'Doing' Security As Though Humans Matter: A Feminist Perspective ...

‘Doing’ Security As Though Humans 

Matter: A Feminist Perspective on Gender 

and the Politics of Human Security 

HEIDI HUDSON* 

University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa 

A feminist perspective can make security discourse more reflective of 

its own normative assumptions. In respect of an expanded human 

security concept, a feminist perspective highlights the dangers of 

masking differences under the rubric of the term ‘human’. A critical 

feminist perspective is geared towards addressing the politics of 

multiple overlapping identities. Since gender is intertwined with 

other identities such as race, class and nationality, the dichotomy 

between universalism and cultural relativism is overcome by connecting 

individual experiences in a particular location to wider 

regional and global structures and processes. An overview of a number 

of feminist and security-studies schools of thought reveals the 

extent of universalizing tendencies and gender silences within such 

discourses. The conceptual and political commensurability of the 

gender and security constructs is often overlooked. An emphasis on 

identity politics may thus help to clarify the ambivalence of human 

security as both a political project of emancipation and an analytical 

framework. A case is therefore made for more fluid context-based 

interpretations of gender in human security. In this regard it is 

posited that alternative feminist approaches, such as those rooted in 

the African context, could facilitate dialogue within and across 

supposedly irreconcilable standpoints. 

Keywords human security • gender • identity politics • Africa • 

feminism • interparadigm dialogue 

Introduction 

THE NEW ‘MACHISMO’ heralded by the post-9/11 global war against 

terror threatens to drown out the progress made during the 1990s with 

regard to building a global normative consensus on the importance of 

human security. Today, more than ever, human security coexists uneasily 

with national security. Since the analytical potential of feminist epistemology 

© 2005 PRIO, www.prio.no 

SAGE Publications, http://sdi.sagepub.com 

Vol. 36(2): 155–174, DOI: 10.1177/0967010605054642

156 Security Dialogue vol. 36, no. 2, June 2005 

cannot be divorced from its political and transformative value, a critical 

feminist perspective on the study of security, and especially human security, 

is crucial to overcome certain gender silences. Feminist critiques of so-called 

natural or depoliticized gender dichotomies within state-centric discourse 1 

delegitimize discriminatory practices and institutions as socio-historical constructions 

and ‘repoliticize’ orthodox views on security by challenging the 

role of the state as provider of security. Gender is intrinsic to the subject 

matter and politics of security. 

In the context of the present article, feminism refers to the area where 

theory and practice meet with regard to transforming the unequal power 

relationships between women and men. It is more than an intellectual enterprise 

for the creation of knowledge. It also draws on the struggles of the 

women’s movement and the theorizing emanating from those experiences. 

In this article, gender as unit of analysis is viewed as socially learned behaviour 

and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity 

(Peterson & Runyan, 1993). Gender identity as social construction is 

malleable over time and place, thus allowing for the possibility of female 

emancipation (Tickner, 2002a). Thus, gender not only personifies a specific 

relationship of power, but also serves as a dynamic analytical and political 

tool by means of which gender as a unit of analysis and women and men as 

identity groups are used in tandem (but not interchangeably). This means 

that statements about femininity are necessarily also claims about masculinity, 

and that a challenge to our understanding of women’s security 

necessarily transforms our understanding of men’s security. A feminist 

redefinition of power in relational terms, where the survival of one depends 

on the well-being of the other, would not only enhance women’s security but 

also that of men, who are similarly threatened by the conventional gendered 

approach to security. 

For the purposes of this article, I draw mainly on the postmodern stance of 

feminism, with an emphasis on identity and difference. However, as can be 

gleaned from the preceding paragraph, there is also an undercurrent of 

critical theory in this feminist interpretation. In a puristic sense, this could be 

construed as contradicting the postmodernist underpinnings of the argument. 

In International Relations (IR) literature, ‘critical theory’ and ‘postmodernism’ 

are often used synonymously. Though not altogether correct, 

this is understandable, since many critical theorists are also postmodernists. 

As Evans & Newnham (1998: 106) point out, ‘there is clearly a sense in which 

all theory is critical as well as a sense in which everything which succeeds 

modern is postmodern’. In my view, the critical and postmodern perspectives 

do not differ in intention, but rather in the way they go about achieving 

emancipation. Feminist postmodern theorists in IR do challenge the hier- 

1 

I define discourse as the way actors and audiences generate and promote meanings and concepts and construct 

fields of knowledge through legitimating certain knowledge practices.

Heidi Hudson Gender and the Politics of Human Security 157 

archical dichotomies, such as domestic–international and dependency– 

sovereignty. Their work is therefore also transformative. 

Calls made recently by South African leaders to merge so-called Chapter 

Nine institutions set up under the country’s constitution to support democracy 

(Moya, 2004) reveal the extent to which the term ‘human’ is contested. 

The argument to merge the functions of the Public Protector, the Commission 

on Gender Equality and the Human Rights Commission to avoid 

duplication exposes the dangers of presuming the universality of human 

rights. This false universality reinforces the notion that affirmation of democratic 

values through separate institutions has become superfluous in South 

Africa’s case. However, international experience (e.g. in Canada) shows that 

in the absence of separate institutions focusing on gender, women’s participation 

in politics has stagnated. The implications of this case for human 

security are that – despite the broad and inclusive nature of the human 

security approach – the gender dimension tends to be overlooked, hence 

providing only a partial understanding of security issues. A realist national 

security project enforces conformity to values that are often male-defined. 

Feminists therefore point out that an understanding of security issues needs 

to be extended to include the specific security concerns of women. There is a 

real danger that collapsing femininity or masculinity into the term ‘human’ 

could conceal the gendered underpinnings of security practices. The term 

‘human’ is presented as though it were gender-neutral, but very often it is an 

expression of the masculine. 

Similarly, the presentation of women as a group masks the differences 

within that ‘group’. The security needs of Western women and women in the 

developing world are different to the extent that no global sisterhood can be 

assumed. In response to such universalizing tendencies, African women 

have begun to reassert their own brands of feminism and/or womanism. If 

we genuinely want to make sense of gender in human security in Africa, we 

need to foreground the specific assumptions of uniquely African sets of 

feminisms and allow space for indigenous approaches to human security to 

evolve. Human security as a universalist tool of global governance must 

acknowledge differences in the degree to which the state leads or participates 

in the process of the protection and empowerment of individuals. The 

significance of location or context and the politics of identity for security are 

thus placed under the spotlight. 

In view of the above claims, the purpose of the present article is to contend 

that a feminist perspective can make security discourse more reflective of 

its own normative assumptions and political relevance. In respect of an 

expanded human security concept, a feminist perspective highlights the 

dangers of masking differences under the rubric of the term ‘human’ and 

works against theoretical smugness. By constantly asking whether there are 

different ways of looking at the world, a critical feminist perspective is


geared towards addressing the politics of multiple overlapping identities. 

Since gender is intertwined with other identities such as race, class and 

nationality, a critical feminist perspective helps to overcome the dichotomy 

between universalism and cultural relativism by connecting individual 

experiences in a particular location to wider regional and global structures 

and processes. 

The article begins with a brief outline of the normative and political 

assumptions, silences and universalizing tendencies of a number of feminist 

and security-studies schools of thought. The aim is to suggest that including 

women as a category of identity within security discourse without also 

integrating gender as unit of analysis creates silences, which in fact reinforce 

the dominance of masculinist universalisms and, at the same time, impede 

theoretical progress within security studies. The subsequent section looks at 

the conceptual and political commensurability of gender and security constructs, 

and reminds the reader that integration does not mean uniformity. A 

broken or fractured holism is the best answer to avoid complacency about 

so-called inclusive security frameworks. In the third section, the ambivalence 

of human security as both a political project of emancipation and a policy 

agenda or analytical framework is examined against the backdrop of identity 

politics. A case is made for more fluid context-based interpretations of 

human security. On the basis of the proposition that contextualized human 

security practices and culturally relevant feminist responses to insecurity go 

hand in glove, the final part of the article examines the merits and demerits 

of alternative feminist approaches aimed at facilitating dialogue within and 

across supposedly irreconcilable standpoints. 

Silences and Universalizing Tendencies in Feminism 

and Security Studies 

Since the mid-1980s, feminist challenges to the study of IR have begun to 

explore the role that gender plays in areas such as war, conflict and global 

security (see, among others, Elshtain, 1987; Enloe, 1996; Peterson & Runyan, 

1993; Peterson, 1992, 2000; Sylvester, 1996, 2002; Tickner, 1992, 2001, 

2002a,b,c). 

There is no one feminism. Feminists disagree on what constitutes women’s 

subordination and how to overcome it. Tong (1997) identifies a number of 

feminisms, such as liberal, Marxist, socialist, radical, psychoanalytic and 

postmodern. Feminist theories could also be categorized in terms of inequality, 

oppression and difference. Liberal feminists following the positivist and 

empiricist tradition of knowledge focus on removing legal obstacles to 

women’s inequality. In terms of security thinking, the aim is to address


women’s invisibility. Radicals, Marxists and socialists have turned to patriarchy 

as the source of women’s oppression. Radical feminists seek fundamental 

social transformation rather than equity. In this regard, a feminist 

standpoint regards gender as constitutive. Women are different from men, 

and therefore their contribution to political and security thinking is also 

different. An emphasis on a ‘female approach’ of care and responsibility to 

security issues is therefore often used to justify this perspective. In the 1990s, 

postmodern and post-colonial perspectives became popular. 2 By emphasizing 

multiplicity and difference among women, postmodernism has questioned 

radical feminism’s notion of an essentialized women’s standpoint. 

Postmodern feminists have persistently sought to uncover in whose interest 

existing theories have been constructed (Tickner, 2002c), and have strongly 

argued against so-called master narratives. Many feminists consider the 

postmodernist emphasis on difference as quite liberating for women of 

colour. For Third World feminists, for instance, this emphasis on difference 

allows them space for producing their own knowledge and recovering their 

own identities. 

Owing to the fundamental critical nature of the feminist project, its normative 

and political commitments are quite explicit. However, the prescriptive 

nature of such political commitment does raise questions about the degree 

to which feminism in itself represents universalizing (and by implication 

exclusionary) tendencies. 

The liberal empiricist paradigm integrates women into the mainstream 

security discourse without questioning the dominant scientific assumptions 

of positivist inquiry. Such an uncritical treatment of universalism reproduces 

existing meanings of what constitutes humankind. The only difference is that 

– through the pursuit of the norm of equality (women becoming like men) – 

a more inclusive but hegemonic universalism is produced. Standpoint feminism 

argues that ‘men’s dominating position in social life results in partial 

and perverse understandings, whereas women’s subjugated position provides 

the possibility of more complete and less perverse understandings’ 

(Bakker, 1997: 133). This kind of essentialist thinking evokes another form of 

universalism, namely binary universalism, ‘celebrating’ or romanticizing the 

victimhood of women. The controversial contention that women are more 

peaceful than men perpetuates a dichotomized universalism. In contrast, 

postmodern feminists emphasize fractured realities and identities and overlapping 

and contextually based experiences (Bakker, 1997). In my view, the 

prioritization of special interests over general interest helps to minimize the 

danger of collapsing gender identity and masculinity. Contextualized analysis 

forces one to move away from easy generalizations, since the nuances of 

power and identity politics must be taken into account. 

2 

African feminism as an example of non-Western or post-colonial feminism is discussed later in the article.


While the inextricable link between analysis and politics in the feminist 

project is a given, the link between analysis and politics in the sphere 

of human security is hugely contested. Within and across the realist, 

Copenhagen and critical security schools, the debate has been dominated by 

contention over the analytical advantages and disadvantages of widening 

the security concept. 

Some of the more traditional realist conceptualizations (for example, Walt, 

1991; Freedman, 1998) have warned that a redefinition of security could 

undermine the core assumptions of the field of security. Traditionalists reject 

widening of the security concept as a political activity that inhibits the 

concept’s analytical usefulness (Eriksson, 1999). However, the image of a 

rational and unitary state single-mindedly pursuing the goal of national 

security is in itself a loaded depiction. Feminist scholars have carefully 

reconstructed the gender-biased formation and functioning of the state and 

its war machine. Feminists have highlighted the way in which Rational 

Man’s claim on the exclusive right of citizenship is reinforced by his exclusive 

right to be a warrior (Grant, 1991), thus drowning out women’s role in 

peace and conflict. As Peterson (1992: 31) states, ‘other forms of political 

community have been rendered almost unthinkable’. 

In respect of an expanded security concept, the Copenhagen School 3 – 

through its use of the concept ‘securitization’ as an extreme version of politicization 

– has been much more explicit about acknowledging the political 

role of security analysts than the traditionalists (Eriksson, 1999). But, far from 

being a radical epistemological reinterpretation, this school suffers from 

gender bias. What is perceived to be a fundamental broadening of the 

security debate is in fact an overstatement. Hansen (2000) shows how the 

definition of the referent object may block or severely limit the categorization 

of issues as security problems. Since the thinking of the Copenhagen School 

draws heavily on the notion of securitization and existential threats, it 

distinguishes between international and social security, the former dealing 

with matters of collective survival and the latter with issues of social justice 

within a particular society. The school maintains that gender belongs to 

social security, because it concerns individual not collective security. Women 

are in the discourse, but are relegated to the margins. With this argument, the 

dominant ‘malestream’ thinking on security is effectively maintained and 

universalized. 4 

Of the three schools, critical security studies is the most explicit about the 

importance of political advocacy in security discourse. 5 Since individuals 

face numerous threats that emanate either directly or indirectly from the 

3 

Notably Barry Buzan (1991) and Ole Wæver (Buzan, Wæver & De Wilde, 1998). 

4 

In this regard, Gunhild Hoogensen & Svein Vigeland Rottem (2004) use their analysis of such work to illustrate 

how identity, in particular gender identity, serves to cement a broader understanding of security. 

5 

See Booth (1997) and Wyn Jones (1999).


state, Booth (1997) argues that people and not states should be the referent 

object of security. This school is openly prescriptive in seeking to deconstruct 

realism, state-centrism and militarism, replacing them with a reconstructed 

notion of emancipation and justice. Although there are definite epistemological 

and methodological areas of convergence between critical security 

studies and the postmodernist critical (feminist) project, there is no guarantee 

that gender would be routinely included as a category of analysis. 

The discourse of emancipation and a focus on individual human beings as 

referent objects do not insulate this school from the dangers of universalizing 

tendencies. 

Before examining the core assumptions and empirical context of human 

security, as well as why and how women are often added to security discourse 

without the integration of gender into the debate, it is necessary to 

look more closely at the complementarity of the gender and security constructs. 

For purposes of inter-paradigm and interdisciplinary dialogue, 

scholars need to recognize that ‘security’ is not the intellectual preserve of IR, 

nor ‘gender’ the exclusive unit of analysis of feminist scholarship. 

Exploring the Complementarity of Gender and Security 

While the constructs of gender and security are both analytically and politically 

compatible, the issue of their relationship is complicated by the fact that 

gender is not the only factor interacting with security. The interface of 

gender with class, ethnicity, race, nationality and sexuality leads to an intricate 

network of inequalities that change over time and differ depending on 

the context. Fragmentation (difference) therefore becomes the twin of integration 

(universalized sameness) – a necessary evil that has to be engaged 

with theoretically and practically. 

Integration 

Conceived holistically as the end goal or ultimate human condition, the 

concept of security binds together all processes and levels – so much so that 

Buzan (1991: 363) states that ‘attempts to treat security as if it was confined 

to any single level or any single sector invite serious distortions of understanding’. 

Buzan (1991) furthermore argues that security plays a mediating 

role between the extremes of (absolute) power and (absolute) peace. The 

logic of security implies high levels of interdependence; security can thus 

play an instrumental role in the enhancement of values other than military 

ones. 

First, the integrative potential of gender as a tool of security analysis is


facilitated by the transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of feminist 

scholarship. Second, gender as the unit of analysis promotes integration 

across levels and dimensions. A feminist perspective extends the general 

arguments about the nature of society to the realm of security and reminds 

us that comprehensive security can only be achieved if the relations of 

domination and submission in all walks of life are eliminated and gender 

justice is achieved. While gender may not always be the most important 

factor, if taken as the unit of analysis in the security discourse it reveals a 

complex and fluctuating mix of interlinked gendered knowledge constructions 

and practices within all the sectors of security and at all levels (e.g. 

gender and globalization, patriarchy and militarism, structural violence and 

physical violence). Since feminists challenge the politics of boundary construction 

(e.g. the false dichotomies of public and private spheres), they are 

by definition against a level-of-analysis framework on the grounds that such 

an approach mystifies analysis and reinforces divisions of power. Third, an 

emphasis on the gender implications of security promotes an awareness of 

the dynamic interplay between theory and practice as embodied by the 

dialectical relationship between women’s political practice in the transnational 

peace and women’s movements and feminism as an academic enterprise. 

In terms of normative or political commitment, there also exists commonality 

between the concepts of security (in its critical usage) and gender. Both 

possess important profile-raising qualities. Both the human security and the 

feminist discourse operate according to the ethos of highlighting the importance 

of marginalized issues, while at the same time exposing vested 

interests. The zero-sum power discourse of neorealism is the target of both 

critical security thinkers and radical feminists. 

Fragmentation 

The unavoidable tension between integration and disintegration mirrors the 

universalizing and relativizing strains underpinning the argument that a 

broadened human security framework faces the danger of holding up a 

false holism. The fact that women and men are equally – albeit differently – 

affected by organized violence must be highlighted, and the complex, multifaceted 

and ambivalent roles played by women and men during times of war 

and peace must be engaged with to avoid the perpetuation of incomplete 

understandings. 

The debate about security, gender and HIV and AIDS serves as illustration. 

For women and girls, the interrelated nature of the problem is more salient, 

since their susceptibility to the disease is linked to their socio-cultural, biological, 

economic and political subordination within broader society. In the 

case of South Africa, where the debate has been highly politicized, neither


the government nor the majority of civil society stakeholders have given 

serious consideration to gender. Failure to link women’s rights and human 

rights is a core reason for the politicization of issues of mother-to-child transfer 

and the availability of antiretroviral drugs to all pregnant women. 

Women’s place in the HIV and AIDS discourse in South Africa has been a 

classic case of the ‘women as the vessel’ argument (Msimang, 2003), where 

the unfairness of not helping pregnant women to save their babies’ lives was 

the actual focus. Turf wars between government and nongovernmental 

organizations about who should set the agenda often overshadowed the 

plight of poor, young black women diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. 

Complacency about the ‘wholeness’ of the human security discourse thus 

risks overlooking the fact that certain human rights might be undermined for 

particular power interests. Holism as an intellectual framework may present 

a closure if unity or harmony is elevated at the expense of difference. It 

would be more appropriate to describe such attempts at broadening security 

as a ‘fractious holism’ (Runyan, 1992) wherein interdependence does not 

necessarily imply equality and stability. 

Greater sensitivity towards conceptual commensurability could thus facilitate 

dialogue across traditional divides. Such awareness, however, should 

also be imbued with a sense of realism, namely that contradiction is part and 

parcel of this process. The dynamics of universalist and particularist tendencies 

are no better illustrated than in the human security discourse. 

Human Security: From Theory to Practice 

In line with the thinking of critical security studies, a critical human security 

approach serves as a counter to the selfish pursuit of state or elite security. 

People become the primary referent of security. The main point is to understand 

security comprehensively and holistically in terms of the real-life, 

everyday experiences of human beings and their complex social and economic 

relations as these are embedded within global structures. It therefore 

becomes imperative to view security in terms of patterns of systemic inclusion 

and exclusion of people (Thomas, 2002). The twin goals of protection 

and empowerment (‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’; United 

Nations Commission on Human Security, 2003) thus represent the core 

principles of ensuring survival, meeting basic needs (protecting livelihood) 

and safeguarding the human dignity of the most vulnerable groups in 

society. In this way, emphasis shifts from a security dilemma of states to a 

survival dilemma of people. 

Although the relationship between individuals and collectivities is central 

to the discourse of human security (especially in the context of globaliza-


tion), most definitions of human security do not clearly distinguish between 

human security for individuals and human security for groups. It is usually 

assumed that the well-being of one is dependent on the security of the other. 

Questions about the nature of the collectivity are nothing new, whether they 

refer to ‘the claims of obligation to fellow citizens of a political association’, 

‘the claims of obligation to the remainder of humanity’ (Walker, 1992: 187), 

or otherwise. But how one defines political community (in a statist or 

cosmopolitan sense) has a bearing on the extent to which alternative formulations 

of political identity are allowed to interact with the mainstream discourse 

on security. Western IR theories traditionally tend to render class, 

cultural, racial and gender differences invisible, which leads to a situation of 

‘particulars masquerading as universals’ (Walker, 1992: 188). Those who 

control access to knowledge treat religion, race and nationality as foundations 

for ‘self-reproducing political communities’ (Hansen, 2000: 299), while 

gender identity is curiously treated as separate. Yet, in practice, genderbased 

security threats are often inseparable from other threats. If conceptualized 

as being about individuals, gender loses its sting as an analytical tool. 

A gender-sensitive concept of human security must therefore link women’s 

everyday experiences with broader regional and global political processes 

and structures. 

Ideally, human security should first and foremost be a critical project aimed 

at interrogating the sources of people’s insecurity, along with the role of the 

state and other global governance structures in this regard. 6 Its ethos of 

progressive values makes it a politically effective tool, both to promote collective 

action and to be used as an analytical research concept. The human 

security concept straddles a large number of disciplines, and it has pushed 

IR out of its disciplinary isolation and away from its inward-looking 

preoccupation with military security within the subdiscipline of security 

studies. It has also promoted the integration of binary oppositions, such as 

between the interstate and the intrastate realms. The normative-ideological 

orientation imbues the concept with fluidity, to the extent that the United 

Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Commission on 

Human Security use it as a policy agenda and countries such as Norway and 

Canada have adopted the human security doctrine as a set of values informing 

foreign policy and state interest. 

But how can human security be operationalized Criticism regarding 

implementation of a vaguely conceptualized normative framework has come 

from both critical and conservative circles. Human security as a concept is 

often criticized for being a security theory of everything and nothing (Paris, 

2001). Several authors have suggested ways of overcoming this problem (see, 

for instance, Knudsen, 2001; Liotta, 2002; Suhrke, 1999; Thomas & Tow, 

6 

See also McDonald (2002).


2002). The problem with such suggestions, however, is that narrowing in 

practice often implies human security frameworks being co-opted into statist 

conceptualizations of risk, thus watering down the emancipatory potential 

of the concept (Bellamy & McDonald, 2002). 

While those who want to see human security as an alternative to state 

security and those who view human and state security as complementary 

continue to battle it out, it does appear as though pragmatism is beginning 

to win the day. The contemporary wisdom, represented by the report of the 

United Nations Commission on Human Security (2003), accepts security 

between states as a necessary condition for the security of people, but is also 

conscious of the fact that individuals require protection from the arbitrary 

power of the state. While human security requires strong and stable institutions, 

a high degree of human security may also shed legitimacy on governments. 

Human security thus complements state security by providing a 

more comprehensive emphasis on human development, human rights and 

the role of non-state actors. 

This, in my view, is a marriage of convenience – but not necessarily one that 

needs to be rejected in a self-conscious moralistic way. For the sake of meaningful 

implementation, human security should not be reified. A paradigm 

shift achieved through incremental consensus-building could, in the long 

run, mean a reversal of ends and means. The challenge lies in the way in 

which state security is transformed from an end to a means of promoting 

human security. Like it or not, the state remains the political actor with the 

largest capacity to mobilize resources. 

In order to achieve this conceptually and practically, scholars of security 

should first draw out more forcefully the tension between the universalist 

and particularist underpinnings of the concept and concretize analysis by 

means of contextualized case studies. Second, the politics of the struggle to 

eliminate injustice needs to tactically reposition itself in relation to the 

demands of the politics of transition. In such a context, research on the institutional 

design of new alliances between state and civil society in support of 

the same goals of human security would not only improve service delivery 

(meeting basic needs) but could also work towards redefining the nature of 

security politics. 

Difference is often neglected for the sake of building common understanding 

regarding human security. Thus, the UNDP report of 1994 affirms the 

emphasis on human security as being universal, global and indivisible. As an 

extension of the logic that the security of states is interrelated, human security 

claims that the security of people in one part of the world depends on the 

security of people elsewhere. However, evidence also points to the fact that 

security in one area depends on insecurity in another, as the ripple effects of 

homeland security measures after 9/11 are felt across the globe. Hence, one 

can rightfully ask whether what is intended in the UNDP report is truly uni-


versal or simply Eurocentric values in disguise. Similarly, signs of binary 

universalism (‘us versus them’) are evident in the way distinctions are made 

between chronic insecurity in marginalized regions such as Africa and a 

‘state of security’ in affluent societies. 

Convergence of perspectives on human security in a regional context thus 

becomes significant to the extent that it not only supports a global consensusbuilding 

but also, and primarily, enhances indigenous solutions to human 

insecurity. Structures such as the African Union (AU), the New Partnership 

for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the new Peace and Security Council 

are beginning to speak the same language. The African Human Security 

Initiative (AHSI) is a network of seven African nongovernmental research 

organizations that have come together to benchmark the performance of 

eight African governments in promoting human security in the area of 

political governance (i.e. human rights, democracy and governance, civil 

society engagement, small arms and light weapons, peacekeeping and conflict 

resolution, anti-corruption, and terrorism and organized crime). 7 In 

terms of operationalization, the AHSI adopts a modified statist approach in 

which individual (local) and international security is viewed as being 

dependent upon national security. The project emphasizes a traditional 

levels-of-analysis approach, the importance of universalist provisions of 

human rights in international legal practice, and the role of civil society 

(Cilliers, 2004). 

At first glance, this appears to be just another statist attempt to subvert a 

radical reformulation of security. However, political choice is informed not 

only by morality, but also by circumstance. While the framework for human 

security is universal or global, the operationalization is contextualized. The 

choice of a traditional option combined with an acknowledgement of 

individuals and communities as active participants in matters of security 

mitigates the initial aversion to this framework. As Cilliers (2004: 11) states, 

‘the security of the individual is no longer defined exclusively within the 

realm of states and as a consequence of national security’. The traditional 

causal link between state and human security is thus reconceptualized. The 

‘special circumstances’ thesis furthermore strengthens the choice of framework. 

The fact that Africa’s security and developmental problems are largely 

linked to the lack of state institutionalization (weak states) does not serve as 

justification for replacing regime security with human security, but underlines 

the saliency of taking a fresh look at state security in the context of 

altered notions of sovereignty. After all, the peer-review mechanism of 

NEPAD is predicated upon the notion that governance requires African 

leaders to move away from archaic notions of state power. 

This is a major challenge, particularly in view of the continent’s rather 

7 

Other components include economic governance and management, corporate governance and socioeconomic 

governance.


ambivalent relationship with civil society. NEPAD recognizes the importance 

of enhancing the role of women in social and economic development. 

Although gender training and the needs of women in relation to the rights of 

children are mentioned, and reference is made to the 2003 Draft Protocol to 

the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of 

Women (AHSI, 2004), there is little evidence of real engagement with gender 

inequalities. Women’s concerns as victims of human rights abuse are added 

but not integrated, which thereby extends the notion that human security is 

essentially masculine in its inclusivity. 

So has the argument come full circle Are we back to endorsing an unqualified 

reification of state security Yes, if one ignores the contextualized 

responses of women to peace and conflict on the continent and the ways in 

which ‘gender’ is conceptualized in the context of African feminisms. Yes, if 

one overlooks the fact that gender is but one of many identities. I argue to the 

contrary. While the proposed framework for human security in Africa is not 

revolutionary, it is nevertheless significant in that it raises important points 

about the role of identity and difference and drives home the claim that 

contextualized responses to human security and contextualized feminist 

responses to insecurity are two sides of the same coin. 

Feminist Alternatives: From Relativism to Relevance 

Liberal, Marxist and socialist feminist scholars oppose postmodern feminism 

since it denies the liberal promise of progress as well as the theories of patriarchy, 

racism and capitalism. Many feminists also argue that the scepticism 

of postmodernists about all forms of knowledge and their refusal to speak of 

women as an undifferentiated category encourage political fragmentation, 

cultural relativism and a weakening of the feminist emancipatory agenda 

(Tickner, 2002c). A case against an approach based upon all kinds of identity 

differences could thus be built on two arguments. First, basic human security 

needs are common to all people. A human security discourse that propagates 

interdimensional and multilevel linkages cannot technically be reserved for 

one group alone. What binds women from developed and developing world 

perspectives together is their common victimhood. The entrenchment of 

male domination, it is argued, is hardly unique to any one culture. Second, 

there is a danger that if the human security discourse focuses too much on 

variety across time, place and culture, it could produce multiple grand 

narratives, that is, new orthodoxies or universalisms condoning oppressive 

practices. A theory of human security for Africa runs the risk of being subverted 

in the same way as the study of development became a study of Third 

World difference impeding modernization.


On the other hand, though, any unitary approach is bound to exclude 

certain groupings. Neither Africa as a continent nor African women as an 

identity group represent a monolithic category of analysis. The plurality of 

experiences, diverse levels of development, and tension between a globalized 

human rights culture and a multiplicity of ethno-religious cultures 

testify to the difficulty of formulating a blanket theory. 

Western feminists often treat Third World women as a uniformly 

oppressed group – by definition religious, family-oriented, conservative, 

illiterate and domestic – on whose behalf so-called enlightened feminists 

must speak. Some of the political agendas of feminists also clash outright 

with Koranic injunctions regarding the role of women in society and may, in 

fact, exacerbate African women’s insecurity through repressive forms of neopatriarchy 

(Tickner, 2002a). The extent of women’s insecurity on the African 

continent combined with the enormous challenges for the transformation 

of mainstream security discourse push to the foreground the question of 

whether Africans should develop their own ‘indigenous’ theory and practice 

of human security. The case for this is not simple. And, furthermore, should 

a so-called African approach to security be more or less gender-sensitive than 

approaches elsewhere given the pervasive impact of traditional cultural 

practices 

Charges of postmodernist cultural relativism, on the one hand, and neouniversalism 

in the form of a plurality of totalizing discourses, on the other, 

represent two extremes on a continuum. The challenge, in my view, is to find 

an alternative between these two extremes – an approach that is culturally 

relevant but not relativistic or deterministic. Several feminists have suggested 

alternatives to the universalism–relativism dichotomy. Yuval-Davis 

(cited by Tickner, 2002a), for instance, proposes the practice of ‘transversal 

politics’, a kind of coalition politics or politics of mutual support. Sylvester 

(2002) proposes ‘empathetic cooperation’ as a feminist methodology for 

mitigating the closures presented by the essentialist tendencies of standpoint 

feminism and the relativism of an overemphasis on difference within feminist 

postmodernism. Between these epistemologies, borders are porous, so 

much so that ‘conversations’ could lead to cooperative or negotiated reinterpretations 

of knowledge and power. 

Fractured holism or synthesis of difference and disadvantage can be 

achieved through recognizing difference as a tool within a bigger process of 

emancipation. An awareness of diversity is essential to an explanation of 

how and why systems of domination originate and are kept in place, but this 

does not nullify the universal fact that forms of oppression do exist across 

space and time. As Tickner (2001: 136) warns, ‘if feminism becomes paralyzed 

by women not being able to speak for others, then it will only reinforce 

the legitimacy of men’s knowledge as universal knowledge’. Thus, by not 

absolutizing difference, but rather treating it as part of an emancipatory


process, it becomes possible to expose ‘the norm against which some people 

seem different and to see the ways in which institutions construct and utilize 

difference to justify and enforce exclusions’ (Cock & Bernstein, 1998: 23). A 

contextualized human security discourse for Africa may then be feasible if it 

is used to expose, for instance, North–South inequalities and the North’s 

tendency to equate difference with being inferior. 

Group and/or individual differences are relational. Hence, differences are 

never absolute and overlap with sameness. Instead of seeing ontology and 

epistemology as separate (relativism) or equating ontology and epistemology 

(determinism), the focus should be on shifting from hierarchical to 

relational thinking. Marchand & Runyan (2000) highlight three interdependent 

dimensions of relational thinking that could facilitate conversations 

among diverse theoretical viewpoints. These include understanding the 

practices and structures of the world ‘out there’ (what we do); understanding 

the ideologies and paradigms we use to think about this world (how we 

think); and understanding the subjective agency of the self and the collective 

identities that we bring to this analysis (who we are). In a sense, one can 

describe relational thinking as a cobweb within which several hierarchies of 

power sit uncomfortably together. When applied to the domain of human 

security, relational thinking first allows one to move beyond abstraction, by 

introducing subjectivity (individual-level understandings) to the human 

security debate. Second, it sensitizes one to the specific gendered representations 

of human security. Lastly, it reveals the gendered power dimensions 

of human security and drives home the fact that inequalities in this area 

simultaneously reflect inequality in global power relations. 

In view of my qualified support of postmodernism, it is argued that it 

becomes imperative to recognize the risks associated with both approaches 

and to engage head on with the contradictions generated as a result of cooperation 

among discourses. As a result of such engagement, hybrid identities 

(Ling, 2002) are created. This mixing of subjectivities is demonstrated by 

the fact that feminist criticism against Western feminism comes from many 

circles: that is, not only from developing world, African or Asian women, but 

also from Western women who – on the basis of religion, race or class – feel 

excluded from the lily-white middle-class discourse. 

Third Wave feminism of the 1990s introduced issues of multiple oppressions 

into its analyses in order to get beyond essentialist generalizations 

about women. Three aspects characterize post-colonial feminism as a school 

of thought: namely, a critique of the Western colonialist discourse of exclusion 

through false universalism; an emphasis on rich but complex multiple 

identities as a result of cultural hybridity; and a cautious retention of the 

importance of a unified political identity (Hughes, 2002). Theoretically, this 

school comes closest to what the author terms an authentic synthesis of 

divergent stances.


As hybrid manifestations, African feminisms 8 acknowledge their connections 

with international feminism but demarcate a specific African feminism 

with specific needs and goals arising out of the concrete realities of African 

women’s lives. Their point of departure is to address oppressions simultaneously, 

and in that context gender is but one unit of analysis that sometimes 

has to subject itself to the universal bond between men and women against 

racism and imperialism. One of the most prominent African feminist alternatives 

is the notion of ‘womanism’, on the basis that this better accommodates 

African women’s reality and identity and the dynamics of empowerment. 

The concept emphasizes cultural contextualization, the centrality of 

the family and the importance of cooperation with men (Kolawole, 2002). 

Through their emphasis on contextualized universalism (an oxymoron, some 

would argue!), African feminisms have helped to clarify the link between 

strategic gender needs that are feminist in nature and practical or tactical 

women’s needs grounded in women’s everyday experiences. Women’s 

interests need not always coincide with gender interests. A feminist agenda 

that seeks to achieve such a complete shift of consciousness runs the risk of 

becoming counterproductive. In Africa, in particular, where women’s organizations 

are relatively strong and feminist movements relatively weak and 

where feminism is severely stereotyped, the scope of insecurity of women 

and the continent as a whole necessitates a more flexible interaction between 

these two causally related categories. In terms of the idea of feminist relational 

thinking outlined above, the notion of ‘locationality’ is useful in that it 

conceptualizes ‘who we are and where we come from’ in a material and nonmaterial 

sense as a matter of both culture, history and geography and values, 

ideology and spirituality. Relevance within society is the key to ensuring that 

gender theory gains legitimacy within security discourse. In practice, this 

means that women must be seen as subjects or agents of change rather than 

victims (Tickner, 2001, 2002a). In lieu of emphasizing shared ontologies as 

women or victims, one should rather talk of a shared political agenda 

seeking to promote protection and empowerment through a range of perspectives. 

To illustrate, African women’s responses to the aim of mainstreaming 

gender in the peace and security discourse in Africa reflect a multidimensional, 

but not necessarily a feminist approach to implementing 

AU commitments. Contrary to the general feminist aversion to a levels-ofanalysis 

approach, Juma (2003) suggests that women’s empowerment in 

Africa in terms of peace and security must focus on different levels. At the 

international level, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 must be adapted to 

the AU provisions and NEPAD principles of gender mainstreaming. At the 

continental level, the focus is essentially institutional, concentrating on 

efforts to integrate gender into the structures and processes of the Peace and 

8 

The journal Agenda has recently devoted three editions to the topic of African feminisms.


Security Council, the African Standby Force and the Panel of the Wise. At the 

state level, a gender perspective on human security includes, among other 

things, the creation of a gender-sensitive justice system, attention to the 

specific health-related needs of women as a result of conflict, and increased 

participation by women in national decisionmaking structures and postconflict 

reconstruction. 9 

Conclusion 

Broad-school security thinking has offered only a partial understanding of 

human security through its neglect of women’s pervasive insecurity. By 

drawing on a feminist conceptualization of security in relational or collaborative 

terms, human security analysts can avoid complacency. One example 

of how human security scholars can mediate between human and state 

security is to integrate their critique of the silences in the security discourse 

with a reconstruction of the role of the state in promoting human security in 

an era of globalization. As such, a critical analysis entails problematizing or 

bringing the state back into the analysis of security and asking how the practices 

of the penetrated state have responded to global human security issues 

related to gender and other forms of identity. 

Reflectivist critique and conceptualization of human security by feminists 

and critical security analysts has done what no other theory of security (and 

IR) did before: it has made the discipline self-aware and forced – although 

with obliqueness at times – the discourse outside the confines of mere 

problem-solving and into the realm of engaging with power. The acid test for 

such endeavours is whether they can use critical insights into issues of 

domination and subordination to penetrate statist discourse, not to subvert 

the state but to imbue it with a sense of critical realism. Without the study of 

power and an understanding of the process of political construction, security 

becomes depoliticized and decontextualized. 

It is still too early to make definitive conclusions about the African human 

security dilemma, but it is hoped that culturally relevant versions of feminism 

will be less threatening to African men and that that will facilitate 

greater engagement of mainstream scholars on the continent with gender 

and women’s security issues. Getting the schools of security to confront the 

normative underpinnings of their scholarship may facilitate the closing of 

9 

A report of the AHSI revealed that of the eight countries (Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, 

Senegal, South Africa and Uganda) reviewed in terms of commitments to civil society engagement, only 

South Africa and – to a lesser extent – Uganda have translated their commitments into concrete actions 

(M’boge & Gbaydee Doe, 2004). Commitments to the status of women have been slow to realize. Cultural 

inertia, ignorance and poverty first need to be overcome.


the gap between security theory and practice. In this way, security analysts 

would become more conscious of their role as agenda-setters and would 

begin to take responsibility for the practical implications of their perspectives. 

After all, the goal of inter-paradigm dialogue is not greater synergy 

between alternative and mainstream discourse, but rather to create a fractured 

whole that – when synthesized – is richer and more authentic than the 

sum of its constituent parts. Now that is theoretical progress. 

* Heidi Hudson is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, 

University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. Current research activities 

include a National Research Foundation-funded project on globalization and security in 

South Africa. Her most recent articles have focused on gender, the globalization of 

violence and privatized peacekeeping; contestation over HIV and AIDS, gender and 

security in post-apartheid South Africa; changing notions of political community; and the 

impact of globalization on foreign policymaking in Africa. 

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