Curiosity, arguably, is the antidote to the passivity in politics. When we question the assumptions of candidates’ platforms, especially with regard to women, and when we learn from movements that take women seriously, we stand to awaken something more active and empowered within ourselves. In Cynthia Enloe’s words, “This makes us smarter”; feminist knowledge is a potent form of power.Taking women’s lives seriously — an interview with Cynthia Enloe by Stephanie Van Hook September 13, 2012
Professor Enloe is one of the most beloved scholars of feminist political theory in the United States, and has published more than a dozen books — most recently, Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War. She is particularly interested in the how militarism manipulates the lives of women in an effort to foster support for the agenda of war. Her voice is thus timely in the midst of so many political battles in the United States surrounding women’s freedoms. Her work is influential and gripping because it challenges us to cultivate curiosity. In that spirit, I recently had the chance to ask her some questions of my own.
Whenever I write or talk publicly about feminism, I hear people insist that “it’s not just about women.” How do you define feminism?
I think that feminism is about women, but it’s also about women’s relationships: to each other, to the workplace, to men — in families and in the workplace — to governments, and so forth. I think that the core of what feminism is keeps evolving, and no one has this down pat. They shouldn’t! It’s such a dynamic idea, and it grows historically, across cultures. I think that no one should try to have a cookie-cutter answer. But, at this point in my thinking, feminism is the pursuit of deep, deep justice for women in ways that change the behaviors of both women and men, and really change our notions of what justice looks like.
To be doing feminist work everyday, to live like a feminist, you have to take women’s lives seriously. It doesn’t mean that you have to think that every woman is an angel or every woman is politically astute — that is not what feminists believe. They believe that you have got to take all kinds of women seriously or you’ll never understand women’s relationships to men, men’s relationships to each other, or men’s relationships to different forms of activism and to governments. Taking women seriously is hard to do because it means you have to listen to women whom most people don’t think of as experts or don’t think of as politically aware, including women who seem to be very domestically confined. That’s been the biggest revelation to me in becoming a feminist — to take all kinds of women seriously so I can understand the world better.
When did you begin thinking about feminism and its relationship to nonviolence and action for social justice?
I remember the first time I began to really pay attention and think more, and be curious actively about women, feminism, men and nonviolence — all those things together. It was during the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, in the 1980’s in England. The camp was started by a group of women from Wales who sat around their kitchen table and said, “Why is the British government working hand in hand with the American government to base nuclear missiles here?” Greenham Common was a small town in southern England and a U.S. military base. They literally got up from their kitchen tables in Wales and started a walk. It started out as a mixed walk of men and women, though the core group was women.
http://www.wagingnonviolence.org/feature/taking-womens-lives-seriously-an-interview-with-cynthia-enloe/[continued, click on link]
Stephanie Van Hook is the Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence (www.mettacenter.org) and serves as the Director of Conflict Resolution Services for the Green Shadow Cabinet. She can be reached at stephanie@mettacenter.org
Women’s Issues Matter
August 4, 2014
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