How Women Could Save the World, If Only We Would Let Them: from Gender Essentialism to Inclusive Security

How Women Could Save the World, If Only We Would Let Them: From Gender Essentialism to Inclusive Security Catherine Powellt ABSTRACT: We increasingly hear that women's empowerment and 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 t 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 Ni Aol~in, 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 faculty workshops at Fordham, Cardozo, Emory, and Georgetown Law Schools as well as participants of panel discussions where I presented 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. Copyright © 2017 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism Yale Journal of Law and Feminism [Vol. 28:271 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 statisticalevidence 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. 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. IN TRO D U CTIO N ................................................................................................ 273 1. WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN PEACE PROCESSES ........................................ 280 A. Legal Framework: Embedding Gender Norms .............................. 281 B . W hy So Few W om en? .................................... .. .. .. .. .. .. ........... .. 285 C. The Relationship Between Women's Participation and Prospects for P eace ............................................................................................ 2 89 2017] How Women Could Save the World 273 1. Q uantitative A nalysis ............................................................... 290 2. Q ualitative Analysis ................................................................. 291 II. EXISTING THEORETICAL FRAMES ............................................................... 296 A. Antisubordination Account ............................................................. 296 1. T he R ationale ........................................................................... 296 2 . C ritiques ................................................................................... 2 98 i. The Formal Equality Challenge .......................................... 298 ii. The Challenge of Politics and Bureaucracy ...................... 299 B. The Securitization Account ............................................................ 301 1. T he R ationale ........................................................................... 30 1 2 . C ritiqu es ................................................................................... 303 i. Methodological Challenges ................................................ 303 ii. The Anti-Essentialist Challenge: Women Are Not Always D o v es .............................................................................. 3 04 iii. Instrumentalizing Feminism Has Limitations and Risks. 306 III. A NEW THEORETICAL FRAME: THE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY ACCOUNT ............................................................................................................30 7 A . T he R ationale .................................................................................. 308 1. Normative Legitimacy ............................................................. 308 2. Sociological Legitimacy .......................................................... 310 3. Democratic Legitimacy ............................................................ 311 4. Democratic Legitimacy: Both Normative and Sociological .... 313 B . Potential Critiques ........................................................................... 316 1. The Challenge of Balkanization .............................................. 316 2. The Challenge of Procedural Minimalism ............................... 316 3. The Challenge of John Hart Ely .............................................. 317 IV. INCLUSIVE SECURITY: MOVING BEYOND GENDER ESSENTIALISM ........... 318 C ON C LU SIO N ................................................................................................... 32 1 INTRODUCTION We increasingly hear that women's empowerment and leadership will lead to a safer, more prosperous world. The UN Security Council's groundbreaking 2 resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS)l-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 1. The first of these resolutions, S.C. Res. 1325 (Oct. 31, 2000), was followed by a series of subsequent resolutions, discussed infra Part I. 2. See infra Part 1. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism [Vol. 28:271 are still vastly underrepresented in positions of power generally and in leadership in the peace and security field specifically, having yet to "shatter[] that highest and hardest glass ceiling" 3 as Commander in Chief in the United States or rise to the role of Secretary-General in the United Nations. 4 Before her own race to become the first woman Commander in Chief of

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