January 25, 2021 The new Gender and the Security Sector (GSS) Lab is using an interdisciplinary, social scientific approach to study the role of gender in security forces – including police, military and peacekeeping forces. Launched Jan. 4 by Sabrina Karim, the Hardis Family Assistant Professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences, the lab applies a comprehensive framework, developed by Karim with a previous grant, to assess barriers to women’s meaningful participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. The framework can be adapted and applied to study other barriers to women’s participation in other contexts, Karim said. “Women who enter into occupations that are traditionally masculine spaces such as in the security sector or politics face many barriers that prevent them from succeeding in the profession,” she said. “The goal with our methodology is to create a flexible tool that can be applied to measure those barriers in the context of U.N. peacekeeping operations but also in the security forces themselves.”