Responding Post: Curious and Surprised Feminism

When reading Enloe's chapters "Being Curious about Our Lack of Feminist Curiosity" and "The Surprised Feminist," I was confused to why we didn't read this first before we started Enloe's book. However after reading her introduction, I felt it was a good way to end our class, to summarize most of the topics we have discussed and read about as well as to inspire/motivate us to look at the world more critically and to question the meaning of the words society has used to justify many actions. Enloe's first chapter hones on the theme of curiosity—for us to be genuinely curious about the socially constructed ideas most of us take so lightly or view as the norm/the way things are suppose to be. Enloe encourages us to see pass terms like "natural," "tradition," and "always/oldest"—for us to see how systems such as patriarchy, the military, and others have taken on forms such as nationalism, security, etc. and through this view of the systems, society tends to neglect the gender aspect that goes along with these topics. Society forgets about how masculinity affects women as well as how femininity reaffirms masculinity, how patriarchy has cages women, etc. Given the example for cheap labor being called instead as labor made cheap, is a great example of how society usually don't see pass the surface of situations and simply take things as it is without and inquiry for the deeper picture (i.e.: why women work in sweatshops, how has that come to be the case). 

Chapter 1 of Enloe's book focus on the theme of surprised feminism. And after reading this chapter in addition to all of our other reading I think back to the conversation we had in our earlier class about the connotation and denotation of the word "feminist." Besides the connotations we have heard from people, the media, etc about feminist, I do not think we have come to a one definition of what it means to be a feminist. From our readings we see that in fact their isn't one definition but that there are many forms or ranges of feminist. However, the common theme that I see among the authors who see themselves as a feminist is the elements Enloe expresses in her two chapters: curiosity and surprise/courage. All of our authors started off being curious of life, women studies, society as a whole, and etc. And from the curiosity and critical lens on the world they have been surprised by many things but were all able to develop in the way they wanted and how they wanted to impact the world or bring their perspective into conversations. At the end of the day, all these feminist not only have a greater awareness of our society, but most of them, see a better understanding of themselves and what role they have to bring about/ spark a new mindset or environment for all. Overall these two chapters were a great way to end our course and lead a window open for further exploration about women and gender studies.