Dr. Gunhild Hoogensen GjΓΈrv
Twitter:
@ghoogj
The complex civil-military
operations of the early twenty-first century were a testing ground for the
implementation of the groundbreaking October 2000 United Nations Security
Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security.
The test went beyond the instrumental “increasing gender awareness” amongst
militaries and their governments. The very nature of these complex civil-military
operations have also been gendered. The use of force and enemy-centric thinking
(combat operations, raids, etc) competed with population-centric approaches
that included humanitarian and development aid, and governance support, all
undertaken with the intention to win a war through “hearts and minds” (trust of
the population) rather than violence.
The gendering of these approaches became
visible as the participating intervening nations in Afghanistan and Iraq grew
weary of slow progress in these operations
and a complicated and demanding environment. An increasing rhetoric from a
number of participating nations favoured a return to traditional,
hyper-masculinist military practices – “killing people and destroying things” over a cosmopolitan,
multi-dimensional, “feminized” approach that saw a
larger role for non-kinetic (non-lethal) measures. The question is whether or
not the implementation of gender perspectives within military institutions will
suffer a setback as a result.
