Gender and New Wars

Abstract

War plays an important role in the construction of gender, or the social roles of men and women. This article analyzes the gendered experience of what Kaldor calls "new wars." It shows that new wars are largely fought by men in the name of a political identity that usually has a significant gender dimension. They use tactics that involve deliberate attacks on civilians, including systematic rape as a weapon of war, and are financed by predatory economic activities that tend to affect women more than men. The article describes the ways in which laws relating to gendered violence have been strengthened since the 1990s, arguing that implementation has been very weak. The article concludes that the construction of masculinity in new wars, in contrast to the heroic warrior of "old wars," is much more contradictory and insecure. On the one hand, extreme gender differences can only be secured through continued violence; on the other hand, the very contradictory and insecure character of masculinity offers a potential for alternatives. By looking at new wars through a gender lens, it is possible to identify policy options that might be more likely to contribute to a sustained peace. These include support for civil society, which tends to involve a preponderance of women, implementation of law at local and international levels, and greater participation of women in all aspects of peacemaking, including peacekeeping and law enforcement. ********** War is a predominantly male activity. It is fought largely by men, and statistics suggest that young men of military age are most likely to be killed in war, whether as combatants or as civilians. (1) This cannot be explained in terms of the biological differences between men and women. Women are capable of being effective soldiers; they can and do join fighting forces, and women get killed in battle as well as in attacks on civilians. Instead, the significance of the predominance of men engaging in warfare lies in the way that gender is constructed in war. In referring to gender, we mean "a set of cultural institutions and practices that constitute the norms and standards of masculinity and femininity." (2) Although individual men and women may not necessarily conform to these stereotypes, masculinity is largely associated with physical strength, action, hardness, and aggression, in contrast to the association between femininity and passivity, empathy, caring, and emotion. In many spheres of life, such as those pertaining to political and military leadership, traits associated with masculinity are valued. (3) But in according greater value to the traits of masculinity, the traits of femininity are correspondingly undervalued, which may lead to discrimination and even gender-based violence against those associated with feminine traits. Many scholars have remarked that war enhances and extols the value of traits associated with masculinity. (4) Indeed, as Steans has noted, "militarists use the myth of war's manliness to define soldierly behaviour and to reward soldiers." (5) Soldiers are deemed "heroes," and this gives rise to the dichotomy between the images of the "protector" (male) and the "protected" (female). Such images are used to legitimize recourse to conflict, thus raising public acceptance of the violence of conflict and of the necessity of subjecting primarily young men to injury and death. These images also disguise both the multiple active roles women play, and the actuality of gender-based violence during conflict. The terms "protected" and "victim" used to describe women imply weakness and subordination, which, in turn, perpetuate women's lack of empowerment in peacetime situations and mask the reality of women's experience of violence and insecurity. Our argument is that there are specific differences in the way gender is constructed in different types of wars. In particular, we suggest that "new wars," as described by Kaldor, can be interpreted as a mechanism for rolling back any gains women may have made in recent decades. …