Visible in Conflict, Invisible in Peace

Imperfect Victims? Civilian Men, Vulnerability, and Policy Preferences

“…There is now plenty of evidence that women, too, are actively involved in armed groups in support and combat roles across contexts (Henshaw 2016;Thomas 2017;Thomas and Bond 2015) and that they too are active participants in atrocities, such as conflict-related sexual violence (Cohen 2013). Nonetheless, men constitute the majority of perpetrators of conflict violence, and armed groups remain heavily male-dominated (Buvinic et al 2013;Loken 2017;Shekhawat 2015). This empirical reality does not, however, justify targeting people based on their gender.…”

“…Prior research has amply demonstrated that armed conflict affects men and women in distinct ways, in terms of the roles they play within armed groups or in war-affected societies, and in terms of the conflict violence they experience (Buvinic et al 2013;Carpenter 2006;Henshaw 2016;Kreft 2019;Shekhawat 2015).…”

Feminization of Female FARC-EP Combatants: From War Battle to Social-Economical Struggle

“…Therefore, the aforementioned “return” or “reintegration” pushes them into the flawed and unequal social structures that exist in the background. Shekhawat (2015) argues that female combatants have to face the continuum of the patriarchal structure, even though they experienced occasional ruptures during wartime. Those ruptures, namely masculinization o relative equality, are followed by the (re)adoption of gender regulations post-agreement, because “war and peace to these women are mere stages in a continuation of structural gender inequality and violence against women” (Lahai, 2015, p. 140).…”

“…The egalitarian approach of the resolution reaffirms the four Ps of women's rights: Participation, Prevention, Promotion, and Protection. Despite women's more recent inclusion, war is largely understood as a masculine endeavor for which a woman may serve as a victim, spectator, or prize (Shekhawat, 2015). However, women have played an active role in both wartime and peacebuilding.…”

“…Studies in Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reinsertion, and Reintegration (DDR) suggest that during wartime women took on traditionally masculine roles: receiving military training, carrying weapons, participating on the battlefields, behaving fiercely, even violently (Dietrich Ortega, 2014). While women are encouraged in this context to become masculine, and “feeling like men,” expected to adopt traditional roles when they demobilize, “they are relegated to the private domain within the four walls of domesticity to play one socially attributed role—that of women” (Shekhawat, 2015, p. 1). Thus, the sort of “shield” they had in the armed group breaks down, and they enter the continuum of gender asymmetries (Dietrich-Ortega, 2015).…”