Dealing with Resistances and Backlash of Gender Equality Norms in Peacebuilding

At first glance, it appeared for many years that norm deve­lopment in gender-sensitive human rights was ma­king steady progress. The inter­play of the feminist/women's move­ments, gender-sensitive human rights con­ventions, and the WPS reso­lutions have evolved into a strategy con­sisting of norms and practices for gender-sensitive and -inclusive approaches to peace­building. Despite this signi­ficant progress in norm-setting and norm-implementation of gender-sensitive human rights, there has always been resis­tance, both at the multi­lateral nego­tiation level and in the local imple­mentation of gender-sensitive human rights.

Such resistance or "backlash" can now be found every­where in liberal demo­cracies, and they also have an impact on the imple­mentation of gender-sensitive norms in peace­building. A prominent example is certainly the Colombian peace treaty or the peace process in Afghanistan. However, such resis­tance does not always come from con­servative Islamist or Christian groups, but also results, for example, from the re­jection of a liberal under­standing of human rights that pro­duces specific colonial images of an un­civilized culture that oppresses women. This project brings to­gether two strands of femi­nist re­search that have so far been treated rather sepa­rately: First, femi­nist research on, but also critique of, liberal peace­building; second, re­search on forms of re­sistance and so-called gender back­lash regarding gender-sensitive human rights. With this approach the project aims to examine how key stake­holders (donor states, non­govern­mental organizations, local actors) deal with the various forms of resistance and back­lash in the realization of gender-sensitive human rights in peace­building.

Therefore, we particularly focus on the conditons of gender-backlash and resistance. How does it come about and what are adequate strategies to allow gender equality norms to flourish?