How can a gender-aware analysis contribute to our understanding of security?

Abstract

This thesis discusses the possible contribution of a gender-aware analysis to our understanding of security. Within the discipline of International Relations, there is a great diversity in the range of perspectives on analyzing security. They have different answers to what is being secured, what is being secured against and who provides for security. In Security Studies, empirically based positivist perspectives, explicitly or implicitly specify what the referent of their studies is. It can be the system, state, society, and individuals. On the other hand, in feminist theory, it is all about rethinking concepts, rethinking models. It may appear that gender can have little to contribute to the study of security. However, this is not the case. The gender awareness in the study of security challenges the basic understanding of security. Structures and practices that are taken as given by traditional approaches within a patriarchal discourse serve only to obscure the inequalities and insecurities. In this thesis, through adding gender as a category of analysis, it is attempted to illustrate the gendered constructions of conflict, militarism and militarisation. Without making invisible visible, our understanding of security can only be partial.