Is Cindy Sheehan a Lone Nut or Just 'Lone? Women's Organizations' Retreat from Foreign Policy.

At least since the early 20th century, the United States has been gripped by fundamental questions about its proper place in the world. Should America intervene in other nations' affairs, or isolate itself from their difficulties? Cooperate in international institutions or aggressively assert its sovereignty? Make war or make peace? These dueling conceptions of America's place have come to fore repeatedly, such as when Congress considered whether to support a World Court in the 1920s, whether to provide massive post-War aid to Europe in the 1940s, or whether to provide military and economic assistance to halt communism during the Cold War decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Although foreign policy is a stereotypically "male" domain, U.S. women's groups have played a central role in nearly all of the important foreign policy debates of the 20th century. Over many decades, women's leaders marched up to Capitol Hill to take a stand - typically for international engagement and global peace. And yet, by the 1990s and early 2000s, women's groups had almost completely disengaged from foreign affairs. Why? Using more than 100 years of data on women's groups' Congressional testimony, this paper will examine the rise of foreign policy on women's organizational agenda - and then the dramatic fall. In examining women's historical role in American foreign affairs, this study will unravel the contemporary puzzle of Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother who set up camp outside President Bush's ranch to protest the war that killed her son and was subsequently vilified as a "lone nut" out of step with mainstream sentiment on the Iraqi invasion. This study will suggest that Cindy Sheehan is not so much a lone nut as just alone. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]