Sex and World Peace
Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett
April, 2011
Cloth, 304 pages, 11 color maps, I figure, 17 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-13182-7
$26.50
/ £18.50
While the security of the state affects the security of women, does it also hold that the security of women help determine the security of states? Provocatively affirming this claim, Sex and World Peace unsettles a variety of assumptions in political and security discourse, proving the situation of women to be a vital variable in the incidence of conflict and war.
The authors structure their argument around a comparison of micro-level gender violence and macro-level state peacefulness in global settings, bolstering their findings with detailed analysis and color maps. Harnessing an immense amount of data, they note discrepancies between national laws protecting women and the enforcement of those laws, abnormal sex ratios favoring males, the practice of polygamy, and inequitable family law, among other aggressions, and find that the treatment of women informs human interaction at all levels of society. Their research calls conventional definitions of security, democracy, and other terms into question and shows the true clash of civilizations will be one of gender, played out on the international stage. In terms of resolving these injustices, the authors examine top-down and bottom-up approaches to healing wounds of violence against women, as well as ways to rectify inequalities in family law and the lack of parity in decision-making councils. Emphasizing the importance of an R2PW, or state responsibility to protect women, they mount a solid campaign against women's systemic insecurity, which acts to unravel the security of all.
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About the Author
Valerie M. Hudson is professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Her research concerns foreign policy analysis, security studies, gender and international relations, and methodology, and her articles have appeared in such journals as International Security, Journal of Peace Research, Political Psychology, and Foreign Policy Analysis. She is the author or editor of several books, including, with Andrea Den Boer, Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population, which won the American Association of Publishers Award for the Best Book in Political Science and the Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Best Book in Social Demography, generating coverage in the New York Times, The Economist, 60 Minutes, and other news venues. She was named one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009.Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill is professor of psychology at Brigham Young University and director of its Women's Research Institute. She is coauthor of Peaceabilities: Compelling Stories and Activities that Develop Abilities of Children to Live Peacefully with Others and coeditor of A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women.Mary Caprioli is associate professor, head of the Department of Political Science, and director of international studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She pioneered linking the security of women to the international and national behavior of states and is an associate editor of Foreign Policy Analysis, an editorial board member of the Peace and Conflict Report, and an advisory board member of the Minorities at Risk Project. She is also a member of the International Group of Experts for the UNSCR 1325 Research Group of the government of Sweden.Chad F. Emmett is a political geographer at Brigham Young University, researching the peaceful sharing of space between Israelis and Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, men and women, and other supposedly opposing groups. He is the author of Beyond the Basilica: Christians and Muslims in Nazareth.
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