Mutated Identities: Gender and Confl ict

Abstract

Discussions on gender issues often tend to focus on the roles and power relations between women and men. This dichotomy has, from time immemorial, been replicated in almost every sphere of private and public life beginning with the construction of gender identities. In the context of conflict, particularly armed and violent conflict, the casualties are often scores of women and children. Humanitarian, peace and reconstruction efforts often lump this category as one, under ‘victim’. However, it is emerging that there is need for more gendered analyses of conflict situations in order to avoid oversimplification and flawed approaches in redressing the problem. Scholars are questioning previous assumptions that have taken gender relations for granted without factoring in the wider socio-cultural, political and economic contexts. It is clear that these factors need to be scrutinised further in order to adequately answer to the baffling and chronic complexities of war.