Feminist theory is a fairly new approach to the IR discipline and the aim is to produce knowledge that helps inform practices to improve the lives of women. Feminists use the experience of women to make research that is beneficial to women. In doing so they believe that their viewpoints might uncover aspects of reality that is hidden by more conventional approaches. Feminists believe that by paying attention to experiences of women IR theories might be reformulated and the understanding of world politics might be improved (Tickner, 2005: 7). Feminism in IR still remain on the margins of the field and mainstream IR scholars rarely engage in productive debate about the questions raised by feminism, however, Keohane has made an attempt. In this
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Sjoberg uses the conflict in Libya as case study and demonstrates that it is possible to talk about it without referring to sex, gender, and sexuality, but we miss much, in terms of what happens and how to explain what happens, when these concepts are not thought of (Sjoberg, 2015: 437). Women were involved in the Libyan conflict in many ways, however on the basis of gender they are positioned, treated, and engaged with different from men in their involvement (Sjoberg, 2015: 439). Just like it is impossible to understand the civil war in Libya without historical context and the structure of Gaddafi’s regime, it cannot be understood without bearing the lives of the people on both sides of the conflict in mind. This helps understand the explanation of war and conflict (Sjoberg, 2015: 446). Sjoberg concludes that one important tool to examine how issues such as sex, gender, and sexuality matter in international security is used in their article. That is looking for silences and asking feminist questions (Sjoberg, 2015: …show more content…
Feminist on the other hand look more at how women’s lives are within a society and from here seek to change how a state would act if these domestic factors were different. By conducting research like this the approaches that Keohane suggests are unsuitable. To support their point one can say that just as a mathematical theory is not very useful for international relations because we cannot get useful results in typical mathematical procedures similarly we cannot get useful insights to women and minority issues when the main field has been dominated by men or centred to serve the interests of men. International relations scholars should arguably be a lot more explicit when they justify why they undertake certain research and dismiss other. All of Tickner’s and Sjoberg’s claims support Robert Cox’s view that theory is always for someone and some purpose. The way questions are asked are to get to certain answers that are useful for the dominant field. The questions asked by feminist IR researchers are questions that arguably could not be asked within the epistemological boundaries of positivist social scientific approaches to the discipline (Tickner 2005:
Sjoberg uses the conflict in Libya as case study and demonstrates that it is possible to talk about it without referring to sex, gender, and sexuality, but we miss much, in terms of what happens and how to explain what happens, when these concepts are not thought of (Sjoberg, 2015: 437). Women were involved in the Libyan conflict in many ways, however on the basis of gender they are positioned, treated, and engaged with different from men in their involvement (Sjoberg, 2015: 439). Just like it is impossible to understand the civil war in Libya without historical context and the structure of Gaddafi’s regime, it cannot be understood without bearing the lives of the people on both sides of the conflict in mind. This helps understand the explanation of war and conflict (Sjoberg, 2015: 446). Sjoberg concludes that one important tool to examine how issues such as sex, gender, and sexuality matter in international security is used in their article. That is looking for silences and asking feminist questions (Sjoberg, 2015: …show more content…
Feminist on the other hand look more at how women’s lives are within a society and from here seek to change how a state would act if these domestic factors were different. By conducting research like this the approaches that Keohane suggests are unsuitable. To support their point one can say that just as a mathematical theory is not very useful for international relations because we cannot get useful results in typical mathematical procedures similarly we cannot get useful insights to women and minority issues when the main field has been dominated by men or centred to serve the interests of men. International relations scholars should arguably be a lot more explicit when they justify why they undertake certain research and dismiss other. All of Tickner’s and Sjoberg’s claims support Robert Cox’s view that theory is always for someone and some purpose. The way questions are asked are to get to certain answers that are useful for the dominant field. The questions asked by feminist IR researchers are questions that arguably could not be asked within the epistemological boundaries of positivist social scientific approaches to the discipline (Tickner 2005: