Blog #16 - Enloe, Navarro

The three articles assigned this week discuss the negative affects that globalization has on third world women. The first article, The Globe Trotting Sneaker, by Cynthia Enloe explains how large corporations have been taking advantage of the lower labor costs in developing countries by outsourcing factory jobs to poor workers in China, Indonesia and Thailand. Trade agreements, such as NAFTA and GATT, are mainly concerned with boosting the global economy and do little to improve the lives of workers. The lack of opportunities and jobs in many developing nations gives women little choice for finding work. Most of the time, women are forced to work in factories that produce the products of American companies. Although American companies are providing jobs for citizens of third world countries, the lack of labor laws, such as minimum wage laws, leaves many women working in dangerous conditions for a salary that is far below the minimum wage set in the United States. Nike and Reebok are just two of the many companies that have built factories in third world countries in order to profit from their loose labor restrictions. American companies that outsource factory jobs can produce their products cheaper in other countries by paying their workers less money. Enloe states in her article that, “If women can be kept hard at work, low paid, and unorganized, they can serve as a magnet for foreign investments.” This quote illustrates how females are being used as a cheap source of labor in order to boost the economy of the United States and other third world countries, with little or no regard for the well being of their workers.

Sharon Ann Navarro, author of The Invisible Women, and Cynthia Enloe both discuss the ways in which globalized manufacturing jobs have led to the displacement of many female workers. In her article, Enloe describes the shoe, clothing, and electronic industries as extremely mobile. The equipment for producing these types of goods are small and easily manufactured. So when workers begin to protest against the factories low salaries and harsh labor conditions, American companies can choose to shut down their factories and relocate them to other areas where there are new sources of cheap labor. The movement of factories has left many women with no work and very little job options. Women are either forced to migrate to where the factories are relocated, or work in demeaning entertainment jobs such as those that offer sexual services. I was shocked when I read these articles. Not because I didn’t know about the outsourcing of factory jobs but because I didn’t know who little governments and companies cared about the well being of their factory workers. These companies need to be held more accountable for their overseas factories, and the government needs to put more regulations on company practices in order to protect third world women from abusive jobs.