Essay: The Gender of War

When one considers women’s roles in war, the precedent set by the contribution to the “war effort” from women is often referenced. Propaganda images from World War Two, like Rosie the Riveter, an American character working in factories in the absence of men, are reflective of society’s understanding of women in conflict (Hagemann, 2020, p.456). Despite the peripherality of women in stories of war, it is not that simple. Women make up more than half of the population, but only a small fraction of debates on violence and war. Why? What role does gender have in these practices, both outlined by the United Nations’ founding Charter as cornerstones of threats to International Peace and Security? Characterized by feminist advocate Carol Cohn with “blurred lines between civilians and combatants” and “high levels of sexual violence ", the new age of war places women at the crux of the crossfire (Cohn, 2013, p.25). Feminist IR theorist Cynthia Enloe explains how the “indistinguishable [class of] ‘women and children’” is particularly vulnerable during modern conflicts (Enloe, 2014, p.1). For women, war is a continuous experience, perpetuated by gendered structures present in conflict and violence. To examine the patriarchal presence of gender in violence, I will address these flawed structures (gender-coding’s impact on vulnerability of women and gendered institutions’ contribution to inequality), how these structures are continued, and their direct impact on women. Paying attention to gender in international relations, through a feminist approach of examining women's experiences from the bottom up, will help to explain the dichotomic nature of political systems, systems where their gendered attributes place women in vulnerable positions to violence and the impacts of war, long before and after conflict has occurred.

To understand the impact of gendered structures on IR, it is important to acknowledge the definitions of recurring terms. Gender is an often-misunderstood term, but in the context of IR, it is described as the “social structure that shapes individual identities and lives”, impacting the “kinds of power and authority” we have (Cohn, 2013, p.3). Patriarchy, on the other hand, explains how men are seen as the heads of families and the leaders of society, explaining the power dynamics present (Enloe, 2014, p.4). It is vital to understand these terms and their role in the paradigms this essay covers.

One influential structure on war and violence is gender coding, where certain characteristics are associated with different gender expressions. The relevance of peace studies as opposed to the study of war explains this imbalance. War, associated with masculine traits like courage, action, and discipline, is seen as an “effective” means of “achieving goals” while peace, associated with feminine items like compromise, tranquillity, and dependence, is often seen as ineffective by the international community Cohn, 2013, p.12). Men are portrayed as those who “make the decision to go to war”, while peace is often campaigned for by women (Jansen, 2006, p.135). Even in terms of humanitarian aid, hard intervention, associated with masculine tasks, such as fixing a water supply, is seen as more impactful to victims than the more feminine-based help, like addressing deep-rooted social issues (Cohn, 2013, p.13). Even weapons associated with masculine traits are given more attention than those associated with feminine traits. For example, nuclear weapons are given more funding, while small arms are given less, just because of their associations (Cohn, 2013, p.13). More unfortunately, placing women closer to violence, women are often seen as a symbol of the nation, and are more susceptible to “mass rape as a tactic of ethnic cleansing and genocide” (Cohn, 2013, p.14). Another example of this phenomenon is the gender-coding of responsibilities in war. Tasks viewed as women's work in the war, like fetching water, take women outside safe areas, making them vulnerable to violence. In short, "[t]he masculine protector and feminine protected identities associated with war” explain the heightened tendency for women to be caught in violent situations (True, 2010, p.41).

Another important portrayal of the gendered structures that explain discrimination against women in war is international institutions, and how their dichotomic aspects perpetuate division regarding conflict. These systems, which are “permeated with symbolic associations with gender in their practices”, tend to portray women as victims (Cohn, 2013, p.4). International institutions tend to be spearheaded by men and thus fail to pay attention to the issues of women when providing aid. The United Nations Refugee Agency in their post-conflict camps did not provide access to sanitary products for women in need, creating long-term impacts, as they were unable to leave the tents to learn (Cohn, 2013, p.20).

Further evidence of the deep-rooted nature of these flawed structures, Robert Keohane, the political scientist credited for the foundation of liberal institutionalism, “attempts to silence the voices in...feminist literature” (Weber, 1994, p.348). In his essay entitled, Contributions of a Feminist Standpoint, he aims to tackle the “tripartite feminist body” of feminist theorist Christine Sylvester (Weber, 1994, p.348). He argues that feminist theory focuses too heavily on “moralising” rather than “analysis” and that harping on women’s marginalization is useless in a debate on power, among other suggestions pertinent to his discipline (Keohane, 1989, p.248). Imposing boundaries on feminist theory, he fails to look at IR through a feminist lens (Weber, 1994, p.348). Even institutions that are supposed to be neutral, along with their foundational members, have the unfortunate tendency to tie their actions to the perpetuation of gender stereotypes, thus proving the impact of these structures in examining gender’s relation to conflict and violence in IR.

How are these structures perpetuated? Simply, the ideology that marginalises women in times of war is deeply embedded in culture as much as the gendered structures are. First comes the argument that men’s biological inclinations situate them to be better suited for positions of power. The idea that they have “natural and immutable" superiority to women’s emotional complexes is one reverberated throughout pop culture and conversation (Cohn, 2013, p.7). More recently, gender is examined as a situated accomplishment, meaning that "in any setting there are specific social practices...which shape our understanding of how to be a man or woman" (Cohn, 2013, p.9). Continuing the performance of gender will lead to a continued perpetuation of these gendered structures, and therefore, women’s vulnerability. The concept of Hegemonic Masculinity is another that continues to uphold gendered societal structures. This “dominant culturally glorified form of masculinity in a particular...setting" is used to perpetuate stereotypes, especially in war (Cohn, 2013, p.10). As war evolves, so do these arguments, as “patriarchy is constantly being updated in order to perpetuate” inequality (Enloe, 2016, p.537). These concepts of hierarchy are used to continuously create situations where women are in vulnerable positions to violence and the impacts of war.

Cynthia Enloe explains Feminist theory in terms of a “bottom-up” approach, creating theory based upon experience, maintaining that “the ‘personal is international’ and that the ‘international is personal’” (Enloe, 2016, p.537). To re-examine the definition of war in terms of women’s experience, pre-conflict social changes like the “the social construction of masculinities and femininities that [support] a militarized state" must be considered (Cohn, 2004, p.410-11). After-conflict reconstruction is also an important testament to how women are impacted by war, where impacts “require years of careful tending" (Cohn, 2013, p.21). Importantly, women, post-war, are also prone to mental health challenges like PTSD, despite the media’s focus on men’s experiences of similar struggles. For women, "the mental health effects of war and armed conflict...can last a lifetime” (Jensen, 2006, p.142). Between war and peace, women experience all the repercussions of conflict. Obviously, women experience the worst during active fighting, but to fully grasp the scale of violence, one must analyse the entire female experience (Sjoberg, 2014, p.12).

An aspect often disregarded is also the susceptibility of women to violence in terms of the international economic sphere. Jacqui True, in her essay entitled, The Political Economy of Violence Against Women, explains that the economic make-up of the world is “structurally linked” to “patterns of violence against women” (True, 2010, p.44). She maintains that the gendered nature of the economy connects economic agency and safety for women. One case study explores the experience of women in Kenya, who are vulnerable to violence because they “own less than one percent of the land”, which, according to similar studies, puts them at “great risk of” abuse (True, 2010, p.41). Ownership of land is directly proportional to safety, as women who own property are “two times less likely to be beaten or abused” (True, 2010, p.41). As economies change, women feel the repercussions directly. When countries economically advance into the commodity sector and seek labour, often employing women rather than men who desire higher salaries, unemployed men resent these women and take to “abuse to enforce power” (True, 2010, p.47). When economies suffer and change, women feel it the most because political economy and violence against women are inextricably linked. To fully grasp the impact of gendered structures on violence, these split economic compositions must be examined.

To explain the dichotomic political systems that contribute to women’s susceptibility to violence in war, it is unquestionably necessary to utilize Cynthia Enloe’s experience-based approaches. Gendercoding and gendered institutions are examples of how gender-based separations are present in IR, perpetuated by deep-rooted ideology. These structures are then only understood through their direct impact on women, not just before, during, and after war, but also removed from war. These paradigms are heavily enmeshed within society and will be difficult to entirely abolish, but a reanalysis of IR through this lens or simply a regard for these gendered structures is effective in eventually dismantling them.

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