Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.20901/pm.60.3.01
Women’s peace: Reexamining women’s anti-war politics of resistance in Lysistrata in analogy with Russian maternal-women’s activism
Hrvoje Cvijanović
orcid.org/0000-0003-0742-0844
; Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author starts from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata as a paradigmatic anti-war text of women’s politics of resistance, but reconsiders its reading as a feminist critique of war as well as a critique of Athenian imperialism. First, the author points out that women’s politics of resistance through sex-strike and occupation of public space is not necessarily connected with anti-war beliefs, but stems from the protection of the “women’s world” of private relations and the household. Second, the “women’s peace” that satirizes the Athenian leadership has an anti-democratic connotation, namely it is not a criticism of Athenian imperialism, but its defense. Finally, in analogy with Lysistrata, Russian women’s activism is questioned as a reaction to Russia’s aggressive wars in Chechnya and Ukraine. This activism primarily starts from motherhood as a legitimate form of articulating the problem of war, but does not question the war itself. The author concludes that such women’s activism, which stems from the rationality of care for the well-being of children and husbands, whether in Lysistrata or the one that mostly manifests itself in Russian mothers and women, is not politically or value-based, does not articulate coherent anti-militaristic or pacifist attitudes, and therefore is not truly anti-war. In the context of Russia, by demanding better conditions for men in the army, maternal-women’s activism is actually a strategy for optimizing the war, not significantly opposing or even supporting Russia’s state-proclaimed war goals.
Keywords
Women’s Anti-War Politics of Resistance; Women’s World; Lysistrata; Russia; Russian Maternal-Women’s Activism
Hrčak ID:
310257
URI
Publication date:
29.11.2023.
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