Conclusion

On 17 June 1972, women from the St. Louis area gathered for what was billed as a Women’s Hearing on the War in Vietnam. Over 40 women testi­fied about the war and its impact on their lives and communities before a panel of 12 women.

The Women’s Hearing points to a number of ways that antiwar women engaged and confronted the Vietnam War. Sexism within the larger antiwar movement often pushed women toward sex-segregated forms of protest in which they could control the agenda and voice their dissent as they saw fit—the organizers of the Women’s Hearing had created space for women’s opinions. For some women, sex-segregated protests made sense as they were convinced that women’s perspectives were inherently different from those men offered. An assumption of sisterhood and gender difference echoed throughout the testimony of many who spoke at the Women’s Hearing. At the same time, although some of the women seemed to embrace a gender system that assumed difference, the format of the Women’s Hearing also exuded confidence in women’s ability to employ traditionally male forms of discourse—participants put the war on trial and acted as witnesses and judges against a male-constructed and male-enacted policy in Vietnam. While some women engaged the war from a maternalist perspective, others confronted the war in terms that did not highlight their female identity, using race, class, human rights, or economic arguments as the foundations for their critiques.

But the fact remains that women had a hard time being heard, whether in sex-segregated or mixed-sex environments. Their voices were muffled in part because of their noncombatant status. As feminist Kathie Sarachild explained, women’s exclusion from the draft was not a blessing but “an emblem of... powerlessness compared to the men of their generation—as their ‘No’ to the war lacked the strength the men’s had of being able to say ‘We Won't Go'—and highlighted their more powerless and auxiliary posi­tion in the rest of society.”⁷² Like the frustration implicit in the name cho­sen by the women of Women Too, the sex-segregated nature of the Women's Hearing on the War in Vietnam on some level laid bare fundamental inequalities in society.

Although women's changing roles in the military and the frontless nature of current warfare have rendered women's status as noncombatants ambigu­ous, vestiges remain of the tradition of privileging combatant voices politi­cally. In the U.S. presidential election of 2004, candidates chose to focus at length on the integrity of the military service of President George W. Bush and his challenger, Senator John Kerry, revealing how important military service is to those who hope to make their mark politically. As the candidates sparred over who did what and who avoided what, noncombatant Americans— that is, women—were pushed to the margins of the discussion.⁷³

Nevertheless, what remains striking about the Women's Hearing on the War in Vietnam is that the women themselves felt competent and driven to comment upon the war, despite the fact that their noncombatant status rendered them peripheral in both formal policy-making and the antiwar movement. Even during an era when they could be definitively labeled noncombatants, they refused to let their noncombatant status silence them on the issue of the war. While their voices might have had little impact on ending the war, the protest of women during the Vietnam War helped bring to light the totality of war, that is, the pervasiveness of its impact.

There is historical and political value to be gained from heeding noncom­batants' perspectives on the broader consequences of war. Noncombatant voices have had a significant impact on the way war is waged. In the last half century, criticism of military tactics, much of it voiced by women, has prompted a more concerted effort to minimize “collateral damage” and pro­tect noncombatants living in combat zones. The next step, though, is for noncombatant voices outside the (potential) combat zone to have a real impact on discussions about if, why, and when war should occur. Certainly the impact of war on combatants is dramatic and direct. But a policy-making process that focuses inordinately on “the troops,” to the extent of marginal­izing or demonizing noncombatant voices, though, is unsound, irresponsible, and undemocratic. A war’s impact on those who do not, will not, or cannot fight is just as important as its impact on those closest to the combat. Taking into account the domestic impact of war, beyond the political implications for the party in power, would likely require a more careful, deliberate, and considered course of action. Such a process would acknowledge that war is a complex animal whose bite is felt not simply on the battlefield.

Notes

I would like to thank the faculty at Bethel College for their thoughtful insights and responses when I presented an early version of this paper during the 2006—2007 Faculty Seminar series.

1. Alice Herz’s suicide note, printed in Hayes B. Jacobs, “The Martyrdom of Alice Herz,” in Shingo Shibata, ed., Phoenix: Letters and Documents of Alice Herz. Amsterdam, 1976, pp. 160—61. The New York Times reported that Herz’s pocketbook contained a note that accused President Johnson of “trying to wipe out small nations,” an implicit reference to Vietnam. David R. Jones, “Woman, 82, Sets Herself Afire in Street as Protest on Vietnam,” New York Times, 18 March 1965.

2. Joel P Rhodes, The Voice of Violence: Performative Violence as Protest in the Vietnam Era. Westport, CT, 2007, p. 162. Also see: Guida West and Rhoda Louis Blumberg, eds., Women and Social Protest. New York, 1990, p. 4.

3. Amy Schneidhorst, “‘Little Old Ladies and Dangerous Women’: Women’s Peace and Social Justice Activism in Chicago, 1960—1975,” Peace & Change. 26, 3, July 2001, p. 374.

4. Marian Mollin, “Communities of Resistance: Women and the Catholic Left of the Late 1960s,” Oral History Review. 31, 2, 2004, p. 42.

5. For an interesting discussion of the link between masculinity and martialism, see William Ian Miller, The Mystery of Courage. Cambridge, MA, 2000.

6. Mollin, “Communities of Resistance,” p. 50.

7. Barrie Thorne, “Women in the Draft Resistance Movement,” Sex Roles. 1, 2, 1975, p. 184.

8. See Sara Evans groundbreaking study, Personal Politics: The Roots of Womens Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York, 1979.

9. Thorne, “Women in the Draft Resistance Movement,” p.180.

10. Ruth Rosen, “The Feminist Revolution in California,” in Marcia A. Eymann and Charles Wollenberg, eds., What's Going On: California and the Vietnam Era. Berkeley, CA, 2004, p. 86.

11. Harriet Gross, “Jane Kennedy: Making History through Moral Protest,” Frontiers: A Journal of Womens Studies 2, 2, Summer 1977, p. 77.

12. Jo Freeman, “The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement,” American Journal of Sociology 78, 4, 1973, p.

13. Nan Stone, quoted in Michael Foley, Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, 2003, p. 185.

14. Francine du Plessix Gray noted that many in the Catholic Left characterized Philip Berrigan as a “desperado obsessed by the Gospel.” Francine du Plessix Gray, Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism. New York, 1970, p. 78.

15. Mollin, “Communities of Resistance,” first quotation p. 42, second quotation p. 44.

16. Campus Women for Peace, Declaration of Opposition to the War and the Draft [Berkeley, CA?], 1965. For information about the illegality of draft counseling, see “Counseling Draft Resistance: The Case for a Good Faith Belief Defense,” Yiile Law Journal 78, 6, May 1969, pp. 1008-1045.

17. Thorne, “Women in the Draft Resistance Movement,” pp. 187-188.

18. Will Lissner, “6 War Protesters Seized on 5th Avenue,” New York Times, 4 July 1969.

19. “Women Draft Disrupters Explain Action,” Guardian, 6 September 1969.

20. Ibid.

21. Thorne, “Women in the Draft Resistance Movement,” p. 190.

22. Foley, Confronting the War Machine, p. 182.

23. The slogan refers to men who refuse induction. Thorne, “Women in the Draft Resistance Movement,” pp. 184, 190.

24. Mai Thi Chu, quoted in Campus Women for Peace, For a Ceasefire in Vietnam [Berkeley, CA?], 1965.

25. In fact, Mai Thi Chu’s statement was quoted, but was not attributed to Chu, by Students for a Democratic Society. Jack Minnis, “Life with Lyndon in the Great Society,” Students for a Democratic Society Bulletin. 4, 1, 1965, in Online Archive of California. http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=kt5779n7hc&doc. view=frames&chunk.id= d0e305&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e302&brand=oac. Accessed 7 August 2007.

26. Valerie Clubb, interview by Dawn Walsh, 8 April 2000, in Missoula Women for Peace Oral History Project Collection (Missoula Women for Peace), box 1, folder 9, K. Ross Toole Archives, University of Montana, Missoula (UMM).

27. May McDonald, interview by Dawn Walsh, 27 February 2000, in Missoula Women for Peace, box 1, folder 3, UMM.

28. Eda Houwink statement, Record of the Women’s Hearing on the War in Vietnam (Women’s Hearing), 1972, p. 138, in Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC).

29. May McDonald, quoted in Missoula Women for Peace Group Meeting, inter­view by Dawn Walsh, 28 February 2000, in Missoula Women for Peace, box 1, folder 14, UMM.

30. Anniece Allen statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 101, SCPC.

31. Eda Houwink statement, Women’s Hearing, 1972, p. 139, SCPC.

32. Amy Swerdlow, “‘Not My Son, Not Your Son, Not Their Sons’: Mothers Against the Vietnam Draft,” in Melvin Small and William D. Hoover, eds., Give Peace a Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. Syracuse, NY, 1992, p. 160. For a more extensive analysis of Women Strike for Peace, see Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s. Chicago, 1993.

33. Jeanne Molli, “Women’s Peace Group Uses Feminine Tactics,” New York Times. 19 April 1962.

34. Schneidhorst, “Little Old Ladies and Dangerous Women,” p. 380.

35. The literature on nineteenth-century maternalist reform efforts is extensive. A good place to start is Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA, 1992, pp. 321—372. The literature on the ideology of separate spheres or female domesticity is also extensive. For an introduction to the ideology itself, see Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic. New York, 1990; Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820—1860,” American Quarterly. 18, 2, Summer 1966, pp. 151-174.

36. Florence Johnson statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 149, SCPC.

37. Lois Barrett statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 133, SCPC.

38. Sandra Perrin, quoted in Missoula Women for Peace Group Meeting, interview by Dawn Walsh, 28 February 2000, in Missoula Women for Peace, box 1, folder 14, UMM.

39. Sylvia D. Hoffert, A History of Gender in America: Essays, Documents, and Articles. Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003, p. 210.

40. Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890—1925. New York, 1985, p. 101.

41. Isabella C. M. Cunningham and Robert T Green, “Purchasing Roles in the U.S. Family, 1955 and 1973,” Journal of Marketing. 38, October 1974, pp. 61-81.

42. Another Mother for Peace mailer, n.d., in Social Movements Collection (SMC), box 6, folder 25, Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University (TTU). Available online through Texas Tech University’s Virtual Vietnam Archive. http://www. virtualarchive.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchiv.

43. Letter from Jan Braslard[?], November 1972, in SMC, box 6, folder 25, TTU.

44. Letter from Dorothy B. Jones, [n.d.], in SMC, box 6, folder 25, TTU.

45. Alberta Slavin statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 29, SCPC.

46. Mary Jane Badenoch statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 16, SCPC.

47. Oral Lee Malone statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 46, SCPC.

48. “Women and the Draft,” n.d., in SMC, box 6, folder 31, TTU.

49. David Krieger, “The Another Mother for Peace Consumer Campaign— A Campaign that Failed,” Journal of Peace Research. 8, 2, 1971, p. 163.

50. Jane Kennedy, quoted in Gross, “Jane Kennedy,” pp. 77-78.

51. “Beaver 55 Strikes Again,” in Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, eds., “‘Takin’ it to the Streets”: A Sixties Reader. New York, 1995, p. 252; Gross, “Jane Kennedy,” p. 73.

52. Donna Allen and Cora Weiss, quoted in Tom Wells, The War Within: America’s Battle over Vietnam. Berkeley, CA, 1994, pp. 84—85.

53. L. B. Johnson, quoted in Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York, 1976, p. 278.

54. “Women and the Draft,” n.d., in SMC, box 6, folder 31, TTU.

55. Catherine Stenger statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 12, SCPC.

56. Gerald Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity: African- American Women’s Opposition to the Vietnam War,” in Barbara Tischler, ed., Sights on the Sixties, New Brunswick, NJ, 1992, p. 189.

57. Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity,” p. 190.

58. Coretta Scott King, quoted in Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity,” p. 180.

59. Tanya Luna Mount, quoted in Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. New York, 1998, p. 115.

60. Jacqueline Mack statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 138, SCPC.

61. Janet Mezzack, “‘Without Manners You Are Nothing’: Lady Bird Johnson, Eartha Kitt, and the Women Doers’ Luncheon of January 18, 1968” Presidential Studies Quarterly. 20, 4, 1990, p. 749.

62. Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity,” p. 178.

63. Pamela Ashley, “Anti-War Pickets [letter to editor],” Ebony. February 1968, p. 18.

64. Rosalynne Hughes statement, Women’s Hearing, p. 131, SCPC.

65. Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity,” p. 193.

66. “A Negro Mother Tells Why U.S. Cannot Win in Asia,” Muhammad Speaks. 10 February 1967.

67. Gill, “From Maternal Pacifism to Revolutionary Solidarity,” p. 181.

68. Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, “A View from New Mexico: Recollections ofMovimiento Left,” Monthly Review. 54, 3, July-August 2002. http://www.monthlyreview.org/ 0702martinez.htm. Accessed 3 November 2006. For more information on Chicanas and the war, see George Mariscal, “Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War,” in Marcia A. Eymann and Charles Wollenberg, eds., What’s Going on? California and the Vietnam Era. Berkeley, CA, 2004.

69. “Chicanas meet Indo-Chinese,” El Grito del Norte. 5 June 1971; Cover photo­graphs, El Grito del Norte, 29 August 1970.

70. Kathleen Blee, ed., No Middle Ground: Women and Radical Protest. New York, 1998, p. 4.

71. Ann Q. Niederlander, “Findings,” Women’s Hearing, pp. 1—2, SCPC. For newspaper accounts of the hearing, see Charles Oswald, “Women at Hearing Here Roundly Condemn War,” St. Louis Globe Democrat. 19 June 1972; “Women at War Forum Urge Consumer Boycott,” St. Louis Post Dispatch. 18 June 1972.

72. Kathie Sarachild, “Taking in the Images: A Record in Graphics of the Vietnam Era Soil for feminism,” Vietnam Generation. 1, 3-4, 1989, p. 241.

73. Although women now serve in combat environments, official Pentagon policy prohibits women from serving in the “infantry and other positions in which the primary mission is to physically engage the enemy.” Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Personnel and Readiness, “Representation within Occupations,” in Population and Representation in the Armed Services: Fiscal Year 2001. Washington, D.C., March 2003. http://www. defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2001 /chapter3/chapter3_6.htm. Accessed: 8 August 2007.