Carol Cohn’s December 2012 anthology Women and Wars uses descriptions of the varied roles of women during conflict to push forward an agenda for full inclusion of their perspective in securing the peace. Women and Wars fills the vacuum left by the “women as victims” approach that characterized the early 2000’s, with a diverse array of options for understanding the roles and perspectives that women have during conflict, including: soldiers, civilians, caregivers, sex workers, refugees and internally displaced persons, anti-war activists, and community peacebuilders. Over the last two years the expansion of information on women, peace, and security has been vast both within academia and policy circles. The space once characterized by “awkward silences,” between feminist researchers and security practitioners is closing rapidly – assisted by an improved understanding of why gender matters during conflict and post conflict. During the preparation of the 2011 U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, the U.S. government reached out to a consortium of civil society groups and academics, of which the author was a member. They were looking for “proof” (both empirical and anecdotal) that gender matters in stability operations, and data to show that women’s equality is foundational to stability and security. Cohn’s book is an excellent example of such proof. It is a series of well tested, field based examples of why gender matters during and after war