Security and Feminism: Common Denominator, Zonaro Feminism and Gender Security

Roxana APALAGHIE

Zonaro Feminist Studies, Cross Regional Research Council

Abstract: Issue and purpose, in this paper, the feminist paradigm brought together the two concepts of security and feminism, to sketch the common denominator of both, representing a direction of actions for security, gender equality, extension of the rights and the role of women, integration of women`s perspectives and experiences in the decision-making process. The article is mainly intended to define two new concepts, gender security and zonaro feminism, where gender security is an expression that gives priority to the feminist perspectives and integrates them into political decision-making process, and zonaro feminism is a feminist trend focused to improve the political status of women, to revive the election human architecture through an insertion of women in the political sphere and in the specific units of the state apparatus, on merits criteria.

Keywords: security, development, feminism, gender security, zonaro feminism.

1.       INTRODUCTION

Depending on time, country or culture, feminist solution has had different goals and causes, there were the western scholars asserting that all feminist movements tried to obtain women`s rights, others considering that feminism should be limited to the modern feminist movement and its descendants, granting women the right to vote, gender equality and end of discrimination. Over a wide range of feminist research papers, as well as over feminist essays on methodology, it could be seen that the common elements that make feminist research feminist are their life experiences, motives and concerns, gender discrimination and inequalities. Women`s voices have not been heard much regarding security and they seem more eager to formulate an alternative definition of security, by deconstructing the term itself through the lenses of their everyday experiences and concerns. 

Arising from actions of women that refused the patriarchal social structure, feminism stands in favour of a society in which women are active agents, partners that focus on their own understanding of the world. The aim of my research was to find answers to the questions: Which is the new perspective offered by a feminist insight into security, is there a common denominator between security and feminism? The gender dimension of security paves the way to a new concept - gender security?

Conventional notions of security have tended to focus on protecting states from crises and external attacks, but the concept of human security looks at a wide range of insecurities that individuals and communities face. New questions may be raised by human security through gendered lenses, offering different strategic choices. The interest in this research comes also from probable linkages among various types of insecurity and women`s status. The cultural influences and values, the norms and the transnational flows of ideas, shaped new meanings of human security, women security and security seen through the eyes of a feminist researcher. For the contemporary discourse, human security is very important, it is usually underlined the role of the national state as a primary guardian of security. More and more, new non-state actors play a strategic role as the challenges became more complex and various, and there are new opportunities of the liberalization and democratization, and the fault lines of economic is unstable. Human security is a complementary branch of national security, advancing human rights. In the words of Dr. Asma Khader, human security is a basic human right. She says: “security and dignity are in the heart of human being, there is no dignity without security, and there is no security without dignity”[i]. So, human security enhances human rights, being people-centred and addressing insecurities that are not less important but have not been considered direct state threats. The feminist scientific orientation interprets the manner in which patriarchal behaviour is embedded in state organs, as structures of dominance.

2.    SECURITY AND FEMINISM

          Feminist scholars and activists contributed to the security discourse incorporating their experiential analyses by making visible the intersection within the personal and institutional forms of power, and generated hierarchies that still exist in private or public organizations.I well remember my professors, from the classes of Security Studies, explaining  a lot before giving one single definition for what is security, and how we can define it.

According to the National Security Strategy of Romania, 2007, security environment is defined:

“Security environment is mainly characterized by the following major trends: the acceleration of the globalization and regional integration processes, conco­mitantly with the persistence of some actions that aim for state frag­mentation; reasonable convergence of the efforts made to structure a new stable and predictable security architecture, accompanied by heightened anarchic ten­dencies in some regions; renewed efforts by states to preserve their sway in the dy­namics of the international relations, paralleled by multiple forms and increased likelihood of the interference of non-state actors in the dynamics of international relations”[1].

The main reason a definition of security is required for this paper is that makes possible the identification of the subject of the research, and the common conceptual distinctions underlying various conceptions about security[2]. While Buzan Barry defines security as freedom from threats[3], the scope and the instruments being quite obscure, there is Huysmans suggesting that the definition of the security concept is necessary to be reformulated when we refer to a particular case.

In the words of David Baldwin, it is questionable whether security concept is insufficiently explained or just a contested concept, and formulated a series of questions in order to define the concept, like security for whom, security for which values, how much security, by what means, from what threats, at what cost, in what time period[4], useful for an appropriate analytical framework but when theory and practice are put together such perspective becomes mathematical. Wolfers believes security is a concept that can be dangerously ambiguous[5].

Long debates outlined two confronting approaches, of traditionalists and wideners, first adherents of the realist school of thought, define security as a freedom from any objective military threat and security studies is defined, for example, by Stephen Walt as “the studies of the threat, use, and control of military force”[6]. Traditionalists see the social facts regarded as things of the natural sciences, and the subject and the object of their analyses are observed separately. The second school, whose representative is Barry Buzan, already mentioned, challenged the concept of security, widening the studies to horizontal and vertical dimensions. The adherents of this school of thought consider the security concept expanded from exclusively military to political, economic, environmental and societal sectors, the concept being more open to individuals and social groups, other than the state[7]. In order to see through reality lenses, wideners believe that the truth of reality is a socially constructed interpretation[8], as well as an unbreakable unity between subject and object of cognition. The main goal of security studies, in a constructivist side, is to understand the social reality, and to understand the meaning given by the social actors.

Constructivist or realist, the homeland security concept is defined as:

“the aggregate of activities meant to protect, guard and defend the inhabitants, communities of people, infrastructure and assets against military or non-military asymmetric threats, as well as from threats caused by geo-physical, weather-related or other natural factors that jeopardize the life, liberties, assets and activities of the people and communities, the infrastructure and socio-economic activities, as well as other values, at a level of intensity and scope that is much different from the usual state of affairs”[9].

          The study of security and gender is a hard case for theories of International Relations, the constructivist perspective is one of the dominant approaches to examine security, but each theory embodies elements from the other perspective, realism being one of the most cited. For some European scholars, members of the well known Copenhagen school, security is a speech act. The origin of the Copenhagen school is the book of Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations focused upon the social aspects of security. The theory illustrated by Buzan places particular emphasis on three key concepts: sectors, regional security and securitization. Sectors refer to the following levels: military, political, economic, societal, and environmental. The regional security concept refers to the security of each actor in a region that interacts with the security of the other actors, and regions should be regarded as small systems where all the theories from International Relations can be applied. Buzan through securitization argues that security is a speech act with distinct consequences in the context of international politics. The Copenhagen School and the Aberystwyth School of security studies are the most prominent and influential, while the first one tries to be the via media of traditional and critical approaches to security, the second one is sustained, coherent and  a radical critique of realist security studies[10]. According to the first school security is about survival, while something becomes a security issue when it is presented as posing an existential threat to some object, threat that needs to be faced and solved with extraordinary measures. The second school, the so called Aberystwyth works in the tradition of Critical Theory, and is based on the pioneering work of Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones[11]. Critical Security Studies set out by the Aberystwyth School criticise traditional approaches and offers a very clear view of how to reconceptualise security studies, and their finds underline by making human emancipation their focus. It is considered that a process of emancipation can strengthen the true human security more probable. In order to achieve true security, it must be understood as emancipation and achieved, how Booth argues “by people and groups if they do not deprive others of it”[12]. For Booth and Wyn Jones the state is not the main provider of security but one of the main causes of insecurity, during the last years far more people have been killed by their own governments than by foreign armies[13].

Scott Watson reconceptualise humanitarianism[14] as a sector of security expanding the applicability of securitization theory beyond states and societies to human as referent objects, and has its procedures and logic. An existential threat to the referent object, as human life or dignity, can vary greatly depending on the security actor, it can be poverty, but also injustice as primary existential threats to large-scale loss of human life[15]. From speech act to a pragmatic act security means philosophy, money, institutions and people.

Critical Security Studies theorists, also of Copenhagen School, admit that the mobilizing power in securitization is used for good ends, while traditionalists and post-modernists question why at all we are concerned about security. Feminists have shown works on security thinking, according to which individual security and gender should be given priority, as masculinist emphasize state security.

There are many motives of having a theory of security studies, rooted in a clearer definition, like that of Arnold Wolfers: “security measures the absence of threats to acquired values, in an objective sense, but in a subjective sense is the absence of fear that such values will be attacked”[16].

 Durable security enables the stable peace, more than a view equate with the absence of war.  It seems vital to have an understanding beyond traditional conceptions of security by expanding security considerations through the eyes of civil society actors, through specific areas and regions, through the lenses of peculiarities rather than generalities. The main focus of the lines above are suitable in the field of national security, in order to enumerate few theories, paradigms and approaches, while the attention of my research is concentrated to human security.

Human security, already mentioned above, from my point of view, is very much connected with the relative deprivation theory for large parts of the world population[17]. In 1994, United Nations published Human Development Report that introduced the human security as a concept, and attracted attention, referring to a kind of security that was not focused on national security or comprehensive security, security that protects well-being and human race, over the boundaries of nationality, ethnicity, class, culture, gender and religion. Seven categories of security and well being are discussed in the UN report, like food, economic, health, environmental, personal, community and political security[18].

Women have been visible in mobilizing and proposing changes affecting security at the global level, the national and regional systems remain inequality intact[19]. The reason of such situation recognizes that women as individuals are entitled to fundamental freedoms and women as social category are located within gendered state systems. Empowerment enables women to develop their potential and become full participants in decision-making through education, information, public discussion.  On human security and gender justice, Sen emphasizes on the need to see the challenges of global equity and human security in a somewhat different way, attention to be focused on the distribution of benefits[20]. On the other hand, there are family arrangements, for women would be better if she will succeed in her career before marriage and live outside the family. Security without a gender perspective is not sustainable it places value on the deconstruction of experiential knowledge of incorporating feminist reflections and activities within the broader framework of the human security discourse[21]. Feminism analyses women and gender as components of international relations and security, contributing to people awareness of the true threats in order to achieve human security. Feminism is associated with peace and nonviolence, but a new generation of feminist security thinkers expose tensions studying war by bringing once-neglected women into security research, and women that have participated in the political violent war, or suicide bombers as cases of gender deviance and false consciousness. While criticizing the Copenhagen School by the absence of gender in thinking security, Lene Hansen argued elsewhere that what should matter most in security circles are discursive positions and politics rather than persons[22].To determine what feminism stands for and against, other feminist activists fight for equality with men in their societies, investigate the violence and abuses that women suffer, echoes indifferences and avoidance that security studies field perpetuate, and speak critically about difficult gender relations that a majority of women in patriarchal cultures accept. Western feminism left some rebellious feminists isolated as they were trying to accommodate with the local insecure practices in order to accept and respect them as cultural difference. Feminist security studies are sometimes stuck in oppositional frameworks that offer opportunities to choose what to study, states or people, peace or war, dissident individuals or majority groups. Feminists in international relations and security studies can nuance to multiple understandings of security[23].

The existence of gender structures in international relations is the other side of the coin of traditional security literature`s gender-blind analysis, with important repercussions for what is considered a security threat by academics[24]. Lene Hansen`s critique of the Copenhagen School asks security studies academics to broaden the security agenda. Security of silence is female insecurity as subject of speech act in order to reflect the absence of gender as an existential category of study[25]. Security threats are conventionally constructed in military terms, due to the high proportion of female-headed households which fall into law income brackets, and rely on extent welfare provisions and public services, leading to the feminization of poverty[26]. Feminist researchers disputed the view as women are seldom combatants and affected less than men by armed conflict. Ann Tickner has illuminated the impact of war on women, of all casualties in post-1945 conflicts, 90% have been suffered by women and children, group that comprises 80% refugees[27]. Tickner considers significant to discuss the insecurity experienced by displaced women in refugee camps who are vulnerable to physical and sexual violence.

3.                   THE COMMON DENOMINATOR OF SECURITY AND FEMINISM

Feminism is more than an intellectual enterprise, refers to the area where theory and practice meet, it is about the struggles of the women`s movement and the theory that flows from their experiences, about women`s security understanding that transform our understanding of men`s security. The link between feminism and security points out that understanding security issues needs an enlargement to include specific security concerns and beliefs of women.

This research emphasizes context-based interpretations of gender in human security. In respect of a widen concept of human security, a feminist perspective highlights from the very beginning the danger of masking differences under the term human, addressing the dichotomy between universalism and cultural relativism of individual experiences in a particular location to wider structures and processes. The analytical feminist epistemology cannot be separated from its transformative political value, a feminist perspective of security is crucial to overcome gender silences, especially in patriarchal societies. Gender personifies a special relationship of power and serves as a unit of analysis as feminist scholars carefully reconstructed the gender biased functioning of the state drowning out women`s role in peace and conflict[28]. As discussed before, the Copenhagen School with its use of the concept of securitization as an extreme version of politicization, suffers from gender bias, even is more widen than the traditional paradigm. Hansen arguments that a definition of the object blocks or limits the categorization of security issues, it distinguishes between social and international security and maintains that gender belongs to social security, concerning individual not collective security. Seems that women are marginalized, even present in the discourse, this being also the argument that male stream thinking about security is effectively universalized[29].

From feminist perspective people become the primary referent of security, in order to create a gender-sensitive concept of human security, linked to women`s everyday experiences.  The broad-schools of security thinking neglected women`s insecurity and offer only a partial understanding of human security. Patriarchy, from feminist perspective an unwelcome word, determined the bottom of state security needs, as women`s status residence[30].

The current research draws a feminist conceptualization of security, a formula about how human security scholars can mediate between human and state security, reconstructing and promoting the importance of all forms of identity. Human security safeguards and expands the vital freedoms of people, requires shielding people from acute threats and empowers them to change their lives. A gender sensitive human security concept looks at conflict, post conflict, poverty, migration, economic security, knowledge and values. A gendered instrument to achieve human security for both men and women is to allow more women roles and seats in local and national governments, to shift gender perspectives to the political debate. Gender refers to the social and cultural differences between the sexes, is focused on the welfare of people, supports human rights and addresses post conflict resolution[31].  Human security is a wise way forward, but a gender sensitive human security is a way of peace and well-being. As theory, a gender sensitive human security proposes to discuss two dimensions, the first is about feminist critiques of the concept of human security, and the second evocates the way girls and women experience insecurity and the conditions that must be accomplished to make them feel secure[32]. Such gender analysis underlines perspectives and behaviours of women and men, boys and girls, are gender-bias corrective, but not all feminist.

Simone Wisotzki, in relation to human security, stressed that “underlying gender hierarchies and their relevance for shaping societal practice must be made visible and alternatives to overcoming insecurities have to be developed”[33]. Men and women experience security differently, have different security needs and the main question is how do women define and expect security to be, what they feel deprived of. Some of Betty Reardon principles have been evocated above, just to enumerate few others it`s obvious that is important to divide the gender views into feminist and masculine views over security, first category being focused on human relationships and human needs, while the second tends to emphasize the organizational entities[34]. The observations of Inger Skjelsbaek about the feminist concept of human security contain considerably diversity with support to the importance of a feminist security analysis and states that not all women are subordinated to men[35]. One of the major goals of women is to get organized and establish a peace-building agenda whose key actors are women, to emphasize psychosocial, relational and spiritual processes. In the feminist analysis of the South African women`s meaning of peace-building, by McKay, is a process and a relationship between peace-building`s effectiveness and the peace-building initiatives[36]. The feminist definition of Mazurana and McKay reveals that peace-building includes gender-aware and women-empowering political, social, economic and human rights, involves personal and group reconciliation to prevent and reduce the violence.   Such paradigm fosters the ability of women, men, girls and boys to promote conditions of nonviolence, equality, justice and human rights of all people[37].

Feminist discourse on human security, in the words of Rosalind Petchesky, is a good enough answer to the militarization of people`s minds that`s rapidly becoming “normal” thought[38]. Feminist and gender analysts have to find ways to incorporate their critiques into the security discourse, highlighting the key importance of reducing all forms of violence women and girls suffer because their contribution in achieving security is ignored. The new perspectives of feminist theories of security embed alternative vision of security through the lenses of gender, whether the state is unwilling or unable to extend protection. Feminist security insight provides a worth exploring framework resulted from a dialectical relationship between theory and practice.

The feminist re-conceptualization of security links the individual and international levels of security, giving a new meaning of security all-inclusive[39], or security for all. Christine Sylvester argues that, “to separate phenomena into discrete and independent categories of analysis leads to artificial islands of sociality”[40], strengthening between individual, national and international levels of security. Since gender gives no central direction in patriarchal societies, most governments have failed to integrate women into policy formulation, as a result of a lack understanding of gender issues and refusal of specialized non-governmental organization advisory. Women insight into their own insecurity is more significant than the views of outsiders.

4.    THE ZONARO FEMINISM

The misty labyrinth through which feminism has went in Romania, received in the last two decades more interest from academia, even only sequentially, refreshing a bit of the “new feminism” of the 40s, that  was based on the ides of male/female complementarity, each of them having different roles and targets. In this paper I will discuss feminism without the well known “Miroiu ideas”, because my life experience is a spring of events that made me a feminist, not because I was educated in a feminist manner.

 This trend was supported also by the Pope Joan Paul II, who highlighted the ideea that “women must value more their feminine genius”[41], defined as a sum of elements such as: subjectivity, empathy, intuition, receptivity and emotional capacity, motherhood and unselfish love. Despite the hardship life of many women, zonaro feminism is rarely a stream of victimisation, is pragmatic, resizing the ideea of personal destiny, in quite small doses but suficient to target political space, that became partially sterile of significant female profiles.  I`m not shure how scientific is my feminist membership, but harassment, and discrimination were my two reasons to decide pretty quickly I should take it seriously, redefine it and do somenthing to decrease the ignorance towards gender equality.

Born in the post-communist Romania, me and my zonaro feminism, sketched through research and personal concerns, is about common women, laundresses, nurses, teachers, housewives, or managers, that struggle to share the 24 hours a day between a career, shopping, institutions, motherhood, cooking, housing, and some with at least a stept implied in the civic side of life, or with an active eye in the political battle[42]. Zonaro temporary avoids to do research over the political landscape of Romania, the main reason being that the majority of the candidates for the highest position in state were mediocre figures, without merits in any professional field, with poor competences and experience,  who bludgeoned each others in their discources, hoping to catch the jackpot, fortunately with a surprise winner, but is still not enough to incite me. Some electiones in many third world countrie are a true skills exam, and are more interesting to analyse.

As the founder of zonaro feminist trend through advanced doctoral research, I have worked on two projects, the main one was focused to find the common denominator of security and feminism, and the second one develops a new concept, of gender security, with theory, components and strategic directions of action. Zonaro feminism has the following aims and features: impovement of the social, economic and political status of women; elimination of traditional stereotypes; encouraging women to extend their existence beyond domestic perimeter; insertion of women in the political sphere – establishing a quota to revive the election architecture; elimination of behavioral mimicry; ongoing communication and support to the disadvantaged groups; protecting women at the beginning of the career from abuse and workplace harassment; cross-regional communication through open dialogue and exchange of ideas, between women with different bakground, to remove rigid mentality and  rural morality; professionalisation of political space.

5.    GENDER SECURITY: SHADES AND THEORY

It might be possible to think that through this article, starting with the way is titled, I am talking foreign languages, but after almost a decade since I become preoccupied about this topic, I say that gender security is the common denominator of two wider disciplines, security studies and feminist studies. Subject of debates and considerable studies, the feminist paradigm represents a direction of actions for security, gender equality, extension of the rights and the role of women, integration of women`s perspectives and experiences in the decision-making process, and  ensuring a social healthy innate climate between men and women, that have social and working relationships. Gender security is developed for the benefit of the entire society, but is focused on the vulnerable, fragile categories, women and children. To one hand gender security incorporates needs of women as a disadvantaged and discriminated group, on the other hand gender security is the security of the social – normal relationship between men and women (and people of the same sex to encourage normal relationships between them) in order to avoid dirty fights, discrimination based on gender, and equal relationship of power between women and men.

       An inchoate stage to define gender security generated the following specific features: it is an expression that gives priority  to the feminist perspectives and integrates them into political decision-making process, to create the merit willingness of women to advance in positions of decision-making; it is a requirement for individuals to provide a social environment, natural and healthy  for women and men, and to encourage normal relationships between people of the same sex who interact and work together without dirty harassment (women sometimes hate each other!); it is a philosophy that inserts in women`s thinking the relative deprivation tacitly faced because of the corrupt society, and encourages normalcy to live in dignity, rights and chances equality; it is a philosophy also because pays much more attention in the way women think to choose a suitable social environment to their career objectives and personal development, women being considered more vulnerable to abusive relationships than men. The following features are common to other security expressions, but tangible to gender security too: gender security involves empowering of disadvantaged groups, especially women and youth, ending of abusive relationships, severe punishment of domestic violence and discrimination; gender security it is an idealistic approach that aims to eliminate war and conflict.

The main components of gender security are: women empowerment, professionalisation of the political space; insertion of women in the political sphere – establishing a quota to revive the election architecture; the impact of conflict on women, recruitment and use of children in armed groups, female suicide bombers.

The theory of Gender Security is based on a number of true sentences (axiom) and a conclusion. Axioms: Religious and humanitarian doctrines emphasized on the principle of social justice and equality between human beings and their importance in building a human society. Human beings enjoy basic and natural rights which no one can take away. Humanity is still affected by violence as a way of life or a tool of communication. The issue of violence against women emerged on the agenda of many organisations, governmental and non-governmental, as a major obstacle to achieve equality, development and peace. Human development is related to all economic, social and cultural interaction between society`s members. Gender equality is essential and important for human development. Gender based efforts have to be made to strengthen the social relationship between women and men. Conclusion: People have their rights to live in dignity, responsibility, justice, and freedom, as a matter of course both man and women have to participate effectively to ensure security, human rights and human development. Gender security incorporates that set of requirements and agreements between men and women, necessary to understand the need for feminist perspectives into decision-making process. In order to create the merit willingness of women to advance in positions of decision-making it must be start a process of insertion of women in the political sphere – establishing a quota to revive the election architecture.

6.       CONCLUSIONS

In short terms, this paper is a both theoretical and practice flow of ideas for future projects, mandatory, requested and expected for the improvement of gender equality and women status, by international organisations, such as UN Women or NATO Committee on Gender Perspectives. 

If I really have to say how I suppose to define security, well security in the way I understand it is the sum between philosophy and money, as well as an expression of the self-perception about survival, deprivation, justice, corruption, dignity, and governance.

What seems to suit best to our Romanian political landscape is the necessity to revive the political sphere, on merits criteria, because the few figures that occupied ministerial positions have shown a quite fragile sense of responsibility and dignity.

As a conclusion, if we succeed to put an end to violence, and to the imaginary war between the two sexes, and we re-professionalise the political sphere, then we will be ready to embrace the real development of the society.

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