“It’s ok gentlemen, sit down” barked David Pinder as he entered the room; “I wouldn’t expect you to get up for me.” The simulation had begun. Around the negotiation table were representatives from three warring parties, senior ranking officers from UN Civil Affairs and UNHCR, myself - the head of EU Monitors - and Pinder, now in firm control of the simulation as Head of the UN Mission in our fictitious ‘Bosovo’. Implicit in his statement: ‘Women you are invisible here… welcome to military monde’.
As someone who has participated in ‘white privilege’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ workshops, I have been trained to think about positionality: who is in the room, who is speaking, who has authority, what are the dynamics between actors. I noticed that only two women had chosen roles and therefore had the ability to speak over the next two hours, and that both of us had taken roles with the UN or EU. I thought back to the moment I arrived at the Gender Day Seminar, and had the ability to choose between three roles – either the EU or one of the warring parties. I remembered semi-conscious gratitude that I could be more or less ‘neutral’ in the sessions, taking on a third party role I could see myself playing in the future, but also slight hesitancy about taking the role most comfortable for me and therefore less challenging. The result: men represented all three military parties although there were another four women in the simulation. Perhaps that was accidental, perhaps fitting the stereotype. However, I think the absence of broader gender inclusivity in the simulation was neither accidental nor appropriate.
Let me be clear from the outset I think that gender is an important lens through which to address issues of peace and conflict, however I do not think it is the only lens that is important. For me gender is one dimension of power relations, and depending on the context other elements such as race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability/disability, sexual orientation as well as the intersections of them should also be considered. When Pinder debriefed the simulation, he explained that his workshop demonstrated the absence of gender consciousness – the ‘dark side’ of gender relations. He played the apologist, suggesting that this is just how things are when you try to walk the razor’s edge of ceasefire with parties in conflict. However his argument suggests complicity with the status quo, which is very dangerous not only for gender equality but the host of power imbalances that are perpetuated by allowing only the violent groups and/or political elites to be involved in ‘making’ peace. To echo the queries of one UN negotiator, Carolyn McAskie “Why is it that peace negotiations are held amongst those who created the war? Why should the construction of the peace only include those people?”
In reality, Pinder’s gender exclusivity now goes against the very United Nations that employed him. According to Article 8 of Resolution 1325, adopted in October, 2000:
The Security Council… [c]alls on all actors involved, when negotiating and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective, including, inter alia:
(a) The special needs of women and girls during repatriation and resettlement and for rehabilitation, reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction;
(b) Measures that support local women’s peace initiatives and indigenous processes for conflict resolution, and that involve women in all of the implementation mechanisms of the peace agreements;
(c) Measures that ensure the protection of and respect for human rights of women and girls, particularly as they relate to the constitution, the electoral system, the police and the judiciary.
Simply because there was no gender agenda when he negotiated in Bosnia in the early 1990s does not mean that we should continue mock-Bosnian simulations in this vein in 2009. However, it left me wondering: has Resolution 1325 made a difference for ceasefire negotiations today or did our simulation reflect the reality?
Despite the beautiful rhetoric of Resolution 1325, the little literature I have since read suggests that is often difficult to engender inclusion in peace negotiations. I was disheartened to hear the reflections of Carolyn McAskie, UN Special Envoy to Burundi during the Arusha Peace negotiations of 1999-2000:
I attended one of the most awful meetings of my life where I had to listen to 19 Burundian parties, all led by men, explain why they couldn’t let women in the room as observers or as NGOs. It was appalling; I’ve never heard anything like it. Luckily one of my colleagues on the negotiation was an African woman from West Africa and she stood up and gave them hell in a way I never could as a non-African. But finally I did intervene and said ‘I did not come all this way to negotiate with a group that represents only 50% of the population.’ It didn’t make a dent. They smile a bit sheepishly and then they go on about their business.
While this meeting occurred a decade ago – likely just prior to the adoption of 1325 – her words demonstrate the great vigilance required on the part of third parties convening negotiations to establish greater participation in the process. Four years later, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini has indicated that little has changed in negotiation cultures – either with armed parties and political elite at the local level or with international negotiation teams such as Pinder’s. Would there have been a thought to the inclusion of women in the Burundian process if McAskie had not been in such an influential role? How often have women been in positions of responsibility within these negotiation teams – particularly since 2000? Is Resolution 1325 making a difference – if so where and how? What enforcement mechanisms are needed to make the inclusion of women more practicable? It appears there is scope for a dissertation.
Yet, it is also important to ask: does having women present necessarily make a difference? To play devil’s advocate, women often play significant roles in broader peace-building measures both during and after conflicts: do they really need to be involved in the ceasefire bit? One could argue, as we did in our morning sessions that even if common constructions of masculinity see men as warriors, and femininity see women as peacemakers, there are multiple constructions of both, and these very greatly across cultures. While women often play a leading role in peace activism women can also be found in the military and guerilla movements or supportive of their children or partners engaged in large-scale violent conflict. Also, as some have argued on the issue of quotas for women’s representation in government, it matters a great deal if the women participating are there to be ‘yes women’ or ‘quota queens’ – representing the interests of powerful men – or if they are there to act in their own interests and for the interests of their communities. The same could be said of women in negotiations. It would be naïve or simplistic to equate women’s presence with sustainable peace -- full stop.
However this should not be an excuse to prevent women from participating in or observing ceasefire negotiations or, in my opinion for setting quotas. Women should have the right, as half of the population, to be included in decision-making processes that affect their lives. Quotas are certainly not problem free, and should not be introduced without supporting resources like training and equal access to education programming if they are to transform women’s participation beyond tokenism. Yet, I also agree with academics like Mansbridge that quotas often serve as an important benchmark for representation in the short term, which can (and perhaps should) become more malleable as structures and systems change over time. This leads us back to the question: how do you ensure women have a voice in the fragile and tense atmospheres of ceasefire negotiations that often seem to be more about strategic priorities than human ones?
While interacting as the EU Monitor I did not come up with easy answers to that. Gender was not to be found anywhere on my typed ‘overt’ or ‘covert’ agenda, nor did it seem to be on the agendas of anyone else – except perhaps the UNHCR. I wonder if a central part of the problem is actually the broader cultures or ideologies of militarization in which this process is currently embedded, and the particular – though varying – masculinities constructed in armed groups be they militaries or rebel movements. While gender programming often focuses on empowering women, perhaps as much attention and resources need to be dedicated to conscientizing and empowering men to take responsibility for changing these masculinities and their relationship with women’s exclusion. We need to move beyond polarizing ideas like men are the problem and women are the solution. We can work together to challenge and transform the power imbalances within our societies at all stages of the conflict and peacemaking.
