‘You can’t kill the spirit’ (but you can try): Gendered contestations and contradictions at Menwith Hill Women’s Peace Camp

Mackay, Finn

Abstract

In the mid-1990s Menwith Hill Women’s Peace Camp outside the US National Security Agency military base in Yorkshire was the only full-time women-only peace camp in the UK and was wo-manned by several Greenham stalwarts. From whatever background, peacewomen were united mainly by a brave and passionate commitment to Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA), and a tolerance for Goddess songs. While the unifying slogans and shared language of the peace camp often invoked lesbian feminist and Radical Feminist themes, it was not necessary to be an actual believer. These cultural norms were effective as humorous, affectionate totems in the building of collective identity, and are not proof of essentialism. While camp was a women’s space, it was not a gendered space as such. Gender was at once much more vibrant and various than in the mainstream, while also fading into the background and being almost completely irrelevant. This chapter will reflect on some of the roles, meanings and contradictions of sexuality and gender in the peace camp. It will do so in the light of more recent developments in the feminist movement and protest cultures in the UK, such as the ‘spy-cops’ sexual abuse scandal and the so-called ‘gender wars’ in which the meaning and exclusions of the category ‘woman’ are under renewed scrutiny.

• Deposit Date: Oct 4, 2022
• Edition: 1st
• Book Title: Feminism and Protest Camps Entanglements, Critiques and Re-Imaginings
• Chapter Number: 4
• ISBN: 978-1529220162
• Keywords: Feminism, Protest, Queer, Lesbian, Feminism, queer, social movements, gender, direct action
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10015263
• Publisher URL: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/feminism-and-protest-camps
• Contract Date: May 1, 2022