24 October 2020, NIICE Commentary 6386
Ateka Hasan
Analysing the causes of war has been an important area of study in the International relations for decades. Many agree that it has several dimensions attached to it, which are all interconnected or in relation with each other and play out together. According to Brian Fogarty, all wars have immediate causes, antecedent causes, and root causes. All these causes work together, through the means of intersectionality. For him, the immediate causes are mostly around economic needs and motivations. He believes that countries go to war for increasing their economic resources and capability. For example, the valuable minerals in African countries today can be seen to play an important role in its violent conditions. The second dimension, which is the antecedent cause, are the ethno-nationalist’s issues or foreign-ness. This, here, brings to focus the most contemporary issue, of nationalism, which is one of the most prevalent factors in the today’s chaotic world. The war may thus be influenced by the need for recognition or autonomy. The biggest defining factor of such causes are the propagandas which openly promote hate speech and othering of other communities. For example, the Rwandan genocide was a civil war which was heavily motivated by ethno-nationalistic desires. The third dimension, which is probably one of the most important ones and yet highly neglected one, are the root causes or favourable conditions. This dimension refers to the culture of the society which indirectly promotes violence and violent behaviour. And a cultural aspect which is heavily ignored by scholars is the patriarchal gender relations prevalent in the society. The patriarchal structure of the society gives way to the rise of militarization. This culture of masculinity and militarism makes war thinkable and a solution to uphold pride.
Majority of the times the emotions of frustration and humiliation motivate violent behaviours within a society. And while these emotions can be an outcome of many things, a major cause is the pressure for men to fulfil the gender roles. Living in a patriarchal society, men are expected to carry out a certain set of responsibilities like supporting the family, or being a protector to the weaker sex. However, in contemporary times, women have been taking the initiatives to improve their family situations after wars affect their family’s livelihood, leading to their displacement. For example, since 1975 Angola has been divided by conflict. This had led to the migration of many families. This situation created a difficult task for men to work because they were not that privy to the concept of adjustment, whereas women managed to quickly get accustomed to them (women) becoming the new bread winners. This meant that the men would have to stay home and live the domesticated life, while women will carry out the financial burden. This change in the gender role was not accompanied by change in the ideological structure, and thus led to aggravating men’s sense of failure and frustration. It is important to note here, that nobody goes to war for gender reasons, but gender is an antecedent that makes it possible. According to a tentative model of possible links to gender identities and conflict given by Judy El- Bushra, it is these negative emotions and sense of failure which leads to the secondary impacts of conflict (these include depression, suicide, militarization, violent crime, domestic friction, inter-generational conflict), which eventually lead to breakdown of social structures – leading to distorted gender identities, ultimately leading to conflict. Thus, patriarchy is a very critical component in relating the culture to the cause of war, because, as Betty Reardon pointed out, Patriarchy invented war and maintains war to hold in place the social order it had spawned. It is, thus, imperative to understand and analyse war as a system (gendered order that makes war possible), as a cultural thing and as a continuum. All these dimensions eventually lead to the rise of violent characteristics in the society, mainly in the perspectives of the males.
The aspect of violence is inherently linked to the system of power, which is a common subpoint in patriarchal structures. Power can further be divided into three dimensions, mainly, economic power, ethnic or national power (for e.g. White supremacy), and gender power. These dimensions are similar to Fogarty’s causes, however, studying the causes of war through the link of power, provides with an additional understanding through ‘intersectionality’ and ‘positionality’. These concepts allow for an understanding of an individual’s sense of self, which is derived by where he or she positions himself or herself in all these dimensions of power. The matter of self becomes significant here, because power is practiced by people when they want to be superior to an inferior and exploit other. The relations here can be of a rich man and labourer, a citizen and a foreigner, and a woman as the property of man. This need to dominate over the inferior other eventually leads to violence (through coercion, or force). The main issue here posits the desire for accumulation of more wealth, which leads to the condition of being civilized. But as noted by William Eckhardt, the more civilized the people became, the more warlike they became. This relation of power with patriarchy and militarization or use of force, goes to show that a war is caused because of all these dimensions, and neither can be at play without the other two. This indicates the point which feminist scholars have been trying to make for many years; which is that gender relations are an important part of any society and have their roots in its functioning. They try to bring attention to the fact that analysing a war without really capturing the gender drama, would be an incomplete study. However, most theories of sociology and international relations do ignore this element, and criticize the feminist authors for being trivial and not paying attention to the big picture. On this point Cynthia Enloe has raised the question, of considering the real big picture to include the gender dimension. The ignorance, which the topic of gender has faced up until now, is one of the major reasons behind the continued rise in masculinization and patriarchy in the societal structures. Its absence has led to the major gap in understanding a major component in war.
Thus, gender relations are one of the root causes of militarization and war. The societies which we live in are heavily monopolized by a patriarchal narrative. This narrative reinforces the cliched understanding, which is that men need to protect the women, because they are weaker, and thus need to be protected. The notion of protection provides the men with the justification for enforcing violence and going to war. With the continued subjugation of the women in domestic spheres, the gender narrative after war is also similar to war, sometimes even worse. Which is why many anti-war women’s organisations like Vimochana, in Bangalore, said, “we didn’t start as women against war, but as women against violence against women.” Because while the sexualization of war might be a different violent act taking place during war, but women in their every-day lives face violence of some kind already. Additionally, the claims of men for peace act as a paradox, for they believe that the path for peace is through war. Even the post-war scenarios are so disastrous that the type of peace and security achieved is not really peace, particularly for women. This goes to show that masculinization of the societal structures inevitably leads to war, however, as Laurel stone has reviewed, encouraging the participation of women increases the chances of ending the violence within a year by 24 percent. Even Mary Caprioli, has studied the correlation between gender equality indicators and a country’s propensity for peacefulness. This can also be brought about by aiming to demilitarize the arms arena leading to a change in masculinity- which holds as a very strong component in militarization of the society. Apart from this an important element which has hardly been touched upon under masculinity is the topic of homosexuality, which faces a lot of brunt for not matching the characteristics of true masculinity. R.W. Connell showed the variation in masculinity. He points out to the refusal of the homosexual men to conform to patriarchal norms and manhood, and participate in the militaristic aspect.
Conclusion
War has been a highly masculinized area. All its dimensions contain a power relation in different sectors of society. One of the important ones is the gender relation. The patriarchal structure has upheld a social order where society is heavily militarized and masculinized; this makes war more inevitable. Which is why there is a need to change the defining features of war, that would start including the messy and vast dimension of culture. The discussion on culture will bring focus on the gender relations, which are a major cause of war. The relationship lacks equality and thus inadvertently lacks opportunities. These opportunities take away women’s chance to bring their perspective on violence in light. Thus, it becomes pertinent for a global demand of a restructuring of the social order, and the contribution by both the gender for opposing the rise in militaristic ideologies. Hence, men need to oppose their own gender identity as men as well. And as Cynthia Cockburn pointed out, that coalitions against militarism need to fight against patriarchy, but also nationalism and capitalism. Everyone despite of a binary gender, needs to work together to eradicate these impediments to peace and security for the whole society. Because the gender stereotypes are very deep rooted in our societies and need a lot of work and understanding for all these reforms to actually work.
