National Defence committee  That's a difficult one for me to answer, because I haven't actually researched whether or not women liked being in those positions, or whether they prefer to be. Peacekeeping itself is often seen by trained military personnel as being kind of a step down from active combat in man

National Defence committee  I agree.

National Defence committee  I would say empirically the findings are quite mixed, because there is still evidence of a lot of the issues I mentioned about power between peacekeeping operations and host countries. They absolutely still exist, so I'm not entirely convinced that we're in a golden era of new pe

National Defence committee  Can you repeat that for me, please?

National Defence committee  I think a broader conversation about power is really important. Most sexual abuse is not about the things people think about. It's not about sexual gratification. It is about power. I think people are put in positions of power—inherently, of power over others—which is why I think

National Defence committee  If I'm assuming rightly, you're asking me what factors lead women to be excluded from peacekeeping processes. I don't think I have a simple answer for that. Having been doing this research for a long time, I have found that one of the biggest problems is the general assumption t

National Defence committee  That's the one that I really struggle with, because, given the structures of peacekeeping operations and given the structures of militarized peacekeeping, I don't see how introducing small numbers of women can make a difference to peacekeeping operations. Having said that, I thi

National Defence committee  Thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on National Defence. I am a tenured full professor in the Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research at the University of Western Ontario. I also hold the Canada research chair in global wom