Even the least internationally conscious television viewer of the 1990s knows that companies are forever on the global prowl for cheap labour . It sounds as though there is some labour power out there that is inherently low-priced. It draws our attention to the making, to the actions needed to turn someone s labour into low-priced labour. Race and class are potent factors - but not by any means the only ones. Class and race are not the only threads that have to be woven into the fabric of exploitation to make profits from blue jeans and computers.
Gender is the most powerful determining factor.
It takes belief that the work being performed is not skilled. It is natural. This belief relies on notions about women s natural inclinations - for example, their natural aptitude for sewing, food preparation, housekeeping or physical nurturing. A woman who sews Marks and Spencer s jeans or who cans Dole s pineapple can be paid as if she were doing something that took little or no skill. This denies the reality that both can take super-human patience, together with very unnatural levels of visual concentration.