I. Introduction

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On the global stage, women remain underrepresented in the nuclear field, especially in positions of nuclear policy and large-scale decision-making. Part of this is attributed to the fact that women, sexual minorities, and gender non-conforming individuals have had limited access to military participation into the twenty-first century, especially with gendered restrictions on necessary credentials like security clearances. [1] Even now, women make up only 20% of the Defense Department, and a minority of members of security think tanks in DC, delegates to nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and the broader nuclear workforce. [2] It is also estimated that 20% of the technical nuclear workforce identifies as a woman. And this number shrinks in the particular area of nuclear security and policy. [3] Nevertheless, certain international initiatives, coming from organizations that provide training and certification for professionals in nuclear policy, have begun to pursue the goals of gender equality and to broaden women’s inclusion in the nuclear realm. The assumption appears to be that including women will contribute to more “peaceful applications of nuclear and radiological technology, increasing their safety and security” as well as diplomacy enriched by women’s diverse perspectives as they take on roles as decision-makers, innovators, researchers, and diplomats (for more information on the gendered assumptions underpinning such efforts, see Marco Cisneros-Farber’s paper). [4] In this paper, I will specifically evaluate the effectiveness of programs seeking gender parity in distinct sectors of nuclear policy and weapons development.

 

II. WiN Global and WINS

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At the recent Women in Nuclear (WiN) Global Conference, President Melina Belinco and World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) Senior Project Manager, Viviana Espinosa, signed a formal partnership to promote gender equality in nuclear security. [5] As part of their initiative, they planned to develop “technical training, mentorship programmes, expert exchanges, and co-authored resources” to build a more gender diverse body involved in nuclear work. Part of the mission of the two organizations, and what brings their interests together, is improved diversity for improved performance. They maintain that a diverse and inclusive nuclear policy field is important to creative, complete, and effective nuclear agreements. Policy Analyst Elena Souris corroborates that this move has “the potential to unlock ‘novel, progressive and innovative solutions to intransigent challenges.’” [6] Women are supported not only for their interest in nuclear security and to develop equal access to opportunity, but the program specifically includes women to make progress toward more innovative nuclear policy.

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WINS joined the joint initiative with the underlying notion that a “diverse and inclusive workforce is better for everyone: shareholders, stakeholders and society in general.” [7] They outline that the global nuclear sector needs to have, in practical terms, “the best people working for it.” [8] A feature that doesn’t go unnoticed in the program is also that improved gender representation builds “society’s trust in nuclear technologies.” [9] Nevertheless, the initiative does not superficially highlight successful women in the field or focus on recognition; rather, the methods develop practical avenues for women to work in roles they aspire to in the realm of nuclear policy. In this way, the model of the WINS program makes sense to the organization “economically, socially, and structurally.” [10]

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Programs that promote women’s development in this way actively acknowledge the dearth of women in the sector. They try to address obstacles preventing women from entering the nuclear security profession, including a lack of role models and mentorship. In a study of approximately two dozen women with experience in nuclear arms control and non-proliferation policy, the women cited that programming should help women practically succeed in the nuclear field while also pushing change in exclusive and overly masculine workplace cultures. They stress representing women on panels, citing women in academia, and developing positive leadership climates. [11] While some of these aims may feel abstract, programs like WINS work to expand women’s involvement in professional policy roles through avenues like “Professional development and mentoring.” [12] It also remains unclear if having role models does enough to help women get hired in the roles they want. WINS also works to address this key piece: “Women often are not offered the same training and professional development opportunities as men, leading to a failure to advance in the organisation.” [13] WINS works to create equal opportunity for women to pursue these avenues if they wish. To build a more gender-balanced cohort of individuals entering the nuclear policy field, WiN Global hosts an annual conference to help women network. In the Southeast Asia-specific sector of WiN, the organization conducts assessments to tailor its mentorship series and build effective networks for young women in nuclear security in the region. [14] 

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WINS also addresses gender parity by publishing reports on gender breakdowns for professionals in the nuclear field. The Gender Program within WINS, which launched in 2018, also helps organizations access self-assessment tools to evaluate their own progress towards gender parity. Another key network that helps women enter nuclear policy is the organization Women in International Security (WIIS). WIIS maintains a professional global network of over 15,000 members internationally who maintain a goal of intersectional peace and security. By offering members opportunities to share about their professional publications and jobs and publish content and research, the organization advances women’s career development. [15]

 

 

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Photo from one of the WIN (Women in Nuclear) Global annual conferences. [16]

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Rose Gottemoeller, former United States Under Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary General of NATO, and American advocate for women’s involvement in international security, harbors a similar sentiment, “We know that we at NATO need to do a better job [paying attention to the role of women in security] because stability, security, and conflict resolution only come about when women are fully engaged and able to work together and with their governments and with us to ensure that problems get solved down to the level of the village and the local government.” [17] Gottemoeller argues that women are crucial to addressing the root problems of security issues, and involving them means valuing their views. She advocates for gender balance to secure responsive alliances, especially within NATO, as well as better security capacity, improved force readiness, and expanded military effectiveness in key operations. Bringing in diverse backgrounds empirically helps security. Gottemoeller claims that, “In recent years, we have seen that stability, security, and conflict resolution only come about when women are fully engaged and able to work together with their governments and to work together with us to ensure that problems get solved down to the level of the village and the local government.” [18] As such, the outcomes of programs that seek to involve women and elevate their views become even more key to the future of the nuclear policy field.

 

III. Munich Security Conference

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While these programs offer tools to assess and improve women’s involvement, it is also important to reflect on empirical indicators of women’s involvement in nuclear professions. Security conferences are an important location for those seeking to make it in the field of nuclear policy, according to Christal Morehouse, senior program officer for the Open Society Foundations. Unfortunately, Morehouse describes that, “These events reinforce the glass ceiling by presenting men as more important decision makers and limiting networking opportunities for women.” [19]

In a key report on gender breakdowns at Europe’s leading security conferences, it was discovered that among the events least attended by women were the “Munich Security Conference, which hosts just three female speakers for every seventeen male ones, and the Davos World Economic Forum, which averaged one female speaker for every four men.” [20] Involving women in these conferences is important because they are places where the heads of public and private organizations and leaders in research and government learn from each other and work together in a public setting that is often reported on an international scale. [21] This exposure is valuable for women seeking higher positions in nuclear decision-making and encourages younger women to pursue roles that they perceive individuals like them succeeding in. Since the Munich Security Conference was so poorly attended by women historically, its leaders took measures before the most recent iteration to support gender parity at the conference. They took meaningful steps to brainstorm with various women-focused organizations and involved international security organizations to create a more diverse conference. [22] As a result, the 60th Munich Security Conference had women as over half of the speakers in its program. This meant a lot of exposure for the women participating, given that the conference is notable for its scope and coverage of both traditional and human international security. [23]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Image from the 2024 Munich Security Conference showing the mainstage panel discussion. [24]

 

IV. Lockheed Martin

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On the front of nuclear weapons development, the operation to build gender parity has a different flavor. In this section, I will focus on defense contractors like Lockheed Martin that performatively include women, but use the women they hire for gender-washing, presenting themselves as active, future-oriented organizations. By examining different programs pursued by Lockheed Martin, specifically, I will indicate that rather than actually attempting to bring women into the field of weapons development, the company seeks to leverage an image of modernity that legitimizes its projects, and may ultimately undermine how feminists can engage with arms control.

If you were to look at Lockheed Martin’s website, you may believe that the company is doing great work for women and is nearing gender parity in its working demographic. The Lockheed Martin website is full of success stories for diversity and women’s involvement. A featured page tells us to “Celebrate Women’s History Month with Extraordinary Employees.” Lockheed Martin shows the names and faces of women, inviting an audience to “Explore stories from our unique and diverse employees that make up the Women of Lockheed Martin.” [25] This presentation would help convince individuals that Lockheed Martin is on its way to supporting gender-diverse involvement in weapons manufacturing; however, when critically examining its workforce environment, it becomes clear that Lockheed Martin does not maintain a praiseworthy representation of different genders in their company, and this veneer is tarnished.

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Globally, women made up 23.5% of Lockheed Martin’s 121,000 employees compared to men’s 76.4%. [26] These statistics represent little to no substantive improvement for gender equality in hiring and positions in recent years. In Australia in 2025, 21.7% of the working population were women (a decline from 32% in 2024). Only 10% of their technical workforce identifies as a woman, along with 23% of new hires, very far from gender parity. [27] [28] In the UK in 2021, 17% of Lockheed Martin’s new hires were female, while 22% of their overall workforce was female and 18% of current senior leadership. [29] In the UAE, 20% of Lockheed Martin employees are women. [30] In general, these demographic breakdowns are not as prominent on the website as the smiling faces and experiences of the “Women of Lockheed Martin.”

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The company showcases a lot of the “work” it does for women. On one mission to include more women in nuclear roles, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon partnered with the Girl Scouts to encourage women to consider particular STEM careers in which they are often underrepresented. However, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which this partnership with young girls contributes to greater inclusion of women. Learning about goal setting, networking, and branding at this level seems very different from actually offering women opportunities to build the skills and network they need to access job opportunities, regardless of their gender. While seeing women positioned in technical scientific fields does some work towards instilling confidence in younger generations of women interested in the nuclear field, this step is not effective at uplifting women who have this interest and securing them equal access to opportunity in a meaningful way.

 

 

 

 

 

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Girl Scouts of Suffolk at the Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation [31] and the Girl Scouts and Lockheed Martin Patch. [32]

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Another program that appears empty is the Lockheed Martin Women’s Impact Network (WIN), launched nearly twenty years ago. While some of the goals of the organization are reminiscent of those of WIIS or WiN Global including, “empowering them to cultivate leadership skills, business, practices, personal contacts and career opportunities,” it is clear that the company hasn’t invested sufficient effort into these goals considering they consistently hire significantly fewer women and have maintained a general workforce that is around 23% women for the last four years.

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While Lockheed Martin has additional initiatives that attempt to uplift women once they are already part of the company, this also seems to miss the important element of involving more women in the field initially. The Women and Allies in STEM (WAIS) of the Lockheed Martin group vaguely promotes the roles of woman engineers after they are a part of the company. [33] Once women are already part of the workforce, they can also benefit from Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are on a mission to promote “a diverse and inclusive workplace aligned with our organisational mission, values, goals and business practices.” The ERGs include a Menopause group, which is tasked with promoting employee wellbeing in critical ways. [34] Yet, this commitment to dismantling gender barriers in terms of accounting for and addressing women’s health and wellbeing seems like an afterthought and advertising piece for the organization, which maintains such a low percentage of its workforce that identifies as women.

 

V. The Goal of Workplace Diversity

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In general, the women that Lockheed Martin hires fit a general characterization. The organization’s website presents testimonials from people like Hayley, a Manufacturing Engineer, who states, “Here, I am a part of a work environment where I am surrounded by a network of brave, driven women.” This characterization, alongside quotes praising the inclusive environment of the company, seems to contradict the apparent statistics about gender diversity in the company. Within this context, we might evaluate the case of Lockheed Martin as a form of gender washing, in which the company doesn’t meaningfully integrate women or facilitate avenues for gender inequality, but specifically highlights the importance and public value of its so-called “diverse” activities. [35] Additionally, the few women Lockheed Martin does represent in its organization are involved via “integration and participation within existing orders,” something that critical feminists argue upholds militarism, by reaffirming “masculine models of citizenship and political processes,” especially within the context of nuclear weapons. Thus, organizations like Lockheed Martin that attempt to advertise the presence of women within their company, when there is an apparent lack, don’t get at the root of this gendered problem, as feminist scholars like Lola Olufemi argue. Specifically, Olufemi argues that “feminism is about much more than simply gender representation,” it is also about tackling systemic violence, addressing militarism, economic systems that uphold violence and conflict, and elevating human security. In this way, Lockheed Martin, in its slight attempts to promote gender diversity, does not help women advance towards these feminist ends. [36]

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In pursuing a business model reflective of diversity and inclusion, without delivering on these statements, Lockheed Martin benefits from the inaccurate portrayal of itself as “pro-women.” In doing so, it undercuts how feminism can function in the nuclear world in two ways. First, it makes claims about the importance of women in the company, without actually caring to make progress towards gender parity or diversity. By failing to honor these goals, it does not support meaningful change in this overly masculine industry. Second, by presenting itself as diverse, the organization also undercuts “the association between feminism and opposition to nuclear weapons, thus complicating efforts to advance arms control and disarmament through feminist interventions,” [37] according to Kjølv Egeland and Hebatalla Taha, scholars of nuclear history, politics, and disarmament (see more in Marco Cisnero-Farber’s Paper). The programs of Lockheed Martin, therefore, do not sufficiently uphold the feminist cause because they fail to meaningfully involve women and are more directly tied to painting the company as an inclusive and gender-diverse powerhouse that “does nuclear differently,” even though they lack the empirical evidence to uphold these claims.

 

VI. Conclusion

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When examining the nuclear sector, it is important to understand when women are being included, how their achievements and roles are highlighted, and for what end. While there is a general development in the nuclear policy space to include women for their own sake and to evolve opportunities for women to bring unique perspectives to the issue of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation agreements, much remains to be done. Giving women a platform in key nuclear security conferences, like that in Munich, helps support women’s visibility, which plays a role in modeling the successes and voices of underrepresented individuals in impact-heavy decision-making. While visibility in this way seems to support gender equality in the nuclear sector, highlighting women is not always an effective means towards safer nuclear policy or weapons development. In the case of weapons developers like Lockheed Martin, uplifting women takes on a different significance, and public moves to support women help legitimize nuclear use and programs within the military-industrial complex, while doing little to benefit the women seeking opportunities, who are at the center of this topic.

 

 

Works Cited

 

[1] “Executive Summary.” 2026. New America. March 26, 2026. https://www.newamerica.org/insights/the-consensual-straitjacket-four-decades-of-women-in-nuclear-security/executive-summary/.

[2] Muhammed Ali Alkış, and Polina Sinovets. 2023. “Nuclear Security: Making Gender Equality a Working Reality.” International Journal of Nuclear Security 8 (2). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375368919_Nuclear_Security_Making_Gender_Equality_a_Working_Reality.

[3] “Gender and Nuclear Security: Challenges and Opportunities WINS Special Report Series.” 2019. https://www.wins.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Gender-and-Nuclear-Security_Pg28.pdf.

[4] Arapoff, Julia. 2023. An Overview of Global Gender Initiatives for Women in the Nuclear and Radiological Fields. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. May 2023. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1991704.

[5] “WiN Global and WINS Sign a MoU to Strengthen Collaboration on Gender Equality and Nuclear Security – Women in Nuclear.” 2025. Win-Global.org. July 16, 2025. https://win-global.org/publicaciones/win-global-and-wins-sign-a-mou-to-strengthen-collaboration-on-gender-equality-and-nuclear-security/.

[6] Souris, Elena. 2019. “Why Nuclear Diplomacy Needs More Women.” The Washington Post. May 23, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/23/why-nuclear-diplomacy-needs-more-women/.

[7] “WiN Global.”

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “Executive Summary.”

[12] “WiN Global.”

[13] “Gender and Nuclear Security.”

[14] Arapoff, An Overview.

[15] Ibid.

[16] “Women in Nuclear.” 2026. Win-Global.org. February 11, 2026. https://win-global.org/.

[17] Schumann, Anna. 2019. “Women in Nuclear History: Rose Gottemoeller - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.” Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. April 24, 2019. https://armscontrolcenter.org/women-in-nuclear-history-rose-gottemoeller/.

[18] Bigio, Jamille. 2018. “Five Questions on How Women Contribute to NATO.” Cfr.org. Council on Foreign Relations. July 11, 2018. https://www.cfr.org/articles/five-questions-how-women-contribute-nato.

[19] “Women Vastly Outnumbered at Europe’s Top Policy Events.” 2018. Opensocietyfoundations.org. 2018. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/newsroom/women-vastly-outnumbered-europe-s-top-policy-events.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] “MSC Continues Dialogue on Strengthening Female Participation in Foreign and Security Policy Conferences.” 2020. Securityconference.org. May 12, 2020. https://securityconference.org/en/news/full/msc-continues-dialogue-on-strengthening-female-participation-in-foreign-and-security-policy-conferences/.

[23] Heusgen, Christoph. n.d. Review of Security Conference Annual Report 2024. Munich Security Conference. Accessed March 25, 2026. https://securityconference.org/assets/user_upload/MSC_Annual_Report_2024.pdf.

[24] “Munich Security Conference 2024 - Munich Security Conference.” 2024. https://securityconference.org/en/medialibrary/collection/munich-security-conference-2024-munich/. 2024. https://securityconference.org/en/medialibrary/collection/munich-security-conference-2024-munich/.

[25] “Women of Lockheed Martin.” n.d. Lockheed Martin. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/women-of-lockheed-martin.html.

[26] “Performance Index — Lockheed Martin ESG Report.” n.d. Sustainability.lockheedmartin.com. https://sustainability.lockheedmartin.com/sustainability/performance-index/.

[27] Review of 2025 WGEA Employment Statement. n.d. Lockheed Martin Australia. Accessed March 25, 2026. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/au/documents/2025%20WGEA%20Employment%20Statement.pdf.

[28] Review of 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report. n.d. Lockheed Martin Australia. Accessed March 25, 2026. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/au/documents/LMA-WGEA-Report-2024.pdf.

[29] “Gender Pay Report, Lockheed Martin UK.” n.d. https://lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/uk/documents/who-we-are/Gender_Pay_Report.pdf.

[30] Matar, Sarah, Kanika Aggarwal, and Jessica Groot. 2024. “Gender Equality as a Catalyst for Aerospace and Defense Transformation.” Kearney. July 18, 2024. https://www.kearney.com/industry/aerospace-defense/article/gender-inequality-in-the-workplace-how-empowering-women-can-strengthen-aerospace-defense-and-security.

[31] “Girl Scouts Visit Center for Innovation for Orion Launch.” 2022. Blogspot.com. 2022. https://gscccblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/girl-scouts-visit-center-for-innovation.html.

[32] “Earn Your Girl Scouts and Lockheed Martin Patch.” Gscoblog. November 11, 2020. https://www.blog.girlscoutsofcolorado.org/post/earn-your-girl-scouts-and-lockheed-martin-patch.

[33] “IWD: Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion Is a Business Imperative.” International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day. 2022. https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Activity/17334/Our-commitment-to-diversity-and-inclusion-is-a-business-imperative. 

[34] Ibid. 

[35] Kjølv Egeland, Hebatalla Taha. Experts, activists, and girl bosses of the nuclear apocalypse: feminisms in security discourse. Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 2023, 12 (2), pp.245-266. ⟨10.1007/s42597- 023-00100-3⟩. ⟨hal-05058876⟩

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid.