From Where We Stand War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis

by Cockburn, Cynthia

• ISBN13: 9781842778203
• ISBN10: 184277820X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-03-15
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

This original study by the, the product of 80,000 miles of travel by the author over a two-year period, examines women's activism against wars as far apart as Sierra Leone, Colombia and India. It shows women on different sides of conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Israel refusing enmity and co-operating for peace. It describes international networks of women opposing US and Western European militarism and the so-called 'war on terror'. Women are often motivated by adverse experiences in male-led anti-war movements, preferring to choose different methods of protest and remain in control of their own actions. But like the mainstream movements, women's groups differ - some are pacifist while others put justice before non-violence; some condemn nationalism as a cause of war while others see it as a legitimate source of identity. The very existence of feminist antimilitarism proposes a radical shift in our understanding of war, linking the violence of patriarchal power to that of class oppression and ethnic 'othering'.

Author Biography

Cynthia Cockburn is Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at City University and active in the international anti-militarist network Women in Black.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Different wars, different responses: Colombia, Sierra Leone and Gujerat

Against imperialist wars: three transnational networks

Refusing enmity: in the space formerly known as Yugoslavia

Refusing enmity: in the space formerly known as Palestine

Achievements and contradictions: WILPF and the United Nations

Methodology of women's protest

Diversity and divergence: contested words

Why women? What war says to feminism

Patriarchy and violence: what feminism says to war studies

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