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[Student Post] Clare Hutchinson: “Women, Peace and Security”

16 December 2022

6 mins

Introduction     

In November, Loughborough University’s Geopolitics & International Affairs webinar series welcomed Clare Hutchinson to speak about her work on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). Ms. Hutchinson is a deeply experienced practitioner having spent eighteen years working in UN peacekeeping, and three years (2018-2021) as the NATO Secretary General Special Representative for WPS. Her remarks were passionate and thought-provoking, and produced an enlightening conversation about the challenges and opportunities of applying the WPS agenda to emerging global risks and threats.    

Defining the role of gender in security    

Ms. Hutchinson opened her remarks by explaining the importance of defining ‘gender’ and especially the difference between gender ‘parity’ and gender ‘equality.’ In short, simply having an equal number of women and men in the room (gender parity) is not the same as having gender equality (which requires a combination of cultural, political, and economic shifts towards women’s rights and recognition). Ms. Hutchinson was also keen to emphasise that “gender is not exclusively a women’s issue”, but a complex discussion impacting all members of society.    

Gender and conflict    

Ms. Hutchinson next elaborated on several issues relating to gender and conflict, especially the historical tendency to focus on men as the key combatants. Such a perspective is tested, for instance, by the roles that women have played in terrorism. Ms. Hutchinson’s point was that because women have tended to be treated as victims (in part because Western societies have often been uncomfortable with the idea of women as ‘threats’), security analysts have tended to ignore the potential for women to be recruited into terrorist organisations and engage in violent activities. The prospect of women serving as security providers has also largely been dismissed, including until recently at the very highest level. Prior to 2000, there were no women serving on the UN Security Council. This too has contributed to the marginalisation of women in conflict, whether as combatants, security providers, victims, or peace-builders. Ms. Hutchinson began to make the case that women are in fact extremely politically significant, and that we should more readily acknowledge the realities of gender-based violence ever present in warfare, as well as the solutions that women can provide.    

Gendered violence    

Ms. Hutchinson then turned to the disproportionate levels of violence that women face in conflict zones. Here, Ms. Hutchinson predominantly focused on how women can be kept safe during unprecedented, unstable times. Addressing these challenges requires significantly more funding and far greater efforts to understand the experiences of women in conflict zones (with a particular need for more sex segregated data to support decision-making). This challenge is only likely to deepen as the gendered impacts of other global issues (such as climate change) on the security of women are recognised. Ms. Hutchinson further emphasised this point with the example of how women in emerging areas of drought are having to travel further from home to collect water, which is putting them at higher risk of attacks. A major cultural shift is still needed amongst security providers to understand this problem and address it appropriately, to ensure the specific challenges facing women in conflict zones are not marginalised.    

Questions and discussion     

Following Ms. Hutchinson’s talk, a variety of questions were presented by lecturers, PhD candidates and students. One point of discussion was the role of women as security providers and whether this is in fact putting more women at risk or ensuring that more women are being monitored by women in conflict areas. Ms. Hutchinson suggests that it should be a right for women to be included in peacekeeping and conflict management. However, this needs to be done with high levels of care as there is still a long way to go to ensure that women are not exposed to greater levels of risk than men.    

Ms. Hutchinson was then asked if, in her 25-year career, she had witnessed much positive global change, or whether the problems of the previous generation persisted. Ms. Hutchinson responded that some positive steps had been made in recent years, particularly to certain kinds of language used (such as the implementation of the ‘NATO Gender-Inclusive Language Manual.’) and approaches to getting women into decision making roles, although much work still needs to be done to recognise women in conflict.  

Ms. Hutchinson also argued that women are still seen as victims rather than agents with autonomy and influence in a community, and that this issue needs significantly more attention. The following question asked how one might realistically measure the success of WPS initiatives. Ms. Hutchinson responded that there are 27 indicators recognised by the UN, which include, for instance, committing to increase the number of women deployed in conflict resolution roles. However, Ms. Hutchinson’s main point here was that the criteria being measured are difficult to assess as change will only become visible over the long-term. A lack of funding also stymies progress. This is a generational challenge rather than an issue which can be addressed quickly and concisely.    

The discussion then turned to the question of whether gender-based policy is simply a Western imposition on differing cultures. However, Ms. Hutchinson felt that the WPS agenda is easily defensible; when human rights breaches are being made, including cases of sexual violence and gender discrimination, initiatives aiming to cooperate, mandate and defend vulnerable people are rightly encouraged. She used the example of female genital mutilation to demonstrate how cultural measures can be used to mask violence, with disproportionate impacts on the livelihoods of the women. Ms. Hutchinson recommends that these kinds of harmful cultural practices must be “cut at the grass-roots” by educating communities, increasing funding to do so, and conducting specific research into understanding how such issues affect not just women, but wider communities as well. 

Ms. Hutchinson concluded by suggesting that the “lack of coordination collaboration and control” remains the biggest challenge to tackling the security challenges that women face around the world, and detrimental to the cause of the WPS. The agenda must, in future, be taken with seriousness, appropriate funding and more training in gendered violence for peacekeepers.   

Final reflection

What did I takeaway from Ms. Hutchinson’s talk? Firstly, the significance of the work of the WPS, Ms. Hutchinson gave many detailed examples of gendered violence that demand the attention from the international security community. However, it was clear too that the WPS agenda continues to face many challenges, from securing greater recognition and funding, to measuring the impacts of changes that often take years to become observable. All this serves to underline the importance of continuing to advance the WPS agenda as conflicts continue around the world. 

Jesse Prevatt is studying Politics and International Relations in her second year at Loughborough University. She is passionate about the contemporary issues surrounding global security and gender disparity. Moving forward, she is aiming to specialise in these areas and gain more experience in journalism.

Geopolitics & International Affairs

Geopolitics & international affairs webinar series

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