Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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Gender and Conflict TransformationReport of a seminar held on 18th February 2004 at Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London
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Gender and war |
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Participants gave examples of the male domination of society in countries with which they were familiar. In Sudan there is a small, intellectual, female elite who have broadly equal rights with men (at least in terms of work and pay) while the large majority of women have little voice in the strongly patriarchal society. Similarly men have dominated both the civil war and the subsequent peace process in Sri Lanka, and local ‘culture’ (whether Tamil, Muslim on Sinhala) is used as a justification for excluding women, even by academics and intellectuals. In Angola, too, both conflict and the traditional methods of mitigating it are conducted through male social structures. Women often perpetuate such structures – for example by how they behave as mothers in educating the next generation. One participant spoke of the desire expressed, particularly by young women, for education, fewer children and a greater political voice in many developing countries. Unfortunately, older women tend to perpetuate existing structures, for example by encouraging their sons to subjugate their wives. Sri Lankan war widows are shunned, even by other women, compounding their isolation. And in the West, how often do we hear a son’s bad behaviour being excused by comments such as “he’s a real boy”, when similar behaviour from a girl would not be tolerated? Sadly, religion also plays a part in the subjugation of women. One participant spoke about the sanctioning of the sexual abuse of non-Moslem women by Islamic fighters in Sudan. And another remarked that it is impossible to reconcile gender justice with Sharia Law. It could be argued that Human Rights incorporates Women’s Rights, and that women need no additional protection. Certainly Human Rights legislation provides a vital base-line, but the problem is to get it applied to women. To try and address this problem, there are international resolutions and agreements that deal specifically with gender equality. CEDAW(1), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, often described as an international bill of rights for women, defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. Similarly United Nations resolution 1325(2) on Women, Peace and Security (ratified unanimously in 1991) urges member states to ensure that women are represented at all levels in the prevention, management and resolution of conflict, and in peacebuilding and peacekeeping measures. As if to reinforce these resolutions, the current rhetoric of international politics makes much of gender issues. It would seem, therefore, that arguing for their full implementation should be like pushing at an open door. Unfortunately, reality is somewhat different. What more can we do to ensure that these resolutions are more effective in practice? A number of participants suggested that quotas should be built in to them, mandating the equal representation of women. (This might have been effective in Northern Ireland, for example, where women put themselves forward for involvement in the peace process, but were ignored.) Others felt that numerical equality was an inadequate goal: women also have to be able to contribute equally. But as one participant pointed out, an equal voice is difficult while women constitute 80% of the world’s illiterate. And, although there are millennium goals for equal access to education, there is little funding available to achieve these goals, and little interest from international aid agencies. An additional problem in conflict regions is that, while there is no immediate prospect of stability, funding agencies are reluctant to finance programmes for women’s education or more general capacity building, fearing that the money may be wasted. In reality, women’s contribution will help to build a stronger peace constituency. Even when funding is available to make resolution 1325 bite, the opportunity is sometimes missed. According to one participant, this was the case in Afghanistan, where UNIFEM was largely inactive and money allocated to gender mainstreaming was not spent. The result for Afghan women, according to a recent edition of New Internationalist(3), is that whereas, under the Taliban, a woman was liable to be flogged for showing an inch of flesh in the market place, now she was more likely to be raped. One participant pointed out that international law is underpinned by the use of force, and argued that there was a valid, redemptive role for force in combating violence (for example, in stopping the massacres in Rwanda). How does this fit into the model Diana proposes? One of the problems is that ends are affected by means: a ‘peace’ obtained by military means perpetuates brutality and is inevitably less stable, and less transformative, than one brought about through negotiation and commitment to change. Thus in Afghanistan, for example, the War Lords, whose rule was so bloody that the Taliban once seemed preferable, were used in the latest war to remove them and are now, outside of Khabul, back in power. An interesting recent change in the attitude to war (at least in the West) is a growing risk-averseness. The death of Western soldiers is increasingly deemed unacceptable (though the deaths of ‘enemy’ soldiers and civilians continue largely unreported). The traumatic effects of war on soldiers is also more widely recognised, though gender stereotyping still prevents it from being adequately dealt with. One participant recalled hearing an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of war in Japan during the Second World War. When he returned home he discovered that no one wanted to hear how he had suffered. As a result, he had carried the trauma of his imprisonment for twenty years before being able to talk about it. At least some progress has been made since then. Another participant challenged the stereotype of the masculine ‘hero’ referred to in Diana’s paper. She remembered seeing a warlord punching an elder (locally known as a white beard) in Tajikistan. In that culture the young warlord was not seen as a heroic figure, and his violence was deprecated. Diana readily agreed that the ‘hero’ is not the only stereotype, but stressed its general potency. One of the problems with discussing gender is that generalisations are unavoidable, but are also (obviously) wrong for some people. (1) see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/ |
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Conflict transformation and gender |
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| In international conflict transformation work, gender inequality is often accepted because of ‘cultural sensitivity’: we are afraid of being thought insensitive (though where does sensitivity end and prejudice begin?). One participant recalled an Italian woman facilitator in South India who had objected to eating after the men (which is the custom for women there) and in doing so had cause the Indian women deep offence. On the other hand, Diana recounted an incident in a workshop in Georgia, where she and her female co-facilitator were commanded to sit down by a male participant. Though they acquiesced, thinking that the incident was ‘a cultural matter’, Diana afterwards reflected that male facilitators would not have been put in this position and that it was not a good idea to give way to discrimination, at home or abroad. It is too easy to get caught in this culture-gender crossfire – and not only when working in other countries. Another participant recalled a UK meeting on gender mainstreaming where male participants overrode female contributions. It was noted that culture becomes such a sensitive issue because the politically powerful West is imposing its own cultural paradigm in other countries. One participant felt that gender justice was often seen, in itself, as a Western preoccupation, and dismissed as irrelevant or trivial. Whether or not this is true (or simply another indication of a male-dominated society failing to recognise that a people cannot be liberated while half of them remain subjugated), it was widely felt that, as incomers, we too often assume that the society is patriarchal. There are nearly always women already resisting gender injustice and we fail to notice, or to acknowledge, the extent of their influence. Examples were offered of the long history of women’s action in Iraq, and of the powerful roles of female ‘spirit advisors’ on whom many male chiefs depend in Zimbabwe. It is easy for an outsider to miss the ‘hidden transcripts’(4) of women networking with other women, particularly when that outsider is ignorant of the local language, has not lived in the country for any length of time in order to absorb its culture, and arrives with the alien agenda of an external organisation. In a number of countries women are taking a fundamental role in peacebuilding. In South Africa, young women were very active in the anti-apartheid movement, and had sufficient authority at the time of its downfall to ensure 50-50 representation in the new parliament. The Rwandan parliament has the highest proportion of women of any in the world, according to a recent New Internationalist(5), and Rwandan women are taking the lead in rebuilding peace, particularly at the grassroots level, where women who lost their husbands or sons in the Hutu-Tutsi civil war are rebuilding relationships with the families of those who killed them. Unfortunately, men are driving these widows off the land that their husbands had owned and that they now depend on for their livelihood, re-imposing the old power bases that look set to destroy the peace again. In some cultures women seem to have certain advantages over men in challenging war, possibly because they are considered less of a threat. In the Philippines, for example, nuns were able to prevent some of the fighting because it would have been so unacceptable to everyone if they had been shot or run over by the tanks they were stopping. This isn’t universally so, however: women in the Sri Lankan civil war were as brutalised as the men. Traditionally women have had no place at the peace table, having had no direct role in the conflict. This has led some women to involve themselves more directly in the fighting, to justify their presence in the negotiations, though with mixed success. They are not infrequently ignored and, as already discussed, if the warring parties (whether male or female) are there alone, without the representation of the wider civil society, any peace that is brokered is likely to be half-baked. UN resolution 1325 lays the groundwork for gender equality, and on occasion the international community has ensured that this has happened. But, as has been noted, numerical equality is not enough: women representatives must also have something to say and the authority to say it. Education plays a vital role here, and a number of success stories were offered by participants. The Mothers’ Union, for example, run women’s education programmes (for negotiating and communication skills, as well as for literacy) in a number of countries, and finds that this empowers local women to take action for themselves. South African women have a higher level of literacy than in many African countries, and have been more successful than most at achieving political representation and power. RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), acknowledging the importance of women’s education, run (often covert) literacy programmes in an effort to raise female literacy from its present estimated 5%. Education can also be useful in breaking down gender assumptions. In DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), for example, it is normal for girl pupils to clean the classroom, but after teachers were trained in gender justice they included boys in the task. A common thread through all these examples is the necessity for the process to be driven by those experiencing the injustice. Western agencies should be wary of imposing their own values and structures, but work to understand and support local initiatives, providing resources, finance and capacity building to help to ensure that any programmes for change are locally owned and legitimised. Another point of similarity is the emphasis on practical and realistic grassroots activity. One participant said that African women from the educated elite often find it particularly hard to work at the grassroots level. It seems that there are too many social hurdles between them and the ‘ordinary’, largely uneducated, women for their voices to be heard. Change is much more likely to be successful if it is locally motivated and led. It was suggested that more could be done to mark the value of grassroots efforts. For example, instead of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a leader (thus reinforcing the hierarchical, ‘male’ view of the world), it could be awarded collectively to 1000 ‘ordinary’ women who are working for peace in their own communities. In post-conflict situations, local women often ask the international community to impose gender equality, for example by setting quotas for parliamentary seats, hoping for a ‘leg up’ in terms of women’s representation. In Kosovo, for example, a mandatory one third of the members of the new parliament must be women, by international mandate. While such externally imposed equality has some benefits, it is obviously easier to oppose or belittle than if it were locally negotiated and agreed. It is a sad irony, too, that Britain is willing to impose equality of representation on others while having such a pitiful record itself. The international community can also have a role in listening to the needs of the wider community and using their authority to ensure that a broader agenda is brought to the negotiating table. It can also strengthen the legal framework and institutional environment to make it easier for Civil Society Organisations to operate. Forgiveness is seen as a feminine quality. One participant remembered a refugee, talking about the violence he had suffered, saying that the only thing he could do to change what had happened to him was to try to forgive, and being rounded on by his fellow refugees for an act of betrayal. Forgiveness is somehow perceived as ‘selling out’, and all the pressure is for demanding retribution. Perhaps this is one reason that forgiveness gets so little airtime in the male atmosphere of politics in general and peace negotiations in particular. Desmond Tutu suggested on Radio 4 last week that Tony Blair and George Bush would get more trust and respect if they were able to apologise for asserting (it now seems wrongly) that Iraq owned weapons of mass destruction and that they posed an international threat. But in the adversarial context of Western politics, an apology seems unthinkable. In Northern Ireland, the notion that anyone was a victim was not even named until the peace process, and then it was assumed that only men were victims, with women at best seen as the mothers or wives of victims. We need to find a new way of negotiating peace that incorporates women. As one participant remarked, dealing with the past is an activity that benefits from ‘gender spectacles’. In Rwanda, many of the lesser crimes of the genocide are being heard at gacaca courts, in which the suspects are taken back to where they were said to have committed their crimes and heard by a panel of judges chosen by local people. These courts, which have a very high level of female representation, are concerned as much with forgiveness (and accepting people back into the community they have wronged) as retribution. (4) James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, Yale and London: Yale University Press, 1990 (5) New Internationalist 364, January-February 2004 |
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Looking at ourselves |
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A number of participants acknowledged the difficulties for men in currently accepted gender roles. Two mothers spoke of the distress suffered by their young sons at their exclusion from Greenham Common women’s peace camp. They had realised, even as boys, that ‘men could not do that’ and hated the ‘brash and brave’ way in which they were expected to behave. One of the male participants echoed this discomfort when he spoke of how hard it is for men to talk about forgiveness. |
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