An Empirical Analysis of the Women and Peace Hypothesis

Abstract

For decades, social scientists have questioned whether women are more politically tolerant, peaceful, and less likely to prefer war to solve international conflict compared to men. Empirical analyses have been limited to a few geographic regions: North America (the United States); the Middle East (Israel and the core Arab World); and Africa (Rwanda). Furthermore, the measurement of the dependent variable, perceptions of war and peace, has been either evaluated with a single item or with a few items tapping on various dimensions of war and peace. This paper extends the geographic coverage in the literature to include a cross-national analysis containing North American, Latin American, Western European, Eastern European, African, Asian and Pacific nations, and utilizes thirteen items measuring gender differences in attitudes towards the perception of war, conflict resolution, foreign policy attitudes, international organizations’ appeal, political tolerance, and international cooperation. The analysis utilizes the most up-to-date data of national representative surveys, the World Values Survey and the Arab Barometer, featuring mean comparison methods to supply readers with simple results informing the relationship between gender and perceptions of war and peace on a global level. The evidence reveals that there is no difference in perceptions between men and women regarding international conflict perceptions across countries.

Keywords

• Women and Peace Hypothesis,International Conflict,Peacebuilding,Middle East,Gender and Politics

References

1. Aggestam, Karin, and Ann Towns. “The Gender Turn in Diplomacy: A New Research Agenda,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 21 (2019): 9-28.
2. Aharoni, Sarai B. “Who needs the Women and Peace Hypothesis? Rethinking Modes of Inquiry on Gender and Conflict in Israel/Palestine.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (2017): 311-26.
3. Al-Khatib, Walid, Rabah Hammami, Abdel-Hamid Abdel Latif, Rabih Habr, Mhammed Abderebbi, Khalil Shikaki, Imen Mezlini. Arab Barometer, Public Opinion Survey, Wave IV. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2016-2017. https://www.arabbarometer.org/waves/arab-barometer-wave-iv/.
4. Benard, Cheryl. “Assessing the Truths and Myths of Women in War and Peace.” Paper presented at The United States Institute of Peace Conference Perspectives on Grassroots Peace building: The Roles of Women in War and Peace, Washington DC, 14 September, 1999.
5. Bendyna, Mary E., Tamara Finucane, Lynn Kirby, John P. O’Donnell, and Clyde Wilcox. “Gender Differences in Public Attitudes toward the Gulf War: A Test of Competing Hypotheses.” The Social Science Journal 33 (1996): 1–22.
6. Brounéus, Karen. “The Women and Peace Hypothesis in Peacebuilding Settings: Attitudes of Women in the wake of the Rwandan Genocide.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 40 (2014): 125-51.
7. Carpenter, R. Charli. “Gender Theory in World Politics: Contributions of a Non-Feminist Standpoint?” International Studies Review 4, no. 3 (2002): 153-65.
8. Conover, Pamela Johnston, and Virginia Sapiro. “Gender, Feminist Consciousness, and War.” American Journal of Political Science 37, no. 4 (1993): 1079-099.

9. De la Rey, Cheryl, and Susan McKay. “Peace as a Gendered Process: Perspectives of Women Doing Peacebuilding in South Africa.” International Journal of Peace Studies 7 (2002): 91-102.
10. DeGroot, Gerard J. “A Few Good Women: Gender Stereotypes, the Military and Peacekeeping.” International Peacekeeping 8 (2001): 23-38.
11. El‐Bushra, Jud. “Feminism, Gender, and Women's Peace Activism.” Development and Change 38 (2007): 131-47.
12. Elshtain, Jean Bethke. “II. Reflections on War and Political Discourse: Realism, Just War, and Feminism in a Nuclear Age.” Political Theory 13, no. 1 (1985): 39–57. ———. “Women and War: Ten Years On.” Review of International Studies 24, no. 4 (1998): 447–60.
13. Gedalya, Einat, Hanna Herzog, and Michal Shamir. “Tzip(p)ing through the Elections: Gender in the 2009 Elections.” In The Elections in Israel - 2009, edited by Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, 165-93. New Brunswick: Transaction Publications, 2009.
14. Haastrup, Toni. “Creating Cinderella? The Unintended Consequences of the Women Peace and Security Agenda for EU’s Mediation Architecture.” International Negotiation 23 (2018): 218-37.
15. Hermann, Tamar S. The Israeli Peace Movement: A shattered dream. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
16. Inglehart, R., C. Haerpfer, A. Moreno, C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. Diez-Medrano, M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Ponarin and B. Puranen et al., eds. World Values Survey: Round Six - Country-Pooled. Datafile Version: www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp. Madrid: JD Systems Institute, 2014.
17. Jaggar, Alison M. “Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects.” In Feminist Ethics, edited by C. Card, 78-104. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993.
18. Jelen, Ted G., Sue Thomas, and Clyde Wilcox. “The Gender Gap in Comparative Perspective.” European Journal of Political Research 25 (1994): 171-86.
19. Kray, Laura J., and Jessica A. Kennedy. “Changing the Narrative: Women as Negotiators and Leaders.” California Management Review 60 (2017): 70-87.
20. Maoz, Ifat. “The Women and Peace Hypothesis? The Effect of Opponent Negotiators' Gender on the Evaluation of Compromise Solutions in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” International Negotiation 14 (2009): 519-36.
21. Morgan, Valerie. “Women and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland.” Global Forum Occasional Papers Series, Duke University Center for International Studies, Durham, North Carolina, 1996.
22. Peterson, V. Spike, and Anne Sisson Runyan. Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009.
23. Pratt, Nicole, and Sophie Richter-Devroe. “Critically Examining UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 13 (2011): 489-503.
24. Scaltsas, Patricia Ward. “Do Feminist Ethics Counter Feminist Aims?” In Explorations in Feminist Ethics, edited by E. B. Cole and S. Coultrap-McQuin, 15-26. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.
25. Shamir, Michal, and Einat Gedalya-Lavy. “A Gender Gap in Voting? Women and Men in the 2013 Elections.” In The Elections in Israel - 2013, edited by Michal Shamir, 229-53. Piscataway NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2015.
26. Skjelsbæk, Inger. “Sexual Violence and War: Mapping out a Complex Relationship.” European Journal of International Relations 7 (2001): 211-37.
27. Skjelsbæk, Inger, and Dan Smith, eds., Gender, Peace and Conflict. London: Sage Publications, 2001.
28. Sylvester, Christine. Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
29. Tessler, Mark, and Ina Warriner. “Gender, Feminism, and Attitudes toward International Conflict: Exploring Relationships with Survey Data from the Middle East.” World Politics 49 (1997): 250-81.
30. Tessler, Mark, Jodi Nachtwey, and Audra Grant. “Further Tests of the Women and Peace Hypothesis: Evidence from cross-national survey research in the Middle East.” International Studies Quarterly 43 (1999): 519-31.
31. Tickner, J. Ann. “Feminist Security Studies: Celebrating an Emerging Field.” Politics & Gender 7 (2011): 576-81.
32. ———. “Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation.” In Gender and International Relations, edited by R. Grant and K. Newland, 27-40. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.
33. Tickner, J. Ann, and Laura Sjoberg, eds. Feminism and International Relations: Conversations about the Past, Present and Future. Oxon: Routledge, 2013.
34. Togeby, Lise. “The Gender Gap in Foreign Policy Attitudes.” Journal of Peace Research 31 (1994): 375-92.
35. Weber, Annette. “Feminist Peace and Conflict Theory.” Routledge Encyclopaedia on Peace and Conflict Theory (2006): 2-13.
36. Yossi, David, Nimrod Rosler, and Ifat Maoz. “Gender-Empathic Constructions, Empathy, and Support for Compromise in Intractable Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, (2018): 1727-52.
37. Zalewski, Marysia. “The Women/‘Women’ Question in International Relations.” Millennium 23 (1994): 407-23.