Women in Comparative Societies
Women and Militarism

Readings:  ChlamersJohnson, Okinawa:  America's Last Colony and Cynthia Enloe, Base Women

Chalmers Johnson
President of the Japan Policy Research Institute
Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego
Frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times and The Nation
Other books MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1983) and The Sorrows of Empire:  Militarism, Secrecy and the end of the Republic (2001)

Blowback - what does the term mean?  what's the origin of it?

The chapter on Okinawa is part of Chalmers' larger critique of American Empire

Not written out of feminist concerns

Okinawa


The case in question
1995 rape of 12-year old girl by 3 airmen

an isolated incident?
since 1988 169 courst martial for sexual assault in Japan
highest for all US bases
66% more than in San Diego (twice the personnel) (41)
1995 Protests
1995 Sentences

Protests against US military presence in Okinawa continue
2001 Case involving Black airman
Time Story about 2001 Case involving Black airman

US troops in Riyadh?



Professor, Political Science and Women's Studies
Clark University, Worcester, MA

Feminist Approaches to War, Militarism
Enloe's critique in Base Women
    the political economy of militarism
    gender and
    prostitution and "R&R"
    premised on discourses of masculinity and feminity

Sarah Ruddick
Maternal Thinking:  Toward a Politics of Peace (1989)
Mothers Against War
Comfort Women

Beer and Brunell (2001)
Women's Words:  Gender and Rhetoric in the Gulf War Debate



Enloe more recently asks:
What roles do women play in making war, perpetrating militarism?



Have you been miliarized?
       
Enloe talk
Interview with Enloe in Korea