Gender and Security

This topic focuses on gender and its impact on conflict, extremism and security, highlighting the importance of a gender lens in policy and programming.




US Air Force / Dustin Payne


The gender equality agenda has focused on the areas of conflict and security since the creation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000.

Gender is an often-overlooked social construction that shapes every individual’s understanding of roles and motivations, as well as their experience of the many different impacts of terrorism and conflict.

RUSI’s research and analysis explores the role that gender plays in conflict and security, looking at the many ways in which gender analysis and equality is essential to meaningful security solutions. It is hoped that our work will help foster a stronger gender lens in all analysis of conflict and security among policymakers and practitioners.

RUSI continues to make unique contributions especially to the body of work on gender mainstreaming in countering terrorism and extremism policy and programming. This work has distinctive insight into the importance and challenges of applying a gender lens in policy and programming, and into the assumptions around the roles that women have in violent extremism as well as in countering and preventing it.

US Air Force / Dustin Payne

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Organised Crime and Gender

Projects

Misogyny, Hostile Beliefs and the Transmission of Extremism

Projects

Gender in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism

Projects

Different Cities, Shared Stories: Gender and Violent Extremism

Community Engagement in Fragile and Conflict Affected States

Far-Right Extremism and the Security Forces

Projects

Foreign Fighters and Family Members in Syria

Global Far-Right Threat and Response Mapping

Prevention Project

Far-Right Extremism and Terrorism

Projects

Review of CT and P/CVE Activity Effectiveness

Projects

Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism (STRIVE) Horn of Africa

Projects

Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism (STRIVE) II Kenya

Rebalancing Expertise in Defence and Security

Latest publications

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    External publications

    Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter, Elizabeth Pearson, Emily Winterbotham, Katherine Brown (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

    'Community and Gender in Counter-Terrorism Policy: Challenges and Opportunities for Transferability Across the Evolving Threat Landscape', Jessica White (ICCT, 25 Nov 2020)

    'Gender in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism: Meaningful Inclusion of Policy in Practice', Jessica White (CT Morse, 7 Oct 2020) 

    'Gender in Countering Violent Extremism Program Design, Implementation and Evaluation: Beyond Instrumentalism', Jessica White (Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 18 Sep 2020)

    'Do Mothers Know Best? How Assumptions Harm CVE', Emily Winterbotham (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, 17 Sep 2018)