Introduction: Mapping the terrain: Gender and conflict in contemporary perspective

The Introduction provides an overview of the Handbook, setting out the major themes addressed by expert authors. It offers a brief history of the gendered experiences of conflict, then describes the major parts of the Handbook and provides a chapter-by-chapter overview. It argues that the Handbook's breadth of coverage shows how gender is found everywhere in the practice of war and its aftermath. It sets out the usefulness of the Handbook to practitioners, scholars, and students throughout the world by offering a one-stop volume that focuses on the gendered construction of conflict and its multifaceted intersecting dimensions of security, international law, and international institutions.