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Volume 13 Numbers 2&3
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Guest Editorial
Much has been written about women’s suffering in times of war but, despite the lip-service, little has actually been done to address it. Contributors to this issue of Development in Practice discuss conflicts that have raged throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe over the past century and highlight the commonalities of some of what women experience during wars and their potential to contribute both to war and particularly to peace. They consider some of the reasons why women’s concerns have yet to be placed at the forefront of both analysis and practical outcomes, and present an overview of different feminist approaches to peace building and conflict resolution, as well as concrete policy measures to achieve these ends. The authors address major conceptual and practical problems in the hope of paving the way towards establishing effective strategies that might help us realise the goals of female empowerment and gender equity that have been written about for decades. They argue that it is important to move beyond the myriad projects that involve women to consider the factors that contribute to the relatively poor overall impact of such projects, an outcome which often results from a failure to understand underlying gendered power relations and the dynamics of social change.
Many of the papers published in this issue were presented at two meetings held at the University of York: a February 2001 conference organised by International Alert and Dr Sultan Barakat, director of the Post War Reconstruction and Development Unit; and a subsequent meeting in May 2002 of the Women and Development Study Group of the Development Studies Association (DSA). The organisers and contributors were acutely aware of the dearth of literature and analysis on the situation of women in conflict, post-conflict, and reconstruction, and of the fact that what does exist remains too much at the level of rhetoric and has yet to be translated into concrete and effective measures. The contributors to this special issue of Development in Practice therefore focus on women on the ground: what happens to them during wars and what their demands are in the subsequent periods of peace and reconstruction. The contributions to the two meetings on women and war and to this issue come from academic and practitioner backgrounds and have sought to combine their theoretical and practical knowledge in order to forge more effective measures and suggest changes that could lead to the inclusion of women at all stages of post-war and reconstruction processes. The aim is to consider the practicalities of meeting the specific gendered demands that must be taken into account, understood, and then placed at the forefront of policy making.
The papers begin by offering an overview of the situation of women at times of war and peace which explodes some prevalent myths, including the assumption that there is a war front that is separate from the home front and that women are always the victims in times of conflict. The authors thereafter argue that such analysis is simplistic and that at times the very terminology used to define conflict, war, and war front can be misleading. As their papers demonstrate, conflicts can both empower and disempower women, since women can at the same time be included in practice and yet excluded ideologically, or they may be both victims and agents of change - though they often have no effective choice in these matters. They may opt to be fighters and yet be attacked and raped; they may choose to assist as back-up support and yet simultaneously find themselves and their homes in the firing line. They may be caught in transgressions (such as cross-division marriages) which could have been bridges towards peace but may instead have become causes of hatred and war. Through the hardships they experience, many women do develop visions of peace that are rooted in their shared suffering, but that cannot be translated into negotiations that are themselves anchored in hatred, and bounded by geographical, religious, and historical divisions that ignore the commonality of experiences that women know so well. The views and experiences of such women are too complex to be included in documents that simply divide up territories and allocate material resources.
Peace processes, whether at the local, national, or the international level, seldom include the perspectives that emerge from women’s shared suffering. Even the choices that many women make at times of war and conflict may still be condemned when peace is being negotiated, or they may be rejected once formal peace has been achieved: all too often women are expected to abandon any positions of responsibility and authority they may have achieved when the men were at war and are expected to return to the domestic realm if and when peace returns. Commonly, what the returning warriors bring home is violence, fear, and domination, while their women are expected to bear the pain and remain silent and submissive in the name of peace and unity. The crisis of masculinity and difficulties of facing ‘the enemies within’ make it hard, if not impossible, to include some of the demands that women would wish to make as part of the processes of peace making. There is as yet little hope that national boundaries will be abandoned. Nationalism and national identities are unlikely to be discarded even though women generally lack the right to bestow such identities, despite having been given the duty of protecting them.
In the first paper of this issue, Donna Pankhurst sets out the overall framework, while in the second I outline the challenges that still must be confronted in mainstreaming women and their demands. Along with other contributors, these two essays argue that these demands are multi-layered and not easily perceived; and nor can they be remedied simply by the use of politically correct language. Given that it is often impossible to use straightforward analytical categories, since women cut across boundaries and cannot be defined as a single group, the task becomes all the more difficult at times of war and unrest. Pankhurst notes that women have greatly contrasting experiences of war, experiences that are also mediated by differences in age, class, and regional or ethnic backgrounds. That said, women have been less likely than men to initiate wars and have, universally, been ascribed the identity of victims. But such generalisations also hide the reality that women seldom have a choice about whether they are indeed victims or active participants. There are no longer war fronts and, as it were, ‘backs’ or areas ‘behind the lines’, since homes, schools, hospitals, public highways, and even personal relationships are often part of the arena of war. Men and women who marry across the invisible boundaries of faith and ethnicity find themselves torn by subsequent conflicts, as has been the case of pre-war and subsequent marriages between Muslims and Christians in the former Yugoslavia and between Shiias and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. There is little choice about victimhood when individuals cannot break away from the constraints placed upon them by tight-gripping ethnic, religious, or regional identities.
In her contribution, Judy El-Bushra argues that to understand the problems it is important to adopt an approach based upon a gender analysis that can describe the situations of men and women. This analysis might well indicate that both sexes are ‘excluded’, albeit in different ways. She suggests that gender relations may well change through conflict: for instance, at moments of crisis there is often more political space for women to take on men’s roles in their absence. But positive experiences must be placed in the context of the daily pain, suffering, and deprivation that wars bring to civilians. As Pankhurst, El-Bushra, and I argue, conflicts may be simultaneously empowering and disempowering. They erode gender barriers but burden women with greater responsibilities that are not then easily translated into power. The need to cope makes women more independent, more effective, more active, yet they also feel ‘a desperate solitude’: conflicts break asunder family units and extended kinship networks, and deprive entire communities of their beloved sons, husbands, and sometimes daughters as well, leaving women in charge of destitute families.
However, although gender barriers may become more fluid, gender identities often do not change, and the emphasis on motherhood and domesticity remains central to the survival of the entire community. At such times women may be able to exercise more control over whom they marry and when, but they cannot shirk the maternal and family duties that become harder to meet as the conflict deprives them still further of resources and opportunities. Maternal roles are often translated into symbols of nationhood and, as in the case of mothers of martyrs, almost an emblem of conflict. But generally, women cannot use this shared suffering to form a chain to link the opposing parties through their common understanding of loss and sorrow.
Conflicts may propel women into a more active arena, but at the same time rapid changes in gender roles may create a crisis of masculinity. El-Bushra argues that conflict generates confusion for both men and women about what values should be retained, and this in turn creates a wider social crisis. The outcome of the tension between the underlying gender relations and the new forms which conflict makes necessary have a spiral effect as one consequence leads to others, making it difficult to pinpoint what is cause and what is effect. All too often the outcome appears to be a return to ossified pre-conflict gender ideologies. Pankhurst and El-Bushra, as well as Maria Holt, note the importance of analysing the impact of these changing roles in relation to masculinity and of recognising the likely negative outcomes that a crisis of masculinity might have on post-war resolution.
But despite the many shortcomings and problems, women activists have continued to struggle to obtain a voice and to improve their overall condition. The second part of this issue focuses on peace making and peace keeping, especially on developing peace in ways that comprehensively include women as participants and as beneficiaries. Here, our contributors argue that the most difficult problem is that, despite the rhetoric, development and reconstruction programmes have remained largely gender blind. Peace-building processes have frequently been focused on short-term measures initiated and administered by organisations that are themselves patriarchal and hierarchical, and whose recruitment processes continue to be anchored in the ‘old boys network’ and rigid hierarchies. Unless the relevant organisations change, there will be little hope to truly empower women within their newly emerging societies. To achieve peace and democratisation, national and international agencies need to focus on dealing with the problems of existing power structures and must seek to develop processes that might be able to reform them and thus open the way to a better representation of women and their interests. As Lesley Abdela shows in her essay, changing the gendered nature of hierarchy is never easy, and at times it may even appear virtually impossible: there is still a tendency for international powers to choose and appoint all-male transitional governments who, inevitably, are poorly qualified to represent women’s interests in the nation-building process. Abdela suggests a complete rethinking of peace-building strategies and supports Chris Corrin’s view that the democratisation process has to be properly thought through over the long term with appropriate levels and types of investment and the inclusion of women at all levels. Thus, change is needed not only within the countries experiencing conflict but also within international agencies and their working methods.
All the above challenges and difficulties notwithstanding, the contributors demonstrate that it is possible to make some inroads. Working with women and reflecting on their views, Abdela argues that securing women-centred democratisation, albeit fraught with difficulties, remains an important and feasible objective. However, as Angela Mackay demonstrates, translating aims into reality is never easy. Training peacekeepers, both uniformed and civilian, about gender and about women and children’s human rights is a complex and difficult process. Mackay demonstrates that providing culturally sensitive and effective gender training for peacekeepers, a project she has been involved with in recent years, may be hard but is nevertheless essential and can go a long way towards removing blinkered visions and enabling the trainees to understand how they can make a difference and take responsibility for their own actions. Inviting the peacemakers and the peacekeepers to think through the prevailing gender blindness can in the long run open the way to more sensitive practices. Training the peacekeepers is challenging but rewarding, and gender awareness should become part and parcel of the basic skills requirements of all peacekeepers.
Corrin and Elaheh Rostami Povey highlight the necessity of including women activists who have worked at the grassroots level in times of war because they have much to contribute to peace building as well as to the decision-making process in the post-war period. Perhaps the most effective means of facilitating women’s access to power would be through the provision of effective training, education, and schooling. Long-term investments in such infrastructure could help to build up the basis for real democratisation, in contrast to short-term investments in repeated exercises in voting which often reproduce existing power structures. Corrin argues that skill reconstruction, rehabilitation, and democracy building can be effective only if and when there is a gender audit in place to help identify and minimise discriminatory practices. Inclusiveness requires dialogue and understanding, and, above all, an awareness that the process is both lengthy and expensive: education systems have to be rebuilt and infrastructure has to be put in place and sustained. But these investments, and the training of women for managerial roles, all form part of the process that could ‘develop peace’.
The authors believe that, despite the difficulties, the diverse and effective coping mechanisms that women have developed during war and conflict could be an invaluable resource to facilitate their success in the post-war context. At times of conflict, women use their family networks and friendship skills to build solidarity groups to deal with both immediate and long-term problems. Often, as in the case of Palestine and Afghanistan among others, women assume positions that allow them to intervene not only to help with short-term needs but also to defend women’s rights and seek to secure a better position for them in the long term. The articles by Corrin, Abdela, Holt, Rostami Povey, El-Bushra, and Ann Jordan show that, ultimately, the success and effectiveness of such groups depend very much on prevailing political circumstances. Jordan provides clear examples of the variety of ways in which women have been effective peace workers and offers possible avenues for empowering them to continue in this role.
In all cases, the diversity of cultures and norms, as well as the differences in backgrounds, ages, and aspirations among women, make it impossible for researchers to produce formulistic proposals on how to ensure the integration of women in peace-building processes and in eventual democratisation. The need to include women in such processes has finally been accepted. But, as with every other feminist demand, there remains a gap between theory and practice. The articles in this issue offer a number of proposals that advocate programmes and policies that are more culturally specific, more focused, more long-term, and far more in-depth than is usually the case when dealing with women and war, and that begin with women from the bottom up. These proposals come from both academics and practitioners: some of the authors included in this special issue have studied the problems addressed here from an academic perspective over a long period of time, while others are actively involved in peace-building processes and the delivery of programmes on the ground. The hope is that funds will follow the practitioners and practice will follow the theories sooner rather than later.
Haleh Afshar
University of York, UKAcknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr Sultan Barakat and the Post War Reconstruction and Development Unit, as well as the Development Studies Association’s (DSA) Women and Development Group, for organising the meetings at which a number of these papers were presented and discussed. I also thank International Alert and the DSA for their financial and infrastructural help in organising these meetings. I would like to thank my wonderful friends and colleagues who wrote and presented the papers. I am most grateful to the many who patiently accepted the comments and suggestions of the editors and referees and revised their articles accordingly. I also owe a debt of gratitude to them for meeting the deadlines. I am particularly appreciative of one colleague who even thought of us on her wedding day and put the finishing touches to her article before donning the blue garter! Above all I would like to thank Deborah Eade, who was gracious, helpful, and forgiving of the myriad mistakes that I have made during our collaboration. She has remained positive about the project, supportive when I could find no way to go, and encouraging when the way seemed barred. She has been a friend indeed and I am most grateful.
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