This radical new analysis of international politics reveals the crucial role of women in implementing governmental foreign policies, be it Soviet Glasnost, Britain’s dealings in the EEC, or the NATO alliance. Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes–governments restricting imported goods, bankers negotiating foreign loans, soldiers serving overseas–and shows that the real landscape is less exclusively male.
Bananas, Beaches and Bases shows ho… More >>
Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics
I can’t call myself a feminist. That would be quite ridiculous. But I have never been one to disparage the motivations of the movement in general. Women have been suppressed and oppressed and still are, for the most part. Their male oppressors still want to tell them what they can or cannot do with their bodies, hence with their very lives. That’s the bottom line. I didn’t really ever do any deep reading in the voluminous literature on feminism, women’s rights, etc. I didn’t think that I was clever for having avoided it, I just didn’t have time or (I admit) burning curiosity. So, when I saw BANANAS, BEACHES and BASES on a bookstore shelf some years ago, I bought it, thinking that the subtitle, “Making Feminist Sense of International Politics” brought together two topics about which I could learn more. I finally read it recently, but must give it a very mixed review.
The author picks some very interesting issues. Tourism for one—a global business that touches nearly every corner of the earth and has created as many problems as it has solved. Mass, commercial tourism can be compared with plantation agriculture or clear-cut logging in terms of the amount of damage it does to human lives and the environment. Enloe brings this out very aptly. Military bases, plantation agriculture (for instance, of bananas), the need for cheap but fashionable, ready-to-wear clothes, and the high demand for domestic servants all fall under her discerning eye. Nobody can argue with her general positions on these subjects or on lesser topics such as `diplomatic wives’ and their ambiguous position in the foreign services of the world. However—and this is a big however—I do disagree with her overall presentation. Sentences like “Yet nationalist movements have rarely taken women’s experiences as the starting point for an understanding of how a people becomes colonized or how it throws off the shackles….” appalled me. Why just women ? Haven’t the men been exploited, albeit in different ways ? Is not the entire country affected ? Prostitution exploits women, we are reminded. There is a vast number of male and child prostitutes too, just as exploited. Domestic violence may assist base commanders, but this is very far from being what is centrally dangerous and exploitative about bases. Such simplistic examples are legion in this book.
I think the basic fault of BB & B is to separate the fate of women from that of men or rather, from the fate of all victims of imperialism, oppression, and exploitation. If Enloe’s aim was merely to show how women have been severely oppressed in X numbers of ways, that would be fine. But it is a reductionist argument to claim that women should be the focus for anti-exploitative actions, that women are central to the solutions. As women are half the human race, it is OBVIOUS that they cannot be excluded. Men have controlled and do control women, but international politics cannot be interpreted as a system for controlling women ! It is a system of power and anything and everything will be controlled if it can be. Feminism, as an attack on the way the world is presently constructed, is strong. Gender, as an ideological mode or framework, is weak, just as race, class, religion or language would be. Male/female, light/dark, yin/yang—these are eternal principles that cannot be ignored. ANY solution which leaves out a part, is no solution. If that were the only message Enloe put out, I would have no quarrel with her. As it is, I do.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book is an original study of international politics through the lens of women who influence husbands who happen to be the major power brokers within the international system. Enloe also studies how third world women are used as expressions of sexual and national power through agribusiness, tourism, and military bases.
This work is enlightening because it examines the quiet yet immensely influential roles women play within the geopolitical economic system. Unfortunately where Enloe falls short is her limited scope of how she defines masculinity and femininity. Ultimately she defines them as constructs forged out of power, rather than choice, however when it comes to these types of dichotomized debates, the answers usually fall somewhere in the middle. Enloe’s main thesis is that the personal is political, therefore the power plays within international politics correlates strongly with the power struggles within the personal relationships between men and women.
First, what isn’t clear is Enloe’s use of the term `political’ in which she also uses to mean `economical’. The problem is if you don’t clearly distinguish between the two then it’s difficult to identify who is a genuine victim of the vicissitudes of international political fiat, versus someone who is making choices deciding between trade offs in an environment limited by scarcity. Enloe commits this fallacy because she views today’s market system as a form of neo-mercantilism. In some cases she may be right but nevertheless it’s important to make the distinction. In addition, if the personal is political and the political is economical, why should the political/economical be of concern to anyone if the source of it all is personal and people are happy within the personal? It only makes a difference if you believe the personal to be a construct forged primarily out of power, rather than of choice or even symbiotic in nature. In this case happiness isn’t possible because when it comes to power, there is always a winner and a loser. Therefore commanding power over international politics means commanding power within the personal. The problem is power is subjective and arbitrary. If masculinity and femininity are simply power constructs then ones power is as good as the other. Questions of morality, rights, obligations and expressions of individual free will are inapplicable. Secondly, Enloe discusses how both first and third world women are `used by the makers of the international political system’, who are primarily men. However, Enloe limits her definition of masculinity within the context of European nationalism. What about third world men who are `used by the makers of the international political system’? To discuss their role, Enloe risks watering down her general theory that the source of international politics lies primarily within the personal power struggles between men and women.
Despite these criticisms this is a great book and it’s highly recommended for anyone interested in learning about the `quiet’ power women have in influencing international affairs.
Rating: 4 / 5
Enloe’s book is fascinating and I enjoyed reading it. Unlike some other feminist authors, she uses concrete examples based in reality and includes entertaining (and relevant) vignettes. A few times, she ventures a bit too far into the vast abyss of hyper-feminism (one example: drawing direct parallels between the shape of bananas and the phallus in light of banana plantations that indeed did exploit and discriminate against women). Overall, though, Enloe is down to earth and blends minimal amounts of theory with reality. I would recommend the book to others.
Rating: 3 / 5
An excellent book for anyone interested in feminism, international politics, or simply if you want an informative and interesting non-fiction book. The pressing question of BB&B is: “‘Where are the women at?’” Cynthia Enloe takes the reader on a tour of some international hot topics and explores this question. Terrific book and I could not put it down. For a long time I had been searching for a feminist critique of the military, etc and I found exactly what I was looking for here.
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve been studying international politics and gender issues for some time but they’ve always been presented as separate subjects. To find a cohesive, academic work integrating the two was fabulous. Her work is jointly informative and interesting providing enough theory to be of academic interest and enough examples to exceed the category of a mere textbook. Highly recommend this!
Rating: 5 / 5