Efforts to integrate a gender perspective into transitional justice have come about over the last 15 years in response to the relative neglect of women’s experiences during and after conflict; biases in the law and in the constructs of human rights themselves that have been carried through into the working of transitional justice mechanisms; and biases in processes such as peace negotiations, where deals are reached without women’s representation. Rethinking the design of transitional justice measures must start from the core assumptions upon which these are premised, including such elements as the violations for which redress is sought. Pre-existing unequal power relations between men and women render women particularly vulnerable in conflict settings: this means that women’s experiences of conflict are fundamentally different from men’s, including the impact of conflict itself.