GENDER, CONFLICT & PEACE

What is GENDER?

how do we express, affirm or contest gender?

The Absolute Number of War Deaths is Declining since 1945

• The absolute number of war deaths has been declining since 1946. In some years in the early post-war era, around half a million people died through direct violence in wars; in contrast, in 2016 the number of all battle-related deaths in conflicts involving at least one state was 87,432.

The decline of the absolute number of battle deaths is visualized in the following graph that shows global battle deaths per year by world region. There are three marked peaks in war deaths since then: the Korean War (early 1950s), the Vietnam War (around 1970), and the Iran-Iraq and Afghanistan wars (1980s). There has been a recent increase in battle deaths driven by conflict in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The previous chart refers only to battle deaths occurring in conflicts that involved at least one state on one of the opposing sides. For more recent years, we show these 'state-based' conflict deaths alongside battle deaths in 'non-state' conflicts (where two or more organisations are fighting but no state is involved), and also violent deaths in 'one-sided violence' (where there is only one organised aggressor, such as in genocidal violence).

We see that, in recent years, state-based conflicts form the majority of such deaths, though the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 stands out for its very high death-toll.

War as a gendered process

how does conflict affect gender?

Bosnia, 1992-95 ----50,000-60,000

Colombia, 2001-09 ---- 489,687

Democratic Republic of Congo, 2006-07 ---- 434,000

Nanking, 1937 ---- 20,000-80,000

Rwanda, 1994 ---- 250,000-500,000

Sierra Leone, 1991-2002 ---- 215,000-257,000

WWII, 1944-45 ----2,000,000

(statistics: Women Media Centre)

“According to a 2013 global study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, only 7% of survivors of gender-based violence formally reported the violence to police, medical, or social services.” This study was carried out by Stony Brook University Professor Tia Palermo, Jennifer Bleck of the University of South Florida, and Amber Peterman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Why does gender matter for the study of conflict, war & peace?

• Women and girls suffered disproportionately during and after war, as existing inequalities are magnified, and social networks broke down, making them more vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation

• women and children accounted for the majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict

• Between 1990 and 2017, women constituted only 2 per cent of mediators, 8 per cent of negotiators, and 5 per cent of witnesses and signatories in all major peace process.

• When women are included in peace processes, there is a 20 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years, and a 35 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 15 years

• Gender-sensitive language in peace agreements is critical to setting a foundation for gender-inclusion during the peacebuilding phase. Yet, data show a downward trend since 2015; only three out of 11 (27 per cent) peace agreements signed in 2017 containing gender-responsive provisions

• Insufficient attention has been paid to the implementation of gender provisions in peace agreements. Of peace agreements signed between 2000–2016, only seven per cent refer to specific modalities for implementation of gender provisions

• A trend analysis on 1,500 peace and political agreements adopted between 2000 and 2016 (140 processes) shows that only 25 agreements discuss the role of women’s engagement in implementation

• The Global Study on the Implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 put forward new evidence and a set of recommendation for action. See Chapter on women’s participation and a better understanding of the political

What are some of the problems/ challenges of how the UN talks about gender?

• ‘Gender’ refers to the socially and politically constructed roles, behaviours, and attributes that a given society considers most appropriate and valuable for 'men' and 'women'. Gender is also a system of power which shapes the lives, opportunities, rights, relationships and access to resources of people (based on how they are gendered)

• "Gender is assumed to be directly related to, and map onto, sex—men are masculine and women are feminine."

• Feminists “have questioned the conventional assumption that gender differences (and subordination) are rooted in biological differences between women and men” (Sjoberg & Via 2010 ).

• "gender is social characteristics only presumed to be related to perceived membership in the biological categories of male and female.
• Characteristics traditionally associated with masculinity include strength, protection, rationality, aggression, public life, domination, and leadership.
• weakness, vulnerability, emotion, passivity, privacy, submission, and care have been traditionally associated with femininity.

• Gender norms are not just about the attitudes and beliefs held by individuals, but are produced and perpetuated by political, economic, cultural and social structures, including education systems, the media

• distinction between masculinity and femininity is not value-neutral (masculinity is valued over femininity in socio-political life)

• As such, to “feminize something or someone is to directly subordinate that person, political entity, or idea, because values perceived as feminine are lower on the social hierarchy than values per- ceived as neutral or masculine” (Sjoberg 2006a, 34).

• As Catherine Mac- Kinnon (1993) has argued, “feminization is something that can happen to anyone. It is only that we assume it is natural to happen to people identi- fied as women.”

GENDER, CONFLICT & PEACE

the social construction of gender

Why does gender matter for the study of conflict, war & peace?

War & Conflict overview

data from UCDP (Uppsala Conflict Data Program) & PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo)

• inclusive understanding of gender as a socio-cultural organizing principle
• critical framework for intervening, preventing and ending violence and violent conflict

War itself is a highly gendered process

war impacts traditional social, cultural, political, economic roles and norms at national, community and family levels