Gender Relation and Conflict: Theories

1 There is a great deal of data concerning various topics on gender and conflict. Explain how theories about the nature of women and intersectionality assist in analyzing and interpreting this data. Within this large assortment of data, one can see patterns or over arching frameworks that clarify the history and prevalence of long standing gender issues. Discuss three such patterns or frame works.
In our time today, the existence of armed conflicts has become an alarming concern given their increase in number and the variation in the forms they begun to take. While one can assert that at first glance, the scope of these conflicts have gone smaller compared to the previous world wars that past generations had to experience, the growing number of armed conflicts around the world today continue to raise significant issues that need to be addressed in a global effort. Usually, these conflicts are being interpreted in light of the larger social setting where they emerge. In these efforts to probe the nature of these conflicts, one usually arrives at glaring findings about the economic and political set-up in the world today. It is often unavoidable to cite the prevalent inequality in terms of the economic prosperity and growth of nations and their respective political clout in the global level. Aside from these pervading societal conditions, other more particular concerns like ethnic differences, local political turmoil and the persistence of several, minority groups and ideological groups also factor themselves in the continued intensification of armed conflicts in the world. The issue of terrorism also hovers within the terrain of pertinence and this is also a major reinforcement of conflicts in several parts of the world.
In line with this, aside from the nature of these conflicts and what factors might be causing them to come about, we need to look at them in terms of their effects, especially the harmful ones. We know that these conflicts do no good to the communities where they take place, the people inhabiting these communities, their resources and their general way of life. More notably, while the detriments of the war do not discriminate anyone and can take their toll from everyone, of whatever color, age, class or gender, these harms are more likely to affect those who have been in the underprivileged sides of binaries. In particular, women who are already mostly discriminated and oppressed by the existing dominant patriarchal system, get to be strongly afflicted in times of war and conflict. While in the time of relative peace women have to deal with certain limitations and expectations thrown by the society and its institutions, these conditions aggravate during the time of war. While in the absence of conflict there exists inequality and tension in the gender relations, this is only further stressed if not degraded by armed conflicts CITATION Bar04 \l 1033 (Barbanti, 2004).
In this paper, I seek to bring to light the issues and concerns surrounding the massive data accumulated with regards to the correlation of gender issues and the prevalence of armed conflicts in several parts of the world today. I will formulate a number of generalizations that can serve as frameworks in our tackling of these gender issues in the wake f armed conflict. For the latter part, I will delve into two particular areas where a perspective on gender must definitely be taken into account and cite existing programs or actions that are being launched to address the gender issues arising within these areas.
The string between gender and armed conflicts: frameworks and generalizations:
With the prevalence of armed conflicts in different regions of the world, humanity is caught at the crossfire and a lot of lives and potentials are being sacrificed. In particular, women are put at a doubly disadvantaged position as they try to maneuver their way out of the tensions and dangers inherent in armed conflicts. Numerous data have been culled to document the experiences not just by women but by entire afflicted communities in the time of war and other armed conflicts. In this part, I will pose three generalizations that I have made out of the available data and dissect how gender becomes a category that is very significant during armed conflicts.
Women`s subsumption in the largely patriarchal social set-up
All of my three general points here are highly interwoven with one another, with each one alluding back or signifying relevance to the other points. The first highlights the broad social setting where women are situated and where the wars take place to take their toll on them.
One of the long forwarded points and analyses not only of feminists but other social advocates and even philosophers and thinkers is the eminence of men in this world. Graced by social scientists under the term "patriarchy," this set-up has eventually came to be known as the kind of society that puts special privilege to men whether or not consciously acknowledged by all of the people. This can be manifested in almost all aspects of everyday life: in the household, in the work place, in the bureaucracy, even in language and grammar. Although there have been interesting accounts validated by grueling research in anthropology and other social sciences about the existence of egalitarian, if not matriarchal kinds of society in the past, these documentations are often undervalued or not given sufficient attention and elaboration CITATION Fra00 \l 1033 (Francis, 2000). Most of these societies were purported to take place in the pre-historic times of every community, as in many cases all over the world, during matriarchal times, women have once received the highest repute and honor within the community. They are perceived to be very powerful and this makes them very important and highly respected people in pre-historic times.
However, the arrival of the slave society and consequently feudal society, the loss of status of the women started. They began to be treated as witches, bringers of bad luck and confreres of evil spirits. As in the case of the rest of the societies in other parts of the world, the advance of the society, i.e. the discovery of agriculture and tribal conquests, seemed to be squared with the interests of men. For instance, men were deemed to be more skilled in utilizing weapons and stronger than women so they were perceived to be more suitable for warfare than women. This results to the fixing in place of the patriarchal system that women and other gender equality advocates alike still grapple with up to today.
Stereotypes against women in a patriarchal society
Emerging from the patriarchal set-up is a multitude of stereotypical assumptions and perceptions on women. One of the most glaring and at one level, unsurprising notion attached to women at the heart of war-torn communities is that they practically serve as "wives, mothers and nurturers" while their husbands fight the enemies. This stereotype can be traced to be coming from the idea that women are physically weaker compared to men and hence, they are not fit to join in the battleground; it should be rather left as a business for men.
These stereotypes delimit the potentials of women to participate in other diplomatic arenas where the issues revolving the armed conflict can be talked about, if not resolved. On a deeper level, stereotypical thinking prohibits women from actually engaging in the armed conflict when some of them are really able to and would like to. These stereotypes summarily designate women as non-combatants and as such, must stay firmly at home, taking care of the children and the rest of the family. On a related note, this makes them more prone to the potentials of fatality inherent in wars and other violent activities. If...