Editorial

Elisa Haf

Compiling this issue of War Profiteers' News proved a challenge. Although it has long been feminist orthodoxy that all analysis must be gendered analysis, it was difficult to apply this orthodoxy to war profiteering, at least initially, because 'profit' tempts us to think of capitalism and not of gender as the oppressive system by which our attention should be monopolised. Yet capitalism could not easily be a more gendered system, and the issue of war profiteering in fact illustrates this: Julie Arostegui, writing on behalf of WAND, draws our attention to the ways in which the gender based atrocities of ISIS, by providing an excuse for war-mongering in the eyes of some, simultaneously provide an opportunity for war profiteering of the kind that facilitated the rise of ISIS in the first place. War profiteering and gender based violence are a mutually perpetuating cycle, a wheel turned by capital.

Then the declaration of the women affected by extractivism shows us how the capitalist drive for profit leads to violence, militarism, and a disregard for life and the earth on which it must be lived, as well as how gender puts women on the front line of those affected by this, as the ones who customarily take responsibility for the care of their families and communities, the ones who sustain life. However, this also makes women the primary agents of resistance to the drive for profit, even when that drive comes down the barrel of a gun. Anna Kaminski, from Code Pink, also draws our attention to women's resistance in the face of such violence and those who would perpetuate it under the pretence of combating it.

We have also re-published important points made by WILPF about gender aware budgeting and the conflict between militarism and life-affirming expenditure on areas such as environmental sustainability, without which there is no hope for the kind of stable, secure societies in which gender equality can flourish – or, if we are feeling more ambitious, the oppressive system of gender can be abolished.

Finally, we have drawn attention to the topical issue of the Arms Trade Treaty which is about to come into force. Despite feminist championing of its clause on gender based violence, we remain sceptical about its likely efficacy. There is a fundamental irreconcilability between the arms trade – an industry which profits from the manufacture and sale of deadly weapons used to maim and threaten when not to kill, which all too often augment the gendered power of men against women – and the kind of society in which women and men can be equals or, if we are still feeling ambitious, where there are no more women and men, only people.

The theme of insecurity, gender inequality, and war profiteering is explored in more detail in the piece on the NRA's 'woman problem'. What hopefully comes through in this issue of War Profiteers' News as a whole, however, is not only that war profiteering and gender equality are incompatible, but that gender equality is incompatible with profit itself, and therefore also with capitalism, the system which demands profit. We hope that this presents a challenge to feminists as they consider their campaigns, choose their allies, and plan for the future. We also hope that feminists who do not find themselves on the front line in the struggle against capitalism at its most destructive will reach out in solidarity and sisterhood to those who do, such as the women affected by extractivism, whose mutual support is an example to us all.