How can you shape what women do "naturally"? How can you keep wages low based on presumptions of ideology of the "dutiful daughter"? How can you tell if you are becoming militarized?
These are the kind of questions being asked by American political scientist and author Cynthia Enloe, a visiting professor of women's studies and political science at York University in Canada, invited by the OSIE department at University of Toronto to give a lecture intriguingly called "How Can You Tell If You're Becoming Militarized? Some Feminist Clues."

Through her research Professor Enloe has realized that it is not just governments who have a stake in what women can be made to do "naturally" but that this extends to schools, companies, Churches and even families. She has also come to appreciate that it is much harder to make women and girls do the kind of things that are in the vested interest of these institutions than we may think at first. This difficulty, she says, speaks to the underestimated power of women which is revealed by asking feminist questions.

One example that Professor Enloe gives of this type of manipulation of women's behavior is of the creation of the myth of the "dutiful daughter" in South Korea in 1950s. This myth was created to persuade mothers and fathers that girls can keep their respectability even if they traveled to Seoul and started working in the garment and electronic factories; that this in fact was their duty as a daughter. This idea was created and reinforced by the South Korean government, so in reality there was nothing natural about the "dutiful daughter" working in the factory - it was simply manipulated for economic ends. However it took a lot of ideological persuasion to get the notion of the dutiful daughter turned into the pillar of what became the economic miracle of South Korea.

Professor Enloe is also struck by how ubiquitous militarization is and that it is not just the obvious things like branches of industry, masculinity or foreign policy that are militarized. According to her it is possible to militarize anything even things that at first would not be seen as obvious such as fashion, the idea a good wife, your home town, a narrative or a person.

The process of militarization can be insidious or happen in such small steps that we may not even realize what is going on. As something gets militarized it becomes increasingly dependent on a military or on militaristic ideas or a sense of belonging to, or on a popular culture normality, or insecurity. According to Enloe, you can militarize anything by encouraging a dependency on the kind of things people aspire to which in themselves may not look very militarized. They may look like you want to be fashionable, or aspire to a good marriage, or to be accepted in a community, or be taken seriously in an op-ed piece. All those may be very genuine, authentic, and not by themselves very militaristic, but they can depend on an acquisition of militarized ideas. Militarization can occur on many levels. One of those is ideology, which - as Enloe noted- is composed of beliefs and values. Ideology is strongly imbedded in a consciousness of a society, and thus once militarized, can become dangerous. What is needed in order to resist and stop militarization is a change in ideas and behavior.

Most people who are militarized are not members of a military and in fact may become militarized very slowly, may never declare it and may never think of themselves as militarized. They may in fact think of themselves as rational, down to earth, or even as realistic. The world has become more militarized in the last few decades and not just since September 11, 2001 despite the high profile of this event.

Militaristic ideas are at the core of militarism which is a package of ideas unlike "militarization" which is a process. The process of militarization is a subtle, incremental process which includes the following:

1. Accepting the idea that the world is a dangerous place. The extent to which one thinks it is accurate to think of the world as a dangerous place one opens the door to become militarized. This idea and the fear resulting from this is promoted by militarizers. However, many people may very rightly think of the world as a dangerous place, for example if you are living in an abusive household, but not automatically militarized.
2. That it is natural or rational that one has enemies.
3. That a hierarchal way of organizing makes the most sense and that it is the most efficient way to get things done.
4. That is "natural" to divide the world between "protectors" and the "protected" which relies very heavily on ideas of masculinity and femininity. If you think this is a natural way to divide the world than it become very hard not to divide this along gender lines.
5. That having a military is key to proving you are a mature state and not having a military moves a cloud of doubt into your maturity as a state.

An example of this last point is when Aristide took power in Haiti, with a lot of help from the U.S. military, he looked at Costa Rica as a model for the reorganization of social structure in Haiti. Costa Rica had disbanded its military, partially as a strategy to deal with disputes with its neighboring country El Salvador. But the U.S. opposed this idea and convinced Aristide that Haiti would not be taken seriously in the international community without a military. The notion that you need a credible (well funded, up to date etc.) military force to be your representative in foreign affairs and also have a government and a populace which supports the military that is willing to use it prevails in the world today. Another example of this notion is the language used to encourage the Japanese to do away with the article 9 in their constitution which does not allow them to form a military. Japan has come under pressure by the U.S and others that if it wants to be part of the UN Security Council it must reconstitute its military.

Professor Enloe is quick to point out that possessing one or two of these ideas or beliefs alone is common and in isolation does not necessarily lead to being militarized but the real danger comes when you possess the entire package.

The next step for Professor Enloe is to add a feminist curiosity to this process and ask what a feminist analysis adds to this that we would miss otherwise. Some of the most interesting work in this regard is being done by feminists in Belgrade, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, South Africa, Congo and Chile.

The first time when Professor Enloe looked at feminist questions about militarization was with regards to the group of women married to soldiers or those who are commonly referred to as "military wives". She realized that governments and the ministry of defense feel a lot of anxiety about women married to soldiers. These women don't "naturally" do what their soldier husbands need them to and are not automatically militarized but governments need them to be and invest a lot of energy in trying to ensure that they are.

An example of the first group of women to resist and challenge militarization was in the military base of Red Deer, Alberta. In the 1980s in this base women first organized around trying to advocate for a better dental plan for the families of those enrolled in the military. This demand was met by resistance from the authorities who put pressure on the men to "control their wives". This group of women soon realized that they the military did not provide space for them to act as civilians and were sent a clear message that as part of a "military family" they were expected to conform to military ideals. Lead by a woman called Lucie Laliberté they formed a group called "Organization of Spouses of Military Members (OSOMM)" which exposes and challenges the harmful ideology and practices of the military on spouses. Lucie Laliberté has also co-authored a book called "No Life Like It" which looks at how much military forces depend on the unpaid and often invisible efforts of "military wives" for the smooth functioning of their operations.

"Prostitutes" are another group of women that a military needs. Every military operation has a different relation with prostitution and the prostitution economy, says Enloe. Whereas we may not know a lot about the relationship between the present military deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan and sex work, there is a lot of information on the military's relationship with "comfort women" and "prostitutes" in South Korea, Guam, Okanogan and the Philippines. The term used for prostitution in military speak is "fraternization" which includes all relationships that military uniformed personnel have with local civilians. The deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are presently under a non- fraternization rule, whereas in Bosnia there were some contingents with and some without fraternization rule. These rules become sexualized with a presumption of a masculine sexuality where every male is presumed to have a sex drive that must be satisfied and if it is not satisfied in a legal way it will be done in an illegal way. Therefore, the logic goes that to prevent rape of "innocent" and "good" women given the disproportionate number of men to women in the military you need to provide a sexual outlet for the male forces.

Yet another significant group is the "mothers" of military personnel and this is seen by the shaping of what is the perfect "military mother". This is a mother that embodies the notion of patriotic pride and sacrifice, who does her part for her country, who believes that hierarchical organizations and discipline are valuable etc. The military also appeals to the economic incentives that mothers may value for their sons (or daughters) by highlighting sign-up bonuses, notions of security and getting ahead. But in reality most women not really lured completely by economics alone and therefore the military is consistently launching campaigns aimed at militarization of attitudes.

An example of this is a television commercial aimed at the African American community which airs at 2 pm and is obviously targeting women working at home. It is a subdued, appealing film (about 30 seconds long) and starts with a close up of an African American-middle-age woman in a kitchen. Her son comes in and says: "Mom, I think I've figured out how we can have the money for me to be able to go to medical school... these recruiters came to school today and..." The woman doesn't react as if she was excited, quite the opposite she looks concerned but the young man continues: "It's about time I became a man." This commercial clearly plays on educational aspirations, addresses maternal skepticism, and wields a certain notion of militarized masculinity and tries to shape what women aspire for their sons.

Professor Enloe is encouraged by examples like these which show that it takes considerable thought and effort to militarize women and it is by no means an easy task. She contends that even though militarization can be very rewarding since it provides a sense of belonging, pride, credibility it can also be oppressive and relates to co-option and complicity.