Public/Private Spheres vs Women in Relation to Global/International Politics

Fig. 1.  “The Gang’s All Here.” Online Image. Flickr. Flickr, 5 August 2010.Web.11 June 2014.

It is very common to find private and public spheres associated with genders separated from each other throughout the history in works of scholars and political scientists. Public sphere is a big sector of social life that consists of important systems such as government with its president, Judiciary, Congress, and laws. It includes also trade system with detailed discussions of businesses and corporations. One of the largest portions of public sphere is military system. Education, media, religion have their places in this sphere also. Public sphere is basically a sphere where power operates and it is associated with masculine gender. The picture becomes contrasting when we think about the private sphere. This sector of society includes family and all its functions, marriage and sexual life. Food, fashion, and everything that is within the domestic domain are considered in the private sphere which in its turn is associated with women and feminine gender. Private sphere itself is usually ignored in the explorations and analysis of historical or present events while public sphere is in the center of discussions. Therefore it seems that men are in charge of the public sphere, and women are assigned to be in the private sphere. Accordingly, when we take a look at only public sphere and we eliminate women and private sphere from the discussions, we limit our understanding of international politics because society as a whole cannot exist with only public sphere and without intersection and connection of both spheres. Considering only public sphere will stereotype our understanding of international politics; hearing only “masculinized stories” will create  so-called “single story” about historical and present facts that will turn to be far from the reality. Therefore, we need to take into account the private sphere along with the public sphere and hear stories from both men and women in order to understand the whole picture of international politics.

To see how the separation of public/private spheres affect our understanding of international politics and women in relation to global politics, the example of Carmen Miranda and her role in international politics will be a good example to discuss.

Her example shows that the separation of spheres does not make sense because both spheres are operating depending on each other. Her example also shows that women are effective not only for private sphere operations but also for improving the relationships in global international politics between countries, i.e. women belong not only in the private sphere. Carmen Miranda was an actress, a singer and as a woman she was a representative of the private sphere (by definition). She has been also “chosen” by a corporation of a public sphere for promoting the production (bananas), and it was using her  in order to push the business of bananas forward by targeting women in private sphere and by advertising bananas using a well thought character of a woman.