Women on Mass Destruction: More than a Pun
The title of this year's Public Policy Lecture Series is, of course, a pun on “.” But it is much more than that. The title originates with the Washington DC group “Women of Mass Destruction,” which meets at every for a breakfast discussion on Women in Technology and International Security. The group, which includes prominent women in the field—including our first speaker, —was founded by . Gottemoeller has promoted innovative means of arms control; for .
International Relations as a discipline—and international security in particular—has historically underrepresented women in and and presents a for , frequently producing panels that feature mostly or in part because people call up the “usual suspects” instead of thinking actively about their choices. The breakfast group (and this lecture series) is in part intended to highlight the contributions of women to the field, challenge perceptions of security as a male-dominated profession, and connect interested students to mentors. This is but one of many groups that have been created in the discipline to provide countervailing forces, including .
In addition to gender inclusivity being an important issue in Security Studies as a profession, gender is crucially important in the study of International Security, with lively research programs in Feminist and that go back at least , including a as well as a nascent research program in . While not all feminist scholars are women, and while most female security scholars do not study gender, we are pleased to include presentations by women from both critical and network perspectives that address gender. Our second talk in the series, by , “,” discusses how robots constructed for combat purposes can reinforce gendered norms of warfighting. Of course, gender is important for the subject matter of the third talk of our series, in which will discuss for .
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