Gendered Implications of War

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The consequences of war go beyond the battlefield: social and political legacies can be profound, particularly for women. Recent scholarship has pushed beyond the ‘women as victims’ trope to analyze women’s agency in the aftermath of conflict, and there is an emerging debate about whether and how war might open up space for women’s empowerment. To better explore this question, scholars in this panel reflect diverse research perspectives, including critical and institutional approaches and both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Marie Berry and Milli Lake ask which women benefit from new opportunities, suggesting that the implementation of gender egalitarian law and policy often maps onto existing socio-political cleavages. Laura Huber uses a micro-level approach to question how exposure to conflict affects men’s and women’s attitudes on women’s rights, while Robert Nagel uses cross-national quantitative analysis to examine how sexual violence in one country’s conflict affects the type of violence we observe in a neighboring country. Lastly, Kaitlyn Webster, Priscilla Torres, and Kyle Beardsley adopt an intersectional approach to understanding the conditions under which wars lead to changes in ethnic and gendered domestic social hierarchies.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 21: Conflict Processes

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 31: Women and Politics Research

Individual Presentations

• War and Social Hierarchies - Kaitlyn Webster, Duke University; Priscilla Torres, Duke University; Kyle Beardsley, Duke University

• Women's Rights After War: A Critical Approach to Women’s Empowerment - Marie Elizabeth Berry, University of Denver; Milli Lake, London School of Economics

• Micro-level Impacts of Conflict and Aid on Men's and Women's Attitudes in Uganda - Laura Huber, Emory University

• Diffusion of Conflict-related Sexual Violence - Robert Ulrich Nagel, University of Kent

Chair

• Kyle Beardsley Duke University