When Will Women Demand Just Peace

Your hosts, Albert and Barbara, were both a part of the Vietnam War--Albert in the war and Barbara in the anti war movement.  On last week's show, we talked about the war and also the anti war movement.  As we talked, I was reminded of how large a role women played in that movement, as well as in movements and anti-war organizations since the end of the 19th century. We will discuss how peace became a women's issue for so many reasons.  

Rising primarily out of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam anti-war movement was a coalition of many diverse people and organizations--draft-age youth and their friends and family, civil rights activists, college and high school students, priests and nuns and eventually the Catholic Church, Gold Star Mothers, and enlisted and returning GIs and their families and friends.  

Night after night, we were bombarded by newsreel footage of the carnage on the battlefields and in the villages, of our bombs raining hell from the sky, and flag-draped coffins and men broken in body and mind coming home.   From places of morality, humanity, conscience, justice, constitutionality--the anti war came together.   And women played a significant role in that movement.

Fast forward to 2018.   US involved- or supported-wars rage in at least 7 countries, without any Constitutionally-required Congressional declaration of war.  We should have an anti-war movement seven times as active as the anti Vietnam War movement.  Or at least as large.   Sadly, that is not the case.

On this show, we will talk about the history of women and women's organizations standing up against war and in support of peace from the late 19th century to January 21, 2017.  On that date, 500,000 women and their allies marched in Washington, DC and an additional 500,000 marched in  hundreds of places around the world, advocating for human rights, including women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the natural environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers' rights.  

BUT NOT PEACE!    When will women demand just peace?

Tune in on the radio 107.5 fm or computer wruu.org.  Comment on Facebook and then help build the largest anti-war movement in US history.