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Leymah Gbowee and the Hazards of Reception

1. Liberian Civil Wars (1989-96; 1999-2003) a. President after first Civil War: Charles Taylor i. “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him” (Morales 2013: 283) b. Child soldiers; warlords; drugs; mass murder; pandemic sexual violence c. Ousted by coalition of women organized by (1972 - ) and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938 - ), now the president

2. Leymah Gbowee a. Trauma healing b. Women of Liberia Mass Action for i. “We worked daily confronting warlords, meeting with dictators and refusing to be silenced in the face of AK 47 and RPGs. We walked when we had no transportation, we fasted when water was unaffordable, we held hands in the face of danger, we spoke truth to power when everyone else was being diplomatic, we stood under the rain and the sun with our children to tell the world the stories of the other side of the conflict” (Gbowee 2011) ii. Re-conceptualizing religious spaces to show powerful Muslim and Christian women and bring the groups together 1. Religious motivation: purity & humility, not sexual teasing iii. Nonviolent protesting – sit-ins, lectures, rallies, a “human barricade” blocking men from leaving peace talks (Morales 2013: 289) c. A lifetime devoted to securing peace and safety to her community

3. ? a. “The [sex] strike lasted, on and off, for a few months. It had little or no practical effect, but it was extremely valuable in getting us media attention.” (Gbowee & Mithers 2011: 147) i. “‘’ is the headline that sells.” (Morales 2013: 288) b. Huffington Post, Daily Telegraph, New York Times, among many others all link Gbowee and Lysistrata i. Democracy Now!: “How a Sex Strike Propelled Men to Refuse War” ii. In Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq (2015), a modern translation/adaptation of Lysistrata, the protagonist is told “just Google Leymah Gbowee” for motivation iii. “The Lysistrata Project” – organization formed to protest the American invasion of Iraq 1. Stage national readings of Lysistrata c. No Liberian press connects Gbowee & Lysistrata (Morales 2013: 282)

4. “Sex Strikes” a. A “bogus” category (Morales 2013: 292) b. To comedy-ize is to trivialize i. Erase the actual difficulties of implementation and risk of greater violence c. Implicit Sexism i. Parallel to labor strikes – sex as women’s “labor”? ii. Flipside of the “Scheming Seductress” trope iii. Re-privatization of Gbowee’s public work d. Implicit racism: a simpler culture ruled by simpler (baser) men who can be compelled by baser instincts

5. The Hazards of Reception a. Assumption that acts of reception are beneficial or at least benign i. Desire to connect the Classics and the present both to “understand our time” and to centralize our field of study b. Lysistrata connection in many ways simplifies, trivializes, and insults Gbowee’s work, obfuscating rather than illuminating

Bibliography

Bloomfield, A. 2011. “Nobel Peace Prize: Activist Who Used Sex as Weapon for Peace among Three Female Recipients.” The Daily Telegraph, October 7. Cockburn, C. 2007, From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis. London: Zed Books. Gbowee, L. R. 2011. “Nobel Lecture.” Oslo, Norway, December 10. Gbowee, L. R. & Mithers, C. 2011. Mighty Be Our Powers. New York: Beast Books. Hilkovitz, A. 2014. “Beyond Sex Strikes: Women's Movements, Peace Building, and Negotiation in Lysistrata and Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict: 124-34. Parms, J. 2008. “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” Huffington Post, November 13. Morales, H. 2013. “ Lysistrata, the Liberian ‘Sex Strike’, and the Politics of Reception” Greece & Rome 60: 281-95 O’Connor, K. 2010. Gender and Women’s Leadership: A Reference Handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.