Women’s Peace Camps: From Greenham Common to Seneca and Beyond

After nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were positioned at the RAF base in Berkshire, England, a group of women organized a peace camp and a series of demonstrations. During 1982, the women of Greenham Common blockaded the RAF base and rallied together over 30,000 women to protest. By April 1983, over 70,000 women attended a demonstration that stretched from a nearby munitions factory to the missile installation at the RAF base. Continuing throughout the 1980s, the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp inspired such occupations around the globe. One such inspired women’s peace camp was located in Seneca, New York. This chapter will examine the experiences of the women in those camps and the ways in which their expressions of peacebuilding brought a particular women’s perspective and embodied practice to bear.