In international politics, gender norms and relations play a fundamental but under-examined role in the how states frame their positions across a range of issues, not least in the realm of peace and security. Much has been written about the gendered dynamics of conflict, especially as ‘masculinist’ or nationalist projects. Less attention has been paid to the seeming paradox of the persistence of profoundly limiting gendered discourses in the articulation of norms and policy frames on peace and security, despite the emergence in 2000 of a UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, heralded by Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000). Ostensibly, this agenda had three priorities, to: increase women's participation at every level of decision making (the equality and ‘women as peace makers’ dimension); ‘adopt a gender perspective’ across all UN peacekeeping and peace-building activities (the ‘transformative’ gender mainstreaming dimension); and address sexual violence in conflict (the anti-patriarchy dimension). Notwithstanding the most recent WPS Resolution 2122 (2013), which purports to refocus attention on women’s participation, conflict-related sexual violence has come to define and dominate the WPS agenda in ways that may not always serve women well. This paper examines this turn of events, arguing that it is partly explained by the limiting, gendered parameters of International Humanitarian Law embedded in the UN Protection of Civilians agenda and by the successful convergence of the efforts of two dominant approaches to global feminist engagement: i.e., varieties of ‘equality’ and ‘radical’ feminism. These developments have encouraged a narrow, prioritization of aspects of women's experiences that are cognizable as ‘war crimes.’ Arguably, this has taken place at the expense of bottom-up, comprehensive interpretations and applications of the human rights of women in conflict-affected settings.
