Publications
Aili Mari Tripp and Thomas S. Worth. 2022. “War, Peace, and Security.” In The Routledge Global History of Feminism. Eds. Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson. 414-427.
Thomas S. Worth. 2024. "Book review of Masculinities, Gender and International Relations." Politics & Gender 20(1): 258-260.
Thomas S. Worth. 2024. "Book review of The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide." International Studies Review 26(1).
Works in Progress
“Rethinking Gender in Survey Research: Comparing Four Measures of Femininity and Masculinity.”
“Retesting the Gender Gap in Support for War.”
“Rethinking the Gender Gap in Support for War.”
“Phalluses in Foreign Policy, Or: George Carlin’s ‘Bigger Dick’ Theory of Foreign Policy.”
“Relationships for Dummies.” (With Andrew H. Kydd)
“Gender.” In Concepts in International Relations: Framing World Politics. Ed. Felix Berenskoetter. SAGE. (With Laura Sjoberg)
Aili Mari Tripp and Thomas S. Worth. 2022. “War, Peace, and Security.” In The Routledge Global History of Feminism. Eds. Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson. 414-427.
- This chapter provides an overview of feminist approaches to peace and security, including peacebuilding, peacekeeping, conflict, and war. We show how Feminist Security Studies (FSS), from an academic perspective, has revealed discriminatory and gendered practices in the study of peace and security. Similarly, from a practitioner perspective, the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda highlights the importance of sex and gender in peace and security practices. These literatures and practices critique mainstream understandings of what it means to be a man/woman or masculine/feminine and show how these understandings lead to policies based on erroneous assumptions about men as soldiers and women as civilians. A common theme in feminist critiques of conventional security studies is that security is not merely found through the prevention of war but through the empowerment of groups and individuals. Thus, they suggest that the solutions to war need to address structural inequalities, including those manifested in patriarchy.
Thomas S. Worth. 2024. "Book review of Masculinities, Gender and International Relations." Politics & Gender 20(1): 258-260.
Thomas S. Worth. 2024. "Book review of The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide." International Studies Review 26(1).
Works in Progress
“Rethinking Gender in Survey Research: Comparing Four Measures of Femininity and Masculinity.”
- I explore how to measure gender identity on scales of masculinity and femininity, rather than a simple binary. Drawing on previous literature, I compare four different measures based on two criteria: the type of measurement (numerical or categorical) and the number of scales (unidimensional or bidimensional). I use two surveys to understand how respondents classify their gender using each of these different approaches. I argue that a 6-category categorical scale provides the best tradeoff between conceptual complexity and measurement specificity, and is also easy for non-specialists to use in their research.
“Retesting the Gender Gap in Support for War.”
- The gender gap in support for war is one of the most consistent findings in public opinion research. Historically, women have been less likely than men to support war under most circumstances. Using two survey experiments, Brooks and Valentino (2011) test whether varying the stakes of the war or the context of the war alter the gender gap. They find that under the control condition in both experiments, men support war more than women (a typical gender gap), while under the treatment conditions in both experiments, women support for more than men (an atypical gender gap). They subsequently frame their findings in this way--that men are more likely to support war under some scenarios, but women are more likely to support war under other scenarios. Unfortunately, this framing limits the researcher to only comparing different manifestations of a "gender gap," even though the more interesting results are the direction of change between the control and treatment conditions (for both experiments). This is relevant here, because I found an atypical gender gap (women supported war more than men) under all four conditions across both experiments. However, looking deeper, I found partial support for both of their findings. When I reframe their findings, they instead found that men's support for war declined between the control and treatment condition for both experiments, while women's support for war increased. I found similar results for women. In my sample, women's support for war increased between the control and treatment in both experiments. However, I found different results for men. In my sample, men's support for war decreased between the control and treatment in both experiments. This reframing of the "gender gap" to focus on the direction of change, rather than the relationship between men and women, is my first contribution. A second contribution is that I then theorize why men's support for war may have changed. Surprisingly, all literature trying to evaluate the gender gap in support for war has taken men's support as the baseline, and then theorized why women deviate from it. I instead suggest a theory as for why men's support for war may have changed in the ensuing decade between both studies.
“Rethinking the Gender Gap in Support for War.”
- This chapter builds off of the previous chapter. Here I take the feminist security studies insight, that masculinity and femininity matter for understanding how people perceive security issues, and apply it to the gender gap in support for war. Building off of my earlier findings (see above in "Rethinking the Gender Gap in Support for War"), I complicate the concept of gender by measuring how masculine and feminine respondents are, in addition to their binary gender. Doing so allows me to compare, for example, differences between feminine and masculine men (or feminine and masculine women), as well as people who identify with both or neither masculinity and femininity. While more research is needed, early results suggest that people with more normative identities (masculine men and feminine women) are more likely to support the use of military force, while people with non-normative identities (feminine men and masculine women) are less likely.
“Phalluses in Foreign Policy, Or: George Carlin’s ‘Bigger Dick’ Theory of Foreign Policy.”
- In late 2017, tense relations between the United States and North Korea led President Trump and Chairman Kim to trade insults via Twitter. Trump referred to Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and bragged that “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my button works.” Gender scholars quickly noted that the phallic subtext was obvious and speculated about the intended effect of Trump’s invocation of his penis size, strength, and effectiveness in foreign policy (and the “Little Rocket” of his adversary). However, no typology exists to help us understand the use of phallic discourse in foreign policy. How common is it? What are the intended effects? What are the actual effects? This paper begins to address this gap in two ways. First, I document the existence of phallic discourse in foreign policy. I draw on examples as wide-ranging as presidential statements to political cartoons. Second, I develop a typology of the intended effects of phallic discourse in US foreign policy. Phallic discourse is often used for one of two reasons: to enhance one’s masculinity or diminish another’s through two types of metaphors: castration (emasculation) and/or penetration (feminization). In making these claims, I draw on the comedian George Carlin’s “bigger dick” theory of foreign policy. Doing so helps demonstrate how this project speaks to more than just gender scholars. Future research will address the actual effects of phallic discourse in foreign policy.
“Relationships for Dummies.” (With Andrew H. Kydd)
- When is a binary (dummy) identity variable acceptable to use, and when should a more nuanced variable with more than two categories be used? In this paper, we suggest that the ideal number of identity categories is based on the number of local maxima and minima in a research study. In other words, the ideal number of identity categories depends on what your research question is.
“Gender.” In Concepts in International Relations: Framing World Politics. Ed. Felix Berenskoetter. SAGE. (With Laura Sjoberg)
- Textbook chapter on gender in international relations.