Fem IR—HKMM

Thanks to Addison Wellenberger, Angela Cheng, Claire Park, Emilyn Hazelbrook, Emma
Gavriliuc, Raga Mandali, and Remi Roberts for doing really phenomenal work!
1NC
 1NC SHORT
War is not an event, it’s a continuum threaded at every point by gender—the
aff misdiagnoses the problem by adopting a disembodied lens of analysis—
vote neg to constitute a social program that rewrites the script of
masculinity—that links up with global feminist movements to confront the
root cause of war
Cockburn 15 – feminist researcher and writer, honorary professor in Sociology at City
University London and at the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of
Warwick (Cynthia Cockburn, “World disarmament? Stop by disarming masculinity,” 4/20/2015,
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/world-disarmament-start-by-disarming-
masculinity/)//cpark
On the face of it, the two preoccupations, one with gender relations and the other with global military spending, may seem
to have little connection. The first speaks of the human, intimate, individual and personal; the other of the machinery of
war, missiles and military commands. And indeed the mainstream peace movements, comprising both men and women,
tend not make the mental leap that is needed to bring them into a common analytic frame. On the other hand, it’s
characteristic of the women’s peace movements, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the
international network of Women in Black against War, and hundreds of smaller, more local women’s peace initiatives, that
they do so. And the particular feature of gender relations they point to is the persistence of male
dominance, accompanied (and indeed achieved) by the insistent shaping of masculinity,
the ideal, preferred, form of manhood, as mentally competitive and combative;
psychologically ready to use coercion; and physically equipped to prevail through force.
Over a span of twenty years I’ve had the privilege to meet and work with such groups of feminist activists, in a dozen
countries, many of them in the Global South. They are generating a more and more coherent narrative
about the causes of war. One of the things I’ve learned from them is that war doesn’t
stand alone. It's helpful to see it as part of a continuum of violence. That continuum persists
along a scale of force (fist to bomb), a scale of time (peacetime, prewar, wartime, postwar), a scale of place (bedroom, city,
continent) and so on. As peace activists, they say, we have to look for the organizational, economic, social and
psychological connections along the continuum and address it as a whole. One of the things they notice is that gender
is a thread running through the continua in every direction. Men and women,
masculinity and femininity, in relation to each other, feature throughout the spectrum of
violence. A good example of women activists who clarify and alert us to a precise link in the
gendered continuum of violence is the remarkable project in Israel called Gun-Free
Kitchen Tables. They protest against the death and wounding of women, wives and
partners in everyday life by soldiers and police with weapons they take home with them.
These activists point out, loud and clear, that militarism doesn't stay in the barracks. It comes in the front door, it hangs in
the closet. On a more global level, the women’s mobilization within IANSA, the International
Action Network on Small Arms and Light Weapons, successfully pressed the United
Nations, during negotiation of the Arms Trade Treaty, to acknowledge precisely what women such as
those of Gun Free Kitchen Tables have been telling us - the significance of guns in women’s lives and
deaths. Another example of continuum-thinking is Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence
(OWAAMV), who insist on the connection between the violence inherent in the massive
weaponry of the US military whose bases weigh upon their islands and the frequent rape
and abuse of individual women by individual soldiers. Suzuyo Takazato, one of its founders, spoke
graphically to me of the connection between patriarchy and militarization, both experienced every day on her Okinawan
islands as violent systems, inextricably linked. Of course, the word patriarchy does have an old-fashioned ring to it.
Many ‘Westerners’ like to suppose that, in ‘the West’, in the post-Enlightenment era, actual rule
by the patriarchal head of family faded away. But Carole Pateman in her memorable book, The Sexual
Contract, has left no room for doubt that a different version of male dominance has been
substituted for rule by the fathers in modern times: it is the rule of the brothers. And we are
still searching for a word to designate this updated male supremacism. Fratriarchy, perhaps, or andrarchy, androcracy?
Take your pick. Personally, I like ‘phallocracy’. But ‘patriarchy’ seems to be hanging in there. Seeing war from
their close-in vantage point leads Suzuyo Takato and other feminist antimilitarists to identify
three main causes. They don’t necessarily put patriarchy first. They may rather stress, in the first place, economic factors
such as control of exploitable resources, and of markets. These are often the immediate cause of war. A second causal
factor they often cite is political: lines drawn between self-defining groups, 'us' and 'others'. The
nation state system involves multiple struggles over borders. Borders divide one rival state from another, but usually fail
to align with the borders of ethnic, cultural and religious groups that sometimes fight each other – maybe for domination
of the state, or simply for recognition and rights. Racism features in this cause of war, especially white supremacism. So,
the economic order, the nation state system - what then of the sex-gender order? The feminist analysis tends to
represent patriarchy, not necessarily as an immediate, precipitating factor in war, but as
a ‘root’ cause, something that predisposes societies to militarism and war fighting, that
makes war always already likely. In this sense, the feminist analysis of war is ‘wholistic’,
it sees multiple causes of war working together. After all, they emerged together, historically. Gerder
Lerner’s book, The Creation of Patriarchy, usefully takes us back to the Upper Neolithic. Gradually, from tribal and village
society there emerged a property-owning class, a system of city states - eventually
empires – and the patriarchal, patrilineal family. Only then were the first standing
armies created, for the protection and extension of privilege. War is the child not of
barbarism but of ‘civilization’. Of course these systems, dimensions, processes of power are inter-related –
‘intersected’ if you like. You see them working together in all the institutions around us: class, ‘race’ and gender power are
present in a bank, in a government, in a religious structure, in a family even. Watching the evening news, as we relaxed
from the Conference during the week of debate and discussion, we saw reports of rioting in Baltimore. How could we
escape making the link between economic inequality, racial oppression and masculine violence, watching these events on
American streets and in the prisons? Those news reports were a reminder, besides, that patriarchy is not only a
hierarchy situating men above women. It’s a hierarchical ranking among and between
men too. Sometimes feminists are made to feel that in challenging patriarchy we are
‘blaming men’. Our analysis doesn’t blame men. It blames a system that deforms men.
Several men were present among us at the WILPF events. Especially welcome were those who shared their experience as
activists in organizations of men coming together to address male violence, such as Sonke Gender Justice, of South Africa,
and the gender justice information network Engaging Men. Together we applied ourselves to devising strategies for
disarming masculinity. We are convinced, after all, as feminists, that gender identities and behaviours are
socially shaped, that we don't have to shrug and say 'nothing can be done - it's all given
in the genes'. But where, concretely, are the social programmes that set about
transforming gender relations and rewriting the script of masculinity? They are few and far
between. In the UK, for instance, where there is increasing concern over men’s abuse of women and girls, the policy
response is ‘protection’ of the victims. ‘We must take more care of women and girls.’ Policy makers don’t look
for the man behind the neutral word ‘abuser’, ‘predator’, ‘offender’.They don’t ask ‘What
is it with men?’ They don’t have a plan of action. Meantime, a tsunami of cultural products, video games
such as Advanced Warfare and films like American Sniper, bombard men and boys with the idea that militarized men are
desirable men.
 1NC LONG
Disarming countries won’t disarm minds—the aff doesn’t reduce weapons, it
shifts them to the private sphere where their fundamentally gendered
impacts are made invisible
Aoláin 17 – Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy and Society at the University of Minnesota Law
School and a Chair in Law, University of Ulster’s Transitional Justice Institute, Consultant to and
expert for a number of institutions including UN Women & OHCHR, Member of the Joint
Committee of Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Irish Commission for Human
Rights created by the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, LLB from Queens University, LLM from
Colombia Law School; PhD in Law from Queens University (Fionnauala Ní Aoláin, “The
Aftermath of War,” March 2017,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318586041_Women_gender_equality_and_post-
conflict_transformation_Lessons_learned_implications_for_the_future)//cpark
From a gender perspective a number of issues arise. First, what constitutes disarmament
sufficient to satisfy a ceasefire requirement in the political/military sense may not in fact
entail the removal of all such weapons from the public and, more importantly, the private
sphere. Maintenance of weapons in the pri- vate sphere, and the lack of security
establishment interest in the wholesale shift of guns from public combatant use to
private nefarious use (including inflict- ing intimate violence harm) is an ongoing concern to feminist
observers of DDR processes. Second, a perhaps trite but true observation is that the disarmament of
weapons is not the disarmament of minds. Working this through we find the
underlying social psychological dimensions that, in a conflicted society, have supported
the resort to violence and the elevation of particular forms of masculin- ity that accompany it,
are not in any sense undermined or addressed by a formal disarmament process. Thus, as
noted above, a key issue to be addressed concern- ing violence in conflicted
societies is what exactly is meant by the term “ending violence” and being
prepared to address the vexed relationship between violence and masculine
identity in conflicted societies. In the parlance of ending public violence or internal conflict this
conversation revolves around decommissioning weapons and getting armed paramilitaries/insurgents to swap violent
confronta- tion for peaceful political debate about contested issues. However, this kind of discussion rarely
engages with the fundamental requirement of changing deep- seated social attitudes
toward the use of violence and the ways in which identity construction has become fused
for many men with violent expressionism. Atti- tudinal change is critical and
undervalued. For women, it means that while guns may physically no longer be present
in public spaces, this does not change a social pathology that makes the use of violence
acceptable (whether in the private or public sphere). A highly complex issue that arises in the context of
identifying and managing the forms and facilitators of violence in many transitional societies is the
relationship between disarmament and intimate violence. The quandaries have been graphically
identified in such transitional societies as South Africa, where the perceived escala- tion of domestic
violence rates post-apartheid have raised deep concerns about the relationship between
pre-existing apartheid violence and its spillover to a transi- tional society. There is evidence
that post-conflict societies do (at least) statistically experience greater proportions of domestic
and intimate violence. McWilliams has argued that domestic violence experienced by women during conflict may
be more severe in its form (particularly in ethno-national conflicts) because the resort to external mediation of such
violence (e.g., access to police) may have been entirely absent. Thus, increased reporting at the end of conflict may not
mean absolute empirical increases in violence per se; rather it may simply mean that reporting is possible where it was not
previously, and in fact, the forms of violence may be more muted. Attention to the “spillover” between conflict-related
sexual vio- lence and intimate violence forces attention on the defining points of conflict end, transition beginning and
transition end. Increasingly the longitudinal dimensions of transition are being acknowledged, and a feminist literature
has emerged ques- tioning overly facile divisions of “pre, during and post” conflict phases. Rather, as the experience of
women in Bosnia, South Africa and Northern Ireland (see case chapters in this volume) demonstrate there are distinct
continuities to the experiences of gendered harm, and heightened violence to women during hos- tilities may take decades
to undo or realign. In this vein, it becomes clear that DDR is part of a much more complex
conversation about continuities of violence, and the challenges of staying
the course on transition to avoid the re-ignition of hostilities as well as the
reproduction of gendered harm in ordinary times. Some theorists have argued that the
reassertion of violence in the private sphere during the transitional phase constitutes a
form of compensation for male combatants, for their loss of public status and hegemony.
This is graphically shown by the psychological phenomena of the returning warrior who has, through con-
flict, normalized the use of violence and views the home as another site in which to
exercise power and control through physical force. Notably, core transitional mechanisms, for example,
truth commissions (frequently layered into a transition process that includes DDR), have rarely if ever ventured to
examine the continui- ties of violence between domestic and conflict violence, as an integral part of the accounting for the
totality of violence experienced by women at conflict’s end The disarmament process can present many
complexities for parallel account- ability mechanisms, not least because partial, incomplete or
unsatisfactory disar- mament means that there is little gap between
violations that took place during a conflict/prior regime and those taking place
post-transition. Moreover, where discharged-but-not-disarmed combatants return to their
homes and families with their weapons, the sites of violence may simply move from the
public to the private sphere. From the gendered critique of accountability mechanisms, what we learn is that
truth processes may examine the prior violence in the public sphere but will not engage in any way with the continual
violence that is facili- tated in the private sphere by non-rehabilitated and non-disarmed former combat- ants.
Security discourses are permeated by the same bias. The disconnect
between the operation and scope of the conflict-ending mechanisms and the
intimate and everyday realities of living with a former combatant for
women could hardly be more starkly contrasted.

Absent the alt, structural violence and nuclear war are inevitable
Acheson ’18 [Ray, 4-30-2018, Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the
disarmament program of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
"The nuclear ban and the patriarchy: a feminist analysis of opposition to prohibiting
nuclear weapons," Taylor & Francis,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21624887.2018.1468127]//ARW
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), adopted by 122 states in 2017, mounts a significant challenge
to the nuclear status quo. Two aspects of the ban-treaty project posed particular challenges to patriarchy. First, the treaty
was brought about through a deliberate discursive shift by concerned activists, academics, and diplomats – from a
discourse centred on the alleged security benefits of deterrence to a discourse centred on the urgency of disarmament.
Second, the ban was promoted through the empowerment of women, diplo- mats, and activists of the global south.
Undertaken by a collective partnership of civil society and diplomatic actors in the face of strong opposition by some of the
most militarily and economically influential countries in the world, the ban process confronted rigid international
power structures. These structures are in part maintained through the deployment of
patriarchal tactics and rhetoric to suppress the perspectives and agency of those who
might challenge those in a dominant position. In this way, banning nuclear weapons can be
read as an act of challenging patriarchy and building space for alternative approaches to
politics, including feminist and human-security-based approaches. Given the length restrictions of this
piece, I will not delve into the rich history of gender and militarism scholarship. For decades, feminists have
written and spoken about the intersections between militarism and gendered social
norms, including in the sphere of nuclear weapons. Carol Cohn’s ‘close encounter with nuclear strategic analysis,’ for
example, led to illuminating articles about the gendered coding of nuclear weapons (Cohn 1987a; Cohn 1987b). These
articles provided the foundations for a feminist analysis of nuclear war, strategy, and weapons. Along with Felicity Ruby
and Sara Ruddick, Cohn expanded the inquiry into the sense of masculine strength afforded by
nuclear weapons (2006), utilising the work of others examin- ing masculinities and militarism more broadly (e.g.
Eichler 2014; Enloe 1990; Hutchings 2008; Morgan 1994). Building on these efforts, this piece explores the gendered
characteristics of the opposition to the nuclear ban treaty. I argue that some of the rhetoric and assertions
deployed by the nuclear-armed states in opposition to the ban represent classic patriarchal tactics
to deny the realism, rationality, and the lived experience of women and others that
threaten the dominant narratives that sustain the nuclear status quo . Patriarchy and the
ban One tactic deployed to sustain patriarchy is for men in dominant positions to establish and maintain themselves as
authorities by denouncing and denigrating the views of others. In the case of the TPNW, those representing nuclear-
armed states berated other governments for supporting the ban, ridiculing their
perspectives on peace and security, and accusing them of threatening the world order,
risking total chaos. Prohibiting and eliminating nuclear weapons is neither practical nor feasible, these ‘realist’
governments assert. Those who support the prohibition of nuclear weapons are delusional. They are ‘radical dreamers’
who have ‘shot off to some other planet or outer space’ (Acheson 2015). They do not understand how to protect their
people. Their security interests do not matter – or do not exist at all (Acheson 2016). Initiatives for the
prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons are illegitimate, naïve, destabilising. The
basis upon which these
assertions are made is usually unjustified, misinformed, and rooted in a material or
political commitment to the status quo. These claims bear some scrutiny. What is ‘practical?’ What is
‘feasible?’ How do we measure these concepts and who determines the measurements? Those who are the most
negatively affected by nuclear weapons development, testing, stockpiling, use,
and threatened use – women, indigenous peoples, the poor, inhabitants of the areas in
which the weapons and stored – are not considered reliable sources for these
determinations. Instead, critiques coming from those affected, or from those who want to elevate the voices and
perspectives of those affected, are dismissed as ‘emotional.’ During the active process of changing the nuclear discourse
through a careful examination of the huma- nitarian consequences of these weapons, representatives of the nuclear-armed
states argued that even talking about this subject is ‘emotional.’ They refused to attend the 2013–2014 multilateral
conferences in Oslo, Nayarit, and Vienna examining the huma- nitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons.
The Russian delegation to the UN argued that ‘even children’ know what a nuclear weapon does, and that we should not
‘waste time on such useless topics’ (Acheson 2013). This dismissal
is highly gendered . When those
flexing their ‘masculinity’ want to demon- strate or reinforce their power and dominance,
they try to make others seem small and marginalised by accusing them of being
emotional, overwrought, irrational, or impractical. Women and gender-non-conforming
people have experienced this technique of dismissal and denigration for as long as
gender hierarchies have existed. It is well established in feminist literature that binary
comparisons and contrasts such as strength/weakness and reason/emotion are
gendered, with strength and reason associated with masculinity and emotion
and weakness with femininity . The denial of reason in one’s interlocutor is destabilising. It is an
attempt to take away the ground on which the other stands, projecting illusions about what is real, what makes sense, or
what is rational. One actor proclaims, ‘I am the only one who under- stands what the real situation is. Your understanding
of the situation is not just incorrect, it is delusional – it is based upon a reality that does not exist.’ This approach
places Self as subject and the Other as object, eliminating the Other’s sense of and
eventually capacity for agency. In the case of the nuclear ban, it is not just the reason or rationality of those
supporting the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons that is denied by the nuclear-armed states. It is also the
lived experience of everyone who has ever suffered from a nuclear explosion, or mining of nuclear material, or dumping of
nuclear waste. This tactic is more than just an argument or a difference in interpretation. It is an attempt to
undermine, discredit, and ultimately destroy an interlocutor’s entire worldview in order
to maintain power and privilege. In the terminology of psychological abuse in relationships, this tactic is
known as gas lighting. This is a form of manipulation that seeks to make the victims question their own sanity or sense of
rationality (Leve 2017). It has effectively been used to silence and oppress people, women in particular, and was deployed
in opposition in the ban to suppress those speaking out about the horrors and dangers of nuclear weapons.
Objectification of others and control of ‘reality’ are integral to patriarchy, as they are to
concepts such as ‘nuclear deterrence’ and ‘geostrategic stability’ – mechanisms to
maintain the current global hierarchy. The nuclear-armed states resisted the counter-
hegemonic dis- course promoted by the supporters of the ban because the latter’s focus
on the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclearism highlights what
nuclear weapons actually do to human bodies, to societies, to the planet. Such
evidence undermines the abstraction of nuclear weapons as deterrents or
protectors, and refocuses attention on the fact that they are tools of genocide,
slaughter, extinction . The resistance to the humanitarian discourse is reminiscent of a story in Cohn’s (1993)
article, ‘Wars, wimps, and women.’ A white male physicist, working on modelling nuclear counterforce attacks, exclaims to
a group of other white male physicist about the cavalier way they are talking about civilian casualties. ‘Only thirty million!’
he bursts out. ‘Only thirty million human beings killed instantly?’ The room went silent. He later confessed to Cohn,
‘Nobody said a word. They didn’t even look at me. It was awful. I felt like a woman.’ The association of caring
about the murder of thirty million people with ‘being a woman’ is all about seeing that
position – and that sex – as being weak, caring about wrong things, letting your
‘emotions’ get the better of you, and focusing on human beings when you should be
focused on ‘strategy.’ Caring about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons is feminine, weak, and not
relevant to the job that ‘real men’ have to do to ‘protect’ their countries. It not only suggests that caring about the use of
nuclear weapons is spineless and silly, but also makes the pursuit of disarmament seem unrealistic and irrational. What
can gender analysis and feminism do for disarmament? Within this patriarchal construct, disarmament seems impossible
– like a utopian vision of a world that cannot exist because, the argument goes, there will always be those who want to
retain or develop the capacity to wield massive, unfathomable levels of violence over others, and therefore the ‘rational’
actors need to retain the weapons for protection against the irrational others. The nuclear-armed governments’ refusal to
constructively engage with the advocates of the ban stands in stark contrast to the concepts and laws of human rights and
poses a serious challenge to global justice. On a deeper level, the nuclear-armed governments’ position is
premised on the notion that states, as coherent units, must always be at odds with one
another, seeking an ‘accommodation’ of their differences rather than collectively
pursuing a world in which mutual interdependence and cooperation could
guide behaviour. Policy decisions are still based on conceptions of power imbued with
mistrust, threat, fear, and violence. Such policies do not allow for other types of
inter-state engagement or relationship between citizens and states; they
dismiss such alternatives, characteristic of feminist and human-security-based
approaches, as utopian and unrealistic. Taking a human-focused approach to disarmament, and thereby
challenging the dominant state-centred approach to international peace and security,
was instrumental to banning nuclear weapons . The humanitarian initiative that promoted the
ban, with its purposeful deconstruction of nuclear weapons as weapons of terror and massive violence, led to the majority
of states being ready and willing to negotiate and adopt a legal prohibition. An understanding of the gendered meanings
and characterisations embedded in the discourse and politics of nuclear weapons will further this process and enable
alternative approaches to international relations more broadly. Just as the humanitarian discourse undermines the
perceived legitimacy of nuclear weapons, a gender analysis of nuclear discourse helps deconstruct nuclear weapons as
symbols of power and tools of empire. It can show that the resonance of nuclear weapons as emblems of
masculine power is not inevitable and unchangeable, but a gendered social construction
designed to maintain the existing order (Cohn, Ruby, and Ruddick 2006). It took courage for states drafting
and signing the ban treaty to stand up to the nuclear- armed states. The latter handful of governments have thus far
controlled the narrative and even much of the scholarship on nuclear weapons for so long that most of the world believes
they have the legitimate right to do so. But they don’t. The adoption of the treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons makes this
very clear. As Ambassador Patricia O’Brien (2017) of Ireland said on the opening day of TPNW negotiations in March
2017: ‘We are not just writing a new and complementary treaty here, we are taking the opportunity to write a new history,
and in so doing to create a new, more stable, more secure and more equal future for all.’ Global civil society and the
majority of the world’s governments, following in the steps of feminist peace scholars and activists, rejected the dominant
narrative to write a new history.

Vote neg to reject non-feminist discourse about arms control—academic

resistance spills up to radical feminist policy
Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, transcript of speech Reaching Critical,
12-13-2018, "Latest news from RCW," No Publication,
http://reachingcriticalwill.org/news/latest-news/13583-presentation-on-gender-
weapons-and-power-the-importance-of-feminism-for-disarmament E.G.
This is why a feminist discourse on weapons is so imperative. It compels us to take a
new approach to disarmament. Feminism is not just about adding women and
stirring. Having more women at the table does not automatically translate into
different actions, because operating within this patriarchal situation, a constructed on the
basis of violent masculinities, means that once women get to the table they often have to
conform to the ideas that are already there. They have to play the game that’s
set up for them. We need real diversity. We don’t want to play on the stage that’s been set for us.
We want to rewrite a new script entirely. To do that, it’s not about just about adding cisgendered white women into the
conversation,
it’s about also having queer perspectives, having people of colour involved,
making sure there is a class analysis. I’m talking about an intersectional feminist
approach to disarmament. The conversation about disarmament has to be
fundamentally different than what it is now. Since 1945, the so-called international community has built
up treaties and arrangements, and that has worked to a certain point. We’ve seen successes around banning nuclear
weapons most recently, banning landmines and cluster bombs, there are campaigns on now to ban the development of
autonomous weapons and to try and prevent the weaponisation of cyber space, outer space, to try and end the bombing of
towns and cities, to stop arms transfers that lead to humanitarian disasters, etc. There are all these efforts being made at
the international and national levels, but it’s largely still happening in these closed boxes of highly masculinized state-
oriented power. We need to break that open. We need to start thinking of new spaces in which we can
operate, new ways in which we change the perspective of what’s seen as credible, of what
we’re allowed to say and do. Feminism is essential to this . We can sit here and chat
about what this “new way” would look like; everyone always wants the answer of
what that looks like. We can toss around seemingly radical ideas: abolish the UN Security
Council, stop using sanctions, eliminate arms industries, cap military spending .
We can talk about these ideas and many, many others but right now they might sound completely
ridiculous, because of what we’re taught is possible and what we’re taught is a
credible approach to international security politics. This needs to change. The
bottom line is rejecting an attitude that change isn’t
possible. That’s the fundamental problem that I see in my work as an activist engaging at the international,
multilateral level, working with diplomats, as well as with students and grassroots organisations. At
all levels, there
is generally held attitude that we can’t do things differently, that this is how it is, this is what the
international security environment is, this is how politics works, this is how things get done. If you want to be taken
The more all of us
seriously, you have to behave like this, you have to dress like this, you have to look like this.
can challenge this attitude from an academic perspective, from an activist
perspective, from a diplomatic perspective—that’s where change will
happen . When we were working for the last several years on developing the treaty on the
prohibition of nuclear weapons, where we had success was with governments that
were fed up with the status quo, and individual diplomats that were willing to take risks within their own
systems. They put their own careers on the line, but they are cared a lot about it. This process was led primarily by
diplomats from the global south. It was led by many, many women. We had great queer
representation and many survivors leading within the International Campaign to Abolish
Nuclear Weapons. There were new perspectives, new voices, and a
determination to do something that we were told could never be done.
Having that attitude is absolutely essential. It’s how we break down the
classic barriers that still stand before us. Of which there are many. None of this is easy. But it’s
where I’ve seen the possibilities for change. Feminism, queer politics, racial and economic justice—these are the
orientations and perspectives that will help facilitate effective disarmament, sustainable peace, and true security for all.
Links—Policy
 CHINA=FOE
Securitized threats of China obscure the struggles of women to be
recognized as legitimate actors within the patriarchal framework of the
Chinese government
Karl 3-18-15 (Rebecca E. Karl teaches History at New York University. She is the author
of Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History (Duke
2010) and Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
(Duke 2002). She recently co-edited (with Lydia Liu and Dorothy Ko) The Birth of
Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in Transnational Theory (Columbia 2013) and has a
forthcoming translation (with Xueping Zhong) of Cai Xiang's 革命/叙事, Revolution and
its Narratives: Chinese Socialist Literary and Cultural Imaginaries (1949-1966) (Duke
2016). "Dark Days for Women in China?," ChinaFile,
http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/dark-days-women-china //EH)
As in any economy in the world that is being restructured around a pure profit motive—i.e. neoliberal capitalism—
China’s social transformation in the past forty years has entailed a complete re-orienting
of employment around two major poles: management and labor. (We’ll ignore the owner class, as
that is so intertwined with the State that it is too complex to deal with here; and we’ll also ignore the self-cultivator
peasants, other than as labor power, because their production is not organized in the same way.) In these restructurings,
labor, in China as in all such countries including the United States, has lost absolutely in relation to management. Also, as
in other places, uneducated or relatively less-educated women, and in China’s case, rural
people in general, have been relegated to the lower rungs of labor; men and urban educated
people inhabit the upper rungs. Educated women in China, to a certain extent, have benefited from this split and have
joined the ranks of management; the majority of women have not. There is, in China, an added layer of socio-
cultural expectation that has become far more strident of late (past two decades) and has received a good deal of State
support in direct and indirect ways (see Leta Hong-Fincher’s work): that is, there is a widespread call for
(educated, urban) women to retreat from the workplace so as to raise and nurture their
(elite) families, and to leave formal employment for men, who will then support them
financially while they reproduce elites for the nation. Rural or less educated women have no such
luxury and must toil at the lower ends of the economic ladder, reproducing and rearing with the help of elderly parents.
The vengeful resurgence of the worst of socio-cultural gender norms and the attachment
of those norms to the everyday lives of women has been the outcome of this vast
restructuring. This shocks so much because of the history of women’s equality in China. In the Mao years, the
rhetoric and the practice of gender equality in employment was pervasive. Women were not equal to men, but in Mao’s
time, because of the economic embargo by the Euro-American-Japanese world and the paltry-to-diminishing support of
China by the Soviet Union, China had to be self-sufficient: labor participation by all—women, men, rural, urban, young,
old—was compulsory as a matter of national policy. Women’s work in the public sphere of production
was rhetorically supported by the State and ritually celebrated. However, women also
had to cope with family rearing in ways that men were exempted from; although their
work in public was politically validated, women’s domestic struggles were mostly
ignored (other than during the disastrous Great Leap). Given a choice—in the post-Mao years—many educated
women, when encouraged, decided to give up the two-pronged struggle and focus on domestic issues. This was and is the
The backlash against women who refuse
path of least political, social, and cultural resistance.
this new gender norm is vicious and ongoing . Leta Hong Fincher The last time I met with Li
Maizi (as Li Tingting likes to be called) at a small dumpling restaurant in Beijing, I asked if she was optimistic about the
future of women’s rights in China. “I am an idealist, but I am not in a hurry to see real change,” she said. “It
will require a long, drawn-out period of struggle to see any progress, especially when it
comes to gender issues.” These are not the words of a dissident trying to challenge the Chinese Communist
Party’s hold on power. Rather, Li and the other young activists she worked with went out of their way to avoid “politically
sensitive” issues and chose causes that would resonate with the mainstream Chinese population. Take the “Occupy Men’s
Toilets” campaign they organized in 2012, which called for more public toilets for women. “This issue isn’t that politically
serious,” admitted Li, “but it’s a problem every woman has to deal with every day, so many women and men were able to
see the inequality and to support the cause.” Little did I imagine that a year and a half later, Li Maizi and four other fun-
loving feminists would wind up criminally detained, facing a possible jail term for planning to distribute stickers about
sexual harassment on public transportation. The fact that these young women—detained in three different cities on the eve
of International Women’s Day—have still not been released suggests a disturbing escalation of Chinese government
paranoia about public demonstrations and a chilling environment for Non-Governmental Organizations and non-profit
groups. At the end of January, the Communist Party Politburo announced new national security guidelines, warning of
“unprecedented security risks,” saying that “the country must always be mindful of potential dangers,” according to
Xinhua News. Apparently the “potential dangers” to China’s national security now lurk in the country’s fledgling, feminist
movement, which has sprouted against a backdrop of rising gender inequality and retrograde gender norms. And just as
Rebecca Karl says, women who repudiate those gender norms often face a vicious backlash . Yet
if the Chinese government thinks it can stamp out a feminist uprising by jailing a few women’s rights activists, it should
heed the words of Li Maizi, now in detention: “ We
want to challenge and deconstruct power,
to build an equal society…We want to attract and create more and more feminist
activists, so we don’t just want a few people to lead this movement,” she told me in 2013. Judging
from the hundreds of students in Guangzhou who signed an open petition in support of their detained sisters, another
petition signed by female, Chinese lawyers, and other messages of solidarity from Chinese workers, these women’s rights
activists may have already succeeded. In criminally detaining some of the movement’s leaders, the government might just
have provided the spark that was needed for a large-scale, feminist awakening in China. Jeffrey Wasserstrom When I first
crossed the Pacific in the mid-1980s, there were some obvious contrasts between China and America relating to gender
that reflected positively on China —most of which have since lessened or disappeared. One was the complete absence in
China then, but not now, of advertisements that used sexualized images of female bodies to sell products. Another had to
do with leadership in institutions of higher learning. In the U.S. then, but not now, very few women held top
administrative posts in top universities or colleges, while Fudan, where I was based in Shanghai during the 1986/87
academic year, was headed by Xie Xide, a female physicist. One contrast that remains has to do with International
Women’s Day. Then, as now, International Women’s Day got much more attention in China than in America. This
enduring contrast, though, now has a deeply ironic side to it, since feminist activists were arrested just as the holiday was
being marked this year. For those who like looking backward, this is not the only irony worth noting
relating to the current state of gender equality—or, rather, lack thereof—in China. Consider
the ironies of a century-long view. In 1915, China witnessed the launch of Xin Qingnian ("New Youth"), an influential
progressive periodical whose early contributors included future founders of the Chinese Communist Party and the great
iconoclastic writer Lu Xun. One thing these New Youth authors tended to agree about was that China needed to free itself
from the stifling hold of a set of patriarchal ideas and practices that they associated with Confucius. Ironically, as New
Youth's centenary arrives, we find China run by an organization that some contributors to that publication helped to
create, but which, curiously, has shifted since the 1970s from vilifying to celebrating Confucius. Looking back 70 years
rather than 100 also highlights a contemporary irony. In 1945, an international war and a domestic one began, which
pitted the Nationalist Party of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek against the Communist Party of Chairman Mao. Every
March 8th during this Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), both of these organizations would celebrate International Women’s
Day, but they would do so in dramatically different ways. The Nationalists—the first major Chinese political organization
to claim that Confucianism, modernization, and revolution could all go hand-in-hand—used it is a day for stressing the
importance of women contributing to society by playing traditional roles and exemplifying traditional virtues. The
Communists, on the other hand, used it as a day to emphasize the need for complete equality between the sexes. The
Chairman beat the Generalissimo in the end, of course. And yet, in spite of how fond Xi is of quoting Mao, the situation
relating to women’s rights is one of many ways in which it can sometimes seem now that China’s leaders are as likely to
draw from the Generalissimo’s playbook as from the Chairman’s.
 CHINA=FRIEND
The aff legitimizes the patriarchal ideology of Chinese foreign policy
Blanchard and Lin 16 (Eric M. Blanchard is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Political
Science department at Columbia University in New York City. Shuang Lin works for the School of
International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. “Gender and Non-Western “Global” IR:
Where Are the Women in Chinese International Relations Theory?” International Studies Review.
3/16 p.54-56 https://academic.oup.com/isr/article-abstract/18/1/48/2357599) rr
There are passing references to the missing Chinese IR feminist tradition in the representative Chinese chapters
of the “Worlding Beyond the West” and “nonWestern IR” volumes. Qin Yaqing lists more than fifty western IR books
translated into Chinese (starting in 1990) which have allowed for Chinese recognition of the dominance of the realist
tradition and the existence of other traditions while encouraging younger Chinese scholars to adapt Western IR disciplinary
standards (Qin 2010, 30–31). Qin’s accounting of works of Western IR translated into Chinese lists five
women authors of IR texts and one feminist IR text (Christine Sylvester’s Feminist Theory and
International Relations in Postmodern Era). Wang’s tabulation of Chinese academic journals, specifically the
title World Economics and Politics from 1998 to 2006, includes fourteen articles categorized as
“feminism” (Wang 2009, 108). Thus, existing Chinese feminist IR scholarship is evoked but given no
sustained attention, rendering women and gender largely invisible in the Chinese version of non-
Western IR theory. A deeper problem from a gender perspective concerns the Confucian common denominator of Chinese
IR theory. Many feminists are unlikely to accept at face value domestic or international orders that
are unequal but “benign,” modeled on the father–son/husband–wife relationship in the
Confucian family. IR feminists are also likely to be skeptical of statist projects (particularly if they are centered
on a party-state that has historically side-tracked the feminist movement) that offer women
and men security based on hierarchies, inequalities, and the promise of benevolent rule. Key passages
in Confucius’ work, most notably “Women and servants are most difficult to keep in
the house” (Analects/Lunyu 17:25, as translated in Wawrytko 2000), have fostered doubts that there is a
place for women or feminist thought in political orders based on the tradition. Many argue that
the Confucian ideal of junzi, the virtuous/exemplary man, is unattainable for women, although
women’s exclusion from Confucian discipleship has prompted debates over whether Confucianism places limits on women’s
education. More serious accusations include misogyny and the charge that Confucianism is a “lingering
vestige of an oppressive patriarchal ideology” (Wawrytko 2000, 172) one that relegated
women to pursuing excellence in the household and reproductive spheres and made women
subject to a triple subordination, placed under the authority of their fathers, husbands, and
sons. Without considering gender or recognizing feminist perspectives, it is unlikely that Chinese IR scholars will
interrogate elements of the Confucian legacy in order to clarify the role of women in the IR theory they see themselves
building. Chinese Feminism and the Evolution of Feminist IR in China Chinese IR feminism cannot be fully grasped without
observing feminism’s deep roots in modern Chinese history and the continuing struggle for gender equality. Modern
Chinese feminist movements in the PRC can trace their origins through the May Fourth 1919 Movement
and the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949 (Gilmartin 1993). The male reformers of the late Qing,
Republican, and May Fourth eras promoted women’s liberation as a source of transformation and modernization;
women’s education and emancipation were viewed as sources of strength for
China so long as they did not undercut male privilege (Chen 2011, 32–38). The evolution of
contemporary Chinese feminism is usefully seen by reference to the dynamic between local activism and global feminist
movements (Zhang and Hsiung 2010; Kaufman 2012). The Chinese women’s movement, conditioned by state socialism and
reform-era openness, was boosted by the preparations for two formative events in the mid 1990s: the International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo (1994), and most importantly, the Fourth World Conference
on Women (FWCW) in Beijing (1995). Gender and Feminism in China Exposure to the preparations for and
participants at Beijing catalyzed nongovernmental organization (NGO) activity in China and
influenced and inspired a women’s studies network. A receptive climate prompted by CCP’s
“desire for a selfimage of modernity” (Kaufman 2012, 593) allowed the Chinese women’s movement to take
advantage of an unprecedented, post-Tiananmen interest in integration, economic reform, and reputation nurturing (Zhang
and Hsiung 2010, 164). In the wake of preparations for Beijing, “an independent Chinese women’s NGO sector was born”
(Kaufman 2012, 594), while postconference momentum led, propelled by the Internet, to the flourishing of academic
women’s studies (595). The state-sanctioned All China Women’s Federation (ACWF), or Fulian, which is
both “subordinate” to the CCP and the “institutional base and battle front for women to stand
fast on the principle of gender equality and make demands and propose policy on women’s behalf” plays a key
historical role in China’s feminist politics (Zhang and Hsiung 2010, 157). At the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Mao
proclaimed that women “held up half the sky,” chengqi ban bian tian, and the ACWF was charged with organizing
women along Maoist policy lines and promulgating CCP policies including the one child
policy (Chen 2011, 42; cf., Xu 2009). Zhang and Hsiung argue that while the ACWF is not an autonomous bridge between
women and the Party, the ACWF’s history as a “player in the ongoing process of state formation” along with its achieved
authority, meant that it should not be seen as merely a “pawn to be manipulated by the state” (188–89). The term
“gender,” with no Chinese language equivalent, was first introduced to China in a 1993 workshop at Tianjin
Normal University and translated as shehui xingbie (social sex), distinguished from xingbie (sex) (Zhang and
Hsiung 2010, 166–67). Zhang and Hsiung note that the introduction of gender and the NGO concept posed a challenge to
CCP doctrine, organization, and the practices of the state-controlled women’s movement that tended to
ignore the private sphere and favor top-down mobilization of women. Yet, the outcomes of the
United Nations’ (UN) FWCW in Beijing profoundly shaped the global gender agenda of the last two decades. For feminist
studies in China, the conference played a critical role in widening the themes of gender studies (Liu 2005) and bringing in
international and domestic funding (Li Xiaojiang 2005). Some feminists have argued that the CCP’s willingness to
play host to the FWCW was mainly motivated by the urge to highlight women’s progress
under socialism for propaganda purposes as well as to repair the damage done to the PRC’s
international reputation after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 (Chen 2011, 46).
 CONDITIONS/HUMAN RIGHTS
Arms restrictions to human rights violators only legitimizes “acceptable”
state violence while doing little to mitigate the problem of humanitarian
offenses committed against women.
War Resisters’ International ’14 [10-30-2014, "A Feminist Response to the Arms
Trade Treaty," War Resisters’ International, https://www.wri-
irg.org/en/story/2014/feminist-response-arms-trade-treaty]//ARW
The Arms Trade Treaty comes into force on the 24th of December, to general celebration
on the part of feminists, who particularly welcome its clause on the restriction of arms
sales where those arms may be used for gender based violence. However, the following
point, made by Campaign Against the Arms Trade , remains valid: 'The UK government,
one of the most supportive of the treaty, approves licences which would be refused under
any commonsense interpretation of the UK's current guidelines. Like the arms trade
treaty, these latter include provisions on human rights'. There is reason to be doubtful
that the Arms Trade Treaty's clause on gender based violence will be any more effective
than the existing provisions in UK legislation for restricting the sale of arms that will be
used to violate human rights. And of course, the question remains of how any use of
arms – deadly weapons designed to kill and maim – could fail to violate the human
rights of those against whom they are used. In this light, it is in fact of little comfort to
know that selling arms designed to kill and maim will become illegal where
the killing and maiming may be inflicted upon someone because of their
gender, rather than for any of the other reasons which could, apparently, be
legitimate. This is not to deny that it is, of course, imperative to 'disarm domestic
violence ', which is one of the most prevalent forms of gender based violence and
certainly the form of armed violence of which women are at most risk, given the
dramatically increased mortality rate of this kind of violence when armed. The women's
network of IANSA, the International Action Network on Small Arms, campaigned for the
Arms Trade Treaty, and more specifically for the gender based violence clause within it,
for this reason. Yet it is not clear that the gender based violence clause would actually
limit the armament of domestic violence at all: whilst it may require due diligence on the
part of states – both exporters and importers – to ensure that arms are not diverted
towards non-state actors such as death squads, militias, and gangs which commit gender
based violence, it is not sufficiently clear whether 'diversion ' (see article 11) will also
refer to, say, a state police officer who takes his gun home from work with him, or a
soldier, or some other man whose access to small arms in the name of the state is not
necessarily restricted by the terms of the treaty. This permeability between the state and
the home, the public and the private, the political and the personal, is all too familiar to
feminists and it is, to say the least, disappointing that the Arms Trade Treaty should fail
to acknowledge it, though also unsurprising given that the logical conclusion to the
problem of wanting to disarm domestic violence is to prohibt the manufacture and sale
of arms at all. This was never on the agenda with the Arms Trade Treaty of course, but
how far from the agenda it was is illustrated by the representation of arms companies on
the UK delegation to negotiate the treaty. This leads us to the question of whether there
is a conceiveable Arms Trade Treaty, short of the wholesale prohibition of arms
manufacture and sale, which could be supported, even if not on pacifist grounds, then on
the feminist grounds of being likely to significantly decrease the mortality rate of
domestic violence. Given that, for the most part, domestic violence occurs illegally in the
first place, the efficacy of legal treaties themselves is not to be assumed: the fact that
something is illegal does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that it does not
happen. The lack of a strong accountability mechanism in the Arms Trade Treaty gives
particular pause on this count, pause which should carry over to consideration of any
kind of treaty which might be pursued with a view to significantly decreasing the
mortality rate of domestic violence, which would have to be some kind of arms trade
treaty given what we know about the association between domestic violence mortality
and small arms. The energy spent on such a legal approach to the problem should be
weighed against the relative efficacy of, for example, cultural and educational campaigns
targeting the glamorisation of small arms and those violent constructions of masculinity
on which such glamorisation capitalises, as well as economic and social campaigns for
women's independence such that they can be materially free from violent men. If a legal
approach was in any case preferred, it would need to be one which explicitly demanded
due diligence on the part of the state to ensure that the arms borne by its police, military,
and other violent wings, could not travel home at the end of the working day, i.e. that
they could only be used for state as opposed to domestic violence. Once phrased like this,
it is not an appealing solution. It is even less so if we consider the danger of
legitmising state violence in contrast to domestic violence, as CAAT, amongst
others, fear the Arms Trade Treaty has legitimised the arms trade, though at least the
arms trade does not have the head start of being defined as that which has the monopoly
of legitimate violence in the first place, a definition which already requires we assume
that violence can be legitimate. To return to the Arms Trade Treaty as it stands, it falls
short on both feminist and pacifist grounds, which in the final analysis are in fact the
same grounds: while there is an arms trade, there will be armed domestic violence. Given
that there is an arms trade however, there also remains a feminist imperative to limit the
extent to which it can arm domestic violence, and feminists will understandably respond
to this imperative from the position that the arms trade is not going anywhere for now,
thus focusing on mitigating its specific harms to women. The balance which is needed is
between mitigating those harms and legitimising other forms of violence or the idea that
violence can be legitimate.
 COURTS
Sexism is incredibly pervasive in the courts system, from victim blaming to
creating a toxic courtroom environment for women
Rachel Williams, 5-12-2009, "Justice system a 'sexist operation', study finds,"
Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/13/justice-law //EH)
The criminal justice system is -condemned as an institutionally sexist operation
that lets down female victims, fails to help women offenders out of a cycle of crime and
prevents professionals reaching the top jobs. A five-year investigation by the Fawcett Society, which
campaigns for gender equality, found that discrimination against women pervades the system in
England and Wales at all levels, from the police forces where women officers are still forced to
wear men's uniforms to the way frontline staff doubt the credibility of victims reporting
rape and domestic -violence, with a gap seen between equality policy and its
implementation. The society's commission on women and the criminal justice system, whose members include high
court judges and Cressida Dick, one of the most senior women in British policing, warned that since it last reported in
2004 there has been a lack of consistent progress in -promoting women into senior
positions, and victims and offenders continued to be marginalised in a system designed
for men. Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you Read more It raised
concerns over the number of women given short prison sentences for non-violent crime,
including the non-payment of fines and television licences, and the effect it had on their
children as well as its failure to address the causes of their offending. In 2007, 63% of women
sent to jail were given sentences of six months or less. Last month the female prison population stood at 4,309, compared
with 2,672 in mid-1997. Ministry of Justice projections show that at best it may decrease by 200 by 2015,
and at worst will increase to 5,100. Self-harm among women in custody, which Fawcett said
was a product of the effects of being in a system designed for men, increased by 48% between 2003 and
2007, with women committing around half of all self-harm incidents, despite
representing only 5% of the total prison population. At the women-only HMP Styal the number of
incidents of self-harm have risen from 376 to 1,324 in the last five years, according to figures obtained
by the Howard League for Penal Reform Getting more women into senior jobs would help improve the system for those
using or going through it, the commission said. But last year women constituted only 12% of police
officers at chief inspector grade and above, and less than a quarter of prison governors.
Only 16% of partners in the UK's 10 biggest law firms were women in 2008 and there were only 42
female compared with 479 male QCs. The number of female applicants for the judiciary and
Queen's Counsel remained "worryingly low". Female professionals reported difficulties
with the system with many respondents in the police seeing the culture of long working
hours as an "implicit requirement for promotion". Sharon Smee, Fawcett's justice policy officer said:
"Women need justice and justice needs women. A greater representation of women,
particularly in high level positions is crucial to make the criminal justice system
responsive to women's reality. There is no excuse." Last night justice minister Maria Eagle said: "While we
recognise the challenges we face we reject the central tenet of this report. ... We have long recognised the specific needs of
women in the criminal justice system... But there is still more to be done and the government equality bill contains
positive action measures."
 DEMOCRACY
The failure of democracy to include feminist perspectives reveal gender
marginalization at its core—gender hierarchies must be addressed by
democracy to make it more meaningful
Eschle 2002, (Catherine Eschle is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Government and
Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde. “Engendering Global Democracy,"
University of Strathclyde Press,
https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/1454/3/Eschle_IFJP2002_engendering_global_demo
cracy.pdf //EH)
Liberal democratic ideas and institutions retain a globally hegemonic grip, having apparently
triumphed over their historic competitors. Although the ‘third wave’ of democratisation has been on
the retreat somewhat over the last decade, as have the more hubristic claims about it, many
commentators can still perceive no other legitimate organising principle for states
worldwide. Yet this hegemony is not uncontested. Long-standing leftist models of participatory politics
may have been largely abandoned, but concerns about the limitations of liberal democracy remain high and a great deal of
academic and activist energy has been devoted in recent years to the construction of innovative alternatives. Two
sources of concern lie behind this paper. The first is the long-standing feminist claim
that women have been consistently marginalised within democratic ideas and
institutions. The second arises from more recent work on the iniquitous impact of
globalisation. These concerns have both generated corresponding reconstructive strategies – but each body of
literature ignores the problem raised by the other and thus remains significantly flawed. This paper is rooted in the belief
that both gender hierarchies and globalisation need to be taken on board if democracy is
to be made more meaningful for more people. Further, I argue that the most effective and
radical tools for such a reconstructive project are not to be found in
mainstream global schemes or in feminist proposals for a more women-
friendly polity – or in some combination of the two. Attention is drawn instead to an
alternative strand of feminist engagement with democracy, in the shape of
debates about the democratisation of the feminist movement. I focus particularly on black and
third world feminist interventions in these debates and their influence on efforts to
construct more democratic movement organisation across national borders. These efforts
point to the possibility of a more genuinely inclusive and participatory form of democracy, one
that is not confined to states and that enables the most vulnerable women in the world to
gain some control over the globalising processes that shape their lives. Globalisation, democracy
and the marginalisation of women Globalisation can be defined as a process of intensifying global social interrelatedness,
whereby space and time are compressed and previously separated locations brought into a new proximity. In popular
understanding, globalisation is strongly linked to the diffusion of neoliberal economic orthodoxy through international
financial institutions, the integration of markets and the rise of transnational corporations. It is a highly contested and
controversial phenomenon, one clearly of great relevance to debates about the diffusion of democratic institutions
throughout the world.2 Political science explanations of democratisation have not foregrounded globalisation as such but
they do allow some role for related factors. These include the diffusion of modernisation processes outward from the West;
the role of 3 Accepted author manuscript of the following article: Eschle, C. 2002 In : International Feminist Journal of
Politics . 4, 3, p. 315-341 international elites; and the impact of long-term structural changes in state capacities, class
relationships and transnational power balances (e.g. Potter et al. 1997; Huntington 1991; Luckham and White 1996). Some
limited attention has also been paid to the ways in which pro-democracy activists may be in contact with those in other
countries or influenced indirectly as part of the phenomenon characterised as 'snowballing' or ‘contagion’, whereby
publicity about the struggle in one country encourages similar developments elsewhere (Huntington 1991: 100-105;
Whitehead 1996: 250-252). Anthony Giddens has argued that the impact of transnational forces on social pressure for
democratisation can be even less direct, in the form of 'the expansion of social reflexivity and detraditionalization' across
the globe. He concludes that 'it is globalization, with its attendant transformations of everyday life, which surely underlies
pressures towards democratization in the present day' (Giddens 1994: 110-111). At the same time, globalisation is charged
with undermining democracy. Two main problems are highlighted in the non-feminist globalisation literature. The first is
a reworking in the context of economic globalisation of the familiar marxian argument that liberal democracy is
undermined by the unequal capitalist relations associated with it. Thus Robert Cox points out that new democratic
institutions have frequently been established at the behest of transnational elites that are unaccountable and that pursue
neoliberal orthodoxy by insisting upon state withdrawal from economic planning, social provision and redistribution. New
democracies can thus 'lack a secure base in a participant, articulated civil society', while newly elected governments are
often so constrained that the effect has been to 'transform politics at the national level into management’ (Cox 1997: 60-
63). The second problem, highlighted particularly by David Held (1991, 1995), has to do with the territorial, national form
of democratic institutions. Held stresses that the long-presumed coincidence between decision-makers, their
constituencies and the impacts of their decisions has been disrupted by globalisation. Sources of power can now
be a continent away from the communities affected by them and territorially-based
democratic mechanisms fail to enable such communities to scrutinise, participate in or
contest many of the processes shaping their lives. There is a third way in which the
diffusion of democracy has been limited, one which is generally ignored in non-feminist
accounts. This is the fact that women have been marginalised as political actors
within many new democratic regimes. The feminist literature on the transitions in central and
eastern Europe documents a particularly dramatic fall in the number of women in national representative bodies across
the region, from an average of one third of seats under 'state socialism', to an average of just under 10 per cent after the
first liberal democratic elections ( e.g. Einhorn 1993; Watson 1993; Ward et al. 1992). Later in the 1990s, the
numbers of women representatives rose slightly and then stabilised, reaching their
highest levels in central European countries closest to EU membership. For example, in the
1995 elections in the Czech Republic, women made up 10 per cent of legislators, rising to 15 per cent in the lower house in
2000. Women accounted for 13 per cent of representatives in Poland in both 1995 and 2000 (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998:
11; Jaquette 2001: 115). Latin American transitions from military dictatorships to liberal democracies saw women play a
more prominent role as participants in movements for change, but their subsequent underrepresentation in consolidated
national legislatures was even more marked. By 1995, women constituted only 5 per cent of representatives in Brazil and 9
per cent in Peru. Argentina stands out with 14 per cent in 1995 doubling to 30.7 per cent today, figures achieved as a result
of quotas (Jaquette and Wolchik 1998: 11; Inter-Parliamentary Union 2002). Processes of transition from dictatorship on
the African continent have been more uneven but, as elsewhere, women representatives remain a minority. They are a
significant minority in 5 Accepted author manuscript of the following article: Eschle, C. 2002 In : International Feminist
Journal of Politics . 4, 3, p. 315-341 Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia and Uganda, where again deliberate political
measures have resulted in between 24 and 30 per cent of representatives being women (Pankhurst 2002: 125; Inter-
Parliamentary Union 2002). There is significant variability within and across regions then, but also a stark continuity: the
proportion of women in national legislatures in new democracies is never as much as a third of the total and it is
frequently much lower. In many cases, this means that women are more marginalised as political actors
than they were before or during the transition process.

The focus on the liberal statist human security agenda and the emphasis on
the humanitarian aspect of the arms control regime are rooted in the logic
of militarism and ignore feminist criticisms challenging the parameters of
human security
Stavrianakis ’18 [Anna, 5-21-2018, Anna Stavrianakis is Senior Lecturer in
International Relations at the University of Sussex, " Controlling weapons circulation in
a postcolonial militarised world," Review of International Studies]//ARW
So here we have an agenda for practical action on the weapons trade, challenging
militarism to improve human security. The UNDP report identified the nation-statist
ideologies of deterrence and territorial security, as well as the transnational practices of
military assistance and proxy wars, as key causes of insecurity. Simultaneously, it
reopened the debate about the link between security and development ‘that had been
closed since the somewhat sterile polemic around the link between disarmament and
development’ of the 1970s and 1980s.31 This earlier, now ostensibly out-dated debate
surmised that ‘the North (that is, both sides of the East–West conflict) should disarm,
and devote the resources freed up by arms reduction to development in the South’.32 As
part of this shift in debate, the move away from state-centred definitions of security was
accompanied by an acknowledgment of the legitimate and crucial role of the state in
providing security – especially as security was emphasised as a precondition for
development. So the anti-militarist call that identified the state as a creator of insecurity
was balanced against recognition of the legitimate role of the state in providing security.
There was also a downgrading of military threats as a particular type of threat to human
security: military threats do not appear as one of the seven main categories articulated in
the report (economic, food, health, environ- mental, personal, community, political).
Rather, threats from war (defined as ‘threats from other states’) are listed under the
category of ‘personal security’, alongside threats of physical torture and ethnic tension,
as well as crime, rape, domestic violence, and suicide.33 The analytical and political
move made in the 1994 UNDP Report was to equate war with the state and move away
from a concern with territorially based definitions of security and inter-state war, which
it equates with militarism. There is a shift in focus to the spectrum of armed violence and
non-conflict violence, which are to be remedied in the name of human security, in part
through the (re)construction of legitimate coercive apparatuses. The shift away from
militarism and towards human security claims to acknowledge the changing character of
conflict and the role of the state in monopolising legitimate violence, without privileging
it unthinkingly. Research in this vein has flourished in the years since the 1994 report,
and brings significant advantages to bear over traditional state-centric analyses, such as
the ability to account for the geographical diversity of rates of armed violence within as
well as between states; sustained and distinct attention to gendered patterns of violence,
including the specific character of femicide as a distinct form of violence; and the
incorporation of questions of public health and socio- economic inequality into
discussion about weapons transfers.34 For all these developments, the human security
agenda’s take on war, conflict, and armed violence has not been without its critics. It has
been described as the ‘new orthodoxy’ that is ‘unable to provide the basis for a
substantive change of the system of international security’, despite finding ‘the old
language of interstate war and conflict ... lacking’.35 Similarly, its emphasis on
‘progressive’ initiatives such as ‘eliminat[ing] certain types of weapons’ stands accused of
failing to adequately examine ‘the pathologies inherent in the structure of the
international system’ that generate such challenges.36 And when the ‘human’ in human
security is naturalised as masculine, the inclusion of novel threats and new actors leaves
the parameters of security untouched, meaning that ‘state-based, militarised security
remains unchallenged’.37 Feminist scholars have critiqued the gendered concepts and
practices of war, peace, militarisa- tion, peacekeeping and soldiering, going well beyond
the human security framework in the process.38 Feminist critiques that challenge the
parameters of human security can usefully be combined with postcolonial accounts of IR
that emphasise the ways in which the discipline ‘can both deny empire while
simultaneously normalizing an imperial perspective on the world’.39 Some of the main
themes of the human security agenda are illustrative of the need for an imperial
perspective in how we understand the challenges facing weapons control. By this I mean
interpreting them with the aid of scholarship that challenges methodological nationalism
and Eurocentrism in its analysis, mobilises feminist critiques of militarism, and puts the
legacy of empire and coloni- alism, and the racial, gendered, and classed politics of
imperial control, front and centre in its assessment of contemporary challenges.40
Deploying such resources gives us a chance to rethink some of the key assumptions
around human security and the prospects for regulating weapons circulation. Three core
themes of the human security agenda are ripe for an imperial critique. First, the claim
that the character of conflict has changed, from inter-state war towards internal conflict,
has become axiomatic in much of IR, including the human security literature.41 The
greatest threats to human security are deemed to stem from internal conflict and
criminal violence, or the state itself, rather than from an external adversary as per the
traditional security agenda. As such, ‘international security traditionally defined –
territorial integrity – does not necessarily correlate with human security’.42 Second, the
changing character of conflict requires a shift in the referent object of security, according
to the human security agenda: away from the state and inter-state war, and towards the
individual and the broader range of threats they face. 43 And third, the human security
agenda nonetheless emphasises the importance of the state’s monopoly on legitimate
violence and role in security provision.44 Yet the circumstances have been transformed
with the end of the Cold War. Kaldor attributes a ‘profound restructuring of political
authority’ to the new wars, and sees human security as an opportunity for ‘reconstructing
political authority in the context of the processes we call globalisation’.45 Hence the need
for security sector reform (SSR), demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration (DDR)
and other reforms of coercive practices and apparatuses. Each of these three themes is
premised on the significance of the rupture that occurred with the end of the Cold War.
But understanding the Cold War as predominantly an East–West ideological and
geopolitical confrontation marginalises longer historical patterns of North–South power
relations and conflict, and of hot war in the South. And the increased focus on internal
conflict, while fruitful in terms of changing the scale of analysis, risks disconnecting the
micro- politics of violence from broader systems and structures of war preparation,
ignoring one of the key lessons of feminist scholarship, which is that the scales or so-
called levels of analysis are interdependent. As Laura Sjoberg and Sandra Via put it,
‘absolutely distinguishing between the personal, national and international level of war
and militarism lacks conceptual and empirical rigor at best’: feminist attention allows us
to understand both the impact of war and militarism on people (especially, but not only,
women) as well as the gendered construction of war and militarism.46 A longer
historical view that is not hamstrung by a state-centric ontology allows us to see that
arms transfer practices have long been part of the simultaneously transnational and
asymmetrical constitution of force. Historical scholarship on the arms trade emphasises
the importance of decolonisation as the shift from empire to a system of formally
sovereign states in which North– South power asymmetries continue to resonate. One of
the key transformations in weapons transfer practices that came with decolonisation was
a shift on the part of the Soviet Union and China from support for national liberation
movements, to the defence of sovereignty as a means of resisting US-led domination, in
either anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist modes.47 The supply of weapons and military
training was a common feature of both Soviet and US relations with the Third World:
despite their differences, North–South politico-military relations had much in common
between the two blocs.48 Ostensibly new or transformed challenges of the post-Cold
War era, such as Somali piracy, new wars in Africa, or insurgency and counterinsurgency
in Afghanistan, are thus better understood in postcolonial terms, with militarised
transnational continuities as well as changes associated with the end of superpower
rivalry.49 Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey emphasise the continuities between
colonial and contemporary militarism that not only led them to prefer the terminology of
postcolonial conflicts over that of new wars, but also emphasise the fundamentally
gendered characteristics of the physical and structural violence at stake.50 And as
Cooper argues, arms control regimes have long featured both ‘proscription and
permission’51 operating in tandem, challenging the optimism of accounts premised on
the end of the Cold War as the changed permissive factor that allows humanitarian
concerns to be the core objective of weapons control. This emphasis on history and
power generates scepticism about the optimism and presentism of most accounts of the
emergence of the ATT, and the linear, benevolent account of history found therein.52 A
longer historical perspective allows us to see how state security (whether national or
imperial) and (what is today called) human security have long been two sides of the same
coin. There are thus continuities of imperial forms of practice despite the turn to formal
sover- eignty. A focus on the systematic or organised and North–South character of
much armed violence is not to return to Cold War politics or the ‘sterile polemic’ of past
debates about weapons issues mentioned earlier. Rather, it is to emphasise that
historical weapons supply routes and power relations continue to resonate; that massive
and uneven levels of global military spending and proxy wars continue to matter; and
that clients continue to use weapons in ways that are often unanticipated by patrons.
Ostensibly civil or internal wars are enmeshed in wider regional and international
projects.53 There are internationalised sources of much of what counts as domestic, civil
or intra-state, including colonial legacies and internationalised weapons supply chains.
In many accounts, human security has been mobilised as an attempt to ‘cope with [the]
pathological results’ of how security has been defined in postcolonial states in the
South.54 Yet this encourages internalist analysis that sees the problems of armed
violence as having their sources primarily within the global South. In conceding the
terms of debate to ‘traditional’ security studies, and seeking to shift inwards from the
state to the individuals living within it, rather than critiquing the conception of the
international system, the human security agenda continues to ‘occlude and distort
imperial relations’ in the way that more traditional ‘West- phalian terms of reference’
do.55 In the human security agenda’s account of the shift from wars between states to
wars within them, war falls off the agenda as it is deemed analytically outdated and
politically regressive. Yet neo-realist, Cold War accounts of national security were never
adequate, and in trying to overcome them, many human security accounts take them at
face value and get the critique wrong. With its emphasis on the enduring power of war
preparation, the concept of militarism suggests that much contemporary violence
remains coordinated or facilitated (by state, para- military, militia, or other organised
actors), and systematic within society, despite the shift towards discussion of armed
violence and intentional homicide, which is suggestive of dis- organised violence. So how
are we to mobilise the concept of militarism in light of the imperial turn, in ways that
help us think more productively about weapons control? First is to defend the use of the
concept at all. According to Mary Kaldor, the concept of militarism has outlived its
usefulness as it is ‘drawn from the Cold War and before’: the changes with the end of the
Cold War necessitate new terms.56 To capture the ways that organised violence blurs
state/non-state and national/foreign boundaries, whether in the form of para- military
groups, organised crime or terrorist cells, or in the form of peacekeeping troops, Kaldor
coins the terms ‘Netforce’ and ‘Protectionforce’ respectively.57 Kaldor restricts the
concept of militarism to ‘the new American militarism’ and the ‘neo-modern militarism’
(‘the evolution of classical military forces in large transition states’ practising inter-state
war or counterinsurgency) of states such as Russia, China, and India.58 But in
differentiating some types of organised violence as not-militarism, we lose the
opportunity to compare them, to see the overlaps, similarities, and differences in modes
of organised violence. Feminists have long been able to capture this with the concept of
militarism, showing us that ‘it is not quite so easy to set aside “ordinary” aggression,
force or violence as “not war”’59 – especially when we pay attention to the experience of
violence in the global South.60 Second, and relatedly, the specificities of combinations of
actors, degrees of state support, and so on, are subject to empirical and historical
specificity, and a common rubric of militarism helps us understand similarities and
differences between them. Working in a historical sociological tradition, Bryan Mabee
and Srdjan Vucetic draw up a typology of forms of contemporary militarism.61 They
contrast Michael Mann’s concept of civil society militarism – ‘the use of organized
military violence in pursuit of social goals that is “state-supported, but not state-led”’62
– to ‘nation-state militarism’ in both its authoritarian and liberal forms; to ‘neoliberal
militarism’ struc- tured around socioeconomic liberalisation; and to ‘exceptionalist
militarism’ seen in practices asso- ciated with the War on Terror. Feminists tend not to
operate in such formal typological ways, but have long been articulating the idea of war
and militarism as a spectrum or a system, in which the forms, intensities, and
characteristics may vary, but the gendered basis of violence is central.63 And a focus on
militarism can be usefully mobilised to consider the connections and feedback loops
between Northern and Southern practices, giving a more internationalised account that
is better attuned to the operation of power in contexts of armed violence. Indeed, Rita
Abrahamsen refers to ‘global militarism in Africa’ because ‘while militarism is always
specific (and often national), it is also simultaneously global’, and the ‘analytical
challenge is to capture at one and the same time the global and the local, and their
intersection in particular locations’.64 Third, while I want to defend the concept, and
think about types of militarism in relation to each other, it is crucial to acknowledge that
contemporary militarism and human security have shaped each other in the last twenty
years. Human security, with its emphasis on human rights and IHL, has become a
mediating element in the relation between war and society. Post-Cold War processes of
democratisation have ‘often coincided with new forms of militarism’ that tend to be
analysed under the rubric of policy-oriented concepts such as security sector reform.65
As Abrahamsen argues, ‘The securitization of underdevelopment ... is the condition of
possibility for a global militarism justified in the name of human security and
development.’66 We must take heed of Abrahamsen’s warning that ‘Paradoxically,
transformations that initially entailed a cri- tique of militarization and militarism have
ended up according a new importance to security actors and laying the groundwork for
new expressions of militarization and militarism.’67 Human security has – against its
self-image as a progressive social force – facilitated a resurgent as well as transformed
militarism.
 DISEMBODIMENT
The coding of militarism and imperialist acts, which are fueled by arms
transfers by the US as masculine and superior immortalizes both a literal
and metaphorical war that fails to recognize its corporeal costs. Although
war waging has always been dependent on women, the US continues to
champion its hyper-masculine “savior” rhetoric through military power and
exchanging arms. The alt is a reclamation of people deemed merely “bodies”
in the face of US power structures that denies life to those it denotes as
“Other” and repudiates women and feminized bodies their humanity.
Wilson, 09 – a literature and women’s studies scholar and writer. Dr. Wilson regularly
presents at national and international conferences, delivers talks at college campuses and for
feminist organizations, writes books, articles, film reviews and blog posts, and teaches at Cal
State San Marcos. She specializes in feminist analysis of popular culture and contemporary
literature. (2009, Natalie, “Mind/Body Dualism and the Un-just Gendered Logistics of
Militarization,”
http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTAwMHh
uYV9fNTM5NjA1X19BTg2?sid=6d393875-047d-4f51-a3a6-8db3694cd441@sdc-v-
sessmgr02&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_189&rid=0, accessed 07/06/19, lrch rm)

One consequence of war is the entrenchment of dichotomies such as us/them and

civilized/uncivilized. In recent years, the U.S. administration’s post-9/11 us versus them rhetoric
has made this shift painfully clear. While war-waging clearly activates a dualistic us/them and
ally/enemy mentality, it also has historically drawn in various ways on mind/body and
male/female dichotomies. For example, imperialist powers that waged war against those areas of the globe
they wished to colonize themselves as the superior minds of the world. Colonized peoples, on the other hand, were
constructed as savage bodies. Further, colonization was enacted by relying on a gendered frame wherein
the imperialist country was associated with masculinity (power, control, reason,
civilization) and the area being conquered/occupied was associated with femininity
(inferiority, submission, irrationality, savageness/nature). The mind/body dichotomy, and its
gendered sidekick, masculinity/femininity, similarly shapes cultural narratives about the war in
Iraq. This binary can be super-imposed over other binaries with the mind representing the favored, privileged category
and the body the besmirched, inferior category. Focusing on the ways in which the gendered dynamics of the mind/body
dichotomy are used to justify the so called war on terror, this chapter argues that certain people and places are
associated with the masculinized mind and others with the feminized body. Taking theorist Rosemarie
Garland-Thomson’s definition of feminism as a theory that “investigates how culture saturates the particularities of bodies
with meanings and probes the consequences of those meanings” (2005, 576), I will read the particularities of being
designated as a feminized body during wartime. The consequences of this designation
include the commonplace silencing and disparaging of women, as well as increasing torture,
rape, imprisonment, starvation, and/or murder of women and other feminized bodies.
Further, the designation of certain people and places as masculinized mind serves to rationalize
these injustices via the rationale that the minds of the world (the U.S., the so-called first world,
the military industrial complex) must do whatever it takes to control the wayward
bodies littering the globe. One key way that such imperialist acts are justified is via
coding them as masculine and, therefore, superior. Additionally, such acts are bolstered via the
construction of certain leaders and countries as rational, democratic, and civilized—as the rightful minds of the world. The
flip side of these constructions designates many parts and peoples of the world as inferior, feminized bodies. Western
tradition has long devalued the body (codified as female) and championed the mind (codified as male), aiming for
transcendence over materiality. However, this transcendence plays out not only in the way Descartes emphasized, or via
the mind’s attempt to control the body, but also via complex and myriad attempts to control all people, places, and ideas
that are constructed as belonging to the inferior (or body) position. Historically, those people, places, and ideas deemed as
superior, such as men, the West, democracy, and Christianity, are associated with a transcendent, masculinized mind that
should rightly control or destroy in those people, places, and ideas associated with the inferior body side of the dichotomy,
such as women, natives, immigrants, and non-Christians. Currently, the gendered components of this binary can be read
as follows: those people, places, and things associated with mind, like military generals, the U.S., and smart bombs, are
masculinized; those associated with body, like prisoners of war, Afghani women, Iraqis, and, in many cases, female
soldiers, are feminized As notable anthropologist Mary Douglas (1970) argues, the body and a society’s attitude towards it
reflect our social systems and reigning ideologies. How the body is conceived, how it is treated, and, more importantly,
how it is mistreated, serves as a synecdoche for society Moreover, when societal boundaries shift or come under
attack, anxieties about the body, and how to control certain bodies, become all the more prevalent. Currently,
the bodies creating unease are not only so-called enemy bodies, but also those bodies resisting the war, those refusing to
submit to protector-protected logic, those who eschew flag-waving nationalism in favor of peace signs or protest. These
bodies do not have equal representation in the body politic. For, as scholar Moira Gatens notes, the body politic
privileges very particular types of bodies: Slaves, foreigners, women, the conquered, children, the working
classes, have all been excluded from political participation, at one time or another, by their bodily specificity. (1997, 83)
More specifically, certain bodies have historically been codified as inferior based on their race (Africans, Native
Americans, Mexicans, etc.), their gender/sexuality (women, transgendered people, non-heterosexuals), their class/caste,
or due to various other markers of social identity. Those codified as the inferior bodies of the world have variously been
excluded from the body politic by not being allowed to vote, by being forced into slave/unpaid labor, by being denied legal
protection or representation, or by being annihilated via genocide/war. Thus, in essence, the body politic is a misnomer, as
it excludes those typically characterized as the bodies of the world. This privileging of certain minds and
exclusion of certain bodies is embroiled within an unjust global culture of imperialism. Currently, militarized
rape and bodily torture are just two pertinent examples of how social inequality violently enacts itself onto
certain bodies. Yet the current war in Iraq, entrenched as it is in disembodied, idealized notions of freedom and
democracy, fails to address such injustice at the corporeal level. Despite estimates of at least one million Iraqi civilian
deaths and 4,071 U.S. military casualties (as of May 2, 2008), despite evidence of mass rape, torture, and human rights
violations, war coverage focuses on abstract numbers and the use of euphemisms such as collateral damage. By
enacting political/military aims as if bodies do not matter and by hiding the very real
ways inequalities and injustices are lived in and through the body, the war marches on with
little acknowledgement of its corporeal costs. Moreover, the lack of actual war bodies in
media coverage—the lack of images of wounded or dead soldiers, of civilians mutilated by daisy
cutter bombs, of starving war refugees, of rape survivors, of bodies deformed by uranium—
allows the war to be fought on metaphorical terms. If graphic images of the war were part of the
narrative framing of the Iraq war, dissent might become overwhelming, as it did with the Vietnam War. In order to avoid
what has been dubbed “Vietnam Syndrome” or the “sickly inhibitions against military force” (Chomsky 1991, 33), the
media and the government now curtail unpleasant images that reveal the realities of war. Instead of portraying the true
bodily costs of war, the mainstream war narrative characterizes U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Iraq as the right thing to
do, as being in one’s right mind. This narrative also champions masculine power, strength, and
intellect. For example, when one refuses to partake in war or when one is targeted as an enemy,
images of phallic penetration and/or weak-mindedness are often employed. From
bumper stickers that read “Saddam, Bend Over” to cartoons that show Saddam in prayer
position with a U.S. missile pointed at his rear, the message is clear—the U.S. aims to
penetrate the world with its specific brand of. hyper-masculinized military power.
The war shores up U.S. masculinity both at the specific level of individual American males and at
the broader level of the U.S. as a manly country that is powerful, aggressive, and dominating . Here,
as is often the case, men are allowed to function as both body and mind. While women are merely bodies, and while their
bodies are construed as weak, messy, and irrational, men’s bodies are characterized as hard, purposeful, dominating. In
keeping with this frame, opposition to the war is coded as wimpy, as having a feminized body too
weak to fight. Consequently, those countries that the U.S. is either trying to democratize or those countries that do not
support the war effort are emasculated. This emasculating process was also pronounced during the Vietnam War when
Vietnamese men were codified as small, wiley, sneaky, irrational, impotent, and asexual (Lipsitz 1998). Similarly, the Iraq
war relies on literal as well as figurative emasculation. The disbanding of the Iraqi army can be read as an assault on Iraqi
manhood, while the focus on Iraqi males as irrational zealots who are supposedly unable to run their own country places
them in the dependent, feminine position. On the other hand, many U.S. males are associated with hypermasculinity.
Macho posturing was particularly apparent when Bush donned a flack suit and declared “Mission Accomplished” three
days after the invasion. In the media, the strong physicality of male soldiers is a dominant image heightened by the
protective, bulky gear soldiers wear. Media coverage of the war offers a masculinized slant with stories that emphasize the
warrior hero narrative and the U.S. as a savior of the world. The image by Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes in
which a very large masculine figure is depicted with a huge microphone-phallus that reads “U.S. war coverage” captures
this slant perfectly. Telnaes noting that current U.S. media glamorizes the machismo of war, relates “television coverage
here was very macho…I didn’t see many stories about Iraqi families who are on the receiving end of all this” (2007). As
Telnaes’ cartoon suggests, the U.S. media functions as an ultra-phallus raping the world with its slanted coverage. More
specifically, those on the receiving end of this phallus are the Iraqis, who are metaphorically screwed by the U.S.
administration, military, and media. In an example of this type of masculine posturing, the President vowed to find and
punish “anybody who wants to harm American troops” (CBS News 2007). In what the British paper The Guardian called a
“gesture of presidential bravado,” Bush, in July 2003, further said, “There are some who feel like that the conditions are
such that they can attack us here. My answer is bring them on” (CBS News 2007). This combative tone continues to color
the U.S. administration’s speeches and comments to the press. Moreover, the administration has consistently implied that
the socalled enemies and those who do not support the war are cowards. In fact, following 9/11, the cowardice metaphor
was deployed in ways that suggested certain men and their acts were unmanly, irrational, and evil (attributes that are of
course often associated with femininity and have historically also been attributed to so-called U.S. enemies—e.g., Vietnam,
Iraq, South Korea). As theorist R. Danielle Egan argues in a discussion of the rhetorical maneuverings associated with the
current war, “When George W. Bush uses the phrase cowardly acts of the terrorists, he is basically asking the coward to
fight like a man” (2002, 54). Egan explains that cowardice is not only linked to terrorists but also linked to those who are
codified as too wimpy to support war. Those who support the war and the service members fighting the war, on the other
hand, are codified as warrior heroes. The media and prevailing cultural mythology constructs this warrior hero as
disciplined, strong, potent—in short, as masculine. Hence, despite the fact that the percentage of active duty female service
members I higher than ever, soldiers are still codified as male. Scholars Laura Prividera and John Howard in “Masculinity,
Whiteness, and The Warrior Hero” contend that this construction is reliant on the historical adherence to the belief that
“the warrior hero must fight to protect (physically) the woman who is his mother (or the mother of his children)” (2006,
31). As they further argue, “the masculine protector subject is trained to defend the socially constructed female object”
(2006, 30). Or, to put it another way, the superior masculine mind is supposed to defend the weak female body. Thus, the
media does not have much to say about women soldiers, as doing so goes against the conventional warrior hero image.
Commenting on the sexism apparent in military images, scholar Huibin Amee Chew notes, “The U.S. military trains men
to devalue, objectify and demean traits traditionally associated with women” and to “eroticize violence” (2006). In fact, as
feminist scholars of militarization such as Cynthia Enloe have documented, hardcore pornography has often been used as
a means to excite soldiers before they go into battle. For example, during the Gulf War, Air Force pilots watched
pornographic movies to psyche themselves up for bombing missions. This practice sexualizes women as bodies that
soldiers can do with as they like (2004). Thus, is it any surprise that 80 percent of female soldiers report experiencing
sexual harassment and 30 percent report rape or attempted rape by military personnel? (Chew 2006). Despite the military
code of silence, many soldiers, such as Suzanne Swift, are now coming forward with stories of Command Rape—when a
soldier of higher rank rapes a lower ranking soldier (Rich 2006). In addition to constructing the female body as soldier’s
booty (even when that female body is another soldier), other narratives of femininity construct women as inferior beings
who need protecting from manly men. The mainstream media in the U.S. adheres to this construction of the weak female
body via the representation of women in the (inferior) supporting position as wives, mothers, and girlfriends rather than
as soldiers or heads of state. A preponderance of images captures wives tearfully waving goodbye to their soldiering
husbands, girlfriends hugging their returning boyfriends as they disembark from Navy ships, mothers grieving the loss of
their sons. The imagery from Afghanistan and Iraq is also excessively gendered via the depiction of veiled, injured,
weeping, starving, orphaned, and/or mutilated female bodies. Absent are the images of women leaders, soldiers,
resistance fighters, or ambassadors. Instead, women are coded as weak bodies, a representation that ironically initially
served to uphold the claim that this was a feminist war being waged to save women. Like the mythical Helen of Troy over
which endless battles were waged, the plight of Afghan wo men served as a motivating mythology for war (save those
oppressed women in burkas!) rather than as any real attempt to bring about gender justice. While feminist battles to bring
attention to women’s issues in Afghanistan went relatively unnoticed for over 20 years prior to 9/11, once feminine
victimization became a useful narrative to bolster support for war, it was bandied about like a red flag.
Tellingly, the women of Afghanistan remained faceless and nonindividuated by the mainstream media who represented
them (if at all) as a slew of veiled bodies awaiting U.S. rescue. As journalist Sonali Kolhatkar insists, representing Afghani
women as oppressed via a simplistic focus on the burka served to put much larger issues—food scarcity, poverty, lack of
healthcare, a culture of violence propped up by U.S. intervention—under erasure (2002). While the so-called rescue of
these women helped to present the war as a humanitarian, feminist mission, the war in actuality exacerbated many of the
above conditions. For example, Amnesty International noted in a 2004 report that “nearly two years on, discrimination,
violence and insecurity remain rife, despite promises by world leaders, including President Bush and Secretary of State
Colin Powell, that the war in Afghanistan would bring liberation for women” (Badkhen 2004). Widespread domestic
violence, forced marriage, and the rape of girls and women by armed militias has worsened since the U.S. invasion
(Badkhen 2004). Further, as Ann Jones writes in “Women Come Last in Afghanistan”: …millions of Afghans are without
safe water or sanitation or electricity, even in the capital city. Millions are without adequate food and nutrition. Millions
have access only to the most rudimentary healthcare, or none at all….About 85 percent of Afghan women are illiterate.
About 95 percent are routinely subjected to violence in the home. And the home is most Afghan women in rural areas, and
many in cities, are still tomarily confined. (2006) Yet, according to Bush’s victorious comments in the 2002 State of the
Union Address, Afghan women were freed via the military efforts of the U.S.: The last time we met in this chamber, the
mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school.
Today women are free. Other victorious news followed. For example, the Washington Post’s headlines claimed, “The Girls
are Back in Afghan Schools.” Left underreported are the numerous attacks in which girls’ schools are burned and bombed
(Kolhatkar 2002), and the facts that fewer than one-third of Afghan girls attend school (Jones 2006). At the outset, the
war was presented as an endeavor to save Afghani women and children. Yet, interestingly enough, the voices of women in
the U.S. were silenced in the run up to war. Journalist Madeline Bunting reports that female journalists were suddenly
wiped off the pages and screens post-9/11, allowing male voices to dominate the debate. Arguing that 9/11 coverage
marginalized women, Bunting claims: This is reinforced by the impression that virtually all the people involved in
handling this crisis are men. It is men who perpetuated this violence and men who organize the response…Virtually the
only female faces in the media at the moment are the victims; women are cast as passive.
(2004, 52) Thus, history repeats itself, with men justifying war via the claim it is necessary in order to protect women. Yet,
as feminist scholar Iris Marion Young notes, the “protector-protected logic” (2003, 16) is inherently unequal and is so
along gendered lines. The women in supposed need of protection, both the Afghani and Iraqi women who needed to be
saved from their supposedly oppressive religious beliefs and cultural practices, as well as American, British, and other first
world women, who supposedly needed protection from evil terrorists, are situated in the unequal role of protected. What
becomes apparent is that militarization not only depends on certain constructions of masculinity, but also on certain
constructions of femininity. War-waging is dependent on women “as mothers of potential
recruits, women as girlfriends and wives of soldiers, women as patriots, women as voters, women
as entertainers and prostitutes, women as workers in defense industries…and at least a few
women to serve inside the military” (Enloe 2004, 148). Women, in their various capacities, have
been historically just as crucial to war waging, war resistance, and peace building as men,
yet they are not coded as such by societal institutions and societal image makers—rather,
they are the (silent) bodies war is fought over, the bodies that need protecting and saving.
Along with coding those on the pro-war side as upholding the virtues of a masculinized, non-cowardly mind, the rallying
cry for war drew on a metaphorical representation of the U.S. as an innocent body that had been viciously attacked by
inhuman bullies. The media did not unpack the long history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East nor touch on the fact
that U.S. leaders had worked in collusion with Saddam and others to help create the very terror cells they condemned.
Rather, the mainstream media narrative helped fuel the early war cries by framing those in the U.S. as innocent and those
in the Middle East as guilty. 9/11 was continually represented as unprovoked, with no reference to the fact that the U.S.
helped to create the Taliban or, as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan puts it, the fact that
“Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed boy of the CIA” (2004, 37). Despite various urgings from the international
community and humanitarian organizations, 9/11 continued to be represented in ways that fueled the us versus them
mentality, left the history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East woefully unexamined, and failed to address mounting
evidence that 9/11 may have been at least a partially orchestrated attack that was facilitated in order to bolster support for
a war that U.S. leaders had been itching to fight since at least the early 1980s (Griffin 2004). Not surprisingly, the falling
of the phallic Twin Towers was responded to as a direct attack on U.S. masculinity—as if the fall of those
towers castrated, or feminized, a key masculine site of the U.S. landscape, an artery of U.S. global capitalist
power. As feminist musician Ani DiFranco reads the event, 9/11 brought America “to its knees/ after strutting around for
a century/ without saying thank you/ or please” (2004, 201). More specifically, 9/11 placed the U.S., a country imbued
with hyper- masculinity, into a position of (feminine) vulnerability. The events at the Pentagon accord to this positioning—
as the hub of national defense, the Pentagon can be read as a key site of masculine power. If one wants to take this
metaphor further, a supposed enemy plane (phallus) rammed into a bastion of patriarchal power in the U.S. When
reading the events through this gendered frame, 9/11 can be read as a violent attack, or rape even, of U.S.
masculinity. In keeping with this metaphor, as if his woman had been violated, or the size of his penis
questioned, the president (with many Americans backing him) got out his big guns and set out for
vengeance. This masculinized response concurs with the tendency of the U.S. to act as if it is the mind of the
globe that should rightfully control other nations as if they were mere bodies to bend to its will. Further, if one
considers the increasing data that suggests 9/11 may not have been enacted by renegade “terrorists,” the attack can be read
as the minds of the world using socalled terrorist bodies in order to do their “dirty work” and handily turn the tide of
public opinion in favor of war (Tarpley 2005). The U.S. government, with Bush as “mastermind,” responded to 9/11 with a
singular mindset, one that constructed its decision as the only one, its word as last—a mindset that has been coded as
masculine (and therefore correct, powerful, and logical). In the rallying call for war, this masculinized response generally
characterized the U.S. as a strong warrior hero and, more specifically, represented the women of Afghanistan as damsels
in distress. This immediate turn to a military response as valid begs questioning. Rather than turning to vengeance as a
first course of action (the traditionally masculine response), perhaps communication, diplomacy, and weighing of all
possible options (the feminized response) could have been entertained. Feminist scholars specializing in
militarization have argued that war is often championed as the brave (masculine) response, while
diplomacy is feminized. Decisions about when and if to go to war are enmeshed in a militarized
dogma that acts as if matters of national security and homeland protection can only be addressed
by military force—anything less is taking the wimpy, coward’s (read feminine) way out. Feminist
scholar Carol Cohn notes that such a stance constitutes a “refusal to acknowledge the inevitability of our vulnerability”
(1993, 265). And, as vulnerability is typically coded as feminine, it also constitutes a refusal to consider femininity as a lens
through which to enact justice. Rather, anything feminine is repudiated as powerless. However, if the world were to enact
justice in ways that have been characterized as feminine (via diplomacy, peaceful protest, negotiation, and compromise),
perhaps we would not be living on a planet endlessly at war. This is not to say that women are more peaceful—rather, that
acts and communications directed at keeping the peace are codified as feminine, and, as such, repudiated. As discussed
above, an over-riding metaphorical frame in the current war posits the U.S. as the hyper-masculine warrior hero who
needs to bring the wayward body of Iraq into line. But, as philosopher George Lakoff noted in regards to Gulf War I,
“Metaphors can kill.” Lakoff’s work shows how metaphors function as powerful
conceptual structures that create certain frames or narratives within our brains. He
notes that cognitive science has found the brain prefers these metaphorical frames to fact. Thus,
“[w]hen the facts don’t fit the frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored” (Lakoff 2003). For
example, because the U.S. military is framed as heroic, when details of mass rapes of Iraqi women and female service
members are reported, the mythic framing of soldiers as heroes overrides the facts (Hassan 2005). One of the overriding
metaphors assessed by Lakoff seems to be particularly pertinent to the current war: the conceptual frame that suggests a
nation is a person. This bodying forth of a nation in one particular person is evident in the conception of Iraq as Saddam
and the war on terror as an attack on the elusive, evil machinations of bin Laden. By configuring the war as a battle
between global master-minds, a sort of ultra-masculine shoot-out narrative is enacted. Such narratives usefully hide the
facts about the war (as well as hide women). Actual bodies of war are further put under erasure through the narrative of
so-called terrorism as a disease threatening our national health. Egan clarifies: As in other wartime conflicts, America at
this point in time metaphorically takes on the quality of a body that is under attack from invasion and needs to be
protected from the other who can infect the life blood or livelihood of a nation. (2002, 16) The U.S., in addition to being
constructed as a healthy body under threat from non-Western infection, can also be read as a virginal body raped by the
evil of terrorism. In the same way that the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait was characterized as rape, so too has the metaphor
of besmirched femininity been drawn upon to bolster support for this war. In fact, near the start of the Iraq war, the story
of the capture and rescue of Jessica Lynch served to fuel the ire against Iraqis. Drawing on the damsel in distress
archetype, Lynch was repeatedly referred to as “America’s sweetheart” and an “all American girl.” Her portrayal, as
scholars Laura C. Prividera and John W. Howard argue, “served to re-create the feminine homeland/ masculine-protector
relationship” (2006, 35). As they further argue, Lynch “was constructed as a symbol of an endangered United States”
(2006, 36). The fact that her all-American, feminine purity was represented as endangered due to Iraqi brutes falls into a
longstanding historical tradition that justifies violence against the so-called enemy/rapist. This type of savior narrative is
also evident, theorist Stephen Ducat notes, “when images on CNN show proud soldiers writing the names of fire-fighter
and policemen heroes on phallus-shaped bombs used to penetrate…enemy territory” (2004, 58). In such acts, aircraft
carriers and missiles are metaphorically constructed as the ultra-powerful, unstoppable U.S. phallus. And, like Telnaes’
cartoon discussed above, which depicts the media as a huge microphone phallus, the U.S. media thrusts its
version of the story on the rest of the world, penetrating the globe with the
image of the U.S. as savior. In so doing, the media also conveniently evades the
bodily realities of war. Cohn discusses in “Wars, Wimps, and Women” that, in order to make war decisions
palatable, when the death toll of certain actions are calculated “you do not discuss the bloody reality behind the
calculations” (2007, 593). Cohn notes, “Most defense intellectuals believe that emotion and description of human reality
distort the process required to think well about nuclear weapons and warfare” (2007, 594). The gendered logistics of the
above quote reveal that emotion (codified as feminine) has no place in thinking (codified as male) about war. Within this
masculinized war discourse, a number of things remain unspoken. First, “Any words that express an emotional awareness
of the desperate human reality behind the sanitized abstractions of death and destruction” must not be uttered (Cohn
2007, 594). Second, the outcome of using certain weapons: …may be spoken of only in the most clinical and abstract
terms, leaving no room to imagine a seven-year-old boy with his flesh melting away from his bones or a toddler with his
skin hanging down in strips. (Cohn 2007, 594) In other words, human lives and human bodies need to be kept out of the
picture, both literally and figuratively. Thus, while, on the one hand, the current war relies on a bodily metaphor that
characterizes the U.S., women, and female soldiers such as Jessica Lynch as bodies in need of protection, on the other
hand, the war also relies heavily on a narrative that disembodies. When politicians and the media refer to homeland
security, terrorist threats, or weapons of mass destruction, or use phrases such as “freedom is on the march,” we are
witnessing the life–threatening use of disembodied language. This out-of-sight, out-of-mind Iraq War culture, along with
the lack of media coverage of cultural resistance against the Iraq War, is distinctive in the way in which it has consistently
put the bodies of war (and particularly the bodies and needs of women) under erasure. Theorist Judith Butler’s
reconceptualizing of the abject in Bodies that Matter offers a useful way in which to read Iraq war bodies. Butler names
abjection “an enabling disruption” and queries: [H]ow does that materialisation of the norm in bodily formation produce a
domain of abjected bodies, a field of deformation, which in failing to qualify as fully human fortifies those regulatory
norms? What challenges does that excluded and abjected realm produce to a symbolic hegemony that might force a radical
rearticulation of what qualifies as bodies that matter, ways of living that count as “life,” lives worth protecting, lives worth
saving, lives worth grieving? (1993, 16) Currently, various cultural bodies fail to qualify as fully human (female bodies,
non-Western bodies, non-military bodies) and thus fortify the regulatory norms of masculinity, westernization, and
militarization. When certain types of bodies are deemed as Other or less worthy, or, as
Butler would term it, “as lives not worth living,” they become subject to treatment that
denies not only their bodily materiality, but also their very humanity. When this happens, as it is
currently, certain bodies become subject to imprisonment, starvation, rape, and torture. As Butler contends, abjected
bodies are not constructed via cultural discourses as bodies that matter in society (1993). These bodies are not given the
same cultural weight or importance as normal—that is, white, Western, militarized—bodies. The torture at Abu Ghraib,
the massacres of Iraqi civilians, and the rape of female soldiers serve as all too literal examples of abjection. Butler
emphasizes, “The abjection of certain kinds of bodies…does make itself known in policy and politics, and to live as such a
body in the world is to live in the shadowy regions of ontology” (Meijer and Prins 1998, 277). Afghani and Iraqi citizens,
war refugees, war prisoners, and basically anyone who is not pro-war or pro-military must live in these shadowy regions.
Queer theorist Lauren Berlant insists that the process of abjection relies on a “hygienic governmentality” that involves “a
ruling bloc’s dramatic attempt to maintain its hegemony by asserting that an abject population threatens the common
good and must be rigorously governed and monitored by all sectors of society” (1997, 175). Or, in other words, those in
power define those they wish to have power over as unhygienic. For example, by codifying Iraqis as dirty, immoral
terrorists, U.S. rulers are able to justify their imperialistic actions in the region. However, Butler’s theory suggests these
abjected bodies can offer a challenge to the injustice of this symbolic hegemony. A crucial first step in challenging the
dominant discourse of war as necessary is a reclaiming of the types of bodies abjected by culture, a making visible of the
bodily toll of war. In her work, Butler argues that certain bodies are codified as Other, as bodies that do not matter both in
the metaphorical sense (i.e., they are useless to the body politic) and the literal sense (they are not represented as fully
human—they are mere bodies, not minds). Butler’s claim thus calls for a radical renegotiation of who/what counts as a
body that matters in society. This claim constructs corporeality as a key site for resistance. Abjected bodies, in their
various metaphorical and material manifestations, can resist the power of the mind via an insistence that the body cannot
be written out of political matters. Like the young student at Tiananman Square who would not give in to the approaching
tanks, bodies the whole world over must refuse to be rolled over by the wheels of the military industrial complex. Many
bodies are in fact enacting such refusal; the bodies of the world are announcing their unease with our era of escalating war.
Contributing to a long history of feminist and antiimperialist activism, people such as Cindy Sheehan and Arundhati Roy
and groups such as CodePink, Baring Witness, and Raging Grannies are attempting to resist the increasing militarization
of the globe through their activism and writing. Sheehan, now running for U.S th. Congress, has written numerous books
criticizing U.S. militarism and continues to speak out against war across the nation. Roy examines the way militarized
imperialism has led to the starvation, genocide, and mass displacement of many bodies of the world. Such activists
consistently attempt to reembody the politics of war by revealing the very real ways war effects bodies. While Sheehan
focuses on death tolls and bodily injury, CodePink focuses on how militarism is predicated on a hyper-masculinity that
often translates into violence against female bodies. Baring Witness is a group that relies heavily on what I term
“embodied activism.” Claiming “in service of peace we are exposing the flesh all humans share,” Baring Witness enacts
peace activism by forming huge peace symbols and words of peace out of anywhere from 7 to over 100 nude bodies
(BaringWitness.org). These
activists are working towards a much needed reclamation of
those deemed as mere bodies. By bringing attention to e vulnerability and beauty of the
human body, to the bodies of the many wounded and killed Iraqi civilians and soldiers as well as
the wounded, maimed, and psychologically damaged bodies of soldiers returning back to the U.S.,
peace activists help the public realize the bodily costs of war. The Grandmothers Against the War arrested
in Times Square in October 2005, the people who camped outside Crawford at Camp Casey, the many people who have
marched in cities across the U.S. to oppose this war, the mothers of soldiers such as Sheehan and Sara Rich who speak out
about their children’s murder or rape all serve to wake the U.S. from its disembodied slumber. If the media, the
public, and global power structures actually championed these activist bodies, we
would have a very different world. Yet the bodies (or rather minds) actively refuse to
reclaim these bodies and even work to put them under erasure—for how could corporate greed
march unimpeded across the globe if billions of bodies blocked it? How could the military
industrial complex keep its stranglehold on the planet if the majority of human
bodies resisted it? By denying the majority of the world’s population matters, global sites of
power are able to orchestrate domination of the many by the few. While the media offers only very limited
coverage of these activist bodies, much war protesting of late is hyper-embodied. Drawing not only on bodily acts such as
walking, fasting, and blockading, recent activism also highlights the corporeal effects of war waging and the resulting
violence and grief—from tears to hunger strikes to cross country walks to nude protests, the body is being politicized for
peace-building purposes. Scholar Julia Sudbury noted in a recent address at the 2006 National Women’s Studies
Association conference, “We need to acknowledge the wounds of empire on our own bodies.” As Sudbury suggests, we
must remember that empire is not a thing of the past, although it may go under prettier names, such as globalization. We
thus, as Sudbury contends, need to consider how the current era is wounding our bodies and doing so in ways that
contribute to societal injustice on a vast scale. While many bodies of the world (and particularly white, western, male,
heterosexual bodies) have the luxury of forgetting the reality that they do, in fact, live in a body, the majority cannot so
easily forget their corporeal selves, cannot write off their poverty, hunger, illness, and injury. However, even for those of
whom bodily forgetting is possible, there does seem to be a growing recognition of bodily matters—a growing concern
about AIDS, reproductive freedom, infant mortality rates, and global genocide. While there may be a disconnect between
those in privileged positions of power and the world populace, this disconnect cannot last forever, not if the world’s bodies
refuse to let it. When the body lives in its own individual, armoured shell, it is cut off from the needs and desires of other
bodies, it ceases to be a lived materiality; instead, it becomes an object to be disciplined and controlled to fit in with the
various mandates of society.
 DRONES/LAWS
It’s not about who they’re sold to—the existence of autonomous weapons
technology is steeped in masculine bias
Acheson 19 – Director of Reaching Critical Will, leads WILPF’s work on stigmatizing war,
Horos BA in Peace and Conflict studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Politics (Ray
Acheson, “Gender and Autonomous Weapon Systems,” March 2019,
http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/gender-and-aws.pdf)//cpark
Autonomous weapons are being developed in the context of the aforementioned norms
of gender and power. Scholars of gender and technology have long argued that gender relations are
“materialized in technology”. That is, the meaning and character (the norms) of masculinity
and femininity are “embedded” in machines. These scholars argue that technological products bear their
creators mark. If technology is developed and utilized primarily by men operating
within a framework of violent masculinity, their creations will be instilled with
that framework of thought, knowledge, language, and interpretation. Erin Hunt of Mines
Action Canada has noted that “human biases are baked into the algorithms and the data we
use to train a machine learning program often reflects our own patriarchal
society with its class and race issues.” She argues, “One thing to keep in mind is that only around
0.0004% of global population has the skills and education needed to create [artificial
intelligence] programing and most of those people were born into pretty privileged
circumstances. Similarly, a recent estimate done by WIRED with Element AI found that only 12% of leading
machine learning researchers were women.” In this context, autonomous weapons, as
tools of violence and of war, will likely have specific characteristics that may
simultaneously reinforce and undermine hegemonic gender norms. This in turn may have
implications for the notion of men as expendable and vulnerable, as predators and protectors, and pose serious
challenges for breaking down gender essentialisms or achieving gender equality or
gender justice in a broader context. PROJECTING “POWER WITHOUT VULNERABILITY” If we look at
how armed drones are used and thought about now, we can see that the development of fully autonomous
weapons present similar risks. The argument for these weapons is similar: drones and autonomous weapons are described
as weapons that can limit casualties for the deploying force, and that can limit civilian casualties in areas where they are
used because they will be more precise. It is a typical argument from the perspective of violent
masculinity: those using the weapon can deploy violence without fear of facing physical
danger themselves; and in turn argue that it will actually result in less violence. Yet as we
have seen with drones, this—at least, the later argument—is far from the case. The tools and procedures used for
determining targets for “signature strikes”—attacks based on “producing
packages of information that become icons for killable bodies on the basis of
behavior analysis and a logic of preemption” 1 —have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties in drone
strikes. The same risks apply to fully autonomous weapons. If weapons without meaningful human control are deployed
on the battlefield or a policing situation, programmed to target and engage people on the basis of software and sensors,
the risks of mistaken identity or unlawful engagement run high. It is not at all clear to tech workers,
scientists, academics, or other experts that weaponized robots will be able to comply with
international humanitarian law or other rules of engagement.2
 ECON
Patriarchy and capitalism are interrelated forms of dominance that exert
control over feminine subjects—their econ impacts are propaganda to feed
the ongoing cycle of capital accumulation that primarily benefits male
subjects
Janina Urban und Andrea Pürckhauer 12-18-2016 (Janina Urban is an independent
researcher at the Institute for Societal Development in Germany. Andrea Pürckhauer
coordinated the development of the Exploring Economics platform as a research
assistant. She studied political science and international economics. "Feminist
Economics," Exploring Economics Organization https://www.exploring-
economics.org/en/orientation/feminist-economics/ //EH)
Core elements Feminist economics analyses the interrelationship between gender and the
economy. Thereby, feminist economics also takes the unpaid, non-market intermediated part of the economy and
society into account and examines the driving forces behind common dichotomies
such as economic–social, productive–reproductive, masculine–feminine, paid–
unpaid or public–private. Moreover, feminist economics analyses patriarchy and capitalism as
interrelated forms of dominance . Against this background, questions arise about the
distribution and disposal of property, income, power, knowledge and the own body. Since
liberal and constructivist research traditions exist alongside critical ones within feminist economics, it cannot be
considered a coherent paradigm. Yet, all of these approaches deal with reproductive labour and care. Furthermore,
feminist economics analyses the relationships between state policy, science, language,
growth and gender relations. Feminist economics criticises that economics is blind with
respect to women's experiences and highlights that women are hardly represented in the
economic discipline, which in turn affects scientific findings. Hence, feminist economics point out the
fact that scientific findings, common ideas, and society as a whole are all formed by
power relations. For instance, the analysis of gender relations has only slowly entered the field of economics even
though the women’s movement has been being active for centuries. Central questions focused on by feminist economics
are: Why have housework and care not been recognized as work in economics since the
19th century and why are they not dealt with in economic theories? Which dynamics drive and
emerge from the widespread dichotomies economic–social, productive–reproductive, male–female, paid–unpaid, public–
private? What is women’s current situation with respect to labour-market participation and wage income and what are the
social processes behind this situation? Why does the image of a rational, egoistic, objective, utility
maximizing homo economicus rather correspond to a masculine stereotype and what
does this mean for scientific findings? What are the gender specific effects of
macroeconomic policies and how would discussions on macroeconomic aspects, such as
public spending, growth or international trade look if economics was not blind with
respect to gender relations? 2. Terminology, analysis and conception of the economy For feminist economics,
the understanding of labour, which does not only comprise wage labour but also housework and Care, as well as the the
(non) payment of work and their distribution among genders are central elements. For feminist economics, the economy
is the way in which humans collectively organize in order to guarantee their survival (cf. Power 2004, 7). By working and
using natural resources, humans reproduce their livelihood, through the production of goods as well as through
individual, social and generative reproduction. Reproductive labour comprises market- and non-market-intermediated,
paid and unpaid work. Reproductive labour includes for instance raising children, caring for the elderly, purchasing and
preparing meals, cleaning, whereas generative reproduction denotes the bearing of children (cf. Bauhardt 2012, 5, 6).
Caring activities are just named ‘care’ and have different dynamics than industrial
production. The ‘product’ only comes into being if its recipient is present. Moreover, its quality is heavily impacted by
rationalization, for example, if machines are used to save time, since the quality of caring activities emerges from human
contact (Madörin 2010, 87; Bauhardt 2012, 5-6). Even if the productive sphere always requires a reproductive one, since it
is based on the availability of Care (and natural resources), up to now, economics has primarily analysed the market-
intermediated and paid part of the economy. However, reproductive labour is increasingly visible, partly because this type
of labour is now increasingly marketized and partly because women participate more often in the labour market. Due to
this ‘feminization’ of labour, the feminist research tradition has increasingly gained attention in economics. Feminist
revisions of Marxist theories, amongst others developed within the feminist movements,
worked intensively on the concept of labour and the role of the reproductive sphere in
the production process. They take labour, including reproductive labour, as the source of
value. Accordingly, labour creates not only material but also use value. In industrial production, which is primarily
carried out by men, the owners of the means of production appropriate the profit. This profit represents the difference
between the wage, which the workers are paid for their reproduction, and real value of the products they produced. The
wage covers expenses for, for example, the food and rent of the whole family, but does not remunerate the reproductive
labour mostly done by women (Federici 2012, 25ff.). During the transition from fordism to post-fordism, the ‘division of
labour’ between men and women was broken up and since then has been permanently changing (Bauhardt, 2012, 5–7).
Despite those economic and social changes, feminist economists emphasize that power relations remain in place. First,
power relations articulate themselves in the form of low payment – buzzword gender pay gap – or the double burden of
women, who apart from wage labour carry out most of the reproductive labour. Second, they have expanded extensively,
both internationally –, for example, via global care chains – and intensively – via the marketization of activities that
formerly have not been executed on the market. Moreover, many feminist economists highlight that capitalist production
is not only based on the exploitation of women but also on the exploitation of nature. Consequently, women’s contribution
to the economy (reproductive labour) and that of nature (resources and sinks) are systematically undervalued (cf.
Biesecker et al., 2012, 4). Beyond the Marxist analysis, neoclassical feminist theories mainly deal with questions of
women’s labour-market participation and their wage income. Neoclassical economics focuses on the results of individual
maximization decisions and evaluations carried out according to the marginal principle as well as criteria of efficiency
(Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 55–57). In such a framework, the exclusion of women from the labour market could be
regarded as inefficient and as reducing welfare, since not all persons capable of working participate in the labour market
(e.g. Harriet Taylor Mill already in 1851, in Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 18–21 or currently Maier 2004, 33). Explanations
of the increased labour-market participation of women point to better education, higher productivity in households due to
machines, lower birth rates and higher labour demand especially in the service sector (Knapp, 2002). The lower wages
that women receive on the labour market are explained in terms of their concentration in certain sectors, for example, in
the service sector, and their lower investment in human capital because of potentially taking care of the children. While
neoclassical economics developed those explanations, feminist economists emphasise that the described patterns heavily
depend on the institutional framework, for example, social role models of families and women, which
are socially negotiated rather than a result of a market process (Maier 2004, 29). Many feminist
economics base their work on feminist constructivism and its description of the image of women and gender (Maier 2004,
46). They assume that in particular ideas and institutions determine how people live together, since knowledge claims and
conceptions are (pre)determined by language and perception.
 GENDER VIOLENCE IMPACTS
They construct women in [X country] as needing protection—this flips
solvency and makes interventionism worse
Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, 2015, “Women, weapons, and war”,
https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-
content/uploads/2018/07/Publication_Women-weapons-and-war.pdf E.G.
Upholding ideas of women only as weak and in need of protection is an
efficient way to enable their continued exclusion from authoritative social and political
roles, which also weakens the potential effectiveness of those processes. The constant
reproduction of these norms have concrete effects on how women are positioned in
society, and as such undermine the promotion of women’s “full and effective”
participation advanced in the BMS5 outcome document. BMS5 commits states to
promote the role of women in preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in
SALW, including through access to training, as well as through their meaningful
participation and representation in policymaking, planning, and implementation
processes related to SALW. In contradiction to this commitment, the participation of
women is not included in either the ATT or the UNPoA. In both instruments, women are
treated as victims and grouped with children. States and civil society groups alike
sometimes seem to alternate their framing of women as agents and subjects depending
on forum, audience, or political change being sought. This has serious implications for
actual policy design and implementation. It also affects the quality of
women’s participation in various situations. The idea of what is effective
participation has not been publicly raised in the development of these instruments. But it
is evident that the framing of women as weak and vulnerable is often used to construct “a
feminized and devalued notion of peace as unattainable, unrealistic, passive, and (it
might be said) undesirable.”12 Ideas about gender shape, limit, and distort political
discourse and political processes through which decisions are made— especially when it
comes to armed conflict. The devaluation of certain perspectives, ideas, and, interests
because they are marked as “feminine,” coupled with the equation of masculinity with
violence gives war positive value as a show of masculine power. At the same time the
perception that not going to war is weak makes it more difficult for political leaders to
take decisions not to embark on military action. Similarly, such constructions
make it more difficult to cut military spending or engage in
disarmament.13 This means that even if women do participate in
negotiations or discussions on matters related to peace and security,
their positions or ideas are often forced to conform to the dominant
perspective—underpinned by notions of violent masculinity—in order
to be taken seriously. This is not to say that women bring one perspective to a
conversation and men bring another. It rather highlights the gendered understandings of
war and peace, disarmament and armament, strength and weakness, which dictate what
is considered “acceptable” by the dominant perspective in such conversations.
 HEGEMONY
US power as a foreign policy imperative is rooted in elite masculinity
Stachowitsch, 12
Stachowitsch, Saskia. - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Saskia Stachowitsch is the Scientific Director of
the oiip as well as Professor in International Relations and Senior Research Fellow
(FWF/Austrian Science Fund, Elise-Richter-Program) at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Vienna. She served as an Affiliated Scholar at the
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley,
and as a Visiting Post-doctoral Fellow at the School of Sociology, Politics and
International Studies at the University of Bristol.
“Military Gender Integration and Foreign Policy in the United States: A Feminist
International Relations Perspective.” Security Dialogue, vol. 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 305–
321. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26301919.

Conventional foreign policy analysis has integrated gender only at the empirical level,
with gender differences in foreign policy attitudes being a central concern (Fite et al.,
1990; Togeby, 1994). In contrast, feminist international relations scholars suggest not
only that gender matters in foreign policy, but also that foreign policy is itself a gendered
process and discourse. This breeds a broader understanding of gender as 'a system of
symbolic meanings that creates social hierarchies based on perceived association with
masculine and feminine characteristics' (Sjoberg, 2009a: 186). Such an approach
provides a way to highlight the gendered assumptions underlying foreign policy
discourse and the concrete effects on women's status in the realm of foreign policy.
Tickner (1992: 3), for example, argues that foreign policy is so strongly associated with
masculinity (particularly, but not only, in realist international relations theory) that
women are excluded from international politics. Dean (2001) has shown that gender has
been significant in shaping US foreign policy. In a case study of the Vietnam War, he
concludes that a certain kind of 'elite masculinity' (Dean, 2001 : 18) contributed to the
escalation of the war and helped create and reproduce a patriotism that regarded
military intervention as crucial to US global power. Building upon these theoretical and
empirical insights, this study links the gendered assumptions inherent in foreign policy
concepts and strategies to the status of women in the armed forces in a case study of
military gender integration in the United States. It particularly looks at gender in 'war
stories' - 'narratives told about war - why we go to war, who our enemies are, what we are
fighting for, and how wars will be won' (Hunt, 2010: 116). Foreign policy doctrines and
concepts are read as such narratives that are 'used to forward problematic political
agendas while simultaneously silencing other key issues' (Hunt, 2010: 118). The objective
is to show how the gendering of international politics is intertwined with women's roles
in warfare and ultimately with their (in) equality in military institutions. This is done by
relating foreign policy discourses and practices between 1991 and 2011 to shifts in
military gender policies and discourses on gender integration. The following research
agendas of feminist international relations guide the study: making women visible as
part of/affected by international politics; showing how the international is gendered; and
highlighting the instrumentalization of women's issues in international politics. Feminist
scholars have made clear that these levels of analysis are intertwined and their dynamics
mutually enforcing. The gendered assumption and discourses in the international arena
reflect as well as shape women's lives and structures of gender inequality. The analysis
looks at different levels of interaction between military gender relations and foreign
policy: (1) integration as a policy issue in political power straggles over the course of
foreign policy (between government and opposition, but also between the political and
military leaderships); (2) employment of gendered discourses and ideologies in foreign
policy doctrines and debates to support the interests of different groups of actors; and
(3) gender equality as a rationale in foreign policy discourses - for example, as
legitimization of war. It is argued that foreign policy is an important context influencing
military gender relations. While no definite causal relationship is implied, it will be
shown that foreign policy has some degree of independence in this regard, in some
instances breeding changes in gender policies that dominate manpower needs and
domestic politics. By making the link between integration and foreign policy, the study
aims to contribute to feminist international relations by clarifying how gendered
discourses and practices in the international arena are linked to domestic gender
relations - that is, how foreign policy as a gendered process relates to gender-based
inclusions and exclusions at the state level. This combines the feminist goal of
addressing gender inequality in institutions of relevance to global politics and the
theoretically more advanced project of showing how international politics is gendered
structurally and discursively. For this purpose, research on gendered discourses and
narratives is connected to the study of social power relations and women's positions in
national and international institutions.
 HUMAN RIGHTS
Generic understandings of human rights mask the different realities of
women and how rights are weaponized against their very existence
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
Although Mackinnon criticises existing human rights discourses, she is careful to stress that the idea of rights is
of tremendous ethical importance and that the growth of human rights discourses has
provided vital resources for political resistance and legal protection of individuals within
states and internationally. From a feminist point of view, it is clearly better to have rape
recognised explicitly as a crime against humanity than for it to continue to be regarded
as just another unfortunate side effect of war. However, at the same time, Mackinnon sees
the resources offered by generic understandings of human rights as being
seriously inadequate because they mask the differential realities of women's
position and therefore effectively disempower their supposed beneficiaries. This argument
is parallel to arguments developed in the context of feminist struggles over rights within the state, that in order for
equality of right for women to be a reality, women need rights which are specific to them
and which, when institutionalised, will help to deconstruct the gendered relations of
power in which women are currently caught. Mackinnon’s ideal retains the idea of a
'single standard of human dignity and entitlement' that has always been central to rights-
based thinking, but the meaning of this single standard is interpreted in terms which do
not rely on the notion of a universal sameness to underpin the single standard .
Mackinnon takes the ground of rights as being 19 the actual power differentials between
different groups (specifically in this case, man and women) and the struggles of the disempowered
to improve their subordinate position. Rights are therefore a political weapon as
much as a moral ideal, which can be used themselves to alter the realities we inhabit. In this respect, therefore,
Mackinnon’s position is closely aligned with the struggles of feminists to extend recognition of women’s human rights
within international affairs referred to in Section One above. Another influential example of a feminist justice ethics is the
argument put forward by Martha Nussbaum in her book Women and Human Development (2000). In this book,
Nussbaum finds the grounds for certain (limited) universal ethical values and claims in a set of human ‘capabilities’ that
she argues are foundational for the flourishing of any human life. She then uses the example of the lives of
women in developing countries as a way to exemplify how the capabilities approach can
be used as a kind of yardstick to critique existing practice in different national contexts
and to provide fundamental principles for progress, in particular progress for women. At the heart
of Nussbaum’s feminist justice ethics is a commitment to the intrinsic value of humanity
and the right of every individual to be enabled to live ‘humanly’, that is in such a way that they are
not simply subordinated to the ends of others but are enabled to exercise choices in the way that they live their lives. At
present, according to Nussbaum, women in developing countries are particularly likely to
experience their lives as subordinated to others, including the demands of patriarchal
cultures and of exploitative conditions of work. For this reason, she argues against
approaches to morality that base themselves in cultural difference (Okin 1999). In spite of her
critique of communitarianism, however, Nussbaum’s particular version of moral universalism is,
she argues, less prone to problems associated with other kinds of justice ethics 20 because
it does not so much elaborate a substantive set of moral principles that all must follow,
but rather specifies ‘human capabilities’ that are inherently enabling rather than
prescriptive, and that can be the ongoing subject of debate. This still allows room for culture to play an important
ethical role (Nussbaum 2000: 7, 70-71). The capabilities that Nussbaum outlines as of universal ethical significance are
listed below: 1. Life – ability to live out a natural life span 2. Bodily Health – ability to have good health including
reproductive health, adequate nourishment, shelter 3. Bodily integrity – freedom of movement, security from physical
violation, sexual and reproductive autonomy 4. Senses, imagination, thought – ability to use all of these fully in an
educated way 5. Emotions – ability to be attached to others, to have a capacity for love and affection 6. Practical Reason –
to be able to reflect rationally, identify one’s own conception of the good life and plan for it 7. Affiliation – ability to live
with others in personal relationships and social communities 8. Other species – ability to live in relation to nature 9. Play
– ability to enjoy recreation 10. Control over one’s material and political environment – ability to participate in political
choices, ability to hold property, to work on equal terms with others. (Nussbaum 2000: 78-81). Nussbaum uses the above
list as a reference point for making judgments about the actual lives and conditions of women in developing countries,
using India as her specific 21 example. It becomes clear very quickly that the capabilities approach is ethically very
demanding, in that it requires the institutionalisation of equality across a range of domains even to live up to threshold
conditions. For example, the capability to live in affiliation with others is, in Nussbaum’s view, fatally undermined by
status-based discrimination on grounds of ‘race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, caste, ethnicity, or national origin’
(Nussbaum 79). Even though Mackinnon’s and Nussbaum’s arguments are very different they both typify an ethics of
justice in the sense that they impose limits in principle on what can count as a morally valid account of justice or rights for
women in the international domain. And also in the sense that radical changes at the level of international law and
institutions are needed in order to fulfil requirements of justice for women. Feminist ethics of care and of
justice relate to the dominant vocabularies of feminist activism in the international domain over
the past forty years. In many ways the text of UNSCR 1325 combines these vocabularies, stressing women’s distinctive
ethical qualities as peacemakers on the one hand, and arguing for institutionalising gender mainstreaming and women’s
human rights on the other. There is, however, another strand of feminist ethical thinking, which challenges both care and
justice arguments from the point of view of feminist difference. Feminist difference ethics is inspired by objections to the
universalisation of particular western historical experiences that underpin the ethics of care and of justice, and objections
to the kinds of politics associated with those ethics. It is theoretically influenced by poststructuralist feminism on the one
hand, and postcolonial feminism on the other (Mohanty et al 1991; Spivak 1999). Difference feminists argue that care
ethics 22 essentialises a specific idea of women and femininity that is grounded in the history and culture of western
societies, and its model of familial and community relations. At the same time, they argue that justice feminists
conflate the universal with western, liberal ideals of human rights for women. In both
cases, it is argued, this means that these versions of feminist ethics are insufficiently
sensitive to the ethical significance of major differences and inequalities between
women. Difference feminists insist on the ethical significance of the fact that all women
are not the same, either in virtue of being women or in virtue of being human (Jabri 1999;
Peterson 1990; Butler 2004).
Recognizing the struggles of women to achieve body integrity is especially
vital in human rights discussions concerned with a universal subject—the
distinctions separating feminized subjects are missing from debates on
human rights
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
Feminist struggles for equality of right beyond the boundaries of specific states seek to
utilise the existing principles and protocols enshrined in international law. This has proved
difficult partly because the recognition of rights in international law is notoriously poorly
translated into the actual practices of many states, whilst at the same time states themselves are the
only effective enforcers of international law. However, it is partly also because such rights are understood as
human rights and feminists have questioned the capacity of international human rights
declarations and protocols to recognise and address ways in which women are
excluded from power and vulnerable to harms because they are women (Ashworth 1999;
MacKinnon 2006). Ashworth notes how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the
covenants on civil and political, social and economic rights respectively have been ineffective even in
recognising the violation (or vulnerability to violation) of women's rights (Ashworth 1999). In
the case of civil and political rights, women's rights to bodily integrity are routinely violated in the
context of widespread practices, for example, of domestic violence. In the case of socio-economic
rights, women's rights are particularly badly affected by women's systematically
disadvantaged position in relation to property ownership, waged and unwaged labour
(Peterson 1990; Ashworth 1999; Waring 1999; Peterson 2003). Yet until feminist groups began to
campaign for more explicit recognition of the differential position of women as rights
bearers, there was no accepted understanding that international human rights might
need to be specified as women's rights or vice versa. Since the onset of the UN Decade for Women in 1975,
international organizations have been subject to internal and external pressure from
feminist campaigners to make sure that women are explicitly included in the category
'human'. This was manifested in developments such as the 1979 UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), and in development initiatives concerning women and development and gender and
development in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as high profile transnational campaigns around issues such as violence
against women and female circumcision. The focus on women’s human rights was intensified in the
wake of the systematic rape of women that featured in the conflicts in Bosnia in the mid
1990s, which encouraged feminist groups to campaign for the international recognition
of rape as a war crime, and reaffirmed feminist commitment to the creation of an
International Criminal Court (ICC), and to the need for the UN to explicitly address the
specificity of women’s experience of war (Stiglmayer 1995; Mackinnon 2006). UNSCR 1325 on ‘Women,
Peace and Security’, unanimously passed in the year 2000, reflected, and responded to, the concerns of 1990s feminist
international activists about the gendered presuppositions and effects of war. This was the first time that women had been
the focus of a UN resolution in relation to peace and security. The resolution was hailed as a significant
victory for feminist activism, and was preceded and succeeded by the close involvement
of feminist groups in lobbying for, drafting, reporting on and monitoring the Resolution
and its progress. Full accounts of the history and content of 1325 and its successors can be found elsewhere (Cohn
2008; Shepherd 2011). For our purposes, what is interesting is the ways in which 1325 combines aspects of ideas
associated with feminist peace activism, in which women are seen as having a distinctive capacity for peace, with more
rights-based approaches that stress the goals of civil and political equality. A combination of these discourses has
remained the predominant way in which feminist ideas have been expressed and implemented at the international level,
and can be traced in the successor resolutions to 1325 (Shepherd 2011), as well as in the gender-related aspects of the
setting up of the ICC (Pankhurst 2007). UNSCR 1325 can be seen as the culmination of feminist activism in relation to war
and peace over previous decades. However, its status as a victory for feminism has been put into question in the decade
since its implementation. From the beginning certain feminists had reservations about 1325, including claims that it
essentialised women as either victims or peacemakers, confirmed rather than challenged the inevitability of armed
conflict, marginalized the realities of women combatants and men civilians, and was insufficiently resourced.
Criticisms of 1325 were reinforced by the other development that has been a focus of
feminist activism in relation to war and peace over the past decade, the so-called ‘War on
Terror’. In the 1990s, sexual violence in the wars following the break up of Yugoslavia
had become an important dimension of the legitimation of external intervention in the
conflict for some feminists, though not necessarily to feminist groups within the region.
In the US response to 9/11, the question of the violation of women’s rights was brought
centre stage in the legitimation of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and more broadly in
the characterisation of the US’s enemy other in the ‘War on Terror’ (Pratt and Richter-
Devroe 2011).
 HYBRID WAR
Hybridity and peacebuilding must be viewed through a nuanced
gender lens as an essential prerequisite to fundamentally address
policy thinking about conflicts, their causes, impacts, and the
interplay of power between actors – their evaluation of the process of
conflicts and war in the aff lacks a feminist approach which
perpetuates the logics of patriarchal discourse that cast women as
‘vulnerable’
McLeod, 15 – Laura McLeod is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of
Manchester, United Kingdom. She has written about security, peace negotiations and
constitutional reform in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from a feminist and gendered
perspective. (2015, Laura, “A Feminist Approach to Hybridity: Understanding Local and
International Interactions in Producing Post-Conflict Gender Security,”
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2014.980112, accessed 07/20/19, lrch rm)

The fields of critical peacebuilding and feminist scholarship on peace and postconflict
reconstruction are rather like two magnificent ships passing by each other in the
night. There are a number of shared concerns—for instance, how to understand the power relations
between local and international actors in postconflict contexts—but few have explicitly engaged with both
feminist scholarship and contemporary peacebuilding literatures with the aim of generating a feminist use
of, or challenge to, contemporary critical peacebuilding concepts. Critical peacebuilding has been mostly
adequate at the inclusion of gender as an empirical category, but many analyses do not
‘effectively deal with or fully [integrate] gender in the context of addressing
war and its aftermath’ (Ni Aoláin, Haynes, and Cahn 2011, 89). This is because a feminist curiosity
places gender at the centre of analysis about the practice and process of post-conflict PSD policy, seeking to
explore apparently invisible gender practices and processes. So, critical peacebuilding scholarship, rather
like critical International Relations and critical International Political Economy, ‘misunderstand what it
means to use [gender] as an analytical category’ (Waylen 2006, 164). That is, there is a tendency within
non-feminist critical peacebuilding to assume that a gender perspective is additive and about
women: i.e. that all that needs to be done is to add women and stir. From a feminist
perspective, gender used as an analytical category presumes some kind of radical
reconsideration of how the world is currently constituted. To this end, what I have offered here is
an explicitly feminist consideration of hybridity. The feminist perspective allows a
textured perception of the personal and political experiences that matter in the development of an initiative.
Furthermore, gender is made complicated and is not taken at face value: for instance, the article has
highlighted that local and international interactions shape the very understandings of gender that function
within a post-conflict initiative. The case study in this article indicates how diverse personal-political
experiences that have been narrated have cast a configuration of gender security as being
about human development and protection of vulnerable women. These insights
about how both international and local experiences matter raise questions about how we
ascribe importance to a particular set of knowledge and experience in agenda-
setting. Whose experience of conflict matters in establishing postconflict agendas? On the one hand, it
is thought that local experience and understandings are prioritized in hybrid
interventions—a perspective that leads to the valorization of hybridity. On the other hand, it
is clear that international perspectives matter too in our problematization of ‘post-conflict’, but not to the
extent that an all-powerful international institution unilaterally imposes an agenda for post-conflict peace,
security and development. Highlighting the personal-political experiences and perceptions of conflict held by
both local and international actors reveals the tension at the very heart of post-conflict agendasetting.
Furthermore, the feminist analysis of hybridity highlights the tensions between
memories and agendas in delineating PSD policy. Confronting questions about the
narratives of war experience could alter our perception of agendasetting. Post-conflict agendas
are often imagined to be responsive to the contemporary context, downplaying the importance of historical
narratives of war experiences in shaping agendas. Noticing
the temporal and
spatial diversity of war experiences in hybrid PSD initiatives
opens ways for non-linear and nonprogressive conceptualizations
of time and temporality within a post-conflict context. This
matters, as it reminds us that the logics of negotiating war
experiences are political and ideological. The act of remembering
(always accompanied by forgetting) is not just about recalling the lived
experiences of the past and present, it is also indicative of hopes, dreams
and desires for the future. The war experiences recalled are perceived
realities about which memories are worth invoking—and they are
invoked for a reason. As such, the logics of negotiation between local and
international actors are largely ideological and politically driven, which has
implications for the nature of goals held about post-conflict PSD processes and
practices. This is especially the case when local and international actors are asked to translate
universalized ambitions to a particular context. For instance, United Nations Security Council Resolution
1325 (UNSCR 1325) has a universal goal urging for the gender mainstreaming of all post-conflict processes.
But the very way in which UNSCR 1325 is translated on the ground by local and international actors depends
upon their configuration of conflict and post-conflict, a perspective in part forged out of personal and
political narratives of war experience. Thus, universalized ambitions are reforged to fit the particularity of
each conflict and post-conflict moment. These realizations about the effects of power relations between local
and international actors have come out of a feminist poststructural approach. Like Laura Shepherd (2014,
104), I conceive of gender as a ‘foundational construct that affects and is affected by all other relations of
power’, where gender is ‘implicated in every social process’ including peacekeeping and peacebuilding. As
Christine Sylvester suggests, thinking about war and post-war in a more experiential way
‘requires considerably more research on the gender ghosts rattling around
dominant war narratives in international law and international organisations’ (2011a, 122).
Paying attention to individual and collective experiences of war, and in particular
how gender is produced by local and international actors, reveals the organizing logics
about gender security. These organizing logics ultimately configured the boundaries of
possibility and impossibility of ‘gender’ within a PSD initiative about gender and SALW.
Paying attention to war is narrated differently and noticing the gendered power relations at
stake in post-conflict PSD processes and practices provokes significant questions about the
practice of making and keeping peace. Ultimately, A feminist curiosity reminds us to resist the closure
implied in any discourse of peace, remembering that it is always important to ask on whose behalf peace is being sought or
Thus, the exploration of local and
claimed and with what effects. (Shepherd 2014, 107)
international power in relation to the making of hybrid PSD
initiatives can be (and should be) profoundly feminist. Exploring
personal-political experiences of war allows for a detailed perception about
the extent of co-option involved, about whose knowledge and experience
counts, and for a more temporally complex analysis of how PSD policy is
produced.
 INTERNATIONAL LAW
The liberal and democratic institutions upholding international law exclude
feminist perspectives on ethics and universality
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
For difference ethics it is ethical principles of respect for plurality and democracy that
are fundamental to feminism. Although they share with care and justice feminisms a
commitment to challenging gendered relations of power, for difference feminists specific
questions about what moral values should guide human conduct at a global level are
incapable of being satisfactorily answered unless and until the world has changed in such
a way that the voices of those currently most excluded from moral debate can be heard
(Spivak 1999; Mohanty 2003; Hutchings 2004). In the meantime, moral priority must be given to those
ethical values that do most to support struggles to change the world to include the
excluded, and that do least to further repress the voices of the least powerful actors in current world politics. The
problem with this ethical project is that, as difference feminists themselves point out, any explicitly articulated
universal ethical claim in international ethics always carries its own exclusions with it,
intended or unintended. This is typified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, for example, in
speaking of all human beings’ fundamental right to marriage and family life, necessarily excludes those human beings who
do not fit with heterosexual norms, or with the assumption of a humanity split into two genders (Butler 2004: 102-130).
One of the feminist ethical theorists who has addressed what difference ethics implies in an international context is Judith
Butler. Focusing on the concept of universal human rights, Butler has shown how the
concept of the human in human 24 rights, by setting up a norm of what it means to be
human, consistently operates so as to situate certain categories of people as ‘less than’
human, rendering their lives in crucial respects ‘unliveable’ and ‘ungrievable’ (Butler 2004: 225-227). Thus she directly
challenges Nussbaum’s claim that it is through an inclusive account of what it means to be human that a genuinely
universal international ethics can be articulated as a yardstick for the judgement of practice. At the same time, Butler does
not advocate the abandonment of the idea of universal rights, but rather argues that the meaning of ‘universal’ should
always be open to challenge and re-negotiation, and that we should never assume that our claims to
universality actually live up to their promise (Butler 2004: 33). Somewhat paradoxically, difference ethics
is universalist in its orientation towards giving moral priority to the excluded in general, but sees this universalism as
always failing. For difference ethics, ethical priorities will differ depending on context, so that there is (and ought to be) no
feminist consensus on either the ethics of war or the nature of fundamental human being. It is therefore inappropriate to
condemn practices such as female circumcision in the abstract, without a full understanding of the context of the practice
and the ethical investments of the different parties to it. Moreover, the exponent of an ethics of difference needs to take
responsibility for his or her own judgment and actions and recognise that well-intended arguments and policies may have
unforeseen effects when implemented in a top down way. In this respect, difference ethics is linked to feminist criticisms
of the ‘War on Terror’ and humanitarian interventions from the 1990s onwards, which perpetuated a politics of 25 rescue
in which white western men ‘save’, in Spivak’s words, brown women from brown men (Hutchings 2011). It is clear from
the above discussion that feminist approaches to the ethics of international affairs differ. To the extent that it’s not clear
whether the term ‘feminist’ actually signifies something substantive that ties different feminist approaches together. Does
it make sense to use the same term to encompass the quite different arguments of care, justice and difference feminist
ethics? In conclusion, I want to suggest that in spite of the degree of contestation between these
different ethical perspectives, there are certain commonalities. Feminism was inspired
by the vulnerabilities suffered by women on account of an entrenched gender order that
excluded them from moral status and political power. What links the different forms of feminist ethics
together is the aspiration (which is not always achieved) of de-centring moral judgment from the standpoint of the
privileged. This essentially political project must therefore cultivate a strong degree of self-
consciousness about tendencies within ethical reasoning that reinstate or reinforce
patterns of privilege and disadvantage. This is the reason, I would argue, why the kinds
of contextualism and universalism at work in the different versions of feminist ethics are
much less fixed and mutually exclusive than we find when comparing mainstream
deontological, consequentialist or communitarian ethical arguments. Ruddick’s ethic of care,
although it gives universal moral status to the virtues inherent in maternal thinking, because of its contextualism, refuses
to pre-judge the implications of 26 maternal thinking for ethical prescription. Mackinnon’s commitment to
women’s human rights does not offer us a closed definition of what it means to be
human, instead it presents a dynamic vision of human rights politics grounded in the
existence of inequalities of power. Nussbaum’s universalism is tempered by a strong
requirement for contextual sensitivity, and she attempts, whether successfully or not, to
locate her international ethics in the lives of nonwestern women. And Butler’s critique of
universalism does not lead her to reject the ethical significance of the idea of the
universal or the value of the discourse of universal human rights. Characteristics of theoretical
humility and eclecticism distinguish recent developments in feminist international ethics that build on ethical insights
from care, justice and difference. For example, Fiona Robinson’s work has extended the purview of
the ethic of care to questions of global distributive justice, caring labour in the
international political economy as well as questions of humanitarian intervention and
international security. In doing so, however, she has combined care thinking with
postcolonial, difference arguments (Robinson 1999; 2011). In a very different vein, Laura Sjoberg has
combined aspects of the ethic of care with just war theory in her development of a feminist security ethic of empathetic
cooperation (Sjoberg 2006). And Brooke Ackerly has developed an activist-informed immanent theory of the human
rights of women that combines aspects of the kind of thinking that informs Mackinnnon’s understanding of rights as
political weapons, and Butler’s critique of rights universalism (Ackerly 2008). In my view, the apparent tensions
within, as well as between, feminist ethical perspectives on international affairs reflect
the difficulty of trying to hold on to an ethical standpoint that starts from the position of
the vulnerable and excluded, and which is 27 therefore perpetually dissatisfied with any settled standpoint of
judgment or final answer to the question of meaning of international justice. In spite of genuine differences between them,
feminist ethical projects share certain qualities. They give priority to dialogue as the starting point for ethical judgment,
and the prescriptive conclusions they draw are contextually specific and open to revision in the light of experience.
 LATIN AMERICA
US diplomatic dependency on Latin America licenses policies enabling
femicide and gender violence
Haley Florsheim and Joan Caivano 12-21-2015, (Haley Florsheim won a Fulbright
teaching fellowship to teach English in Brazil after completing a Latin American studies
certificate and international politics major, for which Florsheim researched and wrote a
thesis on legislative progress on preventing violence against women and securing
reproductive rights in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Joan Caivano is deputy to the
president and the director of special projects at the Inter-American Dialogue. As such,
she manages a range of institutional responsibilities, including the Dialogue’s Sol M.
Linowitz Forum, its publications program, outreach to the press, and membership
issues. She also directs the Dialogue’s project on press freedom issues and its work on
women’s leadership in the Americas. "Challenges for Women’s Rights in Latin America,"
The Dialogue, https://www.thedialogue.org/blogs/2015/12/protect-womens-rights-
hold-latin-american-governments-accountable/ //EH)
As Mauricio Macri campaigned for the Argentine presidency this fall, another campaign of hundreds of thousands
of individuals tirelessly fought to bring the issue of femicide, or gender-based killings of
women, into Argentina’s political consciousness. These activists formed a successful movement, and
their fight continues. United behind the hashtag #NiUnaMenos, or “not one less,” activists stand up
for each woman’s right to life in an effort to eliminate gender-based killings in a society
where a femicide takes place every thirty hours. In many of these cases, the murders are
not prosecuted as femicides, as they should be under Argentine law, but rather as
homicides. This is a phenomenon that takes place in numerous Latin American countries and conveniently allows
states to overlook the scale and gender component of the violence. Like much of Latin America, Argentina has a
long history of male chauvinism . Despite Latin America’s focus on encouraging
female representation in government, machismo still informs the way of life in the
region, resulting in a culture of oppression where gender violence is prolific
and reproductive rights are limited. Many Latin American countries have nominally adopted well-
intentioned laws protecting women’s rights, but a lack of political will has rendered the laws
essentially toothless. According to the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, an
estimated 1,678 women were killed for gender-based reasons in 17 Latin American and
Caribbean countries in 2014. These killings take on a variety of forms. Much of the time,
gender-based violence and femicide occur within couples, as well as between former
partners. Femicide also includes neglect leading to death, the combined crimes of rape
and murder, and “honor killings.” The global trend shows increased instances of femicide and gender-based
violence in recent years, and more than half of the countries with the highest number of
femicides are located in the Americas. However, the legal mechanisms in Latin America that protect against
gender-based violence and femicide are not drastically different than the legal mechanisms in the rest of the world.
Femicide is a separate and punishable crime in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru. Argentine and Venezuelan laws
address the concept of “aggravated murder for gender reasons.” Additionally, 20 countries in Latin America and the
Caribbean have instituted laws protecting against gender-based violence. The difference in the success of legal
mechanisms is a matter of priorities. Twelve out of those 20 countries have failed to provide
national funding to implement the laws, demonstrating a lack of political will. Because
focusing on women’s issues does not generate votes, politicians and leaders tend to steer
their platforms toward other, more popular agendas. By failing to prioritize these legal mechanisms
and support related initiatives, the states greatly diminish the potential and effectiveness of the legal structures.
Reproductive rights are another area where Latin American governments’ failure to
prioritize women’s rights has prevented women from accessing the protections
guaranteed by their governments. In 2001, at age 17, a Peruvian minor known as K.L. learned that she was 14
weeks pregnant with a child that had been diagnosed with a fatal condition called anencephaly, which is characterized by
the underdevelopment or complete lack of a forebrain. Under Peruvian law, K.L. had the right to obtain an abortion if she
decided to terminate the pregnancy due to the physical and mental health risks of giving birth to a child that would not
survive. However, the doctors assigned to K.L.’s case refused to provide the procedure and she delivered the baby, who
passed away after four days because of the condition. During those four days, K.L. was instructed to breastfeed the child.
Even though Peruvian laws protect a women’s right to obtain a therapeutic abortion, the state failed to ensure that the law
was followed, resulting in dire consequences for K.L. and many others who suffered from similar circumstances. There are
five countries in Latin America where abortion is outlawed entirely: Chile, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador,
Honduras, and Nicaragua. In the rest of the region, abortions are permitted when specific conditions are met. However,
every year in Latin America, roughly 2,000 women die as a result of illegal abortion procedures that often lead to severe,
life-threatening complications. All in all, 95 percent of the 4.4 million abortions in Latin America in 2008 were illegal: a
statistic that demonstrates the difficulty of obtaining a legal abortion even when a case fits the necessary legal stipulations
to allow the procedure, and that making the procedure illegal does not make it rare. Femicide and gender-based
violence are human rights violations, and international conventions hold that
reproductive rights are human rights. Taking a step away from the controversial aspects
of the debate, it is beyond dispute that governments should be held accountable for
upholding their laws. The tendency of many Latin American governments to
ignore, or gloss over, these issues and their failure to execute legal mandates sends
a dangerous message about the region’s marginalization of women and
girls. Such neglect is an outgrowth of a long history of female disempowerment dating back to the days of colonization.
In order to guarantee that women’s rights are protected, Latin American governments must prioritize those rights. This
process includes allocating larger percentages of their budgets to ensure that sufficient resources and attention are
devoted to promoting women’s rights, and that the laws that are already in place are enforced. Realistically, such changes
will most likely be contingent upon the personal initiative of political leaders who dedicate themselves to pushing for a
reformed approach to women’s rights issues. Governments also must work to fill the dearth of statistics on femicide,
gender-based violence, and reproductive rights. International health organizations as well as international banks should
support governments in developing a standardized procedure for collecting gender-disaggregated data to ensure that there
is adequate documentation of the issues. Statistics provide a necessary basis for policy initiatives. If the challenges are not
fully understood, it is difficult to generate policies to address them. Spreading awareness and starting
conversations using statistics helps destigmatize issues, reducing the sense of shame and
humiliation that women often feel as a result of gender-related abuses. International pressure is
also a crucial catalyst for change. International organizations should encourage governments to comply with their own
laws and the international conventions they have signed. The efforts of the UN, among other global judicial bodies, are
beginning to have a tangible effect. In, 2005, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that the Peruvian public hospital’s
decision to deny K.L. an abortion constitutes a human rights violation on behalf of the government and that the
government should compensate K.L. for her losses. This week, the Center for Reproductive Rights confirmed that the
government of Peru has acknowledged their responsibility and decided to compensate K.L., complying with the UN
Human Rights Committee’s ruling. Peru’s decision is the first of its kind, and provides reason to be optimistic that Peru
and other Latin American states will take action on the numerous other cases that are still awaiting resolution.
 LIB-ISM
Liberal assumptions are problematic in their propensity to consider human
rights and ethics monolithically
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
This is not simply a theoretical dispute. For difference feminists the prescriptive implications of care in
relation to peace and of justice in relation to human rights and development have been
shown to be ethically problematic for women who don’t fit with standard western liberal
assumptions about either women or humans. Many feminists from the developing world
have supported wars in the pursuit of struggles for decolonisation and national liberation
and deny that there is a necessary connection between feminist ethics and peace politics.
Similarly, many feminists in the global south are wary of the liberal language of
global human rights and economic development and argue that it reflects the moral priorities of
an earlier western history and has been used to justify first imperialism and
subsequently other forms of interventionism in the Global South. For difference feminists,
‘context’ is not equivalent to a monolithic account of ‘culture’. From the difference point of view,
culture and identity, like all other facets of social and political life, are sites of power relations and struggles, there is
therefore always a political dimension to ethics, and 23 this, according to difference feminists, is the dimension that care
and justice feminists, in different ways, neglect. For difference ethics it is ethical principles of respect for plurality and
democracy that are fundamental to feminism. Although they share with care and justice feminisms a commitment to
challenging gendered relations of power, for difference feminists specific questions about what moral values should guide
human conduct at a global level are incapable of being satisfactorily answered unless and until the world has changed in
such a way that the voices of those currently most excluded from moral debate can be heard (Spivak 1999; Mohanty 2003;
Hutchings 2004). In the meantime, moral priority must be given to those ethical values that do most to support struggles
to change the world to include the excluded, and that do least to further repress the voices of the least powerful actors in
current world politics. The problem with this ethical project is that, as difference feminists themselves point out, any
explicitly articulated universal ethical claim in international ethics always carries its own exclusions with it, intended or
unintended. This is typified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, for
example, in speaking of all human beings’ fundamental right to marriage and family life,
necessarily excludes those human beings who do not fit with heterosexual norms, or with
the assumption of a humanity split into two genders (Butler 2004: 102-130). One of the feminist
ethical theorists who has addressed what difference ethics implies in an international context is Judith Butler. Focusing on
the concept of universal human rights, Butler has shown how the concept of the human in human
24 rights, by setting up a norm of what it means to be human, consistently operates so as
to situate certain categories of people as ‘less than’ human, rendering their lives in
crucial respects ‘unliveable’ and ‘ungrievable’ (Butler 2004: 225-227). Thus she directly challenges
Nussbaum’s claim that it is through an inclusive account of what it means to be human that a genuinely universal
international ethics can be articulated as a yardstick for the judgement of practice. At the same time, Butler does not
advocate the abandonment of the idea of universal rights, but rather argues that the meaning of ‘universal’ should always
be open to challenge and re-negotiation, and that we should never assume that our claims to universality actually live up
to their promise (Butler 2004: 33). Somewhat paradoxically, difference ethics is universalist in its
orientation towards giving moral priority to the excluded in general, but sees this
universalism as always failing. For difference ethics, ethical priorities will differ
depending on context, so that there is (and ought to be) no feminist consensus on either
the ethics of war or the nature of fundamental human being. It is therefore inappropriate
to condemn practices such as female circumcision in the abstract, without a full
understanding of the context of the practice and the ethical investments of the different
parties to it. Moreover, the exponent of an ethics of difference needs to take responsibility
for his or her own judgment and actions and recognise that well-intended arguments and
policies may have unforeseen effects when implemented in a top down way. In this respect, difference
ethics is linked to feminist criticisms of the ‘War on Terror’ and humanitarian
interventions from the 1990s onwards, which perpetuated a politics of 25 rescue in
which white western men ‘save’, in Spivak’s words, brown women from brown men
(Hutchings 2011).
 MORALITY
Ethics theory is premised off of sexist presumptions about how women
prioritize impacts—reject Kant and util
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
The most well known strand in feminist moral theory since the early 1980s has been the
idea of a feminist ethic of care, pioneered by the work of the social psychologist, Carol Gilligan (Gilligan 1982).
In the course of research into the patterns of moral reasoning of women, Gilligan came to challenge the accepted hierarchy
of moral psychological development established by Kohlberg, in which the most mature moral point of view is identified
with the development of an impartial, universalist and principled perspective on moral issues (the ethic of justice).
Kohlberg had observed in his own research that, according to his criteria, adult women were less likely to
manifest an ethic of justice and more likely to remain at (again according to his criteria)
an earlier stage of moral development in which moral problems continued to be
addressed in an ad hoc, highly personalised and contextualised way. In a familiar feminist move,
Gilligan did not so much overturn Kohlberg's findings as re-evaluate them, arguing that the characteristics of
women's moral thinking were not inferior to an ethic of justice but demonstrated an
equally advanced and sophisticated post-conventional moral point of view. In the wake of the
argument between Kohlberg and Gilligan a huge literature has arisen in social psychology and ethical and political theory
which both criticises and develops Gilligan's original insight (Bubeck 1998; Held 2006; Robinson 1999; 2011). In terms of
feminist ethical and political theory, the concerns of the debate shifted quickly from arguments
about whether men and women actually think differently in relation to moral problems
to exploring the pros and cons of the features of women's moral reasoning identified by
Gilligan, features which have come to be defined as those of an 'ethic of care'. The key
feature of an ethic of care is that it is embedded in the practicalities of relationships of
responsibility for others. Crucial to ethical judgment from the perspective of care is the importance of
particularity (knowing who and what you are making a moral judgment about); connectedness (recognising your actual
relationship to others in the process of judgment); and context (paying attention to the broad and narrow context of
ethical judgment). In her book, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, Ruddick draws on the idea of
an ethic of care as a central part of her argument for a feminist moral orientation in the
context of international politics (Ruddick 1990). The book involves a rejection of realist
arguments as to the tragic inevitability or structural necessity of war and communitarian
claims as to the special ethical status of the collective group or nation. In addition it
develops a critique of traditional just war thinking - in both utilitarian and Kantian
variants - as well as a positive characterization of how a different kind of moral judgment
and political practice is possible in relation to war. There are essentially two stages to Ruddick's
argument. In the first stage she offers a phenomenology of what she terms 'maternal thinking', in the second stage she
reads off the implications of using maternal thinking as a critical 'feminist standpoint' for making judgments about the
ethics of war and the appropriate feminist response to war. 'Maternal thinking', according to Ruddick, 'is a discipline in
attentive love', a discipline which is rooted in the demands of a particular relation of care, that between mother and child,
and which reflects a particular range of metaphysical attitudes, cognitive capacities and virtues (Ruddick 1990, 123).
Ruddick is careful to insist that she is neither equating mothers with biological mothers, nor presuming that actual
mothers are all good at maternal thinking. Ruddick draws a contrast between the ideals of response to
threat, conflict and harm which are inherent in any practice in which violence is
understood as a permissible instrument for the attainment of goals and modes of
responding to threat, conflict and harm which are premised on the unacceptability of
violence. She finds paradigmatic examples of the former in militarism and of the latter in
the labour of care. "Caregivers are not, predictably, better people than are militarists.
Rather, they are engaged in a different project. Militarists aim to dominate by
creating the structural vulnerabilities that caregivers take for granted. 13 They
arm and train so that they can, if other means of domination fail, terrify and injure their
opponents. By contrast, in situations where domination through bodily pain, and the fear
of pain, is a structural possibility, caregivers try to resist temptations to assault and
neglect, even though they work among smaller, frailer, vulnerable people who may excite
domination." (Ruddick 1993, 121) Ruddick is aware of the problems of simply taking and applying the regulative
ideals of care-giving practices to the realm of international politics, but nevertheless, she extrapolates criteria of ethical
judgment from caregiving practice which she argues do have implications for what should or should not be permissible
within the international realm. Ruddick argues that maternal thinking, located as it is in the marginalized and denigrated
sphere of caring labour, provides a standpoint from which the absurdity of both strategic military and just war thinking
becomes evident. Although Ruddick does not claim that the feminist standpoint provides a universally valid ground for
ethical judgment, she does make a strong claim for the potential of maternal thinking to illuminate the meaning of war
from a critical perspective (Ruddick 1990, 135; Hartsock 1983). For Ruddick, both militarism and just war
theory share a commitment to the expendability of concrete lives in abstract causes to
which maternal thinking is inherently opposed. Ruddick claims that this means that the implication of
maternal thinking is not just the rejection of war but the active embracing of peace politics, a fight against war which
draws on the acknowledgement of responsibility and relationship and the 14 specificity of need and obligations which are
inherent in a proper understanding of the labour of caring (Ruddick 1990, 141-159). "The analytic fictions of just war
theory require a closure of moral issues final enough to justify killing and "enemies" abstract enough to be killable. In
learning to welcome their own and their children's changes, mothers become accustomed to open-ended, concrete
reflection on intricate and unpredictable spirits. Maternal attentive love, restrained and clear sighted, is ill adapted to
intrusive, let alone murderous judgments of others' lives." (Ruddick 1990, 150) In Ruddick's theory the logic of domestic
relations in the restricted sense of the domestic or private sphere is set against the logic of the public sphere of both state
and inter-state relations, although with the acknowledgement that in practice the former has tended to support and
reinforce the latter. Ruddick places realism, morality of states, Kantianism, utilitarianism and communitarianism all
firmly in the realm of the logic of public 'masculinist' theory and practice. Although it is clear that Ruddick does put an
ethical value on humans, this is based not on a notion of inherent individual right, but on
relation - value inheres in relations to others, in particular in the recognition of
responsibility for others. For Ruddick then, the realm of international politics is primarily a
realm of human relations, not of human, nation or state rights or an international state
system. Ruddick assumes that ethical perspectives are the outcome of concrete practices and can never be neutral, but
at the same time clearly suggests that some kinds of practice are inherently better than others. This distinction draws
attention to the fact that 15 although Ruddick presents an understanding of the international realm very different from
mainstream ethical theories, nevertheless, she argues for the notion of a standpoint from which critical judgments of
international politics can be made. This standpoint is inherently prescriptive and involves a commitment to the practical
and political struggle against violence and for peace. There are several different implications of Ruddick's argument in
relation to ethical judgment. Firstly, from the standpoint of maternal thinking, the appropriate
stance to take in ethical judgment is to attempt to build on particular experiences of the
practice of care to help to identify with and take responsibility for the needs and
suffering of others. Ruddick frequently cites the example of the Argentinian mothers of the disappeared, whose
movement gradually grew to embrace concerns with children across the world who had suffered harm: "This is not
transcendent impartiality but a sympathetic apprehension of another grounded in one's own particular suffering."
(Ruddick 1993, 123) This is not just a matter of 'feeling for' another's pain, but assuming an
attitude of responsibility for it and therefore trying to do something about it. Secondly,
however, maternal thinking is sensitive to the specific contexts in which ethical dilemmas
are embedded and the importance of appreciating the ethical weight of the perspectives
of all parties to any dispute or conflict. For Ruddick, ethical judgment has to be on a case by case basis, but
without ready made principles of adjudication. Although the idea of maternal thinking is in principle non-violent, it also
makes clear that there are no universally applicable algorithms that can be applied to any given situation to render
definitive answers to ethical questions, so that even the use of violence cannot 16 be entirely ruled out a priori (Ruddick
1990: 138; Ruddick 1998). The judgment of the maternal thinker is oriented by the ideals implicit in care, but these are
regulative rather than determining in their effects. This brings us to the third feature of ethical judgment from the
standpoint of maternal thinking. In contrast to the traditional picture of ethical judgment as a matter to be worked
through at the level of the individual conscience in relation to specified criteria, maternal thinking implies that ethical
judgment is a matter of dialogue and context and relies crucially on the capacity to hear what others are saying in arriving
at the criteria for judgment. Ethical judgment is therefore in principle an interactive and collective rather than an
individual project.
 NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Nuclear weapons are the ultimate patriarchal tool in their ability to commit
mass murder apathetically—deterrence is useless against nuclear rhetoric
that normalizes using the threat of killing millions to win ballots
Ray Acheson October 2018 ("Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will. She
provides analysis, research, and advocacy across a range of disarmament and arms
control issues. Ray leads WILPF’s work on stigmatising war and violence, including by
campaigning for a nuclear weapon ban treaty and challenging the arms trade and the use
of explosive weapons and armed drones. Ray is also on the Board of Directors of the Los
Alamos Study Group and represents WILPF on several coalition steering groups,
including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). She has an
Honours BA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in
Politics from The New School for Social Research. A feminist critique of the atomic
bomb," Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, October 2018,
https://www.boell.de/en/2018/10/12/feminist-critique-atomic-bomb //EH)
Feminist scholar Carol Cohn wrote a story about her experience working with nuclear war strategists in the 1980s. In this
story, a white male physicist, working on modelling nuclear counterforce attacks, exclaims
to a group of other white male physicists about the cavalier way they are talking
about civilian casualties . “Only thirty million!” he bursts out. “ Only thirty million human
beings killed instantly ?” The room went silent. He felt ashamed. This is an important story about nuclear
weapons—or rather, about the ways in which those who think they benefit from nuclear
weapons maintain their dominance over how we think and talk about these weapons. We
are supposed to think about nuclear weapons as “deterrents”. Their advocates argue that
the mere possession of nuclear weapons deters and prevents conflict. In the right hands, they
are good for humanity, the argument goes. Nuclear weapons are to be talked about in the abstract, as
magical tools that keep us safe and main stability in the world. “War is peace. Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.” So goes the slogan of The Party in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Weapons prevent war. So
goes the “realist” discourse about nuclear weapons. But, when it comes to nuclear
weapons, who is really being unrealistic? Those who assume that we can exist in this
world, with all its tensions and conflicts and fears and instabilities, and not see the use of
nuclear weapons? Those who believe that a theory called “nuclear deterrence,” cooked up by nuclear war strategists,
is infallible? Or is it those of us who are see the inherent dangers in the atomic bomb and seek its abolition? Who
believe that security cannot credibly be based on threatening to commit genocide, or to
destroy the entire world? If we are willing to admit there may be some flaws in the discourse of
deterrence, we should ask how has it survived and thrived? How has it usurped and held onto the mantle of “realism”
for so long? A feminist analysis is very useful to answer this question. It can help us understand how nuclear
weapons are a patriarchal tool, and how it benefits the patriarchy to advocate for their
continued existence in the arsenals of a select few governments. The patriarchy is a social
order dominated by men—in particular, men performing a certain brand of militarised
masculinity that associates weapons and war with power. This form of
masculinity influences the possession, proliferation, and use of everything from nuclear
weapons to small arms. This is a masculinity in which ideas like strength, courage, and
protection are equated with violence. It is a masculinity in which the capacity and
willingness to use weapons, engage in combat, and kill other human beings is seen as
essential to being “a real man”. This type of violent, militarised masculinity harms
everyone. It harms everyone who does not perform that gender norm—women, LGBTQIA-identified people, non-
normative men. It requires oppression of those deemed “weaker” on the basis of
gender norms . It results in domestic violence. It results in violence against
women . It results in violence against gay and trans people. But this kind of masculinity also means
violence against other men performing violent masculinities. Men mostly kill each other, inside and
outside of conflict. Violent masculinities make male bodies more expendable. Women and
children, obnoxiously lumped together in countless UN resolutions and media reports,
are more likely be deemed “innocent civilians,” while men are more likely be to be
considered militants or combatants. Often, in conflict, civilian men are targeted—or counted
in casualty recordings—as militants only because they are men of a certain age. But
militarised masculinity is not just about death. It is also a major impediment to
disarmament, peace, and gender equality. It makes disarmament seem weak. It makes
peace seem utopian. It makes protection without weapons seem absurd. The concept of nuclear
deterrence is a product of the patriarchy . It is designed to justify outrageous
behaviour by those with power and privilege—the behaviour of spending billions of
dollars on weapons that risk the world’s total destruction—in order to maintain that
power and privilege. And those espousing this theory have managed to maintain their dominance over the nuclear
weapon debate by employing the tools of the patriarchy, such as gaslighting and victim blaming. The term gaslighting
comes from a play written in 1938, in which a woman’s husband slowly manipulates her into believing she is going insane.
We can see the technique employed broadly in politics, particularly right now in the United States over issues of economic
injustice, racism, and sexual violence. It is the denial of the lived reality of marginalised populations; the assertion that,
“there is nothing to see here, everything is fine.” “MY BUTTON IS BIGGER THAN YOURS” A FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF
THE NUCLEAR BOMB Gaslighting in the realm of nuclear weapons has been practiced since the beginning of the atomic
age. The discourse of deterrence denies the lived reality of those who have experienced the
intergenerational harms of nuclear weapons use and testing. It makes it a thoughtcrime,
à la 1984, to consider the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. One of the ways it
does this is to “feminise” anyone who tries to raise these issues. That physicist in Carol Cohn’s
story confessed to her, after his outburst to the room of other male physicists, “Nobody said a word. They didn’t even look
at me. It was awful. I felt like a woman.” The association of caring about the murder of thirty million
people with “being a woman” is all about seeing women as being weak. Being a woman
means caring about wrong things; letting your “emotions” get the better of you; focusing
on human beings when you should be focused on “strategy”. This means that caring about the
humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons is feminine. It is not relevant to the job that “real men” have
to do to “protect” their countries. It not only suggests that caring about the use of nuclear weapons is spineless and silly,
but also makes the pursuit of disarmament seem to be an unrealistic, irrational objective. This is not just an issue of the
1980s. This happens now. As diplomats at the UN worked to ban nuclear weapons, they were
ridiculed by their counterparts in nuclear-armed countries. They were called “radical
dreamers”. They were told they were being “emotional”. They were told they do not
understand how to protect their people. They were told their security interests do not
matter—or do not exist at all. They were told that banning nuclear weapons is
illegitimate and naïve. They were even told that banning nuclear weapons might
undermine international security so much it could even result in the use of nuclear
weapons. Which brings us to another patriarchal technique: victim blaming. This is where
men argue that women who have been victims of sexual assault must have been acting or dressing a certain way to deserve
the assault. With nuclear weapons, the argument is similar: if you try to take away our toys
of massive nuclear violence, we will have no choice but to use them, and it will be your
fault. Feminist analysis helps us understand the gendered nature of support for nuclear
weapons. It also gives us tools to deconstruct the opposition of banning nuclear weapons .
It helps us see how certain expectations about masculinity and femininity, coded through our social norms, mean that
bombs make us strong and disarmament makes us weak. About how “more weapons” is rational and “less weapons” is
irrational. About how those who want to challenge the dominant narrative are kept in line by having their manhood
threatened. A feminist analysis also offers us techniques to overcome this. It provides space for alternative voices. It does
not diminish care for human beings by associating it with weakness, but with strength. It offers a concept of security based
on equity and justice rather than weapons and war. It means being guided by affected communities. By survivors. By those
living in places and spaces that are marginalised and excluded from dominant narratives. Nuclear weapons are
the ultimate symbol of injustice. They bring death and destruction, but also inequality
and manipulation. They are the ultimate patriarchal tool: the ultimate way for the
privileged to maintain their power.
 PEACE PROCESS
Peace processes and negotiations exclude women – asking the “man”
question must come before policy analysis
Aoláin 17 – Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy and Society at the University of Minnesota Law
School and a Chair in Law, University of Ulster’s Transitional Justice Institute, Consultant to and
expert for a number of institutions including UN Women & OHCHR, Member of the Joint
Committee of Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Irish Commission for Human
Rights created by the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, LLB from Queens University, LLM from
Colombia Law School; PhD in Law from Queens University (Fionnauala Ní Aoláin, “The
Aftermath of War,” March 2017,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318586041_Women_gender_equality_and_post-
conflict_transformation_Lessons_learned_implications_for_the_future)//cpark
**Note: DDR stands for Disarmament, Demilitarization, and Reintegration
For a time, a revitalized post–Cold War milieu allowed for greater bilateral state and international institutional attention to the vagrancies
of conflict sequenc- ing and endings, and created openings to engage women and other marginalized groups in peace settlements. Now, a
détente and accompanying crisis in the wake of the faltering Arab Spring transitions and renewed East-West fractures over the use of force
outside the collective security system in Ukraine and Crimea brings uncertainty and fragmentation to conflict ending processes around the
world. This
is most obviously evidenced by the struggle to fashion any binding agreement
on ending the Syrian conflict despite the avalanche of refugees pouring across local and regional borders. Throughout the
1990s and early twenty-first cen- tury attention to conflict regulation fashioned an expanded role for overarching international legal
structures – namely peacemaking agreements and transitional structures including
international administration and international criminal courts. Both become particularly
relevant as opportunistic sites to advance advocacy for women’s experiences in war. Such
advocacy was critical as it was abundantly clear that women were highly marginalized in
international instutional settings, their issues rarely addressed, and the “deals” were
largely being done without them. While women are missing from key roles in
peace negotiations and gov- ernment, they often dominate in civil society
movements that create “safe” and neutral spaces in conflicted societies. In this latter role,
women frequently provide the grassroots networking and social support structures relied
upon local and international elites to embed peace processes. In many jurisdictions, they are the
public face of a transition to peace via highly essentialized public roles an d politi- cal
reliance on narratives of harms particular to women, children, suffering
and vulnerably undergirding appeals to recalibrate the political order. For
example, in Northern Ireland women took a lead role through the creation of a women’s
political party, the Women’s Coalition, in advocacy for a peace agreement and “sold” the value of
the peace agreement when a national referen- dum was held to approve it. This reliance is generally under-
acknowledged and rarely funded by the post-conflict reconstruction funds that follow
from international engagement with conflicted states. The under-acknowledgment goes
to a broader pattern of exclusion that remains a consistently gendered aspect of politi-
cal settlement. Conflict sites such as Northern Ireland (see chapter 4 this volume) illustrate the extent to which a highly organized
women’s civil society sector, historically associated with the global peace movement, and
well organized to advance legal and political space around such “neutral” issues such as
domestic violence was able to leverage its cross-community capacity and political organ-
izing to advance the local peace process. Despite this reliance, arguably little has been
done to advance the security concerns of women in post-conflict settings.
Negotiation seldom addresses the need to reorder post-conflict security sector reform
processes to better engage women’s needs. Gender inclusion gaps have led to
impassioned advocacy for women’s insertion in peace processes and sup- port for mainstreaming
issues of particular concern to women into the fulcrum of the “deals” being made. The success of these advocacy efforts remains difficult to
measure. While
there is evidence of increased female presence at the peacemaking table,
influence upon core elements including the security dimensions of peace deals remains
marginal. Empirical analysis shows inconsistent results for greater female
presence, and little more than an ad hoc patchwork of gender-specific
provisions in a broad swathe of peace agreements. A broader debate has emerged within feminist
circles concerning the value of representation and the challenge of delivering better outcomes for
women from an “add women and stir” approach. Increasingly scholars and practitioners recognize that they
must pay greater attention to negotiation “tipping points” so as to progress influence on security outcomes as
well as paying attention to which women are in the room and being clearer about the
multiple and intersectional interests served by women who are present in negotiations.
Attention is also being paid to the importance of aligning elite interests with women’s
interest through the process of political set- tlement and addressing the ways in which a variety of structural and pre-existing social and
economic determinants have a decisive effect on peacemaking efforts for women. Over time, a more nuanced understanding has also
emerged of masculinity in the peacemaking environment, and the ways in which some men derive benefits from the status quo and others
do not. A substantial amount of literature has been generated over the years regarding the
forms of masculinity that
emerge in times of armed conflict and war. While war literature across many disciplines has made significant
conceptual and practical use of the term “masculinity,” the concept has been less applied and understood to be relevant in the post-conflict
asking the “man” question is critical, thereby
context. In the context of DDR,

interrogating where and how men are situated in relation to the creation,
per- petration, institutionalization and ending of violence. Applying a core
analytical insight from masculinity theory—namely the emergence of “hyper”
masculinity, and its enlarged and elevated role in conflict requires thinking
through what are the implications for DDR when hyper masculine practices
pervade “war-time” and seep beyond it. By the time conflict ends, men who have
acted militarily and their (generally) male political elites are deeply enmeshed in a
cultural vision of manhood. As former combatants in Colombia explained to anthropologist Kim- berly Theidon, for
example, joining a paramilitary group allowed the men “to ‘feel like a big man in the streets
of their barrios,’ to ‘go out with the prettiest young women,’ and to ‘dress well,’ privileges
they insist would not have been possible if they weren’t carrying a gun. The prevalence of
this kind of masculinity poses complex issues for undoing violence, for mainstreaming
gender equality and for remaking societies that have been fractured and deeply divided. It
seems particularly pertinent to ask how DDR may contribute to the unloosening or remaking of masculinity patterns and hierarchies.
Thinking critically about DDR means addressing parallel discourses maintain- ing the view that “civilians are . . . ill-equipped to address
substantive issues related to the security sector.” If this is well-received wisdom in ordinary times, we should assume that it has a
heightened sensitivity in situations of great political and military flux. The “exclude civilians” view is compounded by the vision that
formulating and executing security policy (in the narrowest sense) is a legitimate responsibility (almost a “spheres of competence”
approach) given to the security forces themselves, and where applicable to international military elites. Addition- ally civil society
organizations (the majority of which do not typically embrace the women’s sector) shy away from substantive engagement with such bodies
or are simply not represented in the spaces where the conversations about policy formation take place. Thus, women
face
additional layers of exclusion because they are unrelentingly absent from the military
decision-making processes and the small number of women who “get to the negotiation
tables” will be unlikely candidates as civilian additions to security sector reform
conversations.

A successful peace process is impossible absent gender sensitivity

Lee-koo, Katrina 2012. (Katrina Lee-Koo is an Associate Professor at Monash
University. She teaches and researches in the field of security studies. She looks
particularly at critical security studies, and the protection and participation of civilians in
conflict affected areas and peace processes (focused upon women and children). “Gender
at the crossroad of conflict: Tsunami and peace in post-2005 Aceh”. Feminist Review,
(101), 59-77.
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1021082240/58EEBBB161F44786PQ/1?accounti
d=1516 //EH)
As 2005 dawned, global attention turned to the Indonesian province of Aceh where days earlier a devastating and
unexpected earthquake had caused a tsunami to hit the coastline and kill over 165,000 Acehnese (UNORC, 2009: 4). In
response to this tragedy, a major international humanitarian presence poured into Aceh. Yet it
was not commonly known that Aceh was in fact a conflict zone. In comparison to the blinding light
of global attention that typified post-tsunami Aceh, there had previously been only darkness in terms of the international
community's consideration of the three-decade-long civil war that had been fought between Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM
or the Free Aceh Movement) and the Government forces of Indonesia. While the tsunami provided a catalyst for the 2005
peace agreement, the politics surrounding the conflict complicated humanitarian operations. Productive access to areas
throughout Aceh by humanitarian relief, and later development agencies, required the co-operation of the Indonesian
Government and trust of the Acehnese people. This, in turn, meant that the international community needed to be
diplomatically strategic in terms of how it negotiated its post-tsunami reconstruction efforts between the two former
belligerents. A policy of 'don't mention the war' emerged whereby relief and development efforts focused upon post-
tsunami, but not post-conflict, recovery. While the consequences of this are far-reaching, it has also had important
gendered effects. In light of this unique context, the purpose of this article is to (re)introduce a
feminist reading of the Acehnese peace process and the conflict that preceded it in order to
highlight their central role, alongside post-tsunami development, in ensuring a sustainable peace in
Aceh. This article argues that the conceptual limits of the formal peace process , negotiated
in the eighteen months after the tsunami, have been predominantly masculinist and have
excluded Acehnese women's voices and experiences. This is reflected in the lack of
women's involvement in the formal peace process and the commitment to a narrow
peace agenda focused on the cessation of militarised conflict, the creation of special
autonomy and the co-ordination of political power sharing within public sphere politics.
These concerns are, of course, central to Aceh's future; however, the exclusive focus of the peace process
on these issues created a peace that conforms to an elite masculinity in the sense that it
pursues only those cultural, military and political norms consistent with the stated
ambitions of elite men who were involved in the peace process. These particular
masculinist claims, in turn, conform to traditional international relations (IR) notions
that public space, military operations and political power are the sole preserve of elite
men (Tickner, 2001: 15). Consequently, the transformative possibilities of peace have
fallen short of establishing the foundations suitable for pursuing gender
justice. In this case, these foundations require commitment to at least two conditions: the fair representation of
gendered identities in formal political forums central to negotiating Aceh's future; and the representation within these
forums of political and social issues that differently or disproportionately affect specific gendered identities. In exploring
these commitments in Aceh, this article will adopt a critical feminist IR lens (see D'Costa and Lee-Koo, 2009). This lens
positions gender relations as a central unit of analysis and begins from the well-established foundation that
sustainable peace emerges only when that peace is gender-sensitive (Brock-Utne,
1985: 141; Porter, 2007). In doing so, this article seeks out the lives of gender identities in Aceh in ways that expose their
individual diversity and the gendered relations that sustain them. Moreover, this article asks why the experiences of
certain women are silent or silenced and how this is enabled by, and re-produces, contemporary gendered power relations
in contemporary Aceh. Third, this article maps the inclusions and exclusions of gendered identities in formal and informal
political processes, and looks for sites not just of oppression, but also of opportunity and resistance. Finally, this article
embeds an emancipatory ethic that is committed to enabling the local re-designing of gendered social relations in ways
that are inclusive of those disenfranchised by the prevailing order (Lee-Koo, 2007). gendering the war, 1976-2005 Aceh's
bid for independence has a long history (see Reid, 2006; Aspinall, 2007: 950-972, 2009: 21-48; Drexler, 2008). Most
recently, it manifested in the armed conflict between GAM and the Government of Indonesia (GoI) after the former's
founder Hasan di Tiro declared independence in December 1976 (Braithwaite et al. , 2010: 391-406). Like all conflicts, the
origins of the Acehnese conflict are multifarious and were fuelled as much by external issues, identity politics, historical
grievances and individual personalities as they were by any specific issue (see Aspinall, 2009). However, researchers
generally agree that GAM's continued bid for independence was fuelled into the twenty-first century by Indonesia's
perceived economic exploitation of Aceh's oil and liquid natural gas deposits (Ross, 2005: 35-38) and the extensive and
unaddressed human rights abuses and military repression committed against the Acehnese by Indonesian military forces
(Aspinall, 2008: 16). Within two years of di Tiro's proclamation of independence, Indonesian President Suharto sent
thousands of troops to Aceh (Cunliffe et al. , 2009: 17). The conflict raged throughout the 1980s, but between 1989 and
1998 the conflict entered a new phase. During this time, Aceh was declared to be a Daerah Operasi Militer or DOM
(Military Operations Zone). The fall of Suharto's 'New Order' regime in 1998 changed the dynamic of the conflict and
ended this bloody phase. As the Indonesian province of East Timor moved towards a referendum on independence, the
Acehnese too believed that independence was close (Aspinall, 2009: 16).
 POLICING
Focus on police reform ignores the gender subordination and sexual
violence rampant within police ranks
Nancy LeTourneau 7-8-2015, (Nancy has been a contributing writer at the
Washington Monthly since November 2014. Before then, she wrote at her own blog,
Horizons, for almost a decade. Nancy holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology/Social
Studies/Secondary Education and a master’s degree in Theology/Marriage and Family
Therapy. She provided counseling and therapy in various settings before becoming the
executive director of a nonprofit organization whose mission focused on juvenile crime
prevention. "The Role of Feminism in Police Reform," Washington Monthly,
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2015/07/08/the-role-of-feminism-in-police-reform/
//EH)
The reality of the need for police reform hit the headlines this year as a result of interactions with unarmed black men that
resulted in several deaths. Findings of the Department of Justice in cities like Ferguson and Cleveland that police
departments engaged in the pattern and practice of racial discrimination and brutality highlighted the problem. That
discussion reminded me of an interaction I witnessed back in the early 1990’s. I was working closely with the Deputy Chief
of an urban police department on fundraising for a charitable campaign during the time that the department hired a new
Chief who was dedicated to implementing community policing initiatives. One potential donor we met with was obviously
more interested in those changes than he was in our charitable cause and asked the Deputy Chief a lot of questions about
what was happening. At one point the Deputy Chief said, “This police department will be where it needs
to be when over half the officers are women, because police work is mostly about
negotiating and women tend to be better at that.” I have to say that I was a bit shocked to
hear that. Leaving aside that he was making some pretty big stereotypical generalizations
about men and women, that was not the kind of thing you expected to hear from
someone in the highest echelons of such a male-dominated profession. But over the years I
watched as the department made a lot of headway on effective reforms based, not so much on the activities in which they
engaged, but the quality of people who were hired and promoted in the department. So you can imagine why I’d be
interested in an article by Katherine Spillar titled: How More Female Police Officers Would Help Stop Police Brutality. In
fact, over the last 40 years, studies have shown that female officers are less authoritarian in their
approach to policing, less reliant on physical force and are more effective
communicators. Most importantly, female officers are better at defusing potentially
violent confrontations before those encounters turn deadly. Spiller goes on to recount some of the
research on this and then says that in 2007 (the last year for which data is available), only 12% of police officers
were women. She then gives several reasons for why that figure is still so low. Too many police recruiting campaigns
feature slick brochures and billboards focused on adrenaline-fueled car chases, swat incidents and helicopter rescues – the
kind of policing featured in television dramas and that overwhelmingly appeals to male recruits. In reality, 80 percent
to 95 percent of police work involves nonviolent, service-related activities and
interactions with people in the community to solve problems – the kind of policing that appeals to
women. The tests used in the selection and hiring of police recruits are also a problem. Based on the discredited
presumption that brute strength is a key requirement for successful performance as a police officer, the vast majority of
police agencies use some form of physical abilities testing in their hiring process. These tests tend to emphasize upper-
body strength and disqualify some women – and men of slight stature. Yet physical strength has never been shown to
predict a police officer’s effectiveness or ability to handle dangerous situations. Instead, testing should focus on
an applicant’s communication skills and ability to defuse potential violence and maintain
composure in situations of conflict. Finally, as in the military and other traditionally
male dominated work forces, female officers face high rates of sexual harassment and
negative male attitudes. All of this is important because, while President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century
Policing includes some important recommendations, there is nothing in their final report that addresses these
issues. To me, that suggests that we still have a long way to go in even understanding the problem…much less solving it.
This isn’t solely about the gender of police officers. The root of the problem lies in how we define the work of police
officers, which then affects the ways in which we recruit and train them. As long as we continue to believe
that physical dominance is the major skill required in this work, we will continue to have
problems with brutality in its implementation. My initial shock at what that Deputy Chief said back in the
90’s was about the need for over half of their officers to be women. But I now realize that the truly significant thing he
grasped was that police work is mostly about negotiating. That’s actually the most radical thing he said. And if we’re ever
going to really reform our police departments, it is with that awareness that we must start.
 PROLIF/NUKES
Calls for denuclearization of the Other feeds into hyper-masculine
tendencies – always needing to proclaim strength and savorism
Eschle 12(Catherine Eschle is a senior lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy
at the University of Strathclyde and is Director of the Honors year of the Politics and
International Relations degree and teach on the Master degrees in International Relations and
Applied Gender Studies. “Gender and Valuing Nuclear Weapons” University of Strathclyde.
3/21/12. p.3-6.
https://www.academia.edu/10158982/Gender_and_Valuing_Nuclear_Weapons?source=swp_s
hare) rr
Turning to the relationship between gender
and the value accorded to nuclear weapons, several different
feminist frameworks illuminate this relationship, all positing some kind of connection between
masculinity and the desire to attain and maintain nuclear advantage. In this section, I will outline
these frameworks in rough chronological order. While they may have long historical roots (Liddington 1991), arguments
about the connection between masculinity and the value attributed to nuclear weapons really
took off in the revived Cold War of the 1980s, during which period both academic and activist discourses
intertwined. As is well known, the new wave of anti-nuclear activism at that that time, following in the wake of the second
wave of feminism, mobilised larger numbers of women than before, frequently in the form of all-women groups and
actions like Greenham Common on which feminist thought was very influential (and vice-versa). In this context, several
different feminist arguments about gender and the valuing of nuclear weapons emerged. The first I think of as a political-
institutional critique of the male dominance of defence and political establishments, arguing that
this dominance led to a narrow, militarised understanding of security as technological
dominance and autonomy (see essays in Thompson 1983). On this view, nuclear weapons were given
value within a system that reflected male interests and identities and excluded their female
counterparts — rather dodging the question of why men should value nuclear weapons in the first place. An
alternative approach gave an answer to this question by focusing on masculinity and its pathologies, in
what could be called a psycho-sexual framework. Here, the drive to acquire nuclear weapons was
understood to be rooted in a sense of self that sublimated anxieties around sexual performance
and the biological inability to give birth in drives to dominate women and nature, to seek
status relative to other men and to fetishize violence and death (Caldicott 1986; Easlea 1983).
Nuclear weapons were valued by a male elite as the ultimate expression of these drives, as
enabling the violent imposition of their will over women, nature and other men, and as thereby
resolving or obscuring underlying anxieties. Yet another approach, which I would describe as cultural-
structural in orientation, focused its critical ire more specifically on the particular forms of masculinity found
in defence establishments and among state leaders, seeing the valuing of nuclear weapons by
male elites as culturally constructed and sustained within intertwined structures of
patriarchy, capitalism, racism and militarism (see eg. Spretnak 1989; Hartsock 1989). A fourth
framework that emerged during this era focused more on the discursive context of nuclear weapons,
positing that pro-nuclear argumentation required the evacuation of concrete, embodied,
emotionally-engaged modes of thinking and speaking historically associated with feminine (and also
non-white, non-Western) subjectivities, in favour of an abstract, impartial, narrowly means-end
rationality associated with scientific Western masculinity. This critique seems to me to pepper many
anti-nuclear arguments of the era; it was most influentially elaborated by Carol Cohn in her widely cited anthropological
account of the ‘technostrategic’ discourse of the male-dominated American defence industry
(Cohn 1987a,b). Cohn pointed out that this talk was, perhaps counter-intuitively, combined
with highly
sexualised metaphors of male potency, patriarchal imagery of fatherhood and male
authority, domestic and familial language, religious symbolism and images of male birth,
all of which, taken together, functioned both to add value to nuclear weapons - to make them
desirable, high status objects - and also to remove fear and anxiety about them. In addition,
these discursive resonances made nuclear weapons hard to argue against as an oppositional position could not be
articulated in the same language, requiring instead the adoption of modes of reasoning structurally
positioned as emasculated, as feminine, as subordinate. Notably, Cohn is less concerned with tracking
the psychosexual or social origins of this language in her analyses, more with its political effects. In the years since, there
has not been much engagement with these critiques of pro-nuclear masculinities. In my discipline of International
Relations, and more specifically in the subfield of gender and security studies, an initial interest in both Cohn’s work and
the activities and writings of women anti-nuclear campaigners in pioneering feminist texts of the late 1980s and early
1990s (e.g., Enloe 1989; Sylvester 1987, 1992) has since been displaced by other preoccupations. Yet it remains my view
that the gender and security studies literature can offer further insight into why nuclear weapons
are valued (see Duncanson and Eschle 2008). Specifically, scholars working in this field have elaborated a
multidimensional critique of the masculinist underpinnings of dominant (and in particular Realist)
approaches to security and the state, in terms of both scholarship and policy practices. This could be labelled
the security-sovereignty critique and it seems to me that new arguments about the role of gender in the valuing of nuclear
weapons can be extrapolated from it. There are at several elements to this critique relevant to our purposes. To begin with
how security is pursued, feminist IR scholars have argued that mainstream approaches rely on and reify a
gendered division of labour, whereby a male military acts to defend a civilian population
composed of women and children. The masculine-coded Protector role, as pointed out initially by
Judith Hicks Stiehm (1982), gains its status precisely through a contrast with the feminised
Protected (for a more recent version of this argument, see Young 2003). By extension, nuclear weapons may be
valued by the military in particular if they are seen as augmenting the protector role and thus the
masculinised status associated with it. In addition, it has been pointed out that aspirations for
security are frequently articulated in terms of invulnerability, invincibility and impregnability — a
masculinist fantasy, according to feminists, which gains its force from an understanding that the feminised body is
penetrated and impregnated by a male body that remains or ought to remain impermeable (Radstone 2002). Nuclear
weapons may be valuable because they offer a symbolic boost to this fantasy, augmenting
psycho-sexual explanations for the frequency of metaphors of male potency and virility in
discussion of nuclear weapons. Moving onto the threats against which security is sought, IR feminists
argue that these too are frequently imbued with gendered (as well as racialised and geopolitical)
assumptions and hierarchies. For instance, the enemy Other may be characterised in
feminised terms that justify a masculine or even hyper-masculine response, as is perhaps evident in
the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (Kaufman-Osborn 2005), or it may be castigated as
exemplifying a gross, deficient masculinity, contrasted to the rationality and restraint of
‘ourselves’, as in constructions of ‘rogue states’, for example, or of individual leaders such as Saddam
Hussein (Zalewski and Enloe 1998: 291-293). In such ways, gendered values may colour strategic
justifications for the maintenance of a nuclear deterrence against such adversaries. Finally, it has been
claimed that security theory and policy are underpinned by gendered assumptions about the
state that is being made secure or acting to achieve security. Focusing on the Realist view, in particular, feminist IR
scholars argue that states are presented as if they are (or ought to be) mature men: internally
coherent, autonomous from others, active in pursuit of goals and rational in calculation of those
goals and how to achieve them (True 2001: 249, 255-6; Peterson 1992). Nuclear weapons ownership is likely to
be valued if it is perceived as evidence of or as bolstering these masculine characteristics of the
state, and as enabling the transcendence or marginalisation of feminine-associated traits of
passivity, dependence or emotion. Conversely, states that are judged not to fulfil this particular set
of masculine characteristics will doubtless be deemed inadmissible to the nuclear club. In sum, then, the
security-sovereignty critique developed by feminist IR scholars indicates that the how, what and who of security are
coded masculine in ways that can be extrapolated to make sense of the value accorded to
nuclear weapons. This critique adds an additional set of arguments to Cold War analyses highlighting the political-
institutional, psycho-sexual, cultural-structural and discursive dynamics of pro-nuclear masculinities.
 QATAR
The aff abandons Qatari women
Seeker, 7/31/2016 , (Seeker is an American digital media network and content
publisher based in San Francisco, California. The network was established in 2015 within
a former independent division of Discovery Communications known as Discovery Digital
Networks. "How Bad Are Qatar's Human Rights Violations?,"
https://www.seeker.com/how-bad-are-qatars-human-rights-violations-
1953131093.html //EH)
In 2010, the small and oil-rich nation of Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup. It was an extremely
controversial decision, with critics contending that Qatar's long list of human rights
violations should preclude eligibility. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Tim Poole explains in
today's Seeker Daily report. Qatar is under a particularly bright light in recent months due to a recent and highly
publicized international incident. When a visiting Dutch woman reported that she had been raped
at a hotel in the nation's capitol, Qatar authorities convicted the woman of adultery and
detained her for more than three months. The incident prompted international outrage and media
reports subsequently exposed Qatar's other human rights abuses, particularly in regard to migrant
workers. Qatar is among the wealthiest nations in the world. Rapid development has created hundreds of thousands of
labor jobs. To fill those jobs, Qatar relies of low-paid migrant workers from Asia and Africa. RELATED: Can The Middle
East Survive Without Oil? According to Amnesty International and other human rights groups, the vast majority of these
migrant workers are unfairly paid and, in many respects, essentially treated like slaves. Workers are forced to
live in cramped and filthy labor camps and subject to physical and sexual abuse. As of
June 2016, it's estimated that 1.5 million workers -- around 60 percent of Qatar's
population -- live under such conditions. And thanks to Qatar's employment sponsorship
laws, these workers are basically trapped in the country after they arrive. Employers can
strip workers of their passports and exit permits, and if workers attempt to leave anyway,
they can be legally arrested and detained as "absconded workers" -- a phrase that doesn't
rhyme with "runaway slave," but may as well. International observers have long regarded
Qatar's legal system as corrupt and abusive. The country's constitution is based on Sharia Law, a strict
interpretation of the teachings of Islam. As such, harsh punishments like flogging and stoning are
legal for offenses like alcohol consumption, extramarital sex and blasphemy. Meanwhile,
Qatar's labor camps have expanded significantly since the World Cup announcement. In light of the country's track
record, many are calling for soccer's governing body FIFA to pull the World Cup out of Qatar in 2022. The Qatari
government has promised to improve conditions, but reforms to the labor code have so far failed to
make any difference at all.
 REALISM
Realism is the antithesis to gender equality
Tricia Ruiz, 2005 (Tricia Ruiz is a professor in international relations at CSU Hayward.
“Feminist Theory and International Relations: The Feminist Challenge to Realism and
Liberalism” Soundings Journal, 2005,
https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/honors/documents/journals/soundings/R
uiz.pdf //EH)
As with many theories, “feminist theory” reflects a wide range of perspectives generating many
internal debates concerning how it should be represented. As Diana Thorburn notes, “there can
never be a truly singular voice of feminist foreign policy simply because of the diversity
of views within feminism itself.” 5 However, a brief look at some relevant facets of the discipline can be seen
through Lorraine Codes’ summary of two salient areas within feminist IR theory, standpoint
feminism and radical feminism. 6 Standpoint theory considers how “the gendered construction of
knowledge...[helps to] understand traditional topics in international relations” and is “alerting us to the idea that gender
may be structuring how we think in the international context.”7 Author Martin Griffiths classifies feminist scholar J. Ann
Tickner as a standpoint feminist. 8 Before even addressing existing IR theory, Griffiths first argues that the purpose and
definition of ‘theory’ is in itself male-centered, because it is “oppressingly normative rather than conjectural and analytic.”
9 Simply put, the processes of forming and learning theory is constructed around on automatically-accepted ideas of what
is standard and normal, rather than first challenging the ‘norm’ and questioning if the ‘standard’ is objective enough. In
this case, ‘theory’ lacks female perspective because it is not objectively sought at the onset of formulating ideas. Tickner
argues that IR is gendered to “marginalize women’s voices,” and stresses “that women have knowledge, perspectives and
experiences that should be brought to bear on the study of international relations.” For example, Tickner would argue that
security, a main topic in IR, should not only be understood as “defending the state from attack,” but should also consider
that security for women “might be different because women are more likely to be attacked by men they know, rather than
strangers from other states.” 10 In other words, in contrast to traditional IR views that view security as protecting the state
from other states, feminists argue the topic of security should address acts of rape and violence, not only from foreign
perpetrators, but from their own fellow citizens as well. Feminists would also add that occurrences of rape increase during
times of war, and is even used as a method of ethnic cleansing among the rivalries within their state, 11 yet would never
enter into typical IR discussions that focus solely on stateto-state interaction, simply because IR discussions traditionally
remain focused on states as the key actors. Thus, the topic of security shows how gender consideration, excluded from the
very beginning of the discussion, results in policymaking that would be subsequently exclusive of, and likely detrimental
to, women. Prior to discussing any IR topic, standpoint feminist IR theory would first challenge those participating in the
discussion, and those defining the key terms and issues, by critically asking them if the normative perspectives and
working vocabulary are broad enough to effectively accommodate issues affecting women. In addition to standpoint
feminism, Griffiths also presents an explanation of radical feminist theory. “The radical feminist focus[es] on the lives and
experiences of women...showing how women’s activities are made invisible on the international scene.” 12 She describes
the writings of feminist Cynthia Enloe, who is famous for the question “where are the women?” One of Enloe’s main
arguments is that feminists should not only seek to include themselves in the higher realms of policymaking and
leadership, but should search for where women have already fulfilled roles to “ensure the international system works
smoothly and efficiently”, such as “the work done by diplomatic wives and military prostitutes.” 13 Following this method
of inquiry leads to consideration of more marginalized issues -- or “low politics” -- in IR, e.g., issues concerning sex
trafficking and migration of labor. Enloe would argue that though such issues may be considered less important than the
forefront issues of military and war, they serve to uphold the critical processes of smooth diplomacy and local relations
between foreign states, in such areas as military bases in times of war, or at state dinners for foreign diplomats. Radical
feminism stresses that women have never really been excluded from the core of international relations, but have simply
not been publicly or professionally acknowledged for their past and present contributions to central issues in IR. This
leads to the next question: what are the main topics in IR, and what do feminists have to say about these issues?
Theories of realism and liberalism will be considered in presenting feminist critiques of
how IR issues are traditionally framed and addressed. Realism centers its theoretical
structure on how the state seeks power and defends its national interests against other
competing states within a global anarchy, or where there is the lack of authority higher
than the state. States seek security through a balance of power in the international arena,
primarily through military means, and resorting to war, if necessary. Realists generally
view the state as the key actor in international politics, and de-emphasize – or, as
feminist theory argues, ignore -- the role of the individual. Much feminist IR theory
stems from a critique of realism, whose “socially constructed worldview continues to
guide much thought about world politics.” 14 First, feminists argue that realists overvalue
the role of the state in defining international relations, without questioning how the state
itself is internally structured, politically and socially. Feminist theory would consider how the state
includes, or excludes, the views of its individual citizens, and how, in turn, the state’s domestic views translate into foreign
policies. In challenging the concepts of a state defending its national interests, feminists
would ask: who is defining the national interests? If women were included in such
discussions, would the national interest be interpreted differently, and if so, how? How
would such an outlook change foreign policy? How would the definition of ‘security’ change? Would
military and defense capabilities still be atop the agenda? Would women necessarily be less militaristic
in their approach to IR issues? An example of how gender studies might reflect a state’s sociopolitical
construction is reflected in a recent empirical study completed by Mark Tessler and Ina Warriner. To discover links
between gender, feminism, and international relations within and among societies, Tessler and
Warriner based their analysis on survey data from four areas in the Middle East, each quite different from one another
socially, politically, and ideologically: Israel, Egypt, Palestine, and Kuwait. Seeing as how the Middle East offers
an ideal example of states acting as realist actors, their findings are quite relevant to
feminist IR theory. Three points deserve emphasis: • “women are not more pacific than men in
their attitudes toward international conflict” • “regardless of the sex...[of the survey
participant], persons who express greater concern for the status and role of women, and
particularly for equality between women and men, are more likely than other[s]...to
believe that the international disputes in which their country is involved should be
resolved through diplomacy and compromise” • “the promotion of progressive values...is
likely to increase support in the Middle East for peace through diplomacy and
compromise.” 15 Though the authors note these relationships can be better understood by including other countries
in such studies, 16 their analysis shows that first, women are not necessarily pacifists by nature, and second, having key
actors in the state system who believe in gender equality can be linked to increased use of diplomacy and compromise in
their state’s foreign policy. Another feminist critique of realism concerns how realists define and
emphasize power in IR discussions. Feminists would ask: who defines power, who has it,
and how is it used? If power is defined by a patriarchal and realist society, which seeks
global balances of power, then power is equated with military and economic strength.
But how would this change if the discussion included women’s viewpoints? Would the
indicators of power be measured differently? Would power be seen as leadership in
peace agreements, or might it be measured in terms of the ability to achieve
transnational cooperation? In relation to realism, feminist theory is clear: realism is
the antithesis to achieving gender equality , both in discussion and practice, and even in its tools
of war and security, patriarchy remains the central theme. States are the actors and the individual is of little importance.
When the individual is deemphasized, there is even less acknowledgement of a female individual, which effectively
excludes feminist discussion. In contrast to realism, liberalist theory emphasizes the role of the
individual over that of the state. Instead of seeing anarchy and “a struggle for power” as a
defining feature of world politics, these thinkers emphasize an international “struggle for
consensus” as central to explaining international relations. 17 Liberalist tools include free trade,
education, and international institutions to protect and promote the economic and civil interests of the individual.
Feminist critiques of liberalism address the economic inequalities inherent to free trade, which disproportionately affect
women. Jacqui True argues that “male-centered macroeconomic indicators, such as the Gross National Product”
undervalue the work of women.18 True also reports that “on a world scale, women are a disadvantaged group: they own
one per cent of the world’s property and resources, perform sixty per cent of the labour, [and] are the majority of refugees,
illiterate and poor persons.” (Ibid) This suggests that the capitalist structure is a patriarchal one, effectively marginalizing
the participation and contributions of women in the economy, since much of their work is reflected in unpaid illegal or
domestic settings that are not included in economic assessments. Indeed, liberalist institutions such as the WTO and
multinational corporations have tended to create free trade agreements that weaken state protections on labor rights 19
and public social funds, which has served to negatively affect the large proportion of women in the labor force. This in turn
camouflages issues of female exploitation, such as the gendered division of labor and the increase in sex trafficking
worldwide. Feminists also challenge liberalism’s claim that international institutions provide for ways in which women
can be become more politically and socially acknowledged and empowered. Since the leaders and the processes of formal
international organizations come from patriarchal systems, their work can keep women at a disadvantage. Hilary
Charlesworth critiques some of the recent formal international conferences, such as the Beijing Declaration and Agenda 21
in Rio. She notes that the wording in the documents shows that while some consensus was achieved in progressing issues
critical to women, not enough was achieved to arrive at the real changes proposed by feminists. Charlesworth outlines
some of the disappointing results, such as the lack of agreement on the definition of gender, and inability to secure
benchmarks for measuring progress. 20 Such critiques underscore the challenges of feminist theory, because they indicate
that highly publicized and widely supported liberalist women’s movements do not necessarily equate
with the goal of achieving real gender equality In light of these feminist criticisms of
realism and liberalism (and the constraints working against their inclusion in IR
discussions), we are led to ask: how feminist theory strong enough on its own to be
considered separate from realism and liberalism? This paper has argued that feminist
theory should not be taken as a separate theory within IR, if one considers its
relationships and discussion with the main IR theories of realism and liberalism. In its clear
opposition against the overall realist theory, feminist theory aligns itself with liberalist ideals, especially through its view
of the role of the individual and its emphasis on a cooperative world. Despite its criticisms of liberal patriarchal systems,
feminist theory still relies heavily on liberalist international organizations and liberal pursuit of civil liberties in order to
achieve gender equality. As feminism continues to widen perspectives in IR, its basic argument for international
cooperation makes it a sub-category of liberalism, 21 and helps to strengthen and enhance the liberalist theory
 RUSSIA
Dealing with the Russian state overlooks the way Russia acts to stifle
dissenting feminist voices from international relations
Orlova 2010 (Dr. Alexandra Orlova is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Criminology at Ryerson University. She received her Ph.D. in Law from Osgoode Hall
Law School, York University, in 2004. She also holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from
Osgoode Hall Law School. Alexandra joined the Department of Criminology as a full-
time faculty member in August 2005. She teaches courses on Canadian Criminal Justice,
Criminal Law, International Perspectives, and Security Threats. "Russian Politics of
Masculinity and the Decay of Feminism: The Role of Dissent in Creating New Local
Norms.",
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1486&context=wmjo
wl //EH)
Over the past decade, the Russian state has been deliberately pursuing politics of
masculinity that aim to actively undermine feminist dissenting voices by
presenting feminism as something that is foreign and inappropriate for the Russian
context. This Article examines why Russian domestic feminism has failed to generate
areexamination of entrenched gender stereotypes and barriers in Russia. The Article concludes
that in order to effectively combat gender stereotyping and reduce structural barriers that continuously relegate women to
the private sphere, new "local norms" based on gender equality need to develop. In order for these
new local norms to gain public acceptance, the role of "translators," such as civil society and domestic activists, cannot be
underestimated. Unfortunately, in today's Russia, such "translation" work is highly discouraged by the state. The
Russian state is simply unwilling to cede some of its power and account for dissent in
order to advance gender equality, as opposed to its current politics of masculinity.
INTRODUCTION I. THE MASCULINIZATION OF THE STATE AND THE DECAY OF FEMINISM A. The Pussy Riot
Sentencing Decision (2012) II. CHALLENGING THE MAsCULINITY OF THE STATE A. Gender Stereotyping: Markin v.
Russia Case B. Entrenching Patterns of Gendered Violence CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, the
Russian state has deliberately pursued politics of masculinity that aim not only to
relegate women's rights into the private sphere, defining them in terms of concerns and preferences-
rather than as something the state has an obligation to enforce-but also to actively undermine feminist dissenting voices
by presenting feminism as something that is foreign and inappropriate for the Russian context. While the #Me Too
movement is gaining momentum in the West, resulting in the re-examination of entrenched gender
stereotypes and barriers, this Article examines why Russian domestic feminism is not able to generate a similar
reexamination of values within Russia. Part I of the Article examines the gradual masculinization of the Russian state, the
rise of gendered discourses that present feminism as a Western imposition, and the reasons for the decline of the Russian
domestic feminist movement. It looks at the sentencing decision in the Pussy Riot case, and discusses the difficulties
experienced by feminist dissenters who attempt to serve as "translators" of Western feminist values. The Article further
looks at how the Pussy Riot decision was used to send a powerful message to Russian human rights activists to stop
challenging the state's genderized politics. Part II looks at the position of the Russian state in regards to
"third-generation" human rights and traditional cultural norms, vocalized as
"unchangeable local culture." Part of this positioning involves the Russian state's active perpetuation of gender
stereotyping, as represented in the Markin decision by the Russian Constitutional Court. 1 The last section of Part II
examines the role of the Russian judiciary in supporting and reinforcing the state's politics ofmasculinity, as well as the
legislative perpetuation of patterns of gender violence, by looking at the 2017 amendments to the Russian Criminal Code
that decriminalize certain forms of domestic violence.2 The Article concludes that in order to effectively combat gender
stereotyping and reduce the structural barriers that continuously relegate women to the private sphere, new "local norms"
based on gender equality need to develop. In order for these new local norms to gain public acceptance, the role of
"translators," such as civil society and domestic activists, cannot be underestimated. Unfortunately, in today's Russia, such
"translation" work is highly discouraged by the state. The Russian state is unwilling to cede some of its power and account
for dissent in order to advance gender equality, as opposed to its current politics of masculinity. As President
Vladimir Putin solidified his rule and reasserted state control over many aspects
ofRussian life, a gradual masculinization of the state and a decline offeminism resulted.
At first, the president's masculinity was used to project the idea that he was capable of restoring Russia's global stature. 3
masculinity politics became central to the new state-engineered
However, soon
mobilization. "4 Gendered discourses are deliberately used for the dual purposes of
nation building and branding, where "the border between gendered Us and Others"
is created and perpetuated. 5 For example, the government invested heavily in the project of creating various
"state-friendly'' youth groups infused with heteronormative, male-dominated ideology. 6 At the same time, many
opposition movements and their leaders were deliberately feminized and portrayed in
non-heteronormative ways, in an attempt to discredit the "moral values" of their policies
and portray them as personally weak.7 For example, during one of the pro-Kremlin youth camps,
photoshopped pictures of various opposition leaders dressed up as transvestite prostitutes were distributed. 8
Furthermore, given Russia's current conflict with Ukraine over the annexation of Crimea,
Russian media has actively engaged in the ((demasculinization'' of Ukraine, by
actively using gender metaphors portraying Ukraine as a "picky girl" and "flighty ...
mistress," and generally presenting Ukraine as a state under "external control" that is
"weak, dependent, and mixed up."9 Thus, gender has been turned into a political trigger in order to
mainstream an ideology of ((traditional values." The regime has chosen the discourse of utraditional values" to create an
"alternative intellectual space," rather than just a physical space, for anti-Western resistance. 10 Thus, gendered
discourses have been used to maintain physical borders and possibly to expand
intellectual ones, and are thus inextricably tied to Russian masculine versions of national
security and the country's role in international politics. 11 Gendered discourses are particularly useful
in this creation and demarcation of borders, because "gender discourse allows for 'humanizing' the national community,
making it closer to the everyday experiences of the person and ensuring the functioning of'banal nationalism.' " 12 Given
the state's heavy investment in maintaining its "moral sovereignty'' based on "traditional values," the politics of
masculinity have been used to blame feminism for various social problems, to perpetuate
gender stereotyping, 13 and to further promote anti-Western attitudes, portraying
feminism and pro-gay rights movements as Western "moral colonialism" designed to
weaken Russia's geopolitical stance.14 For example, "[the] construction of neologism 'Gayropa' that appeared
in the Russian discourses in the 2010s in order to point to homosexuality ... as 'the essence of the European lifestyle,'
making Europe a 'degenerate civilization' and Russia-a 'bastion of moral principles.' "15 The politics of masculinity
certainly contributed to the 2013 federal anti-gay propaganda laws that provide fines for "[p]ropaganda of non-traditional
sexual relations among minors" and stigmatize non-reproductive sex.16 The politics of masculinity also gave a public
platform to views that urged women not to provoke men to rape by wearing revealing clothing. 17 Feminism was blamed
for "40 million [Russian] women who do not have husbands and experience deep unhappiness." 18 Most recently, a video
advertisement calling on Russians to vote in the presidential elections on March 18, 2018, which went viral in Russia,
painted the "future facing those who fail to show up at the polls ... with a slew of comically absurd laws."19 However, "the
most egregious outcome of the man's decision not to vote is a law assigning each family with a 'gay homestay' for a
week."20 In the advertisement, the man's wife says "[i]f he doesn't find himself a pair, then you'll have to be with him."21
"The law is the law," a flamboyantly dressed gay man says to his host "before suggestively biting into a banana."22 The
video is clearly designed to reinforce the image of the Russian president as a protector of heterosexual masculinity from
outside threats. While the regime has actively constructed feminism as a Western import that has no place in Russia,
concern about women's issues is certainly not new. Domestic feminism started to take root in Russia with some local
adaptations, especially concerning issues of violence within families and female poverty following the collapse of the
Soviet Union. 23
 SAUDI ARABIA
Taking a moral state against arms sales to nations like Saudi Arabia asserts
the backwardness of Saudi Arabia and positions Western nations as
enlightened nations that “treat their women properly” which erases agency
from women in Saudi Arabia, reproduces dichotomies of us and them, and
re-entrenches racist and sexist distinctions
Robinson ’19 [Fiona, 2-25-2019, Fiona Robinson is Professor of Political Science
specializing in International Relations and Political Theory. She holds am MPhil (1992)
and PhD (1995) from the University of Cambridge, an MA in International Affairs from
the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (1991) and a BA Honours in
Political Studies and English from Queen’s University (1989), "Feminist foreign policy as
ethical foreign policy? A care ethics perspective," SAGE Journals,
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1755088219828768]//ARW
In 2014, Sweden became the first state ever to publicly adopt a feminist foreign policy,
with a stated ambition to become the ‘strongest voice for gender equality and full
employment of human rights for all women and girls’ (Government of Sweden, 2016). In
Canada, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has followed this lead, announc- ing a
feminist international assistance policy in 2017 and referring explicitly to their foreign
policy as ‘feminist’ in key foreign policy speeches and documents. As a result, there has
been a spark of academic interest in feminist foreign policy over the past 3 years
(Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2016; Vucetic, 2017). Prior to 2015, there was
certainly significant critical feminist work in the field of International Relations (IR)
specifically addressing gender in foreign policy from feminist perspectives (Sjolander et
al., 2003; Howell, 2005; Tiessen and Carrier, 2015; True, 2016). But it is only since 2016,
responding to developments in the world, that scholars have become increasingly
interested in analysing the meaning and implications of foreign policy that is explicitly
named ‘feminist’.1 A key article on the theory and practice of feminist foreign policy is
Karin Aggestam and Annika Bergman-Rosamond’s (2016) ‘Swedish Feminist Foreign
Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics and Gender’ (2016: 323). In that article, the authors
argue that inherent in the idea of a feminist foreign policy is a normative reorientation
that is guided by an ethically informed framework based on broad cosmopolitan norms
of global jus- tice and peace (Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2016: 323). The
authors draw upon the ‘solidarist’ branch of the English School (ES) of international
theory, which takes a ‘cosmopolitanism justice’ approach to international ethics. I argue
that liberal cosmo- politan reproduces existing relations of power, including gender
power relations and Western liberal modes of domination. While this cosmopolitanism is
consonant with the ethical discourse that underwrites and constitutes existing feminist
foreign policy, it will serve ultimately to undercut, rather than facilitate, feminist goals.
By contrast, I suggest that a critical feminist ethic of care offers a potentially radical and
transformative account of ethics as a basis for a transnational feminism – one that
reveals and troubles the binary gender norms that constitute the international and which
reveals the ways in which patri- archal orders uphold political hierarchies that obstruct
the building of empathy and repairing of relationship. I argue that a feminist foreign
policy can be a critical, ethical alternative to realpolitik (including ‘hyper-masculine
nationalism’), but not if it defines itself as a return to the neo-liberal, interventionist
governmentalities of post–Cold War liberal internationalism.2 The article begins by
tracing the development of feminist foreign policy in Sweden and in Canada, focusing
specifically on the diplomatic crises with Saudi Arabia faced by both countries. It then
addresses the discursive positioning of ‘feminist’ public and foreign policy as ‘ethical’ and
the implications of this for both feminism and ethics. This section also unpacks the
notion of ‘ethical foreign policy’ and considers the rela- tionship between this and
feminism. Despite its widespread dismissal by foreign pol- icy realists as ‘idealistic’,
‘ethical foreign policy’ has been an enduring idea in both academic literature and policy
discourse for decades. I argue that the dominant under- standings of ‘ethical foreign
policy’ reproduce the binary and adversarial logics of ‘realism’ versus ‘idealism’,
‘universal’ versus ‘particular’ and ‘inside’ versus ‘out- side’ (Walker, 1992). In equating
‘the ethical’ with the cosmopolitan ‘outside’, so- called ‘ethical foreign policy’ reifies and
reproduces a world order that is upheld through a constellation of power relations,
where global capitalism intertwines with patriarchy, racist logics and neo-colonialism. I
suggest that this account of ‘the ethical’ as ‘the universal’ is ultimately antithetical to
transformative feminist critique. What makes feminist ethics ‘ethical’ is not its
positioning vis-à-vis the meta-ethical debate on ‘universalism-particularism’, but its
ability to reveal the epistemic and physical violence that is inflicted through constitutive
gender binaries. Positioning the ethics of universal global justice as ‘feminine’ or even
‘feminist’ is unsustainable, since ‘justice’ is constituted as a space of masculinity. As
Charlotte Hooper has argued, masculinity is an incredibly resilient concept in terms of
how it legitimizes the behaviour of both male and female actors. Masculinity, she argues,
appears to have ‘no stable ingredients and therefore its power depends entirely on
certain quali- ties constantly being associated with men’ (Hooper, 2001: 230). On this
view, what is required is an approach ethics that does not rely upon gendered binaries,
but instead has the resources to challenge them. To illustrate this argument, the second
part of the article addresses the recent dip- lomatic crises faced by Sweden and Canada
in their relationships with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While there are many other
nation-states which might warrant atten- tion here, Saudi Arabia represents, in many
ways, a test case for feminist foreign policy. Saudi Arabia is well known in the West as a
flagrant denier of women’s rights; despite the recent overturning of the decades-long ban
on driving for women, women remain subject to a system of male guardianship and
women’s and human rights activ- ists in the country are imprisoned, and can be
sentenced to death, for their actions. And yet, Saudi Arabia remains an ‘ally’ of the West
– an importer of arms from many Western countries and a fellow fighter in the war
against Islamic terrorism. Not sur- prisingly, many observers regard the sale of arms to
Saudi Arabia as existing in out- right contradiction to the aims of feminist foreign policy.
While not denying this, I suggest that our attention should shift away from this
contradiction – which again relies on binary logics and assumptions of essential
difference between Saudi Arabia (authoritarian, backward and violent) and
Sweden/Canada (democratic, progressive and peaceful). Policymakers and diplomats
must aim to build understanding by rec- ognizing the material and discursive factors that
have constructed, over time, the relationships between Saudi Arabia and
Sweden/Canada, as well as the ways in which patriarchal institutions and structures –
across the globe and at multiple scales – hin- der the possibility of attentive listening and
connection across national borders and cultural/religious difference. It is only through
the prism of this relationship – where difference takes on meaning – that the more
complex role of Western states in the contemporary system of transnational militarism is
revealed. Furthermore, countries such as Sweden and Canada must recognize that
progressive change on women’s and human rights in a country like Saudi
Arabia can never be imposed by ethical or femi- nist Western
governments. Countries espousing feminist foreign policies must refuse to
buy in to an order of living that ‘splits humans into the superior and the
inferior’ (Gilligan and Snider, 2017: 174). The final part of the article sketches out the
ways in which a feminist ethic of care can offer a different, and potentially more
transformative, way of thinking about feminist foreign policy. Care ethics now includes a
wide-ranging literature in a diverse array of disciplines, including IR.3 While there are a
number of key authors who are widely rec- ognized as the central figures in care ethics,
my reading relies specifically on the work of Carol Gilligan on moral psychology, ethics
and politics. In contrast to much of the (very valuable) research which focuses on the
concept of care and its application to women’s labour, social policy and migration,
Gilligan’s approach focuses on the epistemic, psy- chological and political structure of
patriarchy. This approach is committed to revealing the harms caused by absolutist,
dualistic categories of all kinds, and emphasizes the relationality of moral agents, as well
as the importance of contextual and revisable moral judgement. It sees all people as
embodied and vulnerable and mutually interdependent. A feminist ethic of care is not
something that must be rationally willed or imposed on others; rather, it is a feature of
the human need for relationship that flows when men and women resist the grip of
patriarchy. Only then do both men and women feel free to respond to others with careful
attention, attentive listening and responsiveness, and to do so without losing or
sacrificing themselves. Insofar as it is committed to disrupting the binaries and
dichotomies of patriarchy, it could be argued that a care ethics perspective challenges not
only a particular view of foreign policy but also the very idea foreign policy itself. While I
am sympathetic to this possibility, I will not pursue it here. This is because, I would
argue that there is currently some discursive, political and ethical momentum behind the
idea of feminist foreign policy, and that it is emerging at a time where the need for
feminist mobilization – against the forces of patriarchy and populism – is more urgent
than ever. Instead, I argue that feminist foreign policy is an idea that can be mobilized
strategically and which can be tied to an understanding of ethics. I will argue, however,
that what makes feminist for- eign policy ‘ethical’ is not its commitment to acting
decisively and with epistemological certainty on already-agreed-upon rational principles
of human rights and universal jus- tice; rather, ethical foreign policy that is feminist is
about seeing global actors as consti- tuted and sustained through relationships in specific
times and places, and tracing how power, in its various forms, makes those relationships
– in various, ever-changing con- texts – oppressive or enabling. Feminist foreign policy
as ethical foreign policy When the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Green Party
formed a coalition govern- ment after the 2014 elections, they called themselves the
world’s first feminist govern- ment and have since then intensified Sweden’s domestic
gender mainstreaming. In October of the same year, Sweden became the first nation-
state ever to adopt, publicly and explicitly, a feminist foreign policy. According to
Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is about
systematically and holistically implementing policies that contribute to gender equality
and the full enjoyment of human rights of all women and girls (Wallström, 2015). This
is achieved through a focus on the so-called three ‘Rs’ – rights, representation and
resources (Government of Sweden, 2016: 3). The six focus areas for 2016 were as
follows: 1. To strengthen women and girls’ human rights in humanitarian situations; 2.
To fight and prevent gender-based and sexual violence against women and girls in
conflict and post-conflict situations; 3. To promote women’s participation as actors in
peace processes and peace pro- moting measures; 4. To promote women and girls’
participation in the work for economic, social and environmental sustainable
development; 5. To strengthen women and girls’ economic independence and their
access to eco- nomic resources, including though productive work under decent living
conditions; 6. To strengthen sexual and reproductive rights for girls and young people
(Wallström, 2015). These goals are reiterated in the new Handbook: Sweden’s Feminist
Foreign Policy (Government of Sweden, 2018). The Handbook also outlines methods for
norm change and mobilization, as well as working methods within subsidiary areas of
foreign policy – including peace and security, disarmament and non-proliferation,
international devel- opment and trade. Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is framed as a
natural extension of the work of a feminist government and a continuation of many years
of national gender equality policy (Government of Sweden, 2018: 16). The general
approach emphasizes gender equality and human rights; the Handbook states explicitly
that ‘those countries that have made reservations infringing women’s and girls’ rights
should repeal these, as they contravene the purposes and intentions of the conventions’
and that ‘(r)eligion, culture, customs or traditions can never legitimise infringements of
women’s and girls’ human rights’ (Government of Sweden, 2018: 21). While the policy
covers many sub- areas of foreign policy, working to ensure representative and inclusive
peace and secu- rity is a cornerstone of Sweden’s feminist foreign policy (Government of
Sweden, 2018: 63). To this end, a new national action plan on women, peace and
security, the third since 2006, was adopted in spring 2016. It is aimed at 3 ministries and
11 agen- cies and has been drawn up in broad consultation with relevant actors in
Sweden and with five conflict and post-conflict nations: Afghanistan, Colombia, DR
Congo, Liberia and Palestine (Government of Sweden, 2018: 41). Disarmament and non-
pro- liferation are a central pillar of the policy; in the Handbook, Sweden relies
specifically on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in order to ensure that it is not contributing
to gender- based violence around the world: One important aspect of this work is the
strict control exercised over the export of military equipment from Sweden. This takes
place, for example, through Sweden applying article 7.4 of the ATT. The article was
included in the treaty with the strong support of countries including Sweden, and
requires state parties to take into account the risk of exported materials being used for –
or facilitating – serious gender-based violence or serious violence against women or
children. (Government of Sweden, 2018: 73) Canada, under the Liberal government of
Justin Trudeau, has become the second country to make an explicit commitment to
feminism – in both domestic and foreign policy. Trudeau famously began his work as
Prime Minister by forming Canada’s first- ever gender-balanced Cabinet, providing the
now well-known justification of ‘because its 2015!’ when asked why he chose to do so.
Trudeau himself is a self-described femi- nist, provoking roughly equal measures of
delight and disdain from observers both in Canada and around the world. In terms of
foreign policy, the key document so far is Canada’s Feminist International Assistance
Policy, announced on 9 June 2017. This followed an extensive public review and
consultations on the renewal of Canada’s international assistance policy and funding
framework. In her foreword to the policy, Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of
International Development, states that ‘we need to make sure that women and girls are
empowered to reach their full potential so they can earn their own livelihoods, which will
benefit fami- lies as well as the economic growth of their communities and countries’.
Taking a human rights–based approach, the government has pledged that, by 2022, 95%
of our interna- tional assistance budget will be directed towards gender equality and
women’s empower- ment (Government of Canada, 2017). While the policy has been
generally welcomed by Canada’s development community, a number of questions have
been posed about what this will mean in practice. Many of these questions were
motivated by the announcement that there would be marginal (if any) new funding
allocated to this policy. This was particularly difficult for some observ- ers to accept,
given that Canada continues to fall below the United Nations (UN) recom- mendation of
0.7% of GDP for foreign aid, and given the announcement, just 2days earlier, of a 70%
increase in defence spending. And while there have been some promising moves on
behalf of the government regarding funding for local women’s groups and pro- grammes
promoting reproductive rights and access to family planning, including safe, legal
abortion, there are still concerns about the ultimate effectiveness of so-called ‘top- down
feminism’ in the context of development and its ability to engender real change. In a
2018 speech, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland stated that ‘women’s rights are
human rights, and they are at the core of our foreign policy. It is why, she con- tinued, we
are committed to an ambitious feminist foreign policy’ (Government of Canada, 2018).
She also described the Elsie Initiative for Women in Peace Operations, launched by
Canada at the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial Conference in November 2017. The
initiative aims at ensuring women can fully participate in peace operations around the
world, but also that the right conditions are put in place for their sustainable
involvement. Throughout the speech, Freeland emphasized the link between feminist
foreign policy, democratic values and human rights. It is clear that while the emphasis in
feminist foreign policy for both countries is the inclusion and equality of women, in both
cases, the notion of a feminist foreign policy is discursively constructed as ‘ethical’. As
Wallström noted in a speech at the United States Institute of Peace, a feminist foreign
policy seeks the same goals as any visionary foreign policy: peace, justice, human rights
and human development. It simply acknowledges that we will not get there without
adjusting existing policies, down to their nuts and bolts, to correct the particular (and
often invisible) discrimination, exclusion and violence still inflicted on the female half of
us (Wallström, 2015). Thus, women and ‘the feminine’ are positioned as the key to the
realization of ethical or ‘visionary’ foreign policy goals – peace, justice, human rights and
human development. Karin Aggestam and Annika Bergman-Rosamond (2016) support
this view in their timely 2016 article, Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making:
Ethics, Politics and Gender, in which they write that ‘(t)he declaration of a distinct
feminist foreign policy signals a departure from traditional elite-oriented foreign policy
practices and discourses toward a policy framework that is guided by normative and
ethical principles’ (2016: 327). The authors rely on the ‘solidarist branch of the English
School’ to conceptualize efforts to pursue an ethically informed feminist foreign policy
(2016: 331). They argue that the relevant credentials of this approach are based on its
provision of a ‘progressive account of global relations and for normative considerations
in global politics’, because it ‘takes account of states’ endeavours to overcome the
constraints of anarchy in a fash- ion conducive to both international order and justice’
(2016: 331). Despite its status as an ‘ethical’ IR theory, the authors note that the ES is
‘entirely void’ of feminist insights about the gendered lives and stories of women in
international society (2016: 332). Their aim, then, is to insert gender into this
framework, so that it can then serve as an ethical foundation on which to build a feminist
foreign policy. The English School of International Relations Theory offers a critique of
realism; against neo-realism, ES argues that there is a society of states at the
international level and that the relations among states – including ‘ideational’ relations
of an historical and or legal nature – shape conduct of international politics. The ES is
generally understood to have two ‘branches’ – a ‘pluralist’ branch and a ‘solidarist’
branch. The former argues that, given the diversity in the world, a pluralist, tolerant,
difference-preserving interna- tional society is the best that we can hope for (and the best
model for sustaining order and achieving justice). By contrast, ‘solidarists’ follow Kant to
argue for the possibility and desirability of a cosmopolitan global community guided by
the principles and practices of international human rights, humanitarian intervention.
How does this approach fare as an ethical basis for a feminist foreign policy? Most
glaring, of course, is the blindness of the solidarist branch of the ES to the constitutive
and causal effects of gender in international politics. Its merit lies in its liberal cosmo-
politanism, which can support what they describe as the ‘broad cosmopolitan underpin-
nings of feminist foreign policy’ (Aggestam and Bergman-Rosamond, 2016: 332). They
cite feminist international ethicist Kimberly Hutchings who explains, in a textbook chap-
ter, that ‘feminist justice ethicists seek to make the universal terms of traditional moral
theory genuinely inclusive and universal’ (Hutchings, 2010: 68, cited in Aggestam and
Bergman-Rosamond, 2016: 331). But as Hutchings’ extensive corpus of work critiquing
moral rationalism (including ‘feminist justice ethics’) shows, rationalist international
ethical and political theory works because it tells us (White liberal citizens of Western
states) so much of what we already know about moral agency and situations; moreover,
what it accomplishes is to institutionalize hierarchical relations and patterns of inclusion
and exclusion in the practice of ethical theorizing (Hutchings, 2013: 36). The discursive
and normative positioning of feminist foreign policy as ‘ethical’ foreign policy is not a
difficult move to make. Gender binaries are constitutive of the language and practices of
international politics. Because of the pervasiveness of gender binaries in Western
thought, any association of foreign policy with ‘morality’ or ‘ethics’ is regularly – whether
or not it is explicitly labelled ‘feminist’ – constructed as feminine. Paradoxically,
however, at a different level, even ostensibly ‘ethical’ foreign policy – that elevates the
importance of human rights over, for example, trade, or which subordinates direct
material gains to the need to ‘save’ strangers caught in humanitarian emergencies – is
regularly constructed discursively through a protective, paternal masculinity. Thus, femi-
nist foreign policy sits in tension with the gendered binaries that constitute foreign policy
– while it is ethical and ‘soft’, and hence feminine, it is simultaneously protective and
paternal – and hence masculine. These constructions are not essential or fixed but are
instead fluid and open to rewriting and re-enactment.Human rights, arms deals and
feminist foreign policy As ‘ethical’, feminist governments, Sweden and Canada have been
outspoken critics of the unethical or barbaric acts of other states - to condemn, criticize
or rebuke any policy or regime - that appears to contradict their own commitment to
`justice and human rights’. This emerged clearly in the diplomatic crises with Saudi
Arabia, faced by Sweden in 2015, and more recently, with Canada, in 2018. On 11
February 2015, Foreign Minister Wallström, speaking before the Swedish parliament,
criticized Saudi Arabia’s human rights record; specifically, she criticized the public
flogging of the blogger Raif Badawi and later described it as ‘medieval’. Wallström,
whose government recognized the State of Palestine in 2014, had been asked to deliver a
speech at an Arab League summit in Cairo in late March, but Saudi Arabia intervened,
and Wallström was disinvited. On 9 March, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador to
Sweden, saying that Wallström had ‘unacceptably interfered’ in the country’s internal
affairs. The United Arab Emirates fol- lowed suit a week later. Wallström was also
condemned by the Gulf Cooperation Council (which consists of Bahrain, Oman, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE), The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which includes
57 countries, and the Arab League itself (Nordberg, 2015). Complicating these matters is
the fact that Sweden is one of Europe’s largest per- capita arms exporters. The day after
Wallström was supposed to have appeared in Cairo, on 10 March, the government
announced its decision not to renew a bilateral arms agree- ment with Saudi Arabia. This
has been described as Wallström’s ‘feminist foreign policy’ in practice; not surprisingly,
the move did not sit well with some of Sweden’s most pow- erful industrialists, who
stood to lose significant income from a break in relations with Saudi Arabia (Nordberg,
2015). In an effort to reduce tensions and mitigate damage, 1 week later, a delegation of
Swedish officials travelled to Riyadh, carrying letters from Prime Minister Stefan Löfven
and King Carl XVI Gustaf, explaining that Wallström had not intended to criticize Islam
and offering official regrets for any misunderstanding. The Saudi ambassador to Sweden
is now reinstated. As Jenny Nordberg describes in The New Yorker, Wallström’s political
opponents came down hard on what they saw as a clumsy performance. Still, the
Swedish foreign minister refused to back down, referring only to a misunderstanding,
and stressing that no apology for her specific remarks had been, or would be, issued
(Nordberg, 2015). The diplomatic crisis with Canada was more severe and, at the time of
writing, is ongoing. On 1 August 2018, Amnesty International announced that the Saudi
govern- ment had arrested several female activists. One of these women was Saudi
activist Samar Badawi, who is, in fact, the sister of Raif Badawi, the activist at the heart
of the Swedish affair, who has been detained since 2012 for ‘insulting Islam’. Raif
Bawadi’s wife and children were made Canadian citizens in 2018. On 2 August, Chrystia
Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, tweeted that she was ‘very alarmed’ to learn of the
arrest and that Canada ‘stands together with the Badawi family’. The next day, Canada’s
foreign minis- try weighed in, writing on Twitter that Saudi Arabia should ‘immediately
release’ Badawi and ‘all other peaceful #humanrights activists’. On 5 August, in a string
of 10 tweets, Saudi Arabia accused Canada of ‘an overt and blatant interference in the
internal affairs of the Kingdom’ and said its tweet broke the ‘most basic international
norms’ of diplo- macy. Within hours, the Canadian ambassador was expelled, and it was
announced that Saudi Arabia was suspending ‘all new trade and investment transactions’
with Canada. On 7 August, Saudi Arabia was planning to withdraw all Saudi students it
has been spon- soring at Canadian universities, colleges and schools – more than 15,000
people. On 21 August, following a few weeks of relative calm, when both countries
grappled with the fallout, human rights groups said that Saudi Arabia was on the cusp of
executing a female political activist for the first time (Baker, 2018). Many have
applauded Sweden and Canada for ‘taking an ethical stand’ on the policies of Saudi
Arabia. Some are more critical, pointing out the inconsistencies between Canada’s
rhetoric – on Twitter and elsewhere – on women’s rights and their continuation of trade
relations with the kingdom. When Trudeau came to power in 2015, he failed to cancel a
US$15 billion deal, negotiated by the previous Conservative government, to sell light
armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia. The Liberals rapidly understood that because
it was costly for a government seeking to brand itself as progressive and feminist to
support selling weapons to a dictatorship, it was better to avoid bringing any attention to
relations with Saudi Arabia (Juneau, 2018). As a result, the deeper trade relations
expected by the kingdom never materialized, and relations have deteriorated ever since.
Arms deals have proven to be a thorn in the side of feminist governments – as they have
in the past for all governments – in which leaders simultaneously support progres- sive
foreign policy goals and export-oriented defence industries (Vucetic, 2017: 505). Indeed,
this is the conundrum of post–Cold War liberal internationalism, where ‘good
governance’ is oriented towards both individual (civil and politics) rights and trade. But
the tension is particularly acute for feminist governments, given the potential for arms to
be used to perpetuate gender-based violence. Vucetic (2017) articulates the received wis-
dom on this tension: ‘if the Canadian government truly wishes to help build gender-
equitable societies around the world, then a good place to start would be nixing massive
arms sales to countries with lousy records on women’s rights’ (2017: 517). In response to
the increasingly evident human costs of the regulated and illicit global trade in arms, the
UN ATT was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013. It came into force in
December 2014. In June 2013, more than 60 states signed the ATT. While Canada voted
for the treaty in April 2013, it chose not to sign the treaty at the UN in June. In April
2017, a bill was introduced in the House of Commons that Canada would join the
international ATT. Upon accession to the global agreement, which now involves 130
countries, Canada will be required to implement brokering controls on arms sales. The
international standard on export assessment is set out in two articles in the ATT. First,
the ATT obligates states to prevent the export of arms to another country if the transfer
would be contrary to an arms embargo, other international law, or if the item would be
used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the
Geneva Convention. Second, the ATT provides that states shall carry out export assess-
ments and refuse to export if there is an overriding risk of undermining peace and secu-
rity, commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, international human
rights law or transnational crimes. States are expressly required to take into account
serious violations of gender-based violence or acts of violence against women when
making the assessment (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(WILPF), 2016). While many in the international community applaud the ATT, others
are more scepti- cal. Problems of implementation, a lack of transparency, lack of
enforcement and the general weakness of the treaty itself are often cited. Of course, this
is coupled with the fact some of the world’s largest arms exporters – including Russia
and China – have not signed the treaty. Others, such as the United States and Israel –
have signed, but not yet ratified. Worse than this, however, is the possibility that the
whole premise of the treaty is fatally flawed: specifically, the basic premise that only
some weapons are ‘bad’, and others are either neutral or, possibly, good. Thus,
paradoxically, the ATT could actually be used to justify increases in arms sales, if
adequate evidence that they are being used ‘in the right way’ can be provided. Once this
is understood, it becomes clear that a key effect of the ATT could be the legitimation of
liberal forms of militarism exercised by major Western states (Stavrianakis, 2016: 841).
In seeking to distinguish between ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ weaponry, we fail to recognize
the wider structural effects of militarism (Wibben, 2018). As Paul Kirby has put it, ‘is
there ever a conflict where arms flows could not be said to facilitate serious acts of
gender- based violence – harms strongly correlated with, but not necessarily inflicted by,
the deployment of weaponry?’ (Kirby, quoted in Stavrianakis, in press: 25). Much like
‘just war theory’, which can be used to justify ‘ethical warfare’, the ATT diverts our
attention from the structural nature of militarism, and its complex relationship with the
structures and institutions of global capitalism, transnational structures of racism and
with the liberal international order. Rather than pitting a feminist foreign policy – as a
set of pre-formed moral principles – against ‘arms deals’ – immoral, self-interested
policies on the part of states – feminist governments should interrogate the role of states
– including their own – in supporting liberal milita- rism,4 and thereby contributing to
its gendered effects. I argue that the tweets and pronouncements of the Canadian and
Swedish governments were misguided. The neglect of context and relational positioning,
as well as the hubris of certainty and moral necessity, are in conflict with the general
methods and aims of feminist ethics. To assert the backwardness and morally
corrupt nature of Saudi Arabia is to position Sweden and Canada as
superior, enlightened nations that ‘treat’ their women properly. This kind
of framing contributes to the erasure of Saudi women’s agency. As Victoria
Heath argues in relation to the Swedish case, it is crucial for Sweden to understand
the compli- cated and nuanced situation of women within the kingdom of
Saudi Arabia and recognize the indigenous women’s rights movements and
the ‘renegotiations’ of gendered power relations that currently exist. Indeed,
Heath points out that women’s rights movements in Saudi Arabia are framed by a
number of contextual factors: •• Women’s rights as indicated by Islamic religious texts;
•• Gender segregation and spatial allowances; •• Notions of ‘female nature’ and
femininity; •• Saudi national identity and the Saudi state; •• Disentangling cultural
tradition and the Islamic religion; •• Maintaining family as the ‘core’ of the community;
•• The importance of promoting an ‘indigenous’ movement (not Western) (Heath, 2016).
Blindness to this context, and to the agency and diversity of women within
Saudi Arabia, reveals both racist logics and a tendency towards ‘culture-
blaming’ that depoliti- cizes social problems and diverts attention away
from the ways in which practices are supported and sustained by the
structure of the global economy. To imagine ‘culture’ as an isolated realm of
values and practices, separate from other kinds of social relations, is
inevitably to reproduce the dichotomies of ‘us’ and ‘them’, is blind to both
historical and current relations and ultimately will hinder our ability to
create a foreign policy that helps to create the conditions for long-term
transformations in gender relations. Ethical stances which pit ‘barbaric’ cultures
against enlightened Western morality are thick with neo-colonial logics and racial
hierarchies that perpetuate, rather than transform, global inequalities. Rather than
pitting ‘culture’ against ‘women’s human rights’, a feminist ethic of care would situate
practices and traditions in a broader, relational geopolitical and geo-economic context.
As Alison Jaggar (2005) argues, topics on the agenda of ‘intercultural dialogue’ about
global justice for women (and men) in ‘non-Western coun- tries’ must be questions
about the basic structure of the global political economy, as well as the economic policies
of those Western governments that directly and indirectly affect poor women’s lives
(2005: 71). My argument here should not be misunderstood as a defence of the Saudi
regime or of their practices. Wallström’s mistake was not the withdrawal from the arms
agreement, but rather the framing of this move within a wider critique of the ‘medieval’
and ‘barbaric’ practices of non-Western, non-liberal societies, and the tying of this to a
general appeal to ‘ethics’ and justice, that is inherently linked to ‘feminism’. Likewise,
Freeland’s demand of the ‘immediate release’ of political detainees in Saudi Arabia
demonstrates a selectivity and targeting that uses moral judgement as punishment and
which invites charges of hypoc- risy. As a result, these actions, while ‘progressive’,
are unlikely to be transformative in the direction of long-term feminist
goals. As I will argue below, a more potentially transforma- tive approach would have
been to use the arms trade agreement to highlight a series of relationships, networking
the global arms trade, transnational business interests, liberal militarism, systemic
transnational racism and the structural causes of women’s oppression around the globe.
In so doing, it would become possible to reveal the effects of patriarchy – not just in
Saudi Arabia but in Western states as well – as a system of hierarchy that divides people
and thwarts the possibility of empathy and connection.
Continuing US-Saudi relations endorses their atrocious abuses of women’s
rights
Human Rights Watch, 1-30-2019, (Human Rights Watch is an international non-
governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and
advocacy on human rights. "Saudi Arabia: 10 Reasons Why Women Flee,"
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/30/saudi-arabia-10-reasons-why-women-flee
//EH)
(Beirut) – Rahaf Mohammed, the Saudi woman who managed to successfully flee her
allegedly abusive family, has shed new light on the countless women trapped under the
abusive male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said today. Women
face systematic discrimination and are left exposed to domestic violence under the
male guardianship system and have few places to turn when they face abuse, leading some
women to undertake dangerous escape attempts to flee the country. Under the male
guardianship system, a man controls a Saudi woman’s life from her birth until her
death. Every Saudi woman must have a male guardian, normally a father or husband,
but in some cases a brother or even a son, who has the power to make a range of critical
decisions on her behalf. The Saudi state essentially treats women as permanent legal
minors. Saudi Arabia has done very little to end the system, which remains the most
significant impediment to women’s rights in the country. “Rahaf Mohammed’s courageous quest for
freedom has exposed anew an array of discriminatory practices and policies that disempower Saudi women and leave
them vulnerable to abuse,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi Crown Prince
Muhammad bin Salman wants to be viewed as a women’s rights reformer, but Rahaf
showed just how laughably at odds this is from reality when the authorities try to hunt
down fleeing women and tortures women’s rights activists in prison.” While other
countries in the Middle East have elements of the male guardianship system, Saudi
Arabia’s is the by far the most draconian in the extent of its laws and regulations, as well
as the authorities’ efforts to apply them. Human Rights Watch has documented the impact of such laws and
policies on the lives of women in its 2016 report, “Boxed In: Women and Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship System.”
Below are 10 reasons why Saudi women flee their country. 10 Reasons Why Saudi Women Flee No Freedom to Travel or
Get a Passport No country restricts the movement of its female population more than
Saudi Arabia. Women cannot apply for a passport or travel outside the country without
their male guardian’s approval, restrictions the Interior Ministry imposes and enforces. In practice, some
women are prevented from leaving their homes without their guardian’s permission and guardians can seek a court order
for a woman to return to the family home. Saudi Arabia did not allow women to drive cars until June 2018. The travel
restrictions make it very difficult for Saudi women to flee the country. Many resort to hacking into their male guardian’s
phone to change their travel permission settings or run away from family members while outside the country. No Freedom
to Choose Marriage Partner, and Child Marriages Saudi authorities limit a woman’s ability to enter
freely into marriage by requiring her to obtain the permission of a male guardian. A
woman’s consent is generally given orally before a religious official officiating for the
marriage, and both the woman and her male guardian are required to sign the marriage
contract. Whereas men can marry up to four wives at a time. Saudi law has no minimum
marriage age, and Saudi media outlets continue to carry occasional reports of child
marriages, including rare reports of girls as young as 8. On January 9, 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Shura
Council, an advisory body, overwhelmingly passed a proposal setting the minimum age of marriage at 18, but leaving
exceptions for girls ages 15 to 18 to marry with court approval. The proposal will become law only if promulgated by Saudi
Arabia’s council of ministers. Domestic Violence As in other countries, many women in Saudi Arabia are
subject to domestic violence. Over a one-year period ending October 13, 2015, the Ministry of Labor and Social
Development reported that it encountered 8,016 cases of physical and psychological abuse, most involving violence
between spouses. Saudi Arabia criminalized domestic violence in 2013, but activists have criticized the lack of
implementation of the law. Saudi Arabia’s National Family Protection Program estimates that 35 percent of Saudi
women have experienced violence, yet the head of Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission said that of the
1,059 cases referred to Saudi courts in 2017 involving violence against women, only 59 were for domestic violence.
Guardianship makes it incredibly difficult for victims to seek protection or obtain legal redress. Human Rights Watch
research has found that women occasionally struggle to report an incident to the police or access
social services or the courts without a male relative. Moreover, the
male guardianship system facilitates
domestic violence by granting male relatives a huge amount of control over women’s
lives. Controlling a woman’s movements itself is a form of domestic violence that the
government enforces. Women who attempt to flee an abusive spouse or family can be
arrested and returned to their families. If they flee or are referred to shelters, they are
not allowed to leave unless they reconcile with family members or accept an arranged
marriage. The shelters and the authorities do not facilitate women’s ability to live independently. Employment
Discrimination Saudi Arabia has increased employment opportunities for women in recent years in areas previously
closed to them. The Saudi government does not enforce formal guardianship restrictions on women wishing to work, but
the authorities do not penalize private or public employers who require a guardian’s consent for women to work or restrict
jobs to men. In addition, some professions, like judges and drivers, remain off limits to women, and strict sex segregation
policies act as a disincentive to employers considering hiring women. Healthcare Discrimination A 2014 medical code of
ethics prepared by a state institution declares that a woman’s consent should be sufficient to receive health care. In reality,
however, the requirement for guardian permission is dependent on a particular hospital’s internal regulations, and the
government does not penalize institutions that require consent. Human Rights Watch spoke with medical professionals at
private hospitals that do not require guardian permission and others at public hospitals that require guardian permission
for a woman to be operated on or admitted. Human Rights Watch has documented how requiring guardian approval for
medical procedures has exposed women to prolonged pain or, in extreme cases, to life-threatening danger. Inequality in
Divorce, Child Custody, Inheritance Like many other Muslim-majority countries, Saudi Arabia bases its personal law
system on Islamic law. But unlike most other countries, Saudi Arabia has no written family law. Women’s right to divorce
is more restricted than for men. Men may unilaterally divorce their wives without condition. The
man does not need to inform his wife that he intends to divorce her, nor must she be in
court for her husband to obtain a divorce decree. The authorities introduced a
notification system in January that allows for women to be notified by text when a man
registers his divorce in the courts. But woman’s rights activists report that men often
unilaterally divorce women orally without documentation, leaving the woman to prove to
the courts that their husbands have divorced them. Women have no right to unilateral divorce and are
subject to lengthier and more costly processes. Women either must seek a khul’ divorce, under which a man generally
agrees to the divorce on the condition that a woman will pay back the full amount of her dowry, or a woman can apply to
the courts for a fault-based divorce on limited grounds, and must prove the fault, such as mistreatment by the husband. As
there is no personal status or family law, the judge determines whether there was mistreatment. Throughout divorce
proceedings, a woman’s husband remains her guardian, with the authority to control her decisions. While the courts may
allow children to live with their mothers following a divorce, women have no right to be their children’s legal guardian. An
activist who follows the issue said that girls usually are transferred to the father’s custody at age 7 and that boys may
decide at age 9 which parent they want to live with. In 2014, the authorities issued a positive ruling that when children are
ordered to live with their mothers after divorce, she can obtain documents and conduct government business for them.
The decision enabled women to register their children in schools, take them to health centers, and obtain identity
documents for them. Fathers, however, maintain the right to grant travel permission for children or to authorize
daughters’ marriages. In matters of inheritance, as in most Muslim-majority countries, women are only entitled to inherit
half of what male heirs inherit. Challenges to Transferring Guardianship In certain cases women may transfer legal
guardianship from one male relative to another, but it is an extremely difficult legal process. Human Rights Watch
research indicates that it is very difficult to transfer guardianship except for cases in which a woman can prove severe
abuse or that the guardian is incapable of caring for her, for example due to old age. Even then, it can only be done
through a court order and can be difficult to establish the requisite level of proof. Restrictions on Leaving Prison and
Shelters Saudi prisons and juvenile detention centers only allow women to exit into the care of a male relative. Imprisoned
women whose families refuse to release them are forced to remain in prison or in shelters until they reconcile with their
families or obtain a new guardian, occasionally only after arranged marriages. Restrictions on Studying Abroad Unlike
Saudi men, women cannot study abroad on a government scholarship without guardian approval and, while it is not
always enforced, the rules officially require a male relative to accompany them throughout their studies abroad. Political
Repression Under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi authorities have intensified a coordinated crackdown on
dissidents, human rights activists, and independent clerics. In 2018, this repression extended to the country’s leading
women’s rights advocates who have advocated ending the male guardianship system. On May 15, just weeks before the
Saudi authorities lifted the ban on women driving on June 24, authorities began arrests of prominent women’s rights
activists and accused several of them of grave crimes like treason that appear to be directly related to their activism. By
November, at least 10 women remain detained without charge, though some anticipated charges could carry prison terms
of up to 20 years. Human rights organizations began reporting in November that Saudi interrogators tortured at least four
of the women, including by administering electric shocks, whipping the women on their thighs, and sexually harassing and
assaulting them.
 STRUCTURAL/“SOFT-LEFT” IMPACTS
The aff’s plan falls into a dangerous paradigm of protecting
“womenandchildren” first falling into the protective force of violent
masculinity – turns the case
Stephan 14 (Rita Stephan is a foreign affairs officer at the United States Department of State
and a visiting researcher for at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown
University. “War and Gender Performance”. p. 5-7. International Feminist Journal of Politics.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2013.8 49969) rr
While this study addresses a sociological dilemma of gendered citizenship, its transnational focus engages the
international relations literature on women and war. Within the field of international relations, the discourse on
global gender politics underscores how wars strip women of their agency and either constructs them
in a feminine fashion or sums them up as “womenandchildren” (Sjoberg 2009; Peterson and Runyan
2010). Women and children become a single object of protection whose creation is facilitated
by what Fluri (2008) calls “wartime femininity.” Women are viewed as vulnerable and “childlike
insofar as they are seen as less likely to be culpable agents of social forces and should thus be shielded
from them” (Carpenter 2006, 33, italics in original), while children are often regarded as “invisible” or “incidental
victims” (Wessells 1998, 635). The womenandchildren construction fits the profile of the “the protected” not
only by their need for protection but also for their need of “somebody who can think strategically and
act in [their] best interests” (Enloe 2007, 61). Indeed, as some of the evacuation stories show, a number of women
depended especially on their families, mostly their husbands and fathers, to think for them and deliver them to safety. In
doing so, they minimized their own and their children’s exposure to the distress of that war. Scholars like Fluri (2008)
have suggested that saving victims during war requires a “protective force of violent
masculinity” and a responding feminine vulnerability. Women sometimes believe this myth about
wartime vulnerability and give in, not perceiving that their consent to fill the victim role denies them agency
and silences them. However, not all women consent to being rescued, nor do all of them believe in this myth. As
feminists, we realize that women in war can think strategically, too. Hence, compliance with wartime norms involves a
contentious aspect of agency that takes into consideration the reward of being rescued – and that should not be neglected.
As Enloe (2007, 60) observes, “It is much easier to be silenced and to accept that silencing if one absorbs
the self-identity of The Protected.” The question of incentives here certainly applies to some women who were
rewarded for their consent. Complying with their gender roles made their evacuations safer and less traumatic. However,
in most of the stories in this article, men and women fall along a spectrum between hero and victim, rather than entirely as
one or the other. The protective masculine and vulnerable feminine model represents a broad view that sometimes
abstracts the changes that are taking place on the global level. Patriarchy ought to be seen “not only as an arrangement of
political institutions, but also, and perhaps even primarily, as a broadly understood value system that revolves around
identity constructs which support and entrench gender-specific hierarchical visions of society” (Bleiker 2000, 32).
Looking at the 2006 war from the micro level, I find that the binary relationship that international relations feminists
claim in their model of patriarchal violence does not always apply, or applies only in a rigidly logical way. The stories in
this study show that women, men and children were all victims of military aggression. However, in some cases, women
were the only agents available to save the children; in other cases, representatives of the patriarchal order, such as fathers
or fathers-in-law, were either left behind or uninvolved. While the men did protect the womenandchildren in some
instances, women, who subscribed to their gender roles as mothers and wives, acted in instances when men were impotent
to act, thus in a sense protecting the men also. While some would argue that these women’s performances lie outside the
realm of gender norms, one could clearly see that such binary distinction is not possible. The interpretation of Lebanese
women’s agency is further complicated by a common western image that construes Arab women as subordinate by nature.
Western scholars and media have also fabricated an all-encompassing Middle Eastern social structure, fed by Islamic
fundamentalism and other “traditional” forces, that construes women as so disempowered as to be unable to exert any
agency that conflicts with their patriarchal settings (Charrad 2009). Hence, against this background of conflicting
frameworks, I use this ethnographic study to explore women’s agency in the 2006 war, taking up the issue of how gender
identities were framed and reframed as the war commenced. The interpretation of Lebanese women’s agency is further
complicated by a common western image that construes Arab women as subordinate by nature.
Western scholars and media have also fabricated an all-encompassing Middle Eastern social structure, fed by Islamic
fundamentalism and other “traditional” forces, that construes women as so disempowered as to be unable to
exert any agency that conflicts with their patriarchal settings (Charrad 2009). Hence, against this background
of conflicting frameworks, I use this ethnographic study to explore women’s agency in the 2006 war, taking up the issue of
how gender identities were framed and reframed as the war commenced. Can we determine how patriarchy
governs the assignment of gender roles during armed conflicts? Enloe argues that in patriarchal settings, the protectors
are “the natural controllers” because they possess physical and intellectual fitness. The masculinization of
international relations “flows directly out of the patriarchal belief that one has to be ‘manly’ in order to be
rational enough to be responsible for the security of ‘women and children’” (Enloe 2007, 61). Thus, patriarchal
structure persists in war as it continues to impose an openly coercive framework in which women
are transformed into victims, and their inferiority as such is both justified and exploited. Such
transformation allows men to exponentiate the protector’s role, which can be viewed as a natural
extension of the patriarchal protective duties they assume during peacetime. It was peculiar of the
situation in Lebanon at the outbreak of the war that many men in the Lebanese-American group were not
present; nor was there a strong American military presence. Thus, the traditional “rescuers” were crucially
absent during the first week of fighting, and thousands of “victims” found themselves obliged to gather their
physical strength and emotional balance to think strategically about how to escape this unfamiliar and
hostile situation. The war triggered women to reflect on their gender identity, role, and position vis-a`-
vis their families and state. They began reconsidering the assumptions that had oriented their
identity as women, who ought to be saved during wartime.
 SUFFERING REPS
The 1AC is an outsourcing of the girl – effectively weaponizing her as a stand
in for Western forces while simultaneously allowing the US to sit back and
watch
Geidel 18 (Molly Geidel is a lecturers and assistant professor in American cultural history at the
University of Manchester. “Building the Counterinsurgent Gilr” p. 660-665. 2018. Feminist
Studies.inc. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.44.3.0635)rr
This “outsourcing” of the girl is also apparent in the 2010 assertion by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
that “where girls and women flourish, our values are also reflected.”75 Clinton’s utterance signals
the horrifying dilemma faced by girls in regions the United States and its allies continue to
attack: their very flourishing, particularly when connected to educational aspirations, is read as a sign of the
triumph of belligerent Western forces and targeted as such. We might also use Clinton’s claim about
the flourishing girl to elaborate Stockton’s idea of “kid orientalism”; she argues that “we, as a public, produce this
child for our own purposes, then feel justified running from it, as if its ‘desire’ for us is
threatening or somehow inappropriate.”76 If Stockton gets at this strange new configuration (Westerners create
a desiring child, then do nothing to save or help her) psychoanalytically, we might also approach it
economically. Clinton’s formulation demonstrates an upwardly redistributive logic that looks like financialized invest-in-a-
girl development programs: if girls and women work hard to flourish, that effort will necessarily be used
to support US (or more broadly Western) values. Girls’ own efforts to learn and flourish are thus used to
prop up military superpowers, a structure that resonates with James’s argument that dominant systems of
oppression, in the time of resilience discourse, “extract surplus value from the individuals doing the work
of self-overcoming.”77 How do girls, or any of us, resist this system in which the flourishing of the most vulnerable
is extracted as surplus value for the most powerful? James identifies melancholy as a key mode for
resisting this imperative to overcome, arguing that in the face of systemic demands for
“spectacular crises and overcomings,” melancholic wallowing is one course of action that can
successfully “short-circuit resilience discourse.”78 “When resilience means
performing culturally racist feminisms (this is Alia Al-Saji’s term),” James argues, “We should reject its
imperative to overcome.”79 In the context of the culturally racist feminisms of neoliberal
development, Malala Yousafzai, in her memoir I Am Malala, intermittently adopts a strategy of melancholic refusal
similar to the one James advocates. Perhaps this is a surprising claim, as Yousafzai, who has continued to speak out for
education after being critically wounded by a Taliban soldier in 2012, has become the face of the resilient educated girl: if
Mortenson conjured the brave, grateful educated girl before she existed, Yousafzai gave her depth and credibility.80 But the
opening paragraphs of Yousafzai’s memoir demonstrate the book’s commitment to a melancholic stance, as
well as its embedding of that melancholy in larger world-historical events: I come from a country which
was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday One year ago I left my home for school and never
returned. I was shot by a Taliban bullet and was flown out of Pakistan unconscious. Some people say I will never return
home but I believe firmly in my heart that I will. To be torn from the country that you love is not something to wish on
anyone. Now, every morning when I open my eyes, I long to see my old room full of my things, my clothes all over the floor
and my school prizes on the shelves. Instead I am in a country which is five hours behind my beloved homeland Pakistan
and my home in the Swat Valley. But my country is centuries behind this one.81 If Yousafzai, now a Nobel Peace Prize
winner, is the face of resilient overcoming, her memoir exudes melancholy. Despite Pakistan
being “centuries behind” England, she longs for her valley, asserting that she would not “wish on anyone” the
dislocation she feels. This dislocation is also evident in the extreme temporal disjunctures of the
passage, which begins with the 1947 partition of India long before she was born and ends with the equally sweeping claim
about “centuries.” These temporal sweeps bookend her repeated statements of melancholy and what we might even
characterize as her refusals of gratitude to Britain for giving her asylum, or to the BBC for recruiting her to speak publicly
against the Taliban. The opening reference to partition also signals that the book will be about events beyond its protagonist:
in between her accounts of friendships, rivalries, and the encroachment of the Taliban on her world, Yousafzai gives long
histories of her valley, of Pakistan, and of the circuits of funding from the United States to ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency)
to the Taliban forces who attacked her.82 The book stubbornly deploys these long historical sections to educate the reader,
but they also serve to block the smooth narrative of overcoming damage that Western readers
desire. US readers certainly understand these historical interludes this way: nearly all of the negative reviews from
Americans (as opposed to those from Pakistani readers accusing her of betraying her country) complain that the book
contains “too much history” and that they “didn’t go into the book to hear about the formation of Pakistan.”83 Another
reader reports,“I was expecting an intense story of a girl who is fighting for her rights to go to school then getting shot and
not giving up but what I found was basically her just talking about the history of Pakistan.”84 These objections to “history”
seem odd, as readers presumably admire Yousafzai because of her intense desire to learn about such subjects, but we can
understand them better if we connect them with Mortenson’s sentimental project; education, for the readership of War on
Terror book-club books, exists to create beauty and intimacy, to dispel rather than articulate politics. Yousafzai, however,
refuses to perform the antipolitics of the “educated girl” narrative, withholding from Western
readers a smooth
story of overcoming damage and thus a story of “our girl” and “our” values.
reincorporate her melancholic refusal back
Media fictionalizations of Yousafzai, however, adeptly
into narratives of overcoming, perhaps calling into question James’s claims about the power of
melancholic refusal to short-circuit the resilience machine. The CBS drama Madam Secretary, the most popular of the many
foreign-policy-preoccupied shows now on US television, is one place we can look to further grasp the popular meanings of
Malala, as distinct from the meanings she has attempted to construct. Inspired by Hillary Clinton, and counting among its
writers former defense analysts and diplomats, Madam Secretary is the most earnest of the current array of terrorism-
related television; unlike edgier shows such as Scandal and Homeland, its officials are idealistic and well-meaning, and they
generally attempt diplomacy before resorting to military intervention. Season 2 contains a fictionalization of Yousafzai, a
Saudi girl named Noura Al-kitabi who has been acid-attacked for advocating girls’ education. When Noura first appears in
the episode, she is having her toenails painted by a servant, at whom she barks orders; Yousafzai’s humble beginnings and
frequent calls for economic equality have been replaced by Noura’s imperious drive for beauty, which seems to bolster
her heroic persona. Later in the episode, Noura gives a speech to a Washington, DC, audience about her attack. At the
culminating moment of her story of disfigurement, she slowly unwinds her hijab to show her acid-scarred, defiant face. The
music swells, and the camera pans over an audience of multiracial, welldressed women shaking their heads in horror and
sympathy. “When I saw what I looked like,” says Noura, “I wanted to die.” She keeps her head uncovered for the rest of her
speech. The camera cuts to where Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord and her staff members are watching on television
and talking over her speech, allowing the audience to see and hear Noura’s defiant resilience but not what she is saying.
Elizabeth, watching, says “I should be there,” as if the imperative to look, to watch a girl overcome
her damage, is self-evidently humanitarian. While the Noura episode is particularly good at depicting the
“Look, I Overcame!” imperative, the show insistently depicts the educated Muslim girl as both the desiring
subject in whose name the United States fights (in Season 4, for example, Elizabeth brokers a peace deal
with the Taliban, rewarding them for minor reforms in women’s rights, over the strenuous objections of Afghanistan’s
female minister of education, who wants the United States to keep fighting) and a key counterinsurgent figure.
Elizabeth’s husband Henry, a religion professor and CIA operative who embodies the war-on-terror gentleman-scholar
persona Khalili identifies, spends much of Season 2 tracking down a terrorist’s young wife, Hijriyyah, whom they finally
extract from a cave in Libya. They place Hijriyyah under arrest and interrogate her, but she initially will not tell them where
her husband is. It is only when they bring her former teacher in to mediate that they get the truth: she is not talking because
she is afraid, not of her husband but of her father. In fact, Hijriyyah will only allow the CIA to kill her husband once they
have first killed her father. The CIA agrees, and Henry and Elizabeth happily watch news of the drone strike from their
weekend home, interrupting a painful B plot in which they must euthanize their horse. When we cut back to Hijriyyah, she
is sitting in the interrogation room, crying as she looks through photos proving her father’s death. “I thought he was stronger
than a bomb,” she says, and viewers discover that she is crying tears of happiness. “I thought he was stronger than Allah.
And now I’m free.” This is the West’s dream of the educated Muslim girl: she will call for the drone
strike that kills her family, and it will free her. Liberal popular culture’s ability to transform
“Malala” into the girl who renounces Islam, and even into the girl who calls for the destruction of her husband
and father, is why calls for education to replace drones will never work : the drone strike now
accompanies the educated girl and is launched in her name. Education in this dominant cultural vision is meant
primarily to train girls and women for the drone-like role of surveilling themselves and their
peers and, in the absence of soldiers, embodying Western domination of space. The educated
girl is now automatically aligned with the West, and thus she is impelled to visibly overcome the
toxicity of her own community in a feat that is at once a superhuman labor and a serious
risk. Western audiences are excused from saving her; all they are required to
do is watch the process unfold. But rather than watching, rather than imagining that the educated
girl elsewhere will end this disastrous and unbounded war, we in the West need to recognize how we have
made her into a pretext and weapon for prolonging it.
 TAIWAN
Allowing China to gain greater leverage over Taiwan reinforces Neo-
Confucian control tactic over women in Taiwanese society, exacerbating
gender violence and subordination
Pei-jung Lee No Date(Amy Pei-jung Lee is a faculty member in the Language and
Communication department at National Dong Hwa University. International
Development Studies Journal at Saint Mary's University,
https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq22801.pdf //EH)
Traditionally, Taiwanese women were seen to be inferior to Taiwanese men and were not
seen as fully being persons as men were. For centuries, Taiwanese women were kept in the
home, and they were not allowed to access forma1 education, to work outside their
home, or to participate in the public sphere. However, this bad situation for Taiwanese women has been
changing ever since the beginning of the twentieth century. Gradually, Taiwanese women have gained a right to education,
marriage, work, and political expression, and thus the role of Taiwanese women today seems to be very different from
what it was a hundred years ago. In particular, the increasing educational opportunities at al1 leveis
have helped make Taiwanese women more aware of their subordinate status and how to
ameliorate their situation. In fact, the modem wornen's movement in Taiwan, which started in the early 1970s,
was the consequence of Taiwanese women having their conscious and collective voices towards equality transformed into
action by organizing themselves to struggle for change. The three stages of Taiwan's modern women's movernent rnarked
its growth and the changing social environment. This thesis addresses the development of the modem women's movement
in Taiwan during the last two decades, and uses the Gender and Development (GAD) approach, an
alternative approach that tends io be more transfomative in nature, to examine the
agenda of the modern women's movement in Taiwan in three different stages in order to
determine whether or not the GAD approach will serve as an effective tool for future use
by the modern women's movement in Taiwan. Historically, the very essence of
Taiwanese society has evolved under the influence of Confucian patriarchy, a
system which operates to sustain male domination over women in both a private and
public spheres.' The emphasis of Confucianisrn on harmony and social order hindered
any possible development of the notion of hurnan rights (equal rights) and
individualism. The traditional Confucian mode1 of social order was based on several
social bonds, and the submission of women to men is one of thern. Thus, traditionally, in
Taiwan women were regarded as dependants of men, and they were often
treated as subordinate human beings. For centuries, Taiwanese women were not allowed to access
forma1 education, to work outside their home, or to participate in the public sphere. The only proper realm for Taiwanese
women to participate was their home. They were expected to get married, to give birth and to take care of their children in
addition to caring for their parents-in-law. As a consequence, Taiwanese "women's intelligence, feelings,
and energy could find no outlet for expression except within the confinement of their
own homes, and their voices and activities were largely absent from the great tradition."'
However, the Western imperialistic invasion starting from the late nineteenth century had a tremendous impact on both
Taiwan and Taiwanese women - Taiwan became a Japanese colony, and Taiwanese women were finally permitted to
acquire education in the public school system, which eventually quaiified them to become employed outside their home.
This change for Taiwanese wornen was strengthened after the Republic of China (ROC), which was established by the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in 1912 after overthrowing Imperia1 China, regained its sovereignty in Taiwan after the
Second World War. The KMT government (ROC), with an ideology consisting of a peculiar blend of Western liberal and
classical Chinese ideas, started to offer more opportunities for Taiwanese women (e.g., education, ernployment) and
guaranteed legal equality in both the constitution and laws while also maintaining the view that women should retain a
supportive and subservient role both at home and within society. Nevertheless, even though the status of
Taiwanese women has improved significantly during the past four decades, the real
equality of both sexes still remains a goal to strive for. However, more and more
Taiwanese women have gradually becorne aware of their subordinate status after
receiving greater education (including study in the West), and ihey started to recognize
that it is their right to fight for equality. As a result, the modern wornen's movement (New Ferninisrn) in
Taiwan emerged in the early 1970s when a graduate of the University of Illinois and Harvard University, Lu Hsiu-Lin,
returned to Taiwan with ideas derived from Western feminism and becarne leader of the women's movernent in Taiwan.
Within thirty years, the women's movement in Taiwan has developed from a one-woman movement into the mass
movement of today, a movement that has continued to play an important role in assisting and organizing Taiwanese
wornen in their struggle for equality. The changing role of Taiwanese women in the past century, particularly the
developrnent of Taiwan's modem women's movernent during the last two decades, is the focus of this thesis. There are two
purposes for writing this thesis on this topic. The first is that, as a well-educated Taiwanese female, the author did not
really think about the issues regarding the status of Taiwanese women until beginning work in the International
Development Studies program at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, NS. Perhaps the author may consider herself lucky to
come from a family that raised her in manner no different from the way her only brother was raised, and thus concepts of
"equality," "subordination," or even "women's movement" were not meaningful for the author, although they were terms
that one heard used €rom time to time. To study abroad is quite an unusual experience for the author, resulting in a need
to confront not only a different language and culture, but also differing ideologies, which cornpelled the author to
reconsider previously held views - most especially conceming the status of women in the author's home country, Taiwan.
Through the author's Master's degree program, she had been developing an idea for a thesis on the subject of Taiwanese
women. The author finally deciding to focus on the Taiwanese modern women's movement because there were not many
analyses in existence conceming this topic? and consequently more research appeared to be needed. Secondly, most of the
feminist theories found in Taiwan originated in the West and many of them tended to be liberal in their viewpoint, which
is more closed-minded with respect to the present Taiwanese govemment, but not that of Taiwan's modern women's
movement. Thus, this thesis emphasizes the GAD approach, an alternative approach that tends to be more transformative
in nature, in order to examine the agenda of the modern women's movement in Taiwan in an attempt to serve as a useful
tool for wornen in Taiwan to use in the future should anyone be interested to do so.
 TERROR
Attempts to legitimize the War on Terror as intervention on behalf of
oppressed women in Middle East countries is a product of the Western
savior complex—they don’t care about women’s rights, only
interventionalism
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
A combination of these discourses has remained the predominant way in which feminist ideas have been expressed and
implemented at the international level, and can be traced in the successor resolutions to 1325 (Shepherd 2011), as well as
in the gender-related aspects of the setting up of the ICC (Pankhurst 2007). UNSCR 1325 can be seen as the
culmination of feminist activism in relation to war and peace over previous decades. However, its
status as a victory for feminism has been put into question in the decade since its implementation. From the beginning
certain feminists had reservations about 1325, including claims that it essentialised women as either victims or
peacemakers, confirmed rather than challenged the inevitability of armed conflict, marginalized the realities of women
combatants and men civilians, and was insufficiently resourced. Criticisms of 1325 were reinforced by the
other development that has been a focus of feminist activism in relation to war and peace
over the past decade, the so-called ‘War on Terror’. In the 1990s, sexual violence in the
wars following the break up of Yugoslavia had become an important dimension of the 9
legitimation of external intervention in the conflict for some feminists, though not
necessarily to feminist groups within the region. In the US response to 9/11, the
question of the violation of women’s rights was brought centre stage in the
legitimation of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and more broadly in the
characterisation of the US’s enemy other in the ‘War on Terror’ (Pratt and Richter-
Devroe 2011). In ways strongly reminiscent of nineteenth century European imperial wars, the treatment of
women became central to a standard of civilization argument that has continued to play
a major role in legitimising ongoing operations on the part of the US and its
allies , including invasion, occupation, counter-insurgency, peacekeeping and
peacebuilding in both Afghanistan and Iraq (Hunt and Rygiel 2006; Towns 2010). And in 2001,
national and transnational feminist groups and organizations had to respond to the
claim that military action against Afghanistan could be justified on feminist grounds, in
the context of a preceding decade of feminist campaigning against the Taliban regime
both inside and outside Afghanistan (Thobani 2003). Although the major feminist activist
group in Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan were against the use
of military action, a minority of western feminists were willing to endorse the war (Elshtain 2003). This caused
major political divisions within western feminism and added to the potential for tension between western feminists and
feminists of the global south, tensions that were already part of the history of feminism as a transnational and
international movement (Spivak 1999; Mohanty 2003). The utilisation of a discourse of women’s human
rights in the justification of the ‘War on Terror’, and the reminder of the link between
women’s rights and a traditional standards 10 of civilization discourse, caused some
feminist activists to question whether UNSCR 1325 was itself part of an imperialist
project, in which the focus on women’s suffering became the pretext for the
demonization of non-western men, and the legitimation of external intervention in
postcolonial states (Thobani 2007; Towns 2010). It also focused attention on the tension between
a feminist discourse that used the language of just war in the service of feminism, and a
feminist discourse that claimed a special relation between women and peace. At the current
time, therefore, although feminism is more active on the international stage, rhetorically and in practice, than it has ever
been, it is also deeply internally contested. As we will see, this political contestation is reflected within and between
feminist ethical perspectives.
 UKRAINE
The aff abandons Ukrainian women
Dean 10-23-2018, (Dr Laura A. Dean is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and
the Williams Professor in Global Studies at Millikin University. She researches gender
and politics issues focusing on women’s representation, migration, and gender based
violence in Eurasia. "The continuum of gender based violence in Ukraine," LSE Women,
Peace and Security blog, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/wps/2018/10/23/the-continuum-of-
gender-based-violence-in-ukraine/ //EH)
Calls to the domestic violence hotline in Ukraine have increased 30 percent since the war
in Eastern Ukraine began in March 2014. Although this statistic and increased reporting of domestic
violence have been described as an unintended outcome of the war, I argue that this violence is not episodic
violence brought about as a result of the war but normative violence on a continuum of
Gender Based Violence (GBV) that existed in Ukraine before the war due to gender
inequality, discrimination, and patriarchal norms. Before the war there was an emphasis
on the issue of human trafficking in the media but since the war started there has been a
shift to domestic violence. The emphasis on human trafficking was linked to visa liberalisation and foreign aid.
After the war, domestic violence – a prevalent but muted phenomenon in Ukraine – has
been highlighted by the government with a new criminalisation statute and increased
media coverage of domestic violence due to the annexation of Crimea and war in the Donbas. Popular explanations
for the surge in domestic violence include increased violence in society due to images of violence and deaths in the media,
mental health problems with soldiers fighting in the conflict, and stress due to the economic crisis. However, I argue that
GBV – in domestic violence and human trafficking – occurred before the war and, these
events simply shed light on normative violence and gender inequality prevalent in
Ukrainian society. Human Trafficking Forced labour, sex trafficking, and child begging are all different types of
trafficking that occurred in Ukraine before the war. Ukraine was categorised as a source, transit, and destination for
human trafficking of men, women, and children. Push factors for human trafficking are gender
inequality, labour migration, corruption, inefficient law enforcement, lack of trafficking
awareness, and stigmatisation of victims. Since the war began there has been anecdotal evidence of child
soldiers in the rebel combat forces, as well as forced recruitment/kidnapping of men and boys for exploitation.
Additionally, there are reports of kidnapping by the anti-government forces of women and
girls for the purposes of sex and labour trafficking, so there has been an increase in the
more violent forms of trafficking since the war began. Child begging is also still a problem since there
is a segment of the population who have lost parents in the war. There was a shift in labour trafficking from male victims
to female victims in 2015 but this shifted back to majority male victims of forced labour by 2016. War, displacement, and
the economic crisis in Ukraine have also led to an increase in the number of people vulnerable to human trafficking.
Domestic Violence Before the war, sexual assault, domestic violence and forced marriage were
prevalent in Ukraine. There is also economic violence where housing privatisation exacerbates domestic violence
by posing an obstacle to women escaping their abusers. According to a public opinion survey, nearly half of the
Ukrainian population has experienced domestic violence in their lives and 30% of
Ukrainians were subjected to violence in their childhood. Domestic violence is
considered a private issue in Ukrainian society which means that the state should not be
involved. Before the war, prosecutors often refused to pursue prosecution even when women
had been severely injured. Only 10% of victims of physical violence sought assistance from the police. The
underlying causes of domestic violence before the war include alcohol and
strong patriarchal culture. Since the war started there have been increased
reports of violence in families of military service members, with Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) and the trauma of displacement, and those who remain in the conflict areas. IDPs are also at greater risk of
trafficking and sexual abuse and the checkpoints at the conflict line are the most dangerous locations to all forms of
violence. Since the conflict began 1.85 million Ukrainian women suffer domestic violence but few
victims (13%) report to the police. Women who suffer abuse from partners in
military service are further discouraged from reporting the crime, as
Ukrainian police and society view servicemen as heroes and patriots. Increasing
awareness of domestic violence spurred the government to adopt legislation in January 2018 with criminal liability in
domestic violence cases. It also prompted the creation of shelters, hotlines, and a unified state register of domestic
violence cases. Unfortunately, this law will come into force until January 2019 and no implementation funding was
included in the state budget. Before and After War Similarities and Differences Although the basic dynamics and flows of
human trafficking continue in both pre-war and war time, the at-risk population has increased and fuelled the push
factors enticing people to leave Ukraine. Women, especially IDPs and those in at-risk groups are at increased risk of
human trafficking, sexual violence and survival prostitution. The economic recession has placed a strain on government
resources which means that there is less funding to support efforts which are deemed less important, such as gender-
based violence. Domestic violence is still prevalent and considered a private issue where
stereotypes impede reporting and assistance in Ukrainian society. Still there is a small increase in
reporting to police and asking for assistance since the conflict began which demonstrates increased attention on the issue.
Although there is expanded legislation, it has yet to be implemented. The formation of Interagency Work Group on the
prevention of violence and trafficking in the Ministry of Social Policy and the GBV Cluster are promising new venues to
facilitate initiatives related to GBV. As the war stretches into its fourth year with continued violence and prolonged
displacement, GBV is prevalent on both sides of the conflict line. In order to achieve a sustainable peace more initiatives
are necessary to break the continuum and combat the underlying causes of GBV.
 UTIL
Reject utilitarianism—it justifies gender violence by deprioritizing feminist
moral theories
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
Kohlberg had observed in his own research that, according to his criteria, adult women were less likely to
manifest an ethic of justice and more likely to remain at (again according to his criteria)
an earlier stage of moral development in which moral problems continued to be
addressed in an ad hoc, highly personalised and contextualised way. In a familiar feminist move,
Gilligan did not so much overturn Kohlberg's findings as re-evaluate them, arguing that the characteristics of
women's moral thinking were not inferior to an ethic of justice but demonstrated an
equally advanced and sophisticated post-conventional moral point of view. In the wake of the
argument between Kohlberg and Gilligan a huge literature has arisen in social psychology and ethical and political theory
which both criticises and develops Gilligan's original insight (Bubeck 1998; Held 2006; Robinson 1999; 2011). In terms of
feminist ethical and political theory, the concerns of the debate shifted quickly from arguments
about whether men and women actually think differently in relation to moral problems
to exploring the pros and cons of the features of women's moral reasoning identified by
Gilligan, features which have come to be defined as those of an 'ethic of care'. The key
feature of an ethic of care is that it is embedded in the practicalities of relationships of
responsibility for others. Crucial to ethical judgment from the perspective of care is the importance of
particularity (knowing who and what you are making a moral judgment about); connectedness (recognising your actual
relationship to others in the process of judgment); and context (paying attention to the broad and narrow context of
ethical judgment). In her book, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace, Ruddick draws on the idea of
an ethic of care as a central part of her argument for a feminist moral orientation in the
context of international politics (Ruddick 1990). The book involves a rejection of realist
arguments as to the tragic inevitability or structural necessity of war and communitarian
claims as to the special ethical status of the collective group or nation. In addition it
develops a critique of traditional just war thinking - in both utilitarian and
Kantian variants - as well as a positive characterization of how a different kind of
moral judgment and political practice is possible in relation to war. There are essentially two
stages to Ruddick's argument. In the first stage she offers a phenomenology of what she terms 'maternal thinking', in the
second stage she reads off the implications of using maternal thinking as a critical 'feminist standpoint' for making
judgments about the ethics of war and the appropriate feminist response to war. 'Maternal thinking', according to
Ruddick, 'is a discipline in attentive love', a discipline which is rooted in the demands of a particular relation of care, that
between mother and child, and which reflects a particular range of metaphysical attitudes, cognitive capacities and virtues
(Ruddick 1990, 123). Ruddick is careful to insist that she is neither equating mothers with biological mothers, nor
presuming that actual mothers are all good at maternal thinking. Ruddick draws a contrast between the ideals
of response to threat, conflict and harm which are inherent in any practice in which
violence is understood as a permissible instrument for the attainment of goals and
modes of responding to threat, conflict and harm which are premised on the
unacceptability of violence. She finds paradigmatic examples of the former in militarism
and of the latter in the labour of care. "Caregivers are not, predictably, better people than
are militarists. Rather, they are engaged in a different project. Militarists aim to
dominate by creating the structural vulnerabilities that caregivers take for
granted. 13 They arm and train so that they can, if other means of domination fail, terrify
and injure their opponents. By contrast, in situations where domination through bodily
pain, and the fear of pain, is a structural possibility, caregivers try to resist temptations
to assault and neglect, even though they work among smaller, frailer, vulnerable people
who may excite domination." (Ruddick 1993, 121) Ruddick is aware of the problems of simply taking and
applying the regulative ideals of care-giving practices to the realm of international politics, but nevertheless, she
extrapolates criteria of ethical judgment from caregiving practice which she argues do have implications for what should
or should not be permissible within the international realm. Ruddick argues that maternal thinking, located as it is in the
marginalized and denigrated sphere of caring labour, provides a standpoint from which the absurdity of both strategic
military and just war thinking becomes evident. Although Ruddick does not claim that the feminist standpoint provides a
universally valid ground for ethical judgment, she does make a strong claim for the potential of maternal thinking to
illuminate the meaning of war from a critical perspective (Ruddick 1990, 135; Hartsock 1983). For Ruddick, both
militarism and just war theory share a commitment to the expendability of concrete lives
in abstract causes to which maternal thinking is inherently opposed. Ruddick claims that this
means that the implication of maternal thinking is not just the rejection of war but the active embracing of peace politics, a
fight against war which draws on the acknowledgement of responsibility and relationship and the 14 specificity of need
and obligations which are inherent in a proper understanding of the labour of caring (Ruddick 1990, 141-159). "The
analytic fictions of just war theory require a closure of moral issues final enough to justify killing and "enemies" abstract
enough to be killable. In learning to welcome their own and their children's changes, mothers become accustomed to
open-ended, concrete reflection on intricate and unpredictable spirits. Maternal attentive love, restrained and clear
sighted, is ill adapted to intrusive, let alone murderous judgments of others' lives." (Ruddick 1990, 150) In Ruddick's
theory the logic of domestic relations in the restricted sense of the domestic or private sphere is set against the logic of the
public sphere of both state and inter-state relations, although with the acknowledgement that in practice the former has
Ruddick places realism, morality of states,
tended to support and reinforce the latter.
Kantianism, utilitarianism and communitarianism all firmly in the realm of
the logic of public 'masculinist' theory and practice . Although it is clear that Ruddick does
put an ethical value on humans, this is based not on a notion of inherent individual right, but on
relation - value inheres in relations to others, in particular in the recognition of
responsibility for others. For Ruddick then, the realm of international politics is primarily a
realm of human relations, not of human, nation or state rights or an international state
system.
 AT: LINK TURNS
Their link turn gets sequencing backwards—the plan doesn’t apply a
gendered lens to arms control
Heather Hurlburt, director of the New Models of Policy Change project at New
America's Political Reform program, December 2017, "Arms Control Needs the
Modernizing Lens That Gender Offers," No Publication,
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/features/arms-control-needs-modernizing-
lens-gender-offers E.G.
Diversity theory indicates that broadening the perspectives of those who
make policy produces better outcomes. The other side of that coin is the
concept of a “gender lens,” that is, the idea that policy analysis that
considers the different experiences of different genders can produce such
better policy outcomes. The concept has gained traction in academic circles and in peacekeeping
and conflict resolution training in the UN and NATO and some other regional security bodies, but it is
little known in U.S. policymaking and not applied at all in the
arms control space. Socially constructed norms and patterns ensure that people
of different genders have different experiences. This commonplace observation has
important consequences for security policy. For example, violent extremist groups exploit gender
norms to recruit women, deploy women in contexts and societies where women are not expected to be agents
of violence, and heighten feelings of victimization and vulnerability among their targets.12 Similarly,
counterterrorism analysts have documented important patterns and moments where women’s roles in
traditional, as well as Western, societies can be key in detecting or preventing radicalization. Slowly,
policymakers are starting to take notice.13 In conflict resolution and peacekeeping, analysis has
documented that the inclusion of women makes peace agreements more durable, while
failing to take differently gendered needs into account in postconflict stabilization can
contribute to the re-emergence of violent groups. UN Women has found that peace processes that
include women are 20 percent more likely to last at least two years and 35 percent more likely to last 15
years. 14 Yet, new research found that women have made up just 8 percent of peace negotiators over the past
27 years.15 The UN Women, Peace and Security framework, constructed through seven UN Security Council
resolutions, now provides guidelines for training on and planning and evaluation of peacekeeping and
conflict resolution work. NATO and other regional organizations have followed suit, as have military and
civilian planners from a number of key U.S. allies. Just this fall, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into
law the bipartisan Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017, which directs but does not require U.S. security
policymakers to incorporate these best practices into U.S. government work. Congress did not appropriate
any new resources for this task, however, and positions focusing on gender stand empty at the National
Security Council, State Department, and USAID. Moreover, hard data indicates how gendered
dynamics contribute to conflict. Measures of violence against women have emerged as
some of the best predictors for outbreaks of violence within and between states. 16
Scholars are doing important new work on a variety of indicators, not all associated with women. Societies
in which young men are less able to attain the symbols of successful adult masculinity,
such as marriage, employment, and community status, may be more vulnerable to
violence.17 Students and practitioners of arms control and security disciplines
need to catch up to the research on causes of conflict. Although the indicators
connecting gender violence to risk of broader societal conflict are robust, surveys by New America have
found that work to be almost unknown among national security elites.18 Professionals in and out of
government owe it to themselves to become familiar with the findings. Although “gender” is often associated
with feminist or other politically progressive worldviews, the observation that violence against
women and societal violence are closely linked also dovetails comfortably with
ideologically conservative frameworks that see protecting the vulnerable and traditional
family structures as a key goal of security policy. The observations themselves are ideologically
neutral.
Links—K
 ACADEMY
Academic work is imbued with masculine biases
Victoria Robinson 3-1-2017, (Victoria Robinson is Professor of Sociology and Director
of the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of York. She is co-editor, both with Diane
Richardson, of Palgrave Macmillan’s international book series Genders and Sexualities
in the Social Sciences and Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (4th edition,
2015)."Focus: Feminism in the Academy and Beyond," Discover Society,
https://discoversociety.org/2017/03/01/focus-feminism-in-the-academy-and-beyond/
//EH)
More than ever, we need to talk about the continuing, and frankly, not very helpful demarcation between the academy and
the ‘real world’. The current UK higher education impact agenda is framed so that academics are increasingly asked
(required even) to work with ‘external partners’ and to foster knowledge exchange across this assumed spacial and
intellectual chasm. Theorists consistently define their work in terms of how their ideas have ‘real life’ implications . They
make efforts to demystify the ‘ivory tower’ and allow greater access for previously
marginalised groups outside of it. Government rhetoric demands that higher education
provides students with transferable skills to equip them for work in ‘everyday life’. But,
in breath-taking changing social, economic and political times a failure to re-examine the
linguistic premise of this terminology, and the terms in which the resulting dialogue
takes place, can unwittingly maintain these barriers and not break them down. Not that
these impact intentions do not have merit, or indeed, have not had meaningful consequences at local and national levels.
However, looking at Women’s and Gender Studies in historical, contemporary and global
contexts serves as a reminder that these fields have always strived, and still do, to
problematise the relationship of the academy to the evolving and shifting world ‘outside’.
Audre Lorde’s (1979) oft cited quote that ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’, has been interpreted
differently, in diverse and sometimes oppositional contexts. These have ranged from those in the women’s movement who
opposed the establishment of Women’s Studies in the 1970s and 1980s (or later in different
parts of the world) in patriarchal higher education, to those feminists who have put
unrecognised and unpaid time and labour into setting up such programmes. These efforts,
later finding voice in the establishment of Gender Studies as a separate area, or within the disciplines, have been defined
as activism. The attendant labour associated with this created spaces for students and
academics to reformulate the epistemological and methodological malestream (see Spender,
1981; Stanley and Wise, 2008; Robinson and Richardson, 2015). As is now well documented, paying
attention to diverse critiques of a white, western, middle class Women’s and Gender
Studies has been a theoretical, political and moral necessity. Such debates reveal the
field’s determined capacity for self-reflection, even, if seen in retrospect; such revisions
and re-conceptualisations are uneven and continuing. However, feminist activism within
the academy, if taken as but one aspect of the need to think across barriers between the
academy and ‘the outside world’, takes place in diverse economic and political global
contexts. Recent debates in the European context have highlighted how feminists are striving to effect change which as
Mia Liinason and Sabine Grenz argue, reveal ‘…the potential for collective forms of resistance against the neoliberalization
of universities, against the framing of productivity as the key goal in academia, and against the view on gender equality
and diversity as ‘covered’ (as goals that have been reached) in today’s academic landscapes’ (2016, 79). In practice, this
resistance is taking different forms. In the Croatian context, Biljana Kašić argues that we need to open and extend
possibilities ‘for challenging our so-called comfort zones’ (2016, 136). For her it is listening to her students’
demands that effective solutions to women’s precarious employment position are
discussed, and that what we mean now by female solidarity and how we confront
commodity feminism in a globalised era of communication are debated. The articles in this
special issue of Discover Society, edited by Victoria Robinson, and all written by staff and students linked to the Centre for
Women’s Studies at the University of York, attempt to get to grips with these questions amongst other pressing issues. An
overarching concern shown here is the expediency of challenging what is seen and
verified as knowledge, how such knowledge attains (hegemonic or popular) legitimacy,
and /or political power, which actors are involved in this knowledge creation and,
furthermore, what is their status across different spheres. Stevi Jackson’s contribution is centrally
focused on the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) of the 1970s. She looks back at what has been achieved by UK
feminists since that time. A
very personal introduction to the article reveals the continued
importance of the now iconic feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’. Her
recollections also show how sexist and discriminatory practices and attitudes inside and
outside of academia were, and still are, related, crossing over and mutually informing
these supposedly separate spheres. Though she outlines advances made since the original demands of the
WLM, she points to the urgent need to both question the neo-liberal emphasis on free choice, and the importance of
that complacency is not an
seeing women’s struggles in a global perspective. Thus, she makes it clear
option for feminism . In her ‘On the Front Line’ piece, Ting Fang Chin reports that Taiwan is now poised to
become the very first country in Asia that will legalise same` sex marriage. That this has happened is due to the efforts,
since the 1990’s of the LGBTQ movement there. Yet dissenting voices under-pinned by religious doctrine and
Confucianism, are seeking to ensure it does not come about. Though closer to a landmark victory than ever before,
campaigners for same sex marriage are taking nothing for granted, and are active in local communities putting forward
alternative discourses to the anti- same sex marriage argument. This is being done, primarily, by refuting misinformed
and damaging narratives about the LGBTQ community itself. Recent reversals of women’s rights, for
example, in the US, with abortion funding and in Russia over domestic violence, means
hard won rights cannot be taken for granted in the current global order. Importantly, her
evocative phrase ‘This civil revolution is happening not only in the meeting rooms of the Legislative Yuan, but indeed, also
on the streets and around the dinner table’, reveals the need for activists to engage with the public imagination in new
ways and on diverse fronts. Pelin Dincer’s main concern in her article is with the perennial issues of women’s solidarity
and working across differences, which have long informed international feminist movements theoretically and in activist
terms. In an effort to theorise the current fragmentation of the women’s movement in Turkey, she employs the
spectacle of women marching after Donald Trump’s recent inauguration as US President,
in protest against his racist and misogynistic policies, as a metaphor to think through
difference and collectivity. In so doing, she points out that the critiques from women of
color and trans people of these marches is important to note, but argues that feminism
must debate whether we define such differences as barriers or solutions to solidarity. In
so doing she insists that the wider political context, if seen in conjunction with a micro-
analysis of women activists, enables the notion of solidarity itself to be interrogated in
changing national times. In another national context, Manel Zouabi is concerned to frame the growing popularity
of Facebook in its complexity, as a ’politicized and popularized platform for the communication of ideas in post-
revolutionary Tunisia’.
 CYBERNETICS
Cybernetics and feminism are mutually exclusive—cybernetics objectifies
and stereotypes feminine bodies
Susanna Paasonen 2002 (Susanna Paasonen is a Finnish feminist scholar. She is a
Professor of Media Studies at the University of Turku, and was a visiting scholar at MIT
in 2016. She gained her PhD from the University of Turku in 2002; her dissertation was
on gender and the popularization of the internet, which was later published through
Peter Lang. After holding positions at the universities of Tampere, Jyväskylä and
Helsinki, Paasonen was appointed Professor of Media Studies at the University of Turku
on 1 August 2011, and publishes on internet research, media theory, sexuality,
pornography and affect. “Thinking Through the Cybernetic Body: Popular Cybernetics
and Feminism," Rhizomes http://www.rhizomes.net/issue4/paasonen.html //EH)
As discursive field, cyberfeminism appears as located between two mutually exclusive, or
at least contradicting articulations of embodiment. The prefix "cyber," drawing from both
scientific and popular investigations into cybernetics, refers to articulations of the body as a system of feedback loops and
autonomous responses, which owe to the Cartesian paradigm separating the body from the realm
of knowledge and the rational mind (cf. Judovitz 2001). Feminism, again, refers to the legacy of the
women's movement and feminist theory that have, since the 1960s, called for a politics of
location in an attempt to map anti-Cartesian forms of reason and embodiment. Radical
feminist poet and theorist Adrienne Rich (1995, 284) phrased the question in 1976: "cannot (women) begin, at least, to
think through the body, to connect what has been so cruelly disorganized?" Radical feminism mapped the
female body and sexuality as terrain of power and knowledge, breaking the transparency
of the "natural body." During the past decades, studies on embodiment and power have become
a central field of interest, further adding to the feminist project of rethinking
embodiment, markers of difference and identity. [2] Since the early 1990s, "cyber" has become
something of a free-floating signifier for things to do with computers and information networks, and cyberfeminism has
surfaced as a discursive arena for imagining and analyzing inter-connections of gender, new technology, and the Internet
in particular. Donna Haraway's widely quoted and referenced "Cyborg Manifesto" (orig. 1985) has inspired researchers to
rethink the boundaries of the human and the machine, "nature" and "artifice," but this rethinking has not in all cases
included critical engagement with the Cartesian legacy of cybernetics. In what follows, I look at the apparent
tensions between "cyber" and "feminism," moving between popular representations of
cybernetic bodies and feminist appropriations--as well as critiques--of cybernetics .
This enterprise involves an attempt to understand how "cyber" became used in discussions on gender and embodiment
before the first articulations of cyberfeminism (VNS Matrix's 1991 "Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century"; Plant
1995) and the wider cyberspace discourses of the 1990s. [3] Given that both the field of cybernetics (in its both academic
and popular forms), and feminist theorizing of technology and embodiment span several decades and branch out in
various ways, neither of the two can be thoroughly discussed in the confines of a single article. Therefore, I focus on some
rather iconic moments of representing and explaining the body in the 1960s and 1970s, from astronaut cyborg figures to
the television series The Bionic Woman, and Shulamith Firestone's visions of cybernetic feminism. I believe that revisiting
these discourses on technology and embodiment makes explicit the need to rethink the uses of cybernetic figures in, and
their implications for (cyber)feminist practices. Enter popular cybernetics [4] Generally speaking, cybernetics stands for
the science of communications and automatic control in both machines and organic systems, as outlined by Norbert
Wiener (the 1948 Cybernetics, or, the control in human and machine; the 1950 Human Use of Human Beings).
Cybernetics has been established as a field of scientific inquiry within engineering, computer science, medicine,
anthropology, sociology and psychology, but equally as representations, figurations and visualisations circulated in
popular media culture--that is, as popular cybernetics. Cybernetic research feeds into popular
cybernetics as terminology, general principles, experiments and analogies: of these, analogies between brains
and computers as information-processing systems, the body as cybernetic system of feedback loops and autonomous
responses, and the centrality of homeostasis in cybernetic systems are among the most common and well known.
Cybernetics has been widely appropriated in science fiction (cf. Hayles 1999), psycho-cybernetics self-improvement
literature and consulting (cf. Maltz 1970; Andersen 1985), as well as popular overviews on new technology (Halacy 1965;
Ceuzin 1965). Cybernetic principles such as feedback, self-organization, or homeostasis, have been employed in writings
on media, from Marshall McLuhan and the video movement in the 1960s and 1970s, to the cyberpunk fiction and
cyberspace texts of the following decades. [5] The concept of a cyborg, cybernetic organisms, was first introduced by
Manfred E. Clynes in the 1960 article "Cyborgs and Space," co-written with Nathan S. Kline, which dealt with possible
adaptations and modifications of the human body for space travel. Clynes and Kline saw the challenges of space travel as
an invitation to participate in human evolution, making it possible for astronauts to adapt to alien environments.
Cybernetic self-regulating man-machine systems became the means to accomplish these ends without altering human
heredity. Cybernetic systems would operate in collaboration with the body's autonomous controls so that astronauts
would not need to consciously operate any gadgets, "leaving man free to explore, to create, to think and to feel" (Clynes
and Kline 1995, 29-31; also Gray 1995, 47). The suggestions made by Clynes and Kline included primarily combinations of
hypnosis, drugs (psychic energizers, even amphetamines) and surgery for altering the bodily system (Clynes and Kline
1995, 31-33), although Clynes also suggested the possibility of mechanical devices being incorporated in "the regulatory
feedback chains--the homeostatic mechanism that keep us viable for such an astonishingly long time" (Clynes in Halacy
1965, 8). [6] According to Clynes, "the main idea was to liberate man from constraints as he flies
into space--that's a kind of freedom--but it seemed necessary to give him bodily freedom
to exist in another part of the universe without the constraints that having evolved on
earth made him subject to." (Gray 1995, 47.) Having evolved on Earth, one's body is conditioned in certain ways
and can be reconditioned to better correspond to external conditions: meanwhile, "the self" assumedly remains the same.
The individual is represented as if separate from, although tied to, its "vessel," the body, and through scientific progress,
"the self" can be freed from the body and its immanence. [7] Clynes' and Klines' 1960 article evoke interest both in the
media and within NASA: Life magazine featured an article based on their ideas on the possibilities of cyborgs, and NASA
commissioned an entire study on cyborgs (Gray 1995, 47). Cyborg fantasies were part and parcel of the
more general enthusiasm concerning space and astronautics, as fuelled by the contemporary quests
by Soviets and Americans to "conquer space." Space opened up as a new frontier previously familiar from science fiction
but now reachable by human kind. As pointed out by Donna Haraway (1989, 137), space has been figured and
imagined of as the future of man, "escape from the bounded globe into an anti-ecosystem called, simply,
space." This view is exemplified in Paul Ceuzin's (1965, 4), introduction to a popular French overview on astronautics,
which attaches space travel to subversion in the history of humanity. Ceuzin declares that: "[o]ur century will remain in
history as the one that will have seen the first human escape from the terrestrial prison," and continues, that
"[astronautics] is already transforming our mentality and [--] tomorrow it will perhaps transform it morally and
physically. We are thus living the largest human revolution; it remains to be seen if, in spite of our weaknesses and
limitations, we will be able to triumph it." (Ceuzin 1965, 5.) The earth and the body are both depicted as prisons from
which man must liberate himself and aim towards transcendence, freedom from the surroundings, and optimization of
one's bodily mechanism. In his foreword to D.S. Halacy's popular overview on cybernetic organism, the appropriately
titled Cyborg--Evolution of the Superman, Clynes reproduces the same discourse: A new frontier is opening which allows
us renewed hope. The new frontier is not merely space, but more profoundly the relationship between 'inner space' to
'outer space'--a bridge being built between mind and matter, beginning in our time and extending into the future. [--] A
new word was created in 1960 to describe a new concept for man's venture into space:
Become a spaceman; live in space as at home--if possible, better than home! Do not take into
space earth's hindrances and encumbrances. Be a free spirit in space, weightless and not weighted down by the limitations
of terrestrial ancestry. (Clynes in Halacy 1965, 7.) Being a spaceman, a superman implies freedom to transcend confines
such as situatedness and embodiment, and to make oneself at home in space, immaterial and weightless. As Mary Russo
(1995, 26) points out, such images of "freedom as limitless space, transcendence, individualism, and upward mobility of
various kinds" have been central to modernism and liberation discourses, which tend to reproduce the body/mind -split.
Following Donna Haraway (1992, 297), such formulations are representative of productionism which comes down "to the
story line that 'man makes everything, including himself, out of the world that can only be resource and potency to his
project and active agency'. This productionism is about man the tool-maker and -user, whose highest technical production
is himself; i.e., the story line of phallogocentrism." [8] The 1970s in particular saw numerous visualizations of popular
cybernetics, literary, cinematic, and televisual alike. In many of them, bionics and cyborgs signified a discursive terrain for
articulating novel possibilities of the human: with cybernetics, men were able to rebuild themselves as "better, stronger,
faster," as the opening sequence of the popular cyborg television series, The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978), declared.
However, as Lynn Spigel points out in her studies on media and space frenzy of the 1960s, these dreams of novelty became
articulated in highly racialized and gendered terms: the most visible agents of space exploration were white male
engineers, on whose expertise the expeditions were based. White men were equipped for conquering "the
new frontier" while popular representations focused on women as the wives of
astronauts , or occasionally as "sexy robots" (Spigel 2001, 125-128). According to Spigel, the space race,
"provided a popular spectacle through which Americans could view the future in terms of
the past and still feel as if they were going somewhere," and helped the whites to
secure their power "through the control and colonization of space ," as well as
shaping the culture's imaginary geography of the universe" (Spigel 2001, 133, 145). These ideas of simultaneous
transformation and reinforcement of the status quo become quite evident in the series Six Million Dollar Man and its spin-
off, The Bionic Woman (1976-1978), which were both based on Martin Caidin's novel Cyborg (1972) Imagining the
super(wo)man [9] Martin Caidin's Cyborg depicts the construction of the former astronaut, Colonel Steve Austin as the
world's first cyborg. Inspired by cyborg research, the novel relies on Norbert Wiener's analogies between the human
nervous and muscular systems and artificial feedback mechanisms, as well as the possibilities of integrating them--both
illustrating these principles and developing them further in the sphere of science fiction. In addition to the term cyborg, it
celebrates the idea of bionics as a cutting-edge field of cybernetics: in D.S. Halacy's (1965, 41) definition, bionics stands for
"a further realization by biologist and engineer that in many ways man could be equated with machine and vice versa."
Cyborg reiterates such principles and equations, as did the later television series with their representations of bionic
embodiments. These rationalized understandings of embodiment are explicit in a paragraph, where Doctor Wells explains
the functioning of bionic limbs that are integrated into the body of his patient, Steve Austin: Your brain sends down it
signal in the form of electrical impulses. These travel through the nerve networks of your body. While your arm remained
a stump [--] the signals terminated where the limb was severed. But now the wires in your bionic limb are connected
directly--fused, as I said--with those of the stump. They have literally became a single unit. And the elements of the bionics
limb have been programmed to respond in direct proportion to the electrical signal that is sent out by your brain. They are
also programmed to respond in the same manner as did your entire arm. This is the computer aspect of the bionics
system. It's basically the same for man or machine." (Caidin 1972, 134-135.) Austin's reconstructed body is discussed in
terms of "cables and wires" that "carry messages of awareness and pressure and feel, and, of necessity, pain" and his brain
is defined as "the most extraordinary computer ever known" (Caidin 1972, 119, 131). In the pilot episode of the television
series, Colonel Austin is offered the over 800 page manual of his bionic arm, and its operations are explained in some
detail, simultaneously also providing user guides to Austin's own body. As a prototypical cyborg, Austin both embodies
and exemplifies cybernetic understandings of human embodiment, which fundamentally reproduce the Cartesian legacy
of framing the body as a "dissected corpse, whose mechanical logic is associated with the artifice of automata" (Judovitz
2001, 71). [10] Picking Colonel Austin as the ideal specimen of "a new breed," a "kind of superbeing" (Caidin 1972, 63-64)
has explicit eugenic undertones. Austin embodies ideals of hegemonic masculinity (rationality, physical strength,
heterosexual appeal, technical skills, intelligence, courage) in a Caucasian figure, and he is chosen as the test subject due
to his exceptional abilities that are highlighted throughout the novel. Austin is an experienced test pilot, the youngest ever
astronaut to walk on the surface of the moon, who "stood six feet, one inch tall, with eyes deep blue; a lean, muscled frame,
almost rangy; a laugh filled with warmth; and an animal attraction about him," considered among the astronauts as "close
to genius." With masters degrees in aerodynamics, astronautical engineering and history, and an undefined Ph.D. degree,
he is also star athlete in most sports. As doctor Oscar Goldman summarises, Austin is a man "so unusual, extraordinary [--
] Physically an outstanding specimen. A great athlete. An advanced student of the military arts." (Caidin 1972, 59, 123-
124.) With bionic additions, his athletic skills become not only superb, but superhuman (Caidin 1972, 152, 160-161). [11]
Steve Austin is a perfect representative of the white race: male, heterosexual, North-
American, rational and superior in physical and mental performance, a man who has
conquered space. Technology steps in as means to make him into representative of a new
breed that combines the best specimen of human kind with the best of cutting-edge
technological research and development. This convergence reads as explicit reproduction
of white mastery and use of technology in supporting the hegemony of white
masculinity--especially in the context of gender, race and the space race (cf. Spigel
2001). [12] In 1975, Lindsay Wagner made a guest appearance in The Six Million Dollar Man as Austin's childhood
sweetheart and tennis professional Jaime Sommers, with whom Austin falls in love. Sommers is Austins' ideal
heterosexual partner--white, athletic, blonde, and feminine, but their romance is violently ruptured
as she nearly dies in a sky-diving accident, suffering the loss of three limbs and an ear. Austin convinces OSI to rebuilt her
as the worlds first female cyborg with a bionic arm, legs, and an ear that enables her to hear distant things. Austin and
Sommers are now truly "made for each other," as his mother jokes, and the couple plans to marry. During this happy
engagement period they are continuously seen running at amazing speed, on and off-track, smiling at each other and
leaping over fences, tractors, and other obstacles. Yet, to paraphrase the opening sequence of the series, Austin is quite
obviously "better, stronger, faster" of the two. While Sommers appears to be the female equivalent of Austin, and his
"natural" love-interest, she is also situated as his inferior in performance. In spite of her technological prowess, Sommers
remains a representative of "the weaker sex." [13] However, Sommer's body soon begins to reject her new bionic limbs.
After series of painful headaches, she suffers massive cerebral hemorrhage and dies on the operation table--only to be
resurrected a year later to star in her own series, The Bionic Woman, where she has a cover job as a school teacher at an
air base and is recurrently shown together with both children and animals. In 1977, she even teamed up with a bionic
canine, named Maximilian. [14] During the mid-1970s, the Bionic Woman was a female heroine
marketed to children in yearbooks, lunch boxes and as action dolls. Her athletic and
merry figure represented optimism in terms of technological progress and the ability of
cybernetics to change the world for better (Wilson 1995, 243; cf. Gough-Yates 2001). In addition, she
embodied both the cybernetic understanding of body as a system that can be
reconstructed and rewired with technology, and hegemonic understandings of the
appropriately raced and gendered body with decidedly feminine
characteristics . Jaime Sommers may have been physically stronger than non-bionic males, but her femininity
expressed itself as care, nurture and empathy (towards children in particular)--and, as the second episode of her series,
"Angel of Mercy" (1976) was eager to point out, she had a strong aversion not only towards violence but also needles and
snakes which rendered her nauseous, almost hysterical. [15] Sommers was both fully bionic and female in the sense of
being feminine and heterosexual--and thus she guarded the unity of embodiment, desire and sexual practices even with
bionic rearrangements (cf. Butler 1990). As a figure of popular culture, the bionic woman offered visualizations of
technological embodiment and frameworks for considering the role of cybernetic technologies. However, the series also
illustrates Anne Balsamo's notion that new technologies should not be too readily connected to novel ways of interpreting
the self and the world, for "[i]t is just as likely that these new technologies will be used primarily to tell old stories--stories
that reproduce, in high-tech guise, traditional narratives about the gendered, race-marked body" (Balsamo 1996, 132; also
Braidotti 1996). Along with other contemporary fictions dealing with life-like robots (e.g. The Stepford Wives, 1975;
Westworld, 1974; Futureworld, 1976), the series simultaneously blurred the boundaries of organic
and machine bodies, and reinforced those of gender as a hierarchical, binary system of
differences that can be decoded from the body. [16] By the early 1970s, "cyber" had entered into
the general vocabulary and popular cybernetics had been formed as a field of
representations concerning the boundaries and the nature of the human. These representations
resorted to ongoing scientific research (as in the case of NASA-funded cyborg research, and, more currently, Alife and AI).
However, popular cybernetics should also be understood as building upon, and feeding
itself. Individual texts both draw from, and add to popular cybernetics as sets of
concepts, figures and analogies that may be quite detached from research. Visualizations and
adaptations of cybernetic themes have formed a landscape for imagining the possibilities of new technology, of freeing
man from confines set by evolution and embodiment. In the 1970s, "cyber" came to signify the possibilities as well as
dangers of technology in various fields of culture, feminist studies included. Given that fictions concerning reconstructions
of the human body have long made use of the figure of woman as machine, such investigations into the body-politics of
cybernetics were greatly needed. [1] Feminist articulations of "cyber" [17] In her 1970 The Dialectic of Sex, Shulamith
Firestone outlined the need for, and possibilities of cybernetic socialist feminism. The book envisions an alternative form
of cybersociety brought forth by increased computerization, automation and the developments in high technology. In
addition to the obvious affinities to cyber terminology, Firestone relies on mechanistic understandings of the body as
object to be controlled and known, belief in rationality and reason, as well as social planning and the organization of
society with the aid of technology and science--themes central to contemporaneous cybernetic social theories (Mœki-
a
Kulmala 1998). [18] According to Firestone, as part of the current social, cultural and political system
cybersociety would be both patriarchal and classist, and add to the
marginalization and oppression of women, whereas the alternative one would be based on
female control of technology, ecological responsibility, and a radical redefinition of the society (labor, family, love, leisure)
both on the level of production and reproduction. (Firestone 1970, 230-231.) Such a post-heteronormative cybersociety
would mean public computer centers, extensive use of contraception and reproduction technologies which would free
women from the confines of childbearing. [19] The dialectic of sex in her book title refers both to a revolutionary process
leading towards a future society, and the underlying gender dynamics that have structured society from prehistory to the
present. Firestone anchors women's oppression firmly in biology and nature: women's reproductive capacity is the cause
for the original division of labor, "oppression that goes back beyond recorded history to the animal kingdom itself"
(Firestone 1970, 2). Consequently, reproduction and female embodiment become the cause for gendered division of labor,
and the fundamental gender dualism is seen to spring from sex and biology (Squires 2000, 366; Haraway 1991, 10).
Technology, again, steps in as means for overcoming the tyranny of embodiment and biology. As science and technology
move toward uncovering the laws of nature, it becomes possible to fight nature: through control over technology, women
can restore the ownership of their own bodies. This, again, asks for a rethinking of the very categories of nature and
culture. (Firestone 1970, 2, 11, 226.) [20] Firestone's ideas can be--and they have been--critiqued as a utopian science
fiction narrative, illustration of ultra-rationalism, technological optimism or determinism. [2] Certainly her model readily
assumes that changes in the system of production and reproduction will do away with gender as a regulatory system of
bodies, gender, desire and individual intelligibility (cf. Butler 2000, 75). Firestone sees power as patriarchal and
oppressive, and does not account for its productivity, which leads into the idea that once the social and cultural conditions
and practices (such as those of co-habitation) change, people will be liberated and free from the confines of normative
heterosexuality, and power will be radically redefined in terms of gender, age, class and race. Furthermore, Firestone
builds on cybernetic principles of bodies (as well as societies) as systems that can be known and controlled. The body
becomes articulated as other, a system that the self can "operate" and master like other natural objects. [21] As Donna
Haraway argues, Firestone's lacking vision of a feminist body-politic leads her into "reducing social relations to natural
objects, with the logical consequence of seeing technical control as a solution. [--] That is, she accepted that there are
natural objects (bodies) separate from social relations. In this context, liberation remains subject to supposedly natural
determinism, which can be avoided in an escalating logic of counterdomination." (Haraway 1991, 10.) The Dialectic of Sex
stands in clear opposition to many major contemporary radical feminist texts (e.g. Rich 1976/1995; Daly 1978/1990) in its
arguments for overcoming gender with the aid of technology, and positioning nature as the cause for gendered, raced and
classed relations of power. Taking up and reproducing the cybernetic discourse of the body as prison of the mind that can
be reworked to better suit the needs of the environment, Firestone also turns a blind eye to anti-Cartesian takes on
embodied subjectivity. [22] Thinking against the Cartesian legacy, Adrienne Rich (1995, 284) points out that "[w]e are
neither 'inner' nor 'outer' constructed; our skin is alive with signals; our lives and our deaths are inseparable from the
release or blockage of our thinking bodies," and argues for a need to think not outside the female body and thus produce
old forms of thinking, but through the body in its full complexity and political significance. This process is of particular
importance to women, who have "tended either to become our bodies--or to try to exist in spite of them" since the "female
body has been both territory and machine, virgin wilderness to be exploited and assembly-line turning out life" (Rich
1995, 282-285). [23] Rich, like Firestone, describes processes through which women have become used as tools and
machines of reproduction, but does not credit this to biology or female capacity for reproduction. Rather, the oppression
of women is based on the integration of reproductive capacities in an order of male political control and economic power
(Liljeström 2000, 258). Feminist body politics, in Rich's formulation, includes women taking over tools of reproduction:
not shifting reproduction to the terrain of technoscience, but opening reproduction, sexuality, and parenting up for
redefinition. Contrary to the Cartesian paradigm that separates minds and bodies, souls and mechanical systems, reason
and experience, Rich aims to outline alternative starting points: "Not to transcend this body, but to reclaim it. To
reconnect our thinking and speaking with the body in particular living human individual, a woman." (Rich 1986, 213.) As
Marianne Liljeström (2000, 268) points out, Rich defines the body as a crossing of material and symbolic forces, as a
discursive location inscribed with multiple codes of power. [24] In her call for embodied knowledge and feminist ethics,
Rich, like several other radical feminist writers, argues against the Cartesian legacy and refuses to mark the body as other
(cf. Braidotti 1993;.Gallop 1988). Firestone, again, refers to cybernetic, Cartesian-influenced formulations of body as
perfectible machine: the self as "ghost in the machine, the centralized fountain-keeper, sole agent and administrator of the
mechanized functions of the body" (Judovitz 2001, 78). While these stances appear to be mutually exclusive, "cyber" and
feminism have been bridged together within cyberfeminism since the 1990s. Cyberfeminism has provided spaces for
articulating connections between women and computer technology. However, the tensions between mechanistic and anti-
Cartesian feminist stances have not been solved. Cyborg figurations and the notion of skin [25] Like Shulamith Firestone,
Donna Haraway argues for feminist incorporations and appropriations of technology and overcoming the dualities of
nature and culture, organic and inorganic, female and male. She uses the figuration of cyborg as feminist appropriation of
military and NASA funded research projects as a boundary figure that refuses origin stories of fullness or "seductions to
organic wholeness" (Haraway 1991, 150). Unlike Firestone's dialectic model, Haraway's manifesto does not depict a state
of future possibilities, but conceptualizes the contemporary situation with its convergence of human, animal, and
machine, reading it is as a possibility for feminist politics of difference. Yet, like Firestone's model, the cyborg figuration is
utopian. [26] Haraway's cyborg figuration is something that, following Angela Bammer
(1991, 4, 155), may be identified as a partial vision, which can "provide a sufficiently open
space into which to project the possibility of as yet unchartable change." Like other figurations,
the cyborg stands for "a politically informed account of an alternative subjectivity," feminist forms of knowledge "that are
not caught in a mimetic relationship to dominant scientific discourses" (Braidotti 1994, 1, 75) and disrupt "the teleological
evolution of both humans and machines, nature and culture. Figurations are like myths with seams in--or myths turned
inside out. They are unnatural, irrational and very partial." (Kember 1998, 118.) Thus figurations unavoidably fail, if read
literally rather than figuratively: as fantasies of overcoming the body through the use of technology, as science fiction tales
of humanity made machine, or unlimited possibilities of gender-switching and identity play (cf. van Lenning 1997, 138-
139; Klein 1999, 202, 208). [27] In cyberfeminist texts, Firestone's utopian futures are relatively seldom acknowledged,
while Haraway's cyborg manifesto has become something of an iconic reference--or, as Nathalie Magnan put it during the
2001 Very Cyberfeminist International, a "holy text." Firestone's cybernetic visions may be accused of uncritical embrace
of Cartesian principles, but this is considerably less so with Haraway's cyborg figuration. Nevertheless, one may ask, to
what degree are cyborgs open to feminist appropriations, to being uprooted from their military and techno-scientific
contexts? [28] Writing on the centrality of science fiction in the U.S., Sharona Ben-Tov (1995, 143) argues that the wide
appeal of Haraway's figuration is owed to the lure of technologization as cultural fantasy that "depends on believing that
the world really lends itself to complete definition and control by science and technology." In Ben-Tov's reading, the
cyborg manifesto does not have the rhetorical power to subvert the ideology on which it is built, or to fully overcome the
underlying objectifying understandings of embodiment. She argues that "Haraway's image of the skin is a passive shell
between the Cartesian self and the object world. Cyborg embodiment means installing devices in the shell, augmenting it
with machines that 'can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves'." However, "[m]achines don't blur the
boundary of the self; they just extend it." (Ben-Tov 1995, 144, 146.) According to Ben-Tov, Haraway simultaneously
reproduces the liberatory rhetoric of science fiction and technological utopianism that she aims to confront. [29] Although
Ben-Tov's reading can be criticized for being too literal and not giving full credit to the cyborg as figuration--its strategic
nature in negotiating ground for articulations of feminist subjectivity--it should be noted that the cyberdiscourse which
Haraway employs in the manifesto has force that feminist appropriation may not be able to subvert. Cyborg imageries
figure embodiment in ways similar than Shulamith Firestone, as a rationalized system that can be known, controlled and
improved as to liberate people from biology. Once the body becomes construed in such a mechanical vein, it is quite
difficult to reverse this logic for outlining alternative forms of human-machine connections. Such friction between
cyberdiscourse and the project of "thinking through the body" has become more explicit in the later appropriations of the
cyborg figuration than it was in the speculative manifesto. [30] In cyberfeminist texts of the 1990s, the appeal of
cyberdiscourse, enthusiastic towards the possibilities of computer technology, often anti-political in its articulations of
cyberspace as alternative realm and tied into ideas of transcending the body (Adam 1997, 20-21) tended to override
feminist concerns for anti-Cartesian reasoning and body politics. As information networks became articulated as a
cyberspace, a parallel reality "on the other side of the screen" where old identifications and subjectivities were said to
collapse (Plant 1995, 54; Plant 1997, 213), or as spaces of transformation and identity factories (Stone 1996, 180-181)--only
to quote some of the best known authors identified with cyberfeminism--identity and embodiment became conceptually
separated, and, in many cases, the previous was simply left behind. [31] The figure of cyberspace owes equally to popular
cybernetics and the inter-connected fantasies of space, exploration, and freedom. As Constance Penley (1997, 22) points
out, "'space' remains one of the major sites for utopian thinking" in the U.S., and "'going to
space' is still one of the most important ways we represent our relation to science,
technology, and the future." To paraphrase Penley (1997, 15-16), fictions such as Cyborg
and Bionic Woman represent a similar utopian stance towards the possibilities of
technological progress. As texts of popular cybernetics, they both humanize high technology and provide a
vocabulary for discussing it. In bionic fictions, progress through technology is tied with NASA in the shape of a male
astronaut protagonist, yet in them, the act of "going into space" (technological progress, humanized science, future of
man) takes place on the surface of the earth, and the human body becomes the space to explore and modify. Spaces of
progress and adventure, then, open up on various level with references to cybernetics: as the outer space of astronautics,
the inner spaces of bodies and minds, and the terrain of cyberspace. [32] Freedom from bodily constraints, various means
of transcending material conditions, have been a recurrent theme in cyberdiscourse since the 1950s: bodies have been
subject to manipulation, their automatic functions have been simulated with machines, bodies have been replicated and
replaced by machine ones, and finally the body, as "meat," has been left behind in cyberspace fantasies. Furthermore,
while gender, along with other embodied differences and the materiality of bodies, tends to disappear in abstracted
cybernetic models, the varying representations of virtual embodiments in cyberspace tend to be clearly gendered and
heterosexualized (Springer 1996; Balsamo 1996; Braidotti 1996). There is something of an obsession towards embodiment
in cyberdiscourse--embodiment constantly becomes "an other" that needs to be controlled and objectified, rendered open
to manipulation and altering. The tendency to think of bodies as something that one has, rather than something one is and
does, leaves unnoticed that bodies are not capsules that "we" inhabit, but our very beings. Identity categories are inscribed
in our bodies, read and performed: thus bodies are "the transparent enabling power and 'zero-degree' of our agency" and
yet opaque, "within our agency, yes, but certainly in excess to our volition" (Sobchack 1999, 48). [33] The issue of skin,
addressed by Ben-Tov in her critique of Haraway, may be central in re-thinking the relations of individuals, bodies and
technology. In her Strange Encounters, Sara Ahmed (2000, 46-47) argues that a feminist body politic should
go beyond Adrienne Rich's focus on "my body," that is, "the equation between lived
experience, the privatised realm of 'the my', and particularity," since "my body" is
possible in its particularity "only through encountering other bodies, 'your body', 'her
body and so on." This involves thinking of bodies in relation to others, marks of gender,
race, and age, and seeing particular bodies as carrying "traces of the differences that are
registered in the bodies of others" (Ahmed 2000, 44, emphasis in the original). For Ahmed, the project is one
of thinking through the skin, rather than the body: skin does not simply stand for a surface of signs (color, wrinkles, hair,
etc.) but for boundaries that are assumed to contain subjects "inside" while keeping others "outside." In other words, skin
signifies a mechanism for social differentiation (Ahmed 2000, 44-45.). [34] This conceptual shift enables a consideration
of some bodies as more visible and marked than others, bodies coming to matter through the skin, and people becoming
situated in relation to each other (through proximity and distance). Skin becomes readable as a kind of interface that is
nevertheless fully material (cf. Tikka 1996). Furthermore, thinking of the materializations of bodies as "systems of
meaning," helps to bridge the possible conceptual gaps between the body as lived, and the body as signs, and also provides
a stance for analyzing understandings of the body as a (cybernetic) system and object. Epilogue: Us versus Them--Who?
[35] Cyberfeminism becomes often articulated against "feminism" which signifies the "second wave" of the 1970s, and is
understood as homogenizing, essentializing, and anti-technology. Accusing feminism of reductionism, cyberfeminist
articulations postulate the "second wave" feminism as a version of gynocentrism and cultural-feminism where women and
nature are allies against the masculinist culture of technology and control. As Faith Wilding (1998) has noted,
cyberfeminists tend to depict 1970s feminism as monumental, essentialist, anti-technology as well as anti-sex, while there
may be little understanding of the history of feminist theory and practice. And, paradoxically, "cyberfeminism has already
adopted many of the strategies of avant-garde feminist movements," such as separatism and women-only groups (Wilding
1998, 7). Any closer reading of feminist texts of the 1970s and 1980s reveals a wide array of takes on technology, from
Mary Daly's anti-technological views to Shulamith Firestone's embrace of high technology and computing, and feminist
uses and critiques of technology in fields such as cinema studies and photography (cf. Penley 1988; Spence 1995).
Certainly there has never been such a thing as "a feminist definition of technology," but rather multiple feminist takes on
and critiques of different technologies, as well as attempts to appropriate them and alter their meanings. Here the
question concerns processes of signification, tactics of representation and the uses of technology (how it is made to
signify), rather than its assumed, unchanging essence. [36] Mary Daly and Adrienne Rich in particular reappear as generic
representatives of cultural-feminist essentialism both in terms of the category of women and the nature of technology.
Rosalind Gill and Keith Grint (1995, 4-5), for example, discuss eco-feminist alliances between women and nature as
essentialism that is unable to deal with change and celebrates traditional ideas of femininity as female specificity. This
essentialism, represented by Rich, Daly and Susan Griffin respectively, is discussed as persistent essentialism and "flawed
as a theoretical perspective and disempowering as a political one" (Gill and Grint 1995, 4-5, 12, 14). The historical, political
and theoretical contexts of their writing are not analyzed: thus attempts to acknowledge embodiment and embodied
(sexual) differences stand for essentialism that the authors aim to overcome with critical constructivism. [37] Certainly
eco-feminist definitions of gender, power and technology are not encouraging in terms of female technological agency and
they may work to (re)produce assumptions of women as nurturing and holistic. However, it should be also noted that
accusations of essentialism tend to erase contexts of these specific articulations, along with the differences between
essentialisms. [3] Teresa de Lauretis (1989, 6-8) points out how poststructural theory in particular often becomes depicted
as the anti-thesis for essentialism, as the "new and much improved" version of feminist theory--or, as she ironically
remarks, as the "dark horse and winner of the feminist theory contest" (de Lauretis 1989, 7). Feminist theory becomes
narrated as a tale of progress while feminist texts are situated in what de Lauretis (1989, 10) calls a reductive opposition.
Such formulations, which often bypass historical and political contexts, fail to acknowledge the importance of existing
feminist work and their figurations of gender and society. [38] Overviews on feminist critiques of technology may produce
narrative trajectories from the denial to the embrace of technology, from alliances with nature to those with culture, from
essentialism to constructionism (or, to personify, from the discourse represented by Mary Daly to that represented by
Donna Haraway). This narrative may also be posed in somewhat modernist terms as one of
progress and increasing theoretical sophistication (cf. Ahmed 1998, 70).
 DELEUZE
Deleuze’s privileging of masculinity in his works is problematic and
essentializing
Blake 2009 (Kathryn Blake is a professor at Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers,
a State University of New Jersey. “A CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF
PSYCHOANALYSIS THROUGH GILLES DELEUZE AND FELIX GUATARRI”
https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/25764/PDF/1/play/ //EH)
What makes becoming-woman even more controversial as well as important is that Deleuze and Guattari are
very clear that there is no becoming-man. There can be no becoming-man because man
is majoritarian and all becomings are becomingminoritarian. In phallocentrism, this is an
absolutely true claim and what makes this less problematic is their emphasis that the molar man is much more specific
with regard to his race and class (white and wealthy). They are not ignoring the existence of differences between men,
which go beyond race and class as well; however, “the majority in the universe assumes as pregiven the
right and power of man” (291). The privileging of masculinity is pervasive and that is
why they are so adamant that all becomings come through becoming-woman since her position is most directly impacted
and effected by the privileging of man. The feminist response to this will be elaborated in the next chapter, but it is not
only the feminist theorists that find this to be a problematic claim. Brian Massumi writes in his
book A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari’s formulation of the
concept ‘becoming-woman’ is indeed sexist. The burden of change is placed on women,
since it is their cliché that is singled out. They do not dwell on the possibility of a
similarly revolutionary becoming-man that would push the masculine stereotype beyond
its threshold of recuperation (following, for example, strategies of the kind employed by some segments of the
gay and lesbian S/M communities who theatricalize ‘masculinity’ in order to take it to a deconstructive extreme). It
would be impossible for a straight man to become-man in this way, since in doing so he
would not be becoming other than he already is but rather staying the same, only more
so. (89) As mentioned earlier, Deleuze and Guattari are not denying that Man as the molar category consists of people
and groups that are marginalized despite the privilege of “masculinity.” Not all men are created equal under the generic
term “man.” Deleuze and Guattari would consider the mockery of masculinity by taking it to
its limits and extremes an imitation. It is still affirming the dominance and
majoritarian status that man has . Massumi is arguing for the possibility of becoming-man, to push
man beyond his limits. He argues his point using the example of homosexual men in S/M communities, and how they can
be seen as becoming-man by subverting molar identity in their mockery of masculinity. This mockery, although in a
different context could be seen as transgressive, is not a becoming since it revolves around the very molar identity of man
and in some ways, it reaffirms the dominance of masculinity. On a different level, Deleuze and
Guattari argue that transvestites, dressing up as women by using make up and wigs are
imitating as well because it reverts back to molar identities and pregiven notions of what
is expected from each sex. Therefore, masculinity does not need to become any more
masculine, any more of man. On the contrary, it needs to become-minoritarian, becomemolecular and
dismantle the standards and norms that come with the pregiven privileging of man. Furthermore, becoming-man
seems in itself problematic according to Massumi’s account. The heterosexual man cannot
become-man, since he, more so than the homosexual man, needs to undertake a
becoming, and his molar identities of masculinity and heterosexuality give him more
privilege. If he cannot undergo a certain becoming because his heterosexuality excludes him, all becomings would be
lost to him. Deleuze and Guattari demonstrate that even the minoritarian (woman, child, animal) has a molar identity that
necessitates a becoming.
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
Psychoanalysis assumes a male analysand and fails to differentiate by
gender
Butler 2007 (Judith Pamela Butler[2] (born 1956) is an American philosopher and
gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of
third-wave feminist, queer,[3] and literary theory.[4] Since 1993, she has taught at the
University of California, Berkeley, where she is now Maxine Elliot Professor in the
Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. She is also
the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School.[5] “Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity” //EH)
As in the Lacanian perspective,for Abraham and Torok the repudiation of the maternal body is the condition of
signification within the Symbolic.They argue further that this primary repression founds the possibility of individuation
and of significant speech, where speech is necessarily metaphorical, in the sense that the referent, the object of desire, is a
perpetual displacement. In effect, the loss of the maternal body as an object of love is understood
to establish the empty space out of which words originate. But the refusal of this loss—
melancholy— results in the failure to displace into words; indeed, the place of the
maternal body is established in the body,“encrypted,”to use their term, and given
permanent residence there as a dead and deadening part of the body or one inhabited or
possessed by phantasms of various kinds. When we consider gender identity as a melancholic
structure, it makes sense to choose “incorporation” as the manner by which that
identification is accomplished.Indeed,according to the scheme above, gender identity
would be established through a refusal of loss that encrypts itself in the body and that
determines, in effect, the living versus the dead body. As an antimetaphorical activity, incorporation
literalizesthe loss onor inthe body and so appears as the facticity of the body, the means by which the body
comes to bear “sex” as its literal truth.The localization and/or prohibition of pleasures
and desires in given “erotogenic”zones is precisely the kind of gender-differentiating
melancholy that suffuses the body’s surface.The loss of the pleasurable object is resolved
through the incorporation of that very pleasure with the result that pleasure is both
determined and prohibited through the compulsory effects of the gender-differentiating
law. The incest taboo is,of course,more inclusive than the taboo against homosexuality,but in the case of the heterosexual
incest taboo through which heterosexual identity is established,the loss is borne as grief.In the case of the prohibition
against homosexual incest through which heterosexual identity is established, however, the loss is sustained through a
melancholic structure.The loss of the heterosexual object, argues Freud,results in the displacement of that object,but not
the heterosexual aim; on the other hand, the loss of the homosexual object requires the loss of the aim and the object.In
other words,the object is not only lost,but the desire fully denied,such that “I never lost that person and I never loved that
person,indeed never felt that kind of love at all.”The melancholic preservation of that love is all the more securely
safeguarded through the totalizing trajectory of the denial.
 SETTLER COLONIALISM
Purely land-based analysis ignores the gendered dimensions of settlerism,
recreating patriarchal exclusion
Hicks 2018 (Kimberley Anne Hicks is a professor in Policy Science at Ritsumeikan
University and holds a Masters in Educational Technology and English Language
Teaching(University of Manchester, United Kingdom), and a PhD in Social Sciences
(University of Leicester, United Kingdom). “Gendered dispossession and settler
colonialism: A feminist carceral analysis of the privatization of Indigenous land,”
University of Leicester,
https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/43344/1/2018hicksskphd.pdf //EH
This theoretically based thesis employs a critical feminist analysis to examine the gendered
aspects inherent in the implementation of private property on Indigenous reserve land in
Canada. Although Indigenous peoples in Canada have previously rejected privatization of their reserve lands for fear of
assimilation of their traditional lands to market-based commodification and rationalities, as well as fragmentation and
reduction of their traditional land base, versions of privatization policies continue to be advocated by some government
officials, think tanks, scholars, and a small but significant number of Indigenous peoples themselves. With the Canadian
governmental shifts to neoliberal socioeconomic policies converging, in some ways, with Indigenous demands for more
self-determination, it is foreseeable that both the anxiety and appeal of privatization of Indigenous reserve lands will
resurface. Recent advocates of privatization of reserve lands present it as necessary for unlocking the market value of dead
capital in land leading to investment certainty thereby unleashing an entrepreneurial “spirit” leading to prosperity. The
neoliberal ideological linkage of private property to purportedly emancipatory
entrepreneurialism is depoliticized from historical and ongoing gendered and racial
colonialism. Settler colonial dispossession of Indigenous women from their traditional
relationships to land and labour, coupled with current growing expectations of women as
participants in entrepreneurialism, has inspired the main question of the thesis as: How
does the contemporary rationalization of private property for First Nations
reserve land operate as a gendered tool of dispossession for Indigenous
women ? To answer this question, this thesis uses an interdisciplinary socio-political lens to interrogate the First
Nations Private Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) as a contemporary example of Indigenous land privatization policy. It is
argued that the logic underlying the policy, including entrepreneurialism as dependent on private property, along with
gender-blind historical revisionism, operates to erase and obscure not only the historical colonial dispossession of
Indigenous women but also the current carceral mechanisms in capitalism that work to maintain
the heteropatriarchal settler state status quo. The thesis employs an interdisciplinary
framework drawing on Indigenous feminist theory and carceral geography, historicizing
historical and anthropological research to elucidate how past dispossession is still
operational in the contemporary state. This critical feminist analysis unsettles the
common sense of private property and contributes to feminist engagement with settler
colonial studies. In 2013, Darlene Necan, a member of the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen, began building a small cabin
on her family’s traditional trap line that they had occupied for generations. 1 She had a dream to grow food on her family’s
land to become more self-sufficient. The land she claims is located off-reserve2 on unceded Saugeen territory in Savant
Lake, in northern Ontario. It had been passed down through her family for several generations, recognized in oral legal
history by the local Ojibwe Nation. She started building her one-room cabin in part because she had been chronically
homeless, not having been able to acquire housing on her small reserve. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
(MNRF) initially charged Ms. Necan for being in breach of the Public Lands Act, charging her with illegally building a
structure on Crown land. If found guilty she would have been fined thousands of dollars. Necan was instructed by the
government to apply for permits and offered her the opportunity to buy the land (“Ministry told Darlene Necan,” 2014)
but she had been chronically homeless so lacked the funds. More importantly though, as a First Nations woman Necan did
not see the need to apply for a permit to live on her own family’s traditional land under Anishinaabe treaty (Porter, 2014).
Therefore, she decided to enter into a political battle with the MNRF (Porter, 2013). Almost a year and a half after filing
charges, early in 2015, the provincial government dropped the legal suit citing that it was “not in the public interest to
proceed with these charges.… In this case the public expense of a lengthy trial does not appear to be justified when
weighed against the gravity of the offence” (Crown Counsel Scott Dunsmuir quoted in “Ontario withdraws charges,” 2015,
para 4). The Crown counsel avoided any mention of Necan’s sui generis3 rights as a First Nations person or the colonial
legacy of dispossession that at the very least contributed to her chronic poverty and disenfranchisement as an Indigenous
woman. In framing the case as an individual matter the Crown was able to avoid a “lengthy” and highly politicized trial.
The purpose of beginning this thesis with Ms Necan’s story is as a point of real-life departure with which to consider some
of the key issues pertinent to this thesis: the dispossession of Indigenous women from their traditional socio-political
status, communities, and homelands; settler state pressures to integrate Indigenous peoples into the capitalist free market
economy through privatization and commodification of Indigenous reserve land; and neoliberal marketbased solutions to
colonial dispossession, demanding individual self-sufficiency. Indeed, Ms Necan did want to become more self-sufficient
by growing her own food; however, as shall be discussed in this thesis, subsistence farming by Indigenous peoples has
been viewed as primitive and uncivilized by settler colonial authorities, and not worthy of land ownership, especially when
done by women. The logic in contemporary rationales for privatization of reserve land is evidenced in the individual
development of the emancipated entrepreneur—unleashed through the acquisition of private property and justified
through active participation in the alleged security and abundance of the liberal market. The Necan case
challenges the state-led depoliticized privatization policies and illustrates the complexity
of access to traditional homelands for many Indigenous people, specifically women, due
to the legacy and ongoing settler state control enforced through the Indian Act. In
creating colonial boundaries around Indigenous identity (Lawrence, 2003) and land, the
Indian Act has demarcated and shaped huge Indigenous traditional territories into small
bordered spaces resulting in identity conceptions and material realities based in a
colonial construct of “on- and off-reserve” for many First Nation peoples (Thom, 2009, 2014).
Necan’s indication that First Nation’s leadership has been unable to help her as “many other off-reserve members [needs]
aren’t being met by the First Nation leadership” (Porter, 2013, para 3) is symptomatic of the
fragmented and confined spaces that colonial policies designated as reserve land. This
colonial dispossession from traditional lands and community, as well as government
underfunding on often economically marginalized and geographically isolated reserves,
has resulted in higher rates of poverty and homelessness for many Indigenous peoples
than the general population (Klodawsky, 2009; MacDonald & Wilson, 2013). Chronic housing shortages, overcrowding
and inadequate living conditions, unsafe drinking water (Morrison, Bradford & Bharadwaj, 2015), and a lack of other basic
services on many reserves are compounded by high unemployment. Poverty as depoliticized and severed from settler
colonialism, becomes “subsumed by expectations of individual self-sufficiency that forego Canada’s own colonial
haunting” (O’Callaghan, 2017, para 3). Indigenous poverty in Canada, rooted in an ongoing legacy of gendered and
racialized dispossession, is tied tightly to land, and Indigenous claims to it. Necan’s claim to her traditional land is based
in her rhetorical question, “Aren’t we under treaty?” (quoted in Porter, 2014, para 15). For many Western-liberal settlers,
fee simple4 rights to private property ownership is the answer (Flanagan, et al., 2010; Quesnel, 2013).
Impacts
 2NC IMPACT CALCULUS
Err neg—

a) Prioritizing their “public” impacts invisibilizes women’s suffering

Claske DIJKEMA, Master in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies in Amsterdam
and Berkeley, November 2001, "Why study Gender and Conflict Together?," No
Publication, http://www.irenees.net/bdf_fiche-analyse-801_en.html E.G.
In societies, where power differences between men and women are large, men often operate in the political arena while
women operate in what is considered the private arena of the home and the family. Men inhabit the public domain while
women are limited to the private domain. In Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban for example,
women cannot participate in public life unless completely veiled and accompanied by her
husband or a male member of the family. Only within her home can she claim some
space of her own. An implication of the distinction between public and private life is that people generally feel a
shared responsibility for what is public while what is private is beyond the control of the public and therefore considered
to be the responsibility of the family. Since home and family are ‘personal’, most people have the
feeling that they are not allowed to interfere. For exactly this reason it has been very difficult
to address domestic violence. Police approached domestic violence as a family matter and therefore beyond the
domain of common law. I’m arguing that because of this gendered distinction in society
between private and public, also in periods of conflict, women’s suffering is
invisible since it does not take place in the public domain. Turshen and Twagiramariya
support this view based on their experience with Rwandan women. “Women tend to define their
suffering in relation to other people such as their husbands and children
and are reluctant to make public their own experiences of abuse which
society often sees as belonging in the private realm (Meintjes and Goldblatt 1998:54). In
South Africa, women’s organisations have worked hard to make gender
suffering under apartheid publicly visible by means of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The definition of ‘victim’ in the Truth and Reconciliation Act of 1995 includes relatives and dependents of victims. This is
important because it locates wives, mothers and children in centre stage as having suffered ‘gross violations of human
rights’ (Meintjes and Goldblatt 1998:34). The effort of women’s organisation can be seen as successful because it has made
the suffering of women visible in a political process.The invisibility of women’s suffering
concerning sexual abuse can be ascribed to the existence of cultural taboos.
As long as sexuality is not discussed in a society, it is hard for women to
speak out about sexual abuse. Instead they keep sexual assault and rape hidden out of shame and guilt,
feelings that imply personal responsibility as opposed to political acts. Over the last fifty years there has been a movement
within international law that has politicised sexual assault and rape to release the burden that women feel personally. I
will further explore the history of connecting gender to international politics.

b) You should overcorrect your impact calculus by choosing to evaluate our

impact as equivalent to theirs—otherwise their impacts are inevitable
Claske DIJKEMA, Master in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies in Amsterdam
and Berkeley, November 2001, "Why study Gender and Conflict Together?," No
Publication, http://www.irenees.net/bdf_fiche-analyse-801_en.html E.G.
“Paradoxically, the conflict [civil war in Chad] has also had a ‘positive impact of Chad’s women, empowering them in
unexpected ways.” (Turshen and Twagiramariya 1998:118) hopefully, mainstreaming gender in the
discourse on conflict will make people sensitive for the opportunities that
conflicts can present and to learn how to use those. In reading many stories of women in
wartime, I have been surprised by the unexpected changes in gender relations as a result of war that women have
reported. Roles -that formerly had been very fixed in their society- were suddenly shifting as the result of war. I will give
two examples, one from Chad and one from Sudan. Oxfam Women’s Project Officer in Chad, Achta Djibrine Sy, notes that
during the civil war in Chad in 1979 many men went into exile or were unable to provide for their families. Women partly
took over this role to provide for their families, which gave them a feeling of independence and changed their self-image
from one of dependence to independence. Before the outbreak of civil war the status of women in Chad had been confined
to biological and social reproduction. The social disorder brought about by the war transformed
gender relations. A conflict situation can thus enable women to leave the private sphere
and participate in the public domain. (Turshen and Twagiramariya 1998:118) Another example
comes from Sudan. Asma Abdle Halim, a Sudanese human rights lawyer, observes that gender roles are shifting among
displaced families in Sudan. She observes that men are less prepared than women to take on manual labour in order to
earn an income for their families. Many displaced Sudanese men stay at home with the children while women are going
out to work Whether this will lead to a long-term change after the war is questionable however because Sudanese men are
not optimistic about a future with women who have real power. Women fear violence if they insist on their newly acquired
status (Turshen and Twagiramariya 1998:90) How these changes in gender roles during the conflict impact gender roles in
the long run I have not yet explored. There are reports though that there are drawbacks after the conflict and that women
are not included in decision-making processes. Women still lack at the negotiating tables and therefore have no official
role in ending the armed conflict nor in planning constructing a more peaceful society. Conclusion. Gender and
conflict should be studied together because ignoring the gender dimension
of social reality makes it impossible to address crucial elements of Conflict
resolution. It will also lead to missing opportunities like failing to use the contributions that women can
make in resolving conflicts and reconstructing their countries after the war.
 2NC CIRCUMVENTION
The interests of the Defense Industrial Base circumvent any political
attempts to reform arms sales in favor of preventing gender based violence
Rebecca Gerome, 22-16 August, 2016 (Rebecca Gerome is an associate in Foley Hoag's
Washington D.C. office and a member of the International Litigation and Arbitration
Department. She focuses on representing sovereign States in State-State and Investor-
State disputes and in advisory matters. "WILPF Publishes Case Studies on Spain and
Sweden Related to Gender-Based Violence and Arms Exports," WILPF,
https://www.wilpf.org/wilpf-publishes-case-studies-on-spain-and-sweden-related-to-
gender-based-violence-and-arms-exports/ **GBV = gender based violence //EH)
This report, authored by Rebecca Gerome, contextualises gender and gender-based violence (GBV)
within the use of conventional weapons, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and the UN
Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons (UNPoA). It focuses on exporting
countries’ risk assessments: how they ought to be conducted, indicators for specific risks
around GBV, and the resources with which we can evaluate recipient countries according
to these indicators. The case studies WILPF has now published two affiliated case studies on Sweden and Spain.
The case studies shed light on the export licensing process in these countries and government efforts to determine the
associated risks of GBV with their arms exports. What follows here is a brief dive into each of these
case studies, picking out key areas where each country is failing to meet its
responsibilities, or could be doing more. Gaps in Sweden’s feminist foreign policy
Sweden, the world’s eleventh largest arms exporter, uses an independent agency under
its Ministry for Foreign Affairs to implement controls on arms exports. However, despite
a commitment to a feminist foreign policy – ‘combatting sexual and gender-based
violence in conflict and post-conflict situations‘ – Sweden doesn’t have a single specialist
on gender or development on the agency’s staff. So how comprehensive is their feminist foreign policy?
A contract of November 2015 between Swedish defence company Saab and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also suggests
that the reach of a feminist foreign policy only extends so far. The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition
intervention in Yemen, a conflict where civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence.
Sweden withdrew from a military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia in May 2015,
where concerns over women’s rights were ostensibly at the heart of the
politics. However, the military surveillance equipment to be supplied to the UAE is the
same as was once being sold to Saudi Arabia. It appears that industry interests are
finding a way to get around the limitations of foreign relations . Cover Spanish case
studySpain: how useful are UN and NGO resources in a risk assessment? Spain’s exports to Cameroon come under
criticism in WILPF’s most recent case study, where GBV is linked both to the intended end user and to the diversion of
exports to the Central African Republic (CAR). Spanish shotgun ammunition has been recovered from anti-Balaka fighters
and armed civilians in CAR since the start of 2014. All armed parties to this conflict have been
documented as perpetrators of GBV. The UN Secretary-General’s 2015 report on conflict-related sexual
violence states that during 2014, 2,527 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were documented
in the CAR, including rape perpetrated to terrorise civilians. This report explicitly
exposes patterns of GBV in conflict situations. A 2013 report by Human Rights Watch on
the torture and ill-treatment of Cameroon’s LGBT community by gendarmes (who report
to Cameroon’s Ministry of Defence) should have raised concerns in Spain’s export risk
assessment. However, Spain approved two licenses to Cameroon’s armed forces in 2014. Similarly, the Spanish
government’s risk assessment process claimed not to use CEDAW reports because “they are not linked to armed violence.”
However, CEDAW Recommendation 30 and much of its other work besides – for example this report on DRC – reveals
that this is not the case.
 ENVIRONMENT
Exploitation of the environment and women are inexplicably linked—
dismantling the patriarchy is key to resolve their environment impacts
Janina Urban und Andrea Pürckhauer 12-18-2016 (Janina Urban is an independent
researcher at the Institute for Societal Development in Germany. Andrea Pürckhauer
coordinated the development of the Exploring Economics platform as a research
assistant. She studied political science and international economics. "Feminist
Economics," Exploring Economics Organization https://www.exploring-
economics.org/en/orientation/feminist-economics/ //EH)
Moreover, many feminist economists highlight that capitalist production is not only based
on the exploitation of women but also on the exploitation of nature. Consequently,
women’s contribution to the economy (reproductive labour) and that of nature
(resources and sinks) are systematically undervalued (cf. Biesecker et al., 2012, 4).
Beyond the Marxist analysis, neoclassical feminist theories mainly deal with questions of
women’s labour-market participation and their wage income. Neoclassical economics
focuses on the results of individual maximization decisions and evaluations carried out
according to the marginal principle as well as criteria of efficiency (Haidinger and Knittler 2014,
55–57). In such a framework, the exclusion of women from the labour market could be regarded
as inefficient and as reducing welfare, since not all persons capable of working
participate in the labour market (e.g. Harriet Taylor Mill already in 1851, in Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 18–
21 or currently Maier 2004, 33). Explanations of the increased labour-market participation of women point to better
education, higher productivity in households due to machines, lower birth rates and higher labour demand especially in
the service sector (Knapp, 2002). The lower wages that women receive on the labour market are explained in terms of
their concentration in certain sectors, for example, in the service sector, and their lower investment in human capital
because of potentially taking care of the children. While neoclassical economics developed those explanations, feminist
economists emphasise that the described patterns heavily depend on the institutional framework, for example, social
role models of families and women, which are socially negotiated rather than a result of a
market process (Maier 2004, 29). Many feminist economics base their work on feminist constructivism and its
description of the image of women and gender (Maier 2004, 46). They assume that in particular ideas and institutions
determine how people live together, since knowledge claims and conceptions are (pre)determined by language and
perception. With respect to gender relations, a differentiation is made between sex as biological gender and gender as
socially constructed gender. Persons with female (reproductive) body parts are considered to be ‘feminine’, i.e. emotional,
altruistic and dependent. Persons with male (reproductive) body parts are considered to be ‘masculine’, i.e. rational,
egoistic and independent. Such socially constructed characteristics can be more stable than material relations in the
economy and society if, for example, conceptions of the working father and the caring mother are maintained in language
and imagination even if other family constellations are possible (Haidinger & Knittler, 2014, 43–45). The ways in which
the economic, political, cultural and scientific spheres are entangled can be shown with an interdisciplinary approach,
taking the example of how modernity emerged. Friederike Habermann explains that until the 17th century, women,
without the status symbol of a penis, counted as second-class men, but participated in the economic and political sphere.
With the witch-hunts (amongst other events), femininity was constructed as being
related to nature, emotion, and wickedness, whereas masculinity was supposed to be
civil, rational, and driven by reason and morality. Different spheres, such as public and private, were
created. Limited participation in those spheres was justified by alleged biological dispositions. For instance, in the period
of the French revolution, women were no longer allowed to participate in the political and economic public. Instead, they
were assigned to the (also constructed) sphere of the private, social and domestic. During this time, the political and
economic order based on estates came to an end and the field of economics emerged. The latter was based on the
theoretical constructs of markets and the ideal of the male citizen: the homo economicus (Habermann 2010, 157ff.). 3.
Ontology Gender relations are the key question of feminist economics and can be identified as the common point of
departure for different analyses (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 43). Gender relations become apparent in power
imbalances within families and in the distribution of resources such as money, time or mobility; and they have an impact
not only on women's employment but also on macroeconomic relations (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 127f.). While
feminist economists who are working in the neoclassical tradition would describe the scarcity of resources as central
economic problem, most feminist economists see power relations as central force driving social and economic dynamics.
Besides gender inequalities, other power relations are also analysed: for example, those that relate to ethnic or social
backgrounds. The common analysis of different forms of inequality (race, class, gender) and their interrelatedness is
called intersectionality (cf.. Vinz 2011). In this context, it needs to be emphasised that the category women is not
homogeneous, since women have different backgrounds and different experiences. This means that, for instance, class or
other forms of discrimination need to be taken into account as well (Mader und Schultheiss 2011, 411). In order to analyse
gender hierarchies, feminist economics considers it as equally relevant to scrutinize the economics of households as well
as economic policies or macroeconomic aggregates (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 43). First, feminist economics analyses
how gender hierarchies influence household structures and (resulting from the aforementioned) employment
opportunities or decisions, payment or the access to credits. Second, the interrelation between households and the state is
also under scrutiny. Feminist economists point out that economic policies such as redistribution
are shaped by gender norms and at the same time have an impact on gender relations.
Therefore, the analyses of feminist economics primarily take place at the meso level.
Nevertheless, feminist economics highlights the central role of gender relations for the
analysis of macroeconomic relations by, for example, pointing to the gender blindness of
macroeconomic aggregates such as national accounting and GDP, in particular. However,
research at the macro level often takes place with reference to the meso level, for instance, for the analysis of the impact of
unemployment, growth and income distribution on social inequalities (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 126ff.). Those
interactions – as well as the assumption that social processes are subject to changes – demonstrate the dynamic
conception of time of feminist economics: ‘A central point of reference for feminist economics was [and still is] the process
which established the gendered division of labour and women's oppression in the public and the private sphere by laws,
social norms, education or violence’ (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 36 own translation). Feminist economics particularly
points to the relevance of care and the (non-market-intermediated) sphere of reproduction, which is neglected especially
in macroeconomic contexts (Bauhardt and Çağlar 2010, 9). This focus was set by Marxist feminists in the 1970s who
started the wages-for-housework debate. Their demand was to take the value of unpaid reproductive activities into
account. Despite economic changes since the 1970s, such as the marketization of reproductive labour, several arguments
of the debate are still relevant for feminist economics: first, that capitalist production is based on unpaid or undervalued
care and second, that care is paramount for economic analyses (Haidinger and Knittler 2014, 85f.). This shows the
relevance of contexts for feminist economics' analyses: it is argued that economic phenomena cannot be considered as
isolated entities. Instead, spheres that are often considered as separated, such as public and private, reproductive and
productive, social and economic are logically connected. For instance, economic production strongly depends on caring
activities such as cooking or affection. Constructivist feminist economists emphasize the social construction of gender
attributes and consequently question those attributes. This does not mean that the latter do not have any material
consequences: gender is a central regulating principle of the economy and society. Hence, socially produced gender
notions significantly shape behaviour, role models, decisions and economic inequalities. This is also related to feminist
economics' critique of the neoclassical concept of the homo economicus according to which humans are rational,
independent individuals with fixed preferences (compare Habermann 2008). Even if some feminist economists who work
in the neoclassical tradition use the construct of a rational, utility maximizing individual with fixed preferences, most
feminist economists expose the problems with the concept. They argue that individuals cannot be considered as detached
from the social context, which significantly influences their identity. Decisions depend on the household structure, the
economic background, social expectations as well as on the care work, that is carried out besides the wage labour.
Furthermore, the meaning of gender relations in the social discourse changes permanently (Haidinger and Knittler 2014,
51). In contrast to the utility maximizing, self-referential homo economicus, in particular, critical feminist economics
highlights the possibility of collaboration. An example of this is the concept of the Commons, which describes the common
organization and use of goods and resources (Federici 2011). 4. Epistemology For feminist epistemology the following
question is central: whose findings are we discussing and more concretely: ‘is the sex of the knower epistemologically
significant?’ (Code 1981). Thereby, the situatedness of knowledge as well as power relations in science production are
highlighted (Singer 2010). The term situated knowledge was coined by Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway (Haraway
1988, Harding 1991). Situated knowledge means that the researcher is always embedded in a certain historical, cultural,
social and economic context. This impacts the research interest and the perspective as well as scientific findings.
Furthermore, knowledge is always produced out of a certain position of power. Consequently, the questions arise: which
topics are considered as relevant or which inquiry as scientific; and whose interests do they serve. Hence, the gender of the
researcher influences research questions, methods and results. This is manifested in the double blindness of economics
concerning women, their non-representation in economics as a discipline as well as the ignorance of women’s situations
and contribution to the economy. According to Mona Singer (2010), situated knowledge is a common point of departure
from which different epistemological conclusions are drawn. Singer presents the following three different approaches. 1.
Feminist standpoint theory assumes women, due to their situation, can analyse reality more adequately. Similar to the
ability of the working class to comprehend and free themselves from their suppression that featured in Marx’ analysis,
women and other discriminated groups are better equipped to comprehend the suppressive structures and their
implications than the ruling class (Bar On 1993 in Code 2013 [author: 2014 in refs; which is correct?], 13). Yet, it is
emphasized that the positions of the suppressed do not have an exclusive claim to the truth. Hence, standpoint theory
does not plead for relativism but enhances a ‘strong objectivism’ which can be reached by including diverse forms of
knowledge. 2. Feminist empiricism highlights the importance of empirical research in order to better describe inequalities.
Representatives emphasize that empirical analyses are neither objective nor contextually independent and do not present
unequivocal findings and often present causalities in simplified form. Moreover, the approach questions current scientific
criteria and highlights the importance of empiric adequacy, innovation, complexity, applicability to human needs and
decentralization of power as feminist values in science (Longino & Lennon 1997, 21–27). 3. Postmodern epistemology is
more sceptical towards the possibility of changing the discourse or institutions and gaining emancipation by science.
According to this approach, knowledge is connected to power and the production of knowledge has to be critically
scrutinized. An objective perspective on the world is not possible; instead there are always constructions of reality, which
are determined by power relations. Accordingly, also adherents of feminist standpoint theory represent certain interests,
for example, the ones of US-American or European women. Standpoint feminism responded to this critique and started to
include, as mentioned above, discussions on the perspectives of marginalized persons hand in hand with claims for the
democratization of knowledge (Singer, 296–298). Moreover, feminist economic is often seen as an object-driven
perspective, since it analyses the role of gender relations in the economy and includes different perspectives on this object
of research. Even if those approaches adhere to different perspectives, besides relativist thought, constructivist approaches
gained in importance in feminist economics throughout the past decades. Due to the common point of departure –
situated knowledge (described above) – feminist economics can be increasingly described as perspective-driven since it
recognizes the relevance of different forms of knowledge. 5. Methodology Feminist economics' methodology is quite
diverse and includes deductive but also inductive theory building as well as dialectics. Both deductive and inductive
methodology are based on an empiricist and positivist world views, where situations can be captured by observations and
hypotheses can be falsified (fallibilism). In deductive methodology, concrete statements are logically derived from general
premises. In the inductive procedure, general theses are derived from observations. In the end, both approaches
determine each other mutually. Many feminist economists work formally and empirically in the deductive tradition (van
Staveren 2010, 27). However, inductive research was identified as particularly fruitful for the young field of feminist
economics since it offers the possibility to create new categories and hypotheses (Krüger 1994, 78 in Mader and
Schultheiss 2011, 415). In her article Feminism and Economics, Julie Nelson (1995) described that mathematical models
are associated with masculinity and hardness while qualitative methods are assigned female characteristics and are related
to (scientific) weakness. She argued that science has not to be reinvented, but that feminist analyses should involve a
broad variety of models and methods which are suited best for the respective research question. Accordingly, feminist
economists use both qualitative and quantitative methods. For instance, qualitative methods can be used to show multiple
structures of inequality whereas quantitative methods enable a revision of statistics with regards to gender relations
(Mader and Schultheiss 2011). Often, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods is used, employing a broad variety of
methods, from econometrics to discourse analysis. Following Marxist analyses, authors like Gillian Howie (2010)
attempted to dialectically develop terms of feminist theory, since this approach is considered especially helpful for the
analysis of social relations and knowledge creation (Hartsock 1998). A dialectical approach does not assume linear
causalities, but has a dynamic conception of possibly contradicting processes. Economics and social developments emerge
from a tension of different processes. A special method of feminist economics, called ‘consciousness raising,’ was
established during the second wave of feminism. The method consists of people from different socio-economic
backgrounds – mostly women – meeting in safe spaces. Then, their different experiences are reflected and in the end
systematized in the common dialogue (MacKinnon 1989, 87 ff.).
 GENDER VIOLENCE
Sexual violence is an insidious assault on personal agency that affects all
aspects of the survivor’s life and their community
NSVRC No Date, (The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) addresses
the causes and impact of sexual violence through collaboration, prevention, and
resources.[1] Working in collaboration with state and territory sexual assault coalitions,
representatives from underserved populations, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention,[2] the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women,[3]
and a host of community-based and national allied projects, NSVRC provides national
leadership to address and prevent sexual violence. “The Impact of Sexual Violence”
http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC_Factsheet_Impact-of-
sexual-violence_0.pdf //EH)
Sexual violence occurs whenever a person is forced, coerced, and/or manipulated into
any unwanted sexual activity, including when s/he is unable to consent due to age, illness, disability, or the
influence of alcohol or other drugs. Forms of sexual violence Sexual violence includes rape, incest, child
sexual assault, ritual abuse, nonstranger rape, statutory rape, marital or partner rape,
sexual exploitation, sexual contact, sexual harassment, exposure, and voyeurism. It is a
crime not typically motivated by sexual desire but by the desire to control, humiliate,
and/or harm. Sexual violence can violate a person’s trust and feeling of safety. It can, and
does, happen to people of all ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, professions, incomes, and ethnicities.
Sexual violence affects all of us: survivors, significant others, communities, and society. Impact on survivors Each survivor
reacts to sexual violence in her/his own unique way. Personal style, culture, and context of the survivor’s life may affect
these reactions. Some express their emotions while others prefer to keep their feelings inside. Some may tell others right
away what happened, others will wait weeks, months, or even years before discussing the assault, if they ever choose to do
so. It is important to respect each person’s choices and style of coping with this traumatic event. Whether an
assault was completed or attempted, and regardless of whether it happened recently or
many years ago, it may impact daily functioning. A wide range of reactions can impact
victims. Emotional reactions y Guilt, shame, self blame y Embarrassment y Fear, distrust y Sadness y
Vulnerability y Isolation y Lack of control y Anger y Numbness y Confusion y Shock, disbelief y Denial Psychological
reactions y Nightmares y Flashbacks y Depression y Difficulty concentrating y Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
y Anxiety y Eating disorders y Substance use or abuse y Phobias y Low self esteem Physical reactions y Changes in
eating or sleeping patterns y Concerns about physical safety y Physical injury y Concerns about
pregnancy or contracting an STI or HIV Impact on significant others Sexual violence can affect parents,
friends, partners, children, spouses, and/or coworkers of the survivor. As they try to make sense
of what happened, significant others may experience similar reactions and feelings to those of the survivor. Fear, guilt,
self-blame, and anger are but a few reactions they may experience. In order to best support the
survivor, it is important for those close to them to get support. Local social services providers offer free confidential
services to those affected by sexual violence. Impact on communities Schools, workplaces, neighborhoods,
campuses, and cultural or religious communities may feel fear, anger, or disbelief if a
sexual assault happened in their community. Additionally, there are financial costs to
communities. These costs include medical services, criminal justice expenses, crisis and
mental health services fees, and the lost contributions of individuals affected by sexual
violence. According to the U.S. Department of Justice (1996) the cost of crime to victims is an estimated $450 billion
per year. Rape is the most costly to its victims, totaling $127 billion annually. Impact on society Sexual violence
endangers critical societal structures through climates of violence and fear. According
to the 1995 U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, sexual harassment alone cost the federal government an estimated $327
million in losses associated with job turnover, sick leave, and individual and group productivity among federal employees.
Fifty percent of rape victims lost or were forced to quit their jobs in the year following
their rapes due to the severity of their reactions (Ellis, Atkeson & Calhoun, 1981). Scholars at Johns
Hopkins University School of Public Health indicated that development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is likely
in 50 to 95 percent of rape cases (1999). Lifetime income loss, due to sexual violence in adolescence, is estimated at
$241,600 (MacMillan, 2000). The
contributions and achievements that may never come as a
result of sexual violence is a cost to society that can’t be measured.
 PMCS
Gendered ideology in policy naturalizes the privatization of war—makes
gendered violence inevitable
Stachowitsch, 12 Stachowitsch, Saskia. - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Saskia Stachowitsch is the
Scientific Director of the oiip as well as Professor in International Relations and Senior
Research Fellow (FWF/Austrian Science Fund, Elise-Richter-Program) at the
Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. She served as an Affiliated
Scholar at the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley, and as a Visiting Post-doctoral Fellow at the School of Sociology,
Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.
“Military Gender Integration and Foreign Policy in the United States: A Feminist
International Relations Perspective.” Security Dialogue, vol. 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 305–
321. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26301919.

In recent decades, the United States has increasingly relied on PMCs to carry out its
military goals and implement foreign policy objectives (Singer, 2002; Avant, 2005).
Gender-critical scholarship (Eichler, 2012; Higate, 2012; Joachim and Schneiker, 2012)
has addressed the gendered nature of privatization processes and their effects on
military labour division, public scrutiny over gender equality, and the gendering of
public discourses on military matters: The shifting of boundaries between state and
private military sectors has led to women's enhanced exclusion from the military realm,
less state control over military gender relations, and the reconstitution of military
masculinity as a state-supporting ideal. Increased utilization of private contractors might
thus also contribute to the remasculinization of foreign policy. As the state partially
withdraws from recruitment and PMCs take over military responsibilities, women are
excluded from military jobs and marginalized as a military workforce. Their under
representation in the military and the police, the main recruitment pools of PMCs
(Schultz and Yeung, 2005: 4), is not only mirrored but aggravated on private military
labour markets, because the preferred occupational specialities of private security
providers are those from which women are formally excluded in the regular forces (Elsea
et al., 2008: 37). PMCs are also less dependent on the female workforce, because they are
not bound to national borders in recruiting. Women's integration into the private
security sector is thus uneven and limits them to positions that are low in status and
unskilled (Erickson et al., 2000). While women have gained increased admission to the
regular forces and a certain degree of equality therein, military functions are gradually
being removed to the private security market. Women's struggle for equal access to
military jobs, involvement in military policy, and attainment of full citizenship rights via
military service could thus become increasingly futile. For the realm of foreign policy,
this effectively means that military functions associated with foreign policy - that is,
defending national interests and defining the nation's role in the global order - are
increasingly carried out by men. At the same time, initiatives for more gender equality in
the services are undermined because growing numbers of those fighting wars are not
affected by state regulations on gender equality. Military privatization also has the
potential to harm gender equality in the societies in which contractors operate: The
cultivation of aggressive masculinity in the institutional culture of PMCs has been linked
to human rights abuses such as forced prostitution and the trafficking of women and
children (Schultz and Yeung, 2005: 4-5). At the discursive level, privatization reaffirms
the link between foreign policy and masculinity, when PMCs represent themselves as the
efficient, assertive, masculine counterpart to the inefficient, weak, democratic and
gender-integrated state military. Though masculinity concepts in the private sector
cannot be reduced to the stereotype of 'trigger-happy Blackwater Cowboys' (Higate,
2012: 322), the private security sector provides a new arena in which masculinity is being
redefined as the efficient guarantor of national security, a core competence in warfare
and a privileged category in regard to matters of security and foreign policy. In recent
years, initiatives have been taken to enhance public scrutiny of the private sector and
ensure protection of US and local women from contractor violence. These were often
motivated by a fear that public scandals involving contractor misconduct would harm the
USA's reputation and increase insurgency violence. The Department of Defense has
taken a number of steps to improve the management and tracking of contractors
(Schwartz and Swain, 2011). Cases of sexual harassment and rape of female contractors
by their male colleagues have also led to Congressional investigations (Elsea et al., 2008:
14; Inspector General, 2010). These attempts to limit and control the private security
market are related to the shifts in the course of foreign policy discussed above. Military
privatization during the Bush years contributed to the depoliticization and militarization
of foreign policy (Leander and Van Munster, 2007) - trends that have been reflected in
exploding Pentagon budgets and shrinking funds for the State Department and USAID.
In this phase, private security experts have become more influential with their
interpretations of diverse global problems and international conflicts as 'security
threats'. The Obama administration is trying to move away from a threat-based foreign
and defence policy and to re-establish diplomatic institutions and processes. All of these
objectives imply restraining the private military industry. Obama and Secretary of State
Clinton both took a tough line against the contractor business during their electoral
campaigns. Obama also introduced legislature to increase the accountability and
transparency of PMCs during his term as senator. It remains to be seen how the
administration is going to balance these commitments with the growing dependency on
PMCs after the drawdown of forces.
 TURNS SOLVENCY
Disarmament is impossible absent the alt
Myrttinen 03 - researcher with the Institute for Social Transformation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia , post-
graduate student at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, researching masculinities in violent
nation-building processes (Henri Myrttinen, “Disarming masculinities,”2003, Four,
https://philarchive.org/archive/FERRMA-2)//cpark

While there is an undeniable and visible ‘special relationship’ between men and weapons, this is not simply a ‘natural’
consequence of being a man—nor do all men share this special relationship. While the relationship between men and
weapons is often sexually charged, simply equating weapons with phallic extensions is too simple. ‘Doing’
masculinity with the help of a weapon is instead the visible manifestation of certain,
violent and often militarized enactments of masculinity, which need to be analysed in
their respective historical and cultural surroundings. These enactments, in turn, have
far- reaching social and political consequences, be it on domestic violence or foreign
policy. Violent models of masculinity often become hegemonic, with the weapon being
used as both a symbol and a tool to demonstrate and enforce this hegemony against
others, including competing masculinities. This is often the case in conflict and post-conflict situations but also in
societies that are more or less openly violent. Moreover, militarized masculinity is often a backlash to
perceived threats to male dominance and power. Disarmament measures, along with the demobilization
and reintegration of former combatants, are often dealt with as technical ‘numbers game’. A successful and
sustainable process of disarmament, though, requires a gendered analysis
of the situation, looking at how weapons, concepts of violence and notions of
‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ interact in the respective socio-cultural environment. The
reduction in the number and strict control of weapons should be coupled with a
‘demobilization’ of the militarized, violent concepts of masculinity that would see a
weapons collection process as ‘emasculating’. One needs to work with the alternative unarmed, non-
violent concepts of masculinity and femininity already existing in the society in question, further developing and opening
possibilities for these and empowering them, thus laying the groundwork for a sustainable peace. […] Conventional
wisdom has it that men enjoy a ‘special relationship’ with weapons, a view which seems to be corroborated by empirical
evidence. The relationship between ‘masculine’ men and weapons is such a prevailing cliché that one finds it everywhere,
rom advertising to left-wing revolutionary posters, fascist imagery to the novels of Hemingway, war memorials to
homoerotic art, from the porn industry to feminist critiques of male militarism. Weapons systems are designed
mostly by men, marketed mostly for men and used mostly by men—and in many parts of
the world, they are the primary source of death for men. Boys are given guns and swords to play with
or they make them for themselves. Adolescent male warriors and middle-aged male hunters pose for cameras brandishing
their weapons. Michael Ignatieff their guns or hurling grenades with flexed, oversized pectoral muscles bulging out of the
If one considers gender, in this case masculinity, to
opened shirts of their uniforms.
be socially constructed, and one additionally wants to further the cause of
disarmament, it becomes evident that this bond between men and
weapons and how this is linked with violent notions of masculinity need
to be investigated and analysed further in order to be able to develop
sustainable disarmament policies. The importance of analysing violent masculinity
gains even more significance if one accepts the notion of conflicts increasingly being ones
of ‘identity’, in which the gendered ethnic identities that are constructed and mobilized
tend to be highly militarized. In this article, I will analyse some of the ways in which enactments of
masculinities and the wielding of weapons go together, the sexualized imagery used in conjunction with weapons, and the
models of masculinity that lie behind these concepts. I will argue that the public display, the threat of or
actual use of weapons is an intrinsic part of violent, militarized models of masculinity. The
specific ‘message’ conveyed by the display and use of weapons is dependent on the social and cultural environment. I will
argue that weapons are part of one notion of masculinity, a militarized view that equates
‘manliness’ with the economic and social gains, wielding power over unarmed males and
females. This can often be linked to a crisis of backlash in which ‘traditional’ gender roles are reinforced. The
construct of the male warrior/protector relies on the suppression of others— including
competing concepts of masculinity. Weapons and their public display seek to underline
the ‘manly’ prowess of the bearer, but tragically often also undermine it—men are not only
disproportionately the perpetrators of violence, but also often its victims.
 WAR
Hypermasculine war making exacerbates all their war impacts and
reproduces hegemonic war-prone structures, meaning the affirmative can
never solve
Chick 2001 (Garry Chick is a fellow at the Leisure Studies Program at Pennsylvania
State University. “Making Men of Them: Male Socialization for Warfare and Combative
Sports,”
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3af5/8faa33d70298c3aeee438a459ee31880fb43.pdf
//EH)
The last several years have seen the publication of several books and numerous articles that address the human
propensity for violence and aggression. The apparent increase in research on violence is probably due, at
least in part, to the seemingly incessant inter group hostilities in many areas around the world but also the frightening and
sometimes deadly intra group conflict as has taken place in schools in America and elsewhere. Recent inquiries address
male violence and aggression in various manifestations, including warfare, homicide,
rape, and domestic violence. In the main, authors have examined these forms of violence from perspectives
framed substantially by the old nature-nurture controversy. That is, is violence and aggression are seen as innate and
evolved characteristics of humans, especially among males (e.g., Ghiglieri 1999; Low 2000; Wrangham and Peterson
1996; Thornhill and Palmer 2000a, 2000b), or as the result of social learning (e.g., Ehrenreich 1997; Keely 1996;
O’Connell 1989). The argument is an old one. In 1935, Margaret Mead published, Sex and Temperament in Three
Primitive Societies, her landmark study of gender roles among the Arapesh, the Mundugumor, and the Tchambuli of New
Guinea. Mead described the three societies has having three widely variant sorts of gender roles. Among the Arapesh, men
and women had similar roles and were cooperative, unaggressive, and sensitive. Among the Mundugumor, on the other
hand, Mead described both men and women as uncooperative, aggressive, and insensitive to others. Finally, Mead
described Tchambuli women as economically and politically dominant and responsible while men were submissive.
Women were economically productive, political leaders, and engaged in warfare while men stayed home with the children.
So, by American standards, both males and females among the Arapesh could be described as “feminine” while both could
be described as “masculine” among the Mundugumor. The Tchambuli were opposite from what American culture dictated,
with men being feminine and women being masculine. Mead’s position suggests that she believed that men’s and women’s
gender roles are highly plastic and that differences in cultural standards and socialization practices can lead to gender role
practices completely at odds with what we in the West would regard as “natural.” She indicated that: “We are forced
to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately
and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions” (1935:280). However, Gewertz (1981) restudied
the Tchambuli during the 1970s and found that Mead’s characterization of feminine males and masculine females was not
accurate. In fact, Chambri (as they call themselves) men are aggressive and Chambri females are submissive. Gewertz
claimed that Mead had studied the Chambri during a transitional time for them, in the 1930s, when they had been
defeated and driven from their homes by an enemy tribe. What Mead had observed was Chambri men working around
domestic camps, rebuilding houses, engaged in ritual, and doing artistic work. Mead had assumed that this was typical
activity for them when, in fact, it was not. To be fair, Mead later expressed the belief that gender role variability is
constrained by the physiological differences between men and women (Brown 1991). Despite the efforts of Mead and other
cultural determinists to show that gender roles are highly malleable, ethnographic evidence
suggests that men everywhere are pretty much like what they are expected to be in the
United States. On average, men are more aggressive, more domineering, more violent, more
competitive, less caring, and less sensitive to others than women (see, e.g., Brown 1991; Segall et
al. 1990; Ghiglieri 1999). Still, whether one favors an evolutionary, biological perspective or and approach based on social
learning, individuals and groups appear to differ both intra- and inter-culturally in terms of their propensity for
aggression and violent behavior. All humans belong to the same species and no compelling evidence indicates that
observed differences in levels of aggressive behavior between members of different cultures are due to biology. Such
differences almost certainly depend on the environment, including social learning in the form of socialization of children
and adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-culturally the relationship between the inculcation of
aggression in late childhood and adolescence and several forms of aggressive and violent behavior among adults. 2.
Hypermasculinity Some men, in some societies, and under some conditions, exhibit
extreme forms of stereotypic male behavior that often has been termed
“hypermasculinity,” but is also known as “protest masculinity,” and “compensatory
masculinity.” Broude (1990:103), for instance, describes the protest masculinity profile as involving
high levels of physical aggression, as well as “destructiveness, low tolerance for delay of
gratification, crime, drinking, and similar dispositions.” Pleck, Sonenstein, and Ku (1994) relate
school problems, substance abuse, delinquency, and sexual activity among adolescent males in the US to what they term
“masculinity ideology.” Pleck, Sonenstein, and Ku (1994) discuss three basic perspectives on the development of the male
role and how that development may lead to problem behaviors in males. These include (1) male sex role identity, (2) trait
masculinity, and (3) social role analysis.
Male sex role identity theory proposes that “persons have
an intrinsic developmental need or imperative to develop gender role identity, which ... is
directly expressed through possession of the traits, attitudes, and interests typical for
one’ sex” (Pleck et al. 1994:166). However, young males may fail to acquire their gender role
identity due to a relative absence of male role models and by factors such as feminized
environments in schools and the changing role of females in society (Pleck et al. 1994). Hence,
male gender role identity formation is at risk and the ensuing insecurity may be
expressed through hypermasculine behavior, including aggression, violence, and
delinquency. According to Toby (1966:20), “Much of the exaggerated roughness and toughness of preadolescent and
adolescent boys should be understood ... as the result of unconscious needs to repudiate a natural identification with their
mothers.” According to Pleck et al. (1994), research based on male sex role identity often focused on
father absence, rather than directly on measures of male identity, as father absence was
regarded as the prime factor leading to an insecure identity. The theory of male sex role identity has
lost favor in recent years as gender identity (i.e., knowing that you are male or female) has been separated from gender
roles (i.e., personality and other traits culturally defined as masculine or feminine) (Pleck et al. 1994). The trait
masculinity perspective began as conceptually related to male gender identity theory and
developed from the introduction of research on masculinity-femininity (M-F). M-F scales were
developed during the 1930s and were understood to indicate gender identity: high scores on an M-F scale indicated that a
male had been successful in acquiring male gender role identity (Pleck et al. 1994). Later, rather than M-F being
conceptualized as unidimensional, it became conceived as two-dimensional, with male trait masculinity seen as distinctive
from female trait masculinity. Hence, individual scores could vary on M and F somewhat independently and being high on
both was seen to correlate with certain positive characters, such as self-esteem (Pleck et al. 1994:169). Later still, both M
and F were conceptualized as having positive and negative aspects; problem behavior among males could be interpreted as
due to elevated M- (or “negative masculinity) scores (Pleck et al. 1994). Social role analysis is a social constructionist
perspective wherein societies are presumed to contain cultural definitions of masculinity (Pleck at al. 1994). Hence,
though they may be officially disapproved, many Western societies hold that engaging in certain kinds of behaviors
validate masculine identity. Indeed, the fact that these behaviors, which may include engaging in premarital sex, alcohol
and drug use, vandalism, and so on, are disapproved is itself a major factor in their value as validators of masculine
identity. Pleck et al. (1994:170) indicate that for social role analysis to be of research value, “social
expectations and male culture require translation into a concept that describes the
individual male’s acceptance of the definition of masculinity, and his internalization of
the male culture, of his society.” They propose the term “masculinity ideology.” They do not view this as a
personality trait, as such, but as an ideology, or set of beliefs and expectations about what men are supposed to be like and
how they should behave (Pleck et al. 1994:170). From this perspective, male problem behavior is not because individuals
are high in the negative masculinity trait, “but that they believe in a particular (traditional) conception of masculinity”
(Pleck et al. 1994:171). Similar theories have been proposed and tested in the cross-cultural literature in order to explain
hypermasculinity. Broude (1990) notes that cross-cultural researchers, especially J. W. M. Whiting and his associates,
have focused on the status-envy theory of sex identity acquisition. According to this perspective, hypermasculine behavior
is due to child socialization conditions that result in feminine identification being primary among boys while masculine
identification is secondary. In his later work, Whiting viewed the controllers of valued resources as those who are envied,
with status envy leading to identification with the person envied (Broude 1990). If boys understand women to
have control of valued resources, they will come to identify with females. But, when later
they learn that men actually control resources, they will face a sex identity conflict.
According to Whiting and Whiting (1975), they then may engage in hypermasculine behaviors in order to resolve the
conflict. Fatherabsence is often used as a variable to measure of status envy in that young boys are presumed to be likely to
see females as in control of valuable resources in the absence of men. Broude (1990) also notes that psychologically
oriented researchers commonly posit a more direct influence of father-absence on hypermasculinity. This view holds that
the absence of fathers, who would provide appropriate male role models, impedes the development of sex identity and sex
typed behaviors in boys. Regardless of how father-absence is implicated in hypermasculinity, there is good evidence to
show that the absence of a male role model will result in sex identity problems for boys and, possibly, hypermasculine
behavior styles, in adolescent and adult males (Broude 1990). In her paper, Broude (1990) set out to test, using cross-
cultural data, whether father-absence is indeed related to hypermasculinity and, if so, to see why. In particular, she
examined the status-envy theory. She developed a measure of protest masculinity
(hypermasculinity) based on several existing scales that relate to the concept . These had been
developed by Slater and Slater (1965) and Bacon et al. (1963). From these scales, she selected measures of “(1) pursuit of
military glory; (2) pugnacity; (3) boasting; (4) sensitivity to narcissistic wounds; (5) frequency of theft; (6) frequency of
personal crime; and (7) frequency of property crime” (Broude 1990:110). She used Barry and Paxton’s (1971) Role of
Father scale as a measure of the closeness of fathers to children. Her results indicate that father-absence is related to
hypermasculinity. Broude then ran Barry, Josephson, Lauer, and Marshall’s (1976) socialization for aggression scale
against her measure of hypermasculinity and found a significant relationship for both early and late childhood.
 AT: CONSEQUENTIALISM
Policies are constituted by and produce subjects, not blanket assessments of
outcomes and impacts
Bacchi 16
(Carol, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, (2016): Policies
as Gendering Practices: Re-Viewing Categorical Distinctions, Journal of Women,
Politics & Policy, DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2016.1198207, JKS)
One important constitutive effect is how we are produced as subjects through the
problematizations implicit in such texts, a process described as “subjectification” (Bacchi
2009, 16–17). For example, Foucault (1980) argues that specific problematizations of sexuality (e.g., sexuality as moral code, sexuality as
biological imperative) create “subject positions” that enjoin people to become particular kinds of sexual subjects (see Howarth and Griggs
2012, 308). Marston and McDonald (2006) describe how individual subjects are produced in specific policy
practices “as worker-citizens in workfare programs, as parent-citizens in child and family services or consumer-citizens in a
managerial and marketized mixed economy of welfare” (3). Given the proliferation of practices, the formation
of one’s subjectivity is an ongoing and always incomplete process: “the doer/subject/person is never
fixed, finally as a girl or a woman or whatever, but always becoming or being” (Jones 1997, 267). Subjectification effects therefore are
neither deter- mined nor predictable. People sometimes take up subject positions in ways that challenge hierarchical relations. For example,
the discourse of rights creates as one possible positioning that of the human rights advocate. Moreover, as practices “through which things
take on meaning and value” (Shapiro 1988, xi), policies have material (lived) effects, shaping the
possibilities for people’s and peoples’ lives (Bacchi 2009, 16–18). Policies achieve these
constitutive effects through discursive practices, which comprise the “conditions of
emergence, insertion and functioning” of discourses (Foucault 1972b, 163), and hence bridge a
material-symbolic distinction (Bacchi and Bonham 2014). A particular conception of power
underpins an understanding of policies as constitutive practices. Power is conceptualized
as productive rather than as simply repressive. Power is not considered to be something people possess (e.g., “he
or she has power”) but as a capacity exercised in the production of subjects and objects (Heller 1996, 83). This productive or
generative view of power does not conclude that power and resistance are necessarily
equal in their effects, however. Such a conclusion would deny the hierarchies by which
the organization of discourse takes effect (see Howarth and Griggs 2012, 310). This understanding of
policy as constitutive of subjects and objects sits in sharp contrast to conventional views
of the policy process, which, in the main, can be characterized as reactive. That is, in general,
policy is considered to be a response to some condition that needs to be
ameliorated or “fixed .” Policies are conceived as “reactions” to “problems.” By contrast, the
understanding of policy offered in this article portrays policies as
constitutive or productive of (what are taken to be) “problems,” “subjects,”
and “objects” (Allan 2010, 14). It follows that it is no longer adequate to think in
terms of conventional policy “outcomes,” understood as the results or
“impacts” of government actions. New questions are required, such as the
following: What does the particular policy, or policy proposal, deem to be an appropriate
target for intervention? What is left out? How does the shape of the proposal affect how
people feel about themselves and the issue? And how does it produce them as
particular kinds of subjects?
 AT: MAGNITUDE/FUTURE LIVES
Large-scale threats of future suffering collapses ethics and creates a bodily
paradigm of worthy versus unworthy- the only ethical response is to refuse
that bribery and align yourself with a framing that finally gives credence to
urgent bodies
Olson 15
(Elizabeth, professor of geography and global studies at UNC Chapel Hill,
‘Geography and Ethics I: Waiting and Urgency,’ Progress in Human Geography, vol.
39 no. 4, pp. 517-526)
the body is increasingly set at odds with
Though toileting might be thought of as a special case of bodily urgency, geographic research suggests that

larger scale ethical concerns, especially large-scale future events of forecasted suffering.
Emergency planning is a particularly good example in which the large-scale threats of future suffering can distort moral reasoning. Žižek (2006) lightly develops this point in the context of the war

the urgent body must be bypassed because there

on terror, where in the presence of fictitious and real ticking clocks and warning systems,

are bigger scales to worry about:¶ What does this all-pervasive sense of urgency mean
ethically? The pressure of events is so overbearing, the stakes are so high, that they
necessitate a suspension of ordinary ethical concerns. After all, displaying moral qualms
when the lives of millions are at stake plays into the hands of the enemy. (Žižek, 2006)¶ In the
presence of large-scale future emergency, the urgency to secure the state, the citizenry,
the economy, or the climate creates new scales and new temporal orders of response (see
Anderson, 2010; Baldwin, 2012; Dalby, 2013; Morrissey, 2012), many of which treat the urgent body as impulsive and thus

requiring management. McDonald’s (2013) analysis of three interconnected discourses of ‘climate security’ illustrates how bodily urgency in climate change is also
recast as a menacing impulse that might require exclusion from moral reckoning. The logics of climate security, especially those related to national security, ‘can encourage perverse political

Bodies that are

responses that not only fail to respond effectively to climate change but may present victims of it as a threat’ (McDonald, 2013: 49).

currently suffering cannot be urgent, because they are excluded from the
potential collectivity that could be suffering everywhere in some future
time. Similar bypassing of existing bodily urgency is echoed in writing about violent
securitization, such as drone warfare (Shaw and Akhter, 2012), and also in intimate scales like the
street and the school, especially in relation to race (Mitchell, 2009; Young et al., 2014).¶ As large-scale urgent
concerns are institutionalized, the urgent body is increasingly obscured through
technical planning and coordination (Anderson and Adey, 2012). The predominant characteristic of this
institutionalization of large-scale emergency is a ‘built-in bias for action’ (Wuthnow, 2010: 212) that
circumvents contingencies. The urgent body is at best an assumed eventuality, one that
will likely require another state of waiting, such as triage (e.g. Greatbach et al., 2005). Amin (2013) cautions that in much of the West,
governmental need to provide evidence of laissez-faire governing on the one hand, and assurance of strength in facing a threatening future on the other, produces ‘just-in-case preparedness’

personal ingenuity’ is built into emergency response at

(Amin, 2013: 151) of neoliberal risk management policies. In the US, ‘

the expense of the poor and vulnerable for whom ‘[t]he difference between abjection and
bearable survival’ (Amin, 2013: 153) will not be determined by emergency planning, but in the
material infrastructure of the city.¶ In short, the urgencies of the body provide justifications
for social exclusion of the most marginalized based on impulse and perceived threat,
while large-scale future emergencies effectively absorb the deliberative power of urgency
into the institutions of preparedness and risk avoidance. Žižek references Arendt’s (2006) analysis of the banality of evil to
explain the current state of ethical reasoning under the war on terror, noting that people who perform morally reprehensible actions under the conditions of urgency assume a ‘tragic-ethic

bodies are today so rarely legitimate

grandeur’ (Žižek, 2006) by sacrificing their own morality for the good of the state. But his analysis fails to note that

sites for claiming urgency. In the context of the assumed priority of the large-scale future
emergency, the urgent body becomes literally nonsense, a non sequitur within societies, states and worlds
that will always be more urgent.¶ If the important ethical work of urgency has been to
identify that which must not wait, then the capture of the power and persuasiveness of
urgency by large-scale future emergencies has consequences for the kinds of normative
arguments we can raise on behalf of urgent bodies. How, then, might waiting compare as a normative description and critique in our
own urgent time? Waiting can be categorized according to its purpose or outcome (see Corbridge, 2004; Gray, 2011), but it also modifies the place of the

individual in society and her importance. As Ramdas (2012: 834) writes, ‘waiting … produces hierarchies
which segregate people and places into those which matter and those which do not’. The
segregation of waiting might produce effects that counteract suffering, however, and Jeffery (2008: 957) explains that though the ‘politics of waiting’ can be repressive, it can also engender creative
political engagement. In his research with educated unemployed Jat youth who spend days and years waiting for desired employment, Jeffery finds that ‘the temporal suffering and sense of

ambivalence experienced by young men can generate cultural and political experiments that, in turn, have marked social and spatial effects’ (Jeffery, 2010: 186). Though this is
not the same as claiming normative neutrality for waiting, it does suggest that waiting is
more ethically ambivalent and open than urgency.¶ In other contexts, however, our
descriptions of waiting indicate a strong condemnation of its effects upon the subjects of
study. Waiting can demobilize radical reform, depoliticizing ‘the insurrectionary
possibilities of the present by delaying the revolutionary imperative to a future moment
that is forever drifting towards infinity’ (Springer, 2014: 407). Yonucu’s (2011) analysis of the self-destructive activities of disrespected working-class
youth in Istanbul suggests that this sense of infinite waiting can lead not only to depoliticization, but also to a disbelief in the possibility of a future self of any value. Waiting, like urgency,

can undermine the possibility of self-care two-fold, first by making people wait for
essential needs, and again by reinforcing that waiting is ‘[s]omething to be ashamed of
because it may be noted or taken as evidence of indolence or low status, seen as a
symptom of rejection or a signal to exclude’ (Bauman, 2004: 109). This is why Auyero (2012) suggests that waiting creates an ideal state subject,
providing ‘temporal processes in and through which political subordination is produced’ (Auyero, 2012: loc. 90; see also Secor, 2007). Furthermore, Auyero notes, it is not only political
subordination, but the subjective effect of waiting that secures domination, as citizens and non-citizens find themselves ‘waiting hopefully and then frustratedly for others to make decisions, and in

Waiting can therefore function as a potentially

effect surrendering to the authority of others’ (Auyero, 2012: loc. 123).¶

important spatial technology of the elite and powerful, mobilized not only for the
purpose of governing individuals, but also to retain claims over moral urgency. But there is growing
resistance to the capture of claims of urgency by the elite, and it is important to note that even in cases where the material conditions of containment are currently impenetrable, arguments based
on human value are at the forefront of reclaiming urgency for the body. In detention centers, clandestine prisons, state borders and refugee camps, geographers point to ongoing struggles against
the ethical impossibility of bodily urgency and a rejection of states of waiting (see Conlon, 2011; Darling, 2009, 2011; Garmany, 2012; Mountz et al., 2013; Schuster, 2011). Ramakrishnan’s (2014)
analysis of a Delhi resettlement colony and Shewly’s (2013) discussion of the enclave between India and Bangladesh describe people who refuse to give up their own status as legitimately urgent,
even in the context of larger scale politics. Similarly, Tyler’s (2013) account of desperate female detainees stripping off their clothes to expose their humanness and suffering in the Yarl’s Wood
Immigration Removal Centre in the UK suggests that demands for recognition are not just about politics, but also about the acknowledgement of humanness and the irrevocable possibility of being
that which cannot wait. The continued existence of places like Yarl’s Wood and similar institutions in the USA nonetheless points to the challenge of exposing the urgent body as a moral priority
when it is so easily hidden from view, and also reminds us that our research can help to explain the relationships between normative dimensions and the political and social conditions of struggle.¶
In closing, geographic depictions of waiting do seem to evocatively describe otherwise obscured suffering (e.g. Bennett, 2011), but it is striking how rarely these descriptions also use the language of
urgency. Given the discussion above, what might be accomplished – and risked – by incorporating urgency more overtly and deliberately into our discussions of waiting, surplus and abandoned

Urgency can clarify the implicit but understated ethical consequences and
bodies?

normativity associated with waiting, and encourage explicit discussion about harmful
suffering. Waiting can be productive or unproductive for radical praxis, but urgency
compels and requires response. Geographers could be instrumental in reclaiming the ethical work of urgency in ways that leave it open for critique, clarifying
common spatial misunderstandings and representations. There is good reason to be thoughtful in this process, since moral outrage towards inhumanity can itself obscure differentiated
experiences of being human, dividing up ‘those for whom we feel urgent unreasoned concern and those whose lives and deaths simply do not touch us, or do not appear as lives at all’ (Butler, 2009:

the urgent body is rendered as only waiting, both materially and discursively, it is
50). But when

just as easily cast as impulsive, disgusting, animalistic (see also McKittrick, 2006). Feminist theory
insists that the urgent body, whose encounters of violence are ‘usually framed as private,
apolitical and mundane’ (Pain, 2014: 8), are as deeply political, public, and exceptional as other
forms of violence (Phillips, 2008; Pratt, 2005). Insisting that a suffering body, now, is that which cannot wait, has the ethical effect of drawing it into consideration alongside
the political, public and exceptional scope of large-scale futures. It may help us insist on the body, both as a single unit and a plurality, as a legitimate scale of normative priority and social care.¶ In
this report, I have explored old and new reflections on the ethical work of urgency and waiting. Geographic research suggests a contemporary popular bias towards the urgency of large-scale
futures, institutionalized in ways that further obscure and discredit the urgencies of the body. This bias also justifies the production of new waiting places in our material landscape, places like the
detention center and the waiting room. In some cases, waiting is normatively neutral, even providing opportunities for alternative politics. In others, the technologies of waiting serve to manage
potentially problematic bodies, leading to suspended suffering and even to extermination (e.g. Wright, 2013). One of my aims has been to suggest that moral reasoning is important both because it
exposes normative biases against subjugated people, and because it potentially provides routes toward struggle where claims to urgency seem to foreclose the possibilities of alleviation of suffering.

Saving the world still should require a debate about whose world is being saved, when,
and at what cost – and this requires a debate about what really cannot wait. My next report will extend
some of these concerns by reviewing how feelings of urgency, as well as hope, fear, and other emotions, have played a role in geography and ethical reasoning.¶ I conclude, however, by pulling
together past and present. In 1972, Gilbert White asked why geographers were not engaging ‘the truly urgent questions’ (1972: 101) such as racial repression, decaying cities, economic inequality,
and global environmental destruction. His question highlights just how much the discipline has changed, but it is also unnerving in its echoes of our contemporary problems. Since White’s writing,
our moral reasoning has been stretched to consider the future body and the more-than-human, alongside the presently urgent body – topics and concerns that I have not taken up in this review

My own hope presently is drawn from an

but which will provide their own new possibilities for urgent concerns.

acknowledgement that the temporal characteristics of contemporary capitalism can be

interrupted in creative ways (Sharma, 2014), with the possibility of squaring the urgent body with
our large-scale future concerns. Temporal alternatives already exist in ongoing and
emerging revolutions and the disruption of claims of cycles and circular political
processes (e.g. Lombard, 2013; Reyes, 2012). Though calls for urgency will certainly be used to obscure evasion of responsibility (e.g. Gilmore, 2008: 56, fn 6), they may also serve as
fertile ground for radical critique, a truly fierce urgency for now.
Framework
 2NC FRAMEWORK—TOPIC
Gender affects the policy outcome of arms sales – a gendered lens is key for
negotiations, better policy outcomes, peace agreements, and predicting
outbreaks of violence among states and borders – integration is key
Hurlbert, 18
Heather Hurlburt is director of the New Models of Policy Change project at New
America's Political Reform program. “Arms Control Needs the Modernizing Lens That
Gender Offers” https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/features/arms-control-
needs-modernizing-lens-gender-offers LRCH AC
As research carried out last year showed,1national security professionals are likely to
believe the best response to differences in policymaking is to remove it rather than
embrace it. That impulse was once the state of the art—“I don’t see race” or “men and
women are converging”—but is no longer. A community that fails to catch up on
diversity, as reflected in who participates and what perspectives are considered, will fail
to compete for talented personnel, as well as for relevance, in a diverse world. Elsewhere
in the security field, gender has moved beyond the personnel department. Scholars have
documented how differing experiences of gender affect policy outcomes,
most notably how closely linked the treatment of women is to the prevalence
of violence within and between societies. In response, institutions from the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) to NATO and the United Nations have
begun to practice analysis and policymaking that explicitly take gender difference into
account. The field faces two related but distinct challenges: diversifying the people who
work in it and the perspectives it recognizes. The arms control and security policy sector
is still overwhelmingly white and upper-middle class, and disproportionately male,
especially in its highest echelons. Despite the reams of evidence and successful practices
to emulate from other fields, the sector is only at the very beginning of remaking itself so
that it can successfully compete for talent and connect with the majority of Americans,
much less the rest of the world. Despite rich generations of feminist scholarship, the
arms control sector lags well behind others in bringing a gender lens, that is,
the ability to consider how policies affect the genders differently, to its work. At a
moment when the field of arms control and security faces existential challenges, it may
seem foolish to insist that one of the sector’s problems is a failure to incorporate thinking
about gender. After all, achievements over a half-century in institution building and
norm creation, even the most basic norms against the use of nuclear weapons, are under
attack. Yet in an important sense, the community is confronting its 21st century
opposition with a 1950s mindset. The politics of the last year showed people in the
United States—whether recent graduates or new members of Congress voting on budget
funds and authorizations for use of military force—to be broadly unaware of core
principles such as deterrence and basic facts about U.S. arsenals and the shape of global
threats. At the same time, they are hearing about security through ever-more intimate
and personal lenses. Identity-linked advocacy networks, from Concerned Women for
America to the Movement for Black Lives to veterans and religious organizations, are
increasingly shaping the way Americans receive news and understand the world. First,
there is a tendency to complacency about gender representation in the arms control and
security sector. After all, goes the reasoning, Rex Tillerson is just the second white male
U.S. secretary of state in 20 years, and a list of illustrious female practitioners tends to
follow. Yet, those high-profile achievers mask a more disappointing overall picture. As
women’s representation has progressed then seemed to plateau, across the general
economy, the private sector has led in developing and implementing practices that seek
to remedy gender imbalances. On this, government has lagged, and the national security
sector with it. Female representation in national security policymaking has progressed
only slowly, despite taking a dramatic jump at upper levels during the Obama
administration.2 It would be wrong, however, to regard this trend as irreversible or well
institutionalized. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) documented the
precipitous falloff in women’s representation that continues to occur at the upper levels
of civilian and military government service.3 Although in recent years half of entering
U.S. Foreign Service officers have been female, only 30 percent of senior staff are; at the
Pentagon, just 20 percent of senior jobs are held by women.4 The Trump
administration’s attempts to freeze or roll back civilian hiring at the Department of State
and elsewhere in government were accompanied by lopsided ratios among its political
appointees.5 Moreover, discussion among top administration officials and allies about
returning to a ban on women in combat roles and the promotion by Vice President Mike
Pence and others of cultural norms that prohibit women meeting alone with men6 seem
likely to further depress women’s equal participation now, as well as limit younger
women’s chances to advance for years to come. Further, due to hiring freezes, shifts to
contractors, and priority given to hiring older veterans, the proportion of the federal
workforce under age 30 has fallen to 7 percent from a high of 25 percent 40 years ago.
Gender balance among interns and students in their twenties is thus almost irrelevant to
the current workings of U.S. government. Senior leadership in this and future
administrations will need to take explicit measures to repair the damage and promote
diversity at all levels. At present, that means focusing on the inclusion of women outside
government. From academia to think tanks, from students to journal authorship to
board membership, the outlook is still disappointing. Considering academia matters
because it is the main pipeline through which young professionals enter the field and it is
where they gain their expectations about what it means to work in security policy.
Although women have made up more than half of undergraduate students for almost 40
years, they are underrepresented in the postgraduate and specialized programs that lead
to security sector careers. CNAS found that a number of the most prestigious graduate
programs in international relations are less than half female.7 Women who enter the
security field by joining the military continue to face disproportionate obstacles; as one
example, entering classes at the service academies have surpassed 20 percent women
only very recently. Although cross-field studies have not been done, a casual look at
rosters and tables of contents confirms that gender disparities among students increase
among tenure-track faculty and skyrocket for publication in elite journals. Recent years
have seen graduate students organize at Georgetown University to demand a response to
the prevalence of all-male reading lists and at Columbia University and Tufts
University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy to press for more consideration of
gender issues in the curriculum. Faculty members say that many such efforts, while
impressively prepared and resourced by a given cohort of students, are allowed by
administrations to lapse when that cohort graduates. There are some examples of
schools making explicit commitments, such as Fletcher School Dean James Stavridis’
target of a 40 percent female tenure-track faculty, but choosing not to publicize them.
Gender representation in the nongovernmental security sector has received considerably
less attention, but what is known is discouraging. In 2016, a survey carried out by the
University of Texas LBJ School of Public Policy found elite foreign policy think-tank
scholars in the United States to be 75 percent male.8 Globally, a 2014 survey of a network
of 43 think tanks found staff to be 42 percent female, but leadership only 14
percent.9 Ploughshares Fund, in the process of developing a yet-to-launch “Women’s
Initiative,” did its own informal survey of the nuclear nonprofit sector and found that
although women were strongly represented at entry levels, senior jobs and, above all,
boards remain seriously imbalanced.10 Staffing is just one piece of the representation
puzzle; visibility is another. Female experts are badly underrepresented in media
coverage of security issues as sources in print media and guests on TV and radio. A study
found that, of 6,000 guests on national news segments covering foreign policy and
national security in 2016, only 24 percent were women.11 Debates have raged within
institutions and among community members about the prevalence of all-male-speaker
panels, or “manels,” which continue to be an issue in the arms control field. Surprisingly
few U.S. institutions, programs, or funders have taken what is known as the “no manels”
pledge. The possibilities for improvement are large. The Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace’s International Nuclear Policy Conference, for example, went from
10 percent female panelists in 2011 to 30 percent in 2015 and 49 percent in 2017,
according to James Acton, one of the organizers. Anecdotally, however, senior women
and men who have been outspoken on the topic confirm that resistance is intense.
Diversity theory indicates that broadening the perspectives of those who make policy
produces better outcomes. The other side of that coin is the concept of a “gender lens,”
that is, the idea that policy analysis that considers the different experiences of different
genders can produce such better policy outcomes. The concept has gained traction in
academic circles and in peacekeeping and conflict resolution training in the UN and
NATO and some other regional security bodies, but it is little known in U.S.
policymaking and not applied at all in the arms control space. Socially constructed
norms and patterns ensure that people of different genders have different experiences.
This commonplace observation has important consequences for security policy. For
example, violent extremist groups exploit gender norms to recruit women, deploy
women in contexts and societies where women are not expected to be agents of violence,
and heighten feelings of victimization and vulnerability among their targets.12 Similarly,
counterterrorism analysts have documented important patterns and moments where
women’s roles in traditional, as well as Western, societies can be key in detecting or
preventing radicalization. Slowly, policymakers are starting to take notice.13 In conflict
resolution and peacekeeping, analysis has documented that the inclusion of women
makes peace agreements more durable, while failing to take differently gendered needs
into account in postconflict stabilization can contribute to the re-emergence of violent
groups. UN Women has found that peace processes that include women are 20 percent
more likely to last at least two years and 35 percent more likely to last 15 years.14 Yet, new
research found that women have made up just 8 percent of peace negotiators over the
past 27 years.15 The UN Women, Peace and Security framework, constructed through
seven UN Security Council resolutions, now provides guidelines for training on and
planning and evaluation of peacekeeping and conflict resolution work. NATO and other
regional organizations have followed suit, as have military and civilian planners from a
number of key U.S. allies. Just this fall, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law the
bipartisan Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017, which directs but does not require
U.S. security policymakers to incorporate these best practices into U.S. government
work. Congress did not appropriate any new resources for this task, however, and
positions focusing on gender stand empty at the National Security Council, State
Department, and USAID. Moreover, hard data indicates how gendered dynamics
contribute to conflict. Measures of violence against women have emerged as some of the
best predictors for outbreaks of violence within and between states.16 Scholars are doing
important new work on a variety of indicators, not all associated with women. Societies
in which young men are less able to attain the symbols of successful adult masculinity,
such as marriage, employment, and community status, may be more vulnerable to
violence.17 Students and practitioners of arms control and security disciplines need to
catch up to the research on causes of conflict. Although the indicators connecting gender
violence to risk of broader societal conflict are robust, surveys by New America have
found that work to be almost unknown among national security elites.18Professionals in
and out of government owe it to themselves to become familiar with the findings.
Although “gender” is often associated with feminist or other politically progressive
worldviews, the observation that violence against women and societal violence are
closely linked also dovetails comfortably with ideologically conservative frameworks that
see protecting the vulnerable and traditional family structures as a key goal of security
policy. The observations themselves are ideologically neutral. The following are seven
recommendations for action. Not every actor in the field—government agencies, think
tanks, advocacy groups, international actors, and scholars—can take up every
recommendation. All can do at least one, becoming more effective policymakers as a
result. As Fletcher School scholar Meg Guliford wrote recently, security “is contextual.
There exists no blanket definition to encapsulate how all human beings experience
security.” This observation is the foundation of gender analysis, the practice of
considering how policies or events affect different genders differently. Gender analysis
yields important insights in counterterrorism and countering violent extremism thought,
whether predicting the movements of extremist groups from the flows of female recruits
or learning about ISIS’ internal cohesion from its practice of systemic rape against
women and men. Yet, it is not broadly known, used, or taught in the international
security field. The time is ripe for an imaginative research agenda where such dynamics
might be at play in the use and control of weapons. For example, little is known about
how such dynamics might play out in the demand for, use of, and success or failure in
controlling small arms, but that is more than what is known about what measures of
societal insecurity are most likely to drive governments to acquire more disruptive
weapons systems or become more aggressive in their use. Does the insecurity of women
and other vulnerable populations have a bearing on nations’ or groups’ willingness to lay
down arms or forbear particular capabilities or systems? New insights are likely waiting
for researchers who widen the lens to perceive women as negotiators and combatants
and men as victims of sexual violence, as well as perpetrators. The literature on women’s
participation in peace negotiations and their implementation would likely be enriched
and challenged by consideration of women in arms control negotiations, from the Iran
nuclear deal to the negotiations leading to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons. Every source interviewed for this article cited the scarcity of comprehensive
studies and strong data to document the challenge of gender inclusion in security
policymaking, let alone test the outcomes of different responses. Organizational
leadership at universities, think tanks, journals, and conferences often cites the lack of
data as a barrier to galvanizing response. Unlike many of the other identified problems,
this one is easily solved by the application of resources and research skill. Several
excellent sets of recommendations exist for institutions to access. CNAS highlights the
need to frame policies in terms of effectiveness and build data sets to document it, get
out of a zero-sum framework by setting family-friendly policies for employees of all
genders, and rethink mentorship.19 Public and private national security institutions have
much to learn from the very public struggles of the cybersecurity field, where extreme
gender imbalances and problematic working conditions for women have spilled into the
media. New America proposed five steps for workplaces that are extremely relevant to
arms control and security: remove gendered code words from job descriptions and learn
what they are, institute policies that allow female and male employees to combine job
and caregiving responsibilities and make sure the policies are visibly used by senior staff,
hire women at senior levels to help attract and retain junior and mid-level personnel, set
targets around office diversity and measure leaders against them, and build talent
pipelines through internships and fellowships.20 The “#metoo” surge of women speaking
out about workplace sexual harassment and assault in the wake of disclosures about
movie producer Harvey Weinstein has shone a spotlight on the painful conditions that
remain all too frequent in the security policy environment. Employers and managers
must have proactive policies and model leadership for male and female employees.21
Institutions and program directors can institute policies to prevent all-male panels and
direct event planners to any of several resources to help expand their awareness of
diverse sources of expertise. Funders can bar their funds going to all-male programming.
Individual scholars and leaders can ask organizers about event diversity and decline to
participate when they are not. Some existing projects include Manpanels.org, Gender
Avenger, and the UN Global Compact Panel Pledge, a global effort to end all-male
panels. George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs has
become the most high-profile institution to enact such a policy under its dean, Reuben
Brigety. Owen Barder, vice president of the Center for Global Development, has attracted
more than 1,300 signatories for a pledge stating, “At a public conference I won’t serve on
a panel of two people or more unless there is at least one woman on the panel, not
including the chair.”22 Institutions and leaders who say they want more women in the
field must back this up by making sure female scholars and professionals are equally
featured in syllabuses and promoted as institutional representatives in media,
publication, and speaking opportunities. Individuals and institutions can facilitate this
with explicit policies and commitments to offer media opportunities, speaking
engagements, and co-authorship to younger colleagues and through willingness to vouch
for those colleagues in the informal networks through which most such invitations move.
Corporations from Amazon to Xerox to Uber have adopted a standard from the National
Football League (NFL) known as the “Rooney Rule,” requiring that at least one minority
candidate be interviewed for all senior positions, as they focus on gender and ethnic
diversity. It is credited for spotlighting a larger pool of talented candidates who were
previously overlooked, but has had uneven results across the NFL.23 The practice brings
with it an inherent limitation, which psychologists call “moral licensing,” by which
requiring the inclusion of underrepresented groups on a short list can make it less likely
that they are selected. The Rooney Rule or indeed the other recommendations
mentioned here are most valuable when they are accompanied by staff and management
training and practices that identify and challenge such biases at every level. After all,
avoiding bias is supposed to be the foundation of good policymaking
 2NC FRAMEWORK—SUBJECT FORMATION
Subject formation comes first—the community they create will inevitably
privilege masculine comfortability and scoff at feminine connections-
building a feminist affect is necessary to form embodied collectives that
drive political action-
Chamberlain 16
(Prudence, Department of English, Royal Holloway University (2016): Affective
temporality: towards a fourth wave, Gender and Education, DOI:
10.1080/09540253.2016.1169249, JKS)
This discussion of the contemporary and feminist timekeeping serves as a framing device for the way in which the wave
narrative can be considered as an ‘affective temporality’. Social movements are bound to
emotional convergences, in which feeling becomes transferred amongst wider groups,
encouraging them to action. This is central to initiating and then sustaining surges
of feminist activism , drawing a number of subjects together through shared investment
within a specific historical moment. The formulations of affect also mirror the way in which the
contemporary is constructed through Agamben’s work, allowing for activists to cohere while still remaining without set
definition. In The Affect Theory Reader, Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth state that ‘affect is born in in-between-
ness and resides in accumulative besides-ness’ (2010, 2). This sense of ‘beside- ness’ mirrors the simultaneity of the
contemporary, while the ‘between-ness’ relates to the idea that feminism is caught in temporal tension, in which the past
dictates and future aspirations orientate. Affect also explores the relationship between the private
and the public, as Love out- lines when she writes: Politics and feelings are very different kinds of
things; the public sphere is big, feelings are small; social life happens out there, psychic
life, somewhere inside; public time is collective time, measured by the clock, whereas in
psychic life the trains hardly ever run on time. (2007, 11) Inevitably, it is challenging to map what is
ostensibly a more personal and feeling sphere onto a wider public, or indeed vice versa. However, despite the
difference between public and personal, affect creates an undeniable
relationship between the two . The feminist tenet that the ‘personal is political’
encourages a shared public intimacy, which is central to the transference and
perpetuation of affect. Airing feeling, and allowing feeling to be aired, creates a context in
which responses and emotions become integral to a political collective. Cvetkovich writes that
she views ‘affect as a motivational system and as the ground for forging new collectivities’
(2003, 12). Resonating with the formulation of waves affects may serve to catalyse and sustain a surge of related activity. If
feminist unity is no longer pre- dicated on identity, then common ground is found through political aims. The movement
away from collectives determined by shared characteristics to those formed through shared feeling creates a feminism that
is able to adapt and evolve with affect at its centre. Affect may in fact work as an adhesive for political
subjects, sticking them together through shared feeling (Ahmed 2010). Affect , then, is able
to form collectives that are driven to political action through feeling,
forming a cohesive series of relations and connections.
 AT: DEBATE=GAME
This round is a mirror reflection of debates in policy spheres—framing it as
“just a game” replicates the public/private dichotomy at the heart of
masculine foreign policy
Stachowitsch, 12 Stachowitsch, Saskia. - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Saskia Stachowitsch is the
Scientific Director of the oiip as well as Professor in International Relations and Senior
Research Fellow (FWF/Austrian Science Fund, Elise-Richter-Program) at the
Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. She served as an Affiliated
Scholar at the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley, and as a Visiting Post-doctoral Fellow at the School of Sociology,
Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.
“Military Gender Integration and Foreign Policy in the United States: A Feminist
International Relations Perspective.” Security Dialogue, vol. 43, no. 4, 2012, pp. 305–
321. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26301919.

This analysis highlights the multiple ways in which military gender issues and foreign
policy interact. At the policy level, there is often an explicit link between foreign policy
doctrines, military reforms and gender policies. This concerns the inner-military gender
order as well as the role of global gender equality as a goal in international politics.
Negotiations on gender issues are thus frequently a crucial element in power struggles
between military and political elites over the course of foreign policy. At the discursive
level, foreign policy concepts and debates utilize gendered terminologies and images, as
different groups of political and military actors argue for or against a particular course.
Gender-based inclusions and exclusions in military institutions are thus linked to the
gendering of foreign policy discourses. Consequently, foreign policy debates are to be
read as contributions to gender debates and vice versa. Analysis of the time period
between 1990 and 2011 shows that foreign policy concepts that emphasize
multilateralism, diplomacy, human rights and peacekeeping were tied to the most
comprehensive gender equality and integration measures. Clinton's first term serves as
an example for a time period when recruitment conditions, domestic politics and foreign
policy concepts all favoured integration and equality in the services was significantly
advanced. His second term, which introduced a more risk-averse isolationism, was
characterized by stagnation in military gender matters. Integration was under constant
attack by the Republican majority in Congress, military commanders, think-tanks and
the media. Discourses on the 'feminization' of the armed forces and foreign policy
successfully challenged the administration by associating some of its strategies -
cooperation, compromise and 'soft skills' - with femininity. In the context of this
mounting conservative pressure, the administration largely abandoned gender equality
in the military as a political goal. In the context of the expansionist, unilateral and
threat-based foreign policy of George W. Bush, the far right was able to gain considerable
influence in domestic and international gender matters. At the same time, the military
implementation of Bush's global vision depended on women's military participation and
the integrated military represented an important asset in the war narrative of liberating
Muslim women'. Foreign policy doctrines emphasized the superiority of US values and
the necessity to impose them on other societies, even by preventive military
interventions. In the context of this doctrine, gender equality served as a symbol of the
USA's moral superiority and at the same time women's military participation was
dissociated from equality and civil rights issues. Under these conditions, the favourable
recruitment environment did not translate into more equality for women in the services
and some impediments to women's status were even introduced. But, despite frequent
demands by conservative interest groups, integration was not reversed. Foreign policy
imperatives thus ultimately triumphed over the conservative, anti-feminist agenda in
domestic politics. The Obama administration has redefined the objectives of US foreign
policy. In this context, gender equality was reframed as a security issue in its own right
rather than a justification for the use of military force. The empowerment of women
became a concrete objective, pursued by concrete foreign and domestic measures.
Initiatives since Obama's inauguration suggest that this emphasis on gender equality in
the global context is also paralleled by measures to enhance the rights and status of
women and sexual minorities in the armed forces. New approaches in the peacebuilding
process have also led to a revaluation of female service members in the war zone.
However, trends towards the privatization of military tasks and power gains for the far
right within the Republican Party could countervail these trends towards more equality.
Foreign policy concepts and practice are inherently gendered, make use of gendered
discourses and ideologies, and mirror the gendered assumptions that an administration
holds on the international order, the nation's role within it, sources of conflict, and
acceptable and efficient ways to solve them. As such, foreign policy not only reflects but
also influences gender relations at home and abroad. By defining what US global power
means and how it is to be pursued, it identifies the function of the armed forces and the
role that women are supposed to play within them. While personnel shortages account
for increased female participation in the military, foreign policy rationales and the
relevance of military force within them have made a difference to women's concrete
status and function in the armed forces. While war has generally led to more integration,
women's participation differed according to how a specific intervention was
conceptualized and in what foreign policy concepts it was embedded. Women's status
and gender equality in the armed forces are thus not only an outcome of recruitment
conditions or domestic power relations, but also linked to a nation's position in the
global order and its interpretations of that position. Military gender relations are closely
connected to the gendered notions of national identity constructed in and through
foreign policy. Feminist international relations enables this broader understanding of
military gender integration as interrelated with both the gendered dynamics of global
politics and domestic power relations. It advocates engagement with the connections
between gendered discourses, social power relations, and women's status in national and
international institutions. This study contributes to understanding how women's
equality and gender-specific inclusions and exclusions at the state level are interrelated
with the gendered structures and discourses of international politics. As the analysis
shows, gender-critical inquiry into state institutions helps account for state behaviour in
the global arena. Vice versa, examining the gendered dynamics in international politics
contributes to the understanding of inner-state gender relations. The study also
highlights some of the processes through which both are connected: the
inclusion/exclusion of gender issues in/from foreign policy doctrines, the gendering of
foreign policy discourses, and the instrumentalization of gender equality as a
justification for foreign intervention. Through scrutiny of these different levels of
interaction, comparative research on the relationship between national and international
gender regimes can be conducted beyond the study period and the US case.
 AT: PLAN FOCUS
That means framework is a new link- the call for a neutral point of
deliberation is an attempt to androgynize our argument
Hooper 2k
(Charlotte, PhD, ‘Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations and Gender
Politics’ (for which she thanks the Economic and Social Science Research Council
for financial support) and is currently involved in developing and teaching a new
master’s degree in gender and international relations in the Politics Department of
Bristol University. Recent and forthcoming publications include focus on the
relationships among masculinist practices, multiple masculinities and international
relations.Youngs, Gillian. Political Economy, Power & the Body. New York, NY,
USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. ProQuest ebrary., JKS)
The fantasy of disembodiment is another key feature of bourgeois rational masculinity
which derives from the mind/body split and depends on the apparent invisibility or
absence of bodies in social discourse, so that masculine reason could be separate from
and untainted by the body. This apparent invisibility has been assisted by a huge investment
in the general social sanitization of bodies and bodily functions, particularly in public
spaces. There has been a gradual loss of vulgar and feminine orifices and excretions since the 17th century so that the
body becomes a mere container of rationality (Rose 1993). Even sensory perception has been altered. Take, for example,
the sense of smell. Leonard Duroche (1990) argues that with the exception of one or two designatedly ‘masculine’ smells
such as tobacco and sweat, olfactory sensibilities have gradually been increasingly associated with femininity or with
‘degeneration’ since the 18th century. This process has been accompanied by the sanitization of smells from public places,
which has led to an impoverishment of perception conducive to impersonal relations between men. The fantasy of
disembodiment is sustained by large-scale social and institutional practices as much as by discursive conventions.
Bourgeois rational masculinity employs a selective biology both to possess and repress
bodies (Rose 1993). The fantasy of disembodiment is not only produced through powerful
social practices, it also sustains bourgeois masculine privilege and makes bourgeois men
appear natural leaders or rulers. Impersonal relations are associated with objectivity and
science, and the exnominated or unauthored ‘view from nowhere’ of modernity, which
appears as the disembodied ‘truth’ of power and authority.Closely coupled to the
mind/body split and the fantasy of disembodiment is the rational/emotional divide.
Emotions and desires are perceived as threatening to a bourgeois masculine subjectivity
organized around reason and control. Both Kantian thought and Protestant culture posit an inner freedom
from emotionally-driven inclinations as the ideal (Seidler 1987). Just as the body, with its involuntary
processes and frailties, poses a threat to masculinity and pure reason, so too
do emotions and desires. Acting only from reason and duty serves to strengthen the
autonomy of men, otherwise they are in a position of servitude, when reason becomes a
slave to the passions. Therefore, selfcontrol over one’s emotions has come to be one of the hallmarks of
masculinity. Feelings and emotions are seen as both imperilling masculine superiority and
questioning the sources of masculine identity. Because of this, as Victor Seidler (1987: 86– 90) argues,
emotional and dependency needs as well as sexual desires are transformed into issues of performance and control.
With their identity defined in opposition to ‘feminine’ dependency,
emotionality and bodily enslavement, men have become by and large
instrumentalist in thought and goal-oriented in action (Seidler 1989: 12).
Alt
 1NC ALT—ETHIC OF CARE
Vote neg for a feminist ethic of care—this means refusing seemingly
progressive solutions that don’t grapple with the violent history of foreign
policy
Robinson ’19 [Fiona, 2-25-2019, Fiona Robinson is Professor of Political Science
specializing in International Relations and Political Theory. She holds am MPhil (1992)
and PhD (1995) from the University of Cambridge, an MA in International Affairs from
the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (1991) and a BA Honours in
Political Studies and English from Queen’s University (1989), "Feminist foreign policy as
ethical foreign policy? A care ethics perspective," SAGE Journals,
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1755088219828768]//ARW
Feminist care ethics and feminist foreign policy In this final section, I want to suggest how an ethic of care might inform a
feminist for- eign policy in ways that allow it to challenge, rather than reinforce, gendered binaries between realism and
idealism, order and justice and masculine and feminine. I suggest that there are three attributes of an ethic of care that
allow it to achieve this: relationality, contextualism and revisability. As seen by Carol Gilligan, one of the first theorists of
‘care’ as a voice of resistance to dominant modes of ethical reasoning, the ethics of care sees people not as
‘standing alone’, but as gaining their selfhood through their relations with others. Self
and other are different but connected rather than separate and opposed (Gilligan, 1993: 147).
Morality, on this view, is about responding to the needs of others in ways that are characterized by attentive listening,
patience and understanding. Universal moral principles of right – so rational, clean and appealing – give way here to the
messy, relentless juggling act of navigating complex moral dilemmas and balancing the competing needs of real, embod-
ied others. This means constant re-evaluation of beliefs and reflexivity regarding our own claims to knowledge. It is a
feminist ethics, not because it ‘belongs’ to women or because it is anti-men or somehow
against the ethics of justice, but because it demands a questioning of the script of
patriarchy. As Gilligan puts it, in the culture of patriarchy, the different voice with its ethic of care sounds feminine.
Heard in its own right and on its own terms, it is a human voice (Gilligan, 2011: 25). Relationality has been a
key feature of the ethics of care since Carol Gilligan’s first edition of In a Different Voice. On this view, all
selves are the product of relations, all the way down. The apparently autonomous self, so
often seen in men and gendered masculine, is a product not of some essential feature of
‘manhood’ but of a response by men to conform to the codes of gender within patriarchy.
Over the past 40 years, research into human psychology has undergone a radical shift towards accepting the interpersonal
and relational nature of human development (Gilligan and Snider, 2017: 191). Recognizing this and accepting
the relational voice not as morally or psychologi- cally immature, but as a human voice
that is thwarted by pervasive gender norms, is the first step towards reaching across
divides of difference hierarchy and building real connection with others. Relationality is
not a static ethical concept or set of principles – like ‘rights’ or ‘jus- tice’ – rather, it is a way of
seeing the world that addresses not only ontology – the relational self – but also
epistemology. Thus, knowledge is also understood relationally – we must ask who makes
the knowledge claims and from what vantage point, what material circumstances and
what degree of power (Minow, 1990: 178). As famously argued by Martha Minow, relationality is perhaps most
significant in the way that it shifts our understanding of the problem of ‘difference’; seeing difference
relationally means a shift from a focus on the distinctions between people to a focus on
the rela- tionships within which we notice and draw distinctions (Minow, 1990: 15). Thus, rela-
tional approaches, unlike, say, dominant liberal rights analysis, enquire into the
institutional practices that determine a norm against which some people seem differ-
ent, or deviant. To address relationships, Minow (1990) argues, is to resist abstraction and to demand context (1990:
216). Clearly, there is a close connection between relationality and context. An ethic of care eschews universalizable moral
principles that can be applied across time and space. By contrast, it demands attention to context – to the particularities of
social location, historical background, structural conditions and relationships between rele- vant moral actors. In this
sense, it is opposed to the logic of traditional moral theory, which demands abstraction from context in order to gain
objectivity. But this objectiv- ity is elusive; more than this, it acts to create a dichotomy between those who are the
knowers, keepers and enforcers of moral principles, and those who are compelled – sometimes through ‘foreign policy’ –
to enact those principles. The morality of ‘arms deals’ cannot be assessed outside of
the context of both the violent histories of coloni- alism and the liberal
militarism that defines the contemporary world. Feminist foreign policy
will not be transformative if it is reduced to enacting a set of moral
principles, or seeking to protect, promote or empower women (often
because this is, in the long run, good for ‘national security’ or ‘economic
growth’ ). A foreign policy that works towards feminist goals is more likely to be a slow,
plodding process which considers historical and contemporary relations between actors
and recognizes the importance of context in making decisions and policies. Finally, revisability
refers to the requirement of epistemological humility – the need to embrace uncertainty and recognize that there are only
better or worse courses of action at any given time and in any context. When ‘Amy’, one of Gilligan’s (1993) subjects,
responds to a question posed regarding an abstract moral dilemma, she says, ‘Well, it depends’ (1993: 35). As Gilligan
explains, when considered in the light of Kohlberg’s definition of the stages and sequence of moral development, her
moral judgements appear to be a full stage lower in maturity than those of the boy. They appear to reveal an inability to
think systematically about the concepts of morality or law and a reluctance to examine the logic of received moral truths
(Gilligan, 1993: 30). But from the perspective of an ethic of care, Amy’s reluctance to make universalized judgements
stems from a heightened perception of the role of context and the nature of relationships in moral judgement. It is this
willingness to live with uncertainty that defines feminist care ethics as critical and will allow it to be, potentially,
transformative in the long term. As Kimberly Hutchings (2001) argues, ‘Critique is premised on the
impossibility of a definitive answer to the conditions of its own possibility and can only
content itself with the acknowledgment of the revisability of any grounds on which its
specific claims are based’ (2001: 90). The implication of this is that we must let go of the idea of feminist foreign
policy as ‘principled foreign policy’. Principles have an unmistakable allure; they work very well when we take what
Raymond Geuss (2008) calls an ‘ethics-first’ approach to politics – where we attain an ideal theory of how we should act,
and then, in a second step, apply that ideal theory to the action of political agents (2008: 8). But the dominance of
this kind of thinking in the realm of ‘ethical foreign policy’ has led to a ‘hyper-rationalist’
(Rengger, 2000: 769) approach to the suffering of the peoples of the world, where ‘useful
knowledge’ has blinded us to contingency, context, embodiment and emotion. Revisability in
ethics is not the same thing as moral relativism. As Susan Hekman points out, the category of ‘relativism’ is parasitic on its
opposite, the possibility of abso- lute knowledge. Perspectival, connected, discursive knowledge does not obviate the pos-
sibility of truth, evidence or critical judgement (Hekman, 1995: 31). It does not mean that states cannot make judgements
in their foreign (and domestic) policy about the allocation of resources towards programmes and policies that aim to
increase the participation and representation of women in, for example, formal peacemaking and peace-building
processes. There is a requirement, however, to view each policy and programme on its own terms and in its own context
and to recognize the ever-changing context of actors- in-relation across multiple, intersecting locations and scales – across
racial, socio-economic and ethnic divides and from the household to the ‘global’ level. Conclusion: Rethinking ethics in
feminist foreign policy I have argued that feminist foreign policy can and indeed should be ‘ethical’ foreign policy, but not
where ethics is understood as a set of fixed, absolute principles based on Western liberal notions of human
rights or ‘justice’. This, I have argued, is damaging for feminism in two ways: first, it reifies the
gendered binaries between ‘real’ and ‘ideal’ in international politics; gendering ‘the
ethical’ in this way means that it will always be played off the masculine, ‘real’ world of self-interest and destined to be
dismissed as ‘soft’ and ‘feminine’. Second, it fails to recognize the way in which this approach to eth-
ics is itself constituted through a patriarchal binary which associates masculinity with
universality and objectivity, silencing alternatives or dismissing them as immature, par-
ticularistic or relativist. On this binary, ‘global justice’ (or ethical feminist foreign policy) is enacted by
a series of powerful, Western states for the benefit of racialized Others; not only is this
narrative partial and inadequate but it also serves to both produce and rein- force
relations of domination. This kind of ethical foreign policy will ultimately harm, rather
than help efforts to achieve global justice by delegitimizing local forms of knowl- edge in
poor areas and undermining the mutual respect necessary for collaboration and
deliberation (Kohn, 2013: 193). A feminist ethic of care does not offer a ‘feminine’ ethic that stands in opposition to
liberal-internationalist principles of justice; the values and practices of care – listening attentively, responding with
patience and openness to the other’s point of view – are not ‘feminine’ and ‘better’ ways of being, but the voice of struggle
against the script of patri- archy. The voice of care is a voice that struggles to be heard within ethico-political cul- tures of
patriarchy, which are constituted and supported by hierarchical and binary logics. The work of a feminist ethic
of care is to reveal and challenge the way that patriarchy serves to institutionalize
hierarchical relations in global politics while dismissing or ridi- culing the capacity for
attentive listening and empathy. As Gilligan and Snider (2017) argue, Because empathy and mutual
understanding impede the division of people into higher and lower, our capacity for
relationship and repair has to be compromised or stunted to set in place or maintain an
order of living that splits humans into the superior and the inferior, the touchables and
the untouchables – whether on the basis of race, gender, class, caste, religion, sexuality,
you name it – an order where some voices are amplified and find resonance, whereas others do
not, as patriarchy privileges the voice of the father. (2017: 174) Care ethics confronts,
disturbs and challenges the binary between ‘relationships’ (gendered feminine) and ‘self’
(gendered masculine) that is created by a patriarchal sys- tem. It seeks not to valorize ‘women’s ways of knowing’ over
men’s, but to resist the gender binary that constructs the system in the first place. As Gilligan
(2011) argues, ‘as long as human qualities are divided into masculine and feminine, we will be alienated from one another
and from ourselves. The aspirations we hold in common, for love and for freedom, will continue to elude us’ (2011: 178).
Despite the everyday meaning of the word ‘care’, care ethics does not prescribe ‘car- ing for’ those who are less fortunate,
or less enlightened, than ‘us’. On the contrary, care ethics describes a form of moral responsiveness
that is curious about context and sees moral dilemmas and difference through the prism
of relationship. It is sceptical of pre- formed, right answers about how to act in cases of
competing moral demands, and instead accepts the inescapability of our mutual
vulnerability – of our bodies, and our ways of knowing. It does not critique Western
patriarchy in favour of other systems of domination, but instead challenges all forms of
hierarchy which divide women from men and work against the possibility of relationship.
It is, finally, a democratic ethic that presumes relational subjects engaged in ongoing participation in civic life as both
givers and receivers of care (Tronto, 2013: 169). As Gilligan and Snider explain, patri- archy is contingent of subverting the
human capacity to repair relationship and thereby on a sacrifice of love. Democracy, however, is contingent upon
relationship: on every- one having a voice that is grounded in their own experience (Gilligan and Snider, 2018: 145, italics
added). Grounding feminist foreign policy in an ethic of care does not preclude, nor is it incompatible with, the so-called
‘three Rs’ of Sweden’s approach to feminist foreign policy. Working towards the achievement of rights, resources and
representation of women can and should be a goal for all policy departments – both domestic and foreign – of all national
governments. Including women in formal and informal peace processes is important, but not
only for the sake of women’s representation, or for the ‘women’s voice’ that they will
bring, but because they can use their voices to speak to the impor- tance of relationships
for bringing about moral and political repair. But feminist foreign policy must not be driven by shaming
and punishing ‘back- ward’ countries while simultaneously seeking to empower their girls and women. While these are
messages with attractive moral simplicity, they fail to reveal the roots of the problem of women’s oppression. Policymakers
must talk about gender in order to reveal how codes of masculinity and femininity maintain economic, social and polit-
ical systems that reinforce men’s material and cultural power over women. They must also have uncomfortable
conversations about patriarchy – at home and abroad – and how it legitimates and enforces ‘selfless femininity, and
detached masculinity’ (Gilligan and Snider, 2017: 192). What I am arguing for here is special attention to the normative
framing and frame- works which guide feminist policy – especially and particularly in the case of foreign policy. The
making and implementing of foreign policy operate within a gendered frame in which masculinity serves to legitimize and
uphold a wide range of behaviours and actions. Simply positioning ‘feminine’/feminist foreign policy in opposition to
these masculinities will fail to accomplish the radical transformation necessary to move towards a world which can no
longer justify the exclusion of women from the formal processes of politics, and which begins to recognize both the
oppressions faced by women – on the basis of gender but also as it intersects with class and race – as well as the value of
the contributions of women to our collective livelihoods across the globe.
 1NC ALT—ONTOLOGICAL REVISIONISM
The alternative is to pursue ontological revisionism as a means of disrupting
traditional masculine IR practices and investigating the nature of
masculinity itself
Youngs 4-1-2004, (Gillian Youngs is a Professor of Digital Economy and has been
researching diverse aspects of the internet's impact on society and economy for 15 years
developing out of her early focus on globalization. She has given invited keynote and
guest papers internationally in the US, China, South Korea, Turkey, Hungary, Germany,
Holland, Spain, Austria, Tanzania, and presented over 70 conference and workshop
papers at national and international conferences. "Feminist International Relations: a
contradiction in terms? Or: why women and gender are essential to understanding the
world ‘we’ live in*," Wiley Online Library,
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2004.00367.x //EH)
In exploring why the gulf on these points continues to exist between malestream and feminist International Relations, it is
helpful to think through some of the obstacles to bridging it. I do this in the next section of this article by considering
the problem of the ontological revisionism required of malestream analysis if it
is to share the same ground as feminist perspectives that count women and gender as
fundamental to understanding international relations. In arguing that women and gender are
essential to the field of International Relations, feminist scholars have had to address the core
concepts and issues of the field: war, militarism and security; sovereignty and the state;
and globalization. In the remainder of the article, I discuss how feminist work has followed this trajectory,
illustrating how an emphasis on gender has generated an increasing focus on masculinity and its multidimensionality and
complexity; on the diversity of women’s lives, identities and strategies; and on the power differentiations among women,
as well as between them and men, and among men. Ontological revisionism This discussion will demonstrate,
in the ways outlined above, the depth and range of feminist perspectives on power—a
prime concern of International Relations and indeed of the whole study of politics . It will
illustrate the varied ways in which scholars using these perspectives study power in relation to gender, a nexus largely
disregarded in mainstream approaches. From feminist positions, this lacuna marks out mainstream
analyses as trapped in a narrow and superficial ontological and epistemological
framework. A major part of the problem is the way in which the mainstream takes the appearance of a predominantly
male-constructed reality as a given, and thus as the beginning and end of investigation and knowledge-building .
Feminism requires an ontological revisionism: a recognition that it is
necessary to go behind the appearance and examine how differentiated and
gendered power constructs the social relations that form that reality. While it
may be empirically accurate to observe that historically and contemporaneously men have dominated the realms of
international politics and economics, feminists argue that a full understanding of the nature of
those realms must include understanding the intricate patterns of (gendered)
inequalities that shape them. Mainstream International Relations, in accepting that because these realms
appear to be predominantly man-made, there is no reason to ask how or why that is the case, stop short of taking account
of gender. As long as those who adhere to this position continue to accept the sufficiency of
the appearances and probe no further, then the ontological and epistemological
limitations will continue to be reproduced. Early work in feminist International Relations in the 1980s had
to address this problem directly by peeling back the masculinist surface of world politics
to reveal its more complex gendered (and racialized) dynamics . Key scholars such
as Cynthia Enloe focused on core International Relations issues of war, militarism and security, highlighting the
dependence of these concepts on gender structures—e.g. dominant forms of the masculine (warrior) subject as
protector/conqueror/exploiter of the feminine/feminized object/other—and thus the fundamental importance of
subjecting them to gender analysis. In a series of works, including the early Bananas, beaches and bases: making feminist
sense of international politics (1989), Enloe has addressed different aspects of the most overtly
masculine realms of international relations, conflict and defence, to reveal their deeper
gendered realities.3 This body of work has launched a powerful critique of the taboo that made
women and gender most invisible, in theory and practice, where masculinity had its most
extreme, defining (and violent) expression. Enloe’s research has provided one of the most comprehensive
bodies of evidence for the ontological revisionism required of mainstream International
Relations, especially in relation to its core concerns. When Enloe claimed that ‘gender makes the world go
round’,4 she was in fact turning the abstract logic of malestream International Relations inside out. This abstract logic
saw little need to take theoretical and analytical account of gender as a social force because in practical terms only one
gender, the male, appeared to define International Relations. Ann Tickner has recently offered the reminder that this
situation persists: ‘During the 1990s, women were admitted to most combat positions in the U.S. military, and the U.S.
president appointed the first female secretary of state, but occupations in foreign and military policymaking in most states
remain overwhelmingly male, and usually elite male.’5 Nearly a decade earlier, in her groundbreaking work Gender in
International Relations: feminist perspectives on achieving global security, 6 she had asked the kinds of questions that
were foundational to early feminist International Relations: ‘Why is the subject matter of my discipline so
distant from women’s lived experiences? Why have women been conspicuous only by
their absence in the worlds of diplomacy and military and foreign policy-making?’ Tickner,
like Enloe, has interrogated core issues in mainstream International Relations, such as security and peace, providing
feminist bases for gendered understanding of issues that have defined it. Her reflection on what has happened since
Gender in International Relations was published indicates the prominence of tensions between theory and practice. ‘ We
may have provided some answers to my questions as to why IR and foreign policymaking
remain male-dominated; but breaking down the unequal gender hierarchies that
perpetuate these androcentric biases remains a challenge.’7 The persistence of the
overriding maleness of international relations in practice is part of the reason for the
continued resistance and lack of responsiveness to the analytical relevance feminist
International Relations claims. In other words, it is to some extent not surprising that feminist International
Relations stands largely outside mainstream International Relations, because the concerns of the former, gender and
women, continue to appear to be subsidiary to high politics and diplomacy. One has only to recall the limited
attention to gender and women in the recent Afghanistan and Iraq crises to illustrate this
point.8 So how have feminists tackled this problem? Necessarily, but problematically, by calling for a deeper level of
ontological revisionism. I say problematically because, bearing in mind the limited success of the first kind discussed
above, it can be anticipated that this deeper kind is likely to be even more challenging for those in the mainstream camp.
The second level of ontological revisionism required relates to critical understanding of why
the appearance of international relations as predominantly a sphere of male influence
and action continues to seem unproblematic from mainstream perspectives. This
entails investigating masculinity itself : the nature of its subject position—
including as reflected in the collective realm of politics— and the frameworks and
hierarchies that structure its social relations, not only in relation to women
but also in relation to men configured as (feminized) ‘others’ because of racial,
colonial and other factors, including sexuality. Marysia Zalewski and Jane Parpart directly captured such
an approach as ‘the “man” question in international relations’.9 I would like to suggest that for those sceptical about
feminist International Relations, Zalewski’s introductory chapter, ‘From the “woman” question to the “man” question in
International Relations’, offers an impressively transparent way in to its substantive terrain.10 Reflecting critically on the
editors’ learning process in preparing the volume and working with its contributors, both men and women, Zalewski
discusses the various modifications through which the title of the work had moved. These included at different stages the
terms ‘women’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘feminism’, finally ending with ‘the “man” question’—signalling once again, I suggest,
tensions between theory and practice, the difficulty of escaping the concrete dominance of the male subject position in the
realm of international relations. The project’s starting point revealed a faith in the modernist commitment to the political
importance of bringing women into the position of subjecthood. We implicitly accepted that women’s subjecthood could
be exposed and revealed in the study and practice of international relations, hoping that this would also reveal the nature
of male dominance and power. Posing the ‘man’ question instead reflects our diminishing belief that the exclusion of
women can be remedied by converting them into subjects.11 Adding women appeared to have failed to ‘destabilize’ the
field; so perhaps critically addressing its prime subject ‘man’ head-on could help to do so. ‘This leads us to ask questions
about the roles of masculinity in the conduct of international relations and to question the accepted naturalness of the
abundance of men in the theory and practice of international relations’ (emphasis added).12 The deeper level of
ontological revisionism called for by feminist International Relations in this regard is as follows.
Not only does it press beyond the appearance of international relations as a predominantly
masculine terrain by including women in its analysis, it goes further to question the
predominant masculinity itself and the accepted naturalness of its power and influence
in collective (most significantly state) and individual forms.
 1NC ALT—SPECTRALITY
The alt is to dwell on the gendered ghosts left behind by militarized
masculinity—centering debate around solving impacts merely assuages the
guilt of militarized masculinity
Tidy 14 (Joanna Tidy. Joanna Tidy is a lecturer in politics in the Department of Politics,
University of Sheffield (UK). They’re also an Associate Fellow at the Sheffield Political Economy
Research Institute. “Gender, Dissenting Subjectivity and the Contemporary Military Peace
Movement in Body of War.” p. 455-461 International Feminist Journal of Politics.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2014.967128) rr
Body of War is a text of the military peace movement. It portrays men and women, soldiers and families,
within the movement to convey an antiwar message centering on the purported “true face” (Body of War
website 2014) of the Iraq War, made visible in the lives and experiences of military families. As a text it is significant as
one moment and one articulation of the play of an ongoing array of social practices that
produce, reproduce and constitute power relations, subjects and social formations.
Accounts of how dissent can and should be undertaken, by whom and in what
contexts are rehearsed and defined, and subjects are interpellated into particular subject positions
that define their gendered, and dissenting, subjecthood. The analytical reading of the film for the
discussion in this article involved a process of negotiation between a range of texts (the film, associated media interviews
and existing scholarship) in a discourse analysis guided by problematization (Howarth 2000, 140). This process of
problematization involved a dialogue between existing interpretations, the Body of War texts,
theoretical concepts and the “intuitions and hunches” (Howarth 2000, 140) of myself as a socially situated researcher. Out
of this analytical dialogue, themes, relations and interventions were “read” within the film.3 Drawing on Butler’s (1990,
1993, 1997a, 1997b) conceptualizations of gender, subjectivity formation and contestation, accounts of military
masculinity (see, for example, Belkin 2012) and Derrida’s notion of the disruptive productivity of the spectral “present
absence” (Vatter 2005, 13), I argue that conceptualizing the military peace movement as a counter-
performative reiteration of military masculinity reveals the productive duality in which
military authority is simultaneously the target of and means to dissent. However, while this
duality has the potential to be subversive, the dominant social order is perpetuated within the
US military peace movement (see Cockburn 2004, 2012). I argue that within Body of War and the
military peace movement, women’s dissenting subjecthood is produced out of relational
invocations of military masculinity, within which particular haunting specters that populate
and produce military dissent are invoked and exorcized to reinstate gendered
relations of power. This account is important in addressing a silence concerning the political authority on
which the military peace movement in the United States is predicated. We know that, for example, “turning
conscientious objectors . . . into heroes of the antimilitarism movement could unwittingly
perpetuate exactly the sort of masculinized privilege that nurtures militarism”
(Cockburn and Enloe 2012, 553). In this article I demonstrate how the authority derived through this masculinized
privilege is not an unwitting addition to, but constitutes the military peace movement; the movement is
existent and functional through the practice of this privilege even as it targets militarism. It is
through an analytical focus on this productive duality that we can move beyond characterizations of the US military peace
movement as an uncomplicated site of opposition (see Achter 2010, 47; Cortright 2010; Gutmann and Lutz 2010; Leitz
2011). We know that dissent is not straightforward, simple or consistent (Foucault [1976] 2005, 88), but by turning
our attention to the specifics of productive tensions and inconsistencies within formations such as
the military peace movement we can better understand the moments and sites in which
contestation reinforces that which it seeks to disrupt. Establishing a novel conceptualization of the
military peace movement as a gendered premise in the first part of the article enables the second part, which
discusses the relations in the movement between the dissenting subjecthood of women as wives and
mothers and men as returning soldiers, both constituted as dissenting subjects by
military masculinity (see, for example, Belkin 2012, 3). Previous scholarship on women in the military peace
movement (Slattery and Garner 2007; Knudson 2009; Managhan 2011) highlights the significance of
discourses of motherhood and maternal activism, however without a conceptualization of the
military peace movement as itself an overarching gendered premise, this research can only go
so far in aiding our understanding of how dissenting subjecthood founded on motherhood and care
functions within the movement’s immanent hierarchies. To address this lacuna I argue that women
in Body of War are represented as enablers of a masculine military perspective
simultaneously imperiled and amplified by injury, as they facilitate the communication of the
authoritative military experience of the injured returning veteran. The dissenting capacity this accords is
limited, achieved through a partial, associative and unstable claim to military masculinity. In their
caring roles, women within the movement are represented as ultimately stymieing acceptable modes
of masculinity and most significantly impeding the realization of a privileged, powerful
hypermasculine dissenting veteran subjectivity, which is represented as more valuable to the
movement and less unsettling to society as a whole. In this section I argue for the conceptualization of the military peace
movement as a gendered premise; a counter-performative (subversive) (Chambers and Carver 2008, 172–177; Jagger
2008, 3; Medina 2013, 236) reiteration of military masculinity, drawing on Butler’s (1990, 1993, 1997a, 1997b) account of
gender, subjectivity formation and contestation. The counter-performative potential of reiterations of
military masculinity is grounded in the disruptive productivity of the “present absence”
(Vatter 2005, 13), illuminated by Derrida’s ([1993] 2006) notion of spectrality. I then discuss how claims to
dissenting subjecthood are made through the function of particular reiterations in particular ways. Performativity
describes “the influential rituals” through which “subjects are called into social being,”
“formed and reformulated” (Butler 1997a, 160) in a “reiteration of norms which precede,
constrain and exceed the performer” (Butler 1993, 24). Performativity is therefore both crucial to
the formation of the subject and its “ongoing political contestation and reformulation”
(Butler 1997a, 160), since “[n]o social formation can endure without being reinstated” and this process of reinstatement
reveals the contingency of the formation, putting it at risk (Butler 1997b, 14; see also Salih 2002, 11 and Mahmood 2004,
162). The authority of the US military peace movement rests upon a military
masculine authenticity of experience expressed in the trope of the “boots on the ground”
perspective (Christensen 2008; Anden-Popadopoulos 2009; Kennedy 2009) and the associated access to “ground
truth” (Leitz 2011, 249), along with the mantra “support the troops – oppose the war” (Beamish,
Molotch, and Flacks 1995; Coy, Woehrle, and Maney 2008; Managhan 2011, 441). The phrase “ground truth” expresses “a
belief that the firsthand knowledge of military individuals is the real truth” (Leitz 2011, 249). In military slang, “ground
truth” describes the on-the-ground and in-the-field reality, which is contrasted with the intelligence-driven predictions of
“senior leaders” who are “far removed” from the battlefield (Bishop 2009, xxiv; Linden 2010, n.p.). Within the military
peace movement, ground truth is represented as having a public “educational value,” and appears “on numerous VFP
[Veterans For Peace], IVAW, and MFSO documents” (Leitz 2011, 249). This significance of ground truth within
the movement illustrates how dissent is constituted by counter-performative reiterations of
dominant military masculinity (the authority of the “boots on the ground” perspective of the combat veteran)
that, when cited within other contexts (Salih 2002, 92), operate as the “tools” for subversion (Butler 1990,
145). For example, rather than telling a ground truth of heroism in battle (cf. Tommy Reiman;4 see Achter 2010, 51; also
Ac¸ıkso¨z 2012; Serlin 2003, 161) in Body of War, Tomas performs, through the context of bodily injury, a ground
truth haunted by the “present absence” (Vatter 2005, 13) of a military masculinized body lost to
a pointless war in which the injury was not acquired during “derring-do” but while he sat in the back of a poorly
armored truck. Through such spectrally reformulated citations, military masculinity is the resource of and
the target for disruption (a similar point is made by Hockey 2002, 153). As a text of the military peace movement,
Body of War relies on the authority and privilege of the ground truth, military perspective and hard-to-
impugn patriotism of its subjects in its political project of revealing the “true face of war today” (PBS 2008; Body of War
website 2014). Throughout Body of War, Tomas and his family are represented as being in possession of various
permutations of ground truth. These accounts operate as invocations of military masculinity;
“a set of beliefs, practices and attributes that can enable individuals – men and women – to claim
authority on the basis of affirmative relationships with the military or with military ideas” (Belkin
2012, 3; see also Enloe 1993; Higate 2003). This authority is then mobilized in dissent. Military
masculinity underpins and produces the authority that legitimizes war (when
invoked, for example, by wartime politicians (Belkin 2012, 2)) but it also produces the authority underpinning the military
peace movement. Military masculinity is in that sense turned back on itself; it is
simultaneously what is being contested – the privileging of the military and its practices – and the means to
do so. The authority produced by this privilege enables those within the movement to dissent against military logics and
practices. However, I will argue, there are contradictions and tensions within this productive duality; military
masculinity produces dissent but also reproduces hierarchies of experience, truth
claim and dissenting subjecthood along gendered lines. As I have suggested above but
will now explore in detail, the ground truths constituting the authority of the military peace movement are populated with
specters; specters that produce the counter-performative potential within reiterations of military masculinity. Spectrality
(Derrida [1993] 2006) concerns the effects of “present absence” (Vatter 2005, 13) in which the present presence is
haunted and disrupted by that which is absent; that which has been excluded is missing or is
apparently passed (see, for example, Kenway et al. 2006, 5).5 In Body of War, Tomas’s ground truths are of the experience
of arriving in Iraq and seeing only “women and children running away,” never firing a shot and then being paralyzed by a
sniper’s bullet while riding in a poorly armored vehicle. These are truths defined by present absences:
absent enemies, combat, protection and able-bodiedness. His daily experience after coming
home, of being paralyzed, losing his dignity, autonomy and masculinity, shifts this ground
truth to the domestic setting. His present is haunted by the specter of deployment. Therefore,
depicting Tomas’s firsthand experience of the war’s realties after deployment, Body of War widens the scope of soldiers’
“in the field reality” to include post-deployment and post-military lives (demonstrating that the legacy of deployment and
military service for soldiers and their families and communities is long lasting and far reaching). These specters
therefore disjointlogics of presence, absence, past and present to disrupt the self-sufficiency
of the present. Ghosts can be used to “create doubt where there is certainty” (Kenway et al. 2006, 5) by de-reifying
existing “present” forms and structures (Vatter 2005, 13). Ontological logics of presence, existence and temporality are
disrupted (Wolfreys 1998, 30); existence can no longer simply be understood as presence.
Specters, such as that of Tomas’s military masculinity, are simultaneously absent and present
(indeed, made present through the form of their absence) such that “the ghost is but does not exist” (Kenway et al. 2006,
4). These ontological disruptions underlie the “de-realizing” effects of ghosts on the “present
presence” (the “given forms of domination” (Vatter 2005, 13)) in hinting at the fragility of that present, including the
dominant social order. This present is not, as James (1995, 76) puts it, “as self-sufficient as it claims to be.” The war in
Iraq is a haunting event (Redfield 2009) reiterated through haunted lives and bodies such as
those represented in Body of War. Opposition to this war is populated by ghosts and produced out of
the reiteration of these specters haunting “present” lives and subjectivities . Dissent is performed
and negotiated through this haunting and these ghosts are gendered. Tomas, for example, “exists” as
the present absence of a masculinity destroyed by battlefield injury. Cathy “exists” in permutations of
motherly fear and grief, haunted by the simultaneous past, present and future of her sons’ fate (Slattery and
Garner 2007; Managhan 2011, 442). Body of War invokes specters to break down the comfortable self-sufficiency of the
present. Violence, it demonstrates, cannot be contained “over there” in faraway conflict theaters or in the
past. Yet it also attempts to exorcize these same specters through realization (the specter of lost masculinity is “realized” in
the figure of the hypermasculine dissenting “powerful leader” (Body of War website 2013) that Tomas becomes) and in so
doing so nullifies their disruptive productive effect (Vatter 2005, 15).6 Furthermore, it is in this process of
realization – reinstating rather than rupturing from the prevailing order – that gendered
hierarchies within the military peace movement become particularly visible, as I explore in the next two
sections of this article. In summation, the political contestation produced by the military peace movement arises out of
counter-performative reiterations of military masculinity. The reformulation producing the disruptive shift
in that reiteration is achieved through present absences such as the military masculinity of paralyzed
Tomas in Body of War. The military peace movement is therefore constituted by a range of potentially disruptive
reiterations, remade or restaged in ways that have the potential to reveal the frailty of targeted social formations. Claims to
dissenting subjecthood are made through the function of particular reiterations in particular ways that unfold in the
“fissures of a never-fullyconstituted self” (Lovell 2003, 2) during the “on-going political contestation and reformulation” of
the subject (Butler 1997a, 160). I will now turn attention to the way in which dissenting subjecthood is constituted out of
these reiterations. The military experience, and therefore military masculinity-invoking ground truths of present
absence explored within Body of War, interpellate Tomas into dissenting subjectivity. Asked if he would
have spoken out against the war had he not been injured, Tomas says, “I had friends who died, unnecessarily, in this war
so I would still speak out although I probably wouldn’t have as firm a leg to stand on – or chair to sit in.” He also notes
that his brother is currently deployed in Iraq. Tomas’s dissenting subjecthood is grounded, therefore, in his experiences of
losing comrades, the potential loss of his brother and losing his pre-deployment body. It is this loss, a present
absence, which provides him with a right to speak in dissent, a leg to stand upon or, as he ruefully notes,
a chair in which to sit. As an injured veteran, Tomas’s patriotism and combat experience (military ideals and experiences)
are seen as being starkly and visibly evidenced by his broken body (Serlin 2003, 161; Achter 2010, 47) and its corollary:
the now only spectral echo of his former self. For Tomas’s family, the authenticity of “military” experience and associated
authority-conferring military masculinity is founded in another form of reiteration-
reformulating haunting: the ordeal of having a family member away serving overseas and the constant possibility
of loss (explored in the film through the deployment of Tomas’s younger brother Nathan, a present manifestation of the
younger, idealistic, physically untarnished Tomas who also shipped to Iraq and never came home). With Tomas returned,
the experience of the family intersects with that of “their” returned soldier. Where Tomas’s domestic ground truth centers
on being cared for, with its associated loss of autonomy and dignity, Cathy and Brie’s ground truth becomes that of caring
for a paralyzed son and husband. This care becomes a vivid rehearsal and exposure of what is absent – the
Tomas who never returned. Cathy and Brie, in their act of care, perform a disruptive reiteration of military masculinity:
their ground truth reproduces the association of authority with military identity and ideals
(it constitutes them as subjects with an experience and perspective that is valued within the prevailing social order), but
in caring for Tomas they highlight the present absence of his bodily strength, autonomy and
dignity – an absence that poses, as Achter puts it, “a problem to the smooth narrative of war” (2010, 47). In Body of
War, representations of the lives of the family are juxtaposed with footage from the Senate debate and vote on the Iraq
War. The “on the ground” reality of those involved in the waging of the war (whether that “on the ground” is
the battlefield or the hospital bed) is
contrasted with the disconnected and unrealistic
pronouncements of “senior leaders” “far removed” from the battlefield (Linden 2010, n.p.) who are actively
distanced from military experiences and ideals. In doing so, the documentary reproduces the
authority of military masculinity to question their legitimacy. Cathy states, “[the leaders] are so
insulated . . . they don’t want to know about people like Tomas.” In one example of the documentary’s many
juxtapositions, Brie discusses Tomas’s fears about experiencing incontinence on their forthcoming wedding day, a scene
that is intercut with footage from the Senate debate. In another, Tomas lists his many medications like a litany and holds
up each bottle of pills to the camera. This footage is intercut with the vote result from the Senate debate, with each
medication followed by the name of a senator who voted “yes” to the invasion of Iraq. In his discussion of photographs of
disabled veterans of the American Civil War, Serlin (2003, 161) argues that “[b]y being no longer whole, those
veterans whose bodies manifested physical damage . . . were men for whom disability
suggested a certain level of incompetence.” Disability, as Serlin observes, is emasculating and
lost masculinity can be “recuperated” through photography such as that from the Civil War,
which demonstrated the military context of the injury by depicting disabled former soldiers
in uniform and wearing medals and therefore distinguished their injuries from congenital deformity (Serlin
2003, 161–162). In Body of War, Tomas’s body as a physical manifestation of incompetence is not – in the scenes
described above – “fixed” (cf. Achter’s (2010) discussion of the “domestication” of disabled veterans). Instead, the locus
of incompetence is the civilian leadership who, insulated from the realities and truths known by
military individuals, sent soldiers into misadventurous battle in insufficiently armored
vehicles. The representation of Tomas’s disability, a partial rupture in the reiteration of military masculinity, remains
partial by simultaneously reinstating a hierarchy that reinforces civilian incompetence and preserves the impunity of
soldiers from responsibility, a permutation of the “support the troops – oppose the war” discourse within the military
peace movement (Beamish, Molotch, and Flacks 1995).
 2NC ALT
The K solves the aff – representation of women in policymaking allows for
the stabilization of agreements between powers – absence allows for the
return of violent groups
Hurlburt 17 – degree from Brown University, director of New Models of Policy Change and
former runner of National Security Network, held senior positions in the White House (Heather
Hurlburt, “Arms Control Needs the Modernizing Lens that Gender Offers,” December 2017, Arms
Control Association, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-12/features/arms-control-needs-
modernizing-lens-gender-offers)//cpark
Diversity theory indicates that broadening the perspectives of
‘Gender Lens’
those who make policy produces better outcomes. The other side of that
coin is the concept of a “gender lens,” that is, the idea that policy analysis
that considers the different experiences of different genders can produce
such better policy outcomes. The concept has gained traction in academic circles
and in peacekeeping and conflict resolution training in the UN and NATO and some
other regional security bodies, but it is little known in U.S. policymaking and not applied
at all in the arms control space. Socially constructed norms and patterns ensure that
people of different genders have different experiences. This commonplace observation
has important consequences for security policy. For example, violent extremist groups exploit gender
norms to recruit women, deploy women in contexts and societies where women are not expected to be agents of violence,
and heighten feelings of victimization and vulnerability among their targets.12 Similarly, counterterrorism analysts have
documented important patterns and moments where women’s roles in traditional, as well as Western, societies can be key
in detecting or preventing radicalization. Slowly, policymakers are starting to take notice.13 In conflict resolution and
peacekeeping, analysis has documented that the inclusion
of women makes peace agreements
more durable, while failing to take differently gendered needs into account
in postconflict stabilization can contribute to the re-emergence of violent
groups. UN Women has found that peace processes that include women are 20 percent
more likely to last at least two years and 35 percent more likely to last 15 years.14 Yet, new
research found that women have made up just 8 percent of peace negotiators over the past 27 years.15 The UN Women,
Peace and Security framework, constructed through seven UN Security Council resolutions, now provides guidelines for
training on and planning and evaluation of peacekeeping and conflict resolution work. NATO and other regional
organizations have followed suit, as have military and civilian planners from a number of key U.S. allies. Just this fall, U.S.
President Donald Trump signed into law the bipartisan Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017, which directs but does
not require U.S. security policymakers to incorporate these best practices into U.S. government work. Congress did not
appropriate any new resources for this task, however, and positions focusing on gender stand empty at the National
Security Council, State Department, and USAID. Moreover, hard data indicates howgendered dynamics
contribute to conflict. Measures of violence against women have emerged as
some of the best predictors for outbreaks of violence within and between
states.16 Scholars are doing important new work on a variety of indicators, not all associated with women.
Societies in which young men are less able to attain the symbols of successful adult
masculinity, such as marriage, employment, and community status, may be more
vulnerable to violence.17 Students and practitioners of arms control and
security disciplines need to catch up to the research on causes of conflict.
Although the indicators connecting gender violence to risk of broader societal conflict are robust, surveys by New America
have found that work to be almost unknown among national security elites.18 Professionals in and out of government owe
Although “gender” is often associated with
it to themselves to become familiar with the findings.
feminist or other politically progressive worldviews, the observation that
violence against women and societal violence are closely linked also
dovetails comfortably with ideologically conservative frameworks that see
protecting the vulnerable and traditional family structures as a key goal of
security policy . The observations themselves are ideologically neutral. Recommendations The following are
seven recommendations for action. Not every actor in the field—government agencies, think tanks, advocacy groups,
international actors, and scholars—can take up every recommendation. All can do at least one, becoming more effective
policymakers as a result. Make the gender lens a standard tool of analysis. As Fletcher School scholar Meg Guliford wrote
recently, security “is contextual. There exists no blanket definition to encapsulate how all human beings experience
security.” This observation is the foundation of gender analysis, the practice of considering how policies or events affect
different genders differently. Gender analysis yields important insights in counterterrorism and countering violent
extremism thought, whether predicting the movements of extremist groups from the flows of female recruits or learning
about ISIS’ internal cohesion from its practice of systemic rape against women and men. Yet, it is not broadly known,
used, or taught in the international security field. Widen the research lens. The time is ripe for an imaginative research
agenda where such dynamics might be at play in the use and control of weapons. For example, little is known about how
such dynamics might play out in the demand for, use of, and success or failure in controlling small arms, but that is more
than what is known about what measures of societal insecurity are most likely to drive governments to acquire more
disruptive weapons systems or become more aggressive in their use. Does the insecurity of women and other vulnerable
populations have a bearing on nations’ or groups’ willingness to lay down arms or forbear particular capabilities or
systems? New insights are likely waiting for researchers who widen the lens to perceive
women as negotiators and combatants and men as victims of sexual violence, as well as
perpetrators. The literature on women’s participation in peace negotiations
and their implementation would likely be enriched and challenged by
consideration of women in arms control negotiations, from the Iran nuclear
deal to the negotiations leading to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons. Quantify the problem. Every source interviewed for this article cited the scarcity of comprehensive
studies and strong data to document the challenge of gender inclusion in security policymaking, let alone test the
outcomes of different responses. Organizational leadership at universities, think tanks, journals, and conferences often
cites the lack of data as a barrier to galvanizing response. Unlike many of the other identified problems, this one is easily
solved by the application of resources and research skill. Address hiring and talent management issues. Several excellent
sets of recommendations exist for institutions to access. CNAS highlights the need to frame policies in terms of
effectiveness and build data sets to document it, get out of a zero-sum framework by setting family-friendly policies for
employees of all genders, and rethink mentorship.19 Public and private national security institutions have much to learn
from the very public struggles of the cybersecurity field, where extreme gender imbalances and problematic working
conditions for women have spilled into the media. New America proposed five steps for workplaces that are extremely
relevant to arms control and security: remove gendered code words from job descriptions and learn what they are,
institute policies that allow female and male employees to combine job and caregiving responsibilities and make sure the
policies are visibly used by senior staff, hire women at senior levels to help attract and retain junior and mid-level
personnel, set targets around office diversity and measure leaders against them, and build talent pipelines through
internships and fellowships.20 The “#metoo” surge of women speaking out about workplace sexual harassment and
assault in the wake of disclosures about movie producer Harvey Weinstein has shone a spotlight on the painful conditions
that remain all too frequent in the security policy environment. Employers and managers must have proactive policies and
model leadership for male and female employees.21 #Nomanels. Institutions and program directors can institute policies
to prevent all-male panels and direct event planners to any of several resources to help expand their awareness of diverse
sources of expertise. Funders can bar their funds going to all-male programming. Individual scholars and leaders can ask
organizers about event diversity and decline to participate when they are not. Some existing projects include
Manpanels.org, Gender Avenger, and the UN Global Compact Panel Pledge, a global effort to end all-male panels. George
Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs has become the most high-profile institution to enact such
a policy under its dean, Reuben Brigety. Owen Barder, vice president of the Center for Global Development, has attracted
more than 1,300 signatories for a pledge stating, “At a public conference I won’t serve on a panel of two people or more
Institutions
unless there is at least one woman on the panel, not including the chair.”22 Improve media visibility.
and leaders who say they want more women in the field must back this up
by making sure female scholars and professionals are equally featured in
syllabuses and promoted as institutional representatives in media,
publication, and speaking opportunities. Individuals and institutions can facilitate this
with explicit policies and commitments to offer media opportunities, speaking
engagements, and co-authorship to younger colleagues and through willingness to vouch
for those colleagues in the informal networks through which most such invitations move.
 2NC UNIQUENESS
Feminist advocacy is gaining force across the globe—what’s necessary is
academic reframing of arms control around non-masculine perspectives
Acheson ’18 [Ray, 4-30-2018, Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the
disarmament program of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
"The nuclear ban and the patriarchy: a feminist analysis of opposition to prohibiting
nuclear weapons," Taylor & Francis,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21624887.2018.1468127]//ARW
2018, for some reason, was a turning point for international diplomatic recognition of gender
dimensions of weapons and disarmament policy. After years or even decades—or in WILPF’s case, a
century—of feminist advocacy for governments and activists to take gender into account in
their work, we seem to breaking new ground. In March, the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United
Nations in Geneva collaborated with WILPF, Small Arms Survey, and the Gender Mine Action Programme on a one-day
training for disarmament diplomats about including gender perspectives in their work. In April, WILPF coordinated with
the Canadian mission in New York on a meeting that brought together the women, peace and security (WPS) and
disarmament diplomatic communities to exchange on the same subject. In May, UN Secretary-General António Guterres
launched his new disarmament agenda, Securing our Common Future. It includes a section on “Ensuring the equal, full,
and effective participation of women,” and there are several references throughout the document to
the gendered impacts of weapons, gender-sensitive arms control, or women’s
participation in disarmament, including urging states to incorporate gender perspectives
in their national legislation and policies on disarmament and arms control. In June, the Third
Review Conference to the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons (UNPoA) adopted a report with
groundbreaking references to armed gender-based violence, the gendered impacts of small arms, and women’s
participation in disarmament. The document builds on gains made in 2012 and 2016 to alleviate the overall gender
blindness of the UNPoA. The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) Women’s Network coordinated input
and advocacy amongst civil society groups and diplomats for the inclusion of these elements in the outcome document,
including through the civil society Call to Action on gender and small arms control. In August, the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW) considered gender issues for the first time, in a side event hosted by the government of
Canada, International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC), Mines Action Canada, Project Ploughshares, and
WILPF on the relationship between gender and fully autonomous weapons. Participants addressed gender diversity and
equality in disarmament negotiations and discussions; gender norms in relation to the development and use of weapons,
gendered impacts of existing weapon systems; and the importance of feminist foreign policy approaches in relation to
disarmament and arms control. In October, the Canadian mission to the UN organized a push to increase
gender references in resolutions at the UN General Assembly First Committee on
Disarmament and International Security. Working with other governments and civil
society groups, they managed to achieve language in 17 resolutions that advocates for
women’s equal participation, recognizes gendered impacts of weapons, or urges
consideration of gender perspectives more broadly. This accounts for 25 percent of all First Committee
resolutions in 2018. Six of these resolutions included gendered language for the first time, while
three improved the gendered language. For comparison, in 2017, 15 per cent of resolutions made gender
references. This figure was 13 per cent in 2016 and 12 per cent in 2015. The number of First Committee delegations
speaking about gender and disarmament in their statements also continued to increase this year. Namibia on behalf of 56
states dedicated a whole statement to this topic, urging examination of how “underlying assumptions about
how gender shapes [delegations’] own work and the dynamics of joint disarmament
efforts.” Also in October, the Latvian ambassador, who will preside over the Fifth Conference of States Parties to the
Arms Trade Treaty, announced that the conference and its preparatory meetings will focus on the gender-based violence
provision of the Treaty as a special theme. This will provide an opportunity in 2019 to advance consideration of how to
implement this aspect of the ATT, including using guidance and case studies published by groups like WILPF previously.
In addition to these forum-based efforts, the UN Institute for Disarmament Research joined the governments of Ireland,
Namibia, and Canada to form the Disarmament Impact Group as an output of the International Gender
Champions. The Group aimsto “support the disarmament community in translating gender
awareness into practical action across the range of multilateral disarmament processes
and activities.” Meanwhile, academic sources like Critical Studies on Security and the Oxford Handbook on Women,
Peace and Security, news sources like The Nation, and public speaking forums from TEDx to the London School of
Economics featured articles and talks about feminism, gender, and weapons. This has signaled an opening of academic
and activist spaces for increased consideration of these issues. So, why has all this happened so quickly? In reality, it
hasn’t. It is built on a firm foundation of activism and analysis. Feminist disarmament activists and
academics, particularly those with groups like WILPF and the IANSA Women’s Network, have been writing and
campaigning on gender and disarmament for decades. UN agencies and some governments have been working to
mainstream gender in their programming for a long time, certainly since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution
1325 in 2000. This has led to concrete outcomes at international disarmament diplomacy forums in recent years: the first
UN General Assembly resolution on women, disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control in 2010; the inclusion of
gender-based violence in the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013; the recognition of the gendered impacts of nuclear weapons and
encouragement of women’s effective participation in disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Treaty Chair’s summary and
the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017. External factors are also at play. The #MeToo movement
has arguably awoken new acceptability and credibility of previously hidden or shamed perspectives and experiences.
Women, trans, queer, non-binary, and non-conforming folks, as well as men who have
experienced sexual and gender-based violence have collectively created new spaces to
amplify these realities and demand change. At the same time, several governments have begun
pursuing what they term “Feminist Foreign Policy”. While it is debatable whether or not the foreign
policies outlined by these governments can yet be truly described as feminist, it is a welcome development for
government offices to be considering feminism not just a valid but an imperative
approach to their international engagement. In disarmament forums, momentum certainly seems to be
on our side. There is a growing acceptance among a diverse range of governments,
international organizations, and civil society groups about the reality that weapons have
gendered impacts, and that women’s participation in disarmament is important. This is
good progress, and imperative to making change in this field. But it’s not enough . The work ahead For
one thing, the demand for women’s equal, effective, or meaningful participation—while
necessary and welcome—is insufficient for truly making change in weapons policy. Our
current situation is dire. Trillions of dollars are being spent on militaries and technologies of violence while poverty,
inequality, and climate change threaten our collective security and safety. Disarmament, as a policy and
practice that leads us away from militarism and towards peace, requires new
understandings, perspectives, and approaches to weapons and war. It requires the
effective and meaningful participation of survivors of gun violence, of nuclear weapons
use and testing, of drone strikes, of bombardment of towns and cities. It requires the
effective and meaningful participation of marginalized communities—LGBT+ folks,
people of color, those at a socioeconomic disadvantage, people with disabilities. Diversity is
not about political correctness. It is the only way we are ever going to see change in the way that
we confront issues of peace and security. Where we have achieved the most disarmament progress in recent
years—banning landmines and cluster bombs and nuclear weapons, for example—we have engaged with diverse
communities and put humanitarian perspectives over the profits of arms industries or the interests of powerful
governments. This is not just about including women, especially women who come from the same or similar
backgrounds as the men who already rule the table. It’s about completely resetting the table; or
even throwing out the table and setting up an entirely new way of working. Disarmament
requires that we change the way we think about and confront war and violence as social
and economic institutions, and we can’t do that just by giving some privileges to those
who do not challenge the thinking or the behavior of those who have the most privilege.
Diversity is not for its own sake, but for how it impacts what is considered normal,
acceptable, and credible. Confronting norms, especially gendered norms, around
weapons and war is imperative to making progress on disarmament. As a feminist disarmament
activist, I have come to believe that more than anything else, the association of weapons with
power is one of the foremost obstacles to disarmament. This association comes from
a particular—and unfortunately, very dominant—understanding of
masculinity. This is a masculinity in which ideas like strength, courage, and
protection are equated with violence. It is a masculinity in which the capacity and
willingness to use weapons, engage in combat, and kill other human beings is seen as
essential to being “a real man”. This type of violent, militarized masculinity harms everyone.
It harms everyone who does not comply with that gender norm—women, queer-
identified people, non-normative men. It requires oppression of those deemed
“weaker” on the basis of gender norms. It results in domestic violence. It results
in violence against women. It results in violence against gay and trans people. It also
results in violence against men. Men mostly kill each other, inside and outside of
conflict. A big part of this is about preserving or protecting their masculinity—a
masculinity that makes male bodies more expendable. Women and children, obnoxiously
lumped together in countless resolutions and reports, are more likely be deemed
“innocent civilians,” while men are more likely be to be considered militants or
combatants. In conflict, civilian men are often targeted—or counted in casualty
recordings—as militants only because they are men of a certain age. We are all suffering
from the equation of violence and power with masculinity. It prevents those who
identified as men from being something else—from performing gender differently. It
prevents all of us as human beings to promote or explore strength, courage, and
protection from a nonviolent perspective. It makes disarmament seem weak. It makes peace
seem utopian. It makes protection without weapons seem absurd. It also makes it impossible to achieve
gender justice. It keeps men and women in binary boxes based on their biological sex. It
maintains a strict hierarchy between these boxes, in which men are tough, rational, and
violent, while women are weak, irrational, and passive. In this narrative, men are agents;
women are victims. (And reinforces the idea that there is nothing outside of this binary.) The norm of violent
masculinity will continue to cause suffering and reinforce inequalities until we get serious about doing something
differently. This is a project of dismantling the patriarchy, which is a big project, but it starts
with the language we use, the people we include in discussions, and the norms we are
willing to challenge. For 2019, let’s stop using the term “women and children”. They are not the same legally or
politically. They have different needs and abilities. Let’s talk about the different impacts of weapons
based on gender and age, instead of womenandchildren on one side and men on the other. Let’s talk about
gender diversity in disarmament, instead of just the equal participation of women and
men. Let’s get away from binary language to something more inclusive. Let’s also include
survivors and those impacted by weapons, war, and violence. Let’s think about what we consider credible
or powerful, and why we think that way. As more and more governments and
organizations become interested in taking up gender, and as feminists around the world
from all walks of life smash down barriers outside the disarmament field, let’s not waste
the opportunities ahead of us. An intersectional feminist approach to disarmament is
imperative, and we have all the tools we need to achieve it.
 2NC FLOATING PIK
The alt is a prerequisite to ethical arms control
Acheson 19 - Director of Reaching Critical Will, leads WILPF’s work on stigmatizing war,
Honors BA in Peace and Conflict studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in Politics
(Ray Acheson, “Gender and Bias,” March 2019,
http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/gender-and-aws.pdf)//cpark
First of all, a note about gender. Gender doesn’t mean biological sex. It means the socially constructed
norms of how we are supposed to act as women and men or trans, non-binary, or queer
identities. These norms can and do affect how we think about weapons, war, and
violence. Throughout history, we have seen that weapons symbolize power. The association of weapons
with power comes from a very particular—and very dominant—understanding of
masculinity. This is not to say that all men agree with or perpetuate this idea, but that this is widely considered the
norm or standard for masculinity. This is a masculinity in which ideas like strength, courage, and protection are equated
with violence. It is a masculinity in which the capacity and willingness to use weapons,
engage in combat, and kill other human beings is seen as essential to being “a real man”.
This type of violent masculinity harms everyone. It requires oppression of those deemed “weaker” on
the basis of gender norms. It results in domestic violence. It results in violence against
women. It results in violence against gay and trans people. It also results in violence
against men. Men mostly kill each other, inside and outside of conflict. A big part of this is about preserving or
protecting their masculinity—a masculinity that makes male bodies more expendable. Women and children, obnoxiously
lumped together as if they are the same thing, are more likely be deemed “innocent civilians,” while men are more likely be
to be considered militants or combatants. We are all suffering from the equation of violence and power with masculinity.
It prevents those who identify as men from being something else— from acting outside the normative behaviour for men.
It prevents gender equality or justice, reinforcing the binary between men and women
and negating the existence of other experiences and identities. It prevents all of us as human
beings to explore strength, courage, and protection from a nonviolent perspective. It makes disarmament seem
weak. It makes peace seem utopian. It makes protection without weapons seem absurd .
Looking at weapons through a gender lens is not just an academic exercise.
It can help inform disarmament and armament policy. To bring us back to the question
at hand—what does gender have to do with killer robots—we can see that understanding the
gendered context and implications of certain weapons helps us understand
the best way to prevent humanitarian harm. Autonomous weapons, also known as fully
autonomous weapons, may perpetuate negative gender norms, or be used to commit acts of
gender- based violence. These possibilities are useful for demonstrating the need for
meaningful human control over weapon systems and prohibiting weapons that operate
without such control.
 AT: ALT REINFORCES GENDER BINARY
The devalued feminine position can be occupied by other genders or
hierarchies of people—our argument has never been about biological sex
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
In this chapter, my aim is to examine the contribution which feminist thinking makes to the ethics of international affairs.
This is a more complicated matter than might at first be apparent, because feminism does not speak with one voice.
Moreover, contestation within feminism as an international movement, in particular over questions of political violence
and questions of peacemaking and peacebuilding has become increasingly acute over the past decade, in the wake of
developments such as the passing of UNSCR 1325 and the so-called ‘War on Terror’. In the first section of the chapter,
because contestation over feminist ethics reflects contestation over feminist politics, I give a selective account of
feminist political activism in the international sphere, in particular in relation to issues of war and
peace, and the impact this has had on international politics and policy. In Section Two, I examine the trajectory thinking
about international ethics that is most associated with feminism, the ethics of care. In Section Three, I examine two
distinct feminist critiques of the ethics of care: justice ethics and difference ethics. In conclusion I argue that although
there are disagreements between feminists about ethics and international affairs, which reflect divisions about what
feminism should mean in the international realm, there are nevertheless certain thematic commonalities that cut across
these divisions. What emerges is that feminist international ethics, whether it is articulated in the language of care, of
justice or of difference, shares a commitment to grounding ethics in dialogue and practice, and orienting ethical
prescription in ways that are sensitive to context. Feminist Activism in International Politics The growth of feminist and
women's political movements in both state and interstate politics over the past four decades is a worldwide phenomenon.
This is not a straightforward matter to describe, as feminist/women's movements have
different contexts and histories and differ in their understandings of the key values and
goals of feminism - to the extent that for some campaigners on behalf of women the very label 'feminism' is suspect
(Basu 1995, 1-21; Mohanty 2003; Agethangelou and Turcotte 2010). For the purposes of this chapter, however, I will
use the term 'feminism' in the broadest way possible, to refer to political movements or
scholarly work which is in some sense premised on the need to address the ways in
which women and men are, throughout the world, systematically disadvantaged by being
assigned to the category 'women' or ‘feminine’. This is not to suggest that some women
are not systematically advantaged in relation to some men or that most men, as well as
most women, are not systematically disadvantaged in the current world order. Nor is it
to suggest that only women ever occupy the devalued ‘feminine’ position in
a binary gender order . The feminist claim is simply that the evidence bears out the
continuing relevance of gender as one principle of stratification (amongst others) that
systematically disadvantages most women and some men throughout the world (Peterson
and Runyan 1993; Tickner 2001; Steans 2006; Shepherd 2010). Feminist movements and campaigns have focused on
many different goals. Feminist politics has been an integral part of struggles for national liberation from imperial and
colonial domination. Feminist campaigning has focused on ensuring equal civil and political rights for women, and
transforming political institutions to be more representative and inclusive of women's interests. Women's material
disadvantage has also been a crucial issue for feminists in both developed and developing economies. And feminists have
also focused attention on violence against women; on women's rights over their own bodies or on social institutions and
practices that discriminate against women. It is difficult to measure how successful feminist politics has been in relation to
different issues and in different parts of the world or at the international level over time (Basu 1995; Steans 2006; Rai and
Waylen 2008). However in general, women's issues and interests have gained a greater visibility across the board,
including in state and international institutions, as well as domestic and international non-state movements and
organizations. This can be illustrated by looking briefly at feminist interventions on issues of war and peace over the past
thirty years.
 AT: CAN’T CHANGE INTERNATIONAL NORMS
Women’s movements have already started to change international norms –
the alternative will continue to prove effective
Karen Celis et al., Research professor at the Department of Political Science and co-
director Research of RHEA, August 2013, "Introduction: Gender and Politics: A
Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline," No Publication,
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199751457.001.0001/
oxfordhb-9780199751457-e-34 E.G.
In addition to their important role in the broader opposition movements against dictatorship,
organized women also tried to ensure that the outcomes of some transitions would bring
positive change for women, such as increased political representation and the provision
of greater rights in the post transition period (Waylen 2007). In both the Chilean and South African
transitions women organized in an attempt to influence the developing political processes but with varying results
(Hassim 2005; Waylen 2010). And in 2011 we have seen some similar efforts in Tunisia and Egypt as part of the Arab
Spring. Egyptian women organized after only one women was appointed as part of the transitional government and a
clause was inserted in the draft constitution that appeared to preclude women from becoming president. Although not
successful everywhere, women’s movements have changed international norms—
enabling on a global level the recognition of women’s rights as human rights
and anti-violence against women measures (Friedman 1995, 2009; Weldon 2006). A raft of
equality measures has been introduced. Electoral quotas are now widespread (adopted in roughly half the
world’s parliaments); though they are controversial, if they are well designed, actually implemented, and enforced (unlike
in France and Brazil), they are one of the most effective ways to “fast track” increases in women’s representation
(Dahlerup 2006; Krook 2009). Equality legislation, gender mainstreaming, and women’s policy agencies (WPAs) have
also been established in most of the world and endorsed by international and regional bodies like the European Union and
the United Nations (Squires 2007; Kantola 2010). Gender equality policies and policies of importance
to women are defined not only by feminism, women’s movement organizations, and
women’s policy agencies but also by issues; the extent that women’s organizations are
included in policy-making processes has shown to be highly issue specific (Krizsán et al. 2010;
McBride and Mazur 2010; Verloo 2011, 7). Htun and Weldon (2010) showed that feminist policy change
depends on whether issues are doctrinal; about the status of women predominantly; or
also strongly about class. As a consequence of this research, then, we now know a lot
about women’s movements and the impact of women activists in a wide array of political
arenas.
 AT: LEGAL PROTECTIONS GOOD
Legal action results in the revictimization of sexual assault survivors—
extensions of sexual violence
Catharine Mackinnon 17 (Catharine Mackinnon is an Elizabeth A. Long professor of
law at the University of Michigan, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School. April 17th, 2017, “Butterfly Politics”, pgs 61-62 //EH)
I pursue this task here through three issues: rape, sexual harassment, and pornography. These issues were chosen because
I believe that women’s sexuality is at the core of the way we are socially defined and
therefore denigrated as women and because sexuality has been largely ignored as a factor
in women’s inequality to men. This means that the way the law treats issues of women’s
sexuality is a crucial indicator and determinant of women’s status as a sex. Over the past ten
years, many women have attempted to pursue changes in the rape law and its
administration. Rape is legally defined as sexual intercourse with force and without consent. The idea is to know it
through its distinction from ordinary sexual intercourse, which is not forced and is consensual. Presumably, what makes it
criminal distinguishes it from what most men do and from what most women experience. Intercourse without consent—
the one-sidedness is striking. Consent means somebody else initiates; you agree or not. But sexuality is supposed to be
mutual. If rape means lack of consent, sex is apparently not envisioned to be mutual, but
only consented to, acceded to. Equal initiation is not fundamental to the model. This is
consistent with what has been found about much heterosexual intercourse. Women know from
our own lives about the everyday construction of sexual intercourse. We are told that sex is something men do to women—
men initiate it. Women at most approve that initiation or don’t. At least, that is the dominant model, and it is
built into the rape law. Rape is also distinguished from sex by virtue of force. A fundamental question is whether
the presence of force can be distinguished with a hard line from what ordinarily goes on between women and men under
conditions of social inequality. As convicted rapists see themselves and are seen by other prison
inmates, all they did wrong was get caught. They think that they are in prison for doing something that is
little different from what most men do most of the time. Life taught them this. Add this to the fact that most rapes, it
appears from studies, are not reported.9 This indicates that women do not think the legal system will
recognize their violation and vindicate their interests. Many women who have gone
through rape trials see the trial as an extension of the rape .10 The burdens of
proof, the legal assumptions, the disbelief they encounter, mean that their sexuality can
be violated without consequences to the violator. The perspective they encounter is that what they said
happened to them is not so different from what happens to most women much of the time. If this man is to be put
away, the woman will have to show what happened to her is an extraordinary,
exceptional occurrence. Often she cannot. If it is hard for a trier of fact to distinguish a rape clearly,
perhaps that should indict the ordinary experience of heterosexual intercourse. Instead, it exonerates the rapist.
Indicting intercourse does not directly help a woman who is trying, through the legal process, to establish that she has
been raped, as the law defines it, either. Discussing this analysis is sensitive in part because it can feed the implicit
views of some judges and juries who converge rape with sex to let rapists off the hook.
Men accused of rape often plead, in effect, that they did not use any more force than is usual during the preliminaries.11
Studies show that most rapists are not psychologically abnormal men.12 Once a woman is married, unless
she lives in a state with a still-exceptional marital rape statute, or with an interpretation
of the rape law that extends to rape in marriage, any legal right to mutuality in a sexual
relationship with her husband is given up, in the sense that the law does not stand
behind her if she is not interested tonight. Under the pervasive assumptions about women’s sexual
availabil ity, any woman who charges rape risks being undercut as a “whore,” as someone
who has had sex before, so cannot be violated. This assumption is used particularly
invidiously against Black women, who are assumed, on a racist basis, to be hypersexual,
labeled with one side of the madonna / whore distinction. When a Black woman who complains of
sexual mistreatment is disbelieved, it is often because it is seen to be her nature to wish to be sexually used—she must have
consented, so it was not a rape. Women vote with our feet. We do not report rape because we do not
believe we will get justice. The accuracy of this perception can be found in the animating requirements of the
legal system on the issue of rape, which reflect rather than stand against the values of the unequal social system.13
Those are male values, meaning values from the male point of view, unequal on the basis
of sex. Viewpoints don’t have genitals. This refers to a social perspective in the interest and from the standpoint of a
particular group of people. It doesn’t matter whether members of dominant groups enjoy their position or not, although
often they do. What does matter is that this system gives dominant groups social power to actualize themselves, to assert
themselves at the expense of, over and against, other groups with impunity. To be white in a white supremacist society is
to be a member of a socially dominant group. The phrase “from the experience and to the advantage of white people”
describes a social standpoint—a dominant one that anyone can adopt if permitted to. Women, if permitted, can have male
dominant attitudes. Men, with much struggle and perhaps decades of commitment, can learn women’s standpoint. To
speak of male attitudes is not to speak of the physical or the natural. That it does, is what they think. With this state, as
these fragments of evidence, logic, and experiences suggest, we are caught between letting rapists off the
hook and demanding that they be energetically prosecuted. Successful prosecution
means rapists go to jail, where they will likely be raped. They will be brutal ized, at
constant risk, much like what women experience every day walking down the street. Jail
keeps them away from most women but changes nothing in the ultimate risk they pose to
women. Men who go to jail and are raped do not usually come to identify with their
victims. They cannot wait to get out, to be no longer the victim. Then they often rape
again.14 Women have no place to get out to. If we insist that the state protect us, we may get more
rapes reported, but we do not seem to produce many more convictions. At the same time, Black
men are often disproportionately convicted of rape, including those they did not commit, which is not in women’s interest
either. These initiatives do not change the predominately male behavior or attitudes of the society or the legal system. But
what are our alternatives? We are presented the choice of attempting to get the state to protect us, with dubious benefits,
or abdicating the state as recourse and forum altogether. Back to the law as everything or nothing, no rights except those
that power will accede or those that can be extracted or enforced socially. Abdicating the state altogether encourages rape.
There would be even less risk in forcing a woman than there is now, men could rape with absolute, not just nearly total,
impunity. That strategy leaves women, including Black women, to the rapists. There has to be a better way to use the
state—maybe civil rights. With sexual harassment, which has been pursued in this way, there has been more progress.
Some of the same problems of credibility, and a similar set of social forces of gender and sexuality, animate this issue as
they do the issue of rape. But this time, with sexual harassment women have so far defined the
injury. The crime of rape was never defined by women but by male legislators and
judges, who seem to have difficulty understanding that women are injured by sexual
abuse. The rape law shows it; the damage to the victim of rape is nowhere central to it. What
women lose when raped eludes it. The law of sexual harassment, by contrast, recognizes that this fairly
standard set of social sexual behaviors is injurious. I am often asked what the difference is between sexual harassment and
what goes on between men and women all the time. The answer is often very little. Their implication is, How
can it be illegal to do something that goes on all the time? How can you be against it? The
answer is, if it goes on all the time, maybe that is a reason to be more against it. That it is
common supports the view that it is discrimination—implicit in discrimination is the notion that the behavior is pervasive,
unlike the view taken by criminal law that the prohibited behavior is exceptional. Of course, particular acts of
discrimination are often thought exceptional rather than systemic, but the concept makes it possible to argue that it is part
of a larger phenomenon or pattern, shared by a group of victims who also share a lesser status. Sexual harassment is the
unwanted imposition of sexual attention on someone who is not in a position to refuse it. Now ask: In what circumstances
do women tend to be in a position to refuse men’s sexual attentions? In the workplace? Not usually. Women are
systematically the structural subordinates of men in the workplace; therefore men can
require pretty much anything, and hold women’s jobs as hostage. Educational
institutions? Some women are teachers, some women are in positions of power, but on
the whole it is men who are at the upper reaches of that hierarchy too. Women students are not
usually in a position to refuse men teachers’ sexual attentions. Employment and education have been litigated because
there are laws against discrimination there. But what about areas in which there is no equality law—say, the home?
Women in the home are not necessarily in a position to refuse the sexual attention of
their husbands either. The need to survive economically may make women who are beaten in their homes unable
to leave or refuse the men who batter them. If women cannot avoid being beaten, then they are not
in a position to resist sexual harassment—pinching, leering, unwelcome sexual acts—in the home
either.

Being protected is not the same as having rights

Catharine Mackinnon 17 (Catharine Mackinnon is an Elizabeth A. Long professor of
law at the University of Michigan, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School. April 17th, 2017, “Butterfly Politics”, pgs 61-62 //EH)
He said that she did come there; she did turn in her paper. He was there. He made a phone call to his wife; it was on the
phone bill. But what she said happened in that room did not happen and was not said. She complained orally
and in writing shortly thereafter and tried to pursue her complaint persistently. Yale did
little, having no procedure to follow in such instances. The trial judge believed the man.16
No explicit judgment about credibility or assessment of evidence was made. These facts were found so as to insulate them
from appeal. The legal cause of action for sexual harassment under Title IX was recognized in this case for the first time,
so anyone can now use it, but this plaintiff’s appeal on her specific facts was lost a few days ago.17 The idea that
sexual harassment violates women is easier to accept against a man’s denials than the
real violation of a real woman is. It seemingly does not matter how much women seek
control over the reproductive consequences of sex or over the depiction of our bodies,
itself a form of sexual access. No matter how much we argue that the real issue is altering
our powerlessness, what is encountered is the use, meaning the withholding of the use
for us, of male power. Will the courts protect us, vindicate us, or not? Protection is
always on their terms. Being protected is not the same as having rights.
Women who men think are worthy of protection, precious few who can be presented as
having no sexuality, are most likely to be protected. But who is that? The minute a woman
walks in and has a body, she is a walking provocation to rape and sexual harassment and
a form of pornography. We are available to be taken as sexual beings, meaning as sexual objects
who can properly be acted upon. As is clear from the Alexander v. Yale example, a woman can take this approach to
women too. Take seriously that the woman judge in Alexander is white. Sexual harassment is a new issue. In
women’s lives, it’s been going on forever, but as a legal issue, it’s emerged in the recent
context of a women’s movement. So there is still some potential to keep control over its definition. One way to
do that is to be very careful and conscious about how we, as lawyers, use the law. The benefit of making sexual
harassment illegal is not the progress of the law but the progress of women taking power
over our own lives. Making sexual harassment illegal has legitimized women’s discontent and dissent . It is
changing women’s feelings about what we have to put up with . It is redrawing dignity
lines between and within people. As an example, in Minnesota’s Continental Can case,18 for the first time in a reported
judicial opinion, persistent sexual harassment without indices of economic deprivation that most men understand was
recognized as discrimination. The woman wasn’t deprived of money or a promotion or a job. She was in a job situation, an
environmental condition of work, that her tolerance of persistent sexual abuse was a precondition for keeping. She could
have quit at any point—her option. To stay, she only had to put up with constant sexual byplay. This, exclusively a sexual
injury, was found to be sex discrimination. One concern is that, once law is used to legitimize women’s discontent, the
minute law cuts back, women’s outrage will diminish to what the law says we can be outraged about. What will be found
illegal will necessarily be narrower than what we want to protest politically and in our own lives. Women have not had,
and still do not have, the resources, access, or authority to get our injuries, as we define them, recognized as abuses by
courts. We need to keep control over our own outrage and the definition of our own injuries and never allow courts to tell
us what constitutes our oppression. Just as in law, rape is supposed to be distinguishable from intercourse, and sexual
harassment is to be distinguished from ordinary sexual initiation, in obscenity law, pornography is supposed to be
distinguishable from eroticism and art. As with the other issues, left out is, to whom? If pornographers were providing
something found satisfying or gratifying or interesting or educational, women would not avoid it as most of us do. Men,
mainly, buy it, make it, and sell it—or us—to one another at a phenomenal financial return. Over the last ten years, the
success of the film Deep Throat showed that pornography could be conventionally lucrative; it legitimized it as a medium.
Pornography, increasingly, is everywhere. Seen from the standpoint of the status of women, what is happening in
pornography looks a lot like what is happening in many legitimate magazines, fashion, films, and advertising: the
bondage, the violence, the bruises, being spread-eagled across car hoods like a bagged deer, the “I’m all black and blue
from the Rolling Stones and I love it,”19 the bloody-mouth and blackened-eye makeup, the “Hit me with a club” ad,20 and
so on. Women, like everyone else, are bombarded by these materials, but most women do not consume pornography itself
if we can help it. If you do, you tend to know it means you. It targets women. It makes promises to men that women are
expected to keep. Men we know consume it, not just other men. Whatever is available is what is allowed, is what in fact is
not obscene, is what does not violate their community standards. It is what turns men on.
 AT: NUKE WAR TURNS ALT SOLVENCY
Feminist anti-nuclear peace movements resolve their nuclear war impacts
Kimberly Hutchings 2013 (Kimberly Hutchings is Professor of Politics and
International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. She is a leading scholar in
international relations theory. “Ethics, Feminism and International Affairs," Ethics and
International Affairs Journal,
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8120/HUTCHINGS%20
Ethics%20and%20International%20Affairs%202013.pdf?sequence=2 //EH)
The early 1980s was marked by the emergence of a distinctively feminist antinuclear
peace politics in several Western European countries as well as the USA and Australia. Although clearly sharing
much ground with other anti-war and pacifist movements, this feminist peace politics was premised on the idea of a
special link between women and peace (Harris and King 1989; Warren and Cady 1994). Essentially, these feminist
peace activists reversed the dominant hierarchy of evaluation of masculine civic virtue
and feminine private virtue in which the former takes priority over the latter and the
latter is essentially supposed to sustain the former. As Elshtain argues, in dominant thinking
about war in the western tradition, women have been placed in the position of the
naturally peaceful sex whose role is to provide comfort and care for the 'just war hero'
and who are invoked (along with the children) as the party on behalf of whom resort to political violence has been
necessary (Elshtain 1987). In opposition to this, in the feminist peace activism of the 1980s, feminine
private virtue was taken into the public realm and held up as the (subversive) yardstick
of ethical conduct within that realm. The ways in which the 1980s feminist peace movement
campaigned against militarism, nuclear weapons and Cold War politics embodied a
challenge to standard ethical frameworks in the international context. A key part of the
tactics of these campaigners was, quite literally, to make themselves visible to a world
that recognised states as friends or enemies and humans as elements to be aggregated in
statistics of putative death tolls, but not women as women. These tactics ranged from
mothers taking babies and children with them on demonstrations (thereby quite literally putting
the realm of private virtue in the public domain) to counter-posing traditional symbols of women's
work and femininity to the machinery of militarism held within the bases where
nuclear weapons were kept. In engaging in these kinds of activities women were affirmed
as part of, and actors within, the international realm Peace activism represents one
significant strand of feminist politics that feeds into feminism as an international and
transnational movement. The ‘Women in Black’ network, and a variety of other anti-militarist
women’s peace organizations share a lot of ground with the kinds of feminist peace
politics developed in the 1980s, and have forerunners going back to the foundation of the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom, founded during the First World War (Cockburn 2007; Moghadam 2010:
297). Nevertheless, it is important to note that for many feminists there were deep problems with the link between
feminism and pacifism. This was true both for feminists from whom women’s liberation and anti-colonial struggle were
inseparable, and for equality feminists who argued that feminist peace politics played into and reproduced stereotypes
about women. After the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation receded and a range
of alternative experiences of women as protagonists and victims in modern warfare
became the focus of feminist activism. Conflicts, for example in Bosnia, Liberia, Sierre Leone, Rwanda and
the DRC, drew attention to the ways in which at the same time as women were gaining entry into military and paramilitary
forces, and engaging in combat in increasing numbers, women were also experiencing the effects of
both war and post-war contexts in gender specific ways. Feminist activists, used forums such as the
UN sponsored 1995 Fourth World Women’s Conference in Bejing to draw attention to the gendered effects of
dispossession resulting from war, to the prevalence of sexual violence in war, and to the exclusion or marginalisation of
women from peace processes and various aspects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding, including transitional justice
(Enloe 1983; Vickers 1993; Stiglmayer 1995; Steans 1998, 81-103; Moser and Clark 2001). In the push to bring
women’s concerns in relation to peace and war more centrally onto the international
agenda, the radical feminist ethos of 1980s peace activism became allied with different
strands of feminist politics, most notably, ones that emphasised the idea of women’s
rights as human rights, and looked to international policy and law to provide remedies
for gender specific wrongs (Mackinnon 1993; 2006: 141-149).
 AT: PERM
Fighting wars or creating policies to “save women” only gives the United
States more imperial and colonial power and the notion of feminist foreign
policy comes from a strategy of “including women” which only makes it
harder to deconstruct the military industrial complex. Only through a
radical feminist praxis outside of the state can we challenge the military
industrial complex.
Spade and Lazare ’19 [Dean Spade and Sarah Lazare, 1-19-2019, "There’s Nothing
Feminist About Imperialism," Jacobin,
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/feminism-military-industrial-complex-
pentagon]//ARW
Major media outlets are fawning over the fact that women are taking over top positions
in the country’s largest weapons companies and in US defense and intelligence agencies.
From MSNBC to Politico to NowThis, a number of prominent publications are framing
this ascent as an indicator of overall progress for women — and of increased equity in the
organizations they are now leading. Women are now the CEOs of four out of the
country’s five biggest military contractors, writes Politico reporter David Brown, noting
that, “across the negotiating table, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and the chief
overseer of the nation’s nuclear stockpile now join other women in some of the most
influential national security posts.” Brown hails the developments as a “watershed”
moment, citing Kathleen Hicks, senior vice-president at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, a think tank whose top corporate funders are weapons
contractors, as asserting that “the national security community” is more of a meritocracy
than other fields. Throughout the article, the women leading these organizations
proclaim that women can make it to the top if they believe in themselves. They call on
well-worn gender stereotypes to assert that women have something special to offer
because of their unique talent at negotiating, their fierce protectiveness as mothers, and
their “different perspective” on problem solving. The article even includes patronizing
praise of how women’s leadership in the military can result in innovative solutions like
wrapping sensitive equipment in pantyhose to keep out sand. Yet, feminists should not
view this “rise” of women as a win. Feminism, as the most recent wave of imperial-
feminist articles shows, is increasingly being co-opted to promote and sell the US
military-industrial complex: a profoundly violent institution that will never bring
liberation to women — whether they are within its own ranks or in the countries bearing
the greatest brunt of its brutality. As Noura Erakat, a human rights attorney and
assistant professor at George Mason University, put it in an interview with In These
Times, women’s inclusion in US military institutions “makes the system subjugating us
stronger and more difficult to fight. Our historical exclusion makes it [appear] desirable
to achieve [inclusion] but that’s a lack of imagination. Our historical exclusion should
push us to imagine a better system and another world that’s possible.” This pro-military
media spin is no accident: Weapons contractors are working hard to sell a progressive,
pro-women brand to the public. Raytheon and other firms spend millions on public
relations painting themselves as noble empowerers of women and girls in the sciences.
Raytheon champions its partnership with Girl Scouts of the USA. “Through a multiyear
commitment from Raytheon, Girl Scouts will launch its first national computer science
program and Cyber Challenge for middle and high school girls,” states a promotional
page. A high-dollar promotional video quotes Rebecca Rhoads, president of Raytheon’s
global business services, as stating, “Raytheon’s vision about making the world a safer
place and the girl scouts’ vision of making the world a better place couldn’t be more well-
suited as partners.” Such a claim is particularly brazen, coming from a company that
supplies a steady stream of bombs for the US-Saudi war in Yemen, which has unleashed
a famine that has killed an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of five.
Lockheed Martin, by far the biggest arms producer in the world with $44.9 billion in
arms sales in 2017, manufactured the 500-pound laser-guided MK 82 bomb that struck a
Yemeni school bus last August, killing fifty-four people (forty-four of them children). But
that doesn’t stop the company from presenting itself as a progressive organization that
recruits — and supports — women scientists. A page on its website quotes the Langston
Hughes poem, “A Dream Deferred,” to make the case that the company helps girls
achieve their dreams. “This poem was one of my favorites from my high school English
class, but, now, as I consider my Community Service and Engagement with the Lockheed
Martin community, I personally know what can happen to a dream deferred, when many
say no, but I say, ‘Yes you can,’” the page states. In her speech at the 2015 World
Assembly for Women in Tokyo, the company’s chairperson, president and CEO Marillyn
A. Hewson said that “it is just as important to support women as they work to lift
themselves up and raise up each other. Because taking responsibility for our own careers
is empowering in and of itself.” Faux-feminist PR is not just for private corporations — it
is also being used to sell woman-led CIA torture. Gina Haspel, who once oversaw torture
at a black site in Thailand, now runs the CIA, and the Trump administration defended
her from critics of torture by pointing out the fact that she is a woman. “Any Democrat
who claims to support women’s empowerment and our national security but opposes her
nomination is a total hypocrite,” said Press Sec. Sarah Sanders on Twitter. Yet, Erakat
asks, “How are you going to celebrate women in high military ranks as an achievement
when all they do is fulfill an agenda that was never created through a feminist
framework? Haspel was an architect of our torture regime. Why would I celebrate her?”
Meanwhile, the war criminals of yesteryear are being rehabilitated by this “girl-power”
coverage. Last April, the Washington Post ran a story with the eyebrow-raising headline,
“‘The kids, they love Madeleine Albright’: How a veteran diplomat got turned into a girl-
power icon.” In 1996, Albright, the then-US ambassador to the United Nations, told 60
Minutes that the half-million Iraqi children killed by the US sanctions regime were
“worth” it. “It’s a very white, imperialist, liberal understanding of feminism to think that
the promotion of women at the top of militarization and militarism is advancing
women,” says Kara Ellerby, author of No Shortcut to Change, who derides what she calls
the “add-women-and-stir” approach. “Sure, it’s great that you have a woman at the head
of Raytheon, but what about the women who those bombs are being dropped on?”
Ellerby emphasizes to In These Times. “From a global perspective, putting women in
charge of US military dominance is not remotely feminist: It’s imperialist.” Feminist
scholar and author Cynthia Enloe echoes this concern, suggesting that women’s
leadership in these organizations does not change what the organizations do to the rest
of the world. “There is no evidence that I’ve seen — of the CIA, defense department, or
other institutions where only a few women are rising to the top — that they challenge the
mission of the company or the organization,” she tells In These Times. The Military-
Industrial Complex Is Not Good for Women US military intervention is particularly bad
for women: It remains deeply interconnected to sexual and gender violence, for people in
the military, for military spouses, and for people living in or near the estimated 1,000 US
military bases around the world or where US military actions occur. From Japan to the
Philippines, local populations have long protested the presence of the US military — and
the environmental destruction and sexual violence it brings. The impacts of war — such
as reduction in basic services, electricity, and access to food and water, loss of family
members, and increased rates of illness and disability — all increase women’s
vulnerability to assault and worsen the conditions of women’s labor. Women are
predominantly responsible for caring for sick and disabled people, children, and elders
— and the conditions for doing that work worsen severely in war conditions. The US
military is also the largest polluter in the world. It is difficult to argue that its activities
are “good for women” when it contributes to climate change and the poisoning of air,
water, and land that endangers all people. The US military is also profoundly violent
towards women within its own ranks. According to Veterans Affairs records,
1,307,781outpatient visits took place at the VA for Military Sexual Trauma (MST)-related
care in 2015. Approximately 38 percent of female and 4 percent of male military
personnel and veterans have experienced Military Sexual Trauma — a euphemism for
rape or sexual assault. Research reveals that 40 percent of women homeless veterans
have experienced sexual assault in the military. (Far less is known or publicly reported
about the US military’s sexual violence against occupied peoples.) Service members are
punished for speaking out. A report from the Department of Defense finds 58 percent of
women and 60 percent of men who report sexual assault face retaliation. And 77 percent
of retaliation reports alleged that retaliators were in the reporter’s chain of command. A
third of victims are discharged after reporting, typically within seven months of making a
report. A report from Harvard Law School’s Veterans’ clinic finds sexual assault victims
receive harsher discharges from the military, with 24 percent separated under less than
fully honorable conditions, compared to 15 percent of all service members. Women who
drop out of the military because they have been sexually assaulted cannot rise through
the ranks. The media portrayal of the women who have climbed to the top of the military
and intelligence apparatuses, however, relies on bootstrap tough-it-up narratives that
implicitly victim-shame women, often framing failure to achieve what they did in terms
of women’s lack of confidence that creates obstacles to their success. Lynn Dugle, CEO of
Englity and former CEO of Raytheon, tells Politico, “One of my biggest challenges has
been resisting the temptation to tell myself I couldn’t do something. I didn’t think I was
ready to be president of a multibillion-dollar business at Raytheon when I was offered
the role. I continually remind myself to have courage and confidence.” These narratives
about “progress” through inclusion of underrepresented groups in dominant institutions
(in this case women), actually follow a well-worn pattern in US politics. Whether it is
police departments championing “diversity” while perpetuating targeted harm against
marginalized populations, or oil companies portraying themselves as “green,” the drive
to be associated with a (watered-down) progressivism or inclusivity is one of the most
common PR strategies at work for the world’s most harmful institutions. Wars to Save
Women? The idea that the US military-industrial complex can be pro-women is not just
an internal rebranding exercise: It is used to justify disastrous US military interventions
around the world. In his book Ideal Illusions, historian James Peck shows how this is
part of a larger trend that developed during the Cold War when, as an anticommunist
strategy, the United States revamped its image as the human rights protector of the
world to justify its military empire. The US claim that it uniquely protects women’s rights
was part of this larger picture. The George W. Bush administration famously justified the
war in Afghanistan by arguing that it would rescue women from the Taliban. On Nov. 17,
2001, Laura Bush gave the president’s weekly radio address, proclaiming, “Afghan
women know, through hard experience, what the rest of the world is discovering: the
brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists.” Media outlets dutifully
followed suit: In 2010, Time ran a cover showing “Bibi Aisha” with her nose cut off, with
the headline, “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” Of course, the protracted US
occupation has only further entrenched the Taliban, which now controls more territory
than at any point in the past seventeen years. Meanwhile, civilian deaths are climbing.
Yet none of the politicians or pundits who popularized the rhetoric of “saving women”
are forced to answer to how this war has actually harmed — and killed — women in
Afghanistan. The 2011 bombing of Libya was cheered as the first US war led by women,
as noted by the Daily Beast, which reported that “[t]he Libyan airstrikes mark the first
time in U.S. history that a female-dominated diplomatic team has urged military action.”
The fact that command of the Libya air strategy was given to a woman officer was also
celebrated in the Guardian as “a boost to women in the US military who complain daily
about discrimination.” Are these celebrated woman architects of war required to answer
to today’s nightmarish conditions in Libya where black people are now bought and sold
in open-air slave markets? Do cheerleaders of the intervention actually examine whether
US military intervention in Libya, or anywhere, leads to improved conditions for
women? Narratives about saving women are also prevalent in the US war on ISIS. While
there is no doubt that women face horrific treatment at the hands of ISIS, rape,
enslavement, and abuse has been used to justify a brutal US bombing campaign that has
caused 2,780 civilian casualty incidents in Syria and Iraq and relaxed standards for
killing civilians in both countries — opening the door to more civilian deaths. Meanwhile,
atrocities against women perpetrated by US ally Saudi Arabia go unpunished, revealing
that the need to protect women is contingent on US geopolitical interests. These tropes
are not new. They come from the playbook of US and Western European colonization, in
which colonizers argue that their presence helps women, and their exit would do them
grave harm. In just one example, Lord Cromer, who was the British consul general in
Egypt from 1883 to 1907, cited the veil — and women’s well-being — to argue Egyptians
should be forcibly civilized. “The position of women in Egypt, and Mohammedan
countries generally, is, therefore a fatal obstacle to the attainment of that elevation of
thought and character which should accompany the introduction of Western
civilisation,” he once declared. Yet, as feminist scholar Leila Ahmed has pointed out, at
the same time Cromer was railing against the veil, he was agitating in favor of the
subordination of women in England, as a leader of the Men’s League for Opposing
Women’s Suffrage. In her work, “A vocabulary for feminist praxis: on war and radical
critique,” feminist, activist, writer, and scholar Angela Davis articulates a bold vision for
feminism. “This more radical feminism is a feminism that does not capitulate to
possessive individualism,” she writes, “a feminism that does not assume that democracy
requires capitalism, a feminism that is bold and willing to take risks, a feminism that
fights for women’s rights while simultaneously recognizing the pitfalls of the formal
‘rights’ structure of capitalist democracy.” According to Christine Ahn, the founder of
Women Cross DMZ, a global network of women mobilizing to end the Korean War,
“Celebrating the rise of women in these institutions of domination, whether Pentagon
contractors like Lockheed Martin or the CIA (which has been responsible for secret
torture programs and covert overthrows of democratic regimes worldwide), distracts
from the point at hand, which is that we need to be minimizing the power and reach of
these institutions.”

“Adding and stirring gender” is depoliticizing and solves zero part of the
alternative
Rasoul 12
(Sana Azad, 1-28-12, School for Oriental and African Studies, London, England, Can
We Simply “Add Gender” To Other International Relations Theories?, E-
International Relations Students, JKS)
Taking the Israel-Palestine conflict as another example, the realist understanding of this
would also remain gender blind so that we are left with only a partial account of the
conflict. The rise in the rate of female suicide bombers, and women’s contribution to the conflict directly challenge
claims that women are more peace prone then men for instance (Frances, 2005). Realist analysis renders this area
Even if we add gender to these mainstream theories it will not solve
invisible.
the flaws discussed above simply because these theories must begin to think
of war in terms that go beyond the balance of power and competition
between states without regard for agency. This is exactly what feminists bring to
the table when they ask where are the women?¶ The role of power in all of this is crucial
and essential. Power; not just in the gendered constructions of state and society but also
the role of power in the discipline as a whole is also of concern to feminist scholars.
Sylvester (cited in Peterson, 1992) claims that gender is kept of the agenda in such a way that the role
of women in international politics has not been adequately studied. This reinforced the
gender-blind analysis that creeps into the dominant theories and which obscure more
subtle forms of power that go beyond “hard” and “material” forms. Spiegel and Waltz (cited in
Peterson 1992, 161) claim that in relations between states power must be maintained over another “just as in households
or community conflict…separation from other units if that were possible, would mean less contact and thus led conflict.”
Feminists see this statement as hindering clearer analysis by segregating the role of women and men without
understanding the constructions of femininity and masculinity. This is because everything feminism comes to be
associated with masculinity must always go in the opposite trajectory. If women are governed by their “emotions” men
must behave “rationally”, if women are seen as “soft” men must in contrast be “tough.” To overcome this one-
dimensional view of how power is produced Tickner (1992, 65) argues that we should
understand “power as mutual enablement rather than domination.” It is the study of
both masculinity and femininity that allows this to happen.
 AT: POLICY FOCUS KEY
We meet!
Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, transcript of speech Reaching Critical,
12-13-2018, "Latest news from RCW," No Publication,
http://reachingcriticalwill.org/news/latest-news/13583-presentation-on-gender-
weapons-and-power-the-importance-of-feminism-for-disarmament E.G.
Just a caveat: when I’m talking about gender, I’m not talking about all men this, or all
women that. I’m talking about gender norms, about how we’re expected to behave as
men and women, and how any kind of other identities—queer, non-binary, trans
identities—are left out of discussions. Looking at gender in the context of
disarmament is not just an academic exercise. It is directly related to
weapons policies. We’ve seen throughout history how armament policies
and practices are closely interlinked with notions about power and strength.
And these notions are highly gendered. Whether it’s small arms in communities or
whether it’s nuclear arms at the state level, this idea that weapons afford security
is built into the conception of a very dominant violent masculinity, a belief
that men need weapons to protect their women, to protect their communities, or to
protect their countries. We should think about this when we’re addressing disarmament
on a community level with small arms, trying to reduce gun violence, or trying to impose
restrictions on the possession of firearms; and when we’re addressing the international
arms trade or nuclear weapons. In my mind, it all comes down to the same thing. You
can see the same dynamics play out time and again, whether it’s diplomats at the UN, or
folks working on community based disarmament activism. You can see the inherent
masculinities, this conception of power and dominance through the use of weapons and
violence. You can also see the ways in which those who equate weapons with
power and security push back on alternative viewpoints. There is a process of
belittling, a sense that anyone calling for disarmament or calling out the dangers of
weapons, or the excessive accumulation of weapons, is naive. We’re told: “This is the way
the world is. We need these weapons because we have to protect, we have to deter.”
There’s also a highly gendered aspect to how the push back is delivered, too.
The term gaslighting is relevant here. This term comes from a play in 1938 about
psychological abuse. A man deliberately makes his wife go insane by denying her lived
reality. The term is applied to politics to give a description to the situation we largely find
ourselves in now, where political leaders are just outright lying to us, denying our lived
reality. We see this a lot in the disarmament field. We listen to the nuclear-armed
states, for example, say that “nuclear weapons aren’t dangerous—they are not
meant to be used. They keep us safe. They keep the world stable and secure.”
Meanwhile, the countries possessing nuclear weapons are surrounding each
other with more and more weapons, they are accusing each other of violating
treaties, they are walking away from agreements that they’ve made. We’re
seeing this attack on the so-called international order by the states with the most
weapons, and they’re saying that they feel insecure so they need to keep their weapons.
 AT: REALISM
Conventional realist approaches to IR in relation to security and arms
sales is a form of patriarchal discourse which effectively renders
femininity invisible in security discourse as well as IR scholarship –
challenging the rejection of feminine ideas and gendered dialogues
should be prioritized
Blanchard, 03 – Eric M. Blanchard is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor in the
Political Science department at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. Blanchard received his
Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He teaches classes in global politics and has
research interests in international security, U.S. foreign policy, Chinese politics and East Asian
security, International Relations theory, critical qualitative methodologies, and gender and world
politics.
(2003, Eric M., “Gender, International Relations, and the Development of Feminist
Security Theory,” https://www-jstor.
org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/stable/pdf/10.1086/368328.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ade5511
9b155e7e3b75f466008c9d4ccc, accessed 07/19/19, lrch rm)

National security discourses are typically part of the elite world of masculine high
politics. Statesmen, diplomats, and the military conduct the business of states, and too often
war, imbuing the relations and processes of the society of nation-states with an atmosphere
seemingly devoid of women and an interest in issues of concern to women . The academic discipline
charged with theorizing this world, international relations (IR), has only recently made a place for feminist analysis, and
then only grudgingly. Academic feminism and IR are contemporaries, each developing through the war-torn twentieth
century and motivated by some of the same international events, although work in IR often overlooks women’s
contributions, such as the 1919 International Congress of Women, which ran parallel to Versailles (Grant 1992, 86). While
in some respects estranged from the mainstream of IR, feminist and gender scholars have launched an important critique
of the core issues of the discipline: war, peace, and the quest to secure the boundaries of the nation-state. In a rapidly
changing, post-9/11 world, feminist voices must be heard if the international system is to
achieve a more comprehensive security in the face of terror networks, technowar, and
mounting civilian casualties. The term security itself has been wrought with ambiguity and has recently taken on
the status of an essentially contested concept in the discipline. Within international relations, discussions of
international security traditionally revolve around issues of war and peace in an international
system of sovereign and self-interested nation-states, with a particular focus on issues of military
strategy. In this view, the provision of security is entrusted to the state, with the assumption that
states protect and secure the members of the political community from threats emanating from
the dangerous, foreign realm outside state boundaries. However, feminists and other critical
scholars have started to inquire into the meaning of this concept by asking just who is being
secured by security policies? Against the illusion of total security, feminists contest the possibility of a
perfectly controlled, coherent security policy that could handle every international contingency. Security for
women struggling with everyday patriarchy, as Christine Sylvester observes, “is always partial
. . . elusive and mundane” (1994, 183). In this essay, I survey the relatively new but promising IR feminist
literature on international security, highlighting the functions of feminist scholarship in any disciplinary intervention—the
critique of existing theory, the reconceptualization of core concepts, and the expansion of empirical knowledge (Boals
1975; Jaquette 1976). A review of feminist security theory scholarship (FST) indicates important successes in another task
of feminist analysis—rendering the familiar strange, in this case by problematizing the naturalness of “security” (Harding
1991, 142, 149; cited in Tickner 2001). Through a dialogue fostered with political theorists, peace activists, and policy
makers, FST has subverted, expanded, and enriched notions of security for more than a decade by making at least four
theoretical moves.1 First, IR feminists question the supposed nonexistence and irrelevance of women in international
security politics, engendering or exposing the workings of gender and power in international relations. This entails the
recovery of women’s experiences, the recognition of gender-based exclusion from decision-making roles, and the
investigation of women’s invisibility in international theory. Second, FST questions the extent to which women are
secured by state “protection” in times of war and peace. Third, FST contests discourses wherein women are linked
unreflectively with peace, arguing that the identification of women with peace be balanced by recognition of the
participation, support, and inspiration women have given to war making. Fourth, and more recently, feminists have
troubled the assumption that gendered security practices address only women and have started to develop a variegated
concept of masculinity to help explain security. I discuss these contributions in three sections, treating theoretical
innovations in feminist 1 Feminists in IR have emphasized a conversational approach (Peterson 1992b, 16) and fostered an
“aware cacophony” (Sylvester 1987, 501) of feminist perspectives. Unfortunately, attempts to “open new conversational
spaces” between conventional IR theories and the feminist periphery (Peterson 1992d, 184) have not yet dissipated the
“gendered estrangement” that inhibits constructive dialogues and public critical engagement between feminist and IR
scholars (Tickner 1997, 613). For some recent exchanges between feminists, the mainstream, and other feminists, see
Keohane 1989, 1998; Weber 1994; Jones 1996, 1998; Tickner 1997, 1998; Carver, Cochran, and Squires 1998; Marchand
1998; Elshtain 2000; Van Crevald 2000. IR, the conceptual development of the discipline’s core issues, and the empirical
expansion of IR theory.2 Critique of existing theory: Challenging “realism” With its progenitors among the
European e´migre´s disillusioned with the “idealism” that they assumed to be a cause of World
War II, the orthodox approach to IR known as “realism” developed in Anglo-
American academic and policy circles following the war (Morgenthau [1948] 1967; cf. Tickner 1988).
Realists, as the name implies, dedicated themselves to the dispassionate study of international reality, focusing on
“what is” in contrast to the utopian visions of “what should be,” which they saw typified in
doomed schemes such as the League of Nations (Carr [1939] 1964). Privileging the state and the military sector and
viewing violence as endemic to the international system, realist prescriptions gained ascendancy in cold war U.S.
academic and governmental discourses of strategy and security. Because realists saw conflict as inevitable in
anarchy (an international environment unsanctioned by any higher authority), “security” entailed the pursuit of power
conducted by statesmen strictly guided by considerations of national interest and unimpeded by moral deliberations.
During the 1970s, academic realism transformed itself into “neorealism.” Inspired by the scientific successes of
microeconomics, neorealists overcame their preoccupation with great statesmen and diplomats and
positioned their work squarely under the rubric of U.S. social science. Settling on the systemic
level of analysis, which discounted domestic politics, neorealists applied their analysis and science
of deterrence to the “bipolar” structure of an international system divided between two
transcendental superpowers (Waltz 1979). With the end of the cold war, a window of critical opportunity opened as
issues of the environment and substate ethnopolitical violence suddenly became more salient. Growing awareness of the
limits of neorealism, the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, the uniting of Europe, and the new relevance of ecological and
economic threats prompted some scholars to reevaluate “what (or who) is to be secured, from what threats, and by what
means” (Krause and Williams 1996, 230; cf. Crawford 1991; see also Campbell 1992). Some scholars gradually
broadened security to encompass economic, 2 While international security is the focus of this review,
feminists continue to make important contributions in other IR issue areas, e.g., international political
economy (Marchand and Runyan 2000) and international organization (Meyer and Pru¨gl 1999). For overviews that
trace the development of feminist IR theory, see Murphy 1996; Tickner 2001; True 2001. environmental, and social
sectors (Buzan 1991), while others promoted an emancipatory vision of security, linking it with the releasing of individuals
from the constraints not only of war but also of poverty, meager education, and political oppression (Booth 1991).
Feminist incursions into the field of IR security can be usefully situated on the widening side of
the “widening” versus “narrowing” debate: the former argues that the scope of the neorealist
concept of security needs to be expanded to address a range of threats, utilize a
broader spectrum of methodologies, and address mounting ethical concerns (Kolodziej 1992); the
latter argues that a move beyond the study of military force would deal a serious blow to the field’s intellectual coherence
while distracting from serious threats (Walt 1991). Critical security discourse has generally invoked,
but not engaged, feminist scholarship, and even approaches that imagined societal sectors
of security (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998) have yet to take gender seriously (Hansen 2000).3 Feminists in IR
argue that realism, dominated by elite, white, male practitioners, is a
patriarchal discourse that renders women invisible from the high politics of IR
even as it depends on women’s subjugation as a “‘domesticated’ figure whose
‘feminine’ sensibilities are both at odds with and inconsequential to the harsh
‘realities’ of the public world of men and states” (Runyan and Peterson 1991, 68–69). Feminists in IR
explain the exclusion of women from foreign policy decision making by pointing to the “extent
to which international politics is such a thoroughly masculinized sphere of
activity that women’s voices are considered inauthentic” (Tickner 1992, 4). Women’s
traditional exclusion from the military and continuing lack of access to political power at times presents women with a
“catch-22” situation. For example, the importance of a candidate’s military service as a qualification for government office
in U.S. political campaigns puts women, who cannot appeal to this experience, at a disadvantage in obtaining the elite
status of national office and thus the ability to affect defense and security policies (Tobias 1990; cf. Elshtain 2000, 445).
However, the FST critique is not limited to strategies for getting more women access to corridors of power; feminists
also direct our attention to the gendered structure of IR theory. As the title of a classic IR text
indicates, the study of international politics has been concerned first and foremost with Man, the
State, and War (Waltz 1959). In this book, neorealist Kenneth 3 It is notable that two of the most prominent academic
volumes treating the challenges to traditional security theory from the vantage point of the mid-1990s did not include any
contributions from gender analysts (Katzenstein 1996; Krause and Williams 1997). Waltz turns to the canons of political
philosophy for an explanation of the causes of war by asking whether wars are caused by human nature, by the internal
structure of states, or by the international system. An important component of the study of IR is a self-positioning in the
tradition of Western political theory—tracing an intellectual lineage to Machiavelli and Hobbes—particularly as it concerns
the state. Feminist analysis of this pedigree shows that the feminine has
long served as a symbolic threat to
militarized Western conceptualizations of political community, from the ancient Greeks to the
twentieth century; Aeschylus’s Furies and Machiavelli’s Fortuna are but two examples (Harstock 1983). Rebecca
Grant (1991) argues that a gender bias in IR, transmitted unproblematically from Western political thought to the study of
IR, results in the question of gender being taken as irrelevant. For Grant, IR’s interpretation of Hobbes allows “no room
for the question of how gender relations affect the transition out of the brutish state of nature and into society,” while
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous stag hunt, often invoked as a parable of the problems of security, ignores the familial
relations that control the hunter’s defection from the hunting circle (10–15). Taking men as the sole political actors and
citizens, the political theory borrowed by IR postulates a domestic/international divide
premised on the private/public distinction that relegates women to a space outside
politics (9). Jean Bethke Elshtain’s rich blend of political theory, personal narrative, and history, Women and War
([1987] 1995), serves as a rejoinder to the discipline’s philosophical conceit and issues a key challenge to the
domestic/international divide that Grant identifies. In a sweeping survey of the discourse of war from the Greeks onward,
Elshtain details women’s complex relationships to the body politic, and thus to war, as they emerge from the narratives
(war stories) that are constitutive of war. Elshtain focuses on the ways in which war’s “productive destructiveness”
inscribes and reinscribes men’s and women’s identities and thus the boundaries of community: “War creates the
people. War produces power, individual and collective” (166–67). Reacting to what she sees as the onset of
scientism and hyperrationality in academic IR, Elshtain critiques the retreat into abstraction that the quest for scientific
certainty produced in “professionalized” war discourse and attempts to revive the bond between politics and morality
broken by Machiavelli. By reifying state behavior, Elshtain argues, the realist narrative ignores human agency and
identity: “No children are ever born, and nobody ever dies, in this constructed world. There are states, and they are what
is” (91).4 4 One criticism of Elshtain rightly spots her U.S.-centric “myopia” but maintains that Sensitive to the importance
of language and narrative in matters of security, Elshtain critiques what she calls the “strategic voice,” an authoritative
discourse that is “cool, objective, scientific, and overwhelmingly male” ([1987] 1995, 245). According to Elshtain,
this realm of expert language, with its talk of “peacekeeping” missiles and village “pacification,” separates ordinary citizens
from civic life. Drawing on fieldwork initiated at a summer program for nuclear strategists during the last decade of the
cold war, Carol Cohn’s (1987) analysis of the “technostrategic” discourse of nuclear defense intellectuals
casts a feminist eye on the thinking that shapes the practices of national security. Using an
ethnographic, participant-observer strategy, Cohn shows how the planners’ use of gendered euphemisms,
exemplified by the talk of nuclear virginity and the association of disarmament with
emasculation, contributed to a willful, discursive denial of the strategists’ accountability to
“reality”—the potential cost of strategic decisions in terms of human life (1987, 1990).
While denial of the horrors of nuclear war may be an occupational hazard of nuclear planning, to achieve success (in terms
of professional standing and collegial status) participants must legitimate their positions by assuming the masculine—that
is, tough, rational, logical—position in the gendered security discourse. The masculine position is also available to (and
must be taken by) women who want to be taken seriously, while they limit their “feminine” contributions for the sake of
legitimacy (1993, 238). Cohn thus shows how both men and women are implicated in, constituted through, and positioned
by gendered security discourse. Realizing that merely adding women to the profession will
not eliminate the degradation of “feminine” ideas, Cohn suggests that the task
ahead is a revaluation of gender discourse (1993). Elshtain’s and Cohn’s recognition of the
importance of gendered language is an example of the key FST theme of the everyday politics of security. With skillfully
crafted vignettes, Cynthia Enloe’s Bananas, Beaches, and Bases (1989) amplifies this theme, providing an important
blueprint for FST and its revisioning of security. By finding gender in national security issues both traditional (military
bases and diplomacy) and innovatively ordinary (sex tourism and women’s peace movements)
Aff Answers
 ALT FAILS—CAPITALISM
Capitalism ruins any chance of alt solvency
Dawn Foster, 1-16-19 (Dawn Foster is a British journalist, broadcaster and author. She
is a columnist for The Guardian newspaper, writing on housing and on inequality and
austerity. She is also a staff writer for Jacobin magazine. "Capitalism is co-opting, &
ruining, the feminist movement," Huck Magazine, 16th January, 2019
https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/capitalism-is-co-opting-
and-ruining-the-feminist-movement/ //EH)
What a comfort it was this week to wake, brew coffee, browse Twitter and head to my bathroom to discover that the brand
of razor I use on my legs promotes women’s rights and feminism. Each time I epilate I can bask in the warm glow of
knowing that my barely conscious consumer choices are part of the onward march of
progress. The fact that three men who sexually harassed me still work in the same industry as me and have faced no
consequences needn’t bother me. That me and practically every woman I know has been sexually
assaulted and is unable to walk home at night in anything other than a state of terror
barely concerns me. The fact that Gillette have made an advert paying lip service to the #MeToo
movement is far more important than the fact barely anything has changed materially for women as a result of the
conversation. Brands’ incursion into modern culture wars is scarcely new: Dove and Pantene have historically been keen
to cast themselves as empowering for women, with advertisements focusing on “real beauty.” What happens when
Gillette, Dove, or any other brand decides to thrust themselves into the shallows of
cultural debate with a poorly executed film short? The ads are shared online, garner
praise and now, with the inevitable bore-fest of the Twitter cycle, attract criticism that
can be eked out into a news story for several days. Yet I cannot bring myself to feel anything other than
a soporific weariness each time a multinational bounds onto the stage with a similarly mawkish stunt. Most
companies tend not to have a conscience, only an agenda: to make as much money as
possible, and sell as many products as they can, by tapping into whatever zeitgeist they
deem most palatable currently. That increasingly means portraying themselves as the face of responsible,
feeling capitalism: something that many would argue is an oxymoron in itself. The brand of soap or razor you buy will
have little impact on anything other than Proctor and Gamble’s profit margins, and the argument that these adverts are
harmless and only helpful to the broader cultural conversation is persuasive on a surface level. But the messages are
because actual structural
always so unthreatening – different people can be pretty! Men, be a little nicer! –
change to challenge sexism, domestic and sexual violence is impossible without
also shaking the foundations of capitalism, and taking direct action. Why have so many
women been assaulted and abused by wealthy and powerful men? Because the value of a human life
is intrinsically entwined with their economic worth under capitalism. Why do
working-class women, and women of colour experience far higher levels of sexual violence, and the men who abuse them
far fewer consequences for their actions? Because women’s work is grossly undervalued, and men in positions of power
seen as uniquely gifted and irreplaceable, and their victims disposable. Very little has changed in terms of prosecuting
rape and sexual assault, and the increased precarity of work and erosion of workers’ rights increases the risks for women
in the workplace and allows victimisation and violence to go unpunished for years. Column inch after column inch has
been written on the outpouring of testimony on sexual assault from women globally, with almost no action as a result. A
small handful of men have had their careers quietly dialled down after decades of behaving despicably with impunity,
while others became worried their moment of public reckoning may be on the horizon. But far more women are almost
catatonic with weariness when accepting the fact that men who’ve targeted them in the past will almost certainly never
face anything approaching justice. Cynical, poorly made marketing campaigns such as Gillette’s,
designed to whip up arguments within late capitalism’s culture wars, aren’t harmless:
they suck the oxygen from the room, failing to demand any recognisable structures
change, bandwagon-jumping on social movements to flog a few more razors. I promise, next
time I’ll take my own advice and try to lead by example: ignore the clumsy, condescending attention-grabbing of the huge
multinational soap-floggers, and protest instead.

The alt will inevitably be coopted by market feminism – extending

neoliberal constrains on notions of gender
Kantola and Squires 12(Johanna Kantola is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the
University of Helsinki. Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory and Dean of the Faculty
Social Science and Law. “From state feminism to market feminism?” p. 382-383. International
Political Science Review. 9/12. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23280016) rr

The concept of 'state feminism' is widely used to refer to the alliances between women's agencies and women's movement
activists, and their effectiveness in getting state responses movement's demands. Since the UN recommendation in 1975
that these agencies should lished in nation states they have spread across the world and become key actors in gender The
role, success and characteristics of these agencies have become the focus for intensive research.1 Recent research has
identified a tendency towards 'changing state feminism', reflects on changes within both state practices
(new forms of governance, New Public welfare state retrenchment, globalization) and
feminism (diversity policies and streaming) (Kantola and Outshoorn, 2007). In this article we focus on one aspect
of these the impact of neoliberalism on both the context in which state feminism is situated (the the
form that it takes (feminism). We argue that the concept 'state feminism' no longer adequately
captures the complexity emerging feminist engagements with new forms of governance. This conviction was by a
recent paper exploring the relation between feminist NGOs and women's policy Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM)
in Chile, which highlighted the fact that this agency seeks private funding for their activities (Stoffel, 2007).2
These femocrats thus no longer turn to the state - as implied by 'state feminism' - but rather to the market
to pursue gender equality. Similarly, a recent study into the funding of women's organizations worldwide found
that there has been a general shift in funding to private foundations (AWID, 2007). This article seeks to
explore these trends, noting that governments have opted for differing degrees of neoliberal market
reform with different consequences for women's policy agencies. Nonetheless, we suggest that 'state
feminists', as government bureaucrats, are often embedded in these reforms, frequently embracing
their logic and structurally unlikely to take a critical stance towards them. The academic 'state
feminism' literature, by contrast, needs to be more circumspect. We suggest that we are witnessing a move from state
feminism to 'market feminism'. We coin the term 'market feminism' as distinct from 'state feminism' to analyse
the ways in which feminist engagements with public policy agendas are increasingly mediated via private sector
organizations according to the logic of the market. This results in gender equality machineries in nation states
becoming ever more embedded in neoliberal market reform. The article gives examples of what we
are labelling 'market feminism' and argues that this move from state feminism to market feminism impacts on both the
political practices and policy priorities of the women's policy agencies. These developments not only change the
relationship between the agencies and the women's movement, but also give primacy to those
feminist claims that are complicit with a market agenda. These changes can also be conceptualized in
terms of the representative process, which is two fold within both state feminism and market feminism, comprising both
the substantive representation of women and the constitutive representation of gender (see Squires, 2008). The substantive
representation of women captures one facet of the representative process, whereby representatives (usually
assumed to be elected parliamentarians) aim to speak on behalf of female constituents by
describing their preferences and consciously held interests (Celis et al., 2008). The
constitutive representation of gender captures another significant facet of the representative process, whereby
representatives (including unelected femocrats and gender experts) articulate these interests in ways that
inevitably privilege particular conceptions of gender relations (Squires, 2008). We work with the
assumption that both state feminism and market feminism are about substantive representation of women and constitutive
representation of gender, which means, for example, that state feminist practices (as a form of
representation) have been both enabling and constraining, constituting gender relations in
particular ways. We suggest that market feminist practices make different sorts of representative claims,
constituting gender relations in new ways - ways which erode the space for the types of
representative claims-making pursued by an earlier generation of state feminists, but which
also facilitate new forms of claim-making.
 ALT FAILS—COOPTION
Their alternative gets coopted by mainstream feminist movements that
inevitably fail
Jessa Crispin, 2-13-2017, (Jessa Crispin is the author of Why I Am Not a Feminist: A
Feminist Manifesto. "The Failures of Mainstream Feminism," New Republic,
https://newrepublic.com/article/140248/failures-mainstream-feminism-misogyny-
doom-hillary-clinton //EH)
On paper, at least, 2016 looked to be a banner year for feminism. As the GOP primary field succumbed to
Donald Trump’s insurgency, Hillary Clinton’s march to the White House seemed all but inevitable. Discussions about rape
on college campuses, workplace harassment, pay disparity, and other feminist issues finally broke through to the
mainstream. A-list celebrities began embracing the word feminism—a significant shift after decades when feminists were
little more than pop-culture punch lines, derided for their humorlessness, earnestness, and ideological single-mindedness.
Seemingly overnight, feminism had become fashionable. Pop stars used the word to sell records, guys used it
to get laid, models used it to push product, writers used it to advance their brand. Like all fashions, it passed. And
like
all fashions, it turned out to be a frivolous, cosmetic change, completely divorced from
the actual lived experience of most women. Instead of the first female president, we now have an accused
sexual predator in the highest office in the land and a proud misogynist homophobe as his deputy and de facto head of
domestic policy. Even more startling, in a way, are the exit polls showing that 53 percent of white women voted for
Trump—and that many of those same women consider themselves feminists. How did we get to this point? How could a
majority of white women choose Trump over the first woman to serve as the presidential standard-bearer for a major
political party—and call themselves feminists while doing so? Now that we appear poised to lose much of the ground
women have gained over the last 40 years, many feminists have taken a cue from Trump and gone on an aggrieved
blaming binge of their own, chalking up the colossal political failures before us to the entrenched misogyny of America’s
voters. But that, too, is a fashionable distraction. The fault here lies with mainstream feminism itself. Over the past several
decades, the gap between mainstream feminists and the daily realities of most American
women has grown wider and deeper. Feminism, as our most prominent, mediagenic
feminists practice it, does little to address the struggles of poor women, rural women,
working women—women, in short, who live outside the sophisticated urban bubbles that
mainstream feminists inhabit. That gap was embarrassingly obvious in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s
defeat. Performance artist and feminist commentator Amanda Palmer, for one, proclaimed that the Trump presidency
would be really, really great for artists. “Having studied Weimar Germany extensively—I’m like, ‘This is our moment!’ ”
she exulted, right before announcing that she was moving to Australia. Girls star and feminist pundit Lena Dunham
hit the rock bottom of elite feminist cluelessness by cavalierly dismissing the emotional
and physical suffering of many women who have terminated unwanted pregnancies. “I
still haven’t had an abortion,” Dunham said on her podcast, “but I wish I had.” Must-reads. 5
days a week. Your email Sign Up Feminist commentators like Lindy West, Jessica Valenti, and Sady Doyle offered up a
nonstop litany of mass recrimination, insisting that Clinton lost solely because of our culture’s deep-seated racism and
misogyny. “Half of the country,” Rebecca Traister concluded in New York, “would prefer to return to the Founders’
original vision, with people of color and women on the margins and white men restored to their place at the center.” This
line of argument conveniently overlooks the more than 29 million women who voted for
Trump—women who felt they would be better served by a preening beauty-pageant
purveyor than by the most accomplished female politician of her generation. The root of
the problem is that feminism has abandoned its core insight. Radical feminists
traditionally believed that the patriarchy was inextricably intertwined with capitalism:
that the entire structure of our society was based on the exploitation of the poor, women,
and nonwhite races. The liberation of women entailed nothing less than the overthrow of
old systems based on competition, greed, and power. There is still a radical wing in feminism. Every
day, activists and organizers are working to improve women’s access to family planning services, mounting nonprofit
efforts to counteract the steady rollback of the welfare state, and combating the neoliberal policy consensus that consigns
But all that slow,
women—and men and children—to acute conditions of inequality and precariousness.
thankless work has been eclipsed by the more prominent voices of
mainstream feminism. To reclaim the truly radical spirit of American feminism, we should call mainstream
feminists something more anodyne: “pro-woman.” The designation seems fitting, since mainstream feminists work to
shore up the status quo, seeking equal access to the system of oppression. That explains why one of the buzzwords favored
by pro-woman commentators is self-empowerment—a term that gained currency on the right in the 1980s to characterize
the individual’s obligation to take responsibility for her position in life. Like much of the policy rhetoric of the Reagan and
Thatcher revolutions, “empowerment” provided a feel-good evasion of the consequences of a
society-wide breakdown in solidarity—and an excuse for overlooking all the ways that the
social order sets women and racial minorities up to fail. As the rest of the political mainstream shifted
in concert with the callow bootstrap social mythologies of Reaganism, so, too, did feminism: Workplace issues like
equal pay and parental leave took a backseat to enlightened self-care and success.
Second-wave feminist icon Gloria Steinem signaled this political sea change in her 1992
self-esteem tract Revolution from Within, and Oprah Winfrey expertly transmuted
feminist political grievance into soft-focus nostrums of self-acceptance, using her own
life story as a didactic case study in the miracles wrought by a gospel of female self-help.
In 2010, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg launched the Lean In franchise, her individualist handbook of corporate
success, with a viral TED talk, she was mainly offering C-suite variations on what was by then a generation’s worth of self-
healing feminist counsel aimed at getting ahead and staying there. The pro-woman power elite peers deeply into the
savage inequalities of American life and asks, in essence, “Where’s my half of the profits?” Under the sway of “self-
empowerment,” feminist progress began to be measured accordingly: how many women serve as CEOs at Fortune 500
companies, or enjoy bylines at male-dominated magazines like The Atlantic, or gain admission to elite business schools.
Much of mainstream feminist discourse likewise focuses on how best to empower yourself via money and work. The pro-
woman power elite peers deeply into the savage inequalities of American life and asks, in essence, “Where’s my half of the
profits?” It was this single-minded pursuit that propelled Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer into the state of corporate abjection
that she now cites as a feminist parable: While at Google, she recounts, she was so hell-bent on besting her male
competitors that she took to sleeping under her desk. But once she became the boss, she put a stop to employees working
from home—thus making it harder for working moms to balance employment and parenthood. Within this cloistered,
corporatized worldview, there’s precious little attention paid to what power should be used for, once it’s won, or what
values we want to see governing our world. Working in your own self-interest is mistaken for a political act, and accruing
money and power becomes an unquestioned feminist goal. Illustration by Luba Lukova Herein lies a partial answer to the
question of how Trump won a white female majority. Rightly or wrongly, the women who voted for Trump decided that it
was in their self-interest to do so. And under the current logic of mainstream feminism, a vote for
Trump can easily be depicted as a feminist act. “I have the right and capability to make
my own decisions, and live the life I choose for myself,” one female Trump supporter told
The Guardian. “A feminist does not blindly do what she is told—she thinks and makes
her own choices.” Well, of course—but this banal line of reasoning points to the very failures of the moral
imagination that have locked mainstream feminism into its present privileged dead-end. When feminism can be used as a
way to justify support for a candidate who boasts about groping women without their consent, and when broader female
access to executive perches in Wall Street and Silicon Valley gets treated as some sort of movement-wide victory, then
something clearly has gone wrong in our understanding of what feminism is and can do. Society progresses reluctantly,
only after a small group of the dedicated and the idealistic insist on it. Women won the right to vote in part because a
handful of suffragists endured imprisonment and torture. During the heyday of second-wave feminism, while most
women’s ambitions were confined to becoming wives and mothers, radical thinkers and reformers took up the fight
against unequal pay and sexual harassment in the workplace and limits on abortions. Today we must continue that fight—
not to place more women in the boardroom, but to construct ways of living and working that are measured by something
greater than money and success. After Hillary Clinton’s defeat, it may look like women lost because we dreamed too big. In
fact, women lost because we dreamed too small.
 ALT FAILS—HIERARCHY
alt fails – hierarchical power dynamics persist even if the alt solves for
racial, ethnic, or national concerns
Shigematsu 18 (Setsu Shigematsu is Associate Professor at CHASS Interdisciplinary South at
Cornell University. “Rethinking Japanese Feminism and the Lessons of Uman Ribu: Toward a
Praxis of Critical Transnational Feminism.” P. 211-212 University of Hawaii Press. 2018.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/ j.ctv3zp07j.20) rr
In To Women with Spirit: Toward a Disorderly Theory of Women’s Liberation (Inochi no onnatachi e: Torimidashi ūman
ribu ron, 1972), Tanaka Mitsu describes a moment of physical harm and violence she inflicted on
another young activist named Sayama Sachi. Sayama joined ribu after running away from an abusive mother. In the
early 1970s, Tanaka and Sayama lived with other activists as members of ribu communes. On one occasion, Tanaka hit
Sayama for not properly turning off the gas.23 At the time, Tanaka was twenty-seven and Sayama was
nineteen. According to Sayama, Tanaka never apologized for how she treated her and the harm she
experienced in their relationship was never addressed or resolved. A de facto power hierarchy in
the movement arose despite ribu’s anti-hierarchical feminist politics.24 Sayama’s experience of the
power dynamics between them, as unequal and even abusive, continued decades later when
ribu activists reunited to work on publishing documents from the movement.25 In this case, the
differences of power between Tanaka and Sayama were not racial, ethnic, or national, since both
activists were Japanese women. However, their relative age, experience, writing skills, and
prestige in the nascent movement constituted differences of power. These power
differences were also gendered insofar as Tanaka became regarded as “the man” (a domineering
authority) and was called the “tennō” (emperor) of the movement by other feminists. After Tanaka left the
movement to live in Mexico, Sayama and several other women began to identify as lesbians.26 They felt
freer to do so because previously Tanaka’s authority had maintained the heteronormative
dominance within the movement. The homophobia and heteronormativity were forms of
micro-violence and aggression among ribu activists addressed by James Welker’s chapter in this volume.
Feminist leaders can become very invested in their authority and use
aggression and deploy other tactics to preserve their power. The root conflict
between these two feminist activists was not in their age/gender difference or relative difference of
power per se, but how that difference of power was expressed and negotiated. In many cases,
the differences of power a priori are not the source of the concern, but rather, what is troubling is how power
differentials are a means to (mis)treat, (dis) respect, and (de)value the other . Power difference
is not always an inherent problem; what is needed is the continual assessment of the effects of power differences. How are
power differences addressed, negotiated, and articulated, and an opportunity for mentoring or abuse? The inability and
refusal to work through, confront, take account of, and heal from such conflictual incidents
remain a feminist conundrum that causes the breakdown of relations in feminist
movements.
 ALT FAILS—OVERSIMPLIFIES
The neg oversimplifies feminist ir theory – the strict binary works to
recreate the patriarchal hierarchy they seek to destroy
Stephan 14 ((Rita Stephan is a foreign affairs officer at the United States Department of State
and a visiting researcher for at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown
University. “War and Gender Performance”. p. 5-7. International Feminist Journal of Politics.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2013.8 49969) rr
The question of incentives here certainly applies to some women who were rewarded for their consent. Complying
with their gender roles made their evacuations safer and less traumatic. However, in most of the stories in
this article, men and women fall along a spectrum between hero and victim, rather than entirely as
one or the other. The protective masculine and vulnerable feminine model represents a
broad view that sometimes abstracts the changes that are taking place on the global level. Patriarchy
ought to be seen “not only as an arrangement of political institutions, but also, and perhaps even
primarily, as a broadly understood value system that revolves around identity constructs which support
and entrench gender-specific hierarchical visions of society” (Bleiker 2000, 32). Looking at the 2006 war
from the micro level, I find that the binary relationship that international relations feminists claim in their
model of patriarchal violence does not always apply, or applies only in a rigidly logical way. The stories in
this study show that women, men and children were all victims of military aggression. However, in some
cases, women were the only agents available to save the children; in other cases, representatives of the patriarchal order,
such as fathers or fathers-in-law, were either left behind or uninvolved. While the men did protect the womenandchildren
in some instances, women, who subscribed to their gender roles as mothers and wives, acted in instances
when men were impotent to act, thus in a sense protecting the men also. While some would argue
that these women’s performances lie outside the realm of gender norms, one could clearly see that
such binary distinction is not possible.
 CASE TURNS THE K
Reducing arms sales is key to challenge gender-based violence and challenge
the masculine nature of weapons
Diack ’16 [Sarah, 09-xx-2016, "The Arms Trade Treaty from a feminist perspective,"
apropos, https://www.swisspeace.ch/apropos/the-arms-trade-treaty-from-a-feminist-
perspective/]//ARW
From the perspective of feminist peace policy, arms exports are fundamentally contradictory to the policy of “human
security”, which aims to reduce non-military threats such as social inequality, human rights violations, poverty, and
hunger. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is the first internationally legally binding instrument ever to go some way towards
counteracting this imbalance: its goal is to alleviate human suffering through binding arms trade standards. As a feminist
peace organization, cfd is dedicated to fighting all gender-based violence (GBV), whether physical or psychological in
nature. Small arms in particular play a fatal role in cases of GBV [gender-based violence] such as
sexualized violence in war and domestic violence. Possession of arms is not gender-
neutral; it reflects power and gender relations that fuel violence and is still strongly linked to the
traditional image of masculinity, even though it is a long time since the modern man has needed weapons to prove his
virility. Yet, firearms continue to reinforce stereotypes and threaten and traumatize women. They
also drastically increase the propensity for violence. According to international comparative studies, people’s physical
safety and sense of security increase when access to arms is restricted. According to Article 7 of the ATT, the arms
trade is illegal if the weapons in question are being used, among other things, to facilitate
or promote serious gender-specific violence. The only way to guarantee a decrease
in GBV and other forms of violence is through consistent compliance with the provisions of the
treaty. Along with other NGOs, cfd is therefore calling for strict enforcement of the ATT, which has also been applicable to
Switzerland since April 2015. As the host country for the ATT’s permanent secretariat, Switzerland has a particular duty in
this respect.
 FRAMEWORK—COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS GOOD
Problem-oriented approaches to gender violence are necessary. Rational,
cost-benefit analysis centric politics are necessary and not determined by
gender, even if they’re informed by them
McNay 14 -- Professor of Political Theory at Oxford University and Fellow of Somerville
College, (Lois, The Misguided Search for the Political, 2014, p. 214-215)
What other features might a radical democratic theory possess that takes seriously the critique of social suffering? It
may be more fruitful to adopt an approach that, at least in the first instance, is
problem- rather than model-oriented. Radical democrats might do better to
develop principles from an initial focus on specific issues of social inequality,
rather than embark at the outset on a quest to distil the essence of the political and from
this derive models into which all concrete struggles are subsequently shoehorned . Of
course, any problem-oriented approach will unavoidably be 'influenced' by theoretical
presuppositions, but it won't necessarily be as ‘driven’ by the rigid logic of the model that
seems to flow from a one-sided focus on political ontology (see Shapiro 2007). It is, after all, a
problem-oriented approach that has informed many other types of radical theorizing, such
as feminism, and has made them suspicious of the formal abstractions of theory that
disregard the distinctiveness of certain group experiences (e.g. Martineau and Squires 2012).
Partly because of its established links with activism, feminist theorizing has more often
than not been propelled, in the first instance, by particular problems relating to
gender inequality and the marginalized experiences of women. Feminist political theorizing about
justice, for instance, starts with the problem of the gendered division of labour, and the undervaluing of women's care
work. It uses this sociological perspective to expose the conceptual deficiencies of asocial
individualism as a device for deriving principles of justice because of the way it obscures
human vulnerability and dependency and thereby fails to recognize care as a fundamental
element of social justice (Bubeck 1995; Fraser 1997; Kittay 1999). Others feminists think through issues of
democratic participation starting from the problem of the underrepresentation of women in [END PAGE 214] established
democratic structures, their effective political invisibility, which is a consequence of their vulnerable position as workers in
transnational production processes (e.g. Fraser 2008; Phillips 1991).
The hope is that a problem-oriented approach to radical democratic theorizing is less likely to
result in the marginalization of the actual and disregard of distinctive group experiences
than are approaches oriented to the issue of ontology. The difficulty with the latter
approaches is that the strategy of temporarily bracketing off social relations in order
to capture the essence of the political turns into a theoretical inability to reintroduce
excluded issues of power without violating the pristine foundational logic that they
claim to have identified. Consxequently, the logic of political ontology is given an
unwarranted primacy that effectively occludes the autonomy and specificity of social
relations and practices. Differently put, in so far as it lacks a sense of mediation, this political anti-
essentialism becomes an essentialism . Thus, Mouffe is unable to address substantive issues about
power that have a direct bearing on her model of democratic agonism because of a misplaced fear of falling into an
essentialism that would violate her rigid linguistic constructivism. Arendtian ideas of political action as creative
inauguration are famously empty, proscribing many issues of subordination and oppression by relegating them to the
realm of social necessity and, therefore, privacy. Although his ontology of abundance is more materialist in nature,
Connolly finds it hard to incorporate types of social experience or practice that do not
conform to his notions of creative becoming and dynamic assemblages. In all these cases,
social being is treated in a tokenistic and cipher-like fashion as simply yet another
empirical exemplification of foundational dynamics of indeterminacy.
Although it is not abstraction per se that causes socially weightless thinking, it may be
that radical democratic theory may be better placed to think about oppression by
deploying abstractions that are, at least in the first instance, sociological rather than
philosophical in nature. The aim of grounding political theory in sociological reconstruction
rather than ontological construction would be to, in Charles W. Mills’s words, 'reflect the
specificities of group experience, thereby potentially generating categories and principles that
illuminate rather than obfuscate the reality of different kinds of subordination'
(2005: 173; also Honneth 2012: 46-8).
 FRAMEWORK—DIALOGUE/RATIONALITY GOOD
Debate guided by minimal guidelines is necessary to actualize feminist
goals---their critique of normative debate about the resolution recreates the
false-divide between reason and affect which excludes women from public
life to begin with
Sarah Sorial 11, Faculty of Arts, The University of Wollongong, Habermas, Feminism,
and Law, Ratio Juris. Vol. 24 No. 1 March 2011 (25–48)
In Between Facts and Norms , Jürgen Habermas develops a proceduralist model of law
that is grounded in deliberative procedures; these procedures are, in turn, grounded in a
system of rights that ensures equal rights of participation in the law making process.
Essential to this conception of legal legitimacy is that the deliberative and decision-
making procedures in question be guided by the discourse principle. The discourse
principle states that: “Just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected
persons could agree as participants in rational discourses” (Habermas1998a, 138). This
new paradigm of law is intended to perform a number of different functions. It is
intended to move beyond both the liberal and welfare models of law, to re-establish the
lost connection between private and public autonomy, and to provide a normative
framework for thinking
about rights and oppression.
My primary aim in this paper is to assess the relevance of Habermas’ proceduralist
model of law for securing feminist objectives. I take these objectives to include the
analysis and critique of patriarchal institutions, concepts and relations; securing the
equal representation of women in public life; protection from rape, sexual harassment,
domestic violence, discrimination in education and the workplace, and the protection of
freedoms in general and reproductive freedoms in particular.1 I suggest that the
proceduralist model can be put to feminist ends in at least two significant ways. First, in
presenting an alternative to the liberal and welfare models of laws, the proceduralist
model offers feminism a way out of the equality/difference dilemma. Both
these attempts to secure women’s equality by emphasising women’s sameness to men or
their difference from men have placed the onus on women to either find a way of
integrating themselves into existing institutions or to confront the so-called question of
women’s difference.2 The proceduralist model renders this dilemma irrelevant. Instead,
it proceeds from the fact of sexual difference; a fact that produces competing and
conflicting needs and interests that require interpretation by both men and women.3
This, I argue, marks a change in the very way we conceptualise the so-called problem of
women’s difference, insofar as the question is no longer framed in these terms. Second, I
argue that this deliberative process over the interpretation of conflicting interests effects
a fundamental shift in the nature of legal institutions themselves, insofar as
law is no longer a vehicle for promoting male interests; a shift that feminists
have long thought necessary to achieve the aforementioned objectives.
My secondary aim is to defend the deliberative model of law from the charge that it is
inherently masculine, and thus, reproduces gender inequality. The emphasis on a public
life governed by reason and rights has been criticized on the grounds that it reproduces a
conception of public reason that has traditionally been used to exclude women. The
deliberative model also assumes that everyone who is affected by an issue has the
capacity to contribute to public debate. It thus ignores the various social, cultural and
familial constraints on one’s capacities to contribute to law making.4
These concerns over public reason, I suggest, not only rest on a misunderstanding of
Habermas’ account of communicative reason, but risk reproducing the very
binaries between reason and affect that have been used to exclude women
from public life.5 With reference to Habermas’ account of communicative rationality,
I demonstrate the way in which one’s ability to contribute to informal public debate does
not depend on one’s intellectual capacities, or education, as contended by these
criticisms, but merely depends on one’s capacity to give reasons—whatever they may
be—for one’s position by way of language. I also demonstrate the way in which these
criticisms fail to distinguish between the cultural and political spheres and between the
spheres of ethics and justice. I conclude by demonstrating the way in which Habermas’
model is actually closer to feminist concerns than feminists have traditionally
conceded.6
 LINK TURN—GENERIC/HUMAN RIGHTS
Arms sales fuel violence against women particularly in
[India/Iraq/Mexico/Saudi Arabia/human rights violating countries]- the
affirmative reduces that
Le Ray ’18 [Laura, 02-26-2018, "Selling Arms is a Feminist Issue," CLANDESTINE,
https://women-politics.com/2018/02/26/selling-arms-is-a-feminist-issue/]//ARW
Because “women’s rights have been hijacked for the purposes of liberal
interventionists,”[1] Because selling arms is not a trade action like another, Because
selling arms should not be justified as an economic matter, a growth driver, a promotion
for defence industries, a diplomatic necessity, or a source of employment, Because
selling arms values business over human rights, because selling arms is ultimately a
political gesture, and because gender matters in politics, then selling arms is a feminist
issue which needs to be acknowledged. At first sight, the link between arms trade and
feminism may not be obvious. But thanks to recent legal developments there is a growing
awareness of the gendered impact of arms trade. Indeed, arms transfer can be directly
implicated in gender-based violence. For example when arms can be used to impose rape
as a weapon of war or to commit domestic violence or femicide. Arms trade can also have
an indirect negative impact on women’s equality and bargaining power within the
household, and on their participation in public and political life by hindering their
mobility, their access to resources and to employment opportunities. However, as
denounced in 2012 by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, Western powers
continue to prioritise investment, trapped in an “inherent conflict between strongly
promoting arms exports to authoritarian regimes whilst strongly criticising their lack of
human rights at the same time.”[2] This indecisive behaviour fuels a counterproductive
process, moving one step forward and two steps back, and this needs to change. In 2014,
the Arms Trade Treaty came into force, ratified by 94 countries. Under the action of
organisations such as the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), a
gender dimension was included. Article 7(4) of the treaty makes it mandatory for arms
exporting countries to assess the risk that their weapons will be used in the commission
of gender-based violence and deny authorization of any sales that present an overriding
risk. However, there are no clear guidelines on the mechanism to assess whether any
transferred arms will contribute to gender-based violence. Consequently, many
signatories of the treaty like Germany are still selling arms to countries like India where
violence against women is rooted in gendered social structures, to Iraq where ISIS
specifically targets women for sexual slavery and forced prostitution, or to Mexico which
ranked 10th in cases of femicide perpetrated with firearms in 2015. Another example is
the British government which allowed £4.6bn arms sales with Saudi Arabia since 2015
while Saudi Arabia plays a leading role in the coalition intervention in Yemen where
women suffer disproportionately due to forced displacement, trafficking, lack of access to
health and destruction of houses, markets, etc.[3] Furthermore, in September 2017, the
US government signed a $593m arms deal with the Nigerian military, including the
supply of A-29 Super Tucano warplanes manufactured by Pratt and Whitney in Canada,
which will be part of the Nigerian Air Force, used in the past to bomb refugee camps.
Thus, Canada’s Trudeau-led ‘feminist’ government is arming one of the world’s most
repressive and anti-feminist governments. This inconsistency reveals a
“compartmentalised version of feminism,”[4] conveniently empowering local women but
without any true concern for the world’s women. Hence, in conflicts, crimes against
women are overlooked and ignored by Western leaders who stress the importance of
human rights and women’s rights but fall silent on these issues as soon as economic and
political interests are at stake. As observed by the IANSA’s women network, “the massive
international exports of guns sustain gender-based violence as a pillar of
international and national patriarchy.”[5] Yet, women’s security is directly related
to both national and international security. According to Valerie M. Hudson, “the very
best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated.”[6] Thus, in
2014, Sweden launched its feminist foreign policy. Margot Wallström, the Swedish
Foreign Minister, promoted the idea that all of Sweden’s decision-making would be
informed by its vision for women’s empowerment, and that striving towards gender
equality should be a precondition to achieve wider security-policy objectives. Indeed, as
mentioned by Ann Bernes, Sweden’s Ambassador for Gender Equality at the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, “you can’t be successful unless you apply a perspective where you look at
whole populations and whole societies. If you don’t do that, you’re partially blind.”[7] In
2015, Margot Wallström refused the cooperation on arms deal with Saudi Arabia and
denounced the Saudi authorities’ attitude to human rights ast incompatible with a
feminist foreign policy. However, this decision led to a diplomatic crisis. Wallström’s
decision was condemned by the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Saudi Arabia cut ties with
Sweden. This type of backlash against progress is intolerable, governments should not
have to choose between feminism and their foreign policy. A feminist perspective is not
an idealistic agenda interfering in the realpolitik power struggles between nations. It is
rather a method of analysis challenging the “Western dominant, realism-focused
approach to foreign policy” as explained by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy.[8] It
is time to focus on what can be done to bridge the gap between the rhetoric and practice
on the issue of arms trade and more broadly in the field of foreign policy. First of all, to
improve transparency around arms transfer and ensure the application of the ATT,
specific criteria need to be developed to assess whether arms transfers will contribute to
gender based violence. Furthermore, the political narrative legitimizing arms trade must
be deconstructed. Indeed, as observed by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the “most
pervasive” justification is that of jobs. However, research shows that a move towards
offshore wind and marine energy could produce more employment than the arms
industry.[9] Then a key element to achieve feminist foreign policy is to promote women’s
political participation and leadership. Only feminist foreign policy will allow us to fully
understand the consequences of states’ decisions on human experience, such as arms
trade, and to create better and viable policies in theory and in practice.
 LINK TURN—SAUDI ARABIA
Reducing arms sales to Saudi Arabia is a way to pragmatically reduce
violence against women and a goal of feminist foreign policy
Regehr 5-8 [Ernie, 05-08-2019, "Article Review 115 on “A Nation of Feminist Arms
Dealers? Canada and Military Exports.”," H-Diplo | ISSF,
https://issforum.org/articlereviews/115-feminist-arms-dealers]//ARW
Canadian military export policies came to unusual public attention following Canada’s
2014 agreement to sell $15 billion worth of armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The deal
was negotiated under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper
and was subsequently given official approval, through the granting of export permits, by
the Liberal Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was elected in 2015. In
the debate that ensued, the greater indignation was reserved for the Liberals, who had
come to power on the promise of a return to multilateralism and re-engagement with the
United Nations—a posture that raised expectations of a renewed exercise of Pearsonian
internationalism [1] rather than of record-breaking arms sales to one of the world’s most
egregious violators of global human rights standards. Canadian military export policies
came to unusual public attention following Canada’s 2014 agreement to sell $15 billion
worth of armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The deal was negotiated under the
Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and was subsequently given
official approval, through the granting of export permits, by the Liberal Government of
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was elected in 2015. In the debate that ensued, the
greater indignation was reserved for the Liberals, who had come to power on the promise
of a return to multilateralism and re-engagement with the United Nations—a posture
that raised expectations of a renewed exercise of Pearsonian internationalism [1] rather
than of record-breaking arms sales to one of the world’s most egregious violators of
global human rights standards. Happily, the controversy also caught the attention of
Canadian academics. The University of Ottawa’s Srdjan Vucetic uses the occasion and
arms exports more broadly as a test case to explore the extent to which successive Liberal
and Conservative governments adhered to what had been a long-term foreign policy
consensus between Canada’s two primary political parties—one or the other of which
having led the federal government since World War II. In “A nation of feminist arms
dealers? Canada and military exports,” he asks three key questions. Have Liberal and
Conservative governments been equally permissive, or restrictive, in permitting
Canadian-built military commodities to go to destinations with records of serious human
rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations? How do Canadian military
export practices compare with those of like-minded states? And, notably, how have the
military export policies of the current Liberal government of Justin Trudeau been
impacted by its prominent embrace of feminism? On the latter question, the current
Canadian Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, describes the Liberal government as
proudly feminist. She declares “women’s rights” to be “human rights,” and along with
“gender equality,” those rights are said to be at the core of the Government’s foreign and
international assistance policies.[2] Sweden’s Foreign Minister, Margot Wallstrom, was
the first to promote the idea of a “feminist foreign policy,” proffering it as a stand
“against the systematic and global subordination of women.” She sees advancement of
the rights and welfare of women as a “precondition” for achieving wider international
development and security policy objectives. Gender equality is put forward as a central
principle and regarded as a potent ingredient in combating terrorism and supporting
economic growth and public health.[3] The Saudi deal The language of a feminist foreign
policy is unequivocal and confidently progressive, making it reasonable to expect that
adherents to its tenets would be disinclined to support the sale of weapons of repression
and war to states best known for their systematic subordination of women. But both
Sweden and Canada have supplied arms to Saudi Arabia. In Canada’s case, when the
current Liberal government took power in 2015, Canada had for almost 30 years been
shipping Canadian-built armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia’s National Guard—the
National Guard’s key attribute being loyalty to the Royal Family, and its key mandate
being to protect the Saudi Royals from dissidents, coup attempts, and, ultimately,
democracy. The 2014 deal, the details of which emerged primarily due to the efforts of
non-governmental researchers and investigative journalists, drew unusual public
attention given its size, and also in response to persistent reports of Saudi violations of
international norms, both at home and in Yemen. As summarized by the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),[4] the deal committed General Dynamics Land
Systems-Canada (GDLS) of London, Ontario, a subsidiary of the US General Dynamics,
to deliver 928 armored vehicles, 354 of which were characterized as troop carriers, 119 as
“heavy assault” vehicles with 105 millimeter canons, another 119 as anti-tank vehicles,
with another 119 designated “direct fire” support vehicles with 30 millimeter chain guns,
the rest being ambulances, mobile command posts, recovery vehicles, and VIP
transporters. When the deal was signed, Prime Minister Harper called them “trucks,”
and when the export permits were granted, Prime Minister Trudeau called them “jeeps.”
The CBC uncovered an important detail that helped to explain the deal’s high dollar
value—namely, that the deal “involves a 14-year support program that covers
ammunition, crew ‘training in Canada/Europe’ and ‘embedded’ maintenance, with a fleet
management team in 13 workshops.”[5] Canadian military exports to human rights
violators Assessing Canadian exports to countries inclined to violate human rights and
IHL is not as straight forward as it should be. Canada reports on its annual exports of
military commodities (major systems as well as sub-systems, components, and parts) to
all destinations, with one major exception. It does not report on sales to Canada’s
number one customer, the United States.[6] And while some critics may quarrel with
America’s own record of respect for IHL in certain circumstances, the more immediate
problem is that major Canadian-built subsystems, like aircraft engines, and components
are incorporated into major military systems in the U.S. and then sold to third-party end
users, and Canada makes no effort to track those military sub-systems and commodities
to their final destination. Canadian reporting also does not include sales of civilian
systems (like helicopters with a civilian designation) to military end-users (for example,
Canadian-built civilian helicopters sold to the Pakistan military). All of which means that
Canadian-generated military export data are not easily compared with those of other
states. Vucetic thus relies on the standardized military transfer records developed by the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)[7] rather than Canadian
reporting. That has its own challenges, since the SIPRI data includes only major systems
transfers—excluding small arms as well as subsystems. That means that most Canadian
military exports are not included in his analysis, but the focus on major systems,
including some civilian systems going to military end-users that SIPRI includes, affords
a credible and important window on Canadian military export decision-making. Vucetic
compensates for SIPRI’s exclusion of small arms by including data from the Norwegian
Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT).[8] Vucetic looks at Canadian military
exports 1970 to 2015, a period in which Liberals and Conservatives alternated as the
governing parties. While there were certainly fluctuations in levels of military exports
during that period, the data leads Vucetic to conclude that “the highs and lows of
Canada’s exports have little to do with the party in power” (507). He also compares
Canada’s overall military exports with those of two ‘like-minded’ countries, Sweden and
the Netherlands, both of which show higher exports than Canada; in Sweden’s case they
are significantly higher (Sweden’s industry is oriented to building major weapons
systems, while Canada is focused more on components and sub-systems, the majority of
which go to the U.S. and are not, as already noted, included in the SIPRI data). The
author also compares the records of the three countries in military sales to human rights
and IHL violating countries, with Vucetic including a clear explanation of the
methodology for measuring the human rights records of recipient states. The results
indicate that the three like-minded exporters have similar records for exports in the
years 1981-2010, but the data does suggest that Canada was slightly more inclined than
the other two to ship military commodities to serious human rights violator countries.
While 70 percent or more of arms transfers from Netherlands and Sweden went to states
with “very good” or “good” human rights records, in Canada’s case it was about 65
percent. Some 15 percent of Canadian military experts went to states with “bad” or “very
bad” human rights records, compared with 14 percent in the case of Netherlands and 10
percent for Sweden. Overall, however, Vucetic judges these three “global good
Samaritans” as having similar records. Throughout most of the 1981-2010 period,
Canada was exporting armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia, so it is likely that the Saudis
account for most of Canadian sales to states with problematic human rights records.
Export Guidelines, the ATT, and Feminist Foreign Policy Canada has now acceded to the
2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)[9]—the ratification legislation having worked its way
through Parliament by late 2018. That begs an obvious question—will adherence to the
ATT bring Canadian military exports into closer alignment with what might be
reasonably expected from a feminist foreign policy? Vucetic puts it bluntly: “If, indeed,
the Canadian government truly wishes to help build gender-equitable
societies around the world, then a good place to start would be nixing
massive arms sales to countries with lousy records on women’s rights” (517).
At the close of 2018 some newspaper articles suggested that Canada was looking for ways
to terminate the current armored vehicle deal with Saudi Arabia,[10] but does that mean
that the ATT, and a feminist foreign policy, will shift decision-making in the future? The
ATT, among other provisions, reinforces the existing Canadian guideline on military
exports to countries with records of serious and persistent violations of human rights. In
neither case is there any broad prohibition based on a state’s overall record on human
rights. Rather, exports are to be restricted or prohibited if there is evidence of a serious
risk that the specific commodities being transferred will be used to violate human rights
or international humanitarian law. Canadian policymakers have formulated the principle
as follows: “Canada closely controls the export of military goods and technology to
countries whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human
rights of their citizens, unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that
the goods might be used against the civilian population.”[11] The formulation of that
same principle in the Arms Trade Treaty comes in Article 6 (Prohibitions), sub-
paragraph 3: “A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms…if it
has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the
commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva
Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as
such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which it is a Party.”
Article 7 (Export Assessment), paragraph 1. (b), (ii) requires that any export not already
prohibited under Article 6 be reviewed “in an objective and non-discriminatory manner,”
to “…assess the potential that the conventional arms or items…could be used to…commit
or facilitate a serious violation of international human rights law.” Paragraph 3 of Article
7 directs that if that assessment identifies an “overriding risk” that the military
commodity being exported would be used in the serious violations referred to in
paragraph 1 (for example, of international human rights law), then “the exporting State
Party shall not authorize the export.” In other words, neither Canadian guidelines nor
the ATT set out a general prohibition on the export of arms to states which are guilty of
serious and systematic human rights violations. They only prohibit the export of military
commodities when, at the time of the export, there is in the considered view of the
exporting state a serious risk that those particular commodities will be used against
civilians or in the violation of the laws of war or human rights. The usual rationale for
formulating the restriction in this conditional way is the assumption that even states
with serious records of human rights abuse have obligations to protect sovereignty and
territorial integrity. For example, Saudi Arabia has a long coastline and has an obligation
to patrol it, so under this formulation it would be regarded as legitimate to sell coastal
patrol vessels to Saudi Arabia on grounds that they are needed for national security and
that there is little risk that they would be used to violate the rights of Saudis. During the
negotiations of the ATT, many experts and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
rightly advanced the view that any weapons sales to countries engaged in gross and
systematic violations of human rights should be prohibited, whether or not those
particular weapons were likely to be directly used to commit human rights violations, on
grounds that any weapons bolster state power and authority, the very authority that
systematically violates the rights of its people. That, however, is not the operating
principle in either the Canadian guidelines or the ATT. The current Liberal government
relied heavily on the principle that the ATT embodies when video clips emerged showing
that Canadian-built armored vehicles, or models just like them, were involved in
operations by Saudi Forces to quell dissent in the prominently Shia region of Al-
Awamiyah. The Government’s investigation found “no conclusive evidence that
Canadian made vehicles were used in human rights violations,”[12] and insisted there
was “no verified, credible information that Saudi security forces …committed serious
human rights violations in the conduct of the current operation in Al-Awamiyah,”
whether or not Canadian built armored vehicles were involved.[13] Critics found major
shortcomings in the investigations, and key NGOs called for a new, “independent,
external review into reports of misuse of Canadian military exports by Saudi Arabia.”[14]
As the Saudi deal suggests, Canadian guidelines and the ATT are likely to become
significant factors in producing a military export practice that honors feminist values and
stands against the subordination of women only when heightened political engagement
demands accountability. In February 2018 Foreign Minister Freeland announced that a
“substantial risk clause” would become part of Canadian law, meaning that the
Government “would need to ensure that [it has] a high level of confidence that [military]
exports will not be used to commit human rights abuses.”[15] The ATT also places a
major burden of proof on exporters to credibly assess risk, and that makes Article 13
(Reporting) a key provision of the ATT. It requires states parties to the Treaty to submit
annual reports of “authorized or actual exports and imports of conventional arms”
covered by the Treaty. Indeed, Article 5.5 calls for each state party to maintain a
“transparent national control system.” Transparency is key. Implementation of the
Treaty is primarily a political, not a legal or law-enforcement, challenge. There is no
sheriff to issue an arrest warrant if the Treaty is violated.[16] Implementation rests on
national assessments of risk, which, inevitably, are colored by competing national
interests, by international and regional entanglements and influences, and so on—
making it critically important that the interpretation process is transparent and exposed
to the light of public scrutiny, to the judgements and corrective interpretations of peer
states, to evidence gathered by NGOs and think tanks, and to the analysis of independent
researchers like Srdjan Vucetic. Neither declarations of feminist ideals nor the ATT will
quickly alter behaviour in the international arms trade, but with improved and persistent
public scrutiny and with clear demands for accountability of those who sell and authorize
the transfers of military commodities, clearly articulated ideals and clearly defined
Treaty obligations will constitute important new tools in the pursuit of restraint and
responsibility in that trade.
 LEGAL ACTION GOOD
Legal action is effective in the context of sexual violence and challenges
traditional perceptions of rationality and objectivity
Catharine Mackinnon 17 (Catharine Mackinnon is an Elizabeth A. Long professor of
law at the University of Michigan, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School. April 17th, 2017, “Butterfly Politics”, pgs 61-62 //EH)
The question—can this state make change in women’s interest—arises in some form for all feminist
goals. The law against sexual harassment often seems to turn women’s demand to control
our own sexuality into a request for paternal protection, leaving the impression that it is
more traditional morality and less women’s power that is vindicated.26 Can organizing
prevent what has happened with rape, in which legal proof requirements reflect a vision
of the injury that is far from the actuality of rape, yet women tend to feel they have not
been raped if they could not prove it to the law’s satisfaction? The law against sexual
harassment has helped many women name their oppression and has reduced the stigma
of victimization. Restrictions on the cause of action and losses at trial could take back
this sense of legitimate outrage. Creating and pursuing a legal cause of action for the
injury of sexual harassment has revealed that different social circumstances, of which
gender is one, tend to produce different stakes, interests, perceptions, and cultural
definitions of rationality itself. This awareness neither reduces legal rules to pure relative
subjectivity nor principle to whose ox is gored.27 It does challenge the conception that neutrality,28
including sex-neutrality, with its correlate, objectivity, is adequate to the nonneutral, sexually objectified,
social reality women experience. It urges the priority of defining women’s injuries as
women perceive them. Andrea Dworkin has written: “One can be excited about ideas without
changing at all. One can think about ideas, talk about ideas, without changing at all,
people are willing to think about many things. What people refuse to do, or are not
permitted to do, or resist doing, is to change the way they think.”29 Whether traditional
legal approaches to discrimination are a way of thinking or something thought about, the
law may need to confront not only what, but also the way, it thinks about women to
achieve its commitment to sex equality.

Incremental reform is particularly useful in combatting gendered systems

Catharine Mackinnon 17 (Catharine Mackinnon is an Elizabeth A. Long professor of
law at the University of Michigan, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School. April 17th, 2017, “Butterfly Politics”, pgs 61-62 //EH)
Butterfly politics means the right small human intervention in an unstable political
system can sooner or later have large complex reverberations. As an organizing metaphor and
central conceit for this volume, it coheres forty years of flights of activism that, through recursion
in a collective context, have eventuated or are eventuating in storms, sometimes
tornados, in gender relations through law. Encompassing legal and political
interventions from 1976 to 2016, this volume collects moments of attempts to change the
inequality of women to men and reflections on those attempts. As advocacy, many of the
pieces mark the first time a particular idea showed its face in public, an idea that has now
become established or at least familiar. The work on substantive equality, torture, and
rape as a genocidal weapon are examples.4 Other pieces initiate or urge changes that are still in process or
have yet to take place, for example in the legal approach to prostitution, despite considerable social movement and
momentum.5 This also characterizes the initiatives against pornography and rape, and for a
constitutional equality amendment.6 Many of the discursive moments captured here proved decisively
initiatory, such as the testimony on pornography in Minneapolis.7 The reverberations set off are still gathering force.
Others reflect on and cohere a series of such moments or consider their costs, attempting to grasp the dynamic processes
at work.8 The waves of some moments captured here, especially those involving
academia—a sphere more resistant to change than society or law—still reverberate
almost silently by most external measures.9 Some of these talks are closer to pure protest and dissent.
Almost all of these writings were spoken first; the remaining few that were written first were dialogic in conception and
written by ear.10 In terms of their resonating effects, their music—harmonies, dissonances, rhythms—matters as much as
their words. They retain the interactive dynamics of their audiences. If the approaches to law in this volume are in some
sense deeply American, meaning they come from everywhere, in their travels they have been deeply imprinted by women
everywhere, becoming collaborative with the audiences to which they were, in the moments captured here, given. Even the
pieces in reflective mode were conceived as moving ripples on an ongoing tide, aiming—hopefully including through this
present iteration—not to predict or describe but to alter their world. Some of the changes undertaken here remain in
glacial near-stasis, even if tectonic shifts are gathering down deep. Some are in an ongoing process of being accomplished.
Some can be considered essentially achieved in the sense of moving in the right direction. The project of every one is
change. I am regularly asked, often with a tone of incredulity, how I do what I do in law. Part of the puzzlement
arises because it is apparently difficult to accept that some ideas, especially ideas that
have become common currency, had an actual origin. The butterfly theory is a partial
response. A butterfly politics highlights crucial dimensions of legal political
activism, including the domain of action, strategic choice of moments of initiation,
dynamics of intervention and blowback and its anticipation, and the collaborative effects
of collective recursion. As to the nature of the domain, if any social system is complex and
unstable, it is sex inequality. Complex, among other reasons, because of its simultaneous multiple interacting
variables including race and class and sexuality and age. Intrinsically unstable, not least because it is predicated on the lie
of women’s natural inferiority to men and men’s natural superiority to women, termed difference in ideological and legal
and common parlance. Life, given half a chance, refutes it every day. The extraordinary tenacity of such a system for
structuring and distributing power, including hierarchy of status—making it political—in the face of evidence and
contestation of its false basis and some acknowledgment of its injustice has, when not taken for granted, frequently baffled
analysts and frustrated activ ists. A major reason for its persistence is that dominant approaches
to inequality have misdiagnosed the nature of the system, hence the necessary
interventions to change it, including its structures, vectors, and trajectories, its flexible
genius for indulgences and deprivations, including its rendering of the social status quo
baseline as natural. By taking a different tack, some of the most substantial changes made
in sex inequality through law —a number of which this book reflects and reflects upon—have occurred
through unconventional and unprecedented approaches and arguments, usually with no institutional backing . A
butterfly opening its wings can produce cyclones, or at least thunder claps, worldwide. The
legal claim for sexual harassment,11 with the substantive theory of equality embedded in it and
growing out of it, exemplifies this dynamic in spades. Butterfly politics is one way to understand how critical
intervention can affect systemic transformation in the gender system. If the appropriateness of the metaphor is
recognizable, its application to legal strategy for social change, specifically to a politics of action toward ending gender
inequality through law, is new. Thinking about society and politics scientifically, producing the social sciences, is based on
analogy to begin with, adapting to social life tools typically first developed in the physical sciences. Other scientific
metaphors, such as evolution or path dependence,12 have stimulated legal thinking rather than being used as rigid
templates.13 These metaphors can also help focus overlooked variables. For instance, Paul Ormerod usefully pointed out
in his Butterfly Economics adaptation of the butterfly theory that existing economic models, because they failed to take
account of the influence of consumers on each other, made accurate economic prediction difficult.14 Relationships matter.
They matter and can be overlooked in politics as well, especially given that men and women are often found in
relationship with one another. Indeed, change in the patterns of those relationships is the goal of
some sex equality initiatives.
 NO PRIOR QUESTIONS
Prior questions will never be fully settled---must take action even under
conditions of uncertainty
Molly Cochran 99, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Georgia Institute for
Technology, “Normative Theory in International Relations”, 1999, pg. 272
To conclude this chapter, while modernist and postmodernist debates continue, while we are still
unsure as to what we can legitimately identify as a feminist ethical/political concern, while
we still are unclear about the relationship between discourse and experience , it is
particularly important for feminists that we proceed with analysis of both the material
(institutional and structural) as well as the discursive. This holds not only for feminists, but for all theorists
oriented towards the goal of extending further moral inclusion in the present social
sciences climate of epistemological uncertainty. Important ethical/ political concerns hang
in the balance. We cannot afford to wait for the meta-theoretical questions to be
conclusively answered . Those answers may be unavailable. Nor can we wait for a
credible vision of an alt ernative institutional order to appear before an emancipatory agenda
can be kicked into gear. Nor do we have before us a chicken and egg question of which comes
first: sorting out the metatheoretical issues or working out which practices contribute to
a credible institutional vision. The two questions can and should be pursued together, and
can be via moral imagination. Imagination can help us think beyond discursive and material conditions which
limit us, by pushing the boundaries of those limitations in thought and examining what yields. In this respect, I believe
international ethics as pragmatic critique can be a useful ally to feminist and normative theorists generally.
 NO ROOT CAUSE
Patriarchy isn’t the root cause—if it is, it proves the alt can’t resolve it
alone—the perm is key
Gunnarsson, et al, 16—Örebro University (Lena, with Angela Martinez Dy,
Loughborough University London, and Michiel van Ingen, University of Westminster,
“Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism: Exchanges, Challenges, Synergies,” Journal of
Critical Realism, 15:5, 433-439, dml)

It should be noted, however, that not all of the contributors to this special issue are in fact committed to the adoption of a
critical realist philosophical framework in this way. Gillman, Smirthwaite and Swahnberg, and Griffiths take something of
an outsider’s or newcomer’s perspective with regard to critical realist philosophy. While these authors relate to critical
realism as a framework of interest, none wholeheartedly subscribe to it. As editors of this special issue we were very
pleased to receive such contributions, as respectful engagements and interested conversations between critical realists and
proponents of perspectives that are more commonly adopted by feminist theorists and gender scholars have unfortunately
continued to be few and far between. Sue Clegg, Dimitri Mader and Michiel van Ingen, however, clearly write much more
from within the parameters of critical realist philosophy, using its meta-theoretical framework as a means of making
interventions in important feminist debates. Although Clegg, in her piece on intersectionality, does engage in some
(critical) conversation with popular poststructuralist versions of intersectional theorizing, for instance, the main purpose
of her article is to use critical realism as a philosophical underlabourer in order to think through various issues currently
arising in discussions about intersectional theory, particularly the relationship between structure and agency. Mader’s
contribution also centres on the structure/agency problematic and, like Clegg, draws especially on Margaret Archer’s
work. However, whereas Clegg explicitly intervenes in intersectionality theory, whose proponents
foreground the multiplicity of different forms of positioning and are often
suspicious of an exclusive focus on gender, Mader’s contribution implicitly challenges the
‘intersectional imperative’ (Wiegman 1999, 376) by focusing on the gendered power structure in
abstraction from other power relations . There is therefore a crucial (if not explicit) philosophical
link between Clegg’s and Mader’s contributions, insofar as the former, while being mainly concerned with intersectionality
theory, also argues in favour of engaging in exactly the kind of non-intersectional, ‘separatist’ (Gunnarsson 2015, 10)
theoretical projects that Mader’s article exemplifies with its in-depth focus on gendered dominance. Such feminist
endeavours, which seek to trace the basic causal mechanisms of patriarchy, have
been increasingly difficult to carry out in the contemporary theoretical climate, and
this is in significant part due to both the aforementioned intersectional imperative and the more general poststructuralist
taboo on structural forms of theorizing.
Importantly, however, it is not intersectional forms of theorizing as such that are considered problematic by critical realist
authors such as Clegg and Mader. The basic intersectional claim that social situations, identities and
practices are conditioned by a range of intersecting power relations is arguably
indisputable . Indeed, it is telling that authors and activists who persist in ignoring that this is the case are
generally those who are subordinated only in terms of one, or no, social axis of power. However, while analyses of
how different power relations and categorizations complexly intersect are pivotal, they do not
allow us to do the equally important work of theorizing, in an in-depth and
abstracted manner, the basic causal mechanisms that are exercised by the
social/cultural structures that are ‘doing’ the intersecting at a concrete level (cf. Walby,
Armstrong and Strid 2012; Martinez Dy, Martin and Marlow 2014; Gunnarsson 2015). As Clegg shows, however, the
stratified ontology of critical realism provides helpful forms of support for theorists who wish to carry out analyses at
different levels of abstraction. That is to say, it facilitates intersectional analysis where it is needed in order to understand
the multi-layered fabric of social life, while not closing the door to ‘nonintersectional’ analyses that focus on how one
specific categorical and structural dimension of this social life causally affects a situation of interest. What sets Mader’s
contribution to theorizing gender-based domination apart from secondwave, single-issue feminist theory, however, is its
engagement with contemporary debates, reflected in the explicit incorporation of the implications of his work for
intersectional analyses.
Intersectionality thus continues to be a topic of significance for the development of critical realist feminism. In her review of Vivian May’s book Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant
Imaginaries (2015), for instance, Angela Martinez Dy contextualizes May’s discussion of the intersectional turn away from structural theory in the history of the philosophy of science and the
feminist turn towards poststructuralism. She then points to various possibilities for a realist development of intersectional theory that affirms its key role in social analysis. For example, whereas
May sees the critical realist imperative to retain the validity of categories like ‘woman’ (Gunnarsson 2011) as possibly promoting a problematic gender-first logic, Martinez Dy argues that a critical
realist approach, informed by the body of knowledge on intersectionality reviewed in detail in May’s book, can be used to develop the meanings of the categories themselves to allow for much
greater complexity and nuance. In her review of Susan Hekman’s book The Feminine Subject (2014), Alison Assiter similarly addresses what she sees as the problematic tendency of certain
feminist and gender studies approaches to emphasize differences among women over and against those features that they have in common. Whereas poststructuralist scholars have sought to retain
‘women’ as a politically necessary category by means of ‘strategic’ essentialism (Spivak 1987) and the like, Assiter does not shy away from talking about a real ‘universal essence to women’, in the
simple sense of ‘characteristics in virtue of which women are described as women’ (p. 549). While Assiter does not specify the precise role of biological as opposed to social/ cultural forms of
determination in this respect, Martinez Dy points out that the stratified, emergentist critical realist view can account for the significance of biological factors, while avoiding determinism and
reductionism. Her argument thereby engages in an implicit dialogue with Griffith’s contribution, which favours the adoption of a sceptical approach towards the work of critical realist authors
(especially New 2005) who have sought to maintain clear distinctions between sex and gender as well as between the (two) sexes, as such distinctions are at odds with prominent queer
perspectives that reject the postulation of stable foundations for gendered identities. As Griffith’s article illustrates, queer theorists tend to see the existence of both intersex and trans persons as
evidence of the indeterminacy of biological sex. Critical realists, instead, have sought to retain the notion of a structuring biological foundation, interpreting the diversity of gender expressions not
as something that undermines structuredness but as something that demonstrates that (relative) structuredness can co-exist with (relative) variety and irregularity (Hull 2006; Gunnarsson 2013,
2014).

In conclusion, feminist theory has long acknowledged the importance of situated knowledges (or, in
critical realist terms,epistemic relativism ), and has called for the coming together of
various different vantage points so that reality may be better understood . We hope
that this special issue puts such ideas into practice, and that it illustrates how multiple philosophical
perspectives, when placed into conversation with each other, can help us to achieve
a synergetic end that is greater than the sum of its parts . Although there are some
empirical aspects to the pieces that have been included, the contributions in this volume primarily have a theoretical
theoretical ground-
thrust. This is intentional. One final aim of this special issue is for it to engage in a kind of
clearing that reconciles tensions, points out commonalities, and signposts
promising paths, in an attempt to take us just a few steps further through the
forest of conflicting feminist perspectives , both extant and emerging. We hope that the pieces that
are included here encourage the use of critical realist philosophy, in dialogue with feminist and gender theory, so that new
and stimulating forms of theoretical and empirical research may take place.

Their patriarchy impacts are reductionist, essentialist, and fracture

resistance
Crenshaw 2 [Carrie Crenshaw PhD, Former President of CEDA, “Perspectives In
Controversy: Selected Articles from Contemporary Argumentation and Debate” 2002 p.
119-126]
Feminism is not dead. It is alive and well in intercollegiate debate. Increasingly, students rely on feminist authors to
inform their analysis of resolutions. While I applaud these initial efforts to explore feminist thought, I am concerned that such
arguments only exemplify the general absence of sound causal reasoning in debate
rounds. Poor causal reasoning results from a debate practice that privileges empirical proof
over rhetorical proof, fostering ignorance of the subject matter being debated. To illustrate my point, I claim that debate
arguments about feminists suffer from a reductionism that tends to marginalize the voices of
significant feminist authors. David Zarefsky made a persuasive case for the value of causal reasoning in intercollegiate debate as far back as 1979. He argued
that causal arguments are desirable for four reasons. First , causal analysis increases the

control of the arguer over events by promoting understanding of them. Second, the use of causal
reasoning increases rigor of analysis and fairness in the decision-making process. Third, causal
arguments promote understanding of the philosophical paradox that presumably
good people tolerate the existence of evil. Finally, causal reasoning supplies good reasons
for “commitments to policy choices or to systems of belief which transcend whim, caprice, or the non-reflexive “claims
of immediacy” (117-9). Rhetorical proof plays an important role in the analysis of causal relationships. This is true despite the common
assumption that the identification of cause and effect relies solely upon empirical investigation. For Zarefsky, there are three types of causal reasoning. The first type of causal reasoning
describes the application of a covering law to account for physical or material conditions that cause a resulting event This type of causal reasoning requires empirical proof prominent in
scientific investigation. A second type of causal reasoning requires the assignment of responsibility. Responsible human beings as agents cause certain events to happen; that is, causation
resides in human beings (107-08). A third type of causal claim explains the existence of a causal relationship. It functions “to provide reasons to justify a belief that a causal connection

exists” (108). The second and third types of causal arguments rely on rhetorical proof, the provision of “good reasons”
to substantiate arguments about human responsibility or explanations for the existence of a causal relationship (108). I
contend that the practice of intercollegiate debate privileges the first type of causal analysis. It reduces questions of human motivation

and explanation to a level of empiricism appropriate only for causal questions

concerning physical or material conditions. Arguments about feminism clearly illustrate this phenomenon. Substantive
debates about feminism usually take one of two forms. First, on the affirmative, debaters argue that
some aspect of the resolution is a manifestation of patriarchy. For example, given the spring 1992 resolution,
“[rjesolved: That advertising degrades the quality of life," many affirmatives argued that the portrayal of women as beautiful objects for men's consumption is a manifestation of patriarchy

The fall 1992 topic, "(rjesolved: That the welfare system

that results in tangible harms to women such as rising rates of eating disorders.

exacerbates the problems of the urban poor in the United States," also had its share of
patri- archy cases. Affirmatives typically argued that women's dependence upon a
patriarchal welfare system results in increasing rates of women's poverty. In addition to these
concrete harms to individual women, most affirmatives on both topics, desiring "big impacts," argued that the effects of
patriarchy include nightmarish totalitarianism and/or nuclear annihilation. On the negative, many debaters countered with arguments that the
some aspect of the resolution in some way sustains or energizes the feminist movement in resistance to patriarchal harms. For example, some negatives argued that sexist advertising
provides an impetus for the reinvigoration of the feminist movement and/or feminist consciousness, ultimately solving the threat of patriarchal nuclear annihilation. likewise,

debaters negating the welfare topic argued that the state of the welfare system is the key issue around
which the feminist movement is mobilizing or that the consequence of the welfare system - breakup of the
patriarchal nuclear family -undermines patriarchy as a whole. Such arguments seem to have two assumptions
in common. First, there is a single feminism. As a result, feminists are transformed into

feminism. Debaters speak of feminism as a single, monolithic, theoretical and

pragmatic entity and feminists as women with identical motivations, methods, and goals. Second, these arguments assume
that patriarchy is the single or root cause of all forms of oppression. Patriarchy not only is
responsible for sexism and the consequent oppression of women, it also is the cause of totalitarianism, environmental

degradation, nuclear war, racism, and capitalist exploitation. These reductionist

arguments reflect an unwillingness to debate about the complexities of human
motivation and explanation. They betray a reliance upon a framework of proof that can explain only material conditions and physical realities through
empirical quantification. The transformation of feminists 'Mo feminism and the identification of patriarchy as the sole cause of all oppression is related in part to the current form of
intercollegiate debate practice. By "form," I refer to Kenneth Burke's notion of form, defined as the "creation of appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of that
appetite" (Counter-Statement 31). Though the framework for this understanding of form is found in literary and artistic criticism, it is appropriate in this context; as Burke notes, literature
can be "equipment for living" (Biilosophy 293). He also suggests that form "is an arousing and fulfillment of desires. A work has form in so far as one part of it leads a reader to anticipate
another part, to be gratified by the sequence" (Counter-Statement 124). Burke observes that there are several aspects to the concept of form. One of these aspects, conventional form,
involves to some degree the appeal of form as form. Progressive, repetitive, and minor forms, may be effective even though the reader has no awareness of their formality. But when a form
appeals as form, we designate it as conventional form. Any form can become conventional, and be sought for itself - whether it be as complex as the Greek tragedy or as compact as the
sonnet (Counter-Statement 126). These concepts help to explain debaters' continuing reluctance to employ rhetorical proof in arguments about causality. Debaters practice the convention of
poor causal reasoning as a result of judges' unexamined reliance upon conventional form. Convention is the practice of arguing single-cause links to monolithic impacts that arises out of
custom or usage. Conventional form is the expectation of judges that an argument will take this form. Common practice or convention dictates that a case or disadvantage with nefarious

Debaters
impacts causally related to a single link will "outweigh" opposing claims in the mind of the judge. In this sense, debate arguments themselves are conventional.

practice the convention of establishing single-cause relationships to large monolithic

impacts in order to conform to audience expectation. Debaters practice poor causal reasoning because they are
rewarded for it by judges. The convention of arguing single-cause links leadsthe judge to anticipate the certainty of the impact and to be gratified by the
sequence. I suspect that the sequence is gratifying for judges because it relieves us from the responsibility and difficulties of evaluating rhetorical proofs. We are caught between our
responsibility to evaluate rhetorical proofs and our reluctance to succumb to complete relativism and subjectivity. To take responsibility for evaluating rhetorical proof is to admit that not
every question has an empirical answer. However, when we abandon our responsibility to rhetorical proofs, we sacrifice our students' understanding of causal reasoning. The sacrifice has

when feminism is defined as a single

consequences for our students' knowledge of the subject matter they are debating. For example,

entity, not as a pluralized movement or theory, that single entity results in the identification of patriarchy as
the sole cause of oppression. The result is ignorance of the subject position of the
particular feminist author, for highlighting his or her subject position might draw
attention to the incompleteness of the causal relationship between link and impact
Consequently, debaters do not challenge the basic assumptions of such argumentation and ignorance
of feminists is perpetuated. Feminists are not feminism. The topics of feminist inquiry are many and varied, as are the
philosophical approaches to the study of these topics. Different authors have attempted categorization of various feminists in distinctive ways. For example, Alison Jaggar argues that
feminists can be divided into four categories: liberal feminism, marxist feminism, radical feminism, and socialist feminism. While each of these feminists may share a common commitment
to the improvement of women's situations, they differ from each other in very important ways and reflect divergent philosophical assumptions that make them each unique. Linda Alcoff
presents an entirely different categorization of feminist theory based upon distinct understandings of the concept "woman," including cultural feminism and post-structural feminism. Karen
Offen utilizes a comparative historical approach to examine two distinct modes of historical argumentation or discourse that have been used by women and their male allies on behalf of
women's emancipation from male control in Western societies. These include relational feminism and individualist feminism. Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron describe a whole
category of French feminists that contain many distinct versions of the feminist project by French authors. Women of color and third-world feminists have argued that even these

broad categorizations of the various feminism have neglected the contributions of

non-white, non-Western feminists (see, for example, hooks; Hull; Joseph and Lewis; Lorde; Moraga; Omolade; and Smith). In this literature, the
very definition of feminism is contested. Some feminists argue that "all feminists are united by a commitment to

improving the situation of women" (Jaggar and Rothenberg xii), while others have resisted the notion of a single definition of feminism, bell hooks
observes, "a central problem within feminist discourse has been our inability to either arrive

at a consensus of opinion about what feminism is (or accept definitions) that could
serve as points of unification" (Feminist Theory 17). The controversy over the very definition of feminism has political implications. The power to define is
the power both to include and exclude people and ideas in and from that feminism. As a result, [bjourgeois white women interested in women's rights issues have been satisfied with simple
definitions for obvious reasons. Rhetorically placing themselves in the same social category as oppressed women, they were not anxious to call attention to race and class privilege (hooks.

Debate arguments that assume a singular conception of feminism include

Feminist Wieory 18).

and empower the voices of race- and class-privileged women while excluding and
silencing the voices of feminists marginalized by race and class status. This position becomes clearer when
we examine the second assumption of arguments about feminism in intercollegiate debate - patriarchy is the sole cause of oppression. Important feminist thought has resisted this

Designating patriarchy as the sole cause of oppression allows the

assumption for good reason.

subjugation of resistance to other forms of oppression like racism and classism to the struggle against sexism. Such
subjugation has the effect of denigrating the legitimacy of resistance to racism and classism as struggles of equal importance. "Within feminist movement in the West, this led to the
assumption that resisting patriarchal domination is a more legitimate feminist action than resisting racism and other forms of domination" (hooks. Talking Back 19). The relegation of
 identifying patriarchy as
struggles against racism and class exploitation to offspring status is not the only implication of the "sole cause" argument In addition,

the single source of oppression obscures women's perpetration of other forms of

subjugation and domination, bell hooks argues that we should not obscure the reality that women can and do partici- pate in politics of domination, as
perpetrators as well as victims - that we dominate, that we are dominated. If focus on patriarchal domination masks this reality or becomes the means by which women deflect attention from
the real conditions and circumstances of our lives, then women cooperate in suppressing and promoting false consciousness, inhibiting our capacity to assume responsibility for

Characterizing patriarchy as the sole cause of oppression

transforming ourselves and society (hooks. Talking Back 20).

allows mainstream feminists to abdicate responsibility for the exercise of class and
race privilege. It casts the struggle against class exploitation and racism as secondary
concerns. Current debate practice promotes ignorance of these issues because debaters appeal to conventional form, the expectation of judges that they will isolate a single link to
a large impact Feminists become feminism and patriarchy becomes the sole cause of all evil. Poor causal arguments arouse and fulfill the expectation of judges by allowing us to surrender

The result is either the mar-ginalization or

our responsibility to evaluate rhetorical proof for complex causal relationships.

colonization of certain feminist voices. Arguing feminism in debate rounds risks trivializing feminists. Privileging the act of speaking about
feminism over the content of speech "often turns the voices and beings of non-white women into commodity, spectacle" (hooks, Talking Back 14). Teaching sophisticated causal reasoning
enables our students to learn more concerning the subject matter about which they argue. In this case, students would learn more about the multiplicity of feminists instead of reproducing

we
the marginalization of many feminist voices in the debate itself. The content of the speech of feminists must be investigated to subvert the colonization of exploited women. To do so,

must explore alternatives to the formal expectation of single-cause links to enormous

impacts for appropriation of the marginal voice threatens the very core of self-
determination and free self-expression for exploited and oppressed peoples. If the identified
audience, those spoken to, is determined solely by ruling groups who control production and distribution, then it is easy for the marginal voice striving for a hearing to allow what is said to
be overdetermined by the needs of that majority group who appears to be listening, to be tuned in (hooks, Talking Back 14).
 PERM
The perm solves—it creates a feminist foreign policy—that’s key to the alt as
praxis
True ‘15 [Jacqui, 4-1-2015, "Why we need a feminist foreign policy to stop war,"
openDemocracy, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/why-we-need-feminist-
foreign-policy-to-stop-war/]//ARW
“Feminist foreign policy” appears to be the flavour of the month. While we are still trying
to understand what that means, we have Margot Wallström to thank for popularising the
term. On being appointed as Sweden’s foreign minister in October 2014, Wallström said
that under her leadership Sweden would become the only country in the world to
conduct a “feminist foreign policy”. The fact that the “F” word was voted as one of the top
10 words to be banned by Time Magazine readers in 2014 certainly suggests that it has
currency and provokes debate, not least of all in the realm of international affairs.
Though Wallström is the first to coin her foreign policy “feminist” she follows Hillary
Rodham Clinton as US Secretary of State 2009-13, and William Hague as UK Secretary
of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 2010-14, in embracing a gender
perspective on international security, development and aid. Hague made “tackling rape
in warzones” the lynchpin of his Foreign Secretary tenure. Hague considered the
suppression of women’s rights to be “the single greatest continuing injustice in the
world... the greatest single source of untapped potential available to humanity, and the
vital missing aspect of conflict resolution world.” Clinton made empowering women in
developing countries one of the six key principles of U.S. international development
policy. So what does a feminist foreign policy mean in practice? In a speech in
Washington DC in February this year Wallström argued that “discrimination against
women enables threats to peace and security” and that “greater gender equality is
therefore not only a goal in itself but also a precondition for achieving our foreign,
development and security policy objectives”. In so doing, she implied that feminism is an
overall approach to practicing foreign policy rather than a single-issue focus on sexual
violence in conflict or the economic empowerment of women in developing countries, as
Hague and Clinton advanced. Like Hillary Clinton, Wallstrom mentions the importance
of the “take me to your women” rather than your (read: male) leader approach when
visiting conflict-affected countries in particular. This approach to diplomacy and peace
talks means consultations have to happen outside formal channels because women are
often literally not there, recalling that New Yorker cartoon where one man suggests “why
don’t we ask the women in the room” and the realisation dawns among the men around
the table that there are none. UN Women states that women have been just 4 % of
signatories, 2.4 % of chief mediators, 3.7 % of witnesses and 9 % of negotiators between
1992-2011. Following her previous role as the UN Secretary-General’s first ever Special
Representative on sexual violence in armed conflict, where she was tasked with carrying
out the Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda, Wallstrom strongly
believes that including women in peace and security decision-making will help create the
conditions for sustainable global peace. Here we can think of women’s peacebuilding
leadership even under duress in places like Syria, Iraq and the Ukraine. At the UN
Commission on the Status of Women meetings last month in New York at panels
organised by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and
the women’s rights organisation, Madre we heard from Syrian women who against all
odds are organising local efforts to meet the everyday needs of people living under
conflict or fleeing extremist violence. The activation of grassroots civil society in Syria,
crucially led by women, under the most difficult conditions is the untold story of the civil
war. But how can these women community leaders participate in the high politics of
peace negotiations from which women have for the most part been completely excluded?
This is where leaders like Margot Wallström and William Hague come into the picture.
They are crucial interlocutors resourcing and opening spaces for actors who are making a
material difference to conflict prevention and peacebuilding on the ground and without
weapons. This is the stuff of feminist foreign policy. So far, so good – but is a feminist
approach compatible with the use of military force and with increasing military budgets?
With respect to Sweden’s credibility in international affairs Wallström asserts that it is
“not down to our military capacity but rather our stand on human rights, democracy,
development assistance.” She adds that Sweden will advocate for stronger international
positions on disarmament and development if elected to a non-permanent seat on the
UN Security Council in 2016 (2017-2019). Yet Wallstrom's embrace of feminist foreign
policy has been forged against the reassertion of Russian aggression in Ukraine; with
Vladimir Putin flexing his muscle abroad with threats of force in the Baltics and even
sending submarines to Australia’s northern coastline during the G20 meetings in a show
of Russian machismo. With realpolitik at the border, Sweden’s feminist foreign policy
deploys both feminine ‘soft’ and masculine ‘hard’ power. A human rights-based foreign
and security policy is advocated for alongside a 150-year tradition of Swedish neutrality
and self-defence which is resourced by increasing military spending and a domestic arms
industry that must export weapons to be viable. Herein lies a fundamental contradiction
from a feminist perspective. How is it possible to sell arms (when, regardless of whom
you first sell them to, they often end up perpetrating crimes) and at the same time
promote a humanitarian, human rights approach to foreign policy? This conundrum
applies to the United Kingdom and the United States as well: how can you be a force for
good in the world supporting human rights and conflict-resolution but with a large trade
including in arms with countries like Saudi Arabia? Sweden’s answer to this conundrum
has been unfolding in recent weeks in some “splendidly undiplomatic”- we might say,
‘feminist’ diplomacy towards Saudi Arabia. In March, Wallstrom declined to sign a
cooperation agreement on arms exports with Saudi Arabia also following the blocking by
Saudia Arabia of her speech to Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo in March that
criticized the Kingdom’s treatment of dissidents and women. In so doing, Wallström is
the first foreign minister to seek to implement Article 7 of the UN Arms Trade Treaty
ratified in 2013, which requires state parties to prohibit the export of arms if they will be
used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian or human
rights law or to commit serious acts of gender-based violence or violence against women
and children. Saudi Arabia is known to have an atrocious human rights record with
respect to its own citizens. It is currently engaged in a military bombing campaign on
Yemen which is having devastating effects on civilians. The country is also believed to be
supplying weapons to the Syrian regime, where over 200,000 have been killed, many of
them civilians. What more evidence could you need to legally rescind an arms deal? The
ease of doing business to make war In revoking the arms export deal, Wallström is
negotiating the tension between Sweden’s human rights-based foreign policy with its
self-defence military capacity. She is also righting past abuses of state power in the case
of the Swedish Defence Research Agency’s secret “Project Simoon” to help Saudi Arabia
build an anti-tank missile arms factory, exposed in 2012 by Swedish radio. Soon after
announcing Sweden’s decision to revoke the export deal, Saudi Arabia retaliated by
denying business visas to Swedes and recalling their ambassador. Meanwhile Wallström
was the subject of public approbation in the Swedish media by the eons of Swedish
multinationals concerned about the impact on their exports, the likes of Volvo, Ikea,
H&M, so popular with especially female consumers globally. Wallström was also visited
by King Olaf who tried to persuade her to renege on her decision, while the EU states
have stood by, silent by all accounts. This is a feminist fable for our neoliberal times.
Even with a “feminine” social democratic government in power, the fable shows just how
hard it is to address the unregulated global arms trade - one of the root causes of conflict
- when it is so lucrative and inseparable from most transnational business and global
trading relationships. Moreover, the fable reveals the spontaneous solidarity of a diverse
group of captains of industry and of state power, nearly all men, who support the
accumulation of profits over people’s lives and basic freedoms. This is patriarchy at work
– and a feminist foreign policy worth its salt needs to confront regimes of masculine
hegemonies and the unequal entitlements that hold such hierarchical political economic
orders together at every level. As WILPF Secretary-General Madeleine Rees has argued
on 50.50, Margot Wallström shows us what can be done when we put principles and
human decency above “business as usual”. She may have derailed an arms deal in
undiplomatic circumstances, but feminist foreign policy must be undiplomatic if it is to
be transformative. To stop wars, we need to hold to account transnational business
power, because it increasingly shapes state policies more than it is shaped by them, and
because it has the power to uphold human rights, to be ethical, responsible, and
responsive to consumers. And we need to refocus our advocacy for international peace
and security on state power. More than ever, states value masculine qualities of
competitiveness, aggression and strategic rationality, with many governments turning
their back on the security and wellbeing of citizens and non-citizens as the analysis on
the growth in arms expenditures and tax breaks for multinational business relative to
austerity in state budgets for public health and education shows. Gendered economic
structures determine the limits and the possibilities of security and foreign policy, but
the politics of democracy including in countries like Sweden, the United States and
European states, are the principal means through which these structures are established
and transformed. Exposing the connections between state military complexes and
transnational business will enable us to better understand how power works to fuel and
fund conflicts around the world. A feminist foreign policy must have as its central goal
the long-term prevention of conflict and violence. It must identify the gendered
globalized structures that contribute to violence and conflict such as economic inequality
and insecurity. And it must link demilitarisation and disarmament to investment in
people-centred development and justice. In this way, Margot Wallström’s approach is
similar to Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s (WILPF) century-long
approach: that is, foreign policy needs to start at home with, to take one example, saving
on weapons to spend on alleviating child poverty as the leader of the SNP in the UK,
Nicola Sturgeon is doing in the run up to the UK general election. With Hillary Clinton
getting ready to run for the US Presidency, promising to be the country with the highest
military spending’s first female commander-in-chief, it will be important to keep a close
check on the connection she makes between feminism and foreign policy. Above all,
foreign policy worthy of the adjective “feminist” must support and resource non-
militarised solutions to conflict and challenge the self-interested masculine hegemonies
in the state and private sector that perpetuate the business of killing. Towards this end,
establishing a US Department of Peace – an idea muted by many in the past – would
clearly demonstrate the prioritizing of peace-building through international aid and
development initatives. In approaching old problems using peaceful means, an initiative
of this kind would be a vital step in institutionalising a feminist foreign policy.
 RAGE FAILS
Even if rage is empowering, they have no method to prevent it from
derailing alt solvency
Olivia Goldhill 12-21-18 (Olivia Goldhill was a features writer at The Daily Telegraph in
the UK before joining Quartz in New York. She has a BA in philosophy from Harvard
University and an MA in journalism from City University, London. "2018 is the year
women tried to reclaim anger but failed," Quartz, December 21, 2018,
https://qz.com/1496726/2018-is-the-year-women-tried-to-reclaim-anger-but-failed/
//EH)
No fewer than three books on female anger came out in 2018: Good and Mad, Rage Becomes Her, and Eloquent Rage, all
of which emphasize the value of anger as a political emotion. Articles on the subject published in the past few months have
made similar arguments, telling of women’s personal reckoning with their own anger, the ways
in which women have been taught to express their anger, and why female rage is
justified. These books and articles all celebrate female anger as a political tool. There’s no doubt that women should
have the right to feel and express the same anger as men, and that there is emotional value and personal freedoms that
accrue with that right, but whether or not public displays of anger truly sparks change is
questionable. As of yet, we do not know if female displays of anger in public will advance the
feminist revolution, because we’ve seen all too little of such rage. Women may be talking
more openly about the things that make them angry, like perpetual sexual harassment
and assault, the gender pay gap, domestic violence, and restrictions on abortion access,
but even during the #metoo movement, women spoke about their suffering with fear and
sorrow, and in moderate, reasonable tones. There’s been little to none of the screaming fury that, when is
unleashed, is often derided by misogynists as a women being “hysterical.” In one rare instance of a woman snapping in
public, Serena Williams spoke curtly to an umpire, and was penalized far more harshly than the countless male tennis
players who’ve said and done far worse without retribution. And, of course, in the Kavanaugh hearing, Supreme Court
nominee Brett Kavanaugh was the picture of uncooperative, unbridled fury, while Christine Blasey Ford, who accused him
of sexual assault, was mild-mannered, respectful, and even apologetic at points. “This year, for sure, the most memorable
expression of rage which will be forever seared into global memory, will be justice Kavanaugh,” says Juliet Williams, a
professor of gender studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. “That’s just more of the same. We’re not even
remotely in a place where the female anger that’s there is being manifest.” “We’re not even
remotely in a place where the female anger that’s there is being manifest.” Though there hasn’t been much
female anger in the public sphere, I have certainly seen anger in private, among friends
and acquaintances. Women are angry for many reasons: Because there are men who’ve
been multiply accused of assaulting women in the White House, and in the Supreme
Court, and in nearly every seat of power. Women are angry at the growing lack of access
to abortion and the gender pay gap and at being told not to be so damn angry. “I’ve
found anger most productive in private life,” says Moira Weigel, a scholar at Harvard University’s Society
of Fellows, whose research focuses on gender, media, and social theory. “Really private, as an individual processing
emotions. And in activist settings with feminist friends.” Further, though women may not be expressing anger in public,
the rage women feel in private may well have driven political change. Women’s anger about widespread injustice likely at
least partially motivated the unprecedentedly high number of women to run for office, drove dozens of women to walk out
of Google to protest sexual harassment at the company, and encouraged thousands of women to speak out about their
though anger can motivate a political movement, it
experiences of sexual assault. But,
can also derail it. Anger tends to emphasize personal affronts and injustices, and so
can exacerbate the fractures that already exist in the feminist movement, by creating a
self-centered, emotional approach that encourages individuals to focus on their own
plight, rather than others. “We live in a moment when people’s sense of self is expanding to colonize their entire
perception of the social order,” says Williams. “It’s very telling about our times that political interventions are being
framed around individual responses to difficult situations, rather than that we need to think institutionally, structurally.”
“Your feelings are not your barometer of truth.” In private settings with groups of friends over the past
year, I’ve seen many women (including myself) openly express anger in response to
personal slights, like patronizing men, missed work opportunities, or sexist partners.
This anger is entirely justified. But such frustration at personal microaggressions cannot
serve as a bedrock for a political movement. A woman who feels anger is not inherently political, Williams
argues: “Your feelings are not your barometer of truth.” Someone might angrily feel that they’ve been disrespected, and
that this is an example of sexism, but it’s worth considering: How does this affect other women? What structural
issues are at play that could be addressed, and how? For example, while high-powered
women are entirely justified to be angry in their lack of access to the C-suite, demanding
personal access is not enough to create a political movement. Feminist workplace conversations
must also consider and engage with women facing entirely different working conditions, such as those who take on the
domestic labor for those who spend their days at high powered offices. This requires empathy and thoughtfulness, rather
than blind rage. Given that white men comprise the most powerful demographic in contemporary US society, and have the
most freedom to assert their anger, it’s tempting to assume that anger helped them achieve this status. But, anger could
be, as philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues, nothing more than a distracting need for personal retaliation, which serves
little purpose in advancing political goals. Further, Williams points to poet and essayist Audre Lorde’s 1979 speech, “The
master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” as an indication of why the tools
of the patriarchy cannot be used to undo the patriarchy. Lorde gave her talk at an
academic conference on feminism, and critiqued the conference’s failure to include
women who “stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women,”
such as those who are black, queer, or poor. “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy
are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy?” said Lorde. “[The master’s tools] may allow
us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” The same
sentiment applies to the role of anger. The double standard that gives men license to be angry in public, but does not
accord women the same emotional freedom, is certainly unjust. In a more equal world, women would have the same
freedom to publicly express anger as men. The day that women can bellow as much as men, or else men suppress their
fury as women do, will be a day to celebrate. But, in the fight to achieve such equality, anger will never be
women’s most powerful weapon.

Utilize rage as a means to mobilize political change---targeted rage is key

Julia Lesage, 1985, in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Nelson and
Grossberg, http://pages.uoregon.edu/jlesage/Juliafolder/womensRage.html
Feminism by itself is not the motor of change. Class, anti-imperialist, and antiracist struggles demand our
participation. Yet how, specifically, does women's consciousness change? How do women move into action? How does change occur? What
political strategies should feminists pursue? How, in our political work, can we constantly challenge sexual inequality when the very social
construction of gender oppresses women? In 1981 I visited Nicaragua with the goal of finding out how and why change occurred there so
quickly in women's lives. "The revolution has given us everything," I was told. "Before the revolution we were totally devalued. We weren't
supposed to have a vision beyond home and children." In fact, many Nicaraguan women first achieved a fully human identity within the
revolution. Now they are its most enthusiastic supporters. For example, they form over 50 percent of the popular militias, the mainstay of
Nicaragua's defense against United States-sponsored invasions from Honduras and Costa Rica. In the block committees, they have virtually
eliminated wife and child abuse. Yet in Nicaragua we still see maids, the double standard sexually, dissatisfaction in marriage, and
inadequate childcare. Furthermore, all the women I talked to defined their participation in the revolution in terms of an extremely idealized
notion of motherhood and could not understand the choice not to reproduce. I bring up this example of Nicaragua because Nicaraguan
women are very conscious of the power of their own revolutionary example. They know they have been influenced by the Vietnamese and
Cuban revolutions and are very much shaping how Salvadoran women militants are looking at women's role in the Salvadoran revolution.
Because of the urgency and violence of the situation, unity between men and women was and is necessary for their survival, but the women
also want to combat, in an organized and self-conscious way, specific aspects of male supremacy in the workplace, politics, and daily life.
Both here and in Nicaragua, women's daily conversation is about the politics of daily life. They talk to each other often, complaining about
men and about managing the domestic sphere. Women's talk also encompasses complaints about poor and unstable work conditions, and
about the onerous double day. However, here in the United States that conversation usually circulates pessimistically, if supportively,
around the same themes and may even serve to reconfirm women's stasis within these unpleasant situations. Here such conversation offers
little sense of social change; yet in our recent political history, feminists have used this preexisting social form--women's conversation in the
domestic sphere--to create consciousness-raising groups. But to what degree is consciousness raising sufficient to change women's
behavior, including our self-conception and our own colonized minds? We do not live in a revolutionary situation
in the United States. There is no leftist political organization here providing leadership and a cohesive strategy, and in particular the
struggle against women's oppression is not genuinely integrated into leftist activity and theory. Within such a context,
women need to work on another, intermediate level, both to shape our revolutionary consciousness and to
empower us to act on our own strategic demands. That is, we need to promote self-
conscious, collectively supported, and politically clear articulations of our anger
and rage. Furthermore, we must understand the different structures behind different women's rage. Black women rage against poverty
and racism at the same time that they rage against sexism. Lesbians rage against heterosexual privilege, including their denial of civil rights.
Nicaraguan women rage against invasions and the aggressive intentions of the United States. If, in our political work, we know this anger
and the structures that generate it, we can more genuinely encounter each other and more extensively acknowledge each other's needs, class
position, and specific form of oppression. If we do not understand the unique social conditions shaping our sisters' rage, we run the risk of
divisiveness, of fragmenting our potential solidarity. Such mutual understanding of the different structures behind different women's anger
is the precondition of our finding a way to work together toward common goals. I think a lot about the phenomenon of the colonized mind.
Everything that I am and want has been shaped within a social process marked by male dominance and female submission. How can
women come to understand and collectively attack this sexist social order? We all face, and in various ways incorporate into ourselves,
sexist representations, sexist modes of thought. Institutionally, such representations are propagated throughout culture, law, medicine,
education, and so on. All families come up against and are socially measured by sexist concepts of what is "natural"--that is, the "natural"
roles of mother, children, or the family as a whole. Of particular concern to me is the fact that I have lived with a man for fifteen years while
I acutely understand the degree to which heterosexuality itself is socially constructed as sexist. That is, I love someone who has more social
privilege than me, and he has that privilege because he is male. As an institution, heterosexuality projects relations of dominance and
submission, and it leads to the consequent devaluation of women because of their sex. The institution of heterosexuality is the central
shaping factor of many different social practices at many different levels--which range, for example, from the dependence of the mass media
on manipulating sexuality to the division of labor, the split between the public and private spheres, and the relations of production under
capitalism. Most painfully for women, heterosexuality is a major, a social and psychological mode of organizing, generating, focusing, and
institutionalizing desire, both men's and women's. Literally, I am wedded to my own oppression. Furthermore, the very body of woman is
not her own--it has been constructed by medicine, the law, visual culture, fashion, her mother, her household tasks, her reproductive
capacity, and what Ti-Grace Atkinson has called "the institution of sexual intercourse." When I look in the mirror, I see my flaws; I evaluate
the show I put on to others. How do I break through representations of the female body and gain a more just representation of my body for
and of myself? My social interactions are shaped by nonverbal conventions which we all have learned unconsciously and which are, as it
were, the glue of social life. As Nancy Henley describes it in Body Politics, women's nonverbal language is characterized by shrinking, by
taking up as little space as possible. Woman is accessible to be touched. When she speaks in a mixed group, she is likely to be interrupted or
not really listened to seriously, or she may be thought of as merely emotional. And it is clear that not only does the voyeuristic male look
shape most film practice, but this male gaze, with all its power, has a social analog in the way eye contact functions to control and threaten
women in public space, where women's freedom is constrained by the threat of rape. We need to articulate these levels of oppression so as
to arrive at a collective, shared awareness of these aspects of women's lives. We also need to understand how we can and already do break
through barriers between us. In our personal relations, we often overcome inequalities between us and establish intimacy. Originally, within
the women's movement we approached the task of coming together both personally and politically through the strategy of the
consciousness-raising group, where to articulate our experience as women itself became a collective, transformative experience. But these
groups were often composed mostly of middle-class women, sometimes predominantly young, straight, single, and white. Now we need to
think more clearly and theoretically about strategies for negotiating the very real power differences between us. It is not so impossible.
Parents do this with children, and vice versa; lovers deal with inequalities all the time. The aged want to be in communion with the young,
and third-world women have constantly extended themselves to their white sisters. However, when women come together in spite of power
differences among them, they feel anxiety and perhaps openly express previously suppressed hostility. Most likely, such a coming together
happens when women work together intensively on a mutual project so that there is time for trust to be established. Yet as we seek mutually
to articulate the oppression that constrains us, we have found few conceptual or social structures through which we might authentically
express our rage. Women's anger is pervasive, as pervasive as our oppression, but it frequently
lurks underground. If we added up all of women's depression--all our compulsive smiling, ego-tending, and sacrifice; all our
psychosomatic illness, and all our passivity--we could gauge our rage's unarticulated, negative force. In the sphere of cultural
production there are few dominant ideological forms that allow us even to think
"women's rage." As ideological constructs, these forms end up containing women. Women's rage is most often seen in the
narratives that surround us. For example: Classically, Medea killed her children because she was betrayed by their father. Now, reverse-
slasher movies let the raped woman pick up the gun and kill the male attacker. It is a similar posture of dead end vengeance. The news
showed Patty Hearst standing in a bank with a gun embodying that manufactured concept "terrorist," and then we saw her marrying her
FBI bodyguard long after her comrades went up in flames. In melodrama and film noir, as well as in pornography, women's anger is most
commonly depicted through displacement onto images of female insanity or perversity, often onto a grotesque, fearful parody of lesbianism.
These displacements allow reference to and masking of individual women's rage, and that masked rage is rarely collectively expressed by
women or even fully felt. We have relatively few expressions of women's authentic rage even in women's art. Often on the news we will see a
pained expression of injustice or the exploitative use of an image of a third- world woman's grief. Such images are manipulated purely for
emotional effect without giving analysis or context. Some great feminist writers and speakers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Tubman have provided models by which we can understand ourselves, but too often the very concept
of "heroine" means that we hold up these women and their capacity for angry self-expression as the exception rather than the rule. In
Illinois, women chained themselves together in the state house when it was clear that the ERA would not
pass; the women sought to express our collective anger at our legislators' cowardice and to do so in a conspicuous, public way. But
actions such as these often have little effect beyond their own time span. We need to
think beyond such forms to more socially effective ones. It is a task open to all our creativity and skill--to
tap our anger as a source of energy and to focus it aesthetically and politically. We may have to combine
images of anger with something else--say, images of how women can construct the collectivity as a whole. It is here that, by their example,
our third-world sisters have often taken the lead. Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus, Harriet Tubman leading slaves to the
North, an Angolan mother in uniform carrying a baby and a rifle, a Vietnamese farmer tilling and defending her land, Nicaraguan women in
their block committees turning in wife abusers to the police--these images let us see that women
can gain more for
themselves than merely negating the bad that exists. And it is in their constant need to attack both sexism
and racism, as well as poverty and imperialist aggression, that third-world feminists now make us all see much more clearly both the urgent
need for and the possibility of reconstructing the whole world on new terms. Artistically, emotionally, and politically women seem to need
to glimpse dialectically the transcendence of our struggle against sexism before we can fully express sexism's total negation, that is, our own
just rage. Sometimes our
suppressed rage feels so immense that the open expression of it
threatens to destroy us. So we often do not experience anger directly and consciously, nor
do we accurately aim our rage at its appropriate target. To transcend negation and to
build on it means that we have to see what is beyond our rage . An example of such transcendence was
demonstrated by Nicaraguan mothers of "martyred" soldiers (those killed by U.S.-paid counterrevolutionaries) to Pope John Paul II when he visited Managua in April 1983. They stood in the rows
closest to the podium where the Pope spoke and they all bore large photos of their dead children. As the events of the day unfolded, the women created an image that stirred the whole people, one
that the Pope could not go beyond or even adequately respond to. Here is what happened: The Pope spoke on and on to the gathered crowd about obeying the hierarchy and not getting involved
with the things of this world. In frustration and anger, the women began to shout, "We want peace," and their chant was taken up by the 400,000 others there. The women's rage at personal loss
was valorized by the Nicaraguan people as a whole, as the grieving mother became a collective symbol of the demand for peace. The chant, "We want peace," referred simultaneously to national
sovereignty, anti-imperialism, religion, and family life. The women spoke for the whole. This brings me back to my original question about women's political action in the United States today. One
of the major areas of investigation and struggle in the women's movement has been the sphere of daily life. This struggle, represented by an early women's movement phrase--"the personal is the
political"--derives from women's real material labor in the domestic sphere and in the sphere of social relations as a whole. Women have traditionally done the psychological labor that keeps social
relations going. In offices, in neighborhoods, at home, they often seek to make the social environment safe and "better," or more pleasant. That such labor is invisible, particularly that it is ignored
within leftist theory and practice, is one of the more precise indices of women's oppression. And it is feminists' sensitivity to and analysis of social process that clarifies for them the sexism on the
Left. Often at a leftist conference or political meeting, many men continue to see women and women's concerns as "other," and they do not look at what the Left could gain from feminist theory or
from women's subcultural experience or from an analysis of women's labor. Women who come to such an event have already made a commitment to learn and to contribute, so they make an effort
to continue along with the group as a whole but are impeded by sexist speakers' intellectual poverty (e.g., use of the generic "he"), macho debating style, and distance from political activism.
Furthermore, not only women feel this political invisibility at leftist events. When black labor and black subcultural experience in the United States is not dealt with, nor is imperialism, or when
racism is theoretically subsumed under the rubric of "class oppression" and not accorded its specificity, then third-world participants face the same alienation. To demonstrate this process and
analyze what divides us, I will describe an incident that occurred at the Teaching Institute on Marxist Cultural Theory in June 1983. It is worth discussing because it is the kind of incident that
happens all too often among us on the Left. Early in that summer session, a coalition of students and the two women faculty members, Gayatri Spivak and me, formed to present a protest
statement to the faculty. It was read in every class. Here is what it said: The Marxist-Feminist Caucus met on Friday June 17th and concluded that the "limits, frontiers and boundaries" of Marxist
cultural theory as articulated by the Teaching Institute excluded and silenced crucial issues of sexism, racism and other forms of domination. We find ourselves reproducing in the classrooms of
the Teaching Institute the very structures which are the object of our critique. The Marxist-Feminist Caucus therefore proposes that each class set aside an hour weekly to discuss strategic silences
and structural exclusions. A Marxism that does not problematize issues of gender and race, or of class consciousness in its own ranks, cannot hope to be an adequate tool for either social criticism
or social transformation. The institute had a format of having famous Marxist intellectuals lecture, specifically males with job security who have never incorporated a feminist analysis into their
theoretical work. Both the format and the content of their lectures enraged some of us, but not others. In a sense, writing a protest statement divided the school's participants between the political
ones and the consumers of Marxist theory. This is because critical theory itself has become a pathway for elitist advancement in the humanities and social sciences in universities where these areas
are facing huge cutbacks. And the canon of that critical theory is based on Marx and Freud and their contemporary interpretants, Althusser and Lacan. Both at the Teaching Institute and at
prestigious universities, young academics could get their quick fix of Marxism, the knowledge of which could help greatly in their academic career. This is a capitalist mode of consuming
knowledge. Too many students, especially career- pressured graduate students, want only a well conceived lecture, a digest of Marxist theory and social analysis, something that can be written in a
notebook, taken home, and quoted from in a future paper or journal article. Furthermore, we intellectuals fall into this capitalist competitive mode. We feel pressured inside ourselves to be the
best. Students are told to buy the best. All the faculty at the Teaching Institute felt that they could not make a mistake, that they had to read and show they had read everything, that they had been
challenged on their political practice, accused of being racist or sexist or undemocratic. Our control over the classroom and studied theoretical polish became a kind of professional hysteria and
worked against the collective building of Marxist knowledge and theory that we have needed for more effective social change. Since the early 1970s women have come together in meetings like
these, in feminist seminars, caucuses, and workshops, partly in resistance to a certain macho leftist or academic style and partly to build a new body of knowledge and feminist political practice.
And we have been successful at doing this but it has meant double or triple work for us. Feminist scholarship does not usually lead to academic promotion for a woman. The knowledge women
produce is easily marginalized, as was made painfully obvious at that summer school. Feminists and third-world students came to the Teaching Institute knowing how much they needed Marxist
theory. They understood that abolishing capitalism and imperialism was the precondition for liberation. They came as political participants expecting to learn theoretical tools to use in fighting
oppression. But sex and race were too often ignored--I would say stupidly ignored--as social determinants in the theories presented about social change. (Beyond that, students felt intimidated by
name-dropping and teachers' and other students' failure to explain terms. They felt they had to give a polished rebuttal or a cohesive "strategic intervention" before they could speak to refute a
lecturer's point.) And when students raised issues of sexism or racism, deflection became the all too frequent tactic used by teachers or some of the white male students in response. No wonder that
women, with their sex-role socialization, were often too intimidated to speak. This is a sad analysis, but not an infrequent one in academia. It speaks about political theory and academic sexism and
racism, and elitism and class privilege. The incident reveals much of what divides politically progressive people in the United States. These differences must be acknowledged in depth if we are to
work together politically in a coalition form. In particular, I understand the texture of women's silence in a forum that demanded a highly rational and developed intervention. Many of the women
students at the Teaching Institute already produced feminist theory, but the intimidating nature of this kind of aggressive public speaking made them seem like nonparticipants. And it often
happens to me, too. I know that we watch and despair of our own colonized psyches which hold us back in silence precisely when we would choose to be political actors, especially in a Marxist
forum. What we have seen in the 1970s and 1980s in North America and Europe is a supercession of political forms related to developments in radical consciousness. Conditions have evolved in
the United States that make it impossible to conceive of a revolutionary organizing strategy that does not embrace a black and minority revolution and a feminist revolution. The lesson of the civil
rights/black power movement was that blacks will organize autonomously. Now it is the offspring of that movement, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, that has taken the lead in building an anti-
imperialist coalition that addresses the specific struggles and organizing forms of blacks, Latinos, women, and gays. Such a coalition relates to the existence of the women's movement, the gay and
lesbian movement, the anti-imperialist movement, by supporting these groups' autonomous organizing and granting new respect, not by subsuming or controlling them. Furthermore, at this point
in U.S. history, issues of mass culture and mass communication have to be dealt with, so that minority figures such as Jesse Jackson or Harold Washington, Chicago's black major, have developed
an ongoing analysis about racism in the press. As a feminist who has worked both in the cultural sphere and in anti-imperialist work, I have experienced this supercession of forms. In the early
1970s a politically active woman was either "on the Left" or "in the independent women's movement." Some socialist feminists within leftist organizations formed caucuses to try to influence their
organizations. In the 1970s I chose to work mostly within the independent women's movement, especially in creating a women's studies program at an urban university. In developing feminist
media now within the women's movement, I find many of my sisters addressing broader issues of imperialism, racism, class oppression, and the nuclear threat. Many of us are joining progressive
coalitions around these issues. Within these coalitions we must be able openly to declare, "I am a feminist and our feminist position represents the most advanced stand. You men have to join us."
Indeed, many men, often younger men, have. As feminists, we are the ones who are building a whole theoretical critique of mass culture and mass communication; we are the ones who are learning
how to appropriate all of culture in an oppositional way. And because of our historical position in advanced capitalism, we are one of the first social movements to address cultural issues in such a
thorough and complex way. Many feminists are eager to participate in coalitions, the major political strategy for us in the 1 980s. In Chicago, we saw the women's movement and the Left work to
elect Harold Washington. In the San Francisco area, gays and lesbians have formed a Central America support group. Both in the United States and abroad, the antinuclear movement contains
within it all-women's affinity groups. Latinos in various areas identify and organize as Puerto Rican or Mexican-American according to their ethnic origins and concentration, and also unite in
Central American solidarity work. This great diversity of sectoral organizing enriches all of us who are working for social change. Some of the best aspects of current progressive organizing have, in
fact, derived specifically from the development of the contemporary women's movement. I mentioned the consciousness-raising groups earlier. I think the women's movement has introduced into
political discourse an open and direct critique of the macho style and political posturing of many male leaders. As feminist activists, we have created among ourselves new forms of discussion and a
creative, collective pursuit of knowledge--in contrast to an older, more aggressive, male debating style. Particularly important for me, the women's movement has pursued and validated as
politically important cultural and artistic work. In Chicago, where I live, I experience a strong continuum and network among community-based artists and women in the art world. We have built
up intellectual ties between academic women and feminist film- and videomakers who have created an analysis of how sexuality is manipulated in the visual culture that surrounds us. As a
consequence, feminist film criticism has developed a new theoretical framework for analyzing ideology and the mass media. In fact, I think that our building of a feminist cultural theory has made

consider how unleashing our anger might

a key contribution to the Left and to revolutionary movements throughout the world. When I want to

capacitate us to act for change, I reconsider Frantz Fanon's essay "Concerning Violence" in The Wretched of the Earth. In
that essay he describes decolonization, particularly the process by which the native sheds the colonizer's values and the colonizer's ways. I
understand that my black and Latina sisters in the United States experience a rage against the economic and racial violence
perpetrated every day against them; in a way that is similar to what Fanon describes: this rage knows its resolution lies in a complete
change of the economic order in which we live. At the same time, I must ask
what kind of rage it would be that
would effectively contest women's oppression--given all the levels at which gender inequality and women's
oppression is articulated in social and personal life. What Fanon describes to us is a specific historical moment at which mental colonization
can be and is surpassed. As I look at women's mental colonization, I see our internalized sense of powerlessness, our articulation into
masochistic structures of desire, and our playing out of personae that on the surface seem "passive," "self-defeating," "irrational,"
"hesitant," "receptively feminine," or even "crazy." Much of this behavior stems from internalized and suppressed rage. Fanon describes
such behavior in the colonized and posits active rage, the violent response to violence, as its cure. What would the overturning of male
supremacy and women's colonization mean to women? How would it be accomplished? Fanon understands that a whole social structure
and a new kind of person must come into being, and that those with privilege know, fear, and resist this. His call to armed struggle, based
on the very clear demarcations and abuses of power that the native always sees, signals
a survival struggle that does
not characterize the war between the sexes . As I read Fanon for what he can teach me about women's
resistance to oppression in nonrevolutionary society, I read him as a communist psychiatrist talking about how social movements can
change the mentality of the oppressed. When I ask about revolution for women now, minimally I see that our contestation cannot be
conducted in the mode of nice girls, of managing the egos of and patiently teaching those who oppress, which is a skill and duty we learned
from our mothers in the domestic sphere. If we do so, once again we will be placed in that very role of "helpmate" that we are trying to
overcome. Angry contestation may take us the extra step needed to overcome our own
colonized behavior and tardy response. Let me now rewrite for you parts of Fanon's essay to show its power when discussing the
relation between psychological and social change. The distance between the violence of colonization and its
necessary response in armed struggle, and the emotional rage I am referring to here in
combating sexism, marks the distance between the periphery and the center of international
capitalism. By using Fanon in this way, I do not wish to co-opt him for the women's movement but to learn from him, just as I learned from
the Nicaraguan women's courage and tenacity. If women must learn to be openly angry, we must learn to draw links between ourselves and
those who are more oppressed, to learn new methods of struggle and courageous response. Combating women's oppression as we know it is
a historical process: that is to say, it cannot become intelligible or clear to itself except in the exact measure that we can discern the
movements that give it historical form and content. Combating women's oppression is the meeting of two intrinsically opposed forces,
which in fact owe this originality to that sort of substantification that results from and is nourished by the social construction of gender. The
husband is right when he speaks of knowing "them" well--for it is men who perpetuate the function of wife. Men owe the reproduction of
their bodies and psyches to the family. Feminist revolution never takes place unnoticed, for it influences individuals and modifies them
fundamentally. It transforms passive femininity crushed with inessentiality into privileged agency under the floodlights of history. A new
kind of woman brings a new rhythm into existence with a new language and a new humanity; combating women's oppression means the
veritable creation of new women who become fully human by the same process by which they freed themselves. Feminists who decide to put
their program into practice and become its moving force are ready to be constantly enraged. They have collectively learned that this narrow
world, strewn with prohibitions, can only be called into question by absolute contestation. The sex-gender system is a world divided into
compartments. And if we examine closely this system of compartments, we will at last be able to reveal the lines of force it implies and to
mark out the lines on which a nonoppressive society will be reorganized. At
the level of individuals, anger is a
cleansing force. It frees the woman from her inferiority complex and from despair and inaction; it makes her fearless and restores
her self-respect. At this point I will stop citing from and reworking Fanon, deliberately at the point of
individual rage. Now is a time when we need to work in coalitions, but we must be very
honest about what divides us and what are the preconditions we need before we can
work together. I have made the decision to work in leftist and feminist cultural work and in Latin American solidarity work. I think
in all our strategies we must analyze the relation of that strategy to feminist, antiracist, and anti- imperialist demands. Women comprise
over half the population; any class issues in the United States are intimately tied to the question of racism; we all live off the labor of
workers, often underpaid women, in the Third World; and socialist revolution is being waged very near us. Personally, I know that it is by
my contact with Nicaraguan women, who insist that men and women must struggle together for our mutual liberation, that I have been
politically and emotionally renewed. The problems grow more acute. We know that the Right is racist, homophobic, and sexist. We in the
women's movement must stop turning our anger against each other and learn the most
effective ways to work together for social change. We can focus our anger and
harness it, but to do that we must clearly analyze cause and effect. If theory
accompanies anger, it will lead to effective solutions to the problems at hand. We have great
emotional and social power to unleash when we set loose our all too often suppressed rage, but we may only feel free to do so when we know
that we can use our anger in an astute and responsible way.
 STATE KEY
The K totalizes the state and legal reform—that dooms praxis
Helander, 15—University of Gothenburg, Department of Cultural Sciences (Disa,
“Making feminist arguments against borders and regulated migration,”
https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/40548/1/gupea_2077_40548_1.pdf, dml)

De Genova does not spell out any concrete strategies of action, apart from his
argument against struggling through citizenship or seeking recognition from the state in the
form of citizenship, since this, he argues, would reinscribe the legitimacy and necessity of
the state, as well as undermine the wider struggles by domesticating insurgent
energies within the orbit of the state (De Genova 2007:441-2). Struggling through or for citizenship is also, in
De Genova's view, a symptom of still being caught within methodological nationalism and methodological stasism (De
Genova 2013). However, as I have already discussed in my analysis of Agamben, since it is very difficult and dangerous to
live without authorisation, not least in a very formalised society such as Sweden (Hellgren 2014), in my view it is
untenable to maintain a strategy of non-engagement with the state . Dimitris
Papadopoulos and Vassilis Tsianos (2013:193) speak of their collaborator, Sapik, who chose to return to a life without legal
not everyone could make that
status in Greece instead of obtaining residence permit in Germany; but
choice. Who can live with that insecurity? What if you really need the security of legal status as a
guarantee that you will not be deported, so that you can start processing your traumas? What if you have your children
with you? What if you need to know you can stay in order to imagine a future? Obtaining a residence permit is the top
priority of most people I know who live without legal status, and the struggle to obtain it cannot be
dismissed as in vain, as misguided, or as wrong. For all the problematic
implications of seeking recognition and permission from the state, one cannot
dismiss the immediate necessity of doing so for those who are currently
refused it . From my experience, we have to engage with the state even if we do not
like it. We have to try to obtain residence permits for those who do not have it but who want it. People's lives
must, when in conflict, stand above a principled opposition to the state and to
citizenship. We also have to engage with the state in making education, health care and other social services available
to everyone, independent of their migration status. Then of course, as I argue elsewhere, we must think about
how we engage with the state, on what terms, and what arguments we use (see
for example McNevin 2013 and Walia 2013:182-7 for the same kind of arguments).
In addition, as Tanya Basok, Danièle Bélanger and Eloy Rivas (2014:1397) observe, 'when migrant workers attempt to minimise the disciplinary power of the deportation regime, they engage in
practices of discipline and self-discipline and thereby co-construct the deportation regime'. This points to the difficulty of avoiding, escaping or standing outside of the reach of the state and the
border-regime, and thus the need for strategies that provide ways of being in them, of changing them and of dealing with them, rather than arguing, as De Genova implies, that we have to refrain
from engaging with them. Moving on to my second topic, reading De Genova's arguments through the embodied lives of unauthorised migrants and through feminist theory, points to at least one
issue that warrants further attention: how borders and deportability are entangled with other power structures. The fact that De Genova does not discuss this, except race, to which he does pay
attention, means that he does not provide enough means of understanding how people are differently targeted by borders and deportability. They do indeed target people differently and people are
varyingly vulnerable to them. For example, Tanya Golash-Boza and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (referred to in Doering-White et al. 20147 ) argue that there is a 'gendered racial removal program'
in the US particularly targeting Mexican and central american men. Furthermore, appearance makes people more or less vulnerable. Writing about 'white space' (and nations might be imagined as
such), Ahmed (2007:161-3) argues that some bodies are more easily identifiable as 'out of place', as 'strangers', that some bodies – more than others – encounter resistance when moving through
space and are 'stopped'. When it comes to in-state enforcement of immigration law, Kate Hepworth (in Villegas 2015:188) argues that '[a]n individual may be identified as out-of-place through
somatic traits such as race, as well as through more intimate, emplaced relations: through how that body behaves in place […] how the body is clothed […] the activities in which it is engaged […]
its emplacement in time or space and the manner of that emplacement'. Other factors may also increase the general vulnerability of lacking legal status. As Paloma Villegas shows, precarious legal
status might make women and LGBTIQ-people more vulnerable to harassment and deportation, since they cannot, in cases of harassment or violations, fight back, challenge it or report it to the
authorities in they way they could have done if their legal status was secure, which perpetrators might know and exploit (Villegas 2015:191-2). Depending on class, racialisation and other factors,
people also have different possibilities to 'pass' as a citizen or as having legal status (see for example Villegas 2015:188). If, as Catherine Dauvergne puts it, '[w]e imagine illegals as poor and brown
and destitute' (in Villegas 2015:186), those who are read as such are at greater risk of being stopped in internal border controls. Those who do not 'stand out' or who can pass as legal, are not safe,
but safer. As a friend of mine explained, when he was 'illegally' travelling through Europe to get to Sweden, if it were not for his light skin tone he might not have been able to pass unnoticed. He
said people probably read him as Italian rather than Afghan. Or as another person told me, when encountering police officers checking IDs as part of the internal border controls, the fact that he
had a girlfriend whose 'Swedishness' was never questioned and that they spoke Swedish with each other, meant that he was not stopped while most other negatively racialised people were.8 Paying
attention to how borders and deportability affect and target people differently provides more complex accounts of how they work, and is also necessary when it comes to strategy. It shows that
people have very different possibilities for dealing with deportability and for subverting borders, that people might need different strategies for coping with it. Further, it also suggests that
deportability and borders produce more than just docile workers, which is what De Genova focuses on. For instance, they produce women, LGBTIQ-people, or racialised people who are unable (or
less able) to respond to, challenge or report harassment, hate-crimes or other forms of violence or injustices committed against them; they produce whiteness by encouraging people to pass, and by
disproportionally deporting people otherwise racialised; and they make LGBTIQ people pass as straight and gender-conforming in order to avoid exposing themselves to dangerous situations.
Moving on, I will now read De Genova's arguments through the context of asylummigration. De Genova primarily discusses migration through labour, but reading him in the context in which I am
active – where most of the unauthorised migrants I meet have migrated primarily in order to claim asylum – provides a more complex account of how the state, borders and regulated migration
work, and how they are entangled with other power structures. For many working within the 'autonomous migration' approach, which De Genova does, it is a conscious decision to resist 'the
heterogenising practices of state regulation of mobility' which divides it into different 'types' of migration, for example labour, asylum or family, and instead they 'attempt[...] to articulate their
commonalities' (Papadopoulos & Tsianos 2013:185). I maintain, however, that despite the intentions, this homogenising entails a risk of losing critical insight. As mentioned in the introduction,
'the refugee' is imagined as a man fleeing persecution by a totalitarian state and seeking asylum in the liberal, tolerant states of the West (Anderson 2013:55-6). This means that people fleeing from
something that does not fit well into this idea often have troubles being recognised. Gender and sexuality often pose particular problems to obtaining recognition (which is not to say that it is
otherwise easy). In order to think about recognition I turn to Bulter, even though her work on recognition is not specifically about asylum it is still applicable in this context. The process of deciding
who is recognizable, or trustworthy, as human, and specifically who fulfils the requirements for asylum, is governed by the language and norms that frame this situation, and by the narrative
capacity for giving a legible account (see for example Butler 2005:12). As Butler argues, 'there is a language that frames the encounter, and embedded in that language is a set of norms concerning
what will and will not constitute recognizability' (Butler 2005:30). I must conform, among other things, to the norms of narration and causality, as well as the categories, classifications and
identificatory schemas that govern this situation, which in the context of asylum are not only specifically western and liberal, but also specifically legal. If you are, for instance, seeking asylum on
the basis of sexuality you must also be recognisable as say, a lesbian. You must tell your story in a chronological narrative, use a language and reasoning which is understood, and conform to the
adjudicators' conceptions of how for example 'lesbians', 'trans*people', or 'women' are, look and act, conceptions that are sometimes narrowly western, middle-class, heteronormative and liberal,
and sometimes, on the contrary, racialised conceptions about what, for example, 'Muslim women' do or look like. As Katherine Fobear (2014:52) puts it: 'the effort to prove to the adjudicators that
they belong to a sexual and/or gender minority becomes heavily racialized and classed. Sexual exceptionalism works by first glossing over the boundaries of gender, race, and class formations and
then implicitly privileging white and western gay norms'. There are innumerable examples. Lesbians can be denied asylum because they do not look 'lesbian', because they have children, or
because they do not show any interest in 'lesbian culture' (Lewis 2013). In my experience LGBTIQ-people may be rejected because they cannot provide a narrative account of when they first
realised that they 'were' LGBTIQ or reflect in sufficiently elaborate ways on their sexuality/identity. People may be refused because it is not deemed credible that a woman in a patriarchal society
would defy her husband, or because the asylum adjudicators are unable to recognise that men can also be victims of honour-violence. The asylum-system is part of the production of worlds and
nations. It produces identities, performances, discourses and representations, enacted both by asylum-seekers and their supporters and by the state. Sima Shakhsari (2013:568) argues that '[i]n
order to present a successful and legitimate claim to asylum officers, the refugee/asylum seeker often has to repeat a story that inevitably demonizes the “home country”' and Lewis claims, '[i]n the
context of refugee law, states will only grant political asylum to women who appear vulnerable either because they are openly lesbian or because they are foreign women in need of rescue from
oppressive patriarchal – read third world – cultures' (Keenan 2011:39 in Lewis 2013:180). Similarly, Fobear (2014:53) argues that '[i]n order to prove persecution, sexual and gender minority
claimants may have to inferiorize and pathologize their ethnic, religious, or cultural communities in order to fit into Canada's national fantasies of being a safe haven to marginalized populations'.
Further, through the state's management of 'the political and cultural production of refugee identities in public sphere', presenting refugees (particularly women) as victims and Canada as the
'white knight' saviour, 'the whiteness of Canadian settlement is maintained through the othering of refugees as inherently separate to the nation' (Fobear 2014:51). This demonises and inferiorises
places that people have fled from and elevates the receiving states above such things, 'produc[ing] a discursive erasure of the very real forms of heterosexism and homo/transphobic violence
present in Canada [and other asylum-receiving places in the Global North] today' (2014:53). Thus, attending to asylum, and in particular to the problems facing many women and LGBTIQ-people
seeking asylum, demonstrates two interrelated things: borders produce particular forms of gender and sexuality, and the state gains more than just capital accumulation. The state produces itself
as 'modern', 'tolerant' and 'generous', differentiating itself from 'other' 'backwards', 'intolerant', 'uncivilised', 'oppressive' places. Asylum plays a significant role in the production of the national
self-image as well as in geopolitics (manifested in, for example, the principled acceptance – or rejection – of all asylum-seekers from a particular country in order to make a point about the
situation in that country of origin) (Shakhsari 2013; Fobear 2014; Luibhéid 2005:xvii; Anderson 2013).

Reading De Genova's arguments through feminist theory and through material contexts, it
becomes clear that his view on the state and borders as having only one, or at least one
primary , objective and logic – capital – needs to be complicated . Firstly, as the wealth of
scholarship on intersectionality has made clear: various power structures are entangled/intraact, and to understand how
capitalism, economic exploitation and borders work, one has to attend to how they are entangled with, say, race, gender,
sexuality, ability and nationality. Secondly, as I discussed above in the section on Agamben, objects – the state, or
borders – are not singular, unitary, coherent 'things', but complex and
contradictory sets of patternings, promises and projections (Berlant 2006) or
'phenomena' in 'intra-action' (Barad 2003). This is not only a theoretical argument but is also apparent
empirically. The state consists of a great variety of departments, branches, agencies,
civil servants, locations, layers, practices and promises, and surely all of these
sometimes have disparate objectives and sometimes do things that have
completely contradictory outcomes . The same goes for borders. The state and borders may
have several objectives and outcomes – facilitating capital accumulation, securing legitimacy among its
inhabitants, securing continued governance for the incumbent parties, and creating a favourable standing in the
international arena – while individual civil servants may have other priorities , such as keeping their
job, advancing their career, keeping budget, or even using their position to do as much good as possible. Sometimes
these go hand in hand, but sometimes they do not. To properly understand how
borders work – and consequently to make good arguments and strategies against
them – we must properly take into account how they are entangled with multiple
power structures, how they may serve various different objectives on part of
the state, and how both the state and borders are internally complex and
contradictory .
Thus, borders produce not only an exploitable labour-force, but also a range of other subjects. As
Anderson et al. (2009:7) argue, '[i]t is not only “hard workers” who are produced at the border. “Good wives” who do not
challenge patriarchal families, “straight guys and gals” who adhere to correct sexual scripts, “good parents” whose
parenting accords with the requirements to produce “good children” are policed through immigration requirements'.
Thus, borders do not just produce capital accumulation and economic inequality, they also produce nations, Peoples9 ,
populations, families, hetero- and homonormativity, racialisation of people and of places, and shape thinking, theory and
methodology (see for example Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2002) and De Genova (2013) on methodological nationalism).
To conclude, while there are several good points in De Genova'a arguments, to make them better, and to make them
useful strategies , they must be complicated. This necessary complication occurs primarily by connecting
into
them to various other power structures, and by
seeing the state and borders not as monolithic,
given, things, but as complex patternings, involving a variety of practices, that
may both be resources to us, and sites of domination (Berlant in Seitz 2013), and with
which we sometimes have to interact, even if we would prefer to bypass them
altogether .
Indigenous perspectives and border imperialism: Strategies, homonationalism, the freedom to stay, and necropolitics
In order to explore in what ways Walia's work might provide good arguments and strategies against borders, and how they
might be further developed, I focus on four topics. Firstly, by attending to the practical situation of unauthorised migrants'
immediate need for a residence permit I discuss what might appear as a strategical contradiction to seek permission by the
state whilst being opposed to regulated migration. I explore this possible dilemma by reading it through Butler, Berlant
and Barad. Secondly, I read Walia through Puar's work on sexuality and homonationalism. Thirdly, I focus on (the
indigenous demand for) 'the freedom to stay' and connect it to the need to pay attention to people's very varying
possibilities or abilities to migrate and to be mobile. Finally, I take the cue from Walia's argument about borders as
racialising practices and turn to Achille Mbembe to discuss the racialised indifference to the death of migrants.
Unsurprisingly, since Walia writes from within a movement of migrant justice, her arguments
provide much
more concrete and applicable strategies than any other of the approaches that I discuss
here. She argues for the need to build solidarity and alliances with other groups, particularly indigenous peoples, and her
arguments about the connection between borders, capitalism and racialisation should also encourage solidarity on behalf
of otherwise racialised peoples who have citizenship or secure migration status, as well as on the part of wage labourers.
The strategies she discusses take into account the immediate situation and needs of
unauthorised migrants. For example, she recognises the need of
navigating state institutions like border agencies, immigration offices […] in order to support those facing detention and
deportation. Such organizing to meet the immediate needs of undocumented migrants and refugees
changes migrants' material conditions by, for example, winning legal resident status, which then
facilitates them becoming more involved in radical movements . It also works to
build long-term relationships of confidence and trust, and provides a means through which to share our own analysis
(Walia 2013:183).
The strategy of creating sanctuary cities (Walia 2013:111-7) – where the local municipality decides that formal
engages with some
migration status does not matter for the provision of its services – is another strategy that
branches of the state – local municipalities – and that could thus be seen as reformist, but
she argues that it still serves the wider goals because it improves the material
situation of people, it provides a basis of involvement by various sectors of
society, it advances the demand of status for all, and it works as a prefigurative
practice where alternative visions are materialised. Based on these practical experiences and on
other people's work, she argues that in practice, there is no strict dualism between reformist
and revolutionary strategies (2013:182-7). However, she also argues for the need to be conscientious
about how to engage with the state: 'NOII [No One Is Illegal] would not, for example, work toward a selective
regularization policy that would benefit some migrants but exclude those migrants with criminal records or those on social
assistance' (Walia 2013:184). The
way she spells out these practical, strategical issues is much
more useful than the arguments which regard all struggles that engage with the
state and its institutions as reformist, conformist and futile .
Reading Walia's discussion about strategies through Butler, Berlant and Barad provides more theoretical perspectives on
how to think about the strategic dilemma of engagement with, or withdrawal, from the state and regulated migration.
White argues that 'migrant politics and queer and trans politics' have a shared problematic issue, namely 'the relationship
between tactics and imaginaries' (White 2014:978). White cites Butler who calls this tension a 'performative
contradiction', and who argues that '[t]here can be no radical change without performative
contradiction … The contradiction must be relied on, exposed, and worked on to
move toward something new. There seems to be no other way ' (White 2014:976-8). That is,
Butler argues that it is impossible not to act within the current situation: '[o]bviously, the political task is not to
refuse representational politics – as if we could', and 'there is no position outside this field'
(2010:7). Rather, Butler's argument that gender is performative means that gender is an act, and by virtue of
being an act it can also be changed. Change does not require outright refusal,
but is apparent in every little iteration doing gender differently. Acts reference
and cite what is already there, but they may reference and cite with a difference, with a
twist, without merely replicating the previous acts or scripts . Butler explains: 'The
productions swerve from their original purposes and inadvertently mobilize possibilities of “subjects” that do not merely
exceed the bounds of cultural intelligibility, but effectively expand the boundaries of what is, in fact, culturally intelligible'
(2010:40). Despite the completely different context of Butler's arguments, they might still be applicable to work against
regulated migration. When navigating migration law, it is impossible not to take part in representational politics – you
and your case must be intelligible according to the representations of an eligible candidate of residency ('refugee', 'lesbian',
'family', 'worker', etc.) – and the costs of refusing to be recognised by migration law are often far too high for that to be a
viable option, if you have a choice. Thus, while
it may sometimes be necessary to navigate this
system, we can do so strategically, subverting it, mobilising possibilities that
were not there before, while always keeping the larger transformation and
imaginary in mind (White 2014:991-2; Walia 2013:182-4).
The same process – changing something by engaging with it (as a strategic choice or out of necessity, since there is no
position that is not produced in relation to it) – would be conceptualised differently by Berlant, or by Barad, whose
arguments about the possibilities for changing objects were discussed in the section on Agamben. Berlant (in Seitz 2013)
would say that since objects are clusters of patternings, promises, projections, by making them do certain things and not
others, by using some of these patternings but not others, objects can change. Barad (2003) would say that objects as
phenomena are delimited in the intra-action that is the phenomena, and that the 'agential cuts' between its constitutive
parts might always be done differently. In each new 'momentum' they can be arranged
differently (2003:814-5). Objects can thus change. Thus, when White (2014:992) argues that 'queer anti-
deportation activists do not only unwittingly reproduce methodological nationalisms,
they do so strategically in order to make their claims hearable by the state', this
strategy should always aim to undermine methodological nationalism, borders and the state. That is, not only aim to
be heard by the state, but by being heard, to fundamentally change it . This also requires
that we think about how we engage with the state and what the engagement is used for.

State engagement is key– their normative strategy just reifies the public
private dichotomy
Mansbridge 03– Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values @ Harvard
(Jane, “Anti-statism and Difference Feminism in International Social Movements,”
International Feminist Journal of Politics)
Feminist strategies that neglect or consistently deplore state action cannot accomplish what
women need – because individuals need collectives such as states to solve collective action
problems and to move toward more just social arrangements. Strategies that rely heavily on
women’s differences from men also cannot accomplish what women need – because women are like men in many ways
relevant to individual and collective action. Despite these truths, social movements also need some strategies of action that
work separately from and sometimes against the state. Moreover, strategies that accentuate the differences between
oppressed and oppressing bring needed energy to a movement. The best overall strategy is, therefore, to realize that both
states and difference theories are dangerous weapons, and proceed with caution.¶ In this important paper, Jane Jaquette
sounds the alarm. She exposes the dangers of ignoring the 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 women’s differences from men.¶ First, the merits of Jaquette’s 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. Instru- ments 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 egalitarian of known pre-state entities, such as the Kung!. Moreover, although the
dangers of state 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
we take toward them? My answer is: wary usage. State power will be used against
women , just as 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 anti- state 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-state discourse meets their
organizing needs. Anti-state discourse may reflect the reality of 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 involve- ment 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 course. The directions they take sometimes conflict with one another.¶ Women and feminists
trying to 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 anti- state discourse appears to play a small or non-existent role.¶ In short, Jaquette is right that
an established anti-state discourse 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 feminism. It is true that any stress on women’s differences
reinforces the tendency of dominant groups such as white or middle-class women to interpret ‘women’s’ 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 Gilligan’s hypothesis shows that – at least in the United States, in the
highly educated populations where she argues that differences should appear – only very small differences can be found.¶
–––––––––––––––––– Jane Mansbridge/Anti-statism and difference feminism 357¶ Downloaded by [Harvard
Library] at 12:19 04 August 2014¶ Most studies do 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 that identification. These processes
increase even more our perceptions of gender difference.¶ Today we have 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 vote.¶ And yet, small differences that do appear between men and women can take on major
symbolic significance, precisely because of our human tendency to exaggerate group differences. Although using that
significance is danger- ous, 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 Sawer’s 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 women’s relative powerlessness, which teaches skills of persuasion rather than command. In the US women’s
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¶ 358
International Feminist Journal of Politics –––––––––––––––––––––––––––¶ Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at
12:19 04 August 2014¶ 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 associated selves.¶ Turning from practical politics to political theory, concepts
are also 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 respon- sibility for
these values, women had often thought about them more thor- oughly than men. Women had also usually experienced the
denigration of these values first-hand.¶ In short, Jaquette is right that stressing women’s 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 often
makes emotional, cognitive and political sense.¶ Importantly, Jaquette identifies a link between 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 unchangeable truths, they compound the most
problematic anti-state mistake.¶ I agree wholeheartedly with Jaquette’s 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 anti- sweatshop movement has had some good effects in raising consumer con-
sciousness 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 Jaquette’s 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 Jaquette’s point that¶ ––
–––––––––––––––– Jane Mansbridge/Anti-statism and difference feminism 359¶ Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at
12:19 04 August 2014¶ ‘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.
Women’s groups must therefore work closely with govern- ments 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, Jaquette’s article is required reading.