Feminism, Gender, and Women's Peace Activism

Abstract

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on 'Women, peace and security', passed in 2000, reflects a recent growth in women's peace activism. Women's resistance to violence is widely believed to be a mobilizing factor in both local and international peace movements. This provokes questions around essentialism and violence of concern to feminists: are men inherently territorial and aggressive, and women naturally nurturing and peaceable? Or is the behaviour of both conditioned by particular local configurations of social relations of power? This contribution reviews these questions in the light of the experiences of women's peace organizations. It concludes that essentializing women's roles as wives, mothers and nurses discourages their inclusion as active decision makers in political arenas, as well as overshadowing the needs of other disadvantaged groups. Rather than seeing war as the violation of women by men, we should recognize that men and women are each differently violated by war.Judy El-Bushra developed her current interest in the overlaps between gender and conflict as themes in research, policy and practice while working with ACORD over twenty years. She currently manages the Great Lakes Programme of International Alert, 346 Clapham Rd, London SW9 9AP, UK.

Women and Peace Building: Local Perspectives on Opportunities and Barriers

“…These activities take the form of direct action, protests and negotiations between different groups (see review in Justino et al., ). They tend to emphasize areas that are neglected in more militarized international peace‐building missions, such as the role of local‐level peace building, and the communities’ psychosocial, relational and spiritual needs (Autesserre, ; El‐Bushra, ; Hunt and Posa, ; Justino et al., ; Mazurana and McKay, ).…”

“…However, most evaluations of these initiatives have found that, even though gender roles may change during the conflict and women may play crucial roles in conflict prevention and peace building, gender identities tend to appear unchanged in the post‐conflict period (Adam, ; Date‐Bah, ; Handrahan, ; Justino, , ; Kumar, ; Rubin, ; de Watteville, ). Women are again excluded from formal peace and political processes beyond the immediate local (family or community) level (Castillejo, ; El‐Bushra, , ; Justino et al., ; Kumar, ).…”

Revisiting Representation: Communism, Women in Politics, and the Decline of Armed Conflict in East Asia

“…However, scholars and practitioners alike have pointed to the risk of UNSCR 1325 being used instrumentally in a broad "women, peace and security agenda." Implicit assumptions about the relationship between women and peace abound and affect the discourse that activists use (El Bushra 2007). UNSCR 1325 has been invoked to claim that the increased representation of women in different decision-making bodies is a necessity for sustainable peace (see, for example, Anderlini 2000).…”

“…Women are required to follow the party line and are thus unable to depart from the norm and to enact change for women (Fiig 2009). We know that initiatives from women's organizations or from individual female politicians or peacemakers are often met with skepticism or they are marginalized and ignored (El Bushra 2007;Puechguirbal 2010;Väyrynen 2004;Valenius 2007). The causal story arguing that women politicians are able to bring about peace is therefore difficult to reconcile with conventional wisdom within the field of gender and politics.…”

“…It has been picked up by women's rights activists lobbying for the need to include a recommendation to increase the political participation of women in UNSCR 1325 -and who are now advocating for its implementation (El Bushra 2007). This suggestion presents itself as a "quick fix" to a complex problem.…”