‘So few of us and so many of them’

a r t i c l e s ‘So Few of Us and So Many of Them’ US WOMEN RESISTING DESERT STORM ROBIN L. RILEY State University of New York at Plattsburgh, USA Abstract ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Public protest against the Persian Gulf War in 1990 –1 was only part of the story of US American women’s resistance to war in general and to that war specifically. Although the gendering of war is seldom discussed outside feminist scholarship, the events of 11 September 2001 and its aftermath as well as all events and processes having to do with war are gendered events and processes. Both women and men participate in war in various ways, some of which, particularly in the case of women, are either not noticed, are deliberately ignored or made invisible. In this essay, the stories of some women who protested the Persian Gulf War are represented alongside questions that their narratives prompted about what constitutes anti-war work, and what the ramifications of such work are in the present international context. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keywords activism, anti-war work, gender, peace, protest, war, women’s roles in war time As I write, the United States is once again at war with Iraq. Though one might argue that what is happening now is not war but rather, ‘occupation’ the killing of both US American soldiers and personnel and Iraqis has not ceased. Complicated by heated rhetoric that helped create the ‘war on terrorism’ the ‘new war’ with Iraq has none the less prompted some voices of opposition to the war both within the USA and around the world. In retrospect, many Americans have mixed emotions about the first war with Iraq, the Persian Gulf War (Schwarz 1994; Walsh 1995; Wilcox et al. 1996). In the years between the cessation of the first Iraqi war and now, there has been much skepticism about the reasons for that war and its purpose (Kramer 1991: 36; Ajami 1992: 48; Wright 1998: 53). The outcome, the end of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait but the continued presence of Saddam Hussein as a power, and the International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7:3 September 2005, 341–357 ISSN 1461-6742 print=ISSN 1468-4470 online # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd http:==www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080=14616740500161086 perceived threat to the West, gave rise to criticism of the (George H.W. Bush) administration’s conduct of the war, and fueled questions about the purpose of the war. Now Saddam Hussein’s continued presence has given the administration of George W. Bush a focus for its anger over the events of 11 September 2001. The research presented here investigates these events on the basis of feminist perspectives1 on war and militarism, which recognize these events and processes as inherently gendered. Women and men participate in war in various ways, some of which, particularly in the case of women, are either not noticed or made invisible. Some of the ‘invisible’ activities women engage in are about resisting war. I studied2 an anti-war group that met every Saturday morning in a small city in upstate New York to demonstrate against the first Gulf War from early September 1990 through the duration of the conflict. I was interested to learn how women in the group thought about their activism, whether they connected anti-war work with ideas about female bodies and nature and in whether they thought resistance to state activities was or was not congruent with traditional practices of femininity. I conducted interviews with them from September 1990 into 1991. The core group consisted of between twenty and thirty people. This group was made up of mainly women with four or five men who consistently attended. Almost half of the core group participated in the study. The women self-selected for interviews. Because it was a small group once I had mentioned that I was doing this work, word quickly spread that I was interested in interviewing women. With only a couple of exceptions, that of Mary most notably, who I approached because of her long history of activism, the participants volunteered to be interviewed. The participants are all given pseudonyms in this article to protect their identities. The participants were women who routinely attended the demonstrations. They were all white and multi-generational. Some were college students, some middle-aged community members. Mary seemed to be the oldest female member of the group. The protesters in this group were from various socio-economic groups: some were students, some were professional workers, some worked in low-wage service occupations. Almost all of the protesters were white. Sporadically, some African American women did participate, but there were no efforts, either formal or informal, on the part of the group to recruit people of color,3 and there were only a few discussions about why more people of color did not join the group more frequently (Kellner 1992: 76).4 The Persian Gulf War presented a unique opportunity for US military women to progress. Historically in war, both men and women have demonstrated, in very different ways, their worth as citizens. War, being such a gendered business, has predominantly presented opportunities for men to prove their manliness, aggression and bravery, and for women to prove their faithfulness as supporters, mothers and cheerleaders (Elshtain 1987; Tickner 1992; Enloe 1993). During the Persian Gulf War though, women’s opportunities for 342 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ demonstrating patriotism were expanded. Women were sent in significant numbers to serve in the Gulf, approximately 6 per cent of all the US soldiers sent to the Persian Gulf – or 40,782 soldiers – were women (WREI 2004) and they served openly and with distinction in various branches of the military during that conflict in expanded and more dangerous roles than ever before (Elshtain 1987).5 During the war, some military women were taken prisoner and successfully endured interrogation, and sometimes sexual assault, in spite of dominant societal beliefs that women were incapable, or at least unsuited for, such tests of national loyalty and personal bravery. Not all women, however, used the expanded space to participate in war, or even in support for the war. Some US women practiced ‘patriotism’ by using the space as a site of resistance, as a chance to oppose the war, to work for peace.6 Some of that peace work was done overtly on the streets of American cities; but as I am about to describe, more occurred quietly in homes, schools, churches and neighborhoods. Within the USA, there were perceptions that women’s increased formal participation within the military was complemented by civilian women’s support for the war. The relegation of most women at home to the role of silent supporter tended to be taken for granted rather than problematized within popular culture – it became ‘common sense’ (Weedon 1987: 72; Enloe 2004: 149). According to this dominant view, women knew what to do in times of war, acting in socially approved feminine ways came ‘naturally’ to them. Stoically sending sons – and now daughters – off to serve, parenting children whose fathers – and now mothers – were sent to Saudi Arabia and refraining from offering a critique of government actions, were all takenfor-granted aspects of women’s traditional role in war time. As part of this role, women were exhorted to show their support in additional ways. Television programs and newspaper stories urged families (meaning women) to send care packages with items such as food, toilet paper and sun block to the Gulf because the soldiers could not get such items in Saudi Arabia.7 They were also expected to show their support of the Government and the war through the use of yellow ribbons. Decorating neighborhoods, houses, cars and clothing with yellow ribbons and American flags became part of women’s war work at home.8 Americans were left with the impression that the role of women within times of conflict, rather like women’s roles within the workplace, simultaneously expanded and yet remained the same – new responsibilities were simply added to the old. Women could be both soldier and mother, defender and defended, and white women should be advocate of war abroad and keeper of the peaceful home. Actually, not all women cooperated in the paradoxical roles defined for them. Consigning women to such strictly defined roles indicates ignorance of the complexity of the category woman. As has been the case throughout US history, for white women, the roles of either participant or supporter were unacceptable.9 There have been women who refused to engage in either militarized position prescribed for them but rather chose positions of -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 343 resistance. Women in the USA resisted the Persian Gulf War both quietly and very vocally, as activists, wives, mothers, neighbors and colleagues. MISSIONS A mass of literature has accumulated in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. There are the usual military and political analyses, there are books that either analyze media coverage or lament the military’s control of media coverage and there are essays that deconstruct the wearing and display of yellow ribbons. In all of these works, however, amid all of these words, there is virtually nothing about resistance or protest.10 Protest against the war and resistance to it did occur, but little attention was paid to it at the time or now as it is in the best interests of the powerful for the not-sopowerful to conform with their wishes, or at least to appear to do so, and for government and the media to produce a ‘public transcript’ that upholds the status quo (Scott 1990: 2). The ‘public transcripts’ (Scott 1990: 2)11 of the Gulf War reinforced the subordination and invisibility of women and people of color in the USA and made it seem as if all US Americans supported the war. Studies of public opinion on the nature of support for, or opposition to the war, are the exception. These works indicate that what has been presented as overwhelming American support for the war was in fact mostly a construction rather than a reflection of reality.12 The research points out that what we have been told was unconditional support for the war was gendered and raced; it was not representative of all Americans (Mueller 1994: 43). Support for the war was concentrated among white men, and women and people of color did not support US military actions to the same degree. Of course this has rarely been acknowledged as it is not a part of the ‘public transcript’ of the war. Immediately preceding and in the early days of the war, there was actually large-scale ambivalence regarding American participation in the Gulf (Mueller 1994: 50; Schwarz 1994: 17; Bendyna et al. 1996: 2). There were two large national demonstrations opposing the war held in Washington DC, which cumulatively drew an estimated 200,000 people (Cagan 1992: 377; Mueller 1994: 59; Walsh 1995: 95). There were also large demonstrations in other major US cities that drew similarly large crowds (Cagan 1992: 377, Carter 1992: 346). Once the war began, however, the protests became virtually invisible. The mainstream media almost uniformly chose to engage in creation of a ‘public transcript’ that was pro-war. Although it was difficult to discover13 unless one was on the streets of cities and small towns throughout the USA, there was continuing protest against the war (Hoynes 1992: 309, Kellner 1992: 250), and women constituted a significant part of that resistance. Although the public opinion gender gap in support of the war narrowed as the fighting began, women never supported the war to the same degree that men did (Bendyna et al. 1996: 5). Some 344 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ women chose to demonstrate their resistance to the war through participation in protest activities. The stories of women for whom sending care packages and raising good soldier sons is not an acceptable option in war time are often obscured in favor of maintaining particular traditional understandings of gendered practices (Early 1997: xviii). In spite of the way in which anti-war resistance has been femininized in popular culture as not what ‘real men’ do in times of war (Boose 1993: 80), few representations of protest against the war in the literature today either mention or acknowledge women’s participation. When individuals are mentioned, most references are to male leaders or spokespersons (Early 1997: xviii).14 Thus women who resisted militarized roles either as soldier or supporter have been quite successfully erased (Kellner 1992: 76). For women in war time, raising good, militarized sons for cannon fodder, supporting the troops in the field through word and deed – for example sending care packages to the Gulf, and preparing for soldiers’ homecoming – are the appropriate missions. In contrast, the women in this study who resisted the war saw working for peace as their patriotic mission.15 While dominant constructions of femininity typically prohibit or impede women from taking action against government and institutions, there were women who felt compelled to speak out against the war both overtly and covertly. The women in this study wrote letters to politicians, newspapers and magazines (Kellner 1992: 248). Other women wrote songs. One woman visited post offices weekly and removed military recruiting literature. Some women used their classrooms to teach peace. Still others participated in formal protests by attending marches and rallies. Often, these women did not characterize their actions as resistance. Sometimes, they characterized them as an extension of their role as mother: Being a mother is what made me interested initially. I never cared about current events. Maybe it was just a point of maturity, but the kids were the tool, maternal responsibility. I was looking at my kids and thinking, as they got older I began to love them even more and I thought, I worked so hard to raise them. Am I going through all this to someday put them on a bus to be shipped off to God knows where? I was scared to death at what would happen to them. (Sally) Sally’s story points out that contemporary constructions of femininity, coupled with those of patriotism, discourage a discourse that would permit these women to think and talk about what they were doing in terms of either adherence or resistance to social and political institutions. Instead, they are just being good moms. Because resistance is not acceptable for women in militarized patriarchal societies, women who protest have difficulty finding language to describe their actions. Often women who participated in the study utilized expressions of anger as motivators for their anti-war work. When asked directly, however, -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 345 they uniformly denied being angry and instead used words like ‘frustrated’ to explain why they protested. It’s not angry, I’m just concerned about the people. (Marietta) Not anger, just frustrated and bewildered. I think it’s really senseless and stupid and I don’t understand why other people can’t see that. (Jean) These women saw themselves as more aware and more educated than others about the political circumstances surrounding American entry into the war. They named their actions then as a kind of civic responsibility to speak out and educate more uninformed members of the national community. In this way they were teachers, not resisters. Families, neighbors and colleagues, however, were rarely appreciative of such maternal or pedagogical efforts. The protesters’ stories about interactions with those they cared for were painful to experience, to tell and to hear. In every conversation about the war (and people talked of little else in those days, as in these), they risked the wrath of neighbors, coworkers, friends, families and, in some cases, spouses in order to speak out. Madeline tells of seeing a friend on the street while she was participating in a protest: When he saw me down there he didn’t say a word. He just looked at me. Even now, when I see him, I can tell he doesn’t want to talk to me. It hurts. He treats me so differently and it really hurts my feelings. Frequently personal conversations about the war threatened their commitment to peace far more strenuously than did the actions of protest or the shouted oaths of passers-by. Sally related being told not to speak about the war at work. A co-worker told her: ‘Listen you make me uncomfortable when you talk with me about it.’ As a result, Sally curtailed her remarks of disapproval of government policy: I learned early on not to talk about it at work ‘cause all of a sudden I’d get this icy politeness. I think I would have preferred direct ridicule that I sometimes get from friends and neighbors to that icy politeness. I realized that they had put me in the category of oddball. Being silenced and silently characterized as ‘odd’ was mild in comparison to some of the experiences of these women. Harsh words were exchanged and formerly close relationships were fractured as a result of speaking out against the war. Another woman was not as easily dissuaded as Sally from conversing about the war. She describes her reaction to negative responses 346 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ from others: ‘I don’t mind snide remarks, if anything I feel sorry for the person. I think it would be cowardly to shy away from these discussions.’ Alienation from family and friends was a frequent risk these women took, and often became the price they had to pay for their actions. Resistance to war on the streets or in the home or workplace continues to carry the dual risks of both public and private censorship. Resistance activities are difficult on many different levels for women who are taught that their most important responsibilities are at home. Torn between motherly or wifely duty and resistance, in order to do protest work, women must perform a delicate practical and intellectual balancing act. Sally’s husband asked, ‘What am I going to do with these kids if you go to jail?’ These kinds of questions effectively circumscribed some women’s resistance. Women who had children were forced to curtail certain protest activities to defer to mothering responsibilities. Additionally, resistance is seen as an unnecessary, frivolous and unpatriotic activity, in comparison to the paid work of the husband that takes precedence. The possibility of a husband stepping in to fill the parenting breach left by a protesting mother seemed not to be an option. Men’s work is always more important within these families, and Sally, for example, circumscribed her resistance to protect her husband’s job. Sally’s husband worked in the defense industry, and she believed that certain public protest that might involve publicity could affect his security clearance. She never permitted herself to be photographed and used her maiden name to write letters to the editor. Many women who protest are not willing or able to sacrifice family responsibilities in favor of practicing resistance (Adams 1991: 41). Theirs is a necessarily fragmented commitment to resistance. Once again, women are caught in a web of expectation, duty and desire. They are simultaneously subject and object, protester and upholder of family values, resister and bulwark of status quo. Constant media coverage created a world in which one was deluged with war news and reports. The barrage of military coverage made resistance to the war unpopular, but also called into question the protesters’ femininity, commitment to community and patriotism. Protesters had to be very committed to resistance in order to withstand the pressure of what was presented as overwhelming support for the war. The media blizzard of war coverage created an embattled atmosphere that was very difficult for war-resistant women to endure. Some of them utilized the weekly protests as sanctuaries in which they escaped from community and media cheerleading. It was a relief. Through the week, I couldn’t really talk about it. Other people didn’t want to and you’d hear more and more from the media. No one wanted to discuss with me the part I wanted to talk about. So it was a safe refuge. That hour there on the street whether you felt like talking to anyone or not it really was strengthening. (Katrina) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 347 In these spaces of resistance the women found refuge. They looked at doing anti-war work and at attending demonstrations and meetings as safe spaces, havens from which to escape the hourly propaganda barrage that in those days (and, it seems, in these) was called news (Winter 1991: 30; Zoglin 1991: 56; Englehardt 1995: 613). While struggling against upbringings that included traditional constructions of femininity and ongoing community pressure to maintain gender categories, these women somehow created and maintained identities not sanctioned within American society. They were rewarded with camaraderie, a shared discourse and common goals. MISSILES The safe haven of demonstrations did not persist, however, when pro-war demonstrators confronted the anti-war protestors. During the Saturday protests at the study site, young pro-war men would circle the demonstration in a truck on which they had constructed a huge missile in the flatbed. While the anti-war demonstrations became more somber as the war progressed, counterdemonstrations began to take on the characteristics of malevolent fans at a sporting event. The pro-war demonstrators mocked the war resistors by chanting, jeering and threatening violence. At times, it was very frightening: ‘Yeah, there were times when I was scared. There were so few of us and so many of them. I was afraid, after a while that someone would come with a gun and start shooting at us’ (Clara). The threat of violence was frightening to these women but not persuasive enough to stop them from protesting. There were stories in the national media at the time of violence perpetrated against both anti-war protesters and Arabs (Kellner 1992: 264). In the city of the study, car pools were created so that no one would come to or leave the demonstrations alone. While fear was prevalent in those days and is a very powerful silencer of dissension, the women interviewed for this project were united in their refusal to stop speaking out against the war. Some of them told stories of being treated differently by neighbors, friends and co-workers as their protest activities became known within the city. When asked about how this affected them, the women uniformly denied that it was a factor in continuing their anti-war efforts. So listen, you just, you either believe in what you believe in or you just go in a little cocoon and stay there. It made me angry, it made me sad, but it didn’t make me stop. It’s more important for me to be me than to make some relative happy. (Mary) Some relatives were expendable others were not. These women never stopped trying to persuade those around them that the war was wrong in spite of many difficult conversations. The relationships created from the bonds with husbands and children were considered sacred and indispensable. Consequently, many family meals with in-laws or meetings with a child’s teacher took on new tensions and became increasingly difficult to negotiate. 348 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ Protest in resistance to the war was socially, politically and civically significant for these women. Uniformly, the women articulated their belief that resistance has far-reaching effects: The policy makers are fearful of activists and they don’t really want to deal with us but they can’t afford to ignore us totally. They do follow us, I don’t care if we’re only a small bunch standing around on a Saturday morning, they know we’re there. So I do think we do some good and it’s not just making a point with the policy makers, but also our neighbors. (Sally) Accustomed to the discomfort caused by articulation of anti-war views, Sally aims for a larger audience through her participation in protest. Mary too, has a larger audience in mind although her comments reveal an awareness of how power works to create a ‘public transcript’: I think the Government and the media brought out day after day sheets and sheets of talk and always made sure to get the people that are pro-war. That tells me that they are very worried about the protesters. Listen, Bush said that there is not a peace movement. He said that just to get us to believe that we are ineffective but we are not. (Mary) Mary reinforces James Scott’s argument about the creation of a ‘public transcript’ that is dedicated to the maintenance of unequal power relations and the perpetuation of war. In spite of Bush’s denial16 of their presence and the efficacy of their resistance, these women knew they existed and insisted on the imperative of practicing resistance. Indeed, if Mary, Sally and James Scott are correct, some of the reason for the flurry of propaganda, stories about the soldiers and ignoring the existence of the protesters, had to do with fear of the power of resistance. The question of whether or not protest is a sign of lack of patriotism has long been hotly debated. At present, in spite of the anti-war movement’s efforts historically to take up some of the symbols of patriotism, such as the flag, in order to forestall accusations of a lack of patriotism, anti-war protest is still seen as unpatriotic. These women, however, would not accept being constructed as unpatriotic by the media and by their communities. Women who resist conceptualize patriotism in ways that oppose the militarized constructions popular in media representations: Patriotism is doing something for your country everyday. Even if it just means complaining about things. Patriotism is supporting the good things and criticizing it when it’s bad. Someone once said, ‘my country if she’s right keep her right, if she’s wrong make her right.’ That’s what I call real patriotism. So when I see something going on that’s wrong, I’m going to criticize it. (Mary) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 349 Critique of government actions then becomes the foundation for resistance as well as a new type of ‘real’ patriotism. In the giddy aftermath of the war, the victory celebrations seemed like a direct rebuke to protest work. Yet, in those very difficult days for war resistors in the wake of the war, the women seemed to be preparing themselves to continue practicing resistance: There were a couple of days when I was thinking if I didn’t need my job, if I didn’t have to go to work, and I mean, I need my job financially. I could find so many ways to do things. I really did feel, you know I’m an average person, an average working woman and so many women will identify with me. I thought I look so unthreatening and I thought, a lot of people would be receptive. I keep thinking there was some way that I could be effective. I don’t think I could go through that again though. I think I would run away. I think it would really be enough. As much as I don’t like the radical label, I think I wouldn’t run from it. There is no acceptance of war for me. No just war theory. I don’t believe for a moment that I’m odd. (Angela) In spite of feeling very disconnected from community or nation, these women had to attempt rehabilitation to family and community, work towards a renewed sense of self and re-commit to future practices of resistance. MESSAGES Women were implicitly told in media representations, through the social constructions of femininity and by friends, family and community, that their resistance was neither welcomed, appropriate nor appreciated. In the time leading up to, during and following the war, the media presentation of the war ignored women’s resistance in favor of presenting women as the new model soldiers and faithful supporters. Women who resisted did not fit in to either of these themes. In their desire to present to the nation and subsequently the world, a unified picture of the USA, the media and the American government ignored these women.17 Whatever it was that compelled the women in this study to take it to the streets: anger, moral outrage, motherly love, women did not participate in formal protest in the numbers that in retrospect one would expect from reading the public opinion polls about the war (Bendyna et al. 1996: 5). In spite of all the political and media propaganda that seems from evidence presented here, was primarily directed toward women such as attempts to portray the war as an act of nature by calling it ‘Desert Storm’ (Kellner 1992: 241), the manufactured atrocity in the hospital nursery that was supposedly committed by Iraqi troops (Kellner 1992: 67 – 9) or the use of a famous woman like Whitney Houston to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl – symbolizing support for the war by a woman of color – women and people of color did 350 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ not support the war as early or as strongly as did white men (Mueller 1994: 43). Prior to the commencement of fighting, women of all races in particular opposed the war much more strongly than did men. Once the fighting started, though, women appeared to go along with government actions and support the war effort (Enloe 1992: 101, Mueller 1994: 70). Did the ‘public transcript’ of the war discourage women from taking public steps to resist it? Did their convictions about the war change in the face of its seeming popularity? How can we explain what has been interpreted as women’s sudden acquiescence to the war the moment the fighting started? Perhaps silence was mistaken for complicity. James Scott tells us that for oppressed people – in this case women – the appearance of support for those in power is a strategy of survival (Scott 1990: 15). Maybe, the silent acquiescence of women to the war did not symbolize support for the war in the way it has been understood. While women participating in protest activities resisted being ignored and silenced along with resisting the war, perhaps there were many other women who, while silenced and ignored, practiced resistance none the less: ‘Most of the political life of subordinate groups is to be found neither in overt collective defiance of powerholders nor in complete hegemonic compliance but in the vast territory between the two polar opposites’ (Scott 1990: 136). Perhaps the day-to-day silencing of women within patriarchy, which includes a construction of femininity that does not encourage a language connecting actions to resistance, interfered with women’s ability to speak out about their doubts about the Persian Gulf War. Maybe it also impedes our ability to know about continuing actions many women took on a micro-level. Nationally and socially, perhaps because we cannot collectively make sense of such quiet resistance, we therefore ignore or disparage it. The ‘public transcript’ of the Persian Gulf War leaves no room for acknowledgement of the occurrence of such everyday acts of resistance. We are left then, asking ourselves a series of questions about the Persian Gulf War. What happened to the enormous numbers of women who did not agree to sending troops into Saudi Arabia, who abhorred the bombing of Baghdad, who did not believe that Saddam Hussein was Hitler incarnate, who were unimpressed with the SCUD stud? Were they practicing a kind of resistance that did not appear on the nightly news or get chronicled by historians and social critics? If so, how do we characterize resistance? Is resistance often much more subtle than participation in organized protest? What form would women’s more subtle resistance to the Gulf War take? ‘HIDDEN TRANSCRIPTS’ The yellow ribbon was believed to symbolize among other things, women’s adherence to militarism and their acceptance of the Government’s actions in the Persian Gulf. Cynthia Enloe (1992: 95) urges us to be curious about -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 351 women’s wearing of the yellow ribbon, and Lisa Heilbronn (1994: 159), tells us that the yellow ribbon had many different meanings. She asserts that wearing the yellow ribbon did not signal adherence to militarized constructs of femininity, but perhaps symbolized resistance as some women who wore it ‘flirted with protest’. Let us think about those yellow ribbons. If we can imagine the yellow ribbon as having multiple meanings, then maybe it was worn for numerous reasons other than as a symbol of support for military action. Surely there were partners and mothers for whom wearing the yellow ribbon was not conflated with support for military actions. For them, wearing the ribbon signified a wish for the safe return of a loved one, a symbol of fidelity (Heilbronn 1994: 156) and nothing more. For some, wearing the yellow ribbon had less to do with supporting the Government and more to do with opposing anti-war protest (Heilbronn 1994: 163). We must also ask what not wearing the yellow ribbon meant. How many women went to work to find that a presumptuous supervisor had placed yellow ribbons on everyone’s desk? How will we know how many women quietly put the ribbon away instead of wearing it? In communities that have every streetlight decorated with yellow ribbons, what does it mean when women choose not to similarly decorate their homes with flags and yellow ribbons? How is this choice understood or read by neighbors? What sort of pressure is exerted on such women to get them to conform to community standards? Can we define women who refuse to conform to such pressure as resisting? How many women felt annoyed and disconnected from their communities as they walked or drove down streets festooned with these symbols of the glorification of war? Can we measure the courage involved in engaging in this sort of resistance even though it is in fact invisible? What other invisible resistance occurred in those days? What timid questions were asked around family dinner tables or at holiday meals? Does questioning the family patriarch constitute resistance, no matter how hesitant? Did women turn the television off so that the house would not be filled with discourse on smart bombs and collateral damage? Does teaching one’s child that war is wrong, or to think critically about government actions, constitute resistance within a militarized culture? We know that some women teachers and ministers utilized their positions as pulpits from which to question government actions. How do these efforts get counted or measured? If we broaden our definition of resistance to involve these micro-actions, perhaps we will be able to see more clearly the faces of the women that have been ignored. They are our teachers, our colleagues, our neighbors, our mothers and our partners, and they have not given up. Thus it is imperative in the face of the current ‘new war’ that we carefully attend to these micropractices of resistance so that we might determine not only the full ramifications of the actions these women took over ten years ago that might be bearing fruit today, but so that we might also be alert to new micro-practices of resistance that are currently being undertaken. 352 International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ For example, on 26 October 2002 more than 100,000 people met in Washington DC to protest US intentions to once again go to war with Iraq (Reel and Fernandez 2002: A01). In solidarity, marches were held across the country and around the world. In December 2002, coordinated protests were again held across the USA and internationally (Clemetson 2002), and on 15 February 2003 the largest of these anti-war protests was held in New York City with accompanying marches again around the world (Dewan 2003). The coalition of individuals and groups participating in these protests is much more diverse than has been the case in the past for the anti-war movement (Montgomery 2002). In addition, there are newspaper ads being purchased, letters to editors and to Congress-people being written, lesson plans on international relations and American foreign policy being taught. Could it be that the children, students, sisters or neighbors of the women represented here are now tearing down recruiting posters themselves? Are they removing the flag from a car window in favor of a ‘No War With Iraq’ sign? Are they attending protests, speaking out at the holiday table or discouraging friends from joining the military? Perhaps the women studied here are correct, perhaps their efforts, erased and denigrated by the administration and the media, none the less have just such long-term, far-reaching effects until eventually, the chorus of all of their voices saying no to war cannot be ignored. Robin L. Riley Assistant Professor Women’s Studies Program 102 Hawkins Hall SUNY Plattsburgh Plattsburgh, NY 12901, USA E-mail: robin.riley@plattsburgh.edu Notes 1 2 3 4 See for instance the work of Cynthia Enloe, Carol Cohn, Miriam Cooke. The study consisted of participant observations at demonstrations, teach-ins and organizing meetings over a period of four months followed by in-depth interviewing of some participants. The issue of lack of racial representation is one that is of concern to national peace organizations and some of them are struggling to address it. See Alonso (1993: 267). Some of the lack of participation of people of color is reflective of the low population in the area; however, when people of color did attend, I saw no effort to welcome them into the group. In the larger context, there was some very vocal opposition to American participation in the Gulf by national leaders of African American groups particularly about the disproportionate number of African American soldiers, both men and women, who were sent to the Persian Gulf. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 353 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 354 This discussion seemed to fade as the war commenced; due to the selective media coverage of the war, it may have continued but was no longer covered (Kellner 1992: 76). Jean Bethke Elshtain (1987) and others tell us that throughout American history, particularly in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, women had soldiered disguised as men. Polls showed that women’s support for the Gulf War was never as enthusiastic as men’s although women’s support for the war did increase once the hostilities began (Enloe 1993: 173). In the current war on Iraq US families are sending body armor to their sons and daughters serving in the war (Turley 2003: 23A; Thompson 2004: 10A). One woman in St Louis stitched a quilt containing the names of all the soldiers in Illinois and Missouri who served in the Persian Gulf War (Gillerman 1991). For extensive mappings of women’s anti-war work in the USA historically see Alonso (1993), Swerdlow (1993) and Early (1997) among others. One exception to this point is Peters (1992), which devotes a section to what went wrong with the peace movement during the war and how to correct these errors in the future. James Scott (1990: 2) defines ‘Public transcript as a way of describing open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate’. Media critics and apologists agree that the media served as an effective government propaganda machine both before and during the war. Manufactured stories of Iraqi atrocities were not properly investigated before being presented to Americans as truth. During the war, the military’s close control on information and glorification of weapons and troop activities was virtually unquestioned by mainstream media sources. See Kellner (1992). Progressive and alternative media did cover the anti-war movement but these efforts could not compare with the mainstream media’s coverage and glorification of the war (Cagan 1992: 380). Frances Early (1997: xviii) tells us that this is due in part to male construction of history which expects women to be docile and go along with male war plans and so does not look for evidence of women’s activism but it is also due to women’s own failures to either produce memoirs or archive their papers. Over time, women in Israel and Palestine, Tibet, Serbia, Indonesia and East Timor, Northern Ireland and Okinawa have resisted war and militarism. See, for example, Kirk and Okazawa-Rey (2001), Sharoni (2001), Waller and Rycenga (2001) or Fukumura and Matsuoka (2002). George H.W. Bush was not alone in denying the existence of the peace movement. During the Vietnam War, both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon professed to have not noticed major anti-war protests (Engelhardt 1995: 251). Cynthia Enloe (1992) reminds us that American women who resisted the war were not the only women who were invisible in accounts of the war then or now. International Feminist Journal of Politics ------------------------------------------------------------ References Adams, J. 1991. Peacework: Oral Histories of Women Peace Activists. Boston, MA: Twayne. Ajami, F. 1992. ‘The Imperial Temptation’, U.S. News & World Report 2 March 112 (8): 48(1). Alonso, H. 1993. Peace as a Women’s Issue. 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Zoglin, R. ‘It Was a Public Relations Rout Too’, Time 11 March 137 (10): 56 –8. -------------------------------------------------------------------- View publication stats Robin L. Riley/US Women Resisting Desert Storm 357