The women’s peace camp at Comiso, 1983: transnational feminism and the anti-nuclear movement

Abstract

ABSTRACT NATO’s decision to deploy cruise missiles in the small Sicilian town of Comiso (Ragusa, Italy) triggered mass protests against nuclear weapons between 1981 and 1983, with pacifist gatherings and demonstrations taking place across Italy. In Sicily, feminists who supported nuclear disarmament founded the women’s peace camp, La Ragnatela, in March 1983. The camp soon became an international symbol of the feminist peace movement for nuclear disarmament and formed a major hub in a network that connected Comiso both practically and symbolically with the international peace movement and particularly with British feminists at the Greenham Common peace camp in Berkshire. This article examines how these women developed female ways to speak out about war and peace, how they focused political attention on the issues surrounding nuclear armaments and how they addressed the transnational implications of the anti-nuclear feminist movement. An analysis of local archives and oral interviews reveals the extent to which the Ragnatela camp helped launch the proliferation of feminist discourses in the 1980s peace movement, both in Italy and worldwide, through the creation of a web of transnational connections.