The War on Women
A Feminist Perspective on Militarism * by Flick Ruby

Stop the War on Women, the slogan for International Women's day this year
is appropriate considering that every three minutes a woman is beaten by
her male partner - a man who often claims to love her.  Every five minutes
a women is raped, and they call that "making love" too. and every ten
minutes a girl is molested, sometimes by a relative, perhaps her own
father.  The violence mounts.  "Every few seconds in America, a woman is
slapped, slugged, punched, chopped, slashed, choked, kicked, raped,
sodomised, mutilated or murdered.  She loses an eye, a kidney, a baby, a
life.  That's a fact."  writes Ann Jones in Take Back the Night.  "And if
the statistics are any where near right, at least one of every four women
reading this paragraph will feel that fact through first hand experience."

For women peace activists there is a paradox of seeing yourself at war, yet
calling yourself a peace woman.

The battle field in the war against women is in the workplace on the
streets, in our homes, in our most intimate relationships.  It is physical
and psychological, visited upon us by others and internalised within
ourselves.  It crosses class and racial boundaries, compounding other
oppressions.  It is manifestsed in atomc power  development and economic
destruction.  The mentality that builds nuclear wepons is the same one that
rapes women and destroys the natural envoronment.  No political philosophy
or strategy for peace can be complete without addressing sexual politics.

If the peace movement is to be successful in putting an end to war, it must
work to eliminate the sex role system which is killing us all by rewarding
dominating aggressive behavoiur in men.
If we are to be consistent in our opposition to violence, we must address
violence against women.
If we are truly committed to social justice, we must join the movement for
women's liberation.
If we wish to create social change and revolution we must commit ourselves
to overthrowing patriarchy.
The propaganda of war promotes national unity making it as priority which
can silence women critical of patriarchal practices and attitudes.  Certain
'problems' (to do with the national interest ie economic and terratorial
concerns of the state) are given propority over all other concerns,
legitimising the use of violence and suppression of dissent to solve them.
What happens to women (indeed anyone not directly benefiting from these
aims) in the process is considered irrelevant by the war mongers.  This
silencing of women needs to be stronlgy counteracted by the peace movement.
We need to intergrate a feminist perspective into all our anti-war
critiques and actions if we are not merely to duplicate the existing social
relation which lead to militarism in the first place.
Patriarchy is a set of social relations between men, which have a material
base, and through a hierarchy creates solidarity among men that enables
them to dominate women.
Feminism and the Peace Movement
Women have been of concern to the military as a threat to this male
solidarity an annoyance and intrusion (not suprisingly, the Defence forces
are still not sen as a women's place, although more recently women hace
been accomodated if they can fit in and act like men).  More commonly,
women are a useful labour and sex resource for all men, particularly in the
military.  War is seen by many men as even more of an exuse to rape and
kill women and children.
Women are also used as a symbol of justification foe war.  Women need
protection as they are the nations most valuable possession, the principle
vehicle for transmitting the nations values, bearers of future generation
are most vulnerable to defilement and are most suceptible to assimilation.
The patriarchal military/industrial/bureaucratic/academic complex's need
for brain power, resources and authortiy so thoroughtly distorts the
economiy and the polity that no goals of social justice can ever really be
achieved.  Women are most hurt when social programs are cut because they
are most reliable upon state welfare. In 1986 the world was spending
$A2.63 million on the military which means that about three or four years
of a persons working life is spent on war tax.  The economic implications
of miltarisation are enormous but an economic analysis alone leaves
untouched some of the most powerful ideological and private processes that
perpetuate  militarism.
The military play a large role in defining women as the concept of
masculinity promoted by the military only makes sense if supported by the
complementary concept of femininity.  Feeling a menber of a superior group
is  what men get from their treatment of women, what nation states get from
having an enemy.  In the military, 24 hour masculine behaviour is expected.
Violence is not just a male practice but for men it is bound up with their
identity and the military is where this can be seen overtly.  The military
is the government or it is a large section of the ruling class which lets
the government govern.  The mliitary  interprets "national security" in its
own interests to mean, not only protection of the state and its
hierarchies, but also the preservance of the existing male order.
Subjugaing someone becomes the necessary proof of manhood.  The procatice
of rape is premeditated act during wartime as a way of humiliating the
enemy by violating his "property".  Essentially women's bodies become a
battleground.

The historical links between feminism and pacifism are counterbalanced when
women have exbraced revolution with hope and war with enthusiasm.  There
has not been a consistent women's response to war but I argue that their
response has largely been constructed for them by the patriarchy.
Overwhelmingly women do not want war.

Feminsim is a political position that accepts anger as part of its theory
and practice.  By becoming angry we make ourselves equal to the persons we
judge and assert the validity of our own standards and views.  For far too
long women have been forced to be submissive and supportive of men.
Indeeed it has in many ways been seen as awomen's role to  stay at home
praying for peace, while the men go off to fight the 'important battles'.
Saying no to war should not be an act of sublimation.  Our caring for life
on earth is not soft or sentimental.  It is determined, realistic and
political.  We are not just angry, but angry about...and the difference can
be crucial.
Women are angry about the patriarchal miltary complex and will be
demonstrating this at AIDEX.
