Feminist security studies

Laura J. Shepherd

Chapter 34 in Handbook on Gender in World Politics, 2026, pp 224-230 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores feminist security studies as a field of research located uncomfortably in, or at the margins of, the discipline of International Relations (IR). The investigation is guided by two questions: what is feminist security studies? And what does feminist security studies contribute to our understanding of the world and the relations of power that inform and infuse it? The chapter argues that feminist security studies is necessarily disruptive, challenging the core tenets of IR's treatment of the concept of security. Feminist security studies scholarship also disrupts the logic of the discipline as a whole, as well as subverting its primary object of analysis, through its recognition that power is gendered. Power is gendered in simple material terms: ideas about gendered bodies and behaviours affect how resources are distributed, who can wield power effectively, and who is likely to be taken seriously as a credible actor in global politics. And power is also gendered in conceptual terms: what we take power to mean informs and is informed by those same ideas about gendered bodies and behaviours. In these disruptive endeavours, feminist security studies turns its analytical attention to every form of security politics and practice imaginable, often challenging conventional notions of what ‘security’ means, and whose security matters.

Keywords: Security; Methodology; Positionality; Intersectionality; Power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781803923765
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