Not that all men are warmongers, but it's striking how, in recent years, the most outspoken, out-front, outrageous and out-there peace activists have been women.
And older women at that.
Is it because, as our baby-making hormones ebb, our anti-war-mones take over?
Here in Canada, we have the Raging Grannies, often seen at the front lines of demonstrations against everything from the U.S. attack on Iraq to the globalization of trade that exploits workers, including women and children, around the word.
Earlier this year, when Israel deployed its forces over and into the already besieged Gaza, it was a group of women who protested by occupying the Israeli consulate here in Toronto.
Author-activist Judy Rebick (Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political) explained her being part of that to me: "When Israel attacked Gaza – and I know how few options the Gazans have, and that Israel was bombing (what many critics describe as) an open-air prison – I was just so outraged. So, when I was asked to participate in the sit-in to help make it more high profile, I said yes. And I got involved."
Not coincidentally, it was a female MP who publicly took a stand against the bombing of Gaza, the NDP's Libby Davies.
Last month in Toronto, at a meeting to support Iraq war resisters fighting deportation to the U.S., it was all women at the podium, including Michelle Robidoux, the group's principal co-ordinator, as well as current NDP MP Olivia Chow and former MP Peggy Nash.
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