scratching the surface...

Wed. Sept 20, 2006

Today i started to read up on various topics related to my research study, i was first trying to support my statement about women being represented as victims in the media, but I stumbled across some other interesting findings...

In Gender and Political Theory by Judith Squires, she points out (perhaps obviously) that have been exlcuded out of political theory and practice. That got me to thinking about the causal connection betweent the two: since there really is no way to ascertain that one causes the other, I came to accept that they reinforce one another. And since dominant way of viewing politics in a 'gendered' fashion is presumed to take a feminist stance and that previously assumed to be a gender neutral, taking a 'feminist' approach is not always seen as legitimate or whole.
My research will not be taking an explicitly 'feminist' stance I don't think, but I think gender theory helps organize thoughts and provokes interesting ideas and poses questions about womens' experiences that I otherwise would miss. Another thing Squires pointed out for example was that women are excluded in the political realm largely because of how we define political [ie formal institutional government fora]. She goes further to say that women's
representation in 'the political process' can be changed in two ways:

1. A higher proportion of women are permitted to enter current institutional channels
2. The deftn of political process changes to include activities that wmen participate in; this requires a breaksdown of the barriers liberalism has helped put up between 'public' and 'private' space, whereby civil society falls under 'private' space

This led me to thinking: definitions are obviously very important, and I have to determine what PRECISELY is the research question for my subject so when trying to come up with an answer I define key concepts clearly early on, so as to not confuse deeper inquiry.
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Short Term Plan

1. Continue to scratch the surface with regards to gender and political theory
2. Extrapolate/simplify key pts from resolution 1325
3. Ensure enough information is available for both conflicts by preparing in the short run:

• Summary of each conflict
• Summary of womens' roles in that society [pre-war]
• Summary of womens' role during the conflict

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before i forget ...
Another observation I made today when thinking about what is similar and different about Chechen and Sri Lankan societies is that both are societies that underwent major transitions [and arguable are still under transition]
Chechnya in a post-cold war era and Sri Lanka in a post-colonial context.