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"Peacebuilding cannot succeed if half the population is excluded from the process."
Today, obviously, is Peace Movement day on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
14valentines. One of the biggest arguments against feminist peacebuilding is, in a sense, strangely non-discriminatory: that a world ruled by women would not be any more peaceful than a world ruled by men, because women are not inherently less warlike.
While I agree that men and women shouldn't be essentialized into "masculine/feminine traits", this objection is pretty ridiculous on most other levels and I'm surprised that people treat it like a salient point. First of all, our world has evolved through systems of patriarchy, so naturally turning power over to women wouldn't erase centuries of patriarchal history and thinking. In order to compare the two empirically, you'd have to reverse time and start all over with a matriarchal system to see what differences pop up.
Second, feminist peacebuilding is not about a world ruled by women. It's about a world built on feminist anti-racist ideas; it's about understanding that women, as the primary victims of war and the people left behind to pick up the pieces, have a valuable contribution to make when it comes to circumventing conflict in the first place.
Our media likes to concentrate on the image of the victimized Third World woman, subjected to barbarous tortures, ignorant, submissive. I think it's important to know that there are many, *many* women out there doing grassroots work to improve not only their own lives but the lives of women around the world. So instead of linking you to statistics about death and rape and impoverishment, here are some links to women's organizations that are working for peace:
MADRE: working with women at a community level for human rights and security
Coalition of Women for Peace: Jewish and Palestinian women mobilizing for an end to conflict
Code Pink: rejecting Bush's pro-war politics and anti-woman domestic policies
The Green Belt Movement: bringing rights education, civil development, and greenery to Africa
And now that I have talked your ears off about feminist peacebuilding -- here's some music by female artists to download! I'll do half today and half on the 14th.
( artists a to m )
Today, obviously, is Peace Movement day on
14valentines. One of the biggest arguments against feminist peacebuilding is, in a sense, strangely non-discriminatory: that a world ruled by women would not be any more peaceful than a world ruled by men, because women are not inherently less warlike.While I agree that men and women shouldn't be essentialized into "masculine/feminine traits", this objection is pretty ridiculous on most other levels and I'm surprised that people treat it like a salient point. First of all, our world has evolved through systems of patriarchy, so naturally turning power over to women wouldn't erase centuries of patriarchal history and thinking. In order to compare the two empirically, you'd have to reverse time and start all over with a matriarchal system to see what differences pop up.
Second, feminist peacebuilding is not about a world ruled by women. It's about a world built on feminist anti-racist ideas; it's about understanding that women, as the primary victims of war and the people left behind to pick up the pieces, have a valuable contribution to make when it comes to circumventing conflict in the first place.
Our media likes to concentrate on the image of the victimized Third World woman, subjected to barbarous tortures, ignorant, submissive. I think it's important to know that there are many, *many* women out there doing grassroots work to improve not only their own lives but the lives of women around the world. So instead of linking you to statistics about death and rape and impoverishment, here are some links to women's organizations that are working for peace:
MADRE: working with women at a community level for human rights and security
Coalition of Women for Peace: Jewish and Palestinian women mobilizing for an end to conflict
Code Pink: rejecting Bush's pro-war politics and anti-woman domestic policies
The Green Belt Movement: bringing rights education, civil development, and greenery to Africa
And now that I have talked your ears off about feminist peacebuilding -- here's some music by female artists to download! I'll do half today and half on the 14th.
( artists a to m )
