Editorial

Gender and militarism is the theme of this issue of The Broken Rifle, coinciding not only with International Day on Conscien­tious Objection – 15 May 2010 – but also with the newest WRI publication "Women Conscien­tious Objectors – An Anthology", edited by Ellen Elster and Maj­ken Jul Sørensen. Although the theme of gender and militarism is not new to WRI, and neither are women conscientious objectors, this is the first issue of The Bro­ken Rifle dedicated to it – long overdue, it can be argued (and rightly so).

In 2007, War Resisters' Inter­national and its Israeli affiliate New Profile jointly organised a seminar on the same theme, with many interesting presentations and discussions. Unfortunately, we were never able to publish a documentation of the seminar – the every-day workload of both organisers and most of the presenters was to high to allow for the time to write up what had been discussed, and to prepare it for publication. Only very few presentations are now available on WRI's website at http://wri-irg.org/news/2007/council2007-en.htm.

Originally, it was hoped that the book Women Conscientious Objectors – An Anthology could be presented during the 2007 semi­nar. However, as often is the case when activists are asked to reflect on their work, and everything is done by volunteers, things took much much longer. Now, three years later the book is being pub­lished, and we hope that it will con­tribute to the debate on gender and militarism, but also that it will make the voices of women con­scientious objectors more visible.

This issue of The Broken Rifle has a broader theme. We look not only at women conscientious ob­jectors, but also at women's acti­vism against nuclear bases, and at the links between militarisation and masculinities.

Andreas Speck
Right to Refuse to Kill Programme Worker

War Resisters' International
5 Caledonian Road
London N1 9DX, Britain
info@wri-irg.org http://wri-irg.org