Gender

Citation:

Nelson, Lin. 1984. “Promise Her Everything: The Nuclear Power Industry’s Agenda for Women.” Feminist Studies 10 (2): 291–314.

Author: Lin Nelson

Annotation:

Excerpt:
“The purpose of this article is to examine in detail he campaign to cultivate nuclear consciousness among women—particularly through an industry-sponsored group called Nuclear Energy Women. But firs we need to place that campaign in the larger context of the nuclear industry’s efforts to sell its product as essential to the American way of life” (Nelson 1984, 293).

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Political Participation, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: United States of America

Year: 1984

Citation:

Maleta, Yulia. 2018. “Australian Women’s Anti-Nuclear Leadership: The Framing of Peace and Social Change.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 19 (6): 70–86.

Author: Yulia Maleta

Abstract:

This article addresses a gap on hegemonic masculinity/emphasized femininity and essentialism/constructivism within the Environmental New Social Movement (eNSM). Utilizing my interviews with Australian women members of environmentalist New Social Movement Organisations (eNSMOs), including eNGOs, academic institutions and the Greens party, I adopt a constructivist approach towards emphasized femininity, arguing that women-led strategies, strengthened through agentic competence contributes to global peace, whilst challenging the patriarchal control of environmental governance (Cockburn 1988, 2012). My feminist sociopolitical model is framed by resistance to ruling class masculinity, emphasizing participants’ gender performativity, advocating anti-nuclear agendas (Warren 1999, Gaard 2001, Butler 2013). Constructivism is relayed by the way women activists’ resist patriarchy as a barrier, in terms of ‘hierarchy’, ‘man-made decisions’ and ‘power…terrible nasty stuff’. Moreover, women accommodate emphasized femininity as an empowering enabler, framed by women-led strategies, described as ‘revolutionary’, ‘mother and child’, ‘social responsibility’ and ‘environmental protection’, whilst advocating sustainability (Leahy 2003, Connell 2005, Culley and Angelique 2010, Maleta 2012).

Keywords: emphasized femininity, women, constructivism, Anti-nuclear, sustainability

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Femininity/ies, Gender Analysis, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Patriarchy, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: Australia, Guatemala

Year: 2018

Citation:

Liddington, Jill. 1991. The Road to Greenham Common: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Author: Jill Liddington

Abstract:

In this volume, Liddington examines the power of feminists in organizing peace movements in Britain from the aftermath of the Nepoleonic Wars to the end of the Cold War. Examining their criticisms of Britain's many conflics during more than 150 years, Liddington—among other things—provides an understanding of the "long road" that led to the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s. (Abstract from GWonline)

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Political Participation, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 1991

Citation:

Kirk, Gwyn. 2019. “Our Greenham Common: Feminism and Nonviolence.” In Rocking the Ship of State: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics, edited by Adrienne Harris and Ynestra King, 115–30. New York: Routledge.

Author: Gwyn Kirk

Annotation:

Excerpt:

“In this chapter I look at Greenham as an example of feminist nonviolence. In Chapter 14 I discuss the Greenham network as a political form. I have separated these two strands for clarity and emphasis, but this somewhat arbitrary division unfortunately cannot reflect the inter-connectedness between these aspects. I use Greenham in a broad sense to mean the peace camp and the many women's peace groups and projects associated with it. I have been involved in this network since February 1982 and have participated in many of the actions and discussions mentioned here, although I have not lived at the  peace camp for any length of time. (I use "we" when describing actions I was involved in and "they" when discussing those I heard about or observed.) For me, as for so many others, Greenham has been an extremely important focus, forging, however falteringly, a distinctively feminist peace politics” (Kirk 2019, 118).

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2019

Citation:

Das, Runa. 2007. “Broadening the Security Paradigm: Indian Women, Anti-Nuclear Activism, and Visions of a Sustainable Future.” Women’s Studies International Forum 30 (1): 1–15.

Author: Runa Das

Abstract:

This article uses the anti-nuclear activism of Indian women as a case study to question the relevance of statist discourses of security in Indian politics. By highlighting their activism against the Indian state (under its recent Hindu Right Bharatiya Janata Party government), this article deconstructs how (in)security imaginaries have been utilized by the Indian state to legitimize India's nuclear policies; how the Indian state's perceptions of (in)security has collided with 'people-centric' visions of security; and finally, how activism has enabled these women to de-center a militaristic and communal vision of (in)security that undergirds India's nuclear policy. I also highlight the ways in which women's activism has differed from that of men's including how women activists have used distinctive rationales and strategies to oppose Indian nuclearization. The contribution of this article lies in stitching together the spirit of inclusiveness that brings these women's leadership qualities, capabilities, and preferences to broaden India's security paradigm.

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Masculinism, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Nationalism, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Countries: India

Year: 2007

Citation:

Acheson, Ray. 2021. Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy. Milton Keynes, UK: Rowman & Littlefield.

Author: Ray Acheson

Annotation:

Summary:

Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy offers a look inside the antinuclear movement and its recent successful campaign to ban the bomb. From scrappy organizing to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and achieving a landmark UN treaty banning nuclear weapons, this book narrates the journey of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and developments in feminist disarmament activism. Acheson explains the process through which diplomats, activists, and nuclear survivors worked together to elevate the horrific humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons, develop new international law categorically prohibiting the bomb, challenge the nuclear orthodoxy, and strengthen norms for disarmament and peace. Told from the perspective of a queer feminist antimilitarist organizer who was involved from the start of the process through to the treaty’s adoption, the book utilizes interviews with dozens of participants, as well as critical theoretical perspectives about transnational advocacy networks, discourse change, and intersectional feminist action. It is meant to provide useful insights for anyone trying to make change amidst structures of power and politics. (Summary from publisher)

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, International Law, NGOs, Rights, Human Rights, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Year: 2021

Citation:

Runyan, Anne Sisson. 2018. “Disposable Waste, Lands and Bodies under Canada’s Gendered Nuclear Colonialism.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 20 (1): 24–38.

Author: Anne Sisson Runyan

Abstract:

Nuclear colonialism, or the exploitation of Indigenous lands and peoples to sustain the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining and refining to nuclear energy and weapons production and the dumping of the resulting nuclear waste, occurs in many parts of the world and has generated considerable protest. This article focuses on a contemporary and ongoing case of nuclear colonialism in Canada: attempts to site two national deep geological repositories (DGRs) for nuclear waste on traditional First Nations land in Southwestern Ontario near the world’s largest operational nuclear power plant. Through histories of the rise of nuclear power and nuclear waste policy-making and their relationship to settler colonialism in Canada, as well as actions taken by the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) and white settler antinuclear waste movements, the article explores how gender is at work in nuclear colonialism and anti-nuclear waste struggles. Gender is explored here in terms of the patriarchal nuclear imperative, the appropriation of Aboriginal land through undermining Aboriginal women’s status and the problematic relationship between First Nations and white settler women-led movements in resistance to nuclear waste burial from a feminist decolonial perspective.

Keywords: nuclear waste, gendered nuclear colonialism, white settler colonialism, patriarchal nuclear imperative, Canada

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Indigenous, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2018

Citation:

Ross, Andrew J. 2021. “Preemptive Strikes: Women Strike for Peace, Antinuclear Pacifism, and the Movement for a Biological Democracy, 1961–1963.” Peace & Change 46 (2): 164–82.

Author: Andrew Ross

Abstract:

This article examines the social, political, and environmental features of the Women Strike for Peace (WSP) movement from its inception in 1961 to the passage of the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) in 1963. I offer the analytical framework of “biological democracy” as a conceptual bridge between environmental and sociopolitical approaches to WSP. The movement’s gendered critiques of US foreign policymaking, its organizational structure, and its participation in the production and distribution of scientific knowledge demonstrate how progressive women used maternalist discourse to oppose US Cold War policies in the early-1960s. WSP participants leveraged their social proximity to the biological condition of the family as “givers and guardians” of life to dissent against the nuclear arms race, heighten female voices within Cold War geopolitics, and increase public awareness of the hazards of radioactive fallout caused by ongoing atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. By coopting conventions of maternalism and domesticity as justification for their cause, WSP women effectively mollified patriarchal and anti-communist attacks as they organized against Cold War militarism and nuclear irradiation. In so doing, they offered a vision of US democracy that responded to individualized, feminine activism and prioritized public health over nuclear armament.

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

Year: 2021

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

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