Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War / Edition 1

by Cynthia Enloe

Overview

Nimo, Maha, Safah, Shatha, Emma, Danielle, Kim, Charlene. In a book that once again blends her distinctive flair for capturing the texture of everyday life with shrewd political insights, Cynthia Enloe looks closely at the lives of eight ordinary women, four Iraqis and four Americans, during the Iraq War. Among others, Enloe profiles a Baghdad beauty parlor owner, a teenage girl who survived a massacre, an elected member of Parliament, the young wife of an Army sergeant, and an African American woman soldier. Each chapter begins with a close-up look at one woman’s experiences and widens into a dazzling examination of the larger canvas of war’s gendered dimensions. Bringing to light hidden and unexpected theaters of operation—prostitution, sexual assault, marriage, ethnic politics, sexist economies—these stories are a brilliant entryway into an eye-opening exploration of the actual causes, costs, and long-range consequences of war. This unique comparison of American and Iraqi women’s diverse and complex experiences sheds a powerful light on the different realities that together we call, perhaps too easily, “the Iraq war.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520260788
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	06/02/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Cynthia Enloe is Research Professor of Women's Studies and International Development at Clark University. She is the author of Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War, and The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, all from UC Press.
Cynthia Enloe won the Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement in Peace Studies Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

1 Eight Women, One War 1

The Iraqi Women

2 Nimo: Wartime Politics in a Beauty Parlor 19

3 Maha: A Widow Returns to Baghdad 45

4 Safah: The Girl from Haditha 72

5 Shatha: A Legislator in Wartime 93

The American Women

6 Emma and the Recruiters 129

7 Danielle: From Basketball Court to Baghdad Rooftop 150

8 Kim: "I'm in a Way Fighting My Own War" 171

9 Charlene: Picking Up the Pieces 192

Conclusion: The Long War 211

Notes 227

Bibliography 271

Index 295

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Stories help illustrate how gendered politics change over the course of a war and how this thing we call war itself changes over time."—Ms. Magazine

"Enloe's new work is a great addition to her oeuvre on women, militarism and consumer culture in international perspective."—Times Higher Education

Editorial Reviews

Stories help illustrate how gendered politics change over the course of a war and how this thing we call war itself changes over time.

Ms. Magazine

Enloe’s new work is a great addition to her oeuvre on women, militarism and consumer culture in international perspective.

Times Higher Education - Carrie Rentschler

"Stories help illustrate how gendered politics change over the course of a war and how this thing we call war itself changes over time."--Ms. Magazine

"Enloe's new work is a great addition to her oeuvre on women, militarism and consumer culture in international perspective."--Times Higher Education

From the Publisher