Fluid Commitments: Participation, leaky militarised bodies and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

The United Kingdom’s (UK) 2023 – 27 National Action Plan (NAP) for implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the UK calls for consideration of urination, menstruation, breastfeeding and menopause in the UK Armed Forces. While the governance of bodily fluids is not a new phenomenon, we demonstrate how this objective marks a shift in understanding women’s health within the military, and within the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda: from protection to participation. Through a policy ecosystem analysis of key UK government and parliamentary documents, we demonstrate how the UK’s WPS NAP presents logics of fluid governance operating to keep women within the military. In exploring the martial governance of bodily fluids, the article exposes tensions at the heart of this commitment. Though there is a serious attempt to challenge existing martial culture to prompt “meaningful participation” of cis-servicewomen, a strong undercurrent of containment and management of ciswomen’s bodies persists. The transformative potential of WPS agendas thus paradoxically serves to reproduce the masculine, martial logics military women health leaders had hoped it would erode.