Although conflict affects men and women differently, the wide array of peace scholarship that informs this literature review is gender silent. The scholarship takes a generic approach to the analysis of conflict, violence, peace and peace education in a way that seems to overlook how social inequalities between sexes subject them differently to experiences of violence. To address this gap I draw from the important feminist insights raised by Brock-Utne (2007) who proposes
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the need to approach the broader field of peace studies with a gender lens. Reardon (2001) also calls for an approach to peace studies that confronts gender bias. In addition to this, Rude (1999), Ewing (2003) and Sathiparsad (2005) all explore the dynamics of violence with a gender lens, particularly focusing on African contexts. Rude presents a Zambian perspective while Sathiparsad and Ewing locate their studies within South Africa.
Gender is a dynamic social construct that shapes definitions and expectations for femininity and masculinity and inevitably embodies a potential for conflict between girls, boys, men and women and their experiences, roles, needs, interests and preferences. A gender lens is necessary in the approach to peacebuilding for various reasons, as this discussion goes on to outline. Firstly, Peacebuilding has mainly focused on intra community differences that could have political and ethnic dimensions yet outside of politics individuals are shaped into a culture of violence by the everyday experiences of violence within the home, family and community.
This is rooted within the patriarchal structures of families and communities that, in spite of the milestones achieved in seeking equal opportunities for women and girls, continue to condone violence against women. Harris (2002:8) notes that Brock-Utne, writing in 1985:
…pointed out the devastation that militarism, war, and male violence wreacks (sic) upon females and argued that feminism is the starting point for effective disarmament. She pointed out that societies not at war were not necessarily peaceful because they still had considerable domestic violence.
A gendered approach enables the questioning of philosophies of peace that sometimes overlook how even in states like Zimbabwe, which I believe may be defined as fairly peaceful, women and girls continue to suffer from the structural violence of poverty and poor service delivery coupled with high levels of violence that characterizes the private sphere. Brock- Utne (2007:3) makes a feminist call for education for and about peace and further observes that due
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to the disparities fomented by globalization the greatest victims in both the industrialized and developing countries are women and children. She also affirms the reality that peace and freedom at a macro level are no assurance for the same at family level as women and girls may still be victim to violent customs. In Zimbabwe for example cases of child sexual abuse, rape, wife inheritance, child marriages and domestic violence abound in line with her observation that
“Likewise there may be war in a country and no wife battering or wife battering and no war.”
The South African scenario is another case in point where, even in the absence of overt military combat before and years after the end of apartheid, rape continues to be used a weapon to violate women and girls. Ewing (2003:54) makes a revealing analysis of rape, gender and the justice system and notes with concern how boys and girls, already victims of child rape routinely suffer secondary trauma due to a criminal justice system that has in built gender discrimination from reporting to securing a conviction, if any. Sathiparsad (2005:79), in her analysis intriguingly titled “it is better to beat her” also observes the numerous dimensions of gender based violence amongst South African youth, with extensive abuse of girls and women within families, schools and communities. She notes that gender based violence “…is legitimized by the norms of a society concerning male/female roles and, thereby, the attitudes that males and females take into any interaction.” Notions of male power and control, sex and infidelity as assertions of manhood, men as subjects and women as objects are firmly entrenched in this.
Rude (1999) further substantiates this in her analysis of gender based homicide where power and control are fundamental factors. In the same vein with Ewing she laments at how:
Comments by the judiciary…reflect certain attitudes about gender roles and appropriate behavior. The women are judged to have „provoked‟ their perpetrators, whose violent reactions are all too often seen as inevitable, understandable, and therefore somewhat pardonable. Comments which legitimize men‟s violent behavior could be said to sanction violence against women…
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Clearly there are structural imbalances that continue to alienate women from the justice system that need to be addressed. Given the foregoing factors, I argue for a gendered approach to peacebuilding and specifically to the planning and implementation of peace education initiatives so that the anticipated goals are shaped by a foreseen differential impact on girls and boys, men and women. The fact that gender is a social construct means that it is dynamic and therefore changes from one culture and context to another. A gender lens therefore would enable planning, implementation and evaluation of contextually relevant gender sensitive pedagogical approaches that ensure that the peace classroom lays the foundation for an end to the violence of gender discrimination.
A gender lens acknowledges that men and women have a dual role as victims and perpetrators of violence and challenges the traditional notions of women as passive players in the violence dynamic. Women are not necessarily a synonym for peace. It is imperative therefore to appreciate the shifting dynamics of masculinity and femininity in the face of conflict and violence and take these into account in designing peace initiatives.
Another key aspect of the gender lens approach that Brock-Utne (2007) draws attention to is the possibility that material selected for peace education may contribute to making women invisible both in terms authorship and content. There is need therefore to deliberately design and select gender sensitive educational material that denotes women‟s agency in the promotion of peace and their equal participation in all phases of peacebuilding.
Evidently, in view of the differential impact of conflict, violence and peace on men and women, it is pertinent to take into account these gender disparities in the planning of peace education initiatives. I move on now to discuss the ambiguities that characterize peace education.
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