Lauren Berg
WGS 410
Final Essays
Inequalities in Gendered
Work
Global
economics, politics and corporate structures have a sizable impact on the ways
in which women make an income. These structures, reinforced with sexism, have
caused gender specific occupations and significant numbers of female migrant
workers. The general population of the world may see women choosing certain
occupations out of their own free will, but because of a number of factors it
has become more of a necessity than a choice for them to work in the fields in
which they do. Large numbers of women are being hard-pressed into working in
the industries of domestic labor, childcare, clothing production and many other
fields. These occupations are overlooked by many as just some bad jobs, or jobs
made for women; people don’t realize the unjust conditions in which the workers
are forced to comply with. Throughout this paper I will discuss these injustices
and explain how they are interconnected to certain structures and ideologies.
Almost
every job in the entire global workforce is gendered. For instance, the female
population dominates positions in the cleaning industry, the care industry,
agriculture, nursing, and clothing production. Men dominate positions such as
CEOs, engineers, electricians, and many other high paying fields. The wage gap
between men and women has resulted in women being more dependent on males. When
males are not supportive to their families, women are often are forced to fend
for their entire family with whatever sort of work is accessible to them.
Some
countries value women less than others. For example, Chinese culture places
much superiority on the male population. The film China Blue gave an
example of a family with a daughter and son who were accepted into universities
at the same time. The parents could only afford to send one of their children
to school so they choose the son. They chose the son because that is what is
expected in their culture and he would be more capable of supporting the family
after he graduates than the daughter. Then the daughter had to migrate to a
nearby city to work in a factory making jeans. While she endured harsh work
conditions, her brother became educated and found a quality career. It is a
more common occurrence in modern times for women to have to migrate and leave
behind their families for bad jobs.
The
demand for domestic labor has been rising throughout the global north. There
are several reasons for this phenomenon. There are pronounced economic reasons,
but it is argued that the primary and often unseen reason for this change is
the status symbol that having an employee gives to a person (Ehrenreich &
Hochschild, 2002). It is a symbol of wealth and status to have an employee do
the household chores. Another cause is that “the wealthy parts of the world are
running short on precious emotional and sexual resources and have had to turn
to poorer regions for fresh supplies” (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002). With
most families earning a dual income, families do not have enough time to always
be caring for the children, keeping the house in order, and meeting spouses’
sexual needs.
With a lack of inexpensive laborers in the global north and a surplus of women
in need of money in the global south, a large amount of women migrate for work.
Most of them are expecting to find a decent job, but after they migrate they find
that there are few available other than in the cleaning, care, and sex
industries. Within the privacy of the employers home, domestic workers are
often subject to abuse, degradation and humiliation. It is a common trend for
the identification papers of the workers to be confiscated by the employer to
prevent them from fleeing. If the worker had signed a contract before their
migration, it is usually broken and they are often doing completely different
jobs than they had been promised. They work with very low wedges and long
hours. In the book Globalization & Militarism, Enloe states that
“one of our newest feminist revelation is that one cannot explain why the
international system works the way it does without taking woman’s lives
seriously”.
The best
ways in which we can correct these inequalities is by empowering women through
education, micro-finance programs, and the creation and enforcement of new laws
(Kristof & WuDunn, 2010). None of these solutions come easily, but every
persons educated advocacy can make a difference. There are many organizations
that are attempting to gain equality for women, but not every organization is
effective and change will be a slow process.
Throughout the world, the global economy, political world, and gender
inequality are causing women to compromise their abilities and desires to work
in the fields in which they choose. They are being coerced into positions that
may cause physical or emotional trauma, that may force them to migrate away
from their families, and cause them to suffer through horrible working
conditions with low pay. These are problems of much dismay, and a call of
attention is needed. Empowering women is the solution to correct these gender
inequalities.
