Gender And Violent Conflict And Violence

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

The ideas continued to develop and by the 1970s there was a realization that “progress” had provided an excuse for “the reign of the free market, for colonial exploitation of non-Western societies, and for ravaging the biosphere”. (Du Pisani, 2007) In 1983 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) addressed these issues and four years later they released The Brundtland Report. It centres around the interests and needs of humankind and argues for global equity for future generations by encouraging economic growth in poorer nations. It also argues that social equity, economic growth and environmental maintenance are all possible and core elements of the practice of SD. It also offers a definition of SD that has achieved widespread recognition.

The idea that women are absent from conflict is also problematic. Women are active agents in the perpetuation of conflict, and may sometimes be interested in seeing it fester. The ANC in South Africa offered the same military training for men and women, fully involving women in the conflict (Afshar 43). The need to protect women from conflict can

The impacts of conflict on women have been harsh, often going through trauma, being displaced and having difficulties forming a household in the areas of conflict. They have undergone several persecutions and there has been a rise in gender-based and sexual violence and thus, they have become primary targets among the contemporary armed conflicts. As a matter of fact, the majority of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons mainly consist of women and children.

Sustainable development means that the present generations should be able to make use of resources to live better lives in such a manner that it does not compromise the ability of future generations. For sustainable development to occur, there needs to be sustainable economic, ecological and community development. Society needs to be educated about ways in which they can use resources, especially natural, in such a manner that it does not cause harm to the environment and put future generations lives at risk.

Therefore, by highlighting the weakness in this linear and static relationship between women’s subordinate status and vulnerability he calls into question the practice of privileging women and children in the international discourse on gender-based violence. Therefore, the assumption that women’s subordinate status will necessarily be followed by vulnerability and violence must be re-examined because it has limited our understanding of vulnerability in conflict zones and consequently, certain groups of people are undermined in terms of offering protection and support

Through this written piece of work, I want to examine the ways in which the dominant ideas of gender and war, from a Feminist perspective. I will be contributing an understanding to the role of the Kurdish female fighters in the field of war and politics, that have broken the taboos of gender roles within the community, and the national movement. The concept of gender, war, and conflict has lightened the issue of women in war. The image of war is associated to masculinity, and in many cases women are not welcomes in the field of war, as “she is exposed as a victim of war by drawing the idea of women being helpless (Sjoberg, 2014, p. 10).” Laura Sjoberg; Gender, War, and Conflict, states that “war-making and war-fighting have been traditionally

In the midst of conflict, particularly civil wars, violence is indiscriminate in choosing its victim. But without question women and girls are the most vulnerable members of society when it comes to facing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). SGBV in conflict is widespread, and affects a large number of women and children. SGBV in conflict has a number of manifestations, at times used deliberately as a tactic or strategy to destroy or degrade one’s political opponent or members of ethnic or religious minorities. At times it is a result of ill-disciplined armed forces where impunity for such actions exists. Yet regardless of the driving force, the result remains the same—a devastating effect on individuals and societies, bringing about the essential collapse of social structures and norms. When victims are plucked from the youngest generations, such violence has a damaging effect on the potential for peace and stability in the society’s future.

To giving a definition for social sustainability, Oxford Institute for sustainable development claim that social sustainability is to taking care of individual, societies and communities live together as a whole and start to achieve the ideal developments for themselves, and also look into the relationship between the particular territory of themselves and the planet. In Practical way, Social Sustainability start arises by taking action to extend the social aspect of individuals and societies, which include capacity and skill developments to environmental and spatial inequalities. Which also include the traditional social policy aspects and principles, for instances, the equity of human rights and health, as well as human needs, social capital, economy, living environment, the consideration of happiness, wellbeing and the quality of life.

Ironically, results from their studies revealed that domestic gender equality increases as the severity of violence in conflict decreases (Caprioli, M., & Boyer, M. A). A recent example of interstate conflict in a nation with high domestic gender inequality would be the Darfur genocide. The domestic force known as the Janjaweed are employed rape and other acts of sexual violence as systematic weapons of genocide and ethnic cleansing. In 2008, The LA Times reported that at least 250,000 women and girls were sexually assaulted during 2003-2005, the height of the genocide (Scheffer, 2008).

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 1987). The concept of sustainability comprises of four pillars: environmental; economic; political and social; as can be seen in the image below. Environmental sustainability is the use and management of the environment in a way that it does not deplete our finite resources. Economic sustainability is a long term sustainable economy that supports its community and political sustainability is the collaboration of different bodies of government to achieve a sustainable future. Now social sustainability is hard to define as it encapsulates many different factors; however to be very broad it is to achieve social justice. The real objective for sustainability is that all four pillars work together equally in a precautionary principle;

Over the course of the past few decades, humans have truly started to understand and study issues that threaten our environment in great depth. Modern environmental sustainability is defined as “the link between the health of nature and society, population growth, distribution of wealth and the combined approach to development, equity and conservation not new to social and environmental policy” (Oiamo 23). The definition of sustainability has transformed over time along with our knowledge and continually evolving understanding of the word. Sustainable development is a process that goes hand in hand with sustainability, however the definition is widely deliberated. Nonetheless, the most accepted definition was coined from the Brundtland Report in 1987 is “development that meets the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (Oiamo 28). Succinctly, sustainable development is only using the essentials needed to preserve ourselves as of right now, and nothing more. What lead to this present-day concept of environmentalism and sustainability were economic, environmental and social shifts prior to the 1970s.These are known as the three pillars of sustainability and were contrived by environmentalists such as Ebenezer Howard and Rachel Carson.

Urbanization, which is becoming a buzzword during the last few decades, is enlarging at a booming speed. It is predicted that 93 percents urban growth will occur to the year 2020, in the developing world (Elliot J.A, 1999). Generally speaking, more than half of the people around the world have been moved to cities, which led to a series of “matters” connected with people’s life that changed in a dramatical way. In this period, sustainable development, another buzzword during the past few years, came into people’s view and gradually became the mainstream of society development. Its definition is to make the development continue in a long term, which means allowing appropriate economic growth and industrialization without

The concept of sustainable development has become a major topic among intellectuals from various fields. Sustainable development has gone through various changes in its definitions and at present does not have a commonly accepted definition. The origination of the concept of sustainable development is debatable. In 1974 at a conference on Science and Technology for Human Development by the World Council of Churches the concept of a “sustainable society” is believed to have been first noted. This early concept focused on equitable distribution of scarce resources and the need for democratic decision making. In 1980 the currently used term of sustainable development emerged in the

Sustainable development is defined in many methods, but the official definition is explained through Our Common Future: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world 's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment 's ability to meet present and future needs.” From my point of view, there are three key points existing in this explanation: the needs of each class in the society, the limitation of development as well as the demands of present and future generation. These three points will be analyzed in detail below.