From Gender Essentialism to Inclusive Security Catherine Powell Fordham University School of Law, [email protected]
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Fordham Law School FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History Faculty Scholarship 2017 How Women Could Save The orW ld, If Only We Would Let Them: From Gender Essentialism to Inclusive Security Catherine Powell Fordham University School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship Recommended Citation Catherine Powell, How Women Could Save The World, If Only We Would Let Them: From Gender Essentialism to Inclusive Security, 28 Yale J. L. & Feminism (Forthcoming) (2017) Available at: http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/699 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The orF dham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of FLASH: The orF dham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOW WOMEN COULD SAVE THE WORLD, IF ONLY WE WOULD LET THEM: FROM GENDER ESSENTIALISM TO INCLUSIVE SECURITY 28 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism__ (2017) Catherine Powell* Abstract We increasingly hear that empowering women and placing them in positions of leadership will lead to a safer, more prosperous world. The UN Security Council’s groundbreaking resolutions on Women Peace, and Security (WPS) — and U.S. law implementing these commitments — rest on the assumption that women’s participation in peace and security matters will lead to more sustainable peace, because women presumably “perform” in ways that reduce conflict, violence, and extremism. This idea is of heightened importance today because women are still vastly underrepresented in positions of leadership in the peace and security field, having yet to “shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling” as Commander-in- Chief in the United States or rise to the role of Secretary-General in the United Nations. Before her own historic race to become the first woman Commander in Chief, Hillary Clinton had prominently made the claim we increasingly hear that women’s empowerment is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do for global and economic security. Such claims raise fundamental questions for international law, equality theory, and feminism. Assertions that the world would be a better—more peaceful, more prosperous—place, if women assumed leadership positions in peace and security matters are unapologetically instrumentalist and reinforce essentialist views of women. At the same time, evidence suggests that these claims are to some extent accurate. Thus, these assertions should be carefully examined. Reviewing new research, this Article argues that while some evidence supports these claims, the statistical evidence supporting these claims suffers from methodological flaws. Moreover, the forms of gender performance reflected in the data—which international law has organized itself around—are based on the socially constructed roles women play as caregivers, nurturers, and collaborators, not necessarily on their inherent biological roles. Yet, international law reifies these roles and the stereotypes that surround them, even as it tries to open up opportunities for women beyond traditional sex-segregated positions that have long relegated women around the world to the pink ghetto of economic inequality and inferior political and social status. Having to maneuver around formal equality, on the one hand, and instrumentalist claims that women will “save” the world, on the other, means that the category of “woman” can restrict even as it liberates. After all, not all women are “peace-loving,” particularly in a world where the women who succeed are often those who can succeed on terms defined by men. *Associate Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law. For helpful comments and conversation on earlier drafts, I am grateful to Nestor Davidson, Howard Erichson, Michelle Fine, Tracy Higgins, Clare Huntington, Ethan Leib, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Jed Shugerman, Julie Suk, and Dorothy Thomas. Special thanks to Dorothy Thomas, who provided the first part of the title for this article. I am also grateful to participants in the Fordham Law School Faculty Workshop as well as participants of panel discussions where I present earlier drafts of the paper at the International Society of Public Law Annual Meeting, Law and Society Conference Annual Meeting, and Festschrift Honoring Professor Henry J. Richardson III at Temple Law School. Further thanks are due to my research assistants, Fordham Law Students DeAnna Baumle, Christine Calabrese, Devan Grossblatt, Sarah Haag, Lorena Jiron, and Amanda Kane as well as Columbia Law Student Alexandra Lutz. I am also indebted to the editors of the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff over the 2009-2012 period on a variety of matters, including women’s rights. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2671309 12.21.16 draft HOW WOMEN COULD SAVE THE WORLD Two prevailing theoretical frameworks—antisubordination and securitization—shape the current debate about WPS, but each ultimately falls short. This Article identifies democratic legitimacy as a novel third approach missing from the existing debate. As an alternative view, the democratic legitimacy account effectively reframes the WPS debate as one concerning inclusive security—emphasizing that women’s participation enhances the representativeness, democracy, and fairness of the process as a whole—rather than privileging the “special interests” of a particular group (as the antisubordination approach is accused of doing) or reinforcing gender essentialism (as the securitization approach does). Notably, a democratic legitimation paradigm is grounded in a model of inclusion that can be applied to vectors of inequality beyond gender, as well as to inequality at the intersection of various forms of inequality. Moreover, by emphasizing democratic representation, this approach insists on local ownership and bottom-up solutions, thereby emphasizing participation and leadership by women in conflict zones, rather than female global elites. Under a democratic legitimacy paradigm, women can still “save” the world, but in a different way than the predominant discourse would have us believe. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 I. Women’s Participation in Peace Processes ........................................................................................ 10 A. Legal Framework and Background .................................................................................................. 10 B. Why So Few Women? ..................................................................................................................... 15 C. Relationship Between Women’s Participation and Prospects for Peace ....................................... 19 1. Quantitative Analysis .................................................................................................................. 21 2. Qualitative Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 22 II. Existing Theoretical Frames ................................................................................................................ 26 A. Antisubordination Account ............................................................................................................. 26 1. The Rationale .............................................................................................................................. 26 2. Critiques ...................................................................................................................................... 28 a) The Formal Equality Challenge ................................................................................................ 28 b) The Challenge of Politics and Bureaucracy ............................................................................. 29 B. Securitization Account .................................................................................................................... 31 1. The Rationale .............................................................................................................................. 31 2. Critiques ...................................................................................................................................... 33 a) Methodological Challenges ..................................................................................................... 33 b) The Anti- Essentialist Challenge: Women Are Not Always Doves .......................................... 34 c) Instrumentalizing Feminism Has Limitations and Risks .......................................................... 36 III. New Theoretical Frame: Democratic Legitimacy Account ............................................................. 37 A. The Rationale .................................................................................................................................. 37 1. Normative Legitimacy ................................................................................................................. 38 2. Sociological Legitimacy ............................................................................................................... 40