Summary

It is advocated that women, due to their unique qualities, can have a positive impact in
peacekeeping operations, both in terms of interacting with the population and mitigating the
behaviour of male soldiers. However, in reality they either lack the training, or their gender often
makes them targets, while they tend to change their behaviour around men to ‘fit in’. The concept
of ‘gender mainstreaming’ is highlighted as a means to realise the true potential of female soldiers,
while there is calling for creating an androgynous soldier identity, in order to combat the problems of
hyper masculinity.

Critique

The text is based on a lot of assumptions of what constitutes a ‘female identity’. Even while
criticizing the UN directives, the author falls into the generalization trap, disregarding the varied
experiences of female soldiers which could differ based on their rank, or environment, and thus,
making the female experience in the military, quite one-dimensional. This may suggest that in order
to access the ‘female privileges’ in peacekeeping, female soldiers must conform to the norms of
their gender.

In addition to this, emphasizing the intrinsic advantages of women in peacekeeping may lead to their
deployment in roles, which they might not prefer or be actually good at. So, a new kind of prejudice
could be at play, which might not correspond to the needs of wishes of women. Moreover, there
seems to be quite a lot of pressure and responsibility on female soldiers to ‘save’ the local (wo)men
and keep male soldiers ‘in line’, e.g. reporting sexual violence, while at the same time operating in a
hostile male hegemonic and often dangerous environment, where they are not valued. Why is the
participation of women so emphasized, instead of forcing masculinity to develop?