The 'sex war' and other wars: towards a feminist approach to peace building

Donna Pankhurst

Introduction

For more than a decade, resolutions from the United Nations and the European Commission have highlighted women's suffering during wars, and the unfairness of their treatment upon the return to peace. Over the past few years there thus has been an increasing interest in women's experiences during war and their potential capabilities for peace, but this interest has not led to significant improvements in women's lives during and after armed struggle. They still have highly distinct experiences of conflict which tend to leave them marginalised in peace negotiations and significantly disadvantaged with the onset of peace. This paper considers the various explanations for this lack of positive change.

One of the charges which might be made against both actors and analysts of conflict is that of conceptual confusion. Conflict is a word often used loosely to mean many different things despite its long history in social science. Most types of social, political, and economic change involve conflict of some sort, and one could argue that many of the positive changes in world history have occurred as a result of conflict. How much more confusing, then, is the term peace! With much less of a social science tradition behind it, peace is a term which is not only subject to very little conceptual scrutiny, but is also declared, with little qualification, as a political objective for which compromises, and indeed sacrifices, are to be made.

In the mix of such ambiguities about these two terms, blindness about gender inequality (often among other inequalities) commonly rests unchallenged, and the inequality itself thrives. There is a sophisticated analytical literature on the history of women and gender relations during and after war which is persistently ignored by many prominent writers on conflict, conflict resolution, and peace building in favour of newly coined terms and observations which are very seldom rooted in analyses of historical social, political, and economic change. There is now perhaps greater international political will to improve the position of women after wars end (if not actually during war) than ever before, yet there is little evidence of much positive change. Women's concerns are still rarely heard, let alone addressed, by policy makers during peace settlements.

I begin, therefore, with a preliminary review of the conceptual debates from literature on conflict and peace, and women and gender relations, and then I consider these issues during the peace-building process. The questions I seek to address in the paper are derived from concerns about sloppy conceptual thinking on conflict and peace, and on the nature of gender politics in 'post-conflict' situations. Specifically, I ask why extreme forms of gender inequality persist and what can be done to improve the situation for most women in peace-building contexts.

Concepts of conflict and peace

Accepting that no straightforward technical definition (such as more conventional approaches to the categorisations of battles and wars in terms of the numbers of casualties) is likely to encapsulate the complexities of contemporary conflicts in much of the world today, observers frequently present descriptive typologies of conflicts which feature organised and/or collective violence. Violent conflicts emerging since the end of the Cold War have commonly been called ethnic conflict, social conflict, and civil conflict, along with international social conflict where there is some cross-border activity or other states are involved. These descriptive terms are intended to capture the much cited observation that 90 per cent of today's casualties of war are civilians (Lake 1990), as well as to convey something about their causes. Competing identities are often added to the list of root causes, whether conceived in terms of an essentialist ethnicity, or regionalism, or tensions over state formation, or marginality to the global economy (Miall et al. 1999:1–38).

The prevalent use of the word 'conflict', rather than 'war', is also a reflection of today's complexities, with violence characterised by stops and starts, fluid boundaries, battlegrounds in residential areas, and civilian casualties. However attractive the term 'conflict' is as a convenient device to catch all these phenomena, it also entails a lack of clarity about what exactly is being discussed. The word may thus be used interchangeably to refer to a conflict of interest or to the violent expression of conflict. The question hardly arises as to how or why this 'conflict' situation is different from what is 'normal', as typologies of conflict tend not to be connected to deeper, more sophisticated analyses of the places about which they are commenting. Moreover, there is very little discussion in much of the writing on 'conflict analysis' or 'conflict resolution' on the impact of certain types of social relations on the specific forms of violence, let alone engagement with theories of human or social behaviour.

There is an emerging common approach which divides the causes of conflict between underlying causes – which might commonly be seen as 'structural inequalities' – and 'triggers' – factors which tip such situations into violent conflict. There is as yet no comprehensive, convincing account of why difficult pre-existing conditions (including economic hardship and acute competition over resources between communities with different identities) lead to violent outbreaks of conflict in some places, but not in others. Without clarity about the significance of similarity and difference between conflicts, it will remain difficult to assess with any reliability the chances of transition to peace. For instance, while it remains unclear precisely what weight to give particular economic circumstances in assessing the causes of a particular conflict, it also remains unclear what impact they may have on the chances of success of any peace-building strategy. Improved economic circumstances always feature on wish-lists for peace, but the connections between violence and economic conditions are complex, not simple.

A rather narrower conception of conflict that is still prevalent derives from a kind of 'socio-psychological model' (Duffield 1997:90 in Annex 1). Here, the cause of conflict is seen as being disagreement, or breakdown of communication, between individuals or groups. Violent manifestations of conflict are therefore viewed as irrational and, almost by definition, based upon misunderstandings. The mechanisms through which people and organisations might be able to achieve peace are therefore seen to be those which strengthen (or even establish) channels of communication between conflicting groups and individuals, such as mediation and mediation training, and conflict-resolution workshops. Such activity is focused at the micro level, and is geared towards the minimisation of violence per se.

Such techniques are not readily able to address the links between economic insecurity or inequality and violence. Indeed, their very logic, which often focuses on lack of understanding and empathy as the driving force behind violence, can occasionally suggest that at times there is a need to play down the significance of such economic 'root causes' and other aggravating political circumstances (such as corrupt government administration). Furthermore, where the 'psycho-social' model of conflict informs external interventions, interpreting violence as the consequence of poor understanding, it may be assumed that all people involved in the conflict are victims, no matter what role they play during the conflict. Such a view can lead to serious political and social tension if it is relied upon during the processes of peace building.

Turning to the meanings of the term 'peace', Galtung's (1985) conception of negative peace has come into widespread use, and is probably the most common meaning given to the word, i.e. the end or absence of widespread violent conflict associated with war. A 'peaceful' society in this sense may therefore include a society in which social violence (against women, for instance) and/or structural violence (in situations of extreme inequality, for example) are prevalent. Moreover, this limited 'peace goal', of an absence of specific forms of violence associated with war, can and often does lead to a strategy in which all other goals become secondary. The absence of analysis of the deeper (social) causes of violence also paves the way for peace agreements that leave major causes of violent conflict completely unresolved. Negative peace may therefore be achieved by accepting a worse state of affairs than that which motivated the outburst of violence in the first place, for the sake of (perhaps short-term) ending organised violence.

Galtung's alternative vision, that of positive peace, requires not only that all types of violence be minimal or non-existent, but also that the major potential causes of future conflict be removed. In other words, major conflicts of interest, as well as their violent manifestation, need to be resolved. Positive peace encompasses an ideal of how society should be, but the details of such a vision often remain implicit, and are rarely discussed. Some ideal characteristics of a society experiencing positive peace would include: an active and egalitarian civil society; inclusive democratic political structures and processes; and open and accountable government. Working towards these objectives opens up the field of peace building far more widely, to include the promotion and encouragement of new forms of citizenship and political participation to develop active democracies. It also opens up the fundamental question of how an economy is to be managed, with what kind of state intervention, and in whose interests. But more often than not discussion of these important issues tends to be closed off, for the sake of 'ending the violence', leaving major causes of violence and war unresolved – including not only economic inequalities, but also major social divisions and the social celebration of violent masculinities.

An egalitarian vision of 'positive peace' also embodies equality between ethnic and regional groups, and, though mentioned far less often, among the sexes. Enloe defines peace in feminist terms as 'women's achievement of control over their lives' (Enloe cited in Kelly 2000:48), which she regards as requiring 'not just the absence of armed and gender conflict ... but also the absence of poverty and the conditions which recreate it' (Kelly op. cit.). However, the details of these larger peace goals highlighted by Enloe are rarely discussed among those involved in conflict situations and their potential resolution, which serves to eclipse gender issues at the point of peace settlements and in post-conflict situations. Where the question of pursuing greater gender equality does arise at the point of a settlement, it is not uncommon for it to be seen as neither essential nor urgent in peace building. In some cases, changes in gender relations are even cast as jeopardising the survival of peace. For example, many women in liberation movements have commented that they were accused of thwarting their movement's aims by exposing the sexist and violent behaviour of their male comrades, or even by concentrating their political activity specifically on women's concerns.

The marginalisation of gender issues is not merely a political and tactical position of those at the forefront of negotiations, however. Scholars and analysts in the fields of conflict analysis and conflict resolution (CR) 'discovered' gender later than development studies (DS) or international relations (IR) (Pankhurst and Pearce 1997). As noted by an increasing number of scholars, the process of taking gender more seriously as an analytical category within DS seems to have responded to an 'efficiency imperative'. This 'efficiency imperative' has been illustrated most clearly and extensively by Elson (1995), and has for some time been commonplace among major organisations. In essence, many development policies often failed because they ignored gender issues, and it became apparent (through the theoretical and empirical work of feminist academics and practitioners) that if gender were taken into account a far greater degree of success could be achieved. Clearly, this story is more complex and complicated than I can elaborate here, but, in any case, gender has as a result become more or less mainstreamed in some key areas of development work, at least to a far greater degree than in IR.

If this explanation for the gendering of DS is correct, then in order for a similar push to occur in CR (or IR, for that matter) a related 'policy-wing' would need to benefit in some way by taking gender seriously. Until recently this was not perceived to be the case; settlements to conflicts could be found not only without the involvement of women, but also at the very expense of women as a gender. It was thought that gender considerations made no difference to the ability to find a settlement, or to the chances of that settlement holding. In other words, negative peace could be achieved in conditions of gender inequality, with no 'efficiency imperative' to push for change, and sexual politics not sufficiently developed to make it a problem not to change.

More recently, with the extension of conflict resolution into post-conflict policies, gender issues have come to be seen as far more central, and as directly affecting the efficacy of peace-building initiatives, even if women still remain marginalised at the point of brokering a settlement, as I show below. This shift has not yet led back into reconceptions of the impact of gender relations on the conditions of conflict or peace. Nor has it led to a change in women's experiences of conflict or peace building, to which I now turn.

Women's wars

For many years, the roles of women in war and other types of violent conflict remained almost invisible throughout the world. Accounts of war, through news reporting, government propaganda, novels, cinema, etc., tended to cast men as the 'doers' and women as the passive, innocent, victims. In poor countries, wars were not portrayed in quite the same way, but stories of the courage and bravery of men as fighters have also tended to eclipse the active roles which women have played. As women's experiences have become more broadly known, it has become clear that there are many different ways in which women live through and participate in wars: as fighters, community leaders, social organisers, workers, farmers, traders, welfare workers, among other roles. Nonetheless, many conflict narratives highlight a common theme of women seeking to minimise the effects of violence through their different social roles. Stories of women actively seeking to end wars have received increasing international attention. The bravery of those women who go against the general tide of opinion, and sometimes literally place themselves in the line of fire, has come to be much celebrated.