‘You cannot hold two watermelons in one hand’: Gender justice and anti-state local security institutions in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Introduction Although religion has been discussed through various disciplinary frameworks, we do not know enough to explain security institutions and their negotiations with interest groups that employ specific religious and traditional ideologies. The ‘global war on terror’ has generated scholarship focusing extensively on extremist groups, the entrenched debates between fundamentalism and Islamism and also between fundamentalism and secularism. However, those discussions have also excluded women, except for their role as mothers of suicide bombers, members of extremist groups themselves and cultural bearers of their religion through clothing choice. Feminist scholars focusing on human rights have often used gender justice interchangeably with notions of ‘gender equality’, ‘gender equity’, ‘women’ empowerment’, ‘women’ rights’ and ‘women’ security’. Those who have worked on the intersection of rights and development have also often conceptualised gender justice as a process that requires women to ensure that power-holders - whether in the household, the community, the market or the state - can be held to account for actions that limit women’ access to resources or capacity to make choices on the grounds of gender. Contemporary concepts of gender justice in women’ human rights and critical security discourse encompass: human agency, rights and capabilities in political philosophy; debates within politics, anthropology, sociology and law about democratisation, citizenship, constitutionalism, ‘women’ rights as human rights’ and cosmopolitanism; and in the field of law, judicial reform and practical matters of access to justice. Feminist approaches enable a focus around a common issue (with many recognised variations) and ultimately, with the use of the political tools of lobbying, caucusing and networking. While there have been attempts to create solidarity in feminist spaces, it should also be noted that there are criticisms within feminist circles against these attempts as elitist, imperialist or merely disconnected from the lives of most of the world’ women. Drawing on feminist insights and advocacy on identity politics and security, and peace/state/nation building literature, this chapter considers whether normative considerations ought to steer or constrain existing institutional processes, through which, taking into account contemporary security issues, institutional capability is strengthened.