their vision of an Islamic and/or pan Arabic culture Tickner 2002). When Islamic fundamentalists deride the depraved morals of the West they are almost exclusively referring to gender norms. Their explicit rejection of Western gender relations, specifically relations of gender equality and women's individual rights, affects the relations between non-Western and Western states, heightening the possibility of conflict between them(True 2004). Gcnder, therefore, is not only a useful but a necessary analytical category for understanding post-9/11 international relations 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