1.
Gender equality is a prerequisite to any sustainable peace-building initiative
It is important to ensure that gender equality issues are taken into consideration in peacebuilding
initiatives because:
Gender is a relevant dimension in peacebuilding. Conflict is a gendered activity. There is
a strong gender division of labor, women and men have differential access to resources
(including power and decision-making) during conflicts, and men and women experience
conflict differently. This was recognized by the international community and highlighted
in the final document of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) the
Platform for Action (PFA): while entire communities suffer the consequences of armed
conflict and terrorism, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in
society as well as their sex (para 135). Therefore, understanding the gender dimensions of
a situation is an important dimension of understanding the overall situation.
Women (as well as men) have a fundamental stake in building peaceful communities.
Their contributions to peacebuilding should be encouraged and supported (given
women’s economic and political marginalization, they are not always well-placed to play
an effective role).
Canada has a formal commitment to gender equality and, more specifically, has agreed
that a gender perspective should be part of peacebuilding initiatives (the PFA states: In
addressing armed or other conflicts, an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a
gender perspective into all policies and programs should be promoted so that before
decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively,
(para 141)).
Peace is a prerequisite to achieve the goal of gender equality and women’s empowerment
and some would argue that gender equality is necessary for true peace (broadly defined).
What are the implications of our increasing understanding of both the gender dimensions of
conflict and peacebuilding and the role of development assistance in facilitating peacebuilding
processes? There are two fundamental dimensions:
First, all initiatives should:
incorporate a gender analysis into the assessment of the situation (see below);
ensure that gender equality considerations are present at the level of results (in other
words, gender equality issues should not be restricted to one component of a project,
rather they should be part of and influence the primary direction of the initiative);
increase women’s participation in conflict resolution at decision-making levels;
promote women as actors and protagonists (rather than a 'vulnerable group"); and
provide, where feasible, sex-disaggregated data (of participants, beneficiaries, etc.).
Second, there is also a need for specific initiatives to strengthen women’s capacity to
participate in peacebuilding initiatives in a meaningful fashion, to improve the capacity of
organizations to deal with gender differences and inequalities and to reduce gender inequalities.
This could involve initiatives and/or components that directly target women (including skills
training, capacity and development for women’s organizations) and/or men (such as sensitization
and analysis of links between notions of masculinity and violence).
In recent years significant work has been done in developing gender frameworks and analytical
tools. In order to be most effective, the questions should not be asked in a mechanistic manner.
They are meant to spark discussion and action on how best to incorporate a gender equality
perspective and improve peacebuilding initiatives.
2. Gender equality is a prerequisite to look at the gendered dynamics of peace-building
processes
Peacebuilding incorporates multiple initiatives at the heart of which lie the principles of rule of
law and a rights-based approach. However, such peacebuilding approaches will be meaningless
if the rights and status of half the population (women) is neither recognized nor promoted.
Although women have participated in peacebuilding, their role is often at an informal level and
rarely visible to formal peacemakers (UN Women 2015).
A gender approach to peacebuilding recognizes the role of both women and men as the key to
the success and sustainability of peacebuilding efforts as well as to changing existing social
norms that may be restricting this. Apart from the role of women as peace agents it also
recognizes that they may not solely be victims, but that they may also actively or through
coercion participate in conflict as combatants and assistants to combat. It is furthermore
important to understand that efforts to ensure women’s engagement should not have a single
focus on the participation of women at the negotiation table, but should also focus on critical
gender issues relevant to the peace process, such as DDR, land rights, employment opportunities,
preventing violent extremism and community reintegration. It also examines the structural
barriers at various levels and how effective programs can be designed and implemented to
overcome these (UN Women 2015).
Women’s involvement in political decision-making processes and equal opportunities to
participate at the negotiating table are essential to the success of peace efforts. This is reflected
through the evidence that suggests that countries with increased participation of women in
politics and civil society, tend to be more inclusive, responsive, egalitarian and democratic. The
participation of women in political processes is shown to be integral to building strong
communities and shaping policymaking in ways that better reflects their needs, as well as those
of their children, families and communities (Anderlini 2007).
Conflict affects men and women differently, and roles of men and women changes in the course
of conflicts. A gender sensitive and responsive conflict analysis recognizes this and pays
attention to gendered aspects when analyzing the causes, actors, impacts and dynamics of a
conflict. Understanding gender and how it links to peace and conflict is key to designing
inclusive and effective peacebuilding efforts.
Gender equality is a prerequisite to explore the roles of women and men in war and peace.
At the outset of Tolstoy's War and Peace, the protagonist, Pierre, ponders why women "have no
need" for war, while men "can't get along without it." He poses the issue to Prince Andrei, who is
eagerly making preparations to leave for the front. After initially fumbling for an answer, Andrei
blurts out: "I'm going because this life I am leading here-this life is-not to my taste." Petted by
women, suffocated by social convention, dulled by opulent surroundings, he despairs of peace.
War, he imagines, will furnish the masculine excitement and challenge he craves. But nearly a
thousand pages later, as he lies dying from a shrapnel wound, Andrei disavows his heroic notion
of war and sheds tears of "love and tenderness for his fellow man." He has comprehended, at
last, the lessons the women of his family had long sought to instill in him (Carnes, 1992).
Tolstoy's message, wholly consistent with Victorian gender ideology, is that men, whose
fascination with war "flows in their veins," must learn to cherish the peaceable values women
understand intuitively. Historian Michael Adams, in a study of the relation of gender to the
martial enthusiasms of the early twentieth century, looks at these themes through a contemporary
lens molded by feminism. Men are not innately compelled to a fascination for war, but have it
implanted in their psyche through gender role socialization. Thus, enduring peace requires not, as
Tolstoy proposed, men's acceptance of "women's values," but rather creation of an androgynous
society
where men and women function as equal partners in life. Only then can men appreciate "the full
range of openly expressed human feelings, including nurturing and caring" (p. 125). Having
embraced life-affirming values, men will have no use for those that exalt death and destruction
(Carnes, 1992).
Nostrums for world peace aside, Adams must show that societies with gender role distinctions
produce warlike men. "A society divided on gender lines encourages male violence" (p. 135), he
states flatly. So hefty a generalization might have resided more comfortably in anthropology or
psychology, disciplines that in unguarded moments make reference to "human nature" or the
"science of man." Adams, however, is entitled to no such claim, for his study is confined to the
upper classes of Britain and America during the decades leading up to the Great War. It should
be obvious that this limited slice of human experience cannot sustain a universal hypothesis. But
even the more circumscribed variant of Adams's argument-that the carnage of the First World
War was partly a consequence of the sharp gender role divisions of late Victorian Britain and
America-is challenge aplenty for any book. The argument is as follows: Late nineteenth and
early twentieth-century Britain and America were characterized by a high degree of gender role
differentiation. This inflicted a number of psychic wounds upon young boys. Because mothers
were charged almost exclusively with childbearing, their sons became excessively attached to
and dependent on them. Some boys affected as compensation a rough and violent
hypermasculinity; others, finding it impossible to break loose from maternal bonds, remained
trapped in emotional adolescence well into adulthood. Because the image of their mothers was so
deeply embedded in their consciousness, moreover, many boys applied a maternal standard to all
women. This left them uncomfortable with female sexuality, and with the women they would
eventually marry. Suspicious and distrustful of the opposite sex, such men all too readily sought
emotional security in the unequivocally masculine environment of war. "Male disjunction from
the female," Adams writes, "could lead to overt masculinity expressed in violence" (p. 35)
(Carnes, 1992).
REFERENCES
Anderlini, Sanam (2010): Naraghi What the Women Say: Participation and UNSCR 1325. ICAN
and MIT Center for International Studies.
Beijing Platform for Action (1995): Critical Area of Concern: Women and Armed Conflict.
Strategic Objectives: available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/
daw/beijing/platform/armed.htm.
Carnes, M. C. (1992). Review: War and Peace : Men and Women. The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 20(1), 84–89.
UN Women (2015): A Framework to Underpin Action to Prevent Violence Against Women.
Available from: http:// www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/ publications/2015/11/prevention-
framework.
The Vienna Declaration and Program of Action (1993). Article 38: "Violations of the human
rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of
international human rights and humanitarian law." Available at
http://wwvv.unhchr.ch/htm1/mcnu5/d/vienna.htm
