Oxford Handbooks Online: The WPS Agenda and Strategy For The Twenty-First Century

The WPS Agenda and Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Oxford Handbooks Online

The WPS Agenda and Strategy for the Twenty-First
Century
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace, and Security
Edited by Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True
Print Publication Date: Feb 2019 Subject: Political Science, International Relations
Online Publication Date: Dec 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190638276.013.61
Abstract and Keywords
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 recognized the critical roles women can and must
play in advancing international peace and security. The WPS agenda, however, has
focused largely on the protection of women in conflict, in particular from sexual and
gender-based violence. In doing so, the substantive participation of women in peace and
security remains significantly underexplored. This chapter suggests that the lack of
progress on the WPS agenda is due to the perception that it is a women’s agenda, as
opposed to one that seeks to advance gender equality and security. Moreover, this
chapter reveals the challenges associated with the disparate nature of the WPS and
security communities. In response, this chapter suggests that for the WPS agenda to
advance, the community needs to emphasize that this is not only a women’s agenda.
Specifically, the dialogue needs to be reframed to acknowledge that a focus on women is
necessary, but not sufficient.
Keywords: participation, gender equality, security agenda, limitations of WPS
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UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, recognized the critical roles
women can and must play in advancing international peace and security. Subsequent UN
Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) strengthened the
protection of women, particularly with regard to conflict-related sexual and gender-based
violence, and they reaffirmed the important roles of women in restoring and maintaining
peace.
The United Nations and regional security organizations (such as the African Union,
NATO, and the OSCE) have developed organization-wide policies and action plans to
integrate gender perspectives into their deliberations and operations. The international
community has also adopted legal and normative frameworks, which recognize the
pernicious effects of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict and provide a basis for
prosecuting sexual crimes, including rape, as crimes against humanity and as war
crimes.1 At the national level, more than sixty states, including the United States, have
developed National Action Plans, which acknowledge the importance of the participation
of women in advancing peace and security and seek to translate the principles of
Resolution 1325 in national policies and programs.
Despite these international and national commitments, gender perspectives in the

analyses of international security challenges remain underdeveloped, and the roles and
numbers of women in the national and international security field continue to be
marginal. Indeed, the participation of women in decision-making and operational
positions in peace processes and in national and international security institutions
remains limited. As of 2015, at the United Nations only 16 percent of appointments to top
posts were women. In 2016, the UN Security Council did not appoint a woman for the
Secretary-General post, despite seven highly qualified women candidates. Women still
make up less than 10 percent of peace negotiators, and are sorely underrepresented in
most national law enforcement and security forces. On the protection side, while the legal
and normative framework at the global level is robust, implementation is lagging and
there have been very few prosecutions for sexual violence (see Chapters 14 and 24).
Similarly, while many governments claim to (p. 841) support the principles of Resolution
1325, funding for programs aimed at women’s empowerment and participation in peace
and security is appallingly low (see Chapter 62). Lastly, gender perspectives are
insufficiently integrated into analyses of global dynamics that underpin international
security challenges. Gender perspectives are often afterthoughts, if they are thought
about at all.
In sum, while Resolution 1325 has helped civil society organizations “as a framing tool
and a source of legitimacy to demand action from their governments and the
international community” (UN Women 2015: 304), many civil society actors recognize
that UNSCR 1325 has not lived up to its “transformative potential.”2
In this chapter I do two things. First, I identify three main challenges that hold the WPS
agenda back. Second, I discuss how to overcome these challenges.
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The Challenges
The lack of progress on the WPS agenda is due to structural challenges, including legal
barriers, social norms, as well as more immediate political challenges. Three major
challenges stand out.
The first challenge is political and conceptual. The WPS agenda is fundamentally an
agenda about gender equality. Strategies and policies to promote gender equality in the
economic and political fields have been difficult to implement. Indeed, gender equality
policies challenge basic social, economic, and political patriarchal power relations within
societies.3 Demands for gender equality and women’s rights are opposed by male-
dominated cultures—in almost every corner of the globe (Guterres 2017). Gender gaps in
the economic and political spheres remain large worldwide (World Economic Forum
2016; United Nations 2016, 2017; Oxfam 2017). Women are grossly underrepresented in
the formal economy and frequently work in vulnerable, low paying, and undervalued jobs.
Their average earnings are well below those of men—$11,000 versus $20,000. In
addition, many women, even those who have entered the formal economy, are most often
also engaged in unpaid household and care work (World Economic Forum 2016; World
Bank 2017). The World Bank has estimated that a majority of countries have at least one
legal restriction with regard to women’s economic opportunities and many have laws that
restrict the types of jobs they can do (UN Women 2017a; World Bank 2017). Similarly, at
the political level, women remain hugely underrepresented. As of January 2017, of the
193 UN member states, only ten had a woman serving as head of state and nine serving
as head of government. In 2016, only 23 percent of all national parliamentarians were
women, and in 2015 only 17 percent of government ministers were women (UN Women
2017b).
The international political environment has changed considerably since the adoption of
Resolution 1325 in 2000—unfortunately not in the right direction.4 The rise of
extremisms, including the rise of populist authoritarianism, has led to a backlash against
feminist agendas, including the WPS agenda. In March 2017, UN Secretary-General
António Guterres recognized that “around the world, tradition, cultural values and
religion are being misused to curtail women’s rights, to entrench sexism and defend
misogynistic practices,” and he urged UN member states to reaffirm their commitment to
gender equality (Guterres 2017).
For the WPS agenda to advance, I argue that the WPS community needs to
(p. 842)
reframe how it talks about this agenda in the peace and security field. The Women, Peace,
and Security agenda is not just about women and women rights, but also about gender—
that is, about the distribution of power within societies among men and women.
The second challenge is that the communities that deal with security challenges, most
notably the WPS community and the security community, live in silos. They are not
connected to each other. Divides and silos (“fiefdoms”) also exist within each of these
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communities (Sylvester 2009; see Chapter 67). Unless these silos are broken down, little
headway will be made on the WPS agenda and the resolution of twenty-first century
security challenges.
The third challenge is a lack of awareness and expertise on gender. Despite a growing
body of research that emphasizes the roles of women and gender in examining security
challenges, these perspectives remain “off the radar screen” in mainstream academic
discussions of security challenges. (Sjoberg 2015, 2009; Maliniak et al. 2008, 2012, 2013)
Similarly, despite the passage of Resolution 1325 and the recognition in many national
and international policy documents of the importance of gender mainstreaming, gender
perspectives remain largely absent when it comes to implementation. In addition, for
many policymakers gender mainstreaming remains synonymous with gender balancing—
that is, adding women.
To advance the WPS agenda, three things need to happen. First, the WPS community
needs to broaden the WPS agenda to include a Gender, Peace, and Security (GPS)
agenda. The WPS community needs to reframe the WPS agenda as a WPS + GPS agenda.
Second, the WPS and the security communities need to overcome the divides that keep
them apart. Third, the academic and policy communities need to increase expertise on
WPS and GPS issues and better train the next generation of security experts in WPS +
GPS. In the remainder of the chapter, I discuss these proposals in greater depth.
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Reframing the Issues: From WPS to WPS +

GPS
Since the adoption of Resolution 1325 in 2000, the WPS agenda has focused largely on
the protection of women in conflict, particularly protection from sexual and gender-based
violence. Unfortunately, an important component of the WPS agenda—the participation of
women in peace and security—has not been sufficiently advanced. A focus on
participation would have required that policymakers examine and redress economic and
political inequalities between men and women and question traditional gender norms and
roles.
The focus on protection has had a tendency to skew the analysis of policymakers toward
women as victims. This reinforces traditional gender roles. Similarly, the focus on
“women and children,” which is prevalent in WPS resolutions, tends to infantilize women
and diminish their agency. Lastly, the focus on protection has had a tendency to ignore
the structural reasons for violence against women, such as gender inequalities (True and
Tanyag 2017; Cockburn 2010).
In addition, because the WPS agenda has been framed in terms of women, it has been
easy for the traditional security community to pigeonhole the WPS agenda as a
“women’s” (p. 843) issue and treat it as secondary or tertiary in national and international
security policy. To overcome these problems and advance the WPS agenda, the WPS
community needs to broaden the lens from “women” to “women and gender.” It needs to
develop a parallel track of work that has a more expansive and more inclusive GPS
framework.
There are two main reasons for reframing these issues. First, from an analytical
perspective, policymakers, activists, analysts, and scholars need to focus clearly and
explicitly on the central issue—gender. It is not enough to advance women’s
representation in the international peace and security arena. The issue is gender equality.
A gender perspective is needed to uncover the relationships and power structures that
define genders, their relationships, and their access to resources and opportunities.
Gender is one of the main attributes that define the identity of people (Ridgeway 2011,
2009, 2006). Most societies are based on assumptions of gender differences and politics
of gender inequality at both individual and structural/institutional levels. These
inequalities “affect politics and security at both the national and international
levels” (Hudson et al. 2012: 5).
Existing power imbalances, gender inequalities, and the lack of participation by women in
peace and security efforts justify a focus on women. However, to address the root causes
of these inequalities and imbalances it is necessary to adopt a whole-of-society approach
that addresses the structural power imbalances created by gender inequality. To create a
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more effective way of thinking about, and advancing, this agenda, policymakers, activists,
analysts, and scholars need a WPS + GPS framework.
Second, from a political perspective, a WPS + GPS agenda will help to overcome the idea
that the WPS agenda is a “women’s” issue. The WPS + GPS framework is broader and
more inclusive. This will make it easier to connect the WPS agenda to issues that the
traditional security community cares about, such as violent conflict and terrorism. It will
also help to connect the WPS agenda to other international priorities, such as the
Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 5 on Gender Equality and Women’s
Empowerment.
Breaking Down Silos

In 2015, the United Nations launched three major reviews on UN peace operations; the
UN peacebuilding architecture; and the implementation of UNSCR 1325 (United Nations
2015a, 2015b; UN Women 2015). All three reviews recognized the changing security
environment. They recognized that contemporary security challenges are interconnected
and will require whole-of-society approaches in which the security of people is central.
The peace operations and peace-building reviews also acknowledged the importance of
the WPS agenda for the work of the United Nations. They admitted that existing divides
between the traditional security community and the WPS community hinder the search
for solutions. They recognized that these divides needed to be bridged, as well as the
divides within those communities.
Indeed, the traditional security community, which is comprised mainly of men and is
anchored in the policy establishment, has largely failed to focus on the role of women and
gender in security (Maliniak et al. 2008, 2012, 2013; K 2017; Yao & Delatolla 2017;
Brechenmacher 2017). For members of this community, matters of war and peace are
about (p. 844) power—mainly military and economic power. The traditional security
community has treated women and gender as peripheral issues.
Similarly, within the academic world, feminist international relations (IR) and feminist
security studies continue to be marginalized.5 Feminist scholars point to the dominance of
a realist, state-centric, and positivist approach to the study of international relations to
explain the lack of gender perspectives in traditional IR or security studies. Traditional
security specialists also tend to separate the international from the national and the
private from the public. These different approaches have translated into different
research priorities for mainstream IR and feminist IR scholars (Tickner 2011, 1992; True
2015; True and Tanyag 2017). As a result, these different strands of study within the IR
and international security fields have been talking past each other and living in their own
academic bubbles.
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At the same time, the WPS community, comprised mainly of women, is anchored in civil
society and mistrusts the traditional security community and its focus on military action
(see Chapters 4, 12, and 58). Numerous members in this community argue that many of
the security problems that plague the world today are brought about by an emphasis on
the military aspects of security. Most of the WPS community focuses on human security,
gender inequality, and the subjugation of women as a source of conflict, including violent
conflict. Within this community there are also deep divides between those who focus on
inequalities at the individual and local level and those who focus on the structural level,
as well as those who focus on security issues and those focusing more broadly on gender
equality issues.6
All of these communities care deeply about international peace and security and have
much to contribute to policy analysis and policy action, but they do not mix and often
ignore each other. They are stovepiped.7 To advance the WPS + GPS agenda, those who
care about peace and security and gender equality need to knock down stovepipes, build
bridges, and create spaces where diverse groups of scholars, analysts, activists, and
policymakers can come together.
Those who care about peace and security and gender equality need to promote a better
understanding between these communities and bridge the divides that keep them apart—
including divides that set up artificial tensions between structural and individual
approaches to gender inequalities. This will lead to a broader, more diverse, and smarter
global security community. This, in turn, will lead to smarter and more effective policies.
For example, policies and programs that seek to prevent and counter violent extremism
need to understand how structural gender inequalities may be a root cause for
radicalization. At the same time policies and programs need to reflect on how structural
inequalities manifest themselves differently in different parts of the world. To be able to
respond in an appropriate and effective manner, it is absolutely critical that the
policymaker, the academic, the analyst work hand in hand with those active in their
communities.
Bolster Awareness and Expertise on WPS +

GPS
In the Global Trends 2025 report, published in 2008, the US National Intelligence Council
(USNIC) highlighted women as agents of geopolitical change and predicted that the
(p. 845) “economic and political empowerment of women could transform the global
landscape” (USNIC 2008: 16). 8 This acknowledgment was a significant step toward the
recognition of gender as an important element when examining global security
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challenges. Unfortunately, the NIC’s Global Trends Report, published in 2017, largely
ignores how gender dynamics impact security in the future.
The 2017 report paints a future where both US dominance and the rules-based
international order may come to an end. The intensifying crisis in global governance is
mirrored by profound national differences of opinion around the roles of government.
According to the NIC “debates over moral boundaries—to whom is owed what—will
become more pronounced, while divergence in values and interest between states will
threaten international security” (USNIC 2017: ix) The 2017 Global Trends report
underscores how domestic political debates about power and the distribution of resources
influence international security. However, it does not examine how gender roles and
norms define power relations within states and how unequal access to economic and
political resources and opportunities may affect peace and prosperity. The Global Trends
report does not recognize that gender is a key explanatory variable of societal dynamics—
including the dynamics that determine peace and security.
The NIC is not alone in ignoring gender when discussing security challenges. Most
academic and policy discussions about international security challenges ignore gender
perspectives. For example, a 2016 survey by the New America Foundation found that the
majority of US national security policymakers had little knowledge or understanding of
gender. Most policymakers equated gender with women and were not familiar with the
WPS agenda. The majority of policymakers believed that an “add women and stir”
approach would be sufficient. Lastly and more importantly, most policymakers in the
survey believed that gender is relevant for only a handful of subjects, such as sex
trafficking, sexual violence, and sex slavery in ISIS. They did not believe that gender was
relevant to subjects like economics, trade, or issues related to defense (Hurlburt et al.
2017).9
This lack of understanding of the role of gender in international affairs and security
policies is widespread and not restricted to US policymakers. The 2015 UN reviews on
peacekeeping operations and the peace-building architecture acknowledged that UN
member states and the UN Secretariat insufficiently integrated gender perspectives in
their peace and security analyses and processes (United Nations 2015a, 2015b). These
reviews also recognized that for many UN member states, as well as many in the UN
secretariat, gender continues to be seen as an “add-on” (United Nations 2015a, 2015b;
Stammes and Osland 2016; Security Council Report 2017).
There is a tremendous need for WPS + GPS expertise in the policy world. Gender
perspectives are desperately needed in policy development and policy implementation,
but they are usually left out—in part because of neglect, but also because gender experts
are not always available. There is a small and growing community of WPS and gender
experts, but given the breadth and depth of security challenges in the twenty-first
century, this community needs to be supported and expanded. Gender needs to become a
regular item in the curricula of international relations and international security studies.
Page 8 of 14

Students need to be introduced to the concepts of gender and gender analyses early on.
Gender and gender analyses also need to be part of the curricula of military training and
education.10
(p. 846) Conclusion

The WPS agenda is based on the proposition that lasting peace cannot be achieved
without gender equality. The WPS agenda posits that gender balancing and the
integration of gender perspectives into the analysis of policy challenges, including
security challenges—are critical tools for advancing peace and security (Krook and True
2012).
Unfortunately, most policymakers and experts in the traditional security community

remain oblivious to the gender dimensions of international peace and security challenges.
For many policymakers and experts, the WPS agenda remains a “women’s” agenda and is
therefore easily sidelined. Even within the UN Security Council, references to the WPS
agenda are consistently overlooked when Council members make decisions about “hard”
security issues or when it is in “crisis” mode and responds to new and emerging crisis
(Security Council Report 2017)
For the WPS agenda to advance, the WPS community needs to emphasize that this is not
only a women’s agenda but also, and importantly, a peace and security agenda. Gender
inequalities and gender-based violence are indicative of dysfunctional and disruptive
patterns of state domination that make interstate and intra-state aggression more likely
(Hudson et al. 2012).
To underscore this point, the WPS community needs to reframe the WPS agenda into a
WPS + GPS agenda—that is, an agenda that recognizes that a focus on women is
necessary, but not sufficient. To fully address security challenges in the twenty-first
century, the focus also needs to be on gender—that is, on the power structures that define
and defy international peace and security.
In addition, the WPS and the security communities need to bridge the divides between
and among them. Finally, analysts and academics need to advance our understanding and
knowledge about the gender dimensions of international security challenges so that
policymakers can truly incorporate a gender perspective in the analyses of these
challenges and in the policies to deal with these challenges. To do this, policymakers need
to invest in a next generation of scholars and policymakers. Only then can the regressive
forces that want women to remain subordinate to men be stopped. Only then will the
truly transformative nature of Resolution 1325 become a reality.
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Notes:
(1.) For example, the Statute of the International Criminal Court allows for the
prosecution of sexual crimes, including rape, as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The Statute also provides for reparation and the protection of victims. In addition, the UN
Security Council has adopted many resolutions dealing with sexual violence in conflict.
UNSCR 1820 (2008) recognized sexual violence as a weapon and tactic of war and
requested the UN Secretary General to appoint a Special Representative on Sexual
Violence in Conflict. In 2012, the United Kingdom launched the Preventing Sexual
Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI). It developed an international protocol on the
documentation and investigation of sexual violence in conflict, which was published in
2016.
(2.) Many chapters in this Handbook also emphasize this point.
(3.) While gender norms and gender relations vary greatly over time and across societies,
most societies are founded upon assumptions of gender differences and gender
inequalities. Patriarchal structures and the norms and gender stereotypes that
accompany them are hard to change.
(4.) In this Handbook Christine Chinkin points to the hollowing out of international
human rights law in the 1990s. See Chapter 3.
(5.) Brooke Ackerly and Jacqui True argue that the marginalization of feminist scholars is
less prominent in Australia, Canada, and the UK, where the IR field is more pluralist. See
Ackerly and True 2008.
(6.) These divides often break down as among academics, NGO analysts, and activists, as
well as along disciplinary lines. The divide between those focusing on security and those
focusing on gender equality narrowed somewhat in October 2013 when the Monitoring
Committee of the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) adopted General Recommendation 30 (GR 30) on the rights of women in
conflict prevention, conflict, and post-conflict situations. GR 30 explicitly links to the WPS
agenda and calls on states to report on the implementation of their WPS commitments in
their reports to CEDAW (see O’Rourke and Swaine 2015 and Chapter 52).
(7.) Despite much talk about the importance of interdisciplinarity, academic disciplines
remain very walled off from each other. The security expert rarely mingles with the
anthropologist or the region specialist, and their careers proceed in different lanes and
according to different criteria. Similarly, the activist often speaks a different language
and frequently has different priorities from the academic, think tanker, or even the
Page 13 of 14

international activist. Finally, policymakers have their own vocabulary and priorities that
may not overlap.
(8.) The report posited: “Although data on political involvement are less conclusive than
those regarding economic participation, political empowerment of women appears to
change governmental priorities. Examples as disparate as Sweden and Rwanda indicate
that countries with relatively large numbers of politically active women place greater
importance on societal issues such as healthcare, the environment, and economic
development. If this trend continues over the next 15-20 years, as is likely, an increasing
number of countries could favor social programs over military ones. Better governance
also could be a spin-off benefit, as a high number of women in parliament or senior
positions correlates with lower corruption.”
(9.) I have found in my own research and travel in Asia, Africa, and Europe that the
United States is not unique in this regard.
(10.) The Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada, and the UK have been better at
integrating gender into curricula.
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat is President of Women in International Security,

Washington, DC, USA.
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Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: participation, gender equality, security agenda, limitations of WPS

Subscriber: Freie Universitaet Berlin; date: 11 January 2019

Despite these international and national commitments, gender perspectives in the

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Reframing the Issues: From WPS to WPS +

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Breaking Down Silos

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Bolster Awareness and Expertise on WPS +

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(p. 846) Conclusion

Unfortunately, most policymakers and experts in the traditional security community

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Ridgeway, Cecilia. “Gender as an Organizing Force in Social Relations: Implications for

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United Nations. “Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations: On

UN Women. “Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace. A Global Study on the

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World Economic Forum. “Global Gender Gap Report.” 2016, http://

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(2.) Many chapters in this Handbook also emphasize this point.

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Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

Chantal de Jonge Oudraat is President of Women in International Security,

Subscriber: Freie Universitaet Berlin; date: 11 January 2019

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