Women and the Nobel Prize for peace

Abstract

The Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded for over 100 years. While the formal criteria for selection have not changed, there has been an evolution in the kind of choices made. To better understand those choices I have grouped individual winners into five distinct categories. The two largest groups are national leaders working within the international legal system and peace activists. The other three are: opponents capable of exercising force who agree to stop using it; individuals pursuing justice, freedom and/or rights nonviolently as a prelude to peace; and those offering selfless service. Some winners have focused on ending conflict. This kind of peace is sometimes called `negative'. Others have sought a `positive' peace, one based on justice. While at least one woman falls into each of the categories, those which involve the application of law and/or force have only one woman each. Women are primarily peace activists. They won in ten of the seventy-one years that individuals won. Three won in the first fifty years. There was then a thirty-year hiatus, but since 1976 eight women have been winners. They vary in nationality, age and class, but in only one case did the individual work through well-established institutions. Most acted either as individuals or were founding participants in new organizations.