The Women’s Review of Books Vol. XXI, No. 12 September 2004 74035 $4.00

I In This Issue

We continue our exploration of Women, War, and Peace with articles on women as policy- makers, peace activists, defense industry workers, soldiers.

I Carol Burke explains how mili- tary marching chants are used to transform recruits into fighters. p. 6

I Is Bob Woodward a sister? Cynthia Enloe reveals how femi- nists can learn from Plan of Attack. p. 10

I Liza Featherstone looks at tra- ditional gender roles and witty direct-action groups like Code Pink. p. 11 A panel from Jennifer Camper’s comic-review of Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of adolescence in Iran and in exile. p. 8 I In both rebel and government armies, African girl-soldiers are spies, porters, cooks, fighters, and sex slaves. Some join, while others Erasing the lines are pressed into service, says by Ayse Gul Altinay researcher Dyan Mazurana, and all face special problems reintegrat- The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus by Cynthia Cockburn. ing into their communities when New York: Zed Books, 2004, 244 pp., $25.00 paper. war is over. p. 21 I pril 24, 2004, was a historic day in the Turkish North and the Greek South. In I Plus a special poetry section troubled history of the Mediterranean April, Greek and Turkish Cypriots were with new work by Eloise Klein A island of Cyprus. More than half a asked to express their opinions about a UN- million Cypriots voted on the future of their driven negotiation document for a reunited Healy, Julia Kasdorf, Maxine island and their lives. The voting came 30 Cyprus, the Annan Plan. Unfortunately, the Kumin, Elizabeth Macklin, and years after the Turkish military intervention results were less than satisfactory for those Gail Mazur. p. 14 in Cyprus, which had followed years of com- longing for a solution: a 65 percent “yes” to munal strife between the Greek majority and the Annan Plan in the Turkish North and a I and more... the Turkish minority in the 1960s and a coup 75 percent “no” in the Greek South. The 30- d’etat by Greek Cypriot extremists associated year-long struggle to demilitarize the island 09> with the Greek military junta in 1974. and normalize relations between Turkish and Ironically called “the Peace Operation” by Greek Cypriots went into a new phase, its the Turkish social-democratic government of success to be determined by the extent to the time, this military intervention, like all which women become a part of it. Because others, resulted in many deaths and disap- so far, women’s position has been one of 74470 74035 03 pearances on both sides, forced relocations, total invisibility. PRINTED IN THE USA and the partition of the island into two: the continued on page 3 The Women’s Review Contents of Books Center for Research on Women Wellesley College 1 Ayse Gul Altinay I The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus by Cynthia Cockburn 106 Central Street 4 Ayse Gul Altinay I REACHING ACROSS DIVIDED SOCIETIES: A conversation with Cynthia Cockburn Wellesley, MA 02481 (781) 283-2087/ (888) 283-8044 5 Letters www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview 6 Carol Burke I FROM RECRUIT TO SOLDIER: Military discipline is enforced with marching chants— Volume XXI, No. 12 and their sexist, racist, brutal messages. September 2004

8 Jennifer Camper I Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi EDITOR IN CHIEF: Amy Hoffman [email protected] 10 Cynthia Enloe I Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward PRODUCTION EDITOR: Amanda Nash 11 Liza Featherstone I PINK THONGS AND PATRIARCHY: In protests against the Iraq war, women are using [email protected] the media and popular culture as never before. POETRY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: 12 Ryn Gluckman, Betsy Hartmann, and Azi Shariatmadar I PRO-WHOSE-LIFE? Ten reasons why militarism Robin Becker is bad for your health ADVERTISING MANAGER: 14 Eloise Klein Healy, Julia Kasdorf, Maxine Kumin, Elizabeth Macklin, and Gail Mazur I Poetry, War, and Peace Anita D. McClellan [email protected] 16 Kerryn Higgs I An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy; The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy. Interviews by David Barsamian OFFICE MANAGER: Nancy Wechsler [email protected] 17 Suzanne Ruta I A LIFE OF RESISTANCE: Ethnographer and concentration camp survivor Germaine Tillion is little known in the US but a hero in France for her lifelong opposition to violence and torture. STUDENT WORKER: Bethany Towne Harriet Malinowitz I The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the 19 EDITORIAL MISSION: To give writ- Media That Love Them by Amy Goodman with David Goodman ing by and about women the serious crit- ical attention it deserves. We seek to rep- 20 Harriet Malinowitz I THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD: A conversation with independent journalist resent the widest possible range of fem- Amy Goodman inist perspectives both in the books we 21 Lisa London I Let Me Go by Helga Schneider choose to review and in the content of the reviews themselves. 21 Dyan Mazurana I WHERE ARE THE GIRLS? Girls have become indispensable members of many armies, in Africa and around the world. Their treatment is often brutal and their reintegration into the ADVERTISING IN THE WOMEN’S community difficult. REVIEW: Visit www.wellesley.edu/ WomensReview to book an ad online; 22 Robin Riley I HIDDEN SOLDIERS: Women with jobs in the defense industry must keep the nature of their work secret—from friends, family, and even themselves. preview the current issue and classified ads; and download a media kit including 23 Martha Norkunas I Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, & Other Forms of Visible Gender by Jeanne Banks Thomas; display, classified, and line rates, sizes Restoring Women’s History Through Historic Preservation edited by Gail Lee Dubrow and Jennifer B. Goodman; and shapes, policies, and deadlines. Monuments to the Lost Cause edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson 24 Rochelle G. Ruthchild I After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of the Holocaust The Women’s Review of Books (ISSN by Eva Hoffman; The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp by Rochelle G. Saidel #0738-1433) is published monthly except August by The Women’s Review, 25 Gila Svirsky I ORGANIZING FOR PEACE IN ISRAEL: Why Israeli and Palestinian women want a peace Inc. Annual subscriptions are $27.00 movement of their own for individuals and $47.00 for institu- tions. Overseas postage fees are an 27 The Bookshelf additional $20.00 airmail or $5.00 sur- face mail to all countries outside the The Women’s Review thanks Cynthia Enloe for her editorial advice on this issue and Poetry Editor Robin Becker for US. Back issues are available for $4.00 commissioning and selecting the work in our special War and Peace poetry section. per copy. Please allow 6-8 weeks for all subscription transactions. Periodicals class postage paid at Boston, MA and additional mailing Contributors offices. AYSE GUL ALTINAY teaches anthropology, cultural, and gender studies at including the Ruth E. Lilly Poetry Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. POSTMASTER: send address correc- Sabanci University, Turkey. Her book The Myth of the Military-Nation: LISA LONDON is the publisher of Never Die Books, a new publishing tions to The Women’s Review of Books, Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey is forthcoming. company based in New York, NY. Center for Research on Women, CAROL BURKE is an associate professor at the University of California at ELIZABETH MACKLIN is the author most recently of “You’ve Just Been Irvine. She is the author of Vision Narratives of Women in Prison. Told.” She is at work on a third collection of poems. Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, JENNIFER CAMPER’s books include Rude Girls and Dangerous Women HARRIET MALINOWITZ, professor of English at Long Island Wellesley, MA 02481. and subGURLZ. Her work can be found in many newspapers, magazines, University is co-coordinator of The 1984+20 Project—a nationwide reading and comic books. of Orwell’s novel. For information on participating, see Rhetoricians for The Women’s Review of Books is a project CYNTHIA ENLOE is a research professor at Clark University and author Peace (www.rhetoriciansforpeace.org) and the National Council of Teachers of the Wellesley Centers for Women. of several books, including Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing of English (http://www.ncte.org/announce/116449.htm). The Women’s Review is distributed by Women’s Lives. Her newest book is The Curious Feminist. GAIL MAZUR is author of five books of poetry, including Nightfire and They LIZA FEATHERSTONE is a contributing editor at The Nation magazine. Can’t Take That Away from Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. Ingram, Nashville, TN. All other distri- She is the author of the forthcoming Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle DYAN MAZURANA is a senior research scholar at the Feinstein bution is handled directly by The for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart. International Famine Center, Tufts University. She is the author of numerous Women’s Review. RYN GLUCKMAN is the coordinator of the population and development books and articles on the experiences of girls and women during and after FUNDING PRO- program at Hampshire College and serves on the board of Children of armed conflict. She works primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. The contents of The VIDED IN PART BY Lesbians and Gays Everywhere. MARTHA NORKUNAS heads the Interpreting the Texas Past project. Women’s Review of Books are BETSY HARTMANN is director of the population and development She is the author of The Politics of Public Memory (1993) and Monuments and copyright © 2004. All program at Hampshire College and the author of Reproductive Rights and Memory (2002). rights reserved; reprint by Wrongs (1995). ROBIN RILEY is assistant professor of women’s studies at the State ELOISE KLEIN HEALY is the author of five books of poetry and two University of New York, Plattsburgh. permission only. spoken word recordings. Her most recent collection, Passing, is from Red SUZANNE RUTA is an author, translator, and human rights activist. Hen Press. ROCHELLE GOLDBERG RUTHCHILD, born in Jersey City in 1940, KERRYN HIGGS is the author of All That False Instruction, Australia’s first is very conscious that, had her birthplace been in the Polish/ lesbian novel. It was reissued by Spinifex Press in 2001. Lithuanian/Russian homeland of her grandparents, she would most likely JULIA KASDORF has authored two collections of poetry, Eve’s Striptease and have perished in the Holocaust. Sleeping Preacher; a collection of essays; and a biography, Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. AZI SHARIATMADAR is a recent graduate of Hampshire College, where Yoder, Amish American. She directs the creative writing MFA program at Penn State. she was an intern at the population and development program and a Radical MAXINE KUMIN’s 15th book, Jack and Other New Poems, will be published Cheerleader. She is a fifth grade teacher in New York City. in January 2005. She is the author most recently of Bringing Together: Uncollected GILA SVIRSKY is a peace and human rights activist in Israel, co-founder of Early Poems 1958-1988 and The Long Marriage. She has won numerous awards, the Coalition of Women for Peace. 2 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 Erasing the lines map of the island you had been living. continued from p.1 If you were a Turkish Cypriot living north of the Partition Line or a Greek Cynthia Cockburn’s remarkably timely Cypriot living south of it, you were rel- “[An] eclectic assortment book, The Line, introduces a woman’s group, atively lucky. (p. 73) Hands Across the Divide (HAD), which was set up in 2001 as the first Cypriot political Those who did not fit in the new geo-ethnic of the daring, the devastating, organization that, by the device of constituting divisions would experience violence of all itself with a London postal address, legally has kinds, and, ultimately, displacement. Many were both southern and northern members. The killed or went missing, and everybody else had and the derelict.” book also includes interviews with women in to relocate: about 180,000 Greek Cypriots both parts of the island who don’t necessarily became refugees in the South and 45,000 to —The New Yorker see themselves as political activists. Through 60,000 Turkish Cypriots in the North. their life stories and daily struggles, a very dif- The result is one of the most heavily mili- ferent picture of “the Cyprus problem” tarized pieces of land on the planet, where emerges. “The Line is a book about Cyprus as lives are separated by barbed wire and mines. seen through women’s eyes,” says Cockburn. Militarization in Cyprus, as elsewhere, is But that is not the whole story. deeply gendered. At another level, equally inspiring, The Line is a book about new ways of imagining the con- In one sense, all politicians in both north nectedness of ethnic and gender conflicts, anti- and south Cyprus are “military men” militarism, and feminism. Cockburn continues because the entire male population, bar a the conversation she began in her earlier work few ethnic and religious categories The Space Between Us (1998), which examined deemed unreliable (such as Catholics and women’s across-the-line activism in Northern Turkish Cypriots in the south), are con- Ireland, Bosnia, and Israel/Palestine. In The scripted into military service. (p. 113) Line, she presents her analysis of the “inner processes of line making, line negotiation and Cockburn explains the processes through line melting.” Do not be misled by the singular which Turkish and Greek nationalisms, each use of “the line” in the title; the book is about supported by militarized notions of heroic, sol- the many lines that structure our thinking, our dierly masculinity, have created deeply patriar- politics, and our every day lives. chal gender orders on either side of the How can we understand as well as chal- Partition Line. “Neither militarism nor nation- lenge these lines which delimit our militarized, alism is conducive to women’s equality and ethnicized, gendered lives? Cockburn says we autonomy. In Cyprus these twin mind-sets are must start with a simple realization. still firmly in place, everlastingly legitimated by the unresolved war, the unsigned peace.” A geo-political partition is not just How can this picture change? Cockburn, armoured fencing, it is also a line based on her interviews with HAD members inside our heads, and in our hearts, and other women in Cyprus, proposes two too. In fact, the physical fence is a important types of action. The first is to manifestation of these more cognitive implement UN Security Council Resolution

and emotional lines that shape our 1325, which calls for including women at all ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ thoughts and feelings. (p. 1) levels of negotiation, as well as in post-agree- ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ment processes of peace-building. As the UN In the case of Cyprus, the lines demarcating has recognized: “War is a women’s issue. ethnic difference were a result of colonial, inter- Gender is a peace issue.” Second, Cockburn national, and national projects that included argues, we should understand, reveal, and Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the United States as change the mutual workings of ethnic lines the most decisive actors. The Line presents a and gender lines through what she calls trans- nuanced history of these political projects—as versal politics, “a very difficult art.” Such pol- “Barnet persuasively and delightfully presents these women interpreted by women. Not surprisingly, the itics entail taking a position of “neither/nor” women’s interpretations belie the over-used to the limiting models of nationalism and as the first generation of feminists, the women who ‘blasted Turkish vs. Greek analysis we often confront in patriarchal gender orders, a position that the the door open to the rest of the country, leaving it to us to both the media and academic works. women of HAD struggle to implement across imagine future lives as stunningly original as theirs.’” their own divisions. Different strategies are hile some Greek Cypriot women needed to tackle gender and ethnic lines, says —The Boston Globe come from nationalist families that Cockburn: “While an ethnic line, such as the “Her flair for storytelling and enthusiasm for this endlessly W supported the ghettoization and line that encircles a ghetto or the partition line marginalization of the Turkish minority in the that splits a country, may almost totally sepa- fascinating subject makes each juicy chapter go down 1960s and applauded the coup in 1974, others rate two cultural groups, the gender line that as deliciously as an E! True Hollywood Story.” were its victims. Arianna Enonomou, the differentiates men from women operates in —Bust magazine dancer whose performance inspired the book’s another way. The gender line runs through title, had experienced British raids into her every institution, every street, every building, “Barnet’s treatment of this scintillating era is as lively and home as well as threats from both Greek and every bedroom – even the bed itself.” An eth- Turkish nationalist extremists. For her leftist nic line is reason for outcry and international appealing as the women she’s writing about.” parents, the Turks were hardly the enemy. They negotiations; gender lines are less visible —Publishers Weekly identified “the Greek fascists and their local because they have been normalized through supporters as enemies more immediately men- patriarchal discourses and practices. “Regardless of your degree of knowledge about this acing than either Turkish Cypriots or Turks.” One recent strategy to decenter the ethnic remarkable era, you’ll find something—and someone— Sevgül Uludag, today a prominent Turkish line and to emphasize the Cypriot identity on Cypriot journalist, also remembers Turkish the Turkish side has been the use of the terms to celebrate in this comprehensive, consistently extremists being more of a danger to her leftist new Kibrislitürk (Cypriotturk) and Kibrislirum entertaining volume.” —Elle parents than anybody else. After the 1974 coup, (Cypriotgreek) in everyday language. As for some of the Greek women who now belong to other creative strategies for revealing and “Barnet’s beautifully detailed portraits of these pioneering HAD, or their parents, were blacklisted. While changing the gender and ethnic lines of differ- women are delicately shaded, filled with resonating emotional some women, like Ayse Hasan, saw the Turkish entiation on the island, we will need to keep nuance, and surrounded by such stellar supporting characters. . . . intervention as a lifesaver, for others, who lost our eyes and ears open for the actions of their villages, houses, and loved ones in the ten Hands Across the Divide and other women’s All-Night Party is sure to arouse great interest.” years of ethnic strife, Turkish military interven- groups from Cyprus. I share Cynthia —Booklist tion was not the solution. Cockburn’s hope that her book “might The summer of 1974, when the Turkish encourage the growth of an inclusive and out- military fought with Greek Cypriot forces and ward-reaching woman’s movement in Cyprus, ALL-NIGHT PARTY: The Women of Bohemian ultimately drew the partition line, was a turn- help make feminism a more say-able word, Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930 ing point in the history of Cyprus. and feminist change a more thinkable ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ by Andrea Barnet thought.” What an inspiration a demilitarized, From then on there would always be gender-equal, multiethnic, multi-religious “before” and “after”. The thing that Cyprus would be for our conflict-ridden Wherever Books Are Sold made the difference was your ethnicity region! What a gift this book is for making in relation to where on the geo-ethnic such an idea a “thinkable thought”! I ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL • www.algonquin.com

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 3 where my political activism had already with me, and this led to the establish- been for a long time. ment of what eventually became Hands Across the Divide. And, for my part, it Reaching across divided societies AA: So you chose women’s groups in led to a two-year program of action- Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and research in and among the group. One by Ayse Gul Altinay Israel/Palestine for your first anti- result of that is The Line. militarist, action-research project— A conversation with Cynthia Cockburn AA: So, your book, The Space Between CC: Yes, in Northern Ireland I worked Us, has been a catalyst for the forma- I with the Women’s Support Network, tion of a new women’s group in which was an umbrella organization of Cyprus. How inspiring! ynthia Cockburn was invited ment. We were protesting the deploy- women’s community centers. In Bosnia to Turkey by Sabanci ment of US nuclear missiles in Britain it was a women’s therapy center I got CC: Yes, The Space Between Us seems to C University to give a talk on and the pursuit of a futile arms race involved with. It had been set up during have been of use, let’s say, to some her new book The Line in March 2004. with the USSR. In the 1990s things the war to respond to the physical, Cypriot women. It could be that The Line She spoke in Istanbul, Diyarbakir, changed. The USSR collapsed. There social, and psychological needs of proves of use to women in other coun- and Mardin, and met with various was the Gulf War and then the Bosnian women who were raped or otherwise tries, perhaps more than it does to women’s groups from western and war, and they really shocked those of us traumatized—and their children. And women in Cyprus. The way, for instance, eastern Turkey. The following inter- in the peace movement very badly. At in Israel and Palestine, my research was I try to clarify the relationship between view was done on March 14, 2004. that moment I was in any case ready for about Bat Shalom, a local alliance of ethnicity and gender may ring bells for a change of research direction. In my Jewish women from kibbutzim in the women elsewhere. I felt this very much Ayse Gul Altinay: You talk about labor process studies I’d been working North of Israel and Palestinian women, when I visited the women’s groups in the having two hats, the researcher hat and focusing intently on men and mas- Israeli citizens, living in Nazareth and Kurdish areas in Turkey with you last and the activist hat. In both The Line culinity for many years, and I felt it other Arab towns. What I studied week. It was suddenly very gratifying to and your earlier book, The Space would be a sort of kindness to myself among them was the mechanisms by see that I understood enough about Between Us (1998), these two seem to to start working more closely with which women cooperate across con- what Irish women were experiencing to have come together in a new way. women. I wanted to work both in and flictual ethnic identities in times of eth- realize that there would be a potential for Could you tell us a little bit about for the anti-war movement. And I nicized war. dialogue between them and women’s how this happened, how you inte- wanted to find something positive to centers like KAMER in Diyarbakir [a grated research and activism? study. So I made contact with women’s AA: And then you moved on to city in Kurdish-dominated southeastern groups that appeared to me to be doing Cyprus— Turkey]. We are already trying to arrange Cynthia Cockburn: I’ve always thought very creative work in situations of eth- contact between them. So in that way, one way an academic researcher can con- nicized conflict. C: Yes, some Cypriot women had the yes, the work does feed from one situa- tribute to activism is to research and aspiration to take an initiative that could tion to another. write with a constituency in mind, by AA: Can you explain what you bring together Turkish Cypriot and which I mean a group of people for mean by “ethnicized” as opposed Greek Cypriot women in a unitary AA: Because you’ve made it feed from whom it could be politically important to to “ethnic”? organization. One of them had read one situation to another, both in your have the knowledge the research gener- The Space Between Us. They got in touch writing and in your networking. ates. I’ve always tried to do that in my CC: Wars that present themselves as and invited me to facilitate a seminar of research, to work close to a constituency. local, ethnic wars are often, in reality, 60 women from North and South CC: Yes, it’s true that as I’ve studied The constituency isn’t necessarily the international wars or wars about eco- Cyprus. This was very exciting. I’d instances of women making connec- same group as the research focus. For nomics or other aspects of power. But always had my eye on Cyprus as a place tions, I’ve often looked for a way of example, when, as a feminist researcher, I they take the form of conflict between where very interesting things must be enabling them to directly transmit what studied male trade unionists, the con- ethnic groups. In many ways the dif- happening, from which we could all they’re learning to similar groups in other stituency I had in mind was women trade ferentiation of ethnic groups is as learn. In setting up the seminar, we countries. Bridges between bridges. unionists. But in the case of women much the product of the war as the agreed that I’d be accompanied by two actively counteracting the negativities of cause of it. That’s what I mean by say- women from Northern Ireland, two AA: You came to Turkey at a partic- war, the women who are the subjects of ing “ethnicized war.” Anyway, through from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and two ularly heightened time in the The Line and Space, I have actually been an international feminist friendship from Israel/Palestine, a Palestinian Cyprus conflict. Ever since the researching the very women who I would network of women opposing war and woman and a Jewish woman. They’d Annan Plan was accepted in New hope would also be my constituency. militarism, I already knew of some come and help us at the seminar by York by both sides as a basis of They’re both topic and constituency. projects where women were working telling us how they have been dealing negotiation, every night on televi- to counteract ethnic aspects of con- with partition lines, as women. So it was sion you can find a discussion on the AA: How did you make the shift? flicts. And I asked them if I might a four-way look at gendered and ethni- Cyprus issue. And yet it’s almost come closer to try to learn more about cized partitions, and it really was quite exclusively men, sitting around a CC: It happened like this. My main their work. It was truly a great relief inspiring. After that, the Cypriot table talking about what you call active involvement in the 1980s was in and pleasure to me at that moment to women decided that they wanted to “big P politics” and making “strate- the movement for peace and disarma- be able to put my research energy remain in touch with each other and gic” analyses of Cyprus for Turkey. ARARUNDHAUNDHATITI RROOYY The New Collection of Essays from the Booker Prize-Winning Author

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4 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 Unfortunately, women and femi- want to improve. But the majority want nists haven’t joined into this discus- to move forward—on this basis because sion. We don’t even see a parallel there isn’t any other. More concretely, Letters discussion going on among femi- one thing they are agreed on is that the nists themselves. When you came absence of women, and civil society as a Dear Editor, Dear Editor: here were you expecting to find whole, from the negotiations has meant I am writing you as the editor of the I had known Lesley Hazleton briefly. women more interested in Cyprus? that a whole spectrum of real, every day Women’s Review of Books with regard to a We were journalists in Israel during the life is left out of the plan altogether. review by Rebecca Steinitz of Emma same time period. However, I had not CC: I have to say I’ve been quite con- This week, Hands Across the Divide Brown in the July 2004 issue. seen her writing for a while—until I fused to find women a bit surprised to will send letters to all parties at the nego- I enjoyed the piece on the Brontës, was given a copy of her review in the be asked to talk about Cyprus. As if to tiation table, including representatives of but want to add a note about Emma May 2004 issue of Amira Hass’ say, “Where did that come from?” the UN, the European Union, the United Brown. I too had some problems with Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Conversely, when you’re in Cyprus, States, Britain, Greece, Turkey, as well as it, mainly because it was much more Journalist in an Occupied Land. everyone sees Turkey as so central to Cypriot politicians in the North and moralistic than Charlotte Brontë ever Bravo for this piece. It’s not only what’s going on. It’s been a bit surprising South. What they say in that letter is this: was, but I too took pleasure in reading difficult to report, like Hass does, on to be told, for instance, that the Cyprus The Annan Plan aims to create a new it. And there was something in it that life under the Israeli occupation. I’m problem isn’t a “real problem”: People Cyprus that will enable relations between exists in no other popular novel of the sure it’s difficult even to write a review aren’t dying; it’s not Palestine. This, I the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish period—Boylan gives us almost an like this. And although it’s difficult to think, is to seriously underestimate what Cypriots to become equal, respectful, anatomy of the work done by impov- read stories like this, I’m glad I did. it is like to live in North Cyprus, an communicative, and nonviolent. Hands erished children in 19th-century More Americans need to be aware of, embargoed economy where your chil- Across the Divide makes a parallel London. The heroine’s trials and tribu- and concerned by, what is happening dren are doomed to emigrate; where demand for the relations between men lations take her through or past a to the Palestinians, with the US gov- there are no career prospects; it’s very and women, for the first time in history, whole list of occupations in which des- ernment’s tacit approval. difficult to travel freely in the world; also to become equal, respectful, com- titute infants participate. It is enough Thank you, Lesley. your currency is worth absolutely noth- municative, and nonviolent. Let’s take an to make anyone pause, and I was grate- Sincerely, ing; and you’re never invited to interna- example. We all know that in the new ful to Boylan for it. Jane Friedman tional events because people either Cyprus, school history and other text- Sincerely, Chevy Chase, MD assume you can’t come, or they forget books would need to be rewritten Marilyn French you exist. Those things are life-damaging because currently, both the Greek and New York, NY problems, and if there are forces that the Turkish pedagogy is heavily national- can actually resolve them, then I think istic. As education gets rid of national- Dear Editor: In Emily Toth’s review of two books they have an obligation to do so. You ism, why not simultaneously rid it of sex- The Women’s Review of Books might expect that the women’s move- ism too, bring gender sensitivity and about Ann Landers, she states that ment and the anti-militarist movement equality to schooling? If we can think of “[Rick Kogan] does not observe that all welcomes letters to the editor. in Turkey to be helping and listening and ending the stereotyping of Turks and the powerful advice writers of the 20th actually looking for relations of solidari- Greeks, couldn’t we think of ending the century were Jewish women.” This is Mail your letters to Amy Hoffman, not so—one of the most powerful and ty with people who are saying Turkey’s sex-typing of boys and girls too? Editor in Chief, Women’s Review of policy constitutes a problem in Cyprus. As I argue in The Line, in conflict sit- best-known advice columnists was Of course, I have only met a few people uations like this, the key conceptual Dorothy Dix, who was a Southerner. Books, Center for Research on She had an enormous international here, so maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t problem for a group like Hands Across Women, Wellesley College, 106 met any who are seriously concerned the Divide is to bring ethnicity and audience. Dix was the most widely about it. A positive exception is the visit gender into a single conceptual frame- known woman writer of her genera- Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481; tion. By 1939, she had 60 million read- of Istanbul’s Amargi Women’s Group to work, a single equation. This letter fax them to the attention of Amy Cyprus last year. But even that doesn’t they’ve sent to the leaders on the “gen- ers in 273 newspapers. She wrote for Hoffman at (781) 283-3645; e-mail seem to have resulted in concrete rela- der dimension of a post-solution more than 50 years, until April 1949, tions or joint action. Cyprus” in a way is saying that the and her syndicated column was pub- them to ahoffman@ wellesley.edu; lished in English-language newspapers processes by which we draw arbitrary or visit our website at AA: Do women in both parts of lines between ethnic groups and all over the world. She was a feminist Cyprus, particularly those in Hands between genders are pretty similar. This who did more to rationalize attitudes www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview toward women and the way women Across the Divide, have anything is just the kind of thinking I reckon UN and use the handy form. Please make specific to say about the Annan Plan? Security Council Resolution 1325 viewed themselves than a great many meant to introduce into peace negotia- feminist theorists. sure to include your mailing address I enjoyed Toth’s review. However, I CC: As the negotiations continue, week tions when it called for the greater and phone number in your letter. We by week, the detailed provisions in the inclusion of women. I think it’s sad that though Dorothy Dix deserved this Annan Plan are changing. I know in the Cyprus negotiations, which the clarification. especially appreciate letters of 300 Thank you. women in Hands Across the Divide feel UN actually hosted, they haven’t acted words or less. it’s a flawed plan, and each would per- on the Resolution they themselves Lee Wilson haps choose different things in it they’d passed four years ago. I Nashville, TN

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The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 5 suppression of individual difference by diverting attention from monoto- and exacts conformity in all outward nous, often strenuous labor or training. actions and dress. As military traditions, these verses pass From recruit to soldier Drill instructors deliberately treat the from company to company, division to recruits as children, scolding these division, service to service, even war to by Carol Burke babes in arms because in the eyes of the war. Although some chants celebrate institution they do not speak, walk, or the bravado of combat, most complain Military discipline is enforced with marching chants—and even eat properly. They cannot accom- of the daily discomforts suffered away plish the simplest of tasks—making the from home: “Ain’t no use in going to their often sexist, racist, and brutal messages. bed or cleaning the floor—to the satis- chow/They never feed you anyhow.” faction of their overseers. Recruits can- Through marching chants, humor I not keep time; therefore they are lightens the tedium and pain of training, allowed no control over their time. The providing opportunities for even the lmost everyone has seen the are acceptable and which will be noncoms determine when they wake, lowliest to mock a superior and for the movies about basic training. ridiculed. They learn to walk or run in when they go to the bathroom, and group to express its disdain for a rival. A Some celebrate it; some mock it; step, to endure petty humiliations, and when they sleep. Basic training with- Sometimes wit and originality are but each typically depicts a tight-lipped, to internalize the will of their drill draws recruits from society and con- applied to amend the most familiar square-jawed dynamo of a drill instruc- instructor as their own. Basic training signs them to a liminal, deindividualized chants and express a group’s sentiments. tor barking commands at a group of aims to transform individuals into stan- state where it comes to seem natural to The improvised additions to standard hapless recruits whose every act sub- dard, “government-issue” soldiers by refer to themselves in the third person, chants are evidence that even within the jects them to merciless criticism sea- erasing civilian identities that have been to get little, then less sleep, to swallow rigid practice of discipline there is room soned by colorful profanities. Although formed over many years. During basic complaints when the body rebels at the for collective innovation. real drill instructors may not be as training, recruits are prohibited contact relentless demands that it leap, crawl, square-jawed or as tall as their cinemat- with the civilian world, the anchor to squat, swing, carry, and march, and ffensiveness drives marching ic equivalents, they do bark out com- their former selves. No previous march, and march. chants. Some take the form of mands to each new cohort of recruits accomplishments matter. Intelligence, Most new recruits experience pro- O insult to a superior: to arrive at basic training. For their part, charm, and humor count for little. found disorientation. Drill instructors recruits soon figure out which answers Above all, basic training demands a talk to them in ways they have never The cabin boy, the cabin boy, been addressed before. Forced to sup- That naughty little nipper: press their anger and frustration, they He lined his ass with shards of must endure emotional bullying and the glass cognitive confusion that results from And circumcised the skipper. New from incessant, often contradictory com- Chicago mands: They are ordered to march one Chants can also be ghoulish celebra- way on the parade ground, then sudden- tions of the slaughter of innocents: ly reversed, only to be reversed again. You might think that an institution that See the family by the stream, omen’s so prizes order would have no use for Watch the parents run and confusion; yet confusion is a state that scream. drill instructors intentionally induce in Viet Cong will never learn. W their recruits, because it increases the Push a button and watch ’em Lives recruits’ dependence on their harsh burn. The Family Silver taskmaster. Only the drill instructor, the A Memoir of Depression and Inheritance god of their universe and the architect or playfully objectify women: Sharon O’Brien of their transformation, can erase their “An eloquent and powerful book about depression and how to make sense confusion. As Lieutenant Colonel I wish all the girls were bricks in of it in the midst of often overwhelming Michael Becker, commander at Parris a pile, and seemingly irreconcilable forces of Island, told Thomas Ricks in Making the And I was a mason; I’d lay ’em all family ties, intellect, and faith. Sharon Corps (1997), “The reason we do this in style. O’Brien’s account of her struggle with [simulate confusion] the way we do is I wish all the girls were pies on a depression ties together literature, religion, and psychology in an important and to create uncertainty.... From the shelf, helpful way.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, recruit’s perspective, it appears to be And I was a baker; I’d eat ’em all author of An Unquiet Mind chaos. War is chaos. And then they see myself. Cloth $27.50 this drill instructor—this magnificent creature who brings order to chaos. Through such chants, the group They learn that if they follow orders, asserts itself as the tough “bad boy,” Intimate Friends their life will be calmer.” equally ready to slaughter or to screw. Women Who Loved Women, Without uniformity, the highly cho- For the trainee, these chants transform 1778–1928 reographed dance of the military parade the horrifying prospect of combat into Martha Vicinus would dissolve into chaos. Drill effec- a humorous, macabre sport. “Passionate, erudite, and deeply researched, tively teaches recruits that each must Other marching chants oppose the Intimate Friends puts erotic desire at center stage in the history of women who loved keep every step, every line of the body, longing for loved ones with the cele- women. Martha Vicinus tells compelling even every gaze in sync with the group. bration of a new life as a member of stories of female husbands and rakes, Close-order drill is important figurative- the group: devoted daughters and cross dressing ly also—it trains individual soldiers inverts, changing forever the way we under the orchestration of their leaders Suzie said to me one day long think about lesbian history.” —Leila Rupp, author of A Desired Past to configure an army collectively. ago Cloth $35.00 Drill has played an important part in “Honey, please don’t join the military training since the 17th century, corps [pronounced co] when Dutch forces demonstrated the All they do is fuss ’n’ fight Now in paperback power of rigorous drill to transform the and they look kinda weird with Female Fertility and rank and file into a cohesive unit that those ‘high-and-tights’” [popu- the Body Fat Connection would be efficient in battle and obedient lar marine corps hairstyle]. Rose E. Frisch in the garrison, explains William H. “Although women tend to abhor body fat, McNeill in The Pursuit of Power (1982). Presented with Suzie’s ultimatum, the it plays an important role in the reproduc- But today’s drill, considered essential to recruit exchanges his girl for the tive process. . . . In her fascinating book, any training program, has no direct par- corps—or rather, the stern drill instruc- Frisch explains the intricate relationships allel to movements in war. A vestige of tor shouts the lines and his trainees among weight, body composition, and a time when men fought standing up, repeat them in unison. These chants cel- hormones. ...Frisch’s book provides a thoroughly understandable account of not on their stomachs, and certainly not ebrate the displacement of sexual ener- important scientific research that will behind technologically complex control provide women with the tools to regulate panels, drill today teaches obedience, their health. Highly recommended.” erases individuality, and inscribes a cor- A version of this article appeared —Library Journal, starred review porate identity in which the movements in Camp All-AAmerican, Hanoi Jane, and Paper $13.00 of individuals are indistinguishable the High-aand-TTight: Gender, Folklore, from the whole. and Changing Military Culture by Carol Marching chants accompany drill in Burke. Copyright © 2004 by Carol Burke. By permission of Beacon Available in bookstores all branches of today’s military. Practical The University of Chicago Press • www.press.uchicago.edu in their purpose, they build morale, Press, www.beacon.org. insure group cohesion, and ease strain

6 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 gy from the female left behind to the to the battle zone, the soldier is alone I coaxed him in with a piece of against the people and the land they enemy waiting on the battlefield. with Charlie. pie seek to liberate. Vietnam lore inverts an Women are as infinitely replaceable as Each war carries its own brand of And then I poked out his little American stereotype: the friendly GI the enemy, and combat, according to dark, twisted humor that laughs at what eye. surrounded by foreign children, famil- marching chants, is as exhilarating as is too horrible to take seriously. The iar in accounts of World War II veter- sex. They devalue all nonprofessional chilling irony of battlefield humor The giving hand is the hand of ans. In the Vietnam chants, the GI’s affiliations and mark a soldier’s passage removes the speaker from the terror destruction in this call, as it is in other gesture of generosity becomes the act from civilian life to combat by encour- close at hand and imposes a momentary napalm chants: of destruction. aging masturbatory compensation: “I control that softens the shriek into The rage of the narrator of these don’t want no teenage queen./ I just uneasy laughter. In response to a 1967 Throw some candy to the kinds of marching chants erupts in want my M-16.” New Yorker article by Jonathan Schell, children. hideous delight at the game of war. Such compensation was illustrated General William Westmoreland, the Wait till they all gather round. But such dismal delight infects all bat- first in James Jones’s novel From Here to commander of all allied forces in Then you take your M-16 now tlefield humor, from legends of Eternity and later in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam, rationalized the need for gal- and mow the little fuckers down. grunts gone crazy in combat to Vietnam film, Full Metal Jacket. In the lows humor: “Soldiers have employed macabre jokes, from accounts of ear film, a drill instructor leads his trainees, gallows humor through the ages. What See the Cobras in formation. necklaces to stories of photo albums clad only in underwear, one hand on paratrooper, for example, singing the Watch them flying way down low. of Vietnamese corpses (with their their rifles, the other grasping their gen- drinking song ‘Blood on the Risers,’ See them fly into the children, grim mockery of photojournalism). itals, in a truly universal marching chant, really revels in the gory death of the Heads are tossed to and fro. The chants articulate the anger and one that has crossed all service lines: man he is singing about? Gallows enthusiasm of the soldier in combat: humor is, after all, merely a defense Such chants demonstrate the irony two emotions, many would argue, that This is my rifle; this is my gun. mechanism for men engaged in perilous at the center of American ambivalence enable the soldier to fight. In prepar- This is for fighting; this is for and distasteful duties.” toward its role in Vietnam, an irony that ing thousands to fight and kill, train- fun. To laugh at the chance accident, to haunts today’s Iraq war as well. ing programs that employ such minimize the fear that every paratroop- American soldiers sent to free Iraqis marching chants seek to regulate the As folklorist Bruce Jackson has er faces, is a way of keeping that fear from a hostile dictator, like those sent fears of young recruits through the pointed out, the character Joe de under control, or at least within the to defend South Vietnam, find them- perfectly measured recitation of Grinder in African-American work- ordered rhythm of a patriotic hymn. selves performing aggressive acts sadistic verse. I songs is the devilish ladies’ man who “He was just a rookie trooper, and he makes time with the workingman’s surely shook with fright,” “Blood on lover, mother, and sister, then makes the Risers”—sung to the tune of “The off with his possessions, while the Battle Hymn of the Republic”— From cuckold goes out to earn an honest liv- begins, and each stanza is followed by ing. During the Korean War, many the chorus: African-American drill sergeants took Ohio University Press their work-song tradition with them, Gory, gory, what a helluva way to which spread through every training die! unit, black or white, and transformed Gory, gory, what a helluva way to A Poet’s Prose the marching chant. Joe de Grinder die! Selected Writings of Louise Bogan Edited by Mary Kinzie became the character Jody, and the Gory, gory, what a helluva way to word jody itself became synonymous die! The distinguished poet and critic Mary Kinzie provides a selection of Louise Bogan’s short stories, criticism, with marching chants. Even today in And he ain’t gonna jump no letters, journal entries, and unpublished poems. the marine corps or the army, one calls more. 352 pages, cloth $49.95, paper $19.95 a jody, not a chant. For the trainee, Jody is the clever civilian who brutally ut Westmoreland might have Raising the Dust divorces the recruit from the civilian found more typical examples of The Literary Housekeeping of Mary Ward, world by appropriating all his posses- B battlefield humor, Vietnam Sarah Grand, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman sions and loved ones: style. To shrug off in song a real dan- By Beth Sutton-Ramspeck ger that confronts each paratrooper is “A scrupulously careful and deeply useful book. Sutton-Ramspeck Ain’t no use in callin’ home. very different from chanting of one’s daringly brings together disparate fields: American and British lit- erature, progressive and conservative authors, domestic science Jody’s on your telephone. pleasure at inflicting pain on civilians, and aesthetic paeans, cultural history and fiction.”—Talia Schaffer as in the following Vietnam chant, 280 pages, illus., cloth $55.00, paper $24.95 Ain’t no use in lookin’ back. which begins, Jody’s got your Cadillac. Feminism and the See the family beside the stream, Ain’t no use in goin’ home. flyin’ high and feelin’ mean. Legacy of Revolution Jody’s got your girl and gone. Pick one out and watch ’em Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas scream. By Karen Kampwirth Chants rarely speak of war’s loneli- Yo, oh! Napalm, it sticks to kids. Kampwirth explores how the guerrilla wars ness. The exception, Vietnam chants, led to the rise of feminism. contain several references to the isola- In this chant, the demonic pilot, 360 pages, paper $28.00 tion of the single combat soldier. Take, from his remote and mighty perspec- Negotiating Power and Privilege tive, delights in repeated demonstra- for example, the following: Career Igbo Women in Contemporary Nigeria tions of his power, or rather, the power By Philomina E. Okeke-Ihejirika Vietnam, Vietnam, of American technology to unleash Recorded life-history interviews and discussions during the late at night, napalm. The napalm rarely lands on 1990s with educated women of differing ages and professions while you’re sleeping, enemy troops and does little to insure bring up familiar and surprising aspects of their experiences. Charlie company comes creeping. victory, but falls from the skies like blaz- 280 pages, paper $26.00 ing rain, searing the civilian population You’re sitting in your foxhole. below. The speaker fiendishly narrates The Grasinski Girls You think you got it made. in the first person one brutal scene after The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made But there lies your buddy another—barbecued babies, burned By Mary Patrice Erdmans with a bullet in his head. orphans, decapitated peasants. Through interviews with her mother and aunts, Erdmans examines the lives of working-class girls of Polish descent, Napalm, the sign of American born in the 1920s and 1930s, with scholarship and insight. You’re sitting in your foxhole, extravagance, luxuriously annihilates 352 pages, illus., cloth $49.95, paper $24.95 You’re thinking about your wife. even the harmless. The narrator who Charlie’s on the move. wields such a weapon does not speak as Subjects on Display He’s out to take your life. the brave warrior of “Blood on the Psychoanalysis, Social Expectation, and Victorian Femininity Risers,” who defends himself against By Beth Newman They take you up in choppers assault on all sides, but sounds instead “By treating the gaze in both its historical and its psychoanalytic to the battle zone. like a crazed adolescent who delights in dimensions, Newman offers a satisfying corrective to studies You think they’re all around you. his own power, the puny guy inside the which follow a single track into visual culture.”—Helena Michie 224 pages, cloth $42.95 Then you find you’re all alone. big machine. Such sadistic pleasure rings through Here the bitter voice of experience calls sung during and after Vietnam that speaks. The narrator has known the have no explicit Vietnam theme. www.ohio.edu/oupress Ohio darkness through which Charlie invisi- Consider the following: Ohio University Press • Swallow Press bly creeps, firing silent bullets. At your local bookseller Scott Quadrangle, Athens, Ohio 45701 or call 740-593-1154 Without his buddy, without his wife, A little bird with a yellow bill 740-593-1154 without even the “they” who take him Landed on my windowsill.

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 7 8 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 9 ften, Bush is portrayed as putty in the hands of his vice presi- Some recent “insider” books: O dent and secretary of defense, Dueling masculinities but this is belied by Woodward’s evi- Richard A. Clarke, Against All dence. Bush was the principal audience Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, by Cynthia Enloe for each successive iteration of the New York, Free Press, 2004. Rumsfeld/Franks invasion plan, and he Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. New York: Simon and Schuster, gave his personal approval as the timetable for logistical preparation got George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, New 2004, 480 pp., $28.00 hardcover, $14.00 paper. shorter; the numbers of US troops to be initially deployed shrank; and a veil of York, Simon and Schuster, 2004. I secrecy was imposed over the extensive military preparations in Kuwait, Saudi John W. Dean, Worse Than Watergate: his year has offered Bush-watch- ity lose credibility and influence. Without Arabia, and Qatar. Bush insisted that that The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, ers a treasure trove of insiders’ ever consciously giving a nod to gender, no one outside his small circle— New York, Little, Brown and Co., T books. Right now, my own collec- Woodward reveals how such competition Rumsfeld and his civilian aides Douglas 2004. tion is dispersed throughout the apart- between masculinities laid the ground- Feith and Paul Wolfowitz; Cheney and his ment: Richard Clark in the kitchen; John work for preemptive war. He demon- aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby; Franks; Rice; James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: A Dean and James Mann on the coffee strates that, for members of the Bush and CIA Director George Tenet—learn History of Bush’s War Cabinet, New table; Paul O’Neill beside the bed; and inner circle, masculinity equals “resolve.” about their invasion plan. York, Penguin Books, 2004. Bob Woodward here on the desk at my For example, Bush told Woodward It is easiest to show manly “resolve” elbow. All of these inside-the-Beltway about a meeting he had with British when decision-making is shrouded in books are written by men, about men. Prime Minister Tony Blair. “We want you secrecy. George W. Bush created an Body language is open to conflicting With the notable exception of National to be part of this,” Bush had told Blair. executive policy-making culture rooted interpretations and myriad misreadings. Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, in Woodward notes, “Blair’s resolve had in distrust of and distaste for the messi- Yet in the Bush White House it deter- each of these books, women remain made a real impression”: ness of democratic life. Members of mined matters of state and internation- almost invisible. Masculinities remain Congress—including Republicans— al affairs. unexamined. Yet as feminists, we must After the meeting, Bush walked were not to be trusted. Foreign allies aim our curiosity at the political workings into the conference room where were not worthy of confidence. s feminists, we should always ask, of masculinity and femininity, even when Alastair Campbell, the prime min- Journalists were kept in the dark, “Where are the women?” others claim or imply that gender is ister’s communications director, despite their post-9/11, passive, rely- A Woodward tells of one, an econo- beside the point. and several other Blair aides were on-the-president-to-tell-us-what-to- mist in the state department, who was In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward waiting. say mode. Even the Joint Chiefs of brought in to inform the president about describes how the Pentagon’s chief mili- “Your man has got cojones,” the Staff were not fully informed. That is, the UN-supervised Oil for Food pro- tary operations strategist, General president said, using the colloquial being male did not alone qualify one to gram in Iraq. The president did not ask Tommy Franks, presented a full-blown, Spanish for balls. be “in the loop.” Entry was insured her for any substantive policy advice. But detailed Iraq invasion plan—with The president recalled, “And of only to those who held particular mas- Condoleezza Rice was party to almost all slides—to President George W. Bush and course these Brits don’t know culine credentials. the war-planning sessions. In early 2002, members of the National Security what cojones are.” He said he would The way Bush characterized the Colin Powell asked for his first-ever pri- Council on August 5, 2002 (at a time call the Camp David session with Rumsfeld/Franks strategy for “moving vate meeting with the president, to when Bush has insisted that he did not Blair “the cojones meeting.” (p. 178) troops in and expanding infrastructure” express his concern that Bush’s fixation yet have a war plan “on my desk”). Few is, in this context, revealing: “It was, in on invasion planning was making a mili- of us ever glimpse these kinds of details, In the president’s eyes, Blair proved my judgment,” Bush said, “a very smart tary solution a foregone conclusion. Rice yet the small circle of civilian and uni- his possession of “cojones” by showing recommendation by Don and Tommy to sat in on the conversation, as she did formed war-planners went on the record resolve. George W. Bush himself was put certain elements in place that could again at a later meeting when Powell’s with Woodward, the well-known determined to show resolve. His father, be done so in a way that was quiet so that concern about creeping militarization Washington Post reporter who in the 1970s, George H. W. Bush, had jeopardized his we didn’t create a lot of noise and anxi- had deepened even further. As with his Post colleague Carl Bernstein, standing as a masculine player by show- ety.” In the minds of Bush and his advis- Woodward describes it, Rice served as broke the story that became the ing insufficient resolve. ers, “noise and anxiety” appear to have Bush’s shield against Powell’s skepticism. Watergate scandal. Woodward’s own To create and sustain a hierarchy of been the chief attributes of democratic Journalist Laura Flanders’ provocative political loyalties have always been masculinities—who are the “real men”; life—ones to be avoided. book Bushwomen (2004) shows that the unclear, as befits a professional reporter, what is a “manly pursuit”; what is worthy Instead, the sort of manly resolve that women in and around the Bush adminis- although many reviewers felt that Bush at of masculine attention—effort must also won credibility in the White House tration indeed have political interests and War (2002), his first book on the Bush be constantly invested in feminization: required quietly holding one’s cards close ideas of their own—but these are barely administration, treated the president and The masculinity gamesman maneuvers to to the chest, even during high-level dis- visible in Plan of Attack. In 2003, his advisers with considerable generosity. relegate the allegedly insufficiently manly cussions. Bush often simply said nothing, Woodward asked President Bush about Plan of Attack is neither an apologia nor a men to feminized arenas. Woodward’s while Vice President Dick Cheney spoke Laura Bush’s apparent unhappiness at the critique. Rather, it is a day-by-day account account shows how individuals, institu- cryptically, and Secretary of Defense prospect of war with Iraq. Bush replied of who said what to whom, who kept tions, and even processes and ideologies Donald Rumsfeld responded to ques- that his wife “understands the sadness secrets from whom, and who tried to were feminized by Bush and his circle. It tions with volleys of unrelated questions and agony” that war produces, as well as marginalize whom as planning for the is difficult to show and practice of his own. This mode of interaction “the uproar, the noise, the protestation.” invasion of Iraq progressed. resolve—thus masculinity—in a democ- required the key players to resort to read- Woodward followed up: “And she told Feminists have learned that while gen- racy, which requires free-wheeling public ing one another’s body language. you this?” Bush responded: “Not really. der refers to masculinity and femininity, discussion, weighing complexities, and The president told Woodward that She told you that. And probably by telling neither is singular in practice. hammering out compromise. Anyone— when he first met with Franks in late you, told me.” Masculinities—the plural is important. In for instance, Secretary of State Colin December 2001 to craft the Iraq war Three women senators make a brief any patriarchal political system, the craft- Powell—who had the patience (or the plan, “I’m watching his body language but enticing appearance in September ing of rival masculinities is serious busi- principled commitment) to engage in very carefully.” Woodward notes that 2002, when the president belatedly and ness, so to understand such systems we such feminized processes risked becom- Bush “emphasized the body language, partially briefed elected representatives must discover what criteria the senior ing feminized himself and thus political- the eyes, the demeanor. It was more on his Iraq policy. Christine Ciccone, a actors wield to judge masculine behavior. ly marginalized. In the build-up to the important than some of the substance.” lawyer and member of the White House Woodward reveals that, in the upper invasion of Iraq, diplomacy became fem- Similarly, Rice recalled trying to congressional lobbying team, reported to reaches of the Bush administration, the inized in the minds of the Bush circle. “read” President Bush in January 2002, the president that California Democratic men competing for policy influence wield The United Nations became feminized. to figure out whether he had under- Senator Dianne Feinstein, who serves on specific kinds of masculinities. Those Congress became feminized. So, eventu- stood that launching a covert CIA oper- the Senate Intelligence Committee, was who fail to meet the criteria for masculin- ally, did democracy. ation in Iraq would require persuading not persuaded by the White House case. Iraqi operatives that the administration Perhaps even more worrisome to the would back them up with the US mili- White House, Feinstein wasn’t alone: tary: “The president’s body language MOVING? suggested he had received the message,” Ciccone reported that Senators Don’t miss an issue! she told Woodward. Patty Murray, Democrat of And Woodward notes that in Washington, and Kay Bailey September 2002, when Nick Calio, the Hutchison, a Texas Republican, Please give us six to eight weeks’ notice of your change of address. We need White House congressional lobbyist, was had waited for Feinstein at the your OLD address (on your mailing label, if possible) as well as your NEW trying to persuade members of Congress door, and they had left together. one. Send the information to: Address Change, The Women’s Review of to give the president broad military (pp. 171-172) authority, Calio assumed “from Bush’s Books, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, or phone toll-free 888-283- side comments and body language…that Maybe the next insider’s book will be 8044/ fax 781-283-3645/ email [email protected]. the question on Iraq was not if but when written by a feminist and will start with there would be a war.” Feinstein, Murray, and Hutchison. I

10 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 women worry that groups like Code Pink, ing war. Because of our responsi- by organizing for peace as women, tap bility to the next generation, into a deeply conservative tradition. because of our own love for our Pink thongs and patriarchy Particularly given the Bush administra- families and communities and this tion’s ferocious attack on reproductive country that we are a part of, we by Liza Featherstone rights, now would be an especially bad understand the love of a mother time to reinforce traditional gender in Iraq for her children, and the In protests against the Iraq war, women are using the stereotypes or to exalt the cult of com- driving desire of that child for life. pulsory motherhood. The notion that media and popular culture as never before. women are biologically—or even cultur- Indeed, the desire of women to protest ally—destined to breed and to nurture the war as mothers is still a powerful one; I could feed the forces of reaction. As rad- many mothers of soldiers have become ical feminists have long suggested, deny- activists as a result of the Iraq war, fearing omen have been leading the © Jennifer Pozner ing women’s capacity for aggression and for their children’s lives. “Worry and fear most creative, inviting, and last- militancy also denies our power. for one’s child is a horrible thing to live W ing manifestations of the But asked about the emphasis on with,” writes Vida Jones, the mother of movement against the war on Iraq. The mothering, activists say it hasn’t played two sons in the army, one of whom was most visible leaders of large coalitions a significant role in contemporary femi- sent to Iraq, on the www.motherspeak.org like United for Peace and Justice, and of nist anti-war organizing. “Some people website, which collects narratives from many small, local groups as well, are like it,” says Code Pink founder Medea military mothers (and is encouraging women. Some groups—whose members Benjamin. “But we really want to be fathers to share their stories, too). Another are mostly, but never exclusively, inclusive. A lot of our friends don’t woman, Rachel Avila, writes of her son’s women—have chosen to make explicit have kids. We don’t want it to sound serious injury in Iraq: He has been on a the femininity—and feminism—behind corny, old, or off-putting.” Code Pink’s respirator and may permanently live with their anti-war protests. They’ve often mission statement emphatically rejects shrapnel in his brain. done this in strikingly new ways, but in the biological determinism: Activists and thinkers today have process revived some long-running ques- widely varying theories about why tions about the role of gender stereotypes Women have been the guardians women should oppose war. Most make in women’s peace movements. of life—not because we are better connections between militarism and Take, for example, Axis of Eve, a San or purer or more innately nurtur- oppressive forms of masculinity. Cynthia Francisco-based phenomenon with ing than men, but because the Enloe, who has written many excellent national imitators, which sells a line of men have busied themselves mak- books on militarism and gender, “protest panties.” Outraged by the deceitful way in which the Bush admin- The Axis of Eve seems to share istration went to war, the group urges Woolf’s intellectual impulse—though it’s “no more cover-ups” and appears at a stretch to imagine the melancholy nov- major protests flashing fuschia thongs elist flashing a thong. Noting on their with messages like “Expose Bush,” website that only 14 percent of congres- “Drill Bush Not Oil,” and “Weapon of sional seats are held by women, they Mass Seduction.” explain that “the ultra-feminine gesture of -XJJOLQJ7UXWKV Some—myself included—welcome the flash parodies our political exclusion.” 8QLW\'RZ this sort of silliness, but it’s a matter of Other feminists have suggested that, ,QWKH%RWVZDQDQYLOODJHRI0RFKXGLLQ$IULFD taste. A much bigger group, Code Pink, whether because of biology or culture, 1HLWDNHVXVRQDQH[WURDUGLQDU\MRXUQH\WKURXJK which boasts at least 100 chapters nation- women’s traditional roles as caregivers— WKHPDQ\WUXWKVWKDWVKDSHKHUOLIHWKHWUXWKVRI wide, tends not to go in for such sexual- especially as mothers—lend us a more WKHFRORQLVHUVDQGWKHLUFKXUFKHVDQGRIKHURZQ ized antics. Even the staid and the prim life-affirming worldview, one that frowns SHRSOH  will feel at home at Code Pink’s summer on war and violence. In this spirit, in &DQDGD86$ protest against the Republican 1961 a national organization called Convention, which begins at the statue of Women Strike for Peace (WSP) organized bluestocking icon Eleanor Roosevelt in 50,000 women nationwide to walk off New York City’s Riverside Park. But those their jobs and out of their kitchens to &DW7DOHV7KH0HDQLQJRI&DWVLQ with more outrageous sensibilities will demand that their elected representatives :RPHQ·V/LYHV also feel welcomed by Code Pink’s sense embrace a nuclear test ban. These women (GLWHGE\-DQ)RRN6XVDQ+DZWKRUQH  5HQDWH.OHLQ of girly fun. Code Pink has a trademark wanted to protect their children, but as )URPDQFLHQW(J\SWWRPRGHUQ$XVWUDOLD “pink slip” action, in which our worst historian Amy Swerdlow has pointed out, ZRPHQ·VOLYHVDUHHQULFKHGE\FDWVZKHWKHU leaders are symbolically “fired” by being they also felt a motherly responsibility to WKH\DUHXQLQYLWHGJXHVWVPXFKORYHGFRP presented with women’s lingerie. Last the world. As one WSP participant put it: SDQLRQVRUORQJORVWIULHQGV7KLVWRXFKLQJ DQGKXPRXURXVFROOHFWLRQRIVWRULHVDQGSRHPV October, pink slip banners were dropped “No mother can accept lightly even the VKRZVKRZIHOLQHIULHQGVKLSVEULGJHRXUZRUOG in 40 cities nationwide. Women dressed in remote possibility of separation from the &DQDGD86$ pink also presented Vice President Dick family which needs her. But mankind Cheney with a 45-foot banner in the needs us too.” 7KH+RXVHDW.DUDPX %HU\O)OHWFKHU shape of a pink slip, in front of the The otherwise admirable antinuclear $ZDUGZLQQLQJQRYHOLVW%HU\O)OHWFKHU·VPHPRLU Beverly Hills Hilton, where he was giving activist Dr. Helen Caldicott has appealed RIJURZLQJXSLQDFORVHNQLWIDPLO\LQ:DLNDWR a speech. The banner read, “Dick’s in bed to popular audiences with an even less 1HZ=HDODQGGXULQJ::KHUHDUO\PDUULDJH with Halliburton, but we got screwed. subtle traditionalism. “As mothers we PRWKHUKRRGDQGJURZLQJWRDXWRQRP\%HDXWLIXOO\ ZULWWHQZLWKZDUPWKKXPRXUDQGGHHSLQVLJKWVLWLV Cheney, you’re fired.” President Bush must make sure the world is safe for our WKHVWRU\RIRQHZRPDQ·VOLIHEXWRQHWKDWVRPDQ\ himself has been presented with pink babies,” she once said in a speech. “I RIXVFDQUHODWHWR slips on several occasions by Code Pink appeal especially to the women to do this ¶7KLVLVDORYHO\IUHVKERXQWHRXVERRNZKLFK protesters hoping that he’ll soon join the work because we understand the genesis VSULQWVIURPSDJHWRSDJH· 3HWHU:HOOV1HZ=HDODQG%RRNV ranks of the nation’s unemployed. of life.... We have wombs, we have &DQDGD86$ breasts, we have menstrual periods to istorically, women’s resistance to remind us that we can produce life!” 6WLOO0XUGHU militarism has taken many This sort of sentiment doesn’t sit well )LQROD0RRUKHDG H forms—and ideas about it have with Jenny Brown, a Gainesville, Florida, varied. In her 1938 treatise Three Guineas, activist who is a member of Redstockings $QRV\QXQGLVFRYHUVDERG\LQDSDUN7KHUHLV DQLPPHGLDWHSROLFHFRYHUXS$9LHWQDPYHWHUDQ Virginia Woolf argued that as a woman, (founded in the 1960s, this radical femi- VSLHVRQKLVROGVZHHWKHDUW$PDQWULHVWRUDSHKLV she had no reason to be patriotic, as the nist group is still around). “Since when ZLIH·VORYHU$QGZK\KDV6HQLRU'HWHFWLYH0DUJRW state denied her equal property and citi- are women naturally peaceful?” asks *RUPDQEHHQDVVLJQHGWRZDWFKRYHUDZRPDQLQDQ zenship rights. She wrote, Brown. “Harriet Tubman carried a gun DV\OXP"  when she ran the underground railroad.” &DQDGD86$ If you insist upon fighting to Brown is only 38, but her thinking comes protect me, or “our” country, let out of a venerable tradition. In January ,Q&DQDGD ,Q86$ it be understood, soberly and 1968, radical feminists protested the )HUQZRRG%RRNV/WG ,QGHSHQGHQW3XEOLVKHUV*URXS rationally between us, that you Jeanette Rankin Brigade, an all-women 32%R[3HWHUERURXJK21.-; 2UGHU'HSDUWPHQW 7HO)D[ 1RUWK)UDQNOLQ6W&KLFDJR,/ are fighting...to procure benefits peace formation. They held a funeral pro-  7RRUGHUFDOOWROOIUHH which I have not shared...in fact, cession and buried traditional woman- OJUD\#EURDGYLHZSUHVVFRP )URQWGHVN#LSJERRNFRP as a woman, I have no country. hood. As Brown explains, “They felt that ZZZLSJERRNFRP As a woman I want no country. appeals based on women’s peaceful As a woman my country is the natures would only assure men that they ZZZVSLQLIH[SUHVVFRPDX whole world. were not a threat.” Brown and many other

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 11 Pro-whose-life? by Ryn Gluckman, Betsy Hartmann, and Azi Shariatmadar

Ten reasons why militarism is bad for your health I hese days, we’ve heard the most sex workers are still blamed for the spread unlikely people sound the battle cry of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted T of equal rights for women whenev- infections, while little or no attention is er they want to argue for more funds for the given to the military’s role. military or for aggressive action in yet 3. Increased sexual harassment another small, poverty-stricken country. In times of war, military-sponsored sex- When the US invaded Afghanistan in the ual harassment and rape become common-

© Jennifer Pozner © Jennifer fall of 2001 and unseated the Taliban, our place. In February 2004, the Denver Post country was hailed as the liberator of interviewed women who had been raped or observed recently in an interview with ture; crucially, however, these activists, Afghan women. President George W. Bush sexually assaulted in the US military but the Left Business Observer that Dick although critical of it, also enjoy it them- has repeatedly referred to the expansion of never reported the attacks, fearing retalia- Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George selves. This enjoyment represents a cru- rights for women in Afghanistan and tion. The recent exposure of the horrific W. Bush “take on what they think are the cial shift: For feminists in the 1970s, pop Palestine as a positive potential outcome of sexual abuse and assault by the US military attributes of the military—not to be con- culture was a target of protest (recall the US intervention in those areas as well as in and private security companies at the Abu fused with having ever served in the mil- feminist demonstrators at the Miss Iraq, despite rising body counts and ongo- Ghraib prison in Iraq also demonstrates itary—but they take on a militaristic cul- America pageant of 1968, who crowned a ing reports of rape and human rights abus- how women are exploited as a military tac- ture of masculinity, and that’s how they live sheep with a tiara). Today’s feminists es. If we believe what we hear, militarism is tic. In May 2004, the London Guardian compare themselves with Clinton”—as view it as a useful lingua franca, even a the true herald of feminism. But of course, reported that women held in the prison well as with the first George Bush, whom weapon, however playfully deployed. upon closer examination, it is clear that appear to have been arrested in violation of they also view as insufficiently manly. Humor is part of the pleasure—and tanks and guns damage women rather than international law, Their foreign policies are thus intricately effectiveness—of such activism. But liberate them. From carcinogenic pollutants connected to their ideas about men’s and these groups also transcend treacly to decreasing funds for social services, mili- not because of anything they have women’s roles in the world. (See Enloe’s appeals to women’s “peaceful nature” in tarism is among the most dangerous threats done, but merely because of who article on p. 10 of this issue.) ways that are powerfully serious: They to women’s health and reproductive free- they are married to, and their poten- The relationships between militarism emphasize “sisterhood,” recognizing that dom around the world. Here’s why: tial intelligence value. US officials and aggressive masculinity were not many of us share experiences that may 1. Environmental pollution have previously acknowledged abstract to a group of Okinawan women transcend national boundaries. Code Pink Militaries are among the worst polluters detaining Iraqi women in the hope I met at Code Pink’s White House vigil in has gone beyond rhetoric in expressing on the planet. Not only does war degrade or of convincing male relatives to pro- March 2003. Their protest group was this solidarity. The group has not shied destroy local environments, but military vide information; when US soldiers founded in 1995, when a 12-year-old away from protesting the Israeli occupa- bases and weapons facilities contaminate the raid a house and fail to find a male Okinawan girl was raped by US soldiers. tion and has picked a brave place to do so: air, soil, and water with deadly toxins. In suspect, they will frequently take The women had traveled to Washington the West Bank itself. Last fall a Code Pink Dangerous Intersections (1999) geographer Joni away his wife or daughter instead. to protest the impending war on Iraq, delegation joined Palestinian and Israeli Seager points out that, “Anywhere in the and spoke excitedly through a translator. women’s peace groups in protesting the world, a military presence is virtually the sin- 4. Rape as a military strategy Said Noriko Akahane, “Women don’t Israeli “security wall,” where many were gle most reliable predictor of environmental The treatment of women in military want the military anywhere.” tear-gassed by Israeli soldiers. damage.” Military pollution has many harm- prisons is devastating. Amnesty This sense of cross-border female sol- ful and long-lasting effects on reproductive International reports that Iraqi women in ode Pink and projects like it idarity is especially apparent in the jour- health. In Vietnam, the herbicide Agent US military prisons have been raped (some- resist essentialism by making a nal entries written by women who have Orange, sprayed by the US military during times resulting in pregnancy); humiliated, C joke of femininity, even while traveled to Iraq on Code Pink delega- the 1960s and ’70s, is responsible for high including being harnessed and ridden like honoring it. It is a delicate balance, tions. Linda Durham wrote in her travel rates of birth defects, miscarriages, and donkeys; and forced at gunpoint to expose which somehow mostly works. The Axis diary, posted on the Code Pink website, reproductive cancers even today. In both the themselves. Because of the resultant shame of Eve promotes its message—and tac- codepink.utne.com: US and Russia, say Nancy Lee Peluso and and stigma, an unknown number of women tics—through “pantyware parties,” mod- Michael Watts in Violent Environments (2001), have died in suicides and honor-killings car- eled on Tupperware parties, in which Sitting in small rooms, with releases of radioactive materials from ried out by their families. they not only sell their appealing political groups of Iraqi women, I fre- nuclear weapons production and testing are Rape is also frequently used as a tool of thongs, they organize women to register quently experienced a strong associated with sterility, cancer, and genetic “ethnic cleansing,” notoriously in Bosnia- voters and donate to John Kerry’s presi- sense of sisterhood, womanhood, abnormalities. Military pollution is usually Herzegovina. In the early 1990s, an estimat- dential campaign. A similar group, the motherhood. It was possible to shrouded in secrecy. In Memphis, ed 20,000 women and girls were raped by Chicago-based Pink Bloque, whose communicate those feelings with Tennessee, a military depot dumped chemi- the Serbian military in a deliberate campaign members, needless to say, always dress in a smile or a gesture. Or with cal weapons in the midst of a black residen- to terrorize the population and eliminate pink, urges members to put the tears. And that happened, over tial community without informing people of Muslims from the region by impregnating “Femme” in “Femme-inism.” and again. the health dangers. Today, women there Muslim women and forcing them to bear The relationship of these groups to report a high incidence of miscarriage, birth Serbian children. popular culture is strikingly similar to Of a woman she met in Iraq, who defects, kidney diseases, and cancer. (See the 5. More domestic violence their approach to gender: parodic yet invited the American activists to tea, report by the Military Toxics Project and While rape is used as a strategy of war, affectionate. The Pink Bloque had Darrin Durham wrote, “Thoughts of that Environmental Health Coalition at the climate of militarism also contributes to Henson, a choreographer for Britney woman, whose name I do not recall, www.miltoxproj.org/magnacarta/ domestic violence. In the summer of 2002, Spears and N’Sync, teach its members return to me again and again. Although DefendOurHealthReport.html.) four wives of US military officers, all sta- how to dance like MTV stars. At anti-war our lives are so very different, in so many 2. Exploitation of prostitutes tioned at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were protests they dance to Mary J. Blige, Nelly, ways, I feel deeply connected to her.” Military bases are notorious for their killed by their husbands. Three of the four and Justin Timberlake songs, and one of It makes a kind of paradoxical sense contribution to adult and child prostitution officers had recently returned to the coun- their slogans is “Drop Beatz Not that the Bush administration would and the spread of HIV/AIDS. In coun- try after being deployed to Afghanistan as Bombz.” (Another is “2 Cute 2 B inspire such solidarity, as well as a tries where prostitution is illegal, women special operations soldiers. It is suspected Arrested.”) In the same spirit, Code Pink women’s peace movement with an emerg- are counted by those governments and the that these women had been victims of tried this spring to enter a pop culture ing analysis—whether in the form of par- military as “special job workers” and domestic violence long before their mur- realm many social critics love to hate: ody or explicit critique—of gender. This denied protection against abuse by their ders, but could not or did not choose to reality TV. Medea Benjamin attempted to presidency makes the connections customers or their bosses. Military-base obtain help. This is not surprising, given star on Showtime’s American Candidate,in between a crude, violent masculinity and prostitution has led to the devastating Cynthia Enloe’s observation in Ms. which candidates are chosen to “run” a crude, violent foreign policy painfully spread of HIV among prostitutes. Today, (December 2001/January 2002) that, during presidential campaigns and viewers vote obvious. At a time when the only political times of war, “Soldiers’ girlfriends and for a winner. The pop culture industry response to Bush seems to be more swag- This is a revised version of an article originally pub- wives...[have] been persuaded that they are lished by the Population and Development has not yet returned the feminist peace gering, simian machismo—see for exam- Program at Hampshire College as “Ten Reasons ‘good citizens’ if they keep silent about movement’s affection, however: ple, the 2004 Democratic Party platform, Why Militarism is Bad for Reproductive Freedom.” problems in their relationships.” Benjamin was initially accepted by in which the word strong appears 66 times, This article and a poster based on this publication 6. Denial of necessary health care and Showtime but later rejected for reasons the word strength 41, but the word compas- is available from the Population and Development social services never explained. Such efforts are political- sion exactly once—the creative feminist Program. Please contact the program at (413) 559- While perpetuating a culture of silence ly savvy, since most of the public, espe- presence of groups like Code Pink is 5506, [email protected], http://clpp. and violence against women, militarism cially the young public, enjoys pop cul- badly needed and highly welcome. I hampshire.edu/population_and_development.htm. restricts women’s access to health care. For

12 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 example, women in the US military are During war, the first voices to be elimi- unconstitutionally denied their right to nated from the public sphere are those choose abortion if they are faced with an belonging to women. According to a study unplanned pregnancy: They are barred from conducted by Fairness and Accuracy in obtaining an abortion on a military base, Media, in the month following 9/11, even if they are able to pay for the procedure women were outnumbered by ten to one on with their own money. In June 2002, the the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Senate voted 52 to 40 to lift this ban. Washington Post, and USA Today. Similarly, However, the House of Representatives said media critic Jennifer Pozner in Ms. opposed the measure and prevented it from (December 2001/January 2002), while being included in the fiscal year 2003 Bush’s 90 percent approval rate was consis- National Defense Authorization Act. As a tently hailed, a poll finding that 48 percent result, women who are stationed in countries of women supported limited or no military where abortion is illegal or inaccessible are action was severely under-reported. still forced to carry their pregnancies to 10. Diminished support for social concerns term. Their only alternative is to travel long Militarism shifts the nation’s priorities distances at their own expense. toward increased support for military and Well-funded and accessible social serv- defense programs. This undercuts issues like ices like health care, child care, and educa- gender equity and reproductive choice, dis- tion are crucial to survival. War is expen- couraging citizens from considering such sive and is often funded at the cost of such social concerns when voting. Candidates services. The National Priorities Project with the staunchest support for war are usu- reported that in May 2004, the Bush ally the most adamantly opposed to repro- administration announced its request for ductive freedom; anti-choice politicians win another $25 billion for the war and occu- wartime elections and continually draft and pation in Iraq, bringing the total war introduce anti-choice legislation. Under the expense to $152.6 billion since April 2003. Bush administration and the Republican- In contrast, only $13 billion has been allo- controlled House of Representatives, sever- cated for Community Development Block al anti-choice, anti-child initiatives have Grant programs, which aid state and local passed in the House including the Child governments. The 2002 Bush budget relied Custody Protection Act, the Abortion Non- heavily on cutting Medicaid, the Children’s Discrimination Act, and the Unborn Health Insurance Program, and Social Victims of Violence Act. These initiatives Security. Budget cuts such as these jeop- do the opposite of what their names sug- ardize safe and accessible health care for gest: They create a wedge in the public low income and older women. mind, pitting the rights and health of moth- 7. Curtailed freedom of movement ers against those of their children. Rather Restrictions on freedom of movement than support children, these policies put during wartime include curfews, roadblocks, them and their families in danger, but checkpoints, and closure of geographical through strategic messaging and appropria- areas. These restrictions are enforced by the tion of human rights and anti-violence lan- military. They can have a devastating effect guage, the administration has garnered sig- on women, barring their access to food, nificant media and public support for them. work, and medical attention. The right to In November 2003, Bush also signed a move freely is particularly critical for sick, ban on so-called partial-birth abortion proce- injured, or pregnant women. The Israeli dures (more accurately described as late-term human rights organization, B’Tselem, has abortions). The ban is defined so broadly that Indiana University Gender Studies Search documented at least 35 Palestinian deaths it could outlaw abortions in the second since 2000 due to restriction of movement trimester, and it makes no exceptions for the imposed by the Israeli military. Eighteen of health of the woman. Bush signed this ban the dead were women and girls. Eight were despite that fact that the Supreme Court had infants who died because their mothers found similar bans to be unconstitutional. were detained at checkpoints while in labor. Bush has also consistently supported judges 8. Increased racism and anti-immi- who are opposed to reproductive freedom. The Department ofGender Studies at Indiana University - Bloomington grant bigotry War kills innocent people. Civilian casu- announces a search forTWO TENURE-TRACK FACULTY at the rank of In addition to restricting freedom of alties occur, no matter how “smart” the Assistant Professor to begin August 2005. The Department is in an extraordinary movement, militarism increases racism and bombs or how much peanut butter is period of growth and development. With department status and a reconceptualize anti-immigrant activity. It is no secret that dropped from the sky. In Afghanistan, mission, we transformed a strong Women’s Studies Program and are now poised inaugurate the first doctorate in Gender Studies in the nation. We anticipate militarism fosters racial prejudice in the among other things, the US bombed a Red admitting the first cohort of doctoral candidates in the fall of 2006. The Departme name of national security. From Japanese- Cross building, a UN building, and a wed- currently offers a Bachelor of Arts, an undergraduate minor, and a Ph.D minor in American internment camps during World ding. The Gulf War, though hailed as a con- Gender Studies. War II to the current Immigration and flict with so few casualties that the first At present, our faculty includes six full-time (100%) positions, and eight jointly- Naturalization Service detentions of Middle Bush administration described it as “surgi- appointed lines. Over twenty-five additional faculty at Indiana University are affiliated with Eastern men, war reinforces racial stereo- cal,” resulted in the destruction of all Iraqi the Department and we work closely with other units on campus, most notably the Kinsey types and discrimination. Today, racial pro- irrigation systems, 52 health centers, 28 hos- Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. The Department recently recruit filing of Arab-Americans, Muslims, and pitals, 56 mosques, and over 600 schools. new chair, Prof. Suzanna Walters (formerly of Georgetown University) who joined the facul in July 2004 and we anticipate further growth beyond these initial two appointments. South Asians is defended as necessary for Due to the extensive damage to water and While our faculty has remarkable breadth, we envision a unique doctoral program homeland security. In the wake of 9/11, sewer systems, more than 250,000 people focusing on sexuality and the body as seen through multiple lenses, including culture/med anti-immigrant groups stepped up their (most of them children under the age of social structural/political economic, medical/scientific, and transnational/comparative activism. Organizations such as the five) died within a few months.. After the perspectives. We seek to complement our departmental strengths in the study of sexualitie bodies and their technologization and medicalization; representation and cultural productio Federation for American Immigration Gulf War, the US led the United Nations in and feminist epistemologies. Reform, Negative Population Growth, and imposing sanctions on Iraq. The The Department invites applications from interdisciplinary feminist scholars who are the Carrying Capacity Network have advo- International Action Center estimates that, actively addressing core questions of gender and sexuality through ambitious research ag cated for programs, public policy, and legis- as a result, 1.5 million Iraqi people died, and energetic teaching/mentoring on the undergraduate and graduate level. We seek scho with expertise in one or more of the following areas: transnational or global feminism; race lation that target women of color and immi- over half of them children under the age of ethnicity; masculinity studies; queer theory and sexuality studies; colonialism and sexuality grant women for population control— five. United For Peace and Justice reports social and historical processes of racialization; immigration; comparative ethnic studies; a which has often taken the form of involun- that as of July 2004, between 9,451 and gender’s imbrication in multiple identity categories (such as class, nationality, religion). tary sterilizations, welfare family caps, 11,333 civilians and 981 military personal Applicants will be expected to assist in the development of the doctorate, teach core Gend Studies courses, and work collectively to develop the Department. Candidates must have and/or risky long-term contraceptives. The have died since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. teaching experience, preferably in Women’s or Gender Studies and must have a Ph.D by anti-immigration attitudes associated with Why is this amount of death and destruc- August 2005.Indiana University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and is militarism pose huge threats and challenges tion considered “very clean” and continual- committed to employing faculty who will enhance the rich diversity of our academic to immigrant women, particularly to those ly justified? That these atrocities are author- community. seeking asylum or fleeing domestic violence. ized and committed by US leaders who Please submit a letter of interest, detailing research agendas as well as teaching According to Amnesty International, claim to be “pro-life” is more telling than experience and philosophy, along with a CV and names, addresses, e-mails, and phone women seeking asylum in the US (some of any claim that military action is a liberating numbers of three references by November 1, 2004 to the following address: whom are pregnant) have reported being force for women. Indeed, from occupation Chairperson, Search Committee detained without adequate food or medical to domestic army-base life, every aspect of Indiana University, Department of Gender Studies care and undergoing strip searches, as well militarism is an affront to the reproductive Memorial Hall East, Room 130 as physical, verbal, and sexual assaults. health and well-being of women and their 1021 East Third Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405 9. Silencing of women’s voices families around the world. I The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 13 Poetry, War, and Peace

The Beheadings Mother with Toddler in War Time

The guillotine at least was swift. After The first soft day after the head pitched sideways into a basket an intractable winter and was raised to a thirsty crowd that roared approval of death from above, the sun turned a child, conceived before a garish yellow and froze on the horizon the Towers burned but born raying out behind the jellied blood the way it once stood still over Jericho at Joshua’s command after, commands a flock and the day held its breath... of geese: Do this! Do this!

After they sawed through Nicholas Berg’s neck as her arms flap like wings with an inadequate knife while he screamed, under their scraping songs. after the heads of David Pearl and Richard Johnson were detached The only one more vain in midnight, in terror but is the mother who knows, caught alive on a grainy video, what did their stored oxygen enable them to mouth, more than thinks, that nothing and Kim Sun-il who danced his last lines on our worn earth matters more declaiming over and over on worldwide television “I don’t want to die” what rose from his lips? than this one gesture, this kid this instant, this lifting. It was always night behind the blindfold. Like bats in midnight at dusk — Julia Kasdorf scrolling their thready messages come words we can never capture, the soul perhaps flying out from whatever aperture? —a pox on belief in the soul!—and yet there’s no denying we are witness to something more than involuntary twitching going on War on the Schedule the air filling with fleeing souls as it did in 1790, and filling again today The corner restaurant this poem a paltry testimony where you plan to the nameless next and next— to meet Turks, Bulgarians, Filipinos whose heads may not be there. —severed, it is said the head retains The chair you position several seconds of consciousness— to catch the sun will roll, reroll as in “revolution” on her hair “a time of major crustal deformation may be on its side, when folds and faults are formed” glass crushed on glass and the napkins singed and blown. time enough, in several languages to recite a prayer, compose a grocery list Or worse, you will have met as the day holds its breath. at the moment the war started, — Maxine Kumin when the person who fashioned his body into an instrument of war arrived right in the middle of your life, the wrong time to have fallen in love.

—Eloise Klein Healy

14 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 From Scenes from a Courtship During Wartime NOW:

How He Restored the Good Ambiguity, Née Hope There’s no way to say it, except the blunt way: facts, searing the eye, facts in the nostrils: 9 mins. long-distance ($2.52) what you love most becomes what

He would have been either standing or sitting, won’t keep, that’s the oldest part Or leaning, bracing, and then perhaps sitting: of the story, not hard: these words slide Later he became something like expansive. easily from fingertips daubing the keys:

Everything had been either unseen or not understood, what you learned today you learned also And—just that moment—was plainly unspeakaboutable, long ago, and in another, more hopeful life: If ever speakable or un-: that moment for sure. no place now in the world—no matter how you say it—

Then he pronounced one or two slight sentences untainted, or if you don’t say anything, All in the future: I will tell you about it or if you say the mornings are still Was one I remember. Never mind that the language beautiful, late April’s aroma of damp soil,

He spoke in transmuted the I, you, and it your neighbor’s hyacinth easterish, painterly— Into a single word. My heart sang. It was the gesture wouldn’t that also be fact, be true? Toward an existing future that worked so well. A poet yesterday said: only poetry speaks the truth,

“Accidentally” I knew that to be false: her gorgeous lines breathless, staggered, obscure: if that’s true, Here we had the luxury of not knowing really, then anything’s true: but this report The splaying of feeling into everything That looks like a bleeding-over, spreading, on my desk, like a script on a stage, is fact, blunt: Everywhere seeping; but is a sign of war. which of our weapons are leaking uranium everywhere on earth, into the nostrils, The luxury of not knowing—not knowing, Truly, there was much to be known, inexorably, the pores, the eyes: how deaths An admission that led to admission will come here and on distant deserts To the saddest theatre on this earth. and ancient cities and be reported falsely,

But as when the Irish poet moved “accidentally” the young reporter’s cerebral hemorrhage From Belfast to England, and on a suddenty not a vascular event, but uranium, too, Westward to Berkeley, CA—“where people and those bodies in robes, “ours” Weren’t killing each other at all!”— “their” bodies whose faces tried to be masked, bodies In the dream I came from the house fallen along the dunes, the roads, not: Where I couldn’t find you and there this is fact: not someone else’s, some enemy’s Was your tent and lantern, and you At the screen-sound knew it was me. some other’s fault: there are facts undeliverable delivered from the imagination Somewhere else, indoors, was the war to the page, the page, the page That might not stop with a treaty. Then I was kissing your temple, from this imagination which is true Calmer than that can sound. only to itself, selfish, bent on its own peculiar and shapely truth: The Bird as a Bird —Gail Mazur From the Basque of JoxAnton Artze

If I had cut off its wings It would have been mine. It wouldn’t have gone away.

But then, It wouldn’t have been a bird at all.

And I loved the bird that was a bird.

—Elizabeth Macklin

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 15 worldwide demonstrations of [A] relatively small section of February 2003 and defending US citi- people become immensely zens from “the tidal wave of hatred… wealthy by appropriating every- Connecting the dots the absurd inability to separate govern- thing—land, rivers, water, free- ments from people.” It is an inability, dom, security, dignity, fundamen- by Kerryn Higgs she points out in “Instant Mix tal rights including the right to Imperial Democracy,” that is shared by protest—from a large group of An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy. bin Laden and Bush, who might as people… [W]ater, electricity, well be working as a team, and for transport, telecommunications, Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004, whom collective guilt and collective health services, education, natural punishment are accepted concepts. resources—assets that the Indian 200 pp., $12.00 paper. “Instant Mix” was first delivered on State is supposed to hold in trust May 13, 2003, at New York’s Riverside for the people it represents, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Church as an acceptance speech for the assets that have been built and 2002 Lannan Prize for Cultural maintained with public money Arundhati Roy. Interviews by David Barsamian. Freedom. Roy introduces herself as “a over decades—are sold by the subject of the American Empire, a State to private corporations. In Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004, slave who presumes to criticize her India seventy percent of the 178 pp., $16.00 paper. king.” This wide-ranging speech is population—seven hundred mil- structured around a narrative of the lion people—live in rural areas. I march to war. She describes the doc- Their livelihoods depend on trine of the pre-emptive strike as “The access to natural resources. To or Australians like me, India’s © Pradip Krishen United States Can Do Whatever the snatch these away and sell them proximity and its colonization by Hell It Wants, And That’s Official.” as stock to private companies is F the British lend a certain famil- She provides a brief history of US rela- beginning to result in disposses- iarity—India appeared in our history tions with Baghdad, from the CIA- sion and impoverishment on a lessons at school, though it was framed orchestrated coup in 1963, which barbaric scale. (pp. 103-104) by the heroism of the imperial adven- installed the Ba’ath regime in the first ture, with the British Raj cast as the place (with the CIA supplying lists of Roy’s latest essays shine with the lay- bearer of “progress.” For many in the leftists and intellectuals for slaughter, ered subtlety and acerbic wit of a nov- US, India is probably a vaguer con- just as in Indonesia in 1965), to the elist’s prose and a metaphorical flair cept—fabulous fabrics, swamis and continuing friendly support given to rarely encountered in conjunction with ashrams, Gandhi, and, these days, a call Saddam when he assumed leadership political thinking. Take this extract from to the bank or the cable company, of the Ba’ath regime—money, arms, “Do Turkeys Enjoy Thanksgiving?”: which might easily connect you to components for bioweapons. Bangalore or Bombay. For the interest- Roy pinpoints the many facets of The tradition of ‘turkey par- ed westerner, the work of Arundhati US hypocrisy, such as Bush’s harping doning’ in the U.S. is a wonderful Roy offers a highly accessible introduc- on the theme “Saddam gassed his allegory for New Racism. Every tion to the complex mosaic of Indian own people,” when the gassing of year since 1947, the National politics and society and India’s relation- Kurds—and Iranian soldiers—pre- Turkey Federation presents the ship to the rest of the world. Arundhati Roy sented no apparent difficulty for the U.S. President with a turkey for Winner of the Booker Prize for her US government at that time. She Thanksgiving. Every year, in a novel The God of Small Things (1997), before the Iraq invasion began. It slams the “use of the urgent morality show of ceremonial magnanimi- Roy is not an expatriate like many other weaves together two themes: First, the of the present to obscure the diaboli- ty, the President spares that par- celebrated writers from the non-west- fact, rarely noticed in the West, that cal sins of the past and the malevo- ticular bird (and eats another ern world. She lives not in London or “for most people in the world, peace is lent plans for the future.” one). After receiving the presi- New York but in New Delhi. She has- war—a daily battle against hunger, She brings a novelist’s language to dential pardon, the Chosen One tens to tell us this is not a decision root- thirst, and the violation of their digni- bear on the multiple fictions and deceits is sent to Frying Pan Park in ed in patriotism. But it is one that ty…[an] endless crisis of normality.” deployed to justify the war and rarely Virginia to live out its natural life. secures her a perspective from outside Second, the way the mass media, “an misses her mark—whether it’s The rest of the fifty million the centers of global power and gives elaborate boardroom bulletin that Rumsfeld’s remark about freedom being turkeys raised for Thanksgiving her an ear to “the murmuring in the ser- reports and analyzes the concerns of untidy (“Did anybody know that are slaughtered and eaten on vants’ quarters... the words of the powerful people,” has perfected the Donald Rumsfeld was an anarchist?”) or Thanksgiving Day…. worlds’ subjects.” production of crisis as spectacle, the ripple of laughter in the pressroom That’s how New Racism in the Roy’s two new books differ in scope “unmoor[ed] from the particularities of when he marvelled at the multiplicity of corporate era works. A few care- and content. Her fourth book of non- the history, the geography and the cul- vases carted off during the looting of fully bred turkeys—the local fiction, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to ture that produced it.” the National Museum (“Would it be all elites of various countries, a Empire, collects seven pieces, six of The Guardian piece, “The Ordinary right for the poor of Harlem to loot the community of wealthy immi- them originally given as talks and Person’s Guide to Empire,” follows. In Metropolitan Museum? Would it be grants, investment bankers, the speeches—for the BBC, at the World February 2003, Hans Blix and his team greeted with similar mirth?”). Or the occasional Colin Powell, or Social Forum, at the Riverside Church of inspectors were crushing and burn- rhetoric of “free speech” in a situation Condoleezza Rice, some singers, in New York, and at several education- ing Iraq’s Al Samoud-2 missiles (said where corporations control almost all some writers (like myself)—are al venues in India. The seventh, which to exceed the permitted range by a the space available for public speech given absolution and a pass to gives the book its title, was published in mere 20 miles) at a time when a US and, in the case of Italy, the prime min- Frying Pan Park. The remaining the London Guardian in April 2003, as attack seemed imminent. The conven- ister personally controls about 90 per- millions lose their jobs, are evict- the British besieged Basra and the US tional Iraqi arsenal and Iraq’s infra- cent of the TV market. Or the greatest ed from their homes, have their advanced on Baghdad. The war on Iraq structure had already been wrecked democracy on earth, with its president water and electricity connections is this book’s center of gravity. over the past decade. “Operation Iraqi appointed by the Supreme Court. Or cut, and die of AIDS. Basically The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile Freedom?” writes Roy. “I don’t think the rhetoric of bringing democracy to they’re for the pot. But the contains four interviews with Roy con- so. It’s more like Operation Let’s Run a the benighted world. Turkey was rapped Fortunate Fowls in Frying Pan ducted by alternative radio producer Race, but First Let Me Break Your over the knuckles for acting in line with Park are doing fine. Some of and journalist David Barsamian, three Knees… an act of cowardice… unri- its own population, 90 per cent of them even work for the IMF and of them before 2003. Their discussions valed in history.” whom opposed the war, while other the WTO—so who can accuse range across the key passions revealed Roy zeroes in on the misconceived countries like England and Spain were those organisations of being in all Roy’s nonfiction: the analysis of beliefs of ordinary Americans about congratulated for ignoring their people. anti-turkey? Some serve as board neoliberalism as a new wave of colonial Iraq’s fictitious involvement in the 9/11 Thus, democracy, the “modern world’s members on the Turkey dispossession; the rise of Hindu attacks. It is anybody’s guess, she con- holy cow,” is in profound crisis: “a hol- Choosing Committee—so who extremism under the Bharatiya Janata cedes, how much of the fabrication was low word, a pretty shell, emptied of all can say that turkeys are against Party (BJP—recently defeated in the and is believed by the US troops; she content and meaning… the Empire’s Thanksgiving? They participate May 2004 election); and the ways in quotes one private who says he’s there euphemism for neo-liberal capitalism.” in it! Who can say the poor are which dissent battles these forces and “to take revenge on Iraq.” Most of the anti-corporate globalisation? still survives. The interviews also world, she says, sees the war as racist, n the remaining pieces, Roy probes There’s a stampede to get into include engrossing biographical anec- engendering racism in everybody: the relationship between the war Frying Pan Park. (pp. 87-88) dotes and reflections on writing itself, “America is a nation of morons, a I and established practices of global- which are not prominent in the essays. nation of murderers, they say (with the ization: “[T]he New Imperialist doesn’t Versions of most of the pieces in An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire same carelessness with which they say, need to trudge around the tropics risk- An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire can opens with “Peace is War—The ‘All Muslims are terrorists’).” ing malaria or diarrhea or early death. be found online, a reflection of Roy’s Collateral Damage of Breaking News,” Vilified in the past for being anti- New Imperialism can be conducted on non-proprietorial view of her work. a talk Roy first gave in New Delhi at a American and anti-West, Roy finds e-mail.” In India, the process is going Aiming at getting the stories out, she workshop on the media, just days herself remembering the massive smoothly, without military attack: naturally launches her writing into the

16 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 world, just as she shared her Lannan Orthodox community—and then Prize with some 50 progressive divorced. Her mother’s advice to the organizations and community groups young Roy: “Whatever you do, don’t throughout India. Though many get married.” A life of resistance readers will have seen some of the pieces before, the collection has its Growing up in a little village in by Suzanne Ruta own coherence and deserves a place Kerala was a nightmare for me. on the bookshelf. All I wanted to do was Ethnographer and concentration camp survivor Germaine escape… In Kerala, everyone n 2001, Roy proposed a piercing has what is called a tharavaad, Tillion is little known in the US but a hero in France for metaphor for globalization in your ancestral home. If you I “Shall We Leave It To The don’t have a father, you don’t her lifelong opposition to violence and torture. Experts?” (available online and in have a tharavaad. You’re a per- Power Politics [2001]): son without an address. (p. 5) I rench ethnographer Germaine became candidates for extermination. Tillon It’s as though the people of She lacked the security implicit in Tillion, now aged 96, was in Algiers provided precise figures on costs and bene- India have been rounded up having a father’s protection, but the F when the Nazis invaded France in fits and named the chief beneficiary, and loaded onto two convoys of trade-off was a wonderful lack of June 1940. She had just completed five-and- Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. She later trucks (a huge big one and a indoctrination. “I had none of the a-half years of intensive research among learned that the very parcel of real estate, tiny little one) that have set off conditioning that a normal middle- Berber seminomads in the Aures moun- dismal swampland, on which the camp resolutely in opposite directions. class Indian girl would have… no tains, at the edge of the Sahara. She had stood, belonged to Himmler. Before The tiny convoy is on its way to caste, no religion, no supervision.” All been so busy compiling their complete Hannah Arendt wrote about the “banality a glittering destination some- this gave her “a vantage point… not genealogies that she had lost track of of evil” in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1964), where near the top of the rural, not urban, not completely ‘tradi- Europe. There had been no newspapers in Tillion had dismissed the SS as “paltry shop- world. The other convoy just tional’, not wholeheartedly ‘mod- the remote mountains and no mail delivery. keepers of death.” Perhaps her years with melts into the darkness and dis- ern’… without the blinkered single- She wept with Algerian friends over the hospitable subsistence farmers in Algeria appears. (pp. 2-3) mindedness of the… oppressed, nor French defeat, and immediately returned to helped her to spot the perverted frugality, or the flabby self-indulgence of the well- Paris and joined the resistance—or rather, avarice, that permeated the Nazi system. In the first interview with Barsamian to-do.” In the wake of her novel’s suc- created it from scratch with her friends Tillon meant her lecture to comfort the in The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile, cess, she says, people in Ayemenen from the Musée de l’Homme, France’s anthro- newly arrived prisoners: Roy describes the laborers in her want to claim her as “their woman” pology museum. Betrayed, arrested, and street in Delhi, digging trenches for while ignoring the fact that the book condemned to death on five separate counts To understand a mechanism that is fiber optic cables by candlelight. The damns the “intrinsic callous brutality” by a German military tribunal, she was crushing you, to dismantle its inner “two convoys” are obvious in Delhi. of their society. deported to Ravensbrück, a women’s con- workings, to examine in full detail an The poor are “packed like lice into While those who know her from centration camp in the chilly swamps of apparently hopeless situation, is a every crevice of the city,” while the The God of Small Things might imagine eastern Germany, in October 1943. powerful source of coolheadedness, beneficiaries of the information rev- her political interests as new, Roy tells Upon her arrival in Ravensbrück, she serenity and moral force. Nothing is olution and the free market drive Barsamian she has been writing was stripped of the big blue suitcase con- more terrifying than the absurd. ever-sleeker cars and build ever-high- essays since she was 21. In any case, taining her ethnographic notes and thesis Chasing away the ghosts, I was aware er gates. When Barsamian asks if the she says, all of her writing shares the drafts. They would never resurface. But she I had helped lift the spirits of the passion for social justice evident in aim of telling a story, building bridges already had a new subject in mind. In March best of us, at least somewhat. her recent work means that she has between the small realities of people’s 1944, while the SS woman guard of her Beyond that, there was our indigna- joined the large convoy, she is clear lives and the immense social forces work detail went off to chat up a boyfriend, tion, our passionate will that our out- that she has not and cannot—educa- that affect them: leaving some friendly Polish prisoners in rage survive us, that such a mass of tion and privilege determine where a charge, Tillion seized the opportunity to lec- crimes not become a “perfect crime.” person rides. What she can do, from Fiction is the truest thing… ture a group of newly arrived French pris- Yet it was already clear that few of the small convoy, is speak. Today’s [s]pecialists and experts oners, including her mother, on the opera- us would survive. The thought of the The interviews also include Roy’s end up severing the links tions of the “slow extermination camp.” truth that must be preserved , fascinating reflections on her life and between things, isolating them, Ravensbrück, she explained, was a hub from obsessed me from the day I arrived her writing. She grew up with her actually creating barriers that which women prisoners were rented out, in at Ravensbrück. And I was not the mother in Ayemenen, the village in prevent ordinary people from groups of 50 or 100, to German factories, at only one so obsessed. How can one Kerala where The God of Small Things understanding what’s happen- so much per day, minus the minimal cost to say that there is no truth, when it is was set. Not unlike Rahel’s mother in ing to them. I try to do the their jailers of food, clothing, and shelter. loved so universally and passionately? the novel, who also transgressed and opposite: to create links, to join As long as the women could work, they (Ravensbrück, p. 217) also detested the smug ordered world the dots, to tell the politics like were shunted about from one camp to of the village around her, Roy’s a story, to communicate it, to another, depending on where the need for Later, Tillion would publish three sepa- mother married for love—a Bengali make it real. (p. 10) labor arose. Once they had lost the capacity rate versions of her book Ravensbrück (1946, Hindu outside her own Syrian I to generate income for the system, they 1973, 1988) to take account of new facts

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The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 17 cient technically, which could be useful. But ulation 30 million, hasn’t yet begun to which was a turning point in Tillion’s own as the rations were the same for both sexes, solve the problems Tillion identified in this understanding of the war. women, who could survive on less food, book, the work of a clear-eyed pessimist suffered less hunger. In the men’s camp, with a firm grasp of the law of unintend- ack in Paris, Tillon made the rounds ordinary criminals, rapists, and murderers ed consequences and the need for univer- of all her old friends from the made life miserable for those interned on sal education. B resistance, who were now in gov- political or racial grounds, something the Tillion practiced what she preached. In ernment. But her efforts to stop the exe- women were spared. Tillon adds, “It also 1955 she founded a network of Centres cutions failed. The military in Algeria was- seems to me that their personal relations Sociaux, social centers, that offered literacy, n’t taking orders from Paris. The execu- were rougher, even the politicals had trou- job training, and health care to the desti- tions continued; the bombings too, but no ble getting along. Like us, they protected tute in the shantytowns of Algiers. Funded one was hurt. Yacef kept his word to that the youngest and saved some who had fall- by the French Ministry of Education, the extent. Then in September, he was en ill… It seems to me that in the women’s Centres were staffed by Europeans and betrayed by a friend, arrested, and jailed, camps, friendly support was more consis- Muslims working in enlightened coopera- and the lethal bombings resumed. Tillion tent, substantive and widespread.” tion. The centers continued to function made the rounds again in Paris until she Maia Wechsler’s splendid 2000 docu- until the end of the war. But they were too found a general who commanded respect mentary about Tillion and her comrades, little, too late. By 1957, the battle of in Algiers. He ordered the prisoner trans- Sisters in Resistance, illustrates this “friendly Algiers pitted FLN (National Liberation ferred to the civilian authorities pending Germaine Tillion. From Germaine Tillion, une support.” Annie Postel-Vinay, who was 20 Front) urban terrorists against the French trial. Thus, she saved Yacef from torture femme-mmémoir (2003) by Nancy Wood. when she arrived in Ravensbrück, recalls army. Thousands of Muslims were arrest- and worse. He lived to make the film The that Tillion, who was 36, insisted on giving ed and tortured. Europeans who associat- Battle of Algiers with Italian director Gillo gleaned from Nazi trials and unsealed her part of her daily bread ration. “Not ed with Muslims were automatically sus- Pontecorvo—which has been enjoying a archives and to counter the revisionist his- every day,” Tillion objects. pect. Sixteen employees of the Centres revival lately in Paris, New York—and at torians and Holocaust deniers. The 1973 “Yes, every day. You said, ‘You’re Sociaux were arrested; most were tortured. the Pentagon, where they’re studying tech- edition tells with gleeful rage exactly how young, you’ll live and marry and have Outraged, Tillion marshaled a committee niques of urban warfare. Blessed are the much money the priest who sold Tillion to ten children.’” of former deportees like herself to visit peacemakers—who are omitted from the the Gestapo earned for his foul deeds— Whether for lack of inclination or of internment camps in Algeria in June 1957. movie version of the war. including an extra monthly payment he time, Tillion herself never married, nor did Their conclusion: “At this moment in The Algerian war ended in 1962, in received for his mistress. she have children. Algeria, Nazi practices are employed.” chaos, rancor, and disgrace. One million The long engagement with the hateful On VE Day, May 8, 1945, Tillion was Algiers was locked in a cycle of torture Europeans fled to France. Algeria gained subject, Tillon biographer Nancy Wood convalescing in Sweden, in mourning for and terror. In Complementary Enemies its independence and fell under an author- suggests, was Tillion’s work of mourning her mother, who had been murdered in the (1961) (recently reissued under the catch- itarian military regime from which it has for her mother. Ravensbrück, the text, as Ravensbrück gas chamber two months ear- ier title, Deux Terrorismes Face á Face—Two not yet recovered. In the final chaos, six elegy? But the book also delivers her mes- lier. Ever the assiduous ethnographer, Terrorisms Face to Face). Tillion tells French and Algerian directors of the sage to the world: Tillion was busy establishing, not genealo- how she tried to break the cycle apart. In Centres Sociaux, dedicated educators, gies, alas, but lists of the Frenchwomen July 1957, an old friend came to her visionaries, were shot in cold blood by the Kill off the “superfluous”? There who perished in the camps—“their names Algiers hotel and announced, “They want Algérie Française cabal. Tillion wrote an are those who dream of doing just their only tombs,” she said. She missed the to see you.” Three women awaited her outraged obituary. that now on every continent. big news from Algeria, the uprising in Setif with tea and pastry in a cool house in the During the battle of Algiers, a young There is no safe recipe to keep us that left 102 Europeans dead—and Casbah. Suddenly two men appeared, FLN combatant named Louisette from this crime, except perhaps between 5,000 and 15,000 Algerians, in hor- armed with machine guns and revolvers Ighilahriz, was shot, captured, brutally tor- the good habit of abolishing secre- rific reprisals involving the French navy and and perhaps grenades: Saadi Yacef, the tured, and finally rescued by a French cy everywhere and the comple- air force and frenzied colonialist militias. commander of the FLN in Algiers, the physician, who sent her to the civilian mentary habit of believing that man who decided when and where the prison where her parents were detained. In every bit of truth deserves to be he was still hunting for untapped bombs would go off, and his crony Ali la 1961, still a prisoner of the French state, verified and told. (p. 21) Gestapo archives when the Algerian Pointe, known assassin. Tillion recalls, “I she was interned on Corsica, where she S war began in November 1954. At felt the tragedy of their precarious lives, scrubbed hotel floors to earn her keep. Preemptive truth commissions—an once she appealed to then Minister of the hunted night and day by thousands of Tillion went to Corsica that summer on a idea whose time has come. Interior François Mitterand to send her on soldiers in a space the size of a Paris park. mission of mercy. She and a friend took In the camp, Tillion’s brand of scholar- a mission to her beloved Aures Mountains, And everything I had seen that month Ighilahriz for a vacation. They slept under ship took courage. Her status as a prisoner to act as an advocate for the civilian popu- and everything I had lived twelve years the stars, visited the beaches, laughed a was of the lowest: NN for Nacht und Nebel, lation of what was already a war zone. On earlier was like an enormous lead weight great deal, and wouldn’t let Ighilahriz “destined to disappear without a trace.” her way into the hills she heard the story of crushing down on me.” Tillon, the 50- obsess about her torture. She was not allowed to leave the camp for the Setif massacres and realized she was in year-old resistance leader, carried moral In 2000, Ighilahriz described her tor- factory work elsewhere (the lucky break for the long haul. The dirty war in Algeria authority with these men and women ture, including rape, on page one of the that saved Primo Levi’s life at Auschwitz). lasted eight years, longer than World War young enough to be her children. Paris daily, le Monde. Tillion and her friends She deliberately cultivated the position of II. By the end, French resistance veterans Yacef, sensing her sympathy, said, “You petitioned the French state, demanding Verfügbar, or “available,” for recruitment to were badly split. Some condoned the tor- see that we are not criminals and murderers.” that it condemn and apologize for the the most backbreaking and grubby work, ture of Algerians with Gestapo-like tech- She retorted, “You are murderers.” atrocities committed in Algeria. So far, no the repaving of camp roads. With the niques and worse. Others, like Tillion, He was struck speechless for a response. In spring 2004, the Abu Ghraib complicity of other prisoners, she man- denounced the torture. moment, as if suffocating. Then his eyes scandal broke, and the petitioners renewed aged to go snooping about the camp and World War II was a necessary war, filled with tears and he said to her, “Yes, their claim, saying that “the punishments to write poetry, producing a comic opera Tillon believed; but the war in Algeria was Madame Tillion, we are murderers.” He inflicted by US and British soldiers on pastiche of Jaques Offenbach’s Orpheus in a stupid war. exclaimed, “Oh those bombs, I’d like to Iraqi prisoners prove that resorting to the Underworld titled Available in Hell, full of In Algeria, the Realities (1978), Tillion see them all at the bottom of the sea.” force to settle a political problem invari- jokey rhymed couplets about starvation registers her horror at the change she saw Overcome, he added, “It’s our only way of ably leads to the worst.” They point out and beatings and the longing for a nice in Algeria on her return. The very benefits making ourselves heard.” that France’s condemnation of American clean death at home in bed. of French rule—vaccinations, antibiotics, To which she replied, “Innocent blood behavior in Iraq would carry more weight She chronicled the courage of her roads—had caused what she called a “bru- calls for vengeance.” She wondered if this if France would set an example “by reject- Polish friends, the lapins, or guinea pigs, stu- tal demographic surge” that destroyed tra- hunted leader, whom everyone looked up ing these practices that stain the honor of dents from Lublin, who were subjected at ditional peasant societies, driving thou- to, was going through some kind of moral an entire nation.” Ravensbrück to hideous medical experi- sands into the big cities, where nothing crisis long in the making. In Algeria, Tillion had met marabouts, ments that left them with mutilated legs. awaited them but a miserable half-life in Suddenly he said, “I promise you that men revered as sages, saints, or prophets Banding together, the lapins resisted a sec- the slums. Clochardization, Tillon calls this from now on no one will harm the civil- who alone had the power to make peace ond round of experiments. Other prison- process, or “reduction to the state of beg- ian population.” between feuding clans. It’s not a stretch to ers were so determined that these young garhood.” It is the crime of the 20th cen- She told him she could promise noth- call Tillion a marabout; she almost admits women should survive to testify against tury, she says, like colonialism in the 19th ing in return, and they talked for five as much herself in Ravensbrück: “By good Nazi doctors that they offered to take their century or slavery in the 18th. No wonder hours, the conversation returning again luck, in Africa I had acquired a marabout places on lists of those slated for extermi- people in other parts of the world hate the and again to the link between the terrorist manner” that impressed her SS guards, nation. When Tillion left the camp in April West and its modernity, she says, when it attacks on the one hand and the execu- she says. In France today, she’s revered as 1945—one of 300 French prisoners res- wreaks havoc with their lives. No wonder tions on the other. They reached no agree- a sort of secular saint. A recent spate of cued by Count Bernadotte, head of the they turn to “unconditional revolt.” ment. Tillion had little confidence in biographies, anthologies, exhibitions, con- Swedish Red Cross, who saved 20,000 con- Published in 1957, when the war was at French policy in Algeria, but dared to ask, ferences, and films celebrate her life and centration camp inmates in the last days of its most nasty, her analysis struck some as “And if there are more executions, will works. But perhaps the best introduction the war through secret negotiations with impossibly lofty. What about racism, her you keep your promise?” in English to her supple wit and generous Himmler—she had a roll of film in her Algerian critics demanded, what about “In that case, I can’t answer for any- humanity is the feminist classic The pocket, taken with a stolen camera, docu- colonial exploitation and injustice and land thing,” Yacef said, with great vehemence. Republic of Cousins: Women’s Oppression in menting the state of the Polish girls’ legs. grabs? (Today we’d ask, what about Jean Lacouture, Tillion’s friend for 40 Mediterranean Society (1966)—intimate, eru- Women had it easier in the camps, NAFTA, the IMF, and the WTO?) And years and her biographer, finds the heart dite, and still appallingly up to date, 40 Tillon believed. Men might be more profi- yet she was onto something. Algeria, pop- of the Algerian tragedy in this encounter, years after it first appeared. I

18 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 out against the round-ups of Muslims in what can you cover from the turret the US. (Is there a remake of The Patty of a tank? You can cover what it Duke Show in here somewhere?) feels like to shoot people. Then The “Newspeak” of our time you can get the gunner’s response fter the first third of the book, and the commander’s spin. That is by Harriet Malinowitz Goodman becomes thoroughly one narrow slice of the war experi- A attentive to her ultimate message, ence.... But what about the victims? The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War which is about the messenger. She expli- Shouldn’t reporters be embedded cates the wily arts that corporate media in Iraqi communities and hospitals? Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them by Amy Goodman use to make Americans stupid, in media (p. 173) critic Mark Crispin Miller’s phrase, and with David Goodman. Hyperion: New York, 2004, lays out a blueprint for an independent Meanwhile, international journalists media that will instead make us smart. covering “the real war”—the one in which 342 pp., $21.95 hardcover. Goodman asks, “If we had state “8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi civilians [were] I media in the United States, how would it killed and 20,000 injured”—quickly came be any different?” She suggests that the to realize that they, too, were military tar- f there is hope,” Winston Smith, the Kim © Robert US media slavishly adheres to a code of gets, as an American fighter jet scored a protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984, self-censorship, requiring little govern- direct missile hit on Al Jazeera’s Baghdad I wrote in his illicit diary, “it lies in the ment interference because it is so hand- bureau, and a US tank opened fire on the proles.” The proletarians were uneducated somely rewarded for acting as the public- Palestine Hotel, where many unembedded and the latent power of their massive relations wing of the administration. She reporters from various countries were numbers unrealized. Yet only such a force, illustrates this from many angles, but per- staying. Some American journalists who reasoned Winston, could overthrow the haps most pungently in the chapter expressed opposition to the war were sim- ruling party, which controlled the citizens “Psyops Comes Home”: ply fired by their media organizations. of Oceania with systematic disinforma- Agony, mutilation, and corpses were tion, unremitting surveillance, and the per- Psychological warfare—psyops, to absent from the coverage Americans vasive threat of violence and imprison- those in the business—was some- saw—“for taste purposes,” as a PBS ment. Still, wrote Winston, one funda- thing that the United States used news executive quoted by Goodman mental conundrum had yet to be worked against its enemies....Psyops is the explains. But Goodman is familiar with out: “Until they become conscious they military way of winning the hearts American “Newspeak”: “Censorship will never rebel, and until after they have and minds of a population....The goes by many names in the United States. rebelled they cannot become conscious.” 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prohibited Taste is one of the favorite euphemisms. Fast forward to the Orwellian United the domestic dissemination of U.S. Sensibility is another.” She makes it clear, States of 2004—where public relations government propaganda. The rea- too, that the orchestrated fiction of a specialists craft the terms that make per- Amy Goodman soning behind Smith-Mundt was “clean war” didn’t originate with 21st- petual and spatially limitless war accept- that “Congress wanted to be certain century Bushian extremism; she exam- able; yesterday’s news goes down the access television stations, Dish Network’s that a U.S. government agency could ines the history in a stunning chapter memory hole as today’s reality is spun (we Free Speech TV, and via video and audio not brainwash citizens as Hitler had called “Hiroshima Cover-up: How the never armed Saddam; we never trained streaming from www.democracynow.org. in Germany.” (pp. 251-252) War Department’s Timesman Won a and funded the Taliban); hidden video (The website has an easily searchable Pulitzer.” General Douglas MacArthur cameras record daily life; and ever-shift- archive, freely available to all: “Our But by 2003, she reports, there was kept the press out of southern Japan ing icons of evil flash across our televi- motto is, ‘Steal this story, please!’”) It is evidence that “[t]he Bush Administration after the atomic bombs dropped, dissem- sion screens to incite mass rage. increasingly carried by NPR stations, had turned psychological operations inating the official story via the US If Winston were here now, it’s likely often in response to local demand. against Americans.” The large number of authorities and the military censors: that this obdurate believer in verifiable According to Goodman, on many of Americans who believed, in mid-2003, Radiation sickness didn’t exist; civilian reality and logical reasoning would write these stations, “Democracy Now! is beating that Iraq was directly involved in the casualties were minimal. An independent in his diary: If there is hope, it lies in Morning Edition and All Things Considered 9/11 attacks, and that weapons of mass Australian journalist broke the ban, hor- independent media. Back in 1949—the hands down on fundraising.” destruction had been found, indicated rifying the world and setting into motion same year 1984 was published—Pacifica The Exception to the Rulers, a natural out- that “we had become victims of our own a vast US cover-up. Authorities declared Radio, pioneer of listener-sponsored, growth of the show (as much as it is an propaganda.” This is possible, says the reporter a dupe of Japanese propa- corporate-unencumbered, dissenting- introduction to the show’s ethos), is writ- Goodman, in large part because of “the ganda, seized his camera and photos, and voiced media, was founded in California. ten in the first person and details symbiotic relationship between the cor- issued a “corrective” press release. It grew to five stations (in Berkeley, Los Goodman’s experiences and observations porate media and the officials they They also brought reporters to New Angeles, New York, Washington, and about media and politics as culled from cover.” She details cases in which psyops Mexico to “prove” to them that radioactive Houston), and in 1985, an avid listener her remarkable career before and during personnel freely worked on news pro- contamination didn’t cause lingering harm. named Amy Goodman started working the course of DN. (David Goodman is grams at CNN and NPR: “Army psyops One of them was William L. Laurence, a with WBAI, the Pacifica station in New her brother, a print journalist who collab- is forbidden by law from manipulating science reporter who, Goodman says, York. Gaining experience, she became an orated in shaping the material into a for- US media. So what happens when psyops editor, and then news director and cohost mat more within his bailiwick than hers.) troops are the media?” was not only receiving a salary of a morning show called Wake-up Call. The first six chapters read like a synthesis During the Iraq war, the 700 reporters from The New York Times. He was In 1996, the Pacifica stations launched of numerous Democracy Now! features, officially “embedded” with US troops also on the payroll of the War Democracy Now!, originally conceived as a exposing the government/corporate syn- presented what Goodman calls “the fake Department....His dual status as daily election show in the months leading ergy that has long guided US foreign poli- war—the one Americans saw on TV”: government agent and reporter up to what became Bill Clinton’s second cy and the domestic crackdown on civil earned him an unprecedented level presidential victory. With Goodman as liberties since 9/11. The embeds were supposedly there of access to American military host, it pushed beyond the usual horse Some of this information will be famil- to offer frontline coverage. But officials—he even flew in the race reported by mass media to critical iar to those who have followed alternative investigations—of why, for example, most online news compilations such as Truthout people in the US don’t vote. It was so suc- (www. truthout.com) and Common Dreams cessful that Pacifica decided to continue it Newsletter (www.commondreams.org), or in a more general magazine format after even the op-ed pages of many newspa- the election. With television cameras pers, over the past few years. But other added in 2001, it has become what I (with parts will be shocking reading for most all due apologies to Ringling Brothers) Americans—particularly Goodman’s nar- think of as The Greatest Show on Earth. ratives of her trips to Nigeria and East Goodman officiates as acuminous ring- Timor, where she reported on atrocities master to an array of voices and ideas that that were largely ignored in the main- are usually fenced out of mass earshot— stream US press. Why the news “white- from public intellectuals, activists, artists, out”? Because these atrocities were perpe- and global notables like Jean-Bertrand trated with aid from a succession of US Aristide and the Dalai Lama (who are administrations, both Democratic and often inaccurately represented in the Republican, whose commitment to the mainstream media), to imprisoned politi- cheap production of oil and sneakers eas- cal figures, military families, war veterans, ily overran considerations of human rights and local eyewitnesses in East Timor, and life. In the interstices between the Jenin, Falluja, Port-au-Prince, and Sudan. horrors glint little jewels of cheerier news. In 2004, Democracy Now! is the largest We find, for instance, that Condi Rice, the public media collaboration in the country, national security adviser and Bush confi- as Goodman mentions frequently. It dante, has a cousin named Connie Rice— broadcasts on community radio and public a fervent civil rights attorney who spoke

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 19 squadron of planes that dropped media has fallen so far short—in not the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. providing us that information. (pp. 297-298) In the old Soviet Union, everyone The sword and the shield knew you had to read between the lines Laurence’s series of articles for the Times of Pravda. It’s a state organ, it’s not going glorifying the nuclear program began by Harriet Malinowitz to tell you the truth. But in this country, with a front-page story called “U.S. Atom we have the illusion, with so many chan- Bomb Site Belies Tokyo Tales,” and A conversation with independent journalist Amy Goodman nels and so much press, that we can get offered his “expert” assurance that “the our information not between the lines, but Japanese described ‘symptoms’ that did I from the lines. The great journalist I. F. not ring true.” For this, he won a Pulitzer Stone said to his journalism students, “If Prize. Goodman raises questions that Harriet Malinowitz: Why did you Administration (FDA), but it was being there are two words you must remember, should be obvious, yet remain astound- write The Exception to the Rulers? distributed in more than 80 countries, they’re ‘Governments lie.’” The media ingly absent from most public discussion even though it caused cancer in beagles has done us such a disservice in this of the “free press”: Amy Goodman: I think the media is and monkeys. In Atlanta, Georgia, 10,000 country in not acting as a filter, not ana- everyone’s, or should be. The corporate black women at the second largest chari- lyzing. Instead, it has acted as a micro- [W]hat of the fact that the media is using the public airwaves, and ty hospital in the country were injected phone for those in power. Pulitzer Board knowingly awarded they have a responsibility to bring out the with it, without knowing that it hadn’t At Hampshire College, I talked to the the top journalism prize to the full diversity of views. We are now in an been approved by the FDA. When I students about the danger of seeing the Pentagon’s paid publicist, who age of the “Clear Channeling” of defended it, one of my professors took world through a corporate lens and about denied the suffering of millions of America—we’re undergoing the largest the thesis, before I even started, and said, what the US represents to the rest of the Japanese? Do the Pulitzer Board media consolidation this country has ever “Miss Goodman, you know that this is world. We ended the book with this as and the Times approve of “uncriti- seen. But people are hungry for, and not a thesis in anthropology. well. The world sees the US as two cal parroting of propaganda”—as open to, ideas. What is often called the Anthropology is to be a participant- things—the sword and the shield. The long as it is from the United “mainstream media” is a misnomer. It’s observer in another person’s culture. This US government has all too often sup- States? (p. 301) not mainstream. It’s an extreme media is looking at your own culture.” I said, ported and provided weapons to repres- that beats the drums for war. There is a “Well, Dr. So-and-So, to me, this is sive regimes—the sword. People in other ast forward again from the 1940s vibrant independent media movement in anthropology. My thesis is about white countries know this. But despite this, they to the present, to evaluate whether this country that needs to be shored up male corporate culture, and science as it’s have great faith in Americans as a people. F the newspaper of record has tight- and built. And the book may introduce practiced in this country. It’s not a culture We come from the most powerful coun- ened its standards. It’s hard to pinpoint people to independent media who that I’m part of, so it’s very legitimate for try on earth. Every little act we engage in one particular brazen individual (there haven’t experienced it, and let them know me to look at it as an outsider.” has a huge ripple effect around the were several) who left The New York Times where it is. I also want to encourage peo- After college, I worked with a col- world—the shield. with no choice but to issue, in May, its ple to challenge the corporate media, league to turn my thesis into a series of In 1991, I covered East Timor, one of awkward and half-baked (though still because they’re using our national treas- articles for the Multinational Monitor called the worst genocides of the 20th century, dumbfounding) mea culpa about its ure—the public airwaves. “The Case Against Depo Provera.” As I with Allan Nairn, a great investigative fatally mendacious Iraq war coverage. was doing that, I turned on the radio to journalist. People there would take us to But Goodman’s blistering chapter, “Lies HM: You wrote this book with your keep me company, and I heard this their backyards. They’d look around of Our Times”(Exception was released in brother. How did your family back- remarkable station—WBAI. All the raw- furtively, to make sure military intelli- April) certainly didn’t minimize the pres- ground influence your work? ness of New York City, authentic voices gence was not around. Then they would sure. Goodman particularly skewers the not trying to sell you anything. It was not dig up the ground, and they would pull influential Times national security corre- AG: When I was growing up, my dad ran slick. All the accents of New York, the out a piece of paper, an article written spondent, Judith Miller, who in the a task force in our community to inte- beauty and the horror of New York, all perhaps three years before, that they had months before she was embedded in an grate the schools. And he met tremen- conveyed. I was very taken with it. saved. And they would ask us, “Did this army unit “was filling the Times’ front dous public opposition. These were resolution pass in the US Congress?” It pages with unchallenged government neighborhood schools, so they were de HM: You’ve certainly been in some was astounding. The article might be propaganda....Miller’s lies provided the facto segregated. My dad persisted in the highly dangerous situations—I’m about some nonbinding resolution that pretext for war. Her lies cost lives.” But face of death threats and a thousand thinking especially of East Timor we hardly thought about—or that most Goodman also makes it clear that Miller people screaming in an auditorium or a and Nigeria. How do you manage not Americans didn’t know about—but peo- couldn’t have acted alone: cafeteria—I probably internalized that to let fear get in your way? ple in East Timor were keeping tabs. It so emotionally even more than I understood mattered. Allan and I went through this This was the classic disinforma- what was going on. I saw what it meant AG: Well, I’m glad you didn’t say “How horrific experience, November 12, 1991, tion two-step: the White House to stand up for something you believed do you manage not to be afraid?” I’m when thousands of Timorese were leaks a lie to the Times, the news- in, in order to ultimately make your com- afraid all the time. It is a matter of not let- protesting the killings. The Indonesian paper publishes it as a startling munity a better place. My mother taught ting it get in your way. And fear is good. military marched up with US-made M- exposé, and then the White House women’s literature and history at local It makes you more careful. People here at 16s. They opened fire, and gunned down conveniently masquerades behind community colleges, and I saw what a home feel constrained just by peer pres- more than 270 of the protesters, and the credibility of the Times. (p.139) difference she made in the lives of her sure. You just have to tunnel through beat us up—they fractured Allan’s skull. students. Often her students had come that, challenge yourself like you challenge They put us before a firing squad but Though many would call Goodman’s there for continuing ed credits—they other people. ultimately decided not to kill us—I a “left” or “liberal” agenda, there’s nei- were truck drivers and cops, local guys believe because we were from the same ther an O’Reilly nor a Franken factor to who saved everything to go to communi- HM: How would you say the visibility country that had supplied their weapons. her. She is effective in part because she ty college, bringing their wives to the and impact of DN have grown since They would have had to pay a price for helps to dissolve old and increasingly class. My mother gave them an entrée its inception? killing us that they’d never have to pay useless left/right dichotomies. Her pur- into another universe. That’s what I think for killing the Timorese. suit is not of a utopian ideology, but of media should do—give people an oppor- AG: We get millions of hits on our web- When the Timorese saw us, Allan those corny propositions called truth and tunity to experience other worlds, to site. People who are interviewed on our covered in blood, they started to cry. We reality, in all their glorious distinction know that there are many different possi- show are often called by other news out- were not in worse shape than they were. from lies and propaganda. If she can’t bilities out there. lets. Often we’re not credited. Sometimes But they cried because of what we rep- escape the label “progressive” it’s only My grandparents all came over from we do a show, the international media resented to them as Americans—the because—to borrow a remark by Daniel Russia and Poland, fleeing persecution. I picks it up, and then the US press picks it sword and the shield. On that day the Okrent, the conscientious new public was shaped by the Holocaust and losing up from the international media. I call it shield was bloody, and it deepened their editor of The New York Times, quoted in many members of my family, learning “trickle-up journalism.” despair. But ten years later, they voted The New Yorker—“the pursuit of balance about that. My grandfather and my great- for their freedom, and they celebrated can create imbalance, because sometimes grandfather were Orthodox rabbis. I HM: From your extensive travels their independence. We were there again something is true.” believe we each have to find our place in around the country, have you gained in Timor when 100,000 people watched The really radical thing about the world where we feel comfortable. We any insights about Americans? as the flag of the Democratic Republic Goodman is that she takes conventional must do what we can in that niche where of East Timor was unfurled. This nation journalistic principles seriously: Listen to we feel we can reach out from. It doesn’t AG: I would say that Americans are a of survivors had resisted and won—with more than one side of a story; do all you matter if you work in the system or out- compassionate people, and when we the help of people of every political can to provide accurate information; side the system. What matters is that you learn something, we care. But we have stripe around the world, who called their don’t be bought; check your facts (and feel you can make a difference. to know. I just gave the graduation legislators, who protested. But they had those proclaimed by your sources, even if address at Hampshire College, a very to know about it first. your source is the president of the HM: What prompted you to become interesting college, which was set up in I always end every talk as I did at United States); report on what’s not involved with independent media? 1970 as an experiment in alternative Hampshire, saying, “We have a decision already being reported on; be a watchdog education. The motto of the school is, every day—whether we’re journalists or rather than a mouthpiece for those in AG: I did my college thesis in medical “To know is not enough.” We have to students, or teachers, doctors, nurses, power; let diverse voices and real debate anthropology on a drug called Depo go beyond just having the knowledge; artists, activists, employed or unem- be heard. Then, the people can decide Provera, a contraceptive. At the time, it we have to do something. But we start ployed—and that is whether to represent what they think. I wasn’t approved by the Food and Drug with information. That’s where the the sword or the shield.” I

20 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 The unmothering Where are the girls? by Lisa London by Dyan Mazurana

Let Me Go by Helga Schneider. New York: Walker & Company, Girls have become indispensable members of many armies, in 2004, 172 pp., $19.00 hardcover. Africa and around the world. Their treatment is often brutal I and their reintegration into the community difficult. I young wife and mother of two children becomes involved in joined the rebels of my own free will.” Along with researcher Susan McKay, I A local political activities. She hires a Antonia M. was in the seventh grade studied girls in armies in Uganda, Sierra babysitter so she can attend weekly I when she joined the armed opposition Leone, and Mozambique. Our report, organizing meetings. She gets her moth- forces of Renamo in 1989, during the Where Are the Girls? shows how girls like er-in-law to stay with the children so she height of Mozambique’s devastating civil Antonia serve in numerous, overlapping can leave for one-, two-, three-day train- war (1976-1992). As a bright young roles. They are combat soldiers, including ings. She participates in local organizing woman who wanted to go further in her some who fight in the front lines. They drives and hands out literature, and slow- studies, Antonia was blocked by govern- train others for combat and in laying ly her participation is recognized and mental discrimination against her ethnic ambushes and landmines. They partici- rewarded—she moves up in stature and group, none of whom gained admittance pate in suicide and bombing missions and rank. She assumes more duties and is into the few schools of higher education. are forced to be human mine sweeps and invited to meetings with higher level offi- On the promise of a scholarship to study human shields in front of adult male com- cials. But her mother-in-law complains of abroad, Antonia joined Renamo, a rebel batants. They provide slave labor; gather, the time she spends away from the chil- force known for abduction, mutilation, prepare and cook food; care for captive dren; her husband demands she stop her brutality, and murder of civilians. When children, including those born into captiv- activities; and the neighbors talk: “Why she arrived at the rebel camp, she was told ity; and haul food, medicines, weapons, isn’t she caring for the children? What that no scholarship would be forthcom- drugs, diamonds, and loot. Girls are intel- kind of mother is she?” Helga Schneider at age 4, in ing—but neither could she return home. ligence officers, spies, informants, mes- Twenty-one-year-old Traudi Schneider 1941. From Let Me Go. She was now one of the rebels. sengers. And they are often forced by not only withstood this criticism from After six months of military and their captors to provide sexual services family and friends, she seemed to invite it refers to Helga Schneider researching weapons training, Antonia spent the next and sexual labor. with her regular rejection of her mother- historical documents on Traudi two years with Renamo, eventually becom- ing duties. Finally, in an act of social Schneider’s crimes against humanity, it ing one of the top intelligence officers at age was the only survivor of my village rebellion, she left her husband and chil- also refers to a daughter learning about 15, reporting directly to the rebels’ president. after the rebels attacked. I joined [the dren to enter fully a political life. To reject acts of brutality committed by her moth- Antonia was one of approximately 100 stu- I militia] the next day because otherwise the role of mother and move on, to “un- er. The two women share the same dents under the age of 17 who formed the no one would have survived from my vil- mother” oneself: Few women have the blood, the same family history; despite core of Renamo’s intelligence community in lage,” recounted Agnes O. Agnes was 15 inner resources to carry out such an act. what Helga might wish, she has a con- their stronghold of central Mozambique. years old when she joined the Gbethis, But Let Me Go is not a story about an nection to the woman who committed Some of these children joined freely, but one of Sierra Leone’s largest militias, independent mother and her long-lost these acts. “What a sad couple we are, most were abducted. Antonia saw her for- composed of people of all ages who daughter. It was 1941 when Traudi mother, and what an absurd bond con- mer classmates among them. fought to protect their communities from Schneider left her husband and two chil- nects us,” says Helga. Renamo turned to students because attacks during Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 dren. She did so to become a proud When Helga meets her mother, she most of its core commanders and the civil war. Supposedly, these groups were member of the Nazi SS. In fact, Traudi feels not anger but horror, not need but president were uneducated and illiterate. all male and relied on magical powers and Schneider was so enthusiastic about her desperation, not understanding but Youth like Antonia could read and write traditional hunting weapons. Combining work that she was elected to guard the bewilderment. Her experience is not in Portuguese and English, and they mon- skill and valor, they at times thwarted inmates at the death camps: “Only the within the normal human emotional itored the newspapers and radios to gath- rebel offensives. hardest, the thickest-skinned were des- range; she can’t quite find language to er information about the government’s Official claims that the pro-govern- tined for those. That’s why you were cho- describe it. Twice she has to leave her movements and assess international opin- ment militias were composed only of sen for Birkenau, the most selective camp mother’s side because of panic attacks. ion about the war. They infiltrated com- males are inaccurate. Where Are the Girls? of all,” she was told. Traudi Schneider The emotional layers are thick and munities within government-held territo- provides among the first documentation never recanted or apologized for her bar- complicated. When Helga first met her ries to carry out reconnaissance. And that girls like Agnes were fully initiated barous participation in torture and mur- mother, Traudi presented her with her SS when Renamo was launching a large fight- members of militias in Sierra Leone and der. In fact, those continue to be the uniform and wanted her to try it on. She ing operation in the center of the country, were included in all ceremonies, receiving proudest days of her life. tried to give her daughter jewelry stolen where she was stationed, Antonia would amulets and scarification. Indeed, women In Let Me Go, Traudi’s daughter Helga from Jewish prisoners in the camps. be called upon to fight. and girls were integral to the militias. Some Schneider travels to the bedside of her When Helga realizes that her mother is Even as an intelligence agent, Antonia were herbalists, supplying fighters with now 90-year-old mother and transcribes completely blind to her horror, she feels joined the other women and girls who magic potions to insure their invulnerabil- in minute detail the conversation that some pity for her. But ultimately Helga is were Renamo captives to collect wood and ity, while others were fighters and messen- ensued. A document of the Shoah, the unable to reconcile her lifelong desire to water and to wash clothes in the morning. gers. Others were used to transport food Holocaust, Let Me Go details Traudi’s meet, understand, and connect with the Older women would look after younger and other provisions to fighters in the experiences as a female guard. In her woman who gave her life with her moth- ones, teaching them how to carry their bush. They served as initiators, command- daughter’s record of their conversation, er’s continued anti-Semitism and outright loads, cook, and care for their bodies dur- ers, frontline fighters, spiritual leaders, Traudi recalls numerous horrifying reverence for Hitler’s doctrines. ing menstruation. These women cared for medics, spies, and cooks. details about her desensitizing training, As a reader, I’m drawn to history each other during pregnancy and birth, High-ranking government officials witnessing torture, and enforcing camp books. But I’m one of those for whom with the older women teaching the young within Sierra Leone went to great lengths rules: “‘I had orders to treat [the prison- history must have a face. As a feminist, I mothers how to breastfeed and raise new- to insure that the presence of children, ers] with extreme harshness,’ she crows, seek out woman’s voices, especially in borns. Those in more privileged positions especially girls, within the pro-government ‘and I made them spit blood.’” She goes those places where I feel I’ve heard the within the force, such as those working in militias was kept secret. As we discovered on to describe the medical experiments men’s chorus for far too long. Women’s intelligence, had other captive women and in our study, Sierra Leone, like other gov- carried out on Jewish prisoners. Helga experience of the Holocaust is one of girls look after their children when they ernments, highlighted the use of child sol- takes pain to fully document her mother’s those places where the historical and liter- were at work. Among the less privileged diers by armed opposition groups but role in the camps, which she presents ary records are still overwhelmingly male. were rural girls who were abducted to be attempted to conceal its own use of chil- without adornment or apology. For this reason, I was drawn to this haunt- the forced “wives” of the soldiers, to grow dren in the armed forces. ing and difficult book. What adult daugh- and prepare food for the forces, and to Agnes assisted the herbalists and cooks, nd yet for all of its historical ter doesn’t struggle with the emotional train as fighters and porters. who played central roles, since they were weight and importance, this is a inheritance left to her by her mother? As a Antonia is not an anomaly. Both histor- responsible for daily infusions of herbs A deeply personal, heartbreaking historian uncovering the full weight and ically and today, girls are present in fighting into the meals of the militia members, who story. Although the mother who left and reality of the past, Helga Schneider excels. forces. Between the years 1990 and 2004, believed the herbs protected them from the daughter who was abandoned are As a daughter yearning to connect with girls were part of fighting forces in 56 injury and death. Agnes was also forced to continually subsumed by the large, brutal her mother, she must, if she has a heart, countries and were involved in armed con- partake in violent rituals with the Gbethis. reality at the heart of the last century, necessarily fail. Each time Helga uncovers flicts in 38 of these countries. Girls enter These included draining and drinking the their story is always there, pulsing just one of Traudi’s acts of brutality, she pulls fighting forces by a variety of avenues, blood of civilians who had been captured under the radar. While an apparently further away, as though, if she can collect including active recruitment, volunteering, and executed by the adult males in the straightforward statement like, “Yes, enough evidence, she too will be able to and abduction. As Antonia’s story illus- group. Such ceremonies were at times car- mother, I know, I’ve read your file,” “un-mother” herself. I trates, these entry methods may overlap. ried out before military offensives to

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 21 made her way back to northern Uganda. Where Are the Girls? Girls in She slept in trees to avoid the wild ani- Fighting Forces in Northern mals that were tracking her and that on Uganda, Sierra Leone, and some nights would circle below her. To Hidden soldiers Mozambique: Their Lives During drink, she pressed water from mud and and After War licked the morning dew from the grasses. by Robin Riley She ate leaves and wild foods. She was 10 by Susan McKay and Dyan years old. Women with jobs in the defense industry must keep the Mazurana. Montreal, PQ: We spoke with Grace several days after International Centre for Human she had crossed into northern Uganda and nature of their work secret—from friends, Rights and Democratic Development, reached the relative safety of a reception 2004, 145 pp., $15.00 (Canadian). center for formerly abducted children. family, and even themselves. There, a nurse cared for her wounds; she I ensure that everyone in the group had a received food and clean water; and she strong and fearless heart. waited to hear if any of her family mem- ver the last 50 years, the US has women to stay disconnected from the No longer a Gbethis since the war bers would come to claim her. In many been obsessed with continual true nature of their work. ended in 2002, Agnes still bears the ways, Grace was fortunate. Unlike some of O preparation for war. The primary I asked another study participant, detailed scarring along her arms and back the other recently escaped girls, she did beneficiaries of this obsession have been Angel, whether ever she thinks of her- that marks her membership. Because she not return with a child born in captivity or private defense contractors, who rely on self as building weapons. “No,” she said, is a girl, she was blocked from entering having served as the captive “wife” of a US government for their economic well “I can’t say that I do. No, nothing like government programs for former fight- rebel commander. Due to the stigma of being. While men hold the majority of the that has ever crossed my mind.” The ers—like the overwhelming majority of having a baby from the rebels, potential prestigious and high paying jobs in “hidden soldiers” in my study don’t the girls in the countries we studied. health problems, lack of education and defense corporations, these industries acknowledge their contribution to war However, while the government may training, and poverty, these girl-mothers could not exist without women’s labor. and see themselves as peace-loving refuse to acknowledge her, because Agnes and their children are at the highest risk of One of the best-kept secrets of militarism women. Teresa explained: is scarred and has remained in the area she any group of children associated with the is its reliance, not just on particular con- fought to defend, members of her com- fighting forces. structions of femininity and masculinity, We make radar. It’s not like we’re munity know that she was a Gbethis. Antonia, Agnes, and Grace are three but also on the labor—public and private, making machine guns, which obvi- Unlike the boys, who continue their mag- among the hundreds of girls whom we visible and invisible—of women. ously some plants do.... I guess I’ve ical training and gather publicly to sing talked with during the three years we spent Between 1997 and 2000 I conducted never thought about it as a war their warsongs, Agnes keeps to herself. researching and writing Where Are the 40 in-depth interviews with women who product other than as a defense The villagers are wary of her and keep Girls? Girls have suffered severe violations are associated by work or through their product. It was like working any- their distance because of her perceived of their human rights at the hands of var- spouses or partners with private defense where else. It wasn’t a big intricate powers and her violation of her society’s ious fighting forces. At the same time, they corporations in two small cities in part of... where we were going to gender norms during her time in the fight- show tremendous ability to plan and cope. upstate New York. I also visited one of drop bombs on somebody. It was ing forces. But their coping strategies and resilience the worksites and examined industry basically just office work. As Agnes’ experiences show, even must not be mistaken for empowerment. documents. When I began my study I among groups that deny their existence, Girls clearly articulate what is empow- assumed that I would find “manly” men Even though the work she was doing girls are central to fighting forces. Official ering to them. Education for themselves and “girly” women. Instead, the would enable the military to “drop bombs denial often effectively blocks girls from and their children nearly always tops the women’s stories revealed that although on somebody,” Teresa distinguished participating in programs established to list. This is followed by the desire for the militarism is indeed dependent upon the between the production of radar systems help fighters transition back into civilian love and support of their families and cooperation and participation of both and the production or delivery of bombs. life. At the same time, when the conflict communities. We found that community men and women, this doesn’t always She saw her part in defense work as ends, girls’ participation in the fighting healing and reintegration rituals are often work in the simple, traditional ways that innocuous, asserting that she and her co- force may stigmatize them, even among the gender specific, and that it was often com- one might imagine. workers “weren’t really doing anything” very communities they sought to defend. munity women who organized to work Militarism influences how people to prepare for or facilitate war. Perhaps Consequently, girls returning to civilian with these girls. Girls in general, and girl- express femininity and masculinity preparation for war is a goal she doesn’t communities face enormous challenges. mothers in particular, are also in great through a complex process that includes want to think of herself as working need of health care, particularly reproduc- the seepage of militarism beyond the towards. The women’s reluctance to see race A. was captured by the tive health care and treatment of sexually fences surrounding military bases or the themselves as part of the war machine is Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) at transmitted diseases contracted while in walls of defense factories into daily life assisted by the secrecy around weapons G the age of eight. The LRA is an the fighting forces. and cultural assumptions. For those production, the segmented methods of armed rebel force made up of captive Where Are the Girls? demonstrates that working in the defense industry, secrecy manufacture, the rhetoric of the industry, children that has been fighting the taking seriously girls’ roles and experiences and silences divide intimate partners and the constant presence of current and Ugandan government since 1987. Because in fighting forces leads to a deeper under- from one another, children from their former military and government officials. the LRA cannot get fighters to join their standing of what it takes to create and parents, individuals from neighborhoods All this insures that many of the women ranks, they fill them through abduction. maintain the fighting forces in current and communities, and worker from make the distinction between offensive The LRA forces new abductees to partic- armed conflicts. In the conflicts and worker. The participants in my study and defensive weapons or refer to work- ipate in the torture or murder of members armed forces studied, girls’ labor was not articulated the ways in which an ideology ing for a defense contractor as working of their community or family, simultane- incidental, but rather was the foundation of good citizenship and patriotism guar- for the government. ously indoctrinating them and attempting upon which the forces relied. This was antees that people will comply with mili- to curb their desire to escape. particularly true for rebel forces, since they tarization by participating in defense n ethic of silence permeates these Like thousands of children before her, could not rely on state support. This work. Patriotic ideology also insures that women’s lives. It starts from the Grace was taken to the LRA’s bases in means that as feminists we should be high- workers won’t break the silences. A prohibition against discussing the southern Sudan, where she underwent a ly skeptical when we hear girls and women Audrey (all interviewee names are work even among colleagues or with brutal military training. Unless a girl was referred to as “camp followers.” pseudonyms) described the work she and partners and families. Karen, who works pregnant or had a small child, she was Government and military officials lump other women did as “housekeeping… for the same defense contractor as her forced to join the other captive boys and girls into this category when they want to finance—that kind of thing is what we husband, explained: girls early in the morning, singing and danc- avoid taking responsibility for them. basically do.” She and other women ing at a frantic pace until noon. Around Girls who have served in fighting often referred to their work as unimpor- You want to talk about what you noon, the children were then forced to run forces have often been simultaneously vic- tant, calling their participation in the do but you just didn’t dare really for hours under the heat of the sun. Those tims and perpetrators, and it is inaccurate construction of weaponry “housekeep- say too much…. It’s been who dropped from exhaustion were left to to think of them only as victims, “sexual ing,” “exporting,” or “counting.” How tough…being a wife of someone die. Those left standing would gather in slaves,” or “captive wives.” While it is true does “finance” become “housekeeping”? who works there... For years I groups of seven to ten and share one cup that these girls were victimized, many are Perhaps “finance” when performed by could never go into the part of the of water and one cup of beans. They would moving on with their lives. Through their men has a special meaning, additional building where he works. I didn’t forage for the rest of their food. This train- experiences, they have learned both posi- importance. The discourse of defense, in have the [security] clearance…. ing went on for months, and many died. tive and negative lessons that they can which, at the strategy level, human Other husbands and wives come The survivors were given weapons training selectively return to as they confront beings are “collateral damage,” and at home and talk about what hap- and sent to loot civilian villages in southern future challenges. Rather than assuming the factory level, buildings are called pened at the office, and you just Sudan and northern Uganda and fight the that they are “healing a victim,” with a “the house,” encourages these women to couldn’t. If there were things that various armed forces in both countries. notion of regaining a norm that can never use domestic language, such as referring were not going well, and he was Grace was a survivor. be regained, those who wish to help these to making cabinets. Is this way of talking really upset, I somehow had to deal In 2003, Grace’s unit came under girls must take a holistic approach. They Audrey’s attempt to distance herself with this—not knowing why—and attack in southern Sudan. During the must take into account the gendered phys- from war? What Audrey calls “house- that has been difficult over the bombardment, Grace escaped the LRA, ical, psychological, spiritual, and social keeping” is vital to the operations of years. To know that he can’t tell only to find herself alone in the arid lands aspects of healing and reintegration. The defense corporations—but renaming it certain things to me…. It’s just a of southern Sudan. For the next month, girls have a place and a future in the com- removes its lethality. Performing work certain part of his world that I’ll she traveled cautiously to avoid the vari- munity they have returned to, and they can that consists mainly of dealing with for- never know about…. You always ous groups fighting in the area as she make meaningful contributions to it. I mulas or anonymous parts helps the feel like there’s this wall. But that’s

22 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 just the nature of what he’s doing, able to preserve their vision of the Old and he can’t jeopardize his job. South in the creation of the New. Catherine Bishir reiterates this point in This habit of secrecy extends far- Shaping the past “‘A Strong Force of the Ladies’: Women, ther than keeping spouses, partners, or Politics and Confederate Memorial children ignorant of the mundane by Martha Norkunas Associations in Nineteenth-Century details of one’s workday or even of Raleigh.” “Ladies Memorial Associations,” what one does for a living. It expands Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, & Other Forms of Visible Gender she says, “had a defining role in shaping to include family finances, the raising public memory of the Lost Cause, creat- of children, family problems, politics, by Jeanne Banks Thomas. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, ing a widely accepted meaning of the dreams, and expectations. Confederacy and contributing to national When I asked the women about their 2003, 240 pp., $39.95 hardcover, $21.95 paper. reunification largely on southern terms.” work, many joked, “If I tell you, I have to They lobbied to have Civil War monu- kill you.” The joke seems to be part of a Restoring Women’s History Through Historic Preservation ments memorialize their particular version discourse that aims to make silence of history. While they honed their execu- acceptable and normative. edited by Gail Lee Dubrow and Jennifer B. Goodman. tive and persuasive skills, they also relied “You know, everyone tells me this on feminine deference and promoted the joke,” I commented to one woman. She Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, traditional gender division of labor. explained, 2003, 464 pp., $41.95 hardcover. Kathleen Clark points out that it was also ladies’ memorial associations that It’s not a joke if you work there. I Monuments to the Lost Cause edited by Cynthia Mills and attempted to excise the history of slavery don’t mean I would kill somebody. as a cause of the Civil War with stories I mean that’s what they’re telling Pamela H. Simpson. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee that insisted on the Southern soldier’s you. When you get debriefed in manly defense of life, honor, and the hap- the military, and you know some Press, 2003, 296 pp., $45.00 hardcover. piness of women and children. top secret stuff, you just can’t tell The women of the UDC and the anybody…. There is a serious- I memorial associations, although activists, ness—if you really care about the were not feminists, national defense you’ll abide by hese three very different but relat- Pamela Simpson em- [secrecy rules], and you have to ed texts weave together ideas phasizes. “What they trust that they’re doing it in your T about the politics of representa- defended was not their best interest. You have to trust tion and preservation. Based on years of right to challenge somewhere. experience in the field of public history, authority but instead the the authors in one collection of essays conservative position Of course, defense corporation argue that women must be fully integrat- we have come to know administrators also overtly reinforce the ed into the presentation of the past. A as the Lost Cause.” Yet prohibition against talking about work. second set of essays focuses on the shap- as Cynthia Mills notes, At one of the companies I studied, as you ing of Southern public memory after the the role of women was walk through the building, you see signs Civil War. The third text looks at the rep- changing, and that reminding employees about security resentation of women’s bodies on the change was negotiated clearance classifications. Other signs landscape and in popular culture. All con- in the commemorative exhort employees to “Protect Classified sider the complicated relationships context. In “Gratitude and Sensitive Information” and warn that between gender, race, and class. and Gender Wars, “Others Are Interested in Your Work.” Monuments to the Lost Cause chronicles Monuments to Women The secrecy reinforces the gendered the role that elite, white women played in of the Sixties,” Mills division of labor inside the defense the creation and preservation of a con- recounts the early 20th industry as well as the feminization of ception of the Confederacy known as the century effort by home responsibilities in the families of Lost Cause. Many assumed leadership Southern male veterans employees. These women must struggle positions in the public domain for the to build monuments to with the contradiction between their first time, exercising their considerable the women of the actual practice of gender and their loyalty power through club activities. As W. Confederacy. While the to traditional roles. Said Audrey, Fitzhugh Brundage comments in his men’s avowed goal was essay “Woman’s Hand and Heart and Detail of frieze showing “black mammy,” Confederate to express gratitude to I’ve resented it sometimes, you Deathless Love,” the goal of revering Monument at Arlington National Cemetery. Southern women for know. My husband at one point white heroes and all things Confederate From Monuments to the Lost Cause. their valor, self-sacrifice, was doing a lot of traveling. As a “was as safe and unimpeachable a ground and strength of charac- result of that, the kids were always for women’s activism as was conceivable ter during the war years, left with me. And I think it kind of in the New South.” Brundage says that in the controversy over the Mammy monu- Mills argues that one of their main pur- stunned him at one point when he the 19th century, ment, Micki McElya argues that this poses was to defend Southern men against came back to realize that I could racialization of the domestic sphere Northern accusations of emasculation and pay the bills, I could mow the [a]rmed with the privileges of allowed white women to retain a feminine to assert white male honor by erasing the lawn, I could fix the lawnmower…. whiteness and affluence, commem- construction of domesticity yet distance stain of rape. The seven monuments to When he came back, he felt left orative activists employed the full themselves from the labor and responsi- women erected between 1912 and 1926 out because I had taken on the full array of cultural resources at their bilities of daily household upkeep. While enshrined elite, white, self-denying, sub- responsibility of running this disposal—scholarly monographs, Southern pro-slavery writers used the missive wives. Protecting the pure, white home by myself. The kids didn’t go mawkish stage dramas, romantic Mammy image to legitimize relations woman was a defining ideal of the to Dad, they always came to me. poetry, atmospheric local color fic- between white men and black women, Confederacy. Yet the monuments were at tion, heroic public sculpture, and portraying them as maternal and nurtur- odds both with younger women’s new The women I interviewed clung to a pious public commemorations—to ing rather than sexually violent, the black vision of their role in society and with gender discourse that constructs them as insinuate their memory into the press linked the proposed Mammy statue older women’s recollections of antebellum weak and in need of protection, but they public realm. (p. 70) with lynching. Both were brutal acts of life and the reality of war. were anything but passive and dependent. domination that ripped away the veneer They were active, vital, and capable. They Founded in 1894, the United of maternal warmth and childlike inno- he 21 essays in Restoring Women’s did not require, nor did they get, the pro- Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) cence the UDC affixed to segregation, History through Historic Preservation tection of their male partners. was involved not only in commemorative revealing instead how white men used T also describe women’s historic The perpetuation of militarism relies activities but also in campaigns against lynching to terrorize black men and rape preservation efforts throughout the on the keeping of this secret. Strong, self- textbooks they deemed hostile to the to terrorize black women. A storm of United States, though the essays are less sufficient women capable of self-care Confederacy, establishing homes for the black protest effectively killed the overtly political. Women played critical and self-protection do not require male aged and children’s auxiliaries, and spon- Mammy monument, although the iconog- leadership roles in identifying sites for attention or approval. It is therefore soring historical research. In the early raphy of the Mammy would long remain preservation and raising funds. Barbara important for militarized women to deny 1900s, the UDC began a public appeal for in American political culture. Howe describes the link between cults of their contributions and capabilities in a monument to “Mammy,” to honor In “The Confederate Monument at domesticity and the patriotic fervor that favor of patriarchal constructions that “faithful slaves” and their love for their Arlington: A Token of Reconcilation,” drove women’s preservation efforts in keep them subordinate. Men and women masters. The product of a white racial Karen Cox describes the powerful role the 19th century. Shaun Eyring describes who realized how false these traditional imagination that sanctioned white the United Daughters of the Confederacy the important work done by garden understandings are, and how dependent supremacy, “Mammy” embodied notions played in building a monument at clubs, including early efforts to establish militarism really is on women, would be of a safe and appealing blackness. Elderly, Arlington National Cemetery, which was the National Park Service, state parks, less likely to accept the kinds of sacrifices wide of girth, gruff but protective of her unveiled on June 4, 1914. By placing and highway beautification projects, and on the part of individuals, families, and white family, she was the antithesis of images of Confederate heroes on the later to conserve vernacular landscapes. society that militarism demands. I desirable white feminity. In her essay on national landscape, the Daughters were Fath Davis Ruffins write of efforts to

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 23 preserve sites associated with African- abundance of women’s history if we American women. know where to look, if we successfully Most of the essays are concerned with argue that such history is so critical to rethinking the interpretation at historic understanding the past that it cannot be Memory and survival sites and museums so that women’s roles ignored by anybody.” become central to the story. At the heart by Rochelle G. Ruthchild of the book is the argument that placing eanne Banks Thomas’ Naked Barbies, women’s experiences at the core of the Warrior Joes, & Other Forms of Visible After Such Knowledge: Memory, History, and the Legacy of historical record will redefine the basic J Gender looks at cemetery statues, yard narrative of American history. Editor art, and Barbie and GI Joe dolls, and at the Holocaust by Eva Hoffman. New York: PublicAffairs, Gail Dubrow begins the book with a the stories people tell about those objects, strong overview essay that summarizes to think about how Americans construct 2004, 301 pp., $25.00 hardcover. key issues in the field. In a later essay gender in everyday life. “When examined Dubrow explores the identification and as a group, the three types of gendered The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp preservation of gay and lesbian sites, as material indicate that the most pervasive well as the reinterpretation of sites, many gendered and sculptural figures are pre- by Rochelle G. Saidel. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin literary, to include information on the sented in a fashion approximately two writers’ homosexuality. Dolores Hayden’s hundred years behind current discourse Press, 2004, 268 pp., $26.95 hardcover. “Power of Place” project in Los Angeles on gender and equality.” I marked places of meaning on the land- Like others who have written about scape for women and ethnic minorities. public images of women, Thomas notes n the aftermath of the Holocaust, she distinguishes from the “tragedy” of The reinterpretation of the Martin Van the pattern of representing Woman as an Jews, the People of the Book, have others who experienced the horrors of Buren National Historic Site to include aesthetic ideal rather than women as indi- I published countless works in an effort war. She discusses the concept of the women who worked as domestic servants viduals. The two stock female figures in to make sense of the crimes perpetrated by “memorial candle,” the one child in each also encompassed gender and class. our culture are the loving, nurturing, those who began by burning books and survivor’s family chosen as “the instru- Writer Patricia West explains, comforting mother or the young, beauti- ended by burning human beings, and of ment of commemoration, devotion, and ful, erotic woman. The young, eroticized the courage of those who defied Nazi mourning.” And, as she has done in other Examining how house servants figures are subjects of the male gaze; men orders and rescued Jews. Both of these writing, she emphasizes the significance lived is an ideal way of demon- act as observers or sexualized witnesses. books add to our understanding of Hitler’s of the emigration, the “uprooting [that strating some of the important The female figures are desirable but do war against the Jews and its aftermath. was] an almost intrinsic part of the changes in American political cul- not desire. Male images are, interestingly, Eva Hoffman is one of the most elo- Holocaust’s aftermath.” ture across Van Buren’s lifetime, rigidly essentialized. Men are portrayed in quent spokespeople of the second genera- Hoffman covers a wide range of topics most significantly mass immigra- action, battle, or business. They are less tion, the children of Holocaust survivors. intelligently and well, including her own tion, a feature of American history frequently sexualized, rarely associated Born in Poland immediately after World and others’ second generation encounters which has shaped its politics as with the domestic or intimate, and less War II, Hoffman emigrated with her par- with Christian Germans and Poles (she’s well as its social structure in funda- often depicted as parents. They are ents to Vancouver, Canada, in 1959. An in favor of these, but not as trite group mental ways. (p. 90) almost always presented as powerful. accomplished writer and scholar, she has therapy exercises); the replacement of Banks chronicles these gender stereo- journeyed from the shadows of Poland’s immediate post-war amnesia about the Many of the essays have a practical types in cemeteries, in people’s yards, and killing fields to the heights of the US and Holocaust with the last decade’s “near- component to them, explaining how a in a history of two modern dolls. She western European cultural establishment. obsessive interest”; morality, memory and project was constructed and the politics traces their antecedents to 19th-century She holds a Harvard PhD, has won a pres- memorials; survivors as “the Brahmins of involved in getting it implemented. They fine art traditions and examines how little tigious Guggenheim Fellowship, and the trauma elites”; the Holocaust as “an describe statewide projects, the first gendered imagery changed when mass served for most of the 1980s as editor of empty if universal symbol”; and the national park dedicated to women’s rights, production made statuary affordable and The New York Times Book Review.Now necessity of “separation and contain- and various private and public women’s widely available. residing in London, she lives the life of a ment—the two great psychoanalytic history houses. Other articles look at Thomas reflects on the representa- cosmopolitan intellectual, jetting to visit- goods,” in coming to terms with “the interpreting domestic workers in tion of race in yard art and dolls. ing professorships and lectures in the US most difficult of pasts.” References to Philadelphia, nurses in Montreal, and Stereotypes are made manifest in the and to Holocaust events in Poland and psychoanalysis and its concepts recur, but prostitution in Los Angeles. One article statuary. In yard art, African-American relaxing by working her way through the while her book is intensely personal, outlines efforts to rethink the interpreta- males were often portrayed as jockeys, classical piano repertoire she learned in Hoffman maintains a certain psychic dis- tion of library interiors to demonstrate symbols of the docile, faithful servant. her youth. In previous books, she explored tance, revealing no specifics about her women’s fundamental contributions to “Owning” an image of an African- her childhood and the shock of emigra- own encounters with psychoanalysis. founding and staffing libraries nationwide. American male vitiated the threat the tion, the history of a Polish shtetl, and the One of the most moving sections of The authors are sensitive to class issues, black male posed to whites. impact of the fall of Communism in east- the book recounts Hoffman’s visit with examining how middle- and working-class However, Thomas discovered that ern Europe. She has been compared to her sister to Zalosce, the scene of their women are being incorporated into a vari- these stereotypes are satirized in folklore. Primo Levi, whose searing descriptions of parent’s Holocaust agony but also of ety of historic sites and landscapes. In the narratives she collected we see how his Auschwitz experiences remain among their life before the war. They meet their Page Putnam Miller writes about initia- people understand, critique, and subvert the best of Holocaust memoirs. parent’s rescuers, the Hryczkos, now in tives within the National Park Service. The gender images. She found that women In After Such Knowledge, Hoffman reflects their 80s, who retain vivid memories of Women’s History Landmark Project result- have access to more roles than men in on the Holocaust as a particular historical them, and leave Hoffman puzzling about ed in the designation of approximately 40 both visual and verbal traditions. The event and contemplates its various mean- why her parents completely lost contact National Historic Landmarks associated Barbie doll, for example, has assumed a ings in today’s world. As she notes, despite with their saviors. with women, doubling the proportion of culturally complex role. Adults and chil- common references to the “memory” of Turning to the present, Hoffman con- women’s National Historic Landmarks dren use Barbie as a vehicle to address key the Holocaust, subsequent generations demns the rise of anti-Jewish racism on from two to four percent. Miller rightly issues in their lives, creating S&M Barbie, have only indirect knowledge of it, both the right and the left. Islamists pro- argues that women’s history sites require Hacker Barbie, Menopause Barbie. Near although it irrevocably changed their lives. claiming a new jihad against the West have definitions different from those associated the end of the book, Thomas spends Refuting the idea of collective guilt is adopted the worst canards of European with male achievement, and thus that we some time thinking about the rigid gender a central theme of Hoffman’s work. This anti-Semitism, making as their holy book need a fundamental restructuring of the roles constructed for GI Joe and the lack is no doubt directly connected to the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the old criteria for national designation. of parody of these roles in play behavior. experience of her parents, who owed forgery concocted by the Tsarist secret The closing article, written by Heather These three books shed light on the their survival to Christians who risked police at the end of the 19th century. It is Huyck, identifies issues common to creation and maintenance of public mem- their lives to harbor them (in German- ironic that this new virulent and deadly many of the essays. She urges curators of ory, which is a powerful force in under- occupied Poland, where hiding Jews was strain of the age-old hatred has emerged historic sites to ask where women were, standing the past and in creating contem- punishable by death). Hoffman’s belief in among people who consider themselves what experiences they had, what differ- porary public policy. Women have been the courage and decency of ordinary peo- opponents of everything western and ence they made, and what implications erased from the past at many historic sites, ple in the face of the venality, brutality, Christian. Turning her critical eye left- their experiences have for today. and they have suffered the ongoing mis- and racism too often displayed by ward, Hoffman also deplores the use of Women’s unpaid labor, she points out, is representation of their bodies as erotic Christians during the Holocaust serves as anti-Jewish slogans by some peace a fundamental part of the economy and statues or grieving madonnas. But women a counterpoint to Jan Gross’ account of activists. She decries equally the militarism can be interpreted at every site. She also have also entered the public arena as pow- Polish savagery in the village of Jedwabne and anti-Muslim racism directed against argues for surveys in each state on erful creators and keepers of public mem- and Daniel Goldhagen’s condemnation of Islam and Islamists in general. women’s historic resources and the estab- ory. In the American South, some have German complicity in Hitler’s Willing Although Hoffman would probably lishment of a national collaborative of enshrined elite, white versions of history. Executioners (1996). reject this characterization, part of what women’s historic sites. (That last was Contemporary activists are creating a dif- As Hoffman observes, the “character- made her earlier work stand out in the vast achieved with the founding of the ferent vision of the past. They are altering istic postwar mood” among survivors was body of Holocaust literature, most of it National Collaborative for Women’s the stories told at historic sites, in muse- a “mix of carpe diem energy and carpe diem written by men, was her recounting of her History Sites, ncwhs.oah.org/.) The full ums, and on the landscape to include gen- cynicism,” resulting in a fixed focus on experiences as a girl and a woman. Her inclusion of women’s experiences into der, class, and race, and in so doing they the present. She devotes a section to the sensitivity to the life of the Other, the the nation’s past has the potential to are working to fundamentally transform psychology of the survivors and to stud- quintessential mark of the Jew in the dias- rewrite history for everyone. “There is an the definition of history. I ies of their post-genocide trauma, which pora, was deepened by her experience of

24 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 the otherness of being female, albeit an Nazi SS head Heinrich Himmler, and a extraordinarily highly achieving one. In representative of the Swedish section of Lost in Translation, for example, she the World Jewish Congress. explored emigration from the vantage Saidel has done a remarkable job of Organizing for peace in Israel point of a teenager learning to wear a tracking down Ravensbrück survivors and miniskirt, a girl passing into western sexu- recording their life stories. She lists 91 sur- by Gila Svirsky al objectification from the relatively shel- vivors by name as providing testimony tered Communist East. But in her current used in her book; the total number she Why Israeli and Palestinian women want a book, feminist and gender issues are interviewed is even higher. Most live in addressed obliquely, dismissed, or simply the US, some in Canada and Australia; peace movement of their own not mentioned. Hoffman specifically con- some remained in Europe and Russia. demns the feminist motto “the personal is Saidel addresses gender-related issues I political” as “much too glib,” even as she in a short chapter on “Gender and uses her personal experience as the basis Women’s Bodies.” While not of the depth n Sunday, February 4, 2001, 500 of the Occupied Territories, urgent-action of her arguments about the Holocaust. of Nehama Tec’s pathbreaking Resilience women gathered on the road e-mail lists, and trilingual websites to mobi- She omits any mention of homosexuality, and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust O opposite Israel’s ministry of lize international opinion; and participates although gay men and lesbians were sent (2003), Saidel’s attention to gender defense in Tel Aviv. We dressed in black in direct action in the Occupied Territories. to the concentration camps; identification strengthens the book and touches on and donned sandwich boards with the Much of the Coalition’s nonviolent with the Holocaust is a prominent theme some issues not discussed by Tec. Saidel, word “closure” painted across them in resistance has included acts declared illegal in the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender like Tec, emphasizes the patriarchal con- Hebrew, Arabic, and English. At a signal, by the authorities, such as blocking the world; and the second generation includes trol reflected in the all-male Nazi power a small group of us slowly moved into entrance to the ministry of defense. Some some outspoken gays and lesbians. structure and in the Jewish councils set up the road and sat down, forming a line actions are carried out together with This is particularly perplexing because by the Germans in occupied Europe. clear across it and completely blocking all mixed-gender peace organizations, such as in general Hoffman is not shy about Women such as Gemma LaGuardia passage of cars. Within moments, anoth- rebuilding Palestinian homes that the wrestling with complex contemporary Gluck, New York Mayor Fiorello La er group of women joined us and stood Israeli Defense Force (IDF) demolished or issues, such as Polish complicity in the Guardia’s sister, and relatives of Charles with their placards facing the cars. We removing blockades and filling in trenches Holocaust or the recent genocides in de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, sur- formed a solid block of “closure” signs intended to enforce the closure. Women Bosnia and Rwanda. She discusses not vived because of their connection to pow- that completely stopped traffic in both have blocked bulldozers with their bodies, only the significance of Israel in the post- erful men; although a few others, like directions. This, we felt, might help the chained themselves to olive trees, and con- Holocaust world, but also Israeli invoca- Olga Benário Prestes, deported from generals understand what a “closure” fronted soldiers in efforts to prevent fur- tion of the Holocaust to justify brutality Brazil to Germany because her husband feels like—what it’s like to be prevented ther destruction of Palestinian homes and against the Palestinians. was a Communist Party leader, became from entering or leaving your city or vil- property. Much joint work has also been Ultimately, Hoffman advocates mov- particular targets because of such connec- lage, a tactic frequently imposed on done with Palestinian women to prevent ing on, citing the Jewish tradition of tions. Women could pass more easily as Palestinian towns. Within minutes, construction of the so-called security wall. grieving fully for the dead but placing a Aryans because they did not have the tell- policemen roared up on motorcycles Some of the Coalition’s actions have finite end to mourning. “Perhaps,” she tale sign of circumcision. But patriarchal shrieking with sirens. They plowed in and ended in arrests, and many ended in injury argues, “that moment has come, even as assumptions, such as that women were grabbed women, with considerable force, to protesters by security forces. we must continue to ponder and confront primarily responsible for children, meant and threw us into police vans. Other The women’s peace movement has the knowledge that the Shoah has that at death camps like Auschwitz, women replaced the first group on the also engaged in humanitarian aid as a brought us in perpetuity.” women with children were sent directly to road, until they were arrested, too. political statement: helping Palestinian the gas chambers, while men were “saved” Seventeen of us spent the night in jail. families with the olive harvest; providing n contrast to Hoffman, Rochelle G. to be slave laborers. This action, carried out by the school supplies, infant food, sanitary nap- Saidel focuses on the specifics of the Saidel addresses in detail issues of per- Coalition of Women for Peace, launched kins, and other needs. Astonishingly, we I Holocaust, on the forever incomplete sonal hygiene, nudity, and menstruation in a dramatic and often daring series of generally have to struggle with the IDF to work of preserving survivors’ accounts. the camps. She also discusses subjects direct-action events. Until the “closure” allow aid to enter the Palestinian areas. Although the Holocaust is the most docu- about which survivors are reluctant to demonstration, the women’s peace move- The Coalition has also held some dra- mented genocide in history, each survivor’s talk, such as rape and prostitution. ment in Israel had mostly used vigils, dia- matic public actions within Israel. Three story is unique. Saidel’s goal is to make vis- Despite the Nazi prohibitions against logue, and joint activities with Palestinian months after the current Intifadah began ible a previously ignored aspect of women’s “race defilement,” the situation in the women. Now it had added nonviolent in fall 2000, 5,000 Israeli and Palestinian Holocaust history: Jewish women’s experi- camps, where men wielded absolute resistance to its repertoire. In this article, women marched together from the Israeli ence at the Ravensbrück concentration power over women, was a natural setting I will look at the diverse strategies and to the Palestinian side of Jerusalem under camp. Saidel, born in the United States in for such abuse. Saidel recounts survivors’ ideological underpinnings of the the banner “We Refuse to be Enemies.” 1942, represents the generation untouched stories about drunken SS men roaring into women’s peace movement in Israel. I We held a concert for peace, featuring physically by the Holocaust but deeply women’s barracks on their motorcycles believe that this analysis will make evi- Israeli and Palestinian women performing identifying with those who experienced its for a rape spree as just one example of dent why we feel that we need a peace works that express our longing for peace. horrors. She is the author of two other this classic violence against women. movement of our own. We organized a cavalcade of cars that Holocaust-related books, one on the poli- Other Holocaust authors have dis- The Coalition of Women for Peace is drove through Israel bearing signs like, tics of the New York City Holocaust cussed bonding between women and its composed of nine different women’s “The Price of the Occupation is Too Museum and the other on the search for importance in camp survival, but Saidel is peace organizations in Israel, each with its High!” We staged a mass “die-in” in Tel Nazi war criminals in the US. among the very few to address directly the own strategy and target audience (see side- Aviv: 1,000 women dressed in black lying Saidel first became involved in docu- subject of lesbianism in the Nazi camps. bar). The Coalition speaks for the women’s flat out on the hot summer pavement menting the history of Ravensbrück after She notes that Nazi law declared male peace movement as a whole and has its under the banner “The Occupation is a 1980 visit to East Germany, when she homosexuality illegal; the pink triangle was own range of activities: It conducts mass Killing Us All.” Most recently, we have was appalled to learn that, as was the prac- solely for men. Female homosexuality was rallies and outreach programs to Israeli held “walking exhibitions,” holding tice in the Soviet bloc, Jews, who had not mentioned in the Nazi-adopted, populations who do not generally share blown-up photos of the carnage in Gaza comprised 20 percent of the camp popu- Bismarck-era law code criminalizing same our political views; it organizes bus tours and standing opposite the lines of people lation, were not represented in the various sex relations. Lesbians confined to memorials at the site. Ravensbrück, the Ravensbrück wore a black triangle as “aso- only Nazi concentration camp exclusively cials.” Saidel’s section on lesbians is brief, as THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY for women, was located 55 miles from her sources are limited. She acknowledges Berlin. After the war, the area was part of that survivors’ accounts of same-sex rela- DEPARTMENT OF WOMEN’S STUDIES invites applications and nominations for a the Communist German Democratic tionships are either absent or overwhelm- full-time tenure eligible position at the assistant or associate level. We are looking for a Republic; since 1990, it has become part ingly negative, reflecting both lesbian invis- candidate who complements the department’s offerings in historical, social science, of the reunified Germany. Between 1939 ibility and deep-seated prejudices. materialist, and empirical research with demonstrated commitment to interdisciplinary and 1945, 132,000 women from 23 coun- In bringing to light the experiences of teaching and research. Preferred specialization in political economy or policy, including tries were held in the camp. Besides Jews, the women of Ravensbrück concentra- class stratification, immigration, border studies, welfare, poverty, kinship and family, Ravensbrück’s population included politi- tion camp, Saidel adds to our knowledge labor rights/unionization, work, race and ethnicity, urban studies, and/ or social move- cal prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so- of Jewish survival in the genocidal condi- ments, in the U.S. and/or transnationally. Candidates must be committed to teaching interdisciplinary research methods at the graduate level. The Women’s Studies called “asocials,” a category encompassing tions created by the Nazis. Her account is Department offers an undergraduate major and minor, an M.A., and a Ph.D. Gypsies, prostitutes, lesbians, and crimi- valuable for its documentation of the nals. As was the practice in other camps, Holocaust and serves as a reminder—as Requirements for the position include a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies or a relevant field; as the liberating armies neared, the rela- we face US brutality against Iraqi prison- preference will be given to candidates with the degree, graduate certificate, and/or tively healthy, some 11,000, were driven ers, Al Qaeda beheadings, Sudanese slav- teaching experience in Women’s Studies. Ph.D. must be completed by June 2005. from the camp by the Germans on a ery, Israeli assassinations, and Palestinian forced death march. Few survived. When suicide bombers—of the ease with which By Nov. 1, 2004, please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and the names of three the Soviet Army entered the camp on humans create the Other and slide so recommenders to: Chair, Search Committee, Department of Women’s Studies, 286 April 30, 1945, only 3,000 seriously ill swiftly into cruelty and killing. The Shoah University Hall, 230 N. Oval Mall, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210-1311. women remained. One thousand were survivors cried “Never Again!” but the The Ohio State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. taken to Sweden as a result of an agree- human capacity for abuse, murder, and We welcome applications from women, minorities, veterans, and individuals with disabilities. ment between the Swedish Red Cross, genocide appears never ending. I

The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 25 waiting to buy tickets for theater or con- used civil disobedience but rather held cert performances in the heartland of cul- The principles of the Coalition of small demonstrations and vigils that The Coalition of Women for tured Israel. As the violence continues, we Women for Peace were formulated highlighted the sincerity of their plea as Peace includes nine different women’s wrack our brains to come up with new at a meeting on November 8, 2000: law-abiding women, not activists or organizations in Israel, each using a Š ways of waking up other Israelis. An end to the occupation. politicians. Their status as mothers who different strategy, all with the goal of Š The full involvement of women had sons serving in combat units gave promoting peace with our Arab neigh- omen constitute the majority of in negotiations for peace. them the right, in the eyes of the public, bors, particularly the Palestinians. Š participants even in the mixed- Establishment of the state of to challenge Israeli policy in Lebanon. These organizations include a mix of Wgender peace movement, Palestine side by side with the They demanded—and were accorded— Jewish and Palestinian women, all citi- though they rarely become the decision- state of Israel based on the 1967 meetings with the highest government zens of Israel. The member organiza- makers in these groups. Women are also borders. officials, whose inadequate answers were tions and their strategies: Š The recognition of Jerusalem as the initiators and main actors in the then magnified through the well-run Š Bat Shalom is the Israeli sister the shared capital of two states. organization Black Laundry: Lesbians media work of this group. The mother- organization to the Palestinian Š Recognition by Israel of its share and Gay Men Against the Occupation. I oriented nature of this movement, and its Jerusalem Center for Women, both of responsibility for the results would be remiss if I did not also mention dissociation from partisan politics, struck of which are joined as the of the 1948 war and cooperation that lesbians are disproportionately rep- an empathetic nerve among the Israeli Jerusalem Link. Members hammer in finding a just solution for the resented throughout the peace and public. The deaths of Israeli soldiers out political accords with Palestinian refugees. human rights community. were on the increase in Lebanon, and the Palestinian women, conduct dia- Š Opposition to the militarism that Ideologically, the Coalition of Women message of the Four Mothers fell on logue groups, document the histo- permeates Israeli society. for Peace has a broader social vision than attentive ears, feeding public dismay over ry of women in conflict, and con- Š Equal rights for women and all that of the mixed-gender peace organiza- the seemingly endless body bags. When duct actions on the ground. residents of Israel. tions. We view the conflict as integrally some generals weighed in on the moth- Š The Fifth Mother is the re- Š Social and economic justice for related to social, economic, and gender ers’ side, the tide was reversed. Within grouped Four Mothers Movement, Israel’s citizens and integration issues. Indeed, the conflict with the three years of the start of the movement, which was instrumental in ending into the region. Palestinians directly affects both gender the Israeli army withdrew from Lebanon. the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. inequality and oppression of the poor. The Four Mothers Movement dis- The Fifth Mother does outreach to Regarding gender inequality, in a society tant for the sake of the equality of women banded in 2000 upon the Israeli evacua- centrist women with a “soft” (not at war—where it is predominantly the and the enfranchisement of the poor. tion of its troops from Lebanon. “radical”) political message, such men who are risking their lives in army The most successful peace movement Avowedly non-feminist and non-radical, as “war is not my language.” service and making military and political ever in Israel was a women’s organiza- the women in this movement successfully Š The women of MachsomWatch decisions—men and their views become tion—the Four Mothers Movement. This exploited the traditional role of mother- seek to reduce the physical abuse valued and privileged over women and group, founded in 1997 by four women hood to buttress their emotional appeal. and humiliation of Palestinians our views. This entrenches inequality for whose sons served in the Israeli occupa- And yet, scratching the surface reveals that often takes place at check- women, leaving us at a disadvantage in tion of southern Lebanon, sought to that a large proportion of the activists points (machsomim) erected to competing for jobs, political office, and mobilize the Israeli public to demand that were themselves feminists, progressives, enforce closures. The presence of social status. The conflict also deepens Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and professional women—and highly these women watching and report- poverty, as Israel sinks vast resources into on the grounds that Israel’s prolonged skilled at using the media. The apparent ing is sometimes enough to pre- security at the expense of housing, edu- presence there served no security pur- success of this movement deserves a vent problems. A MachsomWatch cation, health, care for the elderly, and pose and jeopardized the lives of sol- careful analysis: The peace movement woman once stopped a soldier other social needs. And since few women diers. The movement was initially met may have paid a high price for exalting from firing at a child by deflecting are capital holders but rather are likely to with scorn from senior military officers. women as mothers rather than as thinkers his gun, leading to her arrest for find themselves among the poor, women “What do women know about security?” and doers. Is it possible that women, a “interfering with the IDF” (the become the first victims of unemploy- they mocked. Indeed, at the heart of the group that often includes people particu- Israeli Defense Force). ment and recession, both of which cur- Four Mothers’ strategy was the leveraging larly skilled at bridge-building, will contin- Š Neled women, living near the old rently plague the Israeli economy. of their status as mothers. This was ue to be kept away from the peace nego- border with Palestine, run coexis- While ending the conflict is important effective in a society that may disrespect tiation tables around the world because tence programs for women on for its own sake—to protect men and professional women but honors its moth- we nurture our maternal image? both sides of the border. women on both sides—it is also impor- ers. The Four Mothers Movement never The women’s peace movement in Š New Profile broke new ground in Israel has consistently articulated pro- Israel by raising awareness about gressive positions—well before the the heightened militarism in Israeli mixed-gender peace movement adopted society, which is often invisible www.wellesley.edu/womensreview them. Women advocated a two-state because of its very pervasiveness. solution, sharing Jerusalem, and return- New Profile supports men and Now on The Women's Review of Books website: ing to Israel’s 1967 border long before women who refuse to do military other peace movements reached these service, and encourages other for- ‹ Pre-pay for your classified ad by VISA or conclusions. These views are today rapid- mats of refusal: “We refuse to raise Mastercard on our secure server. ly approaching consensus within Israel, our children for war, to ignore war but when we first uttered them, we were crimes committed in our name, to ‹ Find out the answers to some branded “pariahs”—the title of the only continue our normal lives while Frequently Asked Questions article in an Israeli newspaper that ever others are suffering because of us.” featured our movement. Š Noga is a feminist journal that pub- ‹ Check our useful index of back issues- The women’s peace movement contin- lishes news and analysis of issues searchable by subject, author, or reviewer ues to assume unpopular positions: in Israel and abroad from a femi- encouraging young people to refuse to nist perspective. www.wellesley.edu/womensreview serve in an army of occupation, labeling as Š TANDI: Movement of www.wellesley.edu/womensreview “war crimes” some military actions, advo- Democratic Women for Israel is cating against the so-called “security the oldest of the groups, founded fence,” refusing to go along with the preva- in 1948, when Israel was founded. lent military culture. Our actions are often It runs workshops and programs Five College Fellowship Program imaginative and original in a relentless to empower and mobilize disad- (though often futile) effort to arouse media vantaged Palestinian women who Located in Western Massachusetts, Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges and the interest and win public sympathy. Women are citizens of Israel. University of Massachusetts Amherst associate as members of a consortium, Five Colleges, Incorporated. have also proven to be steadfast peace Š WILPF is the Israeli chapter of The Five College Fellowship Program for minority scholars provides a year in residence at one of the campuses for doctoral students who are ABD. The chief goal of the program is to promote diversity in activists, maintaining the Women in Black the Women’s International the academy by enabling more scholars of under-represented groups to embark on an academic career vigil every single week for almost 17 years. League for Peace and with their doctoral degree completed. By furnishing a stipend, housing, and other benefits, the program Above all, women in both Israel and Freedom, and maintains our con- allows Fellows to focus on completing their dissertations. The program also strives to encourage their interest in college teaching while here, and acquaints them with these schools. Palestine have crossed the great divide, nection with this important inter- Each Fellow is hosted within an appropriate department or program at one of the five colleges. (At Smith, forging a peace agreement decades national network. recipients hold a Mendenhall Fellowship.) The Fellowship includes a stipend of $30,000, a research grant, before the Rabin-Arafat talks and main- Š Last, and best known, Women in health benefits, office space, housing or housing assistance, and library privileges at the five colleges. taining their links with each other Black refers to groups of women While the award places primary emphasis on completion of the dissertation, most Fellows teach at the hosting institution, but no more than a single one-semester course. despite the Palestinian suicide-bomb- (and the men who join us) who ings, the Israeli invasions, and all the hold one-hour vigils on busy Date of Fellowship: September 1, 2005 to May 31, 2006 (non-renewable) Stipend: $30,000 lives lost and destroyed. The feminist crossroads in Israel every Friday, Review of applications begins: December 1, 2004 principles of an egalitarian world and dressed in black and calling for an Awards announced by mid-March, 2005 the nonviolent resolution of conflict end to the occupation. The inter- For further information and application materials consult the Five Colleges, Incorporated Web site have been at the core of our commit- national movement of Women in (www.fivecolleges.edu) or contact Carol Angus ([email protected]): ment, enabling Israeli and Palestinian Five Colleges, Incorporated Black, which began in Jerusalem, 97 Spring Street • Amherst, MA 01002-2324 women to sustain our alliance for peace has twice been nominated for the 413/256-8316 despite the bitter reality outside and the Nobel Peace Prize. pressures within our own societies. I

26 The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 The Bookshelf

The Bookshelf provides a sampling of books of interest by and about women that we’ve received in our office recently. For a more extensive listing, please visit our website, Support The Women’s Review of Books www.wellesley.edu/WomensReview.

Courtney Angela Brkic, The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living. New York: Farrar, Straus “No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” and Giroux, 2004, 316 pp., hardcover. In clear, vivid language, Brkic writes about genocide -Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and pain that spans generations. From her own family’s history, she describes how her grand- mother was widowed then imprisoned during World War II for hiding her Jewish lover. Then, drawing on her own experience following the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, where Reading may be cheap, but publishing is not. more than 7000 people were killed, she shows how she came to see the individual men and their families rather than nameless, faceless victims through her work with a forensic team in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. She excavated bodies, assisted in autopsies, and arranged per- Advertisements and subscriptions pay for only part of what it costs us sonal effects for photographing. Her experiences with the profound tragedy led her to ask to publish The Women’s Review of Books. From the start, you, our how such events can be prevented. The book includes Brkic’s family tree from the 19th cen- tury onward, a map of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a small pronunciation key. Each readers, have generously helped us to make up the difference. chapter is opened by a poetry excerpt that sets the mood for what follows. Ann Crittenden, If You’ve Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything: Leadership Begins at Home. Please send your tax-deductible contribution of any amount to The New York: Gotham, 2004, 274 pp., hardcover. Recognizing that the skills needed for suc- cessful parenting are applicable in many arenas, including the professional world, Crittenden Women’s Review of Books, Wellesley Center for Research on Women, tells the stories of people who have dedicated a significant portion of their lives to serving oth- 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481. ers, namely their children. She recounts her own experiences and interviews almost 100 parents in business, law, government, entertainment, academia, and the nonprofit world. The author of The Price of Motherhood, Crittenden argues that the abilities to negotiate, be fair, be dependable, and to have a sense of perspective and the future that are learned in the parent-child relation- ship can be applied in the workplace. She says that although public perception of stay-at-home parents is slowly turning around, there is still a great deal of bias against this choice as a valid work experience, and it isn’t taken as seriously as she and many others feel it ought to be. Sharon M. Harris, ed., Blue Pencils & Hidden Hands: Women Editing Periodicals, 1830-11910. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004, 279 pp., hardcover. In the 19th century, magazines experienced a surge in popularity, so that by the 1920s about 60 percent of Americans were regular readers of periodicals. They became the dominant form of mass media in the United States. Female editors worked on a variety of periodicals, from school newspaper and fashion magazines to political journals. From diverse backgrounds, these editors addressed issues like women’s suffrage, abolitionism, and domestic violence. Elizabeth Hudson, Snow Bodies: One Woman’s Life on the Streets. Alberta, Canada: NeWest, FACULTY POSITIONS 2004, 268 pp., paper. A memoir of the years Hudson spent as a heroin addict and prosti- tute in Calgary and Vancouver. The book opens as Hudson leaves rehabilitation, against her The Duke University Faculty of Arts and Sciences announces the following open positions for which it solicits mother’s wishes, to engage in drug and criminal activity with her boyfriend. When she final- applications and nominations: ly begins to rebuild her life, she finds that she is filled with seemingly boundless anger, which writing eventually helps her to express, although she deals with feelings of deep iso- Art & Art History – Professor Annabel Philosophy – Professor David Wong lation to this day. Rebuilding relationships came slowly, but she made it a priority, especially Wharton (919-684-2224) (919-660-3050) with her mother, whose “tough love” philosophy Hudson didn’t understand until she her- self became a parent. An introduction by Lauren Casey, the executive director of PEERS, a Assistant Professor: Southern European Rank Open: Epistemology; Ethics Renaissance group for ex-prostitutes and supporters, explains the organization’s goals of improving the Political Science – Professor Michael safety of prostitutes and assisting them should they choose to leave the sex trade. Classical Studies – Professor Peter Burian Munger (919-660-4300) Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco, Summer Stock! An American Theatrical Phenomenon. New York: (919-684-5076) Assistant Professor: Comparative Politics Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 293 pp., hardcover. LoMonaco spent time in summer stock Full Professor: Archaeology theater, like most theater professionals today. Her book discusses the history of summer Psychology: Social and Health stock from its early days in the 1920s and ’30s through its decline in the 1960s, to where it Computer Science – Professor Pankaj Sciences – Professor Timothy Strauman stands today. Developed in rural areas, the theaters operated from June to September, espe- Agarwal (919-660-6500) (919-660-5715) cially near vacation resorts, and either staged their productions in a converted barn or the Multiple Positions, Rank Open: Artificial Assistant Professor: like once or twice a week or toured around. Presenting fully scripted plays, summer stock Intelligence, Computer Systems Developmental/Educational Psychology was a chance for people who might not be able to see professional theater in the cities to Rank Open: Social Psychology have access to it. Although the summer theater tradition started in the 1910s with the suc- Economics – Professor Thomas Nechyba cess of Eugene O’Neill’s plays at the Wharf Theatre on Cape Cod, most companies pro- (919-660-1800) Public Policy Studies – Professor Bruce duced light works and each was distinct, with very little connection to other companies. Assistant Professor: Area Open Jentleson (919-613-7401) Multiple positions Rank Open: Child and Leslie Miller-Bernal and Susan L. Poulson, Going Coed: Women’s Experiences in Formerly English – Professor Maureen Quilligan Men’s Colleges and Universities, 1950-22000. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, Family Policy; Philanthropy (919-684-2741) 2004, 338 pp., paper. Thirteen essays look at why women were accepted at almost all of Rank Open: Nineteenth-Century American Religion – Professor Wesley Kort the men’s colleges and universities in the 1960s and ’70s and at how these institutions dealt Literature (919-660-3510) with the change. The women’s experiences as they joined men at the nation’s elite colleges Rank Open: Early Antiquity and universities are explored. The ability to enroll in the same classes as the male students Germanic Languages and Literature – didn’t exactly translate to equal opportunities for women, as many aspects of academic cul- Professor Ingeborg Walther (919-660-3160) Romance Studies – Professor Margaret ture were still closed to them. The book provides a history of coeducation and case studies Associate or Full Professor: Modern German Greer (919-660-3100) of several universities, colleges, and military academies, examining how the structural differ- Literature and Culture Assistant Professor – Dante Studies ences between institutions contributed to their differing experiences with the changes. Judy Wajcman, TechnoFeminism. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2004, 148 pp., paper. The author History – Professor Sarah Deutsch Sociology – Professor Phillip Morgan of Feminism Confronts Technology, Wajcman explores three central fields of concern for (919-684-3014) (919-660-5614) women: virtual reality, the digital economy, and biomedical technologies. She argues that sci- Rank Open: Latin American; East Asian Rank Open: Area Open entific and technological changes have not improved gender relations, demonstrating that History technology is gendered in both design and use. Women’s Studies – Professor Tina Campt Linda Williams, ed., Porn Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004, 516 pp., Literature – Professor Jan Radway (919-684-5683) paper. With sexual issues increasingly in the forefront of public discourse, from television (919-684-4127) Distinguished Professor: Area Open to political and religious scandals, the nation has become accustomed to, if not comfortable Rank Open: Area Open with “talking sex.” Home video and Internet technology provide an increasingly large per- Music – Professor Scott Lindroth centage of the population with access to pornographic materials, and the porn industry (919-660-3300) generates more money yearly than professional sports leagues. Williams believes that the Rank Open: Music Theory widespread distribution of sexual material has made it a “legitimate academic subject,” “on/scene,” instead of “ob[hidden]/scene.” The 17 contributors, some established in their fields and others still completing their doctorates, discuss a wide variety of pornographic Interested candidates should contact the individual indicated as soon as possible for more images—historical and contemporary, gay and straight, soft- and hardcore, and bring in detailed information. Each search has its own application deadline. In some cases, issues of gender, race, and class. departmental web pages contain further information about these positions. Jean Wyatt, Risking Difference: Identification, Race, and Community in Contemporary Fiction and Feminism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004, 286 pp., paper. Drawing on Freudian and Lacanian theories, Wyatt analyzes interpersonal relationships and dynamics in the multicultural feminist community, arguing that the desire to be the “other” causes complications in race relations among feminists. Some feminists, she says, empathize so strongly with another racial group that they lose the ability to recognize their difference Duke University Is An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer in status and privilege from it. Such identification can make it difficult to address the inequalities and the different histories in a multicultural group. —Bethany Towne The Women’s Review of Books / Vol. XXI, No. 12 / September 2004 27 to: Japan Search Committee, Department of should reach the Chair by 8 November, Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, History, Stanford University, Stanford CA 2004. All qualified candidates are encouraged Cambridge, MA 02138; or accessed at Classified 94305-2024. Stanford University is an equal to apply; however, Canadian citizens and www.hds.harvard.edu/wsrp. opportunity, affirmative action employer. Permanent Residents will be given priority. A letter of application, Curriculum Vitae, and a Book your classified ad at www.wellesley.edu/ LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY. The sample of the applicant’s written work (no WomensReview or e-mail [email protected] History Department at Stanford University longer than 25 pages) should be sent to the Travel invites applications for a tenure-track assistant address below. Additionally, candidates should professor appointment in the field of Latin arrange for letters of recommendation from Europe too far? Come to Montreal! Job Opportunities American history (except Brazil). three referees to be sent directly to the same Lindsey’s B&B for Women, 4-star rating. Candidates should have completed the Ph.D. address, as follows: Professor Kim Ian The Department of African American Elegant, restored Victorian; walking distance by the time of appointment. Applicants will be Michasiw, Chair, Department of English, Studies at Syracuse University seeks a to everything. www.lindseys.ca; (888) 655-8655; expected to teach courses at both the graduate York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, scholar (rank negotiable), a sociologist, with [email protected]. and undergraduate levels. The term of Ontario M3J 1P3; Phone: 416-736-5166; Fax: expertise in the study of Black communi- appointment will begin September 2005. To 416-736-5412. Vacation home. Sea Ranch, Northern ties in the United States, to begin Fall 2005. ensure full consideration, materials must be California. Weekly. Use 10 miles ocean bluff Information about the Department of received by 1 November 2004. Applicants Applications are invited for a tenure-stream trails. Email: [email protected]. African American Studies may be found on should submit a letter of application, CV, state- appointment in the Department of English, the Departmental Website:http://aas.syr.edu. ment of research interests, and a writing sam- Faculty of Arts at York University. The posi- TOUR THE BALTICS with International The individual must have strong training and ple (two Dissertation chapters or the equiva- tion offered is in Twentieth-Century Women’s Studies Institute, June 2005. interests in qualitative and quantitative lent). In addition, they should arrange for three Canadian Literature, at the level of Women’s concerns, politics, spirituality, and the research methodology. A well-defined letters of recommendation to be forwarded to Assistant Professor. Historical and generic arts, culture, and history of Lithuania, Lativa, research program dealing with national issues the search committee. Please address all mate- range within the field is imperative. Estonia. IWSI, PO Box 1067, Palo Alto, CA of the African American, Pan African and rials to: Latin American Search, Department of Demonstrated capacity to engage with fran- 94302; telephone (650) 323-2013; African Diaspora experience is also necessary. History, Stanford University, Stanford CA cophone texts is a considerable asset. So too is [email protected]; http://www.iwsi.org. Areas of significance to strengthen the 94305-2024. Stanford University is an equal significant university teaching experience. The department’s curriculum would include: gen- opportunity, affirmative action employer. appointment is subject to budgetary approval Carol Christ, She Who Changes, Re-IImagining the der, race, and class inequalities, education, by the University. Salary will depend on qualifi- Divine in the World (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2003), labor, social movements, and social policy. University of California-Santa Barbara. cations and experience. Qualifications include leads two programs in Greece: Goddess Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in sociology. The Department of Sociology invites appli- a Ph.D or equivalent in English Literature with Pilgrimage in Crete and Sacred Journey in Research experience in Black social institu- cations for a tenure-track position to begin July specialization in twentieth-century Canadian Greece. Ariadne Institute, P.O. Box 303 Blue tions or communities, a research and publica- 1, 2005. We seek an Assistant Professor with literature, and demonstrable excellence in both River, OR. 97413;(541) 822-3201; tion record of activity, together with a strong teaching and research excellence in Latino/a - teaching and research. It is expected that the [email protected]; www.god- commitment to teaching and advising are also Chicano/a Sociology who also would rein- successful candidate will teach one large-lec- dessariadne.org. force one or more of the department’s existing ture course and contribute upper-year courses important. Review of applications will begin areas of strength in cultural sociology, global in her/his field of specialization, and, either Sunny Greece! Small island house! Weekly, in September 2004 and continue until the studies, feminist studies, social movements, immediately or very soon, participate in the monthly. On isolated terraced mountain slope position is filled. Candidates should send a conversation analysis, race/ethnicity/nation, graduate programme. All qualified candidates overlooking sea. Breathtaking sunsets, moon- letter of application that includes a statement and organizations/institutions/networks. We are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian sets. Dramatic hikes. Marvelous peace. on teaching philosophy, vitae, three letters of are especially interested in candidates who citizens and Permanent Residents will be given Moonrock: (740) 986-6945; email: WISE- recommendation, and one publication to: contribute to the diversity and excellence of priority. York University has an Affirmative [email protected]. Search Committee, Department of African the UCSB academic community through Action Program with respect to its faculty and American Studies, Syracuse University, 200 research, teaching and service. Ph.D. expected librarian appointments. The designated groups Sims Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244-1230. by July 2005. Applicants should submit a let- are: women, racial/visible minorities, persons Syracuse University is an Affirmative ter of interest, curriculum vitae, 3 letters of with disabilities and aboriginal peoples. Miscellaneous Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. reference, and examples of written work. All Persons in these groups must self-identify in applications should be postmarked no later order to participate in the Affirmative Action Editor. Books, dissertations,small projects. Early American/US Colonial History (ca. than September 30, 2004. Send all materials Program. The Department of English (Arts) Cornell Ph.D. Background in anthropology, 1550-1776), University of Maryland, Early to Professor Denise Segura, Search welcomes applications from persons in these history and literature. $25/hour. Contact Carol American History/US Colonial History. The Committee Chair, Department of Sociology, groups. The Affirmative Action Program can at [email protected]. Department of History, University of University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa be found on York’s website at Maryland, College Park, invites candidates with Barbara, CA 93106-9430. The University of http://www.yorku.ca/acadjobs/index.htm or WRITING COACH AND EDITOR. Get demonstrated achievements in scholarship and California is an Equal Opportunity/ a copy can be obtained by calling the affirma- that article or book into print with help from teaching to apply for a position in Early Affirmative Action Employer. tive action office at 416-736-5713. author praised by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, American history (c. 1550-1776). The depart- Applications should reach the Chair by 8 Gloria Steinem, Maya Angelou. Dissertation, ment will consider candidates at the rank of Applications are invited for a tenure-stream November, 2004. A letter of application, fiction, self-help, essay, book proposal—you Assistant (doctorate completed) and Associate appointment in the Department of English, Curriculum Vitae, and a sample of the appli- name it, I’ve edited Professor. Position contingent upon funding. Faculty of Arts at York University.The cant’s written work (no longer than 25 pages) it.www.JoanLester.com;(510) 548-1224. For best consideration, applications should be position offered is in Nineteenth-Century should be sent to the address below. British Literature, at the level of Additionally, candidates should arrange for let- Feminist editor. Ph.D. Prize-winning author. received by November 1, 2004. The UMD is Assistant Professor. Historical and generic ters of recommendation from three referees to Twenty years’ experience editing every imagi- an AA/EOE employer. UMD encourages range within the field is a considerable asset, be sent directly to the same address, as follows: nable kind of writing. References provided, applications from women and minorities. as is significant university teaching experi- Professor Kim Ian Michasiw, Chair, including many happy WRB readers. (510) Candidates should submit a letter of applica- ence. The appointment is subject to budget- Department of English, York University, 4700 524-7913; [email protected]. tion, c.v., a one-page abstract of their ary approval by the University. Qualifications Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3; research—and arrange for three letters of rec- include a Ph.D or equivalent in English Phone: 416-736-5166; Fax: 416-736-5412. ommendation to be sent to: Mrs. Patricia Literature with specialization in nineteenth- Curran, Department of History, University of century British literature, and demonstrable WOMEN’S STUDIES IN RELIGION The Women’s Review Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7315. excellence in both teaching and research. It is PROGRAM, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, of Books expected that the successful candidate will THE DIVINITY SCHOOL announces MODERN JAPAN. Stanford University participate in our roster of large-lecture several full-time positions as Research Classified Rates: seeks a junior scholar for a tenure-track introductory courses, teach upper-year cours- Associate and Visiting Faculty in Women’s $1.25 per word (1-3 insertions) assistant professorship in modern Japanese es in her/his field of specialization, and, Studies in Religion for 2005-2006. Full-time $1.15 per word (4-7 insertions) history (1868-present). We are especially, but either immediately or very soon, contribute residence during the 2005-2006 academic year $1.05 cents per word (8+ insertions) not exclusively, interested in applicants whose to the graduate programme. Salary will while conducting individual research projects work concerns Japanese imperialism. depend on qualifications and experience. and teaching a related one-semester course in I All classified ads must be prepaid. Phone Candidates should have completed the Ph.D. York University has an Affirmative Action the appropriate Divinity School department: numbers and e-mail addresses count as two by the time of appointment. Applicants will be Program with respect to its faculty and librar- Hebrew Bible, New Testament, History of words, abbreviations as one word each. expected to teach courses at both the graduate ian appointments. The designated groups are: Christianity, History of Religion, Theology, I Copy must reach us by the 5th of the and undergraduate levels. The term of women, racial/visible minorities, persons Ethics, or Religion and Society. Open to candi- month prior to an issue cover date (e.g., May appointment will begin in September 2005. To with disabilities and aboriginal peoples. dates with doctorates in religion, to those with 5 for the June issue). ensure full consideration, materials must be Persons in these groups must self-identify in primary competence in other fields of the I Advertising is accepted at the publisher’s received by 30 September 2004. Applicants order to participate in the Affirmative Action humanities and the social sciences who have discretion. Services and products have not are asked to submit a letter of application, CV, Program. The Department of English (Arts) serious interest in religion, and to leading reli- welcomes applications from persons in these gion professionals with equivalent achieve- been tested; listings do not imply endorse- a statement of research interests, a writing groups. The Affirmative Action Program can ments. Salary: $40,000 plus benefits. ment by The Women’s Review of Books. sample (2 dissertation chapters or the equiva- be found on York’s website at http:// Completed applications must be received by lent). In addition, they should arrange for three For more information or to place your ad, www.yorku.ca/acadjobs/index.htm or a copy November 15, 2004. Information and applica- recommendation letters to be forwarded to the call Anita at 781-283-2560 can be obtained by calling the affirmative tions may be requested from: Dr. Ann Braude, search committee. Please address all materials or email [email protected]. action office at 416-736-5713. Applications Director of Women’s Studies in Religion,