Women, War & Peace II

This campaign ran from 2017-2019.

In 2019, a year when women were mobilizing and running for office in unprecedented numbers, the Women, War & Peace series returned to PBS. The second series demonstrated how some of the biggest international stories of recent memory are shaped by women. An all-female cast of directors presented four never-before-told stories about the women who risked their lives for peace, changing history in the process: Wave Goodbye to Dinosaurs (Eimhear O’Neill), Naila and the Uprising (Julia Bacha), A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers (Geeta Gandbhir and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy) and The Trials of Spring (Gini Reticker).
Alongside Women, War & Peace II, our campaign produced Women, Peace and Power, a short film and training tool for policymakers, peacebuilders, and students, to spark a discussion on the nexus of gender and security.

Some of what we were able to achieve include:

Writing women into history and today’s news

Through editor roundtables, dedicated reporting series, and local PBS station grants, original reporting created on women’s central role in peace and conflict, driven by the campaign’s editor roundtables, dedicated reporting series, and local PBS station grants. Additionally, a partnership with NowThis resulted in the outlet’s first coverage of Women, Peace and Security (WPS) across two videos with 90,000 views on Twitter alone.

Recognition of women’s role in peace and security

The US Department of Defense has used the series in its mandatory gender trainings. They have also committed to using the series as part of new trainings that will take place under Women, Peace & Security Act implementation. The Individual Training & Learning team for the Joint Chiefs of Staff committed to integrating the series into new trainings that will take place under Women, Peace & Security Act implementation. Amnesty International and Congressman Bill Keating screened series content in a Hill briefing to gain support for the Afghan Afghan Women’s Inclusion in Negotiations Act (WIN), Act (H.R. 4097).

More stories of women changemakers told

Through the series’ social media channels, we distributed original video and written content to inform and engage audiences around the role of women in war and peace. Engagement rates were consistently more than 10,000x the platform averages for media brands, and at their peak, more than 26,000x higher.

Films advanced peacebuilding work

The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition featured in Wave Goodbye to Dinosaurs continue to use the film in their ongoing peacebuilding work, an indispensable tool to educate and galvanize young women in particular.

More from this Campaign

We created multiple resources, including discussion guides for both Women, War & Peace II and our short film Women, Peace and Power.