feminism

Week #3 of 48 Weeks of Historical Craftivism, Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

| Betsy

Welcome to Week 3 of 48 Weeks of Historical Craftivism! This week we have a lovely guest post by the lovely and amazing Sayraphim Lothian.

Craft Activism – the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

Protesters ring the Greenham Common fence decorated with handmade banners and other items (date unknown)”
Protesters ring the Greenham Common fence decorated with handmade banners and other items (date unknown)”

On the 5th of September, 1981, the Welsh group Women for Life on Earth arrived at Greenham Common, an RAF Airbase in Berkshire, England. The group intended to challenge the decision to situate 96 Cruise nuclear missiles at the site, and presented the Base Commander with a letter requesting a debate on the topic. The letter stated, amongst other things, “We fear for the future of all our children and for the future of the living world which is the basis of all life”(1).

When their letter was ignored, they set up a Peace Camp just outside the fence. By 1982, the camp had become women only and with a strong feminist emphasis. In the following months and years thousands of women came to live and protest at the newly named Women’s Peace Camp(2), which now consisted of nine smaller camps at various gates around the base(3).

The women’s activism came in many forms, a considerable amount of it focused on the 9 mile fence that ringed the perimeter. In an interview with The New Statesman in 2007, the General Secretary for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Kate Hudson recalls “…block[ing] the gates, pull[ing] down parts of the fence, danc[ing] on the missile silos, and creatively express[ing] our opposition to the missiles.(4)”

In the camps between raids on the base, the women spent time making banners and weaving words, symbols and items such as toys and children’s clothing, into the fence(5). The banners were created both to hang on the fence and hold in protest marches that happened regularly around the perimeter. One of the most prolific banner makers was Thalia Campbell, who started making banners to address the stereotype of the Greenham Common women.

I did decide that I was an artist and I could have been one more body around the fire but I thought ‘no’, and we were so vilified… people did think we were dirty slags, lesbians, bad mothers and all this kind of stuff, like, like they vilified the suffragettes in the early days, but the vilification was so untrue I thought we had to counter it, so that’s why I started making my banners really, to sort of use beauty and humour to put our point across, because that vilification… So that’s why I made all the banners really and to tell the story… I used to go up and put them on the fence and gradually this became a great big display on the fence.(6)

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As well as banners protesting nuclear weapons, other banners (such as the one above) were created to show where the women were from, to show the media and the world that this was not a local issue.

The fence was also the focus of activism through weaving. Alongside toys and children’s clothes, which acted as signifiers of women’s ongoing everyday lived experience, in opposition to the destructive patriarchal threat within, and outside, the base(7), words, slogans and symbols such as peace signs, doves and rainbows were also often incorporated into the chain links.

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A protester remembers there was a lot of weaving things in the perimeter fence – rainbows, kid art, … the whole perimeter fence was very gorgeous. There were a lot of spiderwebs in the art. Spiderwebs were a big theme – I suppose the theme of weaving something, surrounding something(8). Another theory as to why the weaving of the webs was that “Before the world wide web connected people across the world, women at Greenham used the metaphor of a spiders web to imagine global connections between peace activists.(9)”

The webs often extended out to entangle the surrounding trees, the protesters themselves and the workmen and machinery that were sent in to remove them. A subcontractor who had driven his bulldozer in to remove a tree house stated in court “… the girls got in front of the machine. They stood there and a couple walked round [the bulldozer] with woollen string, going round and round with it…(10)” When the women were arrested and taken to court, some used the time to make webs there for installation later back at the camp(11).

The weaving was so important that mention of it made it’s way into protest songs, which were composed at the camp or modified from older songs and sung during protests, court hearings, while in prison or at home in the camp. We are the flow and we are the ebb and I am the weaver both appear in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook, handwritten in 1983, photocopied in batches and sold to raise funds(12).

We are the flow
and we are the Ebb
We are the weavers
We are the web(13)

In 1981, at the very start of the Peace Camp, the women adopted the dragon as their symbol(14), explaining on a 1983 photocopied invitation that “The word ‘dragon’ derives from a word meaning ‘to see clearly’. She is a very old and powerful life symbol.” The invitation was to participate in The Full Moon in June Dragon Festival, where women were invited to feast and create a Rainbow Dragon together. Invitation 1 reads in part: At USAF Greenham Common, Newbury, Berkshire on the 25th June, a Rainbow Dragon will be born by joining the creative work of thousands of women… Women are making pieces of patchwork, banners, cloth paintings to join into the Rainbow Dragon for the future(15).

Three other invitations were also produced, the second of which invites women to “Dress up if you want – wear the colours of fire – make smaller dragons… believe in yourselves and know that our positive, creative energy will change the world.(16)” The visitors to Greenham that day bought patches and material from home and from women who couldn’t make it to the camp. Over the course of the day they helped sew together a 9 mile Rainbow Dragon, which then encircled the fence.

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983
The Rainbow Dragon at Greenham Common, 1983

An article in an undated Greenham Common newsletter talks about the Rainbow Serpent from Aboriginal mythology and emphasises it as a:

‘universally-respected divinity’, a guardian of humanity, and a metaphor for menstrual cycles, and as such an important symbol for Greenham Common Peace Camp women … The Rainbow Serpent also represented ‘the dragon [that was] slaughtered by some patriarchal hero who established the present world order from which we are still suffering’. However, as a phoenix from the ashes, the dragon… is stirring from her sleep allowing, ‘the Australian Aboriginals and the American Indians, together with traditional people and women everywhere [to have] the last word(17)’

The dragon was clearly a powerful symbol for the women to create together and surround the base with and it’s nine mile length showed the world that many voices were joined as one to protest the nuclear weapons being held behind the fence.

Living conditions were primitive at Greenham Common. Living outside in all kinds of weather especially in the winter and rainy seasons was testing. Without electricity, telephone, running water etc, frequent evictions and vigilante attacks, life was difficult. In spite of the conditions women, from many parts of the UK and abroad, came to spend time at the camp to be part of the resistance to nuclear weapons(18). But the women made their protest heard, all around the world, with interventions, songs, marches, banners, costumes and craft based installations.

Ultimately, in 1991, the nuclear weapons were removed after US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which meant that the cruise missiles were taken back to America(19). The camp and the women remained for another nine years, as part of a protest against the UK Trident program, which is the ongoing operation of the current generation of British nuclear weapons(20) before leaving for the last time in 2000.

A Thalia Campbell banner on the Greenham fence (date unknown)
A Thalia Campbell banner on the Greenham fence (date unknown)

(1) Hipperson, Sarah (n.d.) Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp 1981 – 2000 [Accessed 13 September 2013]
(2)Hudson, Kate, 2013 ‘Remembering Greenham Common’ The New Statesman [Accessed 13 September 2013]
(3)‘Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (n.d.) Wikipedia [Accessed 15 September 2013]
(4)Hudson, Kate, 2013 ‘Remembering Greenham Common’ The New Statesman
(5)Eiseman-Renyard, Hannah, 2011 ‘Revolting Women: Greenham Common’ Bad Reputation: A Feminist Pop Culture Adventure [Accessed 17 September 2013]
(6)The Peace Museum, 2009 Thalia Campbell – Greenham Common protester and banner maker [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(7)Welch, Christina (n.d.) ‘Spirituality and Social Change at Greenham Common Peace Camp’ Journal for Faith, Spirituality and Social Change. Vol.1:1 [Accessed 08 September 2013]
(8)Eiseman-Renyard, Hannah, 2011 ‘Revolting Women: Greenham Common’ Bad Reputation: A Feminist Pop Culture Adventure
(9)Feminist Archive South, 2013 Greenham Materials [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(10)Harford, Barbara and Hopkins, Sarah (eds)1984 Greenham Common: Women at the Wire London: The Women’s Press p48
(11)Ibid p47
(12)Greenham Women are Everywhere songs (n.d) [Accessed 13 September 2013] p 1
(13)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(14)The National Archives (n.d.) Records of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (Yellow Gate) : Press cuttings 5GCW/E/1 Nov 1981 – Oct 1983 [Accessed 16 September 2013]
(15)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook : A Day in December 82 [Accessed 12 September 2013]
(16)The Danish Peace Academy, 2009 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp Songbook : A Day in December 82..
(17)Welch, Christina (n.d.) ‘Spirituality and Social Change at Greenham Common Peace Camp’ Journal for Faith, Spirituality and Social Change
(18)Hipperson, Sarah (n.d.) Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp 1981 – 2000


    More resources:

Combomphotos, 1983 Aldermaston-Greenham Common peace chain 01-04-1983 04 [Accessed 19 September 2013]

For anyone over 30, the words “Greenham Common” mean two things: cruise missiles and the women’s peace camps of the mid-Eighties (n.d.) [Accessed 19 September 2013]

Levit, Briar (n.d.) Greenham [Accessed 19 September 2013]

my continuing love affair with the seasons…

| Betsy

Here’s a little secret:

I <3 fall. Not THE Fall with Mark E. Smith (although I do adore them), or the falls I often make because I'm clumsy, but fall as in autumn. Today I went to the woods and tromped around in pigtails with some friends and we drank coffee from a flask and ate vegan muffins and satsumas. Fall is the time of year that makes me want to run around and create create create til my hands bleed. Fall makes me want to howl at the moon, take walks through downtown London holding hands, fling myself into huge piles of raked leaves, wear bright colours, go to the Battersea Dogs Home and cuddle with abandoned puppies, pull out my old Minor Threat and Operation Ivy tapes and sing outloud offkey.

Also of note, the following information was passed along to me and maybe you’ll find it meaningful, too:

16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is a worldwide campaign that provides opportunities to take a stand against gender-based violence and to mobilize around women’s human rights. The 16 Days Campaign, initiated in 1991 by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, runs from International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th) through International Human Rights Day (December 10th). The campaign makes explicit the connection between women’s rights and human rights. Over one thousand organizations in approximately one hundred and thirty countries are participating this year.

AIUSA’s Women’s Human Rights Program is once again participating in this worldwide campaign and encourages each of you to do the same. AIUSA’s campaign theme this year focuses on the murders and “disappearances” of women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.

Background on 16 Days

In June of 1993, representatives of nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world gathered in Vienna, Austria for the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights. Women’s human rights advocates had worked for two years nationally, regionally and globally to ensure that women’s rights were recognized as human rights at the conference and that violence against women was included in the discussion. The resulting document, the Vienna Declaration and Platform of Action signed by 171 states, was historic in its emphasis on the global pervasiveness of gender-based violence and in its compelling appeal to governments and to the United Nations to take action to eliminate such violence. The document declared:

The human rights of women and the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice and international trafficking, are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person, and must be eliminated.

Since the Conference, significant gains have been made on the international level for the movement to end violence against women. In December of 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW). In 1994, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences to monitor the various manifestations of gender violence on a worldwide scale

In 1995, the UN held the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where women’s human rights advocates again demanded that governments take concrete measures to improve the status of women. The resulting Beijing Platform for Action included a chapter devoted to eliminating violence against women. In 2000, the Beijing Platform for Action was reviewed by the UN General Assembly and the resulting document sought to strengthen governments’ commitments to fulfilling the human rights of women worldwide.

The murders and “disappearances” in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City are but one illustration of the rampant gender-based violence that persists around the world today. Join with Amnesty International and help end violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and around the world.

For more information about how to get involved with the 16 days campaign, visit here.

Screw summer, fall makes me happy. So go do good things as the weather gets cooler and you have to pull out the mittens and you can start to see your breath.

Rock on fall!