a total of out of seats were set aside for women and there are posts throughout various levels of government charged with addressing women s concerns as well as providing training in gender awareness mzvondiwa some of the reasons for emphasising women s inclusion in postwar governance structures stem from the same essentialist arguments outlined above namely that women are more naturally oriented toward forgiveness and reconciliation as well as the argument that since they were most affected by the violence they would be most likely to want to work to overcome it powley thus rwanda shows that essentialistbased arguments can nevertheless result in increased inclusion of women in political participation