Postmodern Feminist

Politics
The Art of the (Im)Possible?

Sasha Roseneil
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

IS IT POSSIBLE TO CONCEIVE OF A POSTMODERN FEMINIST

POLITICS?

As discussions of `postmodernism' continue to rage within feminist

thought, this question has come to occupy centre stage in the collective
conscience of academic feminism. Numerous books and articles have
been devoted, more or less explicitly, to this question, and the issue has
dominated conversations in formal and informal gatherings of feminist
scholars for several years. The question strikes at the heart for so many of
us, because ultimately feminist scholars share a commitment to social
transformation which demands that we return to the question of the
relationship between our theory and feminist practice.1
Yet what is remarkable about this debate is that it has been conducted at
such a level of abstraction that concrete discussions of feminist practice
have been almost entirely absent.2 The question has been approached as if
it were purely a philosophical one, which could be answered at the level
of theory, without recourse to exploration of actual instances of feminist
politics. For the past decade feminist theory has been presided over by
feminist philosophy, and the status of feminist sociology, with its concern
to theorize from the analysis of social, cultural, political and economic
relations, has plummeted.3 It is beyond the scope of this article to explore
how and why this particular hierarchy of feminist knowledges has been
established, but it is part of my task to reassert the relevance of a

The European Journal of Women's Studies Copyright # SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 6, 1999: 161±182
[1350-5068(199905)6:2;161±182;008306]
162 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

sociological perspective, with its grounded analysis of social action, to

this, one of the key questions in contemporary feminist thought.

PHILOSOPHICAL POSTMODERNISM OR THE SOCIOLOGY

OF POSTMODERNITY?

Any attempt to pose an answer to the question about the possibility of a

postmodern feminist politics obviously depends on what is meant by this
designation. `Postmodernism' is a highly contested term, about which not
even those who identify as `postmodernists' agree.4 Particular doubt is
evinced by Judith Butler (1992), who questions its meaning and useful-
ness as an appellation which uni®es a wide range of writers and strands
of theory.
Interestingly it is the `anti-postmodernist' feminists who are clearest
about what they believe postmodernism means. Although they too ac-
knowledge the broadness of the term (e.g. Brodribb, 1992; Waters, 1996)
and rarely proffer de®nitions, they are unambiguous about the dangers
which they believe postmodernism holds for feminism. Representing a
strand of thought within contemporary feminism which believes itself to
be particularly close to `activism', the radical feminist contributors to the
volume Radically Speaking suggest that postmodernism threatens to
render feminist politics impossible.
The concept of a `post-modernist' feminism is a contradiction in terms
because while feminism is a politics, post-modernism renders its adherents
incapable of political commitment. . . . The chief problem with `post-
modernist' feminism is its inability to name forms of domination, and in
particular in a feminist context, to identify male domination as the adver-
sary challenged by feminism. This inability is a result of its refusal to engage
with grand structures of oppression. (Thompson, 1996: 325)
The post-modern turn is apolitical, ahistorical, irresponsible, and self-
contradictory; it takes the `heat off patriarchy'. . . . Post-modernism has
created a climate in which the rationalist project is being abandoned. Just
as women were poised to become part of the world of reason, we have
been thrown back on the troubled realm of desire. (Bell and Klein, 1996:
xix±xx)
. . . our ability to act in the present is being severely curtailed by the post-
modern insistence that there are no subjects, with the consequence that
woman has been virtually erased as the author of her own life. (Bell and
Klein, 1996: xx)
Post-modernism is not about change, it is about wallowing in dystopias and
doing it with glee. Post-modernism represents women by differences, not
similarities, and the power of the representer is masked. Because it declines
to identify domination in general and male domination in particular, post-
modernism cannot contest the relations of power. The post-modern turn has
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 163

depoliticized feminist theory. Post-modernism prioritizes pleasure over

political analysis. . . . The move from reason to desire, the emphasis on
style rather than content, take feminism away from its roots in politics. (Bell
and Klein, 1996: xxvi)

One of the problems with these sorts of critiques of postmodernism, as

well as with most favourable accounts of the coincidence of interests of
feminism and postmodernism, is that they fail to distinguish, and to see
the connections, between the particular con®guration of ideas collected
together under the label `postmodernism', and the empirically observable
condition of postmodernity. The critique of the subject, identi®ed by
Diane Bell and Renate Klein as a particularly problematic aspect of
postmodernism, is part of the discursive domain of postmodernism (or,
perhaps more accurately, poststructuralism), but other targets of their
critique are as much features of postmodernity as an historical era as of
postmodernism as theory. As such they cannot be wished or critiqued
away, as perhaps they might were they only philosophical propositions.
For instance, commitment to grand theories of oppression and to `the
rationalist project' have been radically destabilized in the intellectual and
cultural climate of postmodernity. Similarly, `the emphasis on style rather
than content', which Bell and Klein (1996) and Kristin Waters (1996) ®nd
problematic, is both a feature of the discursive domain of postmodernist
theory and of the aestheticization of social life and material objects which
is taking place in postmodernity (Crook et al., 1992; Lash and Urry, 1994).
Indeed, a sociological perspective on philosophical postmodernism
would suggest that it should be understood as `not being merely a new
intellectual perspective, but rather as an expression of, or response to, the
dramatic changes in the character of social life and the human experiences
these changes have occasioned' (Simon, 1996: 1).
Without this distinction between postmodernism as theory and post-
modernity as a social condition any exploration of the possibility or
otherwise of a postmodern feminist politics will inevitably remain
ungrounded in concrete consideration of the contemporary social con-
dition. It is discussion of postmodernism as theory which has attracted
the vast majority of attention from feminist scholars. Much has been
written about the implications for feminist politics of a postmodern
critique and deconstruction of humanist notions of the existence of an
authentic uni®ed subject.5 The question of whether feminist politics
require, as their foundation, the existence of the stable category of
`woman' has been widely debated. In contrast, feminists have remained
remarkably silent in discussions of the meanings of the transformations in
the social condition which have been captured by the label of `post-
modernity'. There has been very little consideration of what the new
social ®gurations of postmodernity might mean for feminist politics. The
question here is, what might feminist politics look like in an era in which
164 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

beliefs in transcendental reason, rationality and `Truth' have lost their

grip, and when grand systematic theories of oppression no longer inspire
allegiance?
My focus in this article is on this latter question. I outline the contours of
a feminist politics from within postmodernity and suggest that the Green-
ham Common Women's Peace Camp, and the social movement which
sprung up around it, was an example of postmodern feminist politics. By
this I do not mean that Greenham's politics were a conscious expression of
a philosophical commitment to postmodernism. Rather I propose that
they represented a new turn for feminist practice, and a move away from
modern feminism. In so doing I am not straightforwardly taking a `post-
modernist' position against the `anti-postmodernists' within the terms of
the existing feminist debate about postmodernism. Rather I hope to shift
the terms of the debate by highlighting the importance of a grounded
consideration of the sociology of postmodernity.

POSTMODERNITY

The version of postmodernity to which I subscribe is one which sees both

continuity and discontinuity in the social condition, rather than declaring
that the postmodern era represents a complete break with modernity.
Postmodernity is fundamentally rooted in modernity, and modern ideas,
practices and politics continue, to some extent, to exist alongside post-
modern ones. This is the postmodernity of Zygmunt Bauman (1992) and
of Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher (1988), rather than that of Jean-FrancËois
Lyotard's (1978) early work, and is not dissimilar to Anthony Giddens'
(1990) notion of high or late modernity.6 It is `fully developed modernity',
modernity `conscious of its true nature' (Bauman, 1992: 187), a re¯exive
modernity (Beck et al., 1994).
Postmodernity can be thought of as a `time and space, within the wider
time and space of modernity, delineated by those who have problems
with and queries addressed to modernity, by those who want to take it to
task' (Heller and Feher, 1988: 1). It is the time and space of those who are
conscious of living after the metanarrative, when people have lost faith in
the possibility of all-encompassing political and theoretical projects, such
as Marxism and liberalism, and no longer believe in the inevitability of
progress, or accord a hallowed place to rationality and science. The
postmodern state of mind critiques modernity, problematizing attempts
to develop theories which explain everything, and which ignore differ-
ence. It `embraces contingency' (Heller, 1989) and accepts ambivalence,
ambiguity, pluralism and variety, in contrast to modernity's struggle for
order, control, universality, homogeneity and absolutes (Bauman, 1992).
Postmodernity is the era of enhanced re¯exivity, in which processes of
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 165

detraditionalization and individualization mean that people are increas-

ingly aware of creating their own life narratives, and of their ability to
exercise critical judgements about expert systems (Beck, 1992, 1997; Beck
et al., 1994; Lash and Urry, 1994).7 It is also a time characterized by
processes of culturalization, by the increasing importance of the cultural
and the symbolic and by the aestheticization of social life (Jameson, 1984;
Crook et al., 1992; Lash and Urry, 1994).8

POSTMODERNITY AND POLITICS

What then does a postmodernity theorized thus mean in terms of poli-

tics?9
There is something signi®cantly new about the politics of postmodern-
ity: `a radical, pluralistic, democratic, contingent, participatory politics of
human life choices and difference' as Ken Plummer (1995: 147) describes
them.10 Plummer identi®es ®ve characteristics of the politics of post-
modernity.

`The Eclipse of the Essence'

As faith that the discovery of the absolute `Truth' can determine political
choices ebbs away in postmodernity, issues of morality and ethics assume
a new place in politics.11 Postmodern politics do not appeal to science,
rationality or abstract principles of philosophy for their foundational
legitimation. In place of `Truth' are partial, contested, situated `truths',
and politics `becomes a matter of possibilities and pragmatics' (Plummer,
1995: 148). Sources of legitimation are plural, decentralized and local, and
actors take on responsibility for legitimizing their own practice (Lyotard,
1978).

`The Delight of Differences'

In contrast to modernity's impulse towards order and uniformity, with its
concomitant hostility towards `the stranger and the strange', postmodern-
ity is a heterophilic age (Bauman, 1997). Postmodern politics recognize
that differences cannot be ignored, and choose to embrace them as central
to their project.

`The Power of Participation'

The politics of postmodernity are about direct participation rather than
representation by others, holding that people should be actively en-
gaged in creating and transforming the conditions of their own lives.
166 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

Thus non-institutional forms of political action are the characteristic

route for those seeking social change in postmodernity; active involve-
ment in social movements takes the place of voting allegiance to paper
membership of political parties.

`The Signi®cance of the Sign'

In postmodernity language and signs are more than merely the media for
political messages; they are in themselves part of the political process.
Politics is enacted through signs and spectacles, and symbolism is
increasingly important as a way to `speak the unspeakable and represent
the unrepresentable, to create a world of different images and signs that
transgress, regress, progress and ingress' (Plummer, 1995: 149).

`The Tactics and Strategies of Time and Space'

Postmodern politics are both locally rooted and globally signi®cant, and
take place in a context of time±space distanciation (Giddens, 1990). Global
¯ows of people, ideas and actions build political connections across space,
and new media facilitate global communications.12
However, the politics of postmodernity do not represent a complete
break with the politics of modernity. The politics of modernity live on in
postmodernity. Thus although there is a general shift, which has been
characterized as that from `emancipatory' to `life politics' (Giddens, 1991),
or from the politics of inequality and redistribution to the politics of
human rights and autonomy (Bauman, 1992), neither struggles for eman-
cipation or against inequality are entirely won.13 The imperatives of
modern politics ± justice, equality, citizenship ± remain motivating ideals
of political action within postmodernity.

GREENHAM AND THE SHIFT FROM MODERN TO

POSTMODERN FEMINISM

In identifying Greenham as historically one of the ®rst and major in-

stances of postmodern feminist politics I am challenging the interpret-
ations which other feminist writers have offered of its politics.14 These
have either understood Greenham within the framework of existing
`brands' of feminism, as socialist feminist (Norden, 1985) or radical
feminist in its `anti-men separatism' (Liddington, 1989: 8), as an essential-
ist `cultural feminism', a `vulgar feminism' (Segal, 1987: 178), or as
maternalist and anti-feminist (Green, 1983; Bellos et al., 1983).15 In fact,
the politics of Greenham cannot be categorized in this way. In its early
days, the movement used maternalist, materialist and feminist calls to
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 167

mobilization, drawing on the three prominent traditions in over a century

of women's history of peace activism (Roseneil, 1995a, 1999), but Green-
ham's collective discourse swiftly became increasingly feminist, and the
maternalism ebbed away as individual and collective consciousnesses
were transformed. This feminism was not that of any of the `brands' into
which feminism is commonly categorized ± radical, socialist, liberal,
lesbian, eco-, or any other ± Greenham's politics drew on all of these,
plundering them, in a postmodern meÂlange, but adhering to none
exclusively or systematically.
The dominant strands of feminist thought which were available in the
early 1980s as discursive resources with which to construct a politics were
radical feminism and socialist/Marxist feminism. Within both of these
traditions there existed a profoundly modern desire to construct grand
theories of women's oppression, which would account for and explain the
totality of women's position in the world. In contrast to this, Greenham
made no attempt to develop an all-encompassing theory of that which it
was opposing. While most of those involved agreed that they opposed
militarism in general, and nuclear weapons in particular, that they
opposed male domination (or `patriarchy') in politics and culture, male
violence, capitalist exploitation of the Third World and the degradation of
the environment, no systematic theory of the relationship between these
forms of oppression and exploitation was developed. Legitimation of
action at Greenham came, therefore, not from a theoretical perspective or
a body of thought, but from the individual's conscience, and it was
recognized that this would be different between individuals, and thus
that individuals would choose to act differently.
The politics of Greenham were engaged in a continuous dialogue with
the politics of modernity and with modern feminism. Greenham moved
towards a postmodern feminist politics, by radicalizing modern feminism
rather than by rejecting it outright. The individual women whose collec-
tive action constituted Greenham carried with them experiences and
ways of understanding the world which were formed within modern
frameworks. Many had been involved in left-wing political parties, trade
unions, liberation campaigns (anti-apartheid, for example) and the
women's liberation movement. They had grown up in a culture where
they were taught to trust science and welcome technology, to put their
faith in experts and to seek absolute answers and grand explanatory
theories. As a result, Greenham expressed, in part, the modern values of
equality, autonomy, liberty, citizenship and public participation. In
taking action at Greenham women were claiming a voice in the area of
politics from which they are most excluded ± foreign and military policy ±
which can be seen as merely a demand for the full realization of women's
citizenship rights. However, Greenham went further than this, challeng-
ing the dominant meanings of these modern values. Equality was not
168 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

pursued at the expense of difference, and autonomy not at the expense of

the collective. Citizenship and participation were not requested or de-
manded for the future of those in power, but were enacted in the present,
in radically new ways which refused the modern liberal logic of majori-
tarian rule and accepted modes of political engagement.
Modern feminism has tended to operate within dualistic modes of
thinking, and cleavages within feminism have opened up between those
taking one side or the other. Among the most enduring are the dichot-
omies of equality and difference, and social constructionism and essen-
tialism, which have run through over a century of feminist politics and
theorizing. Greenham, however, resisted these dichotomies, and sat on
neither one side nor the other. Some, though by no means all, of the
women who constituted Greenham came to their involvement with a
position on one side or other of these debates; there were passionate
equality feminists from a socialist-feminist lineage, essentialist eco-femin-
ists, radical feminist social constructionists, and maternalists. But as a
collectivity Greenham did not take a position, and refused the terms of the
debate. At times, arguments seeming to derive from both sides of the
dichotomy were mobilized: `women have been excluded from decisions
about nuclear weapons; they should have a say in international affairs'
(`equality'), and `women have a different perspective on issues such as
nuclear weapons' (`difference'), `because of their social conditioning'
(`social constructionist') or `because they are mothers and carers (`ma-
ternalist'). Yet the fact that these arguments were not regarded as necess-
arily contradictory undermines feminist conceptions of equality/
difference and social constructionism/essentialism as dichotomous
choices; it suggests rather, as Diana Fuss (1989) has argued, that they
exist along a continuum.
Similarly, as far as strategy was concerned, the politics of Greenham
were neither straightforwardly assimilationist nor separatist. They de-
manded a voice for women in international affairs, yet this was done not
by joining political parties, enlisting in the military or by becoming
members of the defence establishment. Greenham was a women-only
community of protest without being closed to the world, without opting
out of the issues and problems of a male-dominated society, and so
challenged feminist polarization around the issue of separatism.16

A POSTMODERN FEMINIST CULTURAL POLITICS

Greenham can also be seen as postmodern because its terrain of action,

that is, its forms of expression, its claims and its impact, were primarily
cultural and symbolic.17 Most earlier modern feminist activism has
focused on the struggle for basic citizenship rights and material resources
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 169

for women (this has involved cultural and symbolic struggle too), and
Greenham's existence was predicated on successful outcomes to these
struggles, such as women's increased economic and social independence,
and on the establishment of the notion that women are legitimate political
actors. But Greenham moved beyond this. Its politics were not demands
for concrete resources, but a protest against the way political, economic
and military resources are used in the world. And its politics did not
demand equal participation in the existing military game.
Instead, Greenham offered the world a moving image of women resist-
ing the might of the nuclear policies of the most powerful nation on earth
± by dancing on the missile silos, picnicking on the runway, cutting down
the fence, and just living a rather chaotic domesticity in front of a Cruise
missile base defended by razor wire, watchtowers and thousands of
soldiers. Actions, such as the naked Nagasaki Day Die-In in 1983, were
designed as theatre (as much for the participants as the spectator), to
dramatically enact the message. These spectacles, which were spread
globally by television, ®lm, video and still photography, had an enormous
power to stir and challenge. Their impact was not through rational
argument, in the Enlightenment tradition kicked off by Mary Wollstone-
craft, but worked by provoking nagging images and ideas of playful
disobedience, which drew on the emotional, the affective and the spiritual
senses of the viewer.
The designation `cultural feminism', which Lynne Segal (1987) applied
to Greenham, has acquired almost entirely negative connotations within
academic feminism (see Eisenstein, 1984; Segal, 1987). De®ned by Nancy
Fraser as `the effort to assure women respect by revaluing femininity,
while leaving unchanged the binary gender code that gives the latter
sense' (Fraser, 1997: 29), it suggests a feminism which reinforces rather
than deconstructs and transforms gender.18 It speaks of essentialism,
separatism and maternalism. Elements of such a cultural feminism were
undoubtedly present in the politics of Greenham. For instance the cultural
constructions of `woman' as mother and carer, with a special responsi-
bility to protect life, served as identities around which mobilization could
take place, particularly in the early days of the camp.19 However, to see
the politics of Greenham as limited to this is to miss the shift from a
modern cultural feminist politics to a postmodern feminist cultural poli-
tics which took place there over time.
Where modern feminist politics tend to ®x the category of `woman', by
claiming status, recognition and rights for her, a postmodern feminist
cultural politics deconstructs and transforms the meaning of `woman'.
While Greenham began in this modern vein, it rapidly began to open up
and destabilize dominant gender and sexual identities.20 The actions of
women at Greenham constituted a powerful challenge to hegemonic
constructions of `woman'. Even towards the end of the 20th century,
170 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

when women are formally equal citizens and most women are paid
workers, women are largely still expected to be domestic creatures ®rst
and foremost; as wives, mothers and grandmothers to put the needs and
interests of others before their own. The woman who does not is casti-
gated as sel®sh and unnatural. Women are still widely expected to adorn
their bodies with fashionable clothes and cosmetics (though this is now
for themselves, and less for men). Their bodies are not expected to be
strong, and they are not thought to be competent at manual and practical
tasks.21 Above all, `woman' still tends to be constructed as the comple-
ment of `man', as existing for and in relation to `man', as hetero-relational
and heterosexual.
Greenham was an arena in which this `woman' was challenged and
alternative notions of `woman' were formed. The `Greenham woman'
transgressed boundaries between the public and private spheres; she
made her home in public, in the full glare of the world's media, under the
surveillance of the state. She put herself and other women ®rst, acting
according to her conscience, taking responsibility for her own actions.
She dressed according to a different aesthetic, in warm, comfortable
clothing, removing many of the markers of femininity, but often adorning
her body in ways which celebrated her independence of fashion. She was
con®dent and assertive in the face of authority, rejecting its power to
control her behaviour, testing it and taunting it. She developed close
friendships and often sexual relationships with other women. This
woman stepped outside many of the restrictions of dominant construc-
tions of womanhood.
It was because Greenham had no `line' for which prospective partici-
pants had to sign up in advance that women were able to start a process of
personal transformation from where they were. And, occupying liminal
space outside the everyday world, Greenham was both a physical and
discursive space where women were separated from the ordinary con-
ditions and constraints of their lives and were freer, therefore, to construct
for themselves new identities. At Greenham women created new identi-
ties for themselves, and in so doing, became different people (Roseneil,
1995a, 1996, 1999). They developed new identities as individuals with
agency. In the face of the disempowering threat of nuclear war, and
against constructions of women as victims, as those who are `done to' by
men and governments or `fought for' by armies, women at Greenham
came to perceive themselves as powerful. Connected to this sense of
personal power was a sense of collective power as `women', but this
category of `women' was a deconstructed and transformed one.
At a wider symbolic level Greenham conveyed messages about
women's independence, autonomy and agency which disrupted domi-
nant discourses of gender. For women to leave their homes, and in some
cases husbands and children, to pursue a political and personal project
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 171

constituted a symbolic affront to men's power to control women's actions,

and to women's con®nement by domestic responsibilities. Women occu-
pying public space in such numbers, over such a long period of time, and
with few concessions to the male gaze in their standards of domestic
order, upset constructions of women as home-makers. That women chose
to live and work only with other women, and deliberately and consist-
ently refused to allow men to join in, challenged notions of men and
women's complementarity. The daring and sometimes dangerous actions
which women took against the nuclear state, without male protection or
assistance, disturbed ideas of women as weak and fearful. And women
doing all this, and to be appearing to enjoy it, refusing the status of
martyrs, constituted `gender trouble'. The postmodern feminist cultural
politics of Greenham consisted of women refusing to perform gender as
they should.22

A POSTMODERN CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY

The camp at Greenham was set up in 1981 to oppose the decision to

station Cruise missiles at the US Airforce base at Greenham Common in
Berkshire.23 It began, therefore, at the height of the renewed Cold War,
when nuclear fear gripped the continent of Europe, as a challenge to the
greatest risk of a `risk society' (Beck, 1992), the threat of global annihila-
tion. Action was galvanized at the point at which geopolitics touched the
consciousness of individual women, through the recognition that nuclear
war might break out from somewhere close to home. While there was a
wide range of motivations and routes to involvement among the women
who constituted Greenham (Roseneil, 1995a), the core of the collective
identity of the movement coalesced around opposition to Cruise missiles
in particular, and nuclear weapons in general.
Greenham expressed a postmodern disillusion in science and tech-
nology and a re¯exivity about the dangers consequent on modernity's
trust that science and technology carry with them progress.24 There was
no faith at Greenham in the promise of governments that more or better
technology could prevent nuclear war, and accident ± technology out of
the control of human actors ± was feared as much as the intentional use of
the weaponry.
While many of those involved were well informed about the details of
the military balance of power, and on occasions, to particular audiences,
made carefully constructed, modernist arguments about the strategical
weakness of Cruise as a weapons system, the collective voice of Green-
ham did not depend on this. Greenham opted out of the modernist
discourse about nuclear weapons which was accepted both by the mili-
tary and the mainstream peace movement, and refused to engage with the
172 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

techno-strategic discourse of the defence establishment.25 It did not seek

to argue that there were more effective or rational modes of defence than
the acquisition of ®rst-strike nuclear weapons, and refused the terms of
the discourse of the Cold War which demanded attention to military
forms of defence. Against this Greenham ranged an expressive politics of
the emotions, which focused on the dangers and damages of military
technology.
Greenham can also be seen as articulating a fundamental critique of
modernity arising out of a post-Holocaust consciousness. While it is
undoubtedly true, as Zygmunt Bauman (1989) argues, that the signi®-
cance and implications of the Holocaust have barely begun to touch
intellectual life in the western world, the politics of Greenham is one
area in which re¯ection on the Holocaust can be seen to have taken place.
This is not to say that every individual woman involved with Greenham
had self-consciously considered the meaning of the Holocaust in relation
to her action there. Nor do I wish to suggest that there was a clear
understanding at Greenham of Bauman's argument that the Holocaust
was not the antithesis of modern civilization, but rather exempli®ed
modernity taken to its logical, rational destination. However, the regular
discussions of moral and ethical issues which were part of the collective
life and identity building of the camp were consciously and explicitly set
within the context of, and with reference to, the Holocaust.
For instance, the formulation of one of the key ethics which bound
together the movement ± that of individual responsibility to act against
the state if it is perceived that the state is acting immorally ± was
explained, both internally and to the outside world, with reference to the
moral duties (and failures) of those who lived in Nazi Germany and
under Nazi occupation. The very existence of Greenham, as well as the
actions taken there, constituted a direct critique of and challenge to the
authority of the modern state, which, as Bauman (1989) points out, has no
limits with respect to its treatment of those under its rule.
At the heart of the politics of Greenham was a rejection of the central
attribute of modernity, the principle which according to Bauman, under-
lying anti-Semitism, drove the Holocaust ± rationality. It was recognized
that the rationality and bureaucracy which organized the millions of tasks
required to enact the extermination of millions of people had parallels
with the rationality and bureaucracy of the modern nuclear state and its
military in preparing for nuclear war. Both required, in Max Weber's
words, `Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the ®les, continuity,
discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of ma-
terial and personal costs . . . the discharge of business according to
calculable rules and ``without regard for persons'' ' (Gerth and Mills,
1970: 214, 215, cited in Bauman, 1989: 14). The ethos which was con-
structed at Greenham and which guided the way life was led and actions
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 173

taken there was in sharp contrast to the bureaucratic rationality of the

modern state.

A POSTMODERN ETHOS

The politics of Greenham did not appeal for their legitimation to reason,
rationality or the truths offered by existing brands of feminism or other
metanarratives, but drew instead upon a set of ethics which were
constructed in situ, at Greenham. The re¯exive and deliberate consider-
ation of values was a central part of the action of Greenham, and the
common values which were created formed part of the core collective
identity of the movement. This ethos was loose and informal, and
constantly in creation; it was never codi®ed in the form of a policy
statement or constitution. But it was no less real for being unwritten and
implicit. It constituted a powerful moral discourse about how feminism
should be practised and how daily life should be led, though it offered no
absolute solutions to the problems which were faced at Greenham.26
The principle of personal responsibility and personal autonomy was
central to the ethos of Greenham. In relinquishing belief in the ability of
existing philosophies and theories to provide an adequate moral frame-
work for action, women at Greenham took it upon themselves to create
their own, as individuals and collectively. Greenham was premised on
the notion that individual women should take it upon themselves to
oppose the deployment of Cruise, and should withdraw their consent
from military decisions which had been made in their name but to which
they had not been party. This principle was rooted in a belief in the
importance of individual agency in the creation, recreation and trans-
formation of society, and acceptance of personal responsibility and auton-
omy was seen as a refusal of victimhood and as a refusal to cede power to
the state. Each individual was expected to look to her own conscience and
desires to decide on her action; so from decisions about whether or not to
do the washing up or cook dinner, to whether or not to cut the fence,
attend court, pay a ®ne or go to prison, there was no external arbiter. The
onus for action lay with the individual and was not to be placed on others;
women expected each other to make their own decisions and not to wait
for leadership.
As part of its critique of the problems associated with the status
accorded to rationality within modernity, Greenham sought to revalue
the realm of the `non-rational', which in modernity is deemed inappropri-
ate in politics and public life. Greenham's ethos held that the `non-
rational' ± affect, emotion, intuition and spirituality ± should be con-
sidered adequate sources of knowledge in decision-making and daily life.
An integral part of discussions about how life was to be organized at the
174 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

camp and in the planning of actions was attention to the feelings of the
women involved. Thus `rational' considerations of strategy and tactics
were less important than how women felt about actions they might take,
and whether actions were considered to be ethically and politically
legitimate. Greenham consciously attacked the western dualisms of
reason/emotion and mind/body.27 In so doing, Greenham was not
asserting that women are naturally more emotional and intuitive and
less rational than men; rather it was seeking to revalue the `non-rational'
as an important realm of human experience, which should be admitted as
a resource in political action. For some women, the `non-rational' was
akin to an `ethic of care' (Gilligan, 1982; Ruddick, 1990). This ethic of care
was not exclusively or even primarily maternal; care not just for children,
but for self, friends, family and the planet, was seen as determining that
nuclear weapons, and the threat they posed to life, were wrong. Other
women invoked a language of feminist spirituality and magic, though this
was by no means universal at Greenham.
The re¯exivity of postmodernity was instantiated in the ethos of
Greenham in a commitment that each individual, and the movement as a
whole, should be self-questioning, self-monitoring, ¯exible and open to
change. Decisions, routines, patterns of behaviour, plans and beliefs
should be amenable to reorientation as circumstances changed and as
new ideas emerged. Change, at the personal level and within the collec-
tivity of Greenham, was valued rather than being seen as a sign of
weakness. Thus it was that life at Greenham and the actions taken there
were subject to ongoing re-evaluation and critique, both formally in
meetings devoted to the purpose, and through informal conversation
and discussion. Positions shifted, arguments changed, forms of action
and organizational patterns were in a constant state of ¯ux; almost (but
not quite) everything was open to question, challenge and change.
Also fundamental to the ethos of Greenham was the principle of respect
for the differences between the women who composed the movement.
From the outset it operated with a coalitionist imperative, seeking to draw
in and make space for women from a wide variety of backgrounds, with a
range of political and social experiences, of different ages, classes,
ethnicities, nationalities and sexual and political identi®cations. Differ-
ence was a source of tension, but it was accepted as inevitable and seen as
a resource and strength, rather than being suppressed or ignored. There
was a shared commitment to explore differences rather than denying
them, and many hundreds of meetings were spent at the activity of
building understanding and common ground, which was deemed as
important as the outward-directed actions against the base. Greenham
operated as a loose, hybrid and composite collective action which was
supple and ¯exible enough to accommodate the different priorities and
modes of working of the women involved.28
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 175

The other particularly postmodern element of the ethos of Greenham

was the emphasis placed on pleasure, humour and parody. Traditionally,
politics is seen as the serious and sober business of men in grey suits, and
those engaged in oppositional politics tend to take themselves equally
earnestly, often veering towards pomposity. Greenham stood as the
complete obverse of this; while the women involved held passionate
beliefs about what they were doing, it was a principle that action at
Greenham should be as enjoyable as possible, and that it should not entail
suffering or martyrdom. Many women were conscious of wishing to
challenge the liberal press's portrayal of Greenham women as ordinary
housewives and mothers who were heroically making sacri®ces to save
the world for future generations, and strove to overturn the construction
of self-sacri®ce, altruism and vulnerability as feminine virtues. Thus
many of the actions which were carried out at Greenham were designed
to mock, parody and de¯ate, and at the same time to be fun to enact. For
example, the Teddy Bears' Picnic of Easter 1983, in which several dozen
women dressed as bears, bunnies and jesters climbed into the base to have
a picnic, was pleasurable for those taking part, made an ironic statement
about the deadly seriousness of the global situation and was a pointed
gesture to CND (Campaign against Nuclear Disarmament), who had
refused to respect Greenham women's request that they not organize a
major mixed demonstration at the base.

POSTMODERN STRUCTURES

To speak of the `organizational structure' of Greenham is something of a

contradiction in terms. In comparison with conventional forms of political
action, and even in comparison with other social movements, Greenham
was `structureless'. There were no institutionalized procedures, no formal
decision-making processes, no executive committees, no membership
lists, no of®cers, no annual general meetings, no head of®ce. But having
no formal structures does not mean that there were no identi®able patterns
in the organization of social life at Greenham or in the workings of the
wider Greenham network.29 Life and action at Greenham and within the
network were organized in a postmodern structure; they were supple,
dynamic, ¯uid and constantly changing.
If the archetypical structure of modern political organizations is bu-
reaucracy, Greenham's segmentary, polycephalous and reticulate struc-
ture is characteristically postmodern.30 Those involved frequently
depicted the Greenham network as a spider's web: a non-hierarchical,
intricate pattern of individuals and groups, joined together by almost
invisible yet strong connecting threads.31 The wider Greenham network
was composed of dozens of local groups (one or more in almost every
176 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

town and city in England, Wales and Scotland). The groups were com-
pletely autonomous and were not arranged hierarchically (`segmentary').
Each group had connections back to the camp, which was at the hub of the
network; those connections were sustained by frequent visits of women
from local groups to the camp, by the newsletters produced by women at
the camp and sent to contacts around the country to be photocopied and
passed on, and, after the arrival of Cruise, by a `telephone tree'. The camp
acted as a clearing house for information within the network but the
network had no overall control centre, and ideas for actions were
generated both at the camp, in local groups and at regional meetings of
local groups (it was `polycephalous'). Over time the connections between
local groups became stronger, information was increasingly communi-
cated between groups by telephone and by newsletter, and did not
necessarily pass through the camp. Thus there were web-like connections
between local groups themselves, and between local groups and the camp
(`reticulate'). Above all, the network was sustained by personal relation-
ships between women, and the pleasure that women took in each other's
company; friendships existed between women who lived at the camp and
women in local groups, and between women involved in different local
groups, which facilitated information exchange and a sense of collective
identity.
The structure of the camp and the wider network re¯ected the ethical
commitment to diversity and difference. At the camp, for instance, the
organization of daily life in up to 10 different `gates' (smaller camps
located outside the gates around the perimeter fence) became a means of
dealing with difference; the gates developed different characters and
attracted different sorts of women to live and stay at them. For instance,
there was a clustering of younger, working-class lesbians at Blue Gate, of
older middle-class women at Orange Gate, of heterosexual women at
Violet Gate, of vegans at Turquoise Gate and of more separatist lesbians at
Green Gate.32

CONCLUSION

The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, and the wider social
movement which sprung up around the camp, mobilized more women in
Britain than any other protest movement since the campaigns for suffrage
in the early years of the 20th century. During the 13 years of its existence,
many thousands of women spent time living or staying at the camp, and
hundreds of thousands of women took part in actions there. In identifying
the politics of Greenham as postmodern, I am therefore suggesting that
postmodern feminist politics have been emergent in Britain since the early
part of the 1980s and that they have involved a very signi®cant number of
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 177

women. They are not, as `anti-postmodernist' feminists have suggested,

the impossible dream of an academic elite.
This article suggests that the social condition of postmodernity pro-
vides the context for the creation of postmodern feminist politics. While
rooted in modernity, and carrying forward the modern feminist project,
postmodern feminist politics transcend some of the problematic dichot-
omies of modern feminism, and offer new ways of dealing with differ-
ence. They place a new importance on the self-creation of moral and
ethical frameworks by individual and collective actors, and they offer a
radical critique of the negative and dangerous attributes of modernity.
Above all, they occupy the terrain of the cultural, and enact a deconstruc-
tion and transformation of gender categories which begins in the real,
everyday lives of women and facilitates the creation of new identities.
Without grand plans or systematic theories, and never claiming to express
the `Truth', a postmodern feminist politics plays with existing possibili-
ties and opens up new ones.

NOTES

Work on this article began during a period as Visiting Fellow at Macquarie

University and Melbourne University, funded by a Robert Menzies Visiting
Fellowship. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of
Melbourne, Monash University and the Centres for Women's Studies at Lancaster
University and at the University of York, and at the British Sociological Associ-
ation Conference at the University of York (1997).

1. That concern exists about the relationship between feminist theory and
practice is evidenced by the production of a dedicated edition of the leading
journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society on `Feminist Theory
and Practice' in 1996.
2. Exceptions include Scott (1990), Yeatman (1994) and Nicholson and
Seidman (1995).
3. For a discussion of the state of feminist sociology and the impact of
poststructuralism on feminist theorizing, see Roseneil (1995b).
4. Many of the thinkers most often referred to as postmodernists reject that
label, including the `originators', Baudrillard, Foucault and Derrida. None-
theless it is a label which is suf®ciently widely used and understood to be
worth retaining.
5. See, for example, Weedon (1987), Fuss (1989), de Lauretis (1990), Hekman
(1990), Nicholson (1990), Scott (1990), Butler and Scott (1992), Butler (1992),
Ramazanoglu (1993), Yeatman (1994), Nicholson and Seidman (1995), Smart
(1995), Ahmed (1996) and Bell and Klein (1996).
6. Calhoun (1995) rejects the notion that we have entered a new era of
`postmodernity', and his position is close to that of Giddens.
7. These theorists characterize this process as `re¯exive modernization', and
the new era as `re¯exive modernity' or, in Giddens' case, `late modernity'.
There are differences between these theorists in their interpretations of
178 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(2)

re¯exive modernization (see particularly the debate in Beck et al., 1994), but
there is much common ground between them.
8. Perhaps the clearest contrast between the discussions of postmodernism
which have preoccupied feminists and those which have taken place within
sociology can be seen in the preoccupation of the former with `the death of
the subject' and of the latter with `re¯exivity'.
9. It should be acknowledged that I am only considering what might loosely be
called `left radical' politics. The `other side' of postmodernity ± ethnic, racial,
gender and sexual fundamentalisms ± is beyond the scope of this article (see
Beck, 1997).
10. These features of the politics of postmodernity are broadly similar to those
identi®ed by the literature on `new social movements' (e.g. Melucci, 1989),
but I reject the label `new social movement' because of its problematic
(post-)Marxist analytic framework (see Roseneil, 1995a).
11. See Bauman (1992, 1995), and on ethics and morality in feminism, see
Cornell (1995) and Smart (1995).
12. This article does not consider this aspect of the postmodern politics of
Greenham. See Roseneil (1997) for a discussion of its global and local
dynamics.
13. Giddens de®nes emancipatory politics as `a generic outlook concerned
above all with liberating individuals and groups from constraints which
adversely affect their life chances' (Giddens, 1991: 210). In contrast, life
politics, which are premised on a certain level of emancipation from
tradition and from hierarchical domination, is `a politics of choice', and of
self-actualization, in which moral questions about how we should live are at
the core.
14. The discussion of Greenham which follows draws on research published in
Roseneil (1995, and Roseneil, 1999). For a discussion of the conduct of the
research, see Roseneil (1993).
15. The radical feminist contributors to Breaching the Peace (Onlywomen Press,
1983) argued that Greenham was threatening to destroy the women's
movement and undermine feminism. As `the acceptable face of women-
only actions, legitimized by its falling into women's traditional role of
concern for future generations' (Green, 1983: 7±8), they saw it as diverting
women's attention away from their own oppression and from male violence
(Bellos et al., 1983: 20).
16. See Hoagland and Penelope (1988).
17. The cultural impact of social movements is emphasized by Melucci (1989),
who argues that their `hidden ef®cacy' lies in overturning dominant cultural
codes.
18. I am grateful to Fiona Williams for pointing me in the direction of Nancy
Fraser's (1997) useful discussion of the af®rmation/transformation dilemma
in the cultural struggle for `recognition of difference'.
19. Although even at the beginning feminist discourses were employed to
explain the actions being taken and to mobilize those who already identi®ed
as feminists.
20. For a more detailed discussion of the transformations in consciousness and
identity which women experienced at Greenham, see Roseneil (1996).
21. See Young (1990) and Bartky (1990) for discussions of women's embodi-
ment.
22. The notion of the performativity of gender is developed by Butler (1990).
23. The camp was set up at the end of the Women for Life on Earth Walk from
Roseneil: Postmodern Feminist Politics 179

Cardiff to Greenham Common in September 1981. A spontaneous decision

was made to stay outside the US Airforce base at Greenham Common when
the walk arrived, and the camp remained there until 1994. Greenham was
the ®rst site in Europe for Cruise missiles, a new generation of NATO ®rst-
strike capability nuclear weapons. For a more detailed discussion of the
background to the establishment of the camp, see Roseneil (1995a).
24. This critique of science and technology ran through much of the women's
liberation movement from the early 1970s, particularly manifesting itself in
the women's health movement and in eco-feminism. However, there have
been signi®cant tensions between the more modernist, pro-science and
technology strands of feminism and the more postmodernist, critical
strands.
25. For a deconstruction of the `rational' scienti®c discourse of the defence
establishment, see Cohn (1987, 1993).
26. This discussion of Greenham's ethos focuses on those aspects which can be
considered the most `postmodern'. For a fuller discussion of the ethos as a
whole, see Roseneil (1995a: Ch. 4, 1999).
27. Grif®n (1978, 1989) and Lloyd (1984) discuss how western philosophical
dualisms systematically devalue the side of the dualisms which are
constructed as female.
28. It was also, however, through this formation that differences in power (e.g.
about class, access to discursive resources, race) were able to ®nd ex-
pression; see Roseneil (1995a).
29. Freeman (1984: 6), in her critique of `the tyranny of structurelessness', makes
the point that there is no such thing as a `structureless' group, and that
informal structure in inevitable.
30. Gerlach and Hine (1970) suggest that social movements are characteristi-
cally `segmentary, polycephalous and reticulate'.
31. On another level, the web was a symbol of women's collective power,
seemingly fragile, but actually very strong. The spider has traditionally been
seen as female.
32. These are broad characterizations; for more detailed discussion see Roseneil
(1995a, 1999).

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Sasha Roseneil is University Research Fellow in Sociology and Director of the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Leeds. She is the author of
Disarming Patriarchy: Feminism and Political Action at Greenham (Bucking-
ham: Open University Press, 1995) and Common Women, Uncommon Prac-
tices: The Queer Feminism of Greenham (London: Cassell, 1999). She is also co-
editor of Practising Identities: Power and Resistance (London: Macmillan,
1999), Consuming Cultures: Power and Resistance (London: Macmillan, 1999)
and Stirring It: Challenges to Feminism (London: Taylor & Francis, 1994).