WOMEN GENDER FEMINISM TERRORISM. PEACE. SECURITY.

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WOMEN - GENDER - FEMINISMTERRORISM. PEACE.
SECURITY.

• POST 9/11 ALL CHANGE/NO CHANGE?
• What are women doing? (Where are the women?)
• How are women or gender being used?
• What difference does this make? (What are the
  effects/functions on?)
• Why do we care?

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3 topics

• Feminism and Terrorism G.W. Bush
• Women and Peace different?
• Women and Security UNSCR 1325

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Feminism/Terrorism

• Suicide bombers?
• http//www.feminista.com/archives/v5n1/dworkin.htm
  l
• Violent women?
• Violence of gender?

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Bushs War on Terror Feminist rhetoric

• Michaele Ferguson W Stands for Women Feminism
  and Security Rhetoric in the Post-9/11 Bush
  Administration, Politics Gender, Volume 1,
  Issue 01, 2005
• Frames help to structure and make sense of our
  world (p.31)
• A close look at words used (throw aways?) in ---
  Bushs feminized security rhetoric
• Bush (admin) uses feminist rhetoric and
  transforms it

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Colin Powell, March 7, 2002

• The worldwide advancement of womens issues is
  not only in keeping with the deeply held values
  of the American people it is strongly in our
  national interest as well

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Feminism/respect/democracy

• Rhetoric of respect sets up the US as
  civilizing and chivalrous (masculinity)

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Democracy/freedom

• Rhetoric of democracy
• Linking up importance of womens rights with
  stable democracy
• So womens rights as an instrumental good

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3 links with democracy

• If Iraq democratises - which clearly includes
  giving citizenship/equal rights to women good
  for US national security
• Links up womens rights with economic prosperity
  women are (apparently) the best entrepreneurs
  in America
• Link between womens rights and SECULAR society
  in Afg and Iraq this would imply rule by
  secularists not shaira law

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Feeling good

• US/Bush rhetoric encompasses womens rights in
  the context of freedom and democracy
• Makes Americans feel good about themselves and
  about the invasions DESPITE the massive
  evidence that womens equality in the US is a
  fragile and shifting thing

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Why do we care?

• Shows strength of appeals to gender (implicit
  and explicit)
• Makes it harder to expose (US) dismantling of
  womens rights - Stealth Misogyny
• Makes it seem increasingly difficulty to
  understand persistence of gender violence

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Women and peace different?

• 2 ways we can think about this
• Maternal thinking Sara Ruddick
• Women in post-conflict zones

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Maternal thinking

• NOT about instinct of biology
• IS about philosophical and thinking
• Links in with standpoint theory and production of
  practices
• Preservation, vulnerability , nurturing

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Women post-conflict

• Post-conflict is a misnomer (like end of war)
• Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Darfur,
  Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Rwanda

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Rwanda

• Rwanda post-conflict HIV/AIDS legacy from mass
  rapes
• Rise in rapes since 1994
• http//web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr4700720
  04

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Northern Ireland

• Peace Women 1970s Nobel peace prize
• Most recently McCartney sisters
• Women actively involved in politics and violence
  of the conflict perhaps in feminized ways
• Rifles in prams grannies with guns
• Hunger strike /dirty protest not allowed by
  the men.
• Most recently the Holy Cross incident
  Protestant women being abusive to little girls
  and/or Catholic mothers using their children
  politically.

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Women and Peace

• Long standing connection.
• Be very careful of this equation makes
  treatment of women who are seen to be NOT
  PEACEFUL very harsh) against nature).
• Womens political activism is it different to
  mens? Why? How? To what effect? (See Simona
  Sharoni)
• Do women practice political agency differently to
  men? More invisible? More effective? (See
  Begonia Aretxaga)

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International security successes?

• 1998 International Criminal Tribunal for the
  Former Yugoslavia setting a precedent that rape
  is a war crime.
• UN Security Council Resolution 1325 passed in
  2000 on Women, Peace and Security - explicit
  connection between womens rights and
  international security.

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United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325
(2000)

• Addresses impact of armed conflict on women and
  girls
• Protection of women and girls and respect for
  their rights
• Gender mainstreaming in the reporting and
  implementation systems of the UN relating to
  conflict peace a security.

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International law for 192 UN member states

• 1325 is highly significant because it is the
  first time the Security Council has devoted an
  entire session to debating women's experiences in
  conflict and post-conflict situations
• Cohn, Kinsella and Gibbings, International
  feminist Journal of Politics, 2004, 61

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UNSCR 1325 a failure?

• Reports by Secretary General 2002 and 2004 to
  address failure of implementation
• Why?
• UNSCR 1325 produces gender ...

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Summing up

• What are women doing? (Where are the women?)
• How are women or gender being used?
• What difference does this make? (What are the
  effects/functions on?)
• Why do we care?
• Production of Gender