The Problem of Nonviolence: Women's Protest in the United
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The Problem of Nonviolence: Women’s Protest in the United States, Post-Civil War to Post-9/11 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University by Sara Regina Mitcho Master of Arts The Pennsylvania State University, 2002 Bachelor of Arts James Madison University, 2000 Director: John Dale, Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Spring Semester 2014 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright 2014 Sara Regina Mitcho All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This project is dedicated to my late brother, Seth Joseph Mitcho, and my late mother-in- law, Anita Rose Balint, neither of whom are here to see this project completed but both of whom would have been infinitely proud of the accomplishment. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the course of the doctoral work that culminated in this project, I gave birth to my three children, the oldest of which will be graduating from kindergarten as I graduate with my PhD, suffered the loss of two close family members, and moved to a new home. I juggled my research and school work around a full-time job as an instructor and then full-time parenting and built my research schedule around countless childcare arrangements and numerous school and family events. Needless to say, I could not have completed this project under these circumstances without the support of an incredible community of people. While developing my interest in this project and my conceptual framework, I depended on the invaluable feedback of the students and professors in George Mason University’s Cultural Studies Program inside and outside of the classroom and during discussions with visiting faculty in the program’s colloquium. I also relied on feedback received at various conferences and events at which I had the opportunity to present my work. My dissertation committee members spent numerous hours guiding me through my project and helping me as I developed my theoretical paradigm. I benefitted from the infinite patience, encouragement, and intellectual rigor of John Dale and Debra Bergoffen. In addition to serving as a committee member and offering insightful feedback, Alison Landsberg helped me navigate the administrative process of forming a committee and advancing my way through the dissertation process. I must also thank my family, including my parents and my in-laws who have supported me not only in my pursuit of my doctoral degree, but also by offering help with the most basic of needs, including child care, food, and space to work. I am also indebted to my children for bringing me back to the material world and reminding me of what is most important—even when those reminders came in the form of surprise visits into the office while Mommy was working. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my husband, Jeremy Balint, who, in addition to facilitating my work by giving me space and time and spending long hours keeping me company as I typed away on my laptop, stacks of books by my side, also served as sounding board and mock audience, enduring countless explanations of this or that theory, and following me through my doubts, ramblings, and celebrations. Thank you a million times over. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................. vii Introduction: (Non)violent Protest: Toward a New Ethical Approach ............................... 1 The Violent-Nonviolent Dichotomy ............................................................................. 14 Ambiguity, Vulnerability, and Relationality amid Uneven Power ............................... 30 My Project: An Outline ................................................................................................. 38 Chapter One: The Problem of Categorical Vulnerability ................................................. 46 Women’s Inherent Morality, Peacefulness, and Domesticity ....................................... 50 The Tactical Embrace of Categorical Vulnerability ..................................................... 68 Poor Women, Laboring Women, Women of Color, and Categorical Vulnerability ..... 78 Vulnerability, Embodiment, and Liberal Democratic Political Personhood ................. 82 Categorical Vulnerability and the Concretization of Gender ........................................ 90 Categorical Vulnerability, Human Vulnerability: The Case of the Silent Sentinels ..... 94 Chapter Two: The Hatchet, the Bomb, and the Gun: Protest, Technologies of Violence, and Human Ambiguity .................................................................................................... 118 Technologies of Violence and the U.S. Female Protestor........................................... 120 Technologies of Violence and Political Personhood................................................... 132 Using Technologies of Violence to Make Political Claims: The Black Panther Party 139 Ethical Successes: Understanding Political Violence, Challenging Oppression, and Complicating Women’s Ontology .............................................................................. 142 Ethical Failing: The Unambiguous Subject ................................................................ 161 Technology and Ambiguity and Other Conclusions ................................................... 170 Chapter Three: Rethinking Relationality ........................................................................ 179 Care Feminist Critiques of Autonomy ........................................................................ 181 The (Unromantic) Work of Accounting for Relationality .......................................... 186 Weatherwomen: A Model of Relationality ................................................................. 191 9/11 and the Discursive Turn (Back) .......................................................................... 216 v Does the Rejection of Gendered Ontologies Mean the End of Gender? ..................... 232 Relationality, Womanhood, and Motherhood ............................................................. 241 Chapter Four: “If the Mothers Ruled the World”: Peaceful Mourners and Mama Grizzlies ......................................................................................................................................... 242 A Long History of Motherhood as an Ontological Factor .......................................... 247 Motherhood and Ambiguity ........................................................................................ 257 The Pregnant Activist as Categorically Vulnerable .................................................... 259 Mothers as Nonviolent Peacemakers, Especially Relational Subjects ........................ 262 Mothers as Home Defenders, Mama Grizzlies ........................................................... 277 Conclusion: The End of Motherhood? ........................................................................ 287 Conclusion: An Imperfect Way Ahead ........................................................................... 292 Ambiguity.................................................................................................................... 293 Vulnerability................................................................................................................ 297 Relationality amid Uneven Power............................................................................... 306 The Ethical Practice of Protest: A Way Forward ........................................................ 310 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 314 vi ABSTRACT THE PROBLEM OF NONVIOLENCE: WOMEN’S PROTEST IN THE UNITED STATES, POST-CIVIL WAR TO POST-9/11 Sara Regina Mitcho, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2014 Dissertation Director: Dr. John Dale Scholars, activists, and observers rely on a violent/nonviolent dichotomy to make ethical judgments about protest. This categorical distinction raises difficult analytical questions. Are tactics like hunger strikes violent or nonviolent? Can we untangle these categories from false assumptions about gender, race, and other social categories? In addition to producing the analytical difficulties posed by questions like these, the conceptual construction of the violent/nonviolent ethical paradigm fails to treat as ‘violent’ sources of structural violence that ‘nonviolent’ protestors often ignore, perpetuate, and rely upon. This project proposes an alternative to this flawed ethical approach not by endorsing violence, but by shifting our focus to the ontological claims protestors advance. To demonstrate the utility of an ethical model that acknowledges our fundamental ambiguity, vulnerability, and relationality amid uneven power relations rather than prescribing or proscribing violence, I examine women’s protest activity in the United States from the vii post-Civil War era to the post-9/11 era, from women’s suffragists and temperance activists to CODEPINK and “mama grizzlies.” In doing so, I critique notions many of these protestors rely upon—women’s categorical vulnerability, the unambiguous relationship between political agency and nonviolence, and women’s enhanced aptitude for relationality—and highlight useful models in protest movements that have historically been dismissed. My four-part model, I suggest, can not only be used in analyzing activist activity, but also in planning future movements.