{"title":"From Greenham common to red square: women for life on earth and cross-bloc activism in the 1980s","authors":"N. Barnett","doi":"10.1080/13619462.2022.2100987","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines how the activist group Women for Life on Earth (WFLOE) attempted to persuade the USSR to ditch their nuclear weapons. The article finds that WFLOE began a women-led campaign and engaged with unofficial activists and ordinary people in the USSR to lobby the Soviet government to disarm. WFLOE’s fame as ‘Greenham Women’ helped them to publicise their overseas activism and they attempted to challenge predominant representations of peace campaigners in the UK by campaigning against Soviet nuclear weapons. However, this success was limited with the Cold War maintaining primacy for the British press and WFLOE only gaining positive coverage when they caused embarrassment to the Soviets.","PeriodicalId":45519,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary British History","volume":"36 1","pages":"459 - 481"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Contemporary British History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2022.2100987","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article examines how the activist group Women for Life on Earth (WFLOE) attempted to persuade the USSR to ditch their nuclear weapons. The article finds that WFLOE began a women-led campaign and engaged with unofficial activists and ordinary people in the USSR to lobby the Soviet government to disarm. WFLOE’s fame as ‘Greenham Women’ helped them to publicise their overseas activism and they attempted to challenge predominant representations of peace campaigners in the UK by campaigning against Soviet nuclear weapons. However, this success was limited with the Cold War maintaining primacy for the British press and WFLOE only gaining positive coverage when they caused embarrassment to the Soviets.
期刊介绍:
Contemporary British History offers innovative new research on any aspect of British history - foreign, Commonwealth, political, social, cultural or economic - dealing with the period since the First World War. The editors welcome work which involves cross-disciplinary insights, as the journal seeks to reflect the work of all those interested in the recent past in Britain, whatever their subject specialism. Work which places contemporary Britain within a comparative (whether historical or international) context is also encouraged. In addition to articles, the journal regularly features interviews and profiles, archive reports, and a substantial review section.