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Gendering Jones: feminisms, IRs, masculinities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1998

Abstract

Introduction

In 'Does "Gender" Make the World Go Round? Feminist Critiques of International Relations',Review of International Studies, 22:4 (1996), pp. 405-29. Adam Jones claims that 'the most important ... contribution of feminist critiques has been to add a gender dimension to [IR]', but that their success will remain 'mixed' until their 'frameworks are expanded and to some extent reworked'. While Jones's piece is excpetionally wide-ranging, our view is that overall he presents three assertions. The first is that feminism is restricted by its 'standard equation of gender ... with women/femininity'; the second is that the 'classical tradition' is the standard by which feminist contributions to IR should be judged; and the third is that feminism is defective in its treatment of gender, because it does not adequately conceptualize and study men and masculinity.Ibid., pp. 420-1, 407, 405. In this article we take issue with each of these assertions in turn, drawing first on 'feminisms' generally, then using writers in feminist IR, and finally reviewing the literature on men and masculinity, both specifically feminist and otherwise.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

In this article the three authors address these points in coordinated sections, 'Feminisms' by Squires, 'IRs' by Cochran, and 'Masculinities' by Carver. They would like to express their thanks to the International Relations Research Group at Bristol, to two anonymous readers, and to Marysia Zalewski and V. Spike Peterson.