What’s at Stake? The Nature of the Debate
The debate on gender in International Relations (IR) asks a foundational question: what is lost when global politics is studied without attention to gender? Feminist scholars argue that conventional IR theories—particularly realism and liberal institutionalism—are built upon gendered assumptions that privilege states, military power, and elite decision-making, while rendering women’s experiences and everyday forms of power largely invisible. What is at stake, therefore, is not merely the inclusion of women as a new topic, but a rethinking of the concepts, methods, and purposes of IR itself.
This unit introduces the nature of this debate by outlining why gender matters in IR, how feminist critiques challenge mainstream approaches, and what theoretical and political stakes are involved in this intervention.
The Limits of Conventional International Relations
Traditional IR has focused on states as rational, unitary actors operating in an anarchic international system. Security, power, and sovereignty are treated as objective and gender-neutral concepts. Feminist scholars contest this neutrality, arguing that these frameworks are implicitly masculinist—they valorize traits associated with masculinity such as autonomy, aggression, rationality, and control, while devaluing care, interdependence, and vulnerability.
By privileging war, diplomacy, and high politics, mainstream IR sidelines social reproduction, domestic labor, and everyday insecurity—domains where gendered power relations are most visible. As a result, the lived experiences of women and other marginalized groups remain outside the analytical frame, even though global politics profoundly shapes their lives.
The debate thus begins with a critique of exclusion: who and what counts as “international,” and whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate.
Why Gender Matters: Feminist Interventions
Feminist IR scholarship argues that gender is not an “add-on” variable but a constitutive feature of global politics. Gender structures identities, institutions, and practices—from military organizations and peace negotiations to development policies and migration regimes.
Scholars such as J. Ann Tickner demonstrate how core IR concepts are gendered. For instance, national security is often framed through militarized masculinity, prioritizing territorial defense over human security. Similarly, sovereignty is imagined as autonomy and control, obscuring interdependence and care.
Cynthia Enloe further shows how global politics relies on women’s labor—factory workers, domestic workers, nurses, and even soldiers’ wives—while denying these roles political visibility. Feminist analysis reveals the hidden gendered labor that sustains international systems.
Knowledge, Power, and Epistemological Stakes
A central stake in the debate concerns knowledge production. Feminist scholars challenge the positivist claim that IR can be value-free and objective. They argue that what counts as knowledge is shaped by power relations, including gender hierarchies.
By foregrounding standpoint epistemology, feminist IR insists that marginalized perspectives—particularly those of women in the Global South—offer critical insights into war, development, and security that elite-centered theories miss. This challenges the dominance of Eurocentric and state-centric narratives.
The debate, therefore, is not only about adding new subjects but about transforming how IR knows and explains the world.
Security Reconsidered: From States to People
One of the most consequential stakes is the redefinition of security. Feminist scholars argue that state security does not automatically translate into human security. Militarization may protect borders while increasing insecurity for women through displacement, sexual violence, and economic precarity.
By shifting the focus from states to people, feminist IR exposes contradictions in conventional security thinking. Practices justified in the name of national interest can deepen everyday insecurity. This reconceptualization broadens IR’s ethical horizon and connects global politics to everyday life.
Politics, Normativity, and Emancipation
Mainstream IR often claims to be descriptive rather than normative. Feminist IR rejects this separation, arguing that all theories carry implicit values. The feminist project is explicitly normative and emancipatory: it seeks not only to explain the world but to change unjust structures.
This raises an important debate about the role of theory in politics. Critics accuse feminist IR of activism rather than analysis. Feminist scholars respond that ignoring gendered injustice is itself a political choice. What is at stake, then, is whether IR should remain detached from ethical concerns or engage them directly.
Diversity within Feminist IR
The debate is also internal to feminism. Liberal, radical, postcolonial, and intersectional feminisms offer differing analyses of power, agency, and resistance. Postcolonial feminists, in particular, warn against universalizing “women’s experiences” and emphasize the intersections of gender with race, class, nation, and empire.
These internal debates enrich feminist IR by preventing homogenization and highlighting plural feminisms rather than a single feminist voice.
Conclusion: Reframing International Relations
At stake in the gender debate is the very definition of International Relations—its subjects, concepts, methods, and purposes. Feminist IR exposes the gendered foundations of mainstream theories and demonstrates how global politics is sustained through everyday practices and inequalities.
By insisting that gender matters, feminist scholars reframe IR as a discipline concerned not only with states and wars, but with power, justice, and lived experience. The debate thus represents a critical intervention that expands the analytical and moral scope of International Relations.
References
- Tickner, J. Ann. Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security.
- Enloe, Cynthia. Bananas, Beaches and Bases.
- Sylvester, Christine. Feminist Theory and International Relations.
- Peterson, V. Spike. Gendered States.
- Hooper, Charlotte. Manly States.
