Review of Global Women Nannies Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy
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I judge what I found most disappointing was the focus on white, Western, professional-class women'due south perspectives — in particular, how they can be nice employers of Tertiary World women. Who gives a shit? Arlie Russell Hochschild'due south "Honey and Golden" begins every bit an incisive analysis of how caring labour, like natural resources, is ex
This is a collection of essays, which more often than not ways you lot're getting a mixed bag. I didn't get in expecting the most super radical affair ever but I was hoping for a chip more.I guess what I found most disappointing was the focus on white, Western, professional-class women's perspectives — in item, how they can be nice employers of 3rd Globe women. Who gives a shit? Arlie Russell Hochschild'due south "Love and Gold" begins as an incisive analysis of how caring labour, similar natural resources, is extracted from the Tertiary World to the First. Third Earth mothers often migrate to be nannies, leaving their ain children in the care of local nannies, a process that obviously causes a lot of grief on both ends. Migrant nannies with children at habitation will often openly admit that they give their bosses' children the love they can't give their own. This love is often attributed past employers and agencies to romanticised cultures with more family unit values and less materialism, rather than what it in fact is — an expression of the demand to dear of women who accept had to prioritise coin over their own family life.
Only so Hochschild goes into some weird liberal argument about how we just need to brand sure the whole thing is better regulated. Most of these women would not exist leaving their families and communities if they weren't pushed into it by the impoverishment of centuries of imperialism. What is needed is a reversal of that imperial relationship, but Hochschild's not daring enough to imagine that.
Susan Cheever'southward "The Nanny Dilemma" was even worse — she's an employer of domestic workers who interviews a formy nanny of hers, final that nannies often accept it tough. Her closing statement is that Western women employing nannies and the nannies they utilize are more than similar than nosotros might call up — they're both working women who've chosen to put their energy away from their ain kids and into building a career. 1 of these women gets to run across her ain kid at the finish of a working solar day, one doesn't, it'south not comparable, fuck you.
Similarly, Ehrenreich actually really wants usa to focus on how all women are oppressed by men's unwillingness to contribute to caring labour. This is fine every bit far equally it goes, I hold with her, her essay ("Maid to Measure") isn't bad exactly. Merely again, it centres the experience of white Western professional women who use nannies and domestic workers to do the housework they eschew.
There were some high points. "Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: Household Rules and Regulations", by Nicole Constable, was very skilful, and made me wanna read her book on the same topic. Her ethnographic methods meant that she prioritised the voices and analysis of the Filipina migrant workers she interviewed. The focus of her piece was on the workers' rage, humiliation, and resistance effectually their employers' micromanagement of their work, their personal habits, and even the length of their hair. Hardly the stuff of lurid tabloids, it'southward an everyday power conflict that's reflective of the mean solar day to day lives and struggles of a disempowered migrant group. (Information technology fabricated me recollect a lot of Andrea's checklists for her nannies in Real Housewives of Melbourne, and her assertion that her nanny-wrangling skills make her a model for "working women". D:) "Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Bridges and Depression-Wage US Husbands" past Hung Cam Thai, "Among Women: Migrant Domestics and their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations" past Pei-Chia Lan, and "Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-Stone to International Migration", by Denise Brennan, are besides well worth reading.
In contrast, "Because she looks similar a child" by Kevin Bales is a highly vague and sensationalised take on sex trafficking. Information technology opens with a really atrocious, tragic case written report of the debt chains of a xv-yr-onetime girl working in a brothel. After that shocking epitome, we're given cipher from sex workers or trafficked women themselves — nothing in their ain words. It's all the perspective of Kevin and the organisations he chooses to cite — and very piddling is actually cited. A lot of big numbers are thrown around with aught to dorsum them up. In that location'south no distinction made between women who choose to enter the sex industry who had a lot of options, women who didn't have many options, and women who were tricked and forced into the industry. (Plus, Bales completely ignores the existence of sex workers who are not cis women, even though they're a large and visible proportion of sex workers in Thailand.) And I mean, very few of us are fortunate plenty to have total freedom to cull the manufacture we work in and the weather condition of our piece of work, it's non black-and-white. Only there's a departure, all the same, and it's extremely disingenous to pretend that there'south not. Saskia Sassen's essay after in the book is also guilty of collapsing these distinctions. If you lot seek out bodily sex workers' voices, y'all'll find that often even women who are hyper-exploited have strong criticisms of the anti-trafficking motion, in particular its focus on country intervention. I have criticisms of the work of Laura Agustin (admit it, she's a bit of a liberal) but I think Sexual activity at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry is a strong and necessary critique of many anti-trafficking initiatives, exposing them every bit frequently vehement, coercive, dishonest, and unconcerned with the most desperately underpaid and demeaning employment every bit long as information technology'due south non sex-related.
But very few of the pieces in this collection engage with state violence, the materiality of the border, the bureaucracy of visa classes, the precarity induced by the border, capitalism itself. Most of the essays are like "hmm, migrant women are especially vulnerable to corruption because they're frightened of arrest and deportation, seems like that's merely a fact of life, maybe we need more regulation of industries with lots of migrant workers". It'southward clear that a major cistron in the vulnerability of migrant women workers is the edge itself, and the colonial relationships that drew those borders and militarised them. I'thousand not asking for some kind of anarchist manifesto here, but I wish there was a picayune scrap of questioning of the structural conditions causing this vulnerability, a little flake less of a focus on the moral questions plaguing the soul of the white Western bourgeoisie.
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There are some great manufactures in the book, just
This is a terribly depressing read, simply considering it'south a terribly depressing subject: white, Western women are able to enjoy their postfeminist equality, simply just by (under)paying non-white migrant workers to clean their homes and expect after their children. It'south a damning, seemingly-unsolvable trouble and one that I wanted to know more than about. But I really had to force myself to go on reading, because information technology's a topic that contains such upsetting truths.There are some dandy articles in the volume, but I'm non crazy about their arrangement. From an editorial point of view, it seems slapdash -- almost equally if someone ran a JStor search and threw together any article they could find that mentioned female migrant workers. As a result, some of the articles are pure academia, some are journalistic. Information technology's an odd mix. The collection as well ends upwardly existence very repetitive on some subjects.
I can't help but feel that Global Woman was thrown together to capitalize on the success of Nickel and Dimed -- and, really, this couldn't be a more dissimilar book. I enjoyed Dimed for its claustrophobic, personal slant -- this is just a collection of essays, with little to tie it together. It'due south a worthy subject field, only a heavy read, and I wish more care had gone into its compilation.
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At that place were a few gems that should be mentioned that kept this collection from being a complete fail- Hung Cam Thai'due south 'Ambivalent Dreams: highly educated overseas brides and low-wage U.S. husbands.
Nicole Constable's Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: household rules and relations and Pei-Chia Lan'south Amongst Women:Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers across generations. ...more
Merely I would like to speak about the second to last essay. Information technology was nearly Vietnamese (or Korean...I already forgot!) wome
I picked this volume to read considering I thought information technology was by Barbara Erenreich. Instead information technology is a collection of essays that is edited past her. (She did actually write Ane of the essays.) I as well didn't realize it was just essays, non a contiguous study of women in the global economy. That was a picayune dissapointing. Just as an essay got interesting, information technology was over and the side by side one was deadening.Just I would like to speak nearly the second to final essay. It was near Vietnamese (or Korean...I already forgot!) women who are highly educated that choose to marry low wage Vietnamese (or Korean) men who live in America. The essayist refers to those women equally 'unmarriagebles' and that'due south why they have to ally in these odd combos. As a Mormom woman who did not become married until she was almost 27, I think I was considered to exist an 'unmarriagable'. That was part of the reason those people were not marriagable: they were past marrying age.
Well, that is a load of crap. I was always very marriagable. Can you still be marriageable subsequently you get married? If so, I think I am still marriageable. But oh human I hated when people would compassion me for not being married. Or not dating anyone. Pity didn't assistance me at all! I merely couldn't discover anyone who would even date me, let alone Marry me. Don't rub it in, people!
At my fiddling sister'due south wedding (I don't resent her for beating me to the wedding stuff, merely I sort of despised a lot of the people who attended) every conversation I had when like this:
Wedding ceremony Guest: Oh, Emily, how are you?!
Emily: Great.
WG: Are you married withal?
Emily: Nope.
WG: Dating anyone?
Emily: Uh, no.
WG: Didn't yous become to BYU?
Emily: Aye, I went to SCHOOL. (What in the heck does that accept to do with my single-ness????!?!)
WG: Oh (pitiful puppy dog face). Well, there's probably still promise. (Implied: You are 23...hopeless.)
Bleh!
Ok, so I don't think anyone is seriously unmarriageable. No i. Even the stinky or nerdy people in the world. They just have to find the right friction match. And it doesn't happen for everyone at age 18.
I think in that location was a girl who I had some classes with at BYU. I thought of her equally Gowron. Who's Gowron? Are you serious? He'south the leader of the Klingons. Duh. The i with buggy optics. And he'southward not very friendly. Anyways, and so later on summer intermission Miss Gowron came back wearing a nuptials band. Ok, that made me experience like a little scrap of a loser. I was sure I had more than possible union matches than Gowron...how could she find her'south first?! Anyways, and then I saw her with the guy. She was big and burly. He was lilliputian and mousy. Very VERY interesting combo. You could hear her bossing him around all the way across the lobby of the science building. I expected to meet her throw him over her shoulder and march abroad sometimes.
I ever wondered who asked who on the first engagement. Or was it an order? And what was information technology like when he took her home to run across HIS parents? Were they delighted? Scared? TERRIFIED? I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall!
So, back to the book: wow. There are a lot of women who struggle in some pretty difficult situations around the world. Tin can you imagine living in another land than your family does and wiping some old lady's barrel in lodge to provide for your family? How sad.
I read this book at the same time every bit I read 'Confessions of a Slacker Wife'. Weird dissimilarity. They mix as well as diet coke and mentos.
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An fantabulous drove of essays focusing on the femininization of the migrant piece of work forcefulness, the mass migration of women from Due south to Due north, and its global impact. Largely unreported topic merely one of huge significance. The essays cover a broad range of topics, from Vietnamese mail-order brides, to migrant domestics and their Taiwanese employers dealing with the notion of filial piety in the modernistic age, to sexual exploitation of women and girls in Thailand.
I am dropping a ane/2 star beca
4.five stars -An fantabulous collection of essays focusing on the femininization of the migrant work force, the mass migration of women from South to N, and its global impact. Largely unreported topic only one of huge significance. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from Vietnamese mail-order brides, to migrant domestics and their Taiwanese employers dealing with the notion of filial piety in the modern age, to sexual exploitation of women and girls in Thailand.
I am dropping a 1/2 star considering of the essay 'Selling Sex for Visas'. The writer portrays exploited women equally making contained choices to be sex activity workers, yet readily admits that their lives are dangerous, that they accept no other options in gild to survive, that they are abused and abased by the men who purchase them. This sort of 3rd moving ridge Choice Feminism hypocrasy was incredibly offensive and contradictory. Otherwise, the volume was excellent.
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I've ever got time for the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's robust writing since I was lent "Nickel and Dimed: Hole-and-corner in Low-wage America" a few years back. In this book, published in 2002, Ehrenreich along with Arlie R Hochschild have collected a multifariousness of essays that look at how the situation of woman has changed in the last couple of decades as the earth economy has get increasingly globalised.
The contributions, as to be expected in collections such as this, vary i
WOMAN OF THE WorldI've always got time for the announcer Barbara Ehrenreich's robust writing since I was lent "Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America" a few years dorsum. In this book, published in 2002, Ehrenreich along with Arlie R Hochschild have collected a multifariousness of essays that await at how the state of affairs of woman has changed in the final couple of decades every bit the world economy has become increasingly globalised.
The contributions, as to be expected in collections such every bit this, vary in tone and quality. All except three are by academics, a surprising amount of the academics are anthropologists whose style verges on the detached in marked contrast to the forthright writing 1 normally expects of Ehrenreich. The bulk of the contributions are focused on the issue of female migrant workers; those who leave their homes in less developed countries to have on work equally nannies, maids and cleaners in the richer countries of the world. The extent of this trade is enormous. Countries such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka receive billions of dollars yearly from millions of contract workers who work in the Gulf States, the U.Southward. and other countries. The precarious position of these workers, the attitudes of their employers and their frequently-exploitative working conditions are in many cases bloodcurdling. The irony, which is made articulate, is that these workers are "imported" to deport out the caring and cleaning that rich professional adult female are unable to carry out in the two full-time worker model that has developed in the w, and the fact that their male counterparts will not share the burden of domestic duties. More one of the writers makes the pertinent point that this care arrears in the richer countries is filled by cheap foreign labour, and that this leaves a care deficit in the poorer countries of the earth. One of the contributions details the experience of families in the Philippines whose mothers at present work abroad, and the difficulties for those at both ends.
A few of the essays deal with the sex-trade in information technology'due south modernistic state, both the "import" of adult female into the w every bit well equally those areas of the world that have become destinations for sex-tourism, generally by men. One of the contributions in this expanse I thought was pretty dismal. Denise Brennan, in her piece of work on sex-tourism in the Dominican Democracy goes to excessive lengths to assert the "agency" and the power of the sex worker to "react and resist". She states "Dominican sex workers use sexual activity, romance, and matrimony every bit ways of turning [the] sexual activity merchandise into a site of opportunity and possibility". Zilch in the instance studies she cites lead me to believe these assertions were tenable, and that the "opportunity and possibility" were anything other than the necessary delusions that those involved in sex work clung to in order to get through the days and weeks of doing what they accept to exercise in order to escape brutal poverty in a country that has had no opportunity for economic and social development.
Despite a couple of other below par essays that exhibit the Academics concerned less than full commitment to making themselves clear, it was still a book that opened a window on an nether-written attribute of globalization. On that ground information technology was worth reading.
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Ehrenreiech and Hochschild utilise hyperbole to draw the horrors of being a domestic worker an
This book tries to be pro-adult female in it's defense of domestic workers, simply ends upwardly being anti-feminist in the double standards and expectations placed on the affluent women who choose to leave the home for college pay. It is a family unit decision to hire a nanny or a maid, withal the authors repeatedly blame the mothers for having someone else raise their children. No mention of the fathers who go out the abode.Ehrenreiech and Hochschild utilise hyperbole to describe the horrors of being a domestic worker and the evilness of those women who employ them in a cringey and eye rolling worth essays with so many gender double standards.
In an article discussing how Philippines women are leaving the home for better opportunities abroad as nannies and domestic workers, the author implies a sense of arraign to the affluent women who are breaking up Filipino homes. While the article discussed the fact that these Filipinas are able to make much more coin abroad than at home and give better opportunities for their own children, there seems to be no blame on the office of Filipino men leaving the home for migrant piece of work, a blueprint which has gone on for years. If now there are greater opportunities for women abroad, why aren't the men existence called on to stay home and support the family? The author implies that we in the western world should do more than to ensure there are domestic opportunities for piece of work within the Philippines and other migratory countries. How we should practise this is non quite clear.
Another article discussed the "servile" and "humiliating" relationship betwixt domestic assist and the women whose children they are raising and homes they are cleaning. The author describes a time when feminists worked to gloat the work women did in the dwelling house and how this work is at present beingness outsourced to other lower grade women. Simply it is not but the "women's piece of work" that has been outsourced in the home. Many affluent men don't spend their weekends fixing a leaky pipe, mowing the backyard, or cleaning the gutters. This traditional "men'due south piece of work" is outsourced as well, but with no guilt inducing commentary on the human relationship between a man and his gardener.
Yes, in that location is a power relationship between domestic assistance and the home possessor, it's i of a dominate and worker. The free market dictates the need for domestic help and the number of people employed in the profession shows that there is a ready supply of people willing to work in these jobs. The authors point out that the women who work as domestic assistance are often paid much higher than they can find at other jobs, all the same the women who utilise them are villanized.
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Some other reason why the book feels disjointed is that some of the essays are very personal and bargain with private stories, while others are drier and rely on statistics and academic studies. No single essay introduces an attempt to offer a global picture of women'southward migrations from South to N, and while the introduction is well-written (but, frankly, places the bar likewise high so that you end up disappointed by the essays), at that place is no full general conclusion to the book.
For a book about gendered work, surprisingly few of these essays offer analysis from a feminist perspective. Really, few offering whatever analysis at all, they just present information and get out y'all to brand of it what you will -- which wouldn't necessarily be terrible if in that location was enough data in the book to help you get the whole picture.
I was besides uncomfortable with the ideologies put forward, in Ehrenreich's essay in particular. The question of whether Western women in the workforce tin can "have information technology all" is misogynistic in itself, but to blame women who employ nannies and maids instead of blaming the half-assed Western governments which do nada to assist two-income families and single parents intendance for their homes, children and dependants seems pretty hypoctitical to me. Similarly, the idea that poor countries in the global South demand to comprehend gender egalitarianism to put an terminate to women'south work emigration seems like it conveniently sweeps nether the rug the facts that, on the 1 manus, patriarchy was and is in many cases buttressed past colonialism and neocolonialism, and that, on the other hand, the economical imbalance that prompts these women to emigrate is also caused by Western countries in the first identify. And of cousre, the essays in the starting time third of the volume that deal with immigrant workers from the points of view of the white American women who use them are but infuriating (no i cares most your qualms and moral dilemmas, this book wasn't supposed to exist about you, merely shut up already).
I got into this book with high hopes because women'southward migrations is an of import subject almost which comparatively little has been written in feminist circles, simply I was disappointed at the lack of global analysis and feasible solutions offered. I'd still recommend it for young women who want to learn a little about women migrants and the failures of second-wave feminism because it's informative and easy plenty to read, but this is by no means a landmark work on the subject.
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Having read Barbara Ehrenreich her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America when it was newly published, I knew that she writes from both her mind and her eye. By writing in that way, I tin better sympathise with her subject.
While men as well immigrate internationally to find work, Ehrenreich has focused on the women. The women may immigrate legally with temporary documentation. Many stay in the countries that they accept immigrated to by and sometimes years past tjeir
A total 5 stars.Having read Barbara Ehrenreich her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America when it was newly published, I knew that she writes from both her mind and her heart. Past writing in that way, I can better empathize with her bailiwick.
While men also immigrate internationally to find work, Ehrenreich has focused on the women. The women may emigrate legally with temporary documentation. Many stay in the countries that they accept immigrated to past and sometimes years by tjeir allotted time. Some just simply travel illegally. Think U.s.a.-Mexican border. Think travelling every bit baggage. Call up travelling using illegal documents. People are nifty considering they do this. They are desperate to change their life experiences immediately or well-nigh immediately. They ften take hungry, ill-clad, and could-be homeless presently children. Fifty-fifty though Ehrenreich doesn't say, I strongly strongly suspect woman of those children demand medical care. Women's choices are never easy. Mother's are all too often difficult.
They women send their coin dwelling to pay for the basics and more. They pay for pocket-sized pieces of country, small modest houses, clothing, education. To run across these goals, some women alive in virtual slavery, living in damp and un-air-conditioned basements. To meet woman of these goals, women find themselves unable to tell the police because they have over-stayed their documentation, because they know no ane else in US who volition give them temporary shelter. All the while they become estranged from their husbands and children and all their other family members. Considering they frequently. work as care providers or household workers, they have often have no i to talk with that understands their difficulties. Besides oftentimes they are judged past the native population, tjeir employers, their children. Even so immigrant women make it possible for professional person women work andnhave tjeir house clean and their children tended to. Still immigrant women brand it possible for tjeir family members to have their needs met. Sometimes the immigrant women take social services available to them. Just nowhere nearly often enough.
What is the crisis that creates a demand for immigrant worker women? Men too often decline to assistance make clean the house or tend to the children or care for the elderly family member. Let's socialize our sins differently. I grew up in a house where my brothers and I took terms at the same household chores. Certain they learned cars and I learned more advanced cooking; nevertheless I learned how to cheque my automobile fluids and tires, and my brothers learned the basics of food preparation and kitchen cleaning. My son learned what my brothers learned and a fleck more considering I was a single mom. My brothers taught him the car and fishing stuff.
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Excellent volume. =)
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Despite that this book is an enlightening read that makes you lot aware of your own position in the earth. Information technology merely scratches the surface of the injustices women experience in their lives all around the world.
One of the strengths of the book is the way in which the material is presented. Information technology avoids
A terribly depressing read made fifty-fifty more depressing by the fact that these are the experiences of women all over the world. These are their lives and they don't accept the luxury of putting the volume downwardly.Despite that this book is an enlightening read that makes you aware of your ain position in the globe. It merely scratches the surface of the injustices women experience in their lives all effectually the earth.
One of the strengths of the book is the way in which the material is presented. It avoids highly academic language and instead tells women'southward experiences as stories, making them accessible and tangible.
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Information technology starts with the stories of Phillipino women (and it should be noticed that the majority of cases in the book involve exploitation of Southward East Asians) who are hired by wealthy American working couples to perform the traditional female roles of childrearing, cleaning & cooking (keeping house basically).
With the Western woman at present fully engaged in the workplace a
This is basically a collection of essays in the supplementary roles woman play which allow the nifty game of globalization to aggrandize.Information technology starts with the stories of Phillipino women (and information technology should be noticed that the majority of cases in the volume involve exploitation of South Due east Asians) who are hired by wealthy American working couples to perform the traditional female roles of childrearing, cleaning & cooking (keeping business firm basically).
With the Western woman at present fully engaged in the workplace and no redistribution of hometasks, the couples accept to employ a nanny/cleaner/childminder to complete these tasks. In a way bringing the previously excluded expanse of "dwelling house" into the capitalist globalization market. Of course (equally whatsoever Marxist/ Feminist knows) the driving force of capitalisation is exploitation and in the case of these women information technology is non just their personal exploitation but also the exploitation of their families in their home country. They might offering love and care to western children but what becomes of their own offspring.
The book addresses a number of case studies in which traditional feminine roles are brought on to the market and considers the resultant exploitation; everything from cooking & cleaning to sex is considered.
I enjoyed the book and I thought it brought upwards a number of interesting issues and considerations. Domestic labour is the undervalued, ignored and yet integral part of our daily routine, these were stories that had to exist told. I also enjoyed that the arraign was non laid at the door of western men or women but rather seen as the effect of the system. In fact it was Sri Lankan "drunk" men who probably came off worst in the whole volume.
I merely gave the book three stars because I started to lose interest towards the end; rather than reinforcing the arguments it began to bore me and I wonder if a few less chapters might have been more appropriate. Similarly there were few discussions on those endeavouring to fix the problem (although there was a list of organisations dealing with the consequence). There was very little discussion on government policies or international corporations function in the exploitation and focus was very much on a household level, which I assume gives a ane-sided view of the book.
I'm pretty sure it was meant every bit a political statement but I'chiliad not certain who information technology was aimed towards, I'thou sure most who would read the book would already take a small grasp on the issues and those who do not have such an agreement are unlikely to read the book in the first place.
Withal, criticisms aside, all in all I would recommend it. Certainly if you are interested in issues of exploitation and equity.
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Notwithstanding, the flip side to this story is that the men/husbands in tertiary globe countries are failing to help back up their families, which forces the women to export their labor to Showtime World countries. In that location are many stories told in the essays that show that the husbands waste the wife's remittances on drinking and gambling instead of using it for the children and the family. It seems that many of the women are leaving their families and countries for no other reason than to support their husband's vices.
To hear the stories of many women who are kidnapped or sold by their families and forced into prostitution is heartwrenching. I cannot fifty-fifty brainstorm to empathise the life that a women must live when this happens and to think that their families can't think of other ways to make ends meet is insane also. I know that forced prostitution still occurs and it occurs in the U.S. also equally all other adult nations...what tin we practice nigh it? What can nosotros practice to ensure that immature women are non treated like pieces of meat?
The writer gives a short list of organizations that do help women in bad situations. I definitely will do some inquiry and add together a new organization to the listing of charities that I give to.
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