Post-9/11 post

I begin this blog only a few days after the 10th anniversary of an event that changed global politics forever, what is known locally and abroad simply as 9/11. On the day of the anniversary, I read an article by David Bromwich on the Huffington Post entitled "What 9/11 Makes Us Forget". The article is essentially a reminder of the hegemonic nature of US foreign policy, the events directly leading up to the unprovoked war in Iraq, and the lack of accountability in both political camps. Bromwith's post prompted me to think about how such a major event can alter our realities, and limit the scope of questions we ask, as well as the answers we seek, in order to justify self-serving military intervention. In a similar fashion, the articles written by Jan Jindy Pettman, Ann Tickner, and Marysia Zalewski prompted me to question how feminist IR responds to, and is responded to, in a post 9/11 world that is seemingly less welcoming of criticism.

My first thoughts to write about this topic came to me as I read Ann Tickner's article and came across a section in which she points out the criticisms levied against teaching about women, other cultures, and non-western thought. William Bennett, the United States Secretary of Education from 1985-1988 is said to blame the unpreparedness for 9/11 on what he called "an easy-going relativism and tolerant multiculturalism that has pervaded our universities and sapped our intellectual and moral energy". Bennett seemed to belong to a camp which might be tolerant of feminist thought, so long as the "real matters" of IR (those dominated by the interests and subjects of men, i.e. war, trade, alliance) are not interfered with. I found myself wondering whether Bennett, and Lynne Cheney who is also noted in Tickner's article as being against feminism in education, have a bias against feminist disciplines because of their backgrounds in the Cold War era marked by uncertainty and militarism, and whether the similarly uncertain post 9/11 generation will see feminism as an interference and distracion from the current political and economic uncertainties we face today. Does the post 9/11 world see feminism as a threat to solving the more "pressing" issues traditionally privileged by IR?

Although no doubt some people see feminist IR as threatening the status quo in governance and cultural expectations of gender, this post is more concerned with whether or not the status quo is a threat to feminist IR. On the international relations themed website "Theory Talks", Marysia Zalewski gave an interview which directly applied to what I've been thinking about, and afraid of. She notes that,

"9-11 IR has vigorously returned to an explicit focus on the supposed ‘big questions/issues’; the ‘evil enemy’; good versus bad, war against terror, the axis of evil… We’ve seen these ‘big questions/issues’ clearly emerge through the Bush administration, which deflected attention away from a whole other range of issues that we might have been looking at."

Jan Jindy Pettman also recognizes a shift in feminist IR since 9/11 in her article when she noted the disappearance of women from public view unless they reinforced the justification of military action (Pettman, 6). Her point brought to mind how the acceptable expressions of gender are used to continue and perpetuate a narrative of militarization, while unconventional expressions or criticisms of gender norms are ignored, or condemned. Is the role of feminism overshadowed by the "big issues", or can feminist scholars on the front and side lines influence the ontology and methodology used in contemporary IR?

In her article, Ann Tickner goes on to describe how the intellectual, which for this post I will take to be synonymous with "feminist intellectual", is "an exile in his or her own society, who raises embarrassing questions, is unsettled, unsettles others, and stands on the side of the weak and unrepresented."(Tickner, 386) I can only hope that the discipline of feminism is such that its activist roots, connections to real men and women, and interdisciplinary nature will help those who are exiled find a place for their voice elsewhere, whether on the side or front lines, so that even when placed in the periphery, it might end up encircling the center.

Works Cited:
Pettman, Jan Jindy. "IFjP: Tenth Anniversary Reflections: In the Beginning…", International Feminist Journal of Politics 11.1 (2009): 2-9. Online.

Tickner, Ann. "On the Frontlines or Sidelines of Knowledge and Power? Feminist Practices of Responsible Scholarship", International Studies Review 8 (2006): 383-395. Online.

Zalewski, Marysia. “Feminist International Relations: Making Sense…”, Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations, Ed. Laura J. Shepherd, 2010. NY: Routledge.