Follow Up: Enloe

“Being Curious about Our Lack of Feminist Curiosity” by Cynthia Enloe explains the importance of critical thinking.  I do agree with Enloe that often the terms  “natural”, “tradition”, or “always” imply that we do not need to further investigate a topic.  Thus, if something is natural, we should just let it be, as it must be correct and accordingly requires no further consideration.  And if something is traditional, there is no reason to assess it or question it because it is something that always has existed.  This is definitely an issue in today’s society.  If we do not critically assess the ideas and aspects of our society that we are faced with, it is difficult to make any progress. With hierarchies and patriarchies in particular, we need to critically examine what is happening and why exactly that is occurring.

I think it is important to stress this idea of critical thinking.  Often, as students, we take what we are told and simply accept it with little critique or evaluation.  It is far easier to take information and accept it as fact or as “the way it is” than to ask questions about it.  Thus, it may be both quicker and easier to passively accept this information; however, Enloe stresses, it is far more useful to actively engage with this information and decide for yourself what it is saying and why it says so.  Only by asking questions and deeply evaluating what we previously took as natural or tradition can we get to the root causes of social issues.