Code Pink, Raging Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks: Feminist Performance Activism in the Contemporary Anti-War Movement

Headnote

This article examines feminist performance activism in the context of the contemporary anti-war movement. Using data gathered through ethnographic participant observation, formal and informal interviews, and content analysis from October 2002 through January 2005, this article describes and analyzes the use of performance activism by three women's anti-war groups as an activist repertoire used to challenge cultural assumptions about gender. This paper argues that these groups used a combination of norm-embracing and norm-challenging performance elements to integrate gender into the anti-war agenda and promote a feminist ideology among fellow protesters and suggests that different combinations were more or less effective.

Keywords: anti-war movement / women's movement / performance / gender norms / activism

Code Pink is part of a rising tide of creative and memorable feminist antiwar activism. In early January a group of Point Reyes, California [code Pink activists] spelled out PeAce on a beach with their naked bodies, protesting bush's "naked aggression." A few weeks later and many degrees colder, a group of New York women did the same. (Featherstone 2003)

For eight women descending on the military recruiting substation in belmont on monday, their arsenal included tea, cookies and questions. members of the Peninsula and San Francisco chapters of the Raging Grannies . . . plunked down their teapot and tupperware full of homemade gingerbread 'military men' on a recruiter's desk. . . . And as they munched and sipped, the onslaught began. . . . the recruiters didn't seem to mind the visit . . . as the group of women, who ranged in age from 46 to 90, sang rallying songs outside. (Gordon 2005)

We are a posse of pissed-off housewives from crawford, texas, the home of our beloved President George Walker bush. usually we prefer to leave the talking to our husbands, but recent events have conspired to drag us away from our martinis and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and into the streets. the dimwitted ramblings and demonstrations of the anti-authoritarian rabble that have infected our country of late make our blood boil. the sight of these smelly, smarmy sickos smirkingly besmirching our smiling President is too much to bear. the biggest questions these riff-raff face day-to-day are which Starbucks to vandalize and where to score their next bong hit....