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Historical influences against women have shaped the role of women in most societies today. Biblical writings that influenced Christianity, Judaism, and other religions, blame women for destroying the innocence of mankind, symbolic by Eves eating the Fruit of Wisdom. Ancient Greek beliefs suggested that mans strength gave the man the right to rule, thus men were the only ones capable of becoming guardians and protector of state, which ultimately gave them political rights. These early writings, which were written mostly by men, helped influence other writers responsible for shaping a countries ideology about male dominance and a womens role in society as housewives and child bearer and thus women were given less opportunities in education for their primary role as housewives didnt require much knowledge. The national political arena is dominated by men but allows women some select access; the international political arena is a sphere for men only, or for those rare women who can successfully play at being men, or at least not shake masculine presumptions (Enloe 13). In a Cold war interpretation: a patriarchal world is dangerous when masculine men and feminine women are expected to react in opposite but complementary ways.
A real man will become the protector in such a world. He will suppress his own fears, brace himself and step forward to defend the weak, women and children. In the same dangerous world, women will turn gratefully and expectantly to their fathers and husbands, real or surrogate (Enloe 13). In conventional commentaries men who yield influence in international politics are analyzed in terms of their national identities, their class origins and their paid work (Enloe 13).
Rarely are they analyzed as men who have been taught how to be manly, how to size up the trustworthiness or competence of other men in terms of their manliness (Enloe 13). Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French writer in 1762 said, There is a difference in the moral relation of the two sexes. One ought to be active and strong, the other passive and weak. Woman was made to please man and man pleases by the sole fact of his strength (Lives and Voices 249). His influence along with other writers influenced much of the ideologies of male dominance worldwide. In terms of economic progression, women play major roles in providing capital to a nation.
International debt has an impact on women in indebted countries. The politics of international debt wont work in their current form unless mothers and wives are willing to behave in ways that enable nervous regimes to adopt cost cutting measures without forfeiting their political legitimacy (Enloe 185). For example, if women can figure out ways to earn more money, provide demoralized men and their family emotional support, an indebted government will not suffer political destabilization (Enloe 185). For example, when a woman emigrates to First world countries to become a domestic servant, she is designing her own international debt politics (Enloe 185). At the same time, poor women can prevent a life of crime by emigrating and becoming a domestic servant that can nurture her future respectability (Enloe 182). Investigating foreign investment policies can show how international politics affects women.
For example, developing countries rely on agriculture as well as agribusiness prostitution, foreign-service sexism, mail order brides as a means for a nations capital along with the income sent back to the country by oversea workers. Sri Lanka and the Philippines are two countries today whose economic stability is most dependent on feminized migrant labor (Enloe 186). The government of these countries employs laws for oversea workers that require these workers to send a minimum percentage of their pay. For example, In the Philippines, there was an estimate of 60 to 100 million dollars in foreign exchange from oversea workers (Enloe 188). However, the international political economy works on devaluating womens work, thus giving them lower wages. Decisions, which have cheapened womens work, have divided womens task with home and workplace tasks turning them into womens work and then rationalized the devaluation of that work.
For example, the industrialized textile production and garment making were central to Britains global power. Both industries feminized labor in order to make it profitable and internationally compete in the emerging global political economy and to stave off foreign control (Enloe 160). Disputed arguments in different societies about education inequality for women along with comparative strength have placed womens wages lower than male counterparts. For example, in the Levi industry in third world countries, sewing, commonly held by women, was a natural talent and thus, paid less than skilled professions (Enloe 162). Men held positions that were paid more because they ran heavy machines that required physical strength. Men were also given the skilled professions such as cutting and pressing in these companies (Enloe 162).
Foreign military bases can bring economic opportunities for a country. For example, in 1987, the American base in Subic Bay, Philippines, employed 68, 000 Filipinos who enjoyed medical insurance as well as other benefits not commonly offered by most Filipino workers (Enloe 86). Rumors of a base closing can send shivers of economic alarm through civilian communities that has come to depend on base jobs and soldiers spending (Enloe 66). Foreign military bases promoted prostitution, in which caused national concerns. AIDS for example was an issue brought in 1987 that served to escalate nationalists sense that the current American-Philippines bases agreement violates not just Filipino womens rights but the sovereignty and integrity of the Filipino nation as a whole (Enloe 86). Prostitution has to become an issue defined in terms of nationalist anger and nationalist hopes.
Foreign military soldiers relationships outside the base may affect social relationships with the local people. For example, in Britain 1942, black U. S. soldiers dated white British women.
These British women were labeled loose in their society. As a response to black males having relationships with white British women, black females were recruited. The NAACP leaders argued the Roosevelt administration that they did not see such a plan respectful. Black women were volunteering for the US army to be soldiers, not sexual companions (Enloe 69). General Dwight Eisenhower, senior US commander in Europe, tolerated white-black dating because he believed that the US-British alliance would be harmed if Americans tried to impose segregationist Jim Crow conventions on the British (Enloe 70). The armed forces depend on military wives for their largely unpaid work to transform an overseas base into a community (Enloe 72).
Those conventions lower wives expectation of paid work and careers of their own, encourage them to derive their own sense of self-worth from their husbands accomplishments, and suppress wives stories of depression and physical abuse for fear that they might damage their husbands chances of promotion (Enloe 72). American military wives wanted to be recognized as private citizens with financial and career aspirations and needs of their own (Enloe 73). American military wives formed their own organizations and effectively lobbied the US Congress. Their political aim was to ensure that women who have been married to service men are compensated for all they have contributed not only to their husbands careers but also to the military itself if as so often happens their husbands divorce them on retiring from the military (Enloe 73). National consciousness has induced many women to feel confident enough to take part in public organizing and public debate. Nationalist women feel that all the forces marginalizing or oppressing women have been generated by the dynamics of colonialism or neocolonialism, and hence that the pre-colonial society was one in which women enjoyed security and autonomy.
Thus restoring the nations independence will ensure womens liberation (Enloe 62). Sometimes, a law enforced from another country can be a crusade to abolish male domination within a society, it can however help establish male rule over the men of that society thus, labeling them inferior. For example, British officials passed legislation in India improving womens inheritance rights (1874, 1929, 1937), prohibiting widow-burning (1829) and allowing widow remarriage (1856). But in a sense it can be seen that British masculinized imperialism not as a crusade to abolish male domination of women, but as a crusade to establish European male rule over the men in Asian and African societies (Enloe 49).
In all, international politics resides on economies of different nations. The need for money to fall out of international debt have caused women, mostly in third world countries, to explore for economic opportunities, often found in prostitution, and oversea work. The government of these nations depend on world currency that is brought into the country by these people, most of them women, to sustain a means of national capital. Nationalism has recognized issues in which other nations created some inferiority among society.
For example, the AIDS dilemma in the Philippines in 1987 has caused national concern about the American military bases and prostitution, which demoralized the people of the Philippines. Nationalism also help recognized womens inequality in wages, which are often linked to what is a natural talent for women and what is considered skilled. For example, sewing was considered a national talent that women possessed that created low wages for women in the garment industry. In all, women today still feel oppression from male dominated societies, and international feminist movements expose the world about these inequalities in hope that people would help end inequalities. Our class role is to help expose and understand inequalities in societies, particularly women. This exposure could further expose the problems of women in different societies globally.
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Research essay sample on Third World Countries Male Dominance
