This chapter explores a range of approaches that feminists have put forward in order to explain why and how international organizations and processes of global governance contribute to constructing and reconstructing gender relations on a global scale. It provides a historical overview of feminist efforts to create an agenda for gender equality and for gender mainstreaming, together with the challenges that these efforts have encountered. The chapter reviews new approaches and current issues in international feminist scholarship. Three particularly compelling areas include research that probes the continuous translation of international gender norms within and beyond global governance structures, research that analyzes the disciplinary and governmental character of international discourses in a Foucauldian sense, and research that challenges the hegemonic focus on gender as locked into heteronormative logic. Reflecting the ways in which feminist theory and practice are intertwined, the chapter details theoretical approaches with a recounting of experiences of feminist engagements with international organizations and global governance.
