Rousseau believes that it is sufficient if the other offers little resistance. Considering this accepted principle, it follows that women were created solely for the pleasure of men. If it's the man's turn to win her approval, he can rest easy knowing that his virtue lies in his strength and that he pleases simply by virtue of being powerful. He also said that if a woman is submissive to a man, she should do her best to win his approval and not make him angry; a woman's power lies in her charms, and she should use them to force a man to recognize and employ his own abilities. The best way to summon this power is to put it to use in a fight. As a result, pride comes to the aid of desire, and the two celebrate each other's success. Because of this, nature has given the weak the tools they need to beat the strong, such as the boldness of one sex and the shyness of the other, which they can use to attack and defend themselves. In his next paragraph, Rousseau said, "Though swayed by these passions, man is endowed with reason to control them, so that he may be free and self-controlled. The Highest has deigned to do honor to mankind; he has endowed man with boundless passions, together with a law to guide them, so that man may be free and self-controlled. God has given a woman modesty to rein in her boundless passions, which are another of her endowments. He has also given them both a present reward for using their powers correctly, which is the pleasure they get from doing so. This is the taste for right behavior that he has made the law of our behavior.

 

In particular, he pointed out that the stronger party only appears to be master because of a foolish custom of gallantry or the magnanimity of the protector but is dependent on the weaker because of an inexorable law of nature. For nature has endowed a woman with a power to stimulate a man's passions more than a man's power to satisfy those passions and has thus made him dependent on her goodwill and compelled him in turn to endeavor to please her, so that she may be willing to yield to his superior strength. The woman's psyche mirrors her physiology in this respect: she takes pride in being physically frail, rather than being embarrassed by her inability to lift even the tiniest of weights, and she claims she cannot even lift the barest minimum. She is too savvy to pretend to be highbrow just for the sake of it. And if she really wants to be a wimp, she's giving herself plenty of excuses to be one. He then elaborated on his stance by saying: "Not because of any man's will, but because of the laws of nature, women rule. The same Hercules who wanted to violate all fifty of Thespis' daughters was made to spin at Omphale's feet, and Rousseau pointed out that even Samson, the strongest man in the Bible, was no match for Delilah. Women have this authority, and it cannot be taken away from them; if it could, women would have lost it long ago. 

 

According to Rousseau, the woman requires care during pregnancy and freedom from work when her child is born; she must have a quiet, easy life while nursing her children; their education requires patience and gentleness; zeal and love, which nothing can dismay; she forms a bond between father and child, she alone can win the father's love for his children and convince him that they are indeed his own; and there should be no question of virtue in all of this; it must be done. He also stated that it is incorrect for women to complain about the inequity of man-made laws; this inequity is not of man's making, or, at the very least, is not the result of mere prejudices but of reason. Nature has entrusted her with the children's care, and she must answer to their father. Every breach of faith is wrong, and every faithless husband who denies his wife the sole reward of her stern sex duties is cruel and unjust; however, the faithless wife is worse; she destroys the family and breaks the bonds of nature; and when she gives her husband children who are not his own, she deceives both him and them; her crime is treason, not infidelity. It is also not enough for a wife to be faithful; her husband, as well as his friends and neighbors, must believe in her fidelity; she must be modest, devoted, and retiring; and she must have a witness not only of good conscience but also of good reputation. In other words, if a father is to love his children, he must respect their mother. For these reasons, being chaste is not enough; she must also maintain her reputation and good name.

 

According to Rousseau, once it is established that men and women are and should be different in constitution and temperament, their education must be different. He said that women are always complaining that we educate them for nothing but vanity and coquetry and that men keep them entertained with trifles so that men can be their masters; they say that men are responsible for the flaw’s men attribute to them. "There are no colleges for girls; so much the better for them!" he added. ‘’If there were none for the boys, their education would be more sensible and healthier.’’ ‘’Is it our fault that we are charmed by their beauty and delighted by their airs and graces, that we are attracted and flattered by the arts they learn from you, that we love to see them prettily dressed, that we let them display the weapons by which we are subjugated at their leisure?’’ He also proposes a solution that teaches them how to be men. The more women become like men, the less influence they will have over men, and men will truly be masters.

 

 

While Rousseau is frequently praised for his views on human equality, the reality is that he did not believe women deserved equality. Women, according to Rousseau, needed men for their well-being because they were less rational than men. He contended that men desired women but did not require them to survive, whereas women both wanted and required men. In "Emile," he discusses the disparity between what he believes women and men require in education. Rousseau believes that because a woman's primary purpose in life is to be a wife and mother, she does not need to be educated to the extent that men have traditionally been. According to this defense he wrote:

 

One summary of Rousseau's main argument is that "man is good but has been corrupted by social institutions." Also, "nature has created man happy and good, but society depraves him and makes him miserable," he wrote. However, Rousseau did not put nearly as much thought into the lives of women, whom he essentially considered the weaker sex, content to be dependent upon men. It is clear from Rousseau that if women were given the same power to influence society as men, the world would be radically different. Despite any inherent differences between the sexes, women have proven time and time again that they can achieve just as much if not more than men.

Feminism has brought women into the spotlight, but it has also shown how few are in influential positions. The idea that only some areas of politics (such concerns of national or international sovereignty or the protection of the nation's military) are deserving of serious attention has been one of the many conventional wisdoms that feminism has questioned. In the customary focus on states and their interactions, the fact that men preponderantly control state institutions, dominating authority and decision-making structures, is frequently disregarded. Further, it ignores the reciprocal relationship between international politics and other dynamics. Although women are more likely to be found working in non-political fields and their daily lives may be seen as unimportant, excluding them is a sexist act because they contribute greatly to international politics. The conventional view, which serves to sustain this exclusion on a regular basis, ignores women's contributions and the impact of global politics on them. When women aren't given equal representation at the table, valuable insights and knowledge are lost. Feminist theorists have attempted to provide evidence that the distinction between the two is arbitrary. This demonstrates that despite being ignored, the traditionally excluded domains are vital to the operation of IR, and that the inclusion and exclusion of specific areas in traditional IR thinking are predicated on gendered ideas of what counts and what does not.

The second important effect of feminism has been the exposure and elimination of socially constructed gender norms. Understanding international relations in a more gender-inclusive light is possible thanks to feminism's demonstration of how normative notions about what men and women should be like are maintained through the establishment of gendered identities. In this sense, understanding the distinction between biological sex and socially constructed gender is essential. Because there is more to gender than merely social norms, it is unfair to focus just on women in discussions about gender. Gender, as we learned in previous lectures, is a social construct that describes the expectations that society has for male and female physicality. What is considered "masculine" (man) and "feminine" (female) behavior are examples of these norms. A manly man is one who is rational, powerful, independent, and at ease in the spotlight. Women are often portrayed in popular culture as being emotionally fragile, overly dependent on males, too interested in home and family matters, and self-absorbed. Social and political forces develop and impact gender identities; IR theory and global politics practice both contribute to the production of these identities by disseminating normative assumptions about who should do what and why. These gender norms are authoritative, especially patriarchal authority that reduces women to subservient status relative to men. This indicates that the social construction of gender identities determines how power is dispersed, which in turn affects women's standing in international politics. Femininity and masculinity are not exclusive to any gender, although men are expected to be macho and women to be feminine.

Mary Burguieres, in her book, helpfully identifies three different feminist approaches to peace: one that accepts stereotypes about male bellicosity and the pacific female nature and espouses the potential peaceful benefits of maternal thinking; another that rejects notions of gender difference and female nonviolence as disempowering to women and emphasizes women's right to equal standing on issues of war and peace; and a third that attacks militarism by rejecting the legitimacy of the use of force. Sara Ruddick adds that feminism is compatible with peacebuilding and has the potential to activate an innate sense of calm in motherly routines that prioritize the safety and well-being of their offspring. Feminist and peace research projects be mixed, as this might potentially hide the differences in women's perspectives on peace, such as between a mother and a woman fighter.

Lastly, Feminism, as we have seen, has shed light on the underrepresentation of women in political leadership around the world. But it also challenges stereotypical gendered views of women as passive, needing protection, or victims. Feminists consider these structures not only as further proof of gender inequity, but also as contributing to the initial marginalization of women in IR. Their experiences and viewpoints on global politics are more readily overlooked and rationalized as insignificant if they are viewed as victims rather than actors, as peaceful rather than aggressive, or as exclusively existing in the home or private arena (rather than the public sphere). Recounts of women who subvert established gender roles—as political assassins, for instance—have thrown this presumption into question. To question the formation of gendered identities that fail to reflect the diversity of women's engagements with IR and, in practice, perpetuate women's limited access to power, is a significant contribution of feminism. Taking feminism seriously, then, is about more than just reversing women's marginalization through the ages; it also enriches our understanding of international politics by allowing us to consider a wider spectrum of actors and their respective activities.

The issue of political violence against women is one that affects people across the world. Women in politics, the media, the judiciary, academia, activism, and practice have all recently began to shed light on the prevalence of sexual assault, intimidation, and harassment against women in politics. There have been several normative statements, action plans, training programs, and studies conducted at the local, state, and federal levels as a result. According to assigned text Violence Against Women in Politics by Mona Lena Krook, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2011 demanding an end to all forms of violence against women seeking public office. Women who are leaders, community workers, human rights advocates, or politicians who speak out are often the targets of stigma, harassment, and open attacks, according to a 2013 report by a working group of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Most definitions of violence against women center on the same three criteria, despite differences in wording and emphasis on different types of politically engaged women. The issue is the use of sexism or other forms of discrimination against women in politics because of their gender. This is done for the sake of maintaining stereotypical gender norms and undermining democratic institutions. Notably, "violence" can refer to both physical and nonphysical forms of resistance to women's participation; the terms harassment, intimidation, abuse, and discrimination can be used in conjunction with "violence" to emphasize their nonphysical nature. Kook (2017) analyzes national laws, international declarations, and research on gender-based violence to classify five forms of violence against politically engaged women: physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and symbolic. These different types of violence against women can be categorized under the same "field" of behaviors because they all aim to achieve the same end—the isolation of women from mainstream society. As an added complexity, a single act may fit into multiple categories, a given incident may involve multiple acts simultaneously, and if victims do not react to one form of violence, perpetrators may escalate by resorting to others. Regardless of these isolated incidents, violence against women in politics is still mostly taboo. Thus, many abused women deny that their experiences qualify as such. Many women also lack the confidence to respond appropriately to sexual advances and sexist comments. Too many women, then, fail to speak up when they see sexual harassment or other forms of misconduct because they fear retaliation. Even though existing frameworks recognize physical, psychological, and economic forms of violence, the literature on political and electoral violence largely ignores these dynamics, instead focusing on the increase in violent incidents between ethnic and communal groups during election periods and on efforts to commit electoral fraud through vote buying, ballot rigging, and interference with voter and candidate registration processes. However, violence in any form is harmful to democracies and fails to account for the unique experiences that women and men may have. As opportunities for women to hold public office, participate in political life, and cast ballots have increased around the world, so too has public consciousness of the issue. On the other hand, establishing a definitive causal link is difficult. According to the text, there are at least three potential causes: increased political participation among women may simply mean more targets to attack, increased discussion of women's participation may be shedding new light on dynamics that have been occurring unnoticed for many years and increased political visibility for women may exacerbate the violent tendencies of those who feel most heavily invested in stopping change.

 

However, the issue of violence against women in politics is much larger than any one political party can hope to solve on its own. Recognizing that resistance may be found across the ideological spectrum, women's groups in Latin America have gathered in recent years to pass legislation criminalizing political violence and harassment against women. New legislation and structures for evaluating and responding to instances of violence against women in politics are also being developed as part of other state-led efforts. In 2015, Pakistan's National Commission on the Status of Women established a new set of standardized indicators to track violence against women, including one to evaluate the extent to which violence against women occurs in the political sphere. If you believe Kook (2017), these are only a few of many possible choices. Political violence against women may and should be prevented, treated, and punished at every level of society, from the international to the municipal. Making violence unacceptable is an important step toward prevention, as is gathering data and sharing effective strategies for doing so. When it comes to perpetrators, punishment can be the imposition of legal or non-legal sanctions, while treatment can take the form of the creation of new programs and practices aimed at supporting those who have been affected. Support is growing on a global scale as women and men all around the world see that violence against women in politics is a serious threat to democracy.

Women's movements in the West have evolved over time, from the suffragette movement of the late 19th century to the present day's focus on differentiation and identity politics. In the early 20th century, a small but determined group of women's organizations in Turkey began advocating for their equal participation in public life and politics. Achieving Kemalism's goal of a Westernized society necessitates a level playing field for all individuals, regardless of their gender. In other words, the demands of the women's groups lined up with the Kemalist reform movement in the 1920s and 1930s, when the country was undergoing a radical makeover after a new state was established from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Women's Union was formed at this time. One of the goals of the Republican modernization agenda was to increase the number of women who hold public office. Women won the right to vote in municipal elections in 1930 and in general elections in 1934 thanks to their activity and the positive response of the Republican state. The Republic of Turkey imposed a fiction on Turkish women as part of the Kemalist legal reforms, which was seen as negative by many. According to this urban legend, in Turkey, men and women have equal rights. Under the guise of "equality," Turkish republican leaders said that women's groups were obsolete. The Women's Union was seen as a threat to national interests due to its perceived extreme autonomy in public discourse, sectarianism, and individualism. Due to the enactment of laws in 1935 providing women with political rights, the Turkish Women's Union was dissolved. After this, women in Turkey remained politically silent until the 1980s, when a new wave of feminism gained momentum there.

 

In contrast to its Western contemporaries, Turkey's second wave of feminism didn't emerge until decades later. The 1980s in Turkey were the time when the feminist movement first brought up issues that were also central to second-wave feminism in the West, such as the elimination of violence against women and the exposure of the oppression women faced in the home and at work, the use of sexuality as a medium for male dominance, the misrepresentation of women in the media, and the challenge against virginity tests, which are commonly practiced for women who are about to get married or wombed. There was a resurgence of the dictum "the personal is the political" during the second wave. The social and political context of the time played a significant role in the development of the second wave of the women's movement in Turkey. A new constitution was enacted in 1982 outlining a very limited framework for individual rights, and all political parties were closed except for a select few that were founded and strictly controlled by the military. Many leaders of political parties, labor unions, and political organizations were also banned from politics. Additionally, the youth and women's branches of banned political parties were deemed illegal. To further their political agenda, women primarily focused on ending violence against them. Three thousand women marched in Istanbul in 1987, sparking a campaign to strengthen women's unity in the movement against violence. The protest began when a judge ruled against a divorce petition submitted by a woman, citing the need to beat women to maintain power. This was a watershed event since it was the first-time women took to the streets to advocate for equal rights. Taking a cue from the well-known slogan of Western second-wave feminism, "The personal is political," Turkish women saw domestic abuse not as a private, domestic issue but as a public, political one. As well, the late 1980s saw a flurry of campaigns and demonstrations. The Purple Needle movement was launched in the major cities of Izmir, Ankara, and Istanbul in response to women's concerns about sexual and physical attacks on public transportation. Women also organized various activities (petitions, demonstrations on the streets, press conferences, and lobbying by the women parliamentarians) to change discriminatory laws and court rulings, such as requiring wives to obtain permission from their husbands before being eligible for employment in the business sector, using the man's surname as the family name, recognizing the man as the head of the household, and recognizing the right of men to dissent.

 

For the third movement of Turkish feminism, it is in this context that a separate women's movement has emerged from the Kurdish movement to combat the oppression that Kurdish women face.The central factor that united Kurdish women was the identity they shared, their "Kurdishness." Yet, although this politicization started with an emphasis on Kurdish ethnic identity, eventually women raised concerns that specifically dealt with gender and women’s issues. The influence of the Kurdish conflict on women was twofold. On the one hand, the environment of violence and insecurity increased the vulnerability of Kurdish women in the region, and on the other hand, it led to the politicization of Kurdish women, as these women became actively involved in political parties and organizations and participated in party meetings, demonstrations, and protests, even sometimes ending up in prison. The women started to collectively voice their demands in the public sphere. One example would be the Saturday Mothers, who united to raise public attention to people missing in police custody. They are the mothers who silently demonstrated every Saturday for 200 weeks in a crowded and touristy square in the city center of Istanbul. Although the Turkish police initially took an accommodating attitude towards this silent demonstration of mothers, this changed in 1998. The police prevented the group from gathering at their usual meeting place and took some of them into custody. Eventually, the mothers had to end their silent protests. The independent Kurdish women’s movement in Turkey has brought up two substantial criticisms. One is against the patriarchal structure of Kurdish society and the status and treatment of women within this structure. Kurdish women were critical of the dominance of men within the Kurdish movement and argued that this was a consequence of the patriarchal culture in Kurdish society. The other criticism has been directed at Turkish feminism, which has ignored the Kurdish question and the problems of those women who lived in conflict zones populated mostly by Kurds. Turkish feminism, dominated by urban, Western, middle-class, ethnically Turkish, and educated women, was challenged by Kurdish women coming from more peripheral backgrounds with lower socio-economic status. It was Kurdish women who, for the first time, enlightened feminists about the "Turkish" character of the feminist movement.

 

Also, the Islamist movement in Turkey has served as a venue for the politicization of women in that women have actively taken part in the political parties of the religious conservative wing. Islamist women went to every house within a neighborhood, distributed party propaganda in a friendly manner, and created sympathy that turned into votes at the ballot boxes. Islamist women have criticized their male counterparts within the movement. Although the headscarf ban is a women’s issue that has been on the Turkish political agenda for the last 15 years, it was mostly men who discussed the issue. Islamist women accused the movement's men of ignoring the debate because of Islam's unjust and unequal treatment of women. Men argued that Islam treats women fairly and that no further discussion on the woman's question is necessary. Islamist women have also attempted to expose Islamist men's hypocrisy, such as when they used computers at work while criticizing the use of washing machines at home, and when they used religious marriage ceremonies to justify keeping mistresses in their lives. The development of Islamist feminism has urged other feminists to ask themselves and take a position on the issue of whether a headscarf liberates women by allowing them to take part in public life, attend universities, and find employment, or whether it represents repression and subservience of women, as has been the case so far in Islamic societies. The headscarf issue and the struggle of Islamist women have opened another topic of debate; it has led feminists to question the path toward modernization that the Turkish state has chosen to follow. While some feminists have vehemently refused to grant a place to religious women in the official public sphere, others have looked more positively on the struggle of Islamist women to insist on their right to cover their heads. They have criticized the strict secularist stance of the state, which insists on keeping religious and traditional women out of universities and public offices. They have developed a critical approach to Kemalist ideology, which has insisted on defining freedom on its own terms, excluding women who want to be free to cover their heads because of their religious beliefs.