ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a discussion of gender theory, exploring how sex and gender have been variously conceptualised and arguing that everyone has a theory of gender – a set of ideas about the representation and regulation of bodies in accordance with assumptions about how bodies should behave or be acted upon in society. Theorists of gender in global politics have paid close attention to which bodies (embodying specific gendered identities) have been permitted in, or barred from, political institutions and other forms of political space, as well as examining how assumptions about bodies and behaviour inform other kinds of political engagement. This chapter uses two cases of global political practices – social justice movements and the development of nuclear weapons technology – to show how gendered logics shape and influence global politics and why it is important to pay attention to how gendered power operates if we want to fully understand the world.
