Militarized occupations: evolution of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s 1920s intersectional conversation

Abstract

This article brings together transnational feminism, intersectionality, and militarized occupations by recovering Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s (WILPF) 1920s intersectional conversation. Mary Church Terrell, Helen Curtis, Addie Hunton, Jane Addams, and Emily Balch negotiated WILPF’s stance on two occupations: the controversy over the French use of colonial troops in its occupation of Germany, and the US occupation of Haiti. My argument is that through the evolving intersectional conversation, WILPF came to understand the necessity of weaving racialized sexual politics into its analysis of and activism around the politics of militarized occupations. To develop the argument, I construct and apply an ideal type of an intersectional conversation that incorporates a notion of unbracketing substantive inequalities during the conversation. I conclude with some implications for today about what we can learn in the twenty-first century from a moment in an early twentieth-century genealogy of intersectional transnational feminism.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Beatrice Bain Research Group, University of California, Berkeley. For encouragement and helpful comments on earlier drafts, I thank the cross-border BBRG scholars, Martha Ackelsberg, Sherry Katz, and the two NPS reviewers. For provoking me to think harder, I so appreciate Jocelyn Boryczka, Rose Corrigan, and Silke Schicktanz. I also thank Jocelyn Boryczka and Jennifer Leigh Disney for their fine editorial work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Wendy Sarvasy is completing a book entitled Refounding Democracy Through Intersectional Activism, 1880s–1920s. She has also started a new project on theorizing the multileveled food movement.

Notes

¹ Political theorists of the deliberative democracy tradition include Joshua Cohen, John Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge, Dennis Thompson, and Benjamin Barber.

² Iris Marion Young, “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy,” in Iris Marion Young (ed.), Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, (1997), pp. 60–74.

³ Seyla Benhabib, “Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy,” in Seyla Benhabib (ed.), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 70.

⁴ Ibid., 72.

⁵ Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Nancy Fraser (ed.), Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘PostSocialist’ Condition (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 78.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid., 79.

⁸ Ibid., 81.

⁹ Ibid., 82.

¹⁰ Ibid., 81.

¹¹ Ibid., 81–82.

¹² Young, “Communication and the Other,” p. 63.

¹³ Ibid., 68.

¹⁴ Ibid., 67.

¹⁵ Iris Marion Young, “Asymmetrical Reciprocity: On Moral Respect, Wonder, and Enlarged Thought,” in Iris Marion Young (ed.), Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 41, 57–59.

¹⁶ Ibid., 51.

¹⁷ Young, “Communication and the Other,” p. 67.

¹⁸ Ibid., 60.

¹⁹ Ibid., 72–72, 68–69.

²⁰ Sumi Cho, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall, “Intersectionality: Theorizing Power, Empowering Theory,” Signs 38:4 (2013), p. 797.

²¹ Patricia Hill Collins, “Piecing Together a Genealogical Puzzle: Intersectionality and American Pragmatism,” European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3:2 (2011), pp. 88–112.

²² See Ange-Marie Hancock, “When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm,” Perspectives on Politics 5:1 (2007), pp. 63–79; Ange-Marie Hancock, Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011).

²³ See Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd, “Disappearing Acts: Reclaiming Intersectionality in the Social Sciences in a Post-Black Feminist Era,” Feminist Formations 24:1 (2012), pp. 1–25; Julia S. Jordan-Zachery, “Blogging at the Intersections: Black Women, Identity, and Lesbianism,” Politics and Gender 8:3 (2012), pp. 405–414; Evelyn M. Simien and Danielle L. McGuire, “A Tribute to the Women: Rewriting History, Retelling Herstory in Civil Rights,” Politics and Gender 10:3 (2014), pp. 413–431.

²⁴ Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall, “Intersectionality,” p. 795.

²⁵ Collins, “Piecing Together a Genealogical Puzzle,” p. 91.

²⁶ Ibid., 95.

²⁷ Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” in Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas (eds), Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New York: New Press, 1995), pp. 357–383.

²⁸ Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 225.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 7.

³² Ibid.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Keith L. Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror on the Rhine’: Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy,” The Journal of Modern History 42:4 (1970), p. 606.

³⁵ Ibid., 610–611.

³⁶ Ibid., 611, 615, 617.

³⁷ Amongst some feminist scholars of the affair, there is the assumption that the Germans were calling for the removal of African American troops, which was not the case. See Linda K. Schott, Reconstructing Women’s Thoughts: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Before World War II, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 134; Michelle Rief, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally: The International Agenda of African American Clubwomen, 1880–1940,” Journal of African American History 89:3 (2004): p. 213.

³⁸ Dorothy Salem, To Better Our World: Black Women in Organized Reform, 1890–1920 (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1990), p. 229.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ Susan Kerr Chandler, “‘That Biting, Stinging Thing Which Ever Shadows Us’: African-American Social Workers in France during World War I,” Social Service Review 69:3 (1995): p. 509.

⁴¹ Paula Giddens, Where and When I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: Bantam Books, 1985), p. 179.

⁴² Patricia A. Schechter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 121–122.

⁴³ Mary Church Terrell, “Lynching from a Negro’s Point of View,” The North American Review 178:571 (1904), pp. 853–868.

⁴⁴ “Resolution A VII—Race Equality,” in Report of the International Congress of Women, Zurich (May 12–17, 1919), WILPF, Geneva Switzerland, p. 110.

⁴⁵ Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (New York: Arno Press, 1980), pp. 332–335.

⁴⁶ For the history of African American women in WILPF at the national and transnational levels, see Schott, Reconstructing Women’s Thoughts, Chapter 6; Rief, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally,” pp. 203–222; Joyce Blackwell, No Peace Without Freedom: Race and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1975 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004). These works do not develop an intersectional analysis. Instead they stress how African American women brought racial justice into the peace movement.

⁴⁷ Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. vii.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 361.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Ibid., 363.

⁵¹ For an example of a leaflet making a racist appeal to a US audience, see “Out against the Black Horror! Urgent Appeal to Americans!,” in Kathryn Kish Sklar, Anja Schuler, and Susan Strasser (eds), Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885–1933 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 276–279.

⁵² Terrell identified the WILPF member as “Mrs. La Follettee, wife of the late Senator from Wisconsin, and mother of the present Senator and of a former Governor of Wisconsin.” Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. 360.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 363.

⁵⁵ Ibid., 362.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 361.

⁵⁸ Sklar, Schuler, and Strasser (eds), Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany, p. 279.

⁵⁹ Nelson, “The ‘Black Horror on the Rhine’: Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy,” p. 617.

⁶⁰ Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. 362.

⁶¹ As Terrell described the pressure on her to sign the petition: “Since I was the only colored member of the committee it was natural for them to want me to fall in line.” Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. 360.

⁶² Giddens, Where and When I Enter, p. 179.

⁶³ Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. 363.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Jane Addams to Mrs. Terrell, March 29, 1921, quoted in Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World, p. 363.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 363–364.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 364.

⁶⁸ Giddens, Where and When I Enter, pp. 179–180. See also Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 73–74, footnote 92, pp. 249–250. Rupp cites Addams’s letter in a footnote, which also includes the point that the critique led to a shift in focus as we will see.

⁶⁹ Emily G. Balch to the President of Permanent Advisory Commission for Military Naval and Air Questions, Archives, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, December 14, 1920, WILPF Box 1, series 1, Folder 16. I want to thank Marilyn Fischer for providing me with this document.

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ The mandate was a new form of colonialism created after the war. It was to be a temporary condition, whereby France or Britain oversaw the development of a particular region. For example, Britain acquired the mandate for Palestine.

⁷² “Military Use of Native Populations of Colonies,” Report of the Third International Congress of Women, Vienna (July 10–17, 1921), WILPF, 6 Rue Du Vieux College, Geneva Switzerland, p. 76. This discussion led to passing the following resolution: “Resolved that this League make every possible effort to oppose the military use of ‘native’ populations.”

⁷³ Ibid.,78.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Ibid.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Florence Kelley, “The Women’s Congress at Vienna,” in Sklar, Schuler, and Strasser (eds), Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 269.

⁷⁸ Ibid., 270.

⁷⁹ “Military Use of Native Populations of Colonies,” p. 78.

⁸⁰ For a firsthand account of the experience of African American women secretaries in the YMCA, stationed in France, see Addie W. Hunton and Kathryn M. Johnson, Two Colored Women With the American Expeditionary Forces (New York: AMS Press, 1971).

⁸¹ “Military Use of Native Populations of Colonies,” p. 78.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Ibid.

⁸⁴ Alan Dawley, Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 22.

⁸⁵ Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 29–34, 21.

⁸⁶ Ibid., 188–194, 264–268.

⁸⁷ Addie Hunton and Emily G. Balch, “Racial Relations,” in Emily Balch (ed.), Occupied Haiti (New York: The Writers Publishing Company, 1927), pp. 113–121.

⁸⁸ Emily G. Balch, “The Time for Making Peace,” in Jane Addams, Emily G. Balch, and Alice Hamilton (eds), Women at the Hague (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003), p. 54.

⁸⁹ See Susan Chandler, “Addie Hunton and the Construction of an African American Female Peace Perspective,” Affilia 20:3 (2005), 270–383; Lisa G. Materson, “African American Women’s Global Journeys and the Construction of Cross-ethnic Racial Identity,” Women’s Studies International Forum 32 (2009), pp. 35–42.

⁹⁰ Renda, Taking Haiti, p. 19.

⁹¹ Jane Addams, Peace and Bread in Time of War (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 33.

⁹² Ibid., 34.

⁹³ See Ann Laura, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), chapters 2, 3.

⁹⁴ Hunton and Balch, “Racial Relations,” p. 115.

⁹⁵ Ibid.

⁹⁶ Ibid.

⁹⁷ Ibid.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ Ibid., 116.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 119.

¹⁰² Ibid.

¹⁰³ Emily Greene Balch, “Public Order,” in Emily Greene Balch (ed.), Occupied Haiti (New York: The Writers Publishing Company, 1927), p. 135.

¹⁰⁴ Hunton and Balch, “Racial Relations,” p. 114.

¹⁰⁵ Hunton and Johnson, Two Colored Women With the American Expeditionary Forces, p. 182.

¹⁰⁶ Hunton and Balch, “Racial Relations,” pp. 113–114.

¹⁰⁷ Hunton and Johnson, Two Colored Women With the American Expeditionary Forces, pp. 182–183.

¹⁰⁸ Addams, Peace and Bread in Time of War, p. 34.

¹⁰⁹ The Committee, “Conclusions and Recommendations,” in Emily Greene Balch (ed.), Occupied Haiti ed. Emily Greene Balch (New York: The Writers Publishing Company, 1927), p. 153.

¹¹⁰ Vrushali Patil, “From Patriarchy to Intersectionality: A Transnational Feminist Assessment of How Far We’ve Really Come,” Signs 38:4 (2013), pp. 852–854.

¹¹¹ WILPF Manifesto 2015, April 17, 2015. Available online at: <wilpf.org/wilpf–publications/>.

¹¹² Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 112, 116.