less gender problems more political theory(paper)

[evirus]

i am up to my knees in annoyance at this paper i have to write in which i have to explain the different international political theories(realism pluralism globalism and feminism)

the problem is that of the assigned readings i cant find one darn explaination for feminism as an international political theory that goes beyond gender inequalities. the first three i got good definations about where the policy decisions come from, what are the basic goals of the state, and so on. not so for feminism, its all "heres why what they say about us is wrong".

[idgiehkt]

1. kind of like the sesame street song

'one of these things is not like the other'. Is it maybe because the basic goals of the state almost always run counter to feminism?

[evirus]

2. maybe they run counter to it

is because they spend so much time trying to prove people wrong that they dont clearly define the key issues of the state

[idgiehkt]

6. interesting

I know that in the early days feminists always said "the personal IS political", because they were told their issues were personal and therefore not a concern of the state. I think you might have had the same problems you are having now if you were writing the same paper 40 years ago on racism, before the civil rights act. So much of what was said about African-Americans was accepted as fact that they in essence had to prove people wrong to prove that they did in fact have a right to legal and economic justice under the state; they had been infantilized in the same way that women are, e.g. they had to prove their status as adult human beings to be eligible to have rights under the state. Every culture has groups faced with this dilemna, right now in our culture I think children are faced with it in a sense.

[evirus]

7. from that it sounds like the feminist theory for politics is juat a mask

i mean you got the decorative leaf stuff on the plate(womens rights) but were is the meat(workings of international politics)?

[idgiehkt]

9. a mask for what?

I'm not following...

[evirus]

10. a mask for

promoting "womens rights" i mean womens rights is all fine and dandy but these readings seem to ring of "bait and switch"

[idgiehkt]

12. still not following

it's starting to sound to me like you might have a bit of a bias toward feminism in general which might account for your inability to move forward with your paper, rather than feminism with regards to international politics being the problem. Either way this thread has officially entered 'over my head' territory, so I'm exiting. :)

[spillthebeans]

3. It's pretty nasty

You will have to search for "Rockefeller Foundation"

Basic goals were brake up of family so kids can be indoctrinated at school.

Get woman to work, so you have a greater work force and can collect more taxes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N5TIM62nwY Aaron Russo on his friend Nick Rockefeller

[Xipe Totec]

4. Political views explained with two cows

(Feminism explained near the end).

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

Pure Anarchy: You have 2 cows, your neighbor on your left takes one cow, and the one on the right takes the other; while your backyard neighbor takes the milk, the bucket and the stool.

Libertarian: Anarcho-capitalism -- You have two cows. You sell both and buy two bulls.

Socialism: You have two cows. State takes one and give it to someone else.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Bureaucratic Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.

Communism: You have 2 cows, you give them to the government; and the government gives you some milk.

Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk and sells some of it to you.

Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Russian Mafia takes all the milk and sells some of it to you in the black market.

Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Pure Democracy -- You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

Singapore Democracy: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.

American Democracy: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".

British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

Japanese Democracy: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Hong Kong Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

European Federalism: You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidize your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.
Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

Reaganomics: You have 2 cows, you sell one and buy a bull; you then sell all the excess milk to the government who in turn ships it to fascist and communist governments.

New Dealism: (FDR Version) You have 2 cows, you shoot one, milk the other one; then pour the milk down the drain.

Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cow.

Feminism: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

Radical Feminism: You have 2 cows, you declare an amazonian state free of bull oppression and sit around waiting for the cows to hump each other.

Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership"is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

Counter Culture: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!

Utopianism: You have 2 cows, Mother Nature zaps the cows, turning their udders into eternal milk-shake dispensers.

Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to exchange them for accordions and take harmonica lessons.

[evirus]

5. other then "equality" i have no idea what to put

i guess i will have to fall back on "all this stuff you had us read hasn't even explained the feminist theory in any detail"

[Hosnon]

8. I think I may be able to help:

My International Law book deals with this...I'd have to check to see if anything in particular is cited though...

Let me know (it requires going to my car in the cold, haha)

[izzybeans]

11. Without knowing much of your sources a fair guess as to what you are talking about

would be that the feminist theories you reference criticize these other theories as ideological and actually play into international relations themselves as mechanisms of power, in and of themselves, because of the very fact that they are ideologies. It's not merely what feminists think what is wrong about a theory, it is what a normative and positivist theory represents. To utilize the Marxian undercurrent of feminist theory i would say then that "realism, globalism, and pluralism, are bourgeois social constructions that mystify the reality of international power relations and to a certain extent justify the exploitation of weaker nations by larger more powerful nations, corporations, etc." But I'm also guessing that there is much to do about international solidarity within the women's movement and other such gendery things.

So if your readings focus on inequalities, and even between the genders, I would suggest you try to reread them with that lens--> International relations theory largely justifies gender, class, and imperial domination. This would be especially true of neoliberal theory.