The holidays are upon us and so are all the usual greetings of the season. Deck the halls. Joy to the world. And my preferred one: Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Except that with wars raging in Gaza, Ukraine, Mali, and too many other countries to count, those words ring especially hollow this year.
The 17th edition of the annual Global Peace Index, the world’s leading measure of peacefulness, was just released and it shows that peace on earth has deteriorated for the ninth consecutive year. A post-COVID rise of civil unrest and political instability remains high while regional and global conflicts accelerate. Deaths from global conflict increased by 96 percent. And over 80 million people globally have been forcibly displaced. (www.visionofhumanity.org)
Statistics that depressing can make you throw up your hands and take a glass-half-empty point of view, but there is a solution for a better, more peaceful world. And it can be summed up in one word: Women.
Women are the key to world peace.
An article from GlobalCitizen.org titled “Five Activists Tell Us Why Women Must Lead the Fight for World Peace,” declared that “the secret to world peace is women…and it’s been right before our eyes all along. But it’s merely a whisper in the halls of power, hardly applied in any practical or political sense, and often systematically discouraged.”
Gender studies scholar, Lavanya Shanbhogue Arvind, concurs. “Religion and politics are all run by men,” she notes. “It’s all masculinity.”
Simply put, to quote a female politician in Iowa who spoke to me off the record, “The problem is testosterone.”
By no means is this meant to disparage men, but according to a UN Women study, “The evidence is inarguable: When women are involved in negotiations, the probability of a peace deal being sustained over two years increases by 20 percent. It’s 35 percent more likely that the deal will last over fifteen years when women are represented at the negotiating table.”
Unfortunately, we have a long way to go to achieve this, because the number of women involved in major peace processes remains low. This past year, only 16 percent of conflict party delegations were women. On top of that, only six out of 18 peace agreements included gender-sensitive provisions, and just one was signed or witnessed by a representative of a women’s organization.
Laurel Stone, a researcher on conflict management, genocide prevention, and women's security, writes that because women address societal needs rather than caving in to what warring parties want, their impact on peace is more significant, more positive. She also notes that the likelihood of peace enduring increases not just when women participate in the process, but when gender electoral quotas are established.
Quotas must be defined as complete gender equality, not just a few token females, which is just common sense considering that the world’s population is made up of equal parts men and women.
Stone says, “Long-term policies empowering women to move past victimization and into leadership positions are key to establishing a more peaceful society over time.”
It’s a tall order considering outdated stereotypes continue to be perpetuated.
Women are the answer to world peace, but we need more women to step into their power to achieve it. We need more female CEOs, more women in politics, and more women making the decisions about the well-being of our people and our planet. We also need men to recognize the importance of the role women play. To end these senseless wars and stop the nonsense of solving problems through violence, we need men to both embrace their feminine qualities and make room at the table for the other 50 percent of the population. I’m talking to you Putin, Netanyahu, Sinwar, and al-Assad, to name a few. It’s the only way to preserve our humanity.
So this year, let there be peace on earth and goodwill toward all people, no matter what gender you identify with.
Beth Howard is an author and pie baker who lives on a farm in Donnellson, Iowa. Learn more about her work at www.theworldneedsmorepie.com.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Western Illinois University or Tri States Public Radio.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.