By Emma Sandifer
The blast from a nuclear weapon does not discriminate. The radioactive fallout from that blast, however, is a different story. Women around the world sit in the dangerous position of being overrepresented among victims of cancer and death due to nuclear fallout yet vastly underrepresented among those who make the life and death decisions related to nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons issues are women’s issues. Women need to demand a seat at the decision-making table, and men need to either help us build a bigger table or give up their own seats. This month marks both the International Day for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Awareness and International Women’s Day. It is a prime moment to consider the disproportionate impact that the potential use of nuclear weapons and the absence of diverse voices in nuclear decision making has on women.
Nuclear weapons testing and use undeniably devastate anyone and anything that is exposed. However, studies on the biological impact of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear reactor meltdown at Chernobyl, and nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands and Kazakhstan have shown that women are more vulnerable to the effects of ionizing radiation than men. Report after report shows higher levels of cancer, thyroid conditions, and blood-based disease among exposed women. Additionally, women face reproductive and pregnancy-related consequences, including miscarriages and stillbirths, and giving birth to children born with severe birth defects. Exposed Marshallese women, for example, reported giving birth to “jellyfish babies” or children born without bones and with transparent skin.
Aside from dire biological effects, women also face disproportionate levels of social, cultural and psychological consequences. These include displacement and potential crisis situations in which discrimination and sexual violence toward women often occur. Female “hibakusha,” survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, faced intense radiation-related social stigma barring them from society. Marshallese women suffered degrading evacuation examination processes by American soldiers. Women across Europe reported disproportionate amounts of psychological strain and mental health issues following the Chernobyl incident. These are stories that we do not usually hear but are critical to understanding the human impact of these weapons and informing policy decisions that affect the health and safety of women around the world.
Women have long been active agents in fighting to protect the world from the threat of nuclear weapons. A vastly incomplete list of examples of this vibrant history of advocacy includes the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, women’s groups across the Pacific Islands working together to advocate for the 1986 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, Marshallese activists like Lijon Eknilang sharing the horrors of nuclear testing with the world and in front of the U.S. Senate, and the Women Strike for Peace organization formed by American women who mobilized against arms racing and nuclear testing, playing a galvanizing role in the passing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Disarmament activists like Coretta Scott King, Dagmar Wilson and former Member of Congress Bella Abzug were central to the peace movement in the United States and around the globe, organizing against nuclear arms racing and pressing President John F. Kennedy toward the nuclear test ban.
Women were and continue to be passionately involved in this field. Their advocacy did not stop with the end of the Cold War. Women continue to work tirelessly toward nuclear non-proliferation and arms control despite strong barriers to leadership positions.
In 2019, New America released a report in which women who worked in senior levels of the nuclear, arms control and non-proliferation fields in the U.S. spoke about their experiences in leadership as well as the challenges they faced in terms of access. These highly qualified women represent the small percentage who are able to reach the heights of nuclear policy decision-making, in a field that was characterized as “closed off and highly hierarchical.” This report also surveyed the total number of women that have held leadership positions in U.S. nuclear policy from 1970 to 2019, citing positions in the Departments of State, Defense and Energy as well as the National Security Council. It found that that out of 188 leadership opportunities in 49 years, positions of nuclear policy leadership were occupied by women a mere 23 times. That’s barely 12 percent, when there is a widely held understanding that equal participation of women in peace and security policymaking is essential for the formulation of effective and durable policies.
While many women held critical nuclear policy positions during the Biden administration, that minimal progress is already being undermined, despite there being more women than ever who are qualified to hold high-level positions. Throughout the White House, National Security Council, and the Departments of Defense, State and Energy, signs are pointing to a concerning absence of women in positions of nuclear policy decision making. Over on Capitol Hill, the same is true with every position in the Congressional leadership as well as every House committee leadership seat held by men. Not only that, the majority and minority leadership of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, a vital nuclear policy decision-making forum, features exclusively men. And the U.S. has a relatively progressive record on women in peace and security when compared to other nuclear states.
In the United States and other nuclear-armed states, leaders are considering increases in nuclear arsenals and even an ill-advised return to nuclear testing. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive buildup of its nuclear arsenal represent change factors driving tensions as health and welfare considerations are increasingly lost. Amid these troubling developments, it is important to remember who is making these decisions. If women are disproportionately impacted by the use and testing of nuclear weapons, why are there far fewer women than men in the room when decisions related to nuclear weapons policy are deliberated?
Despite the disproportionately harmful health effects of ionizing radiation and demonstrated tradition of engagement with nuclear issues, women are largely absent from the positions and rooms where decisions on nuclear weapons are made. This is the hard truth for most social and political issues in the United States: women are routinely excluded from the conversations that directly impact their own quality and way of life. With nuclear tensions rising every day, perhaps it is time for the men to step aside and let the women work.
