Finding Gender Equality in the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda

"Finding Gender Equality in the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda: From Global Promises to National Accountability by Barbara Trojanowska is an absorbing read. It brought home to me how important it is for us as academics and civil society advocates to consider the political wheeling and dealings that influence the meaningful implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda. I am so impressed by the clear articulation of how the masculinist environments and cultures of masculinity can co-opt and hence dilute the goals of gender equality as embedded in the women, peace, and security agenda. Particularly, for civil society activists here in Australia, it will be useful in our work to keep in mind the approach the book takes to gender equality ""as an unfixed policy goal which is context specific and shaped by political environments in which it operates, and by other competing and co-existing priorities of institutions and stakeholders."" Finally, the book draws our attention to the challenges of taking an intersectional gender lens - especially translating rhetoric into action. --Anu Mundkur, Flinders University; Co-Founder, Equalis In a world where the international goal of gender equality is facing increasing backlash, Finding Gender Equality in the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda is essential reading. Trojanowska's empirically rich, intersectional analysis will challenge your understanding of gender equality itself and demand attention to the messy international politics of promoting it. --David Duriesmith, University of Sheffield In this book, author Barbara K. Trojanowska takes a broad interdisciplinary look at the women, peace, and security agenda and situates it within the larger issue of gender equality. Through in-depth case studies and interviews, the author draws on a range of voices to arrive at what she calls three dominant paradigms of gender equality. The result is an analysis that goes far beyond traditional understanding of the women, peace, and security agenda tied to UNSCR 1325 to address the transformational structural changes that need to happen if women are truly to be equal participants in the conversation about peace and security. --Joyce P. Kaufman, Whittier College In this valuable contribution, Barbara K. Trojanowska brings depth and clarity to our understanding of the notion of gender equality within the women, peace and security agenda. The richly-detailed accounts from multiple sites of advocacy and policymaking would be of interest to researchers as well as practitioners. --Soumita Basu, South Asian University It is so exciting to see the concept of gender equality in the WPS agenda addressed as a central concern in this book. Gender equality, the original goal of the WPS agenda and its intended outcome, has too often become an elusive concept, marginalised to appease security actors and lost in the instrumentalism that has subsumed the agenda since its inception. Here, Barbara K. Trojanowska delivers what the WPS field of scholarship has been waiting for: a fulsome analytical account of the trajectory of the idea of 'gender equality' in the WPS agenda, its positioning in the resolutions and relative to their aims and a comprehensive assessment of where and how implementation of the agenda contributes to gender equality. This is such an important contribution, bringing scholarly attention back to the most important imperative of the WPS agenda, the achievement of gender equality. A must read for students, scholars and activists engaged on WPS thinking and action. --Aisling Swaine, University College Dublin This book ably demonstrates the importance of listening to women's views on the impact of inequality in contexts of insecurity. It shows why gender equality must have tangible ways to further peace and security. Scholars and practitioners concerned with the WPS agenda will benefit from the inspiring findings of this book. --Elisabeth Porter, University of South Australia This book makes an important contribution to the Women, Peace and Security literature. Barbara K. Trojanowska breaks new ground by showing how progress (and the lack thereof) on the WPS agenda is closely related to different conceptions of gender equality. Case studies of the deliberations at the UN Security Council, within ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum, in the Philippines and in Australia show how international actors shape the WPS agenda through expansive or restricted understandings of gender equality. This is a must-read for policymakers, scholars and activists. --Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Fellow, Wilson Center; former President of Women In International Security (WIIS) Trojanowska beautifully demonstrates the intellectual pay-off of pursuing a 'feminist curiosity' in this important contribution. This book is a must-read not only for those working on, and with, the Women, Peace and Security agenda, but also for anyone interested in gender equality initiatives in global governance more broadly. Trojanowska skilfully elaborates three paradigms of gender equality, linked to security, development, and human rights, and shows how each influences - and is also reproduced through - work on the agenda in Australia and the Philippines. Based on wide-ranging and meticulous empirical research, Trojanowska's conclusions about the opportunities for, and obstacles to, enhancing gender equality through the Women, Peace and Security agenda are trenchant and have resonance far beyond the case studies she presents. --Laura J. Shepherd, The University of Sydney"