PERSONAL PROJECT - Store & Retrieve Data Anywhere | Amazon ...

 Instructor PrefaceToni Morrison said “If?there's a?book?that?you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then?you?must?write it.” After reading dozens of introductory Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) textbooks, we were still looking for this one, so we gave it a try. ChallengesThe difficulty in finding a truly introductory text is understandable. WGSS as a field has become too broad and deep to introduce in any reasonably sized text; therefore, introductory courses typically draw from many books and articles. We have taught introductory WGSS courses at various institutions (American University, University at Albany, Simon’s Rock of Bard College, Skidmore College, Empire State College) and found that many students were overwhelmed by the vast array of required readings, amassed as if they will never again take a WGSS course – and often, they did not. This is not just according to our personal observations: the deleterious effect textual overload had on student learning was documented by Dr. Michele Forte in her dissertation, “Alternative Pedagogy and Feminist Process: A Critical Examination of the Women’s Studies teaching Collective at the State University of New York at Albany.” So, we looked for a textbook that, rather than touching on all branches, aspects, and advances in the field, crafted a solid and accessible foundation that whets appetite for further study. We could not find one that wholly met these criteria.Why does this problem exist? WGSS departments, much like Africana Studies and Native American Studies, were originally constituted as “academic arms” of grassroots movements, and while diverse grassroots theories did become institutionalized, the scholars who established the field in academia tended to come from the white, middle class, so-called 2nd wave of feminism. They fought hard to achieve and maintain WGSS’s place in the academy. Many excellent books introduce that important history, tracing the way WGSS entered academia’s doors and how those doors eventually creaked open wider to accommodate transnational concerns (e.g. Women’s Studies: The Basics). In fact, that history, rather than either the movements that initiated the field, or core concepts in the field, seems to be the common basis of many introductory texts. Another challenge is the plethora of feminisms and feminist discourses. Some discourses represent grassroots movements that address specific issues (e.g. separatism, womanism, ecofeminism) while other discourses developed theoretically in the academy (e.g. Marxist, post-structural, and postmodern feminisms). Most books that survey or introduce WGSS collect case studies, that is, in-depth analyses of specific concerns from diverse feminist perspectives (example: Feminist Frontiers) but do not actually define these perspectives or trace their roots. A third challenge concerns level. It seems the field as a whole is still (over)responding to critiques of WGSS in its formative decades (1970’s, 1980’s). As addressed by Forte, these included dismissal of classes as random “therapy sessions” that were not intellectually grounded. To counter this, academics developed a highly rigorous body of scholarship. While a few books offer excellent, accessible introductions to selected perspectives – for example, Indigenous women’s concerns are introduced in Native American Women’s Studies: A Primer (Stephanie Sellers); Black feminist concerns are introduced in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (bell hooks) – most books that claim to be introductory are actually fairly advanced feminist scholarship. Essays tend to be written in language that is 300, 400, or even 500 level, only accessible to those who are already well-educated. Indeed, we found some of the essays we ourselves had read in graduate programs within such collections. This approach, while valuable in appropriate context, limits initial student engagement and retention in introductory courses.A fourth problem is continued orientation in the 2nd wave and its fraught relationship with Black feminists. Audre Lorde famously declared “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” To remedy this, feminists of color crafted a robust and incisive set of theories (e.g. intersectionality) that are the backbone of feminist analyses today. The advanced essays in many introductory books rely on those theories yet do not explicate them. Most frustrating, students have told us, is the need to apply abductive, or at best, inductive reasoning to identify core concepts that most writers take for granted. Some very good books do address these concepts. For example, Threshold Concepts: Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing (Christie Launius, Holly Hassel) explicates social construction of gender, oppression and privilege, intersectional theory, and feminist praxis in language that is 300 to 400 level (not 100 to 200 level); however, it proposes “the feminist stance” as an overall lens (emphasis added). Valuable in and of itself, the feminist stance is limited by centering the patriarchal problem, leading to assumptions such as:Women have been universally oppressed by men throughout time and space.U.S. and European feminism initiated in the 19th c. is central to women's rightsWGSS is primarily relevant to women and the differently gendered.However, there have always been and still are matriarchal and gender-balanced cultures, including in the U.S. Rather than contrasting the feminist stance to the patriarchal stance, we would like to foreground ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing embedded in the practices and languages of such cultures. Further, WGSS is concerned with many forms of social injustices which, though always available through a gendered lens, do not necessarily rise primarily from gender inequity. Women's movements around the world arose and still arise for different reasons, depending on time, location, and culture; these movements took and take into account the way conditions for men, women, children, and the natural world intertwine. For example, some Nigerian women have taken up arms to defend their children from Boko Haram. Understanding this requires examination of the way colonizing forces have undercut the traditional gender equity of many African Indigenous cultures. Introducing the distinct and radically opposed ways cultures value difference can set the stage for success in research projects, and analyzing a given case in detail may be a culminating project.RemediesBecause of these issues we felt the need for a book that began by locating academic WGSS in diverse cultures, in colonial tensions, in global activist history. We wanted a book that elucidated the evolution of grassroots thinking into the core concepts, theories, and methods that inform most contemporary scholarship. Since we could not find one, we began writing it. We wanted a multi-vocal book so sought diverse contributors. Our experiences as teachers suggest that introductory courses yield better results – defined as comprehension that inspires further WGSS studies and/or application of WGSS learning in other fields – when they are framed by how a student’s own story relates to the stories of others (collective stories, histories/herstories). In order to appreciate these relationships, students need a toolbox of clearly defined concepts, theories, and analytical methods. Importantly, following Lorde, contextualizing patriarchy in a longer, more diverse history can help students recognize solutions to the patriarchal problem that do not arise from within a given culture. They are then better able to make use of feminist scholarly resources. We’ve worked to produce a narrative that is not reliant on prior knowledge beyond the ordinary scope of a college freshman, keeping in mind that the quality of high school experiences varies. We didn’t want to just “lecture” students but position them as theory makers and social shakers, orienting them in the wealth of feminisms today, engaging them with a sense of why and how they are stakeholders. This is not to say we avoid complicated ideas, but that we present them step by step, starting with the most fundamental building blocks. We utilize a spiral narrative, coming back to key points chapter after chapter, adding depth and a new angle each time.?At the end we hope students will have a robust foundation of words, concepts, and theories, understand why they matter, and be able to apply them in both scholarship and the public sphere.Finally, we ask: #WTF - #WhosThatFeminist, #WhatsThatFeminism?, locating the book in the primary grassroots communicator of today, social media. And because social media is a global connector that allows all kinds of feminists to converse, debate, and act together when they find common cause, the cumulative answer is #feminisms. We have therefore written a book that includes historical premises, theories, concepts, and methods, presented in accessible language, grounded in stories and concrete examples. Students should come away with theories that contextualize and connect disparate issues they have observed and experienced. Historical and theoretical context provide a basis for studying whatever is important to each student personally, bringing their lives to feminism and feminism to their lives. Theoretical connections support working together across differences, forming coalitions to answer questions from many different viewpoints, and shaping diverse kinds of feminisms grounded in holistic understanding. There will be errors and oversights in this book, but we are delighted to offer it as part of the ongoing conversation that is WGSS. We look forward to your feedback, to learning & growing. This book is set up to structure a course and you may choose supplemental texts according to the academic skills and backgrounds of students in your institution. Yes, we wanted to include more, more, and more, but that would have undermined the point of creating an accessible foundation for further studies. Thank you, and we look forward to your participation.FEMINIST PEDAGOGICAL PRAXESMany excellent books are available on the topic, such as Teaching to Transgress (bell hooks), so we’ll be brief. You are more likely to evoke multiple voices through techniques that de-center the professor. In a face-to-face classroom, examples include rotating discussion (where students lead discussion through calling on each other rather than the professor always calling on students), sitting in a circle and breaks for small group discussions. In an online environment, there’s some automatic de-centering since instructor posts appear exactly the same way as student posts, but you may need to encourage students to go beyond simply agreeing with one another. It’s helpful to design projects with an emphasis on growth that are scaffolded into larger individual or group projects. READINGS AND RESOURCESThe Endnotes in each chapter refer to sources that can enrich the learning experience. Suggested companion texts:Freedman, Estelle B.?The Essential Feminist Reader.?New York: Modern Library, 2007. (ISBN 9780812974607)hooks, bell.?Where We Stand: Class Matters. New York: Routledge, 2009. (ISBN?9780415929134)SUGGESTED SYLLABUSThis syllabus includes suggestions that may be adopted by instructors, or may be of use for those who purchased the book for independent study.PURPOSE: This course offers students an overview of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, an interdisciplinary field that analyzes social power. Students will learn about different types of feminism and a variety of social movements that gave rise to feminist thought and practices in the United States and globally. Considering scholarship from various fields and perspectives, students will explore intersections of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, dis/ability, body size, and other facets of social identity that impact people's lives.LEARNING OUTCOMES: By the end of this course students will be able to:Understand the diversity of feminist concerns and issues.Understand the basic history and dynamics that shape global women’s movements.Understand basic feminist theories and interdisciplinary vocabulary.Apply intersectional methods to analyze how the architecture of privilege and oppression affects personal and cultural experiences.Employ feminist theories to build coalitions across differences.Part One: Stakes & StoriesUnderstand the basic concerns of feminisms.Understand the diversity of feminist concerns and issues.Part Two – Ways of Thinking:Compare and contrast Western and Indigenous ways of pare and contrast matriarchal, patriarchal, and gender-balanced cultures.Understand the dynamics of difference. Part Three – Times & Places:Compare geographically and chronologically distinct women’s movements.Understand the role of colonialism in global women’s movements.Analyze how power dynamics informed movements.Part Four –Theory Today:Understand how gender is constructed and performed.Understand norms as like race, ethnicity, class, ability, nationality, body size, religion, and dis/ability as changeable vectors.Understand and apply intersectionality to analyze how vectors intertwine in equity issues. Analyze the architecture and methods of hierarchical oppression. Part Five – Activism Today: Use reflective tools to locate yourself in contemporary feminist landscapes. Learn how to locate and approach opportunities for coalitions and alliancesApply diverse perspectives and shared principles to analyze politics, economics, media, art, pedagogy, etc. Conclusion: Feminism IsExtract core principles of feminist thought and action as related to lived lives and global movements.LEARNING ACTIVITIESPART ONE DISCUSSION: What is the power of personal testimony? What is your testimony: what are your experiences and what are your concerns? What did you learn from testimonies that differ from yours?PERSONAL PROJECT Your Personal Stake: Different historical, social, and personal experiences help account for different feminisms. What are the stakes for you in feminism? What does feminism mean to you? Identify core principles of feminism. Which interest you and why?The Larger Picture: Then do some internet research on people, groups, or movements that address your stakes and report: Who shares my stakes? What are our similarities and differences? Start collecting examples of how the issues that feminism addresses show up in politics, economics, media, art, pedagogy, etc. PART TWO DISCUSSION: Drawing on Part Two and supplemental material, describe some of the key differences between Western and Indigenous ways of thinking. What happens when they clash? What are the stakes of these clashes for non-hegemonic cultures? How do those stakes affect all of us today? Given that Western hierarchical thinking is hegemonic, the majority of us fit somewhere in the table of "others." How do norms affect you, somebody you care about, and/or someone in the readings or viewings? Analyze two examples.PERSONAL PROJECT: Reflecting on your life, identify two or more cultural schemas that are important in your life. What beliefs, assumptions, and values are associated with each schema? How do they shape and affect your sense of self? How do they shape and affect the way others perceive you? Uncover and explore the implications of at least two assumptions you have held.?Then, building on the personal responses in the first paper, try your hand at reflexivity. Use it to compare your sense of Western and Indigenous cultures.?Has your view changed? How and/or how not?RESEARCH PROJECT Research a contemporary matriarchal or gender balanced culture. How have its beliefs values, and practices been sustained and altered by patriarchy? Make note of how these issues appear in politics, economics, media, art, pedagogy, etc. to add to the Part One personal project.PART THREE DISCUSSION: There are many forms of feminism based on diverse experiences of privileges and oppressions. How do norms affect power and privilege in different nations??Refer to?Introduction to Feminist Thought and Action?and selections from?[Essential Feminist Reader?or other primary sources chosen by your instructor] to compare three examples, one from the US, two from elsewhere. What are the roles of internal and external pressures??PERSONAL PROJECT: Ancestry. Where was your family in the 19th c.? How does this background affect who you are today? Consider what you have inherited: include cultural practices, beliefs and values, as well as social position (education, income, etc.). Are you typical of your ancestry? How and how not? Draw on statistics for your group today.RESEARCH PROJECT: This assignment asks you to look at women's movements that have historical roots in dynamics that still affect large groups of people today. It assignment has two parts:From the topics below, choose a historical movement that still has meaning today. (If you would like to study a different movement that meets these criteria, ask your instructor.) Summarize its goals, outcomes, and why it is still relevant. Choose a contemporary movement that has stakes connected to the historical movement you will research. The movement may?be one you researched for the first paper, or you can do further research.?List and annotate potential resources that will help you better understand this movement.?Each of the movements below is followed by two linked resources that will help you get started. When annotating resources for the second part of the assignment, you may include 2 or more additional internet resources, and you must include at least one scholarly article and/or documentary film.Civil Rights:?From?Anti-Lynching?to?Black Lives MatterIndigenous Rights:?From?AIM?to?Standing RockAfrican Women’s Movements:?From?Aba Women’s War?to?Boko HaramArab Women’s Movements:?From?19th?c. Women’s Movements?to?20th?c. Islamic Feminism?Sexuality Movements:?From?Stonewall?to?Transgender Access LawsPART FOUR DISCUSSION: What is the role of gender in feminisms? Why is looking at gender alone insufficient? What do multiple ways (race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, dis/ability, and other social norms) of examining issues reveal about the structure of society? Which parts of intersectionality make sense to you, and what needs clarification? Use an example, applying it one of your concerns, to frame your questions.?PERSONAL PROJECT: Intersectional reflexive self-location. Reflecting on your life, identify the vectors that socially define you; be sure to include race, class, and at least two more. What beliefs, assumptions, and values are associated with each vector? How do they shape and affect the way you interact with others?RESEARCH PROJECT: This assignment has two parts. First: Return to your research project on a movement, and apply intersectionality to associate it with?(a) selected feminism(s) that is relevant to that movement.?Identify the stakes of the association and explain their relevance.?Next: Identify how the stakes you identified in Part One connect with/support/contradict the stakes of (an)other feminism(s)/movement.PART FIVE DISCUSSION: Work together as a group to create an activist project.This is a 5-part assignment.?Part One - Who Am?I?:?Using intersectionality, describe yourself briefly and locate yourself in the feminist landscape.?Part Two - Who Are?We?:?Identify differences and commonalities among classmates. Drawing on your self-description and?Introduction to Feminist Thought & Action, Part Five, discuss challenges and opportunities for coalition among your peers for this project.Part Three - How Can We Work?Together?:?Begin by posting links to contemporary movements or organizations that you chose in the first paper and briefly describe their key points and methods. Then discuss together: what are the strengths of each approach? Can you and your peers work together within any of these current movements? Or do you need to start your own? Or, provide something that's useful to more than one? Select an issue you can all work on together. Be sure it’s relevant to everyone. Explain how and why you made your choice.?Part Four - What Can We?Do?:?Propose a mode of expression (see Kinds of Activism, Ch. 10 of?Introduction to Feminist Thought & Action) that you are comfortable with and have some skill with to utilize in crafting a project. Explain how and why you think this could be an effective contribution.Part Five - Do It!:?Create one working draft of your collective project. You can use PowerPoint, essay, poetry, video, memes, artwork, etc. Post it here and discuss your final thoughts about it.CONCLUSION: FEMINISM IS DISCUSSION: The textbook Conclusion?characterizes what?effective "Feminism Is." Discuss your key takeaways from this course. What will you carry them forward and apply them? What can we learn about coalitions? About working together for inclusive feminist concepts and justice agendas??FINAL PROJECT: Combining personal responses and research, begin with an Analytical Context. Review and analyze the examples you collected of how the issues that feminism addresses show up in politics, economics, media, art, pedagogy, etc. Relate them to your original list of the core principles of feminism and revise that list accordingly. Choose an issue and principle that is personally important you by drawing on your reflexive projects. Survey how that issue appears in those venues, and summarize what’s at stake. What groups are likely to be concerned and how could they form alliances? Personal Participation: How do you fit in the feminist landscape? What challenges and dislocations do you experience, and what opportunities do you see, what strategies do you propose, for change? ADVANCED READINGSA Case Study in Feminist ScholarshipHistoriography is the study of historical methods with a focus on historical writing. The basic principle of historiography is that who tells a story affects how the story is told. Historical texts produced at the time of an event are called primary documents. In analyzing primary documents, we look at the cultural norms, beliefs, values, and motives that influence the writer. We make a note of whose perspective is included, whose is omitted, and why. We ask questions like: what purpose does the narrative serve? How does that purpose align with, serve, challenge, or disrupt the power dynamics of the period? Then, we extract details from the documents and construct a narrative about our findings that, hopefully, reveals new understanding of an era or event. The textbook includes excerpts from Rhianna Rogers’ thesis about Aztec women In this essay, Rogers discusses challenges she encountered in researching Aztec women. At the time she was unable to address primary documents produced by the Aztec themselves. This would have required knowledge of the Aztec language of pictograms and examining archaeological artifacts. Rogers went on to get a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies, combining the fields of history, linguistics, and archaeology.1524111430508011409700Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1 Aztec writing in cristian catechism books with hidden worship scripture to Mesoamerican deities, XVI Century – Wikimedia Commons508011409700When primary documents are produced by patriarchal societies, they affect our ability to research women’s lives. In this case, they failed to address how Spanish conquest changed the Aztec world for women. How can feminist researchers address patriarchal primary documents?Interpreting Historical Documents About Aztec Women, by Rhianna Rogers(Excerpt adapted by Menoukha Robin Case from Rogers’ “The?Spider?Woman Rules No More?: The Transformation and Resilience of?Aztec Female Roles”) In order to examine the transformation and resilience of Aztec female roles prior to and after Spanish occupation, it is important to deconstruct patriarchal historical interpretations that limit Aztec women’s inclusion in history. I hope to contextualize Eurocentric values and Spanish ideological notions of male superiority to present a feminist historical perspective which illustrates Aztec women’s ability to resist societal oppression and gender alienation.The Problem with Primary DocumentsThere are four key problems with historical texts about the Mesoamerican world. First, because they focus on military and political leadership they miss the importance of Aztec women in economic and religious spheres. Second, they ignore the fact that there were women warriors and statespersons. Contributing to both these problems is the fact that the Conquistadores who wrote about their exploits could not even imagine the possibility of gender balance. This problem was compounded when subsequent historians applied the same patriarchal lens. Feminist Margot Bardan argued that the relation of women’s diminished roles directly correlated with religious conservatism within a given society. As Badran states, the agenda of the state (in the case of the Aztecs, the Spanish patriarchical and colonial institutions) and conservative religiosity of the area (sixteenth century Christian doctrine) caused extreme transformation and restrictions on women’s roles. Spanish Christianity required native women to be virgins, caregivers, and willing to submit to male demands. The Church encouraged women to occupy positions associated with the home (taking care of children, organizing activities and taking care of the home, cleaning, and taking care of men), and discouraged women from participating in public roles (political, governmental, military, economic, and religious offices). In addition, scholars Elizabeth Rhodes and Mary E. Giles argued that sixteenth-century Europe and the Church believed a “holy woman” must be illiterate, submissive, occupy the private domain, and would likely be an irrational being beyond the reach of reason. Primary document writers, following these tenets, either ignored or condemned female individuality and power and criticized women who exceeded Church limits. For example, they interpreted sexual freedom as promiscuity and criticized women for having aggressive personalities and taking on dominant social positions.The Problem with Eurocentric ScholarshipIn turn, scholars’ reliance on sixteenth-century European primary sources and church documents have, in many cases, oversimplified women’s involvement in the Pre-Columbian Aztec world. As scholar Louise Gerard Mendoza stated history tends to universalize notions of Mexico’s past…These studies often sustain the gatekeeping standards of academia, which maintain models of history that privilege top-down, male-dominant, economic, political, or military approaches that efface the everyday lives and cultural relations of disempowered women and children. Following more established historic constructs of history, i.e., the study of military and political leadership, the majority of texts ignore women’s authority in religious and economic realms, and the powerful role religion played in traditional Aztec life. Therefore, they have been unable to effectively interpret Aztec women’s experiences. ProgressIn the recent decades scholars of Latin American history have attempted to put women’s significance into context within the overall plight of native peoples. This phenomenon has created increased interest in previously understudied details of historical Aztec life. Texts about native women’s lives in Latin America, and more specifically, Aztec women, have only come into historical prominence in the last twenty or thirty years. In the United States this stemmed from the Civil Rights movement of the mid 1960s, and the feminist movement and the development of multicultural studies in the 1970s and 80s. Scholars such as Susan Kellogg, Inga Clendinnen, Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and James Lockhart have compensated for years of female exclusion. Contributions to historiography such as the inclusion of more progressive interpretations of historical analysis and epistemologies in the field of history have helped to clarify female roles of the past. More specifically, newer studies including feminist interpretations and analyses have helped piece together the various components affecting Aztec women’s traditional life and their resilient responses to conquest. While it is undeniable that many newer texts have brought a better understanding to the historical importance of female roles, the diversity in historians’ methodologies along with social determinants, i.e., time, class, and ethnicity influencing their analyses, have contributed more questions than answers to the understanding of native women’s involvement in Mesoamerican society. Continuing this line of inquiry can help bring clarity to women’s plight in Mesoamerica today.Feminist International Relations: Theory and Practice, by Karen GarnerInternational Relations Theory provides a framework or a lens through which scholars and students of international relations can describe, analyze and predict how individuals, states, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations and transnational corporations understand the international political system and interact within it. IR Theory prioritizes and links a set of ideas and behaviors of selected international actors to help make sense of complex world systems. Beginning in the 1980s, key IR theories that have been used to make sense of the international political system in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as liberalism, realism, neoliberalism and constructivism, have been criticized by feminists who have exposed the ways these theories have been predicated on Western normative discourses of power and privilege regarding male-over-female gender relations, as well as other global maldistributions of power based on race, class, national identity, sexual orientation, and so forth. Feminists have challenged the assumption that ‘international politics is a man’s world’ (Tickner 1991: 27), and have expanded the subjects of IR studies to include women as international agents. They have engaged in new initiatives to quantify and document “women’s” roles and the presence of “women’s” bodies in international relations. Feminist IR critiques have also redefined concepts that non-feminist IR theories and studies had treated as gender-neutral, such as war, power politics, national and human security, human rights, international organizations and transactions in the global labor market and global economy, and have exposed their masculinist biases. While non-feminist IR studies had focused on the high politics of elite government policy makers or international organizations and multinational corporations and were primarily concerned with public and male worlds, some feminist IR studies have taken a ground-up approach to studying how international politics and relationships impact the everyday lives of ordinary people.In contrast to IR Theory, Feminist International Relations Theory seeks to identify and analyze global gendered systems of power and oppression in terms of why they exist and how they operate. Feminist IR Theory also provides a vision of the world free from gender oppression and other systems of oppression that are linked to gender oppression and proposes strategies to realize that vision. As IR scholar Carol Cohn has put it, feminists have engaged in a ‘deconstructive’ as well as a ‘reconstructive’ project—deconstructing the masculinized practice of international relations and reconstructing ‘compelling alternative visions of possible futures’ of a ‘more just and peaceful world’ (1987: 717-18).In brief, Liberal (or “Western Enlightenment”) Feminist IR Theory asserts the ‘equality’ of men and women in terms of their physical and intellectual capabilities and their rights to participate in the public realms of society, including male-dominated government leadership, domestic and foreign policy making roles, and military roles. Liberal feminists argue that excluding the female half of humanity from these public roles is unjust and irrational. Gender segregation deprives global society of half its talent and, when given equal opportunities historically, women have proved their equal worth.Radical Feminist IR Theory challenges male aggression and dominance, the de-valuation of women, and the denigration of the feminine perspective in societies throughout the world. Radical feminists argue that this denigration and subordination of women allows dominant males to exert physical violence and to enact structural violence that threatens women’s security in domestic private spaces and in national and international public spaces, during war time and during peace time.Essentialist (or “Care”) Feminist IR Theory asserts the value of women as women, who hold different values, adhere to a different ethics of care, and therefore exhibit different cultural behaviors in society than men do. Whether these gender differences are biologically-based due to women’s roles in reproduction, or whether they are socially-constructed and culturally-learned, essentialist feminists argue that “women” emphasize interdependent relationships and exhibit life-affirming, nurturing and caring behaviors, and when given the opportunity they will be more successful peacemakers and peacekeepers than men.Marxist-socialist Feminist IR Theory asserts that capitalist economic relations and patriarchal power relations are linked in ways that oppress most women. As capitalist organizations’ mission to maximize profits relies on men’s ability to focus on paid productive work in the public sphere and on women’s unpaid reproductive work in the domestic sphere for its smooth operations, and justifies women’s lower paid work in the public sphere because of women’s domestic care-work obligations, Marxist-socialist feminists challenge the global capitalist economic order and the socially-constructed public/private boundaries that privilege men and subordinate women in capitalist societies.Post-colonial and Multicultural Feminist IR Theories reject the often-unacknowledged privileges claimed by white, middle-class Western women and the “othering” of all non-Western peoples in the dominant modern Western world order. Post-colonial and multicultural feminisms criticize the racist and imperialist assumptions inherent in the expansion of global neoliberal capitalism that subjugate and exploit women and men of color living in the global South, and poor and migrant populations living in the global North. Post-colonial and multicultural feminists assert that “women” must challenge gender discrimination and other forms of oppression in ways that make sense within their own cultural contexts, rather than following a Western feminist model for women’s emancipation.Intersectional Feminist IR analyses assert that there are multiple gender identities affected by an individual’s intersecting race, class, national and sexual identities. Power and privileges or discrimination and disadvantages adhere to these different identities in different social and global contexts. Consciously performed intersectional analyses can reduce reflexive gender stereotyping and can lead to more nuanced and effective policy making in complex world systems. In the last few decades a new concept, a so-called “feminist foreign policy” has entered the realm of international studies and the wider public debate, as scholars and activists have attempted to link feminist theory to practice. The foundational principles of a feminist foreign policy have been drawn from feminist IR critiques of conventional gender-blind IR theories and the entrenched power structures that have privileged Western-defined hegemonic masculinity in the contemporary international system. With those criticisms in mind, a feminist foreign policy must be transformative and reject elite power-politics-as-usual. A feminist foreign policy elevates human security and freedom from physical or structural violence for all as the goal and raison d’etre of international relations. A feminist foreign policy, therefore, is based on an ethics of care and justice for all human life, and for all other forms of life on the planet. A feminist foreign policy includes women and other marginalized groups and their needs and concerns as participants and guiding subjects of international policy making, recognizing and challenging linked hierarchies of power and oppression based on gender, race, class, nationality, sexuality and so on. A feminist foreign policy champions human rights for all, with no distinctions between men’s human rights and women’s human rights. A feminist foreign policy promotes cooperative relationships, collective security arrangements, corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability. It criticizes militarized states and militarized economies that enable a first-resort response to violence to resolve conflicts at all levels of social interaction. A few of the world’s global policy makers have articulated the fundamental principles of a feminist foreign policy in recent years, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (2009-2013), and Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstr?m (2014-). As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton expressed the feminist maxim that IR scholar Valerie Hudson and feminist journalist Patricia Leidl have dubbed “the Hillary doctrine”, that is, “the subjugation of women is a direct threat to the common security of the world and the national security of the United States” (Hudson and Leidl 2015: xiv, quoting Clinton 2010). Margot Wallstr?m, when she became foreign minister in 2014, announced openly that, moving forward, Sweden would pursue a feminist foreign policy. These foreign policy makers, and their feminist activist, institutional, and bureaucratic allies, have also taken steps to put feminist principles into practice in the masculine arena of international politics. They have encountered resistance, but have also registered some achievements in changing rhetoric and global governance policies and treaty language, if not practice. References:Aggestam, K. and Bergman-Rosamond, A. (2016), ‘Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics, and Gender’, Ethics & International Affairs, 30: 1-12.Cohn, C. (1987), ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals’, Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society, 12: 687-718.Enloe, C. (1989), Bananas Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, London, UK: Pandora. Hudson, V. M. and Leidl, P. (2015), The Hillary Doctrine: Sex & American Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Hutchins, K. (2007), ‘Feminist Ethics and Political Violence’, International Politics, 44: 90-106.Peterson, V. S. and Runyan, A. S. (2009), Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium 3rd Edition, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Steans, J. (2013), Gender and International Relations: Theory, Practice Policy, 3rd Edition, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Tickner, J. A. (1991), ‘Hans Morganthau's Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation’, in R. Grant and K. Newland, Gender and International Relations, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 27-40. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download