On 17 June 2025, we welcomed Professor Cynthia Enloe, Research Professor at Clark University, to Queen’s University Belfast to deliver her captivating Lecture on What feminists reveal when they investigate masculinities: The case of military ‘manpower’.  Chaired by Professor Marsha Henry, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice, QUB, this public event was the opening Lecture for the British International Studies Association (BISA) 50th Anniversary Conference that took place 17-20 June.

This Lecture explored how and why military recruiters - in Myanmar, Fiji, UK, Russia, Ukraine, US - wield popular hopes and anxieties about "manliness" to build their forces.  Feminists have shown that governments depend on (and worry about!)  women in their often-failed efforts.  Professor Enloe's riveting words focussed on how people come to be 'fodder' in conflicts and wars around the world.  Enloe explored these points by thinking about exclusions, about the use and abuse of tropes of gender in order to justify armed violence, wars, and militarisation.  Cynthia spoke eloquently about how important it is to think politically about who and for whom individuals and groups become instrumentalised in times of war.

Professor Cynthia Enloe

Cynthia Enloe is a Research Professor in the Department of Sustainability and Social Justice at Clark University and is affiliated with Clark's Women's and Gender Studies and Political Science Programs.

Professor Enloe’s feminist teaching and research explore gendered politics nationally and internationally, with special attention to how women’s labour is made cheap in globalised factories (especially in sneaker factories) and how women’s emotional and physical labour is used by governments to support their war-waging policies and how diverse women have tried to resist each of these efforts.  Racial, class, sexual, ethnic and national identity dynamics, as well as ideas about femininities and masculinities are common threads throughout her studies.

Her career has included Fulbrights in Malaysia and Guyana, guest professorships in Japan, Canada, UK Australia, New Zealand and Iceland, as well as The Middlebrook/Djerassi Visiting Professor of Gender Studies at University of Cambridge, UK.  She has presented lectures across the world and her writings have been translated into several languages.

She has published in Ms. Magazine and The Village Voice and appeared on National Public Radio, Al Jazeera, C-Span and the BBC.

In 2017, she was selected to be named on the Gender Justice Legacy Wall, installed in the International Crimes Court, The Hague.

Professor Marsha Henry

Professor Marsha Henry is the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice.  Her research is concerned with the gendered and racialised politics of violence; militarisation; global south development; international aid and intervention; and conflict, peace, and security.  She is the author of several books, the latest of which is: The End of Peacekeeping:  Gender, Race, and the Martial Politics of Intervention (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024).

Marsha has also advised a number of national governments on women’s participation in the armed forces, combatting sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian settings, and developing anti-racist and diversity strategies in foreign policy ministries.

This event was co-hosted with the British International Studies Association and the Centre for Gender in Politics, Queen’s University Belfast and was co-ordinated by Professor Marsha Henry and Dr Maria-Adriana Deiana, Institute Fellow: Religion, Arts and Peacebuilding, QUB.