Is women’s economic empowerment the key to global prosperity and peace?
At the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, we have heard what has become an annual refrain: the underrepresentation of women in business is a missed opportunity for both the economy and society. UN Women agreed, arguing this week that if our globalized economy is to bring equitable progress for all, investing in women’s economic empowerment is a must. Women’s economic empowerment is also increasingly recognised as an important part of peacebuilding by the United Nations. In last year’s Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). The UN Secretary-General rightly called women’s economic disempowerment “both a cause and an effect of conflict”.
This claim is backed up by decades of feminist research into the gendered political economies of war…
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Colombia’s “gender-focused” peace accords are great – but feminists’ ideas for peace are even better
Colombia’s 2016 peace agreements between the government and the FARC-EP guerrillas are the most progressive in history in terms of their inclusion of women. The accords pay special attention to violence suffered by women in the armed conflict, use gender-inclusive language, encourage women’s political participation, and guarantee land rights. But feminist peace organizations in Colombia envision an even more comprehensive peace – one that focuses not only on the inclusion of women, but on tackling some of the deep roots of Colombia’s conflict that the peace accords leave untouched. These include deep-seated patriarchy, militarism, and free market hegemony.
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Who was Margaret van Kleffens and why should we care? On gender blindness in diplomatic history
If you are interested in the role of women or gender in international relations, you should have no trouble finding a recent book on the topic. But what if your interest is simply the history of international relations? Pick up a recent account of the Cold War or the biography of a famous diplomat and chances are you will not find a single reference to the role of gender.
In spite of much evidence to the contrary, many diplomatic historians still seem to believe that if they are dealing with the political history of international relations, gender is irrelevant. True, many feminist scholars focus on women’s historical exclusion from politics (and their fight for inclusion), which – viewed superficially – might seem like support for that stance. If the political arena excluded women, there are simply no women to consider when writing political history, right?
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Presenting the #IFJPblog
Welcome to the new International Feminist Journal of Politics blog!
IFJP is the leading source of cutting-edge research at the intersection of global politics, feminist, gender and queer scholarship, and activism and we are thrilled to get the word out to an even larger audience of scholars, activists and practitioners with our new blog.
To stay up to date on new posts on the #IFJPblog, please follow us on Twitter and watch this space.
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