Bananas, Beaches And Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1990

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface 1-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Chapter 8-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary: “Base Women”

To operate, military bases depend on groups of diverse women, such as soldiers’ wives, enlisted women, and sex workers. The US has more military bases outside its borders than any other country. All military bases are gendered, and their workings are shaped by particular definitions of masculinity and femininity. Base commanders develop myriad policies and rules to perpetuate definitions of manliness and womanhood to serve military priorities. Policies address marriage, sexual assault, housing, curfews, and many other topics. Some policies aim to ensure that dissimilar women do not associate and thereby establish common cause. Enloe encourages feminists to observe the persistent convictions and new meanings on military bases over time.

If military bases insinuate themselves into a community, they can become invisible, and their gender dynamics may go unnoticed. The closing of such bases can sometimes incite nationalist celebration but can also lead to economic fears given the jobs they provide. During World War II, the US operated several bases in Great Britain. When British women began dating Black soldiers, the British reacted with alarm, labeling the women as “loose” and warning of venereal disease. Fearing the impact on sexual segregation in the postwar US, the American government accepted few British war brides of African American soldiers. An informal agreement with the British forbade such marriages. Enloe explains that whom male soldiers meet and marry while serving overseas remains an issue for military leaders, who distrust local women. In their eyes, smooth military operations require a certain type of wife.

By the late 1960s, the US military base in Effingham, England, had become the largest employer in the area. It was built consistently with suburban America, the goal being to keep soldiers’ wives content. Washing machines and appliances were imported for that reason. If their wives were unhappy, the military reasoned, the male soldiers would be as well. When the draft ended, the military recognized even more the need to keep soldiers and their families happy. Most of the wives were satisfied with the privileges, such as discounted shopping, low-cost housing, and medical care. However, they had to accept the military’s expectations about femininity and rank. For example, wives were expected to sacrifice their careers, perform unpaid volunteer work, and accept that their husbands’ ranks dictated their social circles. In the 1980s, these women began to organize and lobby the government for changes to spousal benefits and divorce rules. The privileges of housing, healthcare, and discounts did not continue as part of alimony. In addition, the military expected women to cope with domestic violence, excusing the male abusers given the stress of deployment. Enloe argues that this attitude is still entrenched.

Facing feminist organizing and calls for change, the military shifted away from large bases that accommodate families. Instead, it increasingly relies on “lily pads” (small, low-impact bases that do not host families). As a result, soldiers spend more time away from their families. Enloe notes that the “division between women as military wives, women as civilian base workers, women as military personnel, and women drawn into prostitution around military bases” hinders the wives fighting for change (149).

Military bases encourage a singular type of masculinity, which emphasizes toughness, the skilled use of violence, the existence of an enemy, male camaraderie, discipline, and the repression of emotions. This is intentional; some countries instead train soldiers to perform peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Military women must understand which form of masculinity is encouraged for their careers and personal safety. In 2011, 14.5% of those in the US military were women, a dramatic increase from 2% in the 1970s. Gradually, the military has offered more jobs to women, and it lifted the ban on women in combat in 2013. However, the reported sexual assaults by US military men on military men and women have increased. In response to organized advocacy, the Veterans Affairs Department has recognized military sexual trauma and created clinics for those who experience it. Controversy has surrounded the military hierarchy that handles charges of sexual assault since those assaulted must sometimes report the abuse to the perpetrator. Enloe argues that sexual violence inside the military is not a domestic issue but a dynamic of international politics, and she seeks to investigate the links between sexual violence by men on women inside the military and such violence against civilian women.

While military bases and sex work are often associated, ensuring this association has relied on specific policies, such as the regulation of businesses and the structure of women’s economic opportunities. In the 19th century, for example, Great Britain passed the Cantonment Acts, which allowed colonial officials to conduct compulsory vaginal examinations on civilian women around military bases to protect soldiers from disease. By 1895, transnational activists, led by Josephine Butler, persuaded the British government to repeal these laws, but the examinations continued. During World War II, Japan enacted policies that sexually enslaved Korean women. Only after activists campaigned was sexual slavery recognized as a war crime.

By 1985, the US military was the second largest employer in the Philippines. Local Filipino activists chronicled the poor living conditions for women around the two largest bases, Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. Many sex workers came from rural areas and gave birth to children who ended up on the streets servicing male pedophiles. A “bar fine system” allowed male customers to pay a bar owner to take women outside for sex (166). The government required venereal disease and AIDS screening for sex workers to protect soldiers but did not require soldiers to have such screenings. Ultimately, activist campaigns resulted in the closure of the two large bases, but the US retains a significant military presence in the Philippines. Enloe remarks that women from the Philippines and former Soviet Republics are present around other military bases (in Guam, for example) and are an integral part of these bases.

As activists, women were crucial to movements that closed bases in several countries. Enloe cites the protests at Greenham Common in England, which led not only to the closing of the base but also to the return of the land to the commons. To operate, every military base depends on women in a range of social positions performing different roles. Keeping these women separate from one another helps enable patriarchal international relations to continue.

Chapter 5 Summary: “Diplomatic and Undiplomatic Wives”

When John Kerry was named Secretary of State following Hillary Clinton’s tenure, the elite world of statesmanship returned to its masculine norm. In 2013, the Group of Eight’s foreign ministers had only one woman, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization did not even have one. Enloe argues that the political history of marriage has played a decisive role in determining opportunities for women. Historically, governments relied on wives to conduct foreign relations with other countries.

In the 17th century, countries formulated marriage policies to serve political ends. For example, fur traders in Canada’s Hudson Bay were allowed to marry Indigenous people because the frontier was not deemed a suitable place for European women. In establishing marriage policies, colonial administrators considered men’s needs, white women’s alleged frailty, security concerns, the availability of local women, and the desire for a “full-fledged white community” in establishing marriage policies (181).

Male diplomats’ wives have performed critical functions in international relations. This tradition began in 1716, when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu accompanied her husband to his assigned diplomatic post. Male diplomats’ wives performed volunteer work, represented their home country, helped advise their husbands, and hosted dinners where ambassadors could meet informally. These meetings helped build trust and made diplomacy more difficult for female diplomats, who rarely have wives. Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, however, women married to diplomats began to challenge governments and demand recognition. When making claims for their rights, activist wives worried about the impact on their husbands’ careers. Until at least 1972, a male diplomat’s evaluation included an appraisal of his wife’s performance. At that time, the spouses of diplomats were deemed private persons. Nevertheless, they had to travel with their spouses and conduct social duties. Around this time, the State Department also ended its practice of requiring female diplomats to resign if they married. Enloe explains that marriage advanced a man’s career but hindered a woman’s career.

However, having “absorbed the lessons of the wider women’s movement” (191), diplomats’ wives in the late 20th century organized and asked for pensions, alimony, jobs, and salaries for their unpaid labor. These women stopped relating to one another according to the ranks of their husbands. Likewise, in the 1980s, British diplomats’ wives successfully overturned the government policy to include evaluations of their performance in their husbands’ reviews. In 1986, at a meeting of the European Economic Community, a predecessor to the European Union, women exposed the lack of pensions and unfair divorce rules. Divorce was common among diplomats, and without pensions, their ex-wives (whom the government had forced to prioritize their ex-husbands’ careers) were left impoverished in old age. Sweden established the right for wives to receive pensions.

In the US, Congress declined to offer diplomats’ wives any salaries in 1984. As a result, Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide instructed spouses to create their financial autonomy. Enloe comments that the people running foreign affairs still believe that a patriarchal marriage is necessary in international relations.

Beginning in the 1970s, a small group of high-ranking women at the State Department began meeting for informal lunches and sharing their grievances. They organized the Women’s Action Organization (WAO) and recognized a “feminist link between sexist attitudes and practices affecting diplomatic wives and State Department clerical workers, and those attitudes and practices that were marginalizing women as foreign policy careerists” (205). They lobbied for changes to four policies: that female diplomats must resign upon marriage, that a woman with children could not take an overseas assignment, that unmarried women could not take posts in Muslim and East European countries but that women could work as secretaries in those countries, and that diplomats’ wives must serve as assistants to their husbands. WAO succeeded in overturning these policies. In addition, a 1989 lawsuit, Baker v. Palmer, resulted in court-ordered changes to gender-biased examinations and postings. Not until 2010, however, did the State Department comply with this ruling. By 2004, 18% of US ambassadors were women. That translates to 137 men and 20 women. Enloe concludes that many international institutions continue to rely on patriarchal marriages, a practice that has been passed down over generations and is designed to put women in some places and men in others.

Chapters 4-5 Analysis

In these chapters, Enloe thematically exposes The Role of Human Agency in National and International Politics via her analysis of military bases and foreign diplomacy. The US military, for example, encourages one conception of masculinity, which prizes toughness, male camaraderie, and the repression of emotions. Military wives are expected to support their husbands, which includes tolerating physical abuse. In addition, military leaders, working with local politicians, have promoted specific policies to ensure that male soldiers can access sex workers. Women’s economic opportunities are limited in such areas, and business regulations are lax. The State Department likewise had policies to limit opportunities for female diplomats and, until the 1970s, required female diplomats to resign upon marriage. Both the UK and the US evaluated the performance of diplomats’ wives in their reviews of diplomats. Policies required male diplomats’ wives to perform unpaid services such as hosting social functions where foreign diplomats developed trust. Both the US military and the State Department encouraged and relied on divisions among women to ensure that assigned roles were uncontested. The military treated officers’ wives differently than those of enlisted men, and sex workers were unlikely to cross paths with female soldiers. The State Department separated women into different roles, such as professional diplomat, clerical worker, and wife, and the system forced wives to abide by a hierarchical system in which the ranks of their husbands dictated their social circle. Policies and norms aimed to keep these groups separate.

Enloe highlights the power that women have when they assert human agency and ally with one another. The collective action of women has helped close some military bases, for example. The increasing demands of soldiers’ wives have caused the military to shift away from traditional bases, which house families, to “lily pads,” which house only soldiers. At the State Department, women recognized their need to overcome divisions among themselves. In the 1980s, they lobbied for alimony in cases of divorce, jobs, pensions, and family services. Their pressure ended the practice of including an evaluation of a wife’s performance in the files of male diplomats. While some countries have improved divorce rules and provided pensions, activists urge prospective diplomats’ wives to ensure their own financial independence and security. Most diplomats are still men, but more diplomats are women in the 21st century than in the 20th century.

Despite the myriad services that diplomats’ wives provided for their countries, they not only went unpaid but also were unrecognized. Enloe notes that an obituary for a male diplomat is long and details his service to country, while his wife’s obituary is short and says nothing of her contributions. This is yet another example of Women’s Invisibility in Mainstream Accounts of International Politics. In cases of divorce, diplomats’ wives were denied pensions and left impoverished in old age before women lobbied for changes in law. Like soldiers’ wives, they had to sacrifice their careers and prioritize their husband’s careers instead. If their husbands divorced them, they lost their housing and healthcare. Alimony did not consider those benefits in its calculus. In addition, these women had nowhere to turn in cases of domestic violence. Thus, Enloe demonstrates the devastating impact of international politics on women’s daily lives.