Women in Global Conflict

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the predominant gendered narratives and paradigms of peace and conflict studies, then goes on to highlight the different roles that women have played in perpetuating, challenging, and redefining them. Utilizing a variety of case studies, students taking this course will learn about how the targeting and exploitation of women is strategically employed in global conflict, the various roles that women willingly and unwillingly play during conflict periods across different cultural contexts, as well as the initiatives and strategies that have and continue to be developed to help alleviate female (and child) suffering in conflict, and press for the inclusion of women as active stakeholders in peacemaking and conflict resolution efforts. Additionally, this course includes an entire unit on men and masculinity, with an eye to appreciating how women?s roles in global conflict can only be understood in relation to men?s roles in the same. By including masculinity, the course aims to challenges stereotypical views that peg men as perpetual perpetrators and women as perpetual victims, instead seeking to understand how gender is both socially constructed and differentially manifest contextually to contribute to both war and peace, respectively. The course concludes by examining some ways in which women might be uniquely suited to address specific security challenges and highlights enduring limitations in this respect.