Gendered construction of the 'international'- Reflecting and liberating the 'self'

In this piece, I will try to bring in the larger point that the ’international’ system is gendered by using emancipatory and feminist theoretical frameworks to security. If we try to locate gendered violence in security studies, it is very significant to look at the constitution of gender itself and how it came about. My understanding of self and security has been greatly influenced with the emergence of critical security studies since it broadens my contours of studying international security. Although it challenges the statist conception of security,  I suppose it is still pertinent to consider a few dimensions of Realism as well primarily because the state continues to be one of the key actors in international politics. Through this post, I want to apply my notions of identity, self and security in the context of gender (carrying forward my previous post).

First of all, my self-reflective account of security questions the disciplinary myopia of IR. Its obsession with Realism and related concepts like state, war and military threat make the ‘international’ gender blind. In my opinion, this intellectual crisis contemplates state as the only referent object of security and overlooks the gendered character of the socio-political world. Therefore, I wish to consider the real world of international affairs as 'in-here' rather than 'out-there’ as pointed out by Ken Booth. Herein, individuals (multiple gendered bodies in this case) who are embedded in the larger networks of patriarchal relations and structures of power become the central unit of analysis. I seek to destabilize the dichotomy of war and peace by underlining the politics of everyday violence that women and other sexual bodies have to go through. For instance, how very often women belonging to minority communities in both India and Pakistan are targeted by their governments even after 75 years of partition. This speaks a lot about the continuum nature of war and the way the state capitalizes on the bodies of certain gendered groups for its vested interests.

Secondly, my articulation of self also ties well with the fact that ‘personal is international’ as advanced by the feminist security studies. It is significant to break the foundational divide between private and public realms of social life, dismantle structures of power relations and address their insecurities in the first place. It requires taking into account lived and personal experiences of people who have been considered ‘vulnerable ‘for the longest time.  I think such an emancipatory approach to security problematizes state-centric discourse of security that takes various forms of structural violence to be natural and uncontested.  

Thirdly, my understanding of self and security also delve deeper into the relationship between role theory and identity. It is somewhat clear that humans are socially constructed beings and identities come into being after individuals interact with the existing social structures, cultural norms etc. Role theory is constitutive and shapes their sense of identity by assigning certain behavioral patterns and code of conduct to the normative binaries male and female. Similarly in the context of gender, it is generally accepted that women are civilians, peace-lovers, victims of violence and men have to be aggressive, perpetrators of war and protector of the population. However, I feel this process of meaning making does not take into account the fact that women have also been perpetrators of violence (female Palestine suicide bombers, Chechen women terrorists) and men have often been feminized (detinners at Abu Ghraib were forced to perform oral sex). Role theory needs to look into several overlapping identities that are at play in studying gender-based violence and setting the discourse of international security at large. Also, I feel that identity is not a matter of choice for the ones who hail from marginalized gendered categories. It is rather thrown by the systems of power i.e., the masculine state which then securitizes them, inflicts perpetual violence and categorizes them as ‘threats’ in the name of national security.

Fourthly, my evolving self also believes in an emancipatory transformation of global politics that calls for strong channels of exchange amongst non-state actors such as multilateral institutions, civil society groups, media channels etc. so that diverse security perspectives and people from different gendered groups find their way into the policy making. A collective response for ensuring gender security would confront the very make-up of the state itself and acknowledge complex and multi-layered gendered relations in providing greater benefits and well-being specifically to the gendered bodies operating on the margin. Such a bottom-up approach will also make sure that certain preconditions for survival are made available to all.

To sum up, ‘Gender Security is what we make of it.’ In my opinion, it has turned into a social, cultural, political and global problem. Centrality of human subject in the security as emancipation approach requires that multiple gendered bodies are provided with an agency to voice their concerns through their varying positionalities and experiences. It is important to make strenuous efforts to empower their 'self' in order to frame a comprehensive outlook of security instead of viewing it just in traditional terms of ‘high politics’ versus ‘low politics.’ Emancipation and a reflection of self must enable various gendered identities to liberate themselves from the overarching power structures that hinder their capacity to develop their talents and situate them in a systemic vulnerability. Since 'self'-identity is made up of an ' I' and a 'me' as spelled by Ken booth in his paper, I (the one who acts) must possess an agency/medium to formulate an alternative understanding of gender studies as identity performs a key function in the international politics of meaning making.

References:

 1.      Booth, Ken. 1994. “Security and Self Reflections of a Fallen Realist,” YCISS Occasional Paper Paper 26: October 1994.

2.     shepherd, Laura J. 2009. ‘Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security Studies’. Political Studies Review 7 (2): 208–19. 

3. Hansen, Lene. 2000. ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’. Millennium 29 (2): 285–306.