gender and militarism

David Scheuing

In October, War Resisters' International and our South Korean affiliate World Without War will host an international seminar with a specific focus on skill sharing for taking action against war profiteering. “Stopping the War Business” will take place on 16th and 17th October, in Seoul, South Korea. The seminar will be followed by nonviolence training, and then an action to oppose the ADEX arms fair, which will be taking place the following week.

Our CO-Update this month is a reminder that, as we work together as an international movement against war, the repercussions of resistance to militarism is often felt by individuals refusing to fight. Our Finnish friends have written of the history of the movement in Finland where resistance to conscription began, in some form, in 1901.

Two women in Lithuania have created a series of photos, exploring the issue of conscription in Lithuania. Tiskevic-Hasanova and Neringa Rekasiute created the photo series after conscription was reintroduced in March 2015. The first call-up took place May 11th, when 2/3 of the 3,000 spaces to be filled were met by volunteers.

Position paper originating at the women’s workshop at the Counter Summit “No new Wars - No to NATO”

Newport, 1 September, 2014

As women of the No to War, No to NATO international action network we join in wholehearted condemnation of NATO as an aggressive, expansionist, nuclear armed military alliance. Its creation fostered decades of Cold War, its continued existence has perpetuated armed conflicts and wars, and its intention is clearly to assure long-term worldwide control by the USA and its allies in the interests of global corporate capital.

[video:http://vimeo.com/93260597 autoplay:0]

This webinar discussed meanings of concepts including Patriarchy, Security, War, Peace, Nonviolence, Gender, Sexualities, Consciousness and Intersectionalities, and motivated for nonviolent action to ensure compassion and justice for all.

It was led by Bernedette Muthien (see bio here).

This webinar was the third in a series of webinars by and for the African Nonviolence and Peacebuilding Network. It took place on the 28 April, 2014.

This series is open to all, and leading up to the July 2014 international conference: Small Actions, Big Movements: The Continuum of Nonviolence, taking place in Cape Town.

Register to join our webinar entitled "The Patriarchal War Against Women and Others

michelle renyé (March 2014)

Women decide, the State guarantees, society respects& the Catholic Church does not intervene!

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Sahar Vardi

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Andreas Speck

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The image of masculinity...the model men that go to war, that compete. - Jorge Veléz, Colombia

The Ministry of Women, for example, was created in 2006 and since then one of the main goals that the Minister for Women has proposed is to provide two million female members to the militia. She has already set in motion a first stage where she promised 150,000... - Rafael Uzcategui, Venezuela

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Of the thirty-two countries surveyed, there is only an active attempt to recruit LGBT people in four. Eight countries don’t allow LGBT people to enlist at all, although of those, Kenya is the only one where homosexuality is actually illegal. In Turkey men can be exempted from military service if they can 'prove' (including by providing photos or video footage of them having sex with men) that they are homosexual. But in the majority of countries, sexuality is simply not a recruitment criterion.