A rchive Date
[ 17-09-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/jacobs.html
Third World women exploited for our gain
By MINDELLE JACOBS - Edmonton Sun
September 17, 2003
Professional western women don't like to dwell on the fact that their fast-paced lives are kept on track on the backs of other women.
Liberation from domestic drudgery has only been possible because of the willingness of poor Third World women to step into the traditional roles that western women have abandoned.
As droves of First World women have moved into the workforce, climbed the career ladder and broken the glass ceiling, routine family tasks such as child-rearing and cleaning have still needed tending.
But the women we import from developing countries to feed our babies and scrub our floors are themselves neglecting their children, who are raised by relatives.
This dark side of feminism is at the heart of a new collection of essays entitled, Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy.
Edited by U.S. authors and social critics Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, the book is a heart-rending exploration of the social impact of globalization and women's lib on the largely foreign women who are the invisible engines of the economy.
Take Rowena Bautista, for example, whose story is chronicled in one chapter. The single mom left two children in the Philippines so she could work as a nanny in Washington, D.C.
While Rowena cares for two U.S. children, her own kids live in a house in the Philippines with her parents and 12 other relatives - eight of them children, some of whom also have moms who work abroad.
Rowena's mother works long hours as a teacher so a local woman cooks, cleans and cares for the children. That woman, in turn, leaves her son in the care of her 80-year-old mother-in-law.
The migrant nanny or maid eases the "care deficit" in rich countries while creating one back home, Ehrenreich and Hochschild observe.
Whereas in times past wealthy nations extracted natural resources from the Third World, today we extract female labour and love as well, they point out.
To an extent, they add, the globalization of child care and housework brings ambitious women of the world together.
Both types want independence and upward mobility. But they intersect not as feminist sisters but as "mistress and maid ... across a great divide of privilege and opportunity," the book argues.
Third World men do not come across well in this collection of essays. They're portrayed as losers, abusers, gamblers, alcoholics, family deserters and general layabouts.
According to the book, that is part of the reason so many women from developing countries leave home to be servants in the First World. They need to feed their families and want better lives for their kids.
At the same time, those children suffer.
An estimated 30% of Filipino kids live in households where at least one parent has gone overseas. Yet who can blame these parents for seeking economic opportunities?
Up to half the Filipino population, the book notes, is sustained by money sent home by migrant workers.
If men are cast as lazy slobs, women are also depicted as villains in the book. For some, sisterhood doesn't count for much outside your social class.
Cathy left the Philippines at age 17 to work as a "helper" in Hong Kong to earn tuition money.
The woman who hired her paid her less than the stipulated wages, forced her to work 14-hour days doing the washing, shopping, cleaning and cooking, and dictated when she could shower, what she could wear and when she had to go to bed.
While the family slept in air-conditioned quarters, Cathy was forced to sleep in a storeroom that was sweltering in the summer and leaked when it rained.
The book also gives space to the sex trade. It goes into gut-wrenching detail about Dominican women who prostitute themselves in hopes of marrying European men, and Thai villagers who sell their daughters to brothels for TV sets.
It is a gritty, depressing chronicle of exploitation, social dislocation and virtual slavery.
Mindelle can be reached by e-mail at mindy.jacobs@edm.sunpub.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@edm.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|