How women are imagined through conceptual metaphors in United Nations Security Council Resolutions on women, peace and security

Abstract

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 is a landmark pronouncement on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Not only does it this resolution highlight the important role of the involvement of women in peace processes but it also stresses the importance of their equal participation in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace. Furthermore, it also triggers the approval of some other resolutions, which are all further elaborations on that first document. The aim of this paper is to analyse, from a cognitive perspective, the way in which women are narrated in these pronouncements by means of two main frames: women as victims, more frequently found in earlier resolutions, and women as agents of change, which gained more strength and visibility as new resolutions continued to appear.