ABSTRACT
This chapter continues building on the gender analysis framework by highlighting the complexity of equality. The Women, Peace, and Security agenda has focused policy on the equal inclusion of women. However, commitment to equality from both men and women is necessary to human security goals. Therefore, this chapter identifies some different feminist understandings of equality, including the distinctions between equity and equality, as well as the discursive nature of its interpretation. While equality is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its universality is contested. Legal interpretations of its meaning are often impacted by socio-cultural and political factors, thus leaving it as a mutable concept. When addressing equality, it is also essential to consider again the Western ideological influence in global security policy and the post-colonial environment in which transnational CT programming takes place. However, this chapter makes the case for why equality is better for everyone and identifies evidence for and challenges to this perspective through comparative analysis of the final case study, the second iteration of the European Union’s Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism programming in Kenya. This case illustrates these conceptual challenges and the need for more accessible and co-created knowledge between feminist academic and practitioner researchers.
