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Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security

J. Ann Tickner

Columbia University Press, New York

1992

2. Man, the State, and War: Gendered Perspectives on National Security *

 

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

The man's duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state. 

John Ruskin

If we do not redefine manhood, war is inevitable. 

Paul Fussell

**

In the face of what is generally perceived as a dangerous international environment, states have ranked national security high in terms of their policy priorities. According to international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz, the state conducts its affairs in the "brooding shadow of violence," and therefore war could break out at any time. 1 In the name of national security, states have justified large defense budgets, which take priority over domestic spending, military conscription of their young adult male population, foreign invasions, and the curtailment of civil liberties. The security of the state is perceived as a core value that is generally supported unquestioningly by most citizens, particularly in time of war. While the role of the state in the twentieth century has expanded to include the provision of domestic social programs, national security often takes precedence over the social security of individuals.

When we think about the provision of national security we enter into what has been, and continues to be, an almost exclusively male domain. While most women support what they take to be legitimate calls for state action in the interests of international security, the task of defining, defending, and advancing the security interests of the state is a man's affair, a task that, through its association with war, has been especially valorized and rewarded in many cultures throughout history. As Simone de Beauvoir's explanation for male superiority suggests, giving one's life for one's country has been considered the highest form of patriotism, but it is an act from which women have been virtually excluded. While men have been associated with defending the state and advancing its international interests as soldiers and diplomats, women have typically been engaged in the "ordering" and "comforting" roles both in the domestic sphere, as mothers and basic needs providers, and in the caring professions, as teachers, nurses, and social workers. 2 The role of women with respect to national security has been ambiguous: defined as those whom the state and its men are protecting, women have had little control over the conditions of their protection.

I shall begin this chapter by examining the contemporary realist analysis of national security, concentrating on the work of Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz, two scholars of international relations whom I define in chapter 1 as a classical realist and a neorealist, respectively. 3 I shall also discuss some of the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli, Western political theorists whose writings have had an important influence on contemporary realism. Of all the academic approaches to international relations, political realism is most closely associated with the world view of foreign policy practitioners, particularly national security specialists. Realists have concentrated their investigations on the activities of the great powers: therefore my discussion in this section will be drawn mainly from the experiences of the great powers, particularly the contemporary United States with whose activities realists are centrally concerned.

For realists, security is tied to the military security of the state. Given their pessimistic assumptions about the likely behavior of states in an "anarchic" international environment, most realists are skeptical about the possibility of states ever achieving perfect security. In an imperfect world, where many states have national security interests that go beyond self-preservation and where there is no international government to curb their ambitions, realists tell us that war could break out at any time because nothing can prevent it. Consequently, they advise, states must rely on their own power capabilities to achieve security. The best contribution the discipline of international relations can make to national security is to investigate the causes of war and thereby help to design "realistic" policies that can prolong intervals of peace. Realists counsel that morality is usually ineffective in a dangerous world: a "realistic" understanding of amoral and instrumental behavior, characteristic of international politics, is necessary if states are not to fall prey to others' ambitions.

In looking for explanations for the causes of war, realists, as well as scholars in other approaches to international relations, have distinguished among three levels of analysis: the individual, the state, and the international system. While realists claim that their theories are "objective" and of universal validity, the assumptions they use when analyzing states and explaining their behavior in the international system are heavily dependent on characteristics that we, in the West, have come to associate with masculinity. The way in which realists describe the individual, the state, and the international system are profoundly gendered; each is constructed in terms of the idealized or hegemonic masculinity described in chapter 1. In the name of universality, realists have constructed a world view based on the experiences of certain men: it is therefore a world view that offers us only a partial view of reality.

Having examined the connection between realism and masculinity, I shall examine some feminist perspectives on national security. Using feminist theories, which draw on the experiences of women, I shall ask how it would affect the way in which we think about national security if we were to develop an alternative set of assumptions about the individual, the state, and the international system not based exclusively on the behavior of men. Realist assumptions about states as unitary actors render unproblematic the boundaries between anarchy and order and legitimate and illegitimate violence. If we were to include the experiences of women, how would it affect the way in which we understand the meaning of violence? While women have been less directly involved in international violence as soldiers, their lives have been affected by domestic violence in households, another unprotected space, and by the consequences of war and the policy priorities of militarized societies. Certain feminists have suggested that, because of what they see as a connection between sexism and militarism, violence at all levels of society is interrelated, a claim that calls into question the realist assumption of the anarchy/order distinction. Most important, these feminists claim that all types of violence are embedded in the gender hierarchies of dominance and subordination that I described in chapter 1. Hence they would argue that until these and other hierarchies associated with class and race are dismantled and until women have control over their own security a truly comprehensive system of security cannot be devised.

National Security and Contemporary Realism

Realist Prescriptions for National Security

Realists believe that, since there is no international government capable of enforcing impartial rules for states' behavior, states must take matters of security into their own hands even if it yields dangerous results. Kenneth Waltz uses eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's metaphor of a stag hunt to describe the likely security-seeking behavior of states given this condition of anarchy. Five hungry men agree to trap and share a stag, but when a hare runs by one man grabs it, thereby letting the stag escape: by defecting from the common goal, this hunter sacrifices the long-term cooperative interests of the group, his own included, for his immediate short-term interest. 4 For realists, this story illustrates the problematic nature of national security: in an international system of anarchy, rationality would dictate that mutual cooperation would work in the interest of all. But since men are self-seeking, politically ambitious, and not always rational, we must assume that some states and some men will not be cooperative and will start wars. Given the lack of an international government with powers of enforcement, states must therefore depend on themselves for their own security needs even if this is not in the best interests of the system as a whole.

For realists this is the classic security dilemma. 5 In an imperfect world states can never be sure of one another's intentions, so they arm themselves to achieve security; since this is an act that threatens someone else's security, it sets in motion a vicious cycle which results in the spiraling procurement of armaments and the possibility that war could break out at any time. Faced with the ever present threat of violence and the lack of a sanctioning authority to control it, how do realists suggest that states should act to promote peace and stability in such an environment?

Given their belief that perfect security is unattainable in an imperfect world, realists believe that states can best optimize their security through preparation for war. For Hans Morgenthau, the security of the state is attained and preserved through the maximization of power, particularly military power. Elements of national power include secure geographical boundaries, large territorial size, the capacity for self-sufficiency in natural and industrial resources, and a strong technological base, all of which contribute to a strong military capability. 6 Kenneth Waltz suggests that states can enhance their security by following the principle of self-help: in an anarchical international system, states must help themselves, for they can count on no one else to do so. For Waltz, security depends on avoiding dependence and building the capabilities necessary to defend against other states' aggressive acts: the greatest rewards for a state come, not from an increase in well-being, which might be achieved through heightened interdependence, but from the maintenance of autonomy. 7 In a dangerous world, Waltz predicts that states with the most power will be the most successful, because power permits a wide range of action.

Prescriptions such as Morgenthau's power maximization or Waltz's more ambiguously defined notion of self-help can have dangerous consequences, given the conditions of anarchy and mutual distrust. In such an environment what prospects for peace and security that do exist rest on the operation of the balance of power, a mechanism that is crucial for realist explanations of the behavior of states in the international system. Morgenthau claims that peace depends on two mechanisms-- balance of power and international law; since he believes that depending solely on the latter is unrealistic, given the lack of any international enforcement mechanism, peace will be maintained, although imperfectly, by the balance of power. For realists, balance of power becomes an explanation of states' behavior as well as a device for their self-preservation. While Morgenthau is somewhat ambivalent as to whether states intentionally engage in power balancing, Waltz claims that even if it is not the intention of any one state, balances will form as states act, either alone or through alliances, to counter the power of others. Since alliances are often fragile and the power capabilities of states change, power balances tend toward instability. Given these uncertainties, Waltz claims that the bipolar balance of the Cold War period was more stable than multipolar systems. Not only did the United States and the Soviet Union check each others' actions without relying on alliance partners to increase their capabilities, but, in a bipolar world, each responded to unsettling events within clearly demarcated spheres of influence, thus maintaining stability throughout the system. 8

In the post-World War II world, this bipolar balance of power became what less sanguine observers termed a "balance of terror" that rested on the vast array of nuclear weapons possessed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. In the United States, the unprecedented buildup and maintenance of huge military arsenals in a time of "peace" led to a new branch of international relations scholarship known as national security studies. While national security scholars are realists in their basic assumptions and explanations, during the Cold War era they focused almost exclusively on designing a military strategy for the United States with respect to the Soviet Union. As national security specialists have moved between academia and government, American national security policy has rested on the realist prescription of increasing security through preparation for war.

Strategic thinking has centered on the notion of deterrence, which means relying on one's strategic capability to prevent the enemy from attacking. From the 1960s until the end of the Cold War, the notion of mutual deterrence characterized the strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The stability of mutual deterrence, a nuclear form of bipolar power-balancing, depends on second strike capability, the ability of both sides to destroy each others' homeland with nuclear weapons after either side has launched a first attack. Although the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a massive military buildup to preserve their security during the Cold War, ultimately that security rested on mutual vulnerability since neither side developed the defensive capability to resist the other's attack. However, strategists claim that this rough balance between the capabilities of each side was relatively stable because each side understood that to strike first would be to commit suicide. Even though realists have cautioned against the dangers of unpredictable actions by aggressive men and expansionist states, this argument in favor of strategic stability placed a great deal of emphasis on rationality, an emphasis prevalent in realist thinking more generally.

Realism's prescriptions for national security, described above, rest on the claims of its scholars that they are presenting a rational, objective assessment of the international system and the behavior of the states that constitute it. Labeling those who believe in the possibility of eliminating war through international law, international cooperation, or disarmament "idealists," realists claim that only through this "realistic" understanding of the nature of the international system can states undertake policies that will be successful in preserving their national security. Realists believe that explanations of states' behavior can be described in terms of laws that are objective, universal, and timeless. Politics, Morgenthau tells us, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature; therefore it is possible to discover a rational theory that reflects these objective laws. Political realism, which for Morgenthau is the concept of interest defined in terms of power, stresses the rational, objective, and unemotional. Morgenthau claims that, in order to develop an autonomous theory of political behavior, "political man" must be abstracted from other aspects of human behavior. Political man is amoral; a failure to understand this drive to power, which is at the root of the behavior of both individuals and states, can be the pitfall of well-meaning statesmen whose attempts to act morally in the conduct of foreign relations can jeopardize the security of their own people. 9

Since Morgenthau wrote the first edition of Politics Among Nations in 1948, the search for an objective, rational science of international politics based on models imported from economics and the natural sciences has been an important goal of the realist agenda. Neorealists, who have attempted to construct a positivist "science" of international relations, have used game theoretic and rational choice models in an effort to insert more scientific rigor into the field. Realists, as well as some of their critics, have also introduced the concept of "levels of analysis" to explore the causes of international wars more systematically. In international relations scholarship, causal explanations for war are conventionally situated at the levels of the individual, the state, or the international system. 10

While most international relations literature concentrates on the second and third levels, neorealists, who are attempting to build more parsimonious and "scientific" approaches to the discipline, favor system-level explanations. Rejecting what he terms reductionist theories, Waltz claims that only at the level of the international system can we discover laws that can help us to understand the international behavior of states and the propensity for conflict. Waltz asserts that it is not possible to understand states' behavior simply by looking at each individual unit; one must look at the structure as a whole and see how each state's capabilities stand in relation to others'. The extent to which states will be successful in attaining their goals and providing for their own security can be predicted by analyzing their relative power capabilities. But given this self-seeking behavior in an anarchic environment, conflict is a likely outcome. Focusing his explanations at the level of the international system, Waltz claims that it is possible to observe regularities in the power-balancing behavior of states that can be explained in terms similar to those of equilibrium theory in microeconomics. 11

A Gendered Perspective on National Security

Morgenthau, Waltz, and other realists claim that it is possible to develop a rational, objective theory of international politics based on universal laws that operate across time and space. In her feminist critique of the natural sciences, Evelyn Fox Keller points out that most scientific communities share the "assumption that the universe they study is directly accessible, represented by concepts shaped not by language but only by the demands of logic and experiment." The laws of nature, according to this view of science, are beyond the relativity of language. 12 Like most contemporary feminists, Keller rejects this positivist view of science that, she asserts, imposes a coercive, hierarchical, and conformist pattern on scientific inquiry. Since most contemporary feminist scholars believe that knowledge is socially constructed, they are skeptical of finding an unmediated foundation for knowledge that realists claim is possible. Since they believe that it is language that transmits knowledge, many feminists suggest that the scholarly claims about the neutral uses of language and about objectivity must continually be questioned. 13

I shall now investigate the individual, the state, and the international system-- the three levels of analysis that realists use in their analysis of war and national security-- and examine how they have been constructed in realist discourse. I shall argue that the language used to describe these concepts comes out of a Western-centered historical worldview that draws almost exclusively on the experiences of men. Underneath its claim to universality this worldview privileges a view of security that is constructed out of values associated with hegemonic masculinity.

"Political Man"

In his Politics Among Nations, a text rich in historical detail, Morgenthau has constructed a world almost entirely without women. Morgenthau claims that individuals are engaged in a struggle for power whenever they come into contact with one another, for the tendency to dominate exists at all levels of human life: the family, the polity, and the international system; it is modified only by the conditions under which the struggle takes place. 14 Since women rarely occupy positions of power in any of these arenas, we can assume that, when Morgenthau talks about domination, he is talking primarily about men, although not all men. 15 His "political man" is a social construct based on a partial representation of human nature abstracted from the behavior of men in positions of public power. 16 Morgenthau goes on to suggest that, while society condemns the violent behavior that can result from this struggle for power within the polity, it encourages it in the international system in the form of war.

While Morgenthau's "political man" has been criticized by other international relations scholars for its essentializing view of human nature, the social construction of hegemonic masculinity and its opposition to a devalued femininity described in chapter 1, have been central to the way in which the discourse of international politics has been constructed more generally. In Western political theory from the Greeks to Machiavelli, traditions upon which contemporary realism relies heavily for its analysis, this socially constructed type of masculinity has been projected onto the international behavior of states. The violence with which it is associated has been legitimated through the glorification of war.

The militarized version of citizenship, similar to the "manly" behavior described in chapter 1, can be traced back to the ancient Greek city-states on whose history realists frequently draw in constructing their analysis. For the Greeks, the most honored way to achieve recognition as a citizen was through heroic performance and sacrifice in war. The real test of manly virtue or "arete," a militarized notion of greatness, was victory in battle. 17 The Greek city-state was a community of warriors. Women and slaves involved in the realm of "necessity" in the household or the economy were not included as citizens for they would pollute the higher realm of politics. 18

This exclusive definition of the citizen-warrior reemerges in sixteenth-century Europe in the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli. Since he associates human excellence with the competitive striving for power, what is a negative but unavoidable characteristic of human nature for Morgenthau is a virtue for Machiavelli. Machiavelli translates this quest for power into the glorification of the warrior-prince whose prowess in battle was necessary for the salvation of his native Florence in the face of powerful external threats.

For feminists, warrior-citizenship is neither a negative, unavoidable characterization of human nature, nor a desirable possibility; it is a revisable, gendered construction of personality and citizenship. Feminist political theorist Wendy Brown suggests that Machiavelli's representation of the political world and its citizenry is profoundly gendered; it is dependent on an image of true manliness that demands qualities that are superior to those that naturally inhere in men. 19 Hannah Pitkin claims that for Machiavelli triumph in war, honor and liberty in civic life, and independent critical thought and manliness in personal relationships are all bound together by a central preoccupation with autonomy, a characteristic associated with masculinity. 20 True manliness, demanded of the ideal citizen-warrior, is encompassed in the concept "virtu," which means, in its literal sense, manly activity. For Machiavelli, virtu is insight, energetic activity, effectiveness, and courage: it demands overcoming a man's self-indulgence and laziness. 21

Just as the concept of hegemonic masculinity, described in chapter 1, requires for its construction an oppositional relationship to a devalued femininity, Machiavelli's construction of the citizen-warrior required a similarly devalued "other" against which true manhood and autonomy could be set. In Machiavelli's writings this feminine other is "fortuna," originally a Roman goddess associated with capriciousness and unpredictability. Hannah Pitkin claims that in Machiavelli's writings fortuna is presented as the feminine power in men themselves against which they must continually struggle to maintain their autonomy. 22 In the public world, Machiavelli depicts fortuna as chance, situations that could not have been foreseen or that men fail to control. The capriciousness of fortuna cannot be prevented, but it can be prepared against and overcome through the cultivation of manly virtues. According to Brown, fortuna and virtu are in permanent combat: both are supremely gendered constructions that involve a notion of manliness that is tied to the conquest of women. 23 In Machiavelli's own words, "Fortune is a woman, and it is necessary if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force." 24

Having constructed these explicitly gendered representations of virtu and fortuna, Machiavelli also makes it clear that he considers women to be a threat to the masculinity of the citizen-warrior. Although they scarcely appear in Machiavelli's political writings, when women are discussed, Machiavelli portrays them as both dangerous and inferior. 25 The most dangerous threat to both a man and a state is to be like a women because women are weak, fearful, indecisive, and dependent-- stereotypes that, as described in chapter 1, still surface when assessing women's suitability for the military and the conduct of foreign policy today.

While contemporary international relations does not employ this explicitly misogynist discourse, the contemporary understanding of citizenship still remains bound up with the Greeks' and Machiavelli's depictions of the citizen-warrior. The most noble sacrifice a citizen can make is to give his life for his country. When the National Organization for Women decided to support the drafting of women into the United States military, it argued its case on the grounds that, if women were barred from participation in the armed forces on an equal footing with men, they would remain second-class citizens denied the unique political responsibility of risking one's life for the state. 26 But in spite of women's increasing numbers in noncombat roles in the armed forces of certain states, the relationship between soldiering, masculinity, and citizenship remains very strong in most societies today.

To be a soldier is to be a man, not a woman; more than any other social institution, the military separates men from women. Soldiering is a role into which boys are socialized in school and on the playing fields. A soldier must be a protector; he must show courage, strength, and responsibility and repress feelings of fear, vulnerability, and compassion. Such feelings are womanly traits, which are liabilities in time of war. 27 War demands manliness; it is an event in which boys become men, for combat is the ultimate test of masculinity. When women become soldiers, this gender identity is called into question; for Americans, this questioning became real during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, the first time that women soldiers were sent into a war zone in large numbers. 28

To understand the citizen-warrior as a social construction allows us to question the essentialist connection between war and men's natural aggressiveness. Considerable evidence suggests that most men would prefer not to fight; many refuse to do so even when they are put in positions that make it difficult not to. One study shows that in World War II, on the average, only 15 percent of soldiers actually fired their weapons in battle, even when threatened by enemy soldiers. 29 Because military recruiters cannot rely on violent qualities in men, they appeal to manliness and patriotic duty. Judith Stiehm avers that military trainers resort to manipulation of men's anxiety about their sexual identity in order to increase soldiers' willingness to fight. In basic training the term of utmost derision is to be called a girl or a lady. 30 The association between men and violence therefore depends not on men's innate aggressiveness, but on the construction of a gendered identity that places heavy pressure on soldiers to prove themselves as men.

Just as the Greeks gave special respect to citizens who had proved themselves in war, it is still a special mark of respect in many societies to be a war veteran, an honor that is denied to all women as well as to certain men. In the United States, nowhere is this more evident than in the political arena where "political man's" identity is importantly tied to his service in the military. Sheila Tobias suggests that there are risks involved for politicians seeking office who have chosen not to serve in combat or for women who cannot serve. War service is of special value for gaining votes even in political offices not exclusively concerned with foreign policy. In the United States, former generals are looked upon favorably as presidential candidates, and many American presidents have run for office on their war record. In the 1984 vice presidential debates between George Bush and Geraldine Ferraro, Bush talked about his experience as a navy pilot shot down in World War II; while this might seem like a dubious qualification for the office of vice president, it was one that Ferraro-- to her detriment-- could not counter. 31

To be a first-class citizen therefore, one must be a warrior. It is an important qualification for the politics of national security for it is to such men that the state entrusts its most vital interests. Characteristics associated with femininity are considered a liability when dealing with the realities of international politics. When realists write about national security, they often do so in abstract and depersonalized terms, yet they are constructing a discourse shaped out of these gendered identities. This notion of manhood, crucial for upholding the interests of the state, is an image that is frequently extended to the way in which we personify the behavior of the state itself.

The Masculine State

"To Saddam,' Mr. Cheney wrote on the 2,000 pound bomb destined for an Iraqi target. 'With appreciation, Dick Cheney." 32 In times of war, the state itself becomes a citizen-warrior: military commanders refer to the enemy as a singular "he." The 1991 Persian Gulf war was frequently depicted as a personal contest between Saddam Hussein and George Bush and described in the appropriate locker-room or football language. 33 When realists describe the international behavior of states more generally, they present us with similarly masculine images of stag hunts or "games nations play." 34 Hans Morgenthau described the Soviet-American rivalry of the early Cold War period as "the primitive spectacle of two giants eying each other with watchful suspicion. ... Both prepare to strike the first decisive blow, for if one does not strike it the other might." 35

More recently, however, neorealism has depicted states rather differently, as abstract unitary actors whose actions are explained through laws that can be universalized across time and place and whose internal characteristics are irrelevant to the operation of these laws. States appear to act according to some higher rationality that is presented as independent of human agency. Nowhere in the rational power-balancing behavior of states can we find the patriot willing to go to war to defend his women and children in the name of national security. As poststructuralist international relations theorist Richard Ashley suggests, the "rationalization of global politics" has led to an antihumanism whereby states, posited unproblematically as unitary actors, act independently of human interests. 36 It is a world in which, as Jean Elshtain observes, "No children are ever born, and nobody ever dies. ... There are states, and they are what is." 37

Behind this reification of state practices hide social institutions that are made and remade by individual actions. In reality, the neorealist depiction of the state as a unitary actor is grounded in the historical practices of the Western state system: neorealist characterizations of state behavior, in terms of self-help, autonomy, and power seeking, privilege characteristics associated with the Western construction of masculinity. Since the beginning of the state system, the national security functions of states have been deeded to us through gendered images that privilege masculinity.

The Western state system began in seventeenth-century Europe. As described by Charles Tilly, the modern state was born through war; leaders of nascent states consolidated their power through the coercive extraction of resources and the conquest of ever-larger territories. Success in war continued to be imperative for state survival and the building of state apparatus. 38 Throughout the period of state building in the West, nationalist movements have used gendered imagery that exhorts masculine heroes to fight for the establishment and defense of the mother country. The collective identity of citizens in most states depends heavily on telling stories about, and celebration of, wars of independence or national liberation and other great victories in battle. National anthems are frequently war songs, just as holidays are celebrated with military parades and uniforms that recall great feats in past conflicts. These collective historical memories are very important for the way in which individuals define themselves as citizens as well as for the way in which states command support for their policies, particularly foreign policy. Rarely, however, do they include experiences of women or female heroes.

While the functions of twentieth-century states extend well beyond the provision of national security, national security issues, particularly in time of war, offer a sense of shared political purpose lacking in most other areas of public policy. 39 The state continues to derive much of its legitimacy from its security function; it is for national security that citizens are willing to make sacrifices, often unquestioningly. 40 Military budgets are the least likely area of public spending to be contested by politicians and the public, who are often manipulated into supporting military spending by linking it with patriotism. When we think about the state acting in matters of national security, we are entering a policy world almost exclusively inhabited by men. Men make national security policy both inside and outside the military establishment.

In the United States, women have entered the military primarily in the lower ranks. Despite growing numbers of women in the U.S. military, which at present has the largest percentage of women of any military establishment, it remains a male institution. According to an internal review at the United States Naval Academy fourteen years after the first woman was admitted, reported in the New York Times of October 10, 1990, a considerable segment of midshipmen, faculty, and staff believed that women have no place there. 41 Judith Stiehm suggests that American military leaders think of the armed services as "belonging" to men whereas in reality they belong to citizens, more than half of whom are women. 42 When women enter the military, their position is ambiguous; men do not want women fighting alongside them, and the public perceives the role of wife and mother as less compatible with being a soldier than that of husband and father. While modern technology blurs the distinction between combat and noncombat roles, women are still barred from combat roles in all militaries, and the functions that women perform are less rewarded than those of the fighting forces. 43 Joining the debate in the United States in 1991 over women's suitability for combat, retired U.S. General Robert Barrow declared, "Women give life, sustain life, nurture life. ... If you want to make a combat unit ineffective, assign women to it." 44

In the nuclear age military strategy must be planned in peacetime, since it is hypothesized that there would be no time to plan a strategy that involves the use of nuclear weapons once war has broken out. Nuclear strategy is constructed by civilian national security specialists, far removed from public debate, in a language that, while it is too esoteric for most people to understand, claims to be rational and objective. Carol Cohn argues that strategic discourse, with its emphasis on strength, stability, and rationality, bears an uncanny resemblance to the ideal image of masculinity. Critics of U.S. nuclear strategy are branded as irrational and emotional. In the United States, these "defense intellectuals" are almost all white men; Cohn tells us that while their language is one of abstraction, it is loaded with sexual imagery. 45 She claims that the discourse employed in professional and political debates about U.S. security policy "would appear to have colonized our minds and to have subjugated other ways of understanding relations among states." 46 Cohn suggests that this discourse has become the only legitimate response to questions of how best to achieve national security; it is a discourse far removed from politics and people, and its deliberations go on disconnected from the functions they are supposed to serve. Its powerful claim to legitimacy rests, in part, on the way national security specialists view the international system.

The International System: The War of Everyman Against Everyman

According to Richard Ashley, realists have privileged a higher reality called "the sovereign state" against which they have posited anarchy understood in a negative way as difference, ambiguity, and contingency-- as a space that is external and dangerous. 47 All these characteristics have also been attributed to women. Anarchy is an actual or potential site of war. The most common metaphor that realists employ to describe the anarchical international system is that of the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes's depiction of the state of nature. Although Hobbes did not write much about international politics, realists have applied his description of individuals' behavior in a hypothetical precontractual state of nature, which Hobbes termed the war of everyman against everyman, to the behavior of states in the international system. 48

Carole Pateman argues that, in all contemporary discussions of the state of nature, the differentiation between the sexes is generally ignored, even though it was an important consideration for contract theorists themselves. 49 Although Hobbes did suggest that women as well as men could be free and equal individuals in the state of nature, his description of human behavior in this environment refers to that of adult males whose behavior is taken as constitutive of human nature as a whole by contemporary realist analysis. According to Jane Flax, the individuals that Hobbes described in the state of nature appeared to come to full maturity without any engagement with one another; they were solitary creatures lacking any socialization in interactive behavior. Any interactions they did have led to power struggles that resulted in domination or submission. Suspicion of others' motives led to behavior characterized by aggression, self-interest, and the drive for autonomy. 50 In a similar vein, Christine Di Stephano uses feminist psychoanalytic theory to support her claim that the masculine dimension of atomistic egoism is powerfully underscored in Hobbes's state of nature, which, she asserts, is built on the foundation of denied maternity. "Hobbes' abstract man is a creature who is self-possessed and radically solitary in a crowded and inhospitable world, whose relations with others are unavoidably contractual and whose freedom consists in the absence of impediments to the attainment of privately generated and understood desires." 51

As a model of human behavior, Hobbes's depiction of individuals in the state of nature is partial at best; certain feminists have argued that such behavior could be applicable only to adult males, for if life was to go on for more than one generation in the state of nature, women must have been involved in activities such as reproduction and child rearing rather than in warfare. Reproductive activities require an environment that can provide for the survival of infants and behavior that is interactive and nurturing.

An international system that resembles Hobbes's state of nature is a dangerous environment. Driven by competition for scarce resources and mistrust of others' motives in a system that lacks any legitimate authority, states, like men, must rely on their own resources for self-preservation. 52 Machiavelli offers advice to his prince that is based on similar assumptions about the international system. Both Pitkin and Brown note that Machiavelli's portrayal of fortuna is regularly associated with nature, as something outside the political world that must be subdued and controlled. Pitkin refers to "The Golden Ass," a long unfinished poem by Machiavelli, based on the legend of Circe, a female figure who lives in the forest world and turns men into animals. 53 Translated into international politics this depiction of fortuna is similar to the disorder or anarchy of the international system as portrayed by realists. Capturing the essence of Realpolitik, Brown suggests that, for Machiavelli, politics is a continual quest for power and independence; it is dependent on the presence of an enemy at all times, for without spurs to greatness energized by fighting an enemy, the polity would collapse.

Just as the image of waging war against an exterior other figured centrally in Machiavelli's writings, war is central to the way we learn about international relations. Our historical memories of international politics are deeded to us through wars as we mark off time periods in terms of intervals between conflicts. We learn that dramatic changes take place in the international system after major wars when the relative power of states changes. Wars are fought for many reasons; yet, frequently, the rationale for fighting wars is presented in gendered terms such as the necessity of standing up to aggression rather then being pushed around or appearing to be a sissy or a wimp. Support for wars is often garnered through the appeal to masculine characteristics. As Sara Ruddick states, while the masculinity of war may be a myth, it is one that sustains both women and men in their support for violence. 54 War is a time when male and female characteristics become polarized; it is a gendering activity at a time when the discourse of militarism and masculinity permeates the whole fabric of society. 55

As Jean Elshtain points out, war is an experience to which women are exterior; men have inhabited the world of war in a way that women have not. 56 The history of international politics is therefore a history from which women are, for the most part, absent. Little material can be found on women's roles in wars; generally they are seen as victims, rarely as agents. While war can be a time of advancement for women as they step in to do men's jobs, the battlefront takes precedence, so the hierarchy remains and women are urged to step aside once peace is restored. When women themselves engage in violence, it is often portrayed as a mob or a food riot that is out of control. 57 Movements for peace, which are also part of our history, have not been central to the conventional way in which the evolution of the Western state system has been presented to us. International relations scholars of the early twentieth century, who wrote positively about the possibilities of international law and the collective security system of the League of Nations, were labeled "idealists" and not taken seriously by the more powerful realist tradition.

Metaphors, such as Hobbes's state of nature are primarily concerned with representing conflictual relations between great powers. The images used to describe nineteenth-century imperialist projects and contemporary great power relations with former colonial states are somewhat different. Historically, colonial people were often described in terms that drew on characteristics associated with women in order to place them lower in a hierarchy that put their white male colonizers on top. As the European state system expanded outward to conquer much of the world in the nineteenth century, its "civilizing" mission was frequently described in stereotypically gendered terms. Colonized peoples were often described as being effeminate, masculinity was an attribute of the white man, and colonial order depended on Victorian standards of manliness. Cynthia Enloe suggests that the concept of "ladylike behavior" was one of the mainstays of imperialist civilization. Like sanitation and Christianity, feminine respectability was meant to convince colonizers and colonized alike that foreign conquest was right and necessary. Masculinity denoted protection of the respectable lady; she stood for the civilizing mission that justified the colonization of benighted peoples. 58 Whereas the feminine stood for danger and disorder for Machiavelli, the European female, in contrast to her colonial counterpart, came to represent a stable, civilized order in nineteenth-century representations of British imperialism.

An example of the way in which these gender identities were manipulated to justify Western policy with respect to the rest of the world can also be seen in attitudes toward Latin America prevalent in the United States in the nineteenth century. According to Michael Hunt, nineteenth-century American images of Latin society depicted a (usually black) male who was lazy, dishonest, and corrupt. A contrary image that was more positive-- a Latin as redeemable-- took the form of a fair-skinned senorita living in a marginalized society, yet escaping its degrading effects. Hunt suggests that Americans entered the twentieth century with three images of Latin America fostered through legends brought back by American merchants and diplomats. These legends, perpetuated through school texts, cartoons, and political rhetoric, were even incorporated into the views of policymakers. The three images pictured the Latin as a half-breed brute, feminized, or infantile. In each case, Americans stood superior; the first image permitted a predatory aggressiveness, the second allowed the United States to assume the role of ardent suitor, and the third justified America's need to provide tutelage and discipline. All these images are profoundly gendered: the United States as a civilizing warrior, a suitor, or a father, and Latin America as a lesser male, a female, or a child. 59

Such images, although somewhat muted, remain today and are particularly prevalent in the thinking of Western states when they are dealing with the Third World. In the post-World War II era, there was considerable debate in Western capitals about the dangers of premature independence for primitive peoples. In the postindependence era, former colonial states and their leaders have frequently been portrayed as emotional and unpredictable, characteristics also associated with women. C. D. Jackson, an adviser to President Eisenhower and a patron of Western development theorists in the 1950s, evoked these feminine characteristics when he observed that "the Western world has somewhat more experience with the operations of war, peace, and parliamentary procedures than the swirling mess of emotionally super-charged Africans and Asiatics and Arabs that outnumber us." 60

According to Hunt, Eisenhower himself regarded the English-speaking people of the world as superior to all the rest; thus they provided a model for right behavior in the international system. This idea is not incompatible with contemporary realism, which, while it has been an approach dominated by white Anglo-Saxon men, has prescribed the behavior of states throughout the international system. As we have witnessed the enormous buildup of nuclear weapons on the part of the United States and the former Soviet Union beyond any level that could be considered "rational," our policymakers caution that only a few of these same weapons in the hands of people in the Third World pose a greater threat to world security.

In this section, I have shown how realists paint a consistent three-tiered picture of a world in which survival in a violence-prone international system "requires" war-capable states peopled by heroic masculine citizen-warriors. This picture legitimates certain "realistic" portrayals of situations and conduct at each level, which serve to reinforce the need for power balancing, strong states, and citizen-warriors. It achieves relative consistency by downplaying the feasibility and attractiveness of alternative possibilities at each level of analysis by claiming that peaceful international systems are idealist utopias, that non-power-seeking states are soon conquered or dismembered, and that citizens who are not warriors are inessential to the reproduction of the state.

Feminist perspectives should question the analytical separability of these three levels of analysis, which realists have treated as supposedly independent levels or aspects of reality. If systems-oriented realists criticize reductionist causal accounts focused only on human nature, feminists might equally well object that scientific causal analyses of state and system-level phenomena distract our attention from the role of responsible individuals and groups in the construction and maintenance of state-level and systemic relationships. Power-oriented statesmen have a vested interest vis-a-vis their domestic supporters in painting a picture of the world around them as threateningly anarchic; anarchic international systems are reproduced by individuals who believe no alternatives exist.

Recognizing the gendered construction of this three-tiered world picture, feminist perspectives on national security must offer alternative conceptions. Assuming that these categories are mutually constitutive and mutually reinforcing of each other, we should heed Paul Fussell's claim, in the epigraph to this chapter, that our conception of the possibilities of individual manhood must be redefined in theory and practice before war at the international systemic level can be regarded as avoidable. These gendered depictions of political man, the state, and the international system generate a national security discourse that privileges conflict and war and silences other ways of thinking about security; moving away from valorizing human characteristics that are associated with the risking of life, toward an affirmation of life-giving qualities, allows us to envisage alternative conceptions of national security.

National Security Reconsidered

Certain critics of realism have begun to ask whether we can continue to rely on war as the ultimate instrument for the achievement of national security. In a world where nuclear conflict could result in the destruction of winners and losers alike (as well as the natural environment), realist prescriptions to maximize power could actually be counterproductive. In the absence of a viable defense, nuclear weapons make boundary protection impossible; thus the distinctions between domestic and international, soldiers and civilians, and protectors and protected are breaking down. 61 In 1982 the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues warned that, after thirty-seven years, nuclear deterrence was becoming fragile because of a decreased sensitivity to dangers, the possibility of accidents in crisis situations, and new technologies that may be increasing the possibility of limited nuclear war. 62 In the nuclear age, the fact that the security of states depends on the insecurity of their citizens has stretched the traditional concept of national security to its limit.

Critics of realism argue that a more global vision of security is necessary. The extent to which realism has been able to justify its distinction between domestic order and international anarchy depends on its focus on the major actors in the international system. Internally, most Western states have been relatively peaceful since World War II, if peace is narrowly defined as the absence of military conflict. Thinking about security from a global perspective must take into account that 90 percent of the military conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s took place in the Third World; many were domestic, some international and some, particularly when the great powers were involved, blurred the distinction between the two. 63 Security threats have traditionally been defined as threats to national boundaries, but since the end of the process of decolonialization, relatively few cross-border wars and changes in international boundaries have occurred, in spite of the large number of military conflicts. For people in the Third World, as well as in Eastern Europe and, more recently, in the states of the former Soviet Union, security threats have often been internal. Repression by regimes reacting against ethnic minorities or popular discontent creates a situation in which states can become threats to, rather than providers of, security. The militarization of much of the Third World, often with weapons supplied by great powers whose interests frequently coincide with keeping unpopular regimes in power, has led to the legitimation of states frequently depending on their recognition by the international community rather than by their domestic populations. 64 These trends, together with the winding down of some significant international conflicts in the late 1980s, suggest that we may be moving toward a system characterized by international order and domestic disorder, a situation that could turn the traditional notion of national security on its head.

Acknowledging these multiple sources of insecurity, various new thinkers have come up with very different definitions of security. In the introduction to the Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, Olof Palme defines security in terms of joint survival rather than mutual destruction. 65 The commission defines what it calls "common security" in terms that extend well beyond nuclear strategic issues. It looks at security in North-South as well as East-West terms; focusing on military conflict in the Third World, new thinking points to possible contradictions between the military security of states and the economic well-being of their citizens. The Palme Report notes that a growing militarization of the Third World has drained resources that might otherwise be used for economic development.

When we consider security from the perspective of the individual, we find that new thinking is beginning to provide us with definitions of security that are less state-centered and less militaristic. But little attention has been paid either to gender issues or to women's particular needs with respect to security or to their contributions toward its achievement. Feminist reformulations of the meaning of security are needed to draw attention to the extent to which gender hierarchies themselves are a source of domination and thus an obstacle to a truly comprehensive definition of security. I shall now turn to the issue of how women might define national security and to an analysis of security from a feminist perspective.

Feminist Perspectives on National Security

Women Define Security

It is difficult to find definitions by women of national security. While it is not necessarily the case that women have not had ideas on this subject, they are not readily accessible in the literature of international relations. When women speak or write about national security, they are often dismissed as being naive or unrealistic. An example of this is the women in the United States and Europe who spoke out in the early years of the century for a more secure world order. Addressing the International Congress of Women at the Hague during World War I, Jane Addams spoke of the need for a new internationalism to replace the self-destructive nationalism that contributed so centrally to the outbreak and mass destruction of that war. Resolutions adopted at the close of the congress questioned the assumption that women, and civilians more generally, could be protected during modern war. The conference concluded that assuring security through military means was no longer possible owing to the indiscriminate nature of modern warfare, and it called for disarmament as a more appropriate course for ensuring future security. 66

At the Women's International Peace Conference in Halifax, Canada, in 1985, a meeting of women from all over the world, participants defined security in various ways depending on the most immediate threats to their survival; security meant safe working conditions and freedom from the threat of war or unemployment or the economic squeeze of foreign debt. Discussions of the meaning of security revealed divisions between Western middle-class women's concerns with nuclear war, concerns that were similar to those of Jane Addams and her colleagues, and Third World women who defined insecurity more broadly in terms of the structural violence associated with imperialism, militarism, racism, and sexism. Yet all agreed that security meant nothing if it was built on others' insecurity. 67

The final document of the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women, held in Nairobi in 1985, offered a similarly multidimensional definition of security. The introductory chapter of the document defined peace as "not only the absence of war, violence and hostilities at the national and international levels but also the enjoyment of economic and social justice." 68 All these definitions of security take issue with realists' assumptions that security is zero-sum and must therefore be built on the insecurity of others.

Jane Addams's vision of national security, which deemphasizes its military dimension and was dismissed at the time as impractical, is quite compatible with the new thinking on common security I have just described. Like women at the Halifax and Nairobi conferences, contemporary new thinkers also include the elimination of structural violence in their definition of security. Feminist peace researcher Elise Boulding tells us that women peace researchers were among the pioneers in this contemporary redefinition of security, although, like Jane Addams at the beginning of the century, their work did not receive the attention it deserved. It is often the case that new ideas in any discipline do not receive widespread attention unless they are adopted by significant numbers of men, in which case women's work tends to become invisible through co-optation. Boulding claims that the one area in which women are not in danger of co-optation is their analysis of patriarchy and the linkage of war to violence against women. 69 Like most other feminists, Boulding believes that these issues must also be included in any comprehensive definition of security.

Given these various definitions of security offered by women, it is evident that feminist perspectives on security would grow out of quite different assumptions about the individual, the state, and the international system. Using feminist literature from various disciplines and approaches I shall now suggest what some of these perspectives might look like.

Reexamining the Anarchy/Order Distinction

The pervasiveness of internal conflict within states in the latter part of the twentieth century and the threats that militarized states pose to their own populations have called into question the realist assumption about the anarchy/order distinction. Critics of realism have also questioned the unitary actor assumption that renders the domestic affairs of states unproblematic when talking about their international behavior. Claiming that militarism, sexism, and racism are interconnected, most feminists would agree that the behavior of individuals and the domestic policies of states cannot be separated from states' behavior in the international system. 70 Feminists call attention to the particular vulnerabilities of women within states, vulnerabilities that grow out of hierarchical gender relations that are also interrelated with international politics. Calling into question the notion of the "protected," the National Organization for Women in their "Resolution on Women in Combat" of September 16, 1990, estimated that 80-90 percent of casualties due to conflict since World War II have been civilians, the majority of whom have been women and children. In militarized societies women are particularly vulnerable to rape, and evidence suggests that domestic violence is higher in military families or in families that include men with prior military service. Even though most public violence is committed by men against other men, it is more often women who feel threatened in public places. 71 Jill Radford suggests that when women feel it is unsafe to go out alone, their equal access to job opportunities is limited. 72 Studies also show that violence against women increases during hard economic times; when states prioritize military spending or find themselves in debt, shrinking resources are often accompanied by violence against women.

Feminist theories draw our attention to another anarchy/order distinction-- the boundary between a public domestic space protected, at least theoretically, by the rule of law and the private space of the family where, in many cases, no such legal protection exists. In most states domestic violence is not considered a concern of the state, and even when it is, law enforcement officials are often unwilling to get involved. Domestic assaults on women, often seen as "victim precipitated," are not taken as seriously as criminal assaults. Maria Mies argues that the modernization process in the Third World, besides sharpening class conflict, has led to an increase in violence against women in the home as traditional social values are broken down. While poor women probably suffer the most from family violence, a growing women's movement in India points to an increase in violence against educated middle-class women also, the most extreme form of which is dowry murder when young brides are found dead in suspicious circumstances. Eager to marry off their daughters, families make promises for dowries that exceed their means and that they are subsequently unable to pay. 73 In 1982 there were 332 cases of "accidental burning" of women in New Delhi; many more cases of "dowry deaths" go unreported. 74

Recent studies of family violence in the United States and Western Europe have brought to light similar problems. When the family is violence-prone, it is frequently beyond the reach of the law; citing a 1978 report of the California Commission on the Status of Women, Pauline Gee documents that in 1978 one-quarter of the murders in the United States occurred within the family, one-half of these being husband-wife killings. Much of this family violence takes place outside the sanction of the legal system; it has been estimated that only 2 percent of men who beat their wives or female living partners are ever prosecuted. 75

Maria Mies argues that this line, which demarcates public and private, separates state-regulated violence, the rule of right for which there are legally sanctioned punishments, and male violence, the rule of might for which, in many societies, no such legal sanctions exist. The rule of might and the rule of right are descriptions that have also been used in international relations discourse to distinguish the international and domestic spheres. By drawing our attention to the frequently forgotten realm of family violence that is often beyond the reach of the law, these feminists point to the interrelationship of violence and oppression across all levels of analysis. Feminist perspectives on security would assume that violence, whether it be in the international, national, or family realm, is interconnected. 76 Family violence must be seen in the context of wider power relations; it occurs within a gendered society in which male power dominates at all levels. 77 If men are traditionally seen as protectors, an important aspect of this role is protecting women against certain men. 78 Any feminist definition of security must therefore include the elimination of all types of violence, including violence produced by gender relations of domination and subordination. The achievement of this comprehensive vision of security requires a rethinking of the way in which citizenship has traditionally been defined, as well as alternative models for describing the behavior of states in the international system.

Citizenship Redefined

Building on the notion of hegemonic masculinity, the notion of the citizen-warrior depends on a devalued femininity for its construction. In international relations, this devalued femininity is bound up with myths about women as victims in need of protection; the protector/protected myth contributes to the legitimation of a militarized version of citizenship that results in unequal gender relations that can precipitate violence against women. Certain feminists have called for the construction of an enriched version of citizenship that would depend less on military values and more on an equal recognition of women's contributions to society. Such a notion of citizenship cannot come about, however, until myths that perpetuate views of women as victims rather than agents are eliminated.

One such myth is the association of women with peace, an association that has been invalidated through considerable evidence of women's support for men's wars in many societies. 79 In spite of a gender gap, a plurality of- women generally support war and national security policies; Bernice Carroll suggests that the association of women and peace is one that has been imposed on women by their disarmed condition. 80 In the West, this association grew out of the Victorian ideology of women's moral superiority and the glorification of motherhood. This ideal was expressed by- feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman whose book Herland was first serialized in The Forerunner in 1915. Gilman glorified women as caring and nurturing mothers whose private sphere skills could benefit the world at large. 81 Most turn-of-the-century feminists shared Gilman's ideas. But if the implication of this view -was that women were disqualified from participating in the corrupt world of political and economic power by virtue of their moral superiority, the result could only be the perpetuation of male dominance. Many contemporary feminists see dangers in the continuation of these essentializing myths that can only result in the perpetuation of women's subordination and reinforce dualisms that serve to make men more powerful. The association of femininity with peace lends support to an idealized masculinity that depends on constructing women as passive victims in need of protection. It also contributes to the claim that women are naive in matters relating to international politics. An enriched, less militarized notion of citizenship- cannot be built on such a weak foundation.

While women have often been willing to support men's wars, many women are ambivalent about fighting in them, often preferring to leave that task to men. Feminists have also been divided on this issue; some argue, on the grounds of equality, that women must be given equal access to the military, while others suggest that women must resist the draft in order to promote a politics of peace. In arguing for women's equal access to the military, Judith Stiehm proposes that a society composed of citizens equally likely to experience violence and be responsible for its exercise would be stronger and more desirable. Stiehm claims that if everyone, women and men alike, were protectors, less justification for immoral acts would be found; with less emphasis on the manliness of war, new questions about its morality could be raised. 82 She suggests that women's enhanced role in the military could lead to a new concept of citizen-defender rather than warrior-patriot.

Just as the notion of a soldier as a wife and mother changes our image of soldiering, citizen-defenders change our image of war. Citizen-defenders are quite compatible with what Stephen Nathanson, in his redefinition of the meaning of :patriotism, calls a moderate patriot. Rather than the traditional view of patriotism built on aggression and war, Nathanson suggests thinking of patriotism as support for one's own nation while not inflicting harm on others. 83 Such patriotism could be consistent with a defensive strategy in war if everyone were to comply.

Discarding the association between women and pacifism allows us to think of women as activists for the kind of change needed to achieve the multidimensional security I have already discussed. Even if not all women are pacifists, peace is an issue that women can support in their various roles as mothers, war victims, and preservers of states' and the world's good health. 84 Women at Greenham Common demonstrating against the installation of cruise missiles in Britain in 1981 came to see themselves as strong, brave, and creative-- experiences frequently confined to men. 85 The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, demonstrating during the1980s in support of those who had disappeared in Argentina during the military dictatorship, experienced similar empowerment. Sara Ruddick suggests conscripting women in the interests of peace; Ruddick claims that while caring for children is not "natural" for women, it has been a womanly practice in most societies and one that she believes is an important resource for peace politics. 86 Ruddick defines maternal thinking as focused on the preservation of life and the growth of children. Maternal practice requires the peaceful settlement of disputes; since she feels that it is a mode of thinking to be found in men as well as women, it is one that could be useful for a politics of peace were it to be validated in the: public realm.

In spite of many women's support for men's wars, a consistent gender gap in voting on defense-related issues in many countries suggests that women are less supportive of policies that rest on the use of direct violence. Before the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war in 1990, women in the United States were overwhelmingly against the use of force and, for the first time, women alone turned the public opinion polls against opting for war. 87 During the 1980s, when the Reagan administration was increasing defense budgets, women were less likely to support defense at the expense of social programs, a pattern that, in the United States, holds true for women's behavior more generally.

Explanations for this gender gap, which in the United States appears to be increasing as time goes on, range from suggestions that women have not been socialized into the practice of violence to claims that women are increasingly voting their own interests. While holding down jobs, millions of women also care for children, the aged, and the sick-- activities that usually take place outside the economy. When more resources go to the military, additional burdens are placed on such women as public sector resources for social services shrink. While certain women are able, through access to the military, to give service to their country, many more are serving in these traditional care-giving roles. A feminist challenge to the traditional definition of patriotism should therefore question the meaning of service to one's country. 88 In contrast to a citizenship that rests on the assumption that it is more glorious to die than to live for one's state, Wendy Brown suggests that a more constructive view of citizenship could center on the courage to sustain life. 89 In similar terms, Jean Elshtain asserts the need to move toward a politics that shifts the focus of political loyalty and identity from sacrifice to responsibility. 90 Only when women's contributions to society are seen as equal to men's can these reconstructed visions of citizenship come about.

Feminist Perspectives on States' Security-Seeking Behavior

Realists have offered us an instrumental version of states' security-seeking behavior, which, I have argued, depends on a partial representation of human behavior associated with a stereotypical hegemonic masculinity. Feminist redefinitions of citizenship allow us to envisage a less militarized version of states' identities, and feminist theories can also propose alternative models for states' international security-seeking behavior, extrapolated from a more comprehensive view of human behavior.

Realists use state-of-nature stories as metaphors to describe the insecurity of states in an anarchical international system. I shall suggest an alternative story, which could equally be applied to the behavior of individuals in the state) of nature. Although frequently unreported in standard historical accounts, it is a true story, not a myth, about a state of nature in early nineteenth-century America. Among those present in the first winter encampment of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition into the Northwest territories was Sacajawea, a member of the Shoshone tribe. Sacajawea )had joined the expedition as the wife of a French interpreter; her presence was proving invaluable to the security of the expedition's members, whose task it was to explore uncharted territory and establish contact with the native inhabitants to inform them of claims to these territories by the United States. Although unanticipated by its leaders, )the presence of a woman served to assure the native inhabitants that the expedition was peaceful since the Native Americans assumed that war parties would not include women: the expedition was therefore safer because it was not armed. 91

This story demonstrates that the introduction of women can change the way humans are assumed to behave in the state of nature. Just as Sacajawea's presence changed the Native American's expectations about the behavior of intruders into their territory, the introduction of women into our state-of-nature myths could change the way we think about the behavior of states in the international system. The use of the Hobbesian analogy in international relations theory is based on a partial view of human nature that is stereotypically masculine; a more inclusive perspective would see human nature as both conflictual and cooperative, containing elements of social reproduction and interdependence as well as domination and separation. Generalizing from this more comprehensive view of human nature, a feminist perspective would assume that the potential for international community also exists and that an atomistic, conflictual view of the inter-national system is only a partial representation of reality. Liberal individualism, the instrumental rationality of the marketplace, and the defector's self-help approach in Rousseau's stag hunt are all, in analagous ways, based on a partial masculine model of human behavior. 92

These characterizations of human behavior, with their atomistic view of human society, do not assume the need for interdependence and cooperation. 93 Yet states frequently exhibit aspects of cooperative behavior when they 1engage in diplomatic negotiations. As Cynthia Enloe states, diplomacy runs smoothly when there is trust and confidence between officials representing governments with conflicting interests. She suggests that many agreements are negotiated informally in the residences of ambassadors where the presence of diplomatic wives creates an atmosphere in which trust can best be cultivated. 94 As Enloe concludes, women, often in positions that are unremunerated or undervalued, remain vital to creating and maintaining trust between men in a hostile world.

Given the interdependent nature of contemporary security threats, new thinking on security has already assumed that autonomy and self-help, as models for state behavior in the international system, must be rethought and redefined. 4Many feminists would agree with this, but given their assumption that interdependence is as much a human characteristic as autonomy, they would question whether autonomy is even desirable. 95 Autonomy is associated with masculinity just as femininity is associated with interdependence: in her discussion of the birth of modern science in the se4venteenth century, Evelyn Keller links the rise of what she terms a masculine science with a striving for objectivity, autonomy, and control. 96 Perhaps not coincidentally, the seventeenth century also witnessed the rise of the modern state system. Since this period, autonomy and separation, importantly associated with the meaning of sovereignty, ha4ve determined our conception of the national interest. Betty Reardon argues that this association of autonomy with the national interest tends to blind us to the realities of interdependence in the present world situation. 97 Feminist perspectives would thus assume that striving for attachment is also part of human nature, which, while it has been4 suppressed by both modern scientific thinking and the practices of the Western state system, can be reclaimed and revalued in the future.

Evelyn Keller argues for a form of knowledge that she calls "dynamic objectivity... that grants to the world around us its independent integrity, but does so in a way that remains cognizant of, indeed relies on, our connectivity with 9that world." 98 Keller's view of dynamic objectivity contains parallels with what Sandra Harding calls an African worldview. 99 Harding tells us that the Western liberal notion of instrumentally rational economic man, similar to the notion of rational political man upon which realism has based its theoretical investigations, does not make sense in the African worldview where the individual is seen as part of the social order and as acting within that order rather than upon it. Harding believes that this view of human behavior has much in common with a feminist perspective; such a view of human behavior could help us to begin to think from a more global perspective that appr9eciates cultural diversity but at the same time recognizes a growing interdependence that makes anachronistic the exclusionary thinking fostered by the state system.

Besides a reconsideration of autonomy, feminist theories also offer us a different definition of power that could be useful for thinking about the achievement of the type of positive-sum security that the women at The Hague and in Halifax and Nairobi described as desirable. Hannah Arendt, frequently cited by feminists writing about power, defines power as the human ability to act in concert or action that is taken with others who share similar concerns. 100 This definition of power is similar to that of psychologist David McClelland's portrayal of female power which he describes as shared rather than assertive. 101 Jane Jaquette argues that, since women have had less access to the instruments of coercion (the way power is usually used in international relations), women have more often used persuasion as a way of gaining power through coalition building. 102 These writers are conceptualizing power as mutual enablement rather than domination. While not denying that the way power is frequently used in international relations comes closer to a coercive mode, thinking about power in these terms is helpful for devising the cooperative solutions necessary for solving the security threats identified in the Halifax women's definitions of security.

These different views of human behavior as models for the international behavior of states point us in the direction of an appreciation of the "other" as a subject whose views are as legitimate as our own, a way of thinking that has been sadly lacking as states go about providing for their own security. Using feminist perspectives that are based on the experiences and behavior of women, I have constructed some models of human behavior that avoid hierarchical dichotomization and that value ambiguity and difference; these alternative models could stand us in good stead as we seek to construct a less gendered vision of global security.

Feminist perspectives on national security take us beyond realism's statist representations. They allow us to see that the realist view of national security is constructed out of a masculinized discourse that, while it is only a partial view of reality, is taken as universal. Women's definitions of security are multilevel and multidimensional. Women have defined security as the absence of violence whether it be military, economic, or sexual. Not until the hierarchical social relations, including gender relations, that have been hidden by realism's frequently depersonalized discourse are brought to light can we begin to construct a language of national security that speaks out of the multiple experiences of both women and men. As I have argued, feminist theory sees all these types of violence as interrelated. I shall turn next to the economic dimension of this multidimensional perspective on security.


Endnotes

*: I owe the title of this chapter to Kenneth Waltz's book Man, the State, and War. Back.

**: De Beauvoir epigraph from The Second Sex, p. 72. De Beauvoir's analysis suggests that she herself endorsed this explanation for male superiority; Ruskin epigraph from "Of Queens' Gardens," quoted in Carole Pateman, "Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy," in Benn and Gaus, Public and Private in Social Life, p. 291; Fussell epigraph quoted by Anna Quindlen in The New York Times, February 7, 1991, p. A25. Back.

Note 1: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 102. Back.

Note 2: While heads of state, all men, discussed the "important" issues in world politics at the Group of Seven meeting in London in July 1991, Barbara Bush and Princess Diana were pictured on the "CBS Evening News" (July 17, 1991) meeting with British AIDS patients. Back.

Note 3: By relying on the work of these two authors I do not mean to slight others in the realist tradition. Realism is an old and rich tradition in international relations, the roots of which go back to Thucydides and the classical Greeks. While this chapter will concentrate on the work of two American scholars, the European influence on realism has been considerable. Important realist scholars in the European tradition include Raymond Aron, Martin Wight, Hedley Bull, and Stanley Hoffmann. Morgenthau himself was of European background. Back.

Note 4: Waltz, Man, the State, and War, p. 167. Since Waltz's frequently cited discussion of Rousseau's stag hunt was written, some neorealists have tried to reinterpret it in less dire terms, while others have criticized the adequacy of Waltz's rendering of Rousseau. See, for example, Snidal, "Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation," and Williams, "Rousseau, Realism, and Realpolitik." Back.

Note 5: The term security dilemma is attributed to John Herz. My analysis of the security dilemma relies on Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 186-187. Back.

Note 6: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 113. Back.

Note 7: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 106-107. Back.

Note 8: Ibid., pp. 170-171. Back.

Note 9: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, ch. 1. Back.

Note 10: While in Theory of International Politics Waltz favors a systems level of analysis, in his earlier work Man, the State, and War, he analyzes the way in which all three levels relate to international conflict. For further discussion of levels of analysis see J. David Singer, "The Level-of-Analysis Problem," in Rosenau, ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy. More recently, Robert North has conceived of the natural environment as a fourth level of analysis. See North, War, Peace, Survival. Back.

Note 11: Waltz, Theory of International Politics, ch. 6. Back.

Note 12: Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science, p. 130. Back.

Note 13: For example, see Haraway, Primate Visions, ch. 1. Considering scientific practice from the perspective of the way its factual findings are narrated, Haraway provocatively explores how scientific theories produce and are embedded in particular kinds of stories. This allows her to challenge the neutrality and objectivity of scientific facts. She suggests that texts about primates can be read as science fictions about race, gender, and nature. Back.

Note 14: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 34. Back.

Note 15: Morgenthau does talk about dominating mothers-in-law, but as feminist research has suggested, it is generally men, legally designated as heads of households in most societies, who hold the real power even in the family and certainly with respect to the family's interaction with the public sphere. Back.

Note 16: For an extended discussion of Morgenthau's "political man," see Tickner, "Hans Morgenthau's Principles of Political Realism. " In neorealism's depersonalized structural analysis, Morgenthau's depiction of human nature slips out of sight. Back.

Note 17: Brown, Manhood and Politics, pp. 43-59. Back.

Note 18: Jean Elshtain suggests that in Athens and Sparta this notion of heroic sacrifice was extended to women who died in childbirth producing citizens for the state. See Elshtain, "Sovereignty, Identity, Sacrifice," in Peterson, ed., Gendered States. Back.

Note 19: Brown, Manhood and Politics, ch. 5. Back.

Note 20: Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman, p. 22. Back.

Note 21: Brown, Manhood and Politics, p. 82. Back.

Note 22: Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman, ch. 6. Back.

Note 23: Brown, Manhood and Politics, pp. 80-88. Back.

Note 24: Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses, p. 94. Back.

Note 25: For example, he states in the Art of War, book 6, that women must not be allowed into a military camp, for they "make soldiers rebellious and useless." Quoted in Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman, p. 72. Back.

Note 26: Kathleen Jones, "Dividing the Ranks: Women and the Draft," ch. 6 in Elshtain and Tobias, eds., Women, Militarism, and War, p. 126. Back.

Note 27: Gerzon, A Choice of Heroes, p. 31. Back.

Note 28: A New York Times interview, January 22, 1991, p. A12, with Sgt. Cheryl Stewart serving in the Gulf, revealed that she was close to divorce because her husband's ego had been bruised by remaining home with the couple's children. Back.

Note 29: Elshtain, Women and War, p. 207. Elshtain is citing a study by the military historian S. L. A. Marshall. This figure is, however, disputed by other analysts. Back.

Note 30: Stiehm, "The Protected, the Protector, the Defender," in Stiehm, Women and Men's Wars, p. 371. Back.

Note 31: Tobias, "Shifting Heroisms: The Uses of Military Service in Politics," ch. 8 in Elshtain and Tobias, eds., Women, Militarism, and War. Tobias uses Daniel Quayle as an example of a politician who, in the 1988 U.S. election, suffered from the perception that he had avoided military service. Back.

Note 32: New York Times, February, 11, 1991, p. A12. In an interview with American troops assembling bombs in the Saudi desert during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Dan Rather on the "CBS Evening News," (February 19, 1991) described how each bomb bore a personal message to Saddam Hussein. It has been customary in military discourse to refer to the missiles themselves as "he." Nuclear weapons have even been given boys' or men's names: the bombs dropped over Nagasaki and Hiroshima were nicknamed Fat Man and Little Boy. Back.

Note 33: In a military briefing on the last day of the Persian Gulf war, General Norman Schwarzkopf, when describing the allied ground campaign, referred to a "Hail Mary" move in football. "McNeil/Lehrer Report," February 27, 1991. Back.

Note 34: Games Nations Play is the title of a popular textbook in international relations by John Spanier. To describe the "game" of international relations, Raymond Aron used the metaphor of a soccer game without defined boundaries, mutually agreed-upon rules, or an impartial referee to enforce them. See Aron, Peace and War, pp. 8-10. Back.

Note 35: Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 353. Back.

Note 36: Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," ch. 9 in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics, p. 258. Back.

Note 37: Elshtain, Women and War, p. 91. Back.

Note 38: Tilly, "Reflections on the History of European State-Making" ch. 1 in Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Back.

Note 39: Soon after the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the Boston Globe (January 22, 1991, p. 1) reported that the war had dramatically boosted Americans' self-image: before the war 32 percent of Americans felt goodabout the country; after two days of fighting the figure nearly doubled to 62 percent. Figures are from a Gallup poll. Back.

Note 40: Speaking of the Persian Gulf war, Gordon Adams of the Defense Budget Project said: "It's not cheap, but it is a pretty small price tag to pay for a pretty large effort.=&.|.|. Other people will tell you, 'I wanted to spend that on child care' but that is not what is going on here." Boston Globe, January 19, 1991, p. 1. Back.

Note 41: The study also revealed a high rate of sexual harassment of women, a condition that is widespread in the military services. Back.

Note 42: Stiehm, Arms and the Enlisted Woman, p. 174. Back.

Note 43: For example, Cynthia Enloe asserts that military nurses suffer from invisibility; the army does not want them to talk because they see the horror of war in the wounded. Enloe, Does Khaki Become You?, ch. 4. The 1991 Gulf war intensified the debate in the United States about the suitability of women for combat. In May 1991 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill, sponsored by Representative Patricia Schroeder, that allows (but does not require) women Air Force pilots to fly in combat. Boston Globe, May 23, 1991, p. 1. Back.

Note 44: Newsweek, July 1, 1991. Back.

Note 45: Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals." Back.

Note 46: Cohn, "Emasculating America's Linguistic Deterrent," ch. 8 in Harris and King, eds., Rocking the Ship of State, p. 154. Back.

Note 47: Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State," p. 230. Back.

Note 48: Hobbes, Leviathan, part 1, ch. 13, quoted in Vasquez, ed., Classics of International Relations, pp. 213-215. Back.

Note 49: Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 41. Back.

Note 50: Flax, "Political Philosophy and the Patriarchal Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Epistemology and Metaphysics," in Harding and Hintikka, eds., Discovering Reality, pp. 245-281. Back.

Note 51: Di Stephano, "Masculinity as Ideology in Political Theory." Carole Pateman has disputed some of Di Stephano's assumptions about Hobbes's characterizations of women and the family in the state of nature. But this does not deny the fact that Di Stephano's characterization of men is the one used by realists in their depiction of the international system. See Pateman, "|'God Hath Ordained to Man a Helper': Hobbes, Patriarchy, and Conjugal Right." Back.

Note 52: Critics of realism have questioned whether the Hobbesian analogy fits the international system. See, for example, Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, pp. 35-50. Back.

Note 53: Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman, p. 127. Back.

Note 54: Ruddick, Maternal Thinking, p. 152. Back.

Note 55: Higonnet et al., Behind the Lines, introduction. Back.

Note 56: Elshtain, Women and War, p. 194. Back.

Note 57: Ibid., p. 168. Back.

Note 58: Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, pp. 48-49. Back.

Note 59: Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy, pp. 58-62. Back.

Note 60: Ibid., p. 164. Back.

Note 61: At Hiroshima 90 percent of the victims were civilians. The military's answer to this problem is the production of "smart bombs," which can be aimed precisely at military targets. Given the ever-increasing level of destruction of modern technologies and escalating arms acquisitions, this does not seem like the most stable way to provide security. Back.

Note 62: Common Security, introduction by Olof Palme, pp. xi-xvii. The end of the Cold War has not eliminated these dangers. The fear of accidental firing of strategic nuclear weapons belonging to the United States and nuclear states of the former Soviet Union remains. Nuclear proliferation and the spread of other weapons of mass destruction also contribute to the fear of use of these weapons, which, paradoxically, are supposed to increase security. Back.

Note 63: Wilson and Wallensteen, Major Armed Conflicts in 1987. This report notes that at the end of 1987 only one of thirty-six major armed conflicts was taking place outside the Third World. Back.

Note 64: Jackson and Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist," p. 23. Back.

Note 65: Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival, p. xiii. Back.

Note 66: Addams et al., Women at The Hague, pp. 150ff. Back.

Note 67: Runyan, "Feminism, Peace, and International Politics," ch. 6. Back.

Note 68: "Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women Towards the Year 2000." Quoted in Pietil;aua and Vickers, Making Women Matter, pp. 46-47. Back.

Note 69: Boulding, "Women in Peace Studies" in Kramarae and Spender, eds., The Knowledge Explosion. Back.

Note 70: Reardon, Sexism and the War System, ch. 1. Back.

Note 71: Connell, Gender and Power, p. 129, portrays streets as "zones of occupation" by men, there being no such thing as "women's streets." Back.

Note 72: Radford, "Policing Male Violence-- Policing Women" ch. 3 in Hanmer and Maynard, eds., Women, Violence, and Social Control, p. 33. Radford reports that in a survey conducted in the London borough of Wandsworth in 1983-84, 88 percent of women said their neighborhood was not safe for women during the night, and 25 percent found it unsafe during the day; large numbers said they went out only when absolutely necessary. Back.

Note 73: Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, p. 147. Back.

Note 74: Brock-Utne, Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Peace Education, p. 50. Back.

Note 75: Gee, "Ensuring Police Protection for Battered Women," p. 555. Back.

Note 76: In its definition of peace already discussed, the Forward-looking Strategy document, adopted at Nairobi in 1985, points to this interrelationship between all types of violence. See Pietil;aua and Vickers, Making Women Matter, pp. 46-47. Back.

Note 77: Breines and Gordon, "The New Scholarship on Family Violence," pp. 492-493. Back.

Note 78: Stiehm, Arms and the Enlisted Woman, p. 228. Back.

Note 79: See Elshtain, Women and War, ch. 3. Back.

Note 80: Carroll, "Feminism and Pacifism: Historical and Theoretical Connections," in Pierson, ed., Women and Peace, pp. 2-28. Back.

Note 81: Margaret Hobbs, "The Perils of 'Unbridled Masculinity': Pacifist Elements in the Feminist and Socialist Thought of Charlotte Perkins Gilman," in Pierson, ed., Women and Peace, pp. 149-169. Back.

Note 82: Stiehm, Women and Men's Wars, p. 367. Back.

Note 83: Nathanson, "In Defense of 'Moderate Patriotism,'|" p. 538. Back.

Note 84: Elshtain and Tobias, eds., Women, Militarism, and War, p. xi. Back.

Note 85: Segal, Is the Future Female?, p. 165. Back.

Note 86: Ruddick, "The Rationality of Care," ch. 11 in Elshtain and Tobias, eds., Women, Militarism, and War. Back.

Note 87: The New York Times of December 12, 1990 (p. A35) reported that while men were about evenly split on attacking Iraqi forces in Kuwait, women were 73 percent against and 22 percent in favor. Back.

Note 88: Suzanne Gordon, "Another Enemy," Boston Globe, March 8, 1991, p. 15. Back.

Note 89: Brown, Manhood and Politics, p. 206. Back.

Note 90: Elshtain, "Sovereignty, Identity, Sacrifice," in Peterson, ed., Gendered States. Back.

Note 91: I am grateful to Michael Capps, historian at the Lewis and Clark Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, for this information. The story of Sacajawea is told in one of the museum's exhibits. Back.

Note 92: In Man, the State, and War, Waltz argues that "in the stag-hunt example, the will of the rabbit-snatcher was rational and predictable from his own point of view" (p. 183), while "in the early state of nature, men were sufficiently dispersed to make any pattern of cooperation unnecessary" (p. 167). Neorealist revisionists, such as Snidal (see note 4 of this chapter), do not question the masculine bias of the stag hunt metaphor. Like Waltz and Rousseau, they also assume the autonomous, adult male (unparented and in an environment without women or children) in their discussion of the stag hunt; they do not question the rationality of the rabbit-snatching defector or the restrictive situational descriptions implied by their payoff matrices. Transformations in the social nature of an interaction are very hard to represent using such a model. Their reformulation of Waltz's position is instead focused on the exploration of different specifications of the game payoff in less conflictual ways (i.e., as an assurance game) and on inferences concerning the likely consequences of relative gain-seeking behavior in a gamelike interaction with more than two (equally autonomous and unsocialized) players. Back.

Note 93: For a feminist interpretation that disputes this assumption see Mona Harrington, "What Exactly Is Wrong with the Liberal State as an Agent of Feminist Change?," in Peterson, ed., Gendered States. Back.

Note 94: Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, ch. 5. Enloe points out that women, although very underrepresented in the U.S. State Department, make up half the professional staff of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Trade negotiations are an arena in which negotiating skills are particularly valuable, and Enloe believes that women are frequently assigned to these positions because the opposing party is more likely to trust them. Back.

Note 95: In her analysis of difference in men's and women's conversational styles, Deborah Tannen describes life from a male perspective as a struggle to preserve independence and avoid failure. In contrast, for women life is a struggle to preserve intimacy and avoid isolation. Tannen claims that all humans need both intimacy and independence but that women tend to focus on the former and men on the latter. Tannen, You Just Don't Understand, pp. 25-26. Back.

Note 96: Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science, ch. 3. Back.

Note 97: Reardon, Sexism and the War System, p. 88. Back.

Note 98: Keller, Gender and Science, p. 117. Back.

Note 99: Harding, The Science Question in Feminism, ch. 7. Back.

Note 100: Arendt, On Violence, p. 44. Back.

Note 101: McClelland, "Power and the Feminine Role," in McClelland, Power: The Inner Experience, ch. 3. Back.

Note 102: Jaquette, "Power as Ideology: A Feminist Analysis," in Stiehm, Women's Views of the Political World of Men, ch. 2. Back.