No Angry Women at the United Nations: Political Dreams and the Cultural Politics of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325

Reconceptualizing Gender, Reinscribing Racial-Sexual Boundaries in International Security: The Case of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace and Security”1

“…This article has attempted to demonstrate that the language of 1325 and its associated discourses should be taken seriously—not only because it risks constraining or instrumentalizing women’s agency (as argued by Cohn 2008; Shepherd 2008a; Gibbings 2011, among others) but because it enables the “international” community to harness women’s agency in the reproduction of global structures of power constituted through gendered, racialized, and sexualized hierarchies. In turn, these structures of power underpin the hegemonic discourses and practices of international security in the post‐9/11 period.…”

“…Resolution 1889 not only reproduces the image of “women as peacebuilder” but further instrumentalizes women’s role in the achievement of peace. In this way, 1889 perhaps is the end product of years of gender‐mainstreaming advocates “marketing” women as “untapped resources” for the decision makers at the UN (Gibbings 2011:529). This raises questions about the degree to which Resolutions 1325 and 1889 constitute tools for women activists in conflict zones to lever themselves into spaces historically dominated by men or that these resolutions enable the UN Security Council to instrumentalize women activists in conflict zones for the objectives of the Security Council (Cohn et al.…”

“…On the one hand, women activists in conflict zones are “marketed” at the UN for their value in providing “grounded” knowledge to the Security Council; yet, they are simultaneously heard by the UN because they claim to “embody the universal principles of peace and security as opposed to the local (tribal or ethnic) interests of particular communities” (Gibbings 2011:529–531). Conversely, “brown women” who refuse to comply with the principles of the UN are excluded from the peacemaker role, as illustrated by Sheri Gibbings’s ethnographic study, in which Iraqi women activists, invited to speak to a group of gender experts at the UN, were labeled by the latter as “angry” because the Iraqi women did not “speak positively about women’s efforts in the reconstruction of Iraq and the role the UN could play” (Gibbings 2011:525) but, instead, they “condemned the invasion by the USA and UK as imperialist and critiqued the UN for its lack of support” (Gibbings 2011:524). In effect, the re‐gendering of gender is dependent upon women activists’ compliance with the universal and liberal principles upon which resolutions such as 1325 are based.…”

“…In effect, the re‐gendering of gender is dependent upon women activists’ compliance with the universal and liberal principles upon which resolutions such as 1325 are based. Through this compliance, women activists are “re‐raced” as part of the international community, while “brown men” are implicitly represented as unable to rise above the particularities of “class, ethnic, or political divisions of the nation” (Gibbings 2011:531).…”

External networks and institutional idiosyncrasies: the Common Security and Defence Policy and UNSCR 1325 on women, peace and security

“…Because it perpetuates the (gender) status quo and reproduces existing inequalities and power relations, Puechguirbal (2010, 184) and others (e.g. Gibbings 2011 andHarrington 2011) have questioned its transformative potential. Despite such criticisms, a growing number of studies are seeking to explain the implementation of gender mainstreaming.…”