1 Esther
HP
1. Introduction
K.E. de Jong Septber 2013 Supervisor: E. Sportel Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
This thesis is submitted for obtaining the Joint Master’s Degree in International Humanitarian Action. By submitting the thesis, the author certifies that the text is from her own hand, does not include the work of someone else unless clearly indicated, and that the thesis has been produced in accordance with proper academic practices.
Female Military Peacekeepers in Gender Perspective
MA Thesis
K.E. de Jong
February 2014
Supervisor: H. Sportel
Second Reader: Dr. C. Humrich
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
2
Between an uncontrolled escalation and passivity,
there is a demanding road of responsibility that we must follow.
Dominique De Villepin
3
Contents
List of tables and figures………..…………... 5
List of abbreviations………...………….……….….. 6
Acknowledgements……….……….……. 7
Summary………...…….. 8
Introduction……….……... 10
Problem statement... ... 10
Aims and research objective... ... 12
Research question and sub questions... ... 12
Research setup... ... 13
Research justification………... 14
1. The influence of gender discourses on security thinking... 17
1.1 Gender... 17
1.2 Gender mainstreaming and gender equality... 18
1.3 Gender and peace and security... ... 26
1.4 Influence of gender balance efforts... 32
1.5 Conclusion... 35
2. Gender balance policies of the UN and the Dutch Ministry of Defence.. 38
2.1 UN definitions of concepts related to gender... 38
2.2 Establishment of UNSCR 1325... ... 41
2.3 Policy problems related to the UN system... 44
2.4 Gender balance in UN peace operations... 47
2.4.1 Types of UN peace and security operations... 48
2.4.2 UNSCR1325 related policies of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations... 51
2.5 Gender balance policies for the Dutch Armed Forces... 54
2.5.1 History of female militaries in the Dutch Armed Forces... 54
2.5.2 Gender policies of the Ministers of Defence... 59
2.6 Conclusion……….…….. 67
3. Chances and challenges of integrating more female military Peacekeepers... 70
3.1 Chances of integrating more female peacekeepers... 70
3.1.1 Approachability... 70
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3.1.2 Perception and influence... 75
3.1.3 Role models... 77
3.1.4 Treating, tracing, guarding and integrating local women... 79
3.1.5 Influence on male colleagues... 80
3.2 Difficulties and discussions around the integration of more female military peacekeepers... 83
3.2.1 Recruitment problems... 83
3.2.2 Barriers to decision-making positions……….... 86
3.2.3 Difficulties of having women in a male-dominated environment... 87
3.2.4 Gender differences above other differences... 94
3.2.5 Insufficient policies and trainings... 96
3.3 Conclusion... 97
Conclusion...………..….... 99
Bibliography... 104
Appendix 1: Comparison of percentages of female militaries in national armies and female militaries deployed to peace missions
Appendix 2: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325
Appendix 3: Images illustrating the research
5 List of tables and figures
Table 1: Percentage of female personnel 57
Figure 1: Grey areas regarding peace interventions 50 Figure 2: Percentage of Dutch female militaries in the national forces
and in international operations 59
6 List of abbreviations
ANP Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau
AISBL International Association for Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research CMR Center for Military Readiness
CSDS Centre for the Study of Developing Societies DAW Division for the Advancement of Women DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations DVN Defensie Vrouwen Netwerk
IANWGE Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality IATFWPS Inter-Agency Task Force on Women, Peace and Security
INSTRAW International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women
IR International Relations
IRIN Integrated Regional Information Networks MDGs Millennium Development Goals
NAP National Action Plan
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
OSAGI Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues PKO Peacekeeping Operation
TFU Task Force Uruzgan
TKSG Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNAC United Nations Association in Canada UNCHS United Nations Habitat
UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women UNSC United Nations Security Council
UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution UNSG United Nations Secretary-General
US United States
USIP United States Institute for Peace Platform VDV Platform Vrouwen & Duurzame Vrede
VEKSG Voorzitter van de Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal
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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, H. Sportel, who guided and educated me with his expertise during the planning and writing process and who always set me at ease with his attitude of understanding. Also, I would like to thank Dr. C. Humrich who was willing to fulfil the role of second reader.
In addition, I would like to express my appreciation to Lieutenant Colonel R.C.
Versteeg who accessed the Defence Academy research archive in order to search for useful information for my thesis.
Furthermore, I want to thank my parents and the rest of my family for the care and support they gave me.
Above all, I want to thank my heavenly Father, as the whole process would not have
been possible without Him. I cannot thank Him enough for His endless patience
and grace.
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Summary
This research responses to the failure of the UN to raise the percentage of female military personnel in peace processes. Through the adaptation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) recognized for the first time that women and girls are affected by conflicts in a different way than men and boys, and that women and girls, therefore, understand peace differently, which makes it important that they participate in peace processes. The Resolution calls for more women active at decision-making levels as well as the operational level. In August 2009, United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon launched a 5-year campaign, to increase the number of female peacekeepers. Regarding military personnel, the UN aimed to raise the number to 10% by 2014. However, the percentage of female militaries got stuck at only 2.8-3%. The question arises: to what extent is the goal of the campaign realistic? Why did the plan fail? Are the assumptions about gender, on which this policy is based, right? Does the role of female peacekeepers really contribute to the effectivity of peace missions, in practice?
Gender is about the words, thoughts, behaviour, action, etc. associated with men or women. Besides meaning, it gives value to those things and the person who expresses them. The existence of this value system has large consequences, as it positions people and shapes the way of thinking, talking, and acting also on regional and international level in all kinds of organisations and institutions.
Female peacekeepers are supposed to add ‘feminine’ qualities to peacekeeping missions, which is seen as a value as peacekeeping missions do not aim at winning a war, but aim at bringing stability and security in a conflict area in which civilians count for 90% of the fatalities. The UN, however, is dependent on the troop contributing countries and does not have a direct say in the percentage of military women send. Even a country such as the Netherlands which is highly positive regarding gender issues, and has around 9% female militaries, most of the time sends a lower percentage of female militaries to peace operations than they have available.
Military organisations often have a masculine culture, and based on the
existing value system within the organisation, women face obstacles to get
promoted, to do certain tasks, to be part of certain units, to be in certain conflict
areas, etc. This hinders the ability of women to show the importance of their role in
peacekeeping missions, as they become marginalised and invisible. Armed Forces
9 explain and interpret gender differently, and think that the con’s of the presence of female peacekeepers outweigh the pro’s.
Those gender balance and mainstreaming policies by the UN seem to be
ineffective regarding gender equality, as it still applies to a system which is known
for its strong gender-related power structures, which makes people and policies
part of the existing value system. Also, those gender-related policies risk to overlook
differences among men and differences among women, feeding wrong expectations,
leading to ineffective peace operations. However, gender images among host
populations, make that female militaries have a special and essential role during
peacekeeping operations.
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Introduction
This chapter will explain the reasons and the aim of this research. It describes the way in which the United Nations (UN) started to integrate gender mainstreaming in its policies and the failure to raise the percentage of female military personnel.
How can this failure be explained? This question is reflected in the main research question and the related sub-questions. In addition, the relevance of this study for academia and the humanitarian field will be justified, and finally, the research set- up as well as the related limitations will be explained.
Problem statement
Currently, 16 UN peacekeeping missions are taking place all over the world (DPKO, 2012). Since 1948, peacekeepers have been deployed to a total of 68 peacekeeping missions in which peacekeepers from more than 120 countries participated (DPKO, 2013-2). From 1957 to 1989, only 0.1% of the field-based militaries were women, and it was not until the 1990s that the UN specifically requested for female peacekeepers (Rehn and Sirleaf, 2002).
Requesting women was part of new ways of thinking about peace operations after the Cold War (Väyrynen, 2004). Pressure from several women’s organizations made the UN started to take the role of women in conflict and peace processes into account (Valenius, 2007). As a result, in 2000, the UN adopted three documents that all urge for gender sensitivity in peace operations, namely: (1) “Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Operations”, made by the United Nations Department for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO); (2) the “Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action on Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace Support Operations”, which resulted from a seminar on the gender perspectives of multidimensional peacekeeping mission; and (3) the
“Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security”, adopted by the UNSC in 2000 (UN, 2002; Valenius, 2007).
By the adaptation of UNSCR 1325 the UNSC recognized for the first time that women and girls are affected by conflicts in a different way than men and boys, and that they, therefore, have an essential role in peace processes, as they add another perspective (Bertolazzi, 2010). UNSCR 1325 highlights women both as victims as well as active agents in prevention and resolution processes and points at the need for the participation of more women in peacekeeping operations (UNSC, 2000-1).
The Resolution includes, among others, the following statements:
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“[the resolution] urges the Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict; (…) urges the Secretary-General to seek to expand the role and contribution of women in United Nations field-based operations, and especially among military observers, civilian police, human rights and humanitarian personnel; and expresses its willingness to incorporate a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations and urges the Secretary-General to ensure that, where appropriate, field operations include a gender component.”
(UNSC, 2000: 2)
So, the Resolution calls for more women active at decision-making levels and at the operational level. This Resolution made that agencies such as UN Women and the UN Peacebuilding Commission have committed themselves to two policies:
a policy on gender balancing and one on gender mainstreaming (Mazurana et al., 2005).
1In the context of peace processes, the first aims to equalize the number of male and female personnel working on all levels of a peace operation, and the second aims to try to monitor gender issues at every stage and on every level of such an operation (Valenius, 2007). In line with these policies, the UNSG Ban Ki- moon launched a 5-year campaign, in 2009, to increase the number of female peacekeepers. The goal is to achieve a fifty-fifty gender balance among civilian personnel at all levels, to raise the percentage of female police personnel to 20%, and to raise that of female military personnel to 10% (Bertolazzi, 2010; IRIN, 2010;
UNDFS, 2008).
However, although the percentage of female civilian personnel raised to 30% in four of the five years, and that of the police force, of which the number doubled and which is still growing steadily, reached the 10%, the percentages of military personnel got stuck at only 2.8-3% (DPKO, 2013-1; DPKO, 2013-2). The problem can be partially found in the fact that the right implementation of these plans depend on the will and ability of the countries which are contributing troops for those peace missions (IRIN, 2010). There are several reasons why countries do not want, or are not able, to send a sufficient number of female militaries, which will be discussed later. Regional organisations which also adopted the UNSCR 1325, such
1
“
UN Women” is the “UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women” (Bertolazzi, 2010).12 as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), face the same problem. NATO, although it encourages and facilitates the exchange of information about recruitment of women, also lacks the power to have a direct say in national defence policies (AC, 2013). Although some NATO members have a percentage of women close to 20% in their forces, and although the average percentage of all NATO forces is 10.7 (statistics of Iceland and Croatia are lacking, as can be seen in appendix 1), in some NATO member forces it is still just a few percent. Moreover, although percentages in the national armed forces may seem promising, the percentage of female militaries which is actually deployed for field-based functions in peace operations is most of the time lower than the percentage available in national armed forces (again see appendix 1) (Schjølset, 2013).
Aims and research objective
This goal, namely to raise the percentage of female military peacekeepers to 10%, seems to be unrealistic as the campaign of the UN is coming to an end by 2014 and the number is still stagnant at 3%. This research aims to investigate this failure by using a gender perspective. It aims to explain both the chances, challenges, and misunderstandings related to an increase of the percentage of female militaries in peacekeeping troops, in particularly regarding the effectivity of gender equality efforts and successfulness of peace missions, in order to clarify the failure of the campaign. The terms “effectivity” and “successfulness” refer to the degree to which the goal of gender equality efforts and the goal of peace missions, namely stability and the sustainability of this stability, has been achieved.
Research question & sub questions The main research question is:
To what extent can the failure of the UN to achieve a participation of 10%
female military personnel in peace operations, be explained by using a gender perspective?
The relevant sub-questions are formulated as follows:
1. How does the existing academic gender debate explain the influence of gender on security issues?
2. What are the policies, and underlying assumptions associated with these
policies, of the UN and the Dutch Ministry of Defence regarding the inclusion
13 of gender issues in their security agenda, particularly the participation of military women in peace operations?
3. What are the chances and what are the challenges and misunderstandings related to an increase of the percentage of female militaries in peacekeeping troops, in particularly what is the influence of this increase on the effectivity of gender equality efforts and successfulness of peace missions?
Research setup
This research does not seek to confirm hypotheses, but seeks the reasons for the failure of the UN to raise the percentage of female military peacekeepers. For this purpose the research reveals the reasons of people to encourage the increase of the percentage of female military peacekeepers, to be neutral towards it, or to discourage it.
When the UN adopted UNSCR 1325 and started its campaign to raise the number of female peacekeepers, it linked gender assumptions to peace and security issues. Using a gender perspective enables to see how ideas about gender get translated into policy and practice. By using a gender perspective, this research reveals the underlying assumptions of the gender policies of the UN and discusses these assumptions critically by showing how ideas about gender also shape how female peacekeepers operate in practice.
Therefore the first sub-question, which will be answered in the first chapter, asks about the influence of gender on security issues. There will be discussed how gender has an influence on security issues according to existing academic theory about women, peace and security. Different gender concepts and their use will be explained by different scholars, by which the chapter explains how a gender perspective can be used to explain policies and the outcomes of these policies. Later on, this will help to explain both the assumptions underlying the UN policy and the failure to implement this policy. For this purpose of this first chapter, academic literature will be used.
Then, the second chapter will discuss the policies of the UN and the Dutch
Ministry of Defence regarding the inclusion of gender issues in their security
agenda, particularly the participation of military women in peace operations, and by
so doing answer the second sub-question. After discussing how to use a gender
perspective to explain policies and their outcome in general, this second chapter
will show specifically the underlying assumptions of the UN regarding UNSCR 1325
and the related campaign, and its failure to raise the percentage of female military
14 peacekeeping personnel. The focus on the Netherlands shows that even a government of a troop contributing country, which is highly tolerant regarding gender issues, has problems with the recruitment and deployment of female militaries. For this purpose, data from academic literature, websites of organisations and governments, and newspapers will be used.
The third chapter will show the role of female military peacekeepers in peace operations in practice. Although the positive aspects of this role support the underlying assumptions of the UN mentioned in chapter 2, the negative aspects and misunderstandings related to this role, which are revealed by using a gender perspective, show why the implementation of the UN policy fails. For this purpose, secondary data from academic literature, websites of organisations and governments, and newspapers will be used.
So, by explaining how to use a gender perspective to analyse in chapter 1, and based on this perspective showing the underlying assumptions and the failure of the campaign of the UN in chapter 2, and by explaining this discrepancy between policy and practice by using again a gender perspective in chapter 3, and by so doing answering the sub-questions, this research will give an answer on the main question, namely ”To what extent can the failure of the UN to achieve a participation of 10% female military personnel in peace operations, be explained by a gender perspective?”
This study will combine academic as well as non-academic sources for secondary data collection. Using different sources makes the research comprehensive and it makes comparing of information interesting as, for example, one can verify by academic literature and newspapers whether governments and organizations do what they state on their websites, or one can verify whether academic research agrees with the things militaries tell in interviews placed in newspapers. If different sources have the same conclusion, these findings reinforce each other, if not, then one can ask questions about it and even draw conclusions from it.
Research justification
Scholars have been writing about domination of men in international politics and the need of gender balancing and gender mainstreaming in that environment.
However, in general, there is a lack of knowledge about women and peacekeeping, as illustrated by the citations of L. Sion, D. Horsfall and D. Bridges, and M.
Schoeman. According to L. Sion: “(...) the literature about women in peacekeeping
15 missions is still quite limited, (...).” (Sion, 2008: 563). Bridges and Horsfall add:
“There is a gap in the knowledge concerning women and peacekeeping.” (Bridges and Horsfall, 2009: 122). Schoeman supports those statements and urges the following: “There should be more support and encouragement for research on the experiences of peacekeepers, with a strong focus on the experiences, recruitment and work environment of women peacekeepers.” (Schoeman, 2010: 4).
Furthermore, when scholars actually do write about female peacekeepers, they often focus on the need of more women as peace personnel in general, including civilian and police staff. This is also the fact in the literature of scholars who talk about the implementation problems of gender balancing and gender mainstreaming policies and about the reasons why the number of female personnel is still low. S.
Karim and K. Beardsley emphasize this shortage by saying: “Within the literature on peacekeeping, there has been very little attention paid to the role of female military peacekeepers.” (Karim and Beardsley, 2013: 3).
When a scholar does research on female military peacekeepers, he or she just focuses on one, often old mission and only writes down aspects of the role of women in that particular mission. An example is the article “Peacekeeping and the Gender Regime: Dutch Female Peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo” from Sion. Her research focused on two Dutch peacekeeping units deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo in 1999- 2000. This mission took place before UNSCR 1325 was adopted by the UNSC and focused only on the role of Dutch military women.
Also, when writing about the topic female peacekeeping personnel, it is either only in view of security issues or only in view of gender issues. According to J.
Martin and L. Sjoberg: “Less than forty out of more than 5000 articles in the top five security studies journals over the last twenty years explicitly address gender issues as a major substantive theme.” (Martin and Sjoberg, 2007: 2). Karim and Beardsley add: “In fact, while the literature explains variation of peacekeeping forces in general, it does not disaggregate by gender.” (Karim and Beardsley, 2013:
3). O. Simic states that policymakers should “(...) examine the ways in which women peacekeepers contribute to the operational effectiveness of PKOs [Peacekeeping Operations] and investigate how these contributions may or may not differ from those of male peacekeepers; (...)” (Simic, 2013: 3).
This research will specially focus on the role of female military personnel. As
the problems to raise the percentage of women are the largest among military
personnel, this research will not spread attention over civil, policy and military
personnel and by so doing weaken the attention given to the bigger problem at the
16 military side. Furthermore, the research will combine the pro’s as well as con’s of women as militaries active in different missions, instead of only one. As every mission is different, every mission demands another way of working, and therefore, it demands other qualities and characteristics of peacekeeping personnel. By focusing on all missions, all possible chances and challenges of the role of female militaries are included. Also, this research will use a gender perspective to explain security issues, and it will not only look at the role of female military personnel in view of security goals, but also look at the role of female military peacekeepers in gender equality efforts. In addition, the research will both focus on the role of female peacekeepers within security focused organisations and their influence on the world outside those organisations, and it even shows the relation between this inside and outside role. Finally, besides combining different academic literature from different authors about different missions, also non-academic literature, such as information from newspapers and websites is used. So, compared to existing research, this research will focus on the role of female military personnel, and combine all possible chances and challenges regarding this role for both the military organisation itself and its mission, in view of the existing academic gender debate.
Populations in conflict areas need beside food, water, shelter and medicines, a response to their fear for violent attacks. So, people not only long for humanitarian basic needs, but are also in need of protection, longing for a secure and safe living environment.
2Furthermore, a certain level of security is also needed in order to be able to provide humanitarian assistance. Although the focus is on these security aspects, this research contributes to existing knowledge about the humanitarian field, as it focuses on current conflicts, which often go together with a long term humanitarian crisis. It shows that not only aid workers have close contact with local populations, but that militaries increasingly make contact with the local population as well. This research aims not to contribute to the discussion about the suggested politicizing of the humanitarian space. However, it gives a glimpse of the importance for militaries to make contact with the local population for the good of the population, the good of aid workers, and that of militaries themselves.
2Illustrated by image 1 in appendix 3.
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1. Security issues in a gender perspective
This chapter will discuss the different views of different scholars on the concepts “gender”, “gender mainstreaming, and “gender equality”, and will look at the concept “gender balance”. There will explained what gender is and what it does.
All those gender concepts will be linked to the issue of peace and security, and by so doing, this chapter will show how a gender perspective can be used as a category of analysis.
1.1 Gender
According to J. Bosch, psychology lecturer and researcher associated with the Department of Military Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy within the Dutch Defence Academy, one could describe “gender” as “the social and cultural meaning which is attributed to sex. It points at images, expectations and views about men and women within a society.” (Bosch, 2002:10; Ministerie van Defensie, 2014). B.
Rys and A. Vanthienen, of the Dutch RoSa Documentation Centre and Archives on Equal Opportunities m/f, Feminism and Gender, speak about “social construction”
when they explain the concept “gender”. They mean that biological differences are translated in social positions by unspoken norms. There are a lot of examples of things which are viewed to belong to men or to women, without knowing why (Rys and Vanthienen, 2004).
Rys and Vanthienen add that gender is an issue on three different levels. It is part of one’s identity, as (traditional) gender ideas shape ones image of oneself and that of others. Also, gender can be seen as a form of social organization, as the men-women dichotomy is used as orderings principle in societies. Furthermore, gender has to do with norms, as ideas about men and women are used in rules and policies, etc. (Rys and Vanthienen, 2004).
So, gender is not about visible, physical differences, but it includes a dichotomous ordering principle. For example, Professor International Development, Community, and Environment at the Clark University in Worcester, C. Enloe, states that: “In my research at the UN, I’ve heard the Third Committee of the General Assembly - that’s the committee that works on social, humanitarian, and cultural issues - referred to in house as the “ladies' committee.” (Clark University, 2014;
Enloe in Cohn and Enloe, 2003: 1189). It was called like that because it dealt with
all the social issues on the UN agenda. Delegations often assigned their women
delegates to this committee. Apparently, social issues are associated with the female
18 side of the dichotomy (Cohn and Enloe, 2003).
According to Bosch and many other scholars, in the Western society, one side, namely that of masculine, autonomy, ratio, objective, spirit, order, activity, and hard, is in general valued above the other side, namely that of femininity, relatedness, emotion, subjective, body, chaos, passivity and soft (Bosch, 2002;
Tickner, 1992). The fact that women are increasingly part of the global work force and gained a lot of ground in politics, has to do with opportunities (McRobbie, 2009). Whether women are recognised and valued at those positions, is something different. Because of this one-sided appreciation, there exists a hierarchy of qualities and characteristics, whereby the qualities which are attributed to men are valued above the ones attributed to women (Bosch, 2002). Women who are successful in male activities are applauded. They try to improve their status by aiming at something which is more valued (Peterson and Runyan, 2009). People who lack certain characteristics are valued less and given less chances and possibilities. So, one could say that gender is strongly related to perception and power within a society (Bosch, 2002).
The next paragraph will show that this difference between equal opportunities and equal value is reflected in different definitions of gender equality, and it will explain the consequences of these different definitions of gender equality for gender mainstreaming policies.
1.2 Gender mainstreaming and gender equality
According to Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, and Senior Research
Fellow of Green Templeton College of the University of Oxford, M. Daly: “the goal of
gender mainstreaming is to tackle structures of inequality (rather than
discrimination or women’s disadvantage), and 2) that, (…) it incorporates a gender
perspective.” (Daly, 2005: 441-442; University of Oxford, 2014). However,
definitions of mainstreaming vary a lot among scholars. Gender mainstreaming is,
for example, understood as mainstreaming equal opportunities, mainstreaming
equal treatment of women’s perspectives, and nowadays, it is more and more
understood as acknowledging and valuing diversity. Gender mainstreaming might
entail: institutional or structural change; a change in discourse; change in power
relations; new tools; new available data; old data with new disaggregations; new
research; a broadened range of actors in policy processes; an increase in social
dialogue through, for example, the institutionalization of consultation practices; the
creation or reinforcement of advisory bodies representing women’s groups; or an
19 increase in government investment with a view to equip women’s representatives with the necessary skills to participate in policy-making. At the moment, most states use a mix of policies. Furthermore, progress within and across countries do vary a lot (Daly, 2005).
Many scholars tried to categorize the different trends regarding gender mainstreaming in practice. One of the leading political scientists, feminist leaders, and authors of Bangladesh, Professor R. Jahan, talks about the “agenda-setting”
and the “integration” approach (CSDS, 2014; Jahan, 1995). According to her,
“agenda-setting” means “the transformation and reorientation of existing policy paradigms, changing decision-making processes, prioritizing gender equality objectives, and rethinking policy ends” (Walby, 2005-2: 323). This transformation focuses on the gender analysis of inequalities between women and men, and the intersection of gender relations with relations of race and class. In this way, one can differentiate context specific causes of gender inequalities (Jahan, 1995).
Specialised in European Social law, Professor F. Beveridge, and Senior lecturer in Law, S. Nott, both working at the University of Liverpool, and lecturer in Political Science at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Dr. E. Lombardo, use the concept “agenda-setting” as gender mainstreaming approach in a different way (Madrid Complutense University, 2014; University of Liverpool, 2014; Shaw, 2000).
They use the term to describe the attention which is given to the participation and empowerment of women, and the involvement of civil organizations in this process (Beveridge and Nott, 2002; Lombardo, 2003). The danger of this approach is that some identities are preferred above others, and that those identities might become formalized, while in reality they are constantly changing. According to Professor of Political Theory, J. Squires, in general, agenda-setting damages public-spiritedness as consultation with a lot of different groups results in fragmentation (Squires, 2005; University of Bristol, 2014).
In contrast to Jahan’s agenda-setting approach, Jahan’s integrationist approach does not challenge the existing policy paradigm. It focuses on the marginalization of women. Male interests will still be the norm and women are seen as people with special interests. Jahan believes that this trend started during the UN Decade for Women, a time period in which the goal was to make gender a factor in the development support of the UN, and that it aimed to integrate women as well as men into the existing development framework.
3Feminists are critical about this,
3Among other calls, the Resolution regarding the UN Decade for Women “Calls upon Governments to take measures to ensure equal and effective participation of women in political, economic, social and
20 as they see it as just adding an extra ingredient to an existing recipe: ‘add women and stir’ (Porter and Sweetman, 2005: 2). Beveridge and Nott, and Lombardo, add that the integrationist approach is widely seen as a focus on evidence-based knowledge produced by experts and the bureaucratic, which can be limiting in a rhetorical way. The fact that it resonates with the dominant logic might be a strength, as it has less chance to be rejected, but according to them, it might also miss the goal of gender justice, as it is seen as just a means to work more effectively towards policy objectives (Beveridge and Nott, 2002; Lombardo, 2003).
Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the Cardiff University in Wales, T.
Rees, adds a third model of gender mainstreaming, which is the “transformative approach” (Cardiff University, 2014; Rees, 1998). This transformation is “neither the assimilation of women into men’s ways, nor the maintenance of a dualism between women and men, but rather something new, a positive form of melding, in which the outsiders, feminists, changed the mainstream” (Walby, 2005-2: 323). So, it divers not only from the integrationist model, but also from the agenda-setting model, which, although focusing on transformation, prioritizes gender equality objectives and focuses on women’s voices. While still promoting equality, according to Squires, only this transformative model shows a displacement of the equality- difference dichotomy, as the transformative approach is about dialogue with diverse social groups and a greater democratic inclusion in general. Within this model gender perspectives are integrated systematically in the policy-making process and, in addition, there is sensitivity for diversity in general (Squires, 2005).
Daly also describes different approaches of gender mainstreaming. She found that European countries use three distinctive ways. For the first way she uses the term “integration approach”.
4Within this approach countries follow a global trend and give responsibility for gender equality to (almost) all actors involved in public policy. Second, Daly mentions the “transversality approach”, through which countries do not much more than implementing a gender quality plan or program, by which the responsibility of gender-related goals are assigned to more line ministries, but not the entire policy system. In the third approach, called the
“fragmented approach”, gender mainstreaming is highly fragmented and just related to a few policy domains and specific programs, apart from the general governmental policy on gender (Daly, 2005).
cultural life and in policy-making at local, national, regional and international levels, thereby increasing their role in international co-operation and in the strengthening of peace;” (UN, 1976:
statement 3).
4Her research included 8 countries: Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (Daly, 2005).
21 Squires, instead, uses the concepts “inclusion”, “reversal”, and “displacement”, for the strategies used in gender mainstreaming practices. Within the first gender mainstreaming approach people work toward gender-neutrality, while in the second people want recognition for a specifically female gendered identity. The third strategy, instead, wants to eliminate those frameworks which engender subjects (Squires, 2005). The first strategy is proceeded “via bureaucratic policy tools, the second via consultation with women’s organizations, and the third via inclusive deliberation” (Squires, 2005: 384). With “inclusive deliberation” she means deliberate democracy, by which citizens participate in the decision-making processes (Squires, 2005).
Squires suggest that those different definitions of gender mainstreaming are caused by the existence of different models of gender equality. What is being mainstreamed can be “equal opportunities, women’s perspectives, [but also]
complex equality (which recognizes diversity)” (Squires, 2005: 384).
This distinction can be easily linked to the three phases which the European Commission - and many other organizations and societies as a whole - went through regarding their approach to gender equality. According to Rees (1993), the Commission pursed “equal treatment” in the 1970s, by which it wanted to legally determine the equal treatment of men and women. In the following ten years, it focused on “positive action” by which it recognized the differences between men and women and tried to deal with the disadvantages women experience as a result of this difference. In the 1990s, it used the gender mainstreaming approach, by which it wanted to deal with gender bias within existing domains and focuses on transformation. According to Rees, the first model, which is based on sameness, focuses on equal opportunities and equal treatment, and the second model, which is based on difference, focuses on special programs (Rees, 1998).
A similar distinction is made by Emeritus Professor at the Sheffield Hallam University, C. Booth, and Principal lecturer at the same university, Dr. C. Bennett (Booth, 2014; Sheffield Hallam University, 2014). They base their distinction on 3 types of gender equality models which are mostly used in academic theory, namely the “equal treatment perspective,” the “women’s perspective,” and the “gender perspective”. However, they perceive them as strategies rather than end visions.
Like Rees, they view them all as gender equality approaches, but they only perceive the last strategy as a gender mainstreaming strategy (Booth and Bennet, 2002).
Their definition of gender mainstreaming equates the one of Professor of Sociology
at Lancaster University, S. Walby, who states that gender mainstreaming, besides
22 focusing on gender equality, also aims to improve the effectivity policies by revealing the gendered nature of underlying assumptions, processes, and consequences of policies (Lancaster University, 2014; Walby, 2005). According to Walby, gender mainstreaming deals with existing concepts, and revises them, rather than the creation of a separatist gender theory (Walby, 2005-2).
Booth and Bennet believe that those three strategies are complementary, instead of mutually exclusive, as each needs the other. The European Commission and Council also recommend all three approaches mentioned by Booth and Bennet.
Equal treatment, equal opportunities, special programs and dealing with gender- bias is indeed possible to combine (Booth and Bennet, 2002). When using Squires distinction of mainstreaming approaches, however, this complementarity is not possible, as the first focuses on sameness by denying gender differences, the second pursues the recognition of the difference between men and women, and the third focuses on the elimination of the equality-difference gender dichotomy. It would be interesting to find out in what way the UN, the Dutch Government, and Armed Forces view gender equality, as it might shed some light on the failure to raise the percentage of female military peacekeepers. The UN, the Dutch Government, and Armed Forces possibly have colliding views of gender.
Walby asks questions about the link between gender practices in different domains. She believes that it is extremely hard, if not impossible to have a strong connection between two domains, while at the same time, in one of those domains working towards equality is done through sameness and within the other through difference. Regarding gender mainstreaming efforts, alliances between women in different political domains who work towards complementary projects, is seen as important in theory about gendered democracy (Walby, 2005-2). Research Professor at the Department of Political Science of the Free University of Brussels and co- chair of the Center for Gender Studies and Diversity Research, A. E. Woodward, adds that it is important to connect bureaucrats, academics, and women’s movements, in order to develop gender mainstreaming (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2014; Woodward, 2003).
According to Walby, in general, in theory, gender mainstreaming is seen as a
way to eliminate gender inequality, but, as shown, the extent to which gender
difference should be accepted is a source for discussion as the ways in which
gender equality is understood differs (Walby, 2005-2). It is, however, becoming more
and more accepted that equality and difference are only contrasting if equality is
perceived as sameness (Squires, 2005).
23 Gender mainstreaming takes place in a context of multiple diverse forms of social inequality, such as inequalities related to race, class, religion, age, etc, and with those different categories there are complex intersections. Although according to Jahan, the “agenda setting” approach takes the intersection of gender relations with relations of race and class into account, the transformative gender mainstreaming approach goes beyond the equality and difference between men and women, and therefore has a particular potential to recognize cross-cutting diversity, according to Squires (Squires, 2005).
However, when attention is also given to other inequalities, focus might become lost, warns Woodward (Woodward, 2003). On the other hand, according to Squires, when equality actions are combined, mainstreaming efforts will be enforced. Squires even says that equality can no longer be considered apart from diversity, as many international and regional organizations ask member states also to promote equality regarding other social aspects, such as class, religion, etc.
However, she recognizes that it is a challenge to consider gender mainstreaming in the view of diversity, instead of just gender (Squires, 2005). As in practice this network of social aspects exist, it would be interesting to see whether the UN and the Dutch Government do recognise the existence of these interwoven aspects.
Policy and practice might collide, when policy is not based on all aspects and their mutual influence in real live.
Squires believes that dialogue between different social groups can “help resolve the tension between individual egalitarianism and the politics of group recognition that hold back the development of gender mainstreaming” (Squires in Walby, 2005: 331). Separate groups and ideas might be brought together and lead to deliberative democracy (Squires, 2005). According to Senior Lecturer in Political Philosophy/Theory at the Keele University, M. Mookherjee, this deliberative democracy makes it possible that excluded groups have a voice and can give their interpretations of equality, challenging institutions which perceive their culture as universal and complete (Mookherjee, 2001; Keele University, 2014). Squires states:
”Political theorists have recognized that democratic debate and decision-making are themselves necessary preconditions for impartial equality policies” (Squires, 2005:
380). In this way, legitimacy is based not only on a lack of bias, but also on
inclusivity, which also makes organizations more accountable to the society as a
whole. Diverse social groups and their concrete needs should be included and
considered, and this should all happen in an critical and impartial way. So, this
approach is in contrast to the integrationist model, by which the focus is on
24 creating an elite body of professional gender experts. At the same time, it is also in contrast to the idea that gender mainstreaming should be done only by the normal policy actors.
A lot of theorist think the lack of widespread agreement about the definition of gender mainstreaming in theory is not problematic. Walby, for example, believes that the contrast shaped in theory is not substantive in practice (Walby, 2005-1).
Some theorists argue that the definition of gender mainstreaming depends on the context in which it is produced, suggesting that each definition can be effective in its own context. Others, like Booth and Bennet (2002), broaden the definition. They think that gender mainstreaming incorporates multiple approaches. Squires also recognizes this. She states that, when mainstreaming is conceptualized as
“displacement”, for example, this does not mean that all three strategies,
“inclusion”, “reversal” and “displacement” will not show up in practice when appropriate. According to Squires, in many of the definitions used up to today, one can see elements of each. According to Daly, nowadays, the mix of approaches which is used in practice becomes more and more complex among countries and within countries. This increasing complexity is caused by the different histories of countries, and the fact that different models do not function apart from each other in practice. Different models rather occur in an intertwined way, by which they complement each other (Daly, 2005).
Others, however, do see the existence of many different opinions about gender equality and the way to get there, as a problem. According to Professor in Political Science at the Lund University, O. Elgström, in practice, the implementation of policies can be open to varying interpretations with different implications (Lund University, 2013; Walby, 2005). For example, when countries have made a formal commitment to implement a gender mainstreaming approach to gender equality says relatively little. In this way tensions with the existing mainstream can be easily avoided (Daly, 2005). In order to be systematically integrated, new gender norms have to “fight their way into institutional thinking” and compete with the traditional norm, which implies the existence of tension (Elgström in Walby, 2005-2: 322).
Often this has not been acknowledged or dealt with (Walby, 2005). Possibly the failure of the UN to raise the number of female military peacekeepers is linked to the lack of real commitment to UNSCR 1325 and subsequent policies by the UN and its members states.
According to Daly, there is “a tendency toward ‘technocratization’ of gender
mainstreaming” (Daly, 2005: 436). Often, when gender mainstreaming is
25 introduced, it is not based on thinking of gender inequality as an embedded and structural problem in the society, although this is explained in theory. It is often introduced in view of policy-making exigencies, need of fund, current trends and fashions, or just in order to work more effectively towards policy objectives that are quite distant from gender equality (for example, improvements in productivity of a company) (Daly, 2005). Most countries tend to focus on tools and procedures, and see the purpose of gender mainstreaming as just a way to update existing policies, instead of transforming them. Only some gender components to fight gender inequality are used, without being systematic and having an overall framework.
Therefore, the degree of change regarding policy and agency is low. Many gender mainstreaming developments are showing innovation rather than change. In many countries the existing gender debate has not been revised thoroughly when gender mainstreaming became introduced. According to Daly: “It has become a symbol of modernity” (Daly, 2005: 441). Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and director of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, C. Cohn (University of Massachusetts, 2014), explains this as follows:
“(…) gender is apparently often just as alienating and thought‐stopping a term, evoking/representing ‘political correctness.’ (…) in these institutions where attention to gender has been mandated, it remains an extremely opaque word.
At the UN, for example, everyone is supposed to integrate a “gender perspective”
in their programs, but many people simply don’t have a real clue what that means. And the training that might make it clearer has been in short supply.
But all of that is really about the practical effects of using specific words rather than the actual conceptual or analytic difference between patriarchy and a term such as gender system.”
(Cohn in Enloe, 2003: 1192-1193)
Besides the lack of change within policies, Daly also puts emphasize on the lack of change in the society as a whole. She believes that studies should be focused more on the link between gender mainstreaming and societal change.
Societal change is believed to happen when policy-making structures are organized
in another way, when more actors involved in policy-making are added, when the
mind-set of those actors is changed, and when the content and framing of policy
becomes revised (Daly, 2005). The next paragraph will link gender to the issue of
26 peace and security, and shows, at the same time, why it is hard to change the traditional ways in which policy becomes framed.
1.3 Gender and peace and security
In general, all over the world, issues related to the linkages between gender, peace and security have always gone together with political fights over women’s social roles (Carreiras, 2006). According to Professor of Communications at the University of London, known for her analysis of gender in youth culture, A.
McRobbie, although women gained a lot of ground within the workforce and politics around the world, there is still a patriarchic system in which women experience subordination and inequality (Longhurst, 2008; McRobbie, 2009).
The military organization is one of those strongholds in which women, and characteristics associated with them, are usually valued less. Professor of Social and Political Ethics and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago, J. B. Elshtain, adds, that in most cultures the gender-dichotomy regarding women and peace in contrast to men and war, has deep roots (Elshtain, 1992; University of Chicago, 2013). Assistant professor of Sociology, Public Policy and Research Methodology at Lisbon University Institute, and a senior researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, H. Carreiras, states: “(…) since war has usually been defined as a male activity and highly valued masculine characteristics are often associated with it, the image of women warriors has been seen as inherently unsettling, entailing a symbolic rupture with the dominant gender order based on the separation of male and female” (Carreiras, 2006: 5). The Dutch Ministry of Defency adds: “The military profession is traditionally a male profession. Conscription was for men only. Although the admission and integration of women has long been going on, there remains an unbalanced organization with a strong masculine culture. This inequality makes that attention for more women in the Armed Forces is needed.” (Ministerie van Defensie, 2006-1: 7).
Cohn wrote in 1993 a chapter called ‘Wars Wimps, and Women’, in the book
“Gendering War Talk” edited by M. Cooke, A. Woollacott. This chapter was about
gendered discourses existing within the United States’ (US) national security
system. She was not focusing on the way in which civilian Defense analysts think
about war, and the ways in which that thinking is influenced by gender (Cohn,
1993). In the following statement, she describes “gender” and equates it to the
concept “gender discourse”:
27
“[gender is] the constellation of meanings that a given culture assigns to biological sex differences. But more than that, I use gender to refer to a symbolic system, a central organizing discourse of culture, one that not only shapes how we experience and understand ourselves as men and women, but that also interweaves with other discourses and shapes them – and therefore shares other aspects of our world (…). So, when I talk about ‘gender discourse’, I am talking not only about words or language but about a system of meanings, of ways of thinking, images and words that first shape how we experience, understand, and represent ourselves as men and women, but that also do more than that: they shape many other aspects of our lives and culture. In this symbolic system, human characteristics are dichotomized, divided into pairs of polar opposites that are supposedly mutually exclusive: mind is opposed to body; culture to nature; thought to feeling; logic to intuition; objectivity to subjectivity;
aggression to passivity; confrontation to accommodation; abstraction to particularity; public to private; political to personal, ad nauseam.”
(Cohn, 1993: 228-229)
Similarly to Bosch, Cohn mentions different levels on which gender has an influence, as it, according to Cohn, not only shapes words, but also cultures. Cohn calls this system of meanings “gender discourse”. Like Bosch and others, Cohn says about the gender dichotomy, that every first term of the opposites mentioned, is associated with male, while every second term is linked to female, and that the US society values each first term over the second. She explains that the system of dichotomies is encoding meanings, making people associate things with gender, while those meanings might be unrelated to male and female bodies. So, when a human activity fits some of the characteristics, it becomes gendered. According to Cohn, real men and women do not fit these gender “ideals”, and for this reason she calls gender discourses “symbolic systems”. Although symbolic, she emphasizes that the impact of this system is big, as people, whether they want it or not, interpret their own actions and that of others against it. Men and women are supposed to exemplify the characteristics on the lists. A crying man, for example, will probably be seen as less manly (Cohn, 1993).
Moreover, the symbolic system positions people. As Bosch suggested, besides
the fact that we associate things we say or do with one of the two sides, being manly
also means being in a higher valued position in the discourse. For instance, being
sentimental will be related to the whole set of characteristics of the female side, like
28 irrational, emotional, etc., which puts someone in the devaluated position. This all also implies that we are able to take different positions in the discourse ourselves.
While being a women and naturally belonging to the devaluated side, one can start to speak like a man (Cohn, 1993).
Since societies are permeated with this discourse, these power relations are seen in all kinds of institutions and organizations. The Civil-Military Co-operation Centre of Excellence (CCOE), a research centre accredited by NATO, explains that using a gender perspective might help to analyse those power relations, when they state: “Integration of a gender perspective is a way of assessing gender-based differences of women and men reflected in their social roles and interactions, in the distribution of power and the access to resources” (CCOE, 2013: 17).
5Cohn wanted to understand how specially Defence intellectuals think in view of such gender discourse, and why they think that way. Although there are many ways to understand what these people are doing, and although many ways of understanding had nothing to do with gender, according to her, gender is unavoidable as it has its own significant role. She gives a real life example of a physicist who is working with some colleagues “on modelling counterforce attacks, trying to get realistic estimates of the number of immediate fatalities that would result from different deployments” (Cohn, 1993: 227). The physicist told Cohn:
“At one point, we remodeled a particular attack, using slightly different assumptions, and found that instead of there being thirty-six million immediate fatalities, there would only be thirty million. And everybody was sitting around nodding, saying, “Oh, yeah, that’s great, only thirty million,” when all of a sudden, I hear what we were saying. And I blurted out, “Wait, I’ve just heard how we’re talking – Only thirty million! Only thirty million human beings killed instantly?” Silence fell upon the room. Nobody said a word. They didn’t even look at me. It was awful. I felt like a woman.”
(Cohn, 1993: 227)
When the physicist blurted out, he was 1) violating a norm of professional conduct, because by bringing the cruel reality to the foreground during professional activities and thereby expressing emotion, he distorted the thinking about warfare; and worse, 2) he expressed some characteristics which are associated with the “female”
5The CCOE is a multinational sponsored, NATO accredited, Centre of Excellence. CIMIC stands for Civil-Military Coordination (CCOE, 2014: par.1).
29 side of the dichotomies, as he was acting impulsive, emotional, and thoughtful to human bodies. It affected his gender identity, moreover, he was put in a subordinate position (Cohn, 1993). Although Cohn is talking only about the US society and talking about the year 1993, her explanation makes the power of gender discourses visible, as it shows that in such a masculine culture certain ideas and information becomes delegitimized. Cohn explains this as follows:
“The impact of gender discourse in that room (and countless others like it) is that some things get left out. Certain ideas, concerns, interests, information, feelings and meanings are marked in national security discourse as feminine, and are devalued. They are therefore, first very difficult to speak, (…) And second, they are very difficult to hear, to take in and work with seriously, even if they are said. For the others in the room, the way in which the physicists comments were marked as female and devalued served to deligitimate them. (…) In other professional settings, I have experienced the feeling that something terribly important is being left out and must be spoken; and yet, it has felt almost physically impossible to utter the words, almost as though they could not be pushed out into the smooth, cool, opaque air of the room.”
(Cohn, 1993: 231)
Cohn explains, that any words which show emotional awareness of the human reality behind all those calculations, and clinical and abstract terms, are subjects out of bounds.
6So, words as thirty million rotting corpses, psychological effects on soldiers, babies dying from diarrhoea due to lack of clean water, etc., are supposed not to be mentioned. Besides, also tone of voice might delegitimize a statement.
Someone’s speaking style should be dispassionate and distanced. So, gender discourse shapes security discourses, and in so doing creates silences, as the particular, the vulnerable human bodies, and all of which is marked as feminine in the gender discourse will be left out. People will not bring certain concerns forward, as they might brand themselves as “wimps” when they would mention it (Cohn, 1993). According to Professor International Relations at the University of Arizona, V.
6Cohn interestingly notes that “In an ‘objective’ ‘universal’ discourse that valorizes the ‘masculine’ and deauthorizes the ‘feminine,’ it is only the ‘feminine’ emotions that are noticed and labeled as emotions, and thus in need of banning from the analytical process. ‘Masculine’ emotions – such as feelings of aggression, competition, macho pride and swagger, or the sense of identity resting on carefully defended borders – are not so easily noticed and identified as emotions, and are instead invisible folded into “self-evident,” so-called realist paradigms and analyses.” (Cohn 1993: 242)
