This thesis analyses the impact of UNSCR 1325 on post-conflict states using Sierra Leone as a case study. It employs the concept of the “postwar moment” defined as a period of fluidity with the potential to be a time of change, particularly in gender relations. This period has historically been negative for women. UNSCR 1325, which implicitly recalls this negative moment, has been prominent in international discourse on post-conflict reconstruction since its creation in 2000. It is credited with improving the position of women in conflict and in peace processes, and by implication, in post-conflict reconstruction, in this way ameliorating the impact of the postwar moment on women. The study uses a word-counting analysis of two Sierra Leonean newspapers covering 2002-2008 and of national policies documents from 2004-2012 to examine elite discourse on gender. The analysis uses frames drawn from a word-counting analysis of 1325 and related texts. The thesis finds that 1325 has had virtually no impact on elite discourse, and that this lack of impact is in some respects a result of weaknesses in the construction of UNSCR 1325 itself, in particular its failure to address the gendered nature of state reconstruction.