Roundtable: Three Women, Two Worlds, One Issue

SAIS Review invited three women active in the field of International Relations to discuss their views on the theme of this issue, Gender and International Relations. The participants, Azar Nafisi, Samantha Ravich, and Shirin Tahir-Kheli, met the SAIS Review editors for a roundtable discussion at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. The discussants began by introducing themselves and explaining their conception of feminism.

Azar Nafisi,Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute--SAIS. Nafisi was Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Tehran from 1979-82 and later served for seven years as Associate Professor at Tababai University in the Department of English. In 1994, through a fellowship at Oxford University, Nafisi gave tutorials on women and cultural change.

Samantha Ravich,Ph.D., is a Fellow in the Asia Studies Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Ravich's focus is on U.S. security, diplomatic, and economic policy options in East and Southeast Asia. Her recent book is titled, Marketization and Democracy: East Asian Experiences (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Shirin Tahir-Kheli, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the South Asia Program of the Foreign Policy Institute--SAIS. Dr. Tahir-Kheli is the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs; Director of Near East and South Asia, National Security Council; Director, Political-Military Affairs, National Security Council; Member, U.S. Department of State Policy Planning Staff; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute; and Fellow, Center of International Studies, Princeton University. She is also the author of numerous books and articles on South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and U.S. Policy.

AZAR NAFISI: My field of studies is English Literature and Cultural Studies. That is what I teach at SAIS. My interest in women's issues partly arose out of going back to the Islamic Republic of Iran and finding out that the image I had as a woman had become completely irrelevant, and I wanted to discover why this image had become so. Before the revolution I considered myself a modern woman, and also an Iranian. I saw no contradiction between my modernity and being an Iranian. The revolutionary regime labeled that modernity as Western and therefore alien to our culture and traditions. Overnight the ideals I held as a woman, a teacher, a writer, and a human being, not just the way I walked, the clothes I wore, the people I associated with, even my gestures were confiscated and banned. With regards to feminism, feminism like any other -ism has so many interpretations. I don't have any problems with equal opportunities and equal rights, but I do have a lot of problems with the way these rights are being formulated.

SAMANTHA RAVICH: I work at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in the Asia Studies department, and my background is in International Security and International Finance. The fields I have worked in have traditionally not been women's fields. As such, I haven't ever been forced to take a stand on the concept of feminism, but in practice, it has always been a no-brainer for me. If someone asked me if I am a feminist, I would answer, "Yes, of course I am." And if you ask, "Well, what does that mean," I would say that my gender, as it relates to my professional life, or any other sphere of my life, should be irrelevant. If I am smart and capable, I should succeed. And if I'm not smart, I should fail. Gender should not be an issue.

SHIRIN TAHIR-KHELI: I'm heading up the South Asia program here at SAIS. I have been a part of the International Security field and worked on the policy planning staff at the State Department...