International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 4, No. 11(1); September 2014 54 Is the Portrayal of Women’s Role Changing in United Nations Peacekeeping Resolutions? Victoria Martín de la Rosa Universidad Complutense Avda. Complutense s/n 28040 Madrid ESIC, Business and Marketing School, Madrid Spain Elena Domínguez Romero Universidad Complutense Avda. Complutense s/n 28040 Madrid Spain Abstract UN Resolution 1325 marked a groundbreaking achievement in terms of recognizing for the first time the need to increase the involvement of women in peace processes to perform a more active role and institute a gender perspective in peacekeeping. Some other UN resolutions followed, as for instance 1820, 1888, 1889 and 2122. The aim of this paper is to analyze the representation of women in these UN pronouncements from a cognitive approach to shed light on the way in which women are actually being portrayed by means of the metaphors used. Keywords: UN resolutions; women’s agency; peacekeeping; conceptual metaphors; cognitivism 1. Introduction The equal rights of women and men, in the interwar period, were firstly affirmed in The Pan American Conference in Montevideo in 1933 (Berkovitch, 1999a). After World War II the United Nations Charter, in 1945, adopts the same principle, also reflected in art. 2 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (Pietilä & Vickers, 1994). Nevertheless, as Zinsser (2000) says “From its founding until 1975 and the declaration of the International Women’s Year (IWY), the United Nations did little to advance the cause of women's rights”; from her point of view, “the condition of women worldwide was never a priority for action in any part of the United Nations system” (p. 139). In the 1970s we can find a more attentive approach to the interests of women, as can be seen in the fact that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 1975 as International Women’s Year with the themes of equality, development and peace (Berkovitch, 1999b). This can be seen both in the Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace at the world conference in Mexico City in 1975, plus the importance of the proclamation of the 1976-1985 period as the UN Decade for Women at the same conference. This last initiative, in Pietila’s words (2007), “changed the world” (p. 54). On the other hand, 1974 can be marked as an important date as it is the time when the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict . The year 1979 is also considered a relevant date as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination was signed (Pietilä & Vickers, 1994). As pointed out by Berkovitch (1999a), it is “the most comprehensive convention on women's rights”; in its preamble it can be read that “the full and complete development of a country, the welfare of the world and the cause of peace require the maximum participation of women on equal terms with men in all fields” (p. 144). This new dynamics generated significant momentum among the different world Conferences that were held later, from 1975 up to the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), which for Pietila (2007) was “The greatest success of all time” (p. 70). The reason being it featured a Section (E) on Women and Armed Conflict, whose outcome document (The Beijing Platform for Action) is considered very important as governments vowed to improve women’s positions and to implement legislation that would secure their rights.