Betty A. Reardon: Key Texts in Gender and Peace

Book excerpt: This book presents a rich collection of Betty A. Reardon’s writing on gender studies, sexism and the war system, and human security from a feminist perspective. Betty A. Reardon is a pioneer of gender studies who, as a feminist, identified the structural relationship between sexism and the war system and, as a scholar, a shift from national to human security. As a pioneer in contemporary theories on gender and peace, Betty A. Reardon has continually developed research on the integral relationship between patriarchy and war, and has been an outspoken advocate of gender issues as an essential aspect of peace studies, of problems of gender equity as the subject of peace research, and of gender experience as a crucial factor in defining and attaining human security. Her work evolved in the context of international women’s movements for human rights, peace and the United Nations, and is widely drawn upon by activists and educators in order to introduce a gender perspective to peace studies and education and a peace perspective to women’s studies.