For her book Tripp interviewed activists, politicians and other leaders in Uganda, Liberia, Angola, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Several conditions have to be met for conflicts to lead to these results. First of all, the conflicts under study evolved after the 1990s and especially in the year 2000. This is important because they coincided with the emergence of strong international pressures for advancing women’s rights, particularly efforts to increase women’s leadership roles.  Second, those conflicts consisted of major wars which required the whole society to adapt to a new order. Third, those were civil wars, after which politics had to be restructured.  Finally, the way the war ends matters. If one of the sides in the civil war completely vanquishes the other side, there will not be room for peace negotiations, and if there is no peace process there is no place for woman activists to make their demands.

What accounts for the increased political representation of women at higher levels in post-conflict African countries? Is it a coincidence that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia was the first elected women president in Africa after a major conflict?  According to Tripp, activist women bridged differences in the role of peacemakers in countries like Liberia.  In her lecture, Tripp focused on three main reasons for this increase:

1) Disruptions in gender-relations and norms during conflict: Women entered sectors during the conflict that they had not entered before, such as business, carpentry and brick making. After the conflict, those new roles allowed women to press their demands, and they achieved higher political and social positions.

2) Growth of women’s movements: Women’s mobilization expanded at the end of the conflict during the transition to peace. Women often took advantage of the peace process, which created more political space to mobilize so they could push for their demands.

3) Changes in international norms regarding women’s rights: International NGOs pushed for the incorporation of women’s rights into the legal framework of post-conflict countries in Africa.

In her research Tripp finds that some of the existing theories to explain the increase of women’s political representation in conflict situations don’t apply to post-conflict countries in Africa. One of the explanations for the increase of women’s rights after conflicts is offered by the backlash theory. According to this theory, governments and/or parties establish new constitutions after a war through peace processes but often neglect the needs of women. As a result, women suffer a backlash against newfound freedom and the governments fail to translate the women’s gains into the legal framework. However, Tripp’s research did not confirm such a backlash. Another explanation is that conflict allows women to gain power since mortality raises are high amongst men. But Tripp mentions that the rise of the ratio of women in countries after conflicts was much less significant compared to the rise of women’s representation in politics.

In conclusion, Tripp emphasised the increase of female parliamentary representation in post-conflict countries in Africa, which helps women to gain more rights and have a better status within the society. This does not mean that we should advocate conflict as a means to improve women’s rights. But African countries with the highest rates of women in politics are all post-conflict countries, with only a couple of exceptions. Conflicts create opportunities for women to renegotiate and change traditional power relations and to put their demands on the table.

If conflict disrupts gender relations, does it also disrupt other social relations? What did all these changes mean for men? Did LGBTIQI-movement also become more active? These are questions for future research.