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

Citation:

Cockburn, Cynthia. 2007. From Where We Stand: War, Women's Activism and Feminist Analysis. New York: Zed Books.

Author: Cynthia Cockburn

Abstract:

The product of 80,000 miles of travel by the author over a two-year period, this original study 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'.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Class, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Political Participation, Race, Terrorism, Violence Regions: Africa, West Africa, Americas, North America, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Western Europe Countries: Colombia, India, Sierra Leone, United States of America

Year: 2007