What happens to women in the aftermath of war and internal conflict? This book asserts that the post-war period is too late for women to transform patriarchal gender relations; the foundations for change must be built during conflict. The Contributors analyze what women endure and what they construct during and after conflict, what obstacles they encounter in their search for autonomy and what bonds of solidarity they create in building peace.

Meredeth Turshen teaches Gender and Development and Third World Social Policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University.

Sheila Meintjes is Senior Lecturer in Political Studies, and co-ordinator of the Gender Studies Programme in the Graduate School of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of the Witswatersrand, South Africa.

Anu Pillay is a gender and development practitioner and winner of South Africa MaAfrika award in 1996 for social contribution.

I: Overviews of Themes * There is no Aftermath for Women--Meredith Turshen, Sheila Meintjes, & Anu Pillay * Women in Conflicts, Their Gains and Their Losses--Codou Bop * Violence Against Women in the Aftermath--Anu Pillay * Problems of Identity, Solidarity, and Reconciliation--Tina Sideris * War and Post-war Shifts in Gender Relations--Sheila Meintjes * Engendering Relations of States to Societies in the Aftermath--Meredith Turshen * II: Contemporary Experiences * Ambivalent Gains in Conflicts in South Asia--Rita Manchanda * Liberated, But Not Free: Women in Post-war Eritrea--Sondra Hale * Rape in War and Peace: Social Context, Gender, Power, and Identity--Tina Sideris * Between Love, Anger, and Madness: Building Peace in Haiti--Myriam Merlet * Caring at the Same Time: On Feminist Politics During the NATO Bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Ethnic Cleansing of Albanians in Kosova, 1999--Lepa Mladjenovic * Healing and Changing: The Changing Identity of Women in the Aftermath of the Ogoni Crisis in Nigeria--Okechukwu Ibeanu * Ambivalent Maternalisms: Cursing as Public Protest in Sri Lanka--Malahi de Alwis * "We Want Women to be Given an Equal Chance": Post-Independence Rural Politics in Northern Namibia--Heike Becker