Sjoberg, Laura. "Gender, Structure, and War: What Waltz Couldn't See". International Theory, Vol.4, No.1 (2012): 1-38.

Sjoberg, Laura. "Gender, Structure, and War: What Waltz Couldn't See". International Theory, Vol.4, No.1 (2012): 1-38.

• The theory and practice of war is gendered, and concepts of gender affect why and how wars are fought (2).
• States will go to war to defend and reinforce their perceptions of national gender roles, especially perceptions of national masculinity. Even states in no danger of threat will use warfare as a means to reaffirm their own claims to masculinity, while demeaning enemies as feminine or hyper-masculine (28).
• Most feminist scholarship ignores structural causes of international events, instead choosing to focus their research on the intersection of international and personal politics to reveal the disparity of the impact of politics due to gender. The author is specifically defying these expectations by looking at how structural gender conceptions can explain interstate war (3).
• Kenneth Waltz theorized international politics as encompassing 'three images': individuals, states, and the international system. Dr. Waltz was interested in looking at the systemic level, believing that its dynamics remained constant regardless of changes in the nature of individuals and states. States and individuals could cause wars, but the structure that allowed wars to happen were a result of the international system (4-5).
• Dr. Waltz claims that the international system is characterized by anarchy, forcing states to interact in a 'self-help' system. This creates the structural conditions for war to occur (5).
• The main critics of neorealist IR theory, as theorized by Kenneth Waltz, are the liberal and constructivist schools of IR. The liberals claim that international institutions can temper international anarchy, meaning that war and self-help dynamics are not essential properties of a divided world, while constructivists hold that anarchy is a social constructed that only exists because of the way that statesmen think and act (5-6).
• Most critics of the neorealist school of IR theory complain that neorealism only describes the conditions that allow wars to exist, not the causes of specific wars. Neorealists say that specific causes do not matter, while everyone else says that specific causes matter a lot and that the general preconditions that allow conflict are relatively unimportant (6).
• Dr. Waltz allows for the possibility of an international structure that would systemically shape international politics. It is only in not observing such a structure that he claims that the international order is anarchic. The author claims that patriarchy constitutes an international structure (7).
• While the author also believes that personal and national politics are inherently gendered, this claim is not important to this article. Instead, the author is claiming that, regardless of individuals or state actors, the international system is gendered (11-12).
• Sex refers to the physical and biological property of being male or female -- or occasionally hermaphroditic -- whereas gender refers to the socially constructed roles for different sexes and the societal expectations of masculinity or femininity placed on somebody based on whether they are male or female (7-8).
• Gender does not need to correlate with sex, and gender can also be applied to inanimate objects, organizations, and social constructs. In this way, women can be masculine, men can be feminine, and corporations can masculine (8). 
• Gender, unlike sex, does not exist on a binary between masculine and feminine. Instead, different perceptions and types of masculinity and femininity exist; these different types of gender properties are expected of different individuals depended on different circumstances or their other identities within society. This means that perceptions of 'masculinity' are very different for a Mexican chullo and a Japanese salaryman (8).
• Different types of masculinity and femininity are valued in different scenarios. Importantly, different types of masculinity and femininity are valued over others in any given circumstance (8-9).
• Most of the type, femininity is considered inferior to masculinity. This means that ascribing feminine traits to a person or entity is usually a way of devaluing or criticizing it, whereas ascribing masculine traits is usually a way of expressing approval of that entity (8-9).
• Gender structures in international relations can manifest themselves in either changes 'within the system' or a change 'of the system'. Changes within the system are changes in gender dynamics and norms, whereas changes of the system, or systemic changes, would be the destruction of gender hierarchies (10).
• The prevelance of gender discrimination in society correlates with the likelihood of war. Some feminist scholars have used to claim that gender inequality produces societal norms and behaviors that make war more likely (10-11). NB: this study has been widely discredited. While the claim is technically true, the correlation disappears if other factors like poverty are controlled for. Instead of this being a direct factor, it appears that poorer and more violent states are also more likely to have patriarchal gender norms.
• Gendered expectations and gender hierarchies are build into organization structures in the way that they encourage or discourage, and punish or reward, different behavior based on performance of different gender roles (12-14).
• The processes that choose who is in leadership in countries across the world and determine what actions are considered acceptable to different actors, based on gender expectations and assumptions of appropriate masculinity and femininity, are all manifestation of gender hierarchies and they have an impact on international politics (16).
• The general lack of discussions about gender and sex inequality in IR is the main symptom of the gendered international order, since the assumption that male concerns are 'normal' leads to ignoring the problems and oppression of women, and the labeling of sex-linked matters as 'non-issues' (16-17).
• The prioritization of patriarchal and masculine roles in international politics means that more states are expected to behave in competitive and bellicose ways, with aggression and dominance being seen as desirable masculine traits for states. If these gendered expectations did not exist, countries would behave differently (25, 31).
• Seeing dominance and competition as desirable behaviors for masculine states leads to a no-zero view of international politics that affects the way in which countries interact. Other forms of success not based on dominance and hegemony are not seen as desirable for masculine states, and so they are not pursued (26).
• Gender roles create the pressures for countries to act within a self-help system, meaning that all of the factors associated with a neorealist anarchic system are based on the fact that states behave in a self-help manner because of gendered expectations and pressures (28-29).
• State behavior is gendered and influenced by gender constructs because states and nationalism are discussed using gendered terms, especially when states are imagined as women, like Colombia or Mother Russia. Perceptions of gender roles affect how states and all political actors think and act during conflict (18).
• This is demonstrated during the 1991 Iraq War, when the USA portrayed itself as the good masculine state defending a feminine Kuwait from a bad and hyper-masculine Iraq. It also occurred at the domestic level during the Argentine Dirty War, when both sides portrayed themselves as masculine and the enemy as feminine (18-19).
• A source mine of gender dynamics affecting the way states interact is available on page 23.
• The concept of national honor is extremely important to explaining state action and deeply gendered. Wars and political positions are often based on perceptions of demonstrating masculine honor, often through the protection of feminine honor or dignity, especially when these gender expectations affect both national governments and individuals politicians, who then feel their own masculinity or femininity come under attack (19).
• Although gender roles and gender expectations affect the behaviors of all states, different states are affected by different gender expectations. Different countries have different gender roles applied to their self-image and actions, meaning that they will behave different as they are responding to different gendered expectations (20-21).
• For example, a state that conceives of itself as hyper-masculine and other states as feminine might seek to conquer other states to prove a sexual superiority, whereas a state that conceives of itself as feminine might seek to defend its national honor in terms with connotations of sexual virginity (20-21).
• Hyper-masculine states tend to be more militarily aggressive, whereas feminine states are less aggressive and overall less likely to engage in war (30).
• The material capabilities also influence their perceptions of the gender of its own state and other states. For examples, the framing of military prowess as masculine means that having a bigger army is a resource in India's competition with Pakistan over which state is more masculine (24).
• Military strength is one of the most frequently gendered properties in international relations; it is almost always seen as a masculine trait. Having a big army, powerful weapons, and being victorious in battle are all seen as masculine traits (24).