Women and Wars E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 754

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Where are the women? In traditional historical and scholarly accounts of the making and fighting of wars, women are often nowhere to be seen. With few exceptions, war stories are told as if men were the only ones who plan, fight, are injured by, and negotiate ends to wars. As the pages of this book tell, though, those accounts are far from complete. Women can be found at every turn in the (gendered) phenomena of war. Women have participated in the making, fighting, and concluding of wars throughout history, and their participation is only increasing at the turn of the 21st century. Women experience war in multiple ways: as soldiers, as fighters, as civilians, as caregivers, as sex workers, as sexual slaves, refugees and internally displaced persons, as anti-war activists, as community peace-builders, and more. This book at once provides a glimpse into where women are in war, and gives readers the tools to understood women’s (told and untold) war experiences in the greater context of the gendered nature of global social and political life.

Leseprobe

Women and Wars

For my daughter Mariel

And in loving memory of Edna Kaplan and Sara Ruddick

Women and Wars

EDITED BY CAROL COHN

polity

Copyright © Carol Cohn 2013

The right of Carol Cohn to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

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ISBN: 978-0-7456-6066-0

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Contents

Boxes and Tables

Abbreviations

Contributors

Foreword by Cynthia Enloe

Acknowledgments

1  Women and Wars: Toward a Conceptual Framework

Carol Cohn

2  Women and the Political Economy of War

Angela Raven-Roberts

3  Sexual Violence and Women’s Health in War

Pamela DeLargy

4  Women Forced to Flee: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

Wenona Giles

5  Women and Political Activism in the Face of War and Militarization

Carol Cohn and Ruth Jacobson

6  Women and State Military Forces

Jennifer G. Mathers

7  Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups

Dyan Mazurana

8  Women and Peace Processes

Malathi de Alwis, Julie Mertus, and Tazreena Sajjad

9  Women, Girls, and Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR)

Dyan Mazurana and Linda Eckerbom Cole

10  Women “After” Wars

Ruth Jacobson

Notes

References

Index

Boxes and Tables

BOXES

2.1  Definitions of gender-based and sexual violence

2.2  Changing gender roles in Afghanistan

2.3  Double work burdens

2.4  Becoming a forced wife in Sierra Leone

3.1  UN Security Council Resolutions on women, peace, and security

3.2  Sexual slavery: the “comfort women” of the Second World War

3.3  Obstetric and traumatic fistula

4.1  Additional Human Rights Conventions that pertain to the rights of forced migrants

4.2  Key terms: humanitarian assistance versus development aid

4.3  UNHCR Conclusion No. 39 (XXXVI) Concerning Refugee Women and International Protection

4.4  UNHCR definition of “women at risk”

5.1  The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers in Russia: from “maternalism” to anti-militarism?

5.2  Maternal practice as a potential resource for peace politics

5.3  Laura Bush on the US war in Afghanistan

5.4  The Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common

6.1  The “double whammy” for US military women

6.2  Sexual assault and abuse in the North Korean military

8.1  (Where) have women appeared in peace agreements?

8.2  Sudanese women in the processes of building peace

8.3  Issues addressed by UN Security Council Resolution 1325

8.4  1325 in practice: the case of Afghanistan

8.5  After the peace agreement: women building peace in Aceh

9.1  DDR processes: who does what?

9.2  A woman commander speaks on DDR in Burundi

9.3  The Women in Crisis Movement: a response to the challenges of reintegration

9.4  Skills developed by women members of armed opposition groups in Africa

10.1  United Nations Peace Support Operations: where and who?

10.2  Where are the women in PSOs?

10.3  Gaps between gender rhetoric and funding

10.4  Land reform in Mozambique: the battle to protect women’s rights

10.5  Returning to normal life or encountering backlash?

10.6  Peace-building in postwar Kosovo

TABLES

6.1  Proportion of women serving in state militaries around the world

6.2  Examples of countries where women may serve in at least some combat roles

7.1  Women and girls inside armed opposition groups 1990–2011

10.1  Who does what in the postwar environment?

Abbreviations

AIDS

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Al-Shabaab

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Somalia)

AMB

al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade

ASC

Assembly of Civil Society (Guatemala)

AUC

United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia

AusAID

Australian Agency for International Development

BASIC

British American Security Council

BBC

British Broadcasting Corporation

BCPR

Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (United Nations)

BINGO

big international nongovernmental organization

CDF

Civil Defense Forces (Sierra Leone)

CEDAW

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

CHRGJ

Center for Human Rights and Global Justice

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

CNDD-FDD

National Council for the Defense of Democracy/Forces of Defense of Democracy (Burundi)

CPC

Civilian Protection Component (Mindanao)

CRC

Convention on the Rights of the Child

CRSV

conflict-related sexual violence

CSMR

Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia

CSO

civil society organization

DDR

disarmament, demobilization and reintegration

DFID

Department for International Development (UK)

DPA

United Nations Department of Political Affairs

DRA

Dutch Refugee Association

DRC

Democratic Republic of the Congo

ECOWAS

Economic Community of West African States

EPLF

Eritrean People’s Liberation Front

EU

European Union

FAD

Feminist Approach to Development

FAO

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

FARC

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo

FMLN

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (El Salvador)

FORO

Foro Nacional de la Mujeres (Guatemala)

Frelimo

Frente de Libertação de Moçambique

FRODEBU

Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi

GAD

Gender and Development

GAFM

Gender and Forced Migration

GAM

Free Aceh Movement

GBV

gender-based violence

GDP

gross domestic product

GRP

Gender and Reparations Project

GWG

Gender Working Group (Aceh)

HIV

Human Immunodeficiency Virus

HRW

Human Rights Watch

IANSA

International Action Network on Small Arms

IASC

Inter-Agency Standing Committee

IAWG

Interagency Working Group

ICC

International Criminal Court

ICCPR

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

ICERD

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

ICESCR

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ICM

Intergovernmental Committee for Migration

ICRC

International Committee of the Red Cross

ICTJ

International Center for Transitional Justice

ICTR

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

ICTY

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

IDDRS

Integrated DDR Standards

IDF

Israeli Defense Force

IDMC

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre

IDP

internally displaced person

IFI

international financial institution

ILO

International Labor Organization

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IMT

International Monitoring Team (Mindanao)

IOM

International Organization for Migration

IRB

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

IWGRW

International Working Group on Refugee Women

IWNAM

International Women’s Network against Militarism

JPuD

Women’s Peace Network (Aceh)

JPuK

Women’s Policy Network (Aceh)

LoGA

Law on the Governing of Aceh

LRA

Lord’s Resistance Army (Uganda)

LTTE

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

MARWOPNET

Mano River Women’s Peace Network

MDRP

Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program

M4P

Mothers for Peace

MIRF

Moro Islamic Revolutionary Front

MoU

Memorandum of Understanding

MP

Member of Parliament

MPC

Mindanao Peoples Caucus

MWC

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NGO

nongovernmental organization

NKHR

North Korean Human Rights

NIWC

Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition

NMA

Naga Mothers’ Association

NORAD

Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation

NSAG

non-state armed group

NWUM

Naga Women’s Union of Manipur

OCHA

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

OSCE

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

OSRSG/CAC

Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

PCR

post-conflict reconstruction

PIJ

Palestinian Islamic Jihad

PKK

Kurdistan Workers’ Party

PLA

People’s Liberation Army (China)

PMS

premenstrual syndrome

PMSC

Private Military and Security Company

POP

people-oriented planning

POW

prisoner of war

PSO

peace support operation

PTSD

post-traumatic stress disorder

RAWA

Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan

RCD

Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie

Renamo

Resistência Nacional Moçambicana

RUF

Revolutionary United Front (Sierra Leone)

SADF

South African Defense Force

SALW

small arms and light weapons

SDN

Sub-Committee on De-escalation and Normalization (Sri Lanka)

SEA

sexual exploitation and abuse

SGI

Sub-Committee on Gender Issues (Sri Lanka)

Sida

Swedish International Development Agency

SIHRN

Sub-Committee on Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs (Sri Lanka)

SPLA

Sudanese People’s Liberation Army

SPLM

Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement

SPLM/A

Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army

SPM

Sub-Committee on Political Matters (Sri Lanka)

SRSG

Special Representative of the Secretary-General

SSNP

Syrian Socialist National Party

SSR

security sector reform

SSWC

Save Somali Women and Children

STD

sexually transmitted disease

STI

sexually transmitted infection

TB

tuberculosis

TCC

Troop Contributing Country

TNT

trinitrotoluene

UK

United Kingdom

UN

United Nations

UNAMID

African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur

UNDDR

United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNDPKO

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations

UNECHA

United Nations Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

UNGA

United Nations General Assembly

UNHCR

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNICEF

United Nations Children’s Fund

UNIFEM

United Nations Development Fund for Women

UNITA

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

UNODA

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs

UNRWA

United Nations Relief and Works Agency

UNSC

United Nations Security Council

UNSCR

United Nations Security Council Resolution

URNG

Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity

US

United States

USA

United States of America

USCRI

United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants

USDOD

United States Department of Defense

VA

United States Department of Veterans Affairs

WAD

Women and Development

WCRWC

Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children

WFP

World Food Program

WHO

World Health Organization

WICM

Women in Crisis Movement

WID

Women in Development

WIFM

Women in Forced Migration

WILPF

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

WREI

Women’s Research and Education Institute

WSP

Women Strike for Peace

WTO

World Trade Organization

Contributors

Carol Cohn is Director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her major research interests include gender and armed conflict, the gendered discourses of US national security elites, and gender mainstreaming in international security institutions.

Malathi de Alwis teaches in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology and is currently working on postwar processes of memorialization and reconciliation. She is a co-founder of several feminist peace groups and a member of the Women in Conflict Zones Network (WICZNET).

Pamela DeLargy managed the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) humanitarian programs for almost a decade, advocating for attention to women’s health in humanitarian settings across the world. She played a lead role in the development of UN responses to sexual violence in conflicts. Currently, she is the UNFPA Representative in Sudan.

Linda Eckerbom Cole is the co-founder and executive director of Community Action Fund for Women in Africa, a non-profit organization working with women and girls in conflict and post-conflict areas.

Wenona Giles teaches at York University, working in the areas of gender, migration, refugee issues, ethnicity, nationalism, work, globalization, and war. She coordinated the international Women in Conflict Zones Research Network and recently completed an international research project concerning protracted refugee situations. She is now working on an international collaborative research endeavor to bring higher education degree programs to long-term refugees in camps.

Ruth Jacobson is a former Lecturer at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. In the mid-1980s, she lived and worked in a war zone in Mozambique where she saw the impact on women and girls at close quarters. Subsequently, she has contributed to feminist organizing in the field of humanitarian relief and post-conflict organizations.

Jennifer Mathers is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University. Her major areas of research and teaching include gender and conflict; from 2007–2010 she edited Minerva Journal of Women and War.

Dyan Mazurana is Associate Research Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Research Director at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University. She works with a variety of governments, UN agencies, human rights, and child protection organizations regarding improving efforts to assist youth and women affected by armed conflict, and has worked in Afghanistan, the Balkans, southern, west and east Africa, and Nepal.

Julie Mertus, Professor of Human Rights and Director of the Program on Ethics and Peace at American University, has extensive experience working on gender and conflict issues for a number of governmental and nongovernmental human rights and humanitarian organizations from Albania to Zimbabwe.

Angela Raven-Roberts has managed humanitarian and development programs for organizations including Oxfam America, Save the Children USA, and UNICEF, working in countries including Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia. She holds a PhD in Anthropology, and oversaw the design of the first Master’s of Arts in Humanitarian Assistance (MAHA) degree in the USA, at Tufts University.

Tazreena Sajjad is a Professorial Lecturer at the School of International Service at American University. Her research interests include human rights and conflict, transitional justice, humanitarian intervention, human rights in states of emergency and gender and armed conflict. She has also worked as a human rights practitioner and researcher in Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

Foreword: Gender Analysis Isn’t Easy

I can’t tap dance. I watch old Fred Astaire movies and think, “He makes it look so easy.” There are many things I haven’t learned how to do – to do calculus, to speak Turkish. Thanks to the hard, patient tutoring of so many feminist friends and colleagues, what I have learned how to do is gender analysis. Of course, friends continue to teach me – I’m not “there” yet.

That is, gender analysis is a skill. It’s not a passing fancy, it’s not a way to be polite. And it’s not something one picks up casually, on the run. One doesn’t acquire the capacity to do useful gender analysis simply because one is “modern,” “loves women,” “believes in equality,” or “has daughters.” One has to learn how to do it, practice doing it, be candidly reflective about one’s shortcomings, try again. To develop gender analytical skills, one has to put one’s mind to it, work at it, be willing to be taught by others who know more about how to do it than you do. And, like any sophisticated skill, gender analysis keeps evolving, developing more refined intellectual nuance, greater methodological subtlety. One has to get to the point where one can convincingly describe the processes of gender analysis and its value to others, including to those who are skeptical, distracted, and stressed out. It takes myriad forms of energy to do gender analysis and to convince others of its necessity.

Carol Cohn and her smart contributors, first, are offering us a sophisticated, up-to-date gender analytical tool kit. Second, they are showing us what can be revealed if we learn how to use that gender analytical tool kit.

It’s always more engaging to learn a new set of skills if your guides can show you exactly what you’ll see with these tools that you would otherwise miss – and why those new findings matter. For instance, using their gender analytical skills, these contributors expose the diverse forms of violence wielded during wars: guns and bombs aren’t the only weapons. They pull back the curtain on the differences between girls’ and boys’ experiences of being made to serve in adult men’s fighting forces. “Children” turns out not to be a very useful category when trying to rebuild any society after a war. Cohn’s contributors also show us why we will never usefully understand armed conflicts if we stubbornly focus our attention solely on the immediate war zone; we have to learn how to do gender analyses of refugee camps, of markets, of peace negotiations. Their gender analytical skills make it clear, too, that the months and years so comfortably labeled “postwar” in practice are riddled with wartime ideas about men-as-actors and women-as-victims, misleading ideas that serve to perpetuate the very conditions that set off the conflict in the first place.

The contributors whom Carol Cohn has brought together are among the most experienced users of gender analytical skills in the globally important (and maddeningly complex) field of war, armed conflict and postwar peace-building. Their experiences are of using their gender analytical skills while in the midst of confusing relationships “on the ground.” These are analysts who’ve been in refugee camps where water is short, collecting firewood is risky, power hierarchies are dysfunctional, and donors’ attention spans are short. They are analysts who have sat in long hearings where diplomats with no mud on their shoes decide whether or not a Gender Unit in a peacekeeping operation will get a decent budget. They have talked to women quite reasonably afraid to describe what actually happened to them and their daughters when rival male soldiers swept through their villages. They have met with local women’s groups who have tried to get local male military commanders to listen to their proposals. In New York and capital cities, these gender analysts have lobbied government, nongovernmental organizations, and UN agencies to put aside their usual “only men really matter” ways and, instead, to take women seriously when they evaluate their policies’ outcomes, when they write their peacekeepers’ mandates, and when they allocate their funds.

Thus, as readers, we each can read Women and Wars with the triple aims of acquiring new gender analytical skills; finding out what the causes and dynamics of armed conflict look like if we view them through a gendered lens; and learning how to convince others to adopt these crucial gender analytical skills. This is the sort of book you’ll want to make notes on, quote to others, take with you in your knapsack.

Cynthia Enloe

Acknowledgments

No piece of intellectual work is ever solely the product of one mind, and this is perhaps nowhere more true than in the case of a textbook designed to introduce readers to the tremendously rich literature about women and war. This book would not exist without the indefatigable efforts of activists, scholars, and practitioners around the world who work to prevent wars or to bring them more swiftly to an end, to expose wars’ gendered workings, and to construct a less violent, more just world. It has been my pleasure and privilege to get know many of them, and to read and read about many more; I deeply regret that this book cannot begin to do justice to the complexity of their thinking or to the courage of their work, but I am enormously grateful for all they have taught me, and hope that they find at least some of it reflected in these pages.

So many friends and colleagues have contributed to the ideas in this book, it will be impossible to thank them all. But I must start with two friends, Cynthia Enloe and Sara Ruddick, with whom I have been in rich dialogue for so long that my thinking often feels like an extended conversation with each of them. There are no adequate ways to describe what their friendship, nuanced thought, fearless originality, intellectual honesty, and personal generosity have meant to me.

I am tremendously grateful, too, to Ann Tickner, from whom I have learned so much. She has also been a generously supportive friend and colleague, and a vitally important contributor to this journey. More recently, friendship and collaboration with Malathi de Alwis and Ruth Jacobson has stretched and enriched me both intellectually and personally. My work is also enriched by the writings and friendship of Spike Peterson, Ann Runyan, Jindy Pettman, and many other wonderful colleagues in the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section of the International Studies Association.

I am deeply grateful to Felicity Hill for bringing me into the “women, peace and security” advocacy networks that have coalesced around UNSCR 1325, and for the world that opened up to me. I appreciate her great generosity in all that she taught me, as well as her political acuity, wicked wit, and the kitchen table conversations. Jennifer Klot has been an invaluable guide to the UN system, and has taught me a tremendous amount – perhaps even more than I really wanted to know – about the policy, political and analytic challenges of addressing issues of women and war at the UN. In and around the UN, I have also been lucky to have the friendship and education offered by, among others, Sheri Gibbings, Sylvia Hordosch, Maha Muna, Nadine Puechguirbal, Kristin Valasek, and my sisters in the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. Additionally, it has been a great pleasure and honor to learn from colleagues such as Balghis Badri, Cynthia Cockburn, Luz Méndez, Ndeye Sow, and Dubravka Zarkov.

I have benefited from a very supportive institutional home in the time I have worked on this book. I wish to thank my faculty and administrator colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Boston, including Ann Blum, Elora Chowdhury, Amani El Jack, Jean Humez, Rajini Srikanth, Dean Donna Kuizenga, and Provost Winston Langley for their friendship, support, vision, and wonderful scholarship. Most critically, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my Associate Director at the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, Sandra McEvoy, who has been exceptionally generous, skilled, committed and hardworking in keeping all of the moving parts of our complex program functioning and making such a success of it – enabling me to pour the necessary time and energy into this manuscript. She is a valued interlocutor, scholar, co-teacher, and all-around co-conspirator who enriches every dimension of my and the Consortium’s work.

This book has truly been a collective effort. The idea for it was hatched between Louise Knight, of Polity Press, and Laura Sjoberg, who brought me into the project. I am grateful to Laura for the extensive work she put into the early stages of this project, and to Louise, Emma Hutchinson, and David Winters at Polity for their support and guidance throughout the development of this book, and for their patience. The early stages of this project also benefited greatly from the collective wisdom of the “April 11th group,” which came together to brainstorm the conceptual framework for the book; participants included Dinu Abdella, Cynthia Enloe, Ruth Jacobson, Ramina Johal, Milkah Kihunah, Jennifer Klot, Dyan Mazurana, Sandy McEvoy, Julie Mertus, Sonali Moonesinghe, Selma Scheewe, and Laura Sjoberg.

I am most grateful to the contributors, not only for their excellent work, but for sticking with this project through delays and innumerable editorial requests. Additionally, Malathi de Alwis, Cynthia Enloe, Ruth Jacobson, and Dyan Mazurana have been treasured compatriots throughout this process, offering moral and intellectual support when it was needed most.

Many colleagues generously shared their time and expertise, reading and commenting on various drafts. In particular, I’d like to thank the following people for their very useful feedback on one or more chapters: Megan Bastik; Joshua Chaffin; Catia Confortini; Malathi de Alwis; Bina D’Costa; Marsha Henry; Sandra Krause; Sarah Masters; Megan Mackenzie; Sandra McEvoy; Dyan Mazurana; Luz Méndez; Nida Naqvi; Isis Nusair; Laura Sjoberg; Inger Skjelsbæk; and Elisabeth Wood. I am also grateful to Polity Press’s two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.

In working to produce a book that is accessible and useful to both undergraduate and graduate students, it has been a great gift to have Consortium interns and students who were willing to read and offer comments on drafts of chapters. In particular, I would like to thank Emily Baum, Katie Davis, Chloe Diamond-Lenow, Cassandra Hawkins, Laura Matson, Mary Helen Pombo, Marie Puccio, Harin Song, Helena Wahlstrom, Jill Williams, Ayala Wineman, and the students of the Fall 2010 Honors Seminar 380-02 at UMass Boston. Additionally, valuable research and manuscript production assistance was also provided by Consortium interns Jane Lief Abell, Emily Campbell, Hyomi Carty, Gina Choi, Alexa Cleary, Brenna Doyle, Delia Flanagan, Mary Glenn, Jodi Guinn, Cassandra Hawkins, Mallory Hennigar, Wendy Jepson, Tavish MacLeod, Laura Matson, Shannon Nolan, Mary Helen Pombo, Anya Priester, Hannah Roberts, Jillian Rubman, Kelsi Stein, Cara Wagner, Jill Williams, and Ayala Wineman.

Critically, there are two main people whose support in the preparation of this manuscript has been extraordinarily generous and skilled, and whose loyalty and endless hours of hard work far surpass anything I could ever repay. Azure Mauche has been the citation wizard, the reference detective, the biblio graphy queen – a tremendous challenge in a book with multiple contributors situated around the world. I am enormously grateful to her for taking on this demanding, frustrating task in the midst of a complicated and demanding life (and claiming to enjoy it). Caitlin Lucey has been a partner extraordinaire in every aspect of getting this manuscript done. Her dedicated and tireless efforts have included multiple readings of every chapter, resourceful research assistance, proofing, formatting, and checking and double-checking everything. She has been intellectual sounding board, technical problem-solver, and morale booster, with the focus of a laser and the patience of a saint. I am in awe, and enormously grateful.

It is customary to “last but not least” thank one’s family; the incommensurability between that formulation and what one’s closest family members both give and put up with is hard to fathom. My family’s love, support, understanding, and forbearance have meant the world to me. I owe special words of appreciation to my grandmother Edna, an extraordinary human being and activist, whose 1916 high school valedictory speech on “Women in the Current War Effort” still tickles and teaches me; to my mother Helen, who taught me more than I can say; and to my daughter Mariel, for all the joy.

CHAPTER 1

Women and Wars: Toward a Conceptual Framework

Carol Cohn

This is a book about the relationships between women and wars: the impacts wars have on women, the ways women participate in wars, the varying political stances women take toward war, and the ways in which women work to build peace.

There is an old story about war. It starts with war being conceived of as a quintessentially masculine realm: in it, it is men who make the decisions to go to war, men who do the planning, men who do the fighting and dying, men who protect their nation and their helpless women and children, and men who negotiate the peace, divide the spoils, and share power when war is over.

In this story, women are sometimes present, but remain peripheral to the war itself. They raise sons they willingly sacrifice for their country, support their men, and mourn the dead. Sometimes they have to step in and take up the load their men put down when they went off to fight; they pick up the hoe, or work in a factory producing goods crucial to the war effort – but only as long as the men are away. To the men in battle, they symbolize the alternative – a place of love, caring, and domesticity, and indeed, all that is good about the nation which their heroic fighting protects.

The gendered reality of war is far more complex than this old story portrays. War itself is more complexly gendered than this masculinized story allows, and women’s role in and experience of war is far more integral and varied. In this book, we will show that one cannot understand either women’s relation to war or war itself without understanding gender, and understanding the ways that war and gender are, in fact, mutually constitutive.

Which women? Which wars?

The starting point for thinking about women and wars must be that women’s experiences of war and their relations to war are extremely diverse. Women both try to prevent wars and instigate wars. They are politically supportive of wars, and they protest against wars. Women are raped, tortured, maimed, and murdered, they are widowed, the children they have nurtured are lost to violence; but women are also members and supporters of the militaries and armed groups that commit these acts. Women stay home, resolutely striving to sustain family and community relationships; and women are displaced, living in camps without any of the structures that they have built to make life possible. Women are empowered by taking on new roles in wartime, and disempowered by being abducted from their homes and forced into armed groups or military prostitution. When the war is over, women work to rebuild their communities, and women are ejected from their families and communities because they have been raped, or been combatants, or lost a limb to a landmine.

The diversity of women’s experiences of and relations to war is due to both diversity among women and diversity among wars. “Women,” of course, are not a monolithic group, but instead individuals whose identities, options, and experiences are shaped by factors including their age, economic class, race, clan, tribe, caste, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, physical ability, culture, geographic location, state citizenship and national identity, and their positioning in both local and global economic processes. Their relations to war are shaped by, but not reducible to, these multiple factors; they are also thinkers who make their own sense of the multiple social, cultural, economic, and political forces which structure their lives. The multiplicity of these factors and the sense women make of them gives rise to contradictory interests among women, and even within any particular woman. This means that attempts to generalize about “women and war,” while in some ways unavoidable in a book of this kind, always run the risk of doing conceptual violence to the realities of women’s lives. And that we must, at a minimum, reject comfortable assumptions such as “women are naturally more peaceful than men” or “women are war’s victims,” and instead commit to exploring the specificity of different women’s relations to wars and the multitude of factors which shape those relations.