Abstract
In her lecture, ‘Are women peaceful?’, Professor Hilary Charlesworth outlines what she perceives to be the current orthodoxies of the international women and conflict discourse. These include assumptions that women are natural peace-builders, suffer more from conflict, have a right to participate in peace processes, and that gender should be mainstreamed. Based on Charlesworth’s analysis, the authors argue that wars and peace processes are inherently gendered affairs and as a consequence a focus on equality or mainstreaming of gender remains challenging. The authors also note that although equality is a useful platform for ensuring women’s participation in peace processes, feminists should not expect equality arguments to do more than they were designed to do, that is, to ensure seats for women at decision-making tables. Ensuring that women can put forth their concerns and that they are listened to demands a different set of tools.
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Acknowledgements
Writing of this commentary by Sari Kouvo was assisted by post-doctoral funding from the Swedish Science Foundation within the framework of the project Sexualisering av det offentliga rummet and a fellowship at the NATO Defense College. This commentary has also benefited from Dr. Kouvo’s work with the International Centre for Transitional Justice. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors—and not official opinions of their institutions.
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Dr. Sari Kouvo is Senior Program Fellow of the International Centre for Transitional Justice. Corey Levine is currently a Senior Protection Officer with ProCap, a UN inter-agency protection roster.
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Kouvo, S., Levine, C. Calling a Spade a Spade: Tackling the ‘Women and Peace’ Orthodoxy. Fem Leg Stud 16, 363–367 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-008-9102-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-008-9102-5