Product Description
With a new preface by the author.
In the tradition of Backlash and The Morning After, and in a political climate where Roe v. Wade is in serious jeopardy, a young activist reveals that the Pro-Life Movement's real agenda is a war on contraception, family planning, and sexual freedom. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Vigorous pro-abortion polemic
I am pro-life.I read this book, to educate myself on the point of view of the other side.I found it an interesting read.

Christina Page is a writer and long-time abortion rights advocate.She has a clear, vigorous writing style.Her book is easy to read.In the book, she makes two related arguments.

(a) She argues that the real agenda of the pro-life movement is not anti-abortion.Rather, she argues that the real agenda of the pro-life movement is anti-contraception.She makes a long argument that, if one is primarily focused upon reducing the number of abortions, you would support contraception, because it (in her view) reduces the number of pregnancies and thus of abortions.

(b)She argues that the pro-choice movement has created modern America.She argues that, without abortion rights, women would still be second class citizens, unable to get educations, to work in good jobs and so forth.She argues that reproductive choice is essential to our present way of life.

In addition, she has a long argument that the pro-life forces in the Bush Administration were anti-science.She gives chapter and verse on many disputes within the government over issues such as approving or not approving drugs.

What is my overall reaction to the book?

First, I found it remarkable how totally the pro-life side has won the moral argument.As a pro-life person, I am focused on the question of the morality of killing an unborn baby.I expected an abortion's right advocate to make some kind of argument as to why abortion is not murder.

Page never makes that argument.She implicitly accepts the idea that abortion is murder.Her moral argument instead is two-fold.(a) She says that pro-life people are idealists, and pro-choice people are pragmatists.She says that abortion is going to happen, whether it is legal or not.Since we cannot stop it, it should be legal.(b) She argues that we should focus on trying to reduce the number of abortions, and that the best way to do so is to increase sex education and the availability of contraceptives.

The first argument is morally frivolous.After all, ordinary murder, of adults by adults, has never been stamped out, despite all of the laws against it.Should we legalize ordinary murder, because "people are going to do it anyway?"Of course not.Murder is wrong.We all understand that.

Is it true that contraceptives reduce abortion?Is it true that, if we educate teenagers to use contraceptives, that abortion would go down?Page makes a strong argument for her view.

I, frankly, do not trust her facts and her statistics.She makes some factual assertions that are so silly it calls into question everything she says.For example, she asserts that the Catholic Church was pro-abortion until the 19th century.As evidence, she cites some feminist treatise.Sorry, Ms. Page.I am Catholic.I was recently reading some early Church writers.I found that the Church was taking a very strong stand against all forms of abortion as early as the 1st century A.D.This was a live issue back then; the Romans practiced various forms of abortion and infanticide.By being pro-life, the Church was taking a strong, clear stand against the degraded and degrading morals of the day.I am also familiar with the Church teachings on the subject over the centuries.They have never wavered and never changed.The Church has ALWAYS been pro-life.Anyone who says the contrary is either ignorant or dishonest.

This makes me question Page's argument that contraception reduces abortion.My gut sense is that she is wrong.Like most pro-life people, my instinct says that freely available contraception increases the amount of irresponsible sex, which increases the number of abortions.But, at this point, I do not have any facts to support that gut feeling.

What about Page's arguments?Is the pro-life movement really anti-sex?The Catholic Church is, of course, anti-contraceptive, as well as anti-abortion.I do not know how the other Churches feel on that issue, but it would not surprise me if otherwise traditionalist churches were anti-contraception.All Christian Churches were anti-contraception until the early 20th century.

But does this mean that the real agenda of the pro-life movement is anti-contraception?I think that assertion is absurd and made for political effect.The argument is absurd, because, as far as I know, no one is making any kind of serious push to outlaw contraceptives.Page is trying a political gambit.She knows that abortion makes most Americans uneasy, but most Americans support contraception.She is therefore trying to make abortion more popular by linking the issues.

Cristina Page is brilliant
This book is a detailed look at how the pro-life movement not only is anti-abortion, but anti-contraceptives, and against any lifestyle that includes sex for pleasure. This goes agaisnt how the majority of US citizens want to live their lives! I also saw Cristina Page speak in person, she is very articulate and this book is a must-read for anyone on either side of the issue, or even if you're on the fence.

"Pro-life"? More like "anti-sex," "anti-woman" and "anti-human."
If HOW THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT SAVED AMERICA - the title of Cristina Page's 2006 exposé of the religious right/pro-life movement's true agenda - sounds like liberal hyperbole, chances are that Page wrote this book just for you!

While the "pro-life" movement professes to respect "all life," to the point of holding it sacred, the movement's actions belie this all-too-common assumption. Since the days of Roe v. Wade, pro-lifers have been hammering away at women's - and men's - reproductive rights. In addition to abortion (whether it occurs before the fertilized egg implants in the womb, the point at which those in the medical field consider that a pregnancy has begun, or in the later stages of pregnancy, which is very rare and usually done in order to save the mother's life), the pro-life movement opposes contraception, and not just Plan B (which is not an abortifacient, but rather a high dose of The Pill). Whether the method is hormonal (The Pill, the patch, Plan B, NuvaRing, etc.) or barrier (the condom, the sponge, the cervical cap, the diaphragm, spermicide), pro-lifers oppose it. The only contraceptive method explicitly endorsed by pro-life groups, in fact, is one with dubious efficacy: natural family planning, also called the rhythm method.

The pro-life groups' anti-contraceptive stances - which oftentimes translate into political lobbying and policymaking - expose the "pro-life" movement for what it really is, namely, anti-sex and anti-woman. Sex is a natural and healthy part of (adult) life, Page argues, as is the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies, i.e., contraception. Absent contraception, women are faced with a tough choice: undergo abortion after abortion; birth more children than they want and can reasonably care for; or forgo sex unless the sole intent is procreation (whether married or not). It's these latter two options that the pro-life movement wishes to force on women - and not just those living in the U.S.Meanwhile, the former two scenarios represent the reality for many women: research shows that abstinence education simply doesn't work. Women and men will continue to engage in sex, and when contraception isn't readily available and affordable, unwanted pregnancies and abortion will result. The single best way to prevent abortion, then, is to prevent unwanted and unintended pregnancies - and yet, the pro-life movement crusades against strategies that will do just this, including comprehensive sex ed and contraception. Like I said, "Pro-life"? More like "anti-sex," "anti-woman" and "anti-human."

Armed with a volume of research and statistics, Page demonstrates just how at odds the pro-life movement's views are with those of mainstream America. In particular, she examines the hoopla over Plan B and the HPV vaccine; pro-life groups' anti-condom activities; the defunding by President G.W. Bush of UNFPA; and American life pre- and post-Roe (the latter reads like a precursor to Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE).

Little in HOW THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT SAVED AMERICA will surprise readers who are engaged in the struggle for reproductive rights. At just 238 pages (minus 70 pages of notes and indices), this is a slim tome, especially given the subject matter. On the flip side, had Page made her review of anti-choice activities more exhaustive, HOW THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT SAVED AMERICA could have easily exceeded 500+ pages - thus narrowing her audience considerably. As such, I think the author strikes a nice balance between insight and brevity. It's a quick, easy and informative read; I polished it off in a weekend, and even learned a few new factoids, even though I've been following feminist blogs and organizations for years. Some of the information is by now out of date; hopefully, Page will soon release an updated paperback edition. Still, the book is a good starting point for those new to the politics of reproduction, sexuality and Constitutional rights vis-à-vis bodily privacy.

Other reviewers have accused Page of "cherry-picking" quotes from pro-life websites, press releases and interviews, further arguing that these views do not represent the majority of pro-lifers' views. A laughable observation, as this is precisely Page's point. In the opening pages, Page points out that many laypeople who describe themselves as "pro-life" and donate money to pro-life organizations actually haven't a clue as to these organizations' - and thus the movement's - true beliefs and aims, which go well beyond outlaying abortion. Thus, it's those who oppose abortion - but respect women, men and children and enjoy sex and the right to privacy - who most need to read HOW THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT SAVED AMERICA.Put simply, to be truly "pro-life" is to be "pro-choice."

Interesting Book
Cristina Page's thesis is simple: with the majority of the anti-abortion movement, abortion, or prevention thereof, is not the core issue. Rather, the core issue is the ideology that intercourse cannot take place outside marriage, and even then, birth control is not acceptable. To support this thesis, Page cites examples, of pro-life organizations fighting measures in states that would make health care plans pay for contraceptive services, as well as any kind of measure that would increase daycare funding. Page also includes some rather shocking examples of pharmacists who refused to fillprescription orders for contraception (including that of one rape victim). Other issues discussed include the failure of the nationwide abstinence-only programs, and the FDA's refusal to grant over-the-counter status to the "morning after pill."

One story the author relates is particularly disturbing. The Population Research Institute, an extremely small branch (about 6 members) of the lobby Human Life International, successfully led a campaign to de-fund UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund). They were working in China to try to stop China's forced abortion policy by encouraging voluntary family planning in a certain number of counties. By all accounts, it was going quite successfully, and China was going to expand the number of counties participating in the program. The PRI, however, erroneously claimed that UNFPA was collaborating with China's forced abortion policy. They denied this, and pointed that there was no evidence to back up the allegation. Bush, however, listened to them and withdrew the US funding for the agency. In response, European nations increased their funding of UNFPA to compensate for the US withdrawal (worth about $25 million). The result: ideology triumphed, and we lost even more credibility among the world.

Page does a good job in showing how the pro-life movement is about more than the prevention of abortion, and how countries with access to contraception and comprehensive sex-ed are the ones that have the lowest abortion rates. She only spends a little time on how access to contraception and the entry of women into the workforce has improved the country socially; given the title of the book, I wish she had spent a little more time on the issue. Further, it would have been a good idea to give at least a brief philosophical defense of the pro-choice position, or to show the inconsistencies of the pro-life position beyond the utilitarian consequences thereof. Overall, however, this is an interesting and important little book that will help citizens inform themselves about crucial issues.

Not Impressive
The book was a waste of both Page's and my time.

She essentially cherry picked some quotes to support her absurd hypothesis that pro-lifers just want to punish people who have sex.

Absurd, yes. Are there some people like that? No doubt. If you look hard enough you'll find a communist who thinks he is a can of tomato paste. But that isn't representative of the communist argument, and punishing people who have sex isn't representative of the pro-life argument.

The real argument is a very sincere and serious one. It's about the very important right to privacy, and the very important right to life. It's not the kind of debate that dishonest cherry-picking writers should be meddling in.

... Read more

Product Description
Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp provides a new understanding of the recurrent rhetorical need to employ conservative rhetoric in support of a radical cause. Her study challenges the common view that the suffragettes' use of military metaphors, their vilification of the government, and their violent attacks on property were signs of hysteria and self-destruction. Instead, what emerges is a picture of a deliberate, if controversial, strategy of violence supported by a rhetorical defense of unusual power and consistency. ... Read more

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The central aim of this interdisciplinary book is to make visible the intentionality behind the 'forgetting' of European women's contributions during the period between the two world wars in the context of politics, culture and society. It also seeks to record and analyse women's agency in the construction and reconstruction of Europe and its nation states after the First World War, and thus to articulate ways in which the writing of women's history necessarily entails the rewriting of everyone's history. By showing that the erasure of women's texts from literary and cultural history was not accidental but was ideologically motivated, the essays explicitly and implicitly contribute to debates surrounding canon formation. Other important topics are women's political activism during the period, antifascism, the contributions made by female journalists, the politics of literary production, genre, women's relationship with and contributions to the avant-garde, women's professional lives, and women's involvement in voluntary associations.In bringing together the work of scholars whose fields of expertise are diverse but whose interests converge on the inter-war period, the volume invites readers to make connections and comparisons across the whole spectrum of women's political, social, and cultural activities throughout Europe. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume of essays is designed to explore women's politics and resistance to war and militarism in an international context. Based in transnational, post-colonial, feminist theory, the volume incorporates both scholarship and activism. Essays explore the experiences of local women's groups that have developed to fight war, militarization, political domination, and patriarchy throughout the world. ... Read more

Product Description
"Juster examines the changing role of Baptist women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England. At first essentially equal to men in church governance and in the right to speak in church, women were gradually excluded from power in Baptist churches after the Revolution. As the Baptist church adopted a more patriarchal model of church organization, women were not only marginalized and silenced but associated because of gender with several serious sins, including sexual misconduct, lying, and slander."--Library Journal ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Helpful Exploration of Primary Materials
Through a series of well-researched arguments, Susan Juster, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, seeks to show in this monograph that the participation of evangelical churches in the revolutionary cause during the late 18th century had a profound impact upon the place that women were offered within those churches.

During the pre-revolutionary era, Baptist and other evangelical churches became increasingly prominent parts of the New England religious landscape. The relative parity that women enjoyed with men in these congregations was a function of the liminality inherent in the intense religious experience that members of such congregations shared. The American revolution, along with a desire for increased respectability among Baptists, soon moved Baptist churches towards the mainstream of New England religious life.

Juster argues that the rhetoric of the American revolution, with its identification of submission to authority as female, caused evangelical churches to reconsider sin as a gendered concept. Effects of this reconsideration can be found, for instance, in evangelical conversion narratives, which for the first time after the revolution can be identified with the gender of the writer through the language used for deity and sin, indicating that men and women after the revolution had begun to think of their relationship to God and themselves in very different ways.

Juster comes to her conclusions through the application of feminist theories borrowed from other scholars to the material that she has gathered on the revolutionary-era evangelical churches of New England. Her conclusions about the shifting use of gender language and the sinking status of women within these churches during and after the revolution are convincing, although her use of theory is occasionally somewhat essentialistic. Juster sometimes lifts theoretical concepts from studies of other historical situations and places them over her own subject without offering an explanation as to how the given theory or idea remains applicable. At no point, however, does Juster's use of theory squeeze her subjects into a mold so tight that her conclusions are entirely the results of her method and not the content of her sources.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Juster's work is the breadth of her research. To gather enough discipline records and conversion narratives to come to a representative conclusion, the author canvassed denominational historical societies, government archives and university library special collections. As a result, Juster's work is unlikely to be criticized for drawing a conclusion which does not reflect the scope of research claimed in title of her text.

This work serves two purposes: It paints an excellent portrait of colonial evangelicalism in New England, and then shows with a good deal of persuasiveness how these churches were eventually altered by the revolutionary climate and the churches' subsequent need for respectability. Any reader with an interest in early American history, women's history, or the history of evangelicalism can read this book with profit.

Well written....poorly argued
Susan Juster's Disorderly Women is well written, but her arguments concerning the "feminine" nature of early Evangelicalism and its transition to a more masculine form in the late 18th century are extremely poor.She relies mostly on her own heavily biased opinions, when in many cases, the primary source evidence she provides clearly contradicts her.On the whole, this book does a great disservice to anyone who would ever attempt to reasonably argue any of what is covered within this book, as Juster so completely fails in arguing her thesis that one is inclined to believe that just the opposite is probably true. ... Read more

Product Description
Kuhlman explores the reasons so many antiwar progressive reformers ended up forming the most vocal faction favoring U.S. intervention in World War I. She argues that conceptualizations of gender and their relations to militarism, democracy, and citizenship were central to creating support for war. ... Read more

Product Description
This valuable collection examines closely the construction of male and female identity around the theme of collective violence. Why did such violence get "moralized" for men in the case of warfare-but not for women? "Women, Militarism and War" presents alternatives to both "business as usual" thinking and excessively utopian or naive feminist accounts. ... Read more

Product Description
Challenging assumptions about the separation of high politics and everyday life, Belinda Davis uncovers the important influence of the broad civilian populace—particularly poorer women—on German domestic and even military policy during World War I.

As Britain's wartime blockade of goods to Central Europe increasingly squeezed the German food supply, public protests led by "women of little means" broke out in the streets of Berlin and other German cities. These "street scenes" riveted public attention and drew urban populations together across class lines to make formidable, apparently unified demands on the German state. Imperial authorities responded in unprecedented fashion in the interests of beleaguered consumers, interceding actively in food distribution and production. But officials' actions were far more effective in legitimating popular demands than in defending the state's right to rule. In the end, says Davis, this dynamic fundamentally reformulated relations between state and society and contributed to the state's downfall in 1918. Shedding new light on the Wilhelmine government, German subjects' role as political actors, and the influence of the war on the home front on the Weimar state and society, Home Fires Burning helps rewrite the political history of World War I Germany. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

full of information but lacked impact
Davis' Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin focuses on the "economic war" aspect of WWI. When Great Britain declared war on Germany, they put their greatest weapon, the Navy, to use. The British placed a naval blockade and stopped imports of weapon and food supplies. The British waged "economic war", with the intention of destroying the morale of the German civilians. German soil was poor for growing wheat and so Germany had to import two-thirds of the wheat needed to made bread.1915 and 1916 had especially poor harvests of potato, which is a staple crop.Along with the British naval blockade, there were significant food shortages, which affected the general population. Davis wanted to introduce the reader to the food shortages and hardships inflicted on the public by the food shortages. Davis wanted to bring out the point that WWI did not only affect the young men going off to fight but the women who stayed home as well.
WWI in Germany was all encompassing war, which included not only the military aspect of the front lines. Davis wanted to illustrate the government neededed to realize WWI also included the home front and the commoner who also was sacrificing for the war. It was not just the soldier, who was fighting for the Fatherland, but the housewife was "fighting" for the Fatherland too. She made her contribution to the Fatherland through dealing with shortages of essential food supplies, rising prices and long food lines. Davis continued her argument with the officials realizing the home front aspect of the war; the administration now understood the connection between the condition of the home front and the condition of the front line.The morale of the people at home would affect the fighting capabilities of the soldier. By the government being aware of this correlation, the soldier's wife, housewife, and factory worker wheeled a considerable amount of political power. "As Berliners cast it, it was still in midwar the women of little means, a figure without formal political rights but with great symbolic power as the leader on the right side of the economic war and of the war over Germany's future."
Even though the book had a great deal of information, she organized the information into a format, which all lead to her point. The reader wasn't overwhelmed with facts thrown at them. Yet, Davis had a tendency of dehumanizing the hardships of the shortages of food.The reader never truly gets the feeling that the Berliners are starving to death.The reader is not able to understand the desperation of the situation. Davis was missing emotion from her book. She reduces starving situation of the common people into a premeditated political move.

really great--I learned a lot
I found this book fascinating.I am a World War I buff, and have read dozens of books on the subject, but had no idea about the role played by food shortages in Germany-and I certainly didn't realize before reading this book how important they were politically.I liked this book because the story really came alive for me; I also liked finding out so much about civilian life, which I didn't really know about before.It was interesting to see how civilians reacted to different military battles, military policy, etc., and to compare it to there reaction to domestic policy.This was a great read.My professor recommended it to me because I wanted to read some new books on World War I for my paper, and I'm really glad he did.

Almost unreadable
Belinda J. Davis examines the German home front during World War I by describing the severe food crisis affecting "a broadening population of Germans" (2) from the beginning of the war, particularly the lower and working classes in Berlin.Davis asserts that "women of lesser means" (3) were hardest hit by food scarcity, inflation and governmental ineptitude in dealing with the ever-growing food crisis in Germany's capital city, and that these careworn women came to symbolize the hardships of all Germans facing starvation, price-fixing, and hoarding by producers."Gender plays a central role in this account of the war," Davis announces (3), and goes on to depict the new political role women came to play by way of street riots, public protests and entrance in to the work force (most notably munitions work.)She demands that "we must acknowledge the changes brought about" by the protests ofwomen of lesser means during the course of the Great War that eventually led to revolution in 1918 and the collapse of the German war effort. (234) These important changes were in the form of a "just distribution of material goods and political power," (236) with which Berliners struggled for years to come.Although Davis' innovative focus on lower class women consumers from 1914 to 1918 is a provocative one, Home Fires Burning suffers from a number of organizational and conceptual problems that ultimately undermine the book's success.
Several problematic evidentiary questions are apparent in Home Fires Burning.Davis uses Berlin as a microcosm for all German cities in describing the catastrophic food shortages, such as bread, potatoes and butter, and distribution problems.Yet, despite her introduction in which she discusses Germany as a whole and a willingness to extrapolate from Berlin's example for all of Germany, Davis goes on to say that Berlin was "clearly unique within the empire." (17) This contradiction raises a question of how representative Berlin is for the entire nation, particularly since Davis engages in very little discussion of other German cities.Furthermore, she concludes that Berlin policemen observing rioting women in the streets gradually began to sympathize with those "of lesser means," and eventually colored their reports to superiors with subtle calls for actions and relief. (99-103)If it is true, however, that these police officers manipulated their statements for their own benefit, it casts doubt as to the credibility and reliability of the value of these records (upon which Davis relies heavily) as evidence-something she seems not to have questioned throughout the book.
Davis also commits the "fallacy of insidious generalization,"most notably in her lack of quantification. Although Davis does provide several tables in this study and briefly discusses caloric intake quantitatively, she repeatedly generalizes in her narrative and for the most part avoids numbers.In a lengthy discussion of special consumer privileges granted to soldiers' wives,for example, her analysis rests on impressionistic accounts of police reports that echo resentments of those not afforded these benefits (primarily extra food coupons and rent protection.)She provides no analysis of what this allowance meant to soldiers' wives in real terms-was it significant or meaningful?Did those not receiving this benefit have a legitimate gripe, or were their protests based on misperceptions? Throughout this study, the reader gets little sense of the scale of the home front crisis due to a sense of imprecision. Davis employs frequent generalizations (such as "many", "all," or "none") and a persistent, sweeping use of jargon to summarize broad concepts with little or no description.
Hyperbole characterizes Davis' prose.She claims broadly that women were an "inner enemy" of society, while "particular circumstances of the war [resulted in] ...the vilification of femaleness." (45)Nowhere does she prove that all women were vilified for being females-or for any other reason.Additionally, Davis asserts that the "primacy of gender" led to working males receiving more food subsidization, and labels this "a social tragedy." Describing class and gender issues as tragic while a horrific war raged for four years is an inappropriate exaggeration, ultimately weakens the credibility of her entire argument, and should have been avoided.
Throughout her account of World War I food and politics, Davis reveals her own aesthetic of what good government should be, then and now: interventionist. She uses prose to dehumanize her descriptions of government agencies and workers responsible for providing aid, too often referring to them coldly as "the state," "the commission," or "high-level authorities." (67, 91) This literary device creates an impression of an unsympathetic, faceless bureaucracy plodding along, rather than an overwhelmed group of individuals struggling to solve and react to unprecedented domestic problems.Her choice of words when referring to government actions is telling: official actions to solve food crises were "partial, grudging," (109, while their efforts were "hapless." (115) The free market had a "degrading effect" on the German economy, and was inappropriate, (124) while Germans had "to serve, rather than be served" (11) by the state-a condition Davis evidently laments.
Davis uses a grinding, repetitive narrative to hammer home her theme that only a total governmental intervention in the economy and food distribution system of Imperial Germany, especially in Berlin, could have-and should have-saved thousands from starvation and potentially have warded off revolution by the end of the war.She employs repeated examples of limited efforts by imperial agencies to solve the various food and price emergencies to support her claim that partial solutions failed, such as ill-conceived rent controls (210), price ceilings for milk (162) and soup kitchens (156). Thus only radical measures such as "equalized distribution" of food resources (180) and "total control" of the economy by government officials (115) could bring about the "just distribution of material goods and political power," (236) especially for lower class women short of revolution.Unfortunately, Davis' argument is largely unpersuasive, given her failure to provide evidence that such extreme measures would have proven any more effective in alleviating the suffering of Berliners during the war years than the attempts of the state authorities she repeatedly condemns.

Stunning integration of cultural politics and daily life
What I loved about this book was how it helps reframe the cultural politics of Weimar and transition Germany.The use of daily life in the theorization of politics and culture is rewarding for Davis, whose use ofpolice reports and bureaucratic documents, buttressed by newspaper andother sources, forces us to rethink the role of the state and working classwomen in politics.

Because of the lively writing, this book makes goodreading for the layperson as well as the academic.It is a fine example ofthe high quality of historical writing possible when scholars mergecontemporary theories of gender and culture with traditional narratives ofpolitics and consumption in wartime Europe. ... Read more

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Maneuvers takes readers on a global tour of the sprawling process called "militarization." With her incisive verve and moxie, eminent feminist Cynthia Enloe shows that the people who become militarized are not just the obvious ones--executives and factory floor workers who make fighter planes, land mines, and intercontinental missiles. They are also the employees of food companies, toy companies, clothing companies, film studios, stock brokerages, and advertising agencies. Militarization is never gender-neutral, Enloe claims: It is a personal and political transformation that relies on ideas about femininity and masculinity. Films that equate action with war, condoms that are designed with a camouflage pattern, fashions that celebrate brass buttons and epaulettes, tomato soup that contains pasta shaped like Star Wars weapons--all of these contribute to militaristic values that mold our culture in both war and peace.
Presenting new and groundbreaking material that builds on Enloe's acclaimed work in Does Khaki Become You? and Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, Maneuvers takes an international look at the politics of masculinity, nationalism, and globalization. Enloe ranges widely from Japan to Korea, Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Britain, Israel, the United States, and many points in between. She covers a broad variety of subjects: gays in the military, the history of "camp followers," the politics of women who have sexually serviced male soldiers, married life in the military, military nurses, and the recruitment of women into the military. One chapter titled "When Soldiers Rape" explores the many facets of the issue in countries such as Chile, the Philippines, Okinawa, Rwanda, and the United States.
Enloe outlines the dilemmas feminists around the globe face in trying to craft theories and strategies that support militarized women, locally and internationally, without unwittingly being militarized themselves. She explores the complicated militarized experiences of women as prostitutes, as rape victims, as mothers, as wives, as nurses, and as feminist activists, and she uncovers the "maneuvers" that military officials and their civilian supporters have made in order to ensure that each of these groups of women feel special and separate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Could Be Much Better
Dr. Enloe's work is a frenetically paced tour of the seedy gendered underside of militarization throughout the world. While she raises good questions concerning the effects of militarization on women throughout the world, too often her work displays an unfamiliarity with the military facts that she uses to bolster her arguments. These factual inaccuracies and omissions, e.g. overstating the casualties at Gettysburg and in the Vietnam war by a factor of ten or the omission of the fact that the JROTC is completely voluntary, discredit otherwise valuable perspectives on the less-publicized effects of the growth of the national security state.
Secondly, the assumptions that the author makes are based primarily on secondary sources. It is obvious that she has not spent much, if any, time observing first hand the gender dynamics that play themselves out in military units. Instead, Dr. Enloe constantly shifts between levels of analysis in an attempt to prove her points. This theoretical instability makes it difficult for the reader to connect the evidence that is used to support the author's conclusions.
Lastly, in one of her other works, Dr. Enloe asks the question "Where are the women?" In this work, she fails to follow up on her scant observations concerning the differences that exist among, for example, the branches of the US military. Instead, the different services are alternately treated as separate organizational cultures or as a single military monolith depending on the point that she is trying to make. This is the books greatest folly. It is absurd to assume that an organization as large as the US military speaks, acts, and thinks with one mind. More research and observation of military units would show that the differences between branches is only the starting point in the analysis of military organizational culture with respect to gender analysis. There are a myriad of divisions even within particular services, such as the difference between all male combat arms units on the one hand, and combat support and combat service support units on the other, just to name one.
All of these factors combine to demonstrate an unfamiliarity with the inner workings of militaries which undermines the credibility of Dr. Enloe's arguments and which prove to be the biggest failure of this particular book. I would recommend her book, "Bananas, Beaches, and Bases" for a more coherent statement of feminist ideas concerning international relations.

The true "feminist agenda"
Cynthia Enloe is the author most quoted by opponants of women in the armed forces, because she presents the real Feminist viewpoint, which is staunchly anti-war and ambivelant toward the military.Enloe's arguments, supported by N.O.W., are coopted by "anti-feminist" foes of servicewomen as proof of their own contention that women have no place in the military.Paradoxically, after quoting Enloe, those same crusaders then lambast a so-called "feminist lobby" for promoting gender integration in combat operations.No doubt they confuse Feminism with some "politically-correct" positions of Congressional military panels, which are, ironically, often ignored or opposed by N.O.W.But Enloe's books go much further than simply stating Feminism's pacifist ideals.In "Maneuvers", she accuses the military of deliberate victimization of women worldwide.She makes a number of good points concerning the cruelties of war toward civilian women, but her antimilitary bias shows and is sometimes rather venomous.She gives no thought whatsoever to the conditions which make warfare an unpleasant reality and the armed forces a necessity.Nor has she any real concern for American military women or their reasons for wanting to serve. By relating selected incidents of harassment or violence against servicewomen, she presents a negative and mostly false impression of the American military's widespread and willful victimization of its female members.Read "Maneuvers" for the Feminist counter of Brian Mitchell's "Flirting With Disaster", but don't expect balance in the views of either author.

Important feminist study on militarisation
Cynthia Enloe adds to her series of writings looking at the effects of militarisation on women's lives - from the laundresses, camp followers, comfort women and sex workers to feminist military personnel and those who fight the home front.

Like Jan Jindy Pettman's "Worlding Women - a feminist international politics", Enloe's latest book seeks to look at international relations from a gendered perspective - and succeeds admirably.

The author relies a lot on secondary sources (citing a lot of newspaper stories), but weaves together the strands of militarisation on women's lives in a compelling and readable style. The book is full of fascinating anecdotes that illustrate the broader themes of the multifacted impact of contemporary militarisation (I particularly enjoyed the discussion on why British military officers from all services and US Air Force and Navy officers are allowed to carry umbrellas, but they are fobidden as too girlie for the US Marines and US Army! ) ... Read more

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Enlightening and inspiring.
Frances Early has brought to life a number of peace activists from the World War One era in the United States.Their defence of civil liberties in a time of state repression and war hysteria provides a valuable lessonin following one's principles.It is a book that will satisfy the scholarand intrigue the non-academic reader. ... Read more

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Maternal love is considered the most unconditional form of love, yet mothers have been prepared to sacrifice their children, or to see them sacrificed, for a 'noble' cause. "Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs" shows that, across cultures and historical eras, in times of great stress societies will channel all their resources, even maternal love and grief, toward a common cause. Suzanne Evans finds commonalities between the many images of war mothers - the Canadian Silver Cross mother, the ancient Jewish Maccabean mother of seven martyred sons, the mother of a Palestinian suicide bomber.She compares the lore about mothers of martyrs in the Judeo-Christian, Muslim, and Sikh traditions with stories of World War I Canadian mothers who were depicted in the media as having sacrificed their sons for the sake of civilization, justice, freedom, and God. After the war these mothers were honored with the Silver Cross medal. Evans argues that, like the mothers of past martyrs, the image of the war-supportive mother in Canada had a powerful influence over public opinion and drew supporters to the cause.'I remember as a young mother looking at a picture of a Palestinian woman who had just lost her child to martyrdom but was smiling with a serene pride. This was the first time I had come across the phrases 'mother of martyr' or 'Intifada smile'. How could a woman show joy over the death of her child? I could not get the question out of my mind. I later discovered that stories of women who publicly rejoice on the death of a child in support of their community have been told for centuries in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Sikh traditions. There was a depth and complexity to the image of a mother of a martyr that required much more than a passing glance to be understood' - From "Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs". ... Read more

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There are few moments in history when the division between the sexes seems as "natural" as during wartime: men go off to the "war front," while women stay behind on the "home front." But the very notion of the home front was an invention of the First World War, when, for the first time, "home" and "domestic" became adjectives that modified the military term "front." Such an innovation acknowledged the significant and presumably new contributions of civilians, especially women, to the war effort.

Yet, as Susan Grayzel argues, throughout the war, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity survived, primarily through the maintenance of—and indeed reemphasis on—soldiering and mothering as the core of gender and national identities. Drawing on sources that range from popular fiction and war memorials to newspapers and legislative debates, Grayzel analyzes the effects of World War I on ideas about civic participation, national service, morality, sexuality, and identity in wartime Britain and France. Despite the appearance of enormous challenges to gender roles due to the upheavals of war, the forces of stability prevailed, she says, demonstrating the Western European gender system's remarkable resilience. ... Read more

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Outstanding
Never before has such a scholarly yet accessible treatment of this complicated and gripping topic been written. Dr. Grayzel shows a mastery of the subject and attention to detail that draws the reader in from the first page. An academic achievement of the highest order. ... Read more

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This text focuses on a moment of failed political idealism, when leisure meant much more than fun. Between 1945 and 1961 the government funded the hiring of a cadre of recreation directors in the villages, towns, and cities of Ontario. Liberal thinkers saw this funding as a way to foster a democratic and participatory society; working with these directors, municipalities could start grass-roots community activities, in the process conditioning mind and body for active citizenship. The ideals were high: women and men would play equal roles and the whole effort would be guided by and instilled with the democratic spirit of the emerging welfare state. The dream soon faltered and volunteers fell into petty roles or simply slid into consumerism, leaving power in a few familiar hands. Women and girls were pushed out of the process. This is an examination of just what went wrong. The intrinsic connection between the sidelining of women's leadership and the calcification of regional recreation schemes into bureacracies becomes all too apparent.Ultimately this evolves to be an examination of the many lines of force involved when high politics meets the entrenched value systems of communities. ... Read more

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Throughout its history, the United States has struggled with the inevitable tensions of a highly diverse society. With the opening of higher education to women, ethnic minorities, and members of other previously marginalized groups, these tensions are now visited most especially upon our nation's colleges and universities. This collection addresses the most controversial issues now troubling our campuses: the content of the curriculum, sexual harassment and date rape, hate speech v. free speech, and affirmative action. In addition, several contributions probe the fundamental issues underlying the more specific problems of the "politics of difference." The contributions to this volume represent a wide range of disciplines - including philosophy, history, literary theory, law, economics, and politics - as well as views from across the political spectrum. Readers will find both familiar essays and new ones, arranged so that the authors speak directly to one another, thus providing a genuine conversation. ... Read more

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Campus Wars
Campus Wars:Multi-culturalism and the Politics of Difference, ed. John Arthur and Amy Shapiro (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, c. 1995), gives us a set of reports--a collection of articles by noted scholars--from the trenches of academia.
In Part One, "Multiculturalism and the College Curriculum," the editors include articles by two traditionalists, Allan Bloom and John R. Searle, who insist a true college education focuses on classics of Western Civilization because of their commitment to such ideals as truth, objectivity, rationality.Searle, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, explains:the "Western Rationalistic Tradition" adheres to a realism which believes we can, with words and logic, rightly represent truth regarding reality."In a word, true statements are made, but the truth of statements is not made, it is discovered" (p. 45).
This tradition, underlying the grandeur of academia, is now endangered--assaulted, Searle and Bloom say, by leftist political agitators who follow Nietzsche's dictum that "There are not facts, but only interpretations."Intent on orchestrating social change--often of a feminist or homosexual or environmental sort--"postmodernists" pose a revolutionary threat to the integrity of the university.
Illustrating such postmodern forces, Barry Sarchett, who teaches English at Colorado College, asserts that TV and rock music may be as thought-provoking and thus worthy of study as Plato or Shakespeare.Discounting the claims that words and ideas correspond to the real world, Sarchett supports Derrida and Saussure in realativizing knowledge and value:what we imagine to be "true" or "good" merely represents our inner desires or cul¬tural influences and can be altered at will.
Campus Wars includes essays on campus sexuality by Catherine A. MacKinnon, who argues that all sex is rape, and Camille Paglia, who says it's not.There are essays on free speech, or its absence, illustrating the irony of "liberal" institutions instituting byzantine speech codes to protect the feelings of various groups from "hate speech."
Questions concerning affirmative action elicit extensive discussion.While often denying the fact, masking it under the rubric of "diversity," many schools clearly mandate quotas, giving preferential treatment to some racial groups.
Approximately one-fourth of the articles in this collection espouse a traditional, conservative view, while the rest improvise on the postmodernist theme.There is, clearly, a "generation gap" between the traditionalists and the insurgents.This collection helps one discover what's happening in today's universities.
... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Australian Journal of Politics and History, published by University of Queensland Press on September 1, 2000. The length of the article is 5278 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: This paper focuses on the recovery of the experience of partisan women who fought in the lines of the communist-led Greek Democratic Army (GDA) during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). It is an extract from a research project which examines the extent to which the symbolism of Greek women in arms has informed the various waves of feminist discourse which have emerged since the founding of the modem Greek nation state. More specifically this work employs the image of the Greek woman warrior as an analytical category to investigate the relationship between militarism, nationalism and Greek feminist politics in relation to key nation-building conflicts of the modem Greek period. As such it belongs to the realm of scholarship informed by an understanding of `gender' and `nation' as constructed and contested relational systems of cultural and social meanings. Together the two systems not only shape the political culture in historically specific ways but also legitimate and limit the access of (groups of) people -- women as well as men -- to national movements as well as to the resources of the nation-state. This paper concentrates specifically on the heavily mythologised women of the GDA. It pays special attention to the historical association of their rebellion with national citizenship rights in post-war Greece.

Citation Details
Title: Gender, Civil War and National Identity: Women Partisans during the Greek Civil War 1946-1949.
Author: Margaret Poulos
Publication: The Australian Journal of Politics and History (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2000
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Volume: 46Issue: 3Page: 418

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This work contains true stories that offer a harrowing picture of the effects of war on the forgotten "innocents" whose only battle is with war itself. ... Read more

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This Book Has Powerful Impact
If there is any doubt as to why women (or even men) should be against war, the forty personal war experiences related in this book will resolve that doubt. The book's impact is extremely powerful. Few could remain unmoved orcontinue to be indifferent to the cruelty of war after reading theseaccounts. But why should anyone, including those who are are alreadycommitted to the antiwar cause, subject themselves to such an excruciating,and at times horrifying, reading experience? For the simple reason thatopposition to war must be grounded, not in abstractions, but in life, inthe experience of the human race. For the simple reason that genuineantipathy toward war must be based on empathy, empathy with people who arenot family or neighbors, but people from a different place and time.

Thewar forming the background for the book is World War II, with somereferences to the Korean and Vietnam wars. The contributors are allJapanese women from all walks of life. Their recollections, divided intoten categories according to the nature of the experience, include accountsof women trying to make their way back to Japan amid postwar chaos inforeign lands (Manchuria, Korea, the Philippines, Sakhalin); and accountsof nurses, of teachers, of women struggling to provide for themselves andtheir families in the ruins of a defeated Japan, of victims of theHiroshima bombing, of women who prostituted themselves to Americanservicemen, of women who contracted tragic marriages and liaisons withAmerican soldiers or who were the alienated offspring of such marriages, ofwomen widowed by war, and of women who overcame seemingly insurmountablewartime obstacles to emerge triumphant. Although each woman's story isuniquely tragic, there is a common thread: each has become a woman againstwar. ... Read more

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The lingering aftereffects of the Vietnam War resonate to this day throughout American society: in foreign policy, in attitudes about the military and war generally, and in the contemporary lives of members of the so-called baby boom generation who came of age during the 1960s and early 1970s. While the best-known personal accounts of the war tend to center on the experience of combat, Maureen Ryan s The Other Side of Grief examines the often overlooked narratives novels, short stories, memoirs, and films that document the war s impact on the home front. In analyzing the accounts of Vietnam veterans, women as well as men, Ryan focuses on the process of readjustment, on how the war continued to insinuate itself into their lives, their families, and their communities long after they returned home. She looks at the writings of women whose husbands, lovers, brothers, and sons served in Vietnam and whose own lives were transformed as a result. She also appraises the experiences of the POWs who came to be embraced as the war s only heroes; the ordeal of Vietnamese refugees who fled their American War to new lives in the United States; and the influential movement created by those who committed themselves to protesting the war. The end result of Ryan s investigations is a cogent synthesis of the vast narrative literature generated by the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Together those stories powerfully demonstrate how deeply the legacies of the war penetrated American culture and continue to reverberate still. ... Read more

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What a timely read . . .
Maureen Ryan has written a book that is both a lively catalog of films/books/stories/essays about Vietnam and a careful examination of the price paid by both the soldiers who fought battles in SE Asia and their loved ones who fought battles at home.

Ryan clearly knows her stuff, and her writing is lively and engaging. I expected to admire the chapters that focused on women, since Ryan is well-known for her scholarship on women's literature and studies, but I also found the chapter on POWs and their plight thoughtful and reflective. Ryan has read all the important commentary and offers useful analysis along with her own sharp observations on the parallels between the War in Vietnam and the War in Iraq. A disciplined work of rigorous scholarship, but also a good read for people interested in the Vietnam War. ... Read more