On the cost of feminist curiosity: What price do we have to pay?
“Beware the adjective ‘natural’. Beware ‘trivial’. Both are boulders rolled up against a door you may want to open. Rolling away those boulders can take a lot of intellectual and social stamina.’’ (Enloe 2007, 10). By this, I believe Enloe is referring to the cost element of feminist curiosity. To be feminist curious, one needs to be dedicated, committed, ready to accept criticism and prepare to sacrifice. She explained further that, exercising feminist curiosity requires direct and conscious efforts. And yes, there will be friends, family members, work colleagues, and bystanders who would see you weird when you ask feminist curious questions. Those scornful looks will surely drain your energy and even discourage you. That is why one must be committed and ready to expense some energy into persuading the public into taking
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full responsibility for the situation and condition of women. She notes in an example; ‘’thinking about your lecture about international terrorism, professor, shouldn’t we ask ‘where are the women?’’’ Or ‘’ excuse me, sir, but in your discussion about nuclear trade policy, do you think that it matters to ask about the international contest over masculinity?’’ (ibid, 11) Enloe argues that asking such questions as illustrated above takes a lot of energy and courage.
Therefore, Feminists, advocates, practitioners, and scholars need to be prepared to develop the kind of courage that is needed. The intellectual stamina and energy required to exercise feminist curiosity do not come uninvited. It is consciously cultivated and nurtured. I feel this revelation by Enloe is not meant to discourage us from exercising feminist curiosity. Rather, I believe it is an honest admission that there is a personal cost involved in pursuing social justice – a kind of cost that is more of an encouragement than a dissuasion. I feel this is meant to motivate and inspire us to expense energy to roll off the boulders on the door to shed lights on women’s situations. It is often said that you need to know your enemy in order to fight them. I believe this is the point Enloe is driving at. It is only when we know that people will raise eyebrows, make condescending remarks and gestures that will we be in the position to prepare well for an insightful and constructive
engagement. To conclude Enloe has shown that it is not fun to continue to consider women’s situations and conditions as normal and trivial. Women’s conditions are a serious matter that we need to interrogate, question, and analyzed. By analysis, she means asking the critical questions concerning how and in what ways decisions affect men and women; about how power differentials between men and women lead to the construction of roles; and questions about how the power differentials widen or shrink the inequality between men and women globally, locally or both. Exercising such a feminist analysis of the conditions of women would help determine how the global world is structured. It would help unravel the complex and the hidden lines in the world’s complex systems in which women have been assigned some roles and forced to act in certain ways. In addition, exercising feminist curiosity will be useful in enhancing both the theoretical and practical understanding of the diverse lived experiences of women. By understanding and taking the diverse lived experiences of women seriously, scholars and practitioners would be moving closer to proposing strategies aim at shrinking the inequality gap. Enloe also made it clear that exercising gender curiosity is not a passive endeavor. It requires commitment, energy, and courage. I would add patience to list. I believe patience is also key in rolling off the boulders. To contribute to Enloe’s arguments, I believe that by exercising feminist curiosity, we need to be careful not to shame. In fact, if I understood Enloe well, feminist curiosity is not a naming and shaming exercise. Neither is it a witch-hunting exercise. It is a genuine and serious endeavor that calls on the public to take responsibility and to take action, just like in Climate change, Nuclear Proliferation, HIV/AIDS or other global issues. There is the high probability of failure if activists either knowingly or unknowingly interpret feminist curiosity and more broadly, other issues concerning the relationship between men and women as a naming and shaming exercise. In order to achieve success, we need all hands-on-deck. Inclusivity, cooperation, and collaboration should be the way to go. Both men and women must be involved.
However, we cannot completely assume this article is going to persuade all women to progress beyond these issues by uniting and devoting themselves to these underlying conflicts. Some readers may fear the impossible of completing such a great task as this because this problem has continued to linger from the 70’s into now. Overall, Laurie has accomplished a great task in showing her dedication to women’s rights and their future by delivering the problems and also giving the readers insight on how to solve them. In detail, Laurie not only explains the issues she has seen, but also she explains her personal experiences so the readers can better relate to the message she is trying to
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Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.
Throughout the texts we have read in English thus far have been feminist issues. Such issues range from how the author published the book to direct, open statements concerning feminist matters. The different ways to present feminist issues is even directly spoken of in one of the essays we read and discussed. The less obvious of these feminist critiques is found buried within the texts, however, and must be read carefully to understand their full meaning- or to even see them.
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Feminism is the movement for removing inequalities from society. Women imbued with a spirit of radicalism understand that a liberal feminist attitude, despite the seeming slowness of change that accompanies it, may transform a community more rapidly than a revolutionary approach that alienates those to be convinced and, thus, extinguishes the possibility of improvement. (Weaver 49) Feminists confront the problems of their society in hopes of altering society to be equal.
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