The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire

In this anthology of essays, Cynthia Enloe articulates globalization and international relations by, "developing a feminist curiosity" (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 3). This "feminist curiosity" starts with taking women, their perspectives, their contributions, seriously. Timing is crucial, as we are seeing time of unparalleled American sway vis-à-vis globalization and international relations. What this entails is listening. By listening to women in Asian sneaker factories, Enloe brings to presence, a quotidian discussions of the global economy (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 43-56). By listening to Iraqi women under military occupation, Enloe exposes the bogus global promises made by officials (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 268-308). The Curious Feminist shows how taking women seriously also confronts what is naturalized thus assumed (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 1-2) and that masculinities are not inconsequential factors in today's international affairs (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 301-305). In the end, Enloe reminds us of the need to be curious about our lack of curiosity. We need to be, according to Enloe curious about the details, the quotidian, and the ordinary. We need to be curious so we can understand how and why the power structure is the way it is. Because capitalism (our economic foundation), racism (our social foundation), militarism as well as imperialism (as part of our globalizing agenda) is part of a conspiracy of the patriarchy and we seem to accept all this stuff as common sense and matter of fact, Enloe's The Curious Feminist is timely and needs to be read and read repeatedly. Enloe is also introspective. In four interesting and diverse interviews as well as a series of autobiographical essays, Enloe outlines the development of her feminist curiosity (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 83-98, 131-144, 155-192, and 237-267). In The Curious Feminist, Enloe narrates her wartime suburban childhood and her time spent at Berkeley, she outlines the day-to-day tribulations placed along the path to feminist curiosity (Enloe, The Curious Feminist 309-317). A "feminist curiosity" I argue Enloe means, it to see all women worthy of consideration -- women matter. In what seems like a reversal, Enloe's intervention is really to see how women who appear complicit in the maintenance, and at times the formation of the hegemony. The power of Enloe's book is not that it provides pat answers but that it has the courage to ask some key questions and for the answers to become self-evident.