Women and peace building: from historical to contemporary African perspectives

The subject of women and peacebuilding is arguably an area of research, which prior to the 21st century remained undeveloped and unexplored in the field of conflict and peace and in the practice of peacebuilding. This development signaled a new attentiveness on the importance of women's roles as indispensable stakeholders in peacebuilding processes. However, precontemporary consciousness, women did leverage standard decision-making prowess that served diverse political, socio-economic, and security goals. Through a review of relevant literature and purposive unstructured interviews in Liberia, this paper examines the changing landscape of women's peacebuilding roles using examples from cross-cultural African experiences. The paper asserts that before the internationalization of women's role in the affairs of peacebuilding, women were already subconsciously or consciously involved in such decision-making processes, especially under the aegis of women organizations. Likewise, it contends that patriarchy and marginalization of women was quite in existence and these challenges which are unquestionably in continuity in the contemporary impede women's peacebuilding efforts. From these, this paper contributes to the evolving literature on women and peacebuilding discourses.