In 1965, fed up with President Lyndon Johnson's refusal to make
serious diplomatic efforts to end the Vietnam War, a group of
female American peace activists decided to take matters into their
own hands by meeting with Vietnamese women to discuss how to end
U.S. intervention. While other attempts at women's international
cooperation and transnational feminism have led to cultural
imperialism or imposition of American ways on others, Jessica
M.Frazier reveals an instance when American women crossed
geopolitical boundaries to criticize American Cold War culture, not
promote it. The American women Frazier studies not only solicited
Vietnamese women's opinions and advice on how to end the war but
also viewed them as paragons of a new womanhood by which American
women could rework their ideas of gender, revolution, and social
justice during an era of reinvigorated feminist agitation.
Unlike the many histories of the Vietnam War that end with an
explanation of why the memory of the war still divides U.S.
society, by focusing on linkages across national boundaries,
Frazier illuminates a significant moment in history when women
formed effective transnational relationships on genuinely
cooperative terms.