Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Women, Peace, and Security
Bonnie D. Jenkins, the Shapiro visiting professor of international affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and former U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, leads the conversation on women, peace, and security.
Speaker
Bonnie D. Jenkins
Shapiro Visiting Professor of International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs; Former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, U.S. Department of State
George Washington University
Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations
Transcript
FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to today’s session of the Winter/Spring 2025 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR.
Today’s discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on education.CFR.org if you would like to share the materials with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional matters—positions on matters of policy.
We’re delighted to have Bonnie Jenkins with us today to discuss women, peace, and security. Ambassador Jenkins is a Shapiro visiting professor of international affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Previously, she was the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security with the U.S. State Department. Ambassador Jenkins has also served as special envoy and coordinator for threat reduction programs, counsel to the 9/11 Commission, legal advisor to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and as an officer in the Navy Reserves. In addition to her government service, she was a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and founded the nonprofit organizations Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security and Organizations in Solidarity. She’s a strong advocate for women in the security and peacebuilding sectors, and for greater diversity in international affairs.
Ambassador Jenkins, thanks very much for being with us for today’s discussion. I thought maybe you could share with us—give us a brief on the UN Resolution 1325, how it has met the promises it made, and where you see it going from here.
JENKINS: Great. Thank you so much. And thank you for inviting me to talk a bit about women, peace, and security, or WPS. I know that there’s quite a number of amazing individuals who are joining us today, and I’m hoping that we can have a bit of a conversation on where we are with women, peace, and security. I jotted down a few notes of things that I want to recall. Looked at a number of articles just to remind me of all the great work that’s being done, and some of the things that are not being done, in women, peace, and security. And so just a few things I wanted to mention, and then at that point maybe have a conversation with folks who are—who are listening. I think there’s a lot of questions that still have to be answered, particularly in our changing environment that we’re in. And so it’s also an opportunity to share some of our thoughts and some of our concerns.
So as you might know, this year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325. And so it really is an opportunity, as I said, to see where we’ve made progress and see what have been some of the challenges that we have met, and we have—we still have to meet, in terms of 1325. And this agenda really has ranged from work that started at the grassroots level, looking at ways that we can increase women’s participation, or at least their equivalency in security institutions and peace processes. There were a number of questions that were—that WPS has tried to address. And one of the major things is to look at how we can increase women’s participation in the area of peace and security overall.
A couple of questions that have been raised, and I’ll raise those now as we look at this issue, is, you know, how can we expand WPS in the future, and how can we strengthen its implementation? But also, there’s been concerns that it’s been securitized. And so while this agenda is looking at peace and security, there has not been as much focus on the peace side. So 1325, as I said, really a grassroots effort, civil society really working together to increase the level of gender equality in the work of peace and security. And it was an opportunity to really recognize the role of gender in how we shape experiences of people in conflict settings and in peace processes.
And it really has four pillars. The first one is participation of women at all levels of decision making related to peace and security. The resolutions calls for the protection of women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence. It calls for the prevention of violence against women and the application of a gender lens to international crisis relief and recovery. There was a real effort and a desire to shape the way that we have looked at security in the past, and have, as I said, much more of a gender lens to what we do.
Now, between 2008 and 2019, there have been a number of resolutions—additional resolutions on women, peace, and security. And countries are supposed to adopt national action plans. And it’s really good, because fifty-six countries—or, 56 percent of UN member states have, in fact, adopted a national action plan. So that’s really positive. But we also have to make sure other countries also adopt national action plans, and that they also implement those plans as well.
One of the things that has been a concern, as I mentioned, is, you know, not just the need for accountability and for—ensure there’s resources for this—for this implementation of 1325, but also that there’s concern that it’s—more of the focus is going towards security rather than peace. And there seems to be a lot more focus on, you know, the role of women in military situations or in security—which is important. You know, as a person that’s done international security for all my life, that’s very important. But I think some believe it’s at the expense of making sure women are part of peace processes, for example.
And there’s a fear that this aspect is being overlooked. And as I remember when this thing was first adopted, that was a huge part of it, to make sure that women are a part of peace processes because, as some of you probably know, there’s been a lot of—there’s been research that says when women are part of peace processes that peace tends to last longer. And so that’s one of the things that was really important.
So there’s been a number of actions. And every year, you know, there’s, you know, remembrances and celebrations about 1325. And now we’re at the twenty-fifth anniversary, as I said. And so there really is a question about what we can do to really strengthen this, and can we do more? And here we run into concerns about the current landscape. And as was—as was recognized in several discussions of 1325 since its adoption, there’s been a lot of pushback from countries on 1325. Aspects of it that were part of it originally were not—you know, are being pushed out of later discussions. For example, there were vetoes that were threatened over language about sexual reproductive health that had been accepted in earlier resolutions. And so we see this trend of countries pushing back on some of the text that are—that have been in 1325, and just the concept of 1325.
There’s also been more backlash against women’s rights, as—you know, and, you know, what they call gender ideology, you know, normative, you know, push—to push back sexual reproduction rights or LGBT issues. So there’s been a lot of concerns, a lot of pushback on a number of issues that make people concerned about how much we can get done, you know, in the future on 1325, and whether we are—whether we can look at this anniversary as an opportunity to do more.
So you have the concerns about the securitization factor. You have the lack of focus on peace. You have text that’s being pushed back by a number of countries. And then, of course, you have the general environment. We see what’s happening in the U.S. in terms of gender issues overall. How will the U.S.—what role will the U.S. have in, you know, 1325 anniversary that’s going to be happening later this year, you know? So that’s—these are also things that, unfortunately, we would have hoped that twenty-five years later we would not be dealing with as many of these issues. Unfortunately, we are dealing with them today.
So in general, I just wanted to just highlight some of these existing aspects of 1325. You know, a very positive Security Council resolution, but it does have its challenges. And we see, you know, that there’s not as many countries as we need to have adopted National Action Plans. We see that there’s just not as much focus as we would like. So that’s kind of where we are. I thought I would just highlight a number of things about where the situation is now. And then, you know, I’m sure everybody has their perspective on how—you know, where we’re going as a country in terms of these gender issues, you know, how this might impact future progress in terms of women’s role in peacekeeping and peacemaking.
And it’s more than just, you know, saying we have a quota of women who are in a certain place or in a certain military establishment. It’s about just really being integrated and a part of it, and part of peacemaking, as well as security. So I think I’ll leave it at that. And hopefully that’s enough of a foundation that we can have some questions, but really a discussion.
FASKIANOS: Thank you, Bonnie. Appreciate it. Let’s go to all of you now.
(Gives queuing instructions.)
OK, so I’m going to take the first question from Jenny Fang—or Fang, actually. And if you can accept the unmute. There we go.
Q: (Off mic.)
FASKIANOS: Hello?
Q: (Off mic.)
FASKIANOS: Hello? OK, we can’t hear you, Jenny. So maybe we’ll come back to you. Let’s go next to John Mathiason.
Q: Thank you. John Mathiason. I’m from Cornell University.
But I had a connection earlier. I used to be the deputy director of the UN’s Division for the Advancement of Women. Was present at the Beijing conference, which is the thirtieth anniversary. And it’s being discussed right now because the Commission on the Status of Women is meeting, not as we speak, because it won’t start till 3:00. One of my—but my question to that has to do with how do you find the connection between agreements, like the Platform for Action at Beijing and what was taken five years later by the Security Council, and its ability to improve the participation of women in peace and security?
JENKINS: Well, obviously, first of all, thanks for reminding us about the anniversary for the Beijing conference. And I hope that there’s going to be something—some good discussions there about—not only about what happened in Beijing but also 1325. You know, the Beijing conference—I wasn’t there, but I do remember it taking place—was such an exciting time. And you said you were there. You know much more than I. In terms of this conference of having women from around the world going to a place to really talk about women and the role of women in peace. And very monumental. And of course, the 1325 resolution is a result of that. You know, a result of many things, but the grassroot effort, as I mentioned before, I think, was a—clearly what grew out of the Beijing conference, and the momentum that kept going.
But like everything, you know, even Security Council resolutions that are chapter seven, these things have to be implemented. These things have to be pushed. These things have to be adhered to. Countries have to continue to put these issues high on the list of things that they’re focusing on. They have to do, like, here the action plans. They have to put the money toward these issues, and implement. There will fortunately be countries who are ready to do these things and ready to commit to do these things for a length of time. And unfortunately, there are going to be others that will push back against it. And as time goes forward, they will continue to push back against it. I think the case in the U.S. now is one where, you know, we’re in many ways going—you know, going backwards, in many respects.
So it was a very positive event in Beijing, a very positive action that was taken at the UN on 1325. But like everything else, it has to be implemented. It has to be a priority of countries. One of the main priorities, in terms of lots of priorities. But for this thing to really work you have to have countries who are committed to it and who are ready to put the money towards it as well.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Acere Jebegna. Please, you can correct me on the pronunciation of your name.
Q: No, it’s OK. It’s OK. My name is Acere, Acere Jebegna. I’m from Ethiopia, that’s why. And I’m a freshman at Lewis University.
And my question is: How can peacekeeping efforts help prevent human trafficking and conflict zones for women and girls that may be vulnerable?
JENKINS: Yeah. So much of this—and, you know, I’m sure there’s experts on here on peacekeeping. So much of this obviously, is dependent upon countries, and leadership of countries, and the role of women in particular countries, and the attitude of women in particular countries, and enforcement mechanisms and laws and regulations. I mean, there’s a lot, you know, that can go in—that need to go into preventing these things, and enforcing the prevention of these things, and prosecuting, you know, anyone who violates these laws. So you have all of that on the legal side, the regulation side.
But you also have to have, as I said, the role of women in country—in a particular country, the attitude of women, the need to understand the importance of preventing the abuse of women, or anyone. Because it’s not just women who are trafficked. So, you know, you always have to go back to the country and what the country is trying to do to prevent trafficking, you know, in its everyday activities. And what it—you know, and the role that that plays in terms of what a country is trying to do.
And then peacekeeping hopefully can help to strengthen that. You know, depending on the mandate of peacekeeping and what they’re supposed to be doing, and what they can and can’t get involved in, and what a country is doing. Sometimes, peacekeeping mandates are very narrow. And that can make it very challenging. But, you know, just having a presence there can help. Maybe knowing that there are, you know, individuals there who are trying to promote peace and prevent bad things from happening may have an impact in more respects than maybe what the mandate particularly says. So, you know, by having, you know, individuals there who are trying to enforce peace, and trying to maintain stability, may have an effect on its own. But a lot does depend on the country that they’re in and the mandate of the peacekeeping force, and what that force can do in a particular country.
I think you’re muted, Irina.
FASKIANOS: Oh. Yes, I was muted. Thank you. I’m going to go next to Emma Viquez.
Q: Yes. Ma’am, can you hear me?
FASKIANOS: Yes.
Q: Perfect. Well, nice to meet you. My name is Emma Viquez. I’m a master’s student of international affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at A&M.
And I’m so grateful, actually, that CFR put this on today, and have the pleasure of talking with you, Professor Jenkins, because for our capstone, we’ve been charged with the huge goal of writing the report for the Global Women’s Issues (GWI) Office for the Department of State, detailing the development gaps in success of the WPS agenda these past twenty-five years. And—
JENKINS: Well, so, baby, you could be telling—you could be telling us what these things are. (Laughter.)
Q: No, no, no. (Laughs.) I’ve learned so much. And it was actually reaffirming, like, when you were naming all this stuff. I was like, OK, we’re on the right track. We are on the same page. And I guess my question to you would be about the quota that you mentioned, because it is more than just getting, you know, women in the military, checking boxes. And so, do you have any solutions on how we can focus genuine empowerment of women, and how do we overcome this critique of tokenistic inclusion?
JENKINS: First of all, I’m glad to hear you’re working with GWI. And that’s a great office. So much about—I think a lot is education, because really reinforcing what 1325 is. I find that 1325 is—a lot of times people don’t take the time to really understand what the four pillars of 1325 are. And when they see the word “women” and there’s a tendency to kind of mash that with all these other things that they may be seeing this happening, that are empowering women or giving women a voice. And they don’t see the aspects of, for example, being part of peace processes, which is a big part of it. And so, it’s a constant—and I think that’s one of the things that we need to do—re-education, may be the right word, for what 1325 is. And it may have, and it can have a lot of positive aspects connected to it, but they are—but 1325 was adopted for specific things.
And then—and people kind of mix women, peace, and security with DEI and, you know, all these other things that’s happening. And a lot of these—there’s a lot of, I think, inherent connections between a lot of things. But because of the lack of understanding people will look at this and say, it’s about how many women are in the military. And, oh, it’s a quota thing. Oh, it’s a DEI thing. And so, a lot—unfortunately, you know that happens a lot. And the disinformation out there—just misinformation—I’m not even going to say it’s on purpose. It’s just misinformation, and lack of time people take to really understand how each one of—how the different great initiatives that exist out there, how they complement each other, but to understand what each one does. So I would—whatever you present in your final analysis to GWI, think it’s important to highlight what it—not just what it is, what it isn’t.
FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.
I’m going to go to a written question from Patricia Sohn, who’s an associate professor at the University of Florida: What do you see as the most pressing issue at the intersection of women and security today? And where are some places—where are some of the places women are most involved in mobilizing regarding peace and security issues? And do we need to get more—women more involved, mobilized, on these issues in order for their concerns to be addressed in peace and security negotiations?
JENKINS: So I think the first question was where do I see the most challenges for women, peace, and security?
FASKIANOS: Correct. Mmm hmm.
JENKINS: Well, I mean, I could just—I mean, I can’t really speak to other countries. I can speak to, I think, what’s happening in the U.S. right now. Which is there’s a lot of connections. I mean, I just said, for example, women—the WPS agenda is different from other agendas, other things that we’re trying to accomplish, you know, in different spaces here in the U.S., and internationally. And a lot of them are complementary. And it’s hard—it’s hard sometimes to separate them. For example, when women feel that they don’t have as many rights to make decisions, that’s not a women, peace, and security agenda issue, per se, but it does impact how women feel in terms of their own empowerment and their own ability to stand up for—to stand up and have a voice.
And part of the women, peace, and security agenda, as I mentioned, is to be part of peace processes, which is empowering and giving women a spot on issues that impact them. You know, lack of—lack of security, lack of peace affects women more than any other group, obviously, more than men, for a number of reasons that we’re not going to get into here. So having a say-so in that. And so when you’re in an environment where you’re already feeling like we’re taking—and this is just my perception of the U.S. So I’m not going to say this is everyone’s. If you’re in an environment where you’re already feeling like you’re—that gains that you have made have been—are being pushed back, when you’re in an environment where what you’re hearing is certainly not one that’s empowering overall, that will have a negative impact in terms of your—the role that you play on security issues.
When you hear rhetoric about women—and here we are going to talk about the military—when you hear rhetoric about women in the military, or, you know, LGBT issues, I mean, these are all—these are all culture kind of thing that’s coming against women. So that will impact women’s roles in security. It will impact women’s roles in many things, because it’s reflected in attitude. It’s reflecting an attitude of the country in which we’re—and where it’s going. So I know it’s—the question was very specific, but I think of it in terms of a larger environment than we’re in, and how that impacts the role that we have.
So if you don’t have—and if you look at the four pillars, and if you don’t have, let’s say, you know, push back of women in the military, the securitization part of it, push back against women in peace processes, which is part of 1325—which really, I don’t think, has gotten very far at all in the last twenty-five years—if you look at the other parts of it, protection of women and girls from sexual and gender-based violence, I mean, do we—are we feeling like we’re making a lot of progress? And that I’m not so sure. And prevention of women—of violence against women. These are all aspects of 1325 that we’re supposed to be part of, that we’re supposed to be promoting. And I’m not sure that we—in my opinion—I’m not sure that we are in an environment right now we can feel that that’s happening.
And so, I think that’s being felt in many areas. I think it’s being felt not just in the security field, but in many aspects of our lives in terms of women and the role they play here, and the advancements that we have made. And what were the other—the other parts of the question?
FASKIANOS: The other part was: Where—let me just pull it up—where are the places women are most involved in mobilizing peace and security issues? And do we need to get women more mobilized on these issues?
JENKINS: Well, I would say, the last one, I think we should get women mobilized on most issues overall, because I think it’s—you know, it’s half of the—half of the half of the country. (Laughs.) We should be involved in as many—as many issues as we can. Of course, security has always been more of a challenge. and playing a role in peacekeeping—I mean, peacemaking, peace processes, which are part of this, has always been one that’s challenged.
Where we were playing—we were playing a better role, I think, in the military, I think that you’ve seen, you know, the what—the woman who was head of the Coast Guard who got fired, that was so great when she was hired there, she was promoted. So we’re—you know, we’re seeing many efforts where we’re not playing much of a role. It’s hard for me to think of—and I’m happy to hear from others where they see us playing a huge role. I mean, in my area, which is not necessarily this area in international security, I’ve seen some advancements.
We’ve seen more women in peacekeeping overall. There’s been efforts. I know at State Department, we’ve made—we’ve put a lot of effort into increasing the role of women in peacekeeping. We’ve actually funded some new armor for women to wear in peacekeeping, because it’s more—it’s just better fitting for women. We’ve done things like that to increase women’s participation. We’ve done things like increasing women education in military peacekeeping. We’ve increased women in demining efforts. I mean, there’s so many things we’ve done. But I don’t know how far we will be in these areas in the future. So.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
Let’s go next to Royal Chukwuka.
Q: Hi. Hello. Yeah, my name is—my name is Royal Chukwuka. I’m a freshman at Barnard College.
And my question might be more of a speculative question, so it’s OK if there’s not a perfect answer. But I was wondering, like, thinking about, you know, peace and security and the aspect of gender, but also current attitudes towards women and towards gender both domestically and internationally in terms of—in terms of conflict and war zones, I was wondering, what impact do you think, like, the attitudes that are harbored towards women—what impact might that have in the future on foreign policy? Not just from a gender perspective, but. foreign policy as a whole?
JENKINS: Well, I think it’s—if we don’t have women who are—if we keep going in a direction that we’re going in here—just speaking about the U.S., because I’m not speaking for anyone else—you won’t have—as we develop foreign policies around the U.S., a lot of these policies will impact women. A lot of these policies are directed toward women. And, you won’t—if you don’t have women who are integrated into these discussions, if you don’t have their perspective—we talked about the gender lens, for example. You need to have the gender lens, I think, in terms of—and not just because issues are, let’s say, an issue on women. It’s just that, you know, if you have any of these kind of discussions on foreign policy, on peacekeeping, on peacemaking, you’re going to need to have, I think, women’s perspectives because it reflects not just half of the population, but it also is there to contest what may be the predominant views which may not always be the best views.
I think there’s always a lot of groupthink when you have people who think the same around the table to pat each other on the back and say, that’s the greatest thing we ever thought of, because there’s no one there actually challenging that. So if you have foreign policies that are not—that don’t have perspectives, and you have foreign policy that don’t have input from people who have a different way of looking at things, you won’t have the best foreign policy. And, you know, you need to have something that’s contested. You need to be able to say, have you thought about things from all the different angles? And as women, or as any—if you’re not the predominant way of thinking, then you’re—then, you know, you’re not going to have those perspectives.
And, you know, so for me you have to have—I mean, foreign policy—I believe in the State Department, for example, I think we’ve had made a lot of progress with women. I think there are, obviously, more we need to do to bring more women into foreign policy, bring more women as ambassadors, to bring more women as assistant secretaries around the world. Similarly, the same thing, I’ve had many conversations and had many counterparts who were women in many parts of the world—not everywhere. Like I said, we still need a lot of work. But, you know, having those perspectives at the table is very important from the U.S. perspective from around the world.
And if it goes in a direction where we don’t have as many women, you won’t have those perspectives. And you won’t have what, I think, are the best policies, because the best policies are the ones that are—that come out of hard discussions. And with everybody weighing in and saying, you know, that sounds good, but, you know, you may want to look at it this way, because what I bring to the table is based on my life experiences, which is different from yours. And because I have a different life experience, I’m going to have different ways of looking at the exact same situation. And if you don’t have that, then anyone walks out the door thinking that, like I said earlier, oh, this is the greatest plan in the world. Why not? There’s no one to say it wasn’t.
FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.
I’m going to go next to a written question from Waqas Ahmad, undergraduate student at the University of Peshawar: Many countries have developed national action plans and international commitments to include women in peace and security processes, but women are still underrepresented. What role does the international community play in holding states accountable for failing to meet their obligation under women, peace and security?
JENKINS: The international community can play a role of trying to make sure that countries do live up to their obligations. Entities like the UN, for example, multilateral organizations, but even individually, even bilaterally with other countries, encouraging them to live up to their obligations or what they should be doing to implement 1325. In many of the conversations that—you know, that I have bilaterally with countries, you know, you have—you walk—you walk in the table, and you have across the table individuals from another country, and you have your talking points. And, you know, one of your talking points should always include, you know, issues that relate to 1325. That’s not always the case, but that’s the way you help instill into the international community—you can do that individually as countries, you can do that multilaterally through multilateral organizations like the UN or other bodies that that are focusing on women.
So there’s a lot the international community can do. The question is, is the international community committed to it? Is it a priority? Are they getting the highest levels within domestic governments to focus on this, to really say, OK, we need to do an action plan, or we have a national action plan, we need to implement it, or we have somebody looking at this? Do we have the resources for it? These are things that I talked about earlier. So, there’s a lot it can do. The question’s not can it do, it’s more what does it want to do, what is it willing to do?
But countries, as sovereign states, can do whatever they want. And if they—if they really are committed to women, peace, and security, they will make a point of raising it. And that’s why you see certain countries on certain issues being the leader on certain things, because they are committed domestically to pushing the agenda. And countries like Germany, if I’m correct, was very much into this. Countries like Canada, was very much into the gender and pushing women’s issues in these international settings. So, the answer is, yes. The international community can do a lot. It’s what it wants to do that matters.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to a raised hand from Jinwon Lee. Let’s see. If you can unmute yourself. OK.
Let’s go next then to Chris, who has a raised hand. And, Chris, I don’t have a last name, so if you could give us your full name and affiliation, that would be great. And then we’ll come back to you, Jinwon. It looks like you’ve figured out the technology. But let’s go first to Chris.
Q: Yeah. Can you hear me?
FASKIANOS: We can.
Q: OK. Yeah. My name is Chris. I’m a doctoral student from Nigeria. I’m with Idaho State University in Pocatello.
Yeah, I have series of questions and suggestions to make. The first being that it is not enough for the international community, and even national institutions, to form laws or formulate laws. It is also important to educate the population on those laws. This is my first time hearing the Resolution 1325. So if you want to get women included not just in peace and security, for the overall societal framework ranging from politics to probably conflict studies, there is the importance that people need to be educated because we just keep dishing out policies from different institutions that people don’t really know. It’s not about policymakers knowing this, but the people who these laws affect. Very important to educate people.
That being said, if you’ve been following the news all over Africa recently, you have discovered that in my country, Nigeria, there’s been a case in the parliament—(inaudible)—between a woman and the Senate president—a woman who is a senator there. In the Nigerian Senate, there are over one—there are over—there are 109 senators, and the numbers of women involved in the Senate are just four. And since the escalation of this incident from seat sharing down to accusation of sexual abuse from Senate president, we’ve discovered that the three women who are also—how do you say—who are also colleagues to this senator in question, Senator Natasha Akpoti, are not even in favor of the woman. They come to TV stations interview, and they will say things that are against the interest of their own constituency within that Senate, which is not good.
So to that effect, I asked the question that what is the balancing role of sociocultural norms and women’s participation not just in peacebuilding and keeping, but also in political participation and in economic participation? Because if you look at history, especially in the case of Africa, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 paved way for women who currently occupies about 61 percent of the parliamentarian house today. And that is a good development which is often not talked about. And also, when you look at even the Liberian Civil War, the two civil wars from 1989 to 1997, the first, then from 1999 to 2003, women played pivotal role in that conflict. Even when you look at the Liberian civil war, you see two roles that women play. One is a negative one, the second is the positive.
The negative being that women were enlisted in the conflict itself as combatant, and also were sexually abused. Also similar thing is even playing out in the Nigerians fight against terrorism, where women have even not just been abused, but also exacerbates the conflict by trafficking of weapons to—and even money to terrorist groups. Then the positive role is that women shaped collective organizations and influence the affairs of the nation in Liberia. We saw that with the first woman—female president who was elected in 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. I was even in a conference in Ghana where she was speaking. And I started having a conversation with some folks there. And they said, women don’t support the cause of women. And that is why we are where we are today. And that has been justified by the recent incident in Nigeria. So please speak to this. What do you think—(inaudible)?
FASKIANOS: Great. Thanks, Chris. Over to you.
JENKINS: OK. So I think—I think I got everything, because some of it was muffled. But I think the one of the main things you were saying about the importance of women supporting women, is that correct? Is that correct?
FASKIANOS: I think that is what he was saying. Chris, are you?
Q: Yes. Yes. That’s correct, yeah.
FASKIANOS: That’s correct.
JENKINS: Yeah. So I think—yeah, and also thanks for the background on the situation there. And, of course, you know, highlighting the positive and negatives of what’s been going on. But, yes, I mean, that’s very important. You know, I mean, we would like to assume and hope that, as we are talking about the importance of 1325, the importance of the many pillars of 1325, that women would be always strong supporters of the resolution, but also strong supporters of each other. Because, you know, obviously, you know, strength in numbers is always good. Strength with people who are like-minded and understand your situation is always positive. So, I think we always want to assume—and I think we do assume unless we hear differently—we like to assume that women are always supporting women on these issues, because you feel like if you can—if there’s anyone who could identify, it would be another woman.
Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. And I think you’re raising a good point. It’s not always the case that—you know, I would like to think that most of the time it is the case, but there’s not always the time that it is—it’s not always going to be the case of women supporting women. And that can be very discouraging and also very frustrating. And I think we’ll certainly make a lot more progress if we can at least count on other women—and men, of course, but certainly women—in helping us with this, and helping it move forward. So it is reality. You know, but it’s not the first time people take positions that are not in their own interests in the long run, or don’t support others who they should support, because by not supporting them they’re also hurting themselves by doing that. So that’s an unfortunate reality. But I agree with you. And I tend to assume that women do, but I also know that that’s not always the case. But in my perspective, if they do support each other, I think we’ll be a lot—a lot further along if we can support each other.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to Jennifer Prah Ruger.
Q: Hi. Thank you so much. This is Jennifer Prah. I am a professor at University of Pennsylvania. And nice to see you. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this very, very important issue.
I wanted to ask you a little bit more, and I think it builds on the last conversation, about women supporting women. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about internalized misogyny. And I wanted to ask you both at the individual level but also at the institutional level. As you know, internalized misogyny—women, for example, in law enforcement, in the judiciary, you know, judges, for example, or even, you know, police persons—people who are in the criminal justice and family court system, these institutions that one would look to to protect women—protect their health, wellbeing, and their rights—can, and the evidence demonstrates, internalize misogyny in such a way that it’s actually detrimental or harmful to women. So this is a very important blockage to the efforts that you’re describing. I wondered if you could talk more about the solutions to that, both at the individual level, in terms of norms, internalizing those misogynistic norms, but also institutionally. Thank you so much.
JENKINS: Yeah, thank you for that. And, you know—I mean, where to start with that. Obviously, there are several reasons why I think that women internalize misogyny. One is, and, you know, you’re probably an expert on this so you could tell me, part of it is they’re in a culture and they adapt to that culture. And they start to believe that if they’re going to succeed, they have to play by those rules. And sometimes what that means is when you adopt a culture that is not necessarily favorable to women, if that’s what you internalize as what is needed for your own success, then that will be what that person starts to believe, and starts to act. Which will be obviously within which—as I said earlier, is not within—which is not in their own interests. It’s certainly not the interests of women overall. And it’s also very discouraging to younger women who look for women to be role models and to help them along.
And I’ve heard stories of young women who are very discouraged by older women, and they say the attitude is, I did it so you have to do it. Or, I worked hard so, you know, you have to work hard. But there’s also the cultural aspect of adopting the culture that surrounds them. And it also takes—it takes strength, inner strength, to want to go against an existing culture, particularly if it is a culture that has allowed a certain person to succeed. And some people don’t have that strength. Or some people may feel like I’m the only—if they’re the only one, they may not feel like they have anyone else to bond with on those situations. So, it may become more important for them to go by the culture that exists than to question it, then to push back on it. And some may just really think that’s the right way. I mean, some people may just adopt it and think that this is the way it should be. So, it may not necessarily be, you know, I’m adopting something I may not like but I know I need to do this to succeed. Or, you know, succeeding is more important to me than anything else. There could be those who just think that’s the right way to go.
But, you know, as you and the prior speaker are making the point, it’s not—it’s not the type of thing that’s going to be successful for women overall. It slows down the process and the progress that that can be made. It’s just more hurdles you have to step over to actually achieve what you’re trying to achieve. And younger women are turned off by that. So, it’s unfortunate. And, you know, letting women know that they have—that they’re not by themselves, and have a support group of women, if they don’t feel like they’re alone trying to go against the system, they’re not alone trying to go against the predominant culture, you know, that can help. I think when women are the first ones or only ones the pressure is even more. But I think it’s important for women to try to find—to find ways to bond with those people, to try to help them understand the ramifications of that, which is not just on women, but younger women particularly.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go back to John Mathiason, who might have a comment.
Q: A couple of comments, quickly. This is a very interesting debate, but I want to throw two things on the—on the table. One of them, we began—the Women’s Division in the UN began to deal with, well, hey, what are we doing with things like environment? What’s the difference between men and women? Everybody’s affected by the environment. And we figured it out. There was a difference between male leaders and female leaders in that the female leaders were much more willing to look at the future when they made decisions than male leaders, who would only look at the present. So that’s a factor to take into account. The second one is in answer partly to the question about how do we make things happen? And I give you a fact, and then I’ll let you speculate on it.
In every country on the planet in which both men and women can vote there are more women voters. Theoretically, if women only voted for women candidates no men would get elected. Now, of course, that’s not a correct thing. But it’s it tells you something that isn’t often recognized in terms of pushing for gender equality—and I push very strongly for gender equality. And one final thing is the U.S., in terms of women’s human rights, is not one of the world’s best. It has never ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. If it had, they would not have been able to pass the Supreme Court decision that basically took away women’s reproductive rights. Pass it over.
JENKINS: Yes. Yeah, I’m not—I’m not surprised about the—about the fact that there would be more women voting. And I like your perspective in terms of what you—what you said about women thinking more about the future. I remember a book that was—back in the day was—I think it’s called Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars, or something like that, where they—(laughs)—the whole book was talking about how women have different perspectives, the way they see things, and the way they act differently about things. Which was very interesting. But I think you’re right about that.
And you’re bringing up a truth, you know, where the U.S. is not always the best on this. We haven’t ratified that. It’s hard to believe that we haven’t to date done—well, I guess it’s not that hard to believe. It’s unfortunate that we haven’t ratified it. But you’re right. You know, we certainly have—and as we’re seeing now—we certainly have a way to go in terms of being better at these—being better on these issues than we are now. So thanks.
FASKIANOS: I’m going to go next to a written question from Holley Hansen, who is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University: To go back to something mentioned earlier, about the importance of bringing women to the table, in what specific ways—I think we’ve gone at some of that—do women change foreign policy discussions and decision making? But do you have any examples from your own negotiation experiences about how women have changed the discussion around issues being raised? And I think this is a great—from all your service—public service, Bonnie, and what you’ve seen at the negotiating table. If you could share some of that with us, that would be great.
JENKINS: Yeah. I will raise one just interesting thing that, you know, when I was in—when I rejoined the administration in July of 2021, the next week I went to Geneva with the U.S. delegation because we were meeting with the Russians. And we were going to start what we had thought at the time would be discussions for what would be something called the New START treaty, which is a treat that limits, you know, submarine ballistic missiles and all these things related to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Of course, those discussions stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine. But that’s another story. So, we had our first discussion with the Russians. And our side—I mean, we had maybe six—each had six people on each side, and—maybe seven, because at least five of the seven were women. And this included the deputy secretary of state, myself, the undersecretary, assistant secretaries. We had representatives from the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and, you know, what you would figure.
And all of the people on the Russian side were men, except one woman. And she was the interpreter. And it was so stark and so obvious that Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman raised it at the meeting, that there were differences. And there’s something about when—having women at these discussions and at these tables. And it’s maybe—it’s kind of like we were talking about women have a much more futuristic view. We tend to have—this is just my perception—a more holistic view of things, a more bringing more issues into the discussion when we’re looking—I mean, the issue really was about, you know, we wanted to figure out how we can have another treaty to replace the New START treaty, which is going to expire next—in 2026. So, it was about hard security—you know, missiles and, you know, nuclear warheads, and things like that. But even so, we tend to—we tended to think more holistically about the situation and what we should bring to the table.
And I don’t want to create a—you know, I’m just saying from my perspective, and others may differ. And because we brought—it’s a different way in which you approach it when you sit at the table. You have a different approach to things, and you have a much more grounded type of discussion, whereas on the other side it was very much, like, you know, this, this, this, this. And maybe that’s one of the reasons why, you know, they say—you know, I don’t know all the studies. Why, you know, women, when they’re part of peace—these peace discussions, they last longer, you know, because we look at more than just what’s at the table. There’s a lot—if you’re going to be successful, it may mean looking at things that are not just right in front of you, and looking at the other things that will be impacted, that you may not be thinking about right now, that will help create success.
So that was—I think that stood out, only—mainly because there was such a difference in terms of the makeup of the room and the feel of the discussions, which I thought was different in terms of—now, it could be just a U.S.-Russian thing. (Laughs.) If you want to put it that, that may be it. But there’s often been all men in Russian discussions, so. (Laughs.) But I—you know, I think that that could be a reason why. We just have a different approach. We have a much different—and, like I said—I’ll conclude by saying, as I said before, we—people bring their life experiences to these discussions. You know, I grew up in the Bronx in New York, and as an African American woman. And I have all the experiences that I bring with that when I sit at a table. And others will bring their life experiences to the table. And when you’re—when you’re all sitting around and everyone brings—you don’t bring just your knowledge about that issue. You bring everything that you have—who you are as a person.
And when you can raise issues—as I said before, when you raise issues it’s not—it’s because I understand your point, I see what you’re saying, but the reason I may disagree with you is because I’ve seen things that may not have worked in some of the things I’ve done in my life. Or because I’m made up of so many different things—you know, woman, African American, grew up in the Bronx. I’m just different from all the people in the room. So, I bring with me my—what I’ve seen in life. And everybody does that. And if you have everyone who grew up with the exact same experiences, they have no idea the things they didn’t experience, and the things they didn’t see. And that’s why you need to have those women and others at the peace table who can say, we want peace in the future. But I think we also have to consider if we don’t have peace what else will happen. And that’s why we need to have all these things in our heads when we’re talking to each other.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’ll take a last—
JENKINS: I think I went off the topic there a little bit, but. (Laughs.)
FASKIANOS: No, it’s great.
I’m going to take the last question from Zoe Erickson, who’s a grad student at Texas A&M University: How can we frame WPS in a way that effectively engages a patriarchal audience, emphasizing the importance of a gender lens and the inclusion of diverse voices, without alienating them?
JENKINS: Yeah. And this goes back to the question earlier about education. I think there has to be recognition early on that there are going to be some people who are just not going to be—who are just not going to be with you. For whatever reason, you don’t even have to question it. You just say, look, I know that there’s going to be a swath of people who are not going to get it, who don’t want to get it, and it may be too much out of their understanding of who they are in their culture. And it may freak them out. They may be, like, I can’t do that because if I do that it’s going to make me question everything I believed all my life. And I don’t want to do that. OK, so there’s going to be those people.
But there will also be low-hanging fruit. And what I mean by that, there will also be others who may not be on board but will be willing to at least listen or at least have an open conversation. And those are the people I go to first. Those are the ones I talk to first, because—and framing it in a different way. Sometimes, you know, you can have the same thing explained to people and if you have different people saying some of the same things—or, the different people make wanting to make the same point may say things differently, or they may be—people be more amenable to listening to something being said from certain people versus other people. You know, maybe people who they relate to more. They say, well, if you’re telling me this, you know, then maybe I need to think about it.
So, a lot of it is educating, but finding out who may be better messengers. You know, you may not be the right messenger. It may be somebody else in a different—who have differences in different ways may be a better messenger. It’s the same point. You want to get to the same point, but they may explain it in a different way. They may explain it in a way that this person can understand it based on their cultural background. Or they may just like somebody better. You know, it’s little things like that that you have to take into account. So, you look at who you’re talking to. Are they amenable? Are you the right messenger? Are there other messengers who can get it across?
The problem is people don’t often take the time to do that. You know, they don’t take the time to really think about what am I messaging, who am I messaging it to, what is it—how am I going to get through to them? They just kind of go in there and, this is important to me so it’s got to be important to you. And that doesn’t always work. You know, and you just have to help them understand why they should take the time to understand why it’s important.
FASKIANOS: Well, Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, thank you very much for this hour. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to all the questions, but it really has been terrific to have you share your insights and experiences on this very important issue. And thanks to all of you for being with us.
The next Global Affairs Expert Webinar will be on Wednesday, March 26, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Giovanni Peri will lead a conversation on migration and labor economics with Edward Alden, who’s here at CFR. And in the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/Careers. And, as always, you can visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues.
So, again, thank you for being with us. Thank you, Ambassador Jenkins. And I wish you all a good rest of the day.
JENKINS: Thanks everyone.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
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