Africa peace and conflict journal, v. 6, no. 1, June 2013

Abstract

For many women, violence is the daily condition of their lives, during wartime and peacetime, so our definitions of security need to consider the gendered realities of (in)security. In contemporary Africa, the greater political participation of women during conflict has not translated into sustained engagement of women in post-conflict settings. At the termination of wartime conditions, women become relegated to their traditional roles. This role reversal brings with it a disintegration of social and economic networks that once had been instruments of survival. Tokenism through numbers and quotas is not a panacea to the persistence of long-standing gender inequalities in peace and security processes