One of the first international philosophical writings on the situation of women goes back

to the end of the 18th century and is entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Women Mary
Wollstonecraft, 1792). She criticized the prevailing prejudice that women can only feel
but not think. At the time of Wollstonecraft’s writings, women were oppressed and had
very few rights

Feminism is derived from the school of thought known as reflectionism. One of the most
influential works in feminist IR isCynthia Enloe's Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Pandora Press
1990). This text sought to chart the many different roles that women play in international politics -
as plantation sector workers, diplomatic wives, sex workers on military bases etc. The important
point of this work was to emphasize how, when looking at international politics from the
perspective of women, one is forced to reconsider his or her personal assumptions regarding
what international politics is 'all about'.
The first wave of feminism was strongly connected to the demand for voting rights or
“suffrage” –However, at the time and for several decades thereafter, feminism found little
support. While some countries such as New Zealand or Australia introduced voting rights
for women at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20thcentury, other countries took
much longer to grant women this basic right. To mention a few examples, Chinese
women are allowed to vote since 1949, Swiss women since 1971, and Iraqis since 1980.
But even today there are still some countries where women don’t have the right to vote,
e.g., Brunei and Saudi Arabia.
Feminism involves looking at how international politics affects and is affected by both men and
women and also at how the core concepts that are employed within the discipline of IR
(e.g. war, security, etc.) are themselves gendered. Feminist IR has not only concerned itself with
the traditional focus of IR on states, wars,diplomacy and security, but feminist IR scholars have
also emphasized the importance of looking at how gender shapes the current global
political economy. In this sense, there is no clear cut division between feminists working in IR and
those working in the area of International Political Economy (IPE).

Feminist IR emerged largely from the late 1980s onwards. The end of the Cold War and the re-
evaluation of traditional IR theory during the 1990s opened up a space for gendering International
Relations. Because feminism is linked broadly to the critical project in IR, by and large most
feminist scholarship has sought to problematise the politics of knowledge construction within the
discipline - often by adopting methodologies of deconstructivism associated
with postmodernism/poststructuralism. However, the growing influence of feminist and women-
centric approaches within the international policy communities (for example at the World
Bank and the United Nations) is more reflective of the liberal feminist emphasis on equality of
opportunity for women.
Most people understand why feminism was needed in the past although there is
continuing controversy about its validity in the present. Few people would argue that
society should take away women's suffrage or prevent women from being educated,
yet in the not-too-distant past these issues were extremely controversial. We now
look back on these days with great indulgence toward their blindness; however,
today we remain just as blind to many modern-day iniquities.

1. While the 19th amendment in the US constuition establishes women's

suffrage it doesn't necessarily guarantee an essence of equality or protection
under the law. Like the 13th-15th amendments, African Americans still found
themselves facing much opposition from their 'equal' society. Their still
existed immeasurable ignorant and blind prejudice (and it still exists today),
segregation was a problem that lasted for years, and equal opportunity has
never been attained. It's a fallacy to claim the feminist movement is
unnecessary because of a provision in the law. The law is nothing without
corresponding voices and actions upholding it. This observation extends to
any country where women are considered 'equal' under the law.

The integration of women into the workforce is still a prevailing concern, despite the
fact that a woman has the 'right to work in any workforce.

Feminism is not just a movement for the liberation of women, but a broad social
movement striving for the equality of each individual. Feminism emphasizes the
importance of such values as co-operation, tolerance, nurture, and the freedom for
each person to achieve her or his potential. Feminists are not against men as
individuals. What they are against is the oppressive and outdated social structure
which forces both men and women into positions which are false and antagonistic.
Thus, everyone has an important role to play in the feminist movement. It is ironic
that feminism has been characterized as anti-male, when in fact it seeks to liberate
men from macho stereotypical roles such as the need to suppress feelings, act
aggressively