Cynthia Enloe - Important Writings

Important Writings

In The Curious Feminist, Enloe pays particular attention to the effect of globalization on women’s labor and wage ratios. This book not only addresses women’s roles in economic markets, world conflicts, and power politics, but also shows Enloe’s particular interest in linking these themes to women’s everyday lives. She addresses themes similar to those in Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, but in this book she also discusses how she became interested in becoming a feminist. She asserts that curiosity as a feminist means that no woman’s life should be beyond the scope of her interest. She also focuses on the influence of American culture on women of other nations and scrutinizes the masculine aspects of such well-established organizations as the United Nations and the American military. Among other things, she explains that, though she views violence as fundamentally masculine, she does not view only men as perpetrators of violence.

Bananas, Beaches, and Bases presents sexism as a prevalent issue and gives readers a look at the history of such commonplace components of the modern world as the tourism industry. Enloe displays the links between women of different cultures during the 1800s. Enloe discusses colonialism in light of the typically held perceptions of the masculine West and the feminine East. Discussing women from varied cultures, Enloe investigates how Muslim women, among others, felt compelled to validate their cultural practices in the face of Orientalism. This book argues that lack of understanding of foreign cultures and fascination with the differences in clothing and lifestyles of indigenous and colonial populations contributed to their continued subjugation.

In Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives Enloe elaborates upon the theme of militarization and how governments utilize women’s labor in the process of preparing for and fighting wars.