Protect global peace Essay Example for Free

Protect global peace Essay It is possible to say that Woolf and Brittain created a certain peace culture which helps many soldiers and their families to overcome emotional and psychological burden of war. In contrast to Brittain, Woolf supposes that international organizations founded by pacifists, feminists, and socialists recognized the need to protect civil liberties during wartime, especially the legal rights of those, such as conscientious objectors, who spoke out against or took a stand critical of the war. Woolf also recognizes that the problem is at the center of the gendered war system; feminist pacifist women understand that state power, war-making, and manliness are linked. Woolf and Brittain similarly incline civil liberties in the broader national movement supposing that it is possible and desirable to sever the identification of masculine identity with state and military power. The main similarity between approaches proposed by Woolf and Brittain is education of women. Both authors suppose that it is also the duty of the state to protect and advance the interests of the citizens, to assist in women education, especially moral education, to safeguard the liberty and health of the citizens, and to protect private property and provide women with an opportunity to obtain a livelihood. Woolf (2003) writes: â€Å"Now that we have given one guinea towards rebuilding a college we must consider whether there is not more that we can do to help you to prevent war†. Barring women from the very kind of education required of citizens in a democracy, denying them the traits and capacities thought to be the mark of a moral individual, he ensures their second-class status both at home and in the world. Good education could help women to enter international organizations and create a powerful anti-war movement. Both authors suppose that the feminist pacifists should be grappled as individuals and in relation to one another with the polarized wartime gender system. Objectors sought to move away from the warrior ideal, the particular form of manliness favored by the state in the context of war, while the feminist-pacifist civil libertarians attempted to distance themselves from the contradictory ideal of the wartime woman as an actively loyal patriotic mother-citizen as well as a passive and defenseless creature in need of male (warrior) protection. â€Å"More than ever today women have the opportunity to build a new and better world, but in this slavish imitation of men they are wasting their chance† (Woolf 2003). Woolf and Brittain struggle to invent new identities for themselves as they resisted societal pressures to conform. This project to deconstruct and then reconstruct gender identity outside of the wartime norm was not always (or perhaps even usually) a fully self-conscious act on the part of objectors and feminist pacifists. Brittain underlines the role of a nurse stating: â€Å"Perhaps, too, the warm and profoundly surprising comfort that I derived from their presence produced a tenderness which was able to communicate back to them, in turn, something of their own rich consolation† (Brittain 1989, p. 47). However, out of the conflicts and tensions involved in the attempt to become more self-directed people emerge some fresh understandings of the personal dimension of war resistance. Like the men whom they respected, loved, and perhaps glamorized, Woolf and Brittain challenge the war system in fundamental ways. They consciously reject a compliant, patriotic role for themselves, a rejection that confounded military men and led some officers, to become verbally and physically aggressive and abusive towards them. Many men shared many common assumptions with the women of the movement: both men and women spoke not only as anti-war opponents but also as nurturing parent figures who could not abide the mindless violence and nihilism of a military system that sought to break the wills of idealistic young men. They differ in their approach towards help of women and their political role, but agree that women represent a great force which should protect global peace and stop military operations. References 1. Woolf, V. (2003). Three Guineas. Retrieved 12 April 2007, from http://etext. library. adelaide. edu. au/w/woolf/virginia/w91tg/ 2. Brittain, V. (1989). Testament of Youth. Virago Press Ltd; New Ed edition.