Starting Points

Institutionalized structures of hierarchy are socially constructed, historical, and contingent; the currently prominent (but not only) ones are class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and “national location”; they shape differentiations of power by conferring desired “benefits” (e.g., self-esteem, resources, authoritative “voice”) on privileged statuses (“rich,” white, etc.), effectively devalorizing subordinated statuses (e.g., woman, queer). Whether secured “unintentionally” (e.g., inherited wealth, “sex” assignment, “whiteness”) or “intentionally” (actively pursuing privileged statuses, e.g., through more education, wealth, authority), privilege confers power on those who have it. All individuals “embody” multiple statuses of varying privilege/power (valorized in some, devalorized in others); statuses are not “additive” but interactive; and the power/privilege conferred depends on the “mix” of statuses and context of their manifestation. Whether and to what extent the “privileged” reflect critically on their power, and to what effect, depends on a variety of factors; not least, the prevailing understanding of power (what is it? how does it operate?) and its relationship to privilege (who has it? what are its responsibilities?). For a variety of reasons (e.g., feeling entitled; less experience of devalorization), individuals of privileged status(es) secured unintentionally tend to be less reflective about or critical of hierarchies of power; less privileged individuals have more and different reasons for reflecting on operations of power (e.g., feeling alienated, frustrated; more experience of consciously strategizing vis-à-vis securing more, and/or being critical of, privilege), especially as these relate to hierarchies within which they are subject to devalorization.

Self-identified “feminists” (not all women or only women) are by definition and conviction (otherwise, why self-identify with the marginalized status of “feminist”?) engaged in critique and transformation; this (typically) entails some sense of responsibility for contributing to, at minimum, “improving” the conditions of “women.” However differentiated the experience of achieving the status of “scholars,” all who are so designated enjoy a position of privilege (reflecting disproportionate/unequal access to higher education and the sociocultural conditions that promote success therein). How then do these points offer a context for assessing the privilege, power, contributions and responsibilities of “feminist scholars”?

Contributions and Activism of Feminist Scholars

I first inventory our recognizably “academic” contributions: as role models (of diversity and critical thinking: no small thing), pedagogical explorers (“shaking up” how learning takes place), boundary transgressors (challenging “givens,” deconstructing dichotomies, “mixing” disciplines), critics of status quo power (in our classes, programs, disciplines, learning institutions), supporters of student activism (sponsoring marginalized student groups, advocating student “citizenship”), critical power wielders (working within our institutions for more diversity, critical learning, “woman-friendly” policies, democratic procedures), critical teachers (promoting more cross-disciplinary, theoretically informed and complex perspectives), trainers of graduate students (widening their work and conceptual horizons, supporting marginalized research, bolstering minority students), and innovative researchers (asking different questions, investigating exclusions, transforming theoretical frameworks, publishing “against the grain”). The extent and particulars of contributions vary among individuals, but all feminist scholars engage in one, or a combination, of these activities.

How does this inventory relate to “activism” and our responsibilities to communities “outside” of the academy? First, I believe our work/contributions within the academy (as indicated here) constitute activism, contribute to social change, and matter “politically.” In particular, the academy itself is a community (for some of us a primary one) and one in which we have particular power (e.g., as teachers, committee members, heads, directors). Globalization (currently dominated by neoliberal, corporatist values) renders “education” increasingly decisive for reproducing, or potentially transforming, structures of hierarchy locally, nationally, and internationally. Insofar as our status as feminist scholars entails responsibilities, our citizenship/activism within the academy is neither inconsequential nor isolated. Indeed, I encourage more of it!

Second, I do not believe that whether and to what extent individuals are “sufficiently responsible/activist”—either within the academy or outside of it as public intellectuals and proactive citizens—can be assessed in the abstract. On the one hand, presuming to assess “how much is enough” presupposes some agreement on what constitutes “a more just world,” what the obstacles/problems are to achieving it, and what forms of activism are most effective. These are, in fact, very controversial assumptions and we do well to “proceed with caution,” in particular, being continuously responsive to dissident voices and “that which exceeds our neat frameworks.” On the other hand, being cautious and open to critique is not a recommendation for passivity. I too share a sense of urgency regarding social change, a longing for more activism, and a critique of privileged individuals who “deny” their role in perpetuating hierarchies.

The latter critique is, however, directed at all individuals with privilege and the power it confers. Stated simplistically, I believe that those with privilege/power have “more” responsibility for making “progressive” social change because many enjoy “unearned” (assigned not acquired) privilege that is “unjust” and all with privilege have a disproportionate share of “benefits,” including more power to reproduce or transform structural hierarchies. (This is a slightly more nuanced version of “if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.”) So, my personal commitment to social change and my desire for more critical, progressive activism by everyone are unambiguous.

But what any particular individual, or the assembly of feminist scholars, “should” do is less clear. And I certainly cannot assess when it is “enough”; I can't even do that for myself. The catch, of course, is that context is all. Whether and to what extent those with privilege/power recognize, reflect critically upon, and deploy that power “to good use” depends on multiple, complex, and interacting factors. The power conferred itself varies (by the “mix” of statuses and the contingent particulars of context); what constitutes good use is controversial and always open to challenge; and critical consciousness of privilege and its relationship to power is woefully hard to come by.

Dominant and Feminist Analyses of Power

I return here to an earlier point: how prevailing understandings of power enable or disable recognition, critique of, and resistance to structural hierarchies and the “injustices” they entail. For the most part, political scientists continue to understand power as “power over,” as a manifestation of the ability to “make what you want happen” through control of material resources or credible threats (backed up by such resources). Intention and agency are taken for granted in this understanding, which then inclines toward holding responsible primarily those most directly in control of, and/or having decision-making power over, deployment of resources. I expect that most political scientists today would claim they understand power as “more complicated” than this, but the majority of teaching and research produced by the mainstream reflects, I believe, a basic adherence to this simplistic understanding. Moreover, the mainstream's continued resistance to poststructuralist (post-positivist, postmodernist, interpretive) insights regarding how power operates (through discourse, subjectivities, disciplining, bio-power, etc.) precludes what I regard as more productive, indeed “realistic,” analyses of power.

This is especially the case in relation to privilege and the power it confers. By focusing on power as intentional and “coercive” and by relying primarily on “top-down” analyses, the orthodox view locates responsibility in a narrowly conceived group of “obvious” power wielders, at the expense of investigating how power operates as well (not only) through cultural coding, subject formation, disciplining practices, knowledge production, the politics of language, and the “rules of the game.” In these senses, the prevailing understanding of power effectively obscures the power conferred by privilege and, in particular, disables recognition of that power and critical responses to it. It is no surprise then that political scientists reflect so little on their own power and privilege, offer limited resources for thinking complexly about power, and in many ways are complicit in reproducing structural hierarchies.

In contrast, I want to argue that feminist critiques and analyses of power are their unique and most transformative contribution to “politics” and social change. (I do so without claiming that all feminists endorse the poststructuralist orientation I find crucial for analyzing power; indeed, debates regarding how to understand power fragment the feminist community itself.) I clarify these claims, and broaden my focus, by reviewing what I consider the most important feminist analytical contributions, which I understand as inextricably political contributions.

Feminist Theory/Practice

Feminists acknowledge that their work is informed by normative/political commitments. The specifics of that commitment vary tremendously, but the very acknowledgment of a commitment to improving the conditions of women links and strengthens feminists, even as it also works against feminist projects by fueling resistance from those who deny the politics of all knowledge claims or repudiate gender equality.

Self-reflection and critical politics are integral to feminist theory/practice in several senses. First, like all marginalized and subordinated groups, feminists must be consciously political/strategic if they are to survive, much less prosper, in a typically indifferent and frequently hostile environment. For feminist scholars, this involves career- and life-defining trade-offs as individuals juggle research, publishing, professional, personal, familial, teaching, mentoring, and activist priorities. Especially in international relations (IR), the need to build and sustain an institutional/professional presence for feminist scholars diverts precious time from what are represented as more “serious” (read: research and publishing) activities. Given uninstructed and resistant audiences, feminists must also spend precious time defending their research orientation and repeating basic argumentation; this depletes time available for forging ahead with an expansive research agenda (or more activism!?).

Second, and very significantly, the diversity among women has forced feminists to reflect critically (and uncomfortably) on the meaning of feminism, definitions of “woman,” the politics of representation, and the dangers of universalizing claims. “Sisterhood” aspirations have always been in tension with differences of ethnicity/race, class, age, physical ability, sexuality, and nationality, especially so in the global context that engages feminist IR. However one assesses the success or failure of feminists to address the challenges of difference, I believe feminists have taken those challenges more seriously, and moved more responsibly to address them, than most oppositional groups. This is due, in part, to taking their commitment to social justice seriously (an uneven record) and, in part, I believe, to the unique situation of feminists in the academy. Struggling with these complicated and arduous challenges, feminists both drew upon and expanded their transdisciplinary orientations and, especially, their analyses of identity and identification. These were somewhat unique resources, and the resulting scholarship is surely one of feminisms' major contributions. At the same time, addressing these questions involved analytical development in additional respects, for example, in regard to ontological claims, epistemological debates, and theoretical advances. No less significant, addressing these questions involved developments in political practice, for example, in regard to activism, movement priorities, organizational politics, and long-term, “big picture” strategies. In short, contestations of theory and practice that are specific to recent (especially postcolonial and queer) feminisms have, I believe, generated the most incisive and inclusive analyses of power, privilege, and hierarchies available at this juncture, and are outstanding contributions.

Feminists understand gender as socially constructed (not naturally given), investigate gender as an analytical (not only empirical) category of analysis, and explore how power operates to reproduce, normalize, and naturalize (depoliticize) denigration of the feminine. Insofar as conventional disciplines tend toward methodological reification, they are less open to cross-disciplinary orientations that by definition stretch or transgress familiar boundaries. Feminists argue that gendered representations, identities, bodies, discourses, and practices permeate social relations, so that the study of gender requires and produces transdisciplinary orientations. Transdisciplinary scholars are more likely to be exposed to, therefore aware of and engaged with, a plurality of methods and theoretical debates; these conditions favor (without ensuring) an epistemological sophistication that is less required or cultivated by monodisciplinary orientations. From transdisciplinary starting points, feminists generate more complex and encompassing analyses of power.

Feminists famously transgress boundaries that are paradigmatic in political science and IR: public–private and “levels of analysis.” In particular, feminist interest in the politics of identity and subject formation has propelled them to the forefront of research, whereas (nonfeminist) political science and IR scholars have only recently begun to take these areas of inquiry seriously. Their neglect is one effect of positivist-empiricist orientations that marginalize these phenomena as psychological, private sphere, emotional, and “too subjective.” Feminists have now exposed masculinism in the figure of “political man,” the “sovereign state” and contemporary globalization. They have investigated the local in the global and vice versa and insisted on integrating multilevel analyses.

In short, feminist scholars make unique and important contributions because they engage in cross-disciplinary, translevel, and multidimensional analyses, they challenge the discipline's epistemological and ontological givens, they pioneered studies of identity, and they address complexity through innovative analytical frameworks.

Transformative Analytics of “Feminization as Denigration”

I want now to emphasize the inextricable link between analytics and politics, which is especially evident in feminist theory/practice in regard to structural hierarchies. On the one hand, feminisms have transdisciplinary and complex analytical resources for investigating and theorizing about identity, difference, and structural hierarchies. On the other hand, feminist claims to political relevance and critique have “forced” them to address embodied differences of power: Compared to others, feminist scholars are expected to “walk” their (egalitarian) “talk.” In struggling to do so, feminists draw on and expand their analytical resources, and generate incisive analyses of hierarchical power.

Understanding gender analytically generates what I consider the singularly most transformative feminist insight: that the (symbolic, discursive, cultural) privileging of that which is identified with masculinity—not necessarily men—is key to naturalizing the (symbolic, discursive, cultural, corporeal, material, economic) power relations that constitute subordination and exploitation. With this insight, feminists have taken up the challenge of more adequately theorizing how structural hierarchies are interconnected (intersect). Feminist research documents the deeply sedimented coding of gender as a hierarchical opposition between masculinity and femininity. The historical effect is gender as a governing code valorizing that which is characterized (privileged) as masculine, at the expense of that which is stigmatized as feminine (lacking agency, control, reason, “skills,” culture, etc.). The claim here is that gender—and its denigration of the feminine—pervades language and culture, with systemic effects on how we “take for granted” (normalize and effectively naturalize) the devalorization of feminized statuses. Feminists then reveal how diverse hierarchies are linked and ideologically “naturalized” by characterizing the subordinated in each hierarchy as feminine.

Romanticism notwithstanding, that which is feminized is devalorized, including concepts, desires, tastes, styles, “ways of knowing,” cultural expressions (art, music), roles, practices, work, and “nature.” This devalorization powerfully normalizes—with the effect of “legitimating”—the subordination and exploitation of, and various forms of violence against, that which is feminized (in embodied terms, not only women but racially, culturally, sexually, and economically marginalized/devalorized men).

Supplementing these claims, feminists argue that the ostensible “naturalness” of sex difference and masculinist dominance is generalized to other forms of oppression, with the effect of legitimating them as equally “natural” hierarchies. Eliminating the justification of oppression as natural does not eliminate oppression, nor preclude other justifications of it. But “normalization” is key to reproducing and mystifying domination, and “exposing” its operation is a crucial (activist) intervention.

The most productive feminist orientation, then, is neither simply about male–female relations nor limited to promoting the status of women. Its transformative potential lies in subverting all hierarchies that rely on denigration of “the feminine” to normalize subordination. (This is not to argue for the primacy of “women's oppression” but to recognize the analytical/political leverage afforded by investigating feminization as denigration.)

The point here is the uniqueness of feminisms in transforming an initial critique of “patriarchy” into critical, complex theory/practice that not only takes difference seriously and analyzes the intersection of structural hierarchies, but also informs and facilitates more reflectively critical activism. That feminists do this work under conditions marked by dismissal and hostility goes some way in explaining why whatever we do never seems (and never is) enough.

Opposition to and Perseverance of Feminist Scholars

I believe that political science and IR scholars have a “disciplinary” responsibility to deliver more adequate analyses of power and privilege, yet they seem indifferent to theoretical transformations and conditions of the real world that deeply challenge orthodox standpoints. For example, given the importance (read: power) of transnational and global dynamics in our lives today, one might reasonably expect (and certainly hope) that IR scholars would be prominent in offering sophisticated analyses of these dynamics and apposite responses to them. That this is not the case is due in large part to analytical frameworks that preclude socially relevant questions from being asked and that limit the political relevance of explanations delivered. Feminists, in contrast, generate more astute and pertinent analyses, yet these continue to be resolutely resisted by the mainstream. I want to explore then (again, oversimplistically) why opposition is so pervasive and why we persevere in the face of it. I think these are two sides of the same coin; both reflect the enormity of the stakes involved: not fine-tuning but systemic overhaul.

Feminist interventions raise not only “political”/public but “personal”/private issues that are inherently “disturbing” (from sexual relations to who cleans the toilet and why women lack “authority”). Hence, the defensiveness and resistance to taking feminisms seriously: The implications are always and in all ways “too close to home.” Even more disturbing, if the commonality among post-positivists, constructivists, and poststructuralists/postmodernists is a rejection of essentializing assumptions and foundational dichotomies, feminists up the ante by exposing these as gendered.

This goes far beyond the politically controversial but methodologically acceptable move of “adding women.” It effectively multiplies the stakes by insisting that gender is a pervasive code that systemically operates to normalize denigration of the “feminine” in its diverse manifestations. The gender/power/knowledge nexus is then not only about “power-over” but—inextricably—about our desires, minds, knowledge production, valorizations, privileges, and priorities. These are big stakes indeed. Hence, the ambivalence about and resistance to (especially, poststructuralist) feminist analyses of power and privilege. Hence, as well, the imperative, to keep on keepin' on because the stakes are so enormous. We are not doing as well as we (or any privileged group) might/should, but asking “compared to whom and to what?” helps (re)focus our objectives, expectations, and assessments.