Reclaiming the Feminine for Peace in Times of War

TMS PEACE JOURNALISM, 13 Apr 2026

Derya Yüksek – TRANSCEND Media Service

10 Apr 2026 – Recent discussions on the relationship between masculinity and war and on the women’s demand for a culture of peace point to a shared concern: dominant models of power continue to privilege violence over dialogue. War, in this sense, is not simply about men, but about particular performances of masculinity tied to control, securitization, and the need to assert power—often rooted in insecurity.

Building on this, it becomes necessary to further discuss how deeply these logics are embedded in our societies. The problem is not only that some individuals enact destructive forms of masculinity, but that entire systems normalize and reproduce them. Patriarchal systems teach all of us—across genders—to associate strength with domination, security with control, and action with force.

What we are facing, then, is not a gendered anomaly but a structural condition. If war were simply the result of certain leaders or attitudes, it could be addressed through replacement or reform. Instead, what we see is a pervasive logic that shapes how conflict is understood, how power is exercised, and what responses are considered legitimate.

A Culture of War

Contemporary global crises—from wars to ecological collapse and democratic erosion—cannot be understood without recognizing the role of patriarchal systems in shaping them. These privilege distorted forms of masculinity, where protection becomes control, agency becomes command, and hierarchy and domination are treated as natural forms of order—producing and reproducing a culture of war.

At the same time, qualities historically associated with the “feminine”—care, relationality, empathy, interdependence—are devalued, romanticized, marginalized, or simply dismissed. They are stripped of political value, and treated not as capacities, but as weaknesses.

This imbalance does more than produce inequality. It constructs a worldview that prioritizes winning over dialogue, economic and geopolitical gain over human and ecological well-being, and war over long-term peacebuilding. Within this worldview, conflict is something to be managed, suppressed, or eliminated. Security is built through the identification and neutralization of threats. Peace is reduced to stability, often achieved through coercion.

Over time, these assumptions become so deeply internalized that alternatives become difficult to imagine. Escalation appears rational. War becomes unavoidable. Peace becomes abstract.

Internalization of the Culture of War

It is important to clarify that masculinity itself is not inherently problematic. Traditionally, masculine capacities include initiative, agency, protection, and the ability to act decisively. These are essential for any functioning society.

However, when these capacities are disconnected from relational awareness and accountability, they become distorted. Protection turns into control, agency into domination, and action into violence. What we see in contemporary politics is not masculinity per se, but masculinity that has been stripped of balance.

Crucially, this imbalance is not limited to men. Patriarchal systems are reproduced and internalized across society, including by women who, consciously or not, adopt the same logics—equating power with control, rationality with emotional suppression, and success with domination or hierarchy. This is not an individual failure but a structural condition. When domination is normalized as the primary form of power, it becomes the language everyone learns to speak. And when this happens, even well-intentioned efforts risk reproducing the very logics they seek to transform.

Culture of War in Times of War

The persistence of this logic becomes particularly visible in times of war. It is here that human lives are most clearly treated as expendable in the name of national interest, security, ideological commitment, or even a so-called “sacred” cause. Those who support war are considered as patriots, aligned with strength and realism. Those who oppose it are dismissed as naïve or traitorous, pushed outside the boundaries of legitimate political speech.

What is more troubling is that this logic is not confined to militarist or conservative positions. It often appears within progressive discourse as well. Recent accounts surrounding the U.S./Israeli war on Iran—particularly the threats of large-scale military strikes—illustrate this dynamic. While it is essential to recognize and fully resist forms of imperialist intervention, many responses have reproduced the very binary logic they claim to critique. Anti-imperialist or anti-hegemonic positions have, in some cases, converged with exclusionary, absolutist and militarized rhetoric, normalizing the idea that large-scale destruction can be justified, and considered desirable, if it serves the “right” side.

In this process, the urge to take a side overrides critical reflection. Entire populations are reduced to extensions of regimes, and the complexity of internal struggles disappears from view. Calls for justice slide into calls for military victory. Civilian suffering becomes secondary to strategic positioning against the designated “enemy.” Such demand to “take a side” overrides the capacity to hold multiple truths. The language of domination reasserts itself—even among those who claim to oppose it.

This convergence reveals the depth of the problem. Patriarchal war culture is sustained not only through explicit militarism, but through the normalization of coercion as the only imaginable means of resolving conflict.

Reclaiming the Feminine, Integrating the Masculine

What is systematically devalued and excluded in this framework are the very capacities that make sustainable peace possible. Across cultures, the “feminine” has been associated with relationality, care, sensitivity, and the ability to nurture life. These are not passive, but proactive qualities. They require effort, responsibility, and active engagement. They make it possible to hold complexity, to engage difference, and to maintain relationships under pressure. In this sense, they form the infrastructure of any meaningful peace process.

Every individual carry both masculine and feminine capacities. A sustainable approach to peace requires the integration of these different qualities of being. Initiative must be combined with care, protection with sensitivity, and action with dialogue. Without relational grounding, action becomes destructive. Without the capacity to act, care remains ineffective.

Peacebuilding therefore depends not on privileging one set of qualities over another, but on creating conditions in which they can operate together. This requires more than reform. It requires a transformation in how power, security, and coexistence are understood. It involves recognizing interdependence, valuing care as a public and political capacity, and expanding the range of legitimate responses to conflict.

Unlearning Domination, Relearning Peace

Peace cannot emerge from the same logics that sustain war. It depends on the ability to engage conflict without resorting to domination, to recognize the value of relational capacities, and to resist the reduction of complex realities into binary oppositions.

The challenge is not simply to oppose war, but to question the assumptions that make it appear inevitable. This involves rethinking what it means to act, to lead, and to coexist.

Ultimately, the question becomes whether we are ready to unlearn domination, to imagine otherwise, and to practice, together, a world where power no longer depends on the capacity to destroy. This will be possible when we are able to reclaim what has long been dismissed: the relational, the embodied, the caring, the interdependent—not as “feminine virtues,” but as conditions of life itself.

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Dr. Derya Yüksek is a communication and media studies scholar whose work focuses on alternative media, participatory democracy, and conflict transformation. Her research bridges theory and practice to examine how participatory processes reconfigure political imagination and civic agency in contexts marked by division and protracted conflict. Alongside her academic career, she has specialized in project management and worked as a manager and consultant on international cooperation initiatives in the field of culture, arts, and education across the Euro-Mediterranean and beyond.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 13 Apr 2026.

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