Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics [Updated Edition] [Paperback]

Cynthia Enloe (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520229126 | ISBN-13: 978-0520229129 | Publication Date: 2000 | Edition: updated

This radical analysis of globalization reveals the crucial role of women in international politics today. Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes--governments promoting tourism, companies moving their factories overseas, soldiers serving on foreign soil--and shows that the real landscape is not exclusively male. She describes how many women's seemingly personal strategies--in their marriages, in their housework, in their coping with ideals of beauty--are, in reality, the stuff of global politics. In exposing policymakers' reliance on false notions of "femininity" and "masculinity," Enloe dismantles an apparently overwhelming world system, revealing it to be much more fragile and open to change than we think.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bananas, Beaches and Bases is the most significant book in contemporary feminist international politics. In my view, it is the essential text not only for feminist international politics courses but for anyone interested in starting to understand just how International Politics really works." - Marysia Zalewski, author of Feminism After Postmodernism: Theorising Through Practice "A new edition of Bananas, Beaches and Bases is cause for cosmic good cheer. This trailblazing treatment of the gender politics of global market and military projects is a feminist classic. Always ahead of the curve, before globalization had achieved cache in academic circles, Enloe was there, cajoling Western feminists out of our political parochialism. There is no more creative, insightful, engaging feminist guide to international politics." - Judith Stacey, author of Brave New Families "Bananas, Beaches and Bases is both a 'Pandora's box' and a roadmap. As the 'magna carta' of Feminist International Relations, it has helped create a new generation of women and men in the world of international relations." - Katharine Moon,author of Sex Among Allies "With this volume, Cynthia Enloe single-handedly carved out a major new field. Combining contemporary political insight and historical sensitivity, Bananas, Beaches and Bases revealed the gendered workings of high politics, without which the entire machinery of war, diplomacy and governance would have long since collapsed. A pioneering tour-de-force." - Philippa Levine,author of Victorian Feminism, 1850-1900"

From the Inside Flap

"I have no hesitation in describing Bananas, Beaches and Bases as the most significant book in contemporary feminist International Politics. Each time I re-visit it, I am taken aback by its profound implications for both feminism and International Politics. The deceptively provocative question at its core--'where are the women?'--irrevocably transforms our views about what the central and important landscape of global politics is. In my view, it is the essential text not only for feminist International Politics courses but for anyone interested in starting to understand just how International Politics really works."--Marysia Zalewski, author of Feminism After Postmodernism: Theorising Through Practice

"A new edition of Bananas, Beaches, and Bases is cause for cosmic good cheer. This trailblazing treatment of the gender politics of global market and military projects is a feminist classic. Always ahead of the curve, before globalization had achieved cache in academic circles Enloe was there, cajoling Western feminists out of our political parochialism. There is no more creative, insightful, engaging feminist guide to international politics. Cynthia Enloe is an international feminist treasure, and Bananas, Beaches, and Bases her signature work."--Judith Stacey, author of Brave New Families

"Bananas, Beaches, and Bases is both a 'Pandora's Box' and a roadmap: It unleashes questions and insights that many conventional students of International Politics are accustomed to ignoring or overlooking about the dynamic between gender and international political life, and it guides us to see how both are mutually constitutive. As the "magna carta" of Feminist International Relations, it has helped create a new generation of women and men in the world of international relations."--Katharine Moon, author of Sex Among Allies

"Cynthia Enloe writes with passion, conviction, intelligence and verve as she makes such good feminist sense of international politics that the world never looks quite the same again. Innovative and a great read, Bananas, Beaches and Bases continues to be an outstanding example of the difference gender makes in social analysis. This is a book which provokes discussion with students, colleagues, friends and family. It is a book which has set the standard form much that followed. A classic."--Diane Bell, author of Ngarrindjeri Wurrurwarrin: A World That Is, Was, and Will Be

"With this volume, Cynthia Enloe single-handedly carved out a major new field. Combining contemporary political insight and historical sensitivity, Bananas, Beaches and Bases revealed the gendered workings of high politics, without which the entire machinery of war, diplomacy and governance would have long since collapsed. A pioneering tour-de-force."--Philippa Levine, author of Victorian Feminism, 1850-1900

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; updated edition (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520229126
• ISBN-13: 978-0520229129
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #100,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #17 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Civil Rights

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Entertaining Read, October 28, 1998

By 

E. Walton (DULUTH, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Paperback)

My brother brought this home from school. He said he hated it. I read it and loved it. Some of her theories are a little far-out, but most of what she says makes sense. Her major point is "The personal is political, the personal is international." Enloe makes some amazing and original connections between institutions and policies that are considered inherent and gender roles. Don't limit this to the text book category.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Women and Global Politics, October 17, 2001

By 

Jennifer heath (chapel hill, nc United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics [Updated Edition] (Paperback)

What do nationalism, Chiquita bananas and Mexican garment factories have in common? In Cynthia Enloe's trailblazing book, they illuminate the interplay between global politics and women. Few scholars have investigated why and how international politics and global trade shape definitions of masculinity and femininity; this book does that and more, providing new perspectives on the gendering of power. For Enloe, power imbues the cultural, social and economic interactions that gird global politics; "relationships we once imagined were private or merely social are in fact infused with power, usually unequal power backed up by public authority (p.195)." Here, Enloe extends the analytical approach Friedan used in The Feminine Mystique (1963), which considered the connection between feminine stereotypes and evolving US global power and security interests. Enloe pushes Friedan's analysis into a global context and brings into sharper focus the way public politics are masculinized via the control of women's activities.

Each of the chapters in Enloe's book explores a different theme -- from tourism to US military bases -- in order to demonstrate how the personal is political and the political is personal. Enloe most successfully draws out the linkages between domestic life and public authority in her chapters on nationalism, banana republics and garment factories. Looking at the experiences of women in places as diverse as Sri Lanka and Palestine, Enloe finds women asserting a sense of national identity that conflicts with their feminine roles of tending home and children. Even more problematic, if increased militarization creates an emphasis on communal unity, issues of sexual inequality are often discounted; thus, the nation is redefined, but in a masculinized form. Enloe's most global chapter nicely couples women in the United States with women in Honduras, both of whom the United Fruit Company controls to a certain degree by promoting and relying on women's feminized roles. In the United States, housewives respond to advertising and turn bananas into a booming business, while in Honduras, mothers and daughters accept low paid work on banana plantations or in nearby brothels. In a later chapter, Enloe turns to the international garment industry, noting again how industry keeps women's work cheap by drawing on patriarchal ideas about labor. At the same time, concepts like risk and adventure underlie international financial decisions and masculinize global banking, the money driving the garment industry.

In arguing that international processes depend on particular configurations of masculinity and femininity, Enloe has produced an important work. However, this book is so wide ranging that it often forgoes providing a complex analysis of its topics; Enloe makes sweeping and often simplistic generalizations, such as "international tourism needs patriarchy to survive (p.41)." Yet Enloe depicts a tourism industry that responds to changing cultural and social norms; for example, the tourist industry incorporates the idea, launched by women, of the white female adventurer. Enloe wants to demonstrate the importance of gender in tourism; however, this reader was more struck by the way her book illustrates tourism's dependency on racism for its survival. In addition, many of Enloe's linkages, especially between female sexuality and the control of predominantly male populations, while intuitively comprehensible, are poorly supported by evidence. The presence of high levels of prostitution around US military bases, for example in the Philippines, seems at least equally tied to issues of international economics as it is to providing security for military bases. Why, I wonder, is there a collapse (in the host country) of previously defining notions about male / female domestic and sexual relations? Why are the patriarchal values that keep women at home or considering the needs of their compañeros in Afghanistan and Mexico suddenly demolished in the Philippines? Attention to the pressure that international economics places on the gendering of domestic relations in countries that maintain US military bases would have nuanced Enloe's argument.

Despite these flaws, Enloe should be commended for broadening our understanding of global politics. Indeed, Enloe challenges our conceptions of international politics while empowering female readers to think about how global issues might relate to their own experiences. The author's portrayal of the September 19th Garment Workers Union in Mexico highlights how women can recognize their dehumanized role in the global economic system; moreover, in examining the lives of working women across the globe, she calls on middle class feminists to hear and support a diversity of female needs. This book provides a welcome addition to current scholarship on the global market and will benefit anyone interested in considering the complex forms that power can take in international politics.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, December 8, 2002

By 

J (Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics [Updated Edition] (Paperback)

I've been studying international politics and gender issues for some time but they've always been presented as separate subjects. To find a cohesive, academic work integrating the two was fabulous. Her work is jointly informative and interesting providing enough theory to be of academic interest and enough examples to exceed the category of a mere textbook. Highly recommend this!