The unspoken red-line in Colombia: Gender reordering of women ex-combatants and the transformative peace agenda

Academic perspectives on women in conflict have been consistently moving away from the reductionist narrative of victimhood or deviation from gender norms. Yet, this narrative is still predominant in humanitarian discourses, while it is assumed that women’s participation in peacebuilding derives from their natural proclivities. These narratives, we argue, reinforce the gendered patriarchal post-conflict order as ex-combatant women are pushed into traditional roles through reintegration processes without addressing gendered structural and systemic violence. This article is based on the Colombian case, where a peace agreement in 2016 marked the official end to decades of conflict between FARC-EP rebels and the government. While deep changes were promised, the reality for women ex-combatants has been – despite unprecedented levels of women’s participation – a reordering into traditional roles and a reinforcement of conjugal order rather than a transformative progression towards peacetime emancipation. We argue that, while the government claimed that the economic and political systems were non-negotiable red-lines, there was also another unspoken red-line: that of gender roles. This article argues that addressing the gendered structural roots of conflicts in order to build sustainable peace requires a decisive participation of women, including former rebel combatants whose potential contribution to transformative peacebuilding are often ignored.