Women in Black dress down to speak up.

The activist group, founded in March by islanders Sharon Winn, Brooke Thompson, Ann Strickland and Kathryn Horsley, wear black as a statement against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Each Friday afternoon, the group are joined by five to 15 women in a strictly silent vigil on the northwest corner of Winslow Way and Highway 305.

“I find I am totally with those women in Israel and Palestine who have lost people,” Horsley said. “I can only try to feel a tiny fraction of their anguish.”

The site was selected for maximum exposure to passing ferry traffic. Some passersby make derisive comments, while others wave in solidarity.

Yet the women do not speak, refusing to engage or be engaged in argument or debate by those who travel by.

The men who come to the events play a supporting role, handing out leaflets.

But the women say it is important that their own gender play the dominant role, to redress imbalances in the public arena.

“Often women do let men speak for them, especially in articulating policy,” Horsley said.

The local Women in Black group is part of a worldwide movement that began in Israel in early 1988, just after the start of the first Palestinian uprising.

A few Israeli women gathered to protest their country’s occupation by holding a silent vigil in black clothing with a sign that read “Stop the Occupation.”

They were joined by Palestinian women as the vigils spread to the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

A grassroots movement dedicated to promoting peace and justice, Women in Black often addresses pertinent local issues as well.

Italian Women in Black may target the mafia and German women oppose neo-Nazism and racism against migrant workers.

But commonality of attire and attitude binds the otherwise autonomous groups into a loose network.

They weep

For islander Mary Piette, standing with Women in Black began as an outward show of solidarity with other women, but has also become a journey inward.

Although she found not talking “excruciating” at first, Piette soon discovered that standing in silence heightened her awareness of the reactions of passersby.

“I found myself noticing people and small gestures. I watched drivers who looked puzzled, those who seemed stunned and others who were angry,” Piette said. “Many signaled through a glance or gesture that they wished they could join us. Some, in tears, came to thank us.”

Provoking reaction is important, Strickland notes.

“The people who stand here are doing it for a reason – to create dialogue,” she said. “If people have a question, maybe they’ll come find out who we are.”

While she agrees that making a statement is important, Piette said that the experience of the silent vigils continues to deepen for her.

As she stands in silence, she grieves for friends and family lost in two world wars.

“I wept for my own family, which was a victim of war,” Piette said. “My father, a World War I soldier and wounded survivor, had, in moments of memory and anger, made our family the brunt of that anger. I wept for many of my friends’ older brothers and sisters, who had been swept away in World War II.

“I wept for all the victims of wars…and in the process of joining with women everywhere, I have found healing.”