Taking the toys from the boys: Feminism and Australian women's peace activism in the 1980s

The women's peace movement stormed onto the Australian political scene during the early 1980s in a series of large-scale protest actions that involved hundreds of women and attracted widespread media attention for days on end. Key protests of this period were the two women¿s peace camps held near Alice Springs in central Australia and the other south of Perth in Western Australia. In 1983, the Pine Gap Women's Peace Camp highlighted the presence of the United States military base and, in 1984, the Sound Women¿s Peace Camp focused attention on visits by US warships and submarines to the Stirling Naval Base in Cockburn Sound. The protestors were concerned that Australia's involvement in the Cold War through the use of these military bases supported US militarism and created the threat of attack by the USSR. But the women peace activists were protesting about much more than the threat of nuclear war. They wanted to 'take the toys from the boys' and, in doing so, create not only a peaceful society but also a more just society, and one that challenged male violence.