Gender Security Toolbox

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Since the UN Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, governments around the world have adopted gender mainstreaming as a core strategy to achieve gender equality and equity in their societies. Gender mainstreaming tools and processes are now used across foreign policy and international development institutions (including USAID, the World Bank, and the United Nations), and are often required as a condition of funding. In this class, students will learn to use key gender mainstreaming tools such as gender analyses, gender audits, and gender indicators, and learn to apply a gender-sensitive “lens” to policy, project design, and monitoring and evaluation systems. The course combines practical skill-building with readings on feminist international relations and security theory and the experiences and learning of feminist activists around the world as well as conversations with gender practitioners and policymakers. The skills students gain will allow them to capably serve as gender focal points. The course will be valuable for students on the path to full-time gender careers domestically or abroad, as well as students wanting to integrate gender equality principles and efforts into other roles in diplomacy, development, and defense work