Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy

by Cynthia Enloe

For over a century and in scores of countries, patriarchal presumptions and practices have been challenged by women and their male allies. “Sexual harassment” has entered common parlance; police departments are equipped with rape kits; more than half of the national legislators in Bolivia and Rwanda are women; and a woman candidate won the plurality of the popular votes in the 2016 United States presidential election. But have we really reached equality and overthrown a patriarchal point of view?   The Big Push  exposes how patriarchal ideas and relationships continue to be modernized to this day. Through contemporary cases and reports, renowned political scientist Cynthia Enloe exposes the workings of everyday patriarchy—in how Syrian women civil society activists have been excluded from international peace negotiations; how sexual harassment became institutionally accepted within major news organizations; or in how the UN Secretary General’s post has remained a masculine domain. Enloe then lays out strategies and skills for challenging patriarchal attitudes and operations. Encouraging self-reflection, she guides us in the discomforting curiosity of reviewing our own personal complicity in sustaining patriarchy in order to withdraw our own support for it. Timely and globally conscious, The Big Push is a call for feminist self-reflection and strategic action with a belief that exposure complements resistance.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Gender, Politics

203 pages, Paperback

Published October 26, 2017

About the author

Cynthia Holden Enloe is a feminist writer, theorist, and professor.

She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She has done pioneering feminist research into international politics and political economy, and has considerable contribution to building a more inclusive feminist scholarly community.

Cynthia Enloe was born in New York, New York and grew up in Manhasset, Long Island, a New York suburb. Her father was from Missouri and went to medical school in Germany from 1933 to 1936. Her mother went to Mills College and married Cynthia's father upon graduation.

After completing her undergraduate education at Connecticut College in 1960, she went on to earn an M.A. in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1967 in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkely, Enloe was the first woman ever to be a Head TA for Aaron Wildavsky, then an up-and-coming star in the field of American Politics.

Enloe states that she has been influenced by many other feminists who use an ethnographic approach, specifically, Seung-Kyung Kim’s (1997) work on South Korean women factory workers during the pro-democracy campaign and Anne Allison’s (1994) work on observing corporate businessmen’s interactions with hostesses in a Tokyo drinking club. Enloe has also listed Diane Singerman, Purnima Mankekar, and Cathy Lutz as people who have inspired and influenced her work.

Reviews

[Heather]

I heard about this book somewhere on Twitter.  I was able to get a copy sent to me through interlibrary loan.  Then through the vagaries of mood-reading, I didn't start to read it.  I felt that it was going to be an academic slog through feminist theory.  But, I had gone through some effort to get it and it needed to be returned soon so I decided to give it a try.

I was so wrong about this book.

I didn't expect to get teary-eyed sitting in a restaurant that specializes in feeding huge plates of food to Trump supporters with a country music soundtrack because of the author's insistence of the importance of the Women's Marches.  The author perfectly recreated the feeling of needing to be in the vast sea of people to voice your opposition to what was going on in the country.  

I didn't expect to have to totally recalibrate my thinking about how I look at world events because I had missed a major plot point.  I had read Richard Holbrooke's book about negotiating the Wright-Patterson Accords to end the Bosnian War.  I had read Might Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee  about women's protests outside the peace negotiations for Liberia.  What I missed in both was these was asking why women were not included in the peace negotiations from the beginning.  Ending armed conflict is traditionally seen as requiring just the armed participants to come to an agreement.  That can stop the fighting but it is ignoring the majority of the population who need to live in the rebuilt country afterwards.  Even now, women are not seen as participants even if they are the people still on the ground providing assistance to civilians.  The author gives examples of conflict resolutions that were seen to be enlightened because they would let women draft a statement that would be read into the proceeding by a male delegate.  There could only be one women's statement though so women from all sides of the conflict had to sit down together and draft a consensus statement that might or might not be taken into consideration by the men who hadn't yet been able to reach a consensus.  How would the rebuilding of nations look different if women were included from the beginning?

This book will lead you to see more areas for improvement in our world that you may have been blind to before.  I was reading this at the same time as I was reading a book that glamorized a war from a patriarchal perspective.  Every comment like that in the other book jumped out at me in a way that it may not have before.  

This book gives hope for a world that so far has been beyond most of our imaginings.  Hopefully, once people start to see what really could be possible we might be able to approach it.

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[Michael Messner · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Preface: "Patriarchy existed before Donald Trump--and before the rise of the newest nationalistic, racist, misogynist, political parties--and, unless we together reflect on its mundane causes, it is too likely to exist after Trump has retired to his golf club and the latest right-wing parties have been temporarily defeated." In a collection of her recent clear-headed and sharply critical essays, Cynthia Enloe once again points to the machinations of power--local, national and international--particularly what she calls "updated patriarchy," and to the ways that feminist curiosity and action can help to bend the course of history toward peace and justice. "Patriarchy may have succeeded in perpetuating itself," Enloe writes in the conclusion, "but it is not invincible."

[Hannah Wattangeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this rather disappointing. Whilst Enloe does explore patriarchy and its far reaches nowhere does she seem to study the structural nature of patriarchy and its relationship with capitalism. She does explore the myriad women in both local and international scenarios who are challenging patriarchy. It is apparent that Enloe has done some serious and important work at UN and international level. Unfortunately she does not make use of excellent work done by feminists such as Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva, Susan Hawthorne to name a few to inform her analysis of patriarchy.

[hilma]

This was my first whole book that I red from Enloe and time to time it was somewhat interesting and tought provoking, but chapters felt too quick. Enloe examined militarism & patriarchy and it’s connection to society which already is an interesting starting point, but I was expecting more. The book lacks intersectional approach which made me disapointed.
I guess worth skimming through for feminist scholars though. even if it doesn’t have so many new toughts, one could take this book as a reminder of the importance of studying the links between militarism & patriarchy.

[Sadiq Bhanbhro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book disappointing as it is full of I, I, I. Also, the author continually refers to her previous book if a readers haven’t read those books then the reader is lost. The book contains many he story of militarised gender dynamics but in zing zag form, the story without beginning, middle & end is not a convincing story.

[Tayler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was really disappointing. Enloe had so many opportunities to make this an outstanding read that could encourage women to push back the “glass ceiling” but it mainly turned into her bragging about her accomplishments and upper class upbringing while ranting about men making all the decisions(poor ones at that, but that’s neither here nor there).

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Some of the chapters did not feel particularly new to me, but that was alright. I especially liked ch. 7 on Enloe's career -- full of candidness and encouragement.

[Sho · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of pieces covering topics that Enloe has written about in the past. It's a good place to start with her work, or feminism generally.

Well worth reading.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

One for me to revisit later perhaps. Some interesting ideas but I skimmed through a lot as I didn't get much out of all the talk about militarisation and foreign politics.

[Lisa Daleiden-Brugman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a sobering read. But it also inspired me to be resolute to name and challenge patriarchy, no matter what.

[Elise M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting collection of essays that serves as a great introduction or recap to some of Enloe's other work.

[Meghan]

My first time reading Cynthia Enloe. Feels a bit like learning how to view things - any organization or event - through a new lens.