Women, Peace and Security: A Critical Analysis of the Security Council’s Vision

Citation:

Otto, Dianne. 2018. “Women, Peace and Security: A Critical Analysis of the Security Council’s Vision.” In Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, edited by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi Cahn, Dina Francesca Hayes, and Nahla Valji. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Author: Dianne Otto

Abstract:

This chapter historicizes the United Nations Security Council’s Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. It opens by describing the vision of peace emerging out of the Hague Congress of Women, wherein a pacifist agenda perceived resorting to arms to resolve inter-state disputes as unacceptable. It analyzes this vision in the context of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda, and argues that the Security Council fails in protecting women from conflict-related harm. It demonstrates how feminist conceptions of positive peace have become captive to the militarized security frame of the Security Council. The chapter concludes with suggestions for how peace needs to be reconceptualized to strengthen the feminist opposition to war and to fight protective stereotypes of women.

Keywords: pacifism, Women Peace and Security agenda, Hague Congress of Women, United Nations, security council, positive peace

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Peace and Security, International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Peacebuilding, Peacekeeping, Peace Processes, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS

Year: 2018