"Women's strength against crazy male power": gendered language in the West German peace movement of the 1980s

In: Frieden - Gewalt - Geschlecht: Friedens- und Konfliktforschung als Geschlechterforschung, S. 244-265

Abstract

"This chapter looks at gendered rhetoric of the peace movement of the early 1980s in West Germany, characterized as the largest social movement ever in that country and around the world. After reviewing the development of West German pacifism in the context of the Cold War in the preceding decades, the piece looks to the ways in which gendered rhetoric played a significant, positive role in bringing the range of feminists together, and in bringing enormous numbers of West Germans into activism. The article also traces some of the more negative aspects of this rhetoric, surprisingly consistent across the range of constituent organizations. On the one hand, the gendered language implies and perhaps reveals some problematic views of West German identity and history, particularly through notions of 'victimization'. On the other hand, this very language may also have contributed to the movement's ultimate lack of success in preventing missile deployment, also in part by emphasizing West German citizens' 'victim' role." (author's abstract)