Gender &

Globalization
By: Amanda Beniaris, Jackie Drees, Maria
Gordo, Kayra Silva & Megan Verhey
What does gender
equality mean to
you?
Gender, Capitalism,
and Globalization
Joan Acker
 Main Points
● Defines Globalization & Gender
● Is Globalization Neutral? NO
● Answers One Question: Is Globalization actually Gendered?
○ 1. Gender as embedded in Globalizing Capitalism
○ 2. The Gendered Effects of Globalization

Gender as embedded in Globalizing The Gendered Effects of Globalization

Capitalism
● Reproduction vs. Production
● Masculinity in a Globalizing Capital
● Gender as a resource for Globalizing
Capital
● Increased participation of women in the
paid labor market
● Unemployment has risen globally
● Inequality and Poverty
● Changes in personal gender
identification
 Critiques & Concluding Thoughts
Strengths:
Concluding Thoughts:
● Used a multitude of sources to
back up her facts and arguments ● Leaves questions for and
● Neatly and appropriately answered curiosity to prompt future
the question she set out to answer research
Weaknesses: ○ How is the developed
world affecting and
● Could have explained her changing the processes
reasoning behind her opinions of the developing world
better
● Does not transition neatly between
ideas
Why do you believe that
reproduction or caretaking
occupations are so devalued
in our society? Or are they not
as devalued as Acker makes
it seem?

What do you believe the

reasons are for there being so
few women in computer
science/STEM occupations?
Gender Matters

Esther Ngan-ling Chow

 Main Points

● Globalization as a gendered phenomenon is NOT recognized

● Mainstream theories view globalization as gender-neutral
○ Treating globalization’s differential effects on men and women as similar
○ Women’s voices and identities = “virtually absent”

“Gender matters for understanding what globalization is and

how it is influenced by gendered hierarchies and ideologies,
which in turn shape gendered institutions, relationships,
identities and experiences of women and men” (p.445).
 SIX THEMES - Centrality of Gender &
Globalization within the New Era of Social Change
1. Globalization = gendered phenomenon with different consequences
for women and men
2. “Complex gender, racial/ethnic, class, nationality and other
ramifications of contemporary globalization in its practices,
processes and outcomes” (p.448).
3. Addressing the different types of globalization (cultural, social,
political)
4. Complex global-local relationships mediated by nation-states
5. Differential impact globalization has on societies (processes and
consequences)
6. Understanding the relationship between globalization and gender as
a basis for change
 Critiques
STRENGTHS:
● The six themes point to the
importance of understanding the
relationship between gender &
globalization
● Referenced various articles and
critical sources
● Analyzation provided a
“balanced representation”
WEAKNESSES:
● Did not necessarily provide
solutions to the issue of gendered
globalization;
● INSTEAD… worked to promote
and educate a paradigm shift in
sociology
● Emphasized the strategic
development for social change
through the 6 themes
 Concluding Thoughts - Esther Ngan-ling Chow
Concluding Thoughts
● Working towards promoting global feminist scholarship
● ●Foster and develop
Working towardsglobal consciousness
promoting global feminist scholarship
● Foster and develop global consciousness

“The exploration of a working model for how people

“The exploration of a working model for how people from
from the global North and South might collaborate in
the global North and South might collaborate in
partnership for
partnership for collective
collective empowerment
empowerment and social
and better better
socialchange
change around
around the globe”
the globe” (p.457).
(p.457).
Do you think institutions
are conscious of this
gendered phenomenon?

In 2018, are women’s voices

feeling more prominent?
 Great Divides: The Cultural,
Cognitive, and Social Bases of the
Global Subordination of Women

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

 Main Points
- The whole notion of any differences between men and women
is a social construct, it is not a real scientific thing.
- The gender divide is the most fundamental social divide
- Gives many examples that illustrate how the subordination of
women is the basis of social norms throughout the world.
- Mechanisms that create “otherness”
- Kin structure
- Honor
- Clothing
- Time and Space
 Methodology
Methodology: ASA Presidential Address

“But in this address I challenge our profession to take this responsibility in our
scholarship and our professional lives; to observe, to reveal, and to strike down
the conceptual and cultural walls that justify inequality on the basis of sex in all
of society’s institutions - to transgress.”

- Purpose: to get sociologists to incorporate gender into the baseline of their

studies.
Concluding Thoughts

- Changing these ideas of gender would create possibilities for

changing the status quo
- Prosperous nations benefit from women’s full participation
and productivity in societies.
- The sexual divide defines social life, so many in the world work
to uhphold it.
- Societies might achieve still more if the gates of equality were
truly open.
 Critiques
Strengths: Weaknesses:

● The gender divide should be ● Other gender identities?

incorporated into sociological ● Anything we can do?
studies of social dynamics.
● Own experiences.
● Referenced various articles, books
and sources to give examples and
backup her claims.
 Current Event

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_u12xsnlGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_9l54aBaBM

Discussion Questions:

Why does the subordination of women and girls persist no matter

how societies change in other ways?

What can societies do differently in order to diminish the

subordination of women if current methods are not working?
 The Gender and Labor
Politics of Postmodernity
Aihwa Ong
 Main Points

● Minority women in the industrialized work force in third world countries are
consistently marginalized
● Free trade zones allow for corporations to use women for cheap labor and
overwork them to gain profit
● Challenges idea of “class consciousness” and a proposes to frame the issue
as one of cultural struggle rather than class struggle

Methodology: Ong breaks down the different ways in which women are regulated
in the workforce in third world nations
 Modes of Regulation

Despotic regimes & state intervention

● Allow wealthier countries to manipulate and control countries that they

export their labor to

Claims on Daughters

● Women make up secondary labor force

● In Hong Kong, “working class parents viewed daughters as ‘poor long-term
investments,’ and working daughters saw themselves paying back their
natal families for giving them life and nurture before they left home.”
 Modes of Regulation (cont.)

Sexual division of labor and taylorism

● Hierarchy based on gender and other demographics

● Based on “time-motion” techniques

Factory regulations: the gaze and the body Social Regulations: Women in Public Spaces

● Workers constantly under watch by ● Female workers regarded negatively in

foremen the public eye
● Dictate control over women’s bodies ● Women are overly sexualized
 Cultural Struggles
● Using “class consciousness” downplays importance of how cultural factors affect one’s
agency
● Women have to take on additional roles in order to sustain themselves
● Work conditions don’t foster collective class or gender consciousness
○ Cultural norms stop women from advancing and taking on leadership roles

● Women wanting to work and trying to regain their rights was seen as acting outside
of traditional realm of femininity
● Women eventually began to demand more respect leading to female class solidarity
○ Working slower when ordered to work faster
○ Claiming “female” problems or religious prayer to get off the floor
○ Protesting long work days and low wages, demanding human rights
 Critiques and Concluding Thoughts
Strengths
Concluding Thoughts
● Many examples female work environments
across the globe ● Worker consciousness is more
● Many examples showing resistance efforts than just class awareness
of women in oppressive workplaces ○ Institutions like kinship,
● Strong support for argument class is not the
state, gender, religion, etc.
sole factor that defines a person’s agency
play a role
Weaknesses ● Through their oppression and
resistance efforts, female
● Hard to follow explanations of each mode of workers are able to gain
regulation
stronger sense of self-worth
○ Jumps around a lot between countries
 Current Event: The Truth About
Samsung’s Horrifying Factories
● Half of all Samsung phones are manufactured in Vietnam by female majority workforces in their
20s.
○ Interviews w/ 45 women who work on assembly lines in those factories
○ Women experienced episodes of dizziness or fainting at work
○ Women stood for 70-80 hours a week while working, leading to pain in their bones, joints and legs
○ Not a single worker received a copy of her work contract, which is a violation of Vietnamese labor law
● Reports that miscarriage is very normal
● Samsung tried to prevent the truth of the working conditions from coming out by threatening
workers with firing and lawsuits if they spoke out

As consumers with knowledge of factory working conditions, what compels us to still purchase these
products?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/03/14/your-cool-new-samsung-smartphone-brought-
you-noise-pain-miscarriages-pham-digangi-column/397173002/