Combatants

Citation:

Basini, Helen S.A. 2013. “Gender Mainstreaming Unraveled: The Case of DDRR in Liberia.” International Interactions 39 (4): 535–57.

Author: Helen S.A. Basini

Abstract:

In the past women have been excluded from peace initiatives. However, with the advent of UNSCR 1325 (2000) women's agency in the process has been heightened through a new framework for involvement. UNSCR 1325 is a policy document that acknowledges the link between women, peace, and security and uses gender mainstreaming as a mechanism to implement its objectives. Yet in spite of its policy advancements, over a decade later women still do not participate equally in peace and security initiatives that impact on the sustainability of peace. This article aims to explore the context of this framework through considerations of the gender mainstreaming provision in the disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration (DDRR) process in Liberia. Using interviews with women associated with fighting forces (WAFFs)/ex-combatants the article argues that although there was a specific targeted focus showing some gender responsive design and coordination, WAFFs’/ex-combatants’ unique needs, especially those of a social and psychological nature, were poorly addressed. In addition, the commentary shows that the focus did not attend to structural inequality issues such as sexual and gender based violence (SGBV).

Keywords: DDR, ex-combatant, gender mainstreaming, Liberia, UNSCR 1325, women associated with fighting forces

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Mainstreaming, Peace and Security, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Sexual Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia

Year: 2013

Citation:

Yaeger, Deborah, Naomi Himmelfarb, Alison Cammack, and Jim Mintz. 2006. “DSM-IV Diagnosed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Women Veterans With and Without Military Sexual Trauma.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 21(3): 65-69.

Authors: Deborah Yaeger, Naomi Himmelfarb, Alison Cammack, Jim Mintz

Abstract:

BACKGROUND: This study compares rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in female veterans who had military sexual trauma (MST) with rates of PTSD in women veterans with all other types of trauma.

METHODS: Subjects were recruited at the Women’s Comprehensive Healthcare Center when attending medical or psychiatric appointments or through a mailing; 230 women agreed and 196 completed the study. They completed questionnaires on health and military history, along with the Stressful Life Events Questionnaire (SLEQ). Those who met DSM-IV PTSD Criterion A completed the PTSD Symptom Scale-Interview (PSS-I) on which PTSD diagnoses were based.

RESULTS: Ninety-two percent reported at least 1 trauma. Forty-one percent had MST, alone or with other trauma, and 90% had other trauma, with or without MST. Overall, 43% of subjects with trauma had PTSD. Those with MST had higher rates of PTSD than those with other trauma. Sixty percent of those with MST had PTSD; 43% of subjects with other traumas (with or without MST) had PTSD. Military sexual trauma and other trauma both significantly predicted PTSD in regression analyses (P=.0001 and .02, respectively) but MST predicted it more strongly. Prior trauma did not contribute to the relationship between MST and PTSD.

DISCUSSION: Findings suggest that MST is common and that it is a trauma especially associated with PTSD.

Keywords: PTSD, military sexual trauma, women's health

Topics: Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Health, Mental Health, PTSD, Trauma, Humanitarian Assistance, Context-Appropriate Response to Trauma, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2006

Citation:

Waller, Marguerite. and Jennifer Rycenga. 2000. Frontline Feminisms: Women, War, and Resistance. New York: Garland Pub. 

Authors: Marguerite Waller, Jennifer Rycenga

Keywords: war, feminism, women

Annotation:

The essays in this collection, from both scholars and activists, explore the experiences of local women's groups that have developed to fight war, militarization, political domination, and patriarchy throughout the world.

Table of Contents:

Series Editor's Foreword /Chandra Talpade Mohanty

I. Domestic and Public Violence

1.Public Imprisonment and Private Violence: Reflections on the Hidden Punishment of Women /Angela Y. Davis

2.Screaming in Silence /Shadia el Sarraj

3.From Reverence to Rape: An Anthropology of Ethnic and Genderized Violence /Vesna Kesic

4.Laughter, Tears, and Politics - Dialogue: How Women Do It /Vesna Kesic and Lepa Mladjenovic

5.The Opposite of War Is Not Peace - It Is Creativity /Zorica Mrsevic

6.Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence /Lucinda Joy Peach

7.Art as a Healing Tool from "A Window Between Worlds" /Cathy Salser

II. Gender, Militarism, and Sexuality

8.Translating/Transgressing/Torture ... /Irene Matthews

9.Women and Militarization in Israel: Forgotten Letters in the Midst of Conflict /Isis Nusair

10.Sudanese Women under Repression, and the Shortest Way to Equality /Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim

11.Who Benefits? U.S. Military, Prostitution, and Base Conversion /Saundra Sturdevant

12.Demilitarizing Security: Women Oppose U.S. Militarism in East Asia /Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey

13.Women's Politics and Organizing in Vietnam and Cambodia /Kathryn McMahon

14.Women in Command: A Successful Experience in the National Liberation Army of Iran /Sorayya Shahri

15.Conversion /Habiba Metikos

16.The Passage /Vinka Ljubimir

III. Nonviolent, and Not-Nonviolent, Action against Patriarchy

17.The Kitchen Cabinet /Julie Mertus

18.Ritual as Resistance: Tibetan Women and Nonviolence /Benina Berger Gould

19.The Impact of Women in Black in Israel /Gila Svirsky

20.Feminist Resistance to War and Violence in Serbia /Lepa Mladjenovic and Donna M. Hughes

21.Gender, Nationalism, and the Ambiguity of Female Agency in Aceh, Indonesia, and East Timor /Jacqueline Siapno

22.Maria Stewart, Black Abolitionist, and the Idea of Freedom /Jennifer Rycenga

23.January 16, 1997: Message from Maryam Rajavi, President-Elect of the Iranian Resistance /Maryam Rajavi

24."You Have a Voice Now, Resistance Is Futile!" /Shashwati Talukdar

IV. Where Are the Frontlines?

25.Women's Activism in Rural Kosova /Eli

26.The Soldier and the State: Post-Liberation Women: The Case of Eritrea /Sondra Hale

27.Beyond the Baton: How Women's Responses Are Changing Definitions of Police Violence /Nancy Keefe Rhodes

28.Black Women and Labor Unions in the South: From the 1970s to the 1990s /Ida Leachman

29.From the Mississippi Delta to South Central Los Angeles /Georgiana Williams

30."A Struggle for the Mind": Black Working-Class Women's Organizing in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta, 1960s to 1990s /Laurie Beth Green

31.A State of Work: Women, Politics, and Protest on an Indian Tea Plantation /Piya Chatterjee.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Nonviolence, Political Participation, Race, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, SV against Women

Year: 2000

Citation:

Segal, Lynne. 2008. "Gender, War and Militarism: Making and Questioning the Links." Feminist Review 88: 21-35.

Author: Lynne Segal

Abstract:

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of 'masculinity' that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the 'masculinist' postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism.

Keywords: Gender, war, militarism, masculinity, gender analysis, New Profile

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Analysis, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Violence Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Israel

Year: 2008

Citation:

Miller, Laura L., and Charles Moskos. 1995. “Humanitarians or Warriors?: Race, Gender, and Combat Status in Operation Restore Hope.” Armed Forces & Society 21 (4): 615-637.

Authors: Laura L. Miller, Charles Moskos

Abstract:

Operation Restore Hope was a confusing mission for American soldiers. Trained as warriors, they were thrust into a humanitarian mission. Expecting to distribute food to grateful Somalis, they were attacked instead by the locals and were limited to security and guard duty. Soldiers' attitudes evolved through three stages: high expectations, disillusionment, and reconsideration. In the last stage, soldiers adopted one of two frameworks to cope with the ambiguity of the mission: warrior versus humanitarian. The former was more strongly associated with whites, men, and combat soldiers, who constructed negative stereotypes of Somalis and favored returning violence with violence. Blacks, women, and support soldiers tended to reject victim-blaming arguments seemingly imported from the United States. They maintained a humanitarian position, seeking explanations for Somali actions and distinguishing between clan warriors and needy refugees. Our data come from field observations, interviews, and surveys of Army troops who served in Somalia.

Keywords: humanitarian mission, combatants, race, Gender, Operation Restore Hope, American soldiers, Somali refugees

Topics: Combatants, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Gender, Humanitarian Assistance, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Race Regions: Africa, East Africa, Americas, North America Countries: Somalia, United States of America

Year: 1995

Citation:

Goldstein, Joshua S. 2001. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Author: Joshua S. Goldstein

Abstract:

Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and cross cultures. Topics covered include the history of women who did fight and fought well, the complex role of testosterone in men's social behaviors, and the construction of masculinity and femininity in the shadow of war. Goldstein concludes that killing in war does not come naturally for either gender, and that gender norms often shape men, women, and children to the needs of the war system. Illustrated with photographs, drawings, and graphics, and drawing from scholarship spanning six academic disciplines, War and Gender translates and synthesizes our latest understanding of gender roles in war. (WorldCat)

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Male Combatants, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies

Year: 2001

Citation:

Cohen, Dara Kay. 2010. “Explaining Sexual Violence during Civil War.” PhD diss., Stanford University.

Author: Dara Kay Cohen

Abstract:

Keywords: sexual violence, civil war

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Sexual Violence, Rape Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Sierra Leone

Year: 2010