Women are largely absent from discussions of war and conflict, but their roles are crucial to understanding violence at an international level, international law expert Hilary Charlesworth told more than 200 people attending an annual Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics lecture on Wednesday.
“(Sex and gender) are crucial to understanding the continuing Iraq crisis and the war on terrorism,” Charlesworth told the students and community members who filled every seat in a Knight Law Center
lecture hall, with the overflow of listeners spilling onto stairs and leaning against walls.
Margie Paris, associate dean for academic affairs at the law school, said despite their importance, the issues of sex and gender are often left out of traditional accounts of war.
“The arena of international law has long suffered from this perspective — women are largely invisible,” Paris said. “International law has a gender and that gender is male.”
Charlesworth, the 24th holder of the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics, began her speech with a discussion of Morse’s enthusiasm for international law. However, she said she wasn’t entirely sure whether Morse would approve of her contemporary topic, “The Missing Voice: Women and the War
in Iraq.”
Charlesworth said the events of Sept. 11, as the foundation for the war in Iraq, offer a starting point in illustrating the absence of women in conflict.
“Immediately after, they were invisible except portrayals alongside males as victims,” Charlesworth said.
None of the Sept. 11 plane hijackers were female, and the majority of rescue workers portrayed by the media were male, she said. She added that major players making decisions in response to the event were predominantly male.
Sept. 11 featured “men attacking, men saving lives, then men responding,” she said, calling the United States’ efforts to build an anti-terrorism coalition “a men’s-only event.”
Charlesworth said efforts to rebuild Iraq have spurred tension for women’s involvement in the new government, with women getting sidelined to accommodate different religious and ethnic groups. She said women will continue to be excluded “until there is proper security in the area,” although more than 50 percent of the Iraqi population
is female.
She said media coverage of the war has also shaped perspectives of women’s roles.
“The only consistent coverage of women has been as victims of terrorism and victims of oppressive governments,” Charlesworth said.
University freshman Amanda Koplin said Charlesworth, an international law professor from the Australian National University in Canberra finishing up a month-long residence at the law school, offered “a non-U.S. citizen perspective.”
University junior Emily Kaufman said she was happy to hear a new perspective on women and gender roles.
“I wanted to hear a perspective on women that wasn’t just about victimization,” Kaufman said.

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