Sex and World Peace

Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, Chad F. Emmett

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780231520096
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Sex and World Peace unsettles a variety of assumptions in political and security discourse, demonstrating that the security of women is a vital factor in the security of the state and its incidence of conflict and war.

The authors compare micro-level gender violence and macro-level state peacefulness in global settings, supporting their findings with detailed analyses and color maps. Harnessing an immense amount of data, they call attention to discrepancies between national laws protecting women and the enforcement of those laws, and they note the adverse effects on state security of abnormal sex ratios favoring males, the practice of polygamy, and inequitable realities in family law, among other gendered aggressions.

The authors find that the treatment of women informs human interaction at all levels of society. Their research challenges conventional definitions of security and democracy and shows that the treatment of gender, played out on the world stage, informs the true clash of civilizations. In terms of resolving these injustices, the authors examine top-down and bottom-up approaches to healing wounds of violence against women, as well as ways to rectify inequalities in family law and the lack of parity in decision-making councils. Emphasizing the importance of an R2PW, or state responsibility to protect women, they mount a solid campaign against women's systemic insecurity, which effectively unravels the security of all.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps, Figures, and Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• 1. Roots of National and International Relations
• 2. What Is There to See, and Why Aren’t We Seeing It?
• 3. When We Do See the Global Picture, We Are Moved to Ask How This Happened
• 4. The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States
• 5. Wings of National and International Relations, Part One: Effecting Positive Change Through Top-Down Approaches
• 6. Wings of National and International Relations, Part Two: Effecting Positive Change Through Bottom-Up Approaches
• 7. Taking Wing
• Appendix A. Operationalizations for Data Analysis in Chapter 4
• Appendix B. Data Analysis Results for Chapter 4
• Notes
• Contributors
• Index