Women as Agents of Political Violence: Gendering Security
- 1 December 2004
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Security Dialogue
- Vol. 35 (4), 447-463
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010604049522
Abstract
This article challenges the idea that women are necessarily more peaceful than men by looking at examples of female combatants in ethno-nationalist military organizations in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. Anti-state, ‘liberatory’ nationalisms often provide more space (ideologically and practically) for women to participate as combatants than do institutionalized state or pro-state nationalisms, and this can be seen in the cases of the LTTE in Sri Lanka and the IRA in Northern Ireland when contrasted with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. However, the role of the female combatant is ambiguous and indicates a tension between different conceptualizations of societal security, where female combatants both fight against societal insecurity posed by the state and contribute to internal societal insecurity within their ethno-national groups.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Women, Ethnicity and NationalismPublished by Taylor & Francis Ltd ,2004
- Cogs in the wheel? Women in the liberation tigers of Tamil EelamCivil Wars, 2003
- Individual and Societal Dimensions of SecurityAsian International Studies Review, 2003
- Women DividedPublished by Taylor & Francis Ltd ,2002
- Invisible Women: The Political Roles of Unionist and Loyalist Women in Contemporary Northern IrelandParliamentary Affairs, 2002
- Gender Difference in Conflict Resolution: The Case of Sri LankaPublished by SAGE Publications ,2001
- The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern IrelandPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1996
- Modernizing WomenPublished by Walter de Gruyter GmbH ,1993