9.28 Blog Post

Gabriella Can

GVPT200 Sec 0101

Professor Shirk

28 September 2014

Mid-Level Feminism

                When the name Emma Watson comes to mind one could argue that an image of Hermione Granger from the praised book and movie series, Harry Potter, comes to mind. Instead, Emma Watson has change that image to a picture of a young woman standing before the United Nations and speaking on behalf of He for She, a movement to fight for women’s rights. She called herself to be a feminist and asked for “men and boys” to join the fight for equality among men and women. An argument can be made that “Feminist International Relations Theory” is not a grand scale theory such as realism or liberalism. Although feminism shares many qualities with constructivism, one could argue that feminism is more of a mid-level theory than a grand scale theory.

                The argument for feminism being a mid-level theory is backed by the idea that feminism focuses on an issue but it is hard to apply this idea on a grand scale. The definition for feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” This is more of a critique on society rather than a theory and realists would not support the idea of feminism. Although realists may not support this concept, constructivism can also be said to be a critique rather than a theory and can not be applied to all situations resulting in an positive outcome. Feminism involves morals and human rights while realists believe that the idea of morality does not exist and there is no room for something that is not universal. Feminists focuses on an individual group while realists focuses on the entirety of the universe.

                As discussed in class, there is a difference between the words gender and sex. The gender of an individual refers to whether or not that individual relates more with masculine qualities or feminine qualities. The definition of masculine qualities and feminine qualities are defined by society and society’s structure. The definition are whatever society makes them to be and this is why the feminist theory is similar to the critical theory due to both theories focuses around socially structured concepts. Emma discusses in her speech that, “at age fifteen my girlfriends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams because they did not want to appear muscly,” and “at age eighteen my male friends were unable to express their feelings.” These examples relate more to the definition of masculine and feminine discussed in class. Being muscly is commonly know as a masculine thing and is often associated with men, while expressing feelings and being emotion is often associated as a feminine concept and associated with women. These two qualities were defined by society and are now associated with masculine and feminine. Thucydides presents the idea of coercion in the readings and puts a pressure on men not to be weak because men are looked as having no power and being weak if they show signs of feminine characteristics.  

As discussed in her speech, Emma refers to word feminist and how it has become an unpopular word because it is associated with hating men, and this definition varies greatly from ones published online and the one discussed it class. In Tickner’s article the concept that, “international relations is perceived as a man’s world”, and Emma references that as a feminist she believes that she deserves to be respected as equally as men, to be paid the same amount as a man for doing the same job, and that she believes that gender equality is a human right. She is trying to change the idea of the “man’s world” and make it a society that can cooperate together. One could argue that she would believe in Power between men and women and them working together to achieve goals. She wants men and women to work together to achieve equality and to work together in society politically, socially, and economically. Ticker’s writing shows that feminism is the cooperation of men and women and that women have to group together in order to have power. Enloe also discusses how it takes cooperation to receive power and to maintain that power. Giving women power is not an easy task and it is easier to get smaller groups of people to go alone rather than the whole universe. Emma's speech has definitely shed more light to the concept of feminism and has allowed people to wonder is this mid-level theory can be apply to the universe.