Diversity In Conflict

In recent years, we in the field of Conflict Studies have moved from a one- size-fits-all mentality in which dominant cultural models and frameworks were thought universal to an awareness that cultural differences necessitate customized design. When disputants are ethnically or culturally different from them, many mediators consider adjusting the process to accommodate expectations, needs, and values. However, mediators tend to disregard other common differences. The most pervasive of the unaccommodated differences is gender.

I will briefly discuss here why gender is a difficult and uncomfortable issue for conflict theorists and practitioners and how dialogue is a critical tool in expanding our awareness of gender issues. Gender is a difficult idea to pin down. The basic understanding that sex relates to biological characteristics and gender to socially constructed roles is constantly blurred. When we discuss gender differences using the categories "men" and "women," gender is being identified with sex. We continually encounter books about the differences between men and women as communicators, as negotiators, as managers. Stereotypes are played out and ideal identities constructed against which we unconsciously measure ourselves. Those writers who would have us accept that men and women have difficulty communicating because we are from "different planets" invite exaggerated expectations of differences, which in turn fosters greater conflict. Moving away from this essentialist view that gender is a fixed, reliable difference that corresponds exactly with sex, that men are masculine and women are feminine (whether born or socialized into the role), we come to an understanding of gender as something that is constantly being invented. If gender is constructed, then it must be dynamic, changing, and diverse within the many human contexts where it is experienced. Describing such a dynamic and complex phenomenon is much more challenging than one in which men and women can be sorted into two readily identifiable groups.

Gender is difficult to talk about, to teach about, and to attend to because it is both the most obvious difference among us and, at the same time, the least visible. Gender pervades all aspects of our lives and is interrelated with other dynamics and roles in a way that makes it difficult to perceive and study. It is interwoven with the concepts of multiple identities, interpersonal dynamics, and the exercise of privilege. Unacknowledged cultural biases and classist and sexist perspectives are prevalent and affect the way in which gender and conflict is discussed. While many sources treat gender like a self-help topic, very few discuss gender as a system of behaviors, some of which are privileged for men and some for women in different contexts. Similarly, very few writers and researchers have considered the effects of the intersection of gender with other aspects of identity including race, class, and generation.

Because gender is inadequately discussed in the literature, it has also been difficult to address in teaching. Construing gender only as difference, with the focus on uncovering the nature and effects of the variances, or only as sameness, with the focus on establishing commonality, oversimplifies the concept of gender; both ends of this continuum obscure the complexity of human action. Both approaches use men as the reference point (without recognizing the inherent inequality of this) and treat gender as a dichotomous attribute rather than a dynamic of interaction.

So, how can we usefully discuss gender in a way that gets us out of the narrow confines of this continuum? In talking about gender as a verb and about gender as a dynamic rather than as two fixed points, we reframe deep assumptions and ways of perceiving. To develop a more dynamic framework requires conscious dialogue, the willingness to explore the effects of patriarchal privilege associated with gender, and the openness to consider the gender boxes constructed around both men and women in our social, political, and professional interactions. Gender is central to an understanding of conflict dynamics in our society and in our interpersonal interactions. It shapes how we attribute meaning to our experience and how we analyze and intervene in conflict. Gender is the seam that defines power dynamics, a seam sewn deep into the fabric of our culture as manifested in its institutions and practices.

The first step in discussing gender meaningfully is to move beyond the stereotypes and to seek greater awareness through dialogue. One feature of dialogue is the opportunity to share and listen to firsthand accounts; in sharing stories, differences within groups will surface and will have the effect of moving participants away from an us/them construction of gender dynamics. Shared meaning and empathy are generated when speakers tell stories situating them in a context involving interpersonal dynamics, personal and group histories, multiple identities, role expectations, and countless other factors. Gender then is understood in a context of lived experience and as a series of choices shaped by cultural and personal influences. Through a process of dialogue, men and women can become allies in creating the structural change needed to address gender inequities.

Conflict resolution processes tend to strive for more immediate results and agreement; letting go of this "results" orientation is difficult. Dialogue with the uncertain hope that the issues at hand will be reframed feels risky, yet the apparent risks may translate into many benefits, both more and less tangible. Dialogues on abortion conducted through the Network for Life and Choice in Washington, D.C., are an example. Abortion is a social issue where the construction of power relations played out through gender is central. In a recent evaluation of dialogue among activists on either side of the abortion issue, dialogue was identified as instrumental in reframing the way the abortion conflict is being experienced, discussed, and acted upon in several communities in the United States and Canada. As participants engaged in a process of examining stereotypes held about the other side and dialogue about personal experiences in a safe and structured environment, they developed empathy for each other and reported significant reductions of the de-personalization that existed on both sides before these authentic relationships had been established.

Although the dialogues do not have the objective of changing people's minds about abortion, participants' behavior regarding the abortion issue is in fact changing. Collaborative work on adoption and the prevention of unwanted pregnancies has been initiated; a voice that advocates, yet respects other opinions, has emerged. It is important that the new and different voice evolving from dialogue is one that embraces and values diversity. Black feminists have reminded us powerfully that both race and gender create bases for domination. If conflict processes were seen as dialogic and educational, providing a supportive forum for the appreciation and honoring of differences, how would they be different?

Perhaps such processes could result in deepening the connection between the participants, encouraging change within structures and within one's self, or defining a wider range of acceptable gender-related behaviors within a group or organization. With this, the focus of inquiry becomes not ferreting out the differences between men and women but admitting and incorporating diverse voices in our research, in our classrooms, and in our practices. It means admitting the complexities of gender as we discuss, enact, and study it and refusing to allow this complexity to discourage us in our efforts to understand and question unexamined privilege attached to theory and prescriptions for practice. It means cultivating an awareness in ourselves and in our programs of the dynamics of gender and applying this awareness intentionally to our pedagogy, research, and practice. Finally, we are challenged to invent new metaphors for our work, to create lenses that admit a prism of perspectives rather than refracting difference.