1st Edition

Gender and International Security Feminist Perspectives

Edited By Laura Sjoberg Copyright 2010
    304 Pages
    by Routledge

    302 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book defines the relationship between gender and international security, analyzing and critiquing international security theory and practice from a gendered perspective.

    Gender issues have an important place in the international security landscape, but have been neglected both in the theory and practice of international security. The passage and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (on Security Council operations), the integration of gender concerns into peacekeeping, the management of refugees, post-conflict disarmament and reintegration and protection for non-combatants in times of war shows the increasing importance of gender sensitivity for actors on all fronts in global security. This book aims to improve the quality and quantity of conversations between feminist security studies and security studies more generally, in order to demonstrate the importance of gender analysis to the study of international security, and to expand the feminist research program in Security Studies. The chapters included in this book not only challenge the assumed irrelevance of gender, they argue that gender is not a subsection of security studies to be compartmentalized or briefly considered as a side issue. Rather, the contributors argue that gender is conceptually, empirically, and normatively essential to studying international security.  They do so by critiquing and reconstructing key concepts of and theories in international security, by looking for the increasingly complex roles women play as security actors, and by looking at various contemporary security issues through gendered lenses.  Together, these chapters make the case that accurate, rigorous, and ethical scholarship of international security cannot be produced without taking account of women’s presence in or the gendering of world politics.

    This book will be of interest to all students of critical security studies, gender studies and International Relations in general.

    Laura Sjoberg is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. She has a Phd in International Relations and Gender Studies from the University of Southern California and is the author of Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006) and, with Caron Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics (2007)

    1. Introduction Laura Sjoberg  Part 1: Gendered Lenses Envision Security  2. Theses on the Military, U.S. National Security, War, and Women Judith Stiehm  3. War, Sense, and Security Christine Sylvester  4. Gendering the State: Performativity and Protection in International Security Jonathan Wadley  Part 2: Gendered Security Theories  5. Gendering the ‘Cult of the Offensive,’ Lauren Wilcox  6. Gendering Power Transition Theory Laura Sjoberg  7. The Genders of Environmental Security Nicole Detraz  Part 3: Gendered Security Actors: Women in International Security  8. Loyalist Women Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland: Beginning a Feminist Conversation about Conflict Resolution Sandra McEvoy  9. Securitization and De-Securitization: Female Soldiers and the Reconstruction of Women in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone Megan MacKenzie  10. Women, Militancy, and Security: The South Asia Conundrum Swati Parashar  Part 4: Gendered Security Problematiques  11. Feminist Theory and Arms Control Susan Wright  12. Beyond Border Security: Feminist Approaches to Human Trafficking Jennifer Lobasz  13. When Are States Hypermasculine? Jennifer Maruska  14. Peace Building through a Gender Lens and the Challenges of Implementation in Rwanda and Cote d’Ivoire Heidi Hudson

    Biography

    Laura Sjoberg is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. She has a PhD in International Relations and Gender Studies from the University of Southern California and a JD from Boston College Law School. She is the author of Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (2006) and, with Caron Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics (2007).

    "Summing Up: Recommended.  Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections." - J. G. Everett, CHOICE (July 2010)

    "The topics addressed are not only central to the field of Security Studies but of wide current interest including war, environmental security, conflict resolution, arms control, and human trafficking... I have come across few edited volumes where the quality and significance of the contributions are maintained at such a high standard. Gender and International Security purports to be of interest to ‘‘students of critical Security Studies, gender studies and International Relations in general,’’ and this is no hyperbole. I found myself taking 544 Book Reviews careful notes throughout this engaging and important text." - Maurice Hamington, The European Legacy, Vol. 17, 4, June 2012