Abstract
International politics is a man’s world, a world of power and conflict in which warfare is a privileged activity. Traditionally, diplomacy, military service, and the science of international politics have been largely male domains. In the past, women have rarely been included in the ranks of professional diplomats or the military: of the relatively few women who specialize in the academic discipline of international relations, few are security specialists. Women political scientists who do international relations tend to focus on areas such as international political economy, North-South relations and matters of distributive justice.
It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal: that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. (Simone de Beauvoir) 1
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17(3) (Winter), pp. 429–440.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Quoted in Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 148.
In 1987 only 4.8 per cent of the top career Foreign Service employees were women. Statement of Patricia Schroeder before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, Women’s on US Foreign Policy: A Compilation of Views (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1988), p. 4. For an analysis of women’s roles in the American military, see Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarisation of Women’s Lives (London: Pluto Press, 1983).
Edward P. Crapol (ed.), Women and American Foreign Policy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), p. 167.
For an analysis of the role of masculine language in shaping strategic thinking see Carol Cohn, ‘Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals’, Signs; Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 12 (4) (Summer 1987), pp. 687–718
The claim for the dominance of the realist paradigm is supported by John A. Vasquez, ‘Colouring it Morgenthau: New Evidence for an Old Thesis on Quantitative International Studies’, British Journal of International Studies, 5 (3) (October 1979), pp. 210–228. For a critique of Morgenthau’s ambiguous use of language, see Inis L. Claude Jr., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), especially pp. 25–37
These are drawn from the six principles of political realism in Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th revised edn (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1973), pp. 4–15. I am aware that these principles embody only a partial statement of Morgenthau’s very rich study of international politics, a study which deserves a much more detailed analysis than I can give it here.
This list is a composite of male/female dichotomies which appear in Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985) and Harding, The Science Question.
Inge K. Broverman, Susan R. Vogel, Donald M. Broverman, Frank E. Clarkson and Paul S. Rosenkranz, ‘Sex-Role Stereotypes: A Current Appraisal’, Journal of Social Issues 28 (2) (1972), pp. 59–78. Replication of this research in the 1980s confirms that these perceptions still hold.
Sara Ann Ketchum, ‘Female Culture, Womanculture and Conceptual Change: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Studies’, Social Theory and Practice, 6 (2) (Summer 1980), pp. 151–62
Others have questioned whether Hobbes’ state of nature provides an accurate description of the international system. See, for example, Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 35–50, and Stanley Hoffmann, Duties Beyond Borders (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1981), chapter 1.
Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), chapter 2.
Gilligan’s critique of Kohlberg appears in Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), chapter 1.
There is evidence that, toward the end of his life, Morgenthau himself was aware that his own prescriptions were becoming anachronistic. In a seminar presentation in 1978, he suggested that power politics as the guiding principle for the conduct of international relations had become fatally defective. For a description of this seminar presentation, see Francis Anthony Boyle, World Politics and International Law (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985), pp. 70–4
Nancy C. M. Hartsock, Money, Sex and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1983), p. 210.
Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), p. 44. Arendt’s definition of power, as it relates to international relations, is discussed more extensively in Jean Bethke Elshtain,’ Reflections on War and Political Discourse: Realism, Just War, and Feminism in a Nuclear Age,’ Political Theory 13 (1) (February 1985), pp. 39–57.
David McClelland, ‘Power and the Feminine Role’, in David McClelland, Power, The Inner Experience (New York: Wiley, 1975), chapter 3.
Jane S. Jaquette, ‘Power as Ideology: A Feminist Analysis’, in Judith H. Stiehm, Women’s Views of the Political World of Men (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1984), chapter 2.
These examples are cited in Christine Sylvester, ‘The Emperor’s Theories and Transformations: Looking at the Field Through Feminist Lenses’, in Dennis Pirages and Christine Sylvester (eds.) Transfor-veations in the Global Political Economy (New York: Macmillan, 1988).
Karl W. Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).
‘New thinking’ is a term that is also being used in the Soviet Union to describe foreign policy reformulations under Gorbachev. There are indications that the Soviets are beginning to conceptualize security in the multidimensional terms described here. See Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988), chapter 10.
This is the argument made in Edward Azar and Chung-in Moon, ‘Third World National Security: Toward A New Conceptual Framework’, International Interactions, 11 (2) (1984), pp. 103–35
Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, in Johan Galtung, Essays in Peace Research, vol. 1 (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 1974), chapter 1.4.
See, for example, Gita Sen and Caren Grown, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987). This is an example of a growing literature on women and development which deserves more attention from the international relations community.
Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. xv.
Sara Ruddick, ‘Maternal Thinking,’ and Sara Ruddick, ‘Preservative Love and Military Destruction: Some Reflections on Mothering and Peace,’ in Joyce Treblicot, Mothering: Essays in Feminist Theory (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allatilield, 1984), chapter 13–4.
For a more extensive analysis of this issue, see Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (New York: Basic Books, 1987).
This type of conflict resolution bears similarities to the problent solving approach of Edward Azar, John Burton and Herbert Kelman. See, for example, Edward E. Azar and John W. Burton, International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986) and Herbert C. Kelman, ‘Interactive Problem Solving: A Social-Psychological Approach to Conflict Resolution,’ in W. Klassen (ed.), Dialogue Toward Inter-Faith Understanding, (Tantur/ Jerusalem: Ecumenical Institute for Theoretical Research, 1986), pp. 293–314
Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, (New York: Freeman, 1983).
‘Utopia and reality are … the two facets of political science. Sound political thought and sound political life will be found only where both have their place,’ E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 10.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1995 Millennium Journal of International Studies
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tickner, J.A. (1995). Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation (1988). In: Der Derian, J. (eds) International Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23773-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23773-9_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-61761-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-23773-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)