United States of America

‘Basically Feminist’: Women Strike for Peace, Maternal Peace Activism, and Memory of the Women’s Peace Movement

Citation:

Coburn, Jon. 2021. “‘Basically Feminist’: Women Strike for Peace, Maternal Peace Activism, and Memory of the Women’s Peace Movement.” Journal of Women’s History 33 (2): 136–62.

Author: Jon Coburn

Abstract:

This article examines the varying historical expressions of activists in Women Strike for Peace (WSP) to assess how changing gender ideology and feminist beliefs influenced the memory of the women's peace movement. A transformation in collective identity occurred among WSPers in the late 1960s, causing the group to engage with the women's movement in a way that had not previously occurred. Exploring how activists understood their past, this article reveals that leaders revised their group's historical narrative to craft a collective memory that gave WSP a history of feminist activism. This is shown most prominently in the reappraisal of Bella Abzug and the histories produced by activist Amy Swerdlow. The article argues that interpretations of the history and memory of the women's peace movement must acknowledge how gender politics change over time. It asserts the significance of this transformation for historicizing feminist beliefs among women's peace activists.

Topics: Gender, Femininity/ies, Gender Roles, Political Participation, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: United States of America

Year: 2021

The United States–India Nuclear Relations after 9/11: Alternative Discourses

Citation:

Das, Runa. 2012. “The United States–India Nuclear Relations after 9/11: Alternative Discourses.” Asian Journal of Political Science 20 (1): 86–107.

Author: Runa Das

Abstract:

In this article, I go beyond the conventional realist arguments of anarchy, national interest, and nuclear security to offer alternative discourses of the same as applied in the context of US–India nuclear relations after 9/11. To this extent, I draw from feminist International Relations, that security is a gendered phenomenon, to explore how the post-9/11 climate of globalization has served as the context within which are articulated masculinist forms of nuclear discourses between India and the United States. Furthermore, considering issues of international hierarchy and power relations between India and United States, I also draw from Edward Said's Orientalism to explore how assumptions of Orientalism are also sustained in these masculinist nuclear discourses. My contribution in this article lies in offering an alternative feminist and post-colonial perspective to comprehend that nuclear security discourses are not only about objective realist/neoliberal issues of insecurity and strategic interdependence but also contain subjective implications that sustain masculinist and orientalist forms of identity-making in international politics.

Keywords: United States, India, nuclear security, masculinity, orientalism, discourse

Topics: Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Discourses, Masculinity/ies, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: India, United States of America

Year: 2012

More Bang for Your Buck: Nuclear Weapons and Their Enactment of Colonial and Gendered Power

Citation:

Urwin, Jessica A. 2016. “More Bang for Your Buck: Nuclear Weapons and Their Enactment of Colonial and Gendered Power.” ANU Undergraduate Research Journal, no. 8.

Author: Jessica A. Urwin

Abstract:

Analysing the nuclear weapons regime through both postcolonial and feminist frameworks demonstrates that the possession of nuclear weapons has incredibly important implications for the security agenda. While both postcolonial and feminist scholars have delved into the relationships between their respective disciplines and the dynamics of the nuclear weapons regime, gaps in the scholarship ensure that postcolonial feminist critiques of the regime are lacking. This article endeavours to combine postcolonial and feminist critiques to demonstrate how the nuclear weapons regime is underpinned by pertinent gendered and colonial assumptions. These assumptions ensure that certain states are prioritised over others; namely, the behaviour of nuclear weapons states is considered more legitimate than that of ‘rogue states’, their desire for nuclear weapons hinged upon racial, colonial and gendered assumptions of legitimacy. Closely analysing the gendered and colonial dynamics of the nuclear weapons regime sheds light upon how patriarchy and imperialism have shaped the security agenda in regard to nuclear weapons.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Femininity/ies, Gender Analysis, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Peace and Security, Security, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: India, Pakistan, United States of America

Year: 2016

Radioactive Masculinity: How the Anxious Postcolonial Learnt to Love and Live in Fear of the Nuclear Bomb

Citation:

Roy, Dibyadyuti. 2016. “Radioactive Masculinity: How the Anxious Postcolonial Learnt to Love and Live in Fear of the Nuclear Bomb.” PhD diss., West Virginia University.

Author: Dibyadyuti Roy

Abstract:

Radioactive Masculinity explores how the Cold War legacy, of nuclear weapons finding resonance in images of white maleness and masculinity, results in anxious hypermasculine performances. These discursive and physical masculine acts contingent on the symbolic and material power of nuclear weapons, I argue, represent radioactive masculinity, a form of hegemonic militarized masculinity, which is intrinsically linked to the concept of nationhood and sovereignty. This idealized masculinity is fluid and cannot be tangibly or materially realized, much like the constantly decaying radioactive bomb on which it is modeled. Through analyzing a wide range of artifacts from America and India, I show that the anxieties of radioactive masculinity produce belligerent masculine performances, which are always volatile and unsuccessful. While existent scholarship has examined the gendered nature of nuclear technology, the cultural effect of unexploded nuclear weapons has been seldom researched. My project remedies this gap by locating physical and cultural sites in America and India, where the materiality of the bomb is made visible through its associations with male corporeality. This relationship, I argue, is indispensable toward understanding both the continued legacy of the Cold War within the Indian subcontinent, as well as its effects on postcolonial subjectivities.

The dissertation begins with an introductory chapter that chronicles the rise of radioactive masculinity within the American military-industrial complex. Here, I analyze official US government documents and related materials, which perform the equation of the bomb to the hardened white male body. I show that while nuclear technology is not inherently gendered, both the bomb and its production spaces were pre-discursively masculinized in order to counter dual insecurities: of post-Depression era American emasculation and a hypermasculine Nazi Germany. Next, I bring in a comparison to Indian governmental documents to further describe how the transference of American radioactive masculinity into postcolonial spaces creates postcolonial nuclear borderlands, which are co-extensive with all nuclear postcolonial spaces everywhere. Chapter 2 examines the formation of a (pseudo) nuclear public sphere in America— resulting from the crisis in official publicity about the bombin the period following the cessation of above ground testing. By juxtaposing canonical Anglo-American nuclear disaster fiction with postcolonial speculative fiction, Chapters 3 and 4 emphasize that the structures of radioactive masculinity are fluid and not bound to specific spatio-temporal contexts. In Chapter 5, a comparative analysis of Leslie Silko’s Ceremony with postcolonial Indian texts from the eco-conservationist Bishnoi community demonstrate how tactical storytelling challenges the strategic structures of radioactive colonization. My dissertation concludes with an examination of minority anti-nuclear cultural productions, which by challenging the ideology of nuclear nationalism implicit in radioactive masculinity, deconstructs dominant Anglo-American nuclear historiography. By challenging the symbiotic relationship between radioactive masculinity and nuclear nationalism these texts initiate Nucliteracya dynamic multimodal form of literacythat interrogates dominant and official publicity/secrecy about the bomb. (Abstract from original source)

 

Keywords: radioactive, postcolonial, nuclear bomb, masculinity, gender, post-apocalyptic

Topics: Gender, Gender Analysis, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: India, United States of America

Year: 2016

Bikinis and Other S/Pacific N/Oceans

Citation:

Teaiwa, Teresia K. 2010. “Bikinis and Other S/Pacific N/Oceans.” In Militarized Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Setsu Shigematsu and Keith L. Camacho, 15–32. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Keywords: bikini, nuclear power, Pacific Islanders, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, feminization, sexualization, colonialism, female body, nuclear testing

Annotation:

Summary:

This chapter suggests that the bikini bathing suit manifests both a celebration and a forgetting of the nuclear power that strategically and materially marginalizes and erases the living history of Pacific Islanders. By analyzing militarist, nuclear, and touristic discourses on Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, it demonstrates the feminization and sexualization of nuclear colonialism while elaborating how empires have been engendered through the deformation and violation of Pacific Islander bodies. It describes the bikini bathing suit as a testament to the recurring tourist trivialization of Pacific Islanders’ experience and existence. By drawing attention to a sexualized and supposedly depoliticized female body, the bikini distracts from the colonial and highly political origins of its name. The sexist dynamic the bikini performs—objectification through excessive visibility—inverts the colonial dynamics that have occurred during nuclear testing in the Pacific, that is, objectification by rendering invisible. (Summary from Publisher)

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Femininity/ies, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Regions: Americas, North America, Oceania Countries: Marshall Islands, United States of America

Year: 2010

Personal Politics: Radical Feminism, Difference, and Anti-Nuclear Activism

Citation:

Harvey, Kyle. 2014. “Personal Politics: Radical Feminism, Difference, and Anti-Nuclear Activism.” In American Anti-Nuclear Activism, 1975–1990, 68–92. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Author: Kyle Harvey

Abstract:

In the late 1970s, as the anti-nuclear movement began its large-scale revival, an array of women’s protest collectives and activist organizations formed, aiming to offer feminist perspectives on the nuclear threat and define an appropriate activist response. These new groups built upon, extended, and challenged the legacy of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), formed in 1915, Women Strike for Peace, formed in 1961, and a host of other women’s organizations and feminist groups involved tangentially in peace activism, women’s liberation, and related activity. In the 1980s, some female activists situated their peace protests within political and legislative institutions, drawing a great deal from the successes of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Others, more radical in their approach, used ideas about militarism, ecology, and personal expression to oppose nuclear arms as merely one of a myriad of crises threatening women the world over. Mirroring the meeting of women’s liberation and radical feminism in the late 1960s, these very different strands of feminist thought—and their expression within the anti-nuclear movement—reflect how much second-wave feminism changed during the 1970s. They also demonstrate the significance of the rise of cultural feminism in the 1970s and the subsequent marginalization of radical feminists from the wider women’s peace movement.

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Peace and Security, Peacebuilding, Weapons /Arms Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2014

An Offering from the Bayou

Citation:

Pichon Battle, Collette. 2021. “An Offering from the Bayou.” In All We Can Save, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. Penguin Random House.

Author: Collette Pichon Battle

Annotation:

Book Summary:

There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.

All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.

Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save. (Summary from Penguin Random House)

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Girls, Women Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2021

Black Women in the United States and Unpaid Collective Work: Theorizing the Community as a Site of Production

Citation:

Banks, Nina. 2020. “Black Women in the United States and Unpaid Collective Work: Theorizing the Community as a Site of Production.” The Review of Black Political Economy 47 (4): 343–62.

Author: Nina Banks

Abstract:

This analysis discusses the lived experiences of Black American women as the basis for a new theoretical framework for understanding women’s unpaid work. Feminist economists have called attention to the invisibility of women’s unpaid work within the private household but have not adequately considered the unpaid, nonmarket work that women perform collectively to address urgent community needs that arise out of racial and ethnic group disparities. As such, racialized women’s unpaid, nonmarket work continues to be subject to invisibility. This analysis reconceptualizes Black women’s community activism as unpaid, nonmarket “work” and illustrates that the community is a primary site of nonmarket production by Black women and other racialized women. The community is an important site where racialized women perform unpaid, nonmarket collective work to improve the welfare of community members and address community needs not met by the public and private sectors. The analysis elevates the community to a site of production on par with the household, thereby calling for a paradigm shift in feminist economic conceptualizations of unpaid work. This new framework enables us to examine intersectional linkages across different sites of production—firms, households, and communities—where multiple forms of oppression operate in structuring peoples’ lives. Compared with additive models of gender and race, this intersectional approach more fully captures the magnitude of racialized women's oppression.

Keywords: African American women, unpaid work, community work

Topics: Economies, Care Economies, Feminist Economics, Gender, Women, Intersectionality, Race Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2020

A Green New Deal for All of Us

Citation:

Gunn-Wright, Rhiana. 2021. “A Green New Deal for All of Us.” In All We Can Save, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. Penguin Random House.

Author: Rhiana Gunn-Wright

Topics: Environment, Climate Change Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2021

Gender, Seeds, and Biodiversity

Citation:

Sachs, Carolyn E. 1997. “Gender, Seeds, and Biodiversity.” In Women Working In The Environment. New York: Routledge.

Author: Carolyn E. Sachs

Abstract:

All over the world, declining biodiversity threatens people's livelihoods, cultures, and standards of living. Degradation of the environment, destruction of natural habitats, and changes in cultural strategies for survival contribute to the increasing loss of biodiversity and also to the impoverishment of women (Abramovitz, 1994; Shiva, 1995). Declines in biological resources often result in declining standards of living for many people in the world, especially women and the poor (Abramovitz, 1994 ). Women, in many cultural contexts, rely on diverse biological resources to provide food, clothing, housing, and other needs for their families. As access to these resources declines through environmental degradation or inequitable distribution of resources between men and women, women's workloads often increase and their ability to provide food for their families decreases. As a result of gender divisions of labor, women and men have different knowledge about plants and other biological resources (Sachs, 1996). Efforts to preserve biodiversity have generally neglected women's work and knowledge about crops and other natural resources. This chapter focuses on women's knowledge and efforts to maintain crop diversity. First, we discuss reasons for the decline in crop genetic diversity; then, we focus on two studies of seed saving in the United States and the Peruvian Andes.

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Gender, Men, Women, Livelihoods Regions: Americas, North America, South America Countries: Peru, United States of America

Year: 1997

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