Author: Annette Fuentes Publisher: South End Press ISBN: 9780896081987 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 68
Book Description
In free trade zones all over the world, women make up 80 to 90 percent of the workforce. Women in the Global Factory explores the lives of these women--from California's Silicon Valley to Mexico's maquiladoras (border factories) to
Author: Pun Ngai Publisher: Duke University Press ISBN: 0822386755 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
As China has evolved into an industrial powerhouse over the past two decades, a new class of workers has developed: the dagongmei, or working girls. The dagongmei are women in their late teens and early twenties who move from rural areas to urban centers to work in factories. Because of state laws dictating that those born in the countryside cannot permanently leave their villages, and familial pressure for young women to marry by their late twenties, the dagongmei are transient labor. They undertake physically exhausting work in urban factories for an average of four or five years before returning home. The young women are not coerced to work in the factories; they know about the twelve-hour shifts and the hardships of industrial labor. Yet they are still eager to leave home. Made in China is a compelling look at the lives of these women, workers caught between the competing demands of global capitalism, the socialist state, and the patriarchal family. Pun Ngai conducted ethnographic work at an electronics factory in southern China’s Guangdong province, in the Shenzhen special economic zone where foreign-owned factories are proliferating. For eight months she slept in the employee dormitories and worked on the shop floor alongside the women whose lives she chronicles. Pun illuminates the workers’ perspectives and experiences, describing the lure of consumer desire and especially the minutiae of factory life. She looks at acts of resistance and transgression in the workplace, positing that the chronic pains—such as backaches and headaches—that many of the women experience are as indicative of resistance to oppressive working conditions as they are of defeat. Pun suggests that a silent social revolution is underway in China and that these young migrant workers are its agents.
Author: Miriam Ching Yoon Louie Publisher: South End Press ISBN: 9780896086388 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
In this up-close and personal look at the heroines who make family, community, and society tick, Miriam Ching Yoon Louie showcases immigrant women workers speaking out for themselves, in their own words. While public outrage over sweatshops builds in intensity, this book shows us who these workers really are and how they are leading campaigns to fight for their rights. In-depth, accessible analyses of the immigration, labor, and trade policies, which together have forced these women into the most dangerous, poorly paid jobs, dovetail with vivid portraits of the women themselves. Louie, a longtime writer/activist and well-known figure in feminist, immigrant, and labor circles, is uniquely poised to make her case: that the labor of immigrant women worker-activists not only sustains families and communities, but the vibrant social activism that undergirds democracy itself. With chapters on successful campaigns against Levi-Strauss, Donna Karan, and restaurants in Los Angeles; Koreatown, among others. Miriam Ching Yoon Louie is a longtime writer/activist in campaigns to organize women of color. She is national campaign media director of Fuerza Unida, a board member of the Women of Color Resource Center, and former media director of Asian Immigrant Women Advocates. Her essays and articles on immigrant women and labor issues have been widely anthologized, including in the 1997 collection Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire (South End Press) and she speaks at public events internationally. She is the co-author, with Linda Burnham, of Women's Education in the Global Economy (Women of Color Resource Center, 2000).
Author: Teri L. Caraway Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 9780801473654 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
Despite the massive influx of women into the labor force as a result of globalization, the gender inqualities at work have remained largely unchanged. This book addresses two related questions: What has prompted the feminization of manufacturing work in developing countries, and why has it failed to significantly erode gender inequalities at work? Teri L. Caraway offers case studies and in-depth analysis of employment changes in Indonesia combined with cross-national data to show that the feminization of the workplace produced by industrialization policies has reconfigured and reproduced, rather than overturned, gender divisions of labor at work. Caraway challenges the conventional wisdom that export-oriented industrialization and women's cheap labor are the driving forces behind feminization. Instead, she argues, the answers can be found in weak unions and current social practice. Caraway employs information about a wide range of industries--capital-intensive, male-dominated, non-export firms as well as female-dominated, labor-intensive, export-oriented industries--in arriving at her conclusions. Her findings will prove discouraging to anyone who hopes that globalization has become a positive force in improving the lives of women workers.Caraway's multilevel methodology for analyzing changes in gendered patterns of employment and her introduction of "gendered discourses of work" as a major explanatory variable will make Assembling Women a valuable resource for women's studies scholars, development economists, political scientists, and sociologists as well as all with an interest in Southeast Asian Studies and labor and industrial relations.
Author: Beth English Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351713477 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
This volume considers how women are shaping the global economic landscape through their labor, activism, and multiple discourses about work. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of international scholars, the book offers a gendered examination of work in the global economy and analyses the effects of the 2008 downturn on women’s labor force participation and workplace activism. The book addresses three key themes: exploitation versus opportunity; women’s agency within the context of changing economic options; and women’s negotiations and renegotiations of unpaid social reproductive labor. This uniquely interdisciplinary and comparative analysis will be crucial reading for anyone with an interest in gender and the post-crisis world.
Author: Leslie Salzinger Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520235398 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
Leslie Salzinger worked in four "maquiladoras" in northern Mexico, and in this book she takes us inside the gendered world of these global factories. Her ethnographic work grounds contemporary feminist theory in an examination of daily practices and provides a fresh perspective on globalization.
Author: Ngai Pun Publisher: ISBN: 9780822334644 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 227
Book Description
As China has emerged as an industrial powerhouse over the past two decades, a new class of workers has developed: the dagongmei, or working girls. The dagongmei are women in their late teens and early twenties who move from rural areas to urban centers to work in factories. Due to state laws dictating that those born in the countryside cannot permanently leave their villages and familial pressure for young women to marry by their late twenties, the dagongmei are transient labor. They undertake physically exhausting work in urban factories for an average of four or five years before returning home. The young women are not coerced to work in the factories; they know about the twelve-hour shifts and the hardships of industrial labor. Yet they are still eager to leave home. In Made in China, Pun Ngai offers a compelling look at the lives of these women, workers caught between the competing demands of global capitalism, the socialist state, and the patriarchal family. Ngai conducted ethnographic work at an electronics factory in southern China's Guangdong province, in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, where foreign-owned factories are proliferating. For eight months she slept in the employee dormitories and worked on the shop floor alongside the women whose lives she chronicles. Ngai illuminates the workers' perspectives and experiences, describing the lure of consumer desire and, especially, the minutiae of factory life. She looks at acts of resistance and transgression in the workplace, positing that the chronic pains--such as backaches and headaches--that many of the women experience are as indicative of resistance to oppressive working conditions as they are of defeat. Ngai suggests that a silent social revolution is underway in China and that these young migrant workers are its protagonists.
Author: Annette Fuentes
Author: Pun Ngai
Author: Miriam Ching Yoon Louie
Author: Barbara O'Hanlon
Author: Kathryn Ward
Author: Teri L. Caraway
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Author: Beth English
Author: Leslie Salzinger
Author: Ngai Pun