GENDERED INSECURITY IN THE YEMEN CIVIL WAR: WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES THROUGH A FEMINIST SECURITY STUDIES LENS (2015-2019)

Abstract

The Yemen Civil War has been described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with violence and conflict plaguing the country and depriving the people of their utmost basic needs. With the escalation of the conflict in 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition officially intervened, the violence and instability only magnified. The collapse of civilian infrastructure, including healthcare infrastructure, became prevalent in the country. Its collapse has stripped away millions of people’s access to healthcare in the midst of ongoing conflict, rendering insecurity for the people. Women are among the most vulnerable groups threatened by this collapse, facing life-threatening risks due to their sex and gender. The insecurity women face extends to numerous ways, from sexual violence used as a tactic of war, to gender-based violence, to structural economic marginalization. This study analyses how war and conflict in the Yemen Civil War create gendered insecurity for women through the collapse of healthcare infrastructure in between 2015-2019. The insecurity that women face in this case reveals in several ways, from the inability to access maternal care to gender restrictions that limits women's mobility and rights. By applying a Feminist Security Studies lens, the concept of security is defined beyond traditional state and military-centric views of security, instead focusing on the everyday experiences of war as an equally significant security concern. This framework elaborates how gender and gender hierarchies enable the prioritization of military means over civilian healthcare needs due to the subordination of femininities, revealing hierarchies that render those as masculine as central and feminine as peripheral. Feminist Security Studies has revealed that this healthcare collapse is not just a collateral damage of war, but is a means of weaponizing women's survival, making it a battlefield of their own.