Research Guides: Women's History Month 2022: Women and Armed Conflict

As of March 2022 there are a number of armed conflicts in the world, including in Ukraine. What impact does armed conflict have on women? This question is of course complicated but there are some general things to consider.

Human Rights Watch states:

Throughout history, women and girls have often been targeted in wartime for violence, especially sexual violence. They have also been excluded from conflict prevention and resolution efforts. Despite increased awareness and mobilization at the local and international levels, women and girls in conflict continue to face multiple challenges. A lack of high-level leadership committed to integrating women’s rights, including in Security Council negotiations and in peace talks, means women are often left out. Grassroots organizations working on women’s local-level peacebuilding and service provision struggle to get adequate and consistent funding. And, despite the heightened risk of violence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and women with disabilities in situations of armed conflict, they are typically sidelined in policy and programming, often leaving them out of decision-making processes and unable to access services. (Muscati, Samer. "Women and Armed Conflict." Human Rights Watch, 2012.)

Though put at risk, women play a number of roles in armed conflict including soldiers, spies, medical workers, delivering humanitarian aid, and numerous other roles. Read more below for online and library resources related to women and armed conflict.

Image credit: Lest they perish Campaign for $30,000,000 - American Committee for Relief in the Near East--Armenia-Greece-Syria-Persia / / W.B. King ; Conwell Graphic Companies, N.Y. Library of Congress.

Library Resources

Below is a small selection of library books related to women and armed conflict. Check the location to see if the book is a print or online book.

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich; Richard Pevear (Translator); Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor D810.W7 A5313 2017
Publication Date: 2017
A long-awaited English translation of the groundbreaking oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia.
Code Girls by Liza Mundy
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor D810.C88 M86 2017
Publication Date: 2017
Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history.
How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women by Lindsey German
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor JZ6405.W66 .G47 2013
Publication Date: 2013
[This] book integrates [women's] experience with a historical overview, analysing the two world wars as catalysts of social change for women. It looks at how the changing nature of war, especially the involvement of civilians, increasingly involves significant numbers of women. As well as providing an inspiring account of women's opposition to war, the book also turns a critical eye to contemporary developments, challenging negative assumptions about Muslim women and showing how anti-war movements are feeding into a broader desire to change society.
Gender: War by Renee C. Hoogland (Editor); Andrea Peto (Editor)
Call Number: available online
Publication Date: 2017
Gender: War examines war through the discipline of gender and sexuality studies. Containing 24 chapters, the volume demonstrates that bodies and other allegedly passive material/other allegedly passive objects have a history and also agency.
With Ash on Their Faces by Cathy Otten
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor UB416 .T65 2019
Publication Date: 2017
The mass abduction of Yezidi women and children is here conveyed with extraordinary intensity in the first-hand reporting of a young journalist who has been based in Iraqi Kurdistan for the past four years, covering the war with ISIS. The Yezidi women who were caught up in this disaster often followed the tradition of their ancestors who, a century ago during persecutions at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, put ash on their faces to make themselves unattractive in order to try to avoid rape.
Women Warriors by Pamela D. Toler
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor UB416 .T65 2019
Publication Date: 2019
Who says women don't go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and WWII Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of women for whom battle was not a metaphor.
A Rebel in Gaza by Asmaa Alghoul; Selim Nassib; Mike Mitchell (Translator)
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor DS110.G3 A5413 2018
Publication Date: 2018
A Palestinian journalist who grew up in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, Asmaa al-Ghoul offers a rare view of a young woman coming into her own political and secular beliefs amidst the region's relentless violence and under Israeli occupation. ).
A Few Good Women by Evelyn Monahan; Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor UB418.W65 M66 2010
Publication Date: 2010
The never-before-told story of the United States women's military corps: the women who fought for the right to defend their country by serving in our armed forces with full military rank and benefits--a fight that continues today for American military women who want to serve in combat support positions and in frontline combat units.
Experiences of Japanese American Women During and after World War II by Precious Yamaguchi
Call Number: available online
Publication Date: 2014
[This book] examines the experiences of Japanese American women who were in internment camps during World War II and after.
From Coveralls to Zoot Suits by Elizabeth R. Escobedo
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor F869.L89 M5156 2013
Publication Date: 2013
During World War II, unprecedented employment avenues opened up for women and minorities in U.S. defense industries at the same time that massive population shifts and the war challenged Americans to rethink notions of race. At this extraordinary historical moment, Mexican American women found new means to exercise control over their lives in the home, workplace, and nation.
Double Victory by Cheryl Mullenbach
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor D810.N4 .M85 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Double Victory tells the stories of African American women who did extraordinary things to help their country during World War II. In these pages young readers meet a range of remarkable women: war workers, political activists, military women, volunteers, and entertainers.
Milicianas by Lisa Lines
Call Number: Stacks - 3rd Floor DP269 .L5155 2015
Publication Date: 2015
During the first few days of the Spanish Civil War, women played an integral role in the spontaneous uprising that prevented the immediate success of the Nationalist coup. Around one thousand of these women went on to join the militias who fought at the front. Women also played an important role in the defense of cities, with another several thousand forming sections of the armed rearguard. Indeed, women's participation in the anti-fascist resistance constituted one of the greatest mass political mobilizations of women in Spain's history.

Online Resources

Below are some online resources to consider.

UN Women: In Focus: Women, Peace and Security
Find out how women contribute to peace and security around the world.
Providing Aid and Safety in International Hot Spots
The New York Times interviewed ten women for International Women's Day. One woman is "Rumiko Seya, president of REALs, [who] is working to rescue women and families, including from Afghanistan, who had dreams before “it turned to darkness in one night.”"
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Need access to the new York Times? You can find access through Butte College: https://butte.libguides.com/thenewyorktimes
Sepur Zarco case: The Guatemalan women who rose for justice in a war-torn nation
During the 36-year-long Guatemalan civil war, indigenous women were systematically raped and enslaved by the military in a small community near the Sepur Zarco outpost. What happened to them then was not unique, but what happened next, changed history. From 2011 – 2016, 15 women survivors fought for justice at the highest court of Guatemala. The groundbreaking case resulted in the conviction of two former military officers of crimes against humanity and granted 18 reparation measures to the women survivors and their community. The abuelas of Sepur Zarco, as the women are respectfully referred to, are now waiting to experience justice. Justice, for them, includes education for the children of their community, access to land, a health-care clinic and such measures that will end the abject poverty their community has endured across generations. Justice must be lived.
Women, peace and security annual report 2019–2020
UN Women has substantially contributed to the United Nations’ efforts to build peace and prevent conflicts, supporting women peacebuilders, assisting survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in their demands for justice, successfully pushing for women’s meaningful participation in peace processes, and helping women and girls affected by conflict rebuild their lives and communities.
Experiencing War: Women of Four Wars: Stories from the Veterans History Project
"The four major wars in which American women served after World War II can be split into two pairs. Korea and Vietnam were conflicts fought in Asian countries divided by the politics of the Cold War. The Persian Gulf War and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were fought in the Middle East and grew out of tensions over aggression in that region and, in the latter instance, the 9/11 attacks. For women, the first two wars signaled few advances in their roles in military service, but in the two recent wars, the areas of women’s participation expanded immensely, with potentially more dire consequences"
TRANSFORMING POWER TO PUT WOMEN AT THE HEART OF PEACEBUILDING A COLLECTION OF REGIONAL-FOCUSED ESSAYS ON FEMINIST PEACE AND SECURITY
"To build on the emerging discipline of Feminist Peace and Security, Oxfam commissioned a series of regionally focused essays from women’s rights activists and academics working in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific to reflect on the state of the WPS agenda."

Adams, Ansel, photographer. Private Margaret Fukuoka, W.A.C. / photograph by Ansel Adams. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2002695325/>.