Big Push Quotes

“Decisions. Exposing decisions and decision-makers is, I think, a feminist commitment. It reveals that the racism, class inequality, and, of course, sexism that commonly pass as "tradition," "nature", and "culture" can be tracked down to deliberate actions by specific individuals who are seeking to protect their own interests or the interests of the institutions they serve. Holding accountable all sorts of decision-makers for their choices –including choosing neglect, denial, and inaction– is crucial, I've come to believe, for sustaining civic trust.”
― Cynthia Enloe, Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy

“Taking my mother's experiences seriously led to my exploring the militarisation of marriages. It made me alert to what feminist historians have been telling us now for four decades: pay attention to the feminised silences - not just silences due to oppression, but silence flowing from many women's belief that their wartime experiences don't "matter" - that they are merely private, trivial, apolitical. Men wage war; women simply "cope" with wartime. Coping does not make for exciting history.”
― Cynthia Enloe, Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy

“On November 10, 2016, British woman stopped working. Or rather, they stopped being paid what they were worth for their work. Feminist economists had calculated that, as a result of the multiple processes that perpetuate unequal pay between women and men, from November 10 to December 31 that year, British women were working for free.”
― Cynthia Enloe, Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy

“Who is formally categorised as a "skilled worker" and who gets to define what work is "skilled" - together, these are two crucial gears in the machinery of any patriarchal workplace.”
― Cynthia Enloe, Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy

“Patriarchy is sustained by those co-workers who withhold their valuable support for women colleagues because they see the world as a zero-sum universe: you gain, I lose.”
― Cynthia Enloe, Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy