National Defence committee  In the research I look at, I think the biggest barrier is the power dynamic in the interface between the peacekeeping operations. I haven't see as much about whether coalitions are a bigger problem than.... That doesn't seem to be the point of friction as much, at least from the

National Defence committee  I was very pleased that as part of the feminist international assistance policy right now, there is $150 million, I want to say, that is being targeted for the support of NGOs of women's grassroots organizations. I think that is absolutely vital and I think it's complementary. It

National Defence committee  That's a difficult question to answer. I think the contexts are different for why people join militaries. I taught at California State University in the U.S. before I moved back to Canada, and I remember the ROTC being on campus and having genuine difficult recruiting, and at s

National Defence committee  Absolutely, but that will require transforming institutions much more deeply than just incrementally increasing small numbers of women.

National Defence committee  There isn't anything that isn't being done. I think women who want to join the military will join the military. They join police forces. I don't see any one thing that can be done. Of course, addressing the culture and talking about power are really important. It's not a quick f

National Defence committee  I would say that's a much more broad-based effort aimed at including not just militarized and civilian peacekeepers, but also a much broader universe, as it were, that contains things like civil society organizations and women's grassroots organizations working on peace and secur

National Defence committee  Okay. There are several layers to that. One, as I mentioned in that article, when you look at it, the vast majority of peacekeeping operations are in the global south. There are very, very few in the global north countries, so there is an element of going out and civilizing the

National Defence committee  No, it's not, not in my opinion. I should provide a more complicated answer. The UN is in deep need of reform, and I say this as someone with incredible faith in the multilateral process and in multilateral institutions. However, I can believe in multilateral institutions and pr

National Defence committee  I see it as something that is well-intentioned but misguided. I think the trouble with positive gender essentialisms is that people don't question them enough. If you were to go around saying that all women are something or other, and if it's a very negative quality, you would h

National Defence committee  We know there is extensive research in a variety of male-dominated occupations showing that women, ethnic minorities and religious minorities tend to try to fit in with the majority. They don't challenge. It's obvious why: it's difficult for a person challenge when there isn't a

National Defence committee  I wouldn't say there is no evidence. There is some evidence, for example, from the all-female peacekeeping unit from India that served in Liberia, which said that local women actually found this to be very empowering and that they enjoyed interacting with women. I'm not sure if t

National Defence committee  Frankly, there isn't enough evidence to tell us specifically about.... There is some research of our Canadian peacekeeping operations, but in general I would say there definitely isn't enough research to suggest that women in Canadian peacekeeping would make contributions that ar

National Defence committee  I haven't chanced upon that research yet, but there is a generalized culture of sexual exploitation and abuse within peacekeeping operations.

National Defence committee  I completely agree. I have absolutely no argument with the fact that women need to be in peacekeeping missions. The issue I have is with expecting different results from having women in peacekeeping operations. I absolutely agree there is no reason for it.

National Defence committee  Yes.