(En)Gendering the Small Arms Discourse: Women and the Management of Violent Conflicts in Africa

Abstract

Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) proliferation portends great danger to the security and wellbeing of all societies. This also, in many ways, undermines sustainable peace and continental integration in Africa and contributes to the exacerbation of conflict and increased lethality of violence in the numerous violent hotspots in the continent. For this reason, African states, with the support of donor governments and organizations, have actively taken actions in initiating efforts to counteract this menace. However, these initiatives and plans of actions have generally undermined the capacity of women as actors in this particular aspect of the security sector. Thus based on the critical perspective on gendered construction of violence and security, this chapter interrogates the recognition and inclusion of women’s roles and ideas in the discourse on violent conflicts and small arms proliferation in Africa. The chapter shows that general perspectives in conceptualization of conflict and small arms proliferation have been based on the normative culture and beliefs that gun ownership and use are traits of masculinity and aspects of the notion of masculine identity. As a result, policies and practice frameworks addressing small arms proliferation and its related violent conflicts tend to either exclude women or downplay their roles or participations. The chapter therefore recommends that academic and policy discourse around these subjects should refer more to the critical/post-structural perspective while designing policies and action strategies for more effective and comprehensive impact. This is because while respecting the gendered masculinity of small arms and violent conflict, the critical perspective would proffer that security scholars and practitioners are to be conscious and vigilant for such masculine traits as they emerge or manifest in all human actors in any given context, and not focus mainly on male actors (Men) with little or no attention paid to the female actors (Women).