This course addresses the conceptual and operational issues involved in integrating a gender perspective into multidimensional peace operations. It describes the problems related to gender within contemporary armed conflict by contextualizing the evolution of gender relations within the history of world conflict. The course also explores many important concepts such as gender equity, gender balance, and gender equality, along with several underreported realities of conflict, such as sexual violence against males and sexual exploitation and abuse committed by UN peacekeepers. Invoking the various UN and non-UN instruments of human rights and gender equality, the course emphasizes the need for women to play a strategic role in all levels of decision-making in regional, national, and international institutes and mechanisms. Seven lessons.