Marysia Zalewski

“Women's Troubles” Again in IR

The more that “feminism” has become a publicly visible term, the less sense both its practitioners and detractors have of what it is “about.” (Kavka 2001:ix) Misha Kavkas suggestion might not be warmly welcomed, or understood, in the discipline of International Relations (IR)—at least not among those scholars who persistently want to know exactly what feminists can usefully contribute to the discipline. The suggestion that feminism is controversially undecidable sits uneasily with unremitting requests to confirm its attendant status. Yet, questions calculated to reify an inhibiting structural position hinge on a certain precision regarding the character of contemporary feminism. Failure to secure this position occasions a tendency to impose it. This short essay will reflect on the tendency to enforce order onto feminism within IR, engaging with the work of the other contributors to this forum as they reflect some current perspectives on feminism and gender in (or and) IR. Of particular interest will be examining what “becomes of feminism” in its depiction within the IR discipline. Feminism as an intellectual and political project is not finally bound to any prescribed domain of genders complex universe. (Wiegman 2002:128) We know feminism is really feminisms. Its boundaries, such as they exist, are supple and pliant; its remit unbounded. Yet, two conjoined practices endure within IR: one involves the restriction of feminisms possibilities; the other relates to its necessary abandonment. Put another way, despite the widespread acknowledgment of feminisms unbridled diversity, the aspiration to confine it within distinct and “proper” parameters appears irresistible, evoking the ensuing logical affirmation that feminism is ultimately futile. Despite the lively controversy within feminism regarding its relationship to and with “woman,” as Helen Kinsella notes in this forum, it is this category that draws the disciplinary attention of those who crave feminisms containment. Feminism becomes, …

Men, Masculinity, and Responsibility

This special issue brings together an interdisciplinary collection of voices to engage with ideas about men, masculinities, and responsibility. Our aim in putting this issue together is to open up a trail of eclectic and imaginative questions to help illustrate how complex webs of masculinist subjectivities and performative practices interact across and inform various topic areas and lived experiences. Ideas about and practices of responsibility are, politically and culturally, persistently anchored in liberal and androcentric assumptions about individualism, free will, agency, subjectivity, and morality. As such, the masculinist veneer of this significant philosophical concept and personal/collective practice is worth considering in depth, at a variety of levels and in diverse ways. The articles here draw on a range of disciplines and perspectives, including anthropology, postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, critical race theory, visual and popular culture, political science, international relations, sociology, economics, and development studies. In

Commemorating Women’s Studies?

Why may women’s studies need to ‘be exciting again’? The theme of the 15th Women’s Studies Network Association (UK) annual conference – ‘Beyond Sex and Gender: The Future of Women’s Studies?’1 – was expressly chosen to engage with the past, present and future of the field. Has this once dissident interdisciplinary body of theories and practices mutated into a corpse? What use is insubordination and defiance that has morphed into compliance and conformity? How can women’s studies survive in an era of academic multi-culturalism? Has women’s studies become deadly boring? The questions were intended to facilitate a series of candid reflections on the trajectory of women’s studies; they were not calculated to sound the death-knell of the field. Yet it was important to inhibit a routine rehearsal of the defences of women’s studies,2 which necessitated a meticulous appraisal of the contemporary character of the field. It was for this reason that Wendy Brown was asked to provide the keynote talk. One of Brown’s scholarly imperatives concerns the consequences of living in an era of ‘profound political disorientation’ (2001: 3). She alleges that many of the constitutive narratives of modernity have been disturbed or undermined, yet ‘we continue to operate politically as if these premises still held, and as if the political-cultural narratives based on them were intact’. This disintegration of what were once considered to be irreplaceable political narratives prompts a number of reactions, one of which is a ‘panicked and reactionary clutching’ (Brown, 2001: 4). Despite (or because of) Brown’s position as a Professor of Women’s Studies,3 she identifies the field of women’s studies as an emblematic site of this ‘reactionary clutching’, leading her to proclaim both the ‘impossibility of women’s studies’ (1997) and that ‘there is no such thing as women’s studies’ (2001: 34). This made Brown an ideal, if also a controversial, choice, to open a conference interrogating the future of women’s studies in an epoch putatively ‘beyond sex and gender’. 339

Introduction: Making feminist sense of Fahrenheit 9/11

What are feminist forms of writing/speaking/viewing and how do they make a difference to international feminist theory, practice and politics? The ‘Conversations’ section of IFjP offers a place in which to experiment with feminist narrative, dialogical and visual forms. Submissions are sought that make strong theoretical and/or practical contributions to feminist debates, without necessarily taking standard academic form. Interviews, poetry, film readings, photo essays and exchanges of letters are some of the forms this section promotes. Submissions and submission enquiries should be directed to:

Product Review: Feminist International Relations: An Unfinished Journey:

Hispanic and Asian populations, blacks will lose any special claim they might have on the “national consciousness” by virtue of being the oldest or main minority group. She suggests that blacks might once again get “passed over”—the first time was during earlier European migrations—in their struggle for full participation in U.S. society. Derrick Bell argues that there is little empirical support or logic for thinking that U.S. society is willing or capable of living up to its colorblind ideals. He argues that the jury is still out on whether Hispanics and Asians will be enticed into a romance of “quasi-white status” or if they will join in coalitions with blacks to fight “the economic and social rejection” suffered by both. Joe Feagin and Hernan Vera maintain that white economic elites exploit racial minorities, while white politicians whip up white’s fear of impending minority takeover of the United States. They provocatively argue that the United States will either be forced by unstoppable demographic change to redistribute resources and power, or the United States will turn into a repressive and unstable regime resembling the former South Africa. In stark contrast, other authors speak blissfully of a future where groups work out their differences cooperatively and march in unison toward a happy multicultural America. These tensions are not worked out or directly engaged anywhere in the book. The New Politics of Race seems to suggest—and I wish that the point was posed more sharply throughout the chapters—that blacks are at a critical crossroads politically. They can continue on the same path of electing increasingly isolated and ineffective black officials in majority black districts (Denton), supporting band-aid social welfare programs that merely drain away the “revolutionary potential in their deprivations” (Bell), or they can forge new kinds of coalitions with Asians, Latinos, and white groups cognizant of their declining power. Unfortunately, none of the chapters discussing politics suggest what kinds of organizations in white, black, Asian, or Hispanic communities might be especially interested in cross-racial alliances, or why. Nor did the chapters make much of the national backgrounds of immigrants coming into the United States. Black demands are seen as historically based, but immigrants are only viewed as having immediate demands here in the United States that are disconnected from the colonial or slave histories in their native countries. Thus the larger issues of globalization and North/South political struggles and their possible impact on interracial and ethnic coalition-building in the United States, are not considered by the authors. This is an important omission, as it distorts the balance of forces affecting politics in the United States, as well as global debates already influencing race and ethnic identities in this country. For example, in terms of pressure on U.S. institutions to recognize the significance of ethnic and racial diversity, certainly the rising economic and political importance of developing countries (China, Mexico, Nigeria) is as important a factor as demographic trends inside the United States. The coalitions that blacks, Hispanics, and other groups pursue in the future could be transnational as well as internally (in the U.S.) cross-ethnic. The New Politics of Race pulls together interesting data and begins to open up important questions about the changing meaning of race and ethnicity in the United States, but I hope it is only the beginning of a more far-reaching exploration.

A conversation with Susan Stryker

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