Gender Is What States Make of It Gender, Nation-Building and War in Israel Katharine Brooks, Dphil Candidate in International Relations, University of Oxford
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Gender Is What States Make of It Gender, Nation-building and War in Israel Katharine Brooks, DPhil Candidate in International Relations, University of Oxford Many Feminist scholars and policymakers have long assumed a relationship between gender and war, most commonly premised upon the theory that conflict is rooted in the oppression of women. Initially, these ideas were embedded in a reductionist understanding of gender; in which women were biologically conditioned to be passive and men to be violent.1 Under this paradigm, men necessarily conducted world affairs in a violent and competitive manner and the exclusion of women meant the marginalisation of feminine traits of compromise and pacifism in global politics. The constructivist revolution in gender theory exposed gender as a socially constructed phenomenon, overturning the consensus on men’s biological predilection for violence and their dominance of power structures as the explanation for conflict. Nevertheless, a belief that a relationship exists between gender and conflict has persisted. This belief has also, in recent years, finally been buttressed by empirical findings. Recent work by second-wave, positivist Feminist scholars such as Valerie Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, Rose McDermott and Chad Emmet aimed to demonstrate that the greatest indicator of a state’s likelihood to engage in violent warfare is its treatment of women.2 In ‘The Heart of the Matter’ and Sex and World Peace, Hudson et al sought to establish that the correlation between violence against women and incidence of violent conflict is more pronounced than that observed between incidence of conflict and other previously accepted indicators such as poverty.3 These conclusions are supported by other scholars in the field: A body of quantitative empirical work spearheaded by Mary Caprioli links measures of gender inequality to levels of conflict and insecurity.4 As a result, Caprioli is able to demonstrate that states with higher levels of social, economic, and political gender equality are less likely to rely on military force to settle disputes. Similarly, In Gender, Violence and International Crisis, Caprioli and Boyer show that states displaying high levels of gender equality, measured by the percentage of female leaders, demonstrate lower levels of violence in international disputes.5 Thus, the claims of the Feminist scholars 1 Francis Fukuyama, ‘Women and the Evolution of World Politics’, Foreign Affairs 77:5, pp24-40 (1998). 2 Valerie Hudson, Mary Caprioli, Bonnie Ballif-Sapnvill, Rose McDermott & Chad F. Emmet, ‘The Heart of the Matter’, International Security 33:3, pp. 7-45( 2009). Also, Valerie Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli & Chad Emmet, Sex and World Peace, New York: Columbia University Press (2012). 3 It must be noted, however, that ‘violence against women’ is not necessarily the best measure of women’s inequality as in situations of conflict a woman is always more at risk of violence. Therefore, there is a concerning level of variable overlap in this study. 4 Mary Caprioli, “Gendered Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 1 (January 2000), pp.51–68. 5 Boyer & Caprioli, ‘Gender, Violence and International Crisis’. Draft – not for distribution. Please to not cite without permission. who subscribe to the belief that exclusion and oppression of women lead to conflict appear to have finally been empirically verified. However, this paper would contend that the contemporary positivist Feminist scholars such as Hudson and Caprioli have too often ignored those cases that appear unexplained by their hypotheses, seemingly rogue outliers upon an otherwise regular pattern. As a result, they often fail to take account of the nuances in the relationship between gender and war. While, in most cases, it is true that gender inequality and conflict are correlated, this has not been the case at all times and in all places. For example, in Sex and World Peace, Hudson et al persuasively demonstrated correlation between the belligerence of states and the domestic oppression of women. However, they were unable to account for the actions of states whose behaviour does not conform to the predictions of this theory. In failing to consider those cases that diverge from the norm, or arguing that they conform to the standard model more than they really do, these scholars are guilty of minimising difference and overplaying similarity. This paper identifies such an outlier in Israel, a relatively gender-equal yet belligerent state, and seeks to examine possible reasons behind its non-correspondence with the predictions of the claims of the second-wave positivist Feminist theory. Such theoretical testing is essential since no theory that so explicitly relies on quantitative methods can be considered plausible when it cannot offer at least some explanation for the existence of outliers. This paper first justifies its claim that Israel can be considered both a relatively gender-equal and a belligerent state. It then goes on to trace the process of gender construction within Israel in conjunction with the processes of militarisation and securitization in order to identify the precise relationship between gender and state aggression in the case of Israel. Within such an investigation, this paper hopes to highlight the complexity of the relationship between security and women’s empowerment. It argues that the relationship between the status of women and belligerence of societies is more complex than first appears and rejects the argument that the oppression of women in itself is a causal factor in explaining conflict. Rather, this paper contends that it is the nature of the construction of gender hierarchies within the state that determines that states level of belligerency; specifically the propagation of societal norms that promote masculine characteristics of aggression in one or both genders. In most states this does manifest as oppression of women but to see the latter as a cause in itself is to mistake the origin of the phenomenon. This paper argues that the explanation for Israel’s deviation is thus to be found in Israel’s unusual construction of gender. Moreover, this paper contests that notions of security and gender are co-constitutive and states or groups adopt specific gender norms at least partially in response to their security situation, which can then have a reciprocal impact upon the latter in a mutually reinforcing, reflexive method. Draft – not for distribution. Please to not cite without permission. The Challenge Posed By Israel. Measuring gender inequality has proven both problematic and controversial. There are, however, a few key indexes that have gained relative acceptance. One is the Gender Inequality Index (GII), first introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).6 Although it must be acknowledged that the GII cannot cover all aspects of inequality, it does give a fairly good representation of the level of inequality in a country, without being able to identify the specific nature of that inequality. Under the GII, Israel ranked number 25 out of 186 countries with a score of 0.144 (with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing perfect inequality).7 Israel’s diverse ethnic and religious make-up obviously complicates any attempt to generalise regarding women’s status in Israel and there is frequently a ‘sharp contrast between legislation on women’s equality and reality, between formal regulation and daily life’ for many women. 8 These observations notwithstanding, this paper would contend that Israel should be considered a relatively gender-equal state. On the vast majority of indicators of women’s equality it scores well or very well. Women in Israel are generally well protected by laws guaranteeing equality and they have access to the labour market and political power on a par with the European average. They also have higher levels of women in higher education and lower rates of violence against women than many Western European nations. This does not reflect the universal picture for women in Israel but this observation remains true for even the most gender-equal countries. Overall, Israel may be considered at least as gender-equal as the European 6 According to the UNDP, this index is a composite measure which captures the loss of achievement within a country due to gender inequality, and uses three dimensions to do so: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market participation. Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rates; empowerment is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each gender and attainment at secondary and higher education by each gender; and economic activity is measured by the labour market participation rate for each gender. 7 The world average score on the GII is 0.463, reflecting a percentage loss in achievement across the three dimensions due to gender inequality of 46.3%. Regional averages range from 28.0% in Europe and Central Asia, to nearly 58% in Sub-Saharan Africa. At the country level losses due to gender inequality range from 4.5% in the Netherlands (the lowest value), to 74.7% in Yemen (the highest value). Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Arab States suffer the largest losses due to gender inequality (57.7%, 56.8% and 55.5% respectively). Deconstructing Israel’s GII score, it is clear that it scores very well on maternal mortality rates, at only 7 per 100,000, on a par