Women, Peace, and Security: What Are the Connections? What Are the Limitations?

Abstract

The chapter poses several questions about the gendered nature of the interstate system, the relationship between the arms trade and conflict, and the connection between militarism and patriarchy, gender inequality, and hyper-masculinities. After surveying some of the key contributions made by feminist scholars and activists to the understanding of women, war, peace, and security, the chapter examines military spending and the arms flow to the Middle East and North Africa region and their implications for women’s security and regional peace. Acknowledging the formidable structural, institutional, and cultural obstacles to peace and women’s security, the chapter goes on to describe notable feminist contributions to international peacemaking and continued mobilizations and initiatives for peace and anti-militarism. Sources of data include the World Bank, the United National Development Programme, and the Stockholm Peace Research Institute.

Annex

Feminist Foreign Policy Project: Mission Statement (2019)

We are a collective of activists, academics, and practitioners informed by feminist values of equality, peace, justice, and environmental stewardship.

Through this new Feminist Foreign Policy Project, we seek to contribute to a world without war and violence, where militarism is replaced by cooperation and diplomacy; where poverty is eradicated by replacing capitalist structures of exploitation with sharing, compassionate economies that take care of all people; where the goals of environmental protection, racial equity, and gender equality govern our policy decisions; and where international solidarity is the guiding principle of our foreign policy.

We ground our vision in a long tradition of anti-imperialist feminist praxis. In the 1920s, feminists sought to end the carving up of colonial territories across the world. In 1945, the Women’s International Democratic Federation was founded to support anti-colonial struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In 1985, at the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi, feminists sought to link the destructive effects of structural adjustment (today called neoliberalism) to the fight against apartheid in South Africa and the occupation of Palestine. We see ourselves as moving along the paths forged by these bold, anti-imperialist efforts.

We are at a time in history where the outrageous levels of environmental destruction and militarism put all lives at stake and have long-lasting consequences for future generations and the planet:

• The global arms race triggers international tensions, exacerbates social inequities, and intensifies racialized, gendered, and sexualized violence.

• Conflicts and wars, often exacerbated or caused by external interference, displace vulnerable populations at a massive scale and lead to forced migration. They normalize patriarchal violence against vulnerable women, men, and children, and often intensify attacks on ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities.

• Ever-increasing military spending, along with military recruitment, squanders human and financial resources needed for social development and other people- and environment-oriented sectors, policies, and activities.

• Neoliberal economic policies, including damaging extractive projects, have brought great harm to our environment and communities throughout the Global South—and in the North, too. They have also brought shameful levels of inequality that cannot be allowed to persist. Women, girls, and other oppressed groups suffer the physical, economic, and social consequences of these policies.

The U.S. and other imperial powers have a history of male-dominated military, trade, and aid policies. They use their foreign policies as a means to further the interests of their corporations. They bribe the willing, trick the gullible, use technology to lure the hopeful, and resort to overwhelming military force to punish those who resist. “Humanitarian intervention” is often a mask for foreign control of another country’s resources.

We imagine a future without foreign coercion and without the exploitation of working people and natural resources. An anti-capitalist critique is at the heart of our feminist agenda for global justice.

Although our aim is to help build a worldwide movement for foreign policies of peace and cooperation, we are cognizant of the overwhelming role of the U.S. state—its military-industrial complex, its hundreds of military bases, and its history of instigating or exacerbating conflicts and wars. For this reason, our primary focus will be U.S. foreign policy.

The Feminist Foreign Policy Project will create thematic and regional working groups; forge and strengthen ties with progressive movements, organizations, institutes, networks, and individuals; build a web presence; produce educational materials; issue policy briefs; organize and support rallies; support legislative initiatives; and lift the voices/actions of inspiring feminists working on creative foreign policy initiatives.

The Feminist Foreign Policy Project has a radical vision of hope for the future. We stand firm in our belief that the future will be peaceful and feminist when feminists of all backgrounds and experiences come together to build the base. We will take guidance from the most marginalized women, women who have consistently put their bodies and lives on the frontlines of struggles to ensure a future for their children that is free of oppression and that turns the tide on the environmental catastrophe plaguing our planet. We take guidance from the global social movements that make the linkages between capitalism, militarism, colonial expansion, and environmental destruction.

We invite and welcome like-minded groups and individuals to join us in developing and nurturing interconnected feminist movements that will pressure elected officials and other decision-makers to pursue genuinely feminist foreign policies. We strongly believe in a future where we care for one another and for the planet and invite you to join our table.