Hi there.

According to feminism, the discipline of international relations (IR) had, and still has, connotations similar to'maleness' a decade ago. This maleness is not based solely on individual personalities, but on a 'hegemonic masculinity' that expresses what masculine men should be in contrast to less valued femininities. Women are not a powerful force in the discipline, and knowledge gained from women's experiences is also on the outskirts of the discipline's analysis. Professor J. Ann Tickner believes that gendered perceptions exist in international relations, despite claims of 'gender neutrality' and 'objectivity.'

In other words, while women and gender are both important parts of the day-to-day operation and scholarship of international relations, their presence is not debated or analysed by most theorists. The goal of feminist IR is twofold: to recognise gender in IR and to move beyond gendered ideas into collaborative scholarship. In this way, feminist IR theory challenges other strands of IR theory on multiple levels, contributing to the discipline's major theoretical debates and raising new areas of analysis.