Doubtlessly, the second of these assumptions is indeed true - there have historically been (nor presently are) very few females in the upper echelons of commanding military or diplomatic roles, particularly within the ranks of the globalpowerhouses?. There are naturally the obvious few, such as the Queen of England, her nation's former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the current few such as Megawati Sukarnoputri, President of Indonesia.
According to feminist theory, this historical prevalence of masculinity in powerful positions has created hierarchal dichotomies (V. Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan 1995:5), thus creating further prejudices throughout society, even to the extent that language (i.e. the underlying cultural definitions given to various words) is tainted with gendered overtones. Peterson and Runyan suggest furthermore that gender has little to do with one's physicality, but is purelysocially learned behaviour and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity?, a notion that is supported by Francone D'Amico and Peter Beckman (1994:3):[gender is] characteristics linked to a particular sex by one's culture?. .
Furthermore, language can evidently be deciphered in order for certain words to be inherently understood upon perception, and associated with males and masculinity, or females and femininity, respectively. Both Peterson and Runyan (258), and Charlotte Hooper (1998:42) reinforce this point, suggesting certain words intimating femininity as opposed to masculinity. The following are some examples of such suggestion, bearing in mind that the former words insinuate masculinity, and the latter words femininity: rational/emotional, active/passive, war/peace, objective/subjective, and independent/dependent.
Yet purely for the sake of clarity of definition, Cynthia Enloe's all-encompassing definition of these principles is quite straightforward:[gender is] power that defines masculine and feminine and that structures the relationship between men and women - underpins world politics? (taken from D'Amico and Beckman 8).