Gendering Security: Connecting Theory and Practice

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, feminist approaches to International Relations have become an integral part of the discipline, recognising the subject and the objects of international relations as deeply gendered. Feminist IR scholars have made particularly important contributions to critical security studies, encouraging not only analytical attention to “non-traditional” security threats but also advocating deep reflection on how gendered hierarchies between masculinities and femininities are constructed parts of war, peace, and violence. The development of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda at the United Nations Security Council since 2000 and its diffusion across regional and national institutions has been a particular, empirical focus of feminist scholarship. This introduction briefly summarises core intellectual tenets of feminist IR in its relation to security studies, thereby providing the intellectual backdrop to the seven contributions of this special issue. These contributions critically unpack the framing of the WPS agenda, the extent to which its diffusion leads to diverging understandings in regional and national contexts, and broader questions related to the detrimental workings of gender constructions in post-conflict scenarios.

About the Authors

Andrea den Boer is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent, UK. Her research focuses on gender and international relations, with an emphasis on the causes and consequences of violence against women and practices of sex selection. Andrea is the Editor-in-Chief of Global Society.

Ingvild Bode is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Kent, UK. Her research focuses on international peace and security at the UN, including the work of the UN Security Council, autonomous weapons systems, and UN peacekeeping. Her most recent book is Individual Agency and Policy Change at the United Nations (Routledge, 2015). Ingvild is an Associate Editor of Global Society.

Notes

1. Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarisation of Women’s Lives (London: Pluto Press, 1983); Jean B. Elshtain, Women and War (New York: Basic Books, 1987); and J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).

2. The UN had in fact recognised the links between women, peace and security decades prior to the 2000 resolution. The UN’s first decade for women (1975–1985) was given the theme “Equality, development and peace”, echoing the concluding thoughts of the 1975 World Conference of the International Women’s Year that achieving greater equality for women would strengthen world peace (see the UN “Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace”, E/CONF.66/34, 2 July 1975). The 1985 World Conference on Women in Nairobi recognised women’s vulnerability in conflicts, called upon women to promote peace and further acknowledged that peace required equality between men and women (see “Report of the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace”, New York: United Nations, 1986). Throughout the 1990s, further advancements were made towards the women, peace and security agenda through the condemnation of war time rapes and sexual violence in the war crimes tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The 1995 World Conference on Women held in Beijing mobilized activists on the issue of women and armed conflict and called for women to be full participants in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and identified the need to protect women in situations of armed conflict (see Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, The Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995). For an introduction to the WPS agenda, see Louise Olsson and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, “An introduction to UNSCR 1325”, International Interactions, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2013), pp. 425–434; for an overview of the eight resolutions, see Paul Kirby and Laura J. Shepherd, “Reintroducing Women, Peace and Security”, International Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 2 (2016), pp. 249–254.

3. This article references some of the many publications on the topic of gender and security.

4. Paul Higate’s examination of the meaning of masculinities in the context of Private Militarized Security Companies in Afghanistan provides an illuminating example of the intersection of race, religion, and hegemonic masculinity. See Paul Higate, “Drinking Vodka from the ‘Butt-Crack’: Men, Masculinities and Fratriarchy in the Private Militarized Security Company”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2012), pp. 450–469.

5. Joshua Goldstein’s work demonstrates that the links between masculinity and warrior ideals are widely cross cultural and valid over time. See Joshua Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). The typical hegemonic military masculinity associated with the male warrior is changing, according to Joachim and Schneiker. See Jutta Joachim and Andrea Schneiker, “Of ‘True Professionals’ and ‘Ethical Hero Warriors’: A Gender-Discourse Analysis of Private Military and Security Companies”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 43, No. 6 (2012), pp. 495–512.

6. Laura Sjoberg, Gender, War and Conflict (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), p. 5.

7. For a discussion of traditional, critical, and human security, see Tickner, op cit.; Lene Hansen, “The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School”, Millennium, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2000), pp. 285–306; and Heidi Hudson, “‘Doing’ Security as Though Humans Matter: A Feminist Perspective on Gender and the Politics of Human Security”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2005), pp. 155–174.

8. Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Cynthia Cockburn, Laura Sjoberg (ed.), Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2009); Maya Eichler, “Militarized Masculinities in International Relations”, Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2014), pp. 81–93; Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism and Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley, “Explaining Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Missions: The Role of Female Peacekeepers and Gender Equality in Contributing Countries”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 53, no. 1 (2016), pp. 100–115.

9. See for example, Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics (London: Zed Books, 2007), and the follow-up text, Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Thinking About Women's Violence in Global Politics (London: Zed Books, 2015). Meredith Loken, for example, disproves the argument that including women as combatants will lower the incidence of rape within conflicts. See Meredith Loken, “Rethinking Rape: The Role of Women in Wartime Violence”, Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2017), pp. 60–92. Other feminist research challenges the idea that women are more peaceful: Hilary Charlesworth, “Are Women Peaceful? Reflections on the Role of Women in Peace-Building”, Feminist Legal Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2008), pp. 347–361. Cynthia Cockburn’s work examines the role of women activists in anti-war movements, see for example, Cynthia Cockburn, “Gender Relations as Causal in Militarization in and War: A Feminist Standpoint”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2010), pp. 139–157. Ismene Gizelis’ research, on the other hand, demonstrates that peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts may be more likely to succeed in states with higher levels of equality for women. See Theodora-Ismene Gizelis, “A Country of Their Own: Women and Peacebuilding”, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 28, No. 5 (2011), pp. 522–542.

10. An increasing body of literature has demonstrated that patriarchal norms and practices that perpetuate gender inequalities and lead to women’s insecurity also create a situation of instability and insecurity for the state and global society. See, for example, Mary Caprioli, “Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 2 (2005), pp. 161–78; Valerie M. Hudson, Mary Caprioli, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Rose McDermott, and Chad F. Emmett, “The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States”, International Security, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2009), pp. 7–45; Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett, Sex and World Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); and Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, “A Feminist Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship Between Violence Against and Inequitable Treatment of Women, and Conflict Within and Between Human Collectives, Including Nation-States”, in Todd Shackelford and Viviana Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence, Homicide, and War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 301–323.

11. See, for example, Annick Wibben, Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (London: Routledge, 2011); Megan MacKenzie, Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone: Sex, Security, and Post-Conflict Development (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Swati Parashar, “Feminist International Relations and Militant Women: Case Studies from Sri Lanka and Kashmir”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2009), pp. 235–256; Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, “Why Do Soldiers Rape? Masculinity, Violence and Sexuality in the Armed Forces in the Congo (DRC)”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2009), pp. 495–518.

12. Tickner, op. cit., p. 23.

13. In Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, South Sudan and Vanuatu, for example, over 50% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual domestic violence in their lifetime. See UN Women, Global Database on Violence Against Women, available: <http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/fr/countries> (accessed 1 September 2018). Available data shows that there are 78 states where marital rape is a significant problem with high prevalence. See LRW-Scale-8 in the WomanStats Database available at: <www.womanstats.org> (accessed 1 September 2018).

14. Steve Smith, “The Increasing Insecurity of Security Studies: Conceptualizing Security in the Last Twenty Years”, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1999), p. 92.

15. Tickner, op. cit., 28.

16. For a good discussion of the gendered institutions within security practices see Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley, Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping. Women, Peace, and Security in Post-Conflict States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 28–34.

17. It should be noted that sexual violence is also perpetrated against men in conflict. See, for example, Sandesh Sivakumaran, “Sexual Violence Against Men in Armed Conflict”, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2007), pp. 253–276; and Dara Kay Cohen, “Female Combatants and the Perpetration of Violence: Wartime Rape in the Sierra Leone Civil War”, World Politics, Vol. 65, No. 3 (2013), pp. 383–415. See also Laura Sjoberg and Jessica Peet, “A(nother) Dark Side of the Protection Racket: Targeting Women in Wars”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2011), pp. 163–182; Ariel I. Ahram, “Sexual Violence and the Making of ISIS”, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Vol. 57, No. 3 (2015), pp. 57–78; Megan Mackenzie, “Securitizing Sex? Towards a Theory of the Utility of Wartime Sexual Violence”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2010), pp. 202–221; Anette Bringedal Houge, “Sexualized War Violence: Knowledge Construction and Knowledge Gaps”, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 25 (2015), pp. 79–87; and Donna Pankhurst, “‘What Is Wrong with Men?’: Revisiting Violence Against Women in Conflict and Peacebuilding”, Peacebuilding, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2016), pp. 180–193.

18. Elisabeth Jean Wood and Nathaniel Toppelberg, “The Persistence of Sexual Assault Within the US Military”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 54, No. 5 (2017), pp. 620–633; Elisabeth Jean Wood, “Rape as a Practice of War: Toward a Typology of Political Violence”, Politics & Society (2018), doi: 10.1177/0032329218773710.

19. Jacqui True, “Explaining the Global Diffusion of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda”, International Political Science Review, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016), p. 307.

20. As of September 2018, 76 states (39% of UN members) have adopted National Action Plans and 11 regional actors have Regional Action Plans. See Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, “Member States” (September 2018) available: <https://www.peacewomen.org/member-states> (accessed 17 September 2018). For diffusion to the EU, see for example, Nadine Ansorg and Toni Haastrup, “Gender and the EU’s Support for Security Sector Reform in Fragile Contexts”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol 56, No. 5 (2018), pp. 1127–1148; Toni Haastrup, “Creating Cinderella? The Unintended Consequences of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda for EU’s Mediation Architecture”, International Negotiation, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2018), pp. 218–237.

21. The broadening of the security environment is particularly found in UN Security Council Resolution 2242 (S/RES/2242), October 2015.

22. See, for example, Carol Cohn, Helen Kinsella, and Sheri Gibbings, “Women, Peace and Security Resolution 1325”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2004), pp. 130–140; Nicola Pratt and Sophie Richter-Devroe, “Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2011), pp. 489–503; Laura J. Shepherd, “Sex, Security and Superhero(in)es: From 1325 to 1820 and Beyond”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2011): 504–521; and the special issue in International Affairs edited by Paul Kirby and Laura Shepherd in March 2016.

23. Cynthia Cockburn, “The Continuum of Violence: A Gender Perspective on War and Peace”, in Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndman (eds.), Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), p. 44.

24. Patriarchal practices, such as patrilineality and patrilocality, are associated with inequitable laws that favour men, with the result that women are undervalued within families and societies. The subordination of women in patriarchal societies leads to a host of negative consequences from increased violence and insecurity to state instability. See for example, Valerie M. Hudson, Donna Lee Bowen, and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen, “Clan Governance and State Stability: The Relationship between Female Subordination and Political Order”, American Political Science Review, Vol. 109, No. 3 (August 2015), pp. 535–555; Andrea den Boer and Valerie Hudson, “Patrilineality, Son Preference, and Sex Selection in South Korea and Vietnam”, Population and Development Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (2017), pp. 119–147; and Valerie M. Hudson and Hilary Matfess, “In Plain Sight: The Neglected Linkage Between Brideprice and Violent Conflict”, International Security, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2017), pp. 7–40.

25. Cynthia Enloe, “Foreword”, in Laura Sjoberg and Sandra Via (eds.), Gender, War, and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), p. xii.