How Women Impact the Mediation Process - Research Paper

Introduction

In many countries, mediation is becoming more relevant and affordable. It is usually found to be satisfactory than litigation. It can be used to solve conflicts in school, business, and communities (Nelson, et al. 2010, p. 288 ). Early theories of mediation focused more on the impartiality of the mediator. The role of the mediator was to resolve and motivate the disputant to reach an agreement. He or she was seen as a facilitator and was not expected to show any biasness (p. 289). gender studies also show the effects it has on mediation in both negotiation and the results. Women tend to be more collaborative in negotiation and having a personal conversation with the disputants (p. 291).

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Mediation is overall seen by the disputants in a positive way and such perceptions are important since the mediation process is highly voluntary. However, the one thing that stands out is how perceptions are tied to the gender of a third party mediator. Third party mediation generally involves using a particular method to resolve a conflict in a variety of contexts. If the mediators' gender is tied to perceptions, this will cause an effect in the success of mediation if the parties involved view the mediator as ineffective (Stuhlmacher and Morrissett 2008, p. 249).

Men and women are different in regards to how they communicate. For example, when mediating the statements women use to paraphrase what the disputants are saying have been found to vary. Most women mediators required clarification compared to their male counterparts who mostly want to remain in control (p. 250). women also adopt a more democratic and participative leadership style. Women mediators will mostly focus on the emotional bit of social interaction and try as much as possible to help the disputants come to a consensus. These settlement methods that most women use are always more binding (Stuhlmacher and Morrissett, 2008, p. 251)

The Impact That Women Have On Durable Peace

The UN established that there are only 2.5% of chief mediators and nine percent of these are women in peace missions. Peace mediation is very significant and mostly seen as an important tool in authority and leadership in order to get and use power so as to improve peace processes (Aggestam and Svensson 2018, p. 149).

Recent studies have brought out the fact that there is a strong relationship between gender equality and peaceful communities. It is also noted that in countries where there is high equality of women and men, there is likely to be more peace externally and internally. Additionally, scholars have also questioned the durability of peace how gender-specific languages influenced such decisions. Therefore, some argue that more women should be included in peace-making as it is viewed as a good diplomatic approach and will, in turn, bring durable peace (p. 150).

Women play very important roles as individuals and in community-based organizations as one of their peacebuilding efforts. For example, many women have participated in private and public campaigns in order to resolve conflicts. The movements of "mothers" that have been seen in the many armed conflicts are demonstrations of such anti-conflict mobilization (p.153)

Another example where women have participated to sustain peace. Include Guatemala where Luz Mendez was part of the negotiating team who drafted the significant gender provisions. Moreover, she was also representing the rebel-group Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) (p.153). The study also found a good number of African women mediators. This is also a reflection of the high number of conflicts that have taken place in the African region. In three of the empirical cases, Most Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) advocate for gender equality in Congo, Somalia, and Sudan. Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton held positions as American mediators and US Secretary of States. Other high-ranking international organizations have been mediated by women such as Graca Machel, Margaret Anstee and Dame Ann Hercus. External mediation role is one of the greatest pushes for women to participate in peacemaking. Graca Machel did a good job as a peacemaker in Kenya where she created an opportunity to enlarge the peace-making process and even made the two participating parties Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Party of National Unity (PNU) become more gender sensitive (Aggestam and Svensson, 2018 p. 158).

The most striving fields in research are gender and peacebuilding and proposals are being made by politicians, diplomats, and different practitioners to facilitate women in worldwide peace-making activities. For example, the United Nations mediation sector has been incorporating women in peacemaking missions since 2012. However, the number of women representing in mediations is still very low and shows how they confront barriers when striving to senior negotiating positions (p. 165).

Mediation Techniques and Gendered Perspective

Mediation techniques have mostly been largely categorized into communication or facilitation, formulation, and manipulation. Mediators using communication are seen as the channel used by one disputant to the other to provide a connection in order to hold concessions in a straightforward manner. Those that use formulation focus more on redefining issues and ensure that the different sources of conflicts are solved. Finally, mediators using manipulation use their power of persuasion to ensure they coerce the parties into agreeing (p. 19).

Recently, scholars have also come up with other mediation styles differentiating between 'light' and 'heavy', mediation styles. Light mediation style involves the use of existing resources to make the parties come to an agreement whilst heavy mediation style makes the cost of a non-agreement seem expensive, this can be done by offering security for the execution of an agreement. Even though these definitions and styles encourage a great understanding of mediation styles, most researches have focused on the forceful behavior in which mediators are using in settling disputes. Moreover, most of this research looks into the impact of mediation styles and not there causes (P. 19).

However, there are a few types of research done to ascertain why mediators use communication, formulation, and manipulation. Although they point to different reasons, they offer some possible explanations such as the nature of a conflict, the mediator's immediate environment and the resources available for the mediator (p. 20).

Men and women differ in applying communication styles. For instance, men use formulation to maintain control while women use it to get further clarification. Women corporate more in negotiation and offer a more participative style. They use inspirational and motivational words thus are likely to empower and mentor more followers compared to the men mediators During mediation women also focus more on the emotional bit of the social interaction, therefore, influencing a better decision making and favorable agreement. Women mediators are more effective than male mediators in making parties reach a consensus. Women settlements are also more binding than men were (Stuhlmacher and Morrissett 2008, p. 251).

It looks like there seems to be mixed evidence in the mediation results given by men and women and that the fact that there are different results for the mediation done by men and women. It is suggested that the perception of mediator might be related to gender. Therefore, it can be said that there are several ways that effective agreement can be reached which need a number of behaviors that might just be categorized as male stereotyped, female stereotyped and gender neutral (Stuhlmacher and Morrissett 2008, p. 252).

References

Aggestam, K. & Svensson, I., 2018. Where are women in peace Mediation?. International Negotiation, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, pp. 149-168.

Nelson, N., Zarankin, A. & Ben-Ari, R., 2010. Transformative Women, Problem-solving Men? Not Quite: Gender and Mediator's Perception of Mediation. Negotiation Journal, 26(3), pp. 287-308.

Stuhlmacher, A. F. & Morrissett, M. G., 2008. Men and Women as Mediators: Disputant Perceptions. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19(3), pp. 249-260.