ABSTRACT
When feminist scholars and activists first began to engage with both the academic and policy practitioners of global politics, the idea that feminist thought might contribute to thinking about international security was sometimes met with hostility or ridicule. What could feminist theory – which
surely concerned only the activities of women – tell us about the workings of global politics, national militaries, nuclear deterrence, or the decision-making of Great Powers? That kind of reaction was very revealing, since it illustrated well part of the point that feminism sought to make. For most feminists, whatever their particular theoretical orientation within feminism, the workings of security have long been presented as though they are gender-neutral when in fact international security is infused with gendered assumptions and representations. The effects of presenting international security as though it is gender-neutral are numerous, and not least that it makes invisible the genderdifferentiated understandings and impacts of security on women and men and the ways in which security is constituted in part through gender – the prevailing ideas and meanings associated with masculinity and femininity rather than the facts of biological differences between men and women.
