Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Women in Culture and Society)

About this book

Women Strike for Peace is the only historical account of this ground-breaking womens movement. Amy Swerdlow a founding member of WSP restores to the historical record a significant chapter on American politics and womens studies. Weaving together narrative and analysis she traces WSPs triumphs problems and legacy for the womens movement and American society. Women Strike for Peace began on November 1 1961 when thousands of white middle-class women walked out of their kitchens and off their jobs in a one-day protest against Soviet and American nuclear policies. The protest led to a national organization of women who fought against nuclear arms and U.S. intervention in Vietnam. While maintaining traditional maternal and feminine roles members of WSP effectively challenged national policiesdefeating a proposal for a NATO nuclear fleet withstanding an investigation by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and sending one of its leaders to Congress as a peace candidate. As a study of a dissident group grounded in prescribed female culture and the struggle of its members to avoid being trapped within that culture this book adds a crucial new dimension to womens studies. In addition this account of WSPs success as a grass roots nonhierarchical movement will be of great interest to historians political scientists and anyone interested in peace studies or conflict resolution. "Swerdlow has re-created a unique piece of American political history a chapter of the international peace movement and an origin of the modern feminist movement. No historian activist or self-respecting woman should be without Women Strike for Peace. It shows not only how one group of women created change but also how they inevitably changed themselves."Gloria Steinem