Just watch us : RCMP surveillance of the women's liberation movement in cold war Canada / Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sethna, Christabelle, 1961- author.

Hewitt, Steve, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Royal Canadian Mounted Police--History--20th century.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Intelligence service--Canada--History--20th century.

Intelligence service.

Internal security--Canada--History--20th century.

Internal security.

Feminism--Canada--History--20th century.

Feminism.

Women--Political activity--Canada--History--20th century.

Women.

Cold War.

Women--Political activity.

History.

Canada.

Physical Description:

viii, 300 pages, 18 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

RCMP surveillance of the women's liberation movement in cold war Canada

Royal Canadian Mounted Police surveillance of the women's liberation movement in cold war Canada

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2018]

Summary:

"This book investigates the surveillance of the women's liberation movement by the RCMP's Security Service, beginning in the late 1960s and stretching into the mid-1980s during the feminist second wave. It is based upon a close reading of thousands of pages of documents declassified under Canada's Access to Information Act (ATI). Spotted Throughout with Red considers both the machinations of the security service and the rise and fall of the feminist movement, with particular attention paid to its broad transnational origins and influences and the elusive quest for unity across lines of ideology, identity, and sexuality, among other markers of difference. Spying on the women's liberation movement is an example of the broadening of state surveillance from a narrow anti-Communist focus to a variety of domestic targets identified with the left. At the same time, state surveillance of the women's liberation movement, which focused mainly on gender equality, differed from spying on other^ women's organizations connected to trade unionism or communism. Crucially, the files show how this male-dominated police force, staffed only by men until 1974, had particular expectations and interpretations of the women liberationists' appearance and behaviour which coloured their understanding of a movement intent on sparking a revolutionary reboot of gender relations. They also reveal the use of women informants, which significantly troubles the notion of sisterhood and has potentially serious consequences for those who took part in the movement. The authors reflect on the historiographical, methodological, and ethical challenges associated with using state surveillance files. Rising to the surface is the form and texture of everyday activism and surveillance, and the multiple ways in which those quotidian realities interconnected over time. By positioning surveillance of the women's liberation movement in Canada firmly within the context of the Cold War, the book aims to contribute ^to scholarship in surveillance studies, widen our understanding of state surveillance during the "long sixties," and to provide a new perspective on the history of feminist activism. More broadly, domestic surveillance of second wave feminism is a critical bridge linking a period that concentrated on communism and subversion in the late 20th century to a focus on terrorism and extremism in the 21st century."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The red-tinged prism

A revolution hidden in plain sight

On to Ottawa redux

The limits of global sisterhood

Evolution and decline

The paradox of the Mountie bounty.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-288) and index.

Other Format:

Sethna, Christabelle Laura, 1961-, author. Just watch us.

ISBN:

0773552820

9780773552821

OCLC:

1013502510