Transitional justice scholarship has increasingly recognized the importance of gender, yet we still know less about how women’s relationship to politics relates to attitudes toward reconciliation. Existing research often explains gender differences in reconciliation through violence, trauma, and insecurity. This paper argues that political efficacy should also be considered, because it speaks to citizens’ perceived capacity to understand politics, participate in public life, and feel that their views matter. In Colombia, these questions are especially relevant in a transitional context where women’s inclusion has been formally recognized, but important inequalities in political voice and influence persist. We focus on one interpersonal dimension of reconciliation: willingness to communicate with those who caused harm during the armed conflict.

Drawing on nationally representative survey data from the 2021 Reconciliation Barometer, we find that women are less willing than men to express willingness to communicate with those who caused harm and also report lower levels of political efficacy. Differences in political efficacy are associated with part of this gender gap. Further analyses suggest that political knowledge is more strongly associated with men’s reconciliation attitudes, whereas perceived voice, political agency, and the sense that politicians value citizens’ opinions are more strongly associated with women’s attitudes. The paper contributes to gendered analyses of transitional justice by showing that differences in political efficacy are one factor associated with women’s and men’s divergent attitudes toward interpersonal reconciliation in Colombia, and by highlighting the importance of political agency for understanding gendered patterns of post-conflict engagement.