In her generous review of Rape During Civil War, Kerry Crawford highlights some challenging and important questions, with implications both for theories about why rape occurs and for the policy interventions that follow from the study.

First, Crawford notes that while the cross-national analysis fails to show a statistically significant relationship between common proxy measures of gender inequality and increased levels of wartime rape, rape is “firmly rooted in gender norms.” As I show in the book, widely used state-level proxy measures for gender inequality, such as fertility rates and female labor force participation, are uncorrelated with reports of wartime rape. However, this finding only means that these rough proxy measures do not help us distinguish between war-affected countries that experience episodes of mass rape and those that do not. It does not suggest that gender inequality is irrelevant to understanding sexual violence. I ultimately argue that these variables are focused on the wrong level of analysis; the most important unit of analysis is not the country but, rather, the armed group itself. Furthermore, issues of gender are not neatly separated from other types of arguments. As Crawford points out, two of the major arguments about armed groups that I consider in the book—opportunism and combatant socialization—are also closely linked to “gendered phenomena.”

It is of course undeniable that rape—like other forms of wartime violence—is gendered. The best evidence on civilian victimization across conflicts clearly shows that although men make up the vast majority of victims of nearly every direct form of wartime violence (including killing, disappearance, and beating), women are far more likely to report rape and other forms of sexual violence than are men. Why women are disproportionately represented among victims and survivors of rape is still an open question, but is likely influenced by variation in norms about masculinity. Scholars of political violence are just beginning to measure and analyze these norms empirically (see Elin Bjarnegård, Karen Brounéus, and Erik Melander, “Honor and Political Violence: Micro-level Findings from a Survey in Thailand,” Journal of Peace Research, 54(6), 2017). There is still much to be learned in future research about how and why norms of toxic masculinity vary, and how they affect the calculation of men and women to use particular forms of violence.

Second, Crawford emphasizes the lessons of the study for policymakers and practitioners, particularly as they relate to the victim/perpetrator dichotomy. If forced recruitment is systematically associated with rape—that is, if many armed groups that perpetrate rape are themselves comprised of victims of terrible trauma—this raises enormous challenges for policy interventions. As I have written elsewhere (see Elisabeth Wood and Dara Kay Cohen, “How to Counter Rape During War,” New York Times, 28 October 2015), the current focus on closing the impunity gap for perpetrators is insufficient to deter future crimes, and often ignores completely the past plight of perpetrators. Crawford’s own excellent book can shed light on how these complex policy issues may be pursued by activists and practitioners in the future.