Feminism is to challenge structures of powers established by the males to benefit them. Power is a kind of power over; if we speak of the structures or mechanisms of power, it is supposed that certain people exercise power over the others.

It was mostly formed through many efforts by women in the English department, administration and within the community. By 1974, San Diego State University faculty members began a nationwide campaign for the integration of the department. At the time, these actions and the field were extremely political.

Feminist theory often focuses on analyzing gender inequality. Themes often explored in feminist theory include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.

The goal in promoting the empowerment of women is to give them confidence to challenge social norms that may be harmful to their community as well as to change gendered power relations.

The Global Feminism campaign was started by Annie Lennox to ensure a better understanding of global inequality, to create a new wave of inclusive feminism. Global Feminists believe in the ‘equality of rights, with empowerment and justice made available to every woman and girl in every corner of the world’.

A feminist perspective based on the experiences of women can add new dimensions to understand the world politics system. Feminists international relations scholars seek to illuminate how the International Relations are a gender construction, in which both men and women are essential actors in the real world.

One of the most influential works in feminist IR is Cynthia Enloe’s Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Pandora Press 1990). This text sought to chart the many different roles that women play in international politics – as plantation sector workers, diplomatic wives, sex workers on military bases etc.

Global feminism is a feminist theory closely aligned with post-colonial theory and postcolonial feminism. It concerns itself primarily with the forward movement of women’s rights on a global scale.

In deconstructing International Relations theory, feminist analysts argue that the theoretical foundations of International Relations are male-defined, and are constructed around male–female dichotomies which define female as ‘other’ and assign gender-specific roles which exclude women from the public sphere.

According to our recent survey of international relations faculty in the United States — the 2006 Teaching, Research, and International Politics (TRIP) Survey—women comprise an even smaller proportion of IR scholars: 77% of the IR faculty respondents are men, while only 23% are women.

Why is this such an important research area? Gender research is vital because sex, love, care, and reproduction are basic dimensions in life, and yet, the meaning of gender is contested. Gender research offers updated empirical knowledge about gendered practices, norms, and discourses in politically significant ways.