Manly States and Feminist Foreign Policy: Revisiting the Liberal State as an Agent of Change

Citation:

Duriesmith, David. 2018. “Manly States and Feminist Foreign Policy: Revisiting the Liberal State as an Agent of Change.” In Revisiting Gendered States: Feminist Imaginings of the State in International Relations, edited by Swati Parashar, J. Ann Tickner, and Jacqui True, 51-68. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Author: David Duriesmith

Annotation:

Summary:
Support for antiviolence campaigns represents a significant step forward in mobilizing the state in achieving feminist goals, while at the same time these actions uncover underlying tensions in challenging gender inequality by drawing on institutions defined by masculine modes of action. This chapter looks at the HeForShe campaign as a recent state attempt to pursue profeminist policies in the international arena. It argues that the use of the liberal state as an agent of change risks a quixotic search for a “good” masculinity as a basis for the state achieving feminist change. Comparing HeForShe to masculinities theorization on gender activism, the chapter challenges the notion that states can internationally break free from their masculinist underpinnings without adopting the position of being reflective allies to feminist causes. (Summary from Oxford Scholarship Online)

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Violence

Year: 2018