Gender Politics and the Nation

Gender Politics and the Nation

The historical development of the nation has impacted the ability of women to participate in contemporary politics by reinforcing gender roles in the public sphere. Traditionally, the exclusion women from the international community was linked to ideas of gender roles and today, these ideas continue to exclude women from international politics.

Traditionally, colonialism was driven by the Enlightenment ideal of using reason to obtain goals, a view that also saw females as irrational and emotional. Enloe notes, "Perhaps international politics has been impervious to feminist ideas precisely because for so many centuries in so many cultures it has been thought of as a typically 'masculine' sphere of life" (4).

Enloe argues that the status of diplomatic wives is tied closely to ideas of women as loyal supporters of their men, who were busy at the business of international relations. This view clearly shows the pervasiveness of ideas of notion of femininity vs. masculinity. As diplomatic wives, women were seen only in light of their gender. Similarly, the ideology of Republican motherhood confined women to the political function of raising children to be moral citizens of the larger public sphere.

The social and sexual contract impact the participation of women in the international sphere.

In the historical social contract, individuals gave up specific freedoms to engage in a civil society, while the sexual contract meant that women were largely excluded from engaging in the social contract. Today, international politics is influenced by these historical social and sexual contracts. Writes Enloe, "so far feminist analysis has had little impact on international politics. Foreign-policy commentators and decision-makers seem particularly confident in dismissing feminist ideas" (3).

These contracts continue to hold sway even though there is evidence that the dichotomy of masculine and feminine is false. Writes Enloe, "there is mounting evidence that they are packages of expectations that have been created through specific decisions by specific people" (3).

Gender ideas persist and can lead to violations of natural rights and natural law, sublimate the rights of the individual, and remove women from an effective, active role in citizenship.

Today's international community largely tends to be a patriarchy with roots in traditional gender roles that have defined the historical development of the nation. Today, women remain marked subjects marginalized in the international community, while men are unmarked subjects in the mainstream. While there are clearly exceptions, they tend to be examples of tokenism.

This modern patriarchal society, based on the historical development of the nation, has also historically had an important impact on relationships with other cultures. For example, orientalism is simply an extension of the masculine West's tendency to dichotomize relationships, and see the world in terms of 'us' and the 'other'.

Today, the idea of gender is closely related to the concepts of nationalism. Enloe notes that ideas of masculinity help to stymie the efforts of groups that want to create restrain the power of multinational corporations. These groups are seen as having feminine ends of compassion and fairness in opposition to masculine ideals of aggression and dominance.