Summary Of Updating The Gendered Empire By Cynthia Enloe

In the writing by Cynthia Enloe, "Updating the Gendered Empire: Where are Women in Occupied Afghanistan and Iraq", she studies the role of women during wartime. She looks at the way in which women are used as a symbol by American leadership to legitimize the invasions of Afghanistan, yet the strategies employed complicate and contradict that message. One of her main points is that there needs to be a discussion about women. Without a dialogue, there will be no growth in politics of femininity. Therefore, there will be no lasting change in the unequal power arrangements at home and abroad (305).

Women are often labeled as “needing saving” which has been a common theme in our readings this semester. Enloe says, “Women are deemed crucial by the rivals, but merely as symbols, subordinates, admirers, or spectators” (304). She also includes that the supposed freedom and liberation of women that the west promotes becomes a front because women are merely playing a male-determined role for the victorious side. To put simply, even women in power are always at a disadvantage. I

thought that this was especially interesting because even if policies and laws change allowing women more opportunities for power, these changes may be useless simply because they are women.
Something that I found intriguing was the exercise where women and men would “stand up” and represent different women in different walks of life.

It was supposed to show that wide ranges of women feel the range of men-dominated imperial influence and that it is a more complicated relationship than originally thought. Enloe determines from this exercise that women are actually very involved in empire building through their daily tasks. She concludes that women’s roles can’t be seen as ordinary. This was a fascinating observation because it seems to suggest some independence but she says that in actuality, these women are counted on by “foreign policy-makers to keep playing their supportive, or at least passive roles” (274). Therefore, these roles are not opposing but rather ones where the conventionalism of women helps keep the gender power structure

successful.
Finally, Enloe speaks critically to the threat of violence against women. She mentions that the effects it has on women can cause restrictions in their lives. She discussed certain terms like “security” which was a word used by the Bush administration in 2001. This plays a huge role in women’s role of seeming passivity or lack of political activism. It places a role on women that they need saving and to be secure which leaves room for men to be the heroes.

Questions:

1. Should women play into their typical role as being seen as passive and innocent to help their government? Is that potentially a problem for feminism?
2.What could be a potential solution to Enloe’s point about the way we talk about women and how it causes restrictions?

Enloe, C. (2004). Updating the Gendered Empire: Where are Women in Occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. The Curious Feminist. Berkeley: University of California Press.