Control + 1 – Block Headings

Witworth, prof of political science and female studies @ York U, 94 (Feminism and International Relations, pg 20, 1994)

Even when not concerned with mothering as such, much of the politics that emerge from radical feminism within IR depend on a ‘re-thinking’ from the perspective of women. What is left unexplained is how simply thinking differently will alter the material realities of relations of domination between men and women. Structural (patriarchal) relations are acknowledged, but not analysed in radical feminism’s reliance on the experiences, behaviours and perceptions of ‘women’. As Sandra Harding notes, the essential and universal ‘man’, long the focus of feminist critiques, has merely been replaced here with the essential and universal ‘woman’. And indeed, that notion of ‘woman’ not only ignores important differences amongst women, but it also reproduces exactly the stereotypical vision of women and men, masculine and feminine, that has been produced under patriarchy. Those women who do not fit the mould – who, for example, take up arms in military struggle – are quickly dismissed as expressing ‘negative’ or ‘inauthentic’ feminine values (the same accusation is more rarely made against men). In this way, it comes as no surprise when mainstream IR theorists such as Robert Reohane happily embrace the tenets of radical feminism. It requires little in the way of re-thinking or movement from accepted and comfortable assumptions about stereotypes. Radical feminists find themselves defending the same account of women as nurturing, pacifist, submissive mothers as men do under patriarchy, anti-feminists and the New Right. As some writers suggest, this in itself should give feminists pause to reconsider this position.

The negative is colonial – they universalize the experiences of Western women

Goetz, research fellow in Development studies at U of Sussex, 91 (Anne Goetz, “Gender and International Relations,” Harper and Row, 1991)

Third world women have accused first word and western-trained feminists of exercising a certain cultural colonialism, of misrepresenting different women by homogenizing the experiences and conditions of western women across time and culture. Chakravorty Spivak has shown that western women are “complicitous” in contributing to the continued ‘degredation’ of third world women whose micrology they interpret without having access to it. Monica Lazreg, exploring the ‘perils of writing as a woman on women in Algeria’ suggests that third world women have been produced as a field of knowledge, essentializing their difference in a process that represents a ‘caricature of the feminist project’. Black feminists have accused white feminists of adding on difference at the margin ‘without leaving the comforts of home’ so as to support ‘the seeming homogeneity, stability, and self-evidence of its experience based epistemology’. Trinh T. Minh-ha identifies this neutralized difference as ‘the very kind of colonized anthropologised difference the master has always granted his subordinates’. Audre Lorde’s response to the universalized picture of oppression in Mary Dali’s Gym/Ecology reproaches her for failing: “to recognize that, as women… differences expose all women to various forms and degrees of patriarchal oppression, some of which we share, some of which we do not… The oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean that it is identical within those boundaries… to imply… that all women suffer the same oppression simply because we are women is to lose sight of the many varied tools of patriarchy. It is to ignore how these tools are used by women without awareness against each other.” These statements amount to descriptions of an epistemologically totalizing and culturally disruptive feminist. And to the extend that feminist theory’s claim to relevance is based upon its claim to represent the meaning of women’s social experience in all its heterogeneity, these critiques point to some fundamental problems. The original consciousness raising approach of traditional feminist – what Catherine MacKinnon has called its critical method – involved a project of theorizing the collective expression of the social constitution of sexed identities. This was informed by a political understanding that gender was not an inalienable description of human reality; an understanding derived from the insights of a traditional feminist ideology whose analysis of the political meaning of experience was concerned with deconstructing the legitimating surface of women’s oppression. Theorizing the social construction of subjectivity produced an understanding of the mechanisms of sexist oppression. In practice, and as seen above, particularly in the context of WID practice, that collective critical reconstitution of women’s experiences in traditional feminist movements has tended to reproduce the situational consciousness of the white, bourgeois, heterosexual feminist, developing a set of certainties structured around that specific subjectivity. Such certainties in liberal or Marxist feminist ideologies tended to inform the cross-cultural investigations of sexual subordination, producing a certain myopia with respect to the details of sexual subordination in different societies. The failure to guide practice with reference to the processes that shape human perceptions and norms promoted the disintegration of feminist pronouncements on women in development into a norm setting activity by a counter-elite.
AFF: Essentialism
Double bind- either the alt defines a genderless subject or its essentialist- both being counterproductive and nonsensical for their political action

Linda Alcoff, Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center, 1988, “Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,” PK

Lauretis's main thesis is that subjectivity, that is, what one "per- ceives and comprehends as subjective," is constructed through a continuous process, an ongoing constant renewal based on an interaction with the world, which she defines as experience: "And thus [subjectivity] is produced not by external ideas, values, or material causes, but by one's personal, subjective engagement in the practices, discourses, and institutions that lend significance (value, meaning, and affect) to the events of the world."42 This is the process through which one's subjectivity becomes en-gendered. But describing the subjectivity that emerges is still beset with dif- ficulties, principally the following: "The feminist efforts have been more often than not caught in the logical trap set up by [a] paradox. Either they have assumed that 'the subject,' like 'man,' is a generic term, and as such can designate equally and at once the female and male subjects, with the result of erasing sexuality and sexual dif- ference from subjectivity. Or else they have been obliged to resort to an oppositional notion of 'feminine' subject defined by silence, negativity, a natural sexuality, or a closeness to nature not compro- mised by patriarchal culture."43 Here again is spelled out the di- lemma between a post-structuralist genderless subject and a cultural feminist essentialized subject. As Lauretis points out, the latter alternative is constrained in its conceptualization of the female sub- ject by the very act of distinguishing female from male subjectivity. This appears to produce a dilemma, for if we de-gender subjectivity, we are committed to a generic subject and thus undercut feminism, while on the other hand if we define the subject in terms of gender, articulating female subjectivity in a space clearly distinct from male subjectivity, then we become caught up in an oppositional dichot- omy controlled by a misogynist discourse. A gender-bound subjec- tivity seems to force us to revert "women to the body and to sexuality as an immediacy of the biological, as nature."44 For all her insistence on a subjectivity constructed through practices, Lauretis is clear that that conception of subjectivity is not what she wishes to pro- pose. A subjectivity that is fundamentally shaped by gender appears to lead irrevocably to essentialism, the posing of a male/female opposition as universal and ahistorical. A subjectivity that is not fundamentally shaped by gender appears to lead to the conception of a generic human subject, as if we could peel away our "cultural" layers and get to the real root of human nature, which turns out to be genderless. Are these really our only choices?
Essentialism bad – shouldn’t associate women with peace

J. Ann Tickner (professor of international relations at USC) 2001, Gendering World Politics. Pp. 6.

Feminists have claimed that the likelihood of conflict will not diminish until unequal gender hierarchies are reduced or eliminated; the privileging of characteristics associated with a stereotypical masculinity in states' foreign policies contributes to the legitimization not only of war but of militarization more generally. Wary of what they see as gendered dichotomies that have pitted realists against idealists and led to overly simplistic assumptions about warlike men and peaceful women, certain feminists are cautioning against the association of women with peace, a position that, they believe, disempowers both women and peace. The growing numbers of women in the military also challenges and complicates these essentialist stereotypes. To this end, and as part of their effort to rethink concepts central to the field, feminists define peace and security, not in idealized ways often associated with women, but in broad, multidimensional terms that include the elimination of social hierarchies such as gender that lead to political and economic injustice.
AFF: Ethnocentrism Turn
Feminism fails to account for race

J. Ann Tickner (professor of international relations at USC) 2001, Gendering World Politics. Pp. 18-19.

This debate, which began in the late I980s, has been strongly influenced by postcolonial, Third World, and postmodern feminisms. This is due both to the impact of black feminist critiques, which have introduced considerations of race and class, and to the influence of postmodernism that has called into question the possibility of systematic knowledge cumulation. These and other critics have argued that standpoint theories failed to recognize differences amongst women based on race, class, sexual preference, and geographical location. Standpoint has been faulted for basing its generalized knowledge claims on the experiences of white Western women. As Patricia Hill Collins tells us, African American women experience the world differently from those who are not black and female. Questioning liberal feminism’s focus on equality, black feminists remind us that black women would be unlikely to subscribe to the goal of equality with black men, who are themselves victims of oppression. Third World women have begun to question the term feminist because of its association with Western cultural imperialism. Stressing the importance of producing their own knowledge and recovering their own identities, these women, speaking out of the historical experiences of colonial oppression, offer further evidence of a multiplicity of oppressions. Chandra Mohanty, while she acknowledges the impossibility of representing all their diverse histories, suggests the need to explore, analytically, the links among the struggles of Third World women against racism sexism colonialism and capitalism. She and other postcolonial feminist use the term Third World to include North American women of color; their writings have insisted on the need to analyze the interrelationships between feminist, anti-racist, and nationalist struggles. Postcolonial feminists interpret Western imperialism as the historical imposition of an imperial order, based white, masculine values, on subjugated and feminized colonial peoples. Avtar Brah claims that, in today's world, feminist questions about women's locations in the global economic system cannot be answered without reference to class, ethnicity, and geographical location."
Your feminist theories are steeped in ethnocentrism that ignores the plight of black women and the intersectionality of gender and race- its racist and you can’t solve for all women

Rice 90 (M Rice, “Challenging Orthodoxies in Feminist theory: a Black Feminist Critique”, Femenist perspectives on criminology)

An example is the work of Shulamith Firestone (1981) whose theories are based on the ethnocentric assumption that black women’s experiences of racism can be understood simply as an extension of sexism (see Simons (1979) for a critique). She denies the significance and impact which the added dimension of racial oppression has for black women. However, the testimony of black women bears witness to the complex interaction of sexist and racist forms of oppression occurring simultaneously. To quote Bryan et al.: Our relationship with men-both Black and white-has meant that in addition to racism, Black women have had to confront a form of sexism and sexual abuse which is unique to us. But it is impossible to separate our understanding of sexism in our community from its context in a racist society because popular acceptance of racist stereotypes of Black women, Black men and Black juveniles not only compound our sexual oppression but have also become internal&d. (1985: 212) Nor does Firestone’s thesis acknowledge the status hierarchy which exists between black and white women. Hooks explains that white women may be victimized by sexism, but racism enables them to act as exploiters and oppressors of black women (and men): Black women are in an unusual position for not only are we collectively at the bottom of the occupational ladder, but the overall social status is lower than that of any other group. Occupying such a position we bear the brunt of sexist, racist and classist oppression. Racist stereotypes of the strong, superhuman black woman are operative myths in the minds of many white women, allowing them to ignore the extent to which black women are likely to be victim&d in this society and the role white women play in the maintenance and perpetuation of that victimisation. (1984: 14) Thus it is not just or simply that black women are subject to ‘more’ disadvantage than white women. Their oppression is of a qualitatively different kid. Women’s experiences of oppression in social or,patriarchal relations cannot be reduced to those of white middle-class women. Ethnocentric feminist analyses are not adequate. In areas as diverse as women’s employment (Barrett, 1980; Beechey and Whitelegg, 1986), the family (Barrett and McIntosh, 1982) and crime (Smart, 1976; Carlen, 1983; Heidensohn, 1985; Morris, 1987), the history of racism and its implications have been ignored. The significance of this intellectual exclusion or marginalization is far reaching. Joseph (1981: 95) has pointed out that to speak of women, all women categorically, is to perpetuate white supremacy because it is white women to whom the comments are addressed and for whom they are most appropriate. Barrett and McIntosh recognize this: ‘Our work has spoken from an unacknowledged but ethnically specific position: its apparently universal applicability has been specious’ (1985: 25). They appreciated the need for such work to be overhauled and re-examined in order to remove ethnocentricism.

AFF: Ethnocentrism Turn
Uncritically accepting the virtue of feminism alienates Black women

Valerie Amos, Pratibha Parmar, British High Commissioner to Australia, writer and film maker, 2005, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3874364

This unconscious consensus has been successful in excluding large numbers of Black women from participating in any meaningful way. A further element contributing to Black women's exclusion is due to the fact that very often women's oppression is seen in a straightforward and non-contradictory way, where women organizing as women is seen as positive, regardless of the context. An example of such reasoning taken to its extreme is when some white feminists have applauded Maggie Thatcher as Prime Minister as a positive female Image. Such uncritical acceptance of the virtues of strong female images serves only to further alienate Black women whose experience at the hands of the British state demands a more responsible political response.
Black women’s victories have been ignored throughout history by white feminism.

Valerie Amos, Pratibha Parmar, British High Commissioner to Australia, writer and film maker, 2005, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3874364

There is little recognition in the women's movement of the ways in which the gains made by white women have been and still are at the expense of Black women. Historically white women's sexuality has been constructed in oppositional terms to that of Black women (Davis, 1982, Ware, 1983). and it is to this history that white women refer as their starting point, it is with this history that they seek to come to terms but in an uncritical way - the engagement with it is essentially selective. The 'herstory' which white women use to trace the roots of women's oppression or to justify some form of political practice is an imperial history rooted in the prejudics of colonial and neo-colonial periods, a 'herstory' that suffers the same form of historical amnesia of white male historians, by ignoring the fundamental ways in which white women have benefitted from the oppression of Black people. What forms of contemporary feminist and socialist theories share is an inability to adequately deal with the contradictions inherent in gender and class relations within the context of a racist society. 'Race and sex are social realities which at particular historical moments structure class relations in as much as class relations structure them' (Lewis and Parmar, 1983).
Tickner’s work is founded on the presumption of IR still being an American system- not only does she marginalize other ethnic groups but also does not take into account ongoing changes in the IR field

Marchand 98 (Marianne, prof @ University of Amsterdam, “Different communities/Different Realities/Different Encounters: A Reply to J. Ann Tickner”, JSTOR)

The second assumption concerns the nature of the IR community. To illustrate her point of cross-cultural misunderstandings, Tickner focuses on the conventional IR community in the United States as the conversational counterpart for feminist IR scholars. The underlying assumptions seem to be that IR is still an American science (1997:615, 618) and that this conventional IR community has the role of gatekeeper defining the discipline's subject matter and boundaries. In so doing, Tickner not only effectively marginalizes other voices within the IR field, but also ignores recent and ongoing changes within IR. It is beyond the scope of this essay to engage in a broad discussion about the many changes and challenges affecting the study of IR. Many have already touched upon various aspects of this (see, e.g., Lapid, 1989; Murphy and Tooze, 1991; George, 1994). It is probably safe to state that changes within and outside the IR community are affecting its direction. These interrelated factors include, but are by no means limited to: the emergence of the so-called third debate; the end of the Cold War and the consequent need to rethink the effects of IR's embeddedness in the Cold War logic; the effects of (discussions about) globalization on, for instance, IR's conventional concepts; the move among universities toward "internationalizing the curriculum" and the resulting juxtapo- sition of new (interdisciplinary) international studies programs alongside more "traditional" IR programs celebrating conventional theories and practices.2 In short, IR is rapidly changing and it is difficult to maintain that it still is an "American science." Institutional expressions of this changing reality are, for instance, the creation of a Europeanwide association for the study of IR, the creation of several IR journals based outside the U.S., and the establishment of research centers for (critical) IPE at several universities.3 Increasingly, the conventional IR community (in the U.S.) is one among several communities within the broad field of IR. The implication of this changing reality is that there are several IR commu- nities that can serve as conversational partners for feminist IR scholars. The (ontological and epistemological) differences among these IR communities will likely be reflected in the communications with feminist IR and result in different types of (troubled?) engagements

AFF: Ethnocentrism Turn
Feminist talk of the emancipation of oppressed women is illegitimate when they so violently exclude an entire race.

Valerie Amos, Pratibha Parmar, British High Commissioner to Australia, writer and film maker, 2005, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3874364

Furthermore, when Black and Third World women are being told that imperialism is good for us, it should be of no great surprise to anyone when we reject a feminism which uses Western social and economic systems to judge and make pronouncements about how Third World women can become emancipated. Feminist theories which examine our cultural practices as 'feudal residues' or label us 'traditional', also portray us as politically immature women who need to be versed and schooled in the ethos of Western feminism. They need to be continually challenged, exposed for their racism and denied any legitimacy as authentic feminists.
White feminist ignorance of black feminism has created a skewed theory of women’s oppression.

Valerie Amos, Pratibha Parmar, British High Commissioner to Australia, writer and film maker, 2005, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3874364

Many white feminists' failure to acknowledge the differences between themselves and Black and Third World women has contributed to the predominantly Eurocentric and ethnocentric tbeories of women's oppression. Recently, some white feminist academics have attempted to deal with the question of differences but again this has raised many problems and often perpetuated white feminist supremacy. In Common Differences, Jill Lewis, who describes herself as a white socialist feminist and Gloria Joseph, a Black woman, attempt to create a dialogue, but rather than use this opportunity to find constructive and creative ways of strengthening our unity through our differences as Black and white feminists, Jill Lewis reveals her patronizing and condescending 'understanding' of Black women. She sets out to teach the A to Z of feminism to Black women, whom she portrays as women controlled, manipulated and brainwashed into ridiculing and dismissing the women's liberation movement by sexist Black men and the white male media (Joseph and Lewis, 1981). There is a blatant disregard for the fact that it is the autonomous activities of Black women which have forced the white women's movement away from a celebration of universality and sameness, to be concerned with the implications of differences among women's experiences and understanding the political factors at work in those differences.
The negative’s feminist discourse has become distorted and oppressive through its ignorance of the black feminist movement.

Valerie Amos, Pratibha Parmar, British High Commissioner to Australia, writer and film maker, 2005, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3874364

Black women were also raising the issue of feminism and feminist demands within the Black movement and such questions were continually raised in the civil rights movement well before Black women were engaging in debate within the predominandy white women's movement in the 1960 s. In not acknowledging the involvement of Black women in the women's movement in its early days, Jill Lewis not only distorts history and renders Black women activists invisible, she also ends up by appropriating feminism for white women. Throughout her writings there is an underlying idea that somehow feminism, and feminist demands which are of any relevance and validity, have been developed by white women.