280 Book Reviews

ars such as Susan Okin (1979) have argued that for many theories, such modifications generate incoherence.

Important as these studies are, Manhood and Poli- tics goes beyond urging that the theories analyzed are not to be dismissed lightly. Brown exposes the rich de- piction of masculinist public power, and the relationship between manliness and politics in these traditional polit- ical theories. Her goal is to understand the world and discourse that produced women’s omission or subjuga- tion, and to evaluate ways of constructing politics divorced from its historical identification with man- hood. Despite the devastating consequences of mascu- line political dominance, she also notes its compelling features to support her provocative conclusion endors- ing transformation, not thorough-going abolition or condemnation of politics rooted in masculinity.

Brown charges that Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Golda Meir, Indhira Ghandi, and Margaret Thatcher are almost par- odies of modern-day manliness in politics (p. 185), women gaining entry into the political system by accept- ing the required standards of machismo. Whether or not that assessment is fair, Brown also rejects merely substi- tuting “feminine values” for masculine ones in the public sphere as impossible and inappropriate. “Feminine val- ues” have not been shaped for public purposes, and it is unlikely there are distinctly female values given differ- ences of race, class, culture, and religion (Spelman, 1989).

An alternative transformation Brown sketches dic- tates reintegration of bodily needs intimately tied to women’s experiences through reproduction, reaffirma- tion of the values of sustaining life and human projects, and revitalization of power in women and men. She ad- vocates changing political commitments from narrow conceptions of heroic conquest, domination, and de- struction toward meeting needs, enhancing life, and de- veloping creative activity. Readers may wish for a more specific vision of a nonmasculine political order, and Brown is acutely aware of this limitation of her book. Her explanation is that feminist attempts to articulate theories of political power lack success not only because power is complex and elusive, but also due to adaptation of an insight of Machiavelli’s: women cannot under- stand power without experiencing themselves as bearing power.

JUDITH WAGNER DECEW CLARK UNIVERSITY

WORCESTER, MA, U.S.A.

REFERENCES

Okin, Susan. (1979). Women in western political thought.

Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spelman, Elizabeth. (1989). Inessenlial woman. Boston: Beacon

Press.

WAR’S ~HER VOICES: WOMEN WRITERS ON THE LEBA- NESE CIVIL WAR, by Miriam Cooke, 208 pages. The Cambridge University Press, New York, 1988. US$34.50 cloth.

Miriam Cooke has undertaken two tasks: a) the identifi- cation and presentation of a new group of Arab women writers who shared the experience of Beirut and the Leb-

anese civil war from 1975 to 1982; and b) an examina- tion of modern Arabic literature-especially that related to the war-from a feminist literary perspective. Both tasks are accomplished with intelligence and care. The volume is a valuable contribution. Still, the works dis- cussed may be less singular and the feminist conscious- ness less developed than Cooke concludes.

Cooke has named the women writers the Beirut De- centrists. She has named them. They did not name themselves, for they wrote intellectually and physically separated from each other in a self-destructing city. These women shared a middle or upper-middle class background, but represented a full range of religious confessions and political perspectives. Among the De- centrists are Ghada al-Samman, Hanan al-Shaikh, Em- ily Nasrallah, Laila Usairan, Daisy al-Amir, Claire Ge- beyli, and Etel Adnan.

Their voices are the voices of noncombatants living in a war zone. It is not unfair to describe their work as the literary responses to chaos (p. 170), for a shared theme is the realization of the need for individual re- sponsibility and action in an unravelling society. Because these women chose to remain in Beirut while many of their male counterparts left the country, Cooke de- scribes their new consciousness as being both feminist and Lebanese. This is because they assumed (or had thrust upon them) a new responsibility for self and sur- vival, and because by staying they showed a love of country even as that country seemed on the verge of total disintegration.

Cooke finds this war “like no other war” in its lack of clear cause, stable enemy, and stereotypical attitudes (p. 164), and rightly wishes to retain these authentic voices when the war is reconstructed by writers and historians after its conclusions. However, some writers about war suggest that, in fact, all wars are experienced as chaos and that their meaning as well as simply “who won” is determined later by interpreters. Further, the themes ex- pressed so parallel French existentialist writing under the German occupation that one must at least ask if the Decentrists are, indeed, singular, or whether they are part of a recurring genre-a genre whose loss is also recurring because of a human need for more structure and meaning than the genre affords.

One should also be cautious about the liberation women experience during war. Clearly women become conscious of the fact that they are no longer protected. It is not so clear that they develop a group consciousness or that they (and the men related to them) understand the new circumstances as change. It might be more accu- rate to view norms as suspended. Also the stayers may or may not survive to see the return of exiles and refugees, and if they do, the resentment expressed during the peri- od of abandonment may quickly ease with return and the acknowledgement that men ARE positioned differ- ently than women during war. There are, after all, expec- tations that the young and able-bodied man must choose a side and participate. Merely surviving and as- sisting others to survive does not meet social expecta- tions for men.

Finally, the distinction made between patriotism (good) and nationalism (bad) requires more discussion. Cooke sees the former rooted in a shared history, land and family, the second in geography and government. A preference for the former, unfortunately, can lead to po- litical stances which have no room for compromise. In

Book Reviews 281

contrast, a perspective that boundaries and states are artifices to facilitate organization and that blood ties and history, and historical occupation must not overrule pragmatic agreement can be very important to survival.

Perhaps the tragedy of Lebanon is that this 1946 creation, reinforced by U.S. marines in 1958, occupied by Palestinian refugees in 1970 and by Syrian soldiers in 1976, and invaded by Israel in 1982, has not become either patria or nation. Individuals like the Decentrists may, in fact, be in the process of defining both patria and nation by their insistent staying. They may also end as sacrifices to that definition or as victims of a different definition.

Cooke’s final analysis (in the chapter titled “Flight against time”) of women’s choices related to staying and escaping rural villages and warring Lebanon and the privilege of women’s marginal perspective provides ele- gant food for thought.

JUDITH HICKS STIEHM FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

MIAMI, FL U.S.A.

WOMEN AND THE MILITARY SYSTEM, edited by Eva Isaks- son, 455 pages. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire, 1988.

More often than not I find books based on conference papers unsatisfactory. They tend to be uneven and fragmented, which to some degree is inevitable given the variety of approaches and treatments they encompass. Women and the military system suffers from such prob- lems, but far less than most of its kind due, I imagine, to the clear exercise of editorial direction by Eva Isaksson (Research Assistant at the University of Helsinki), as well as the quality of many of the contributions. This book is the proceedings of a Symposium on “Women and the Military System” arranged by the International Peace Bureau and Peace Union of Finland.

The whole subject of women and the military was brought to life for me some years ago by reading Cyn- thia Enloe’s work, so I was immediately interested to read her contributions to this collection. Her paper, “Be- yond ‘Rambo’: women and the varieties of militarized masculinity,” is a witty, sharp account of the deepening militarisation of different cultures. In conclusion, she questions whether the desperate need to militarise more and more aspects of daily life in different societies is an indication of the vulnerability rather than the strength of the military-scientific-industrial complex inter- nationally.

One section of this collection takes an interesting look at the military economy through a number of pa- pers which examine the link between the subordinate position of women in the formal economy and the build- up of military expenditure. Another section looks at the role of women in liberation struggles in Algeria, Yugo- slavia, and Nicaragua. It includes a paper by Ximena Bunster, “The mobilization and demobilization of wom- en in militarized Chile,” which explores the way in which similar images of woman and motherhood have been used by women who have played a central role in or- ganised opposition to the Pinochet regime, and also by womens’ organisations which have taken a prominent pro-Junta position.

Marie-Aimee Helie Lucas’ contribution examines the complex and contradictory position facing women torn between loyalty to a fragile revolutionary society in Al- geria and the needs and demand by women for change. She makes the important point that the crucial opposi- tion to imposed Western culture tends to be expressed through a reinforcement of traditional cultures marked by a highly restrictive role for women and a reduction in choice in private matters (such as consumption of alco- hol and tobacco). In the absence of a developed antiim- perialist feminist approach, she points out that many women choose silence rather than criticise their emerg- ing societies in a way that might benefit international right-wing forces.

At the other end of the spectrum, Carol Cohn enters the heart of nuclear strategic thinking in her paper, “A feminist spy in the house of death: unravelling the lan- guage of strategic analysis,” which records her experi- ence attending a summer workshop on nuclear strategic doctrine run by “distinguished ‘defence intellectuals.“’ She reveals their use not just of sexual but also of do- mestic imagery in a language designed to abstract and sanitise weapons of mass destruction. Examples abound, but I liked her description of their obsession with “patting the missile” and the use of the term “cook- ie cutter” to describe a specific model of nuclear attack. She concludes by arguing that learning their language is of limited use in that their assumptions cannot be chal- lenged from within a language, which is itself created precisely to mask its underlying political rationale.

Other contributions reflect a concern with the subor- dinate position of women within establishment military systems, while a perspective that women are “essentially peaceful” is presented, but does not go unchallenged in a section on the theme “Women as creators of world peace.” The final part provides a very useful survey of current trends in the militarisation of women in different countries in Europe and the United States. A particular- ly useful appendix summarises, on an international ba- sis, women’s participation in the military forces of their respective countries. This, together with a comprehen- sive bibliography, will ensure that this volume will serve as both a means of furthering debate and an essential reference book on women and the military.

URSULA BARRY DUBLIN, IRELAND

WITHOUT PRECEDENT: THE LIFE AND CAREER OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, edited by Joan Hoff-Wilson and Marjorie Lightman, 266 pages. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1984.

This splendid collection of essays, prepared to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Eleanor Roosevelt, actually delivers more than its title suggests. All 12 essays in Without precedent contain interesting accounts of im- portant influences on, and transformations in, ER’s per- sonal life and political career. Beyond this, many of them also offer rich descriptions and insightful analyses of other women and women’s organizations that were active politically in the United States in the years follow- ing passage of the Female Suffrage Amendment, through the New Deal, and up to the early 196Os, just prior to the rebirth of the women’s movement. In addi-