Does More Equality for Women Mean Less War? Rethinking Sex and Gender Inequality and Political Violence

Abstract

Recent world events, such as the rise of hypermasculine authoritarian leaders, have shown the importance of both sex and gender for understanding international politics. However, quantitative researchers of conflict have long relegated the study of sex and gender inequality as a cause of war to a specialized group of scholars, despite overwhelming evidence that the connections are profound and consequential. In this review essay, we demonstrate the tremendous progress made in this field by analyzing a wave of research that examines the relationships between sex and gender inequality and war. We divide this work into theories that emphasize strategy versus those that analyze structures. In addition, we focus on two aspects of this research agenda—specifying mechanisms that link sex and gender inequality to war, and leveraging data at multiple levels of analysis—to outline fruitful pathways forward for the broader international security research agenda. Ultimately, we argue that the study of the nexus of sex and gender inequality and war will enliven theoretical debates, illuminate new hypotheses, and enrich the policy discourse with robust evidence.

Gender, sexism, and war

“…A final implication is that empowering more women may not be sufficient or necessary for bolstering peace (see also Cohen and Karim, 2021). It may not be sufficient if women are empowered in isolated fashion in single countries, especially if they're surrounded by sexist opponents.…”

“…Our model builds on this promise in two ways. First, we relax the essentialist assumption that equates sex and gender (see Cohen and Karim, 2021); individual preferences can vary in our model even as sex does not, and gender manifests in other leaders' sexism, not in any inherent sex differences. Second, we focus on strategic interaction, which fits with the mainstream gender-studies proposition that gender operates not within the silo of an individual but rather as a social phenomenon.…”

“…This is out of step with contemporary perspectives on gender, which reject the essentialist assumption that equates biological sex with socially-constructed gender, as well as war, which treat conflict as a strategic process. Yet as more women become national leaders, the need to understand gender's effect on crisis bargaining is more urgent (see also Cohen and Karim, 2021;Dube and Harish, 2020). In the last decade, Poland's Ewa Kopacz, South Korea's Park Geun-hye, and Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen all faced possible crises with Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korea's Kim Jong-un, and China's Xi Jinping, respectively, yet we lack a clear theoretical account of how gender politics shapes the onset and escalation of international crises.…”

Armed Violence and Patriarchal Values: A Survey of Young Men in Thailand and Their Military Experiences

“…During the past three decades, the connection between sex and gender equality on the one hand and war and violence on the other has received increasing attention. The relationship has been studied from both a research and policy perspective at the state and individual levels (for a recent review, see Cohen and Karim 2022). Although many influential contributions have focused on macro-level correlations indicating that more gender equal societies are more peaceful (e.g., Caprioli 2000;Caprioli and Boyer 2001;Dahlum and Wig 2020;Melander 2005), the literature focusing on the individual level has received less scholarly attention despite a Elin Bjarnegård , Associate Professor, Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden, elin.bjarnegard@statsvet.uu.se.…”

Civil Wars as Critical Junctures: Theoretical Grounding and Empirical Applications

“…Researchers and practitioners must pay close attention to inequalities and take an intersectional approach in order to ensure that apparently progressive changes on paper or in some women's rights, political representation, and access to justice are not masking the continuation of exploitative systems and the marginalization of certain identity groups (Berry 2018;Berry and Lake 2021;Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2022;Giri 2021;Lake 2018). Work should also continue to problematize binary conceptions of gender identity and essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity and how they are reproduced or challenged during and after conflict (Cohen and Karim 2022;Dietrich Ortega 2012;Hagen 2016), especially as women's participation in warmaking efforts may be framed in terms of 'traditional' gender roles, signaling a government or armed group's intent for a return to stereotypical sociopolitical roles and divisions of labor after conflict ends (e.g. Başer 2022;Loken 2021;Loken and Zelenz 2018).…”