Monsicha Hoonsuwan Op-Ed: Feminism IR Capstone Professor DeLaet 3 May 2011 Gender and Globalization Machines cant make

the clothes were wearing. Garment production is a laborintensive industry, requiring the speed and skill of workers to cut, sew, and trim pieces of cloth together. The garment industry knows this well. As the world becomes more connected economicallya process many dub globalizationthe garment markets expand, and garment producers seek to maximize profits by trotting the globe looking for cheaper labor and places that allow lower production costs. Where else would these companies choose besides developing countries that are giving out incentives to attract investors. And who else possess the skills needed to produce garment in exchange to minimal pay besides women. Oxfams report Trading Away Our Rights: Women working in global supply chains reveals that fewer than half of the women working for textile and garment industries in Bangladesh have a contract, while the majority have no maternity leave or healthcare. In Guangdong, China, young women work 150 hours overtime monthly in the garment factories. Almost all of them (90 percent) have no social insurance, and more than half (60 percent) have no written contract. Without a written contract, these women workers have littleif at allrights as an employee. Not only are they paid unreasonably considering the hours they put inovertime or not, but they also face severe health risks

ranging from backache to kidney problems without any medical safety net. But garment workers arent the only victims of corporate greed. In Chile, reported Oxfam, 75 percent of women working agriculture-related jobs put in more than 60 hours a week picking fruits on temporary contracts. The competition between different corporations becomes fiercer as each firm tries to establish itself in the international market, perpetuating this race to the bottom by mercilessly exploiting cheap laborsespecially womento remain competitive. Women, then, became the main sufferer, unwillingly bearing the cost of this global competition. They work harder and faster for lesser pay and benefits. Such examples denote the adverse effects globalization particularly has on women labors. Merriam Webster dictionary defines globalization as the act or process of globalizing: the state of being globalized; especially: the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. [sic] Globalization characterized by free market is a highly troubling concept. Free markets dont take into account womens family and childrearing responsibilities that many times hinder their geographic and occupational mobility. Therefore, globalization is a force that favors men more than womengenderedprompting Valentine Moghadam, a prominent feminist scholar, to redefine it as a complex process of economic, political, and cultural change on a world scale that entails integration, marginalization, exploitation and resistance. Marginalization and exploitation, unfortunately, occur to women more than men. Of course, globalization does have some negative impacts on men, but we cant deny that women largely become the shock-absorbers when something goes wrong with the free-market economy. More women than men may become unemployed because they

tend to work in the lower rungs of the occupational ladder such as unskilled and clerical positions as well as other low-wage jobs. United Nations for Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) states that the economic value associated with the work performed primarily by women remains low, in addition to exploitation, non-existent job security and violations of human rights. Furthermore, globalization reinforces many other existing gender inequalities, according the UNESCAP, especially violence against women. Problems such as the trafficking of women and girls demand immediate attention from the international community. In fact, sex trafficking for female children in the U.S. is rising because globalization and technology allows traffickers to operate in a different way. Many of these women are later forced to work as sex labors. Proponents of globalization may cite facts and statistics that reveal the increase of women workers in the labor force, giving them means to support their livelihood. But numbers and percentages are often manipulative. Sure, 90 percent of jobs created by foreign direct investments such as transnational garment producers are given to women. But employing women in such low-wage, labor-intensive jobs widen the overall wage gap between women and men. All these instances of inequality challenge the prevalent definition of globalization. Perhaps we should ask ourselves to whom does globalization belong: men who have enjoyed the luxury of free trade economic freedom or women who are working hard but still struggle to close that income gap that has exited between the two genders for centuries?