Women in a Global Economy

Women in a Global Economy

The Globalization of the market and corporations have created problems for women everywhere. Because of the search for a higher profit, corporations in the United States move their factories to “developing” countries. There, they can force the workers to work longer than an eight hour day, and the wages they pay to their employees are considerably less than the minimum wage in the U.S.. When the women in these factories make an effort to fight back by protesting or striking for better pay, or better working conditions, the corporations simply move out. There are many other nations who can work just as hard without all the complaints. So, because these women ask to be treated decently, they are denied a job. This practice has also created problems for women factory workers in the U.S. because the factories here are all being shut down. I knew one woman who lost her job at Motorola because they moved their testing ground to Mexico. The variety of middle class jobs has decreased in the U.S., creating poorer poor and wealthier rich, who get their money directly or indirectly through the exploitations of poorer countries.

The most interesting and best summarizing paragraph of the reading was about The Myth of Progress. (pg. 267) It states that progress is equated with economic growth and ignores “intellectual, social, moral and spiritual dimensions”, and that this definition persuades people to value themselves according to the materials they are able to obtain. This can create a world of problems.

By stressing money and material it is easy for some to forget how it is obtained, both in a methodical, and a humanistic sense. By this I am referring specifically to the people of the three classes in the U.S.. Poor people instead of concentrating on education or buying assets or spiritually connecting and becoming a leader, tend to trade their labor for some money, then use all of it to buy “stuff”. They’ll buy clothes, or DVDs, or trinkets, and they feel good about these purchases because they got a good deal, and it increases their material value. None of them will think about where or how it was assembled, because they are distanced from it, and are content with their new acquisition. The middle class trade stressful working days for a little more money, with which they use to buy liabilities like cars or boats, again not thinking about the how they came to be.