10 - New Frontiers in the Study of Women, Conflict, and Peace

Summary

I remember the leaders of the Women's Movement saying,

we must stop dancing from the side

we are done with

begging

lobbying

talking

negotiating.

We are tired of being children of a lesser god

we must operate from the centre

we must live our dreams, they said

I remember the leaders saying

we must negotiate the double covenant

we must decide on

our destiny and that of our people.

I remember that was the day the lord hath made

the women rejoiced and were glad in her

from that day henceforth the women moved to the centre, their centre

it is now time for harvest.

– Wanjiku Kabira, excerpted from “Grandma Remembers,” Time for Harvest, 2012

This book has pursued one key question: Why are women's rights and rates of leadership improving more rapidly in postconflict countries in Africa than elsewhere on the continent, particularly in countries that have experienced major conflict? This chapter takes the key findings and situates them in a broader frame of gender regime change. It points to where this study takes us and what new unexplored issues emerge from this study.

At one level, the book argues that a combination of factors needs to be considered in linking postconflict dynamics with women's rights in Africa after the 1990s. They include disruptions in gender roles during conflict, the role of autonomous women's movements enabled by political opening, and changing international norms and UN pressures on governments.

Changing opportunity structures that limit or, in this case, facilitate social movements – in the form of peace negotiations and constitutional and electoral processes – allowed women's organizations to intervene in new ways to assert their interests, particularly a gender agenda. This was because the end of conflict shook up leadership structures, thus necessitating institutional change. Gaining power was at the core of the strategy of women activists because it was key to realizing their other demands.

At another level, this book is about a much bigger story that has to do with how gender regime change occurs. Laura Shepherd (2008) has argued that violence in war is gendered but it also creates gender. This book has shown that violence in the context of war, depending on other circumstances, can also disrupt and transform gender power relations.