This chapter began by asking what is distinctive about a feminist
perspective on international relations. Although Harding (1987: 258)
has argued that no distinctive feminist methodology exists because each
methodology can contribute to feminist goals this should not lead us to
conclude that there is no distinctive feminist International Relations
perspective. The collective contribution of the diverse range of feminist
International Relations inquiry – empirical, analytical and normative – is
most significantly methodological (Ackerly, Stern and True forthcoming). Through ongoing collective self-reflection feminists in and outside the
field of International Relations are continually adding to our empirical
and normative knowledge, while advancing the tools of gender analysis.
It this self-reflexivity rather than any substantive approach or theory
that makes feminist International Relations distinctive. Efforts to forge a
unitary neo-feminist approach (Caprioli 2004) or non-feminist gender
standpoint (Carpenter 2002) seek to mainstream empirical gender
analysis without this self-reflexive methodology. Removing women from
analysis of gender relations and bracketing out the normative perspective
that gave rise to feminism in the first place is tantamount to throwing
the baby out with the bathwater. It results in a senseless theoretical
approach with no raison d’être