feminism and anti-militarism

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And what about peacekeeping/peace enforcement missions- when horrible things like genocide, mass rape, are occuring in other countries and there are calls for Canada to do something, can we really say no ?

Yes, because the presence of western armies does nothing to alleviate such crimes.  Interventions only serve to change the perpetrators. Rape and genocide are not a concern to our governments or elites whose only goal is control and profit.

Maysie, I don't know what GIYF means. I know what you're getting at here and essentially agree. Is there some vision for how that would be accomplished?

Loretta, the first time someone told me GIYF I googled it. Heehee. Now I do that with any acronym that I don't recognize. YKWIM? 

As for the vision to accomplish it, here's a story of an American woman of colour at boot camp.

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WHEN KRISTINA MCCAULEY LOOKS BACK on her time in boot camp, one scene sticks out: she's standing in the sun as blood flows down her wrist, hoping no one will notice her among the rows of trainees chanting and brandishing bayonets.

Thinking back, she's not sure why she grabbed her weapon the wrong way during that drill. But when she saw that the bayonet on her rifle had sliced cleanly across her hand, she knew calling for help would only invite her drill sergeants to make her life more miserable.

"I was just standing out there in the heat of the day and bleeding and trying to be quiet about it," she recalled later in an interview. Soon, a female drill sergeant came over to berate her for her stupidity-as a lesson to the other trainees-and tossed a few bandages at her.

Today, McCauley, a half-Japanese lesbian, has a degree in international peace studies. She's not your "typical" veteran. As a mixed-race girl with a boyish streak in a straight-laced suburb, McCauley signed up for the military hoping "to belong somewhere." The service promised respect, power and a chance to test her physical and mental limits.

But putting on the greens didn't bring the transformation she had sought. Instead, she discovered the Army's veneer of uniformity masks deep fault lines of culture, class and sexuality. She eventually emerged from the military's rigid hierarchy to embrace what she had tried to escape-by reconnecting with her Japanese heritage, coming out to her family and reorienting her political perspective.

There's also been a concerted movement in the US for young people of colour (mostly young men) to refuse to sign up to the army to fight in the illegal war again Iraq. Given that the army is often a way out of poverty for them, this carries a significant level of personal sacrifice. By the way, this is also the answer to the question, why aren't there more POC in the peace movement.

Source:
http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=378

As for the Canadian context, my advice would be if you don't believe in the ideology of the machine, don't join the machine. Too simplistic, maybe. I understand that other people have different choices in their lives compared to me. But how will the machine ever stop unless people refuse to join it?

But Loretta (and Webgear if you're reading this) I would be very interested in what you think about options. 

This crazy goddam program now deposits me in threads I am not trying t-p to post in.....and won't even let me delete the above post

bear will me please.....

Post deleted....no thanks to the goddam program that put me here unasked.

Sorry folks.

It is still relevant but I wonder how those of us who don't think that the military is the solution can help counter the growing reality of decreasing options for our young people.

Great stuff maysie!

Yo, Loretta, I can't fix everything! 

Martin, you and I will be in Ottawa this weekend. Shall we take time off from the conference to occupy the Parliament buildings?

(Not that anything goes on there. Where are these "backrooms" where the deals happen?) 

Martin, you and I will be in Ottawa this weekend. Shall we take time off from the conference to occupy the Parliament buildings?

Don't tempt me, Jezebel! (we could picket)

Slumberjack, in case you missed my earlier point:

Maysie wrote:

In terms of your original question in the OP, PfRD, no, I don't think feminism needs to support every aspect of society in which women are attempting to make inroads. The feminism that supports that position was known as "liberal" feminism or "equality" feminism. GIYF for anyone who doesn't know what those terms mean.

The feminism that I support posits that there are fucked-up institutions that exist which not only should we not support (as feminists and as, you know, humans), we should work on dismantling them. The Canadian military is one of those institutions.

P.S. When you wrote CAF my first thought was "Canadian Arab Federation".  

The military presents itself as a barrier free organization, with recruiting efforts designed to create the illusion of equality in all areas.  The sales pitch, which includes a fairly significant benefits package, would understandably draw the attention of many who face historical economic and institutional restrictions and barriers within other segments of society, such as education and employment.  While it is true that many leave when the reality becomes clear, others stay for no other reason but economic survival for themselves and their family, especially in single income situations.  A common theme I would believe, in many other situations.  The military counts on this factor in their retention strategies.  While some may indeed hold loathsome conservative views, the same is not true for many others, and for them, they find themselves stuck in a situation that is found to be something entirely different than advertised.  Generalizations are understandably obvious, and easy to come by when we discuss the military, but still, I've found that like minded people of different backgrounds, and dare I say genders, can learn to support each other, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

Maysie wrote:

...I agree that the military has targeted low-income communities for this very reason, and that this is a despicable practice. 

The issue for me is to condemn the various machines that contribute little to life quality and are of no value to humanity as a whole. In my opinion, the Canadian military is one of those machines.

I agree with your opinion.  I doubt there exists much of a divergence either with the belief that forward minded individuals from marginalized low-income communities are not disposable human beings, and that regardless of who they end up working for as a result of circumstances, they deserve to have their rights supported and protected, while condemning the organizations that take advantage of them.

PfRD, I know what you mean and I'll give you my thoughts in a second. But first something that I constantly need to remind myself, as I can also get caught up in horrible news reports and feel an urge (Western and a bit paternalistic) to say "We have to *do* something!"

Rarely do so-called First world countries get involved in conflicts that don't offer some sort of economic incentive or benefit. A more cynical person than I may say "never". So, if we frame that the economic incentive always come first, and, strategically, if there's a series of gross human rights violations that is on the "correct" side, that is, the side that the PTB want to squash anyways, then the buy-in is built right in. The actual "reasons" given for invasion/intervention are superfluous. Whereas we, the public, think on human levels ("Well, I'm against war, but the government in country XYZ needs to be stopped!") and we may not always think about the meta-levels of "What's the historical background to this conflict?" "Who sold them weapons?" "Who's benefitting from ongoing war/genocide?" That's what gets you labelled a commie troublemaker.

So, if we've done that entire filter, and there really is a need for international intervention on some level, I think support for the oppressed and marginalized would be the position that I'd take, taking my cues from resistance and grassroots movements in the region(s). I also understand that that's a far too simplistic model to apply to all situations, but those are my thoughts.

What are your thoughts, PfRD? 

The title of this thread reminds me of Virginia Woolf's final book 'Between the Acts' in which her feminism and her hatred of war can be seen through a quite complex lens. Sorry for the thread drift.

ETA: I recall reading that Virginia Woolf was quite critical of women who loved their man who then went off to fight in the war, but that was a while ago. I read Woolf in a college course on feminist authors in the 1970s, and this thread (and another current thread) has reminded me of that experience.

ETA: more thread drift, for which I profoundly apologise: A few years later (still in the 1970s), after college, I entered university (Trinity College) and lived in a Toronto commune on Major Street, along with a strange brew of students among them a radical feminist, a draft dodger  from South Africa and his wife from Rhodesia, a young couple who smoked grass all the time, another student studying engineering who was also stoned all the time, and a Christian woman radical who was into different causes. That draft dodger's wife (who looked astonishingly like the British Glyneth Paltrow) walked around in the nude late at night. The Dean of Divinity at Trinity got wind of my living arrangements and thereafter studied me with a bemused air, probably wondering what was becoming of his beloved traditionalist Anglican seminary! (with others, I was studying Liberation Theology at the time, including by some feminist authors, notably Rosemary Radford Ruether and her Religion and Sexism and Women Of Spirit).