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

Cynthia Cockburn

Zed Books, Feb 12, 2007 - Political Science - 286 pages

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'.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Origins of the book: 2
• Research approach: 3
• Some concepts and theories: 5
• The shape of the book: 8
• Different wars womens responses: 13
• a feminist response to genocide in Gujarat: 23
• women civil society and the rebuilding of peace: 33
• Against imperialist wars three transnational networks: 48
• Women in Black for justice against war: 51
• Women for Peace: 62
• East AsiaUSPuerto Rico Womens Network against Militarism: 67
• Disloyal to nation and state antimilitarist women in Serbia: 79
• the manipulation of national identity: 80
• A feminist response to nationalism and war: 83
• Feminist analysis and counterinformation: 86
• Addressing the deadly issues of identity and place: 88
• The personal is international: 93
• from guilt to responsibility: 101
• A refusal of othering Palestinian and Israeli women: 106
• unilateral Israeli moves: 109
• Israeli activism against the occupation: 110
• Bat Shalom the Jerusalem Center for Women and the Jerusalem Link: 112
• Palestinian perspectives: 116
• Israeli perspectives: 118
• a basis for dialogue?: 120
• Palestinians in a Jewish state: 122
• Moving beyond dialogue: 125
• Achievements and contradictions WILPF and the UN: 132
• The Womens International League for Peace and Freedom: 133
• WILPFs organization and scope: 136
• Carrying women peace and security into the UN: 138
• the hard road from rhetoric to practice: 143
• Limitations of the institutional route: 147
• A valuable lever for women antiwar activists: 152
• Methodology of womens protest: 156
• Responsible process minimal structure: 157
• Vigilling and other street work: 160
• From the schools to the law courts: 164
• Ritual and symbolism: 170
• The political use of silence: 172
• Womens peace camps: 173
• putting the body into play: 176
• Prefigurative struggle: 178
• Towards coherence pacifism nationalism racism: 181
• National belonging and ethnic otherness: 192
• Committed to creative argument: 202
• Choosing to be women what war says to feminism: 206
• The valorization of everyday life: 208
• The trope of motherhood: 209
• Male sexsexual violence: 212
• Organizing as womenonly: 215
• women who want to men who dont: 222
• A feminism evoked by militarism and war: 225
• Gender violence and war what feminism says to war studies: 231
• feminists marginal notes on international relations: 232
• doing gender: 235
• Theory grounded in womens experience of war: 239
• an erect posture on the home front: 242
• enough aggression not too much: 247
• the woman the labourer and the stranger: 252
• Bibliography: 260
• Index: 276

About the author

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

Bibliographic information

• Title: From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis; Online access: EBSCO Humanities International Complete
• Author: Cynthia Cockburn
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Zed Books, 2007
• ISBN: 1842778218, 9781842778210
• Length: 286 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Peace; Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory; Social Science / Women's Studies