Feminist Theory “Teaching Feminist Theories”

While the field of International Relations has traditionally been dominated by theories and epistemologies that minimize or completely ignore the role of gender in world politics, this chapter starts from the position that an understanding of the global political order is only possible through an understanding of global gender orders. In addition to providing a survey of key texts, the authors outline topics and tools that we believe are most helpful when teaching feminist, queer, and intersectional approaches to IR theories to undergraduate students. These topics include exploring feminist and gender-based research related to core themes of power, security, and militarism as well as how these themes intersect and inform topics including human rights, global political economy, technologies, and more. The chapter concludes with recommendations on assignments that have worked well across a variety of classroom and research environments.