This article seeks to address the relationship between gender and peace studies. Taking a critical approach toward peace studies, it discusses not only the need to produce research on diverse genders, including women, but also to replace gendered approaches and those based on unequal binary relations. Finally, it outlines roles for peace studies in my vision of peace. The article metaphorically employs drawing with colored pencils and uses ‘art stories' depicting conversations between the cat, Popoki and his friend Rabbit to engage the reader in both intellectual analysis and reflection on their emotions and feelings. The first half draws on Audre Lorde's image of the impossibility of “dismantling the master's house”(in this context, militarism and military bases) using the “master's tools,” criticizing the use of research methods based on binaries and approaches to gender that do not recognize, and often make invisible, women and diverse genders. The second half draws on feminist methodologies and analyzes gendered approaches, stressing the importance of narrative, stories and conversation. Throughout, the article suggests that the usual colors, lines and perhaps the colored pencils themselves are insufficient for illustrating the desired relationship between peace and peace studies. It concludes that rather than rebuilding the master's house, we must find new tools to create a “home for all” where everyone can feel safe. An essential foundation of that home is true equality for people of all genders.

This paper focuses on U.S. military bases in Okinawa and military sexual violence. In peacetime, the people of Okinawa live in constant proximity to the risks of base-related harm. One particularly serious issue is military sexual violence. In Okinawa, military sexual violence has continued from wartime to the present.

There is a connection between the past “comfort women” issue and contemporary military sexual violence in Okinawa. The Japanese government’s failure to confront the responsibility for the “comfort women” issue and address it sincerely has led to the trivialization of military sexual violence in present-day Okinawa. As a result of insufficient discussion and unresolved issues regarding wartime sexual violence, such as the “comfort women” issue, there remains a situation where sexual violence around U.S. military bases in Okinawa is downplayed, and victims are forced into silence.

Base-related harm, including military sexual violence, occurs frequently in Okinawa, where U.S. military bases are disproportionately concentrated. The violent nature of the military, rooted in deep-seated gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and colonial oppression, is directed at the vulnerable women and girls in Okinawa. Military sexual violence is a serious human rights issue, and it should be prioritized over security concerns.

This paper also addresses one of the unequal provisions of the Japan–U.S. Status of Forces Agreement: the clause on the handover of suspects, its operational improvements, the reporting system for U.S. military crimes between Japan and the U.S., and the shortcomings of measures taken by the U.S. military, showing that these issues have yet to be resolved.

The strengthening of military power is closely linked to the violence inherent in the military and the patriarchal, sexist, racial, and colonial discriminatory ideologies that support it. This poses a serious risk of undermining the daily peace of the host communities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine human security by focusing on violence targeting women and shedding light on the complex aspects of violence. Examination employs the perspective of protecting the survival and dignity of every human being. Also, this paper discusses how human security can respond to violence targeting women and how peace research, which aims to eliminate violence, can contribute to the discussion.

Discussions of security in international politics have focused on military aspects, and scholars of gender and international relations have argued for the need to place humans more at the center of discussion. These are also related to discussions of human security. However, the comprehensive perspective of “human beings” seems to make it challenging to grasp the threats individuals face in various contexts. In addition, even if there is gender awareness in discussions of human security, this awareness is easily lost, and it is imperative to be conscious of it.

Violence targeting women is often analyzed within the framework of the “violence triangle.” However, this paper raises the issue of excessive attention to the structural and cultural aspects, which diluted the analysis of the intention of the violence and made the target of violence more vulnerable. It does not mean that violence targeting women is unrelated to structural violence and cultural violence. The elements of violence can be made more explicit by understanding the active and strategic intention of violence. Furthermore, it is pointed out that violence targeting women includes resistance to women’s political participation and the realization of a democratic society. Still, these are not defensive actions against “traditional” or “cultural” values based on the existing structure of misogyny, but rather a strategy to actively construct new discriminatory perceptions and build a structure of domination. Then, the responsibility for violence can be more clearly understood.

It has become clear that various intentions mediate the violence examined in this paper. So, how can the current situation of violence targeting women be changed? In discussions of human security, “protection,” “empowerment,” “solidarity,” and “agency” have been emphasized. Of course, it is essential that each of us proactively review our relationships with our society and those around us and foster an awareness that does not tolerate violence. So as not to contribute to the reproduction of norms and social structures that induce violence and oppressive behavior. However, it can also be pointed out that legal frameworks and policies to punish increasingly sophisticated violence targeting women are not sufficient. There is an interdependent issue in which the promotion of legislation and policies against violence targeting women encourages violence targeting women involved in politics. However, even so, the problem is that policies to achieve gender equality have not been implemented as a system. It is necessary to redesign the system so that policies can be implemented and function as a whole.

Conflict-related sexual violence serves as a weapon of war because of the impunity of perpetrators as well as the silenced situation of its victims and their protectors. Moreover, it causes the long-term destruction of the community and the successful generation, disempowerment of the victims and their families, and the empowered masculinity of the offenders. This occurs through conquerors’ seizing “desirable” land and resources by forcibly displacing and weakening the “undesirable” population en masse.

Such sexual violence related to the political economy and forced displacement has been occurring in the “desirable” mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where neighboring Rwanda had economic and demographic motivations for its use of that weapon. Previous literature primarily interviewed the Congolese national army officers in the Congolese territory and argued that “failed masculinity” and the sexual lust of Congolese national army soldiers drive sexual violence. Contrarily, this study argues that Rwanda has been using sexual violence as a weapon of war since 1996 when Rwanda invaded the eastern Congo. Such use of conflict-related sexual violence has been enabled by Rwanda’s infiltration and control of armed groups, including the Congolese national army; Rwanda also controlled mines and residents in the eastern Congo. This infiltration enabled the Rwandan government to reinforce masculinity, in particular hegemonic and militarized masculinities, among the armed groups. This has resulted in weakening local civilian masculinity and morale and silencing the Congolese national army and civilian population, especially men, for being incapable of protecting women. To gain access to land and resources, Rwanda employed this weapon to expel the “undesirable” Congolese people. This is the first study to examine the unexplored role of Rwanda by interviewing former army officers and soldiers in exile, in fueling sexual violence as a tactic.

This paper aims to explore the composition of the world in the era of the Anthropocene through a dialogue with Yukio Maeda’s Planet Politics of the ‘Anthropocene’: The End of the Age of Only Looking at Humans ‘( Jinshinsei’ no Wakusei Seizigaku: Hito dake wo Mireba Sumu Jidai no Shuen), which advocates extending ‘politics’ to nonhumans. ‘Anthropocene’ refers to a new geological epoch that represents the geological changes caused by human activity. This impact has led to the emergence of diverse research trends in International Relations, ranging from posthuman to multi-species approaches. While critically inheriting these trends, this book can be viewed as the latest outcome of a study on ontology stemming from the new relationship between humans and nonhumans. This paper examines the validity of planet politics proposed in this book concerning the types of relations that can be established between humans and nonhumans and the kind of framework suitable for this purpose, on an Earth that has reached its planetary limits. While it agrees with the basic premise that we can no longer focus solely on the interactions among humans in the Anthropocene, and that we must consider both humans and other life forms, along with the material planet Earth that underpins our activities, the paper argues that to acheive tangible progress, we must prioritise ‘diplomacy’. This refers to enhancing the conversation between humans and nonhumans, rather than attempting to conceptualise planet ‘politics’ in one swift move.