Recent polls show that Hillary Clinton is very close to winning the election and becoming the first female president of the world's super power. "The New York Times" claims that Clinton has a 92% chance of winning.[1] This means that the leaders of the 1st, 4th, 5th most powerful, in terms of military expenditure, countries on earth are likely to be led by women at the same time, which is a first in history. I am talking about the famous trio; Hillary Clinton-potential president of USA, Theresa May-prime minister of the United Kingdom and Angela Merkel-chancellor of Germany. In fact, by January 2017, as many as 21 countries could be led by a woman as president, prime minster or an equivalently high political office which could top the record of 19 female heads of state currently in power.[2]
Unfortunately, despite the recent improvements in representation of women, international politics is still very dominated by men and has always been perceived as a 'man's world'. Men leading the nations, men negotiating, signing peace deals, men making all the decisions. Because of that, theories of international politics are also shaped by masculine ideas. Most of the IR students would be familiar with the "6 Principles of Realist Theory," written by Hans Morgenthau who was one of the major figures in international politics. For those who don't know, these principles are, in order: 1. Politics is governed by objective laws, which have roots in human nature. 2. National interest is defined in terms of national power. 3. 'Power is the control of man over man.' 4. Realism is aware of the balance between survival/success and morality in political actions. 5. There is, however, a discrepancy between morals at a state and a universal level. 6.In order to develop an autonomous theory of political behavior, "political man" must be abstracted from other aspects of human nature. I want to draw attention to the word choice of this writing. When talking about human nature Morgenthau uses the word 'man' to refer to humans. His assumptions about human nature are deemed universal but what if they are not…(Morgenthau, 1948)
Thankfully, a feminist international relations theorist J. Ann Tickner actually challenged Morgenthau's assumptions about human nature, highlighting the prominence of a masculine bias. She argued that desire for 'power and domination', both fundamental to realism, are traits associated with masculinity and Morgenthau's focus on conflict overlooks feminine tendencies toward 'co-operation and regeneration.' It ignores the possibility for collective empowerment. For women the definition of power emphasizes relationship building and 'mutual enablement.' In her essay, she rewrites the 6 principles with a feminist approach mainly challenging concepts like power, domination, autonomy, national interest and morals in political action.(Tickner, 1988) Her essay changed my whole perception of nature of politics. As a girl who is interested in politics, I grew up hearing sentences like, “In order to survive in politics you have to have masculine qualities", “Look at all the women who have been successful in politics, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir", “Politics is men's business"...
Is politics, inherently “men's business" or is it just perceived as such because there is not enough female representation? So, if there is enough female representation can the nature of politics be changed?
Politics can be defined as the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group or more narrowly, achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state. I believe that both women and men are capable of making decisions and having an organized control over a human community. However, their way of making decisions or exerting control over humans can differ and that doesn't mean that one way is better than the other. Not all women are the same and not all men are the same. Regardless of gender everyone has both masculine and feminine characteristics to some extent. However; men and women are different. It is still debated whether they have evolved differently because of biological differences or they are different because of socially constructed roles but we would all agree that they are different. To this day, this potential difference in politics has been ignored because politics has always been predominantly influenced by men. Therefore, we don't know how the nature of politics can change with equal female representation but we can predict.
Institute for Inclusive Security, a think tank focused on women's contributions to peacebuilding does a lot of research on women's role in politics. There is convincing evidence that women are more effective leaders than men, in certain ways. Their research has shown that women are more inclined toward “collaboration across ideological lines and social sectors". The higher the percentage of women involved in a country's post-conflict negotiations, the less likely it is that the country will relapse into conflict—because, the institute's research states, women are very good at building coalitions to push for peace, they are often perceived as more honest brokers than men and they are good at broadening societal participation. In fact, when women are involved in negotiating peace deals, those deals are 35% more likely to remain in effect for at least 15 years. Nevertheless; only 9% of negotiators and 4% of signatories at official peace talks are women. This actually indicates that when critical decisions are made—about security, governance, justice, and more—half the population is left out and representation of the other half can change a lot according to the research.[3]
Most of the successful women politicians who are on top positions have acquired masculine qualities not because politics inherently requires these qualities but because its nature has always been shaped by men throughout the history. The world is exhausted of aggression, domination, competition and power struggles. We need collaboration, collective empowerment and empathy in international politics. I don't know if having women as the presidents of the most powerful nations will be enough to change the nature of international politics but I am sure that in the long run equal representation of genders will have a significant impact on it.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/pre...
