Enloe and Myers’ work brings to attention the issue of sexual harassment and violence against women in the military. Whereas Myers’ work focuses on American women’s experience working in the military, Enloe looks at other nation’s militaries and we can see the same trend even those Enloe and Myers are both speaking about different time periods. This is both shocking and frightening because it shows how times have not changed. It is still in the nation’s interest to masculinize men, especially the men we put in our military. This masculinization process, Enloe argues, inadvertently sends messages of violence, power, and control, which pave way for a susceptibility of sexual violence against women. Enloe also points out that by defining masculinity, nations also define femininity to re-enforce the power and control that men have over women.
When we read excerpts like this for class, we tend to distance ourselves from the writing, from the authors, and from the entire time period. Even though Myers’ article was just 2 years ago, some might think that the changes have alleviated al the issues this article brought up. However, this is very relevant to today, fits very well with my news flashes about the status of global feminism (especially the one I wrote about mail-order-brides), and in some ways, hits close to home.
(The rest of my post is emailed)
It is always a pleasure to read Enloe because she challenges her readers to think outside the obvious. Even her chapter for this week, which emphasizes and analyzes masculinity, is a fresh new direction to looking at femininity.
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