International security and gender

What does it mean to be secure? In the global news, we hear storiesdaily about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about domestic-levelconflicts around the world, about the challenges of cybersecurity andsocial security. This broad list highlights the fact that security is anidea with multiple meanings, but do we all experience security issuesin the same way? In this book, Nicole Detraz explores the broadterrain of security studies through a gender lens. Assumptions aboutmasculinity and femininity play important roles in how we understand andreact to security threats. By examining issues of militarization,peacekeeping, terrorism, human security, and environmental security, thebook considers how the gender-security nexus pushes us to ask differentquestions and broaden our sphere of analysis. Including gender in ouranalysis of security challenges the primacy of some traditional securityconcepts and shifts the focus to be more inclusive. Without a fullunderstanding of the vulnerabilities and threats associated withsecurity, we may miss opportunities to address pressing global problems. Oursociety often expects men and women to play different roles, and thisis no less true in the realm of security. This book demonstrates thatsecurity debates exhibit gendered understandings of key concepts, andwhilst these gendered assumptions may benefit specific people, they areoften detrimental to others, particularly in the key realm ofpolicy-making.(Bookdata)