“Their musings about how and why people stayed in a country under such terrible conditions were what I hated most. I knew it was ignorance, not insight, that prompted these questions. They asked because they had not smelled the air raid smoke or the scent of singed flesh on their own balconies; they could not fathom that such a dangerous place could still harbour all the feelings of home.” – Sara Nović, Girl at War.War does not affect all bodies equally. Gender plays a decisive role in shaping how violence is experienced during conflict, determining who is protected, who is violated, and whose suffering is rendered invisible. Across history, women have been systematically targeted in war, not as accidental casualties, but as symbolic and strategic sites of violence through which power is asserted and communities are disciplined.This reality is often obscured by narratives that frame women’s suffering as collateral damage, rather than as a predictable outcome of militarised and patriarchal systems.Anthropologist Margaret Mead once described warfare as an invention through which societies legitimise violence in the pursuit of honour, land, or revenge. Historically, it has largely been women’s task to endure the consequences of this invention, sustaining life and meaning when violence erodes both.Although often overlooked, gender fundamentally shapes experiences of suffering in both peace and conflict. In patriarchal societies, women are cast as custodians of communal honour and identity. When conflict erupts, this symbolism becomes dangerous.The use of women’s bodies as symbolic and literal battlegrounds is neither new nor accidental. Megha Majumdar’s ‘A Burning’ captures this grim continuity, illustrating how sexual violence functions as a mechanism of power rather than deviation. Women are punished not for individual actions but for the meanings imposed upon their bodies. Such portrayals mirror lived realities across societies where misogyny is embedded within social and political structures.Journalist Sue Lloyd-Roberts’ The War on Women documents how violence against women is routinely rationalised through appeals to tradition. In one recorded exchange, punishment, even killing is described as necessary to restore a man’s honour. What is striking is not only the brutality of this reasoning, but its familiarity. Across cultures, misogyny is repeatedly legitimised through the language of custom, morality, and social order, obscuring its fundamentally criminal nature.This justification of violence, rooted in patriarchal ideas of honour and control, does not recede during wartime; it intensifies.In conflict zones, women and girls face heightened exposure to sexual violence, forced displacement, and systemic deprivation. The collapse of legal and social protections enables gender-based violence to function both as a tactic of war and as a tolerated outcome. Women are dehumanised, reduced to instruments through which power is asserted and communities are terrorised.The Partition of India in 1947 remains one of the most visible examples of systematic gendered violence in modern history. Estimates suggest that between 75,000 and 100,000 women were abducted, assaulted, or forcibly married during this period.These acts were not isolated incidents but organised strategies aimed at inflicting collective humiliation and long-term social rupture. Violence against women was central, not incidental, to the logic of Partition-era conflict.A similar pattern emerged during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Over the course of approximately 100 days, hundreds of thousands of women were subjected to rape and sexual violence as Hutu militias targeted Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Survivors such as Mukandoli, a widow who conceived a child through rape, continue to live with the enduring psychological consequences of the genocide. Having lost seven children during the violence, she struggled to raise the child born of it; a reminder that for many women, war does not end when fighting stops but persists through memory, trauma, and social marginalisation.Contemporary conflicts reproduce these same structural dynamics. In Gaza, sustained military violence has generated a humanitarian crisis with pronounced gendered consequences. Reports by UN Women and Human Rights Watch indicate that women and children constitute a significant proportion of those killed, injured, and displaced. This reflects not an accident but the impact of warfare conducted in densely populated civilian spaces.The degradation of healthcare infrastructure has had particularly severe implications for women. Thousands of pregnant women face childbirth amid shortages of medical supplies, electricity, and trained personnel. Limited access to water, sanitation, and privacy disproportionately affects women and girls, increasing health risks and vulnerability in overcrowded shelters. These conditions demonstrate how conflict systematically undermines women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive safety.Globally, women and children comprise more than half of the world’s displaced population. Conflict environments strip women of autonomy while heightening exposure to exploitation, sexual violence, and economic precarity. Yet women’s experiences are frequently treated as secondary to military or geopolitical concerns, rather than recognised as central indicators of humanitarian and political failure.Women, however, are not merely passive recipients of violence. They serve as journalists, healthcare workers, community organisers, and, in some cases, combatants, sustaining social life amid institutional collapse. Despite this, women remain largely excluded from peace negotiations and post-conflict governance, their perspectives treated as peripheral rather than essential.Acknowledging women’s suffering without addressing the structures that enable it risks rendering such recognition symbolic rather than transformative. As long as women’s bodies remain acceptable sites of violence, conflict will continue to reproduce entrenched hierarchies of power and domination.When gender is ignored in the assessment of war, neutrality becomes a form of complicity.The author is an independent writer whose work focuses on gender, conflict, and international politics.