A Sisterhood of Dissent

“Decisions about nuclear weapons and about military things in general, they’re all taken by men. It seems right that it should be women [protesting].

I began to have visions of women walking down the road with our banners and our placards. We walked from Cardiff, the capital of Wales, to Greenham Common. The press were not interested. We had to do something more dramatic, and we decided to chain ourselves up to the gates of Greenham when we got there. We had to stay a night, and another night, a week two weeks… gradually, the support did come in.

It was the biggest women’s demonstration ever, I think, in this country.”

In 1987, a treaty was signed that led to the removal of the nuclear weapons at Greenham Common. Six years of women’s protests at Greenham Women’s Peace Camp were a contributing factor.

— Ann Pettitt, 2022
Peace activist