Control + 1 – Block Headings

AT: Alternative Solves – General
We need to be critical towards masculine conceptions of security – that’s the only way to incorporate the peripheries

J. Ann Tickner, Prof of IR at USC, M.A. Yale and Ph.D Brandeis, ’92, “Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving International Security,” 134-5

Since women are disproportionately located on the peripheries of the international system and at the bottom of the economic scale, feminist perspectives on security prioritize issues associated with the achievement of justice, issues that are frequently ignored in conventional theories of international politics, which have been preoccupied with questions relating to order. While one of the most important goals of feminism is to overcome women's marginalization from institutions of power, women's prominent role in social movements and in new forms of economic production provides examples of new ways of thinking about democratic decentralization, a restructuring of society that offers important alternative models for the achievement of a more comprehensive form of security. Because women have been peripheral to the institutions of the state and transnational capital, feminist perspectives on international relations must take a critical stance with respect to these institutions, questioning whether they are able to cope with global security problems such as militarism, poverty, and the natural environment. Building a model of political economy that starts at the bottom and takes into account individuals and the local satisfaction of their basic needs envisages a state that is more self-reliant with respect to the international system and more able to live within its own resource limits; such a state would be less militaristic and could therefore give priority to social issues rather than military considerations.2 Such a model would depend on an extended definition of security that goes beyond a nationalist, militarist focus and begins to speak to the economic and ecological security needs of individuals and states alike.
Incorporating feminist perspectives to policy making can solve

J. Ann Tickner, Prof of IR at USC, M.A. Yale and Ph.D Brandeis, ’92, “Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving International Security,” 141-2

Given the generally masculine nature of international politics, how could such a change in values be effected? Underscoring the masculinist orientation in the discipline of international relations does nothing to change the masculinist underpinnings of states' behavior in the international system. In the world of statecraft, no fundamental change in the hierarchy of the sexes is likely to take place until women occupy half, or nearly half, the positions at all levels of foreign and military policy-making. No change in the hierarchy of gender will occur until mediators and care givers are as valued as presidents as citizen-warriors currently are. This will not come about until we have a new vision of international relations and until we live in a world in which gender hierarchies no longer contribute to women's oppression. To the very limited extent they have been visible in the world of international politics, women have generally been perceived as victims or problems; only when women's problems or victimization are seen as being the result of unequal, unjust, or exploitative gender relations can women participate equally with men as agents in the provision of global security. When women have been politically effective, it has generally been at the local level. Increasingly, women around the world are taking leadership roles in small-scale development projects such as cooperative production and projects designed to save the natural environment. Women are also playing important roles in social movements associated with peace and the environment. While these decentralized democratic projects are vital for women to achieve a sense of empowerment and are important building blocks for a more secure future, they will remain marginal as long as they are seen as women's projects and occur far from centers of power. Hence it is vitally important that women be equally represented, not just in social movements and in local politics but at all levels of policy-making. If foreign policy-making within states has been a difficult area for women to enter, leadership positions in international organizations have been equally inaccessible. While women must have access to what have traditionally been seen as centers of power where men predominate, it is equally important for women and men to work together at the local level. Victories in local struggles are important for -the achievement of the kind of multidimensional, multilevel security I have proposed. The feminist perspectives presented in this book suggest that issues of global security are interconnected with, and partly constituted by, local issues; therefore the achievement of comprehensive security depends on action by women and men at all levels of society. Such action is only possible when rigid gender hierarchies are challenged.
Alternative Solves Patriarchy
Feminists acknowledge the patriarchal structures implicit in discussions of IR in the status quo and they question them rather than take accept them as inevitable.

J. Ann Tickner, School of International Relations @ University of Southern California, 1997, http://www.jstor.org/pss/2600855

Feminist Theory. Since it entered the field of international relations in the late 1980s, feminist theory has often, but not exclusively, been located within the critical voices of the "third debate," a term articulated by YosefLapid (1989). Although they are not all postmodern, or even post-Enlightenment, in their normative orientation at least, an assumption sometimes implied by conventional scholars, many contemporary feminist international relations scholars would identifY themselves as postpositivists in terms of Lapid's articulation of the term and in terms of the definition of positivism outlined above. While there is no necessary connection between feminist approaches and post-positivism, there is a strong resonance for a variety of reasons including a commitment to epistemological pluralism as well as to certain ontological sensitivities. With a preference for hermeneutic, historically based, humanistic and philosophical traditions of knowledge cumulation, rather than those based on the natural sciences, feminist theorists are often skeptical of empiricist methodologies that claim neutrality of facts. While many feminists do see structural regularities, such as gender and patriarchy, they define them as socially constructed and variable across time, place, and cultures, rather than as universal and natural.
Critical feminist theory effectively combats the hegemonic male discourse

Mary Ann Tétreault March 2008, “Women in International Relations: Sediment, Trends, and Agency,” Politics & Gender, Vol. 4, Iss. 1; pg. 144.

However we assess the impact of the language of defense intellectuals, a feminist language has since evolved that challenges it on every level. Feminist "(re)visions" of familiar IR theories (e.g., Peterson 1991) exposed both their gendered assumptions and what one theorist called the "quagmire" created by foreign policies that failed to confront their many internal contradictions (Grant 1992). By the end of the 1990s, variations on Caldicott's hypothesis were guiding investigations of world politics as an arena in which ego-driven nations and policymakers depicted as masculine sought to dominate opponents cast as feminine or effeminate. ² It also offered insights into IR as a site of struggles for dominance among subsets of masculinist scholars and practitioners. My favorite book from this period is the collection edited by Marysia Zalewski and Jane Parpart (1998). Even its title, The "Man" Question in International Relations , is a feminist critique of masculinist international relations qua politics and masculinist IR qua theory. The masculinities it challenges are assailed most tellingly from within: by Charlotte Hooper's analysis of international relations practice as a system of generating and policing acceptable masculinities; Carol Cohn's deconstruction of male hysteria (the properly masculine term is orkheia ) triggered by gays in the military; and perhaps the most threatening of all, Craig Murphy's typology of gendered roles in strategic policy, which showed that some of the most iconic masculine roles, like "the good soldier," are actually feminine (also Showalter 1985, 167-94). Even the cover photo challenges an image of masculinity highly cherished by ideologues: It shows British gunners called from a rehearsal of a Christmas program to man a coastal antiaircraft battery during an attack dressed in, well, dresses. (The photo was suppressed by wartime censors.)
Alternative Solves Middle East War
Solving the gender problem is the first step towards peace in the Middle East

Tessler and Warriner 97 Mark Tessler and Ina Warriner, Mark Tessler is a Political Science Professor at University of Michigan, Vice Provost for International Affairs, and a PhD from Northwestern, January 1997. [Cambridge University Press, Gender, Feminism, and Attitudes Towards International Conflict, JSTOR p. 281]

Three summary observations may be offered to this connection, put forward without elaboration as a stimulus to reflection and further research. First, the absence of sex-linked differences in attitudes toward the Arab-Israeli conflict suggests that neither advocates nor opponents of territorial compromise are likely to find one sex more receptive to their message than the other. Particularly in Israel and Palestine, where the issue is of central concern, the partisan ideological struggles surrounding the questions of war and peace are thus unlikely to find women more frequently than men in any particular political camp. Second, the strong association between attitudes toward war and peace and attitudes toward gender equality suggests that the former are part of a more comprehensive worldview. If this is correct, the promotion of progressive values in other areas is likely to increase support in the Middle East for peace through diplomacy and compromise. Third, the emergence of a progressive and globalist worldview is tied to secularism, or more accurately to the privatization of religion, and also to education under conditions of greater political development and social diversity. This in turn suggests that gains in the Middle East with respect to development, political tolerance, and citizen equality, to the extend they are realized, will also increase support for Arab-Israeli peace.

Alternative Solves Violence
Women have produced the broader conceptualization of violence against women – this ignited the successful movement against gender violence. Greater inclusion is the only way create real change – only the feminist methodology solves

S. Laurel Weldon, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, USA, Associate Professor of political science at Purdue University, 2006 [“Feminist Methodologies for International Relations” edited by Brooke A. Ackerly: Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, Maria Stern: Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Peace and Development Research, Goteborg University, and Jacqui True: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Auskland, New Zealand, 2006, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pg. 85-6 EmiW]

Frustrated with their inability to cooperate, activists sought ways to forge a common agenda. Beginning in the early to mid-1980s, activists to work to be more inclusive in their organizational efforts and deliberations. Northern women ceded leadership of key meetings to southern women, and southern women’s presence at movement events considerably. Southern women formed independent organizations that enabled them to magnify their voice within the transnational movement. Southern women were able to discuss issues on own terms and independently identified violence against women as a priority. But southern women conceptualized such violence quite “differently from northern women. As a result of these discussions, south- women began to advance a conceptualization of violence against women that included the “traditional practices” and state violence hitherto conceptualized as different or special problems for Third World women. Female genital mutilation, dowry deaths, state-sponsored violence against women, and the like were framed as part of a continuum of violence against women (Abeyesekera 1995; Tinker 1999; Ferree and Subramaniam 2001; A. S. Fraser 1987). This broader conceptualization of the issue of “gender violence” emerged from more inclusive deliberations among women. The conceptualization was an analytic advance because it highlighted the connections among forms of violence that were not previously seen as related. This understanding of violence against women has informed, not only analyses of these particular forms of violence, but also the relationship between gender and violence more generally. Focusing on the cultural bases for violence highlighted the role of social norms in perpetuating all violence against women regardless of whether it was immediately the result of actions by men, women, or institutions. It rendered more visible the way that all violence against women enhances social control of women’s behavior and maintains hierarchical relations. Colonial discourse obscured similarities between violence against Women in the North and such violence in the South. Violence against Women in the South was portrayed as qualitatively different from violence against women in the North. This difference served as evidence of a backward culture or civilization in arguments regarding the civilizing mission of northern powers. In contrast, southern feminists emphasized connections between so-called “harmful traditional practices” (sati, dowry deaths, female genital mutilation) and the types of violence more salient in the North (wife—battering, rape). This analytic move revealed how gender was implicated in colonial relations more generally (Ngara 1985; Kishwar and Vanita 1984; Narayan 1997). These connections were not as visible or salient before southern women articulated their perspectives and northern women were motivated to listen and work towards agreement. This broader conceptualization of violence against women facilitated cooperation among women and permitted the framing of this issue as an issue of women’s human rights. These factors contributed to the success of the global movement against gender violence. Thus, greater inclusiveness in women’s-movement deliberations advanced understanding of social phenomena and improved the political strength of the movement. This suggests that inclusiveness can be an important methodological as well as a political concern. Moreover, inclusion is an important aspect of feminist methodology.
Alternative Solves Human Rights
The experiences of women are a key starting point for examining human rights – focusing on gender enables new avenues for promoting the rights of everyone

Brooke A. Ackerly, Associatie Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, 2008, “Universal Human Rights in A World of Difference,” p. 135-36

Generally, curb cut feminists begin with gender analysis of political, social, and economic conditions and processes. These analyses reveal the ways in which political, social, and economic contexts impede, exclude, ignore, or marginalize some women, not all women, and not only women. Curb cut feminist epistemology assumes that 1) the oppression of those “differently” oppressed than the inquirer may not be visible to the inquirer, to the theorist, or to the relatively powerful 2) when the conditions of the “differently” oppressed are identified and analyzed, greater insights than those possible from positions of relative privilege are possible, and 3) identifying the “differently” affected is a political dimension of this methodology that is itself an important subject of critical attention.416 I put “differently” in scare quotes to indicate the problematic character of the term: 1) the perspective not yet imagined is more marginalized that the most marginalized one can imagine, 2) the claim to being “differently” oppressed or marginalized (like the claim to be “most” marginalized417) is a political claim, and 3) the point is not to identify an unprivileged perspective to privilege to but deploy a device that destabilizes the epistemology of the speaker or epistemic community. The point is not to privilege marginalization or oppression but rather to deploy epistemological processes that do not marginalize or at a minimum are self-conscious about the epistemological power exercised through marginalization. Feminist analyses generate empirical and theoretical insights for understanding the struggles and wishes of those disadvantaged by hierarchies that affect political, social, and economic processes, thus enabling all of society to understand these better. In the search for universal human rights, curb cut feminist inquiry assumes that to answer the question “Are there universal human rights?”, we need to know (among other things) women’s experience of human rights and their violation. Women’s experiences and theoretical insights are the starting point of our inquiry, because women’s human rights violations often differ in kind and location from men’s human rights violations. However, when women’s previously invisible human rights violations are revealed, new theoretical and practical avenues for promoting the human rights of all of humanity open up.418 Women and others disadvantaged by exploitable hierarchies experience exclusion and human rights violations even under institutions which include many of the democratic features theorists tell us are important.419 By drawing on women’s experiences, particularly on those of women who are multiply-situated, feminist theorists and activists have drawn our attention to the range of short-comings of human rights theory and human rights regimes in practices.
A feminist perspective on human rights can reconstruct perspectives and prevent the problem

Brooke A. Ackerly, Associatie Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, 2008, “Universal Human Rights in A World of Difference,” p. 38-9

This view of immanent universal human rights requires rethinking rights, obligation, and society. Feminist and comparative political thought on obligation can help us rethink the view of agency that has constrained so many human rights theorists from considering the full range of human rights because correlative obligations and duty-bearers cannot be found.127 Of course, the state has significant power to influence the human rights context within its borders. Further, many states can design institutions and support practices that are conducive to human rights conditions in other states. But because of the social and economic dimensions of the human rights context, neither states nor individuals nor groups of individuals can bear responsibility for the human rights context alone. In exploring these implications of human rights for responsibility, we will raise many questions that are familiar themes for theorists of democracy, justice, and freedom.128 For activists, the interdependence of human rights, democracy, freedom and justice mean that in order for our strategies for promoting human rights to be long-term effective, we need to be attentive to the ways in which our short-term human rights strategies affect longterm human rights conditions.
Alternative Solves Economy/Development
Feminism key to sustainable economic development

J. Ann Tickner (professor of international relations at USC) 2001, Gendering World Politics. Pp. 92-93.

One such model is a feminist version of sustainable development. Recent debates in the South on women, the environment, and sustainable development (WED) have generated critiques of Western models as contributing to increases in economic and gender inequality as well as degradation of the environment that reduce people's control over their lives and use of resources. Feminist models of sustainable development advocate a bottom-up form of development that emphasizes community control over resources different lifestyles, and a rethinking of the relationship between humans and nature. They also make the link between the oppression of women and the degradation of nature. While Western models of sustainable development have prioritized the need to curb population growth, feminists in the South-while they advocate human-centered, user-controlled reproductive health care-emphasize that environmental degradation is as much the result of high levels of consumption in the North as it is of population growth in the South." Alternate models of development, such as those proposed by WED, depend on the transformation of science and knowledge. Rather than relying on scientific knowledge of Western "experts," the knowledge of local people, often subjugated, is believed to be vital for sustainable development. Braidotti et al. argue that postmodernism, with its stress on difference and locality, can make an important contribution to generating these new types of knowledge. Since it respects difference and thinks beyond dualism and hierarchy, postmodernism can contribute to dismantling the power relations implicit in the production of knowledge; it offers important new ways to critique scientific rationality and technological development.94
Alternative Solves Economy/Development
Incorporating feminist perspectives solves the normative function of market rationality

J. Ann Tickner, Prof of IR at USC, M.A. Yale and Ph.D Brandeis, ’92, “Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving International Security,” 91-3

A feminist redefinition of rationality might therefore include an ethic of care and responsibility. Such a definition would be compatible with behavior more typical of many women's lived experiences and would allow us to assume rational behavior that is embedded in social activities not necessarily tied to profit maximization. It could be extended beyond the household to include responsibility for the earth and its resources, a concern that is quite rational from the perspective of the survival and security of future generations. Liberal, economic nationalist, and Marxist perspectives have all tended to focus their analysis at the systems level, whether it be the international system of states or the world capitalist economy. Feminist perspectives on political economy should be constructed from the bottom up, from the standpoint of those at the periphery of the world economy or the international system. Feminist perspectives should take the individual as the basic unit of analysis, but an individual defined differently from rational economic man. Since feminists claim that the liberal assumption of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency is unrealistic, feminist perspectives would assume a connected, interdependent individual whose behavior includes activities related to reproduction as well as production. In order to capture these productive and reproductive activities, the artificial boundaries between the world of instrumentally rational economic man in the public sphere of production and the socially rational activities that women perform outside the economy as mothers, care givers, and producers of basic needs must be broken down. Destroying these barriers would help to reduce the differential value attached to the "rational" or "efficient" world of production and the private world of reproduction. Were childbearing and child rearing seen as more valued activities, also rational from the perspective of reproduction, it could help to reduce the excessive focus on the efficiency of an ever-expanding production of commodities, a focus whose utility in a world of shrinking resources, vast inequalities, and increasing environmental damage is becoming questionable. A perspective that takes this redefined individual as its basic unit of analysis could help to create an alternative model of political economy that respects human relationships as well as their relation to nature. 44 This feminist redefinition of rationality allows us to take as a starting point the assumption that the economic behavior of individuals is embedded in relationships that extend beyond the market. Maria Mies argues that the production of life should be defined as work rather than as unconscious natural activity. Labor must include life-producing work and subsistence production rather than being restricted to surplus-producing labor. Instead of accepting the sexual division of labor as natural, feminist perspectives should place the production of life as the main goal of human activity and work toward breaking down the artificial division of labor created along gender lines that perpetuates the devaluation of women's work. 45 To make women's work valued by society, the barriers between public and private must be broken down. Subsistence labor, volunteer work, household work, and reproduction are among the economic activities performed primarily by women that are not counted as economically productive. Marilyn Waring claims that women have been rendered invisible in national accounting data. Since these kinds of women's work are not included in the annual reports of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the development agencies, projects are not planned with women in mind. While economists have claimed that nonmonetary labor is too hard to count, Waring suggests some ways, such as time-use data, which would make this possible. 46
Alternative Solves Democracy