Mary Barbour

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Overview

Mary Barbour (née Rough) born Kilbarchan, Scotland February 22, 1875 (d. 1958). Labor organizer; pacifist; birth control advocate for married women. Organized "Mrs. Barbour's Army," comprising tens of thousands of women in nonviolent rent strike in Glasgow, 1916; founded Scottish branch of International League and Women's Peace Crusade protesting World War I, 1916. Established the Women's Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow's first family planning center, 1925.

Quotations

“Mrs. Barbour's Army brought the maisters tae their knees
Wi' a regiment in pinnies backed by one in dungarees.”

(Alistair Hulett song)

Nora Stanton Blatch Barney

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Overview

Nora Stanton Blatch Barney born Basingstoke, Hampshire, England September 30, 1883 (d. 1971). First American woman civil engineer; radio electronics pioneer and architect; third-generation suffragist peacemaker: granddaughter of Seneca Falls pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, daughter of Harriot Stanton Blatch; author of World Peace Through a Peoples Parliament (1944); opposed Korean War.

Quotations

"Travel by stagecoach is out of date. Kings are out of date: communication by canalboat is out of date; an aristocracy is out of date, none more so than a male aristocracy." (1909, in Suzanne Fischer, "Nora Stanton Blatch", Public Historian, 2010; photo Britannica.com)

Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse

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Overview

Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse born Grenoble, France October 23, 1924 (d. 1999). American psychiatrist, professor at Southern Methodist University, and Episcopal priest. Keynote speaker on "Peace, the Universal Yearning: the Voices of Women” at the first International Women’s Peace Conference, Dallas, 1988. President of Peacemakers, 1988.

Quotations

"Women underestimate their own gifts. . . We are in serious trouble when the feminine principle is devalued. Women appreciate the role of emotion in good decision making." (Aug. 8, 1988, in Episcopal News Service, Sept. 22, 1988; crop keep photo on left; salon.com)

Madeleine Barot

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Overview

Madeleine Barot born Châteauroux, France July 4, 1909 (d. 1995). French theologian in World War II Resistance, aiding escape of Jews, Roma and political opponents of Hitler; ecumenical scholar; opponent of torture; founded Creators of Peace 1991.

Quotations

"Women are more sensitive to the injustices others are suffering. . . This thirst for justice leads them to become peacemakers." (Michael Henderson, All Her Paths Are Peace, p. 2, 1994; photo archives.wcc-coe.org)

Suzanne Bastid

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Overview

08.15 bastid.jpg

Suzanne Bastid (née Basdevant) born Rennes, Brittany, France August 15, 1906 (d. 1965). International lawyer, first French woman professor of law; on first international (League of Nations) committee on status of women 1937; President World Court 1949-52.

Quotations

"[The right to use force] exists only in the case of legitimate defence and collective action against aggression." (Cours d'Institutions Internationales, p. 247, 1956; photo intlawgirls)

Agnes Bauerlein

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Overview

Agnes Bauerlein (née Schretien) born Nijmegen, Netherlands February 12, 1928 (d. 2015). American war resister after family died in allied bombing 1944; social worker; influenced by Dorothy Day; welcomed Vietnamese refugees 1975; put up Berrigans during their trial 1982; arrested DC for nuclear protest; jailed 10 days for destroying nuclear weapons plans in AVCO plant 1983; month in Iraq desert with Gulf Peace Team 1991 trying to avert war. a week in prison for Iraq War protest 2001.

Quotations

“It is my fear that we in the U.S. are just as apathetic as the German population in the late 1930s. I certainly see apathy on the nuclear issue. The U.S. military complex is alive and well, and the prospect of its growth is very real unless we, the American people, let our democratic government know that we don’t need it.” (Satya, Sep. 2001; photo New York Times)

Beatrix of The Netherlands

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Overview

Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, born Baarn, Netherlands January 31, 1938. Received pacifist education in Bilthoven; awarded Charlemagne Prize for European Unity, 1996.

Quotations

"We must not confine peace and freedom, security and wealth only to Western Europe. That would be inequitable and shortsighted." (Acceptance speech; 2008 photo Wikipedia)

Lydia Becker

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Overview

Lydia Becker born Chadderton, Lancashire, England February 23, 1827 (d. 1890). English suffrage leader, scientist, and peace advocate. Opposed Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71; Bosnia War, 1876; first Boer War, 1878.

Quotations

“An unnecessary war is a national crime. Shall women be dragged into this crime against their consent? A war involves heavy and grinding taxation. . . A war involves bereavement and misery.” (Englishwoman’s Review, Feb. 1, 1878, in Heloise Brown, The Truest Form of Patriotism, p. 34; portrait Girton College)

Ria Beckers

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Overview

Catherina "Ria" Beckers-De Bruijn born Driebergen, Netherlands November 2, 1938 (d. 2006). Dutch politician; environmentalist; classics teacher. First woman to head a Dutch political party, the environmental Political Party Radicals (PPR), 1977; later became head of GreenLeft Party, 1990-93. Opposed Gulf War, 1990, Iraq War, 2003. (photo nrc.nl)

Bodil Begtrup

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Overview

Bodil Begtrup born Nyborg, Denmark November 12, 1903 (d. 1987). Danish diplomat and feminist; delegate to League of Nations, 1938; founder and first chair of UN Commission on Women, 1947; led work on Declaration of Human Rights, 1948; first Danish female ambassador, 1949; led rescue of children from war.

Quotations

"If we want the women of the world to take an active part in the affairs of the world and of their communities, we must do more than give them equal status with men and urge them on to active public life—we must make it possible for them to accept their responsibilities as citizens, to freely, and without anxiety or strain, take their place with men in order to accomplish, jointly, with the men of the world, those great tasks that must be fulfilled if thinking and living on this earth are to transcend to any degree at all the thinking and living it has known so far!" (1946, http://bit.ly/SFQwcs; photo Nurn. Menschenrechts Zen.)

Sarla Behn

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Overview

Sarla Behn (née Catherine Mary Heilman) born Shepherd’s Bush, London, England April 5, 1901 (d. 1982). British Gandhian social reformer. Spent eight years in Gandhi's ashram. Imprisoned two years during the Quit India protests. Founded Lakshmi Ashram to empower women, 1946. Active in Bhave's Bhoodan (“land gift”) movement. Founded Chipko environmental movement, 1972.

Quotations

“The education system in Udaipur involved four hours of teaching and four hours of manual working in fields, besides cleaning toilets, washing own clothes and cooking. This spirited me and encouraged me to work more for women and dignity of labour.” (autobiography, in The Tribune, Aug. 24, 2015; photo uttarkhaand-times)

Meg Beresford

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Overview

Meg Beresford born London, England September 5, 1937. British campaigner against nuclear weapons. Organizing Secretary for European Nuclear Disarmament (END), 1981-83; General Secretary of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1985-90.

Quotations

"It's not just the case of trying to stop a nuclear war but of showing that people have been dying for the last 40 years because of the nuclear industry." (New Scientist, p. 88, June 13, 1985)

Marie Louise Berneri

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Overview

Marie Louise Berneri born Arezzo, Italy March 1, 1918 (d. 1949). Italian philosopher; writer and editor on anarchism; author of Journey Through Utopia. Opposed the regimes of Mussolini and Franco, and World War II, for which the English tried her for inciting disaffection.

Quotations

“Our age is an age of compromises, of half-measures, of the lesser evil. . . ’practical men’ rule our lives. . . We no longer try to abolish war, but to avoid it for a period of a few years.” (Introduction, Journey Through Utopia)

Julia Bertrand

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Overview

Julia Bertrand born Vosges, France February 13, 1877 (d. 1960). Nonviolent anarchist; radical anti-militarist; president of League of Feminists Against War (LFCG). Detained in prison camp for anti-military views, 1914-15.

Quotations

"If men cannot assure the peace of the world, we, the women, give our work and our voice. . . Creators of life, defend it!" (Éliane Gubin, Siècle de Féministes, p. 199; photo http://bit.ly/JKUZ73)

Louisa Sarah Bevington

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Overview

Louisa Sarah Bevington born Battersea, Surrey (now Wandsworth, London), England May 14, 1846 (d. 1895). Poet and essayist. Raised a Quaker, became leading anarchist opposed to violence.

Quotations

'Dreamers?' Ah, no! else he was a dreamer,
Our crucified brother of long, long ago;
Arrested, and jeered at; 'seditious;' 'blasphemer;'
And legally slain, lest the people should know

That 'Kingdom' is coming, on earth as 'within you,'
The reign of sweet peace, and goodwill amongst men;
'Tis suffering violence? Yes, in the taking;
Yet, taken, there shall not be fighting again.

(“Dreamers?”)

Henriette Bie Lorentzen

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Overview

Henriette Bie Lorentzen (née Anna Henriette Wegner Haagaas) born Vestre Aker (now Oslo) Norway July 18, 1911 (d. 2001). Norwegian humanist; peace activist; founding teacher Nansen Academy 1937; arrested by Gestapo 1943, tortured while pregnant; survived Ravensbrück; founding editor publisher magazine “Women and Time” 1945-55; active in Grandmothers Against Atom Weapons 1983.

Quotations

“I worked systematically to accustom myself to death tank. I remember saying to myself day after day: Once I die, you've gotten a lot out of life. I think I managed to look death in the face. I was 33 years old when I came to Ravensbrück and had, after all, a life behind me." (Andreas Skartveit, wikipedia.no; photo Wikipedia)

Caroline Ashurst Biggs

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Overview

Caroline Ashurst Biggs born Leicester, England August 23, 1840 (d. 1889). English novelist, editor, and women’s rights advocate; feminist, abolitionist, suffrage leader.

Quotations

“We believe that one great effect of the right of women to co-operate with men in political life will be that the horrors of war will in great measure be averted, and its sufferings alleviated.” (Englishwoman’s Review, June 15, 1876, in Heloise Brown, Truest Form of Patriotism, p. 29; portrait bc.in)