prairie fire organizing committee

Fear and Gender
Thoughts on Building an Anti-War Movement

By Margaret Power
Member of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee
Speaking at a program on building an effective
movement against the war in Afghanistan
11/10/01, Chicago

Today I will focus on two distinct but related issues that I feel are important for us to discuss as we talk about building a movement to oppose the war the United States is currently waging against the people of Afghanistan: fear and gender.

I will begin with a few thoughts on fear, which I divide into two categories: the fear the American people have apparently felt so sharply and widely after the terrorist attack of September 11 and the fear that I, and perhaps some other anti-war activists, have felt in response to the climate that has existed in this country for the last two months. In order to build an effective anti-war movement, we have to recognize and offer solutions for both of these fears. The September 11 attacks were horrible acts calculated, I believe, to inject horror into Americans and to target the two most important symbols of America: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the financial and military center of the U.S. global empire. The Anthrax scare followed closely upon the heels of these attacks and for many people represented a continuation of the nightmare that had begun for them on September 11. Now that the U.S. government has determined that a U.S. biochemist is the person most likely responsible for mailing anthrax-laden envelopes, as opposed to a member of the Al Queda network, both the media coverage and the fear level have decreased. How disappointing this must be for the U.S. government! I would like to make several comments on this aspect of fear. First, both of these attacks, and the possible threat of more attacks are scary. They came, apparently without warning, and hit a range of people: from financiers to busboys, from military officers to postal workers. The randomness of the targets and the scope of the victims make people feel that they too could be potential victims of a future attack. We need to recognize this. At the same time, the level of shock that Americans have felt reveals the degree to which people in this country have believed themselves to be invulnerable, safe and secure in America, protected from danger. It also illustrates the extent to which Americans have isolated and cocooned themselves from the rest of the world, where tragedies such as that which happened on September 11 are, unfortunately, more common. On a different level, we can see that this fear has served the U.S. government well. In response to it, the Attorney General has passed the so-called Patriot Law, which seriously erodes civil liberties and the very democracy that the U.S. government claims it is fighting to protect. I wonder to what degree the government’s statements about “news of an upcoming terrorist attack” and “urging us to be vigilant – of what, when, where?” are calculated to inspire fear; in any case they do. And out of fear, Americans support the bombing of the Afghani people, the erosion of civil rights, the illegal detention of 1000+ people.

Fear itself, of course, is not a new feeling for many Americans. If you are Black or Latino in this country, then fear is unfortunately a feeling that you spend most of your life dealing with. It comes from not knowing when or how the police may attack you, from the danger you expose yourself to when you walk into white neighborhoods, or are in your own neighborhood and white supremacists decide it’s time to attack, or even when you walk into a department store and the clerks and security immediately view you with suspicion. If you are queer, who knows when some (usually male) homophobic individuals or gangs who feel the need to prove their own masculinity by denying your own humanity, and possibly life will attack you? If you are a woman, you live with the nagging fear that you may be assaulted, in your home or on the street, by someone you trusted or by someone you never saw before in your life. But, since these people make up the huge majority of Others, they don’t really count, so their fear is discounted and ignored. Although, obviously, the crimes committed against them/us, usually by white men, far exceed those carried out by whoever attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. (And, by the way, I am one of those who believe that evidence is needed to be presented to prove that one is guilty. Call me old fashioned!)

But there is another fear that, perhaps, many of us have experienced: knowing that we are in the minority, that our opposition to the war is not understood and is reviled and that we are branded nut cases or, even worse, traitors. I have a No War sign on my door and every day I come home and wonder if my windows will have been smashed. We, as a movement, are not particularly skilled at dealing with our personal feelings, our own concerns, and we need to do that. By acknowledging and understanding our own fears, we can comprehend those of others as well and, as a result, build a more effective movement.

The second issue I want to touch on is gender. The U.S. government’s primary response to September 11 has been military might abroad and repression at home. In this more militarized society, we see more hierarchal, repressive gender roles emerge or reemerge. And in this scenario, men dominate. As J. David Galland (the founder and president of “Bound and Overwatch – The Military Observer”) recently noted, “Frontline units won’t involve women in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Under the leadership of the Bush Administration, and the less than touchy-feely convictions of secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfield, the role of women in the military is going to change for the betterment of our combat capability.” He continues, “Many of us in uniform look forward to the change with the administration’s goal to repair and reconstitute a demoralized and emasculated military. (www.boundandoverwatch.com) How do we deal with terrorism, we support “our boys?” Women ‘s role is to support “our boys,” to send them off to war, to write letters, to be there for them. Men’s voices dominate the airwaves and the government. The basic message, which has been more or less explicit, is forget gender equality, we are in a crisis and in a crisis, men should take over. Girls, go home and take care of the home fires. (This is reminiscent of the 1950s, during the anti-communist scare when rigid gender roles, upset during WW II, had to be reinforced.) Laura Bush has stepped in to the limelight, as the faithful supporter of George, her husband. In a recent interview she describes her response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. “For over an hour, I believed that [Camp David] had been hit. And I was sad for the people there.” Mrs. Bush laments that tours are no longer conducted of the White House. “In a lot of way, I think that’s sad. It’s lonely and sort of quiet in there. So I hope that [the tours] will come back pretty soon. George Bush has been more “serious” since the attack, but not “more tired or tense.” They work to keep things light between them. “We still try to say things to each other to make each other laugh and to be funny. I think laughter a lot of times defuses nervousness or feelings of anxiety.” (New York Times, 9 November 2001)

And what women do we hear about? Afghani women. But what do we hear about them? They are victims, victims of the Taliban. Their function is not to voice their concerns, set policy, or provide advice. No, their function is to legitimize the U.S. war and to justify men, U.S. men, taking over. Afghani men, the third world savage, must be removed from power in order to save the third world woman, the victim. And who will do it? U.S. men, the standard bearers of world civilization.

I raised these two issues of fear and gender because I do not believe that either of them has received enough attention from the anti-war movement. I hope that our work and discussion will consider them and figure out how we can offer an alternative perspective on them.

Thank you.

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