, may
ultimately, let men off the hook. In short, while it may be politically strategic to
muster the entry of gender into climate negotiations through a centred and climate-
vulnerable feminine subject, climate programmes will be better served by more
agile understandings of women, men and their actual multi-dimensional
experiences and adaptations to a changed climate. A climate change policy regime will therefore
benefit less from political imaginaries of women and environment ties, but from flexible readings of life on the
ground, or in short, a stronger and more complex social analysis of climate, environment, power and people that
informs response and action.

Climate change uniquely changes the identities of indigenous

women excluding them from the conversation is uniquely
harmful to the identity of those who climate change effects the
most; the alternative better solves for these harms while
allowing a true solution to climate change
Whyte 14 [Whyte, K. P. (2014), Indigenous Women, Climate Change Impacts, and Collective Action.
Hypatia, 29: 599616. doi: 10.1111/hypa.12089 Accessed 7/13/16]

However, the political responsibilities just outlined do not yet address the claims
made by indigenous women that I discussed in the previous section, which include
how indigenous womens responsibilities, and hence identities, are implicated in
climate change impacts and the unique forms of collective action that indigenous
women take toward adaptation and mitigation. There are important reasons why
this is the case. The first two political responsibilities are based on the passivity of
indigenous women as members of indigenous peoples. Indigenous women are
described primarily in terms of what they have not brought about. Yet the Mother
Earth Water Walk and the Mandaluyong Declaration emphasize the agency of
indigenous women that arises from the spiritual relations they maintain with
relatives like water. In these cases, climate change impacts are seen as implicating
the responsibilities these indigenous women enact within systems of responsibilities
that matter to their communities. Moreover, these indigenous women have
capacities for unique forms of collective action that can influence adaptation and
mitigation beyond their communities, and serve as vehicles for more formal
inclusion of indigenous women in policy processes from which they were previously
excluded. The third political responsibility emphasizes the involvement of
indigenous women as knowledge keepers and knowers in other senses who should
be included within scientific and political organizations that have already been put
in place by nonindigenous parties, like the IPCC. Yet McGregor understands
indigenous womens knowledge as being more than a body of insights about the
environment; rather, knowledge involves being embedded within systems of
responsibilities that one actively performs. Knowledge, then, refers to knowing what
one ought to do to be a responsible environmental steward or guardian (in
McGregors case, she discusses water). The Mandaluyong Declaration also expands
the notion of knowledge by placing priority on what science can do for indigenous
women if they are allowed to determine the purpose for which scientific research is
employed. Both McGregor and the Declaration stress broader notions of knowledge
that embrace indigenous womens insights for establishing principles and structures
of collective action toward adaptation and mitigation that are appropriate for their
communities. For example, environmental scientists have often told indigenous
peoples not to eat their first foods because of contamination. These scientific
assessments often included indigenous womens knowledge. Yet the impact of not
eating traditional foods, which can sever multiple responsibilities among humans
and certain species, can lead to far worse harms to indigenous identity, community
well-being, and human health (such as having to eat more fast food) (Arquette et al.
2002; Ranco et al. 2011; see also Nadasdy 1999). Here, a major articulation of
indigenous womens knowledge is often understood according to knowledge of what
responsibilities are important for indigenous communities collective continuance
and how science can be redeployed to serve these responsibilities, instead of
serving only the goals established by people of other heritages and nations
 Econ
The economy advantage is grounded in gendered epistemology
Maximizes competition and the supremacy of androcentric
values
Nhanenge 7 Jytte: Master of Arts at the development studies at the University of
South Africa Ecofeminism: Towards Integrating the concerns of women, poor people
and nature into development. Pg 570-572.
Economics is firmly founded
In order to support this profit-making system science developed the discipline of economics.
on dualised values. It has therefore prioritized hard, masculine characteristics as being
mannerly in economic profit making. It has ensured that all soft, feminine traits are
considered as being subordinate and disgraceful for the economic individual. Hence, superior
reason is selected over inferior emotion, competition over cooperation, self-interest
over community-interest, maximization over optimization, and the needs of the
individual over the needs of society. The first mentioned are superior human qualities that belong to the Ups,
while the second ones are inferior traits that relate to the Downs. This bias focus on masculine characteristics
has produced societies that consist of rational, competing, self-interested, and profit
maximizing individuals. These individuals are often men, but may also include women, as long as they are
willing to identify with the masculine traits and behaviour . The highest goals of these individuals are profit
making for their own benefit. To maximize this objective the Ups are using the Downs as
instruments. Hence, any rational individual with respect for himself would be exploiting nature's
resources together with the free or cheap labour of women and Others. This means that all
Downs are perceived as being instruments for the profit making of the Ups. Modern technology is
the means to generate economic profit. Since the greed of the Ups is pressing, the need to generate more
wealth is urgent. This means that technologies commonly are developed in a rush, without
careful consideration about the effects from its application. The result is that
modern technology often causes pollution of both society and nature. This leads to
serious suffering on the part of women, Others and nature . The rational individuals may notice
these effects but since the priority is maximization of economic profit making and the
Downs anyway are considered of a lower value, the polluting activities are
rationalized away as being necessary for the benefit of all. The rational individual
has consequently no human empathy for the pain and suffering his activities are causing the
dualised other. The reason for this is straightforward and simple: Human emotions of empathy, care and concern are feminine
values, which are seen as being soft, naive, unimportant and disgraceful in the hard, rational, masculine, competitive, individual
world.What commonly makes a society healthy and harmonious is the shared sense of
mutual relationships. These are built on cooperation and reprocity based on the
human emotions of care, concern and sympathy between people in a community .
Such a support system is needed for a human being to develop in a balanced manner. It commonly is founded on
the unpaid activities of women and Others. Thus in order to succeed rational man
needs, expects and takes for granted this feminine support. However, being greedy
for maximum profit rational man overlooks the importance of directing some
resources to the feminine social support system . This causes it to wear out. Hence rather than
being a place of cooperation society increasingly becomes a battlefield where self-
interested individuals 572 compete for scarce resources . Hence, modern society has
become a dominant, exploitative, and violent place to live . Its children cannot grow up in secure
and caring social surroundings to become balanced adults. Such a society breads aggressive people who
re-create a vicious circle of crime, pollution, human misery, poverty, ethnic conflicts,
terrorism, and sometimes civil war. The main sufferers from these crises are women
and Others. Hence, the greed of economic man has lead to an unhealthy social system. However, instead of trying
to restore social health, the maximizing individual sees it as a great opportunity,
because strife is profitable. Thus, violent technology is made available to the
conflicting groups. This will increase the fighting and amplify the crises of war and
violence, human rights abuses, poverty and natural destruction . The victims are mainly women
and Others.

While economic conflict magnifies gendered discrimination,

patriarchal structures are the underlying cause
Wang 12
Zhuqing, Associate professor of the Law Department of the University of Science
and Technology Beijing. CHINAS SOCIAL TRANSITIONLEADS TO NEWFORMS OF
WOMENS SUBORDINATION. The Future of Asian Feminisms : Confronting
Fundamentalisms, Conflicts and Neo-liberalism. 2012. Pg 206-7.
womens rights are always the ones being infringed
We found that both in cities and rural areas,
on whenever there occurs an economic conflict. The fundamental reason is gender
discrimination. The discrimination changes its form as the time changes. But it
never goes away, it is evident in many aspects of society, as well as in traditional
culture as in contemporary social policy and in the legal structure. That the
traditional culture discriminates against women is not unique to China; it is a
common problem of all nations of the world, which explains the prevalence of the
global womens movement. Chinas predominant value is that women are subordinate to men. The
construction of mens rights in society leads to gender discrimination. The direct
impact is womens low social rank and the lack of womens rights (Zhou 2007a: 43). In the
situation that the family has limited resources, parents generally do not want to invest money on the education of
their daughters; they prefer to give more opportunities to boys. As girls usually are less educated, their income is
lower than that of boys and their contribution is underestimated by others (Womens Studies Institute of China
These issues have a large impact on the contemporary situation. For
2006:86).
instance, when dealing with womens retirement issues, the local personnel
department supports employers when they force female technicians and
administrative staff to retire at age 50. They claim that by doing so they can
promote the reform of the employment system. They maintain that the young peoples
unemployment problem should be solved by having women retire early. Even if young peoples unemployment
problem needs to be solved by the early retirement of the existing labor force, it should be a responsibility that is
when dealing
shared by both men and women; it shouldnt be the sole responsibility of women. Moreover,
with the problem of rural womens rights to land, the traditional culture deems that
married and divorced women shouldnt have land rights. Therefore, discriminatory
rules are passed by the villages that infringe on womens rights. The village self-
governance system is a democratic one at the grass-roots level. However, decisions
by the majority are potentially unfair and unequal. The most important reason for
this being the discrimination against women in Chinese culture, as discussed above .
Limited land resources and the increase of the rural population, combined with the commercialization of village
collective land, causes conflicts between different interest groups. Rural women, one of the most vulnerable groups
in rural areas, become the first victims of the violation and infringement of land rights. In addition, the
traditional discrimination against women also becomes manifest in the case of
sexual harassment. The majority of society thinks that it is womens fault when
sexual harassment happens. They think that whenever a man harasses a woman,
the woman must have first flirted with the guy. Whenever there is a conflict between
men and women, the majority of the society blames the women for the problem,
which reflects the traditional discrimination against women. The situation is the same for domestic
workers. In China, 96 per cent of the domestic workers are females and most of them
are from the rural areas (Zhuqing 2009: 11). Domestic workers are faced with stricter
service requirements in a comparatively complex work environment, where they
have to undertake both physical work and communication with their employers. The
problem is that domestic workers are traditionally considered to be housemaids or
servants. Such a gap in identity makes it even more difficult for them to have an
equal exchange with employers.

Economic theories based on free markets relegate private

activities as unpolitical, allowing masculine repression of
sexual difference to continue through the rhetoric of public v
private
Peterson in 2000 (V Spike, Associate Professor of Political Science @ Arizona,
SAIS Review, 20.2, rereading public and private: the dichotomy that is not one,
project muse)
The public and private dichotomy takes on new meanings in the context of modern European
state-making. 16 That context was marked by an emerging culture of individualism and private property, an
increasingly secular world view fueled by the development of science, and expanding relations of production associated with
It is widely acknowledged that modern political theory is
early industrialization and capitalism.
indebted to Greek, and especially Athenian, texts, not least in regard to adopting a dichotomy
of public and private. Early liberal thought revitalizes the distinction and celebrates the
public sphere of equal citizens engaged in rational pursuit of the common good . But the
growth of individualism and reverence for autonomy introduces a complication. Even as liberals privilege politics, they fear
the state's coercive power. Their framing of public and private reflects these shifts. Here, public designates both the realm of
political deliberation and the site of (state) domination. The private also bifurcates--into an emerging concept of civil society
Gendered
and traditional family relations--and becomes a site of freedom from the coercive power of the state.
identities proliferate: masculinist military and government leaders and equal citizens in
the public; free, autonomous individuals in a masculinized private; feminized
dependents and care-givers in a private that is marginalized by a discourse
preoccupied with freedom and progress for (propertied) men. Ackelsberg and Shanley note two
effects of this framing. 17 First, the "private" encompasses everything that is not labeled
"political." Second, locating power in the public sphere of state actions and
distinguishing it from a private sphere of voluntary exchange, intimacy and
domesticity has the effect of denying the force of actual power relations in the latter
sphere(s). Continuing to deploy an apparent dichotomy--in spite of its multiple meanings and blurred
boundaries--also obscures the increasing importance and power of market relations . Not only
does the dichotomy render the location of an emerging "social sphere"--of voluntary organizations, civic society, and
"critical publics"--problematic, but it obscures economic relations and their pervasive and potent
effects. Of course, Marxists argued that market transactions were political and insisted on expanding the liberal
conception of politics to include economic relations. Yet a dichotomy that separates politics and
economics, and simultaneously dispenses with social and familial relations, continues
to dominate mainstream theories of power, with deleterious effects
The discourse of market growth as the focus of political
analysis exacerbates the depoliticization of the private realm.
Peterson in 2000 (V Spike, Associate Professor of Political Science @ Arizona,
SAIS Review, 20.2, rereading public and private: the dichotomy that is not one,
project muse)
I conclude this "reading" by reflecting on public and private as deployed in the discourse of neoliberalism
and globalization. In the context of post-international politics and transnational economic
relations, the incoherence of rigid boundaries--between states and markets and between states
and the interstate system--is increasingly exposed. I earlier noted how a new private sphere of
disembedded economics emerged with the development of industrial capitalism in the late nineteenth
century. In this shifting of public and private boundaries, household re/production remains
feminized and drops out of sight (hence, out of analysis and out of politics). In an important
historical shift, market forces begin to command more attention than the public/state.
Unlike the marginalized household sphere, this new private is powerful . But like the
household sphere (in contrast to state power), it is cast as private and hence depoliticized.
Stated differently, in spite of their power (and Marxist critiques), market forces are depoliticized
because they are cast as private. This resistance to politicizing markets is retained in
neoliberal political science and IR, where the separation of politics and economics
disables adequate analyses of power. Many critics of global political economy argue
that today's economic restructuring resembles--or is a continuation of--the earlier
disembedding of economics, played out now in reaction to the postwar welfare state and projected on
a global scale. Janine Brodie argues that [End Page 24] the current moment of restructuring can
be viewed as a concerted discursive and political struggle around the very meaning of
the public and private. The proponents of globalization seek radically to shrink the
public--the realm of political negotiation--and, at the same time, expand and reassert the autonomy
of the private [corporate] sector. 35 Marchand and Runyan describe how these shifting valorizations
are gendered: In neoliberal discourse on globalization, the state is typically "feminized" in
relation to the more robust market by being represented as a drag on the global
economy that must be subordinated and minimized. As critics have noted, however, the state
also paradoxically takes on a new role by becoming more akin to the private sector (and
thus remasculinized) as it is internationalized to assist global capital and as its coercive and
surveillance capacities are being enhanced. 36 The private--as a reference to the
family/household--appears to drop out of the picture again , as what are considered the
really important (read: masculine) spheres of politics and economics monopolize our
attention. But this is again misleading. The family/household is crucial in all the ways noted earlier,
and even more so as restructuring reduces the state's role in (public) welfare provisioning
and as women, as agents and victims in the private/family, are left to pick up the slack.
Consider as well how "pro-family" discourse in the United States casts women
exclusively as wives/mothers in a superficially celebrated private sphere , even as
neoliberal restructuring forces women into the public work force.
 Deterrence
Deterrence theory necessitates aggressive masculinity that
causes violence by increasing societal hardships, gendering
discourses, and depends on an international notion of rational
which ignores context and cultures
Sohail and Steven 2004 (Hashmi, Sohail H., and Lee, Steven P., eds. Ethics and
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Cambridge, GB:
Cambridge University Press, 2004. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 13 July 2016.)

is, it asks the

wmd deterrence The third question asks whether it is ethical to develop and deploy WMD as deterrents only. That
classic question of whether it is ethical to have weapons and threaten to use then, even if it is
not ethical to use those weapons militarily. As the question is framed, then, development and
deployment appear not as phenomena subject to ethical scrutiny unto themselves but merely as way-stations, as adjuncts
subsumed under what is taken to be the core ethical issue, which is seen as deterrence. This formulation does not work for us. We
need to pause and recognize that there are really several questions enfolded in that one. We must ask not only about the ethical
One of the
status of deterrence, but also whether its entailments development and deployment are themselves ethical. 27
constitutive positions of antiwar feminism is that in thinking about weapons and
wars, we must accord full weight to their daily effects on the lives of women. We
then find that the development and deployment of nuclear weapons , even when
they are not used in warfare, exacts immense economic costs that
particularly affect women. In the recent words of an Indian feminist: The social costs of
nuclear weaponisation in a country where the basic needs of shelter, food and water,
electricity, health and education have not been met are obvious.... [S]ince patriarchal
family norms place the task of looking after the daily needs of the family
mainly upon women, scarcity of resources always hits women the hardest.
Less food for the family inevitably means an even smaller share for
women and female children just as water shortages mean an increase in
womens labour who have to spend more time and energy in fetching water from distant places at odd hours of the day.
28 While the United States is not as poor a nation as India, Pakistan, or Russia, it has remained,
throughout the nuclear age, a country in which poverty and hunger are rife, health
care is still unaffordable to many, low-cost housing is unavailable, and
public schools and infrastructure crumbling, are all while the American nuclear
weapons program has come at the cost of $4.5 trillion. 29 In addition to being economically
costly, nuclear weapons development has medical and political costs . In the
U.S. program, many people have been exposed to high levels of radiation, including
uranium miners, workers at reactors and processing facilities, the quarter of a million military personnel who took part in atomic
Politically, nuclear regimes
battlefield exercises, downwinders from test sites, and Marshall Islanders. 30
require a level of secrecy and security measures that excludes the majority of
citizens and, in most countries, all women from defense policy and decision
making. 31 From the perspective of womens lives, we see not only the costs of the
development of nuclear weapons, but also the spiritual, social, and psychological
costs of deployment. One cost, according to some feminists, is that Nuclearisation produces social
consent for increasing levels of violence. 32 Another cost for many is that nuclear
weapons create high levels of tension, insecurity, and fear . As Arundhati Roy puts it,
nuclear weapons [i]nform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat
hooks deep in the base of our brains. 33 Further, feminists are concerned
about the effect of nuclear policy on moral thought, on ideas about gender, and how the
two intersect.
Nuclear development may legitimize male aggression and breed the idea
that nuclear explosions give virility to the nation, which men as individuals can somehow also share.
[T]he strange
character of nuclear policy-making not only sidelines moral and ethical
questions, but genders them. This elite gets to be represented as rational,
scientific, modern, and of course masculine, while ethical questions, questions about
the social and environmental costs are made to seem emotional,
effeminate, regressive and not modern. This rather dangerous way of thinking, which suggests that
questions about human life and welfare are somehow neither modern nor properly masculine questions, or that men have no
capacity and concern for peace and morality, can have disastrous consequences for both men and women. 34 All in all, we find
the daily costs of WMD development and deployment staggeringly high in and of themselves
sufficient to prevent deterrence from being an ethical moral option. A so-called
realist response to this judgment might well pay lip-service to the moral niceties it embodies, but then argue
that deterrence is worth those costs. Or perhaps to be more accurate, it might argue that the results of
a nuclear attack would be so catastrophic that the rest of these considerations are really an irrelevant distraction; deterring a WMD
attack on our homeland is the precondition on which political freedom and social life depend, and so it must be thought about in a
First, we note that in the culture of nuclear
class by itself. We make two rejoinders to this claim.
defense intellectuals, even raising the issue of costs is delegitimized, in
large part through its association with the feminine. It is the kind of
thing that hysterical housewives do; something done by people not
tough and hard enough to look harsh reality in the eye, unsentimentally; not strong
enough to separate their feelings from theorizing mass death; people who dont have the stones for war. Feminist analysis rejects
the cultural division of meaning that devalues anything associated with women or femininity. It sees in that same cultural valuing of
the so-called masculine over the socalled feminine an explanation of why it appears so self-evident to many that what is called
military necessity should appropriately be prioritized over all other human necessities. And it questions the assumptions that
bestow the mantle of realism on such a constrained focus on weapons and state power. Rather than simply being an objective
reflection of political reality, we understand this thought system as (1) a partial and distorted picture of reality and (2) a major
contributor to creating the very circumstances it purports to describe and protect against. Second, just as feminists tend to be
skeptical about the efficacy of violence, they might be equally skeptical about the efficacy of deterrence. Or to put it another way, if
war is a lie, so is deterrence. This is not, of course, to say that deterrence as a
phenomenon never occurs; no doubt, one opponent is sometimes deterred from attacking another by the fear of
retaliation. But rather, deterrence as a theory, a discourse, and a set of
practices underwritten by that discourse is a fiction. Deterrence theory is an elaborate,
abstract conceptual edifice, which posits a hypothetical relation between two different sets of weapons systems or rather, between
abstractions of two different sets of weapons systems, for in fact, as both common sense and military expertise tell us, human error
and technological imperfection mean that one could not actually expect real weapons to function in the ways simply assumed in
deterrence theory sets in play the hypothetical representations of
deterrence theory. Because
various weapons systems, rather than assessments of how they would
actually perform or fail to perform in warfare, it can be nearly infinitely elaborated, in a never-
ending regression of intercontinental ballistic missile gaps and theater warfare gaps and tactical mini-nuke gaps, ad infinitum, thus
Deterrence theory is also a fiction in that it
legitimating both massive vertical proliferation and arms racing.
depends on rational actors, for whom what counts as rational is the
same, independent of culture, history, or individual difference . It depends
on those rational actors perfectly understanding the meaning of signals
communicated by military actions, despite dependence on technologies that
sometimes malfunction, despite cultural difference and the lack of communicatio n
that is part of being political enemies, despite the difficulties of ensuring mutual understanding even when best friends make direct
face-to-face statements to each other. It depends on those same rational actors engaging in a very specific kind of calculus that
includes one set of variables (e.g., weapons size, deliverability, survivability, as well as the credibility of their and their opponents
threats) and excludes other variables (such as domestic political pressures, economics, or individual subjectivity). What is striking
from a feminist perspective is that even while realists may worry that some opponents are so insufficiently rational as to be
undeterrable, this does not lead them to search for a more reliable form of ensuring security or to an approach that is not so
weapons-dependent. Cynthia Cockburn, in her study of womens peace projects in conflict zones, describes one of the womens
activities as helping each other give up dangerous day dreams. 35 From a feminist antiwar perspective, having WMD as deterrents
is a dangerous dream. The dream of perfect rationality and control that underwrites deterrence theory is a dangerous dream, since it
legitimates constructing a system that could be (relatively) safe only if that perfect rationality and control were actually possible.
Deterrence theory itself is a dangerous dream because it justifies
producing and deploying WMD, thereby making their accidental or
purposive use possible (and far more likely) than if they were not produced at all nor deployed in such numbers.
Realists are quick to point out the dangers of not having WMD for deterrence when other states have them. Feminist perspectives
suggest that that danger appears so self-evidently greater than the danger of having WMD only if you discount as soft serious
attention to the costs of development and deployment.
 Human Rights
Human rights rhetoric is used by security states to justify
endless wars against a gendered enemy
Denike in 2008(Margaret, Associate Professor of Human Rights and the Coordinator of
the Human Rights Program at Carleton University, The Human Rights of Others:
Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and "Just Causes" for the "War on Terror", Hypatia, Volume 23,
Number 2, Spring)

Human rights advocates have good reasons to celebrate the "triumph" of

international human rights: the past half-century or so has witnessed the mobilization of international
organizations and related systems of governance around the protection of the rights of vulnerable and subjugated
individuals and groups; the proliferation of international treaties and agreements elaborating and codifying [End Page 95]
these protections; the creation of protocols for assessing and monitoring the practices of states; and the operational success
of new international criminal-justice systems that promise to hold accountable perpetrators of "crimes against humanity."
The apparent willingness of the so-called "international community" to affirm
the aspirations of human rights is truly exceptional: as Louis Henkin has repeatedly
emphasized, they are "the only political-moral idea that has received universal
acceptance"; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved by "virtually all governments representing all
societies" when it was adopted in 1948; and "virtually every one" of the member states of the United Nations enshrine
human rights in their constitutions (Henkin 1990, 1).
Leveraging notions of the inherent dignity
of human beings, the universalizing impulse speaks of providing certain
standards of treatment to all individuals, simply by virtue of being human.
As such, and as is evident in the writings of most contemporary proponents
of "just war" doctrine, human rights are commonly invoked as an ethical
justification or "just cause" for states to resort to military force against
those who threaten them;1 fueled by such objectives and their underlying
ideology, such action is cast as inherently legitimate, whether or not it is
consistent with international law, and however much suffering is produced in
their name. The recent trend of the past two decades, which, like the U.S.led "war on terror," finds
imperialist "security states" (Young 2003, 14) increasingly invoking humanitarian
reasons to justify exceptions to the international prohibitions on armed
attacks, defies the UN charter's prohibition on the use of force, and flies in
the face of the 1985 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Nicaragua, which addressed the (il)legality
of the U.S. invasion of Grenada without UN Security Council authorization. The ICJ stated at the time that there were "no
really persuasive examples in state practice of human rights intervention," and that in the absence of a justification under
the UN Charter, the use of force was not an appropriate method to ensure respect for human rights.2 But increasingly
throughout the 1990s, and despite this ruling and the Charter's explicit prohibition,there has been a spate of
military interventions conducted in the name of humanity, including those
authorized as exceptional Chapter VII missions by the Security Council3and those
that continue to defy authorization, such as the U.S.led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.4 The triumph of
human rights has offered up a "just cause" for postmodernity's wars , as Costas
Douzinas (2000) so thoroughly demonstrates in his detailed genealogy of human rights, rendering as the new norm and rule
providing a moral
what is invariably touted as the "exceptional" use of force against sovereign territories,
gloss to occlude the imperialist interest in such force, and effectively
spelling the "end of human rights" as we know them. A gendered and racial
politics is operative in these humanitarian narratives and practices, various
dimensions of which feminist international legal scholars [End Page 96] have examined over the past two decades. The
following discussion elucidates and elaborates on such analyses from a standpoint concerned with the impact of such
triumphalism on the work of women's human rights and equality-seeking organizationswhich, like many nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs), rely extensively on human rights instruments and on the veracity and transparency of human rights
discourses to engage in social and legal reform. I address certain costs of the political production and cooptation of human
rights discourse in international humanitarian law and policy, as a justification for the public violence of military
I look
intervention, and its impact on the challenges of promoting and advancing the human rights of others. In doing so,
to the narratives of progress and human rights triumphalism, and their
concomitant campaigns of fear against an allegedly lawless and evil other, as
performative gestures in and by which the very distinctions between
civilized and uncivilized states are constituted; and the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of their public acts of violence are forged . Relating these processes to the
 I consider how the utilization of human rights
politics of gender and racial colonization,
discourses, in conjunction with the language of self-defense, relies on and
reinforces the selective and strategic denial of humanity and citizenship to
the very groups of peoplesuch as Muslim women and refugeesthat have
been made to symbolize its cause (Chinkin, Wright, and Charlesworth 2005, 28). There is a
certain political economy to the strategic deployment of human rights
discourses by colonial and imperial states that have sights set on the profits
of war, the operations and effects of which can be mapped through a resurgence of new modalities state sovereignty.
My examination of these processes of entails an exploration of how such
"just causes" as human rights operate on gendered and racial lines,
demonizing others as tyrants and terrorists and circumscribing women
within normative paternalist roles in what Iris Marion Young calls the
"protectionist racket" of security states (2003).

Humanitarian discourse is used to entrench gender norms as a

means of victimizing women that need to be saved by the male
white savior from the evil men in another country that cant
save itself. This is used to justify new forms of imperial
domination.
Denike in 2008(Margaret, Associate Professor of Human Rights and the Coordinator of
the Human Rights Program at Carleton University, The Human Rights of Others:
Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and "Just Causes" for the "War on Terror", Hypatia, Volume 23,
Number 2, Spring)

the official state discourses that have urged, supported, and

From its outset,
sustained the U.S.led "war on terror" have had all of the trappings of the
spirit and rhetoric of "just war" that dominated the institutional religious colonization of the
Middle Ages and its various political and philosophical justifications. As many commentators have
noted,14 the "war on terror" has been repeatedly cast in such terms, as is exemplified
by
statements of the Bush administration that it entails a confrontation with
"evil,"15 a battle for "civilization,"16 or a standoff against an enemy in which
states are eitherand only"with us or against us." It has been construed literally and
metaphorically as a crusade against a barbaric and savage other (typically Islamic fundamentalists) in need
of liberation from themselves. Casting the state's relation to its "enemy" in such
oppositional terms of us versus them and good versus evil enables the
constitutive posturing of the legitimate benevolent protectionist sovereign
and its "just wars," as it at once constitutes the eradicability of the other,
whose exposed evil renders their destruction inherently just. Masquerading
the profit-driven [End Page 102] "war on terror" as a chivalrous, just, and necessary response
to evil also works to conceal the direct investment of its architects (and notably thenSecretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney) in the industry of war, and to cast the lucrative
contracts of building schools, medical facilities, and water supplies as a
matter of delivering the cherished rights to those who were previously
denied them. In other words, human rights triumphalism and its narratives of
progress has been harnessed in the service of what Naomi Klein calls
"disaster capitalism" (2007), that is, in the devastation created and exacerbated by the very
individuals who stand to personally profit from new imperial order they impose in its place, all the while
talking the moral talk of "Operation Infinite Justice" or "Iraqi freedom." This shady dealings of
humanitarian narratives have huge consequences for what human rights may
or may not promise "humanity," as is evident in the extensively documented accounts of how
their deployment has worked to "cancel the very gains of the progressive universal human rights movement
in seemingly irreversible ways . . . to mute the voices of suffering and, in the process, regress human rights
futures" (Baxi 1998, 16869). Deploying human rights to substantiate public violence and to impose a
privatized economic orderas with the "war on terror"has a lasting effect on "human rights," not merely
because armed conflict is in itself a leading cause of systemic human rights abuses against which NGOs
need to continue to act, but because, in its nefarious moralism and "principled" self-
justifications, this war, leveraged by a fear of the (Muslim, Arab) other and a
concern for the rights of "humanity," conscripts the language of human
rights and "humanitarian" causes to substantiate daily civilian atrocities and
"exceptional" measures of racial profiling, security arrest warrants,
indefinite detentions, torture, deportation, and so on, and in effect,
invariably limits what "human rights" and "humanitarian concerns" can and
do mean, particularly for those vast sectors of "humanity" that are not
counted as "human" and that have engaged generations of struggles to
obtain them. This leveraging is done through draconian racist policies that systemically deny human
rights to target groups that symbolize its cause (for instance, the refugees of oppressive "regimes"),
particularly to Arab and Muslim "alien" immigrants and residents of Middle Eastern countries;17 for
justifying military attacks and occupations that are conducted in the name of
abstract Western values (democracy, equality, freedom, security, and liberty) against so-
called "rogue states" (Bush 2002a) or "failed states" (Ignatieff 2002) that are said to
have none. Such policies and practices conducted in the name of human rights make a mockery of the
notion that human rights ideals express "one long and steady march towards progress" (Kapur 2006, 673),
as the call to respond to images of suffering in distant lands, is far less interested in admitting those who
suffer as refugees than it is in intervening militarily to prevent their exodus (Orford 2003, 203). [End Page
103] The politics of sexual, racial, and ethnic difference and hence of the equality,
security, and freedom that are at stake for minoritiesare central to this dynamic. A
consideration of the stock figuresfirst, of the oppressed female human
rights victim, and second, of the male tyrannical "terrorist"that appear in
the narratives and substantiate policies of this war, enables us to elucidate
these politics within its various "techniques" and tactics (from security arrest warrants
and deportations of immigrants to armed invasions) and to link the fear of the other to the new sovereignty
of the United States, that looks nothing like Kofi Anan's vision of individuals being empowered to hold states
accountable for human rights abuses, but rather a sovereignty of corporate "defensive imperialism" (Anghie
2004, 294) and nation-state patriotism masquerading as the causes of democracy and freedom, while
perpetrating systematic human-rights violations. Part and parcel of the sovereignty-
creating, colonizing tactics are those that constitute and entrench gender
norms within and across national boundaries, preserving as a model of
masculinity its roles of uniformed masculine saviors whose heroism inheres
in saving helpless female victims from racialized and demonized incarnations
of evil.
 Disease
Disease and bioweapons impacts are nothing more than a
means of generating hysteria and newfound xenophobia, and
ultimately lead to a misallocation of resources
Hans and Reardon 12 [Asha Hans, Betty A. Reardon The Gender Imperative:
Human Security Vs State Security Routledge, Dec 6, 2012]
Much of the literature on health security focuses on the role of the state in protecting people from threats (Price-
the goal of health
Smith 2002; Heymann 2003; Chen and Narasimhan 2003). According to CHS (2003),
security is to protect the vital core of human lives from critical and pervasive
threats while promoting long-term human flourishing . In order to do this, protective strategies
would promote the three institutional pillars of society: to prevent, monitor and anticipate health threats (ibid.:
103). A. Price-Smith (2002) focuses on the necessity of ensuring state capacity to protect the health of citizens, and
The emergence of new pathogens has the
the environment, as a means of enhancing security.
potential to create public fears which bear little relation to the risks of the actual
disease itself. New diseases tend to generate paranoia, hysteria and xenophobia
that may affect the foreign policy of a state by impairing decision making (ibid.: 16).
Price-Smith notes that the ability of states to respond to increasing morbidity and
mortality caused by infectious disease could be economically and socially
undermined by a corresponding increase in the demands of the people on the state
for medical resources. The state therefore needs to play a central role in the
protection of its citizens, primarily through the use of state security and medical
institutions. This promotes human security, as the mastery of high morbidity and mortality rates in
a population has been a driver of state prosperity and economic strength throughout recorded history (ibid.: 78).
Protectionist approaches also attempt to reduce the possibility and probable aftereffects of biological and chemical
weapons, as well as the health-related implications of environmental change. D. Heymann (2003) advocates
technical solutions such as the development of strong government-centred policies, better international cooperation
calls for more dual-use facilities, including additional hospitals
and global surveillance. He
that can address prevailing health problems while ensuring that there is sufficient
emergency capacity to mitigate the effects of terrorism or natural disasters.
According to this model, financial and technical support for health systems needs to
be provided by wealthy industrialized nations on the basis of self-interest
globalized health threats can easily cross borders and be transmitted around the
world in a matter of hours, thereby undermining national and global security. The
spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and emerging and reemerging infectious diseases can
be impeded through surveillance and massive campaigns against specific diseases,
going beyond health to include national security, defense, and international
development aid (ibid.: 208). In protectionist approaches, disease and health-related
threats are the challenges to health security that must be managed . While not negating
the efforts of those working to help people facing such health threats, there is little in this approach that enables
Dual-use health facilities may
people to develop their own capacity to deal with threats to their security.
have some benefits in improving health, but again, they may also result in
misallocation of resources. The anthrax scares in the USA following the September 11th terrorist attacks
did not result in increased opportunities for health but, as Petchesky (2003) put it, expanded stockpiles of vaccines
and antibiotics, construction of containment laboratories, research into new drugs and biodetectors in other
words, a new bioterrorism industry, not more public hospitals, clinics or sexual and reproductive health or primary
The self-interest of states to provide protection for
health care services for the poor (ibid.: 251).
themselves becomes the driving argument for any intervention . This means that even
though the definition of security has expanded to encompass a greater range of potential and actual threats to
security, the fundamental goal of protectionist approaches is still the perpetuation of the state, and only by this
ensuring its ability to protect its citizens. The state is the main actor and benefi ciary, preserving a paternalistic,
top-down role as protector. Many of the health security measures suggested in this protection from threats
approach deal with protecting people who are already living in situations of violence, yet there is very little
Current research on health security has
exploration of the upstream causes of that violence.
largely focused on only a couple of issues primarily infectious disease and
biological weapons yet, according to Lee and McInnis (2003), these may not comprise the
major threats to global health (ibid.: 47). The determinants of violence, in particular the
states paternalistic role in sustaining gendered and potentially violent structures,
need to be examined. Furthermore, by ignoring the determinants of poor health,
patients are patched up and sent back out to face the same unclean water, lack
of opportunities and threats to their physical and mental wellbeing. Few would
argue that all forms of protection are completely unnecessary. The problem is more
that in much of the human security literature, in particular that related to health,
this has become the dominant discourse, with little discussion of alternative
approaches.
Gendered Language
 He/man
He/man language excludes women
Earp 12
Brian D., Yale University, Department of Cognitive Science. The Extinction of
Masculine Generics. Journal for Communication and Culture 2, No. 1. Spring 2012.
Pg 6.
What does it mean for masculine terms to make women invisible and how could mere word-choice have such a
dramatic-sounding effect? Simply put, there is ample psycholinguistic evidence 11 that people encountering
he/man generics are more likely to think of male human beings as the referents of
those terms. Thus, when a person reads or hears the word mankind, for example,
he or she is likely to reflexively conjure up mental images of men (doing such-and-
so) as opposed to either women or abstract visions the human race. This has the
effect of minimizing womens importance and diverting attention away from their
very existence. 12 The result is a sort of invisibility in the language itself, in the individuals minds eye, and
in the broader social consciousness. Someone could object that metaphorical invisibility is
too gauzy a notion to merit serious concern. But sexist language has consequences
in the real world as well. For example, Sandra Bem and Daryl Bem found evidence
that sex-biased wording in job advertisements ... discourage[d] ... women from
applying for opposite-sex jobs for which they might well be qualified.13 And more
recently, John Briere and Cheryl Lanktree found that subjects who had been
exposed to various levels of sexist noun and pronoun usage rated the attractiveness
of a career in psychology in sexrole stereotypic directions as a function of degree
of exposure to sexist language.14 Far from being gauzy issues, job prospects and career choice are
of practical concern and paramount importance. Sexist language which may have the effect of
limiting a woman's options in these domains, then, is clearly harmful.
 You Guys
You guys is exclusive gendered language
Anderson 6
Mia, professor emerita at Bergen Community College. SEXIST LANGUAGE: AN
OPPORTUNITY AND AN OBLIGATION. The Hispanic Outlook in Higher
Education16.13 (Apr 10, 2006): 72.
I see women completely indifferent - outwardly, at least - to a male waiter's asking a group of women, "What can I
get you guys?" I know he doesn't really think his female customers are males; he doesn't mean to be disrespectful.
Butwhere does his "guys" leave us women? I've heard women address their female
coworkers or friends as "guys" and, when asked, say, "Oh, it doesn't bother me." It
should! It's subtle propaganda, subtle mind control, suggesting that women are to
be invisible, that they're to stay in their place, which in our society is still second-
class. Academics should be leading the effort to eliminate the problem . One of the best
efforts that I have seen by an academic body is the 1988 (yes, and we're still having to talk about this) Guidelines
for Nonsexist Communication out of Youngstown State University. I must quote at length its articulation of the harm
done by sexist language and its call for change: "Whether
conscious or unconscious, subtle or
overt, sexist communication has serious, pervasive and cumulative effects. It may
devalue the ideas, work and words of particular individuals or groups (traditionally
women); unfairly single out, exclude, ignore, or discount individuals on the basis of
sex; establish, reinforce or perpetuate one set of accepted behaviors or
expectations for women and another for men; and limit abilities (or perception of
abilities), opportunities (or perception of opportunities), personal goals, and career
directions, thus impeding an individual's personal, academic and/or professional
development. "In short, sexist communication perpetuates social and educational
injustices. Like sexism, sexual harassment and other forms of biased
communication ... it must not be tolerated. We have an opportunity - and an obligation -
as members of the educational community to help students and colleagues shake
off unconsidered notions about the world , about other people and about themselves. We cannot do
this, however, without first discarding a few of our own old habits of mind and speech, among them the sexism that
is built into our culture and language."
Impacts
Framing
 Magnitude Last
Focusing on large impacts, like global warming or a war with
China, without a gendered lens causes serial policy failure
framings of urgency deny feminist investigation because the
causes of these issues can only be tracked by exposing ideas
about masculinity and femininity
Enloe 14
Cynthia, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Clark University. Bananas, Beaches
and Bases. University of California Press. 2014. Pp 357-359. MiLibrary.
Male officials who make foreign policy might prefer to think of themselves as
dealing with high finance or military strategy, but in reality they have self-
consciously designed immigration, tourism, labor, foreign service, cultural, and
military-base policies in order to divide and control women . They rarely admit it, but they
have acted as though their governments or organizations place in world affairs has
hinged on how women behaved. Uncovering these efforts has exposed men as men. International
politics have relied not only on the manipulation of femininitys multiple meanings
but also on the manipulation of ideas about masculinities. Ideas about adventure,
modernity, civilization, progress, expertise, rationality, stability, growth, risk, trust,
and security have been legitimized by certain kinds of masculinized values , systems,
and behavior. That is one of the reasons that each of these ideas has become so potent. Frequently, male
government officials and company executives seek to control women in order to
optimize their influence over other men: men as husbands, voters, migrant workers, soldiers,
diplomats, intelligence operatives, plantation and factory managers, editors, and bankers. Thus,
understanding the international workings of masculinity is important to making
feminist sense of international politics. Mens sense of their own manhood has
derived from their perceptions both of other mens masculinity and of the
femininities of women of different races and social classes . Thus a caveat: one cannot
make adequate sense of the international politics of masculinity by avoiding paying
close attention to women and femininity. Ideas about masculinities, the full array of masculinities,
have been crafted out of ideas about, myths about, and uncertainties about femininities and about actual women.
Climate change,
To conduct a reliable investigation of masculinity, one must take women seriously.
capitalist globalization, the new arms race, and widening gaps between rich and
poor, it is tempting to plunge into the discussion of any of these contemporary
issues without bothering to ask, Where are the women? In fact, the more urgent
the issue, New York will soon be under water! Chinas military build-up is going to
set off a world war! the more reasonable it seems to not ask , Where are the women? In
patriarchal hands, urgency is the enemy of feminist investigation . The previous chapters
suggest, however, that these urgent issues demand a gendered analysis precisely
because they are urgent, because they call for the fullest, most realistic
understandings. As feminist environmental researchers and activists already are
revealing, the causes of climate change, for example, and not just its effects, can be
realistically tracked only if one exposes the workings of ideas about manliness and
femininity and the relations between women and men, each fostered by the deliberate uses of
political power. So too can the causes of the new arms race, exploitive globalization,
and the widening gaps between rich and poor . Theresa, Chobi, Takazato, Iris, and the other
workshop participants are now, we can imagine, deep into their discussions. The deeper they dig, the more candid
they become with each other. They have tried to create an atmosphere of trust, one that encourages each woman
to be honest about her worries and puzzles. Together, they are on a journey to understand how banana plantations
work, how garment subcontractors perceive women seamstresses, whose security a military base protects, and why
Every time the
women and men who employ domestic workers do not see them as real workers.
conversation slips into abstractions, one of the women pulls it back to womens
complex everyday realities. This is what making feminist sense of international
politics sounds like.
Security
 + Neolib
The security state and neoliberal state are both
legitimated through masculine qualities
True 15
Jacqui True (Professor of Politics & International Relations and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at
Monash University, Australia. She received her PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada and has held academic
positions at Michigan State University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Auckland. She is a
specialist in Gender and International Relations.), June 2015, A Tale of Two Feminisms in International Relations?
Feminist Political Economy and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, Critical Perspectives, Politics & Gender, 11
(2) (2015), pg. 423-424, Accessed: 7/10/16

Bringing a feminist political economy perspective to bear on international security

opens up new areas of concern and research. One major area involves rethinking
gendered states, in particular, the interface between the security state and the
authoritarian neoliberal state form (Bruff 2014) following transformations in the aftermath of the 2008 Global
Financial Crisis (GFC). Both forms of state are legitimated through gender relations. The
authoritarian neoliberal state values masculine qualities of competitiveness, risk
taking, and rationality as does the security state, and in this way they both support
one another. As political economists argue contra ideologies of the free market, neoliberalism does not
involve less state but more state orchestration of the kinds of activity that are
feasible and appropriate for market and public institutions to engage in. There are
opportunities for IR feminist research on how increased defense budgets are prioritized in many
countries at the same time as foreign aid budgets are diminished and access to
services for noncitizens are virtually eliminated. Feminist research and advocacy
has long emphasised the trade-offs between military and social spending and the
unequal gender impacts of increased military spending. This debate has renewed currency in the
post-GFC austerity climate, given the heavy costs of seeking security against globalized terrorism in the age of social media where
anyone can claim links to a global militant movement. Gendered economic structures determine the
limits and the possibilities of politics, including security politics, whereas politics is
the principal means through which markets are established and transformed. IR
feminism must therefore be informed about political economy whatever the issue under study. Examining the
connections between military/ security complexes and financial capital will enable
us to better understand how patriarchal power works. Given that global political and
economic life are practically imbricated and that, echoing Enloe (Stark 2013), IR feminist scholars share a
broad curiosity, political economy needs to be part of any and all feminist analysis of international relations.
Violence
 Climate Change
The root cause of climate change is anti-ecological constructs
of masculinitytransfer to sustainable energy sources only
sustains unjust ecological practices
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
Implementing the Bali Principles with their queer feminist posthumanist
augmentations requires transformative strategies that are both top-down and
bottom-up; the responsibilities are both systemic, requiring changes in national and
corporate policies, and personal, requiring changes on the part of citizens and
consumers (Cuomo, 2011). Some technoscience solutions to climate change can
help to mitigate the outcomes of First-World nations' and corporations' unjust and
anti-ecological practices, and transform our energy reliance to more sustainable
sources, but a queer feminist climate justice approach goes to the roots and calls
for equity and sustainability at every level, from citizen to corporation, and it begins
with economics. As feminist economist Marilyn Waring observed in her classic work,
If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics (Waring, 1988), the United Nations
System of National Accounts (UNSNA) has no method of accounting for nature's own
production or destruction until the products of nature enter the cash economy, nor
does this system account for the majority of work done by women. A clean lake that
offers women fresh water supplies for cooking and crops has no economic value
until it is polluted; then companies must pay to clean it up, and the clean-up activity
is performed by men and recorded as generating income. Similarly, living forests
which supply women with food, fuel, and fodder have no recorded value in the
UNSNA until they are logged and their products can be manufactured into
commodities for salethen all related industry and manufacture, usually seen as
men's work, is recorded as income generating. In The Price of Motherhood, Ann
Crittendon (2001) addresses the shadow economy of women's unpaid labor in
reproduction and caregiving, linking the gendered economy with ecological
economics. As she explains, In economics, a free rider is someone who benefits
from a good without contributing to its provision: in other words, someone who gets
something for nothing. By that definition, both the family and the global economy
are classic examples of free riding. Both are dependent on female caregivers who
offer their labor in return for little or no compensation. (Crittendon 9) In short, we need
a feminist ecological accounting system, capable of tracking and promoting climate
justice economic practices at every level, from local to global. Replacing economic
globalization (which in practice has meant global corporatization and indigenous as
well as ecological colonialism) with global economic justice offers a frontal assault
on climate change. Industrialized nations must pay our climate debts both to
communities and to ecosystems, as called for in the Bali Principles, and develop
economic accounting practices that do not externalize the costs of a just transition
onto the environment and communities facing the outcomes of climate change . An
economic transition from excessive takings (i.e. profits) from women, indigenous communities, the Two-Thirds
World, animals, and ecosystems to a green economy requires sustainable jobs of the kind advocated by Van Jones'
organization, Green for All. These jobs will include sustainable energy systems, sustainable transit systems, and
urban planning guided by environmental justice. The foundations for food justice have been growing for decades in
the food cooperative movement which began in the 19th century, and was more recently resurrected in the 1970s.
Today's food justice movement includes Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), the advent of rooftop and
community gardens exemplified by groups such as Will Allen's Growing Power in Milwaukee, queer food justice
farmers and gardeners from Vermont to California, and Natasha Bowens' Brown Girl Farming efforts to map food
justice so that the food movement is not seen as the domain of affluent consumers but is shaped by the self-
determination of women and communities of color (Bowens, 2013). With a posthumanist food justice movement
reconceived to include other animal species and to consider their lives in terms of reproductive justice, the animal
sanctuary movementa corrective response of entangled empathy, interrupting the practices of industrialized
animal agriculture may face a new opportunity: freeing up the excessive land space now used by industrialized
animal agriculture, smallscale farming and community gardens alike will have more land for farming and for freed
animals. This transition away from industrial animal agriculture begins by ceasing the artificial insemination of
female animals on factory farms, and possibly returning freed animals to live out their lives adjacent to community
gardens and small farms, where they can provide cropping services and fertilizer, giving humans a chance to repay
our interspecies debt. Overlapping with food justice, the Transition Town movement, named in 1998 and formally
launched by 2005, has spread from its origins in the United Kingdom to countries on every continent, with
communities responding to peak oil by building local food security through community gardens and local energy
security through renewables. Some groups build on the movement for local currencies based on barter: one hour of
anyone's time is equal to another's. As Bill McKibben wrote in his Rolling Stone article, Do the Math (McKibben,
2012), social and environmental movements of the kind needed now are often inspired by having an enemy.
Pinpointing the globalized fossil fuel industry, McKibben launched 350.Org's strategy of divestment, modeled on the
successful divestment strategies that prompted South Africa to end apartheid. Withdrawing financial support from
systems destructive of global eco-justice is another necessary but not sufficient method of resistance. While crucial
to a just transition, economic boycotts and micro-level community infrastructures providing an alternative to global
capitalism through local economics, energy, food, and governance can still be overridden by global-level trade
agreements, multinational investments, and other forms of economic or militarized pressure. Withdrawing economic
support from these global institutions of ecological domination, investing in systems based on
social/environmental/climate justice, and pressuring for equitable representation within the international institutions
of governance, are equally crucial strategies.11 The macro-level discussions at the UNFCC must be gender
balanced, as was suggested over twenty years ago by the Women's Environment and Development Organization
(WEDO) in their 1991 Preparatory Conference for the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de
Janeiro, 1992. There, many of the most salient issues of climate change were both addressed and ignored in these
What feminist climate justice scholars also
two pivotal conferences (Br Bistuer & Cabo, 2004).
note, albeit as an afterthought, is that these discussions of gender and climate
have tended to focus only on women. More research is needed on the ways that
men around the world have variously benefitted from or been affected by climate
change discussions, problems, and outcomes. More research is needed on the
gender roles of masculinities in diverse cultures, and the ways these social
constructions promote overconsumption, sexual violence and exploitation, the
abandonment of family members during climate change crises, and rationalize the
de facto exclusion of women from decision-making bodies at the local, national, and
global levels. Much has been written confirming the antiecological construction of
masculinity (Kheel, 2008). It is time to envision and to recuperate culturally-specific,
ecological masculinities that will companion this transition to climate justice (Gaard,
2014), and in this regard, posthumanist genderqueer activists will have much to
offer.
 Militarism
Empirics prove, securitization privileges the needs of the
military, causing every day violence. Failure by the state to
endorse empowerment measures is the problem the alt
solves this problem and makes meeting health and security
goals less violent
Hans and Reardon 12 [Asha Hans, Betty A. Reardon The Gender Imperative:
Human Security Vs State Security Routledge, Dec 6, 2012]
Military spending diverts capital and resources away from the provision of
healthcare and preventative health services into unproductive, capital-intensive
areas. If it can be shown that military spending represents a misapplication of resources
needed to protect the real security needs of people, then an argument could be
made that those resources should be redistributed to areas such as health and
education which would directly meet their needs, thereby increasing human
security. Political will could then be garnered in order to enact the required
redistribution of fiscal resources, ingenuity, and technology to stem the rising tide of
disease and to promote global prosperity and stability (Price-Smith 2002: 179). According to
SIPRI (2008), military spending has increased in real terms since the early 1990s, with total global military
In many countries, after post-Cold War reductions,
expenditures reaching $1,339 billion at the end of 2007.
military budgets have increased rapidly in the past decade . In both Africa and Asia areas of
the world which can least afford it there has been an increase of 51 per cent in overall military expenditures
There have been a number of reports tying military spending to
since 1998 (ibid.: 10).
negative social and health outcomes and increased violence . In 1994, the World
Development Report (UNDP 1994: 50) found that the internal security of developing
nations was much more likely to be harmed than helped by a countrys own military .
The report also highlighted that the chance of dying from some form of social
neglect (such as an infectious disease or malnutrition) in a developing country was
33 times greater than the chances of being killed in a war of aggression . Hyatt (2006:
32021) reported a statistical correlation between higher levels of military spending and child mortality, concluding
that for every 1 per cent reduction in military expenditures, the infant mortality rate would decline by 2.5 deaths
There is also some evidence that violence can be related to the
per 1,000 births each year.
failures of governments to provide equitable access to healthcare and educational
opportunities. J. P. Azam (2001: 442) showed that governments in Africa that failed to deliver the services that
people wanted, as a form of wealth redistribution, were much more likely to face violent upheavals and rebellions,
the
while spending on defence caused an increase in the incidence rate of armed rebellion. Conversely,
redistributive effects of public health and education spending worked to reduce
outbreaks of violence. However, there is a question as to whether redistribution of state resources to health
and education will inevitably result in improved health. There is a distinct possibility that even if there were the
political will to enact such a proposition, the additional resources would be transferred to protectionist/state-centred
models that may do little to address the determinants of poor health. [] with the Declaration of Alma Ata (WHO
1978), the WHO developed a more horizontal approach to health.A determinants approach to health
works on the basis that better health can be provided if illness is prevented rather
than cured. The Declaration of Alma Ata articulated a multi-sectoral approach to health, which included
agriculture, food, industry, education, housing, public works, communications and demilitarization as essential
the Declaration recognized inequalities in
components for improving health. Most importantly,
health status as a major concern, and noted that failure to address those was
political, socially and economically unacceptable (WHO 1978). It called for the
introduction of Primary Health Care (PHC), in which basic healthcare and prevention
would be provided by a system of community health workers at the local level. It
also drew attention to the worlds misplaced security priorities, requiring
governments to redistribute resources that were being spent on arms with the goal
of health for all by the year 2000. Horizontal health systems such as PHC open up new
opportunities for community participation in health services, particularly by women
and other marginalized population groups. They offer possibilities for women to
challenge established hierarchies, improve status by becoming health providers,
enhance their own health and the health of their communities, and participate in
peace building and human rights-related work within their communities. While the
Declaration itself predates the development of the concepts of human security by more than a decade, it does
represent a theoretical strand of the health security literature, and is referred to in both the Human Development
Report (UNDP 1994: 92) and Human Security Now (CHS 2003: 107). There are already a number of clear cases
where the PHC approach has been tried and proven effective (see Werner and Sanders 1997). In Kerala and Sri
Lanka, despite tiny budgets and limited resources, life expectancy and morbidity improved through public health
and education programs. The barefoot doctors programme in China in the 1970s is touted as a major success that
underlies the countrys current development. Costa Rica now has better health indicators than many areas of the
USA. However, Alma Atas underlying message of social liberation as a means of improving health also proved to be
its downfall. The CHS (2003: 107) noted the failure of the international community to meet the goals of Alma Ata,
ranging from weak political will to economic incapacity. The result was that public
systems have not
been adequately developed, and private markets in health care have catered only
to those with the money to pay for care . However, this is only part of the explanation. The idea of
PHC was, according to D. Werner and D. Sanders (1997), disembowelled by those committed to maintaining the
governments
system as it was the medicalindustrial establishment. Werner and Sanders argued that
were uncomfortable with the broad messages of participation, empowerment and
social action. In a number of countries that had introduced successful PHC
programmes, such as Nicaragua and Mozambique, health workers were deliberately
targeted for elimination. Governments also misused the opportunities presented by
PHC to dismantle programmes designed to promote a truly grassroots-based health
movement (1997: 20). Another example of the redistribution discourse can be seen in the attempts to contrast
global military spending priorities with the failure of the worlds governments to meet their obligations in achieving
Of the eight MDGs, three are directly related to
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
health, and all of the eight have relationships as determinants of better health. All
have some connection to the effects that gender has on social development.

Militarization causes physical, psychological, and sexual

violence as feminine bodies become the battleground wars are
fought on
Hans in 2010 (Asha Hans is the former Director, School of Womens Studies, and
Professor of Political Science, Utkal University, India. She is the author and editor of many
publications related to womens rights, the latest being The Gender Imperative, coedited
with Prof. Betty Reardon (2010). Her book Gender, Disability and Identity (2003) is a globally
recognized seminal work coedited with Annie Patri. An advocate of womens rights, she has
participated in the formulation of many conventions in the United Nations. A leading
campaigner of womens rights in India, she has initiated many campaigns on the inclusion of
women with disabilities in the mainstream womens movement. She is also the founder of
Women with Disabilities India Network. 14 Human Security the Militarized Perception and
Space for Gender The Gender Imperative pages: 384 409)

The Line of Control (LOC) between India and Pakistan in the state of
Women on the Line of Control
Jammu & Kashmir has emerged as one of the most rapidly militarized space in
the world. Since 1947 militarization has increased, leaving civilians to bear
its undesirable consequences. The price of militarization, needless to say, is met
at the cost of other basic needs and has subsequently given rise to increased
violence against women. I have tried to listen to womens experiences of the conflict zone on the LOC, an
IndoPakistan border, where the army is implementing its programme of human security. The region selected for
study on the border is 100 kilometres long and covers Kargil, Drass and Batalik sectors in Jammu & Kashmir. The
area which has experienced low intensity conflict since partition underwent border changes in the wars of 1948,
womens voices were documented by the
1965, 1972 and 1999. After the conflict of 1999,
author and the article communicates these womens concerns and desires
for change.2 Among these narrations on the LOC emerged the term of
human security used by the armed forces as a strategy of peace on the
borders. Authored by a commanding officer of the army, General Arjun Ray, it has turned into a full-fledged
programme of the Indian Army. To analyse the emerging perspective of a human security paradigm within a
The high level of
militarized environment, the discourse that has emerged is documented here.
violence against women in this zone is not created alone by killings due to
incessant shelling but goes beyond it, to physical harm such as rape and
domestic and psychological violence. The rape of millions of women in
historical and geographical perspectives has been documented globally in
the gendered narrative of wars. In that narrative, dominant notions of
masculinity merge with the ethnic element. While we cannot rule out rape
as an individual act carried out as a prize of war, it is also committed by
the armed forces as part of a tactic to defeat the ethnic or religious
adversary. Militarized rape is viewed as a distinctive act perpetrated in
the context of an institution, the military that is part of the state
machinery. The documentation of the mass rapes in the South Asian subcontinent
is part of the history of the partition of India and Pakistan. These are narratives of
dishonour and abductions based on religious grounds, by both the Hindus and the Muslims.
The rape of women of our community by their men figured prominently in the debates and discussions that took
place in parliamentary circles (as expected mainly among men). The honour of the community and of the nation
was seen to be the trajectories written across the bodies of women and the violation of their bodies, and was
therefore tantamount to a violation of the body of the nation, of Mother India (Butalia 1998; Menon and Bhasin
1998). During partition, though women should have been central in the writing of
history, they found little space, and it is therefore not surprising that rape as an
instrument finds no reference in the history of the LOC . Post partition, the new
border that is the Line of Control was drawn in 1972, as a result of the IndoPak war.
In that drawing of the temporary border, portions of land changed hands from India to Pakistan and vice versa.3 In
this fluid territorial situation the armed forces perpetuated rape on an
extensive scale, silenced forever due to the shame the community felt
(authors visit to a village in Kargil in 2002).4 The children of the rapes are now grown up.
There is silence over the fate of these wronged children fathered by
soldiers. It was a personal and a community humiliation. The memories
are kept behind a shadow of silence. Their trauma cannot be overlooked,
as two whole generations have suffered. For the women the shame and
dishonour of rape will always remain, even though they are in their 40s and 50s now. For
the village at large it was a community humiliation by a state meant to
protect them. For them, independence as understood by the rest of India did not take place.5 Rape
exacerbates womens vulnerability because of patriarchal definitions of
womens purity (De Alwis 2004).6 A purity mapped on their bodies. This purity is
not confined to conflict but is carried over from their daily lives. Concepts of
virtue and family honour are part of the private, which during conflicts comes into the public through rape. In the
surviving rape and
social milieu, being raped brings stigma to both mother and child. In this context,
bearing a rapists child means loss of family, community and livelihood. Women
thus have strong incentives to mask or hide their experiences of sexual assault.
Sexual abuse continues to occur in the border region of Kargil, but due to the stigma associated with this issue, it is
difficult for the community to discuss it openly. Gendered duties, it is seen, also bring gendered consequences.
Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to attack when collecting and searching for firewood, as this may take
them a long distance from their homes and expose them not only to the danger of anti-personnel mines and
The collectivity of womens bodies in the
unexploded shells but also the risk of sexual attack.
eyes of the perpetuator as representation of the community cannot be
perceived by women in the same manner, for whom loss of self-esteem is a
personal tragedy and loss of self-esteem and dignity comprise an
important component of human security. The protection from violation of human dignity
forms the core principle of human security. Rape has the most long-lasting effect on womens psyche and the most
Any alternative security system that does not address these
difficult to heal.
concerns of women violates their human rights. Unfortunately, the existing
national security system provides no protection to women on this ground.
 War
A feminist political economy perspective highlights structural
violence and harmful gendered globalized structuresgender
equality is directly linked to lower levels of domestic and intra-
state conflict
True 15
Jacqui True (Professor of Politics & International Relations and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at
Monash University, Australia. She received her PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada and has held academic
positions at Michigan State University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Auckland. She is a
specialist in Gender and International Relations.), June 2015, A Tale of Two Feminisms in International Relations?
Feminist Political Economy and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, Critical Perspectives, Politics & Gender, 11
(2) (2015), pg. 421-423, Accessed: 7/10/16

IR feminists are exploring the continuum of gendered violence through engagement with the United Nations Women, Peace and
Security agenda. Addressing the protection and prevention of conflict-related sexual and
gender-based violence (SGBV) specifically requires a feminist political economy
approach, not just the mainstreaming of gender within international security issues. UN
Security Council WPS resolutions since SCR 1325 in 2000 have progressively narrowed their focus
to the issue of the use of sexual violence in conflict and disaggregated this violence from
other forms of gendered violence affecting women and girls disproportionately. The
slew of Security Council resolutions from 1820 to 2122 have focused on coordination mechanisms
for protection within peace operations and legal accountability mechanisms for
prevention, but they have not addressed the root causes of the sexual violence,
such as the social structures of gender inequality, economic impoverishment, and
lack of opportunity. On the demand side, many conflicts involve competition over land and
other natural resources, and several implicate large transnational corporations in
human rights violations. Indeed, SGBV against women and girls, boys and men may be deployed
precisely to dispossess individuals and communities of their land and to remove the
agricultural labor force of a community. Because women often do the majority of
agricultural work, some conflicts have witnessed armed groups attempting to stop
women from being able to work, effectively cutting the food supply of the enemy (Turshen 1998). On the supply
side, womens empowerment is a critical part of violence prevention in and outside of
conflict. It is true that women of all income groups and in all conflicts experience mens
violence, but when women have access to productive resources and enjoy equal social
and economic rights with men, they are less vulnerable to violence across all
societies (True 2012). Not surprisingly, countries that value womens equal participation and
where there are fewer economic, social, or political differences in power between
men and women have lower levels of violence and of intrastate armed conflict
(Caprioli 2005; WHO 2005). To illustrate the importance of an FPE perspective on the WPS agenda, consider womens
in postconflict Sri Lanka. The conflict was officially over
experiences of multiple forms of insecurity and violence
the war is over, the violence has not ended. The situation of
in Sri Lanka in 2009; however, while
structural violence for minority women, in the north and east of Sri Lanka in particular,
exacerbates womens vulnerability to physical violence, including sex trafficking,
harassment, sexual violence, and domestic violence. In the latter stages of the conflict and its
aftermath, military forces were responsible for a variety of human rights abuses against
the civilian population, including extrajudicial killings, disappearance, rape, sexual
harassment, and other violations. In the current climate of impunity, sustained by
insecurity and the lack of military accountability, abuses continue. Thousands of
these
this has
women have lost their husbands and other family members during the armed conflict. For many,
brought new responsibilities: 40,000 households in the north and east are now
femaleheaded. Women are now primary providers for their families: they face
limited livelihood opportunities in the postconflict context and are typically excluded
from official development programs. Moreover, against a backdrop of competing claims
and mass resettlement, they are especially vulnerable to land grabs and other
rights violations. The militarization of these regions since the formal end of the conflict has
compounded the insecurities for minority women. Many, especially widows and the wives of
disappeared or surrenderees, are vulnerable every day to sexual harassment, exploitation, or
assault by army personnel or other militias (see Davies and True 2015). These women are
targeted for violence as embodiments of minority group identity and because
gendered cultures of stigma and shame generalizes their oppression and
punishment across their families and communities. An FPE perspective expands the
WPS agenda by directing our attention toward the long-term prevention of conflict and
violence. More than gendered interpersonal relations, religious and cultural
dynamics, it emphasizes the gendered globalized structures that contribute to
violence and conflict, such as gender-biased macroeconomic policies, supply chains,
labor markets, and political norms. These structures are modifiable, and where they
can be shown to be causal of violence, as in the case of Sri Lanka, WPS policy changes
could be devised to significantly reduce the incidence of widespread sexual and gender-
based violence.

The impact is try or die the unmanageable catastrophes of

present-day society are all consequences of this patriarchal
system war, violence, and environmental destruction are
inevitable
Warren and Cady, 96(Karen Warren and Duane Cady, Professors at
Macalester and Hamline, Bringing peace home: feminism, violence, and nature,
1996, p.12-13)
Operationalized,the evidence of patriarchy as a dysfunctional system is found in
the behaviors to which it gives rise, (c) the unmanageability, (d) which results. For example ,
in the United States, current estimates are that one out of every three or four
women will be raped by someone she knows; globally, rape, sexual harassment,
spouse-beating, and sado-massochistic pornography are examples of behaviors
practiced, sanctioned, or tolerated within patriarchy. In the realm of environmentally destructive
behaviors, strip-mining, factory farming, and pollution of the air, water, and soil
are instances of behaviors maintained and sanctioned within patriarchy .
They, too, rest on the faulty beliefs that it is okay to rape the earth, that it is
mans God-given right to have dominion (that is domination) over the earth, that
nature has only instrumental value that environmental destruction is the acceptable price we pay for
progress. And the presumption of warism, that war is a natural, righteous, and ordinary
way to impose dominion on a people or nation, goes hand in hand with
patriarchy and leads to dysfunctional behaviors of nations and ultimately to international
unmanageability. Much of the current unmanageability of contemporary life in
patriarchal societies, (d) is then viewed as a consequence of a patriarchal
preoccupation with activities, events, and experiences that reflect historically male-gender-identified
beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions. Included among these real-life consequences are precisely those
concerns with nuclear proliferation, war, and environmental destruction , and
violence towards women, which many feminists see as the logical outgrowth of patriarchal thinking. In fact,
it is often only through observing these dysfunctional behaviorsthe symptoms of dysfunctionalitythat
one can truly see that and how patriarchy serves to maintain and perpetuate them .
When patriarchy is understood as a dysfunctional system, this unmanageability can be seen for what it is
as a predictable and thus logical consequence of patriarchy. The theme that global environmental
crises, war, and violence generally are predictable and logical consequences
of sexism and patriarchal culture is pervasive in ecofeminist literature. Ecofeminist Charlene
Spretnak, for instance, argues that a militarism and warfare are continual features of
a patriarchal society because they reflect and instill patriarchal values and
fulfill needs of such a system. Acknowledging the context of patriarchal
conceptualizations that feed militarism is a first step toward reducing their
impact and preserving life on Earth. Stated in terms of the foregoing model of patriarchy as a
dysfunctional social system, the claims by Spretnak and other feminists take on a clearer meaning:
Patriarchal conceptual frameworks legitimate impaired thinking (about women,
national and regional conflict, the environment) which is manifested in behaviors which, if continued, will
make life on earth difficult, if not impossible It is a stark message, but it is plausible. Its
plausibility lies in understanding the conceptual roots of various woman-nature-peace connections in
regional, national, and global contexts.
Alternative
Alts
 Everyday Focus
Traditional policy making ignores the everyday violence
experienced by women- focusing on the everyday opens up the
space for dialogue on violence as a gendered phenomenon
Elias and Rai, 2015
Juanita, an Associate Professor in International Political Economy at the University of
Warwick; a Professor in the department of Politics and International Studies at the
University of Warwick Rai. "The Everyday Gendered Political Economy of Violence."
Politics & Gender 11.2 (2015): 424-29. Web. 10 July 2016.
This short commentary aims to think through the need to return to a more integrated feminist IR through a focus
on some of the ways in which feminist political economy (FPE) scholars, such as ourselves, might 424 POLITICS &
GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) better integrate a focus on gendered forms and practices of violence into our analysis. We
do this via an intervention into debates about the nature of the everyday political economy. At the same time, we
hope that this intervention might also draw attention to the need for a clearer understanding of the gendered
structures and practices of the global political economy in feminist security studies (FSS). We note that a neglect of
everyday gendered practices of violence in IPE is, in part, a reflection of the overall marginalization of gender within
violence
this field (Elias 2011). True (2012), however, has opened up important lines of debate showing how
against women both underpins and is perpetuated by the process of global
economic transformation. Policy reports from key global economic governance
institutions such as the World Bank (2013) have nonetheless displayed a propensity to
present violence against women as an economic cost without examining the
structures and processes that enable violence against women to take shape within
the contemporary global economic system. While we, like True, are deeply skeptical of this
approach, we do, nonetheless, seek to interrogate the costs of violence by focusing on the everyday human, as
opposed to just the economic, cost of this violence.Within the study of IPE, one particular opening
into which a discussion of gendered violence can make an important contribution is
the recent turn to the everyday (Hobson and Seabrooke 2007) a development that has
largely neglected the contributions of feminist scholarship. This includes
International Relations (Enloe 1989) and feminist scholarship on the nature, experience, and
methodological significance of the everyday (Scheper-Hughes 1992; Smith 1987). Hobson and
Seabrookes everyday IPE approach in particular can be critiqued for its propensity
to present the everyday as a site of mundane acts of political agency a
perspective that jars somewhat when read against Scheper-Hughes ethnography of
the violence of everyday life as experienced by poor mothers in the Brazilian
favelas of the 1980s. Here, the everyday is an ambiguous and contradictory space in
which injustices of political economic inequality are manifested in womens
emotional responses to child bearing, rearing, and mortality (specifically, poor womens
acceptance of their childrens death) (1992, 341). Scheper- Hughes work echoes Smiths (1987) commitment to
studying the everyday as embedded in a socially organized context (p. 90) but which must also be understood as
It is this local material
an actual material setting, an actual local and particular place in the world.
world that is emphasized by Bourgeois and Scheper-Hughes (2004) in their rejection
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES 425 of all-encompassing (top-down) theories of neoliberalism as
structural violence instead pointing to how it is the lived experiences of those on
the ground that generate the most useful insights that enable us to connect
everyday acts and forms of violence to broader political economic structures and
systems. In order to illustrate our argument, we outline three strands of the violence
of everyday life in the global political economy: (1) the pervasiveness of violence
within feminized global zones of work, such as export processing zones or the
expanding market for migrant domestic work; (2) womens experience of violence in
public spaces, particularly that relating to mobility and public transport; and (3) the
relationship between womens subordination in the household and forms of
violence. The experience of violence by women factory workers is important to
consider in developing an FPE approach to everyday violence not least because of
the tendency to equate womens entry into paid employment with forms of
empowerment that undermine patriarchal household relations . If we return to Elson and
Pearsons (1981) classic work on this topic, we see how gender relations are not merely
decomposed, but also recomposed and intensified when women enter paid
employment for example, the uses of sexual harassment as a way of securing
workplace discipline (Mun oz 2008). An understanding of the gendered violence of
global factory production must, furthermore, recognize how the emergence of
export processing industrialization is, in many respects, an effective scaling-up of
the working practices of the informal and/or homeworking sectors to the global
economy (Cross 2010), serving to reproduce the structures of domination and inequality
of the household within global zones of work. These blurred lines between the global
and the household are, furthermore, evident in the emergence of large-scale
movements of migrant women to take up employment as domestic workers,
exposing women to multiple forms of violence by the state and individuals (Elias 2013).
The recomposition and/or intensification of violent gender relations is also evident in
relation to the violence that women experience in the everyday act of going to
work; their mobility invites violence. Rises in womens engagement in economic
activity outside of the home increases their visibility in public spaces and yet also
results in women experiencing forms of disciplining or backlash that stem from
perceptions of women as stepping out of place. Urbanization and urban poverty
bring about everyday violence for women. We see poorly supported, overcrowded public
transportation systems 426 POLITICS & GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) within urban areas as a key site for gender violence.
Travel on public transport is always mediated by class. The poor, in particular, need to travel long distances to get
to work.
The issue of sexual harassment and new experiences of assault on public
transport something that is frequently dismissed as an inconvenience rather than
an act of violence is one that speaks particularly well to developing an
understanding of gender violence as an everyday phenomena. The relationship between
womens subordination in the household and violence is most frequently understood in terms of the issue of
domestic violence.
Global political economic transformations do play out in households in
ways that empower women, making them less vulnerable to violence, but also in
ways that significantly disempower women. For example, Baxi, Rai, and Ali (2006) found in their
study of so-called honour crimes in India that one motivating factor in disciplining young women through
household and community violence was the fear that the liberalization of the Indian economy, increasing migration
of young men and women to cities, and the influx of television programmes from the West would lead to the erosion
of traditional gendered social practices of marriage. The performance of this violence was also suggestive of the
elision of governance of communities with the governance of polity caste-based village councils (khap
panchayats) being allowed to decree punishment with full knowledge of the state/ secular local government (Baxi,
Rai, and Ali 2006). Beyond these specific examples,
in thinking about the violence of everyday life
within the household from a political economy perspective, it is also important to
broaden notions of violence to include not just direct physical attack, but also forms
of violence that impact on womens bodily integrity in terms of access to adequate
nutrition or healthcare. We would also add the psychological violence that stems
from the way in which womens work in the domestic sphere remains unrecognized,
unrewarded, and misrepresented (Waring 1988). Thus, in outlining a theory of depletion through
social reproduction, Rai, Hoskyns, and Thomas (2014) underscore how the nonrecognition of the socially
reproductive work that takes place within households can lead to discursive, bodily, emotional, and citizenship-
entitlement harm. By showing how macrolevel nonrecognition of socially reproductive work is intimately connected
to everyday depletion of individuals, households, and communities, Rai, Hoskyns, and Thomas develop a materialist
harm occurs when there is a
feminist understanding of everyday systemic violence. In this framework,
measurable deterioration in the health and CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES 427 well-being of
individuals and the sustainability of households and communities and when the
inflows required to sustain social reproductive work fall below a threshold of
sustainability (2014, 6). In times of crises, economic downturn, war, and social conflict,
there can be an intensification of this harm. So, by revealing the links between IPE
and the everyday social reproductive work, we can analyze how womens
productive and social reproductive commitments under late capitalism are
experienced on the ground. There is, we note, something of a gap within feminist studies of the
household and social reproduction in political economy when it comes to the issue of violence. Although there
exist multiple strands of feminist political economy analysis (Elias 2011), we focus on
the more materialist-oriented social reproduction literature since this is where we
locate ourselves as scholars. We feel that it is useful to think through how a theory
of violence might be embedded into studies of social reproduction, and one way to
do this is by mobilizing the concept of depletion . For example, by situating factory or domestic
workers within broader sets of socially reproductive relations, it is possible to point to the costs and harms that are
experienced by female workers in low-paid, labor-intensive work the harms to their health and well-being
(including emotional well-being) and broader harms to the community and (global) household. O utlining the
ways in which we think a focus on the everyday in IPE opens up space for
discussions of violence as a gendered phenomenon. This, then, is an intervention
we hope serves as a starting point for developing further conversations within
feminist IR (while at the same time ensuring that we continue to have conversations
with nonfeminist critical IPE scholars) . This short piece is not a critique of FSS for its lack of attention
to the everyday political economy (or even the not-soeveryday political economy of neoliberal economic
restructuring). Rather, this piece is a contribution to this Critical Perspectives section, which provides a forum for
thinking about ways in which we can re-engage. We recognize that for many FSS scholars focused on unpacking the
discursive construction of militarized and/or securitized identities, an engagement with the more materialist focus
of much recent feminist political economy scholarship may not be particularly attractive. However ,
our
intention is that through demonstrating the strong and clear links between social
reproduction, the everyday political economy, and issues of violence against
women, we can encourage a dialogue across these subfields. In doing so, we also
hope that we can inspire 428 POLITICS & GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) more FSS scholars to start
thinking about links between violence and everyday political economy.
 Gendered Lens
Using a gendered lens is critical to understand US hegemonic
masculinity - security and the political economy are
intertwined with gender making gender the critical component
of understanding the effects wealth has on international
relations
Sjoberg in 2015 (Laura Sjoberg is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL From Unity to Divergence and Back Again: Security and
Economy in Feminist International Relations POLITICS & GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) PG: 408-
413)

InGender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security, J. Ann Tickner
(1992)identified three main dimensions to achieving global security national
security, economic security, and ecological security: conflict, economics,
and the environment. Much of the work in feminist peace studies that inspired early
feminist International Relations (IR) work (e.g., Brock-Utne 1989; Reardon 1985) and many of Tickners
contemporaries (e.g., Enloe 1989; Peterson and Runyan 1991; Pettman 1996) also saw political
economy and a feminist conception of security as intrinsically interlinked.
Yet, as feminist IR research evolved in the early 21st century, more scholars were
thinking either about political economy or about war and political
violence, but not both. This divergence was recognized and reified with the use
of the terms Feminist Security Studies (FSS) and Feminist Political Economy or
Feminist Global Political Economy (FPE). Both FSS and FPE went from being named to developing
into vibrant research communities over the last decade (e.g., Rai and Waylen 2013; Sjoberg 2009a). While
specialization led to a significant amount of intricate field research (e.g., Chin 2013; MacKenzie 2009) and deep
the overlap that early feminists in IR saw
theoretical conversations (Peterson 2003; Wibben 2010),
between political economy and security has often (though not always) been lost in
both FSS and FPE research. This brief essay contends that looking at the space where
security and political economy questions intersect is one of the most
fruitful directions for researchers in the field and provides an added value to the
analysis that either lens would provide individually . The essay uses an example
from my research on prostitution of male members of the U.S. military to
explore the utility of understanding the interlocked nature of security and
political economy in feminist scholarship on global politics politically,
analytically, intellectually, and normatively. It concludes by arguing that a
reunification of FSS and FPE is a productive and intellectually essential
direction of future research. Naming FSS and Identifying its Losses I certainly was not the only one
who started using the term FSS around a decade ago, but I can speak to my purposes for using it (which may differ
from others purposes). In 2006, I proposed a special issue of Security Studies (Sjoberg 2009a) and a 2007
International Studies Association workshop on FSS. My use of the term had an explicitly outward-focused intent:
there existed a subfield of IR called Security Studies, and an employer had asked me to write an essay evaluating
although feminists had been writing important
feminist contributions to it. As I tried, I realized that
works about gender, war, and conflict for decades, they had not made the radar
screen of Security Studies, so I used the term Feminist Security Studies with the
explicit intent of convincing people in Security Studies that feminist work matters to
their research. That mission has had some successes and failures, I think, but they seem to me to be
secondary to the (at least for me) unintended consequences of naming FSS. To me, there seemed to be a
(hopefully-short-term) effect of a trend of research that self-identified as FSS, mine included, marginalizing feminist
work on global political economy within the feminist IR community. The FSS work became, in my view,
overrepresented in the field. I also felt that sense of overrepresentation looking at the proliferation of work on
womens violence within Feminist Security Studies, which was certainly for a while (and may still be) a significantly
larger part of feminist research on security than are gender issues in lived experiences of security. While there are
indicators that both of these trends are at least being tempered, I think it is important to evaluate how those
consequences might have evolved. In hindsight, I think the notion that the label FSS could possibly be purely
outward-looking was short-sighted. Whatever successes it had in gaining traction in Security Studies that made the
never-intended subfield of FSS appealing, the work it inspired was, by definition, going to be impacted by the
assumed intended audience of Security Studies with its narrow definitions of security and assumptions about
methodology. While I think (and hope) a lot of our work has either rejected this direction or walked the line well,
there will always be trade-offs in such a project. While early feminist IR addressed militarism, political economy, and
the environment as interrelated, much more recent work in FSS has either been narrower or wielded a security
lens to analyze those other issues. My work is as susceptible to this critique as anyone elses, if not more so (e.g.,
Sjoberg 2009b). My research has often not done a good job at approximating the relationship between FSS and FPE
that would be ideal, in part because I have always felt more comfortable in the realm of security (as traditionally
understood) than researching and theorizing political economy. Still, writing a book about the different areas of
I found political economy always and
feminist theorizing of wars (Sjoberg 2013),
everywhere relevant to individual experiences of war, to conflict-related
migration, to the funding of war and conflict, to the social dynamics of
joining militaries, to the constitution of military action. In fact, some of
the most interesting and underexplored intersections between war
practice and feminist theorizing are the places where questions of political
economy would dominate the analysis like analyzing the gendered nature of
military logistics practices, understanding the long-term effects of conflicts on
populations in conflict zones, and understanding the gendered health impacts of
war, to name a few examples. A narrowly framed FSS-focused research approach might miss many of these
dimensions which I think is the loss for FSS research involved in its divergence from FPE research. Thinking About
I have just started a research project on male
FSS and FPE in Male Military Prostitution
members of the U.S. military who prostitute themselves to near-based populations. I
initially became interested in the question of where male military prostitutes are while reading Aaron Belkins
(2012) book on homoeroticism underpinning the straight, hegemonic masculinity of the U.S. military next to
Katharine Moons (1997) book on base camp prostitution. I wondered are there base camps for male prostitutes?
I found a positive answer to that, but found myself more interested in having discovered the male members of the
understanding military
military who prostitute themselves. I was interested for Belkins reasons of
masculinities and their relationship to sexualities, but also because I was
interested in what straight soldiers prostituting themselves to men
meant for the social construction of heterosexuality. I started thinking about it
as both securitized (what does this mean for the sex of security?) and as an artifact of queer
history (Berube 2010). That said, my approach largely ignored political economy dynamics, not least that
prostitution is, by definition, a practice where money changes hands . The
more research I do, however, the more I find a politics of the monetization of sex
mapped onto the politics of performed masculinities, where particular
sorts of men performing particular sorts of sex acts command a financial
premium, while others are financially undervalued because of their
assumed desire for the sex act. The exchange of money can also act as a
pass to deny desire. In that way, the constitution of securitized
masculinity (which I am interested in) cannot be separated from the power-laden
political economies of prostitution since straight male prostitutes
provide only certain services, and command a premium, especially if they
are selling themselves as soldiers. This brings up a number of other questions that I
previously had not considered: What are the monetary significations of idealized
militarized masculinities, inside of prostitution and outside of it? A number
of male soldiers who prostitute themselves say they do it for the money,
so what are the political-economic pressures on their lives that make that
(or the perception of it) true? From where is the money that goes into male military
prostitution being diverted? Where is it being spent? Does economic well-being in
the location where soldier prostitution occurs dictate the volume of that prostitution
or the price that it brings? In situations where soldiers do not do it for the money,
what is the signification of money changing hands (particularly for military
masculinities) rather than not? To what degree is male military prostitution
performed involuntarily or with limited agency ? Do the pressures to which that
involuntariness responds lie largely in the financial or social arenas? Is there utility to comparing soldier prostitution
with soldier consumption of prostitute services? If so, what is that utility ?
What roles do economic
inequality and commerce dynamics have in the constitution of idealized
military masculinity through sexuality? These are, of course, a rough cut, both conceptually
and terminologically, but even that very rough cut seems to suggest that research in FSS that takes
political economy seriously is likely to provide a deeper understanding of
the phenomenon being studied, important clues into the empirical
dynamics of the subject matter, and an overall higher quality analysis. Reunifying FSS and FPE To
achieve this higher-quality analysis and start recovering the losses associated with the divergence of FSS and FPE,
ideally, conceptual and empirical feminist research would recognize, like early IR feminist research did, that
there is no separation between security and political economy, as
security is intimately bound up in political economy, and political economy
is bound up in security. That is not to say that they are the same thing, but that they are a
continuum without clear or defined boundaries. Any security question
has political economy implications and needs political economy analysis to
be fully understood. Any political economy question has security
implications and may benefit from security analysis. At the same time, while there is
very little risk of doing economic analysis on issues traditionally
considered part of security studies, there is, as we have witnessed, a fair amount of risk to
securitizing political economy issues (Duffield 2001). In some sense, then, the trend of treating security issues as
primary within feminist IR not only needs to be equalized but politically and intellectually reversed. This would make
both FSS and FPE research richer and serve as a step toward dissolving categories that may have served their
purpose.

The alternative is three-fold: collapse the patriarchy, engage in

a massive paradigm shift, and change the human perception of
nature - its the only way to solve for environmental
destruction and structural violence
Nhanenge 7 (Jytte Nhanenge is a student at University of South Africa (UNISA) and a ecofeminist author,
Ecofeminism: Towards Intergrating The Concerns Of Women, Poor People And Nature Into Development,
University of South Africa, http://s3.amazonaws.com/roomr-
production/speeches/speech_docs/000/005/534/original/ECOFEMINSM_TOWARDS_INTEGRATING_THE_CONCERNS_OF
_WOMEN__POOR_PEOPLE_AND_NATURE_INTO_DEVELOPMENT.pdf, accessed 7/13/16//KR)

Based on the interlinked effects from the multiple, global crises, modern Western
culture is required to make some necessary transitions . These changes are rather
extensive and will probably shake the foundations of the modern way of life and deeply
affect its social, economic and political systems. To approach the situation it is therefore wise to
adopt a broader view. One way is to perceive the situation as a natural cultural evolution. Hence, the modern
perspective needs to make a shift from seeing social and natural systems as being static, to perceiving them as
being dynamic patterns of change. In this way, one may view a crisis as a natural aspect of a transformation. This
perception is equivalent to the ancient Chinese philosophy, which found that times of crises are both times of
danger and opportunities. It can be seen in the Chinese sign for crisis, which is composed of two characters
"danger" and "opportunity". Thus, the old Chinese were well aware that there is a profound connection between
When one examines the interconnected
crisis and change. (Henderson 1978: 381; Capra 1982: 7).
effects of the crises it becomes clear, due to the persistent domination of women,
Others and nature, that there are three fundamental and interconnected challenges,
which requires transformation in the modern culture : (Capra 1982: 10) The first is the
slow but inevitable decline of patriarchy. According to Adrienne Rich, "Patriarchy is the power of the
fathers. It is a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men - by force, direct pressure, or through ritual,
tradition, law, language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labour - determine what part women
Patriarchy has had
shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male".
a time span of approximately 3,000 years in Western civilisation. Its full power is
extremely difficult to grasp because it is all pervasive . It has influenced the basic
ideas about human nature and people's relations to the universe. It is a system which, until
recently, has never been openly challenged and whose doctrines have been universally accepted and presented as
laws of nature. However, a society where men dominate women is an unbalanced society. It is a society, which is
much less than what it otherwise might have been. The complementary contrast, which men and women give to
society creates the necessary social balance. Since extremes always lead to disaster, patriarchy has played an
essential part in promoting the global crises. Today the disintegration of patriarchy is in sight. The feminist
movement is one of the 98 strongest cultural current in present time and it will have a profound effect on the
further cultural evolution. A more in-dept discussion about the patriarchy and its domination will take place in
The second transition is a
chapter 4. (Capra 1982: 10-11; Capra 1989: 240; Rowe 1997: 234).
paradigm shift. The modern vision of reality, including its common concepts,
thoughts, perceptions, values and practices, needs to be changed . The present
paradigm has dominated modern culture for several hundred years. It has shaped Western
societies and has had a strong influence in the rest of the world. It comprises some
entrenched, patriarchal ideas and values related to the Enlightenment, the Scientific
Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. It includes the assumptions that the
scientific method is the only valid approach to knowledge; that the universe is a
mechanical system composed of material elements; that nature is dead; that the
human body is a machine; that life in society is an individual, competitive struggle
for existence; that man can have unlimited material progress through economic
growth and technological development; and that females are subsumed under the
male as a basic law of nature. These assumptions have proven to be inadequate. The
values they promote have contributed fundamentally to the present crises of poverty, environmental destruction,
human repression and a violent world. The modern vision and its values are now challenged; they are in need of
major revision. This relates to the fall of the patriarchy. When modern science is historically examined from a
feministic point of view, it becomes clear that the scientific epistemology is an ideological and aggressive
An analysis of science has
patriarchal way of perceiving the world founded on power and control.
therefore been helpful to understand the current patriarchal domination of women,
Others and nature. A critique of the modern meaning structure and suggestion for an alternative perception
of reality, is the main subject in chapters 4, 5 and 6. (Capra 1982: 12; Norgaard 1994: 62-66; Capra 1997: 5-6; Des
Jardins 2001: 255). The third transition is the human perception of nature. The current
paradigm and its institutions see environmental destruction as an unforeseen and
unintended side effect of development and progress. Thus, the remedies advocated
are based on improving the tools by introducing better science, appropriate
technologies, improved resource management and environmental accounting etc. It is
a kind of enlightened stewardship of nature by human beings. However, reforms alone are not
enough, instead the root causes must be addressed. This has led to development of
other views like those of Deep Ecology, social ecology and ecofeminism. These
alternative perspectives challenge the dominant mode of progress as being
inherently wrong. They point to the cultural roots of the crisis and call for a re-
conceptualization of development based on equitable relationships between
humans and humans, men and women, and humans and nature . These visions
consequently have ethical and 99 epistemological positions that are alternatives to
those of the old scientific experts. The latter have continuously claimed a superior
epistemological position, due to their objectivity, but this is part of the problem
rather than a solution to natural destruction. Sustainable development will hardly be
possible without the contributions of these alternative perspectives . Together they make
up a broad movement towards pro-environmental change, which will require fundamental transformation in the
modern economic and political systems. It will include decentralisation of power and ownership
of natural resources together with establishment of ecologically harmonious life-
styles. It will promote formation of new coalitions and new forms of politics. Part of the change is the decline of
the fossil-fuel age. Fossil fuels include coal, oil and natural gas. These have been humanity's principal sources of
energy. However, since they run out in 2300 the era will come to an end.The effects of the decline are
already felt in scarcity of energy leading to high prices, debts, unstable economies,
tense competition for resources and violence . Since the use of fossil fuels has played a major role
in perpetuating the global crises, healthy alternatives are needed. The cultural transformation would
therefore include a shift from the petroleum age to the solar age, where activities
will be powered by renewable sun energy. This third transition is an integral part of
a paradigm change and the fall of patriarchy . The present paradigm, which was generated and is
maintained by patriarchy is by feminists seen as promoting inequalities, unsustainable progress and violence. Thus,
peace, equality and sustainable development have become interlinked issues in women's movements. Peace is not
only the absence of war but also a compassionate way of life. It is the creation of a certain mind-set of sharing,
reciprocity, love, happiness and care as the central issues in societies, in relationship with nature and in
development. Few people talk about happiness and love as a motivating force, but these are ethical values, which
can change the world and its institutions and they are promoted by women. From this, it follows that the cultural
transformation will be promoted by ecological movements, women's movements and peace movements. An
ecological feminist environmental ethics, which is an alternative to the current perception of nature, will be
discussed in chapter 4, while chapter 7 will present some basic elements in its alternative epistemology. (Capra
The above three interconnected
1982: 11; Capra 1989: 253; Braidotti et al 1994: 126, 131).
challenges are all contributing to the present global crises. They therefore require
major and profound changes. However, in order to promote good results transitions must be done in a
peaceful and harmonious way. A perspective which can do that and which therefore is suggested here is the ideal of
harmonious change portrayed in the Chinese book "I Ching", Book of Changes. The ancient Chinese philosophy of
change is a holistic, systemic perspective, which by its two, equally important dynamic forces of yin (the feminine)
and yang (the masculine) should be able successfully to overcome the imbalanced, and disharmony innate in the
static modern perception of 100 reality. The I Ching philosophy can be contrasted to the Marxist view on social
evolution. The latter emphasizes conflict, struggle and violent revolution where human suffering and sacrifice is
seen as a necessary price that has to be paid for social change. This view is parallel to Darwin's emphasis on
struggle in biological evolution and the Social Darwinists, who vigorously promoted the view that life was an
ongoing struggle. However, such perspectives are one-sided. They overlook the fact that struggle in nature and
society takes place within a wider context of cooperation. Although conflict and struggle have brought about
important social progress in the past and is often an essential part of the dynamics of change, it does not mean that
they are the source of this dynamics. Oppositely, the I Ching minimizes conflicts in times of social transformation, a
view considered necessary in an increasingly violent world with many human casualties. I Ching's ability to
overcome Western, patriarchal dualism, which promotes domination of all that is feminine, is specifically important
domination, as will be discussed in the subsequent chapters, is a major
in this context. The reason is that
part of the global crises. (Capra 1982: 14-17). Various authors (Hazel Henderson 1978; Marthinus Versfeld
1979; Fritjof Capra 1982; Janis Birkeland 1995; Edith Sizoo 2000) have in different ways incorporated the Chinese
philosophy of yin and yang in their individual critiques of the modern culture and its development. The work of
these have been an inspiration for the comparison, which in this dissertation is done between the yin and yang
perspective of changes and an ecofeminist philosophy as an example of change towards an alternative future.
 Politics of Place
We must engage in place-based indigenous feminist dialogues
to combat hegemonic representations- other alternatives
reinforce the system
Brun, C., & Blaikie, P. (2016). Alternative Development: Unravelling
Marginalization, Voicing Change. Farnham, GB: Routledge. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com.proxy.library.umkc.edu Brun was appointed Associate
Professor at the Department of Geography in August 2004, and Professor from
September 2013. I am currently Director of Research in the department. She
teaches and supervises students in human geography, development studies and
globalisation studies. Piers Macleod Blaikie is a geographer and scholar of
international development and natural resources, who worked until 2003 at the
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia
In the early 1990s, Ragnhild Lund (1993) argued for a place and people centred
perspective in development theory. In doing so, she was one of the first
geographers to recognize the devaluation of place in conventional development
studies. Lund points out that guidelines for development during the latter half of the
twentieth century were heavily focused on economic rather than social, cultural or
ecological issues. Drawing from a range of theories from Marxism to liberalism, she
notes that few of these perspectives focused on place as a dynamic factor in
societal change. Rather, place was characterized as a relatively passive stage for
social and political action and interaction. In a broad-ranging critique of modernist
Rostowian and Marxist perspectives, Lund argues against both the popular
regionalizing systems theories based on Wallerstein and humanist perspectives that
advocated endogenous self-reliance. The former tend towards purely economic
solutions and the latter suggest a focus on local practices that are hugely valuable
and tie in with perspectives that date back to Ernst Schumachers famous Small is
Beautiful (1973) , but are also easily conscripted into the service of neoliberal
policies that foist way too much responsibility for economic advancement on to the
shoulders of people who are least able to bear it. Instead, Lund favours an
alternative development that takes account of gender and is influenced by social
movements focused on ecology, peace and women (see also Nederveen Pieterse
1998). In so doing, she recognizes: that women and men encounter a variety of
external policies and interventions in a given place, and modify and adapt to
external influences in accordance to norms, conventions and practices prevalent in
the local society. Both internal and external factors are historically and
geographically specific. Consequently, it is necessary to understand the relationship
between gender and place to realize change. (Lund 1993: 197) Lunds perspective
highlights the need for indigenous women to renegotiate continuously local values
in the light of broad structural economic and social transformations. Her
poststructural feminism is pragmatically grounded in the realities of shifting
economic and social conditions and how they play out in local landscapes. In a
study of working women in Malaysia, for example, Lie and Lund (1995: 10) argue
that studies must focus on local values and, from a feminist perspective,
womens views on the changes taking place in their own lives as well as in their
families and the local surroundings. Lunds focus on womens perceptions and
values ties in with 1990s literature on feminist, postmodern and populist
approaches to development and postdevelopment (Nederveen Pieterse 1998,
Blaikie 2000, Momsen 2004). It also resonates with Arturo Escobars (2008) interest
in the ability of indigenous peoples to create figured worlds in which local
practices, culture and identities are deployed effectively enough to create a visible
(spontaneous, emotional and corporeal) space for authoring that contest external,
hegemonic representations of that place.
 Queer Fem
Discourses of everyone being affected similarly by climate
change fail to solve- only queer fem can change this ideology
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
For example, at the First Worldwide Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth held in Cochabamba,
April 1922, 2010, Bolivian President Evo Morales claimed that the presence of homosexual men around the world
was a consequence of eating genetically-modified chicken: The chicken that we eat is chock-full of feminine
hormones. So, when men eat these chickens, they deviate from themselves as men (ILGA, 2010). This statement
exemplifies a dangerous nexus of ignorance, speciesism, and homophobia that conceals the workings of industrial
in
agribusiness, and simultaneously vilifies gay and transgendered persons as genetic deviants. Yet
statements of climate justice to date, there is no mention of the integral need for
queer climate justicealthough all our climates are both gendered and sexualized,
simultaneously material, cultural, and ecological. Described largely from the
perspective of the environmental (climate) sciences (i.e., astrophysics, atmospheric
chemistry, geography, meteorology, oceanography, paleoclimatology), climate
change has been most widely discussed as a scientific problem requiring
technological and scientific solutions without substantially transforming ideologies
and economies of domination, exploitation and colonialism: this misrepresentation
of climate change root causes is one part of the problem, misdirecting those who
ground climate change solutions on incomplete analyses (cf. Klein, 2014). On an
international level, solutions mitigating climate change include Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+ Initiative), the Kyoto Protocol's
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that encourages emission trading,
sustainable development funding for Two-Thirds countries, genetically modified
crops, renewable energy technologies, and the more recent strategy, geo-
engineering (Klein, 2012). On an individual level, citizen-consumers of the
North/One-Thirds world are urged toward green consumerism and carbon-footprint
reduction. Certainly renewable energy is a necessary and wholly possible shift;
moreover, it carries within its practice the ideological shift needed to make a wider
transformation in the North/OneThirds consumers' relationship with environments
and ecosystems. From a feminist perspective, however, the problem remains that at
the highest levels of international discussion, climate change is cast as a human
crisis in which gender has no relevance (MacGregor, 2010) and man is supposed
to mean everyone. Such gender-blind analysis leads to excluding data and
perspectives that are crucial in solving climate change problems, while the issues
that women traditionally organize aroundenvironmental health, habitats,
livelihoods are marginalized by techno-science solutions which take center stage
in climate change discussions and funding. GLBTQ issues such as bullying in the
schools, hate crimes legislation, equity in housing and the workplace, same-sex
marriage (not to mention polyamorous marriage) don't appear in climate
discussions either. Given the gender-blind techno-science perspective dominating
climate change discussions, queer feminist entry to these discussions has been
stalled, trapped between Scylla and Charybdis: over the past two decades,
discussions have alternated between the liberal strategy of mainstreaming women
into discussions of risk, vulnerability, and adaptation, as WEDO has done; or,
adopting the cultural feminist strategy of calling on women's unique capacities of
caring for family and for environment, women's special knowledge and agency
based on their location within gender-role restricted occupations, and lauding
women's grassroots leadership. In either strategy, gender is restricted to the
study of women, and feminist analyses of structural gender inequalities that
compare the status of men, women, and GLBTQ others are completely omitted. To
date, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Gender and Climate Change
website addresses these problems by drawing on both reformist liberal ecofeminisms and cultural (essentialist)
ecofeminisms. In its statement on women's vulnerability, inclusion, and agency, the UNFCCC website asserts: It
is
increasingly evident that women are at the centre of the climate change challenge.
Women are disproportionately affected by climate change impacts, such as
droughts, floods and other extreme weather events, but they also have a critical
role in combatting climate change. In order to perform that critical role, however,
gender parity in climate change discussions is a minimum requirement : women
need to be equal members in policy-setting and decisionmaking on climate change.
And to have authentic, inclusive feminism, gender justice and sexual justice must
be partnered with climate justice, for women of all genders and sexualities form the
grassroots force within these three movements
Alt Solvency
 Security State
Integrating feminist security, politics, and political economy
into our knowledge production leads to the breakdown of the
masculinized security state and a greater understanding of
humanity
Elias 15 (Juanita Elias is Associate Professor in International Political Economy. She
was educated at the University of Manchester (BA (Hons) Politics and Modern
History first class) and the University of Warwick (MA International Political
Economy; PhD Politics and International Studies), Introduction: Feminist Security
Studies and Feminist Political Economy: Crossing Divides and Rebuilding Bridges,
Politics & Gender, 11 (2015), 406 438, doi:10.1017/S1743923X15000100, accessed
7/10/16//KR)
The essays here reflect on the need to rebuild bridges between two key strands of feminist International Relations
(IR) scholarship: feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist (international) political economy (FPE/FIPE). As many of
feminist IR scholarship has long emphasized how
the contributions to this section point out,
gender relations and identities are constituted globally in relation to processes of
militarization, securitization, globalization, and governance. In more recent years,
however, feminist IR scholarship has come to be dominated by a concern with
security (Pru gl 2011). Of course, FPE scholarship has continued to provide critical
accounts of the gendered nature of global production, work, and financial crises
(among other issues). But it is notable that, in doing so, much FPE scholarship has tended
to avoid questions of security and/or violence . This CP section, then, looks to the growing divide
between FSS and FPE with all of the contributors seeking to analyse how these two traditions of feminist scholarship
might be reintegrated and why this reintegration is important. This section draws together scholars working within
in
and across FSS and FPE from a variety of theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives. And yet,
spite of this scholarly diversity, a certain degree of consensus is reached in terms of
the need to return to a more integrated feminist IR . We open with Laura Sjobergs
reflection on the emergence of FSS and how attention to political economy can
serve an important role in developing understandings of militarized gendered lives
and sexualities and, in particular, of male military prostitution . In this sense, Sjoberg
suggests that reintegration is necessary in order to bolster the explanatory value of feminist IR analyses. Heidi
Hudsons commentary argues for a reconnection between FSS and FPE in understanding sexual and gender-based
violence. Hudson makes the point that FPE serves as an important source for FSS
scholars seeking to reincorporate materialist concerns into their work . Indeed, for Hudson,
such a commitment is necessary in order to better understand not just practices of
violence, but in order to maintain a commitment to radical, emancipatory
understandings of human security . Jacqui True further underlines the need for bringing FPE into
discussions of sexual and gender-based violence. For True, FPE provides insights that are easily
overlooked and/or forgotten. This includes recognizing the gendered political
economic relations that underpin the formation of the modern state system. States
may well have started to better acknowledge women , peace, and security agendas as a result
of sustained civil society pressure, but the endurance of the highly masculinized and
militarized authoritarian security state is complemented by neoliberal political
economic state transformations. Elias and Rais contribution moves the conversation away from more
obvious discussions of gender and security (e.g., sexual and gender-based violence, militaries) and instead looks to
how a discussion of everyday gendered forms of violence can also play a role in bridging the gap between FSS and
FPE. Finally, Katherine Allison reflects on this topic with a warning, suggesting that we need to look closely at how
we tell feminist stories, for example, of a schism between FSS and FPE in ways that may well serve to ignore
earlier manifestations of these debates. The question of reintegration entails asking some difficult questions about
the nature of feminist theorizing and feminist practice. In particular, Allison notes the divisions within feminist
peace movements and scholarship in the early twentieth century over the role and position of socialist thinking.
Allison reminds us of the need to recognize the existence of multiple ways of
Moreover,
doing and knowing feminism and that the search for a single best way of doing
feminism should not be the goal of efforts by FPE and FSS scholars to better
understand one another. Thus, the contributors to this CP section look to bridge the current divide
between feminist security studies and feminist IPE by returning to the spirit of early feminist IR. In this sense, it is
not a particular methodological approach or theoretical framework that serves to best integrate a feminist
understanding of security and political economy rather, it is to suggest that a feminist curiosity (Enloe 2004)
should lead us to look beyond the confines of security studies and IPE. It is appropriate then that this Critical
Perspectives section is rounded off with a closing reflection by Cynthia Enloe.
 Politics of Place
A focus on place-based local values is necessary to disrupt the
misogynistic system of global development- discourse of
development and modernization in a policy context is used to
reinforce patriarchal norms
Brun, C., & Blaikie, P. (2016). Alternative Development: Unravelling
Marginalization, Voicing Change. Farnham, GB: Routledge. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com.proxy.library.umkc.edu Brun was appointed Associate
Professor at the Department of Geography in August 2004, and Professor from
September 2013. I am currently Director of Research in the department. She
teaches and supervises students in human geography, development studies and
globalisation studies. Piers Macleod Blaikie is a geographer and scholar of
international development and natural resources, who worked until 2003 at the
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia
With this chapter, 1 we bring Lunds feminism and Escobars poststructuralism to
bear on a participatory mapping project in Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve
(FNNR), China (Figure 11.1). A critical issue in FNNR relates to the resource-use
relations between local farmers and an endangered snub-nosed monkey species,
Rhinopithecus brelichi , known as the grey snub-nosed monkey or the Ghizhou snub-
nose golden monkey. The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD) argues that participatory mapping is particularly important
when dealing with indigenous peoples and forest dwellers that find their lives
disproportionately threatened by reduced access to land and natural resources. The
21,000 farmers within FNNR have an intimate knowledge of their local environment,
and participatory mapping is an important tool for accessing this knowledge in the
complex gender and child/adult contexts of human environment dynamics. Based
on first impressions and pilot work, we talk about the efficacy of this technique,
particularly in terms of how it embraces a place-based sensibility that empowers
female, male, child and adult participants. We then discuss local womens
participation in interviews and highlight, as examples of Escobars figured worlds,
their roles in a changing world of short-term work and boarding schools for children.
We then speculate on ways the FNNR example demonstrates Lunds imperative for
renegotiating local values and Escobars (2008) concern for building on identity,
territory and autonomy where they may exist locally. Lunds perspective on
renegotiating local values in the face of economic and social restructuring presages
contemporary poststructural feminism, which is not only critical of patriarchy but
forefronts the far more radical idea that problems actually have their origins in the
(male) reasoning of enlightenment thinkers influenced by Ren Descartes and
Baruch Spinoza amongst others. While recognizing the importance of emotions in
how we think, Spinoza nonetheless believed that emotions were transformed into
intellect through a strong mans detached understanding of grand questions such as
universality and transhistorical necessity (Peet and Hartwick 2009). With an
understanding that emotions play an important part in creating the complexities of
mens and womens lives, Lund (1993: 195) notes that gender roles and gender
relations are not framed on the basis of patriarchy alone. By recognizing the
importance of emotion and place-based contexts of development that are not
inordinately (and apolitically) humanistic, her work joins with a strand of late
twentieth-century feminism that elaborates a poststructural critique of reason and
one of its problematic enlightenment products, modern development. In an
important sense, a poststructural feminism argues that modern development is the
problem for women (and men), not the solution. A focus on local values destabilizes
the grand terms of enlightenment-based, universal development that is planned
from the Global North and implemented in the Global South. Tropes such as
development, modernization, self-reliance and revolution may speak to important
parameters of change and transformation, but poststructuralists and feminists
argue that they also speak to the dominant policies and practices of international
institutions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and revolutionary governments
whose bases are predicated upon masculinist endeavours and a male-dominated
public sphere (Scott 1995). The ensuing power struggle places rationality, efficiency
and optimism at the forefront of a regime that may also characterize womens work
as inferior, backward or invisible. In discourses of this kind, social struggles focus on
productive activities that exclude gendered power relations and retain notions of a
subordinate reproductive sphere and ideas of nature that are seen as feminine. A
problem arises, however, from switching the valences of the discourse by putting
women and their work at the centre of development discourses. Too often, accounts
of women in development are written in policy language amenable to the ongoing
practices of development agencies. Making women central to development
practices is here often about changing women (e.g. requiring them to speak
bureaucratic policy language) rather than changing institutional practices. Putting
women at the heart of development in this way is about fostering development
practices that continue to ignore difference, indigenous knowledge and local
expertise while legitimating foreign solutions to womens problems in the South
(Parpart and Marchand 1995: 16). This, in turn, shifts development solutions from
local areas to development agency headquarters in Washington, Oslo, Geneva or
Ottawa.

Globalization has been instrumental in marginalizing feminine

bodies in the Global Southfocus on the local and the way that
space interacts with gender is critical to stopping this
marginalization
Brun, C., & Blaikie, P. (2016). Alternative Development: Unravelling
Marginalization, Voicing Change. Farnham, GB: Routledge. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com.proxy.library.umkc.edu Brun was appointed Associate
Professor at the Department of Geography in August 2004, and Professor from
September 2013. I am currently Director of Research in the department. She
teaches and supervises students in human geography, development studies and
globalisation studies. Piers Macleod Blaikie is a geographer and scholar of
international development and natural resources, who worked until 2003 at the
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia
 Early on, as part of this critique, Lund (1983) argued that placing women at the
centre of development efforts while not monitoring larger globalization processes
(with a particular concern for the movement of womens power away from the local)
did little to further change in the Global South. Globalization is not a homogenizing
force, she notes, but is rather a force of differentiation, as some people are
integrated into the global economy while others are marginalized, abused or
rejected (Lund 2008). Alternatively, focusing on women and development rather
than women in development draws from dependency theory and neo-Marxist
approaches to underdevelopment but, in so doing, it deemphasizes Marxist class
relations in favour of social relations between women and men, and the relations
between women and the material contexts of their lives (Peet and Hartwick 2009:
259). A basic materialist argument is that women perform most of the labour in
many societies of the Global South and a reformulated theory must focus on that as
its heart. With womens labour as a central focus, traditional areas of developmental
concern are seen from a different orientation. Gender relations become central to
understanding productive activities. The focus turns to women workers as part of
the turn to industrialization (Lie and Lund 1995). The informal and rural sectors of
the economy are emphasized and, as suggested by GibsonGraham (1996), the
reproductive sphere becomes central to the creation of economic communities that
foster sustainable forms of development. A central concern of feminist,
poststructural and postcapitalist economics is retheorizing the significance of
womens empowerment through their work and agency from a relational
perspective (Escobar 1995, Gibson-Graham 2006). Lunds feminism and Escobars
poststructuralism move alternative development theories forward by focusing on a
relational understanding of change and transformation with a focus on creating
locally situated, culturally constructed and socially organized figured worlds as
the sort of spaces in which cultural politics are enacted that result in particular
personal and collective identities (Escobar 2008: 218). These kind of poststructural
relations are best articulated through Deleuzes (1993) notion of folding , wherein
people have the capacity to unfold and enfold the spaces and discourses they
encounter through the myriad of microbehaviours that comprise everyday actions.
Folding suggests important relations with space and other peoples relations with
space. It is a different conception of relational than that elaborated by neopopulist
and constructivist development theorists in the 1980s, who tend to focus on dyads
such as insider/outsider or core/periphery. 4 Escobars relational focus is tied
specifically to activism and everyday behaviours as bases for challenging inequality
and neoliberal policies. Changes in behaviour are often strategies to preserve basic
elements of lifestyle and traditions: changes seldom occur in the form of dramatic
events, and social change may be seen as something that is discursively imposed
on people (Lie and Lund 1995: 7 8). However, it is important to understand that
from Escobars relational perspective the material and gender contexts of life
change over time and that marginalized peoples can take advantage of these
changes: when women enter new fields, such as taking up work in the modern
sector, this necessarily implies changing relationships to fathers, brothers and
husbands and may lead to new socio-cultural definitions of what belongs to the
male and female spheres. (Lie and Lund 1995: 11) This idea of complex relations
being unfolded and enfolded is picked up by Escobar (2008) when he argues for
redes as networks or assemblages that open up the possibility of transformative
action in the face of blistering and relentless attacks by corporate and colonial
capitalism. 5 Life and social change, he points out, are ineluctably produced in
and through relations in a dynamic fashion Images of redes circulated widely in
the 1990s [in the Global South] represented graphically as drawings of a variety
of traditional fishing nets, lacking strict pattern regularity, shaped by use and user,
and always being repaired, redes referred to a host of entities, including among
others social movement organizations, local radio networks, womens associations,
and action plans. (Escobar 2008: 26) Escobar (2008: 65) goes on to argue that
relational strategies for battling externally imposed structures should take as a
point of departure an understanding of resisting, returning, and re-placing that is
contextual with respect to local practices, building on movements for identity,
territory, and autonomy wherever they may exist. Both Escobar and Lund argue
that it is precisely how women and their work are integrated into the global
economy by core countries that determines marginalization and oppression. From
this vantage point it is important to explore the intersection of various axes of
power in relation to participation, vulnerability, class and gender (Lund 2008: 134)
 Queer Fem CC
The root cause of climate change is first world over
consumption and hetero-masculinity, queer feminist
environmental justice is key- allows for examining the ideology
and rhetoric behind climate change, as well as in inclusion of
others, antithetical to the fear perpetuating masculinity
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
Misdirecting analyses of root causes, and thus protecting the status quo, three more
prominent antifeminist threads companion and vie for prominence alongside the
mainstream scientific response to climate change : the linked rhetorics advocating
population control, anti-immigration sentiment, and increased militarism. Ever since
Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (Ehrlich, 1968), one thread of First World
environmentalism has placed overpopulation (primarily in the Third World) at the
root of environmental degradation, though some manifestations of this discourse
link population with First World overconsumption, arguing for twin reductions of
both. In practice, this rhetoric has implicitly targeted third world women with family
planning packages of contraception, abortion, and sterilization, though more recent
manifestations of population science have been influenced by feminist arguments
for reproductive and sexual health/rights as evinced by discussions at United
Nations conferences on population in 1974 (Rumania), 1984 (Mexico), and 1994
(Cairo). Arguing that women and children in poverty are among the most
vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite their disproportionately low
contribution to the problem (Engelman, 2010), the WorldWatch Institute advocates
a population reduction approach to the impacts of climate change on the world's
most vulnerable communities, implemented through a three-pronged strategy:
Eliminating institutional, social, and cultural barriers to women's full legal, civic, and
political equality with men; Improving schooling for all children and youth, and
especially increasing educational attainment among girls and women; and
Assuring that all women and their partners have access to, and full freedom to use,
reproductive health and family planning services so that the highest proportion
possible of birth results from parents' intentions to raise a child to adulthood
(Engelman, 2010). While these three strategies may seem globally relevant, they
also seem to target populations in developing countries , as evidenced by the
WorldWatch Report's cover photo of two women and three children, captioned A
family on their parched land in Niger. The report offers no interviews with the
women targeted for family planning to discover whether this strategy is one they
desire or would be able to implement, showing a Father Knows Best approach to
population and climate science. Approximately 80% of the world's population (the
global South) has generated a mere 20% of global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions: in other words, the other 20% (the global North) is responsible for 80% of
the accumulated GHG emissions in our atmosphere (Eger, 2013; Hartmann, 2009).
Despite the clarity of this logic, population reappeared in publications leading up to
the 2009 UN Climate Change COP in Copenhagen, with proponents arguing for
family planning among poor communities as a cost-effective method of reducing
carbon emissions (Eger, 2013). Not to be outdone, the UK Population Matters has
launched a population offset system similar to carbon offsets purchasable by jet-
setting firstworld consumers (MacGregor, 2010). On their website, the organization
claims that PopOffsets is the world's first project that offers to offset carbon dioxide
emissions through the most cost-effective and environmentally beneficial means
family planning (see http://www.popoffsets.com/). None of these strategies
suggests reducing the North/First World's alarming overconsumption of the planet's
resources, or seriously restricting its 80% contribution of greenhouse gases.
Reducing third world population becomes increasingly important when first-world
overconsumers realize that the severe climate change outcomes already heading
for the world's most marginalized communities will create a refugee crisis and
urgent migrations of poor people. Since the growing populations of the Two-Thirds
World will be hardest hit by climate change effects and will seek asylum in One-
Thirds nationsa migration perceived as a threat to the disproportionate wealth
(i.e. security) of the Norththe specter of climate refugees has inspired
arguments for increased militarization as a protection against migration (Eger,
2013; MacGregor, 2010). Noting the ways that women are blamed for climate crises
which in fact impact women the hardest, both during climate disasters and in the
frequency of gender-based violence and material hardships following these
disasters, Rojas-Cheatham et al. (2009) have urged looking both ways to
recognize the intersections between climate justice and reproductive justice. For all
these reasons, feminists have strongly resisted arguments for population as the root
cause of environmental degradations, including climate change (Gaard, 2010;
Hartmann, 1987; Silliman, Fried, Ross & Guttierez, 2004). Claims about
overpopulation in climate change analyses function as an elitist rhetorical
distraction from the more fundamental and intersecting problems of gender,
sexuality, and interspecies justice. To date, even feminist discussions about these
issues have remained limited by the perspective of humanism. As feminist science
studies scholars affirm, the best analysis of the problem of oppression will be the
most inclusive excluding data is not conducive to good research, good
argumentation, or good feminism. On this foundation, it is imperative that feminist
approaches to climate justice take a material and posthumanist approach by
considering the larger environments in which these ethico-political problems of
climate change are embedded: our interspecies and ecological transcorporeality,
manifested in our practices of global food production and consumption. Two
branches of feminist inquiry support recuperating these backgrounded (in Val
Plumwood's terms, an operation of the Master Model that supports domination) elements of climate
change. Material feminism (Alaimo & Hekman, 2008) advances the concept of
transcorporeality, the physical fact of our co-constituted embodiment with other
flows of life, matter, and energy. This recent articulation of feminist theory rests on
four decades of feminist science studies and ecofeminist perspectives on the
human-environment connection, developing knowledge in the study of gender, race,
class, age, and public health. In the 1970s, feminist health advocates began
challenging dominant perspectives in science by noting the research focused on
male-only samples, and then generalized the results to women and children. These
feminists raised questions about women's and children's health by exploring the
influence of environment on human health, and exposing environmental links to
breast cancer, asthma, lead poisoning, reproductive disorders, and other types of
cancers. National women's groups such as Silent Spring Institute and Breast Cancer
Action have worked to bring a feminist environmental perspective to all aspects of
breast cancer research and prevention, from corporate profits to environmental
contaminants, pharmaceuticals, pink-washing,6 and individual breast cancer
sufferers and survivors. Building on Carson (1962) uncovering the links between
environmental chemicals and their impact on birds, other animal species, and
ecosystems, feminist environmentalists exposed the links between synthetic
chemicals and the endocrine systems of human and nonhuman animals. From
pesticides and plastics to paint and pajamas, synthetic chemicals are linked to the
feminization of male reproductive systems in frogs and other wildlife (Aviv, 2014)
and associated with breast cancer in women. Lois Gibbs' work on dioxin (Gibbs, 1995), Liane
Clorfene-Casten's work on breast cancer (Clorfene-Casten, 2002; 1996), Theo Colborn's G. Gaard / Women's Studies
International Forum 49 (2015) 2033 25 expos of synthetic chemicals (Colborn's, 1996), and Steingraber's (1997,
2001) eloquent studies of agricultural chemicals, environmental health, children's health, and human cancers are all
landmark contributions to our understanding of the interconnections among environmental health, public health,
and social justice. This feminist health and environmental science research has contributed to the scientific and
epidemiological foundations of the environmental justice movement, and provides longstanding environmental
feminist foundations for material feminist theorizing. A second branch of feminist theory, feminist animal studies
has explored the links between the production, transport, consumption and waste of animals used in industrial food
systems, and that industry's many assaults on human and environmental health. Today's industrialized production
of animal bodies for human consumption emerges from a constellation of oppressive practices. Building on earlier
feminist research into the exploitation of female reproduction (Corea, 1985), and the development of reproductive
technologies via experimentation on non-human females first, feminist animal studies scholars have emphasized
how western systems of industrial animal production (factory farming) rely specifically on the exploitation of the
female (Adams & Donovan, 1995; Donovan & Adams, 2007), harming the health of both nonhuman females and the
human females who consume their bodies and their reproductive products. As Carol Adams (2003) points out, to
control fertility one must have absolute access to the female of the species (147). The control of female fertility for
food production and human reproduction alike uses invasive technologies to manipulate female bodies across the
species (Adams, 2003; Corea, 1985; Diamond, 2004): Battery chickens are crowded into tiny cages, de-beaked,
and inoculated with numerous antibiotics to maximize control of their reproductive output, eggs (Davis, 1995). Male
chicks are routinely discarded because they are of no use to the battery hen industry, while female chicks are bred
to deformity with excessively large breasts and tiny feet, growing up to live a radically shortened lifetime of
captivity, unable to perform any of their natural functions (i.e., dustbathing, nesting, flying). Pregnant sows are
confined to gestation crates and after they give birth they are allowed to suckle their offspring only through metal
bars. Dairy cows are forcibly inseminated, and their male calves are taken from them 2448 h after birth and
confined in crates, where they will be fed an iron-deprived diet until they are slaughtered for veal.7 Cows separated
from their calves bellow and appear to grieve for days afterwards, sometimes ramming themselves against their
stalls in an attempt to reunite with their calves. News articles report the amazing feats of cows returning across
miles of countryside in order to nurse calves from whom they were forcibly separated. We understand the frenzy of
a human mother separated from her new infant, yet our understanding and empathy seems to halt at the species
boundary, since this involuntary weaning and the attendant suffering for cow and calf continues to be the norm for
dairy production: the milk that would have fed the cows' offspring is taken for human consumption, and
manipulated into overproduction through the use of growth hormones.8 Bridging affect theory and feminist animal
studies, Lori Gruen (2012) proposes the concept of entangled empathy as a strategy for reminding humans of our
intra-actions across species and food production systems. Entangled empathy is an affect co-arising with our
recognition of the affective states of other beings; its energetic and embodied awareness motivates action to
eliminate suffering. Describing animals used in these industrial food systems as workers (Haraway, 2003) is
reprehensible for the ways that it obscures the institutionalized oppression of reproductive labor and human
responsibility, as Weisberg (2009) explains, for who would choose a job requiring a lifetime of imprisonment,
separation from one's family, the murder of one's offspring, along with crowding, biological manipulation to the
point of crippling, all culminating in execution? In her work bringing together environmental, climate and
reproductive justice, DiChiro (2009) defines reproductive justice as involving not just bodily self-determination and
the right to safe contraception but also the right to have children and to be able to raise them in nurturing,
healthy, and safe environments that requires an availability of good jobs and economic security, freedom from
domestic violence and forced sterilization, affordable healthcare, educational opportunities, decent housing, and
access to clean and healthy neighborhoods (2). Linking the exploitation of sexuality and reproduction across
species as a feature of the colonialist and techno-science worldview, feminist animal studies scholars have
described industrial animal food production as a failure of reproductive and environmental justice. It's also a matter
of climate justice, as the UN Food and Agricultural Organization Report Livestock's Long Shadow (2006) confirms.
The report defines livestock as all animal foods, including cattle, buffalo, small ruminants, camels, horses, pigs,
and poultry; livestock products include meats, eggs, milk and dairy. The factory farming first introduced in the
U.S. has been exported globally, to the detriment of the planet. Increasing areas of cropland are being used to feed
cattle and other food animals; forests are being replaced with rangeland; vast quantities of water are used to
irrigate crops for food animals and given to food animals for drinking. The wastes of industrial animal food
productionwhich include pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, hormones and antibiotics, manure, and the wastes from
slaughterhousescontaminate wetlands and wildlands, and have produced the hypoxic (dead zone) area at the
Mississippi River's outflow in the Gulf of Mexico. Methane produced by flatulence, carbon dioxide produced through
respiration and transport, nitrous oxide and ammonia are all greenhouse gases multiplied through industrial animal
agriculture. Livestock production not only exponentially increases our planet's greenhouse gas emissions, it also
reduces the greenhouse gas-absorbing areas of forests, the carbon sinks whereby the planet might restore a
balance. Human health is also variously affected. Meat production is associated with prosperity, good health, social
status, and the affluent lifestyle of the western industrialized countries. As more and more nations seek to emulate
the meat consumption levels of the industrialized world, their rates of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and other
animal food-related illnesses increase (Campbell & Campbell, 2006). Statistics comparing the growing obesity of
first world overconsumers and two-thirds 26 G. Gaard / Women's Studies International Forum 49 (2015) 2033 world
persons suffering from hunger and malnourishment can be correlated with the rates of animal food consumption,
and with the gendered character of hunger. In developing countries, women account for 43% of the agricultural
labor force, although their yields are 2030% lower than men's because women are barred from farming the best
soils, and denied access to seeds, fertilizers, and equipment (WFP, 2013). Around the world, it is women who are
responsible for cooking and serving food, and it is men who eat the first and most nutritious foods, leaving children
to eat afterwards, and women to eat last. When there is insufficient food, women deny themselves food so that
children can eat: while an estimated 146 million children in developing countries are underweight due to acute or
chronic malnutrition, 60% of the world's hungriest are women (WFP, 2013). According to the World Food Program, if
women farmers had the same access to resources as the men do, the number of hungry people in the world could
be reduced by up to 150 million (WFP, 2013). Industrial animal food production has been described as a protein
factory in reverse (Robbins, 1987), largely because eating high on the food chain requires more inputs of grain,
water, and grazing land. The ecological and human toll of industrialized animal agriculture is no longer debated, for
the facts are well known: It takes 13 lb of grain and 2400 gal of water to produce one pound of meat, and eleven
times as many fossil fuels to produce one calorie of animal protein vs. plant protein. Raising animals for food
requires 30% of the earth's surface. There is currently enough food in the world to feed approximately 12 billion
people, yet over 900 million are hungry (UNFAO, 2006; WFP, 2013). As food and development scholars have argued
for decades, hunger is not a problem of overpopulation but rather one of distribution, and elite control of the world's
food supply (George, 1976, 1984; Hartmann & Boyce, 1979; Lapp & Collins, 1998). Moreover, debt repayment
programs (called structural adjustment) require developing countries to produce cash crops for export rather than
food crops for subsistence as a way to pay off debt; biotechnology corporations promote high-yield seeds which
require expensive inputs of fertilizer and monocropping techniques that displace subsistence foods, destroy
biodiversity, and lower water quality, producing both debt and hunger. These facts notwithstanding, the worldwide
production of meat and dairy is projected to more than double by 2050 (UNFAO, 2006). Industrialized animal food
production is simultaneously a problem of species justice, environmental justice, reproductive justice and food
justice. For too long, food justice has been defined solely in terms of justice across human diversities, but
authentic food justice cannot be practiced while simultaneously excluding those who count as food. Food justice
requires interspecies justice, which intersects with reproductive justice and queer justice alike. Queer food justice
grows out of today's budding eco-queer movement, which Sbicca (2012) defines as a loose-knit, often
decentralized set of political and social activists who challenge the dominant discourses of sexuality, gender, and
nature as a means for deconstructing hegemonic knowledge systems (33 34). Reviewing the herstory of queer
eco-activism in building lesbian eco-communities and music festivals, and in challenging the heteronormativity of
urban parks through gay cruising and public sex (Mortimer-Sandilands & Erickson, 2010), Sbicca focuses particularly
on the queer food justice movement being shaped by queer farmers and gardeners who may not feel comfortable
in the alternative food movement, whose most visible U.S. representativesMichael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Joel
Salatin, Barbara Kingsolverare largely white, heteromale, and middle class. The grassroots food justice movement
is far from this stereotype, and reaches back to European women's gardens of the eighteenth century (Norwood,
1993), Black women rural gardeners in the postReconstruction South (Walker, 1983), and women rooftop gardeners
in Harlem. Formed in 2007, San Francisco's Queer Food For Love (QFFL) seems like a queer update of Food Not
Bombs with their desire to provide food, community, and a safe space against prejudice. Similarly, San Francisco's
Rainbow Chard Alliance, formed in 2008, bridges the organic farming movement and the queer movement, creating
community for like-minded eco-homos in the Bay Area and California (Sbicca, 2012). Not confined to California,
the queer food justice movement is articulated through groups ranging from Vermont, Massachusetts and
Connecticut to Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, and Washington. Concerned about the intersections
between environment, sexuality, and gender, these queer groups use food to build community, fight oppression,
and take care of planetary and human bodies, though it's not clear whether these groups make connections
With these facts of
between sexuality and species oppressions, and thus enact vegan food justice as well.
world hunger, food production, gender, sexuality and species restored to an analysis
of climate change, charging human overpopulation as a root cause of climate
change seems misguided at best: instead, climate change may be described as
white industrial-capitalist heteromale supremacy on steroids, boosted by
widespread injustices of gender and race, sexuality and species . Eating high on the food
chain must be seen as tilting the planet's plate of food into the mouths of the world's most affluent, at a cost of
between 870 million peoplealmost half of them children under the age of five who suffer from chronic
Population control and industrialized animal food production
undernourishment (FAO, 2013).
are no substitute for reproductive justice, interspecies justice, gender justice and
climate justice.

Queer feminism is necessary to challenge techno-science

discourse- allows for the evaluation of intersectionality
between human and non-human environments and beings
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
Feminist scholars have invoked the concept of intersectionality (Collins, 1990;
Crenshaw, 1991) in order to describe the intra-actions (Barad, 2007) of race,
class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, ability and other forms of human difference,
using this analysis to develop more nuanced understandings of power, privilege,
and oppression. But fewer scholars have critiqued the humanism of intersectionality
(Lykke, 2009), or proposed examining the exclusions of species and ecosystems
from intersectional identities, addressing the ways that even the most marginalized
of humans may participate in the Master Model process of instrumentalization when
it comes to nonhuman nature and earth others (Plumwood's term, anticipating
Cosmopolitics and Critical Plant Studies alike).13 As an ecological identity and eco-
political standpoint resisting the Master Model, ecofeminists once proposed the self-
identity of political animal for First World eco-citizens (Gaard, 1998; Sandilands,
1994, 1999); this view resituates humans within ecosystems and faces us toward
assessing ecosystem flows and equilibrium, while simultaneously attending to the
well-being of our transcorporeality (Alaimo, 2008).14 Joining a philosophical
reconception of human identity with an ecopolitical exploration of economic
globalization and its role in producing climate change, a queer posthumanist and
feminist ecological citizenship (MacGregor, 2014) could send a critical challenge
to the techno-science discourse about mitigation and adaptation (rather than
reduction and prevention) currently dominating responses to climate change (i.e.,
geo-engineering). How much more time do we have to lose?
Queer feminism is key to solving climate change- allows for a
reimagining of masculinity and the inclusion of queer and
female perspectives
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
The 27 Bali Principles of Climate Justice (2002) redefine climate change from an
environmental justice standpoint, using as a template the original 17 Principles of
Environmental Justice (1991) created at the First National People of Color
Environmental Summit. The Bali Principles address the categories of gender,
indigeneity, age, ability, wealth and health; they provide mandates for sustainability
in energy and food production, democratic decision-making, ecological economics,
gender justice, and economic reparations to include support for adaptation and
mitigation of climate change impacts on the world's most vulnerable populations.
These principles restore many of the missing components of climate science's
truncated narrative (Kheel, 1993), connecting the unsustainable consumption and
production practices of the industrialized North/First World (and the elites of the South/Two-
Thirds world) with the environmental impacts felt most harshly by those in the South
and the impoverished areas of the North. Yet, despite their introductory Principle 1
affirming the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence
of all species, the Bali Principles are not informed by a posthumanist perspective.
Just as Climate Justice affirms the need for solutions that address women's rights
(Principle 22), climate justice also needs to affirm solutions that address queer
rights; just as Climate Justice is opposed to the commodification of nature and
its resources (Principle 18), climate justice also needs to oppose the
commodification of animal bodies and female bodies across species. To be inclusive,
the Bali Principles need to be augmented with a queer, feminist, and posthumanist
justice perspective. On November 12, 2013, an unprecedented workshop on gender
balance and gender equality was held at the UNFCCC's 19th Council of the Parties
(COP19) in Warsaw, Poland, where for three hours, speaker after speaker disclosed
facts confirming women's marginalization from climate change decision-making:
the number of all women participating as delegates in UNFCCC processes, or as
members of constituted bodies still falls below 35%, and as low as 1113% in the
case of some constituted bodies (GGCA, 2013). A list of eight solutions proposed by the
panelists included basic affirmative action strategies complete with quotas, sanctions, and a
monitoring body to keep track of gender balance; funding for participation and training; and tools and methodology
to guide research and practices promoting systematic inclusion of women and gender-sensitive climate policy
These changes enacting gender equity provide a necessary first step
(GGCA, 2013).
toward a more transformative feminist analysis and response to climate change.
That it has taken more than two decades since WEDO's Agenda 21 for this
workshop to occur offers visible confirmation of the masculinist character of climate
change analyses and the dedicated persistence of women drawing on liberal and
cultural feminist strategies. But, does bringing women more fully into the United
Nations' discussions on climate change promise to bring forward a feminist
perspective? Scholars have investigated whether women's representation in
decision-making bodies affects environmental outcomes (Ergas & York, 2012),
whether a higher participation of women leads to better climate policy (Alber &
Roehr, 2006), and whether there is any verifiable gender difference in climate
change knowledge and concern (Alaimo, 2009; McCright, 2010).9 Summarized in
Fig. 3, the data suggest that women would act differently than men in decision-
making positions about climate change problems and solutions. Yet at least one
source (Rohr, 2012) cites an exception in the Commissioner on Climate Action,
Connie Hedegaard, who was not in favour of addressing gender in European
climate policy, because she deemed it relevant only for developing countries and
didn't want to be overloaded by integrating gender aspects (2). Thus, while
gender balance at all levels of climate change decision-making is necessary, it
does not automatically guarantee gender responsive climate policy (Rohr, 2012,
2). A wider transformation is needed, involving progressive men [and genderqueer
others] who are prepared to question their masculinity and gender roles, and work
together to uncover the embedded gender [sexuality] and power relations in
climate change policy and mitigation strategies (Rohr, 2012, 2). From these
studies, it appears that structural gender inequality, and more specifically the
underrepresentation of women in decision-making bodies on climate change, is
actually inhibiting national and global action in addressing climate change. Given
the correlation and mutual reinforcement of sexism and homophobia (Pharr, 1988),
it should be no surprise that the standpoints on climate change for women and
LGBTQ populations are comparable. Yet in United Nations discourse to date, when
LGBTQ people seek an entry point into the ongoing climate change conversations,
the primary entry point is one of illness, addressing only HIV and AIDS (McMichael,
Butler & Weaver, 2008). Very few studies have recognized a queer ecological
perspective (Gaard, 2004 (1997); MortimerSandilands & Erickson, 2010), much less
brought that perspective to climate change research and data collection.
Nonetheless, these few studies confirm that the link between climate change and
various LGBT individuals and communities stems from the fundamentalist desires
to dominate and control other people's environment, resources, contexts and
desires (Somera, 2009). According to a U.S. poll conducted by Harris Interactive,
LGBT Americans Think, Act, Vote More Green than Others (2009), a conclusion
based on answers to several key questions about whether it is important to support
environmental causes, whether climate change is actually happening right now,
whether the respondent would self-identify as an environmentalist, and whether it is
important to consider environmental issues when voting for a candidate, buying
goods and services, or choosing a job (see Fig. 4).10 Most significant in the Harris
Pollgiven that heterosexuals are more likely to have childrenwas the LGBT
response expressed for what kind of planet we are leaving for future generations, a
question which concerned LGBT respondents at 51% as compared with 42% of
heterosexual respondents. Exploring the ways that non-white reproduction and
same-sex eroticism are constructed as queer acts against nature in both
environmentalist and homophobic discourses, Gosine (2010) sees both as
threatening to the white nation-building projects engendered through the process
of colonization (150). Discourses on the ecological dangers of overpopulation and
queer sexualities are alike, Gosine argues, in that both deny the erotic (cf. Lorde,
1984). The toxic environments of climate change and homophobia are linked in the
reason/erotic dualism of the Master Model (Plumwood, 1993), and cohere with other
linked dualisms of white/non-white, wealthy/poor, intellectual/reproductive, a
linkage that has been called erotophobia. The culturally-constructed fear, denial,
and devaluation of our embodied erotic are not lost on eco-activist youth, who are
among the first to mention sexual well-being in climate change discussions. At COP 18
in Doha, Qatar, Nov. 26Dec. 8, 2012, a passionate youth movement emerged, according to WEDO: The Youth
Gender Working Group emphasized issues like the right to financing and technology, how disasters impact women,
These explorations of queer
LGBT communities, sexual health and reproductive rights (De Cicco, 2013).
feminist ecology can augment the slogan of the Gender & Climate Change Network
(Gender; Terry, 2009): There will be no climate justice without [queer] gender
justice.

To solve climate change we have to engage in queer feminist

discourse- overconsumption is a product of masculine ideology
Gaard, G. (2015, April). Ecofeminism and climate change. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 49, pp. 20-33). Pergamon. Gaard was a UWRF
Sustainability Faculty Fellow in spring 2011, Dr. Gaard is the current Coordinator for
the Sustainability Faculty Fellows. Before coming to River Falls, Gaard was an
Associate Professor of Humanities at Western Washington University in Bellingham,
Washington (1997-2002) and an Associate Professor of Composition and Women's
Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth (1989-1997)
Since the times of Ancient Rome, Lady Justice has been depicted wearing a blindfold representing objectivity,
holding scales to weigh competing claims in her right hand, and a sword of reason in her left hand. Contemporary
feminist justice ethicists have critiqued the masculinist bias of traditional western ethics for the ways it overvalues
reason and objectivity, devaluing women's standpoints and women's work and envisions justice-as-distribution of
resources among discrete individuals with rights, rather than emerging through relationships which shape
Ecological feminist
participant identities and responsibilities (Jaggar, 1994; Warren, 1990; Young, 1990).
ethics have addressed human relationships with other animals, with environments,
and with diverse others locally and globally as relations meriting contextualized
ethical concern (Donovan & Adams, 2007). But a feminist ethical approach to
climate justicechallenging the distributive model that has ignored relations of
gender, sexuality, species, and environments has yet to be fully developed. To
date, climate change discourse has not accurately presented the gendered
character of first-world planetary overconsumption . For example, a prominent
symbol from the Copenhagen Climate Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in
December 2009 depicts an obese Justitia, Western Goddess of Justice riding on
the back of an emaciated black man; in other artworks for the conference, a group
of starving African male bodies was installed in a wide river (see Fig. 1). The image
of Justitia was captioned, I'm sitting on the back of a manhe is sinking under the
burdenI will do everything to help him except to step down from his back
(Sandberg & Sandberg, 2010, 8). Allegedly an artwork referencing the heavy
climate change burden carried by the global South, and the climate debt owed by
the overconsuming global North, from a feminist perspective the missing critique is
that the genders are reversed: women produce the majority of the world's food, yet
the majority of the world's hungry are women and children, not men. And the
overconsumption of earth's other inhabitantsplants, animals, ecosystemsis not
even visibly depicted. In this essay, I argue that climate change and first world
overconsumption are produced by masculinist ideology, and will not be solved by
masculinist techno-science approaches. Instead, I propose, queer feminist
posthumanist climate justice perspectives at the local, national, and global levels
are needed to intervene and transform both our analyses and our solutions to
climate change.
Root Cause
 Conflict
Intersectional approach towards violence is necessary to
understand violence, the messiness of every life results in
intersections absent a gendered approach we fail to
acknowledge underlying violence making conflict inevitable
Enloe in 2015 (Cynthia Enloe is a Research Professor and Adjunct Professor of
Political Science at Clark University, Worcester, MA; Closing Reflection: Militiamen
Get Paid; Women Borrowers Get Beaten; POLITICS & GENDER, 11 (2) (2015) PG:
435-438)
A rural poor woman wants to withdraw from the microcredit scheme , but her husband
slaps her when she even suggests not renewing her loan . A long-distance trader
carries from her source to her market all sorts of products: bolts of cloth, farming
utensils, boxes of ammunition. A state-of-the-art jet fighter plane just
purchased from a U.S. male-led aerospace company by Malaysias male-
led Defense Ministry has been wired by American women factory workers .
A young man joins an insurgent militia in part out of his belief in the cause , in part
because he is alienated, feeling disrespected as a man, and in part
because he has been promised a monthly salary. For readers of Politics & Gender, it has always been exhilarating
to break through disciplinary barriers. For four decades they/we have been expanding the definitions of politics. As Heidi Hudson and Katherine Allison remind us here,

gender-curious political analysts have pulled back the curtain on the

operations of politics in messy everyday life everyday work life,
domestic life, social movement life, military life, and bureaucratic life. Together,
we all have turned bright spotlights on the workings of power where our
still-narrowly focused colleagues have seen merely the normal, the
routine, the conventional. Simultaneously, gender-savvy researchers have
disaggregated all sorts of data, where too many of their fellow gender-
dismissive researchers have been incuriously content with such grossly
unhelpful categories as voters, non-voters, home-owners,
refugees, clerics, migrant workers, contractors, bankers,
journalists, soldiers, civil societies activists, workers, rioters,
farmers, officials, legislators, judges, and insurgents. These sorts of lazily
un-gender-disaggregated categories make a feminist investigators teeth grind. In dismantling these customary and institutionalized intellectual barriers, feminist-informed gender

First, they have exposed the

analysts have made two major contributions to our collective understandings of politics:

artificiality of the presumed division between the public and the private
spheres. Second, they have demonstrated that there is a lot more power
(and confusion) at work in politics than most nonfeminist analysts have
been willing to admit. Both of these feminist contributions have had significant impacts on all fields of political analysis. Nowhere is this truer than in the
study of international politics. In fact, as the six multinational authors of these provocative essays make clear, the evolution of feminist analysis of international politics has moved so far
along in the last decade that there are now signs worrisome signs that feminist analysts of international politics might be forgetting what they have shared. They might be making
bricks to construct new intellectual barriers. That is not progress. Building, brick by metaphorical brick, new intellectual barriers would deprive all of us, trying to make sense of politics in

we might forget to always

all its myriad guises, of crucial feminist insights. For instance, as Juanita Elias and Shirin Rai warn us here,

always! ask, Where is gender-infused violence or threatened violence

in any economic transformation? On the other side of this worrisome analytical coin, is Jacqui Trues valuable caveat : we will
never reliably understand any violent armed conflict (and thus end this
one and prevent the next one) if we forget to investigate what gendered
economic activities much of it desperate are threaded through that conflict. The gendered politics of mining,
farming, marketing, banking, and smuggling do not stop because weapons-wielding
state armies and armed insurgents have taken center stage . I was recently struck by the value of both of these
wise warnings when I was rewriting and updating Bananas, Beaches and Bases. To make sense of the new U.S. military basing strategies, for instance, I had to track the transformations
of the sexualized politics around American bases in Qatar and Bahrain. I also had to figure out the political consequences of Filipino women and women migrants from Ukraine having
replaced Korean women in the discos around the U.S. bases in South Korea. Likewise, I had to monitor the new twists in the international gendered politics of the global garment industry
that is, to craft a useful feminist analysis of Nike, H&M, North Face, Mango, Tommy Hilfinger, and Walmart. I needed to pay close attention to all the new players in Bangladeshs
intense, garment export politics. But in doing that, I couldnt pretend that the Bangladeshi women sewing in unsafe factories werent also part of a society just now coming to grips with

Yes, it would have been easier if I

the long postwar silences surrounding wartime rapes (Enloe 2014). Yes, both investigations made me stretch.

could have put U.S. bases in one box and sexualized entertainment businesses in
another box. It would, similarly, have been easier if I could have put the garment
industry in one box and wartime sexual violence in a separate box . But whoever
said that plunging into a feminist investigation was easy? In her essay here, Laura Sjoberg usefully
reminds us that any disciplinary institutionalization has its own history. For example, feminist security studies was named by a particular scholar at a particular historical moment in the
ongoing evolutions of four academic fields: political science, international relations, development studies, and womens/ gender/feminist studies. That reminder serves to make us more

unless we
acutely aware of a conundrum that simultaneously enlivens and plagues current academic life one might even say academic everyday life. That is,

are wide awake and attentive, new questionings, new investigatory and
teaching energies, new collaborations, new excitements each of which
has helped to dismantle existing wasteful barriers can now provide the
mortar and the bricks for constructing new wasteful academic walls . The free-flowing
river of thought and findings can begin to diverge into separate channels. Out of our fresh questionings, collaborations, and discoveries we begin to offer new advanced undergraduate
and graduate seminars that are more specialized. We propose new academic lists to book publishers. Because there is now so much new work getting into print, we craft assigned
readings that are more specialized. We launch new Internet lists to stay in touch with those researchers asking questions closest to our own. We scheme to publish new journals. We do
the hard work of organizing new focused workshops and conferences. We urge academic association officers to provide space for more of our specialized panels. Its all so exciting. The

the woman in the microcredit scheme

adrenalin flows. We certainly dont feel as though we are building walls. In the process,

is not asked about where violence or intimidation is in her life. We chart

fighter planes as if it only matters who pilots them, not also who designed
and assembled them. We critique UNSC Resolution 1325s feeble
implementation in constitution drafting processes, but not in the decision-making processes
for building new postwar roads and electricity grids. We delve into militiamens misogynist attitudes and
actions without much attention to whether those gun-wielding men are being paid and, if so, what they are doing with their money . The rushing river of

feminist curiosity divides; its currents grow weaker. What these five valuable
essays amount to is a cautionary tale. It is a cautionary tale not just for scholars/teachers
working in the exiting field of gender and international politics . It is a cautionary
tale for all of us, no matter what our special interests are in the wide-open
area of gendered political analysis. We should delight in our feminist-fueled intellectual excitements. We should cultivate new
interests and nonparochial networks. Let a hundred new panels bloom. But, all the while, we need to be wary of

creating and then slipping into comfortable new isolating silos. Instead, I
think, we need to keep asking ourselves, How do we make sense of womens and
mens gendered political lives without shying away from their wonderful

messiness?
 Militarism/ Security
The impacts of militarism and the security state will only
recreate themselves absent a feminist restructuring of power
Hans and Reardon 12 [Asha Hans, Betty A. Reardon The Gender Imperative:
Human Security Vs State Security Routledge, Dec 6, 2012]
Militarism is a logical outgrowth of a patriarchal society through the use of force
as a means of regulating social hierarchies and ensuring that those at the top of the
structure receive a disproportionate share of resources . The construction of gender, as part of a
negotiation with society, is not in itself a problem. The problem occurs when gender roles are
proscribed by society, resulting in oppression, discrimination, fear and violence, with
adverse effects on the health of both men and women . Both gender and militarism
are significant determinants of health and insecurity . Combined, they create structures
which disproportionately affect women through exclusion, violence and
misapplication of resources. A determinants analysis allows the development of alternatives to not simply
focus on women as victims of militarism, but instead to look at the role that gendered behaviours, structures and
So when we define violence as a public health issue , as
institutions play in generating insecurity.
it means we need to challenge the social, political and
has been done earlier in this article,
cultural beliefs that support violence and lead to inequality, discrimination and
exclusion. Based primarily on protectionist models, current human security discourse
perpetuates patriarchy rather than addressing it . A non-patriarchal human security,
based around principles of social justice, the dignity and worth of the person, and environmental and social
sustainabilityoffers much greater possibilities for reducing the causes and effects of
threats. This would need to be built around four mutually supporting strategies : z
Redistribution not just of resources, but also of power. Redistribution for human security
needs to be framed around the goals of undermining hierarchies, reducing the
threats that militarism poses to human security and environmental sustainability
and generating more equitable systems . This means empowering people not just to take
resources from military spending in all its forms, but instead to ensure that peoples basic needs are
met through the equitable distribution of resources in areas such as food,
healthcare, education, housing and employment opportunities. Fundamental to this is the
need for gender equity access for women to all levels of the decision-making process. It involves
recognizing the major role that women already play in healthcare, education and all
other aspects of social development. Human rights, based on fundamental human dignity and a
progressive recognition of values toward the development of positive rights. Rights approaches are one
of the principle means by which individuals and communities can negotiate with the
state about the equitable use of power and resources . Successful application of human rights
enhances the development of new social values and increases empowerment. Empowerment occurs as a
result of the raising of critical consciousness, a process that needs to be nurtured
and reinforced by civil society. Empowerment is an essential precondition for
community use of power, the acquisition and utilization of rights and for redefining
the power of the state. It is also an outcome of claiming human rights, and of the successful use of power. z
Sufficient protection provided by the state through healthcare and other state-based
services to ensure that people have access to protective services where required .
This needs to be mandated by people through use of human rights mechanisms,
and where necessary, civil action to demand the redistribution of resources and
power.
Aff Answers
Links
 Climate Change
Climate change is not a gendered issuethe impacts would be
the same on everyone
Salmon 13
Rhian A., senior lecturer in the Science in Context Group and Climate Change
Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She completed
a PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry in 2002 before working for the British Antarctic
Survey as a research scientist. Is climate science gendered? A reflection by a
female 'climate scientist'. Women's Studies Journal27.1 (Dec 2013): 49-55.
Lowe et al. (2013) propose that climate change poses both a scientific and social challenge for mankind that can
only be addressed with multi-disciplinary perspectives. Indeed, the last decade has seen huge growth not only in
climate science, but also in, for example, policy (Aldy, Barrett, & Stavins, 2003), psychology (Corner, 2012), and
If, like me, women find themselves more
communication (Kahan, 2013) related to climate change.
attracted to careers that they feel might 'make a difference', then the existence of
anthropogenic climate change could have engaged more women globally than
would have otherwise been engaged - in a range of roles including scientist,
educator, activist, communicator, and policy-maker. It may therefore have also
provided a mechanism for more women to become more scientifically literate. Taken
further, it could be argued that the emergence of anthropogenic climate change may have
therefore attracted more women into the physical sciences . Clearly, further data would need
to be collected to verify this hypothesis. My lack of training in the social sciences in general, and feminist theory or
women's studies in particular, resulted in my feeling poorly equipped to directly address the question of the impact
this is an on-going tension
that climate change has had on women in particular. However, I argue that
between the social and physical sciences, rather than a gender issue . In order to
tackle the challenges associated with climate change, a greater appreciation of
research approaches in multiple disciplines is required, in all directions. That is to
say - not only must natural scientists learn to appreciate the 'politics of climate
change' (Lowe et al., 2013), but there is also a need for non-scientists working in
the field of climate change to understand the scientific method that is used to
obtain the data (and its strengths and limitations), as well as the assumptions and
probabilities that are inherent in predictions about future climate. A more gender-
relevant question that emerged in considering this paper is why there is such a high
proportion of female polar and climate scientists who are involved in outreach
compared to the ratio of female scientists in this field overall . More research is required to
explore this question. Such a gender disparity, if substantiated, may be related to a greater desire among women to
While climate change is a serious reality
'make a difference through connecting with the community'.
that we all, male and female, have to deal with, it has also, I would argue, provided
an opportunity to break down some walls and challenge stereotypes. My personal
experience suggests that working in this field can be empowering for a woman -
both as a minority amongst scientists, and as a community member trying to
stimulate change through education. In answer to the panel question, therefore, I argue that climate
change could mean greater opportunities for women, in a range of personal and professional roles, in Aotaeoroa
New Zealand.
 Deterrence
Deterrence is morally necessary; empirics prove it functions
and is inevitable in the status quo
Sohail and Steven 2004 (Hashmi, Sohail H., and Lee, Steven P., eds. Ethics and
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Cambridge, GB:
Cambridge University Press, 2004. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 13 July 2016.)
Antiwar feminists highlight an important consideration often lacking in discussions of the morality of deterrence by
emphasizing the unstated costs of the development, deployment, maintenance, and disposal of WMD, including the
diversion of funds that otherwise might be available for social welfare programs, the costs of disposing of hazardous
wastes, exposure to radiation, and so on. In addition, the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence as an inhibitor of
armed aggression is dubious in the post cold war era, dominated by internal armed conflicts that do not directly
involve one (nuclear) nation pitted against another, and the growing threat of terrorist tactics such as those used by
Despite these costs, pragmatist feminist strategy deals
al-Qaida on September 11, 2001.
with existing actualities, not utopian ideals. Deterrence has been
successful, if success can be measured in terms of the lack of the use of nuclear
weapons for nearly fifty years. Looking pragmatically at human history and the scant
possibility that nations that have already developed weapons of mass destruction will voluntarily destroy them (all
of them, that is) or be deterred from ever using them in the absence of a credible threat that such use would be
met by equal or greater force the possession of WMD for purposes of deterrence
may be morally necessary, at least given current geopolitical realities . As
military philosopher Malham Wakin suggests: When we ask whether nuclear deterrence is the only
effective way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons in a total war, we must be
sure to do so in the context of the actual world situation we now find ourselves
in, a situation that includes a very large number of nuclear warheads in the possession of several nations and in at
least one of those nations many of those nuclear weapons are aimed at the United States and its NATO allies. In
that realistic context is it reasonable to suppose that a nuclear balance is better calculated to deter total war than a
nuclear imbalance? 28 Given the goal of pragmatist feminism to end oppression, including the domination and
WMD
control of some nations and peoples by others, and given that the possession and threatened use of
have become one of the most effective means by which nations in the
world today assert their power, deterrence is morally necessary to help
ensure against the oppression of some nations or peoples by others armed
with WMD. However, since the goal of international peace and security can never be fully achieved while
nuclear and other WMD exist, whether for defensive, deterrent, or other purposes, pragmatist feminists
allow for the interim use of deterrence only in the context of active efforts by nuclear
nations to bring about multilateral disarmament, such as that called for by the
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Pragmatist feminists thus disagree with the antiwar feminist rejection of
any use of nuclear weapons, even for deterrence purposes, arguing for such use as a temporary, interim strategy
through the process of mutual disarmament. Therefore, while pragmatist feminists might agree with antiwar
feminists that nuclear weapons never should have been invented or, once invented, never should have been tested
Yes,
or deployed or used as the basis for deterrence, that is not the reality we find ourselves in today.
development and deployment must be factored into the ethical status of
deterrence, as antiwar feminists suggest. However, these costs in and of
themselves are not too high if viewed from the vantage point of the present, since
much of the cost has, in effect, already been spent. The antiwar feminist point about the costs of
development and deployment is highly relevant, however, to considering whether to build additional WMD for
deterrence purposes.
Deterrence is an ethical and preferable way to avoid war and
minimize human suffering from a feminist perspective
Lucinda Joy Peach 4, Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at
American University, 2004, A Pragmatist Feminist Approach to the Ethics of
Weapons of Mass Destruction, in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Religious and Secular Perspectives, ed. Hashmi, p. 436-441
The pragmatist feminist perspective that I develop in this chapter is deeply indebted to and affirms
in many respects the antiwar feminist approach outlined by Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick
in the preceding chapter, but with some marked differences. These differences, I argue,
reveal more completely both the promise and the limitations of antiwar feminism. At the outset, it is
important to note that there is neither a single "feminism" nor a single "pragmatism" with which it might be aligned.
The "pragmatist feminism"
Instead, there are multiple feminisms, just as there are multiple pragmatisms.
developed in this essay draws on several elements from American Pragmatism , a
philosophical school developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most prominently by Charles
Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. Despite the many differences among the
pragmatists, they tend to share several features. Perhaps most salient to the subject of this volume
is their presumption "that human agency in all of its higher manifestations has evolved
from ... concrete circumstances in which a vulnerable organism is confronted , often (if
not usually) in concert with other organisms of the same species, with possibilities of both injury and
fulfillment."' It is the continuous reminder of "human fallibility and finitude "' that
constrains pragmatists from positions such as foundationalism and dogmatism and thus against
ideologies that encourage the use of armed force , and especially of WMD, in all but the
most extreme circumstances. It is also a reminder that armed conflicts are
composed of embodied human beings, each of whom has the capacity for suffering
as well as happiness, a point stressed by feminist analyses of armed conflicts. There are several significant points of
commonality or intersection between pragmatism and feminism.3 Perhaps most important for thinking about the
ethics of weapons of mass destruction is that both are actively engaged in attempting to solve social problems. The
early pragmatists viewed the purpose of philosophical reflection to be "the intelligent overcoming of oppressive
conditions." Dewey, for example, recommended the criticism of beliefs underlying society that have led to
"unsatisfactory conditions in order to radically reconstruct our society according to non-oppressive and cooperative
standards."5 Feminist goals of liberating women from oppression thus echo pragmatist
ones. While most often feminist movements have been focused specifically on ending the male domination and
oppression of women, a more inclusive feminist vision has as its object the elimination of
all hierarchical and oppressive relationships, including the oppression of so-called third world or
developing nations (especially of the Global South) by those of the so-called first world or industrialized nations
(especially of the Global North), of ethnic, cultural, racial, or religious minorities by majorities, homosexuals by
pragmatists advocate
heterosexuals, the poor by the wealthy, children by adults, and so on. In addition,
the elimination of sharp divisions between theory and practice, reason and
experience, and knowing and doing.8 Pragmatists focus much more on
consequences rather than on a priori abstract conceptualizing , captured in the phrase that
pragmatists assign value on the basis of "what works" or what provides "emotional satisfaction."9 From a
Pragmatists consider moral
pragmatist perspective, the most important questions are practical ones.
agents to be actors within a concrete particular context that both influences what is
experienced and is influenced by those experiences . The inextricability of the perceiver from
what is perceived means that action, whether in the context of armed conflict and the use of
WMD or otherwise, must be situated within the larger context of which it is a part.
Since every decision to enter or engage in an armed conflict and every decision to deploy
WMD, of whatever type, must be considered within the full context of other relevant
actors, agencies, and term strategies or results ,12 a pragmatist perspective is
unlikely to result in the kind of abstract thinking that antiwar feminism criticizes in
dominant just war and realist approaches.13 Feminism also shares pragmatism's rejection of
traditional rationalist and empiricist approaches and its commitment to the inseparability of theory and practice.14
Both believe that reason must be grounded in experience and requires being supplemented, at least in particular
circumstances, by emotion.15 In this respect, feminists also favor a posteriori rather than a priori forms of
knowledge, those that develop on the basis of experience rather than those that are posited prior to it.16 In sum,
both pragmatism and feminism accord a central place to the particular, the
concrete, and the factual elements of experience, as opposed to the universal, the
generalizable, and the abstract .17 This opposition to abstraction is apparent, for example, in feminist
understandings of women's "different voice" and Dewey's views about the importance of the qualitative background
of situations. In contrast to mainstream philosophy, both feminist and pragmatist perspectives focus on everyday
The pragmatists' sensitivity
life and emphasize respect for others and the constitutiveness of community.
to the social embeddedness of persons led them to understand the "I" "only in
relation to other selves, so that the autonomy of individual agents needed to be
integrated with their status as social beings" existing in community . 18 This common
conception of the "relational self" suggests that both pragmatists and feminists will
resist turning others into "the Other," who can then be demonized and made into
"the enemy," suitable to be killed. The feminist commitment to the well-being of
others, in both the local and the global community, is well illustrated by Carol Cohn's
and Sara Ruddick's contribution to this volume. However, this commitment also provides the
basis for the pragmatist feminist position articulated here that refuses to
categorically rule out the moral legitimacy of any resort to armed force or war ,
since such resort may be morally imperative to protect innocent others . In addition to
these marked similarities, it is also important to acknowledge how a pragmatist feminism differs significantly from
American Pragmatism. Perhaps most important is pragmatist feminism's attention to the gendered character of the
social world and gender's impact on the formation and maintenance of male and female identities. These subjects
largely were ignored by the American Pragmatists19 but influence the analysis of the ethics of WMD outlined here.
In addition, feminists tend to give greater import to the cognitive aspects of affect than pragmatists, even though,
as already discussed, pragmatists recognize the importance of emotions to agency and cognition. Despite its
pragmatist feminism shares the goals of
differences from more mainstream strands of feminism,
many strands of feminism to make gender a central consideration of the analysis
(here of armed force and WMD)20 and to eradicate (patriarchal) oppression and domination .
These goals result in a strong presumption against the use of any weapons , not only
WMD, since they are in their very inception designed as tools for domination and
suppression of others designated as "the enemy ." This opposition to the use of
armed force is related to feminist observations of the patriarchal and hierarchical,
male-dominated and -controlled character of the military and the oppressive effects
of war and militarism around the world, especially on women and children. In addition, the
pragmatist feminist view described here affirms much in the "constitutive positions" of antiwar feminism articulated
by Cohn and Ruddick,21 especially its observation of the gendered character of war and militarism, its suspicion of
masculinist approaches to war and conflict resolution, and its critique of the dominant tradition for its focus on the
physical, military, and strategic effects of these weapons separate from their embeddedness in the rest of social
and political life. With this brief overview in mind, in the following section, I describe how a pragmatist feminist
perspective compares with the antiwar feminist position outlined by Cohn and Ruddick in Chapter 21 with respect to
the specific issues addressed by this volume. SOURCES AND PRINCIPLES Although pragmatist feminism itself does
not directly provide general norms governing the use of weapons in war, it does so indirectly through its affirmation
of elements of justwar theory, as described below. Pragmatist feminism does not categorically
rule out the use of armed force or engagement in war. Its pragmatist perspective
steers in a different direction from the antiwar feminists' "practical" opposition to
war. Whereas the realist tradition has been unduly pessimistic in its assumption that war and armed conflict are
necessary, certain, and inevitable, on a pragmatist feminist view, antiwar feminist thinking tends to
be unduly optimistic about the human capacity to transcend the use of violent
methods of resolving disputes, given the consistent and continual resort to such means throughout most
of human history. From a pragmatist feminist perspective , the historical and contemporary
experience of the repeated resort to violence and the inability of humanity thus far to
develop alternative mechanisms for resolving large-scale disputes suggests the
likelihood of future wars and armed conflicts. In light of this history, overcoming the "war
culture" that antiwar feminists view so unfavorably can be possible only outside the
immediate situation of armed conflict. Once the aggressor has struck or threatens
to do so imminently, it is too late to change our societies and ourselves in order to
avoid war. Rather, it is then necessary to act in order to avoid annihilation in one form or
another. Given its view that some wars and some opposition to war and armed conflicts are morally necessary to
protect ourselves and others from harm, pragmatist feminists seek to impose moral limits on the harm and
suffering to the minimum necessary. Despite an awareness of its limitations,22 a pragmatist feminist perspective
considers just war theory to provide a flexible and modifiable set of criteria for attempting to act morally and in
accordance with principles of justice, both in entering into an armed conflict (jus ad bellum) and in the actual
engagement of that conflict (jus in bello). In particular, pragmatist feminism shares just war's starting premise of a
A
strong presumption against the legitimacy of the use of armed force and violence to resolve conflicts.
pragmatist feminist perspective thus rejects Cohn's and Ruddick's contention that
justwar theorists "implicitly accept war as a practice even when condemning particular
wars."23 Recognizing the historical and global reality of war making and armed force as
means of resolving conflicts and adopting strategies to maximize justice and
minimize immorality when such means are adopted is not the same as "implicitly
accepting the practices of war," at least in the absence of demonstrably effective
means of eliminating such conflicts . To ignore the reality of the continuing resort to
war and armed force is itself to revert to abstraction rather than offering a practical
method for eliminating the human suffering and incalculable damage caused by war and armed
conflict. Here Colin and Ruddick reveal (intentionally or otherwise) their situatedness as citizens
of a war-making state, one that has had the choice in many, if not all, instances since the mid-twentieth
century, at least, of deciding whether or not to go to war. Just as Cohn and Ruddick criticize just war
theory for failing to explore nonviolent alternatives once a just cause is determined or war has begun, their
antiwar feminist approach fails to offer concrete suggestions for avoiding armed
conflict when a nation or people is confronted with armed aggression or assault by
others, the situation where the options boil down to "fight or die." This perspective fails
to look at war from the point of view of the aggressed-against , when armed conflict
becomes a necessity in order to retain national and/or cultural and/or ethnic identity from subjugation by
the aggressor(s). In such circumstances, the moral necessity of armed force looks quite
different. And in such circumstances, the threatened use of WMD can be seen as less evil
than the alternatives, such as doing nothing and being conquered or fighting a
conventional war and faring poorly. Rather than reverting to abstract thinking about war, pragmatist
feminism affirms just war theory's casuistic approach to particular armed conflicts as well as its position that such
means are sometimes morally justifiable or even morally obligator)' in order to protect oneself (individual or nation)
pragmatist feminism affirms just war thinking's attention to
or innocent third parties. Further,
particular conflicts rather than war in the abstract and its stance of moderation and
of imposing the minimal suffering necessary to accomplish the objective of restoring the peace.24
Thus, with respect to the military response of the United States to the September 11 terrorist attacks, a pragmatist
feminist application of just war criteria yields the conclusion that the jus ad bellum principles of "last resort" and
A
"proportionality," as well as the in hello principles of "proportionality" and "discrimination," were not satisfied.
second difference in the two feminist perspectives emerges out of the antiwar feminist
observation that war and militarism are not separate from everyday life but integral
aspects of it.25 While this is an extremely important insight into the underlying conditions of war and
militarism, it needs to be joined with alternative proposals for addressing the "large-
scale military conflict." There has been scant attention to this issue in antiwar
feminist scholarship. Even if one assumes, as antiwar feminists do, that war is a "presence"
in everyday life and not merely a discrete "event" that occasionally "erupts,"26 it is
nonetheless the case that "war" is more damaging and harmful, and creates greater
suffering in a multiplicity of ways , than the absence of war. Pragmatist feminist
thinking about the ethics of WMD is attentive to how such differences in consequences
differentiate war from everyday life. A third significant area of difference between the two types of
feminist theories concerns responses to the causes of war. Whereas pragmatist feminists agree with antiwar
feminists that wars are partially a mutual construction, they also insist that some wars have much more to do with
unjust aggression for which opposing sides do not share equal responsibility. Antiwar feminism fails to accept that
some wars are not only necessary as a matter of prudence, but also morally justifiable on feminist grounds, for
For a pragmatist
example, humanitarian intervention to end the severe oppression of innocent victims.
feminist, the current state of international affairs unfortunately requires consideration of
the circumstances in which the threatened or actual use of such weapons for defensive
or deterrent purposes may be morally allowable or even morally necessary. Given these
circumstances, pragmatist feminism considers the just war tradition to provide a morally useful source of norms
relating to the use of weapons in war.
Perm cards
 Globalization + Feminism
Globalization has created opportunities for pathbreaking in
China gives them room to develop more individual identities
and influence the international theatre
Li 1(Li Xiaojiang is the founder and pioneer of women's studies in China and the
Professor and director of the Gender Research Center of Dalian University
"Modernization" to "Globalization": Where Are Chinese Women?, Signs: Journal of
Women in Culture and Society 2001, vol. 26, no. 4,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3175370, accessed 7/10/16//KR)
Pathbreaking (jiegui) was a ubiquitous key term in the 1990s and has saturated
virtually all professions and callings. This term in fact harbors wthin itself a certain larger process.
Before and after pathbreaking in China, this process has involved two terms
representing two, not exactly identical, social subjects and development objectives.
One, modernization, was born at the same time as the late era of social reforms in the 1970s; its social basis
lay in nationalism, and it aimed at strengthening China. This agenda involved a race to catch up with
Western industrial civilization, a breaching of Chinese confinement, and what we
Chinese call a "heading for the world" (zouxiang shijie) -that is,globalization, the
second term of what became, in the 1990s, the prime Chinese social development
objec- tive in relation, of course, to the modernization of the 1980s. Without a doubt, globalization transcended
modernization in China, since we also had at our disposal the Chinese term social countermodeling (shehui zhuan-
Women's development and the gender question both stand in rela- tion to
xing).
"pathbreaking" and to "countermodeling," and, although in the end this relation was
transitory, it is still registering influence. Two necessary brief asides will provide explanations of
some essential matters. The first of these relates to globalization itself. Early in 1992, at Boston's Northeastern
University, historian Patrick Manning gave a talk in which he argued there was a trend toward globalization. In those
days, international society was feeling profoundly the dismemberment of the So- viet Union and Eastern Europe and
the sanctions imposed on China by Western countries. Globalization seemed to be hot air then. But, in China, within
not even three years (from late 1994, when the drive to enter the market economy began), globalization not only
became an objective linked to the slogan of pathbreaking, it had already become an accomplished real- ity in many
domains. To an extraordinary degree, China's activist (albeit nationalist) political process fortuitously seized upon
globalization and forcefully promoted it, rather than serving as a powerful obstacle to it in the way so many
(Western) people had imagined. The second aside concerns models. Contemporary scholars (particularly in the
West) are too habituated to systems of thinking that draw on classi- ficatory models and have situated China in the
"Asian development model" or "postsocialist model." Yet China and the other Asian nations have never developed
according to the same model, and thus there really is no com- mon foundational developmental model at all. Those
analyses prematurely claim that China is "postsocialist, because even now China strictly upholds a socialist
(political) system and ideology. Because China undertook glob- alization from within its own particular system
scholars must study China in its singularity if they wish to understand the relationship of contempo- rary China to
globalization. The concept of globalization emerged out of Western society . Initially, it was
both an economic movement and a Western concept or value, albeit popularized on the global scale. In China, the
analogous concept to this Western value was the notion of "heading for the world." A nationalist slogan of self-
strengthening, it enabled China to be pathbreaking through countermodeling, thus giving globalization a Chinese
nationalist content. Consequently, the Western concept of globalization came to be used in- strumentally in China
as a nationalist battle cry. In China, in other words, globalization became the historical turning point for the nation's
the concept
encounter with the world. While all of the above is background knowledge, it serves to clarify how
of globalization was historically produced in China and to explain globalization's
particular regional inflection, all of which will enable us to consider the status,
attitude, and actions of and potential questions facing Chinese women and to
understand and establish a method of explicating those questions. The preparatory
meetings for the 1995 Women's Conference, which began in late 1993, drew Chinese
women into the processes of globaliza- tion, even before they had became involved
in so-called modernization, and they were the first social group to encounter
globalization. How do we look into (Chinese) women's status and the woman
question in the processes of globalization? The made-to-order method (and this includes the
thinking of Sins' spe- cial issue editors) is most often as follows: in societies moving toward eco-
nomic marketization, women are the consumer group, and the sex (the xing) of
women (nuxing) becomes a mass consumer item, the labor power of women is
exploited, and so on. From the perspective of developed West- ern nations and the reflections of postmodernism
on modernization, this is the absolute reality of economic marketization. But why is it
that, in countries where these questions are actually at stake, they are not raised by
the very women in question but are, on the contrary, precisely the objec- tives that
people swarm toward as fast as they can? To take another ex- ample, the most exploitative labor
categories are those with the highest concentrations of workers. Yet as of this time, these jobs have allowed un- told
numbers of rural women to take the road toward casting off poverty, casting off the influence of the clan, and
transforming their own selves.In today's China, the development of women does not fall
within that stereotyped model, because of the very substantial influence of regional
variation, or for personal reasons (or opportunities). In every arena, indi- viduals who
have the material resources or the personal opportunity to "pathbreak" do so, no
matter what sort of new problems or what sort of oppressions or misuses they
encounter as a consequence. Their life condi- tions and their degree of self-
autonomy are so much greater than those allowed in traditional regions and in the traditional social life
of the indi- vidual that it does not matter that women in foreign enterprises are clearly
being paid less: they will still choose the exploitative wages of foreign en- terprises
and turn down the housewifery of state enterprises . The "woman question" raised by the process
of globalization clearly di- verges from recognized models, and whether it can easily be judged by mod- ern or
it is of the greatest importance that we
postmoder standards of value is hard to say. Still,
recognize the existence of continuous, ongoing pro- cesses of displacement of
positions and the consequent displacement of a universal standard of value. This is
a social method for our recognizing the processes of globalization and their
transformation of women's status and the women/gender question . The concepts of
globalization and "indige- nous consciousness," "development" and "sustainable development," are mutually
contradictory, and, moreover, their original standpoints are in- commensurable. From one perspective (the
macroscopic, globalized per- spective, a perspective that has reflected on "modernization" and capital- ism), we
see capitals accelerating exploitation of women in the developing countries. From the
other indigenous perspective, we must squarely face the fact that women's lives and status in modernization and
globalization have improved for the better; even though, compared with the West, their lives appear impoverished,
Again, if the labor market is
individuals may actually have (compared to the past) greater affluence.
slanted toward developing countries, the marriage and sex markets actually offer
women increased opportunities for choice (including the choice of sexual services)
and con- sequently improve the situation of women, although to women of the de-
veloped regions and countries this may constitute a sort of oppression. But, at the
same time, the positive value to women is not only not uniform, it may, on the
contrary, be quite the opposite. Each of these events give rise to women questions whose methods of
resolution may also be poles apart. During the modernization of the 1980s, the basic attitude of Chinese women
(particularly urban, professional women) was passivity; as a result, their development lagged behind social
"en- lightenment" became the prime subject of Chinese social
development generally. Then
agenda. This dis- course aimed to mobilize women to plunge enthusiastically into
the total modernization of society and the improvement of their own circum-
stances. From that perspective, the globalization of the 1990s has offered Chinese women an unexpected
opportunity to overtake Chinese society's entire developmental level while at the same time pathbreaking into the
world and becoming individual persons. They can also cast off the en- tanglements of nationalism, taking
themselves "toward the world." This is absolutely crucial in the history of Chinese women's liberation and devel-
opment.For all of history, Chinese women have always been contained in the family,
the clan, the community; that was why the processes of Chinese women's liberation
were always involved with nation, society, and the state. For this reason, when I see
the process of Chinese women's globaliza- tion, I also see the fortuitous processes
of her individuation. When the Chinese reforms began in the 1980s and it appeared as though modernization
would discard or abandon women, I felt that this would actually be a good thing for Chinese women and would
globalization is,
awaken in Chinese women their female subjective consciousness. Today I feel similarly that
for Chinese women, a difficult historical opportunity, holding out the chance to
every woman to exceed family, society, nation, and state and leading in the end to
more opportunities and more chances to choose to become an individual . No matter
how many new problems it produces, what single thing could be more important than choice? If the catchword of
the Chinese women's movement of the 1980s was (social) enlightenment, today's objective is (individual)
development. These will certainly seem dubious from the postmodernist perspective, and such reservations have
their laudable points. But these are all the self- conscious and self-selected choices of Chinese women themselves,
and it is possible that they are brief and fleeting, a counter to countermodeling and pathbreaking. At this point, no
matter how many definitions we provide at the level of theory, I think that standards for judgment must grow out of
the spe- cifics of life itself. Doing what one ought or ought not to do is relevant not in the abstract but only in the
It is essential now to scrutinize reality very carefully, to evaluate the
context of reality.
price of doing what one says is "necessary," and to try to calibrate and to reduce
these costs.
 State Perms
Perm, do both: State involvement is key to place-attached
politics and solidarity among the oppressed through
delocalization
Brun, C., & Blaikie, P. (2016). Alternative Development: Unravelling
Marginalization, Voicing Change. Farnham, GB: Routledge. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com.proxy.library.umkc.edu Brun was appointed Associate
Professor at the Department of Geography in August 2004, and Professor from
September 2013. I am currently Director of Research in the department. She
teaches and supervises students in human geography, development studies and
globalisation studies. Piers Macleod Blaikie is a geographer and scholar of
international development and natural resources, who worked until 2003 at the
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia
It was not until the 1990s that alternative, antimodernist development theories critiqued development practices for
their concerns with fulfillment of basic needs with a focus on indigenous values, neoliberal self-reliance and so forth.
Lund (1993) was one of the first to argue that identifying ways to empower the poor and marginalized was more
appropriate than focusing solely on fulfilling needs, which were frequently inappropriately identified by experts
from elsewhere. Part of this critique questioned how men and women could sensitize themselves and act against
oppressive structural forces, including patriarchy (Lund 1993). The structures affecting womens lives production,
reproduction, socialization, motherhood, gender and sexuality contain different contradictions and dynamics but
they nonetheless contain a unity in womens experience. Women are contextualized by the shifting social relations
they inhabit and the types of labour they perform. A focus on gender and development argues that the sexual
division of labour in a society is one of the relations in which men and women become dependent upon each other,
and these relations must necessarily change. Gender power relations rather than women in development are the
needed focus of analysis. In addition, a focus on gender and development emphasizes that women are not a
Women are seen as social
homogenous group but rather are divided by class, ethnicity, age and so forth.
actors within wider social contexts, and the state can be an important actor
promoting womens emancipation (Peet and Hartwick 2009). Escobar (2008: 32)
approaches power over the production of locality as being tantamount to two
conflicting yet at times mutually constitutive processes of localization. On the one
hand, there are the dominant forces of the state and capital, which attempt to shift
the production of locality in their favor, thus ultimately creating a delocalizing
effect with respect to places, and, second, what Escobar refers to as subaltern
forms of localization: place-based strategies that rely on the attachment to territory
and culture; and network strategies. In the first instance capital and the state
mobilize the politics of scale that valorize local endeavours (e.g. some ecotourism
programmes are foisted on indigenous peoples and are advertised globally as authentic, traditional experiences
To the extent that these strategies do not originate from
that do not hurt the environment).
local places (they may come from the state or the Global North), they inevitably induce a
delocalizing effect in terms of an unfolding of social and ecological life. In the
second instance are subaltern strategies, which follow the Deleuzian notion that
the oppressed, if given the chance and on their way to solidarity through alliance
politics can speak and know their conditions (Spivak 1988: 25). Escobar
advocates two strategies that focus on (1) attachment to place, and (2) attachment
to redes that empower social networks to enact the politics of scale from below.
These latter strategies, as suggested by some of our work in FNNR, engage local
movements with biodiversity networks, on the one hand, and with other place-
based actors and struggles, on the other (Escobar 2008: 32). In what follows we highlight the FNNR
project in Guizhou Province, China, where complex social and biodiverse relations between the endangered
snubnosed monkey,local hillside farmers and their traditional agricultural practices,
tourist policies, economic development and education interweave in ways that
highlight Escobars delocalizing effects and place-based strategies and suggest the
importance of Lunds renegotiation of local values on a continual basis. Recent
decades have witnessed considerable interdisciplinary research and conservation
efforts, pointing to a fundamental question of how we can better understand the
space time complexities of humans, protected species and the environment (e.g.
Ehrlich and Wilson 1991, Vitousek 1994, Jeffers 1997, Vitousek et al. 1997, Dirzo and Raven 2003, Smith et al. 2003,
Turner et al. 2003, OConnor and Crowe 2005).

The perm is the best option-their assumption that only

theoretical viewpoints that have a pure ontology/epistemology
encourages a theory driven approach that stops good policy
and shatters the power of any IR theory
Owen in 2k2 (David, Reader on Political Theory at the University of
Southampton, Millennium, Re-orienting International Relations: On Pragmatism,
Pluralism and Practical Reasoning, SAGE)
The second danger run by the philosophical turn is that because prioritisation of ontology
and epistemology promotes theory-construction from philosophical first
principles, it cultivates a theory-driven rather than problem-driven approach
to IR. Paraphrasing Ian Shapiro, the point can be put like this: since it is the case that there is
always a plurality of possible true descriptions of a given action , event or
phenomenon, the challenge is to decide which is the most apt in terms of getting
a perspicuous grip on the action, event or phenomenon in question given the purposes of
the inquiry; yet, from this standpoint, theory-driven work is part of a reductionist
program in that it dictates always opting for the description that calls for
the explanation that flows from the preferred model or theory .5 The justification
offered for this strategy rests on the mistaken belief that it is necessary for social science because general
explanations are required to characterise the classes of phenomena studied in similar terms. However, as
Shapiro points out, this is to misunderstand the enterprise of science since whether there are general
explanations for classes of phenomena is a question for social-scientific inquiry, not to be prejudged before
conducting that inquiry.6 Moreover, this strategy easily slips into the promotion of the
pursuit of generality over that of empirical validity . The third danger is that the
preceding two combine to encourage the formation of a particular image of
disciplinary debate in IRwhat might be called (only slightly tongue in cheek) the Highlander
viewnamely, an image of warring theoretical approaches with each , despite
occasional temporary tactical alliances, dedicated to the strategic achievement of
sovereignty over the disciplinary field. It encourages this view because the turn
to, and prioritisation of, ontology and epistemology stimulates the idea that
there can only be one theoretical approach which gets things right, namely,
the theoretical approach that gets its ontology and epistemology right. This
image feeds back into IR exacerbating the first and second dangers, and so a
potentially vicious circle arises.
Turns
 Realism Good
Realism is inevitable states will constantly strive to be the
strongest and preclude other states from altering the balance
of power.
Mearsheimer 1 [John J. Prof. of Poli Sci at U Chicago. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
Pg 1-3] JL
Alas, the claim that security competition and war between the great powers have been purged from the
international system is wrong. Indeed, there is much evidence that the promise of
everlasting peace among the great powers was stillborn. Consider, for example,
that even though the Soviet threat has disappeared, the United States still
maintains about one hundred thousand troops in Europe and roughly the
same number in Northeast Asia. It does so because it recognizes that
dangerous rivalries would probably emerge among the major powers in
these regions if U.S. troops were withdrawn. Moreover, almost every European
state, including the United Kingdom and France, still harbors deep-seated,
albeit muted, fears that a Germany unchecked by American power might
behave aggressively; fear of Japan in Northeast Asia is probably even more
profound, and it is certainly more frequently expressed. Finally, the possibility of a clash
between China and the United States over Taiwan is hardly remote. This is not to
say that such a war is likely, but the possibility reminds us that the threat of great-power war has not
disappeared. The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business,
and it is likely to remain that way. Although the intensity of their competition waxes
and wanes, great powers fear each other and always compete with each
other for power. The overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power, which
means gaining power at the expense of other states . But great powers do not merely strive
to be the strongest of all the great powers, although that is a welcome
outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemonthat is, the only great
power in the system. There are no status quo powers in the international
system, save for the occasional hegemon that wants to maintain its
dominating position over potential rivals. Great powers are rarely content
with the current distribution of power; on the contrary, they face a constant
incentive to change it in their favor. They almost always have revisionist intentions, and they
will use force to alter the balance of power if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.3 At times, the
costs and risks of trying to shift the balance of power are too great, forcing great powers to wait for more
favorable circumstances. But the desire for more power does not go away, unless a state achieves the
ultimate goal of hegemony. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, however, the world is
condemned to perpetual great-power competition. This unrelenting pursuit of power means
that great powers are inclined to look for opportunities to alter the
distribution of world power in their favor. They will seize these opportunities
if they have the necessary capability. Simply pill, great powers are primed
for offense. But not only does .real power seek to gain power at the expense
of other states, it also thwart rivals bent on gaining power at its expense.
Thus, a great power will defend the balance of power when looming change
favors another state, and it will try to undermine the balance when the
direction of change is in its own favor. Why do great powers behave this way? My answer is
that the structure of the international system forces states which seek only to he secure nonetheless to act
aggressively toward each other, Three features of the international system combine to cause states to fear
one another: 1) the absence of a central authority that sits above states and can protect them from each
other, 2) the fact that states always have some offensive military capability, and 3) the fact that states can
never be certain about other slates intentions. Given this fearwhich can never be wholly eliminated
states recognize that the more powerful they are relative to their rivals, the better their chances of survival.
Indeed, the best guarantee of survival is to be a hegemon, because no other state can seriously threaten
such a mighty power.
 Language Focus Bad
Focus on speech as the cause of discriminatory behavior
distracts from the real causes
David Campbell 98, Professor of International Politics at the University of
Newcastle in England., 1998
http://calliope.jhu.edu/journals/theory_&_event/v002/2.1r_campbell.html
The collapse into juridical discourse, backed by the power of the state or specific agents of
the state, is obvious in the scenes above, and Butler's anxiety about the minimalization of political
opposition - particularly in the first case, where the dubious nature of the 'offence' diverts attention
from racism more generally - appears fully justified. The question is, however, whether the
nonjuridical and nonstate forms of agency and resistance Butler places her faith in are up to the task set for
them. Let's leave that concern to hang for a bit. Let us first ask how it is that the dominant modes of dealing
with hate speech appear universally juridical? In answering that question, Butler demonstrates well the way
in which critically interpretative thought can combine a series of theoretical assumptions to demonstrate the
limitations of prevalent discourses and alternative possibilities. In so doing, Excitable Speech is a powerful
statement in response to those who would maintain that arguments imbued with the idea of a "modernity
without foundations" (161) evacuate ethico-political concerns from our horizon. Those who argue
that hate speech demands juridical responses assert that not only does the speech
communicate, but that it constitutes an injurious act. This presumes that not only does speech
act, but that "it acts upon the addressee in an injurious way" (16). This argumentation is, in Butler's eyes,
based upon a "sovereign conceit" whereby speech wields a sovereign power,
acts as an imperative, and embodies a causative understanding of representation.
In this manner, hate speech constitutes its subjects as injured victims unable
to respond themselves and in need of the law's intervention to restrict if not censor the
offending words, and punish the speaker: This idealization of the speech act as a sovereign action (whether
positive or negative) appears linked with the idealization of sovereign state power or, rather, with the
imagined and forceful voice of that power. It is as if the proper power of the state has been expropriated,
delegated to its citizens, and the state then rememerges as a neutral instrument to which we seek recourse
to protects as from other citizens, who have become revived emblems of a (lost) sovereign power (82). Two
elements of this are paradoxical. First, the sovereign conceit embedded in conventional renderings of hate
speech comes at a time when understanding power in sovereign terms is becoming (if at all ever possible)
even more difficult. Thus the juridical response to hate speech helps deal with an onto-political problem:
"The constraints of legal language emerge to put an end to this particular historical anxiety [the
problematisation of sovereignty], for the law requires that we resituate power in the language of injury, that
we accord injury the status of an act and trace that act to the specific conduct of a subject" (78). The
second, which stems from this, is that (to use Butler's own admittedly hyperbolic formulation) "the state
produces hate speech." By this she means not that the state is the sovereign subject from which the various
slurs emanate, but that within the frame of the juridical account of hate speech "the category cannot exist
without the state's ratification, and this power of the state's judicial language to establish and maintain the
domain of what will be publicly speakable suggests that the state plays much more than a limiting function
in such decisions; in fact, the state actively produces the domain of publicly acceptable speech, demarcating
the line between the domains of the speakable and the unspeakable, and retaining the power to make and
sustain the line of consequential demarcation" (77). The sovereign conceit of the juridical argument thus
linguistically resurrects the sovereign subject at the very moment it seems most vulnerable, and reaffirms
the sovereign state and its power in relation to that subject at the very moment its phantasmatic condition is
most apparent. The danger is that the resultant extension of state power will be
turned against the social movements that sought legal redress in the first
place (24)
 War > StructuraViolence
Events of war preclude solutions to structural violence No alt
without our action
Rabie in 94 Mohamed, professor of International political economy, Georgetown
University, Praeger, Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity, 1994,
http://www.questiaschool.com/read/14788166?title=Conflict%20Resolution%20and
%20Ethnicity
In countries where democracy does not exist and where the control of authoritarian states
over peoples' lives and fortunes is real, the nonviolent resolution and prosecution of
political conflict is an impossibility because violence is the major tool of
the oppressor rather than the oppressed. Democratization as the first order of
concern, which the proponents of a limited definition of peace further advocate, c annot be effected
without freedom and liberty, two conditions for access to cherished values. Therefore, a
realistic definition of peace ought to take both arguments into
consideration. This is particularly important since the proponents of positive peace tend to view it more as a
process and less as a stationary state of political affairs, while the others see it generally in opposite terms. In fact,
human experience seems to indicate that the absence of war and violence
cannot be maintained without social justice, and social justice cannot be
achieved under conditions of war and violence. Consequently, an operational definition of
realistic peace would probably describe it as the absence of violence under conditions and relationships that
provide for the nonviolent resolution of political conflict and the freedom to pursue legitimate individual and group
goals without threat or coercion. Peace, to be real and human, must be understood and employed as a continuous
process to lessen social tension, resolve political conflict, and create conditions to pursue freedom and justice
a strategy for
through a gradual evolution of human perceptions and socio-political institutions. Thus,
universal peace must deal not only with war but also with the very forces
and conditions that cause the eruption of war and induce the spread of
violence in the first place. It must also strive to change a people's
perceptions of the other in order to humanize the adversary, acknowledge his grievances, and
legitimize his basic concerns. Above all, it must lay the foundation for transforming
existing group relationships and state and civil society institutions, with a
view to creating new more dynamic ones committed to promoting compatible visions and values with developing
shared interests.

The focus on structural violence instead of direct violence

makes preventing war impossible.
Thompson in 3 William, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center
for the Study of International Relations at Indiana University, A Streetcar Named
Sarajevo: Catalysts, Multiple Causation Chains, and Rivalry Structures,
International Studies Quarterly, 47(3)

Richard Ned Lebow (20002001) has recently invoked what might be called a streetcar interpretation of
systemic war and change. According to him, all our structural theories in world politics both
overdetermine and underdetermine the explanation of the most important
events such as World War I, World War II, or the end of the Cold War. Not only do structural
theories tend to fixate on one cause or stream of causation, they are inherently
incomplete because the influence of structural causes cannot be known
without also identifying the necessary role of catalysts. As long as we ignore
the precipitants that actually encourage actors to act, we cannot make
accurate generalizations about the relationships between more remote
causation and the outcomes that we are trying to explain . Nor can we test the
accuracy of such generalizations without accompanying data on the presence or absence of catalysts. In
the absence of an appropriate catalyst (or a streetcar that failed to arrive), wars
might never have happened. Concrete information on their presence (streetcars that did
arrive) might alter our understanding of the explanatory significance of other variables. But since catalysts
and contingencies are so difficult to handle theoretically and empirically, perhaps we should focus instead on
probing the theoretical role of contingencies via the development of what if scenarios.
 Consequences > Epistemology

Epistemological critique may decrease our ability to know the

future with certainty, but this only supports defaulting to any
risk of impacts large in magnitude-these are more important
than small structural factors
TYLER COWEN in 2006 The Epistemic Problem Does Not Refute George Mason
University Consequentialism Utilitas, Dec2006, Vol. 18 Issue 4, p383-399
The epistemic critique increases the plausibility of what I call 'big event
consequentialism'. In this view, we should pursue good consequences, but with
special attention to consequences that are very important and very good, or
correspondingly, very bad. This includes stopping the use of nuclear weapons , saving
children from smallpox, making progress against global poverty, and maintaining or spreading
liberal democracy. Big events, as I define them, typically are of significant practical
importance, involve obvious moral issues, and their value is not controversial to benevolent onlookers.
In contrast, consider 'small events'. Preventing a broken leg for a single dog, however meritorious an act, is a
small event as I define the concept. Making American families wealthier by another $20 also would count as
a small event. We should not count small events for nothing, but epistemic
issues may well lower their importance in refiective equilibrium. Of course we do
not need a strict dividing line between big and small events, but rather we can think in terms of a
continuum. In some cases a large number of small benefits will sum up to a big benefit, or equal the big
benefit in importance. It then can be argued that we should treat the large benefits and the small benefits on
a par. If we lift a different person out of poverty one billion times, this is no less valuable than lifting one
billion people out of poverty all at once. Here two points are relevant. First, sometimes we are facing a single
choice in isolation from other choices, rather than examining a rule or general principle of behavior . In this
case it does not matter whether or not the small benefits would, if combined in larger numbers, sum up to a
greater benefit. The small benefits will not be combined in greater numbers, and we should still upgrade the
relative importance of larger benefits in our decision calculus. Second, not all small benefits sum
into equivalence with larger benefits. Sometimes one value has a lexical
relationship to (all or some) other values. For instance arguably a large number of
canine broken legs, even a very large number, do not sum in value to make a
civilization. It does not matter how many dogs and how many broken legs
enter the comparison. In other words, civilization may be a lexical value with respect to canine
broken legs. And when lexical elements are present, the mere cumulation of numbers of broken legs does
not trump the more significant value. Numerous value relationships have been cited as lexical. A large
number of slight headaches, no matter how numerous, may not sum up in value to equal a smaller number
of intensely painful deaths or personal tortures." A very large number of 'muzak and potato'
lives do not sum to overtake the value of a sophisticated civilization .^^ Rawls
put forward liberty and the difference principle as his lexical values for all political comparisons.^^ For our
purposes, we do not require a very strict notion of lexicality for these designations to matter. A big value
need not be lexical against a (multiplied) smaller value at all possible margins. Instead the big value
need only be lexical across the comparisons that arise under relevant policy
comparisons. Furthermore a big value need not be lexical in absolute terms against all other smaller
values. We therefore receive further guidance as to which big events are
upgraded in the most robust fashion. The big values that receive the most
robust upgrading would be those values with some lexical importance , relative
to possible comparisons against other smaller values.^" To sum up these pointsz , critics of
consequentialism would like to establish something like the following: 'We
find it hard to predict consequences. Therefore consequences do not matter
very much, relative to other factors, such as deontology or virtue ethics. We should
abandon consequentialist morality.' But so far epistemic considerations have
yet to produce a strong argument for this view. The arguments support a
different conclusion, namely downgrading the importance of minor
consequences, and upgrading the importance of major consequences. The
most robust major consequences are those which carry values with some
lexical properties, and cannot be replicated by a mere accumulation of many small benefits.
 Anti-Cap Fem = Bad
Anti-capitalist feminist discourse is bad - its romanticized, it
denigrates other feminist as bad girls, and fails to take into
account racial divides
Eschle and Maiguashca 13 (Catherine Eschle is a British political scientist, feminist, academic,
and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, University of Strathclyde and Bice Maiguashca is a Professor
of Political Science at University of Exter, Reclaiming Feminist Futures: Co-opted and Progressive Politics in a Neo-
liberal Age, Political Studies, Volume 62, Issue 3, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12046/full,
accessed 7/13/16//KR)

We begin our critique by subjecting to scrutiny the substantive claims evident in our authors' narratives of retrieval
and reinvention regarding who might be the rightful bearer of progressive politics, what a progressive political
agenda should look like and how that agenda must be pursued. In terms of the favoured agent of change, all three
writers share what could be described as a nostalgic attachment to the socialist feminism of the past, with Fraser
and Eisenstein arguing for its revival and McRobbie lamenting its demise. Now, while we have no issue with
nostalgia per se playing a role in the articulation of a progressive politics (see Bonnett, 2010), or with the notion
that socialist feminism may be a good place to start that endeavour, we underline two interconnected problems
socialist feminism is romanticised,
with how this plays out in all the texts under discussion. First,
presented as an ideal type rather than as a concrete, internally complex, historically
specific political project. McRobbie has been criticised, rightly, for mobilising socialist
feminism as a kind of shortcut label, never describing exactly what it was or why it
might have declined in popularity (Van Zoonen, 2010, pp. 1701). Perhaps she might be excused this,
given that she does not rely on socialist feminism for her progressive politics of the present. But Fraser and
socialist feminism remains elusive, glimpsed only through rose-
Eisenstein do, and here too
tinted spectacles. Fraser's account, for example, contains some historical
inaccuracies, eliding as it does socialist feminism in the 1970s with black and anti-
imperialist feminism and attributing to all three an intersectional analysis that was
actually pioneered by black feminists (Fraser, 2009, p. 103; e.g. Combahee River Collective, 1977). In
Eisenstein's book, the issue is rather one of absence: socialist feminism is explicitly summoned in an earlier article
(Eisenstein, 2005, p. 488) and implicitly invoked in the book in calls to put socialism back on the agenda, but
barely features in the accompanying analysis of the triumph of mainstream liberal feminism over what Eisenstein
calls social feminism and labor feminism (Eisenstein, 2009, pp. 4054). Connectedly, Fraser and Eisenstein
neglect internal debates and conflict among socialist feminists. This can be seen in their discussion of the revaluing
of care work, positioned by both authors as central to a socialist-feminist revival and especially important to
Eisenstein's progressive vision, but which has long been subject to high-profile contestation among socialist
feminists and beyond in ways that surely merit some consideration.2 The second problem, closely connected to the
contemporary strands of feminism are assessed in light of this
first, is that
romanticised ideal and found wanting. So, for example, McRobbie's sweeping dismissal of
third wave feminism as an apologia for capitalism ignores the expansive literature
on the internal contestations and contradictions of this feminist trend (e.g. Dean, 2009;
Henry, 2004; Snyder, 2008). In parallel, Eisenstein's depiction of the rise of post-structuralist feminism in the 1990s
ignores, among other things, the fact that many of the thinkers involved like McRobbie herself come out of a
all three
socialist feminist tradition. To use an argument made by Cynthia Weber (1994) in a different context,
authors in their own ways are disciplining feminism from an assumed position of
authority and in accordance with their own purposes , elevating socialist feminists as
the good girls of the past and thereby denigrating, variously, liberal feminists,
cultural theorists, post-structuralists or the third wave as the bad girls of the
present. In so doing, our authors run the risk of reifying differences among feminists,
failing to appreciate the connections and hard-won alliances that flow through the
feminist body as a whole (Weber, 1994, p. 347). The limitation of their vision of the agent of progressive
politics, however, goes beyond the shared tendency to discipline contemporary feminism in light of an idealised
socialist feminism. In terms of Fraser and Eisenstein, an additional problem arises with their insistence that
feminism and the left be reintegrated. Indeed, in our view, both these authors seriously underestimate the
tensions between these two political forces, historically and today. Although Eisenstein (2009, pp. 2036)
acknowledges the much-documented unhappy marriage between them throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries and Fraser (2009, p. 10) notes the critique by second-wave socialist feminists of the androcentrism of
their left comrades, both analysts assume that such obstacles can be overcome. Fraser simply asserts the necessity
of reunion while Eisenstein's prescriptions for healing (2009, pp. 2069) between the left and feminism, based on
the former taking feminist forms of solidarity and aspirations more seriously, and the latter going beyond anger,
seem to us to be set out more in hope than in realistic expectation .
Even more worrisome is the
implication that the progressive character of socialist feminism is secured by its
adherence to the socialist/Marxist/left side of the equation. Surprisingly, for Fraser and
Eisenstein, socialist feminism appears to acquire its critical bite and realise its emancipatory promise only in so far
as it is socialist or left, not feminist. Thus, feminism qua feminism is positioned not only as non-left, but also as non-
progressive.3 Turning to McRobbie's political imaginary, the agent, as we have seen, is assumed to be the individual
subject (i.e. female student) who is depicted as capable of deep personal transformation. But McRobbie's
articulation of the nature, direction and end product of this process, although evocative, remains rather inchoate
and non-committal. First, she gives us no justification of why she lays all her hopes for a new minoritarian politics
on the role of higher education, in general, and on young, middle-class, cosmopolitan students from the colonial
periphery, in particular. She certainly fails to explain in what sense these relatively privileged students are
minoritarian and why she thinks that their highly mobile, reconstituted subjectivities will be novel in any way or,
the individual as the bearer of
for that matter, progressive. Moreover, McRobbie's turn to
progressive politics seems to leave no room for the key ingredient that any
collective effort at re-articulation would require, that is, intersubjectivity. Instead,
her vision of the politics of becoming seems to take for granted the individualisation
of women and, in so doing, accept the very terms of the Faustian pact between
feminism and neo-liberalism that she decries . On this view, resistance in
contemporary conditions can only be undertaken by individual subjects, alone, with
no possibility of collective political struggle perceived now or in the future. If the
agents of progressive feminist politics proposed by these authors are problematic,
so too are their agendas. With respect to McRobbie's agenda, we have already indicated that her
suggestions on this topic are very schematic. Her call for a relentless critique of capitalism
(McRobbie, 2009, p. 49) offers a starting point, one shared with Fraser and Eisenstein. But it is far less
apparent how her affirmative vision of radical democracy and multiculturalism,
along with their attendant values of pluralism and otherness, fits with this
critique. In other words, even if one could foster such a radical ethos in the classroom,
how would one go about translating this moment into a wider social and political
project that might challenge our total subsumption by capital (McRobbie, 2009, p. 164)? By
comparison, Fraser's and Eisenstein's plea for the return of socialist feminism reactivates a more explicit, extensive
and substantive political agenda revolving around the re-centring of a critique of capitalism, the reintegration of
class, race and gender in this analysis and the revaluation of socio-economic and cultural axes of oppression so that
the former is once again given its due. This call for a recalibration of feminist political priorities sounds reasonable
enough. And yet there is a danger here that in their efforts to rectify an assumed skewing of
feminist analysis whereby gender is privileged over class and race, and recognition
over redistribution, Fraser and Eisenstein actually tip the scales in the other
direction, allowing for the reassertion of class and socio-economic oppression over
other forms of power and suffering. Such a hazard arises in the first place because the existence of the
imbalance to which they are responding is, at the very least, contested. After all, what about the claims
of Latin American feminists that they have long sought to integrate an account of
class and gender oppressions (e.g. Chinchilla, 1991)? Or what about those feminist critics who do not
accept the recognition and redistribution dualism and by implication the categorisation of social movements
(including feminism) on this basis (Alcoff, 2000; Butler, 1998; Young, 1997)? It is beyond the scope of this article to
adjudicate these competing claims. The point we are trying to make is simply that Eisenstein and Fraser are offering
a solution to a problem that many other feminists seem unconvinced actually exists and in this way, may be
A second issue with Fraser's and Eisenstein's call for a
creating a new problem of their own.
re-centring of the critique of capitalism is that neither scholar makes clear how
socio-economic and cultural axes of oppression, or gender, race and class, can be
understood as mutually constitutive within a framework that simultaneously
privileges capitalism. Our anxiety on this point is that feminist contributions to the progressive agenda,
rather than socialist or Marxist ones, get lost. This worry is particularly heightened when Eisenstein asserts that
gender, race and nationality are ultimately grounded in production relations (Aguilar, cited in Eisenstein, 2009, p.
213), implying that these other axes of oppression, and the struggles they generate are, in fact, an effect of the
foundational structure of capitalism. She reinforces this impression when she intimates that the divisions between
white women and women of colour in the US are primarily an issue of class, rather than race (Eisenstein, 2009, p.
214). Fraser is not much more reassuring. Characterising capitalism as a social totality (Fraser, 2009, p. 103) and
entreating feminists to make market-mediated processes the major focus of their analyses (Fraser, 2009, p. 115),
she does little to alleviate fears that she is rebalancing the scales in favour of production relations and the class
These drawbacks with the substantive characterisations of the
politics that this generates.
agent and agenda are accompanied by an almost complete neglect of political
practices. Fraser, for one, tells us nothing about how her preferred political agent should act. We do get glimpses
of what progressive political practice should look like from Eisenstein, who includes popular education,
consciousness raising, mass mobilisation, coalition building, union organising and neighbourhood cooperatives in
her trawl through possible ways forward (Eisenstein, 2009, pp. 20227), and from McRobbie (2009, p. 166) who
suggests critical pedagogy as crucial to the transformation of her students' subjectivities. But in the end, rather
than defend these suggestions in light of what might constitute progressive political practices in a neo-liberal age,
all three authors seem to assume that these practices will automatically flow either from the revival of social
feminism both as an agent and agenda or, in the case of McRobbie, from the transformation of students'
subjectivities. Moreover, all three implicitly limit the array of possible progressive practices by strenuously denying
the potential of either cultural and/or institutionalised practices. In this way, we are left to assume the nature of
progressive feminist practices from what they are not. We have shown in this section that all three of our authors
have an uncritical affection for socialist feminism, whether this is mourned as the progressive agent of the past or
willed back into being to carry the hopes of the present. This attachment carries with it exclusions and blind spots,
socialist feminism remains highly under-specified and indeed romanticised in
for
these texts, as does the relationship between feminism and the left. This not only makes
Fraser's and Eisenstein's case for the retrieval of socialist feminism as the agent of progressive politics less
it also allows them to skew their desired progressive agenda in ways that
compelling,
favour Marxism over feminism and to neglect the role of concrete political practices
in bringing about this agenda. Even McRobbie, who refuses to return to the past for a saviour, is unable
fully to flesh out her vision in ways that offer a convincing alternative to the socialist feminism for which she yearns.
focus on the individual subject and educational encounters in the
Indeed, her
classroom could be said to signal an unsatisfactory retreat from collective action in
the wake of socialist feminism's alleged demise . On both accounts, then, socialist feminism
functions as a benchmark to discipline contemporary strands of activism as insufficiently progressive by
comparison. As we will go on to argue in the next section, this disciplining dynamic is sustained and made more
plausible by the ways in which three interconnected concepts are deployed by these authors to undergird their
proleptic imaginings.

Current anti-capitalist feminist discourse uses multiple

definitions of words like radical, left, and progressive
interchangeably to further an agenda without giving the words
context meaning it limits out other forms of feminism that
arent progressive enough challenging this literature is the
only way to adequately discuss feminism
Eschle and Maiguashca 13 (Catherine Eschle is a British political scientist, feminist, academic,
and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, University of Strathclyde and Bice Maiguashca is a Professor
of Political Science at University of Exter, Reclaiming Feminist Futures: Co-opted and Progressive Politics in a Neo-
liberal Age, Political Studies, Volume 62, Issue 3, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12046/full,
accessed 7/13/16//KR)
Fraser, Eisenstein and McRobbie all mobilise, to varying degrees and in different ways, the concepts of left,
radical and progressive to characterise the kind of feminism to which they aspire. None of these terms is defined
clearly and, partly as a result, our authors often use them interchangeably. This conflation, in our view, serves both
to restrict their political imagination and to enable them to assert, rather than defend, their conclusions. Let us take
the category left is equated with a
each concept in turn. In all the texts under consideration,
specific political force, namely socialism and/or Marxism. We have several problems
with this move. To begin with, little detail is supplied about this agent in either
historical or sociological terms. Eisenstein (2009, pp. 2034) does discuss the Marxist tradition briefly,
referring to successive Marxist revolutions and struggles, particularly in the Global South, but McRobbie and Fraser
Just like the trope of socialist feminism, then, left becomes
give us nothing at all.
another short-cut label referring to a decontextualised, generalised social actor .
Moreover, this understanding of the left excludes the contribution of other strands of activism commonly associated
Left-wing politics has thus been effectively,
with the term, such as social democracy or anarchism.
if unintentionally, policed by our three feminist authors in much the same way as
they have policed feminism. Finally, by assuming that left = Marxism, our authors
equate the term with a specific political agenda, the salient feature of which is its
anti-capitalist orientation. This is a common tendency in the wider literature.4 Nonetheless, we suggest
that it unnecessarily limits our understanding of the left to what it is against, leaving untouched the question of
the concept of
what it is for. While the meaning of left in the texts under discussion is narrow and fixed,
radical is used more promiscuously (see Pugh, 2009, for a variety of usages). There are at least
three different ways in which the term is deployed. The first refers to the desire to grasp and
pull up the roots of an existing political arrangement (Bonnett, 2010, p. 7); such a view is shared by all three
authors, but is particularly striking in the writings of Fraser and Eisenstein, with their monological conception of
capitalism as the sole source of all other power relations and their attendant injustices. Pulling up capitalism, it is
thus implied, would bring with it an end to not only class inequalities but also those hinging on gender and race. A
second way in which radical is mobilised is to refer to a privileged political agent, one that exhibits distinctly bold
forms of political commitment (Bonnett, 2010, p. 7) and/or which represents the people, or the voice from below.
For Fraser and Eisenstein this agent is represented by the left, by the socialist feminists who align with them and by
working-class and black women who identif[y] more with the grassroots than with elites (Fraser, 2009, p. 105). In
McRobbie's case (2009, p. 164), it is the elusive minoritarian subject who is exclusively charged with the
responsibility of invent[ing] some feminist newness. A third, less prominent, conception of radicality at work in
these texts pertains to the alleged purity and authenticity of a particular set of political practices (Dean, 2008, p.
284). Although all three authors clearly assume that some practices are more radical than others (e.g. critical
the term radical has multiple
pedagogy for McRobbie), none of them specifies why this is the case. Thus
connotations, often deployed simultaneously, to capture variously the imperative to
challenge a foundational power relation, to grant priority to a particular agent or to
favour a particular practice. One difficulty here is that our authors do not make clear which understanding
is in play at any one time, or think through the implications of these contrasting definitions. The term is instead
continually mentioned in passing as if its meaning was self-evident. Another is that all three renditions of the term
radical is used to characterise the left agenda
are associated by our authors with the left. Thus
understood as anti-capitalism, and the left political agent, embodied by Marxist
struggles. All these associations are simply asserted, rather than substantiated .
While it may be a very common move in left-wing traditions to deploy the notion of
radicalism in this way, it seems an obviously self-justificatory move to us, one that
clouds the historically complex relationship of the left to diverse traditions of
radicalism (Bonnett, 2010, pp. 67). Finally, the notion of progressive, while invoked rather less
frequently than the other two terms, nonetheless features in all three accounts. Eisenstein (2009, p. 1) tells us on
the opening page of her book that she is a progressive, a person on the left, while McRobbie (e.g. 2009, p. 25)
uses the term to express approbation for social movements that are implicitly deemed to be on the left. Although
Fraser mentions the adjective only twice in Cunning of History (preferring to use the term emancipatory), she has
deployed it repeatedly in her earlier work to refer to struggles seeking to overturn economic inequalities and social
the term progressive is
hierarchies (e.g. Fraser, 1995). Regardless of its frequency of use, in all cases
deployed to indicate a politics of which our feminist authors approve, that is, it is
used to indicate the worthiness of a particular struggle . Thus, unlike left, which does have a
 the term progressive plays
fixed substantive meaning, and radical, which has multiple connotations,
the role of an empty signifier, that is, it has no independent, agreed-upon content, instead gaining its
meaning in relation to the context in which it is used and specifically in relation to left and radical. While the notion
of progressive is often used in this substantively empty but normatively loaded way in the wider literature (Brass,
2006; Loberfeld, 2004), for us such a habit poses a problem to the extent that it exonerates scholars from justifying
the normative evaluations that accompany the deployment of this term. Indeed, in much of the left literature it is
enough to characterise a movement as left or radical for it also to be deemed progressive.5 Yet the notions of left
and radical simply cannot be relied on to do the necessary justificatory work here: they do not, in themselves, tell
the concepts of left,
us why a particular form of politics is worth defending. Overall, it can be seen that
radical and progressive play an important role in the feminist works we have reviewed,
simultaneously delineating and affirming the kind of feminist politics to which Fraser,
Eisenstein and McRobbie aspire. Eliding these concepts throughout their texts allows our
authors to present readers with a fait accompli: left politics is radical and, in turn,
must be progressive. It is this conflation that enables our authors to construct and sustain
their stories of co-optation; any feminism deemed not to be left, in the narrow sense
of the term, is precluded from being radical or progressive and thereby positioned
as part of the problem rather than the solution . Moreover, it allows all three authors simply to
assert the normative value of their proposed feminist futures rather than defending them in either empirical or
this conceptual circularity limits their vision of
normative terms. Even more importantly for us,
who counts as progressive and what can be included in a progressive agenda .
Connectedly, it encourages the neglect of what constitutes progressive practice to the extent that left and radical
are read off the agent and agenda so that for all intents and purposes practices enacted by a left-wing actor in the
name of a radical agenda are assumed to be progressive. In the name of the more open future that Fraser calls for
it is necessary to revisit these concepts and, by redefining them,
(2009, p. 113), we think
take one step towards widening the range of possible futures for feminism.
Alt
 State Good
Their form of feminist theory focuses on the perceived
differences between men and women and refuse to engage the
state means that they cant solve because they reinforce
gender norms and cant reform the state reforming the state
is the only way to change international standards and rights
for women and marginalized groups
Mansbridge 14 (Jane Mansbridge is a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University, Anti-statism and Difference Feminism in International Social Movements, Harvard University,
http://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/files/wappp/files/anti-
statism_and_difference_feminism_in_international_social_movements_0.pdf, accessed 7/12/16//KR)

Jane Jaquette sounds the alarm. She exposes the dangers of ignoring the
In this important paper,
state and the dangers of difference feminism. She also shows how these are
linked. Although I will underscore the merits of anti-state activity and difference
feminism, I agree that a feminist strategy that neglected or deplored state action
would be weak indeed. So would a strategy that relied on womens differences from
men. First, the merits of Jaquettes argument. One strand in feminist theory and practice
greatly suspects the state. This suspicion can escalate into outright rejection, with
potentially grave consequences for women. The philosophical case for the state is relatively simple.
Collective action can improve human lives. Efficient collective action requires coercion. Instruments of collective
action involving coercion can, paradoxically, increase human freedom. We are freer to do many things if we can
bind ourselves with legally enforceable contracts. Rather than enforcing these contracts privately, it is more
efficient and potentially more just to give a monopoly of legitimate violence to one entity, so long as that entity can
reasonably claim to be more just than the alternatives. Humans have long struggled to devise relatively legitimate
forms of coercion. The history of democracy is part of that struggle, although that history has nowhere produced
national-level institutions that are highly legitimate. Despite their incapacity ever to be fully legitimate, however,
we still need both states and international institutions to help solve collective action problems and to give scope to
the human capacity for justice. Regarding women, the practical case for the state, must be grounded in
contemporary realities. In some states, such as Sweden, women do better, compared to men, than in the most
although the dangers of state
egalitarian of known pre-state entities, such as the Kung!. Moreover,
power for women are great, it is not practical to contemplate returning to pre-state
entities. Human beings seem to want the goods produced by more extensive forms of cooperation, including
those that require legitimate coercion. Given that states will not disappear in the near future, what stance should
State power will be used against women, just as
we take toward them? My answer is: wary usage.
other forms of power are used against women, unless we intervene. One response is
to establish barriers, such as constitutional or internationally enforceable rights, to
certain kinds of invasions by state power. Another is to make states more likely to
act in the interests of women. In the United States both theory and institutional practice carry suspicion
of the state farther than in most countries, with some malign consequences. Ours has been a liberalism of fear
more than an Enlightenment liberalism that envisions a common good. Americans are wary of state power,
encouraged in that wariness by powerful capitalist interests. Jaquette rightly warns against this. State power can
serve both as a brake on the negative externalities of capitalism and as a positive force for material redistribution.
Particularly when patriarchal power takes violent forms in the private sphere, state
power can help women struggle against that violence as well as other non-state
evils. The question, then, is how far to carry wariness of state power and of theories of state universalism and
impartiality. I believe we must both use state power and place bounds on . Because the state as
a tool is dangerous and flawed, we need to use it with caution. Jaquette faults contemporary feminist anti-state
theorists not for wanting to abolish the state but for spending their energies on wariness rather than on how to use
it for redistribution. How important one thinks this problem is depends on how one judges the current balance
within feminist theory. Many feminist theorists e.g. Susan Okin, Nancy Fraser, Iris Young call for redistributive
reforms requiring state power. Perhaps in Latin America, from 356 International Feminist Journal of Politics
Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at 12:19 04 August 2014 which Jaquette takes her
lead, theorists of the North are represented by antistate theory. In that case, one must ask why these are the
theorists Latin American feminists choose to read. Anti-state discourse may have informed radical practice in Latin
America not because anti-state theory is dominant in the North but because activists in Latin America find that anti-
Anti-state discourse may reflect the reality of
state discourse meets their organizing needs.
individuals working on the margins of states that either are relatively corrupt or,
even more obviously than most, enforce the interests of dominant classes. Jaquette
also rightly warns of the dangers of valorizing action in civil society to the neglect of
state action. However, we need evidence that the more women participate in NGOs the less they participate in
the state. Without such evidence it seems equally plausible that the more women participate in NGOs the more
they will acquire the skills and contacts required for involvement in state politics. Some individuals also will not be
able to deal with the hierarchy, coercion and male dominance embedded in all states. They will need to work in
social movements. Political activism usually sustains a division of labor, with the individuals who can best deal with
established institutions doing just that and those who are most repelled by those institutions charting another
Women and feminists trying to
course. The directions they take sometimes conflict with one another.
achieve places in the state, whether as femocrats or politicians, face major barriers
but also major attractions. I do not know how much we should worry that they will not be attracted to
these jobs because of radical anti-state discourse. In the United States this does not seem to be a huge problem. In
some countries, women who could be agents of feminist change turn down jobs in the state because those jobs are
boring and unsatisfying. When these women speak of their frustrations, radical antistate discourse appears to play
Jaquette is right that an established anti-state discourse
a small or non-existent role. In short,
within radical movements makes productive interaction with states less likely , but I am
not sure that such discourse is created by feminist theory. Jaquette also points to distortions produced by difference
It is true that any stress on womens differences reinforces the tendency of
feminism.
dominant groups such as white or middle-class women to interpret womens
experiences primarily in light of their own experiences. In recent years, women of
color have produced the greatest advances in feminist theory, forcing white
feminists to look more closely at their hegemonically defined concepts of
commonality; this work has given all feminists the tools to understand better
differences within their groups and subgroups. In addition, in most areas of presumed personality
difference between men and women, the differences are extremely small. The currently definitive meta-analysis of
studies on Carol Gilligans hypothesis shows that at least in the United States, in the highly educated populations
Most studies do
where she argues that differences should appear only very small differences can be found.
not show women taking a different approach to justice or behaving more
cooperatively than men. Studies designed to elicit behavioral gender differences often generate practically
none. In-groups, we now know, exaggerate similarities within their group and their differences from other groups.
The human brain makes these predictable cognitive and emotional mistakes in in-group/out-group differentiation.
Recognizing this tendency, we should constantly struggle to take into account the fact that our social and first-order
cognitive estimates of such differences are usually exaggerated. In the case of gender, all societies also engage in
gratuitous gendering giving gendered meanings to nouns and patterns of action that do not functionally require
Today we have
that identification. These processes increase even more our perceptions of gender difference.
little idea what differences might or might not emerge between men and women in
a non-oppressive society. It seems mistaken, therefore, to insist on difference rather
than focusing on the effects of dominance. Finally, as Jaquette warns, promising different
political results based on the premise that women are different from men is
dangerous. We are almost certain not to deliver on that promise, at least in the short run. The backlash after the
US suffrage movement was undoubtedly caused in part by disillusion at the lack of change when women won the
And yet, small differences that do appear between men and women can take on
vote.
major symbolic significance, precisely because of our human tendency to
exaggerate group differences. Although using that significance is dangerous, not only because it
exaggerates reality but also because it underlines the very stereotypes that have been used to keep women in their
place, the existence of danger does not mean that we should forswear this tool any more than for swearing the
tool of state action. Just remember: when using a dangerous tool, take active precautions against its potential
harms. Difference arguments for electing women are not just arguments from utility ,
as Jaquette reports Marian Sawers point. For example, the fact that women are perceived as more honest than men
can advance an attack on corruption by associating its female leaders with honesty. Using positive stereotypes of
women in this way need not be degrading. Successful uses may even result in males adopting certain features of
female symbolism to signify their own adherence to better standards. In another example, among professional
populations in the United States, women are somewhat more likely than men to adopt participatory, egalitarian
styles of leadership. The difference probably derives from womens relative powerlessness, which teaches skills of
persuasion rather than command. In the US womens movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, women used the
gender differences they perceived in listening, interpreting body language and participatory style to create
significant departures from the prevailing styles of left politics in organizations dominated by men. The message,
We do things differently is exhilarating. It prompts greater effort in trying to forge a new model, because the effort
is associated not only with a different culture that can replace the old one but also with a different self and
Turning from practical politics to political theory, concepts are also
associated selves.
often gender-coded. Freedom and self-interest, for example, are often coded as
male, community and altruism as female. It is not surprising, then, that when
feminist theorists entered the field of theory, some explicitly supported certain
values previously denigrated as female. Although the arguments made for these
values might not be female, their proponrnts often were . Moreover, having been raised in a
subculture that had been allocated cultural responsibility for these values, women had often thought about them
more thoroughly than men. Women had also usually experienced the denigration of these values first-hand. In
short, Jaquette is right that stressing womens differences from men is fraught with danger.
But values and practices that many cultures associate with women are often good in themselves, denigrated
because of their association with women. Asserting the value of these ideals and practices from a stance as women
Jaquette identifies a link between
often makes emotional, cognitive and political sense. Importantly,
anti-state discourse and difference feminism. A number of anti-state theorists who
are also strongly anti-essentialist would deny this identification. But in social
movements themselves, the identification makes sense. The state is male; hence
difference feminists should be anti-state. The state is instrumental, self-interested and hierarchical;
women are communal, nurturing and participatory. To the degree that these associations are simply accepted as
I agree wholeheartedly
unchangeable truths, they compound the most problematic anti-state mistake.
with Jaquettes fears in seeing no visible trend toward a renewed interest in the
politics of economic justice, at least in the United States. In contrast to the creativity in the struggle
against globalization, there has been an absence of street-level activism against, for example, the revolutionary
shift in tax burdens in the USA. More positively, the antisweatshop movement has had some good effects in raising
consumer consciousness and bringing younger activists in touch with international labor movement organizing. As
for the causes of the shift away from the politics of economic justice, I agree with Jaquette that it is related to the
post-Cold War era and the temporary triumph of capitalism. I am not so sure that it has much to do either with
activists anti-state discourse or with difference feminism. This commentary has concentrated on the caveats to
Jaquettes thesis. I conclude by stressing again my fundamental agreement with her argument. Feminists have a
stake in a capable state. It would be catastrophic to be so carried away by the theoretical virtues of civil society or
by anti-state discourse as to deaden oneself to the practical need to work with the state to improve the lives of
women. Because ideas have influence, it is worth stressing Jaquettes point that norms
adopted
internationally depend on states to implement them; and only states can change
the rules for women and other disadvantaged groups . The welfare state is a huge improvement
over the arbitrary power of men in private families. Womens groups must therefore work closely
with governments or remain on the fringe. Feminists will not only have to learn to
live with the state. They should learn to work with the state . For those who do not already
know this, Jaquettes article is required reading.
 Western Feminism
Western feminism is limited in its applicabilityit was
instrumental in exporting global capitalism and imperialism to
places like China
Shih 06
Shu-Mei Shih (an interdisciplinary scholar situated in the intersection
between ethnic studies, area studies, and comparative literature.) , Complicities of
Western Feminism, 2006, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York,
Women's Studies Quarterly Vol. 34, No. 1/2, The Global & the Intimate (Spring -
Summer, 2006), pp. 79-81

a sincere appreciation of this

For a scholar situated ambiguously vis-a-vis so-called Western knowledge,
essay by Hester Eistenstein does not come without a vague feeling of
powerful and timely
unease. There are so many points of agreement with the essay, such as the call for
a more sharply anticapitalist feminist practice; there are also so many points of recognition - that,
yes, similar experiences have been shared by many feminists, white or otherwise. But the feeling of unease does
not fade away. A cynical way to explain this uneasiness is to say that by now it is obligatory for a
woman of color to be skeptical of any internal debates within liberal feminism ,
including the soul-searching kind. But the fact of the matter is that this uneasiness is also, for lack of a better
description, an existential condition for many women of color feminists . Reading
Eisenstein's essay for me is akin to looking through a transparent or one-way mirror;
where Eisenstein sees a mirror on her side I see a window from the other side looking
in. I can see and read her essay from this side of the window with agreement and recognition, but the essay on the
other side of the transparent mirror does not look back at me, nor does the mirror give my reflection back to me.
Transparent mirrors are usually used for the opposite form of hierarchy where the
gazed at is the object of scrutiny or surveillance by the gazer from the position of
power, but here it is the one looked at that has the power of visibility as well as
attraction. This is not to say that I am not an American or a Westernized subject. I live and work in the United
States, and I may be counted as much a Westerner as anyone else, even though I don't have the "natural" look of a
Westerner.American feminist tradition is as much my own as it is Eisenstein's, but our
degree of ownership, whether self-recognized or recognized by others, is
dramatically different, and we might claim different aspects of that tradition more as our own than we
might other aspects. My relationship to the mainstream of this tradition, therefore, has
always required a double consciousness on my part . The premise of this double consciousness is
that there is no doubt that American feminism has contributed to the well-being of
many women in the country on the one hand, and that this feminism is severely
limited by its own class and race determinations on the other. For those women
situated on the bottom end of the economic spectrum, there is no doubt that liberal
feminism as social practice has always been intimately connected to and enhanced
by capitalist development. For these women, there is no feminism without a political
economy of feminism as a lived experience. A similar double consciousness can be
seen in many third world feminists as well: importing American feminist ideas can
be empowering for their causes within their local patriarchal societies, but these
feminist ideas are limiting and limited in local application on the one hand, and the
"original" owners of these ideas tend to be patronizing toward third world women on
the other. A leading Chinese feminist, Li Xiaojiang, first incorporated Western feminism in
order to criticize the hidden male-norm in socialist gender equality in China; thus
Western liberal feminism for her was synonymous with something more modern and
more advanced. When the unofficial demise of socialism gave way to the reentrenchment
of gender hierarchy in all aspects of Chinese society, Western feminism should have found a
verdant soil for its dissemination but for the socialist consciousness of someone like
Li, who has instead voiced a strong criticism of the imperial and universalistic
presumptions of Western feminism. There is no doubt that the reentry of Western feminism,
as with its first appearance in early twentieth-century China, was conjunctural to
China's enthusiastic (re)entry into global capitalism . Western feminism is part and
parcel of capitalist modernity. Similarly, feminists and women activists in Taiwan, situated in a
quickly modernizing and almost hyperdemocratized country, have always been reluctant to criticize
Western feminism because they needed it as ammunition to challenge local
patriarchal practices. Since their opponents' major criticism against them is precisely that feminism is a
Western product that does not fit the situation in Taiwan, their major endeavor had to be to justify this feminism as
universal and applicable to Taiwan and necessary in its becoming a more modern, advanced, and equitable nation.
The fact that Taiwan has a relatively weak socialist feminist tradition also explains why a critique of Western
Western feminism is a by-product of
feminism is not prevalent there. For Taiwan as well, then,
capitalism, modernity, and to use a term recently sullied by the Bush administration, democracy.
When we consider the fact that Taiwan is a de facto colony of the United States, per
Perry Anderson, we must also be cognizant of the colonial and neocolonial production
and dissemination of Western knowledge, of which American feminism is a part . To
put it differently, American feminism is able to travel to these places precisely because
of the unprecedented spread of capitalist and modernist forms of socioeconomic,
political, and cultural organization. Hence I find myself asking: Why is it such a revelation that
American feminism has always been complicit with capitalism as well as modernity?
 Realism Inevitable

Realism is inevitable states will constantly strive to be the

strongest and preclude other states from altering the balance
of power.
Mearsheimer 1 [John J. Prof. of Poli Sci at U Chicago. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
Pg 1-3] JL
Alas, the claim that security competition and war between the great powers have been purged from the
international system is wrong. Indeed, there is much evidence that the promise of
everlasting peace among the great powers was stillborn. Consider, for example,
that even though the Soviet threat has disappeared, the United States still
maintains about one hundred thousand troops in Europe and roughly the
same number in Northeast Asia. It does so because it recognizes that
dangerous rivalries would probably emerge among the major powers in
these regions if U.S. troops were withdrawn. Moreover, almost every European
state, including the United Kingdom and France, still harbors deep-seated,
albeit muted, fears that a Germany unchecked by American power might
behave aggressively; fear of Japan in Northeast Asia is probably even more
profound, and it is certainly more frequently expressed. Finally, the possibility of a clash
between China and the United States over Taiwan is hardly remote. This is not to
say that such a war is likely, but the possibility reminds us that the threat of great-power war has not
disappeared. The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business,
and it is likely to remain that way. Although the intensity of their competition waxes
and wanes, great powers fear each other and always compete with each
other for power. The overriding goal of each state is to maximize its share of world power, which
means gaining power at the expense of other states . But great powers do not merely strive
to be the strongest of all the great powers, although that is a welcome
outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemonthat is, the only great
power in the system. There are no status quo powers in the international
system, save for the occasional hegemon that wants to maintain its
dominating position over potential rivals. Great powers are rarely content
with the current distribution of power; on the contrary, they face a constant
incentive to change it in their favor. They almost always have revisionist intentions, and they
will use force to alter the balance of power if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.3 At times, the
costs and risks of trying to shift the balance of power are too great, forcing great powers to wait for more
favorable circumstances. But the desire for more power does not go away, unless a state achieves the
ultimate goal of hegemony. Since no state is likely to achieve global hegemony, however, the world is
condemned to perpetual great-power competition. This unrelenting pursuit of power means
that great powers are inclined to look for opportunities to alter the
distribution of world power in their favor. They will seize these opportunities
if they have the necessary capability. Simply pill, great powers are primed
for offense. But not only does .real power seek to gain power at the expense
of other states, it also thwart rivals bent on gaining power at its expense.
Thus, a great power will defend the balance of power when looming change
favors another state, and it will try to undermine the balance when the
direction of change is in its own favor. Why do great powers behave this way? My answer is
that the structure of the international system forces states which seek only to he secure nonetheless to act
aggressively toward each other, Three features of the international system combine to cause states to fear
one another: 1) the absence of a central authority that sits above states and can protect them from each
other, 2) the fact that states always have some offensive military capability, and 3) the fact that states can
never be certain about other slates intentions. Given this fearwhich can never be wholly eliminated
states recognize that the more powerful they are relative to their rivals, the better their chances of survival.
Indeed, the best guarantee of survival is to be a hegemon, because no other state can seriously threaten
such a mighty power.
Violence is inevitableits human nature.
Thayer 4 (Bradley, Associate Professor of Defense and Strategic Study at Missouri
State University, Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of
War and Ethnic Conflict, AD: 7-11-9) BL
evolutionary theory contributes to the realist theory of
In chapter 2, I explain how
international relations and to rational choice analysis. First, realism, like the Darwinian
view of the natural world, submits that international relations is a
competitive and dangerous realm, where statesmen must strive to protect
the interests of their state before the interests of others or international society.
Traditional realist arguments rest principally on one of two discrete ultimate causes, or intellectual
foundations of the theory. The first is Reinhold Niebuhr's argument that humans are evil. The second,
anchored in the thought of Thomas Hobbes and Hans Morgenthau, is that humans possess an
innate animus dominandi - a drive to dominate. From these foundations, Niebuhr and Morgenthau
argue that what is true for the individual is also true of the state: because individuals are evil or possess a
drive to dominate so too do states because their leaders are individuals who have these motivations. argue
that realists have a much stronger foundation for the realist argument than that used by either Morgenthau
or Niebuhr. My intent is to present an alternative ultimate cause of classical realism: evolutionary theory.
The use of evolutionary theory allows realism to be scientifically grounded for
the first time, because evolution explains egoism. Thus a scientific explanation provides a
better foundation for their arguments than either theology or metaphysics. Moreover, evolutionary theory
can anchor the branch of realism termed offensive realism and advanced most forcefully by John
Mearsheimer. He argues that the anarchy of the international system, the fact that there is no world
government, forces leaders of states to strive to maximize their relative power in order to be secure. I argue
that theorists of international relations must recognize that human evolution occurred in an
anarchic environment and that this explains why leaders act as offensive
realism predicts. Humans evolved in anarchic conditions, and the implications of this are profound for
theories of human behavior. It is also important to note at this point that my argument does not depend
upon "anarchy" as it is traditionally used in the discipline - as the ordering principle of the post-1648
Westphalian state system. When human evolution is used to ground offensive realism, it immediately
becomes a more powerful theory than is currently recognized. It explains more than just state behavior; it
begins to explain human behavior. It applies equally to non-state actors, be they individuals, tribes, or
organizations. Moreover, it explains this behavior before the creation of the modern state system. Offensive
realists do not need an anarchic state system to advance their argument. They only need humans. Thus,
their argument applies equally well before or after 1648, whenever humans form groups, be they tribes in
Papua New Guinea, conflicting city-states in ancient Greece, organizations like the Catholic Church, or
contemporary states in international relations.