Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2016 War and Women Wielding Power: Lessons from Burundi, Liberia, and Chad Emily Myers Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Myers, Emily, "War and Women Wielding Power: Lessons from Burundi, Liberia, and Chad" (2016). Honors Theses. 191. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/191 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WAR AND WOMEN WIELDING POWER LESSONS FROM BURUNDI, LIBERIA, AND CHAD BY EMILY HUDSON MYERS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR HONORS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE UNION COLLEGE MARCH, 2016 INTRODUCTION Since 1989, the world has seen civil war replace traditional war as the prevailing paradigm of conflict. Simultaneously, the world’s leading thinkers, international bodies, and aid organizations have encouraged the idea that women’s rights are human rights, and urged that policy issues be considered through a gendered lens. My thesis aims to connect these two concurrent shifts in geopolitics by examining the relationship between civil war and women. How do women experience civil war differently from men? How does the legacy of civil war change women’s lives? Specifically, my thesis examines the effects civil war has on women’s political power.