Women and Non-Violent
Protests
Presenter: Charli Roach
Overview
• The participation of women in non-violent resistance and protest is not
geographically or chronologically distinct, and as such examples can
be found in a variety of localities and eras.
• The motivations for women to become involved differ, from the
political and ideological convictions of the suffragettes and the
Greenham Common protestors to the emotional compulsions of the
Rosenstrasse wives and Argentinian mothers.
• Women have also played a part in many of the movements that are
now synonymous with non-violence, such as the Civil Rights
Movement in America, so it must be noted that they are not solely
concerned with ‘female’ issues or familial concerns.
• It has been contended that most the stories of women in the
development and use of non-violence have been hidden or underrepresented in histories (McAllister).
Key question –
Does gender make a difference to how
people embrace and practice
non-violence?
• Carol Flinders:
Aung San Suu Kyi
‘…the heroes and heroines of nonviolence
have a fine way of transcending
conventional gender scripts altogether.’
The Science Behind It!
•
Scientists from the UCLA claim to have discovered that men and women react
differently in the face of a perceived threat:
Men – ‘fight or flight’
Women – ‘tend and befriend’
(meaning that they feed the children, calm everyone down and try to defuse the
tension)
•
•
As such, they have concluded that a woman will fight to defend her loved ones
but only when all the other options have failed.
This research does however seem to have been undertaken from a very
traditional viewpoint and does not consider female involvement in
ideologically or politically motivated resistance or protests.
The British Suffrage Movement
The Origins of the Suffragist
Movements
• Female suffrage - emerged as a political issue in Britain in the 1860s
following Parliament’s refusal to replace ‘man’ with person in what
would become the 1867 Reform Act bill.
• 19th century: loose groupings of suffragists drawing on ideas and
members from other campaigns, such as the Chartists and the
Abolitionists – no dominant individuals or groups until the turn of the
century.
• Trans-national movement, sought to redress the social injustice of male
repression.
• British society – support for the idea that suffragism was a mental
disorder ‘akin to epidemic hysteria, with its attendant symptoms of a
loss of the normal sense of decency and of the normal use of reasoning
powers’.
• Edward VII’s surgeon: ‘sexually embittered women’ who were clearly
‘life-long strangers to joy’.
Levels of Violence
• In Britain and America, the movement involved a number
of non-violent techniques; rallies, petitions, mass
movements, lobbying and fasting.
• The suffragists were also characterised, especially by the
eve of the First World War, as highly organised and very
articulate.
• But - inaccurate to claim that the suffrage movement was a
non-violent one because it was far from homogenous,
especially in Britain where two separate strands of
suffragists emerged; the constitutionalists and the militants,
who existed along a continuum from those who believed
they must resist passively to those who felt that terrorism
was both justifiable and functional.
The NUWSS
• 1897, National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies by Millicent
Fawcett - grew to have over 50, 000 members.
• Adherents of peaceful protest - pragmatic rather than ideological as she
thought that violent behaviour would only fuel traditional notions that
women were too irrational to be worthy of suffrage.
• Strategy - the patient use of logical arguments to gain the vote. Argued
that if women were bound by laws, surely they should have a say in
their making. And women even employed men who could vote when
they could not!
• Very slow progress – converted some but the predominant feeling was
still that women would not be able to understand the workings of
Parliament.
The WSPU
•
1903, Women’s Social and Political Union founded by Emmeline Pankhurst
and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia. The Union’s members became
known as the Suffragettes - not prepared to be patient, willing to use violence.
• Peaceful until 1905, Christabel and Annie Kenney arrested for interrupting a
political meeting. They refused to pay a fine, preferring a prison sentence to
highlight the injustice that was being done to them.
Emmeline Pankhurst’s autobiography:
‘..this was the beginning of a campaign the like of which was never known
in England, or for that matter in any other country…we interrupted a great
many meetings…and we were violently thrown out and insulted. Often we
were painfully bruised and hurt.’
•
•
Violence committed by the WSPU members – burned down churches (CofE
opposed to their appeals), planted a bomb in Westminster Abbey, vandalised
Oxford Street shops and golf courses, firebombed the homes of politicians and
sailed down the Thames hurling abuse at Parliament.
Also used some non-violent measures however, such as refusing to pay taxes,
chaining themselves to Buckingham Palace and welcoming arrests.
The ‘Cat-and-Mouse’ Act
• Hunger strikes in prisons responded to by force-feeding - huge public
outcry as this was traditionally meted out to lunatics rather than
educated women.
• 1913 the ‘Cat-and-Mouse’ Act was introduced, which ordered that
hunger-strikers should be released when they fell ill and re-arrested
once they had recovered sufficient strength.
• If these women did not recover and instead died whilst on release then
the government was able to exonerate itself from any blame or
embarrassment. Their weakened state also meant that they could not
engage in any violent activities whilst on release, so it provided the
government with a very powerful weapon against the suffragettes.
• Edgar Holt:
‘it was an effective measure… and there were
no more deaths from hunger strikes until 1920’.
State Response
• Evidence of their movements – Scotland Yard ordered a camera lens to
carry out the first secret surveillance photography in Britain against the
Suffragists. Also, attended meetings and kept detailed notes on them.
• 1871 – became policy for all inmates to be photographed in prison, but
civil disobedience continued by refusing to have their photographs
taken, so they were either captured surreptitiously whilst exercising or
forcibly held in front of the lens.
Public Response
• 1913 – movement gained it’s first real martyr when Emily Davison
threw herself under the king’s horse during the Epsom Derby. This
was however quite counter-productive – if this is what an educated
woman does, surely no women should be allowed to vote?
• Most photographs issued in the press however showed police and mob
brutality which increased public sympathy.
• Central to non-violence is an awareness that brutal
repression can produce opposition to their opponents.
Suffragists realised that they were gaining more than
they were losing due to these incidents generating
sympathy. Then deliberately tried to incite violent
reprisals in order to unease and embarrass their
opponents and encourage them to grant them their
demands.
World War One and the
Extension of the Franchise
• It is arguable that, had it not been for the First World War,
the violent actions of the militant suffragists might have
escalated even further (February 1913, blew up part of
David Lloyd George’s house – a man who was widely
considered to be a supporter of women’s rights).
• But when war broke out break out, Pankhurst and Fawcett
told their members to cease their campaigns and lend their
full support to the war effort and the government.
• Certain groups did continue campaigning but far less
publicly and often carried out war-work simultaneously.
• 1918, ‘Representation of the People Act’ extended the
franchise to certain women – result of campaigns or the
work done by women during the war years?
The Mothers of the Disappeared
in Argentina
The Origins of the Movement
• Human rights groups claim that between the coup of 1976
and 1983, 30,000 people were killed under military rule in
Argentina in what became known as the Dirty War.
• In the years following the coup, sons and daughters began
to disappear ‘if they raised their fists, raised their voices,
raised their eyebrows’ (McAllister).
• The families were then left with no news, good or bad,
about the whereabouts of their children, so went daily to
the Ministry of the Interior in Buenos Aires to try to get
information.
• Eventually, these women were each informed that their
case was being ‘processed’.
The Founding of the Movement
• Azucena de Vicenti decided that they should instead
convene outside, on the Plazo de Mayo, where the world
could see them.
• April 13 1977 - fourteen women gathered together in an
illegal public demonstrations, which went largely
unnoticed due to the day chosen (Saturday).
• Thursday afternoons were selected for their protests and,
on these days, increasing numbers of women walked
slowly in a circle carrying pictures of their missing
children.
Publicity and Repression
• 5 October 1977, the women raised the funds to buy an
advertisement that appeared in La Prensa. This advert
featured the pictures of 237 ‘disappeared’ next to their
mother’s names and carried the headline ‘We Do Not Ask
for Anything More than the Truth’.
• Ten days later several-hundred women brought a petition
to congress bearing 24, 000 signatures.
• Harsh and repressive state response – harassment and
arrests of women and foreign journalists.
• However, the mothers continued to visibly protest every
Thursday in large numbers and held open meetings, to
which grieving relatives could come for information and
support.
The Silencing of the Movement
• Meetings infiltrated by‘Gustavo’, (Alfredo Astiz), who led
the women into a trap after befriending them.
• December 1977, nine women leaving a meeting
‘disappeared’ just before another advertisement was
released. Two days later another three women were to
vanish, including one of the founders Azucena De Vicenti.
• Real impact on the movement – the following Thursday
only forty women came to the Plaza and when the
movement called a press conference only four foreign
journalists dared to attend.
• 1978/ early 1979 - the protests with much smaller numbers
and weekly arrests.
• Women still met in the sanctuary of churches, where notes
were passed and decisions made in silence.
Re-emergence
• May 1979, the women re-emerged with with much greater
organisation – decided to formalise their structure, hold
elections, become legally registered as an organisation and
to open a bank account to store the funds that had been
coming to them from international supporters.
• Offices rented and the ‘House of the Mothers’ established,
published their own bulletin from these facilities.
• Resumed their weekly marches at the Plaza - wore flat
shoes and white scarves to symbolise the blankets of the
lost children. Photos carried and mega-phones used to
broadcast individual stories to the people in the streets.
• Cruel police repression continued but the women were
now more organised and determined so remained both
courageous and visible, attracting yet more support and
sympathy to their cause.
Legacy
• 26 January 2006, final March of Resistance - no longer considered the
government to be hostile to their crusade. Weekly silent vigils
continued however.
• Other South American women have followed their lead and they have
also been credited with causing political change in Argentina.
• The military has admitted that over 9,000 of those kidnapped are still
unaccounted for, but the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo say that the
number is closer to 30,000. Of these, it is believed that around 500
were adopted by military-related families and that the others were
killed (numbers hard to determine due to secrecy).
• The Mothers’ have now established an independent
university, a bookstore, a library and a cultural centre;
facilities that provide subsidised and free education,
healthcare and other services to the public and students.
Additional Case Studies
The following examples
provide additional case studies
for female participation in
non-violent resistance:
•The Women in Black in Israel
and Serbia
•The Greenham Common
Women’s Peace Camp
•The Rosenstrasse in Germany,
who successfully protested
against the detention of their
Jewish husbands in Nazi Berlin
Rosenstrasse
Final Topic for Debate - Are women inherently more
suited to non-violent resistance than men?
M.K. Gandhi,
Young India, 10 April 1930:
‘ To call women the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's
injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength,
then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength
is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's
superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more
self-sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance,
has she not greater moral courage? Without her man
could not be. If non-violence is the law of our being, the
future is with women. Who can make a more effective
appeal to the heart than woman?’
Gandhi’s Attitude Towards
Women
• Gandhi believed that women had a great moral
purity and tolerance for enduring pain, apparently
making them ideal candidates for his satyagraha
• However, he was also a traditionalist and wanted
women to keep spinning and leave the lawbreaking to the men.
• He did later relent on this stance after the women
inspired by him to participate in civil disobedience
complained about this exclusion.
Non-violence and the ‘Bubble’
• Gandhi stated that he had learnt non-violence from
his wife Kasturb, who behaved like a traditional
Hindu wife; gentle, patient, loving yet able to
resist his ‘petty tyrannies’.
• As such, is non-violence inherently more suited to
women or does it acquire an additional potency
when men act against centuries of societal
conditioning and denounce violence?
• One theory: men have to renounce violence whilst
women often are actually stepping out from a safe
environment to participate in non-violence
(Flinders - ‘From ‘Bubble’ to Action’).
Questions for Discussion
• Are women particularly suited to non-violent resistance
and, if so, why?
• With female non-violence, to what extent has emotional
appeal outweighed rational argument?
• How has the stress on women’s familial roles contributed
to or informed certain protests?
• Does non-violence enable both sexes to transcend
conventional gender roles (as argued by Carol Flinders) or
does it play on them to enhance its emotional potency?
• Is female non-violence predominantly personally
motivated rather than ideologically?
• Is it generally shaped by any theoretical understanding of
non-violence or does it tend to be spontaneously generated
from below?
Key References:
 Eglin, Josephine, Women and peace: from the
Suffragists to the Greenham women’ in Taylor and
Young (eds.), Campaigns for Peace: British Peace
Movements in the Twentieth Century.
 Flinders, Caroline, Nonviolence: Does Gender
Matter?. www.turningthetide.org
 McAllister, Pam, ‘You Can’t Kill the Spirit:
Women and Nonviolent Action’ in Zunes, Kurtz
and Asher (eds.), ‘Nonviolent Social Movements:
A Geographical Perspective’.