Trying to establish a sense of self can be an extremely difficult task. There are many factors that can have an impact on an individual’s view of how they perceive themselves. One influential factor can be the kind of work the individual is a part of. The conditions in which the employee is subjected to and the position an individual has in a factory can have an effect on how a person may see themselves and how they value themselves in relation to their job status. Chinese factory work is infamous for its lack of proper working conditions available to their employees. Workers are put into very dangerous working environments and receive very little pay to support themselves or their families. These aspects ,along with many more, of this type …show more content…
Within these different kinds of factory jobs, it has become evident that there seems to be a reversed gender hierarchy. Typically women are more favored when it comes to jobs that require “nimble fingers” such as garment or toy manufacturing. On the other hand, men are typically given menial, low paid factory jobs that lead nowhere. The status of women tends to increase in terms of job positions in the factories compared to men which in turn has a negative effect on the factory man’s view of self. These men resort to embarrassing or harassing the women with higher more purposeful jobs because they have a sense of inferiority towards them (2015: 132). The fact that the factory men are working such low paid, unskilled jobs clearly has an impact on how they see themselves. Typically in this culture the men are supposed to have power and status over the women so once that is taken away, the sense of masculinity is also taken away. In a study that was conducted, one male factory worker states “During the Lunar New Year holidays, I went back to my hometown and had a banquet with my [male] friends. They ridiculed me when I said that my boss is a woman. "You working under a woman?" they asked [emphasis by the interviewee]. Since then I 've never talked to anyone about the fact that my boss is woman” (2015: 138). This is another …show more content…
Whatever the type of factory it may be, one thing that is consistent in the precarity of this line of work. Employees are overworked, working up 10-12 hours a day with little to no break time. They are also tremendously underpaid, only getting about $2 an hour, they miss time with their families and there is a lack of job stability. These negative factors not only have an impact on being able to sustain a proper way of life for themselves and their family, it also has an impact on how the worker is able to perceive themselves and view their self-identity. This is shown through the men who felt they lost their sense of masculinity because they were given such unskilled, low paid jobs in the factories compared to their female co-workers. This was also evident when employees and Foxconn felt that they lost their sense of dignity when being forced to do degrading jobs or when put down, ultimately leading to a negative self-view causing suicide. This concludes that factory work in China has a negative impact on
“Pinpointed the conditions in which queen bees emerge: when women are a marginalized group in the workplace, have made big sacrifices for their career, or are already predisposed to show little “gender discrimination” (p.54, Khazan). Not only women face sexism, but gender and racial bias from work. This turns into the “competitive threat” when a woman worries that a female newcomer will outshine her in the workplace. Workers do not respect female bosses compared to men so that prompts the bosses to treat workers worse, which causes the workers to think less of their boss and most likely continue disrespecting them. Women seem to not be respected by men just as easily, that respect needs to be commended. Also, for those women that gave honest feedback were liked less and less likely to be hireable. This method is called the “system justification” a long-oppressed group struggling to make sense of an unfair world, internalize negative
The factory workers are stuck in a complicated position where they are taken advantage of and exploited. While “exploitation occurs on any level” these factory workers do not have the opportunity to exploit others because they are the ones being exploited (Timmerman 7). Tension is created between the corporations, factory owners and workers, because the factory owners force the workers into harsh labor and intense working conditions that they were told
Most of the factories owners treated their employees unfairly and unequally. They made them work large amounts of hours for underpaid wages. Most of the people, even children, worked 16 hours for 25 cents a day. Their employees had to deal with unsafe machines that sometimes were extremely dangerous. If they got injured, they didn’t have any financial aid or any kind of compensation that helps them to get better.
Men become less concerned with the gender barriers when hard work is given out. An example of this is when Jim Casey takes over Ma’s job of salting the pork. “‘Leave me salt down this meat’ he said. ‘I can do it. There’s other stuff for you to do’” (146). Jim Casey makes it evident that he doesn’t care what job is for women or men because he
Society views stereotype women as people that stay at home and perform house related functions. They are not given equal rights as men, and as such feel repressed from their freedom. A woman who has a job is viewed as one who has equal standing w...
Factory Girls by Leslie Chang is a book that looks into the lives of two migrant workers in China, and the author carefully scrutinizes their journey in search of a better life. Having a sense of self-fulfillment, both of these characters desire success, and they will go above and beyond anything to reach their purpose in life---which is, transitioning into a higher class. With their independent-driven mind set, both are able to reflect upon themselves the necessity and extravagance appropriate to their knowledge. Both show different flaws in how they handle economic exigencies, however they are able to face those with simplicity just by recognizing their dreams and ambitions. Nonetheless, both characters show different innovation and imagination, and thus having those characteristics creates a sense of agency which symbolizes as a “whole” to all Chinese migrant workers.
Gender, as socially constructed differences between men and women and the beliefs and identities that support difference and inequality, is also present in all organizations (Gender & Society). It has been known that most women have continued to stick to the traditional jobs because it is just easier to do so. They do it to avoid any hardship in the work place and discrimination when applying for a job or working for a company. Non-traditional careers and jobs for woman are hard to find and when hired woman are segregated to the wage gap. Class relations in the workplace, such as supervisory practices or wage-setting processes, were shaped by gendered and sexualized attitudes and assumptions (Gender & Society). For example, in the work place managers were almost always men; the lower-level white-collar workers were always women (Gender &
The men in the factories looked at the women coming in as just an extra pair of hands. They were mostly indifferent. Even so, the women could not date the men. This rule was more of a control effort and a bit of the women not being seeing as respectable women. Yet, the bosses were at a lost because they were not used to women working. The bosses tried to enforce rules; when they were broken, the bosses did not know how to punish the women because they were women. The women had to wear hats, even if their hair was longer than the men. The women did not like this because they felt as though they were being discriminated against. They would wear slacks and carry tools because the men had to, but the men did not wear head coverings. Also, everyone that worked in the factories, besides the factory women, viewed them as girls because a true woman would be at home taking care of the house. They had to trade in their smooth soft hands for rough hands filled with
Young girls were not allowed to open the windows and had to breathe in the dust, deal with the nerve-racking noises of the machines all day, and were expected to continue work even if they 're suffering from a violent headache or toothache (Doc 2). The author of this report is in favor of employing young women since he claimed they seemed happy and they loved their machines so they polished them and tied ribbons on them, but he didn 't consider that they were implemented to make their awful situations more bearable. A woman who worked in both factory and field also stated she preferred working in the field rather than the factory because it was hard work but it never hurt her health (Doc 1), showing how dangerous it was to work in a factory with poor living conditions. Poor living conditions were common for nearly all workers, and similar to what the journalist saw, may have been overlooked due to everyone seeming
Gender stereotyping is when beliefs concerning the characteristics of both women and men that contain both good and bad traits. Gender stereotyping affects both men and women but usually targets the woman more harshly (Cooks & Cusack, 2011, p.1). Gender is something that is very unique and a very interesting topic. “It has obvious links to the real world, first in the connection between many grammatical gender systems and biological size, which underpin particular gender systems and also have external correlates”(Corbett, 2013). For an example gender-based violence against women is widely recognized as a critical concern for women in all part of the world (Cooks & Cusack, 2011, p.28). Now day’s women are underrepresented in the business world today, 16 percent of corporate officers in the U.S are women and 1 percent of all of the CEO positions in the Fortune 500 companies (Baron & Branscombe, 2012). In the workplace there are glass ceilings that are barriers based off of attitudinal and organizational bias that prevent qualified women from making it to the supervisory positions. As time elapsed that generation of women like that no longer existed. Women starting taking job positions and having supervisory positions in the workplace. It was no longer the thing that women would not work when they got older. Males also have a stereotype of being strong and being the head of the household in a family. “Masculine gender markers
Gender discrimination in salaries, employing, or promotions persists to be a substantial aspect in the workplace, culminating into a palpably unrelenting wage gap. The media's contribution to the crescendo of body dissatisfaction and corrupted self-image in modern patriarchal societies is causing drastic increases in dangerous practices. More women are steadily at risk of facing violence from family members, the community, and even their husbands. The only way we can hope to combat sexism and objectification is through eliminating our adoption of traditional gender roles, reshaping the patriarchal framework constricting our movements, and striding towards more egalitarian principles, shattering the paradigm. The primary battles may have been won, but now it is our turn to bring ultimate equilibrium. Together, we can eradicate gender discrimination and help women to achieve the lives of men, and we shall finish the war on equality at
Critics of feminist studies of men often argue that the politics to change values and behaviour need to come from men themselves, because feminist women’s long efforts against gender discrimination, misogyny, sexual harassment, rape, battering, and male violence have often created backlash and stubborn resistance from men (Lorber, 2012, 274). If men do not fight for what they want they will not see change, it will not be handed to them as many things have already been. Although, the question presumes, why would men want to change something that they feel is just fine? This is where controversy takes place. A change must occur in order for things to be equal. Men do not always have to be the breadwinners; On the other hand, areas that seemed to indicate potential gender equality – fatherhood and men doing “women’s work” – have ironically restored gender inequality. This refers to the racialized glass escalator. Where men who do women’s work have reliable preferences in the working environment, such that even in occupations where men are numerical in minorities they are likely to enjoy higher wages and faster promotions (Lorber, 2012, p.264) In addition, men get daddy bonuses when they become fathers while women workers suffer a motherhood penalty in reduced wages (Lorber, 2012, 274). Limitations such as these reinforce gender
Women are more educated now than they have ever been, but even women who are university graduates are earning less than men. Frenette and Coulombe reached the conclusion that this was often due to their degrees being in gendered fields of study, such as the arts and humanities (as cited in Gaszo, 2010, p. 224) Women also tend to work in fields associated with lower pay, which includes service and sales work (Gaszo, 2010). In the garment industry, women, especially immigrants and women who work at home, are routinely taken advantage of by companies such as Wal-Mart and paid far too little (Ng, 2006).
Women have been considered the weaker gender since the beginning of time. The distinctions between men and women, such as roles within the family, have prevented women from achieving societal progress as men. Gender inequality and the Glass Wall Effect are known inhibiting factors in upward mobility within the workplace. Men experience professional upward movement, both in wages and position, while women are trapped by glass ceilings and glass walls. Education and professional achievements are not deciding factors and women who assert themselves can also be seen as bossy. History tells a story of progression and a continual struggle for women to be seen and considered as equals.
It can be concluded that women are treated in terms of stereotyped impressions of being the lowest class and greater evidence can be found that there are large disparities between the women and the men 's class. It can be seen that women are more likely to play casual roles as they are most likely to take seasonal and part time work so that they can work according to their needs. They are hampered from progressing upward into the organizations as they face problems like lack of health insurance, sexual harassments, lower wage rates, gender biases and attitudes of negative behavior. However, this wouldn’t have hampered the participation of the women in the work force and they continue to increase their efforts which is highly evident in the occupational and job ratios of females in the industry.