The authors focus on the multidimensionality of gender in conflict, yet they also prioritise the experience of women given both the changing nature of war and the historical de-emphasis on women's experiences.

From Pakistan to Chechnya, Sri Lanka to Canada, pioneering women are taking their places in formal and informal military structures previously reserved for, and assumed appropriate only for men. Women have fought in wars, either as women or covertly dressed as men, throughout the history of warfare, but only recently have they been allowed to join state militaries, insurgent groups, and terrorist organizations in unprecedented numbers. This begs the question - how useful are traditional gendered categories in understanding the dynamics of war and conflict? And why are our stories of gender roles in war typically so narrow? Who benefits from them? In this illuminating book, Laura Sjoberg explores how gender matters in war-making and war-fighting today. Drawing on a rich range of examples from conflicts around the world, she shows that both women and men play many more diverse roles in wars than either media or scholarly accounts convey. Gender, she argues, can be found at every turn in the practice of war; it is crucial to understanding not only ‘what war is’, but equally how it is caused, fought and experienced. With end of chapter questions for discussion and guides to further reading, this book provides the perfect introduction for students keen to understand the multi-faceted role of gender in warfare. Gender, War and Conflict will challenge and change the way we think about war and conflict in the modern world.

Gender is increasingly recognized as central to the study and analysis of the traditionally male domains of war and international relations. The book explores the key role of gender in peace research, conflict resolution and international politics. Rather than simply add gender and stir the aim is to transcend different disciplinary boundaries and conceptual approaches to provide a more integrated basis for research and study. To this end Gender, Peace & Conflict uniquely combines theoretical chapters alongside empirical case studies, to demonstrate the importance of a gender perspective to both theory and practice in conflict resolution and peace research.

The gender-differentiated and more severe impacts of armed conflict upon women and girls are well recognised by the international community, as demonstrated by UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and subsequent resolutions. Similarly, the development community has identified gender-differentiated impacts upon women and girls as a result of the effects of climate change. Current research and analysis has reached no consensus as to any causal relationship between climate change and armed conflict, but certain studies suggest an indirect linkage between climate change effects such as food insecurity and armed conflict. Little research has been conducted on the possible compounding effects that armed conflict and climate change might have on at-risk population groups such as women and girls. Armed Conflict, Women and Climate Change explores the intersection of these three areas and allows the reader to better understand how military organisations across the world need to be sensitive to these relationships to be most effective in civilian-centric operations in situations of humanitarian relief, peacekeeping and even armed conflict. This book examines strategy and military doctrine from NATO, the UK, US and Australia, and explores key issues such as displacement, food and energy insecurity, and male out-migration as well as current efforts to incorporate gender considerations in military activities and operations. This innovative book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, international development, international security, sustainability, gender studies and law.

Men's gender role conflict is a psychological state in which restrictive definitions of masculinity limit men's well-being and human potential. Gender role conflict (GRC) doesn't just harm boys and men, but also girls and women, transgendered people, and society at large. Extensive research relates men's GRC to myriad behavioral problems, including sexism, violence, homophobia, depression, substance abuse, and relationship issues. This book represents a call to action for researchers and practitioners, graduate students, and other mental healthcare professionals to confront men's GRC and reduce its harmful influence on individuals and society. James O'Neil is a pioneer in men's psychology who conceptualized GRC and created the Gender Role Conflict Scale. In this book, he combines numerous studies from renowned scholars in men's psychology with more than 30 years of his own clinical and research experience to promote activism and challenge the status quo. He describes multiple effects of men's GRC, including success, power, and competition issues restricted emotionality restricted affectionate behavior between men conflicts between men's work and family relations. O'Neil also explains when GRC can develop in a man's gender role journey, how to address it through preventative programs and therapy for boys and men, and what initiatives researchers and clinicians can pursue.

This publication focuses on the gender dimensions of intrastate conflicts (civil wars), organised around eight key themes of gender and warfare, sexual violence, formal and informal peace processes, post-conflict legal frameworks, work issues, rehabilitation of social services and community-driven development. For each theme, the authors examine the impact on gender roles of conflict situations, the development challenges involved, and the policy options available to help build more inclusive and gender balanced post-conflict societies.

Investigates gendered aspects of social activism and peacebuilding. This title focuses on the agency of grassroots citizens, refugee, indigenous, and ethnic minority women. It brings gendered aspects of practice that assists scholars and practitioners in research and policy development.

Laura Sjoberg positions gender and gender subordination as key factors in the making and fighting of global conflict. Through the lens ofgender, she examines the meaning, causes, practices, and experiences of war, building a more inclusive approach to the analysis of violent conflict between states. Considering war at the international, state, substate, and individual levels, Sjoberg's feminist perspective elevates a number of causal variables in war decision-making. These include structural gender inequality, cycles of gendered violence, state masculine posturing, the often overlooked role of emotion in political interactions, gendered understandings of power, and states' mistaken perception of their own autonomy and unitary nature. Gendering Global Conflict also calls attention to understudied spaces that can be sites of war, such as the workplace, the household, and even the bedroom. Her findings show gender to be a linchpin of even the most tedious and seemingly bland tactical and logistical decisions in violent conflict. Armed with that information, Sjoberg undertakes the task of redefining and reintroducing critical readings of war's political, economic, and humanitarian dimensions, developing the beginnings of a feminist theory of war.

Through an in-depth analysis of the multifaceted manifestations of gender and conflict, this book shows how cognition and behaviour, agency and victimization, are gendered beyond the popular stereotypes. Conflict not only reconfirms social hierarchies and power relations, but also motivates people to transgress cultural boundaries and redefine their self-images and identities. The contributions are a mix of classical ethnography, performance studies and embodiment studies, showing ’emotions and feelings’ often denied in scientific social research. Strong in their constructivist approach and unorthodox in theory, the articles touch upon the dynamic relation between the discourses, embodiments and symbolic practices that constitute the gendered world of conflict. The localities and research sites vary from institutional settings such as a school, rebel movements, public toilets and the military to more artistic domains of gendered conflicts such as prison theatre classes and the capoeira ring. At the same time, these conflicts and domains appropriate wider discourses and practices of a global nature, demonstrating the globalised and institutionalised nature of the nexus gender-conflict. A first set of chapters deals with ’breaking the gender taboos’ and renegotiating the stereotypical gender roles - masculinities or femininities - during conflict. A second set of chapters focuses more explicitly on the bodily experience of conflict either physically of symbolically, while the last set straddle body and narrative. The inductive quality of the work leads to unexpected insights and does give access to worlds that are new, and often surprising and unconventional.

In Unbending Gender, Joan Williams takes a hard look at the state of feminism in America. Concerned by what she finds--young women who flatly refuse to identify themselves as feminists and working-class and minority women who feel the movement hasn't addressed the issues that dominate their daily lives--she outlines a new vision of feminism that calls for workplaces focused on the needs of families and, in divorce cases, recognition of the value of family work and its impact on women's earning power.Williams shows that workplaces are designed around men's bodies and life patterns in ways that discriminate against women, and that the work/family system that results is terrible for men, worse for women, and worst of all for children. She proposes a set of practical policies and legal initiatives to reorganize the two realms of work in employment and households--so that men and women can lead healthier and more productive personal and work lives. Williams introduces a new 'reconstructive' feminism that places class, race, and gender conflicts among women at center stage. Her solution is an inclusive, family-friendly feminism that supports both mothers and fathers as caregivers and as workers.