Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminism of Greenham

by Sasha Roseneil

This is a book about how individual, social, political and cultural change is created through the actions of ordinary women. It is about a unique community of women where conventions were overturned and lives transformed, and it is about a social movement in which tens of thousands of women confronted the police and military to resist the momentum towards nuclear war.

The women's peace camp at Greenham Common represented a new direction for feminism in Britain, a queer post-modern feminism which broke with tradition and destabilized certainties. This book weaves together stories of life at Greeham with analysis of its politics. The voices of Greenham women describe living outdoors, in all weathers, in a diverse and ever-changing community of strong-minded women - the pleasures and the problems. Tales of actions and arrest, court and prison are told, and the changes wrought by these experiences are explored. Women speak of the transformations in their lives which took place at Greenham, of sex and sexuality, relationships, friendship and love.

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Beccasaurus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp that was set up in the 80's to protest the US nuclear silos being housed there. It's not really about lesbianism as the title up there seems to suggest but women from all walks of life in England coming together to protest nuclear war in a peaceful, joyful, anarchist fashion. The best thing about this book in my opinion is the author (who was a participant) honors the diversity of experience by letting the women speak for themselves so you don't leave with one unifying narrative but a detailed description of how it was different things for different people.