Rebecca Turkington
@rcturk.bsky.social
330 followers 170 following 30 posts
Historian of feminism, colonialism, and conflict. Museum enthusiast, former think-tanker. Currently at Georgetown working on an archive of the Hillary Clinton State Department.
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I've heard from so many people since we published on Monday saying this article resonated with them. We need more attention to this complete destruction of women's rights programming and the impact it has on women, and on national security.
The Trump administration has abandoned the consensus that women’s participation and perspectives add value to U.S. security policy and operations.
Trump Erases Women From Foreign Policy
The White House has overturned the decades-old bipartisan policy consensus that female empowerment serves U.S. interests.
foreignpolicy.com
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
The Trump administration has abandoned the consensus that women’s participation and perspectives add value to U.S. security policy and operations.
Trump Erases Women From Foreign Policy
The White House has overturned the decades-old bipartisan policy consensus that female empowerment serves U.S. interests.
foreignpolicy.com
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
🗣️ #WPSWednesday: “An inclusive approach to peace & security has never been more urgent. The best way to mark 25 yrs of 1325 is to reaffirm its agenda & turn commitment into action.” Melanne Verveer @rcturk.bsky.social gjia.georgetown.edu/2025/10/08/r...
Reflecting on 25 Years of Women, Peace, and Security - Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
gjia.georgetown.edu
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
🆕| In erasing women from U.S. foreign policy, the Trump administration has overturned the decades-old bipartisan policy consensus that female empowerment serves U.S. interests.

Read @saskiabr.bsky.social & @rcturk.bsky.social's latest for @foreignpolicy.com👇
Trump Erases Women From Foreign Policy
The White House has overturned the decades-old bipartisan policy consensus that female empowerment serves U.S. interests.
foreignpolicy.com
This month marks 25 years since UNSCR 1325 formalized the "Women, Peace & Security" Agenda. Amb. Verveer and I reflect on the ambitions of the resolution and why WPS matters more than ever in these profoundly difficult times: gjia.georgetown.edu/2025/10/08/r...
Reflecting on 25 Years of Women, Peace, and Security - Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
gjia.georgetown.edu
About once I year I remember this perfect Nanci Griffith live set exists and I want to share it with everyone. And today is that day, enjoy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDpT...
Nanci Griffith - Austin City Limits (1989) Full Show
YouTube video by Nanci Griffith Rarities
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
António Guterres is addressing the 80th UNGA now: 80 years on, he says, we face the same question the UN's founders did, but more urgent: "what kind of world do we choose together?...a world of raw power, or a world of law?"
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
Among the deletions in this year's Trump-era human rights report: women's rights.

Barely a mention for half of humanity. Both outrageous and pathetic.

www.bbc.com/news/article...
BBC: Trump administration rewrites and scales back annual human rights report
Reporting guidance from this 1979 telegram asks embassies to cover women's rights "with greater specificity in all reports" and offers a list of questions about women's legal, economic, and social status. #FRUS history.state.gov/historicaldo...
Historical Documents - Office of the Historian
history.state.gov 3.0 shell
history.state.gov
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
OTD in 1989 the Tiananmen Square Protests were forcibly suppressed by the Chinese state.

In this piece from our archive, Rebecca Turkington (@rcturk.bsky.social) discusses the Chinese #MeToo movement and the women resisting state repression in contemporary China.
#MeToo in China
Rebecca Turkington explores how the #MeToo movement in China today is made possible through rich histories of Chinese feminists organising inside, alongside and beyond the state.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
I was back in VT over Easter, and everyone at church was writing Mohsen letters and car-pooling up to protest at the detention center, they absolutely considered him a neighbor and were furious.
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
Unhappy to confirm that the entire Historical Advisory Committee at the State Department received termination notices this afternoon (myself included). The HAC, set up by Congress, oversees the office that produces the FRUS series. history.state.gov/about/hac/in... 1/
Tim Naftali's tweet on the termination of the HAC members without cause.
The list includes ~400 major social science, historical, and even fictional works on race and/or gender. I guess the exhaustive erasure is the point, but some of them are absolutely absurd: media.defense.gov/2025/Apr/04/...
media.defense.gov
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
It's so dumb how much this administration relies on ctrl+F searches with zero human thought behind them. Really, Naval Academy students can't read "Enacting Gender on the English Renaissance Stage" and "Gender in Early Modern German History"? www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/u...
These Are the 381 Books Removed From the Naval Academy Library
Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and books on the Holocaust were among the works removed in response to an order from the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
Brigadier General Harriet Tubman, a pioneer of U.S. special operations forces.
I absolutely adore this new Irregular Warfare Initiative article by Wyatt Thielen — arguing that Harriet Tubman embodied "the best of U.S. historical military tradition" and should be recognized as a pioneer for today’s special operations forces. irregularwarfare.org/uncategorize...
Harriet Tubman: The Original Special Operations Pioneer
Harriet Tubman's strategic brilliance during the Combahee River Raid laid the foundation for modern U.S. special operations. Learn how her actions shaped military history.
irregularwarfare.org
The details are chilling. USIP canceled a contract with a security firm it suspected was working with DOGE. Four guards came anyway, forced their way into the building, opened the WEAPONS SAFE, and then broke down the LOCKED DOOR of USIP president Amb. Moose: www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
DOGE plays hardball in U.S. Institute of Peace takeover
DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, took over the U.S. Institute of Peace after threatening its officials with criminal prosecution.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Rebecca Turkington
bsky.app/profile/reil... this is bonkers and deeply disturbing. Private security, DOJ, DOGE, and the DC police together worked to take control over a private building the government *does not own* and dismiss the staff *whom the president does not employ,* removing them, it seems, with armed force
USIP does excellent work, it supports deep research, and uses that research to improve conflict resolution and prevention efforts. It also houses the Civil Society Working Group on WPS, which for 15 years has allowed the gender and security world to argue, exchange ideas, and stand together.
Amidst many horrifying stories, this one hits home; I used to be at USIP almost weekly for events and coalition meetings. DOGE called the police to break in and evict staff of an independent organization that is NOT part of the executive branch: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Doge occupies US Institute of Peace headquarters after White House guts its board
A Trump executive order targeted the non-profit despite the organization not being part of the executive branch
www.theguardian.com
I'm happy to work at a university defending its first amendment rights and religious freedom as a Jesuit institution in the face of this administration's bullying. And defining the principle of diversity as "a moral and educational imperative."
With his permission, I'm sharing Dean Treanor's response to Ed Martin's letter: