No / The practices and conceptions of peace and war have been highly gendered throughout world history. Indeed, the defining of genders has often itself been rooted in ideas and experiences of war and violence, with men as warriors, and women as the embodiment of peace. It is certainly the case that throughout human history the majority of war combatants have been men. By contrast many women have used their gendered identities, as mothers and guardians of life, in their activism in global peace movements, and in peacemaking at very local levels all over the globe. These gendered experiences of women and men have resonance everywhere in the world, but are also stereotypes. As well as being warriors and the bearers of violence, men have also resisted dominant social pressures to fight, and been active in movements to build peace. Women have also cajoled men, and socialised boys, to fight, and shamed those who did not. Thus, whereas a focus on the stereotypes suggests that the differences between women and men are due to their violent or peaceful natures, paying attention to the full range of behaviour of women and men makes it self-evident that these differences cannot be explained by biological differences alone, because they are so varied. Nonetheless, the roles played by women and men that go beyond the simple stereotypes are persistently regarded as transgressive or insignificant in many cultures, making it difficult to keep the broader picture in mind. That is not to say that gender differences are not significant however; gender remains one of the most important lenses through which to understand war and peace.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17621 |
| Date | 19 March 2019 |
| Creators | Pankhurst, Donna T. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book chapter, No full-text in the repository |
| Relation | https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/a-cultural-history-of-peace-in-the-modern-age-9781350179844/ |
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