Women and war; how 'power-over' politics silenced US congresswomen in the Persian Gulf War.

Recent tensions between the United Mates and Iraq over U.N. weapons inspections recall a period seven years this January when the U.S. Congress spent three days intensely debating several resolutions that would have either authorized the use military force in Iraq.

Ultimately, Congress did authorize military force, and the Persian Gulf War ensued. One noteworthy aspect of the congressional debate is that there were almost no expressions of concern about women as a class, either as soldiers, civilians, or war casualties. This near silence on the "women and war" question is remarkable given that the presence of 32,000 female soldiers in the Persian Gulf prompted several reporters to dub the conflict a "mommy's war." In addition, the 102nd Congress had more female members (thirty) than at any other time in U.S. history. Nearly half of these members had identified themselves as feminists or as strong supporters of women's interests.

The eight female legislators who were active environmentalists were similarly silent on how a Middle East war would affect the ecosystem. Of the more than fifty speeches, given by women during the debate, only Representative Nancy Pelosi of California raised the subject of the Persian Gulf War's possible effect on the environment. The scenarios she outlined seem eerily prescient given the catastrophe that ensued. Even though she merely described some of the devastation that would occur if Saddam Hussein fulfilled his public threat to blow up Kuwaiti oil fields, her speech prompted ridicule from her colleagues.

I believe that this situation demonstrates the difficulty of raising feminist and environmental issues during times of heightened military activity, even when the consequences for women and the environment are enormous. The three-day televised debate in Congress provides a fascinating case study in the variety of communication barriers with which female legislators contend--barriers that are even more onerous when women must deal with the topics of war and peace. It also provides an opportunity to make a case for the important yet often overlooked relationship between rape and other forms of sexual assault, militarism, and environmental degradation.

The Gulf War Debates

If there ever is a time when the free and open exchange of argument and persuasion contribute to the health of a democracy, it is in deciding whether to wage war. Unfortunately, U.S. history is riddled with wars that were never declared (for example, the Vietnam War and the Panamanian War); this made the 1991 congressional debate a rare and extraordinary opportunity to deliberate over the reasons for war or peace. For three days, Americans heard and watched their elected representatives somberly claim never to have voted on a more important resolution. The importance of their decision, it was repeated, necessitated an exploration of all the possible ramifications of a vote to go to war. There was much talk about "saving face," "having egg on our faces," the crisis being a "defining moment in history," "sending a message" to Saddam Hussein, the need to "stand firm with resolve and unity," and the upcoming war as the "last, best hope for peace." Many members of the House spoke briefly about the potential deaths of U.S. soldiers, but in general the debate was more a discussion of the economic, political, and geostrategic ramifications of a war with Iraq.

In contrast to the lengthy speeches on how a Persian Gulf War might affect Middle Eastern stability, U.S. military might, the world economy, and the new world order, Representative Barbara Boxer of California was the only female legislator to discuss any aspect of women and war. Her comments on this topic were limited to two very brief statements, one in which she noted that female soldiers in Saudi Arabia were treated differently than their male comrades and one in which she decried the military's practice of sending single parents or both parents to the Gulf. Unfortunately, Boxer's examples of how the female soldiers were treated ultimately served to belittle their capabilities. She said:

They are working very hard and they are

explaining to us how it feels to have to go into

the back door to use the gymnasium because

the Saudis do not want them to come in the

front door. They have to fight to get to have the

use of the gymnasium, and then, once they are

in there, being subjected to literature trying to convert

them [to Islam]. It is tough for them to take.... In the

rules our service people are told that women are not

allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. If they are in their military

vehicle and in their military uniforms, it is OK.

However, I was informed that if they do that and they

attempt to drive into town in their military car and in

their uniforms, they are run off the road by the Saudis.

The problem with Boxer's statement is that it was not linked to any broader discussion of the justification for or against going to war. She did not use these stories to raise her colleagues' consciousness about the morality of sending female soldiers to a war to reestablish nondemocratic monarchies, to defend societies where women's rights and movements are severely curtailed, or to talk about the environmental effects of war on women and other humans. By failing to link these anecdotes to a broader examination of the war's purpose, Boxer inadvertently reinforced the image of female soldiers as weak and incapable of enduring the rigors of war. Who would argue that the discomfort of going through back doors and having religious literature thrust upon them is in any way comparable to the discomfort of being on the "front line" in a desert combat zone?

Ironically, Boxer did not discuss other issues about women and war that are serious and pervasive. Neither she nor her female colleagues discussed the likelihood of U.S., Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Saudi Arabian women being raped and sexually assaulted during the war. None of the women discussed the deleterious health effects of war on female munitions workers, especially those in the electronics industry. No one addressed the limitations on U.S. military women's pay and career advancement due to congressional restrictions on women in combat positions. Only Boxer mentioned the problem of minor children being left in the United States when parents were shipped to Saudi Arabia. To raise these issues, of course, would have held up the legislators to ridicule for paying attention to such picayune details when the important issues were about national humiliation, geopolitical strategy, and what George Bush called "a big idea--a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom and the rule of law."

Just as the female legislators did not raise issues typically thought of as important to women, most of them failed to articulate how a Middle East war might affect the environment. A claim of ignorance on the part of the legislators would be hard to sustain, given that prior to the congressional debate Saddam Hussein had threatened to blow up the oil wells if he were attacked by coalition forces. He had already demonstrated his willingness to engage in ecowarfare when he blew up wells and dumped oil in the Persian Gulf in 1983 during the Iran-Iraq War. These actions were widely reported in the mass media and well known to the U.S. government. In addition, the devastating effects of war on the environment have been a serious concern to scientists and environmentalists for at least fifteen years. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has been a leader in sponsoring extensive research on this topic. While it is unrealistic to expect legislators to be aware of scientific research studies on the subject of war and the environment, the mass media published a number of articles on this subject, specifically relating to a Persian Gulf War, prior to congressional debate.

Pelosi tried to warn her colleagues of the impending ecocatastrophe. Her remarks (January 12, 1991) were brief, vivid, and uncannily accurate:

The war cloud that would result from exploding oil

fields and large-scale bombing of Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi

Arabia, and other countries in the Middle East would

doom the environment for many years to come.... Let us

focus on these images: Fires raging for weeks, or perhaps

months, sending tons of smoke and debris into the Earth's

atmosphere. Oil equal to a dozen Exxon Valdez spills

coursing through Gulf waters. Millions of dolphins, fish,

sea birds, and other marine life washed onto Gulf shores.

Smoke and debris blocking sunlight, causing temperatures

to drop and altering crop seasons which would

result in widespread famine. Toxic plumes ascending to

the upper atmosphere and falling as acid rain. Chemical

contamination of air, water, and vegetation.

She urged the legislators to pay attention to concerns that would "affect human life and all of life on earth." In many ways, Pelosi had to contend with the opposite rhetorical problem that Boxer faced. Whereas Boxer failed to link her concerns about the treatment of U.S. female soldiers to any broader argument about why we should not go to war, Pelosi used many examples and linked them to worldwide harm as reasons why we should refrain from a war. Where Boxer's examples seemed so minor that they could be shrugged off as irrelevant, Pelosi's case was so extensive that it apparently seemed fantastic and could be shrugged off as grandiose.

I would not expect elected representatives to be concerned with mangrove trees, cormorants, coral reefs, desert vegetation, or fish when U.S. troops and allies were about to face "weapons of mass destruction." Nevertheless, going to war to ensure the continuing flow of Middle Eastern oil had serious environmental consequences specific to the United States in the form of energy dependency, air pollution, and acid rain. Even on this myopic, self-centered point, only two female legislators spoke up.

Representatives Marcy Kaptur and Mary Rose Oakar both made long, logical, well-supported cases in trying to dissuade their colleagues from voting for war. They described the "immorality" of going to war to protect a Middle East oil supply when we had had nearly twenty years since the 1973 OPEC oil embargo to fundamentally change our energy use. As Kaptur said, "America saw this crisis coming. This is not news to us." Both women strongly criticized the Bush administration for its failure to provide an energy plan as required by the 1977 Energy Organization Act. Unlike Pelosi, who focused on environmental degradation, Kaptur and Oakar approached the subject as an issue of political independence from Middle East countries. Their solution was for us to develop new energy technologies. According to Oakar, the United States has "centuries of unmined coal, shale oil, solar energy, synthetic fuel, unexcavated oil." Kaptur concurred: "Let's spend those billions of dollars being wasted in the desert, let's spend them here in America to develop our clean coal technologies, our agriculture and alcohol fuels, hydrogen and solar power." Neither woman named continued or increased pollution or environmental damage to the United States and its citizens as a reason to stay out of a war with Iraq, even though both women clearly believed that our energy use must change and that future energy technologies must be environmentally sound.

Why was it that during deliberations of the gravest importance to humans and to nonhuman nature our legislators barely considered the environmental ramifications of our actions for ourselves, our allies, and our adversaries? Why did Pelosi's speech meet with derision? Was the near silence on the part of the legislators an example of "selling out" politically or part of some larger dynamic? The almost total lack of discussion about the environment during the congressional debate belies both an arrogance about the importance of humans over other kinds of nature and a remarkable shortsightedness about how the ecosystem and the earth's resources sustain human life. I believe that the sparse discussion of how the war would affect women and the environment was a result of their integral connection. To demonstrate this connection necessitates an examination of the rhetorical situation faced by the female legislators.

Rhetorical Obstacles

Social attitudes and beliefs that men and women are fundamentally different create the most entrenched rhetorical obstacles that limit a woman's ability to discuss women and the environment in congressional debates about war. For centuries, women have been depicted as constitutionally peace-loving where men are war-loving. Men fight one another at the war's front, but women are supposed to be passive, supportive observers on the home front. Women are supposed to abhor war because our procreative abilities make us "closer to nature." Since men cannot give birth to another human being, they are said to be "closer to culture," which includes the development of munitions and other technological advances.

In contrast to human procreation, men "give birth" to new social orders by creating and using sophisticated instruments of death and destruction. As William J. Broyles put it in a 1984 Esquire article entitled "Why Men Love War": "At some terrible level [it] is the closest thing to what childbirth is for women: the initiation into the power of life and death." Carol Cohn also found a strong relationship between "giving birth" and creating atomic bombs in the language of the defense intellectuals she studied. In the summer 1987 Signs, a leading journal of women and culture in society, Cohn writes:

The entire history of the bomb project, in fact, seems

permeated with imagery that confounds humanity's

overwhelming technological power to destroy nature with the

power to create: imagery that converts men's destruction

into their rebirth. Lawrence wrote of the Trinity test of

the first atomic bomb: "One felt as though he had been

privileged to witness the Birth of the World." In a 1985

interview, General Bruce K. Holloway, the commander in

chief of the Strategic Air Command from 1968 to 1972,

described a nuclear war as involving "a big bang, like the

start of the universe."

In addition to having to deal with the illogic that equates human birth with wartime death and destruction, female members of Congress have little authority to speak about war--given longstanding attitudes that women are to be passive and silent during these times. Women's primary roles are restricted to being patriotic supporters, grief-stricken widows or family members, civilian casualties, or rape victims/war booty. In her 1987 book Women and War, Jean Bethke Elshtain observes that the expectation that women are to fill passive roles during times of war even extends to passivity in articulating their concerns about war:

In the matter of women and war [women] are

invited to turn away. War is men's: men are the

historic authors of organized violence. Yes,

women have been drawn in--and they have

been required to observe, suffer, cope, mourn,

honor, adore, witness, work. But men have done the

describing and defining of war, and the women are

"affected" by it: they mostly react.

Another limitation on women's ability to, speak authentically about war occurs because of their historic exclusion from military service and their continuing exclusion from combat positions. Since the earliest days of this country's existence, a powerful conceptual relationship has existed between military service and ideas about citizenship. This relationship is not unique to the United States and can be traced back to the beliefs and writings of the ancient Greeks.

Women's political ambitions have been thwarted by their inability to serve in military combat positions, resulting in obvious difficulties in speaking about war. The women who do get elected are unquestionably handicapped when their male colleagues use military service as an authorizing device for their political arguments. As cited in her book Women, Militarism, and War, Sheila Tobias has established through historical example that, during times when heroism in warfare and leadership in politics are strongly linked, women experience great difficulties getting elected to public office. When military service is claimed to be a necessary precursor to public service, women lose out.

This was certainly the case during the 1988 presidential election between George Bush and Michael Dukakis. Bush repeatedly pointed to his military service as a navy pilot to bolster his credentials for the presidency. He ridiculed Dukakis' well-known ride in an army tank. Bush's derision stemmed not merely from the fact that the ride was an election-time publicity stunt but that it was obscene for Dukakis to take on the mantle and perquisites of soldiering when he had no previous military service. During the Persian Gulf War debates, female members of Congress were negatively affected by the attitude that prior military service was the only legitimate precursor for discussing war. Whereas their male counterparts repeatedly referred to their own military service and sacrifice, the women had to draw upon their connections to other people in the service. For example, several congresswomen mentioned their male family members who were servicemen or their congressional employees who were connected to the military. For some of the female representatives, their connection to the military was only that they were there to speak on behalf of their constituents who were in the Gulf or had family members in the Gulf.

Had they wanted to discuss issues of women and the environment, the female members of Congress also would have faced other restrictive obstacles--attitudes about the impropriety of women speaking in public. Prohibitions against women speaking in public have a long and well-documented history. Saint Paul's biblical edict for women to "remain silent" in church has been taken to mean that women should remain silent in all public spaces. By the very act of standing and addressing a group of people, a female speaker claims to have ideas worthy of an audience. She literally asserts her own authority and legitimacy. In part because of this powerful self-validating and self-authorizing action, women in the nineteenth century endured sanctions that included being criticized from the pulpit by clergy, suffering ridicule in editorials and cartoons, being refused their requests to rent auditoriums, having to defend themselves from claims that they were sexual deviants and monsters, having to face angry mobs, and being repeatedly threatened with bodily harm. Clearly, contemporary female members of Congress did not face these social sanctions when speaking during the Gulf War debates. However, each woman had to contend with the belief (reflected in numbers of women elected to the House) that the public sphere of government "belongs" to men and that she was usurping her socially defined position.

Similarly, each woman had to face a prejudiced assumption that she was ignorant or incompetent about war simply because this culture defines war as a quintessentially masculine activity. Like contemporary female soldiers who are accused of being lesbians because they have violated assigned sex roles and have asserted their competence in military matters, female members of Congress risked having their qualifications as women called into question. Having to demonstrate their competence and authority while reassuring audiences that they are feminine women is an age-old dichotomy for female speakers. Current examples of this phenomenon are provided by Geraldine Ferraro's unsuccessful run for the vice-presidency, the round of criticism Attorney General Janet Reno received when she was nominated for her cabinet post, and the ongoing, vitriolic criticism of Hillary Clinton's public policy roles.

The rhetorical obstacles to legitimacy that female members of Congress face as public speakers are quite daunting by themselves. When the subject is as significant and deadly as going to war, the rhetorical obstacles loom even larger for women. It is as if, in our fear and awe, we resort to our most ancient and entrenched beliefs about sex roles. In these times, female members of Congress face their greatest rhetorical challenges.

Counterproductive Responses

The female members of Congress who spoke during the Persian Gulf War debates faced a rhetorical situation where masculine, gender-marked language and argument ruled the day. Male members of Congress especially knew the political price they would pay if they were perceived to be "weak," "soft," or "appeasers." There was perhaps no better moment in recent congressional history where a situation was so thoroughly tied to maintaining images of traditional sex roles. Unfortunately, the "sexualized" and "gendered" nature of the war discussion put all congresswomen in an untenable rhetorical situation. If they used those strategies that demonstrated their traditional femininity, their arguments would be highly personal, singular, and particular. Their arguments would not be able to "engage," let alone challenge, the sweeping political, economic, and geostrategic arguments that dominated the discussion. If the congresswomen adopted deductive, abstract, and general arguments about whether to go to war, they risked sounding like most of their male colleagues and appearing to violate sex roles at a time when sex roles were being strongly enforced.

My analysis of the group of speeches given by the female members of Congress illuminates an interesting division. Those representatives who supported the resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq utilized militaristic jargon and "talking points" suggested by the Bush administration. They are practically indistinguishable from the vast majority of speeches in favor of the war. For example, many in this group of speeches reasoned deductively--principles were laid out and the specific case of Iraq was judged by it. Remarks by Representative Olympia Snowe of Maine provides a good illustration:

Tomorrow, I will vote to support the U.N. resolution and

preserve all our options against Iraq. I will do so not

because the military option is inevitable but in order not to

undermine the President's efforts to achieve a peaceful

outcome to this crisis--efforts which require that a credible

military threat be maintained against a brutal aggressor

who only understands the language of force. A credible

threat is necessary against a man who has raised one of the

world's largest armies, used chemical weapons against his

own people, invaded two neighbors and is developing

nuclear and biological capabilities. We are hardly dealing

with a man of peace in Saddam Hussein.

In another respect, the language of the war's supporters was often abstract and generalized. References to American soldiers were almost always in terms of "American forces" or the "fine men and women of the military."

In contrast, references to soldiers on the part of the war's opponents were couched in possessive terms like our and highlighted the soldiers' youth and vulnerability. Barbara Boxer repeatedly referred to soldiers as "our children" or "our kids." The war, she said, was "not about egg on our faces; it is about blood on our kids." Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii also made a speech quite typical of this approach:

Before we commit our children to this violence, I ask that

Congress tell our children why declaring war against Iraq is

necessary for peace in the world, and that Congress advise

our children that they go to war because their Government

has exhausted all other avenues to peace. I can say neither

to my children nor to your children, and so I must vote no

against war, and yes for a greater effort for peace.

This quotation aptly demonstrates the personal tone of the speaker. She invites audience members to consider their own offspring and to focus on themselves and their own families rather than generalized abstractions like the new world order.

The quality of abstraction versus concrete specificity is the single most defining difference between the speeches by the war's supporters and opponents. The female opponents tried to reduce the "distance" between war as a concept and war as a bloody reality. Utilizing what Karilyn Kohrs Campbell, a leading scholar of women and rhetoric, calls the "feminine style," they took four rhetorical paths: they discussed the potential war in familiar, highly personal terms; they argued that the abstract logic used by the war's supporters was inappropriate; they vividly depicted the war's violent outcome on human bodies and body parts; and they tried to assert the primacy of domestic issues over foreign policy issues. A speech by Marcy Kaptur illustrates the personal tone taken by many of the war's opponents:

Let me speak as one of the

members of Congress who grew up

during the Vietnam era, whose

friends fought and died in that

battle.... I speak on behalf of

every mother, every wife, every

father, every husband and

relative who has a loved one serving

our Nation in the U.S. military.

Other representatives tried to deny the abstract logic of war that they heard during the debates. Boxer quipped that "this is not about ... saving face. It is about saving lives. Peace through war makes about as much sense as health through sickness." Representative Cardiss Collins of Illinois made a similar argument when she noted that "there is not yet any reason good enough to die for. America should not be in the business of wasting our young lives for the sake of some oblique geopolitical strategy contrived on some chalkboard."

Whereas the war's supporters talked mostly about the political, economic, and strategic ramifications of going to war, several of the war's opponents reminded the country that Americans would not just be "lost" in battle but would be killing other people as well. The opponents stressed that war takes its toll on humans, especially human bodies. Representative Jolene Unsoeld of Washington utilized this technique when she argued that

war is not a simple righting of

wrongs. It is about tears and

pain. It is about lost arms and

legs. It is about paralyzed 

bodies lying inert in already

overwhelmed veteran

hospitals. It is about

shattered dreams and

shattered families and

children losing their

mothers and fathers. It is

about sending America's

children to kill and be

killed.

In similar fashion, Boxer drew upon the lyrics of a song popularize by Bette Midler called "From a Distance" in order to chastise the war's supporters. Although Boxer was roundly ridiculed for employing such an unlikely and "inappropriate" sour , the lyrics supported the point of her argument:

From, a distance we all

have enough, and no one

is in need, and there are no guns, no bombs, and no

disease, no hungry mouths to feed. From a distance you look

like my friend, even though we are at war. From a distance

I just can't comprehend what all this fighting is or...

Have you ever seen a body that is shot apart? Have you

ever seen it up close? From a distance, from very far

away, it may look still and peaceful. But up close you see

the violence, the pain, the suffering, the horror.

The final way that women who opposed the war dealt with the rhetorical obstacles they faced was by comparing foreign and domestic policy. In doing this, they attempted to speak women's "sphere." A number of female representatives made analogies between the expenses of running Operation Desert Storm and what that money might be used for in the United States. Representative Barbara-Rose Collins of Michigan, who had been sworn in only a week earlier, questioned why the Bush administration was willing to spend so much money on a foreign monarchy "in a time of limited resources to rebuild our cities, feed and house our homeless, and educate our young." Mary Rose Oakar noted that the monthly price tag of more than $2 billion "has led us into a recession which has seen a loss of almost a million jobs in the past five months." Representative Louise Slaughter of New York asked a series of rhetorical questions about the costs of the war, including "What will be the cost, for example, of caring for a new generation of disabled veterans, who will require a lifetime of medical care as a result of the Persian Gulf War?" Finally, Boxer said in a very impassioned statement:

A robbery is taking place right here, right now. Billions of

dollars out the door to pay for an operation called

the World vs. Saddam Hussein. But the world

does not pay. We do--Uncle Sugar Daddy... We

have spent more on Desert Shield so far than we

spend in one year on Head Start, cancer research,

AIDS research, Alzheimer's, heart research, and

childhood immunization, all combined.

Traditionally, the use of the "feminine style" of rhetoric is a helpful and appropriate way to deal with the competing demands that a female speaker be simultaneously logical and feminine. In this case, however, I believe that the rhetoric strategies that usually assuage an audience about a rhetor's femininity undermined the arguments that the women made in opposing the war. By discussing the effects of war on human bodies, the women reinforced stereotypes that women cannot "reason" about war beyond the purely physical, emotional, and specific level. Those women who avoided the "feminine style" and spoke in an acceptably warrior-like language did not make themselves seem unfeminine as much as they made themselves invisible as women. They did not bring a "woman's perspective" to the debate. I leave other writers the task of determining whether there are unique, "essential" female qualities. But in a warlike context where pressures to conform to the most rigid sex roles are in force, the breadth and diversity of human experience with war ought to be considered and discussed.

"Power-Over" Politics

Short of a direct challenge to the underlying assumptions of the war discourse, no amount of rhetorical adaptation would have benefited the women. It is a vivid example of what Jean Bethke Elshtain called the "incommensurable universes" between the language of military warriors and war victims. In addition, I believe that, by failing to illuminate and attack the war's premise of "power-over" politics, no woman would have been able to credibly raise concerns about the war's effect on women and the environment.

The fundamental truth of war is that individuals are supposed to kill other human beings. To do otherwise is to not be engaged in war. Killing another human being is an act that relies on the highest form of abstract thinking--the mental transformation of oneself as a superior being whose lethal violence is justified and the transformation of one's enemy into a lesser "other" whose death is not only acceptable but morally inconsequential. The entire practice of war is predicated on the abstract concept of "exchangeability of human beings," including those in one's own military forces. By using this phrase, I mean to highlight the mental transformation that one must endure to continuously ignore one's ability to sense unending variations among people. Even among one's own troops, one tries to replace or exchange one fallen soldier with another, as if they were identical entities. The use of regulation haircuts, physical qualities, and military uniforms are all designed to reinforce the perception that one soldier is indistinguishable from another and therefore replaceable. The most important abstraction, however, is the one that transforms "equally created men" into superior and inferior men and thereby the justification for militarily dominating the inferiors. This form of thinking has been referred to as "power-over" politics.

Beliefs in the justification of "power-over" politics served as the core assumption by both Iraq and the United States before and during the Persian Gulf War. Saddam Hussein obviously believed that it was appropriate for his troops to invade Kuwait, oppress the people through rapes, torture, and killing, and take the country's material goods. George Bush characterized the Iraqi actions as "naked aggression," and indeed they were. Nevertheless, Bush's actions were predicated on the exact same set of operating assumptions that Saddam Hussein used--power over.

The speeches given by the female opponents of the Gulf War were materially, argumentatively, and rhetorically ineffective because they did nothing to challenge power-over politics, or the use of force to make one's will manifest. No female legislator asked whether the United States had any right to compel another country to do its bidding, either through economic embargoes, United Nations sanctions, or military aggression. In fact, many of the women affirmed that the United States "could not allow" Saddam Hussein's troops to stay in Kuwait. Thus the main question discussed during the congressional debate was not if the United States should force Iraq to do its will but how best to force Iraq to do its will. In agreeing that the United States could force its will on Iraq, the female legislators ended up granting both the premise of power-over politics and the underlying justification for going to war.

When they accepted the underlying premise of the war--power-over--the congresswomen ensured that their arguments opposing the war would be unconvincing. In their speeches, Representatives Pelosi and Boxer attempted to make the concerns of women and the environment count in a context where domination of women and the ecosystem is part and parcel of power-over thinking. The rape of women by soldiers and the environmental degradation are an accepted reality (even perquisite) of war; they also symbolically represent the internal dynamic of war. During these times, women are not only secondary but also play a "background" role for the political and military action. We are supposed to eagerly support military aggression by laboring in munitions factories, raising children on our own, and providing "support services" to the men near the "front," as well as providing moral support, comfort, sexual release, and a rapt, listening audience for war stories when the fighting is over. The role of being a supportive backdrop is similar to the role played by the ecosystem during a war. The environment is perceived to be unimportant because it serves as background for the use and support of military action. It is supposed to easily give up its resources to the fighting forces without fail. Its well-being must not supplant the military objective.

Being Heard

An analysis of the speeches given by female members of Congress during the Gulf War debates demonstrates that their relative silence about the war's effect on women and the environment was a product of social forces that narrowed the range of "acceptable" topics to military, economic, and geostrategic prudence. Their silence reflects the inability to make women and the environment "count" when the real issue of the debate was how best to overpower Iraq. The power-over politics that justified our involvement in the Persian Gulf War is the same dynamic that justifies using women as sexual war booty, destroying the environment in war, and denigrating women's concerns as unimportant in congressional debates.

The conceptual framework which connects rhetoric, rape, and ecowarfare is typified by several faulty beliefs: that humankind is independent of, not reliant upon, the nonhuman environment; that the needs of nations and individuals are independent of the needs of other nations and individuals; that our primary concerns are immediate rather than long-term, and instant gratification best solves our problems and meets our needs; and that our independence from one another also makes us better than one another. Thus to meet our own immediate needs or desires we may engage in any form of behavior, including oppression, dominance, and destruction of those we identify as "other," even when in the process we destroy our own long-term self-interest and sustenance.

The actions of both the United States and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War demonstrate that each country adheres to this patriarchal conceptual framework. Until concerned women and men are able to directly challenge the underlying assumptions of power-over politics and this conceptual framework, wars will continue to be fought and the effect on women and the environment will continue to seem irrelevant.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Great the War

For any Gulf War veteran, the specter of dying in an Iraqi chemical attack was a vivid reality. Our training was comprehensive: a tiny amount of nerve gas could kill you quickly, However, even the strongest memories dull with age; 1991 was a long time ago. And personally, I rarely think about that war anymore. My brief time in Saudi Arabia during the conflict has faded into the background of my mind.

Yet, with the right trigger, old memories do resurface. For instance, I recently discovered, on a dusty bookshelf in a used bookstore, the works of Wilfred Owen, a British poet killed during World War I--the Great War. A sensitive and gifted writer, Owen's poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" brought back not only my memories of the Gulf War but the very taste and feel of the experience.

The Great War belongs to a different era from today--the age of canvas planes compared to stealth bombers. On the surface, one might wonder how Owen's short life (1893-1918) can influence me and my generation. He was a British officer fighting in the mud and horror of the Western Front in a war that ended forty-two years before I was born. In contrast, I was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps serving in the computer age; I spent the Gulf War either on a ship or at a Saudi Arabian air base--mostly safe except for the occasional mine or scud missile alert. But writing and creative genius is timeless. It can effortlessly bridge the gap of decades, the gap between mustard gas and nerve gas.

Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army were not the first to deploy chemical weapons; the Germans did it in the Great War. And Owen depicts the stark terror of chemical attack in his poem. Reading "Dulce Et Decorum Est" eighty years later. I'm shaken out of my living room comfort. The poem's second stanza painfully brings back the fear that just the threat of chemical warfare causes:

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime ...

Dim, through the misty panes of thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

The words bring it home--the early morning hours at a desert air base, a scud alert, the alarm of possible nerve gas. Desperately I pull on the awkward rubber mask and hood. My mouth goes dry, my face feels hot and flushed. I can't shake the grim thought that nerve gas will kill me within seconds. Nervously, I look out through the surrealistic view of my mask, having no peripheral vision, seeing greenish flares in the distance. Despite my pulse and respiration going through the roof, I check my people. Everyone is okay; it's only an alert.

How remarkable it is: an English poet from the age of the Sopwith Camel can define my memories of the Gulf War through poetry. Weapons and tactics change but people and their emotions remain the same.

I, however, was the fortunate one; it was only an alert. Owen was killed on November 4, 1918, one week before the Armistice, in the "war to end all wars."

Adrienne Elizabeth Christiansen is an associate professor of communication studies at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This article is adapted from Christiansen's "Rhetoric, Rape, and Ecowarfare in the Persian Gulf" in Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature (edited by Karen J. Warren and published by Indiana University Press, 1997; available at bookstores or by calling 800-842-6796).