ASSIGNMENT

BY- CHIRAG GOUR

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BY- CHIRAG GOUR

NAME: CHIRAG GOUR

EXAM ROLL NO: 21003724012

NAME OF COLLEGE: ARSD COLLEGE

COURSE: M.A POLITICAL SCIENCE (HONS)

ROLL NO: 21/18313

SUBJECT: GENDER IN INTERNATIONAL

. RELATIONS

TOPIC OF ASSIGNMENT:
2 QUESTIONS AND 1 ARTICLE REVIEW
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BY- CHIRAG GOUR

QUESTION:- (PART-A)
Do you think Post-modernist Feminists provide better
understanding of Women/Gender exclusion than
Radical Feminist? How does it uncover Gendered
foundations of International Relations?

“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already

strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that
strength”.
◼ C.D. Anderson

INTRODUCTION:-

If we start with feminism’s first contribution – making women visible

an early contribution of feminist theorists is revealing that women
were and are routinely exposed to gendered violence. In making
violence against women visible, an international system that tacitly
accepted a large amount of violence against women as a normal state
of affairs was also exposed. Many societies are thought of as
predominantly peaceful or stable despite high levels of violence
against a particular portion of the population. It also presents a very
different image of violence and insecurity to that viewed through the
security agendas of states, which is characteristic of traditional IR
viewpoints.

HERE, in the following lines, we are going to do observation, analysis

and explantion of post-feminist and radical feminist perspective in
international relations and also compare the ideas in radical feminism
with those in feminist Post-modernism, especially as regards two
concepts: class identification and the difference principle.
[
D
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Analyse and Compare the radical

KEY DEMAND OF feminism and post-modern feminism in
THE QUESTION regard of gender exclusion

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS:

International Relations has been largely concerned with the study of

realations between sovereign states and ti had generally been
assumed that the kinds of issues raised by feminism did not arise
because of the process and structures of inter state relations could be
understood without reference of gender. Gender makes the world go
around and feminist theories furnish us with conceptual and
theoritical tools to construct knowledge about the world. Feminist
theories have collectively produced a great many insights which
contribute to our understanding of many of the concerns of
International Relations as conventionally defined.
FEMINISM can be broadly understood as a collection of socio-political
movements and academic discourse that seeks to establish equality
between the sexes. It is a set of theories and practices that seek to
establish equality between men and women at the most preliminary
level.
GENDERED FOUNDATIONS OF IR
Distinction between Sex and Gender:
Feminist scholars make a distinction between sex and gender. Term
“Gender and “Sex” are frequently used interchangebly. The sex of a
person is based on the biological/bodily features whereas the gender
of a person is based on the upbringing of that person. Sex is therefore
something physical/natural whereas gender is something that is
created/nurtured.
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Gender is further divided into the concepts of masuculinity and

femininty. Qualities and behavioural features that are generally
ascribed to makes is known as masculinity and qualities/behaviours
that are generally ascribed to females is known as femininity.

“Sex Roles”:
The social scientists of early twenteeth century considered gender as
a personal attribute and the studey of gender was confined to the
study of character traits and ‘sex roles’. This notion of sex roles was
developed as a way of describing the social fuctions fulfilled by and
seemingly appropriate to men and women. Social scientist generally
speaking supported the ‘common-sense’ view that men and women
had particular characterstics which made them particularly well suited
to the performance of particular social roles.

Feminism school of thought and its developments:

Apart from the definitions of feminism and its basics, there are
another variation of feminism studies that need to be tackled on,
which is the feminism school of thought. This goes from liberal,
radical, socialist, Marxist, psychoanalytic or neo-Marxist/gender
feminism.

1. Liberal feminism: Also known as mainstream feminism, this form

mainly foucses on achieving women’s rights and social justice
through legal and political reform applied to existing social
structures. It focus on abortion rights, sexual harassment,
affordable childcare, reproductive rights, and domestice violence.

2. Marxist feminism: Marxism is one of the direct infuences for

socialist feminists, who argue that capitalism was expressly
designed to benefit patriarchal hierarchies and encourage the
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subordination of women. It teaches that achieving gender equality

will involve dismantiling capitalist economic systems

3. Radical feminism: Radical feminists believe that society prioritizes

the male experience and that gender roles are so far ingrained in
every facet of modern life that true equality can ony be achieved
with a complete overhaul of the current societal system.

4. Postmodern feminism: Postmodern feminism is a mix of post-

structualism, postmodernism and french feminism. The goal of
postmodern feminism is to destablize the patriarchal norms
entrenched in society that have led to gender inequality.

“To find out wheather post modernist feminists provide better

understanding of women/gender exclusion than radical feminist or
not and how does it uncover gendered foundations of IR, we have
to understand, analyse and differntiate both-radical feminism and
postmodern feminism in detail”

RADICAL FEMINISM

Radical feminism emerges in early 1968 as a response to deeper

understandings of women’s oppression. To speak of “oppression”
instead of “discrimination” is a significant shift in terms of scope and
depth.
Radical feminism sees women’s oppression not as a by-product of
capitalism, but rather as the root of all systems of opperssion. The
central concept in radical feminist thought is patriarchy. Patriarchy,
which means literally ‘the rule of fathers’, is a system which ensures
male domination over women. Radical feminists argue that male
powe is also at the root of the social construction of gender. Radical
feminists argue that gender distinctions, usually assumed to be
natural, stucture every aspect of our lives, including crucially the realm
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of sexuality and sexual relations. Some radical feminists have

developed the idea of ‘sex-gender system’ to capture the all-pervasive
nature of patiarchal domination. Radical feminists were the first to
articulate what is now generally regarded as the central insight of
feminist thought: the personal is political. From this perspective,
women’s libration does not only involve striving to achieve formal
equality, access to public space and to the means of production, but
also involves a thorough going transformation in the most private and
intimate spheres of human relationships.
Radical feminists are critical of liberal and Marxist feminism because
they see both as offering a model of women’s liberation which is based
on male values, thus encouraging women to aspire to what are
essentially patriarchal values.
.
RADICAL FEMINISM CYCLE

MEN

Sexual

PATRIARCHAL Suppression

Gender System
WOMEN

Deconstructing the Concept of Sex, Sexuality, and Marriage:

Radical feminists argued that the patriarchal socio-political system is

included in all aspects of life including sex. The relationship between
man and women is regarded as power relationship as sex is a
status category with political implications. Radical feminists also
advocate for the freedom of women by promoting sexual freedom
using reproductive technology in order to break the chain of marriage
and family institution.
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Deconstructing the Concept of Childbirth and Childrearing:

Radical feminists also argued that the center of oppression to women

lies in childbearing and childrearing roles. According to Firestone, the
liberation of women can only be attained by biological revolution
through reproduction technology. In proving this point, Firestone also
went deeper on the understanding of the gender in the Western
culture, the organization of the culture, and the nature of the women
itself. Considered as the feminist version of the materialist theory of
history, Firestone proposed a notion saying: a seize control of the
means of reproduction in the biological revolution is necessary in
order to abolish the sexual class system.

Deconstructing the Concept Word in Language

Another notable trait of radical feminism is the deconstructing of

language. For example, radical feminists argued that femininity is a
man-made notion and woman should break this morality,
deconstructing it back and become rough and. In another word, they
are deconstructing the value, especially in determining what is good
or what is bad.

POSTMODERNISM FEMINISM:

Postmodern feminism is a synthesis of postmodernism and feminist

theory. It has emerged in feminist theory in last few decades.
Postmodern feminism/feminist theory has been grounded in
postmodernism, poststructuralism and French feminist theory. All
these movements have emerged simultaneously.
Modernism and feminism:
Modernism is actually a worldview that can be traced back to
Enlightenment philosophy. It mainly emphasizes that men can attain
knowledge, understand his entire individual and collective problem,
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control the forces problems of nature and the environment through

the scientific method and reason.
The relation of modernism and feminism manifests in three
structures. First, modernism worldview can be seen on the celebration
of differences between both genders that is seen to be more uplifting
rather than condemning the role of women in society. Second, having
celebrated the differences of men and women, modernism
influenced-feminists does not lay out their struggles on the basis of
equality in everything like what Cartesian thinkers illustrated but
rather grounded in relational traits of general rights such as in the
equal opportunities in public sphere in terms of politics, education,
and educations. Third, the struggles for relational rights of women and
at the same time conforming to the established law of differences and
complementary elements between men and women is primarily
prevalent among the first wave feminists.
Postmodern feminism is a new branch of feminism that strives for
equality for women within the category of women. While doing so,
they take into account the differences among the women on the basis
of class and race.
The postmodern feminist theorist intend to:
1. Identify feminist perceptive of society.
2. Examine the way social world affects women.
3. Analyse the role played by power and knowledge relationships in
shaping the women’s perception of the social world.
4. Devise the ways through which social world can be changed.

Thus, by analysing and comparing the above information on the

radical and postmodern feminism, we can say that post modernist
feminist provide better understading about gender exclusion than
radical feminists.
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HOW DOES IT UNCOVER GENDERED FOUNDATIONS OF IR:-

Feminist perspectives also entered IR at about the same time as a

debate was taking place within feminist theory itself. In the 1990s, the
introduction of postmodern and post-colonial perspectives generated
a debate within feminist theory that has had important implications
for feminist IR.
The feminism discourses through postmodernism lenses are also
inclined to be culturally based. For example, a feminist who adopts
postmodernism worldview will exercises deconstructive arguments
on certain issues and usually discursive rather than being on the track
using established fact. For example, in the discourse of gender,
postmodernism feminists usually criticize the views that argues
gender is rigidly determined at birth rather than flexibly constructed
by culture or language. Hence, rather than using established and
traditional underpinnings of gender that usually based on biological
facts, they usually attempts to deconstruct the gender using culture
or language.

Postmordernism in Feminism:

Unlike the modernism,the postmodernism relation to feminism is

actually very clear. Postmodernism in feminism is often associated
with a thought in feminism that seeks to develop a new paradigm of
social criticism, which does not rely on traditional philosophical
underpinnings. Postmodernism in feminism discourses also
accentuate the relations of the feminism issues to the languages, sex,
and power.

Postmodernism has viewed with suspicion any mode of feminist

thought that has tried to provide the feminist explanation as to why
women are oppressed. However, a growing number of feminists,
including many IR feminists, believe postmodernism has much to offer
feminist theorizing; one of its most appealing aspects has been its
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focus on difference, which has been particularly empowering for

women of color.

In a more subtle way, what postmodernism feminism proposes is the

predominant and traditional representation of women in the gender
are not biologically given and it is changeable as the only natural and
interchangeable is the female and feminine nature.
Hence, women are a product that exists after learning to adapt to a
socially determined notion of femininity, which is of course, implies it
as culturally affected, no less. Unlike modernism, postmodernism
offers a new insight to the feminist on empowering their applications
as it provides a more constructive look on a certain issue. Thus, the
old notion of women, femininity, femaleness, reproduction or sexual
roles, or even sexuality itself that are applicable to the whole societies
in the world now can be looked on the basis of constructive criticism
that based on cultural, history and reality.

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, after understanding, analyse and observing the whole

concept we can say that it is safe to say that postmodernism is indeed
be traced back to feminism. By analyzing, the variations exist in
feminism studies, such as the like of the studies on the developments
of its definitions and school of thoughts (radical and post-modern
feminism), this study concludes several important points, which
pinpoint the relation of postmodernism to feminism. The
postmodernism worldview, however, manifests in the second and third
waves of feminism from the late sixties onwards. It centers its fights
for equality in the private sphere of women’s life, such as on the
concept of gender, sexuality, sex and so on. In addition to that, it is also
important to highlight that there is a need of a more thorough analysis
and studies need to be done, especially in analyzing the relation of
postmodernism with feminism.
Thus, we can say that post modernist feminists provide better
understanding of gender exlusion than radical feminist and it also
stated about its gendered foundations of International relations
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QUESTION:- (PART-B)
Do you find that ‘otherness’ in women is the core
reason for the their subordination? Explain with
two of your life experiences. (preferably one from
your own experience and one from other gender’s
perspective)

“In every generation women have to be taught their place one

more time. The subordination of women is never
accomomplished for once and for all”.
-Rosemary Radford Ruether

INTRODUCTION:
In today’s world women are working hard to break the shell of their
subordinate position by breaking stereotypes, speaking up for
themselves, and fighting for equal righs. They have earned this statys
through the centuries of struggle, alongside various waves of
feminism.
Some people do believe that women were born subordinate to men
and patriarchy existed form the very beginning and will always do like
the other ‘rules and nature’. However, these theories of male
supremacy have been challenged. There are biological difference
between men, women and other genders in the spectrum, but these
differences do not have to be the foundations of a sexual hierarchy in
which men are dominant.
HERE, we are going to understand, analyse and examine the whole
concept of women subordination to find out the given question.
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KEY DEMAND OF Women subordination with some life

QUESTION experiences as a case study.

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS:

Subordination means, “something else is less important than the
other thing”. According to Advanced Learners Dictionary,
“subordination means having less power or authority than somebody
else in a group or an organization”.
The term ‘women’s subordination’ refers to the inferior position of
women, their lack of access to resources and decision making etc. and
to the patriarchal domination that women are subjected to in most
societies. So, women’s subordination means the inferior position of
women to men. The feeling of powerlessness, discrimination and
experience of limited self esteem and self-confidence jointly
contribute to the subordination of women. Thus, women’s
subordination is a situation, where a power relationship exists and
men dominate women.
The subordination of women is a central feature of all structures of
interpersonal domination, but feminists choose different locations
and causes of subordination. Contemporary feminist theory begins
with Simone de Beauvoir’s argument that because men view women
as fundamentally different from themselves, women are reduced to
the status of the second sex and hence subordinate. Kate Millet’s
theory of subordination argues that women are a dependent sex class
under patriarchal domination
Subordination is the situation in which one is forced to stay under the
control of other. So women’s subordination means the social situation
in which women are forced to stay under the control of men. In this
way to keep women under men’s control, patriarchy operates some
social customs, traditions and social roles by socialization process. To
preserve the male supremacy, patriarchy created ‘masculine’ and
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‘feminine’ characteristics, private-public realms by gendered

socialization process. Socialization is considered to take place
primarily during childhood, when boys and girls learn the appropriate
behaviour for their sex. All agents of socialization process such as the
family, religion, the legal system, the economic system and political
system, the educational institutions and the media are the pillars of a
patriarchal system and structure.

THE ROOTS OF WOMEN SUBORDINATION:

The feminist theory throughout the 1970s was peroccupied with
issues of “primacy”, one aspect of which was a search for the “root”
of women’s subordination. Some theorists wrote as though the root
ws the original historic cause; others interpreted the meaphor of root
to mean the primary or most important cause maintaining the
subordination of women today regardless of what they meant by
“root” or what they took it to be, feminists of the 1970s generally
agreed that discovering the root cause of women’s subordination was
one of the primary tasks confronting feminist theory. Their reasoning
is implict in their choice of metaphor.
Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, feminists theorists gave
a variety of answers the question of the root of women’s
subordination. Some theories identifies the root as biological, residing
in women’s supposedly resulting from female incapacities related to
childbearing, or in men’s supposed propensity to rape and women’s
to be raped. Others argued that biological differences were salient
only in certain social contexts and located the root of women’s
subordination structures or institutions in class society in male control
of women’s sexuality or in female child rearing.
Throughout the decade of the 1970s, discussion of these questions
was intense and often confused, partly because of the ambiguity of
the word “primary” which is open to a variety of interpretations,
including “first”, “most significant” and “most urgent”. This ambiguity
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helped to obscure the conceptual distinction between the original and

the mainitaining casue of women’s subordination—what we might
call its production and its reproduction. Thus some feminists inferred,
for instance, that the original cause of the subordination of women
must be the deepest as well as causally the most significant—and
therefore also the most politically urgent.
Crucial as these debates appeared twenty or even ten years ago, today
they seem not only dated but often incoherent. Feminists over the
past decade have learned to conceptualize sex, gender, race and class
in more sophisticated and nuanced ways, ways that no longer permit
the simple oppositions generating the earlier debates. Feminists
theory today, as we shall see, address questions quite different from
those surrounding primacy.

WHY SUBORDINATION?
The terms used to refer to the general character of gender relations
have clearly changed over time and are subject to disagreement. In
common with a number of other people we have chosen the term
subordination to refer to the general character of male/female
relations. It was one of a number of terms which arose to
conceptualise the specificity of male dominance in gender relations as
distinct from women’s historically specific experience of exploitation,
inequality or oppression, and to draw attention to the need to
determine that specificity. We use subordination in preference to
patriarchy for a number of reasons.

Patriarchy, the power of a husband/father over his wives, children and

property is really a specific form of male dominance. Patriarchy tends
to refer mainly to the relational aspects of gender, and to imply, if we
use the categories above, the individual relations of subordination
which are often gender ascriptive. It does not cover all the forms of
gender relations. In certain writings its usage tends to suggest an
unchanging, historically constant patriarchy, rather than changing
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forms of dominance, and it is often used in feminist political analysis

which gives primacy to the relations of reproduction between men
and women. Here we should highlight the fact that women are in
some circumstances exploited, oppressed and unequal, but these are
terms which belong to theoretical (and political) analyses which do not
deal adequately with gender relations. One could say that gender
relations in some circumstances may take the form of the oppression
of women by certain categories of men. We would make a distinction
between these terms and that of patriarchy.

We use the term subordination then to make the general point that
the character of gender relations is that of male dominance and
female subordination. The subject matter of analysis must then be the
various forms that subordination takes. The work of women in Britain
today can be taken to illustrate this. The characteristics of a woman’s
work as a wage labourer are gender related and she is subordinated
in the sense that this is so. She works in specific industries and jobs;
earns less than men; if married and a mother she generally works part-
time. The relations under which she performs wage labour are class
relations of exploitation. In addition, she performs domestic work in
the home which is unwaged and which she does by virtue of being a
wife and mother. By the same token she may, over her life cycle, also
do unwaged domestic work for members of other households to
whom she is related by ties of kinship or affinity. The relations under
which she performs her primary domestic work are gender relations
of subordination.

OTHERNESS: CORE REASON FOR SUBORDINATION

“Otherness” claims that the representation of different social groups

is controlled by those who hold a greater level of political power.
Whilst identities are often thought to be natural and innate, de
Beauvoir claims that this is not true. Instead, the identity of females is
constructed by men to serve their own interests. Women are thereby
presented as the other sex. This sense of otherness is a highly effective
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form of patriarchal rule and a major obstacle towards female

emancipation. In her succinct words, “he is the subject, he is the
absoulte – she is the other.”

To combat the problem. Simone de Beauvoir prescribed a socialist

system built upon gender equality and liberation from the inherent
expliotation of the capitalist system. In addressing the question ‘What
is a woman?’ she claimed that there is no eternal feminine or essence
that defines a woman. Women are not born, they are made.
Patriarchy imposes limitations upon women, and once told they are
inferior, women are made to feel inferior throughout their entire lives.
In contrast, non-exploitative woek within a socialist system would
liberate both men and women and generate a sense insights that
Simone de Beauvoir remains the most important theorist within
socialist feminism and one of the most prominent feminists of the
second-wave.

Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex ask: “What is a woman? For de

Beauvoir, woman, the titular “second sex” is “second” to man insofar
as she is understood in relation to man, is dependent on man, and
serves man. In de Beauvoir’s words, “woman represents only the
negative, defined by limiteing criteria, without reciprocity. Being “only
the negative” is understood in relation to man as the positive. “Man”
stands for the positive and the neutral, the gender through which
human beings in general are understood and is thus the universal
subject to woman as the “Other”. It is “Man” who stands for mankind.

While de Beauvoir’s analysis is a useful framework and method for

providing accounts of marginaized oppression, her categories of
subject and Other are mired with ambiguous boundaries that are
ultimately untenable as universal, discreate categories. This limitation
in the theory becomes clear when the distinction is reconsidered in
light of racialized others who challenge the purported universality of
de Beauvoir’s formulation. It argues that given these challenges, de
Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is most useful insofar as it is a method for
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accounting for experiences of otherness. Black women are gendered

differently from the Black man and racialized differently form the
White woman through racem occupying an ambiguous position.

Otherness is a category whose qualities shift depending on their

proximity to a European male subject. Finally, this conception of
woman as the Other, proposing that de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex be
taken up as a methodology for providing an account of otherness,
rather than a concrete and totalizing category.

LIFE EXPERIENCES:

#my_experience_1 (own experience)

In my joint family, who lived in a small village -- me and my brother

get permission to do a certain thing only after the father says yes or
agrees, regardless of the mother’s opinion (not considered as very
much important). In case a mother deems something inappropriate
for her children, the father may grant them permission to go ahead
and do they very thing, which lessens the importance of the mother.
This is an instance of patriarchy in a family where the father has the
last word.
Thus it clearly shows the subordination of women in society.

#my_experience_2 (other’s gendered perspective)

When I visit my village, I always see that, in a village -- a wife is

expected to stay at home and take care of the children and the
household, while the husband works and provide money. When a
woman is doing this out of sheer choice and nothing else. Children
born to a couple traditionally have always been given the family name
of the father, and never of the mother which shows women’s
subordination in our society.
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CONCLUSION:
From the above discussion it is clear that women are victims of
subordination (e.g. under male domination), exploitation (e.g.
unequal pay, low wages), oppression (e.g. violence). The issues of son
preference, discrimination against girls (e.g. food distribution, burden
of household work, lack of education, freedom and mobility), dowry,
violence against women (e.g. wife-battering, rape), unequal wage,
discriminatory personal laws, the use of religion to oppress women,
the negative portrayal of women in the media, all of these patriarchal
practices exist.
Thus, to raise women’s position, it is urgent to protect women from
patriarchal subordination. It is patriarchal ideology which makes us
feminine and masculine, which assigns different roles, rights and
responsibilities to women and men. But those so-called ‘masculine’
and ‘feminine’ qualities are human qualities and not specific to either
men or women.
Empowerment of women is the solution to end subordination.
Through empowerment women would acquire economic, social,
political power and take part in the decision making.
The process of empowerment to achieve gender equality can begin
with supportive legal measures, state intervention, welfare schemes,
policies oriented towards women, conscientisation of women and a
positive attitudinal change towards women as a whole.

“There is no occasion for women to consider themselve subordinate

or inferior to man”
- Mahatma Gandhi
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ARTICLE REVIEW: (PART-C)

“Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense
Intellectuals”
– Carol Cohn

ABOUT AUTHOR :-
Dr. Carol Cohn is a professor at the University of Massachusetts,
Boston, and the founding director of the Consortium on Gender,
Security and Human Rights; leader in the scholarly community
addressing issues of gender in global politics, armed conflict and
security. Her research and writing has focused on gender and security
issues. The analyzed article, dated 1987, was published by the
University of Chicago Press.

ABSTRACT:
This article review tell us about the study of the defence community
in which the author-Carol Cohn finds that theorists have used
language and almost sexual excitement to construct a world in which
gaming weapons is the only end. Cohn begins by conducting
participant observation, but soon finds herself excluded throught the
very language in which nuclear defence theroists communicate. It was
not only the euphemistic language that Cohn found bizarre, it was the
fact that theorists had created a language that was used not only to
state personal credibility and objectivity, as well as the fact that this
language denied certain concepts. Furthermore, the more she
engaged in the vocabulary used within the defense community, the
less she was able to explain previous ideals that she had held regarding
the value of human life.

KEYWORDS: Technostrategic language, feminism, sex

Gender, patriarchy,masculine, feminine
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INTRODUCTION:-

In 1987, leading gender and security scholar Carol Cohn wrote the
article “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”,
where she provided provocative insights on the gendered language
around nuclear warfare and deterrence.

The article is a result of the author‟s experience in a summer program

about defence technology and arms control. It examines not only how
masculinised ideas were embedded in deterrence, but also how the
masculinised talks and communication around nuclear technology
informed the way of thinking of those involved in the field.

Cohn’s article makes one think about how a gendered rhetoric to

militarism and security has accompanied novel military technologies.

To Analysis and a sort of Critique of

PURPOSE OF
THE ARITCLE
“technostrategic language” used in nuclear
strategic analysis

The author starts pointing out how technostrategic language is full of

euphemisms, making it become very abstract. It emphasizes that the
vocabulary used is full of phallic images which compares men power
to nuclear power, exalting masculine strength, consequently it can be
considered as a sexist vocabulary.

Carol cohn’s attention is also drawn to “patriarchal imagery” as there

are words used to highlight the power and wisdom of those who work
in nuclear weaponry and analysis field. In addition to this, we find the
idea of male birth, aimed to substitute women’s power of creation; a
sort of oxymoron, as it associates the term “birth”, representing life,
to nuclear weaponry, representing destruction.
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Therefore, it’s possible to affirm and confirm that nuclear

technostrategic language is masculinist. It’s also highlighted how
domestic images as “marry up” or “take out” are used “to tame the
wild and uncontrollable forces of nuclear destruction”, images that
are metaphors which purpose is humanize nuclear weapons.

Carol Cohn argues that language is by no means a simple tool for

communication. It can ghave great influence on the way its speakers
think and, subsequently, act. She builds her argumentation around
one particular language, which she calls the “Technostrategic
language”, that is used by defense intellectuals, a group of
professionals in defence discourse, more specifically, in the field of
nuclear arms.

According to Cohn, the technostrategic language affects the way

defense intellectuals conceive of, think about, and decide on nuclear
issues. This statement implies that language can have far-reaching
consequences, well beyond common expectations.

If The language of defense intellectuals affects the way they think and
consequently decide on nuclear issues, this would imply that language
has the power to influence gobal politics.
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TECHNOSTRATEGIC LANGUAGE:-
How does this relate to nuclear weapons?
Carol Cohn, a feminist international relations scholar, discusses the
influences of language on its speakers. She described the deeply
gendered political context in which nuclear weapons are developed,
deployed, and discussed as well as the gendered dimensions of the
weapons themselves. She have outlined how armament and
disarmament policies and practices are influenced by ideas about
masculinity and how the practical and symbolic dimensions of nuclear
weapons are gendered.

In the 1980s, while working in a defense and technology center in the

United States for one year during the late Cold War, Cohn discovered
that the defense intellectuals who were working there used a
specialized language variant, which she called technostrategic. She
found that this language contains several linguistic devices that have
a particularly strong effect on its speakers. She explored what she
called the “technostrategic” language of nuclear security intellectuals,
who employed abstraction, euphemisms, and unabashed sexual
metaphors to discuss nuclear weapons and strategies for nuclear war.
To give a sample, some of the terms the men—all of them were men—
used included: “vertical erector launchers, thrust-to-weight ratios,
soft lay downs, deep penetration, and the comparative examples of
protracted versus spasm attacks”. In a great article she wrote at the
time, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,”
she said she was shocked that the feminist critique around this
language hadn‟t reached these guys—they were completely
unashamed to be talking like this.

Terms such as “clean bombs” or “damage limitation weapon” evoke

the idea that these potentially extremely destructive nuclear weapons
are much less harmful than they actually are.
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Finally, cohn shows how sexual metaphors are used, such as the
expression that a country loses its “virginity” when it uses a nuclear
bomb for the first time.

According to cohn, using these linguistic devices turns discusssionns

about nuclear arms and especially those about their consequences,
into strictly technical conversations, masking the lives of thousands of
people that these consequences are thus trivialised. Further,
technostrategic language does not allow for cerian ideas or thoughts
to be expressed or considered. Her most prominent exampe is that of
peace: the word “peace” itself does not exist in technostrategic
language. The closest translation is “strategic stability”; however, this
concept always assumes stabilty within the realm of nuclear arms and
does not allow for a notion of peace without these arms.

Cohn states that if one were to try to use the word “peace”
nonetheless, one would not be heard, let alone accepted by the
defense intellectuals. Someone using the word “peace” would be
branded as a “softheaded activist” In this context, cohn also
discovered that she couldnot use ordinary language to speak to
defense analysts, as when she tried they would act as if she were
ignorant or simple-minded. To communicate and to be respected, she
had to use the technostrategic language.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN GENDER CONCEPTIONS OF MASCULINITY

AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS:-

1) The relationship between nuclear weapons as a symbol of masculine

strength make it harder to open up discussions about disarmament.
Proponents of abolishing nuclear weapons are put down as unrealistic
and/or weak.
2) symbol of strength, nuclear weapons are attractive to others.
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Furtherly affirming that “part of the appeal was the thrill of being able
to manipulate an arcane language, the power of entering the secret
kingdom”. Learning this language can influence daily way of thinking
and self-expression. In fact, she states that “this language doesn’t
allow certain questions to be asked or certain values to be expressed.
We couldn’t keep humans lives as my reference point. We found that
we could go for days speaking about nuclear weapons without once
thinking about the people who would be incinerated by them”.

After claiming this, it’s possible to say that unlike the very first
beginning, she thinks like a defense intellectual, making the text
appear quite controversial: she seems to change her position about
nuclear technostrategic language, in opposition to the impression she
gave of being a feminist defense intellectual. She clearly admits that
she lacks the sense of humanity she apparently had before learning
this language, becoming just like the men she used to “blame”
because of their way of speaking.

STAGES

(1)LISTENING (2) LEARNING TO SPEAK (3) DIALOGUE (4) TERROR

THE LANGUAGE
• Clean bombs and clean laguage
• White men in ties discussing missile size
• Fathers, sons, and virgins
• Domestic bliss
• Male birth and creation
• God and the nuclear priesthood
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BY- CHIRAG GOUR

In the early stage, Carol cohn was gripped by the extraordinary

language used to discuss nuclear war.The discussions are carefully and
intricately reasoned, occurring seemingly without any sense of horror,
urgency, or moral outragein fact, thereseems to be no graphic reality
behind the words, as they speak of "first strikes," "counterforce
exchanges," and "limited nuclear war," or as they debate the
comparative values of a "minimum deterrent posture" versus a
"nuclear war-fighting capability. "

"Clean bombs" are nuclear devices that are largely fusion rather than
fission and that therefore release a higher quantity of energy, not as
radiation, but as blast, as destructive explosive
power.
"Clean bombs" may provide the perfect metaphor for the language of
defense analysts and arms controllers. This language has enormous
destructive power, but without emotional fallout, without the
emotional fallout that would result if it were clear one was talking
about plans for mass murder, mangled bodies, and unspeakable
human suffering. Defense analysts talk about "countervalue attacks"
rather than about incinerating cities.

Carol cohn gave an example in such regard -- Ronald Reagon has

dubbed the MX missile "the Peacekeeper." While this renaming was
the object of considerable scorn in the community of defense analysts,
these very same analysts refer to the MX as a "damage limitation
weapon." These phrases, only a few of the hundreds that could be
discussed, exemplify the astounding chasm between image and reality
that characterizes technostrategic language. Feminists have often
suggested that an important aspect of the arms race is phallic worship,
that "missile envy" is a significant motivating force in the nuclear
build-up. But author have always found this an uncomfortably
reductionist explanation.
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BY- CHIRAG GOUR

According to her, Sexual imagery has, of course, been a part of the

world of warfare since long before nuclear weapons were even a
gleam in a physicist's eye. Both the military itself and the arms
manufacturers are constantly exploiting the phallic imagery and
promise of sexual domination that their weapons so conveniently
suggest.

Carol cohn stated that "Virginity" also made frequent, arresting,

appearances in nuclear discourse. In the summer program, one
professor spoke of India's explosion of a nuclear bomb as "losing her
virginity"; the question of how the United States should react was
posed as whether or not we should "throw her away."

The experience of mastering the words infuses relation to the

material. We can get so good at manipulating the words that it almost
feels as though the whole thing is under control. Learning the
language gives a sense of what author would call cognitive mastery;
the feeling of mastery of technology that is finally not controllable but
is instead powerful beyond human comprehension, powerful in a way
that stretches and even thrills the imagination.

Carol cohn describe that there are no ways to describe the

phenomena represented in the first with the language of the second.
Learning to speak the language of defense analysts is not a conscious,
cold-blooded decision to ignore the effects of nuclear weapons on real
live human beings, to ignore the sensory, the emotional experience,
the human impact. It is simply learning a new language, but by the
time you are through, the content ofwhat you can talk about is
monumentally different, as is the perspective from which you speak.
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BY- CHIRAG GOUR

WHAT THIS ARTICLE REVEALS IS:- (SUMMARY)

In Carol Cohn’s 1987 article, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of
Defense intellectuals,” she discussed the language and imagery used
in defense professionals discourse with a concentrated focus on the
sexual subtext used and the extensive use of abstract language and
euphemisms. Terms such as “colleteral damage” replacing “loss of
life” and “RV’s” in place of “nuclear bombs” are argued to
demonstrate the abstract language used by defense intellectuals.
Cohn arues that sexualized language including terms such as vertical
“erector lauchers”, “thrust to weight ratios”, “soft lay downs”, “deep
penetration”, and “orgasmic whumps” are common place in nuclear
weaponry and strategy conversations.

Cohn links the domesticated and hunanized language and imagery as

a way for defense professionals to distance themselves from the
reality and anxiety of war. Additionally, the ‘technostrategic’ language
that is used is a way to restrict debate soley to defense intellectuals
and professionals who are versed in the language. It is argued that this
effectively dismisses and silences voices from outside the military and
nuclear sphere.

Cohn suggests that the reference point of the language revolves

around the weapons themselves, thus, because the language is
designed to talk about weapons there is no way that concerns of
human life or society can be legitimately expressed. If it is not part of
the language these values or converns are effectively dismissed or
deemed illegitimate.

This article demonstrates how important language is and how it can

be gendered. It bring up questions about language relating to whom
it allows communication with and what it allow one to think as well
as say.
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BY- CHIRAG GOUR