Cynthia Enloe is a research professor of women’s studies and militarism, and as the next speaker in UM’s President's Lecture Series will give a talk on "Women and the Iraq War," Monday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. in the Montana Theatre.

“I'll be talking about both us and Iraqi women as they relate to this war -- and why we need to
look at both together,” Enloe said. “I've been trying to make sense of women's diverse but important relationships to both war and to peacetime militarism since about the early 80s ,” she continued.

Enloe is a research professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. She is this year’s
Maxine Van de Wetering "Women Making History" Lecturer at UM, and studied and wrote about militaries and racism before turning to women’s issues. Enloe says, “I had not realized I could learn a LOT about militaries and wars and the cultures of militarism by taking women's lives seriously - it was my women students at Clark University who first nudged me to ask these questions.”

For the past twenty years, Enloe has been taking the topic seriously, and has authored the book "Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives," which focuses on that work.

On Iraq, Enloe says, “Iraqi women had very mixed experiences under the 1980s and 1990s Baathist party regime. In the 1980s when the Baathists were dedicated to secular politics and to modernizing the economy, many - not all - women gained access to education and to professional jobs -- at the same time many women were arrested for alleged dissent and suffered in prison.”

She noted that while many Iraqi women today are very critical of the recent Saddam Hussein regime, they look at the war, and its impacts on their country, in a complex manner that doesn’t always translate through the media.

Enloe’s talk Monday night will be preceded by a seminar on "Women and the Globalization of Factories," in the Gallagher Business Building, Room 123 from 3:10 to 4:30 p.m. Both events, presented in conjunction with UM's Women's Studies Program, are free and open to the public.