In 2005, I attended a disarmament, demobilization and re-integration (DDR) ceremony sponsored by the Ugandan Amnesty Commission and the World Bank on the compound of the Paramount Chief of Acholi, just outside of the Gulu town centre. The ceremony began with nyono tong gweno (stepping on the egg), a cultural ritual to cleanse persons who had been gone for an extended period of time from home, and who had been exposed to harmful foreign elements. The cultural leaders held such ceremonies across the Acholi sub-region to welcome back soldiers who had returned from the bush, to communicate to others still at large that the community was willing to receive them, and in hopes of convincing more to surrender. This ceremony had special significance for the cultural leaders, community and the sponsors alike. It was the first to be organized with only senior level commanders. Attendees included Brigadier Kenneth Banya, who had been captured the previous year, Brigadier Sam Kolo, and Colonel Onen Kamdulu, both of whom had surrendered early in 2005. There were also two senior level commanders who were female second lieutenants.

Following the ceremony, the organizers assembled the commanders before the witnesses: members of civil society, religious leaders, local government officials, journalists and national and international researchers such as myself. The Master of Ceremonies asked each male commander to state his name and rank in the LRA into a microphone. The witnesses were completely silent during this process. When the microphone was handed to the two women commanders to introduce themselves and their rank, the witnesses erupted in applause. People were impressed. This response puzzled me. Was it really a sign of women's equality that they had come to occupy a male-dominated position, even if the position was that of a rebel commander responsible for the organization of violence against a civilian population? Or was there an underlying assumption that because they were women, they were less culpable then men, despite similar work?

Studies of women's agency in armed groups have focused on their roles as combatants and the potential of insurgency to liberate women. The presence of female combatants is often understood as some measure of political progress for breaking the glass ceiling.