Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements

T. O'Keefe

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137314741
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

This book examines how many women active in revolutionary movements develop feminist identities and how this identity simultaneously contributes to and conflicts with the struggle for women's emancipation.

1

Introduction: Rethinking Women and Nationalism

Feminist analyses of nationalism have produced a substantial body of knowledge on the previously overlooked ways in which nationalist projects rely on and reproduce patriarchy. Feminist interrogations of nationalism have elucidated the gender patterns evident across nationalist movements and chronicled the numerous ways in which women are oppressed by nationalism and nationalist movements. Nationalist movements tend to rely on traditional gender tropes to construct and define the nation (McClintock 1993; Yuval-Davis 1997). Women’s bodies are quite often the battleground over which armed conflicts in the name of the nation are fought. It is for the nation that women’s rights are often curtailed, their citizenship gendered and their membership defined in the most restrictive of ways. The nation typically sees women as mothers or, in effect, reproducers of the national community in both a biological and cultural sense (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989). As such, their reproductive rights are often curtailed and their sexual freedoms diminished (Bracewell, 1996; McClintock 1993). Nationalism can affect women’s right to work outside the home, as the symbolism of mother of the nation translates into the proscription of work when women married (as in the case of Ireland until 1973). Ethno-national conflicts produce levels of gender-based violence that regularly targets women in the most horrific of ways, most notably in the form of rape as a widely used weapon of war (Leatherman, 2011; UN Report on Conflict-Related Violence 2012).

It should be of no surprise then that feminists tend to be critical of women’s participation in nationalist movements. Feminist scholars, particularly those who are Western-based, are exceedingly pessimistic of any relationship women might have to nationalism and so women’s participation in such movements tends to be depicted as, at best, a futile exercise or worst damaging to the emancipation of women. In the main, such movements are seen, and with good reason, as inhospitable places for women in general and ultimately offer little mechanism for liberating women. The widely accepted thesis then is that nationalist movements are ultimately bad for women.

While it is certainly true that nationalism is guilty as charged in its crimes against women, the issue of women’s participation in nationalist movements is not as clear cut as initial accounts lead us to believe. To be sure, nationalist movements are, in the main, patriarchal and tend to reproduce unequal, gendered relationships at the expense of women. Nevertheless, feminist struggles have been birthed by nationalist movements and feminist identities borne out of organic, revolutionary nationalist politics in particular (Vickers 2002). Yet this is typically dismissed as contradictory to the struggle for women’s liberation as such movements foster or, at least, bolster patriarchal structures (Eisenstein, 1994; McClintock, 1993; Morgan, 1984; Peterson, 2000). Furthermore, it is argued that nationalist movements do not nourish feminism of any significance because feminist nationalism is admonished by nationalist men so as to ensure that women’s demands are not met and patriarchy remains firmly in situ (Enloe 2000; Pettman 1996).

This book takes issue with such claims and suggests that, overwhelmingly, analyses of the feminisms that arise from nationalist movements offer predominantly superficial accounts as knowledge of the development, shape and effects of feminist nationalist projects remains rather thin. This lack of depth is due, in part, to the fact that much of the energy has been spent on exploring the ways in which nationalism deleteriously affects women; this comes at the expense of understanding women’s agency within nationalist movements. Similarly, feminist politics situated within nationalism are regularly dismissed as insignificant by feminists in the academy because these politics are disregarded by their nationalist male counterparts. Because women’s liberation is not achieved, and their overarching demands for equality never granted, women’s activism is glossed over and marginalised even, ultimately privileging the actions and aspirations of men over women. Finally, it is widely assumed that because participation in nationalist movements detracts from women’s emancipation, women would be best served had they mobilised within the autonomous women’s movement instead. Each of these inter-related claims are based on the premise that women do not have a stake in nationalist politics and make presumptions about the nature of feminist organising when, in fact, insufficient space has been devoted to interrogating such feminist projects in the first place in order to be able to make such determinations. This book seeks to counter these tendencies and to dissect the complexity that is feminist nationalism. It endeavours to enhance our feminist knowledge(s) through the study of the intricate relationship between feminism and nationalism with a view to appreciating how feminist identities develop, transform into movements and ultimately affect change. The remainder of the chapter will tease out feminist arguments on nationalism in relation to the three points of contention outlined above. The chapter will also detail the methodological approach and data upon which the book is based, and the final section will establish the subsequent outline of the book.

Women and nationalism: victimhood versus agency

Studies of women as victims of national struggle, particularly in times of conflict, are prolific and detail a vast range of sexual, physical and emotional violence experienced by women. Notwithstanding the critical importance of shedding light on the grave injustices and horrific experiences women endure through nationalism and ethno-national conflict, the abundance of literature on this topic suggests that the study of women, nationalism and armed conflict has become synonymous with studying women as victims of conflict. This is evidenced by the numerous special editions of journals, edited and single-authored books and articles dedicated to the topic, including seminal pieces like Ronit Lentin’s edited collection, Gender and Catastrophe, and The Women and War Reader, edited by Lois Ann Lorentzen and Jennifer Turpin. Further examples are found in Julie Mostov’s work which pairs an exploration of rape in nationalist conflict with the use of women as reproducers for the nation, to develop the position that women are only victimised by nationalism and its agents (which are presumed to be male).¹ Much of Cynthia Cockburn’s research on national identity and women’s organising suggests a similar pattern (1998; 2001) and buttresses the conceptualisation of women’s linear relationship to violence, situating women in the position of ‘victim of violence’. She argues that feminist interrogations into women’s relationship to nationalism and/or conflict must make connections between violence in its many forms, including the violence against women that exists in times of conflict and times of peace. “Feminist work,” she writes, “tends to represent war as a continuum of violence from the bedroom to the battlefield, traversing our bodies and our sense of self. We see that the ‘homeland’ is not, never was, an essentially peaceful unitary space” (Cockburn 1998:8). More recent examples of such scholarship include Janie Leatherman’s (2011) book on sexual violence and conflict and C. Sarah Soh’s (2009) The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Post-Colonial Memory in Korea and Japan.²

Feminist literature on women’s victimisation by nationalism as biological and social reproductive roles is also extensive. Much has been written on how motherhood has been employed by nationalist movements to advance ‘the cause’.³ Nira Yuval-Davis and Flora Anthias have drawn our attention to how motherhood is both symbolically and materially useful to the advancement of a nationalist project (Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989). Women as mothers can reproduce more members of the nation to ensure a critical mass, and women as mothers are used as signifiers of the nation to evoke powerful images of what nationhood entails, a classical example being ‘Mother Ireland.’ Women, as nurturers and care-givers have the primary responsibility of passing on the nation’s customs and traditions, thus acting as social reproducers both for and of the nation (Peterson 1998:43). This defining piece by Yuval-Davis and Anthias set the stage for future explorations of women and nationalism and the subsequent cultivation of an image of women as passive victims of nationalism.

Similar work has been produced by scholars like V. Spike Peterson on sexuality, heterosexual privilege and nationalism (1994; 2000:64) or Zillah Eisenstein who argues that “Nationalism reduces women to their motherhood. Nowhere in the iconography of nations is there space for women as sisters, as a sisterhood” (Eisenstein 2000:41). Sita Ranchod-Nilsson and Mary Ann Tétreault in their comprehensive assessment of feminist scholarship on gender and nationalism, illustrate how the mothering role is one of the key ways that nationalism is gendered through the production of “numerous works” on the subject (2000:4). They demonstrate that feminist scholars are quite preoccupied with how women are used by nationalism in their capacity as mothers. Like the work on women- and conflict-related violence, therefore, the literature on mothering cements women’s position as solely that of victims of nationalism.

Without question, accounts of women’s oppression by nationalism are crucial to understanding not only nationalism but the structure and effects of patriarchy more generally. This is problematic, however, when it becomes the primary path of feminist exploration in the area. A consequence, unintended or otherwise, of placing primacy on the ways in which men and patriarchal norms render women as victims is a lack of focus on women’s agency. We lose sight of women in these movements and do not pay enough attention to women’s behaviour in national struggles as a consequence. Emphasis is placed more on how nationalism as a male project codifies women’s roles, and how men restrict women as actors. Women, in effect, are rendered passive by the overwhelming emphasis on this particular aspect of their relationship with nationalism.⁴ This is epitomised in Tamar Mayer’s characterisation of gender and nationalism: “the connection between nationalism and masculinity remains strong: men take the liberty to define the nation-building processes, while women for the most part accept their obligation to reproduce the nation biologically and symbolically ... masculinity and femininity remain fixed categories when they interact with the nation” (2000:16). Constructing women and their experiences in such a limited way reinforces the skewed notion that nationalism is male and victimisation is female, action is male and passivity is female.

A second consequence of the overwhelming focus on women’s victimisation vis a vis nationalism is that women’s agency within nationalism remains an understudied subject.⁵ Much less is known of the ways in which women are active agents of nationalism and when feminists do engage with the subject it is often a difficult undertaking for many as it typically means wrestling with women’s participation as combatants in national liberation movements. Women as combatants are located in a non-passive position, behaviours associated with men, dictated by hegemonic masculinity in particular. This runs counter to the ways in which some scholarship has constructed women’s politics, whereby a seamless connection is often made between women’s activism and their interests in peace. This tendency to associate women with nurturing and peace has an impact on how women are depicted in conflict – that they are the victims of violence, and more specifically, the victims of nationalism which often commands violence. As such, a distinct dichotomy has been constructed around women’s and men’s relationship to peace – women are the ‘life-givers,’ and ‘life-preservers,’ while men are the destroyers of life. Women approach politics, according to Carolyn Strange, from their perspective as mothers, hence the reason for women’s strong involvement in the peace movement. They are “protectors of life, providers of nurturance and bearers of the next generation,” and therefore mobilise on behalf of their families. The peace movement, Strange suggests, is an example of the vital role “maternal concern” has in pacifist protest (1990:209). Women’s propensity for peace is often constructed in relation to their mothering roles; women, as mothers, are “on the side of life” and their political activity is a reflection of that (Ruddick 1998:213). Related to this, Sara Ruddick suggests that women have a propensity for peace because “War and violence destroy all of ‘women’s work’ –mothering, feeding, sheltering, nursing the ill, tending the frail elderly, maintaining kin connections” (1998:216). Birgit Brock-Utne believes that “women would have never institutionalised violence” – that violence is somehow antithetical to ‘woman-ness’ (1985:33) and suggests that women who engage in violence are doing so because they have been educated in the patriarchal system, taught to think and act like men and that such behaviour is often rewarded. For her such education “generally guarantees that women will think like men, will compete the way they do, and hold the same value systems” (1985:33). Because peace is seen to be inherently feminist, women’s political violence is easily dismissed as patriarchal, and feminist explorations of women’s politics tends to favour those which promote peace. Jacobs, Jacobson and Marchbank, however, question whether this feminist proclivity for peace and subsequent hesitancy to engage in the exercise of unearthing women’s political violence is linked to a fear that if we explore this dynamic we would potentially “mask male violence”? (Jacobs et al. 2000:12).

Regardless, the absence of a comprehensive understanding of women combatants includes holes in knowledge on their motivations, roles and experiences. Quite simply, it means privileging male accounts of this sort of politics as women’s voices are rarely documented. Some scholarship has sought to redress this by pointing to the newfound politicisation of women through participation in nationalist movements (Jayawardena 1986; West 1997). Overwhelmingly, however, feminists scholarship has castigated women’s participation in such movements as it rarely produces a gender revolution for women. Cynthia Cockburn argues, for example, that time and again, despite women’s ‘active engagement’ in armed conflict, and no matter what their level of commitment and participation, women do not attain equality (2001:21).

Women’s agency is further marginalised by claims that to partake in such activities is to further patriarchy. It is argued that women’s participation in nationalist struggles only serves to entrench patriarchy, as women legitimise the male-defined and male-led nationalist agendas. For instance, Elisabeth Porter writing on Irish republican nationalism maintains that “While women are active participants in ethnic and national struggles – organizing, campaigning, attending to others’ needs, and sometimes participating in armed struggle – men generally act as agents and women as symbols, reinforcing existing gender oppressions” (1998:42). It has been argued that women who participate in an armed struggle are contributing to their own oppression by legitimising nationalism, and in turn, patriarchy. Moreover, V. Spike Peterson argues, “women’s agency in service to heterosexist nationalisms is inherently problematic, as it necessarily entails the reproduction of hierarchical difference, both within and between groups. To be effective, women are drawn toward masculinist strategies, including the denigration of others” (2000:71). Similarly, Lynda Edgerton (1986), writing on women and Irish republican nationalism, argues that women’s involvement in the nationalist struggles only furthered their oppression and nationalist discourse cemented gender roles. Thus, women who became politically active in the North of Ireland, particularly as mothers, were operating under a false consciousness, as their activity helped to further inequality on the basis of gender. Edgerton argues that although traditional gender roles were shattered through nationalism’s politicisation of women, these same women were “not helped to examine in any critical way their domestic role in the home, or indeed their relationship to their husbands and families; rather, they are socialised into a strong maternal role directed to ‘keeping the family together,’ ‘making ends meet’ and servicing political campaigns largely determined by men” (1986:61). Men, as a consequence are reified as the nationalist actors, the leaders who delegate the roles that ‘others’ (women) should play; women are the followers, waiting for their roles to be dictated to them. Women combatants are there because men have allowed (or even co-opted) them to be – not because they have chosen to be. Margaret Ward writes of women’s relationship to Irish nationalism:

While women were undoubtedly valuable and valiant fighters within the nationalist movement, one important qualification needs to be kept in mind when reading about their activities: the high points of women’s participation were also moments of exceptional political crisis, when women were either drawn into the movement because of the temporary (enforced) absence of men, or they were encouraged to participate because a strongly, united front was needed, and because women, when the military struggle began, were also needed for essential back-up service. (1983:2)

In turn, women unwilling to privilege this notion of victimisation in terms of their subjectivity are seen as outside the feminist family, less committed to women’s emancipation. It would be foolhardy to suggest that women are not oppressed in the context of national struggles; that women are not victimised by conflict, raped or used for their reproductive capacities, or that women are not discriminated against on the basis of their gender. However, it would also be misguided to suggest that women’s participation in nationalist struggles is always on male terms and due to encouragement from male counterparts. To construct women primarily as victims or men’s pawns not only denies their agency but also masks the ways in which women are oppressed through their ethno-national identity. This is a crucial factor, as the research in this book suggests, behind the motivations of women who choose to engage in armed combat.

Feminist nationalism – an oxymoron?

Nationalist movements as outlined by feminist scholarship would suggest that they are not places that foster feminism or women’s emancipation, giving little distinction between the types of nationalist movements that exist (Vickers 2002). While state nationalism easily behoves the feminist critiques outlined above, revolutionary, counter-state movements often pose a particular challenge to this discourse. Such movements could offer the promise of revolutionary change to workers, women and other marginalised groups. Studies which fail to differentiate between nationalist projects are faced with a quandary when feminism emerges from within nationalism. Hence, while little is known of the motivations behind women’s participation in nationalist projects, even less is known of the ways in which feminist identities emerge from such political engagement, beyond any superficial engagement with the process of politicisation. There have been a limited number of interventions in this area: work by West (1997), Jayawardena (1986), O’Keefe (2004) and Vickers (2002) which have sought to accou...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Rethinking Women and Nationalism
• 2 Women’s Troubles: Gender, Violence and the State
• 3 A Woman’s Place Is in the Armed Struggle?
• 4 The Mini-Skirt Brigade: Distorting Women’s Participation in Armed Conflict
• 5 The Rousing of Republican Feminism
• 6 Reformation versus Revolution? Feminist Genealogies in Conflict
• Conclusion: The Unfinished Revolution?
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index