Forough Amin: Iran protests and masculine leadership

A freedom rally for Iran in Auckland's Aotea Square on October 1. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

OPINION

The field of international relations, like most other academic disciplines, has a masculine nature.

All sectors of the public sphere, including science, academia, and politics, have been under men’s authority throughout history. This explains why entering and working in the public sphere requires masculine characteristics.

We are all familiar with expressions like, “If you wanna be a manager/leader, you need to be tough”; “Politics is about power, not caring”; “As a leader, you should prioritise your own group/nation’s interests above those of others”, etc.

In the past decade, however, there have been some efforts to change the disproportionate distribution of power in international relations and politics.

Emergent feminist foreign policies in 2010; ratification of the Istanbul Convention by 45 states as well as the European Union in 2011 for preventing violence against women; and 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015, which has as one of its goals gender equality, have all contributed to ensuring women achieve access and participation in leadership and decision-making positions such as parliamentary seats and managerial roles.

These are very promising steps for the future of women and girls around the world; it was last week that female parliamentarians outnumbered their male colleagues in New Zealand Parliament, for example.

New Labour MP Soraya Peke-Mason balanced the genders of MPs when she replaced departed Speaker Trevor Mallard. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Nevertheless, we should be aware that the increase in the number of women working in governance and leadership positions may not necessarily lead to better outcomes for international relations and the world. As long as we, as women, play our roles according to the rules defined and accepted in the masculinised fields of politics and international relations, the outcomes will be the same.

Gender does not automatically translate into different results when it is under controlled conditions.

The real change comes when the structure and the core concepts of international relations are reviewed and reconsidered.

As long as international relations are structured according to realist views of the world, including rational-choice theory and power-politics, not humanitarian values such as co-operation, interconnectedness, human dignity; and as long as concepts like power, national interests, and diplomacy are defined in terms of cost-benefit, self-interest, competition and deterrence, the presence of women may not bring more peace and equality in the world.

A good example of this is the reaction of the world to the Iranian female revolution.

There has been positive and promising solidarity with Iranians by female politicians around the world. However, in terms of actual measures taken against the brutal Islamic regime, there is not much difference between countries with more women in their leadership positions and those with more male-dominated leadership.

Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police last month, in Tehran. Photo / AP

There is still huge reluctance to put IRGC in the list of terrorist organisations (our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said last week that only a few countries had done so and she was not sure if New Zealand would), no country has yet expelled the regime’s ambassador or recalled its ambassador from Tehran. The New Zealand Embassy and some European embassies in Tehran, which have been silent on the killing of hundreds of people by the regime’s forces in the last six weeks, published condolence messages for a terrorist attack on a religious place in Shiraz, Iran, despite evidence it was plotted by the regime itself to distract the world from the protests.

This is the outcome of international relations founded on self-interests and realistic rationalism.

This is the approach that insists on first ensuring that the Iranian regime is definitely going to fall, then taking actual steps to stop diplomatic and financial relations with it.

From this perspective, the fact that every day hundreds of people are killed and arrested by the regime is not a determining factor in decision-making by itself.

We need more women in leadership to change this global system not to follow it.

Forough Amin.

Feminist foreign policy should not focus only on development aid and charity work, it should assert itself as a new approach for dealing with international crises.

We need female leaders who dare to take stances different from other world powers and are brave enough to stand for human rights and values with unprecedented measures.

What we need is more femininity to balance international relations and this is not necessarily achieved by having more female leaders.

There is one step beyond equality in the number of people from different genders holding leadership positions, and that is freeing the system from the control and pressure of masculine worldviews and ideologies.

This allows the femininity of female leaders to express itself and balance the nature and the spirit of the world system we live in.

Dr Forough Amin is the founder of Iranian Women in NZ Charitable Trust.