Feminist security studies
[2] As a sub-discipline of international relations (IR) and security studies, FSS aims to understand and analyse how issues such as militarisation, war, gender, race, economics and power politics intersect in states and globally.
[4] FSS analysis of above themes and issues can be categorised both as micro- such as understanding the impact of gender in securitisation perceptions on a daily basis, and macro- recognising the structural and societal constructions that have led to security studies being a masculinised field.
[6] Some critics such as Carol Cohn have argued that the process of securitisation was inherently militarised, and at its core reflected the power dynamics projected through the use of violence and military between different states.
[10] Critics and academics like Laura Shepherd and Carol Cohn have written extensively on the narrow construction of security studies both in academia and in practice as one being substantially masculine.
[14] Thus, a major aspect of the development of FSS academia focused on understanding and expanding established theories and claims in IR that had previously neglected the role of women.
As Aleksander Gasztold indicates, FSS extended a purely militarised perspective to include a wider scope of security, such as economics, human rights, and environmental insecurity that was linked to how power was invested in a state and through what mechanisms.
[16] FSS analyses the processes of securitisation and in particular militarisation at a state level that has an impact on the roles men and women are expected to play in political arenas and society at large.
FSS furthers the claim that the established traditions and values within security embody a masculinised system of securitisation, militarism and violence without recognition of femininity.
Scholars such Cynthia Enloe holding feminist views have critiqued security studies as one being constructed through a singular lens of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity without provision of holistic and encompassing understanding of how gender probes varying outcomes.
[18] FSS scholars such as Judith Tickner propose the notion that the lack of women within security and the societal expectations of femininity has caused a hegemonic masculinity over the academic and operational field.
[18][10] FSS recognises the long historical role played by men in militarism and organised violence and the consequences of this on the perception of women as stakeholders within security.
Through understanding the constructions of ideas and knowledge in IR and security studies, FSS scholars elucidate through criticising traditional theories, the significant role gender plays in shaping political and social discourse.
[24] In FSS, qualitative research entails the analysis of varying social and political phenomena within an explanatory and interpretivist lens to provide a holistic perspective.
[26] FSS scholars such as Cynthia Enloe analyses how the lack of a gendered perspective critiquing the security systems has created an extensive masculinised field.
