Feminist IR is (unfortunately) marginal at best when put up against mainstream IR. IR Feminists focus on how the international system affects men and women (disproportionately), and looks at how the core concepts of IR are gendered. IR Feminists also seek to bring issues such as the invisibility of women and gender inequalities in world politics to the forefront, and argue that a greater understanding of women’s experiences would help our understanding of international politics. In the current scheme of things, feminine/gender topics have been quite absent in IR and this could be attributed to the fact that IR is still a largely male dominated discipline. This can be attributed to the fact that women receive greater criticism for their behaviours within the private and public sphere, and that women’s socioeconomic status are persistently lower than that of men.

Some reasons why Feminist IR has been excluded from mainstream IR stems from its focus and epistemological standpoint. IR Feminists place an inherent focus on gender relations and inequalities caused by social, political, and economic structures, rather than on the mainstream IR core concepts of the anarchic international system and the behaviour of states. Further, others criticize Feminist IR for their mere political engagement with issues rather than attempting to solve problems, and even more critique Feminist for their inability to provide verifiable data and lack of scientific methodology. However, given the nature of Feminist IR and the core concepts of their paradigm that entail breaking down the social constructions of masculinity and feminity within social, political, economic, and academic contexts, is it fair to ask IR Feminists to engage in such a radical change in methodology?

On the one hand, it may be necessary for IR Feminists to consider such suggestions purely on the basis of receiving entry into mainstream IR. If they wish to be taken seriously by theorists of mainstream IR, many of which stand by positivism and rationalism (especially in the U.S.), they may have to ‘fake it ’til they make it,’ just as how timid freshmen may do to gain popularity among the seniors. Once these IR Feminists “make it” and achieve a more prominent status and gain more acceptance and recognition by the “seniors” of conventional IR, they may then try to push their post-positivist methodology and epistemology onto the conventional IR theorists in hopes of generating greater acceptance of the diversity of methodologies employed in IR and of the general Feminist IR theory.

However, one must also consider and be sensitive to the fact that “giving in” to the demands of the masculine structure of IR may imply that they tolerate such forms of female discrimination. In addition, it may be too much to ask of IR Feminists to alter their research methods just for the sake of getting others to accept their view. Would this come across as desperacy or as a necessary and strategic move?

All in all, while it may be easy for IR Feminists to simply decide to “take their business elsewhere,” continuous communication and engagement with their own little Feminist community (as opposed to the wider network of IR) does not allow for much development and traction of their important ideas. The real dilemma lies in deciding between adapting to the needs and requests of mainstream IR and fitting in, and sticking true to one’s epistemology and roots.