FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 23, 2023

Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected] 

“There’s nothing feminist about the F-35!” Activists disrupt Lockheed Martin Executive Nancy Ziuzin Schlegel

“Lockheed F-35S KILL WOMEN IN GAZA”

WASHINGTON—On Thursday, the Women’s Foreign Policy Group and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held a talk titled, “Innovation and Leadership in Defense and Security.” The event was billed as “a discussion examining how gender diversity in defense and security leads to greater innovation and leadership within foreign policy.” 

Notably on the panel was Nancy Ziuzin Schlegel, VP, International Government Affairs, whose job includes putting Lockheed Martin weapons in the hands of brutal authoritarian regimes around the world. 

To be clear, there is nothing feminist about arming an apartheid-committing government like Israel with weapons of war that disproportionately kill innocent women and children in occupied Palestine. The death and destruction caused by Lockheed Martin does not become any less fatal simply because women are the ones doing the bidding of the war machine. 

CODEPINK believes this kind of event and dialogue degrades feminism because even gender diverse war-mongers are still war-mongers with blood on their hands. 

That is why three CODEPINK activists commandeered the stage carrying the Palestinian flag and signs that read, “Feminism ≠ Militarism” and “Lockheed F-35s Kill Women In Gaza.” The group temporarily shutdown the live feed of the event on CSIS website. 

“Nancy and Lockheed Martin are making a killing off of killing women. There is nothing feminist about the F-35. Nancy’s employer, Lockheed Martin, makes the f-35 fighter jet. The jet that Israel used to kill Palestinians in Gaza in 2014 and 2021. The F-35 and other weapons are destroying and fueling the climate crisis, which disproportionately killed women and girls and their children,” shouted Olivia DiNucci as they took over the stage. 

Activist Afeni Evans joined her carrying the Palestinian flag and told the audience, “Imperialism is not feminist. Diversity and imperialism do not make us better people. Just because you have a woman pressing the button versus a man pressing the button does not mean that we’re not ruining innocent lives all across the globe.”

Also on the stage was Anna, a CODEPINK organizer. Anna told the panel, “Land and women are not for conquest!”

You can view the disruption here.

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