I thought of that exchange when I sat down to write about how far women have come in nonviolent movements for justice. In the last year I have been actively involved in the coalitions that organized last February’s Supreme Court action for Mumia Abu-Jamal, April’s IMF/World Bank demonstrations), and the August 1 actions at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia (see pp. 12-13). Women in the decision-making bodies of those coalitions were not only equal in number to men, we were actually in the majority during many of the planning meetings and during the actions.

It was because we were many that we were able to challenge language like “man the tables.” But the significance of the increase in our numbers—and even the significance of our increasing ability to challenge sexist language—those are debatable. In light of the extent to which movement women were marginalized in the past, assessing our place in today’s activist resurgence requires analysis of more than numbers.

Women in the Textbooks
During the past year I wrote a Master’s thesis exploring the links between the ways women have been marginalized in academic works on nonviolence and the ways we have been marginalized within the movements themselves. I could have used any of a multitude of approaches, but because of both the importance of language and my own interest in linguistics, I decided to critique the texts through the lens of feminist linguistics and stylistics. Stylistics is an aspect of literary study and linguistics that emphasizes the analysis of writing style and the values the style expresses. Feminist stylistics, however, as defined by field pioneer Sara Mills, is “a form of political[ly] motivated stylistics whose aim is to develop an awareness of the way gender is handled in texts.” I then examined how that analysis played out in a current struggle, the Free Burma movement (which I chose because I knew it). I found that the marginalization of women has been and continues to be deep and extensive.

Feminist stylistics is not simply an intellectual exercise. It can demonstrate not only how authors conceptualize their work, but also the many meanings that can be read into the works. The feminist model of text developed by Sara Mills is a contrasting view to the traditional models. It demonstrates the intricate linkages between the processes that go into the production of a literary text and the processes that shape its reception.

On the production side, there are general constraints on language and discourse and literary conventions that govern what is appropriate in that time and within a certain genre. The author also processes her/his affiliations and the way s/he situates her/himself in the larger society (race, gender, nationality, class, etc.) along with the sociohistorical context of the moment.

But an author not only accounts for the production side constraints and contexts, s/he also accounts for how a text will be received. In the reception of a literary text, the author’s idea of the intended and implied audience helps shape the text and can be seen as a factor that communicates with the author while s/he is writing. The actual audience who read are also considered in the reception side because their readings and interpretations of the text affect them. Mills writes, “[The reader] is an active participant, negotiating with the meanings which are being foisted on to her/him, and resisting or questioning some of the those meanings.” On the reception side, as well as on the production side, sociohistorical factors and publishing practices must be taken into consideration.

So in nonviolence literature, if women do not see themselves as the actors in the texts (e.g., in concepts like “nonviolent soldier”), and if the texts are written for a male audience, women can feel that the movements exclude them as active participants. In short, feeling excluded from the ideas in the text leads to feeling excluded from putting the ideas into practice. Thus, if women do not participate in writing the texts or feel included when reading them, the purported potential of nonviolence has missed half of the population.

Nonviolence strategist Gene Sharp and others have described strategic nonviolent action as a kind of moral and/or political jiu-jitsu. Sharp writes, “A violent opponent facing a determined and disciplined nonviolent struggle movement can never really come to grips with its kind of power, and the more he tries to do so by means of his violence and brutalities, the more he loses his political balance.” In jiu-jitsu, one opponent takes the other by surprise by doing the unexpected. As a male-socialized author would see it, if someone (male) challenges someone else (male) violently, the expected response (from a male) is violent resistance—a fight. A nonviolent response (by a male) to violent confrontation takes the (male) attacker by surprise and makes the attacker reevaluate his position.

But when women read that analysis or try to envision ourselves as actors in such scenarios, the ideas do not make as much sense; the logic does not fit women so clearly. Women are already socialized to react nonviolently, even—or especially—to certain types of violent attacks that are aimed specifically at women. Not only does nonviolence on a woman’s part fail to surprise an opponent, it often—as in instances of domestic violence, for example—puts her at greater risk of violence.

The same theorists posit loving the enemy as a major “weapon” of moral/political jiu-jitsu—but they also posit a mutual exclusivity of fear and love that is antithetical to women. Author and practitioner Richard Gregg writes, “Because the coward fears, he cannot love, and thus cannot be successful in nonviolent resistance.” Such a formulation excludes many types of violence that women face in the patriarchal system. Our experience largely challenges Gregg’s construction of rigid differences; women often feel both fear and love (in violent domestic situations and others). Catch phrases about “loving the enemy” and dichotomous pairings of courage and cowardice, love and hate, humility and pride, serve to only confuse the woman reader who has experienced blurs and contradictions. Constructions of such “binary oppositions” that point to the difference between men and women have been historically created. The implied sex-based difference that this writing and thinking creates only supports the existing hierarchical order and furthers patriarchal definitions of male and female as rigid categorical separate genders.

Practical Observances
The concerns are not merely academic. The full realization of sexism in the movement flooded my thinking while I was teaching nonviolence on the Thai/Burma border a few summers ago. I taught approximately 30 people, including one woman, a Burmese exile who had fled the country during the repression and had fought in the guerrilla forces on the border for quite some time.

There were only two other women in the small community of activists. The older one cooked and cleaned, and the younger one, who was married to one of my students, helped her. Whereas most of the people in the community had well-developed English skills, the three women had none. When important visitors came to town or important meetings were held, I never saw any of them. Many times, the women expressed how neglected they felt while at the same time stressing their commitment to the struggle.

I could not help but notice that the roles the Burmese women held (those of nurse, cook, clothes washer, etc.) were the traditional roles women have filled in most struggles, violent and nonviolent alike (not to mention patriarchal culture in general). In the significant nonviolent movements of the 20th century, women rarely held roles as critically decisive as those of their male comrades. Only men made the famous Salt March of 1930 with Mohandas Gandhi; the women of the independence movement were encouraged to stay home and weave homespun, the symbolic Indian-made independence cloth. When Gandhi and his followers raided the Dharsana Salt Works the same year, the men marched in nonviolent resistance toward the police who were blocking their way. Women acted as on-site nurses for the men who were beaten.

Weaving homespun and providing medical aid were important for the freedom struggle—but they were not leadership roles. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are perceived as the great role models of nonviolence. Hierarchical processes of decision-making—which excluded those “below” the leadership—were dominant in male-led movements in the United States. The civil rights movement and early actions against the Vietnam War included women but were mainly organized and structured by men. The major theorists of nonviolent practice and strategy are men like Gene Sharp, Richard Gregg and Johann Galtung. Of course, authors like Mary King, Lisa Adler, and Barbara Deming have written prolifically and challenged the earlier male dominance of the existing literature. But they came later, wrote less and were not as widely read as the male authors.

What’s Changed, What Hasn’t
The cosmetic changes to the historical shape of nonviolent activism are easy to see. Yes, decision-making meetings now have a majority of women at times. And yes, we usually challenge the use of such sexist language as “manning” tables. When a committee or working group lacks gender diversity, it seeks reform. Finally, decisions made by consensus rather than hierarchy or even parliamentary procedure have given women more input into the struggle and democratized movement structures. Obviously, we have not yet reached perfection, and more can be done to make the structure and process of meetings more woman-friendly, but on the whole, we are on the right track.

However, there is more to a movement than structure and process: There is action, and as far as that goes, not much has changed. If the President of the United States unilaterally chose to embark on an aggressive military offensive against Cuba, we could point to many different ways his action would represent masculine process, structure, and action. If the same decision were made by an equal number of women and men working in a coalition based on consensus, could we still call it male? My answer is yes and I feel the judgment extends to nonviolent action.

No amount of consensus will take away the fact that giving our strategies names like “moral jiu-jitsu” ignores some women’s experiences and was formed on male perceptions. Using nonviolence on the streets—as in today’s “blockades”—is an extension of the idea that nonviolent direct action surprises the “enemy” and throws him/her off balance, wins sympathy from onlookers and brings dissent among opponents. This is simply not true for many women.

We are on the right track. But a more thorough look into what we are on the track of is in order. Not all nonviolent practices are inherently anti-woman, and practices that bias male actors may very well have their place in our movement. But continuing the processes that reflect choices made by male actors and using male experience may exclude women in the movement. As activism is reinvigorating women and men around the globe, now is the key time to assess our path and the underlying philosophies that have brought us here.

Nisha Anand, WRL’s new Locals Organizer, wrote a thesis for her Master’s degree at American University on “Language and Women in Nonviolent Movements.” Readers can write her at WRL for a copy of the complete thesis.