Mixed Messages

The media coverage of the peace camps at Cockburn Sound and Pine Gap provides an opportunity to consider the ways in which gender was under­stood in relationship to war and peace during the mid-1980s in Australia, particularly in relation to noncombatants and their resistance to war and violence.

Indeed, what is now surprising is the attention that was given to what they were trying to achieve—the dissemination of messages about the threats of both nuclear war and the impact of aggressive forms of masculin­ity, especially in the interstate papers, that suggests a willingness to look beyond the stagecraft and the somewhat threatening messages. So, my analysis suggests a more complex story than uniformly antagonistic responses to the protests at Pine Gap and Cockburn Sound.

The Pine Gap and Cockburn Sound camps never developed the fame that Greenham Common did, partly, of course, because of their lack of relative longevity. Greenham came to mean both “a muddy encampment of antinuke women sixty miles from London in the Berkshire countryside” as well as “a continuing protest against the deployment of US military hard­ware in Britain and Europe, and, more metaphorically, against the mascu­line economy of aggression, militarism and global violence that nuclear weapons metonymize.”⁸⁵ The Australian women's peace camps were also framed within this latter, wider meaning—that it was not just the nuclear weapons about which the activists were concerned, but the wider social environment in which they were able to exist. At a time when the main­stream media was relied upon to convey their messages to the widest possi­ble audience, my analysis suggests that the women had some success in imparting their antiwar and antiviolence messages to the Australian press, despite the general ambivalence about women and about protesting against war in peacetime. The press coverage of the peace camps was also a way that women were foregrounded as political agents, and this achievement was part of a much wider shift in the way that women came to be repre­sented politically. Through their antiwar and antiviolence activism, women were made “visible as historical actors and as subjects of the narrative” concerned with war and Australian society.⁸⁶

Notes

1. Marilyn Lake and Joy Damousi, “Warfare, History and Gender,” in Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake, eds., Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century.

2. Ibid., p. 1.

3. Malcolm Saunders and Ralph Summy, The Australian Peace Movement: A Short History. Canberra, 1986.

4. Joy Damousi, Women Come Rally. Melbourne, 1994; Joy Damousi, “Socialist Women and Gendered Space: Anti-Conscription and Anti-War Campaigns 1914—1918,” in Damousi and Lake, eds., Gender and War. pp. 254—273.

5. Marilyn Lake, Getting Equal: The History of Australian Feminism (Sydney, 1999); Judith Smart, “The Right to Speak and the Right to Be Heard: The Popular Disruption of Conscriptionist Meetings in Melbourne, 1916,” Australian Historical Studies. 23, 1989, pp. 203—219. Also see Chris Healy, “War against War,” in Verity Burgmann and Jenny Lee, eds., Staining the Wattle: A People’s History of Australia since 1788. Melbourne, 1988, pp. 208—227; Darryn Kruse and Charles Sowerwine, “Feminism and Pacifism: ‘Woman’s sphere’ in peace and war,” in Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns, eds., Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives. Melbourne, 1986, pp. 42—58.

6. Ann Curthoys, “‘Shut Up You Bourgeois Bitch’: Sexual Identity and Political Action in the Anti-Vietnam War Movement,” in Damousi and Lake, Gender and War. pp. 311—341; Lekkie Hopkins, “Fighting to Be Seen and Heard: A Tribute to Four Western Australian Peace Activists,” Women’s Studies International Forum. 22, 1, 1999, pp. 79—87; Joan Williams, “Women Carrying Banners,” in Joan Eveline, Lorraine Hayden, eds., Carrying the Banner: Women, Leadership and Activism in Australia. Perth, 1999, pp. 16—31.

7. Curthoys, “Shut Up You Bourgeois Bitch,” pp. 322—325; Siobhan McHugh, Minefields and Miniskirts: Australian Women and the Vietnam War. Sydney, 1993; Barry York, “Power to the Young,” in Burgmann and Lee, Staining the Wattle, pp. 228-242.

8. Lake, Getting Equal, p. 220.

9. Verity Burgmann, Power and Protest: Movements for Change in Australian Society. Sydney, 1993, chap. 4; Brendan Cairns, “Stop the Drop,” in Burgmann and Lee, Staining the Wattle, p. 243.

10.

11. I was a participant at and organizer of both camps. For Pine Gap, I was involved with a group of Tasmanian women who traveled to the camp, and prior to our departure, I worked with the local Women for Survival group. After Pine Gap, I returned to Western Australia and brought the message that Women for Survival was keen to have a similar camp there highlighting the U.S. war ships’ visits. I then joined with others from the local women’s peace group, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND), to make the arrangements for the camp that became known as Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp. While acknowledging the influence of my own experiences in the women’s peace movement, generally, I write here in the third person referring to the “peace activists” or “Women for Survival” to show that I am referring to the range of views or activities of the wider group (drawn from their literature or press reporting) rather than my own specific experiences.

12. For example, Damousi, “Socialist Women,” pp. 254-273.

13. For a more detailed history of the Australian women’s peace movement, see Murray, “Make Pies Not War,” pp. 81-94. For a history of the British women’s peace movement, see Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820. Syracuse, 1989.

14. Ann Curthoys, “Doing It for Themselves: The Women’s Movement since the 1970,”’ in Kay Saunders, Raymond Evans, eds., Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation. Sydney, 1992, p. 444.

15. Burgmann, Power and Protest, pp. 202—204.

16. “Huge Peace Rallies Jam Major Cities,” West Australian. 1 April 1985, p. 1.

17. See Stephanie Green, “Wildflowers and Other Landscapes,”’ Transformations. 5, 2002, for comments about the two-week camp held outside the Commonwealth Defense Department Offices in Canberra at the time of the Pine Gap peace camp.

18. As suggested by the acronym, New Zealand is also a member of the ANZUS treaty, but since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has taken an antinuclear stand refusing entry of U.S. war ships and submarines.

19. For descriptions of the Greenham camp, see Alice Cook and Gwyn Kirk, Greenham Women Everywhere. London, 1983; Barbara Harford and Sarah Hopkins, Greenham Common: Women at the Wire. London, 1984; Margaret L. Laware, “Circling the Missiles and Staining Them Red: Feminist Rhetorical Invention and Strategies of Resistance at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common,” NWSA Journal. 16, 3, 2004, pp. 18—41; Sasha Roseneil, Disarming Patriarchy: Feminism and Political Action at Greenham. Buckingham, 1995. The Greenham Common women’s peace camp was to have an enduring influence on the international women’s peace movement: David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Alternative Types of Cross-National Diffusion in the Social Movement Arena,” in Donatella della Porta, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Dieter Rucht, eds., Social Movements in a Globalizing World. London, 1999, pp. 29—30.

20. This is not to suggest that women’s understandings did not change over time or that they did not overlap. For example, according to Lawrence Wittner, the “dominant motive” for women’s involvement in protests against nuclear war during the 1950s and 1960s was maternalism; while typically not identified as feminist, the activities they engaged in and how they went about it challenged maternalist ideals, and, indeed, some of these women were “swept up by the new feminism” in the 1970s: Lawrence S. Wittner, “Gender Roles and Nuclear Disarmament Activism, 1954—1965,” Gender and History. 12, 1, 2000, pp. 204, 206.

21. Curthoys, “Doing It for Themselves,” p. 444.

22. Lauri Buckingham, “Mobilisation of Women Leading up to the Pine Gap Action,” in Michael J. Roache and Anne Curthoys, eds., Not the Bicentennial: A Collection of Essays on Australian History, Sociology and Politics. Sydney, 1988, pp. 24—43.

23. Women for Survival, Pine Gap Camp Handbook, 11—25 November 1983, p. 2.

24. WAND, “The USA Presence in Australia,” (flier), c. 1984.

25. Women for Survival, Pine Gap Camp Handbook, p. 2; Women for Survival, Sound Women’s Peace Camp Information Kit, 1—15 December 1984, p. 4; Lee O’Gorman, “Australian Women’s Unique Action for Peace,” Women of the Whole World. 2, 1984, pp. 14—15.

26. For the presence of U.S. sailors in Fremantle, see Murray, “Make Pies Not War.” For views of U.S. sailors during Second World War, see Kate Darian-Smith, “Remembering Romance: Memory, Gender and World War II,” in Damousi and Lake, Gender and War, pp. 117—129; Marilyn Lake, “Female Desires: The Meaning of World War II,” in Damousi and Lake, Gender and War, pp. 60—80.

27. Buckingham, “Mobilisation of Women Leading up to the Pine Gap Action,” p. 41.

28. For example, articles about the peace camps in feminist newsletters such as Perth’s Grapevine, various PND (People for Nuclear Disarmament) newsletters, the environmentalist and antinuclear magazine Chain Reaction, and the Left newspaper Direct Action. However, not all feminists were supportive of the actions that the peace activists were taking. An editorial in the Australian feminist literary journal Hecate, argued that the perspectives of women’s peace actions were “essentially... middle class” and that the Pine Gap camp would be “ineffectual... at challenging Hawke’s recent ‘cementing’ of the US military alliance.” Editorial, Hecate. 9, 1/2, 1983, p. 4.

29. Kristine Anderson, “Women’s Peace Camp—Cockburn Sound, Western Australia,” Union of Australian Women Newsletter March 1985, pp. 7—8; O’Gorman, p. 15.

30. For example, for the Pine Gap camp, two-meter-high banners depicting life-size figures of those who could not be there were made in a project entitled “Double our Numbers” and organized by Alice Springs Women for Survival. The kilometer- long stream of hundreds of banners was carried on the first day as the women marched up the road to the gates of Pine Gap. Gillian Fisher, “Remember Pine Gap,” Burn: Proud to be Different. November 1993, pp. 30—33.

31. Greenham Common women very successfully promoted their activities through similar methods: Julie Emberley and Donna Landrey, “Coverage of Greenham and Greenham as ‘Coverage,’” Feminist Studies. 15, 3, 1989, pp. 491—492.

32. Western Australian Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Council, 22 August 1984, p. 1083.

33. My discussion here is focused on the printed press, but the peace activists also worked with others in television and radio.

34. Collectives were established at both women’s peace camps to facilitate the run­ning of the camp and to ensure that it occurred in what were considered to be democratic ways. There were collectives that had responsibility for legal matters, healing, police liaison, garbage, water, security, and child care, as well as for the media. For a description of the internal workings of one of these collectives at another later Australian women’s peace camp, see Mary Heath, “Peace, Protests and Police: Police Liaison at a National Women’s Peace Action against Australian Militarism,” Alternative Law Journal. 20, 6, 1995, pp. 291—293.

35. Women for Survival, Sound Womens Peace Camp Information Kit, p. 12.

36. For discussion of another smaller contemporary collective and the difficulties (as well as the joys) it encountered, see Suellen Murray, More than Refuge: Changing Responses to Domestic Violence. Perth, 2002, pp. 67—76. For discussion of collectives at another women’s peace camp, see Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Debra D. Burrington, “Free Riding, Alternative Organization and Cultural Feminism: The Case of Seneca Women’s Peace Camp,” Women and Politics. 10, 3, 1990, pp. 1-37.

37. Women for Survival, Sound Womens Peace Camp Information Kit, p. 12.

38. Bruce Stannard, “Peace Takes a Back Seat to Feminism,” Bulletin. 29 November

1983, p. 27.

39. Lorraine Brown, “Male Ban in Peace Protest,” Sunday Independent. 11 November 1984, p. 15.

40. Various Western Australian female journalists expressed their view on the issue of women-only journalists in the peace camp, for example, “We Get Women’s Support,” Daily News. 12 November 1984.

41. Cyril Ayris, “In a Confrontation, the Eyeballs Have It,” West Australian. 4 December 1984, p. 1; “Peace by Force” (editorial), West Australian. 5 December

1984, p. 8.

42. “Sound Peace Camp: On the Inside,” Sound Telegraph. 12 December 1984, p. 3. For similar sentiments in the press reporting of Greenham Common, see Roseneil, Disarming Patriarchy, pp. 130-132. Such negative portrayals of lesbi­ans (and other feminists), however, were not unique to the women’s peace movement: Debra Baker Beck, “The ‘F’ Word: How the Media Frame Feminism,” AWSA Journal. 10, 1, 1995, pp. 1-26; Deborah L. Rhode, “Media Images, Feminist Issues,” Signs. 20, 3, pp. 1-26.

43. Waller (cartoon), Western Mail, 1 December 1984. Also see Alan Langoulant (cartoon), “Paradise Lost,” Daily News. 7 December 1984, p. 52.

44. “Liberals Say Peace Camp a Grubby Event,” West Australian. 19 November 1984; “Protestors Unfeminine” (letter to the editor), Centralian Advocate. 16 November 1983. Similar references were made to the lack of cleanliness of the women and their campsites at Greenham Common, see Roseneil, Disarming Patriarchy, pp. 130-132.

45. Barbara Brook, “Femininity and Culture: Some Notes on the Gendering of Women in Australia,” in Kate Pritchard Hughes, ed., Contemporary Australian Feminism 2. Melbourne, Longman, 1997, p. 107.

46. For portrayals of “maternalist” peace activists, see Sally Abbot, “The Sound of Peace at Cockburn,” Daily News. 3 December 1984, p. 3; for “feminist” peace activists, see Kim Murray, “Into Battle with a Frenzied Beat,” Daily News.

7 December 1984, p. 4; Cyril Ayris, “Peace and Harmony,” West Australian.

8 December 1984, p. 16. The latter, particularly, were portrayed unflatteringly in cartoons by an unknown artist, Northern Territory News. 19 November 1983, p. 7; Mariusz(cartoon), West Australian. 7 December 1984, p. 8.

47. Emberley and Landrey, “Coverage of Greenham and Greenham as ‘Coverage,’” pp. 485-498; Roseneil, Disarming Patriarchy, pp. 130-132, 170-172.

48. See, for example, letters to the editor expressing disquiet about the “violent” protest actions in D. C. Airey, “Call on Government to Act,” West Australian, 6 December 1984, p. 6; M. R. Barker, “In the Name of Peace,” Daily News. 14 December 1984, p. 19.

49. Laware, “Circling the Missiles and Staining Them Red,” p. 28.

50. Ibid., p. 30.

51. From a press release issued by Women for Survival and cited in Kim Murray, “Women storm gate—40 arrested,” Daily News. 6 December 1984, p. 1.

52. For example, see “Protesters Leaving,” Northern Territory News. 17 November 1983, p. 1; “WA Protest: Women Held,” Australian, 1 December 1984, p. 2; Cyril Ayris and Peter Denton, “Women Leaving Peron Protest,” West Australian. 8 December 1984, p. 2; “Peron Protest Ends,” Daily News. 14 December 1984, p. 2.

53. Michael Barnard, “Whose Zoo at Pine Gap?,” Northern Territory News. 26 November 1983, p. 7.

54. Jill Bottrall, “It’s D-Day at Pine Gap,” Centralian Advocate. 11 November 1983, ^pp. ^1-2.

55. “Grandmother Aggrieved” (letter to the editor), Daily News. 7 December 1984, p. 22.

56. “Date for Moscow” (letter to the editor), Daily News. 7 December 1984, p. 22.

57. Also see Mariusz (cartoon), “Just Ignore Them and They’ll Go Away,” West Australian. 16 November 1983, p. 8.

58. Danielle Robinson, “Protestors Take to Perth Streets,” Australian. 9 November 1984, p. 24.

59. Emberley and Landry, “Coverage of Greenham and Greenham as ‘Coverage’,” p. 492.

60. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1998, p. 116.

61. Joan Williams, “A Significant Event: Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp, 1-15 December 1984,” Papers in Labour History. 10, 1992, pp. 25-34; Terri Seddon, “Pine Gap Women’s Camp: Disarmament and Power Relations,” Peace Studies. December 1984, p. 26.

62. Amanda Buckley, “Invasion of Pine Gap: Feel the Heat (40°C), Face 111 Karen Silkwoods Head On. Call in the ‘Copter,’” Sydney Morning Herald. 14 November 1983, p. 1.

63. This action was reported widely in Australia and internationally: “111 Militant Women Seized at Australia Base,” New York Times. 14 November 1983, p. 5.

64. “Pine Gap Crusaders Arrested,” Age. 14 November 1983, pp. 1-2.

65. Jill Bottrall, “On the Road to Pine Gap...,” Centralian Advocate. 16 November 1983, p. 1.

66. Senator Gareth Evans, the then federal Attorney-General, ordered an inquiry into the protestors’ ill-treatment; Human Rights Commission, Report 20: Complaints Relating to the Protest at Pine Gap. Canberra, November 1983.

67. Sue Murray, personal journal, Pine Gap Women’s Peace Camp, 15 November 1983. Another account of this action is found in Margaret Somerville, Body/ Language Journals. Melbourne, 1999, pp. 33-35.

68. Norm Lipson, “The Battle of Pine Gap,” Daily Telegraph. 16 November 1983, p. 1.

69. Sydney Morning Herald. 16 November 1983, p. 1. Also see Simon Balderstone, “Arms and the Women,” Age. 16 November 1983, p. 1; “Pine Gap Protest Bubbles up Again,” West Australian. 16 November 1983, p. 2; Jill Bottrall, “Chaos as Security Gates Fly,” Centralian Advocate. 16 November 1983, p. 2.

70. For example, unknown photographer, “Going, Going, Gone...,” Australian. 16 November 1983, p. 1.

71. For example, see “Hundreds Arrested in UK Demonstrations,” Northern Territory News. 16 November 1983, p. 3; “Cruise Missiles at UK Base,” Mercury. 16 November 1983, p. 5.

72. Sylvia Monk (letter to the editor), “She Won’t Be Right,” Centralian Advocate. 23 November 1983.

73. Nicholson (cartoon), “Why Don’t the Media Report the Real Issue...,” Age. 21 November 1983, p. 13.

74. Cyril Ayris and Pilita Clark, “Vandals Spoil Protest Gains,” West Australian. 4 December 1984, pp. 1—2. On page 2, where the front-page article concluded, it was headed “‘Fringe’ Artists Spoil Protest.”

75. For example, see Jan Mayman, “Women Protesters March on Base,” Age. 4 December 1984, p. 3; “Women Demanding Disarmament March at Point Peron: Peace Group Calls on Scholes,” Mercury. 4 December 1984, p. 12.

76. Sue Murray, personal journal, Sound Women’s Peace Camp, 7 December 1984. For another account of this action: Williams, “Women Carrying Banners”, pp. 29-30.

77. Cyril Ayris, “Assault on Naval Gate Lands 75 in Gaol,” West Australian. 7 December 1984, p. 1.

78. Murray, “Women Storm Gate,” p. 1.

79. This criticism included discussion in the “Peace by Force” (editorial), West Australian. 5 December 1984, p. 8; “WA Protest: Women Held,” Australian. 7 December 1984, p. 2.

80. Diana Callendar, “Women Take Hassell at Face Value,” West Australian. 7 December 1984, p. 2.

81. Cyril Ayris, “Peace Camp Raided by State Police,” West Australian. 13 December 1984, p. 3.

82. W. Hartley (letter to the editor), “Motives Praised,” West Australian. 12 December 1984, p. 8.

83. Ailsa Ruse (letter to the editor), “Points on the Protest,” West Australian. 12 December 1984, p. 8.

84. “50 Arrested as Women Storm WA Navy Base,” Age. 7 December 1984, p. 1.

85. Emberley and Landry, “Coverage of Greenham and Greenham as ‘Coverage,’” p. 487.

86. Lake and Damousi, “Warfare, History and Gender,” p. 1.