Security Dialogue

Notions of security are often presumed to be gender neutral, with women and men assumed to share the same political freedoms and human rights. However, assumptions of gender neutrality often mask bias. Do democracy and human rights positively relate to women’s security? If a gender bias is inherent in these norms, then any conclusions drawn from studies using such measures will be strictlylimited, and policy prescriptions designed to ensure security must move beyond policies focusing on promoting democracy and human rights as currently conceptualized. Using a cross-national, longitudinal analysis, this article systematically examines whether democracy and human rights reflect women’s security, and concludes thatneither democracy nor human rights as commonly measured ensure women’s security.

This article introduces the concept of ethnicity in relation to gendered security problems in conflict and post-conflict settings. Feminist research has established that men and women experience conflict and post-conflict situations differently owing to issues of identity and power. National and gendered identities and women’s disadvantageous location within global and local power structures combine to put women at risk, while simultaneously providing little room for them to voice their security problems. Theories on women as female boundary-makers show how ethnicity appears in part to be created, maintained and socialized through male control of gender identities, and how women’s fundamental human rights and dignity are often caught up in male power struggles. In post-conflict settings, gender construction appears to be further complicated by both nationalagendas of identity formation and re-formation, which often include an ethnic focus, and the presence of a competing ‘fraternity’ as aconsequence of the arrival of the international community.

This article challenges the idea that women are necessarily more peaceful than men by looking at examples of female combatants in ethno-nationalist military organizations in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. Anti-state, ‘liberatory’ nationalisms often provide more space (ideologically and practically) for women to participate as combatants than do institutionalized state or pro-state nationalisms, and this can be seen in the cases of the LTTE in Sri Lanka and the IRA in Northern Ireland when contrasted with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. However, the role of the female combatant is ambiguous and indicates a tension between different conceptualizations of societal security, where female combatants both fight against societal insecurity posed by the state and contribute to internal societal insecurity within their ethno-national groups.

The aim of this article is to make a preliminary attempt to explore the extent to which the subject of girl soldiers might fit into discussions of security. The empirical study of girl soldiers falls within the larger issue of child soldiers, which has received wide exposure in recent years, though there have been few attempts to conceptualize or attach theory to it. This is even more so in regard to girl soldiers, who until recently were barely acknowledged or noticed, though they arecurrently estimated to comprise somewhere between one-tenth and one-third of all child soldiers. Gender and security literature has also tended to overlook girl soldiers, and there are limitations on applying gender theory to the plight of recruited girls. Although the subjectof girl soldiers is difficult to locate within traditional state-military security or social security discussions, it appears to fall squarelywithin the human security approach. In spite of the weaknesses ofthe human security concept, its strengths create a security space in which the gendered insecurities of girl soldiers can be recognized and addressed.

This article contributes towards ongoing debates on gender, security and post-conflict studies. Its focus is on the activities of male peace-keepers and their gendered relations with women and girls. Against the backdrop of the peacekeeping economies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, we focus on the consequencesof male peacekeepers’ construction and enactment of masculinity (and masculinities) on the security of local women. We concludeby suggesting that a deeper understanding of gender relations and security in peacekeeping contexts is necessary for any policy intervention in post-conflict settings.