Circling the Missiles and Staining Them Red: Feminist Rhetorical Invention and Strategies of Resistance at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common

Citation:

Laware, Margaret L. 2004. “Circling the Missiles and Staining Them Red: Feminist Rhetorical Invention and Strategies of Resistance at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common.” The National Women's Studies Association Journal 16 (3): 18–41.

Author: Margaret Laware

Abstract:

The Women's Peace Camp at Greenham in Newbury, England, survived almost twenty years, from 1981 until 2000, as an extended protest against the placement of nuclear missiles on British soil and provided an innovative and generative space of feminist rhetorical invention. This essay provides an analysis of their evolving protest actions. It looks specifically at the types of feminist rhetorical invention employed-including feminist coding strategies, use of women's bodies as rhetorical topos, and the use of Background symbolism, affirming symbols of women's lives-to create a women-centered community and challenge the patriarchal traditions and symbols that the nuclear missiles represented.

Keywords: background symbolism, embodied rhetoric, feminist coding strategies, feminist peace protest, feminist rhetorical invention, Greenham Commn Women's Peace Camp, menstrual

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Infrastructure, Peace and Security, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2004