gender and militarism

Refusing militarism is not possible without refusing hegemonic masculinity

Andreas Speck, War Resisters' International

“Questioning
the militarist value system and its practices which are identified
with military service, one is also obliged to question the hegemonic
understanding of masculinity. In Turkey, military service is a
laboratory in which masculinity is reproduced. The patriarchal system
is solidified through military service.

On Monday 15 February, at the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, one of the seven gates was blockaded by uniquely by women. A planning group of around ten women had got together to organize the ‘women’s gate’. They were members of the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaign, the London group of Women in Black against War, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the electronic network Women against NATO, the London Feminist Network, and other groups.

Talk at the international seminar in Milton Keynes, 12-13 February 2010.

Cynthia Cockburn

On 6 December 2009, Finnish Independence Day (a very militarist event in the country), a woman conscientious objector declared her total objection in Finland. She declared: "I don't want to support a machinery of violence by any means, because it is not creating a happy and just future for us. Militaristic activities only sow and feed hatred and bitterness. We should use all our resources for building and maintaining a sustainable future."

On 6 October 2009 the Venezuelan parliament passed a new law on conscription and recruitment, which replaces the law from 1978, which was no longer in line with the Bolivarian Constitution. While Venezuela's oppositional media mostly reported on "obligatory military service" in Venezuela, the real differences between the law from 1978 and the new law are elsewhere.

editorial by Ariel Attack, originally written for the Queers Against Obama blog, March 9, 2009. Some edits made.
Taken from: Bash Back Denver: Be one of those queers you've heard about: undermine the army's ability to fight! Queer Counter-Recruitment, May 2009

I have an American friend who used to stay in Korea a few years ago. And I remember once he said to me that his family in the USA would often tell him to come back before a war would happen between North and South Korea. After hearing what his family said to him, I realised that people outside Korea thought about a war or a military tension even more than the people living in Korea did. (...)

On 16 April 2009, Human Rights Watch produced a 95-page report - Service for Life - which includes a detailed description of human rights abuses involved in the practice of conscription in Eritrea, not only against the conscripts themselves but also their families, and not only during the period of military service but in forced labour afterwards.

The report in full is available here.

Women have a multitude of relationships to the military: they command regiments, enlist as soldiers, work in the arms industry, clean the kitchens and toilets of military bases… or oppose the military in protests and peace camps. Some women have little choice about their relationship with the military: they are killed, injured, forced from their homes, and bereaved by armed conflict. Others are recruited, sometimes ‘voluntarily’, but very often forcibly, to provide sexual services to male military personnel.

This article is the result of material published in the Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns and a session on gender and nonviolence at WRI's International Nonviolence Training Exchange, in Bilbao in October 2008.

It may seem simple and obvious that we want both men and women involved in our struggles against war and injustice. However, if we want to fully utilise people's talents, energy, and insights, we need to apply gender awareness to how we organise ourselves, how we design our campaigns, and how we conduct our trainings for action.

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Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, www.peacewomen.org. Includes women's peace and security resources, with materials from many cultures and contexts and a number of handbooks and training resources.See also http://www.peacewomen.org/resources/Organizing/organizingindex.html The Inclusive Security Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action. Developed by International Alert and Women Waging Peace,available in PDF format at:http:// www.womenbuildingpeace.org or http://www.womenwagingpeace.net Advocacy Guide for Feminists, http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/An-advocacy-guide-for-feminists Claiming Justice, Claiming Rights: A Guide for Women Human Rights Defenders, http://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/pdf2007/book3Neo.pdf\ International Women's Partnership for Peace and Justice: http://www.womenforpeaceandjustice.org/ Women Peacemakers Program: http://www.ifor.org/WPP/index.html Women in Black: http://www.womeninblack.org/

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How does a peace group interweave gender awareness into its peace work? This can be done through its organisational identity and structures, its training and orientation of members, and its development of program strategies.

New Profile, the Israeli peace organisation, describes itself as 'a group of feminist women and men who are convinced that we need not live in a soldiers' state'. Such a clear identification publicises the connections between gender and peace from the very beginning, for anyone who comes in contact with the organisation. New Profile breaks traditional organisational patterns by rotating leadership roles and all paid functions and tries to avoid having a hierarchy of activities. The group's many training and educational programs for new members and the public—workshops, seminars, youth groups, and conferences—always include an analysis of how gender and militarism are connected in Israeli culture and society. It also conduct whole-day study circles that look more deeply at the connections. One such study day in 2007, for example, used photographs of female soldiers from the army's archives to look at the the military recruitment of women in Israel and the general militarisation of the whole society. With such opportunities for study and discussion, New Profile members bring a deeper gender awareness to their problem analysis of militarism and their strategic action planning. New Profile's Small Arms and Light Weapons project not only looked into the problems and structure of the Israeli arms trade, but also investigated how small arms affected individual's lives and how New Profile could help redefine the term 'security' in Israeli culture.

More on New Profile in Israel - New Profile learns from the experience of others