Cynthia Enloe's riveting new book looks at the end of the Cold War and places women at the center of international politics. Focusing on the relationship between the politics of sexuality and the politics of militarism, Enloe charts the changing definitions of gender roles, sexuality, and militarism at the end of the twentieth century. In the gray dawn of this new era, Enloe finds that the politics of sexuality have already shifted irrevocably. Women glimpse the possibilities of democratization and demilitarization within what is still a largely patriarchal world. New opportunities for greater freedom are seen in emerging social movements―gays fighting for their place in the American military, Filipina servants rallying for their rights in Saudi Arabia, Danish women organizing against the European Community's Maastricht treaty. Enloe also documents the ongoing assaults against women as newly emerging nationalist movements serve to reestablish the privileges of masculinity. The voices of real women are heard in this book. They reach across cultures, showing the interconnections between military networks, jobs, domestic life, and international politics. The Morning After will spark new ways of thinking about the complexities of the post-Cold War period, and it will bring contemporary sexual politics into the clear light of day as no other book has done.
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.
