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Description
Like many other countries, including the United States, Brazil has taken two steps forward and one step back when it comes to furthering gender equality in support of national security. While rhetorical support comes easily, including the passage of the 2017 U.S. Women, Peace and Security Act, implementation has been slow and cumbersome. As of 2024, for example, U.S. efforts to educate those in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), one of four U.S. organizations specifically charged with implementing the act, remain nascent despite clear evidence linking gender equality and national security. As of April 2025, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on social media that he was canceling the Women, Peace, and Security program. Official reiteration of that intent is expected to follow. Globally, the gap between rhetorical support for supporting gender equality and funding efforts to do so remains significant.1
Decades of empirical research demonstrate the linkage between gender equality and national security. For example, researchers Mary Caprioli and Mark Boyer began looking at the linkage between gender, violence, and international crisis in 2001.2 They found that the severity of violence in crisis decreases as domestic gender equality increases. In 2005, Caprioli continued that research, looking at the role of gender inequality in predicting internal conflict, controlling for other possible influences on domestic conflict, including “transitional polities, polity type, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, GDP per capita growth rate, prior domestic conflict, peace years, and the existence of and number of at-risk minorities.”3
Publication Date
Summer 7-23-2025
Publisher
Florida International University
City
Miami
Recommended Citation
Johnson-Freese, Joan and Mora Turner, Dulia, "Women, Peace and Security in Brazil: Progress at a Crossroads" (2025). Research Publications. 82.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/jgi_research/82
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