Gender & Sexuality Studies Unit IV Gender and Work in The Global Economy

UNIT IV GENDER AND WORK IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Unit IV Gender and in the Global Economy 69 Introduction Gender and Work in the Global Economy Work is an arena in which processes intersect with multiple social inequalities to influence what jobs people have , how they experience those jobs , and whether those jobs provide them with secure , fulfilling and upwardly mobile careers , or relegate them to insecure , dangerous , or even degrading labor . In the US , hard work is supposed to lead to a whole host of social and material rewards ( respect , power , a house , a car , a yacht ) The context surrounding hard work , for instance whether that work is paid or unpaid , compensated at a minimum wage or salary , is in deep and complex ways . As we mentioned previously , childcare is hard work that is often underpaid or not paid at all and is most often done by women . Furthermore , even if women do not perform most of this work themselves , certain career trajectories are forced on them , and they are placed in lower paying and less prestigious mommy tracks whether or not they choose this themselves . We can also see institutionalized labor inequalities at the global scale by looking at who cares for North American children when mothers take on jobs and hire nannies , typically immigrant women from Eastern Europe and the Global South , to care for their children . Introduction Gender and Work in the Global Economy 71

Gender and Work in the US Now , more than ever , women in the US are participating in the labor force in , This was not always the case . Changes in the economy ( namely , the decline of men wages ) an increase in , and education and job opportunities and cultural shifts created by feminist movement politics from the 19605 and have fueled the increase in women labor force participation . homes are much more common than the model popularized in the , in which women stayed home and did unpaid labor ( such as laundry , cooking , childcare , cleaning ) while men participated in the paid labor force in jobs that would earn them enough money to support a spouse and children . It turns out this popular American fantasy , often spoken of in political family values rhetoric , was only ever a reality for some white , people , and , for most contemporary households , is now completely out of reach . Though men and women are participating in the labor force , higher education , and paid work in numbers , a wage gap between men and women workers remains . On average , women workers make 77 of what men make . This gap persists even when controlling for educational differences , work versus work , and versus seasonal occupational statuses . Thus , women with similar educational backgrounds who work the same number of hours per year as their male counterparts are making 23 less than similarly situated men . So , how can this gap be explained ?

Researchers put forth four possible explanations of the gender wage gap ) discrimination ) occupational segregation ) devalued work and ) inherent conflicts . Most people believe discrimination in hiring is a thing of the past . Since the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed it has been illegal to discriminate in hiring based on race or gender . However , although companies can no longer say men only in their hiring advertisements , they can make efforts to recruit men , such as circulating job ads in men social networks and choosing men to interview from the applicant pool . The same companies can also have provisions that may discourage women , who they assume are disproportionately more likely to be primary caregivers , from applying . In addition , discrimination cases are very difficult to prosecute legally since no government agency monitors general trends and practices , and so individuals must complain about and prove specific instances of discrimination in specific job settings . Hiring discrimination in particular is extremely difficult to prove in a courtroom , and can thus persist largely unchecked . In addition , even when they are hired , women working in fields often run into a glass ceiling , in that they face difficulties in being promoted to positions in the organization . One example of the glass ceiling and gender discrimination is the class action lawsuit between and its female managerial staff . Although has hired some women in managerial positions across the country , they also have informal policies , at the national level , of promoting men faster and paying them at a different wage scale . While only six women at initiated the suit , the number of women that would be affected in this case numbered over million . fought this legal battle over the course of ten years ( The case was finally decided in June 2011 when the US Supreme Court sided with the defendant , citing the difficulty of considering all women workers in retail empire as a coherent They agreed that discrimination against individuals was present , but the fact that it could not be proven that women , as a class , were discriminated against by the Mart corporation kept them from being found guilty ( Stores Dukes , et , 2011 ) Although did nothing to curb its male managers who were clearly and consistently hiring and promoting men over women , this neglect was not enough to convict of discrimination . In this example , it becomes apparent that while gender discrimination is illegal it can still happen in patterned and widespread ways . Additionally , there are a series of factors that make it hard to prosecute gender discrimination . Much of the material in this chapter was adapted from a classroom guest lecture by Dale , given on October 26 , 2009 . 72 Gender and Work in the US

mull entrance in Canada . by is in the Public Domain Occupational segregation describes a split labor market in which one group is far more likely to do certain types of work than other groups . occupational sex segregation describes situations in which women are more likely to do certain jobs and men others . The jobs women are more likely to work in have been dubbed jobs . While white collar describes managerial work and blue collar describes manual labor predominantly done by men with a full range of income levels depending on skill , pink collar describes mostly , positions that involve services and , often , emotional labor . The term emotional labor , developed by sociologist Russell ( 1983 ) is used to describe work in which , as part of their job , employees must control and manage their emotions . For instance , a waitress risks being fired by confronting rude and harassing customers with anger she must both control her own emotions and help to quell the emotions of angry customers in order to keep her job . Any work that involves interacting with customers ( from psychiatrists to food service cashiers ) also involves emotional labor . The top three occupations dominated by women , teachers , and involve exceptional amounts of emotional labor . Gender and Work in the US 73

An Austrian attendant to passengers by Austrian Airlines is licensed under work , or work thought to be women work is not only underpaid , it is also socially undervalued , or taken to be worth less than work thought to be men work . Care work is an area of the service economy that is , involves intense emotional labor , and is consistently undervalued . Caretakers of children and the elderly are predominantly women . Economist Nancy ( 2001 ) has argued that care work is undervalued both because women are more likely to do it and because it is considered to be natural for women to know how to care . Women have traditionally done care work in the home , raising children and caring for sick and dying relatives , usually for free . Perhaps this is because women bear children and are stereotyped as naturally more emotionally sensitive than men . Some feel it is wrong to ever pay for these services and that they should be done altruistically even by members . Women are stereotyped as having natural caring instincts , and , if these instincts come naturally , there is no reason to pay well ( or pay at all ) for this work . In reality , care work requires learned skills like any other type of work . What is interesting is that when men participate in this work , and other jobs , they actually tend to be paid better and to advance to positions faster than comparable women . This phenomenon , in contrast to the glass ceiling , is known as the glass escalator ( Williams , 1992 ) However , Harvey ( 2009 ) has applied an intersectional analysis to the glass escalator concept and found that men of color do not benefit from this system to the extent that white men do . 74 Gender and Work in the US

This by in the Public Domain Finally , the fourth explanation for the gender wage gap has to do with the conflict between work and family that women are more likely to have to negotiate than men . For instance , women are much more likely to interrupt their career trajectories to take time off to care for children . This is not an inherent consequence of childbearing . Many countries offer women ( and sometimes men ) workers paid leave time and the ability to return to their jobs with the same salaries and benefits as when they left them . In contrast , the strongest legal policy protecting people jobs in the case of extended leave to care for the sick or elderly , or take personal time for pregnancy and childcare in the United States is the Family and Medical Leave Act ( of 1996 . Under this act , most employers are obligated to allow their workers to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave . Unfortunately , few people can afford to be away from their jobs for so long without a paycheck and this policy remains . Additionally , only about half of the US work force is eligible for leave under , because the act only applies to workers who are employed by companies that have more than 50 employees . On top of that , many employers are unaware of this act or do not inform their workers that they can take this time off . Thus , women are more likely to quit jobs and take on jobs while their children are young . Quitting and rejoining the labor force typically means starting at the bottom in terms of pay and status at a new company , and this negatively impacts women overall earnings even when they return to work . Gender and Work in the US 75

Gender and the US Welfare State There are many ways that nations and national policies are . In this section we will focus on the US . welfare state . Here , we do not cover everything pertaining to the welfare state we clarify debates and provide examples . Welfare does not only come in its form ( monthly income assistance ) but also includes subsidized health insurance ( Medicare and Medicaid ) and childcare , social security , and food subsidies like food stamps . In addition , the government pays subsidies to corporations , which is called corporate welfare . Most individuals who receive welfare are stigmatized and construed as undeserving , while the corporations that receive subsidies are seen as entitled to these . The distribution of welfare in the US is a process in which women , especially mothers , are much more likely to receive assistance than men . Since , at the national level , women earn less money than men do and often take time away from the labor force , it is more difficult to maintain a household on one woman income than on one man income . This is even more difficult for women who are working class or poor whose work may not even pay enough to stay well fed and cared for without additional support from family , friends , or the state . The Personal Opportunities Reconciliation Act ( of 1996 effectively dismantled US welfare policy . As we mentioned previously , the act limits lifetime receipt of welfare to a maximum of 60 months . In addition , the act includes some clauses to address the political issue of mothers on welfare . Former Speaker of the House Newt infamously suggested that children of welfare mothers should be put into orphanages rather than be raised by the women who birthed them . An incarnation of this sentiment made its way into through an optional clause that would bar mothers who were already on welfare rolls from getting additional money to support any new children ( Hays , 2001 ) This clause , also known as the family cap provision , effectively punishes children for being born and plays into the demeaning and erroneous stereotype that women on welfare have children in order to get more money from the state . Feminist political scientist Mink argues that welfare reform targets poor single mothers and families of color and contributes to the of unpaid giving work . According to Mink ( 2009 ) through welfare reform , poor single mothers became a separate caste , subject to a separate system of law . Poor single mothers are the only people in America forced by law to work outside the home . They are the only people in America whose decision to bear children are punished by the government And they are the only mothers in America compelled by law to make room for biological fathers in their families ( Mink 2009 540 ) This example illustrates how state policies devalue the traditionally care work that women disproportionately perform , target poor women of color as subjects to be regulated , and reinforce heteronormative homemaker gender roles . In addition , welfare is linked to state policies governing marriage and family life . For example , the Bush Administration Healthy Marriages Initiative , which promoted marriage by providing government funding , assumed that marriage reduces poverty . It is true that two incomes are often better than one . However , not all mothers are heterosexual , or want to be married to the father of their children , or even married at all . More than that , marriage is no guarantee of financial security , especially people living in impoverished communities where they would likely marry other impoverished people . Most people marry within their current economic class ( and 2006 ) and others especially hoped that women would marry the fathers of their children without recognizing that many women are victims of intimate partner violence . Finally , we are also living in a period in which most marriages end in divorce . It is clear that this initiative was more about promoting a political ideology than actually attempting to remedy the social problem of poverty . Discourses about welfare mothers invoke images that are , classed , and sexualized . This phrase speaks to race and sexuality issues as well as gender and class issues . The notions that women on welfare breed children uncontrollably , never marry , and do not know who fathered their children are contemporary incarnations of the Jezebel controlling image of Black women as sexually promiscuous that originated during American slavery ( Collins , 2005 ) This 76 Gender and the US Welfare State

image obscures the fact that during slavery and after emancipation , white men systematically raped Black women . Although most people receiving welfare supports are white , and , in particular , most single mothers receiving welfare are also white , welfare receipt is such that the only images of welfare we seem to see are single mothers of color . As we mentioned before , the poor are often framed as amoral , unfamiliar , and . If instead the receipt of welfare was not stigmatized , but was recognized as something that families , friends , and neighbors received in various phases of their lives , these stereotypes would lose traction . For instance , the mother of one of the authors of this text receives social security for disability checks , yet is staunchly . This contradiction is sustained by the idea that members of the white middle class do not receive welfare even when they do receive various forms of government support . Women disproportionately number among those in poverty around the world . The term feminization of poverty describes the trend in the US and across the globe in which more and more women live in impoverished conditions , despite the fact that many are working . Women unequal access to resources and the disproportionate responsibility for unpaid work placed on them set up a situation in which women can either be supported by a breadwinner or struggle to make ends meet . The global economic crisis and unequal economic relationships between the Global term that refers to the worlds wealthier the Global term that refers to the poorer made sustainable breadwinning wages , even among men , hard to attain . Gender and the US Welfare State 77

Transnational Production and Globalization Globalization is an term that can usefully serve as shorthand . However , this shorthand runs the risk of lumping together a broad range of complex economic , political , and cultural phenomena . Globalization describes both the benefits and costs of living in a globally connected world . The Internet was once heralded as the great equalizer in global communications . Certainly , we are now accustomed to getting news from across the globe from a variety of perspectives . Activists in other countries , like Egypt and Iran , have famously used social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to report what is happening from the ground , in the absence of formal news sources . Egyptian activists also utilized these social networking websites to coordinate demonstrations and marches , leading to the Egyptian government to shut down the Internet for several days during the Arab Spring uprisings in early 2011 . Globalization makes it possible for social change activists in different countries to communicate with each other , and for people , information , and products to cross borders , with benefits for some and costs to others . It allows for Massachusetts residents to have fresh fruit in winter , but lowers the wages of agricultural workers who gather the fruit in tropical countries , supports repressive government policies in those countries , and increases the carbon footprint of producing and distributing food . Globalized can lead social movements and state , development and conservation agencies to influence each other . For example , Colombian activists use of development discourses both legitimized the presence of state , development and conservation agencies and influenced these agencies visions and plans ( Asher 2009 ) As such , globalization is not uniformly good or bad , but has costs and benefits that are experienced differently depending on ones social location . Nations of the world are linked in trade relationships . The US depends on resources and capabilities of other nations to the extent that our economy relies on imports ( oil , cars , food , manufactured goods ) So , how is it that the US economy is still largely profitable ?

Factories in the US producing manufactured goods did not simply close down in the face of competition multinational that exist across several political concerted efforts to increase their profits ( Kirk 2007 ) One way to massively increase profits is to pay workers less in wages and benefits . In the US , labor laws and union contracts protect workers from working extensive hours at a single job , guarantee safe working environments , and set a minimum wage . Thus , American workers are expensive to corporations . This is why companies based in the US outsource production to the nations of the Global South where workers rights are less protected and workers make less money for their labor . One consequence of outsourcing is the development of sweatshops ( known as when based in Mexico in particular ) in which workers work long hours for little pay and are restricted from eating or using the restroom while at work ( Kirk 2007 ) These workers seldom purchase the goods they assist in producing , often because they could not afford them , and because the global factories in which they work ship goods to be sold in wealthier countries of the Global North . These factories predominantly employ young , unmarried women workers in Asia , Latin America and the Caribbean because they are considered the most docile and obedient groups of workers that is , corporations consider them less likely to make demands of employers or to unionize ( Kirk 2007 ) 78 Transnational Production and Globalization

by is licensed under Rather than a nation workers producing goods , selling those goods back to its people , and keeping profits within the nation borders , multinational corporations participate in global commodity chains . As Cynthia ( 2008 ) article The Sneaker makes clear , globalization makes it possible for a shoe corporation based in Country A to extract resources from Country , produce goods in Country , sell those goods in Countries , and , and deposit waste in the landfills of Country Meanwhile , the profits from this production and sales of goods return largely to the corporation , while little goes into the economies of the participating nations ( 2008 ) Companies like Nike , Adidas , and were initially attracted by military regimes in South Korea in the that quashed labor unions . Once the workers in South Korea organized successfully , factories moved to Indonesia ( 2008 ) This process of moving to remaining areas of cheap labor before workers organize is known as the race to the bottom logic of global factory production . With the increasing globalization of the economy international institutions have been created . The purpose of these international institutions is , ostensibly , to monitor abuses and assist in the development of less developed nations through loans from more developed nations . The World Bank provides monetary support for large , projects such as the construction of roads and dams . The International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) provides loans and facilitates international trade relationships particularly through structural adjustment programs ( SAP ) Essentially , in a SAP , a country of the Global North lends money to another country in the Global South in exchange for resources . For instance , the US may lend money to Chile to assist with the growth and harvesting of grapes and production of wine . In exchange , the US would acquire grapes and wine from Chile at a discounted rate , and have control in how Chile spends the money , while Chile repays the initial loan . The problem with this is that , in many cases , the lending process is circular such that the country accepting the loan remains constantly indebted to the initial lending nation . For example , a nation may produce most of its crop to export elsewhere and be unable to feed its own people and therefore require additional loans . Consequences of SAPS are devalued currency , privatized industries , cut social programs and government subsidies , and increasing taxes to fund the development of infrastructure . Free trade describes a set of institutions , policies , and ideologies , in which the governmental restrictions and regulations are minimal , allowing corporate bodies to engage in enterprises to maximize profit . One institution that was created to foster free trade is the World Trade Organization ( an international unelected body whose mission is to challenge restraints on free trade . Some countries limit pollution levels in industry the considers any limits on production as barriers to free trade . They operate on the theory that unfettered , free market capitalism is the best way to generate profits . It may be more profitable to pay people minimally and circumvent Transnational Production and Globalization 79

environmental regulations , but proponents of free trade do not factor in the human costs to health , safety , and that can not be put into dollars and cents . One such free trade agreement is the North American Free Trade Agreement ( of 1994 . is an agreement between Canada , the US , and Mexico to promote the unregulated movement of jobs and products . The biggest result of this legislation is the mass relocation of factories from the US to Mexico in the form of that supply goods at low prices back to US consumers , resulting in a loss of around union jobs in North America ( 2003 ) The Free Trade Area of the Americas ( of 2002 expands to include the entire Western Cuba , due to trade sanctions against its communist government . At the time of this writing , the impact of these free trade agreements is a hotly contested political issue . Some people have argued that it resulted in unionized , higher paying jobs , while others have argued that even with many negative impacts , overall access to jobs , products , and resources has yielded many improvements . In the face of moves to promote free trade , fair trade movements that support safe working conditions and sustainable wages have also cropped up , especially in the coffee and chocolate industries . The current global economic system is guided by an ideology of . In the contemporary context , the term liberal is identified with the American Democratic Party , but in terms of political theory , the term liberalism refers to restrictions on state power to prevent government infringement on individual rights ( and Kaplan 1994 ) which transcend party affiliations . Economic liberalism , the belief that markets work best without any governmental regulation or interference , describes the free trade economic policies we discussed above , and should not be confused with the liberalism associated with the Democratic Party . is a approach to economic and social policy , where capitalism profit motive is applied to social policies and programs ( like welfare and taxation ) cutting them to increase profits . A crucial project of is the downsizing of the public sphere and social welfare programs that unions and racial justice activists have fought for since the early Century . Feminist historian Lisa ( 2003 ) argues that is more than just the privatization of the economy , but is an ideology that holds that once marginalized groups ( people , people of color , the ) have access to mainstream institutions ( like marriage and service in the military ) and consumption in the free market , they have reached equality with their privileged peers ( straight people , white people , the and ) ideology therefore assumes that our society has reached a rights period where social movements that seek to fundamentally alter mainstream institutions and build up social welfare programs are obsolete . However , as this textbook has shown , mainstream institutions and structures of power often reproduce inequalities . 80 Transnational Production and Globalization

, and Sexualized Labor in the Global Economy The structure of the global economy affects people differently not only by the economic situations of the nations in which they live , but also by gender and race . Predatory trade relationships between countries roughly reproduce the political situation of colonization in many nations of the Global South . This has led many to characterize economic policies as a form of , or modern day colonization characterized by exploitation of a resources and people . Colonialism and are concepts that draw attention to the global inequalities between white , affluent people of the Global people of color of the Global historically colonized . theory emerged out of critiques of colonialism , empire , enslavement , and oppression more generally , which were advanced by scholars in the Asian and Middle Eastern . Postcolonial scholars primarily unpack and critique colonial discourses , depictions of colonized Others , and European scholars biased representations of those they colonized , which they figure as knowledge ( for example , see Said 1995 and 1988 ) theoretical approaches , emerging chiefly in Latin America , illuminated how colonization invented the concepts of the colonized , modernity and , and disrupted the social arrangements , lives , gender relations , and understandings it invaded , imposing on the colonized European of male and female ( 2007 2007 ) Women of color of the Global South are disproportionately impacted by global economic policies . Not only are women in Asian and Latin American countries much more likely to work in factory jobs than men , women are also much more mobile in terms of immigration ( 2005 ) Women have more mobility for factory work in other countries as well as in domestic and sex work markets . When women immigrate to other nations they often sacrifice care of and contact with their own children in order to earn money caring for wealthier children as domestic workers this situation is known as transnational motherhood ( 2001 ) Domestic work and sex work are two sectors of the service economy in which women immigrants participate . Immigrants , especially undocumented immigrants , have few options in terms of earning money , and economic circumstances are such that undocumented immigrants can make more money within illegal and unregulated markets in nations of the Global , rather than regulated markets of the formal economy . Thus , it is not uncommon for women immigrants to participate in informal economies such as domestic work or sex work that employers and clients do not report in their taxes . Women immigrants also participate in other parts of the service economy of the Global North . Kang ( 2010 ) has studied immigrant women who participate in beauty service work , particularly nail salons . This type of work does not require high amounts of skill or experience and can support women for whom English is a second language or those who may be undocumented . Like any service job , work in nail salons involves emotional labor . While clients may see the technician in the beauty salon as their confidant ( like Queen character in Beauty Shop ) their relationship is primarily an unequal labor relationship in which one party is paid not only for the service they perform but also for their friendly personalities and listening skills . Kang ( 2010 ) refers to this type of labor involving both emotional and physical labor as body labor . To engage in both emotional and physical labor at work is exhausting . In addition , workers in nail and hair salons work with harsh chemicals that are ultimately toxic to their health and make them more susceptible to cancer than the general population . Not only do , and sexualized differences exist in the US domestic labor market , leading to differences in work and pay , these differences also characterize the globalized labor market . Trade relationships between countries and the ideology of that governs them have profound effects on the quality of life of people all over the world . Women bear the brunt of changes to the global marketplace as factory workers in some countries and domestic , sex , and beauty service workers in others . Fortunately , fair trade and , and Sexualized Labor in the Global Economy 81

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