Teaching and Learning Guide for: Gender and Employment: A Global Lens on Feminist Analyses and Theorizing of Labor Markets
Authors: Gottfried Heidi 
Published: July 2009

Author’s introduction

This review of recent feminist analyses and theorizing of labor markets uses a global lens to reveal the forces shaping gender inequality. The first section introduces the key words of globalization, gender and work organization. Next, I examine gender as embodied labor activity in globalized worksites, and the effects of globalization on gendered patterns of work and life. Putting gender at the center of globalization discourses highlights the historical and cultural variability of gender relations intersecting with class, race and nationality, and highlights the impact of restructuring on workers, organizations and institutions at the local, national and regional as well as transnational levels. Then I turn to look at labor market restructuring through commodification of care, outsourcing of household tasks and informalization of employment to show how these processes shape the complexity of relationships between and the interconnectedness of social inequalities transnationally and in global cities. Place matters when analyzing how service employment alters divisions of labor and how these labor market changes are gendered. Global restructuring not only poses new challenges but also creates new opportunities for mobilization around a more robust notion of equality. The final section explores the development of spaces for collective action and the rise of new women’s and feminist movements (e.g., transnational networks, non‐governmental agencies). The study of globalization, gender and employment has broad importance for understanding not only the social causes but also the social consequences of the shift to a post‐industrial society.

Author recommends

Acker, Joan 2004. ‘Gender, Capitalism and Globalization.’Critical Sociology 30, 1: 17–41.

Feminist scholarship both critiques gender‐blind globalization discourses and an older generation of women and development theories. By tracing the lineage of current feminist literature on globalization to women and development research, Joan Acker shows both the continuities and distance traveled from the previous terrain of debate. New feminist scholarship on globalization owes a debt to these important, albeit limited, studies of women at work in Latin America, Africa and Asia, but acknowledges the need to go beyond the category of women to analyze specific forms and cultural expressions of gendered power in relationship to class and other hierarchies. One of the major advances in feminist theory comes under the microscope of Acker’s keen analysis when she excavates how gender is both embodied and embedded in the logic and structuring of globalizing capitalism. This extends the case she made in her earlier pioneering research on gender relations being embedded in the organization of major institutions. For the study of globalization, Acker posits that the gendered construction (and cultural coding) of capitalist production separated from human reproduction has resulted in subordination of women in both domains. Acker uncovers the historical legacy of a masculine‐form of dominance associated with production in the money economy that was exported to and embedded in colonialist installation of large‐scale institutions. By the late 20th Century large‐scale institutions promoted images and emotions that expressed economic and political power in terms of new articulations of hegemonic masculinity. As an article outlining debates on the nature of globalization and of gender, it serves as a good introduction to the topic.

Chow, Esther Ngan‐Ling 2003. ‘Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and Social Change in the 21st Century.’International Sociology 18, 3: 443–460.

Chow’s introduction to the special issue on ‘Gender, Globalization and Social Change in the 21st Century’ in International Sociology (2003) reviews the literature on gender and globalization and provides an excellent overview of ‘gender matters.’ Her definition of globalization captures salient features of the current era. This definition encompasses the economic, political cultural and social dimensions of globalization. Further, she offers a framework for studying the ‘dialectics of globalization’, as ‘results of conflicting interaction between the global and local political economies and socio‐cultural conditions…’ A dialectics of globalization is a fruitful approach for studying transformative possibilities. This article could serve as background reading or as part of an introductory section.

Arlie Russell Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2003. ‘Love and Gold.’ Pp. 15–30 in Global Women: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. Metropolitan Books.

Hochschild’s chapter in Global Women examines the transfer of traditional women’s work to migrant women. Women in rich countries are turning over care work (nannies, maids, elder care) to female migrant workers who can be paid lower wages with few or no benefits and minimal legal protections. This global transfer of services associated with a wife’s traditional role extracts a different kind of labor than in prior migrations based on agricultural and industrial production. Emotional, sexual as well as physical labor is extracted in this current phase of globalization; in particular, emotional labor and ‘love is the new gold’. Women migrate not only to escape poverty, but also to escape patriarchy in their home countries by earning an independent income and by physical autonomy from patriarchal obligations and expectations. Many female migrants who leave poor countries can earn more money as nannies and maids in the First World than in occupations (nurses, teachers, clerical workers) if they remained in their own country. Thus, migration can be seen as having contradictory effects on women’s well‐being and autonomy. This chapter can be used in a section dealing with the specific topic of globalization and care work or in a section introducing the topic of gendered labor activities.

McDowell, Linda, Diane Perrons, Colette Fagan, Kath Ray and Kevin Ward. 2005. ‘The Contradictions and Intersections of Class and Gender in a Global City: Placing Working Women’s Lives on the Research Agenda.’Environment and Planning A 37, 441–461.

This group of prominent social geographers from the UK collaborates to great effect in a welcome addition to the literature theorizing the complex articulations of gender and class in global cities. Their detailed research comparing three localities in Greater London is a corrective to the oft‐cited multi‐site study of global cities by Saskia Sassen. They find that Sassen underestimates gains and losses for both men and women in the ‘new’ economy. Place makes a difference when assessing the impact of women’s increased rates of labor market participation on income inequality and patterns of childcare. The article outlines a new research agenda by ‘placing’ working women’s lives at the center of analysis.

Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York: New York University Press.

Rhacel Salazar Parrenas brings together her influential research on Filipina migrants and extends her path‐breaking ethnographic analysis to include Filipina domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles and entertainers in Tokyo. David Eng incisively captures the importance of Parrenas’s analysis when he states, ‘Extracted from home and homeland only to be reinserted into the domestic spaces of the global north, these servants of globalization exemplify an ever‐increasing international gendered division of labor, one compelling us to reexamine the neo‐liberal coupling of freedom and opportunity with mobility and migration’. The book is well suited to illuminate discussions of domesticity and migration, transnational migrant families, the impact of migration laws in ‘home’ and ‘host’ countries, and transnational movements among migrant women.

Walby, Sylvia. 2009. Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities. London: Sage.

This book introduces new theoretical concepts and tests alternative hypotheses to explain variation in trajectories of gender relations cross‐nationally. It synthesizes and reviews a vast literature, ranging from the social sciences to the natural sciences to construct a new approach to theorizing the development of gender regimes in comparative perspective. Sylvia Walby seeks to explain the different patterns of inequalities across a large number of countries. The analysis differentiates between neo‐liberal and social democratic varieties of political economy, and makes explicit the gender component of institutions and their consequences. The project builds on Walby’s pioneering work on comparative gender regimes, and extends the research by operationalizing empirical indicators for a range of key concepts, and by analyzing links between a wide set of institutions (including economy, polity, education and violence) and how these are gendered in specific ways. As in the past, Walby is not afraid to tackle big questions and to offer new answers. Throughout the book, like in her previous body of research, Walby takes on the question of social inclusion/exclusion and critically interrogates concepts of democracy, political participation, equality and rights. Walby uses a comparative lens to examine the democratic ‘deficit’ in liberal and social democratic countries, and how migration restructures patterns of inequality and the consequent reconstitution of national and ethnic relations within countries. There is more to the book than abstract theoretical debates. Walby poses and assesses alternative political projects for achieving equality. The book is an original contribution that will likely influence sociology in general and theories of social change in particular.

Online resources

Status of women in the world: United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) http://www.unifem.org

UNIFEM was established at the United Nations in order to foster women’s empowerment through innovative programs and strategies. Its mission statement summarizes UNIFEM’s goals as follows: ‘Placing the advancement of women’s human rights at the center of all of its efforts, UNIFEM focuses on reducing feminized poverty, ending violence against women; reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls; and achieving gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as war’. The website includes information on global initiatives such as zero tolerance of violence against women, the impact of the economic crisis on women migrant workers, and strategizing for gender proportionate representation in Nigeria. Primary documents relevant to women’s advancement appear on the website; these include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. UNIFEM publishes monographs assessing the progress of women around the world. One notable example is the 2005 publication on Women, Work & Poverty by Martha Chen, Joann Vanek, Francie Lund, James Heintz with Renana Jhabvala and Christine Bonner.

http://www.unifem.org/attachments/products/PoWW2005_eng.pdf

Gender equity index

http://www.socialwatch.org/en/avancesyRetrocesos/IEG_2008/tablas/valoresdelIEG2008.htm

Social Watch produces an up‐to‐date gender equity index composed of three dimensions and indicators: empowerment (% of women in technical positions, % of women in management and government positions, % of women in parliaments, % of women in ministerial posts); economic activity (income gap, activity rate gap); and education (literacy rate gap, primary school enrollment rate gap, secondary school enrollment gap, and tertiary education enrollment gap). These separate indicators in addition to the gender equity index are arrayed by country. There are 157 countries, representing 94% of the world’s population, in the sample. Mapping these indicators across countries presents a comparative picture of the absolute and relative standing of women and gender equity in the world.

Focus Questions

Key words: Globalization

1. What is meant by globalization?

   a. To what extent is globalization new? Or is globalization another phase of a long historical process?

   b. Can we differentiate inter‐national (connections between) from the global (inter‐penetrations)?

Feminism and globalization

 How do feminist interventions challenge globalization theories (for example the presumed relationship between globalization and homogenization and individualization)?

 How do different feminisms frame and assess the conditions of globalization around the world?

Gender and globalization

 What role do women, and different women, play in the global economy?

 Are patriarchal arrangements changing as a result of greater economic integration at the world level?

Migration and mobilities

 What does Parrenas mean by partial citizenship?

 How does it relate to the case of Philippine migrant workers?

 What is the relationship between ‘home’ and ‘host’ nations?

 How important is a vehicle like the Tinig Filipino in forging ‘imagined communities’ and new realities?

 What is the mix of choice and compulsion in the different migrations mobilities of men and women?

Globalization and politics

 Are women subject to the same kinds of legal protections (and regulations) that evolved in earlier periods?

 Do new flexible production processes and flexible work arrangements undercut such legal protections?

Globalization and collective mobilization

 Does globalization open spaces for new women’s movements, new solidarities, new subjectivities and new forms of organizing?

Sample syllabus

Course outline and reading assignments

Conceptualizing the ‘Global’ and ‘Globalization’

Dicken, Peter, Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell. 1997. ‘Unpacking the Global.’ Pp. 158–166 in Geographies of Economies, edited by Roger Lee and Jane Willis. London: Arnold.

Amin, Ash and Nigel Thrift. 1996. ‘Holding Down the Global.’ Pp. 257–260 in Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe, edited by Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Acker, Joan. 2004. ‘Feminism, Gender and Globalization.’Critical Sociology 30: 17–42.

Background Reading:

Gottfried, Heidi. 2006. ‘Feminist Theories of Work.’ Pp. 121–154 in Social Theory at Work, edited by Marek Korczynski, Randy Hodson, Paul Edwards. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Peterson, V. Spike. 2008. ‘Intersectional Analytics in Global Political Economy.’ in UberKeruszungen, edited Cornelia Klinger and Gudrun‐Axeli Knapp. Munster: Wesfalisches Dmpfboot.

Chow, Esther Ngan‐Ling. 2003. ‘Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and Social change in the 21st Century.’International Sociology 18 (3): 443–460.

Walby, Sylvia. 2009. Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modemities. London: Sage.

Gender and Globalization

Gottfried, Heidi. Forthcoming. ‘Gender and Employment: A Global Lens on Feminist Analyses and Theorizing of Labor Markets.’Sociology Compass

Fernandez‐Kelly, Patricia and Diane Wolf. 2001. ‘Dialogue on Globalization.’Signs 26: 1243–1249.

Bergeron, Suzanne. 2001. ‘Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and Feminist Politics.’Signs 26: 983–1006.

Freeman, Carla. 2001. ‘Is Local: Global as Feminine: Masculine? Rethinking the Gender of Globalization.’Signs 26:1007–1037.

Theorizing Politics and Globalization

Sassen, Saskia. 1996. ‘Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy.’Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 4: 7–41.

Parrenas, Rhacel Salazer. 2001. ‘Transgressing the Nation‐State: The Partial Citizenship and ‘Imagined (Global) Community’ of Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers.’Signs 26:1129–1154.

Bosniak, Linda. 2009. ‘Citizenship, Noncitizenship, and the Transnationalization of Domestic Work.’ Pp. 127–156 in Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Judith Resnik. New York: New York University Press.

Background Reading:

Benhabib, Seyla and Judith Resnik. 2009. ‘Introduction: Citizenship and Migration Theory Engendered.’ Pp. 1–46 in Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender, edited by Seyla Benhabib and Judith Resnik. New York: New York University Press.

Migrations, Mobilities and Care

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2003. ‘Love and Gold.’ Pp. 15–30 in Global Women: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. Metropolitan Books.

Hondagneu‐Sotelo, Pierrette. 2001. Domestica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring the Shadows of Affluence. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Parrenas, Richard Salazar. 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization. New York: New York University Press.

Pyle, Jean 2006. ‘Globalizations, Transnational Migration, and Gendered Care Work.’Globalizations 3(3): 283–295.

Qayum, Seemin and Raka Ray. 2003. ‘Grappling with Modernity: India’s Respectable Classes and the Culture of Domestic Servitude.’Ethnography 4: 520–555.

Restructuring and Gender Inequality in Global Cities

McDowell, Linda, Diane Perrons, Colette Fagan, Kath Ray and Kevin Ward. 2005. ‘The Contradictions and Intersections of Class and Gender in a Global City: Placing Working Women’s Lives on the Research Agenda.’Environment and Planning A 37: 441–461.

McDowell, Linda. 1997. ‘A Tale of Two Cities? Embedded Organizations and Embodied Workers in the City of London.’ Pp. 118–129 in Geographies of Economies, edited by Roger Lee and Jane Willis. London: Arnold.

Bruegel, Irene. 1999. ‘Globalization, Feminization and Pay Inequalities in London and the UK.’ Pp. 73–93 in Women, Work and Inequality, edited by Jeanne Gregory, Rosemary Sales and Ariane Hegewisch. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Embodiment and Restructuring

Halford, Susan and Mike Savage. 1997. ‘Rethinking Restructuring: Embodiment, Agency and Identity in Organizational Change.’ Pp. 108–117 in Geographies of Economies, edited by Roger Lee and Jane Willis. London: Arnold.

Gottfried, Heidi. 2003 ‘Temp(t)ing Bodies: Shaping Bodies at Work in Japan.’Sociology 37: 257–276.

Gender in the Global Economy: Post‐Socialist and Emerging Economies

Salzinger, Leslie. 2004. ‘Trope Chasing: Engendering Global Labor Markets.’Critical Sociology 30: 43–62.

Kathryn Ward, Fahmida Rahman, AKM Saiful Islam, Rifat Akhter and Nashid Kama. 2004. ‘The Nari Jibon Project: Effects on Global Structuring on University Women’s Work and Empowerment In Bangladesh.’Critical Sociology 30: 63–102

Otis, Eileen. 2007. ‘Virtual Personalism in Beijing: Learning Deference and Femininity at a Global Luxury Hotel. Pp. 101–123 in Working in China: Ethnographies of Labor and Workplace Transformation, edited by Ching Kwan Lee. Routledge.

Background Reading:

Ferguson and Monique Mironesco (eds.). 2008. Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pactific: Method, Practice, Theory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Globalization and Policy Developments

Lenz, Ilse. 2004. ‘Globalization, Gender and Work: Perspectives on Global Regulation.’ Pp. 29–52 in Equity in the Workplace: Gendering Workplace Policy Analysis, edited by Heidi Gottfried and Laura Reese. Lexington Press.

Woodward, Alison. 2004. ‘European Gender Mainstreaming: Promises and Pitfalls of Transformative Policy.’ Pp. 77–100 in Equity in the Workplace: Gendering Workplace Policy Analysis, edited by Heidi Gottfried and Laura Reese, Lexington Press.

Fraser, Nancy. 2007. ‘Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World.’ in Global Inequality, edited by David Held and Ayse Kaya. Polity.

Gender and the New Economy

Walby, Sylvia, Heidi Gottfried, Karin Gottschall and Mari Osawa. 2006. Gendering and the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives, Palgrave, See chapters by Sylvia Walby, Mari Osawa, and Diane Perrons.

Ng, Cecelia. 2004. ‘Globalization and Regulation: The New Economy, Gender and Labor Regimes.’Critical Sociology 30: 103–108.

Globalization and Transnational Organizing

Ferree, Myra Marx. 2006. ‘Globalization and Feminism: Opportunities and Obstacles for Activism in the Global Area.’ Pp. 3–23 in Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp. New York: New York University Press.

Yuval‐Davis, Nira. 2006. ‘Human/Women’s Rights and Feminist Transversal Politics.’ Pp. 275–295 in Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp. New York: New York University Press.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2006. “Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity Through Anti‐Capitalist Struggles.’ Pp. 17–42 in Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, edited by Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.