Discourses on Gender, Patriarchy and Resolution 1325: A Textual Analysis of UN Documents

Abstract

This article deconstructs the language of UN documents that relate to peace operations and highlights recurrent definitions of women as vulnerable individuals, often associated with children. The author demonstrates that the perpetuation of stereotyping language in these documents removes women's agency and maintains them in the subordinated position of victims. As a result, women are not seen as actors within their own community and agents of change in post-conflict environments. Despite the adoption of resolution 1325, the institution of the UN leaves the male monopoly of power unchallenged and presents gender mainstreaming as a non-political activity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Please note that the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the United Nations, its agencies and programmes or the office in which the author has served.

Notes

Adrienne Rich, Of Women Born, Motherhood as Experience and Institution, New York: Norton, 1986, p.57 (emphasis added).

Charli Carpenter, Innocent Women and Children, Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006, p.31.

Ibid.

Laura J. Shepherd, Gender, Violence & Security, London: Zed Books, 2008, p.87.

Cynthia Cockburn, The Space between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict, London: Zed Books, 1998, p.13.

See, e.g., Charlotte Bunche, ‘Beijing, Backlash, and the Future of Women's Human Rights’, Health and Human Rights, Vol.1, No.4, 1995, pp.10–12; Hilary Charlesworth, ‘The Gender of International Institutions’, Proceedings of the 89th Annual Meeting of the America Society of International Law, Washington, DC, 1995, pp.79–85; Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Deployment of the African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur’, UN doc., S/2009/83, 10 Feb. 2009; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad’, UN doc., S/2008/760, 4 Dec. 2008; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste’ (for the period from 9 July 2008 to 29 January 2009), UN doc., S/2009/72, 4 Feb. 2009; ‘Nineteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Operations in Côte d'Ivoire’, UN doc., S/2009/21, 8 Jan. 2009; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti’, UN doc., S/2009/129, 6 Mar. 2009; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo’, UN doc., S/2009/149, 17 Mar. 2009; ‘Eighteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia’, UN doc., S/2009/86, 10 Feb. 2009; ‘Twenty-Seventh Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, UN doc., S/2009/160, 27 Mar. 2009; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Sudan’, UN doc., S/2009/61, 30 Jan. 2009; ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Request of Nepal for United Nations Assistance of Its Peace Process’, UN doc., S/2009/1, 2 Jan. 2009.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Deployment of the African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur’, UN doc., S/2009/83, 10 Feb. 2009, p.9.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad’, UN doc., S/2008/760, 4 Dec. 2008, p.3.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti’, UN doc., S/2009/129, 6 Mar. 2009, p.13.

Cynthia Enloe and Nadine Puechguirbal, ‘Failing to Secure the Peace: Practical Gendered Lessons from Haiti & Iraq’, paper at the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 26 Oct. 26, 2004, p.6.

Codou Bop, ‘Women in Conflicts, Their Gains and Their Losses’, in Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth Turshen (eds), The Aftermath, Women in Post-conflict Transformation, London: Zed Books, 2001, p.27.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (for the period from 9 July 2008 to 29 January 2009)’, UN doc., S/2009/72, 4 Feb. 2009, p.5.

‘Report of the Secretary-General’ on UNAMID (see n.8 above), p.5.

‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Request of Nepal for United Nations Assistance in Support of Its Peace Process’, UN doc., S/2009/1, 2 Jan. 2009, p.12 (emphasis added).

Françoise Héritier, Masculin/Féminin II, Dissoudre la Hiérarchie, Paris: Odile Jacob, 2002, p.191.

‘Nineteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Operations in Côte d'Ivoire’, UN doc., S/2009/21, 8 Jan. 2009, p.14.

‘Report of the Secretary-General’ on UNMIT (see n.13 above), p.13.

Rich (see n.1 above), p.53 (original emphasis).

Carpenter (see n.2 above), p.99.

Paula Donovan, ‘Gender Equality Now or Never: A New UN Agency for Women’, Office of the Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, New York, July 2006, p.4.

Carpenter (see n.2 above), pp.97–8.

See, e.g., the Malaysian statement in the UN Security Council's open debate on Women, Peace and Security in 2000 (at: www.peacewomen.org/un/sc/countrystatements/malaysia.pdf); India's and Iceland's statements in 2003 (at: www.un.int/india/2003/ind846.pdf); (at: www.iceland.org/un/nyc/the-embassy/statements-news/nr/782).

‘Assault on the Vulnerable’, in Human Security Report 2005, Vancouver: University of British Columbia, Part III, p.102 (at: www.humansecurityreport.info/HSR2005_PDF/Part3.pdf).

Ibid.

Sanam Anderlini, Women at the Peace Table, Making a Difference, New York: UNIFEM, 2000, p.5.

Carpenter (see n.2 above), p.100.

Ibid.

Adam Jones, ‘Gender and Ethnic Conflict in Ex-Yugoslavia (1994)’, in Adam Jones (ed.), Gender Exclusive: Essays on Violence, Men, and Feminist International Relations, New York: Routledge, 2009, p.67.

Elisabeth Rhen and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Women, War, Peace, ‘The Independent Experts’ Assessment', UNIFEM, New York, 2002, Vol.1, p.116.

Judy El-Bushra, ‘Transforming Conflict: Some Thoughts on a Gendered Understanding of Conflict Processes’, in Susie Jacobs, Ruth Jacobson and Jennifer Marchbank (eds), States of Conflict, Gender, Violence and Resistance, London: Zed Books, 2000, p.80.

Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004, p.136.

Ahtisaari was awarded the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for ‘his efforts to resolve international conflicts’ because they had ‘contributed to a more peaceful world and to “fraternity between nations” in Alfred Nobel's spirit’ (emphasis added): Nobel Foundation (at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2008/press.html).

UNMIK Press Briefing, 23 Nov. 2005 (at: www.unmikonline.org/DPI/Transcripts.nsf/0/B09F53DCFD07C77FC12570C4002AA426/$FILE/tr231105_special.pdf), emphasis added.

Carol Cohn and Cynthia Enloe, ‘A Conversation with Cynthia Enloe: Feminist Look at Masculinity and the Men Who Wage War’, SIGNS, Vol.28, 2003, pp.1190–2.

Ibid.

R.W. Connel, ‘Masculinities, the Reduction of Violence and the Pursuit of Peace’, in Cynthia Cockburn and Dubravka Zarkov (eds), The Postwar Moment, Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2002, pp.35–6 (emphasis added).

Marilyn French, The War against Women, New York: Ballantine Books, 1992, pp.17–18.

Enloe, ‘What Is Patriarchy Is “the Big Picture”? An Afterword’, in Dyan Mazurana, Angela Raven-Roberts and Jane Parpart (eds), Gender, Conflict and Peackeeping, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, p.281.

Angela Raven-Roberts, ‘Gender Mainstreaming in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Talking the Talk, Tripping over the Walk’, in Mazurana, Raven-Roberts and Parpart (eds), ibid., p.57.

Enloe, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2004, p.215.

Meredeth Turshen, ‘Engendering Relations of State to Society in the Aftermath’, in Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay and Meredeth Turshen (eds), The Aftermath, Women in Post-conflict Transformation, London: Zed Books, 2001, p.81.

Christine Chinkin, ‘Gender, International Legal Framework and Peace-Building’, in Kari Karamé (ed), Gender and Peace-Building in Africa, Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2004, p. 32.

Anu Pillay, ‘Violence against Women in the Aftermath’, in Meintjes, Pillay and Turshen (eds), (see n.42 above), p.44.

Chinkin (see n.43 above).

Rosalind Miles, Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women's History of the World, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1988, p.279.

Turshen (see n.42 above), p.84.

Shepherd (see n.4 above), p.90.

Ann Tickner, Gendering World Politics, Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era, New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, pp.59–60.

Gry Tina Tinde, ‘Top United Nations Peacebuilders and Advocacy for Women, Peace and Security’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol.28, No.1, 2009, p.148.

The six women are Ellen Margrethe L⊘j, SRSG in Liberia; Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu, DSRSG in Liberia; Ameerah Haq, DSRSG in Sudan; Rima Salah, DSRSG in Chad; Bintou Keita, DSRSG in Burundi; Leila Zerrougui, DSRSG in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Security Council resolution 1325, 31 Oct. 2000.

Tinde (see n.50 above).

Hilary Charlesworth, ‘Transforming the United Men's Club: Feminist Futures for the United Nations’, Centre for International Governance & Justice (CIGJ), 1994 (at: http://cigj.anu.edu.au/cigj/link_documents/Charlesworthpubs/Charlesworth%20Articles/Transforming_Men%27s_1994.pdf).

Camille Pampell Conaway and Jolynn Shoemaker, ‘Women in the United Nations Peace Operations: Increasing the Leadership Opportunities’, Women in International Security, Research Paper, Georgetown University, July 2008, p.27.

See Tinde (n.50 above) on the review of documents and references highlighting how SRSGs address resolution 1325.

Personal communication with Ratna Kapur, Senior Gender Adviser, UNMIN, ‘End-of-Assignment Report’, 4 July 2008, p.4.

Ibid.

Nadine Puechguirbal, Senior Gender Adviser, MINUSTAH, ‘End-of-Assignment Report’, 23 June 2008, p.7 (original emphasis).

Karen Barnes, ‘Reform or More of the Same? Gender Mainstreaming and the Changing Nature of UN Peace Operations’, York Centre for International and Security Studies, Working Paper No.41, Toronto, Oct. 2006, p.2.

Shepherd (see n.4 above), p.120.

Françoise Nduwimana, ‘United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security: Understanding the Implications, Fulfilling the Obligations’, Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, New York, 2008, p.87.

Whitworth (see n.32 above), p.139.