We are all in the trenches of this 21st-century war

The Home Front: 4 Women at war

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The Home Front: 1 - Preparing to face the Unthinkable

The Home Front: 2 - Tony's phoney-war cabinet

The Home Front: 3 - 'It's there all the time, the fear of what could happen next'

The Home Front: 4 - We are all in the trenches of this 21st-century war

The Home Front: 5 - 'People look to the Church for moral guidance'

The Home Front: 6 - 'Religion has given us wars, pogroms and civil strife'

We provide the sons to fight the battles, and now the daughters to serve alongside them, says Yvonne Roberts. And now, more than ever, the voices of women must be heard

It's ironic, given the dearth of females among the politicians, strategists, diplomats, experts and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic, that the first British hero-in-the-making of this crisis is a woman. Seventeen-year-old Jodie Jones, "The Little Girl who Went to War" as the tabloids reported last week, is a Wren on board HMS Illustrious who refused to be flown home.

"She's so proud and she wants to fight for her country," Jodie's mother, Karen Mead, explained. Women have always sent their sons to the frontline and given encouragement to their sweethearts to shed blood, but only recently have they been asked to forfeit their daughters, too, whether it's among the troops or in the ranks of journalists reporting the war. Yesterday, the Express writer Yvonne Ridley was still missing, believed to be in the hands of the Taliban, after crossing the Pakistan border into Afghanistan.

Anyway, in the face of 21st-century terrorism, we are all in the trenches now, whether as stockbrokers at work or, if the alarming predictions are to be believed, families at home assaulted by biological and chemical warfare.

In this "new" kind of war, however, democracy's traditional flaws remain intact. Women, so far, have gone largely unheard. As the academic Lynne Segal puts it, "all the big platforms are occupied by men – even those on the left, in opposition to the war". When women do speak out, as in the case of the International Development Secretary, Clare Short, who questioned the wisdom of "strident action", they are soon silenced.

But given that women are influenced as much by religion, status, class and income as they are by gender, would they really bring such a radically different perspective to the war rooms of government? Polls show, on average, a 20 per cent gender gap between those for and against targeted military action. Are men inherently militaristic while women "naturally" incline to pacifism? No – polls also reveal plenty of bellicose females and peace-advocating males. Nevertheless, the core of those in favour of treating the events of 11 September as a crime against humanity to be prosecuted in the courts, rather than through the battlefields, remains female. Does this confirm determinist arguments about women as naive life-givers with no belly for war? Or are anti-war women using their heads as well as their hearts when they make their arguments?

Ann Campbell, a psychologist, says that women view aggression as a loss of self-control, while men view it as a necessary means of achieving control over another. Women talk first, men act. Nadine Sobers, a furniture-maker and mother of three, including a 20-year-old son, agrees: "Women tend to think before they speak. We're more cautious, we try to consider the whole picture. I didn't see much evidence of that in Bush's reactions."

Lynne Segal, while cautious of generalisations, also argues that women share a process of socialisation in common that make them more sensitised to the human cost of war. "We deal with the dailiness of life. We pick up the pieces. It's us who deal with the pain and grief and sorrow."

"When politicians talk of collateral damage, we see the flesh and blood of women and children," agrees Dr Scilla Elworthy of the Oxford Research Group, a nuclear disarmament charity. "A hundred years ago, 80 per cent of war casualties were male combatants," she points out. "Now, 80 per cent are women and children."

Elworthy's view is that the the allies' (as yet still unclear) response is already disproportionate since it is has aggravated famine, misery and fear in Afghanistan. If large-scale action is taken against the Taliban, she believes, it will destabilise Pakistan, impede the development of progressive Islamic countries, and do little to curtail terrorism or appease the hatred of the USA. "It would have exactly the effect the terrorists desire," she says.

Hannana Siddiqui of Women Against Fundamentalism also points out that women around the globe have made a connection with the "enemy" over the years. Through the internet and pressure groups, information has circulated about the impact of the Taliban on women – a plight ignored by Western politicians until now. Ambivalence about how and in what circumstances the Taliban should be removed has also muffled the female voice of opposition, she believes, not least because those whom the USA might seek to put in their place may be no better.

"One of the great benefits of power is the ability to define a 'correct' interpretation of events," Ann Campbell has written. The lack of any strong female contribution (women MPs will get their chance in next Thursday's parliamentary debate) has perhaps suggested that the consensus in favour of war is more robust than it really is. "We have to find a stronger way of making our voices heard," says Nira Yuval-Davis of the peace group Women in Black.

Females have always been a symbolic presence in war as both the prize and the spur; very infrequently have they had a commanding voice. Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, professor of leadership studies at Leeds University, does detect, however, a strong female influence in the mostly unlikely form – that of the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

What Powell displays, she says, is a female style of transformational leadership, which may have come from navigating through a white elite establishment as an outsider, a black man. "He has a connectedness, he sees the world from different perspectives, he is more reflective, more collaborative," she says. Segal has also noted Powell's very different approach. "Powell is an example of how one can have authority without posturing or macho behaviour."

For his pains, he has been damned by some as a dove. It is surely time to realise that in war, as in peace, no one can afford to let men go it alone.