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REVEALING SOURCES: HISTORICAL RESOURCES ON WOMEN,
INTERNATIONALISM, AND PEACE
Wendy E. CHMIELEWSKI*
If war has traditionally been associated with men, action, and masculinity, peace, or the absence
of war has been considered feminine, passive, and connected to women. While this is very much of
an over simplification, scholars of peace studies and peace history often find themselves and their
subject matter relegated to the sides lines of the “important” trends and issues of world history. As
this is true of the study of peace, it is also sometimes true for the study of women’s lives. At another
recent conference, when I suggested that women peace activists in the 1980s played a significant
role in ending the Cold War, my conclusions were called unrealistic by another historian. How could
ordinary women, outside of any government hierarchy, play a role in changing government policy?
Another scholar has recently called peace activists naïve and unrealistic. So if the history of peace
activism is considered by many to be invisible, unimportant, secondary to war in the course of human
events, there are similar ideas about the lack of influence and importance of women in the world.
Women and peace have long been considered to have had a special affinity. In contrast war, the
absence of peace, has been considered the province of men, almost identified with male
characteristics of strength, passion, and political will. For some, the markers of historical social and
political change only occur during a period of war. These connections have created a space for
women activists to work towards a peaceful and just world. Some women entered into this work
believing they had a special role to play as literal or figurative mothers, nurturing and preserving life,
opposed to war which is life‐destroying by definition. Others have seen women as the antithesis of
militarism, and representing the family, home, stability, and the cornucopia of abundance. Still
others have seen war and violence as destroyers of physical safety, political and civil rights for
women. Certainly throughout history some women have also acted as warriors and supporters or
promoters of war and violence.
Peace has never been a monolithic concept, but it is multi‐faceted, sometimes connected with
justice. Some of its adherents oppose particular wars, others oppose all war and violence. Some
peace activists base their opposition to war on religious belief, others on a secular belief in justice,
law, or even economic practicality. Some women believe any war is misguided, a failure of human
ability, others believe that some situations call for military force or government intervention to
protect vulnerable populations. Historically women peace activists have tried to connect with other
women around the world to build movements dedicated to expanding women’s rights and building a
world without war more just to women. These activists often assumed women the world over had
commonalities/universalities which would draw them together to act for the same goals. Although
these women were shaped by their times and beliefs, they were inspired to travel across bordersgeographical
and cultural, to find common cause with other women, in creating a more peaceful
world.
As women and peace activists many of their efforts were ignored or denigrated, considered by
many to be unimportant to world events. In reality peace women are not invisible, and they turn up
everywhere challenging governments and nation states, armies and violence, working to end war,
building peaceful and just communities, creating spaces for better lives for everyone. Indeed, at
times even governments or other cultural institutions have recognized that women’s peace work can
challenge basic frameworks, and have sometimes labeled peace activists as the “Most Dangerous
Women”.
An international women’s peace movement was long the dream of women activists in the West.
By the middle of the 19 th century British and American women activists, veterans of a trans‐Atlantic
anti‐slavery movement saw themselves as internationally‐minded, and understood how such issues
*
Swarthmore College ‐ Swarthmore, USA