Tickner (1991) argues that ideas and key concepts such as ‘rationality’, ‘security’ and ‘power’ might be building blocks of explanation for a feminist theory of international politics.
There is nothing inherent in the terms which suggests that they must be discarded, rather it is their narrow, gendered meanings in mainstream International Relations theory and practice which is problematic for feminist analysts.
Runyan and Peterson (1991: 70) claim that dichotomous thinking – inside–outside, sovereignty–anarchy, domestic–international – prevents International Relations theory from being able to ‘conceptualise, explain, or deliver
the very things it says it is all about – security, power and sovereignty’.
For International Relations feminists, these conceptual opposites reproduce the self-fulfilling security dilemma and reinforce masculine power politics, thus limiting the possibilities for feminist alternatives.