(En)Gendered Security

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course is designed to illuminate the multiple and complex intersections of gender with security. It advances and assesses three arguments. First, gender is conceptually and theoretically necessary to thinking about security itself and central questions of security, to include war, conflict, and peace. Second, gender is indispensable in explaining the complex cause-and-effect relationships over a range of security issues. And, third, gender is important from the policy standpoint for devising sustainable and effective approaches for making the world a more secure place for everyone, regardless of their social identity. By engaging the UN Women Gender and Security Toolkit as an organizing concept, the course proceeds through a series of topics dedicated to security sector governance, military, defense and gender, security sector reforms and gender, justice, and gender, law enforcement and gender, border management and gender, and intersectionality of gender with other social markers, such as race and social class. By highlighting the complexities of integrating the findings of gender studies into policy, the course will be of interest to both practitioners and students of security studies, gender studies, and IR in general.