In war the world is divided in two. There are the men who attack, fight, defend. And the women who flee with their children or, if they don’t succeed, wait in their houses for the bombs or for the aggressors who might rape them to come. Because that too is part of the war, and it could soon be a reality in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine. Nothing seems to have changed since the three wars that are particularly memorable in this country over the past few decades, the two in the Gulf and the one in south-eastern Europe.
Men and women are affected differently by war. The more than 1,200 women who came together in The Hague in April 1915 for a peace congress already knew this. Only 85 years and two world wars later was the conclusion drawn from this with UN Resolution 1325. It obliges the member states to prevent violence in armed conflicts and to prosecute the perpetrators. The leitmotif is not national security, but one based on human rights, which also includes the prohibition of rape as a weapon of war. At the same time, women should be adequately involved in conflict resolution and peace negotiations and their perspective should be taken into account. Studies have shown that an agreement then lasts 15 years, a third longer than usual.
It is not at all about whether women are more peaceful and therefore predestined to have a peacemaking effect. During the 1991 Gulf War, there was a strong faction in the women’s peace movement that took up this more or less explicitly, and criticism followed quickly.
30 years later, little remains of these networks, not least because there are now definitely women in decision-making zones, even in foreign policy, which is still male-dominated. The coalition agreement, with Annalena Baerbock as external representative, promises to give it a “feminist” direction. The three percent from the federal budget for defense, development and diplomacy should be spent as creatively as possible and under no circumstances on more armaments. Today we know how things are. Little will be left for civilian peacekeeping.
Therefore, there is no need to speculate that the foreign minister, like all of her fellow women in office, will not be able to escape the prevailing logic of war, the dominance of military strength and the friend-or-foe determination. Occasionally one even gets the impression that the women who have now been called upon to deal with security issues are even more willing to make decisions and are emulating the military. With the fact that Baerbock describes Europe’s unity with rhetorical enthusiasm “as a question of survival”, the Green politician suggests a situation of life and death that is not realistic, at least outside of Ukraine.
It is dangerous to let oneself drift into such hopeless decision-making situations. The Berlin Health Alliance has just called on International Women’s Day to demonstrate against the social effects of armament, because the many billions will be missing for care work, services of general interest and climate protection. And in this context it is no coincidence that the demand for general compulsory service for young people is now being raised again.