Despite the importance of gender in global politics, gender is still not fully integrated in the academic study of international politics. Feminist approaches are offering new views of a field previously defined as devoid of gender politics. Early IR feminists challenged the discipline to think about how its theories might be reformulated and how its understandings of global politics might be improved if gender were included as a category of analysis and if women’s experiences were part of its subject matter. IR feminists critically re-examined some of the key concepts in the field - concepts such as sovereignty, the state, and security. They began to ask new questions - such as whether it makes a difference that most foreign policy leaders, military personnel and heads of international corporations are men and why women remain relatively disempowered in matters of foreign and military policy. IR feminists have also sought to make women visible as subjects in international politics and the global economy. They draw attention to women’s invisibility and gender subordination in the theory and practice of international politics.

This particular module looks to explore the relationship between gender and armed conflict. As it does, it looks to show that ‘gender’ is not a euphemism for ‘women,’ and that women can be found many places in armed conflict other than on its sidelines or as its civilian victims. In its overview of gender and armed conflict, the module looks at armed conflict through ‘gender lenses’ (h/t Peterson and Runyan, Global Gender Issues), looking for gender and seeing what else is seen along the way. In this journey, it engages with how genders and sexualities matter in how ‘we’ see armed conflict; how armed conflict is lived and experienced; the conceptual and practical interdependence of genders, nationalisms, and militarisms; the dimensions of gender-based and sexual violence in/around armed conflict; women’s engagement in political violence; associations of femininities and peace; and a wide variety of gender-based insights about whether ‘post-conflict’ periods exist and how they can be understood.

Note that the module will not go over the basic readings in gender, feminism, and/or global politics/International Relations (IR). It is assumed that you have had first- and second- year courses in IR, with their included gender content. It is not assumed that you have read the readings that would be in a general module on gender and IR. Having some background in those readings may make doing the readings that are assigned easier, but it is not required that you do that work. If you decide to do some preparation reading, you are free to choose your own background readings – many syllabi for gender and IR courses are available around the internet (a central location is the Consortium on Gender, Security, and Human Rights’ syllabus collection: https://genderandsecurity.org/projects-resources/syllabus-collection). Some suggestions for background reading are also included at the beginning of the course reading list.