Gendered Peace, Women’s Peace

During the early years of the Cold War, women were active participants in all major peace advocacy groups, and they continued to work in traditional women’s peace organizations, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). They also created new groups, such as the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), Women Strike for Peace (WSP), and Another Mother for Peace (AMfP). Some groups relied heavily on their identity as women and mothers, others not at all. Regardless of how much or little they emphasized a special feminine disposition toward peace, these activists believed that their common experiences as women and mothers united them across national, ideological, and religious divides. Gendered language in the Cold War discourse on peace reinforced the notion that women had a special predisposition toward peace. The gendering of peace empowered women in the political realm, but it also allowed male-dominated political elites to marginalize peace as a women’s issue.

Introduction

A single photograph provides one of the few pieces of evidence that Lorraine Gordon and Mary Clarke, both white members of the U.S.-based organization Women Strike for Peace (WSP), were the first American peace activists to interview Vietnamese officials in North Viet Nam after U.S. bombing began....