stereotypes and gender roles. Women in conflict are often solely perceived as victims, often suffering from rape and being portrayed as defenseless and inactive during these periods. These gendered portrayal of defenseless women in war were thoroughly deconstructed during the war, with the Eritrean women forces being at the forefront of this conflict. This opened up opportunities to reconstruct ‘given’ gendered stereotypes by directly challenging them. The assumption that women are inherently more peaceful than men neglects the other roles and behaviors that women can assume as people that naturally have varying degrees of aggressiveness and assertiveness. The breaking down of gender roles and stereotypes was important for creating healthy social conditions for women. Gendered images of women as inferior, less capable, submissive, emotional, less intelligent and docile and portrayals of men as superior, more competent, dominant, rational, and intelligent may breed the grounds for sexist assumptions that are reproduced in society and become detrimental to women who have to deal with these assumptions on a daily basis. (NW, All) Division of Labor Eritrea is an agricultural subsistence society, both men and women work in agriculture and gendered divisions of labour exists in these practices. They depend on a regional agrarian system. Pastoralist and semi-pastoralist areas in the lowlands are dependent on livestock breeding. Women's role is centered on processing and preparing food as well as milking of goats and cows. In most areas farming is the mainstay, men and women work in the fields and share agricultural work in the communal land of Eritrea. In addition to this, women are involved in backyard gardening, poultry and beekeeping as well as weaving. In most regions, women are responsible for most aspects of child care in their household. In the central highlands both men and women work in the fields. However ploughing remains a male practice, while hoeing and weeding is shared by both men and women. In some areas men and women produce the same crops but have separate fields, for subsistence and for sale. There are also separate tasks within the cropping cycle, with men planting cereals and fodder crops together with vegetables, while women plant some varieties of vegetables. In livestock production men tend the livestock, while women do the milking. In Africa, women are assumed to perform 65% of the work for food production, in Eritrea the rate is 70% - 80%. Women also provide the labour