ABSTRACT
The early ridicule that greeted feminist interventions in global politics is now far more difficult to sustain. For one, more traditional theoretical orientations within International Relations (IR) have been critiqued for a variety of exclusions, as numerous chapters in this collection have highlighted. Within this context, raising issues of gender no longer seems out of step with the rest of the literature on global politics. Explicit attention to the gendered dimensions of security is now also more widespread within some of the more mainstream sites of global politics. The UN Security Council, for example, adopted Resolution 1325 in October 2000 on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ – a resolution which noted both that women and girls are affected by armed conflict in ways that differ from the impact on men and boys, and the importance of incorporating a ‘gender perspective’ into peace operations. This kind of acknowledgement underscores the feminist observation that gender permeates all aspects of international peace and security.
