Women and Wars

Citation:

Cohn, Carol, ed. 2012. Women and Wars. Malden, MA: Polity Press. 

Author: Carol Cohn

Abstract:

Where are the women? In traditional historical and scholarly accounts of the making and fighting of wars, women are often nowhere to be seen. With few exceptions, war stories are told as if men were the only ones who plan, fight, are injured by, and negotiate ends to wars. As the pages of this book tell, though, those accounts are far from complete. Women can be found at every turn in the gendered phenomena of war. Women have participated in the making, fighting, and concluding of wars throughout history, and their participation is only increasing at the turn of the 21st century. Women experience war in multiple ways: as soldiers, as fighters, as civilians, as caregivers, as sex workers, as sexual slaves, refugees and internally displaced persons, as anti-war activists, as community peace-builders, and more. This book at once provides a glimpse into where women are in war, and gives readers the tools to understand women's (told and untold) war experiences in the greater context of the gendered nature of global social and political life. (Polity Press)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

Foreword by Cynthia Enloe

1. Women and Wars: Toward a Conceptual Framework
Carol Cohn

2. Women and the Political Economy of War
Angela Raven-Roberts

3. Sexual Violence and Women's Health in War
Pamela DeLargy

4. Women Forced to Flee: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
Wenona Giles

5. Women and Political Activism in the Face of War and Militarization
Carol Cohn and Ruth Jacobson

6. Women and State Military Forces
Jennifer G. Mathers

7. Women, Girls, and Non-State Armed Opposition Groups
Dyan Mazurana

8. Women and Peace Processes
Malathi de Alwis, Julie Mertus, and Tazreena Sajjad

9. Women, Girls, and Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR)
Dyan Mazurana and Linda Eckerbom Cole

10. Women "After" Wars
Ruth Jacobson

Reviews of Women and Wars:

By Laura Shepherd: http://www.genderanddevelopment.org/page/women-wars-review

By Christine Sylvester: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/04/08/book-review-women-and-wars-carol-cohn/

By Erika Cudworth: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2013.768009

By Katherine E. Brown: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9012414

By Jean Owen: http://fwsablog.org.uk/2013/05/27/book-review-women-and-wars-ed-carol-cohn/

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gender, Women, Girls, Health, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Non-State Armed Groups, Peace Processes, Political Economies, Political Participation, Post-Conflict

Year: 2012