Gender and sexuality

No matter where we live in the world, our daily lives are influenced by the gender we identify with and who we fall in love with. Norms around gender and sexuality shape the roles we take on in society, our freedoms and rights and even whether we live or die. As was the case with culture and religion (as explored in the previous chapter) gender and sexuality were once seen as unimportant in the study of International Relations – too ‘personal’ to be ‘political’. However, in recent decades, scholars have drawn attention to the overlooked role of women and of LGBTQ+ people across the global system. Despite progress in some areas, many states block women and LGBTQ+ people from equal participation in politics, fail to recognise their contribution to the economy, prevent them from serving in the military, limit their access to basic rights such as health care and fail to keep them safe. Looking more deeply and widely at issues such as these indicate that socially constructed norms about gender and sexuality are important structures and processes that criss-cross throughout the global system. Together with our understanding of religion and culture, this final chapter of Part two reveals further insights about how certain individuals and groups feature in both our understandings of International Relations and of the global system, and how these dynamics impact upon many of the global issues that will be explored in Part three of the book