Class

Citation:

Eastin, Joshua and Aseem Prakash. 2013. “Economic Development and Gender Equality: Is There a Gender Kuznets Curve?” World Politics 65 (1): 156-86.

Authors: Joshua Eastin, Aseem Prakash

Topics: Civil Society, Class, Democracy / Democratization, Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Men, Girls, Boys, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity, Globalization, Households, Livelihoods, Political Economies, Rights, Human Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, MENA, Americas, Central America, Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: India, Mexico, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka

Year: 2013

Citation:

Agarwal, Bina. 1989. “Rural Women, Poverty and Natural Resources: Sustenance, Sustainability and Struggle for Change.” Economic and Political Weekly 24 (43): WS46–65.

Author: Bina Agarwal

Abstract:

Women in poor rural households are burdened with a significant responsibility for family subsistence and are important, often the primary, and in many female-headed households the sole economic providers. However, their ability to fulfil this responsibility is significantly constrained by the limited (and declining) resources and means at their command - a constraint that stems not merely from their class position but also from gender. These gender inequities in access to resources take varying forms: intra-family differences in the distribution of basic necessities; women's systematically disadvantaged position in the labour market; their little access to the crucial means of production - land, and associated production technology; and the growing deterioration and privatisation of the country's common property resources on which the poor in general and women in particular, depend in substantial degree for sustenance. At the same time, the women are not always passive victims - many have reacted against their marginalisation and are today significant actors in grassroots initiatives for change. In particular, in response to a growing crisis of survival, poor peasant and tribal women have emerged in the forefront of many ecology initiatives. These initiatives, which have developed into movements in several areas, articulate a growing resistance to existing approaches to development, and call attention to the critical need for an alternative approach which is regenerative rather than destructive of nature - a necessary condition for its sustainability in the long run. Indeed, the perspectives and insights offered by such movements, and women as important participants in them, need to be an integral part of any attempt to chart out an alternative.

Topics: Class, Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Environment, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Health, Households, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 1989

Citation:

Barry, Joyce M. 2008. “‘A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens’: Women’s Activism, Environmental Justice, and the Coal River Mountain Watch.” Environmental Justice 1 (1): 25–33.

Author: Joyce M Barry

Abstract:

This article examines the environmental justice efforts of the Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) in Boone County, West Virginia. The CRMW is a grassroots group formed in 1998 to fight the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. The membership of this organization is largely comprised of white, working-class women whose homes and community have been adversely impacted by this extractive industry. The CRMW serves as a watch dog of the coal industry oligarchy in the state, resisting the social and environmental injustices created by King coal and its abetting state political system. This article posits that around the country poor and working-class women respond collectively to threats on their homes and communities. However, the scale and impact of this social trend has yet to be adequately assessed by feminist and environmental justice scholars. There is a large body of important, ecofeminist scholarship examining women's connection to the natural world, mostly framed by the spiritual component of such connections. However, this scholarship frequently fails to consider the role of class and its relation to gender and the environment. Also, these analyses too often center women's individual responses to challenged environments, rarely focusing on women's collective actions. Environmental justice scholarship has done a tremendous job emphasizing the importance of class, social justice, and vulnerable communities' connection to the environment. However, the canon of environmental justice scholarship infrequently assesses the activism and importance of women in these grassroots movements. This is unfortunate considering that women make up 90% of the membership in environmental justice groups around the country. Using the Coal River Mountain Watch as a case study this article ultimately seeks to redress these shortcomings in existing scholarship, and highlight the efforts of this environmental justice organization.

Topics: Civil Society, Class, Economies, Economic Inequality, Poverty, Environment, Extractive Industries, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Livelihoods Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2008

Citation:

Musila, G. 2009. “Phallocracies and Gynocratic Transgressions: Gender, State Power and Kenyan Public Life.” Africa Insight 39 (1). 

Author: G. Musila

Abstract:

This article explores the role of hegemonic masculinities in shaping patterns of authority in Kenya, a context in which state power has historically been framed as a male affair, with the foregrounding of the phallus as a symbol for power and leadership. It argues that, beyond ethnicity and class, gender—and specifically masculinities—provides a compelling lens through which to understand the Kenyan post-election crisis and its attendant elements: the deadlock between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga; the mobilisation of militaristic masculinities and the violence inflicted on men and women’s bodies during the conflict.

Topics: Class, Gender, Women, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Elections, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Political Participation, Violence Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Kenya

Year: 2009

Citation:

Mee, K. H. 1998. “Power and Representation: The Case of South Korean Women Workers.” Asian Journal of Women's Studies 4 (3): 61–108.

Author: K. H. Mee

Abstract:

This article focuses on South Korean working class women's political and cultural negotiation in the contexts of the South Korean labor movement of the late 1980s and the ever-evolving international division of labor. Based on an in-depth case study of a labor dispute in a U.S.-owned multinational corporation, it raises issues about how women workers in the international circuit of global capitalism are represented. By looking at how a labor struggle, waged by women workers against a multinational company's (MNC) factory closure, is presented in the realm of media representation and other writings, this article attempts to show how their struggle became a ground of discourse formation, reflecting diverse political interests. This is done by looking at the process of their struggle in the national and transnational space. The workers' own narratives, the media's presentation of their struggle, and the workers' own perception of it, are examined. While this article shows how the Korean women worker's struggle becomes a ground of discourse formation, reflecting varied political interests, it also focuses on how the workers manipulate their own images in a sophisticated way in vying for support from a broader audience. I define this as a specific form of "subaltern" representation and argue that gender images operate as core symbols of labor activities and constitute an important symbolic framework for the international division of labor. Since this case highlights diverse aspects of the conditions of Korean women workers' struggle, cutting across divisions of gender, class, and nation, it offers an arena for understanding the female subject in the process of globalization, which involves a complicated nexus of power and representation.

Topics: Class, Economies, Gender, Women, Media, Globalization, Livelihoods, Nationalism, Multi-National Corporations, Political Participation Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea

Year: 1998

Citation:

Myrttinen, Henri, Jana Naujoks, and Janpeter Schilling. 2015. “Gender, Natural Resources, and Peacebuilding in Kenya and Nepal.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 27 (2): 181-7.

Authors: Henri Myrttinen, Jana Naujoks, Janpeter Schilling

Topics: Age, Armed Conflict, Class, Economies, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Peacebuilding, Violence Regions: Africa, East Africa, Asia, South Asia Countries: Kenya, Nepal

Year: 2015

Citation:

Kim, Jaesok. 2015. "From “Country Bumpkins” to “Tough Workers”: The Pursuit of Masculinity Among Male Factory Workers in China." Anthropological Quarterly 88 (1): 133-161.

Author: Jaesok Kim

Abstract:

This article explores the formation of a new industrial underclass in post- Mao China, focusing on a group of young male workers' gendered interpretation of their subjection to an exploitative factory regime. I examine the experiential and performative dimensions of this subjection, which are intricately linked to China's insertion into the global capitalist economy. The transformation of China into the "world's factory" depended on the dramatic increase of foreign direct investment and the rapid expansion of labor-intensive, low-skilled factory jobs that favored the labor of rural migrant women. While the "feminization of production labor" generated some positive outcomes among the women workers, it turned a group of unskilled young male migrants into an industrial underclass. These men assumed menial jobs that drained their physical strength while offering virtually no chance of promotion or improvement in their future lives. Male workers reacted to the exploitative factory regime by engaging in binge drinking and extreme forms of anti-social behavior. This case study shows how class solidarity is sometimes deflected into the domain of gender conflict.

Keywords: labor, Gender, masculinity, multinational corporation, China, garment industry, globalization

Topics: Class, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Femininity/ies, Globalization, Livelihoods, Multi-National Corporations, Political Economies Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2015

Citation:

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 2008. “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners.” Gender and Society 22 (3): 281–302.

Author: Evelyn Nakano Glenn

Abstract:

With the breakdown of traditional racial boundaries in many areas of the world, the widespread and growing consumption of skin-lightening products testifies to the increasing significance of colorism—social hierarchy based on gradations of skin tone within and between racial/ethnic groups. Light skin operates as a form of symbolic capital, one that is especially critical for women because of the connection between skin tone and attractiveness and desirability. Far from being an outmoded practice or legacy of past colonialism, the use of skin lighteners is growing fastest among young, urban, educated women in the global South. Although global in scope, the skin-lightening market is highly segmented by nation, culture, race, and class. This article examines the "yearning for lightness" and skin-lightening practices in various societies and communities and the role of transnational pharmaceutical and cosmetic corporations in fueling the desire for lighter skin through print, Internet, and television ads that link light skin with modernity, social mobility, and youth.

Keywords: colorism, beauty, skin bleaching, globalism, discrimination

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Globalization, Multi-National Corporations, Nationalism, Race

Year: 2008

Citation:

Brumley, Krista M. 2010. “Gender, Class, and Work: The Complex Impacts of Globalization.” Edited by M. T. Segal. Interactions and Intersections of Gendered Bodies at Work, at Home, And At Play 14: 95–119.

Author: Krista Brumley

Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the literature on work, gender, and globalization using an intersectional approach.

Methodology – The data for this chapter are derived from two years of qualitative fieldwork at a Mexican multinational corporation. I conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 86 employees at all levels of the organizational hierarchy as well as content analysis of the company magazine.

Findings – My findings suggest that globalization leads to similar benefits for women and men, with respect to autonomy and decision making in the workplace, but are framed distinctly depending on class. Globalization is gendered in that it offers an additional benefit of economic independence to women. Women at different levels of occupational prestige, however, experience the globalizing process in diverse ways. I conclude by suggesting that globalization results in a tension within the company in how to incorporate female workers in a more meaningful manner.

Originality/value of chapter – Research on globalization in the developing world primarily examines factory workers or women in certain occupations, such as domestic workers. This study focuses on an overlooked group of workers that includes female and male white-collar workers. It offers a comparative analysis of the gendered and class-based effects of globalization on workers of different ranks within the same company. Most globalization studies on Mexico center on the Maquila industry, whereas this study examines workers in a Mexican-owned international company.

Topics: Class, Economies, Gender, Globalization, International Organizations, Multi-National Corporations Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2010

Citation:

Chant, Sylvia. 2007. “Gender, Cities, and the Millennium Development Goals in the Global South.” New Working Paper Series 21, London School of Economics, London.

Author: Sylvia Chant

Abstract:

Despite a dedicated Millennium Development Goal for ‘promoting gender equality and empowering women’, and popular rhetoric around the fulfilment of MDG 3 as a prerequisite for achieving all other seven goals, there has been widespread criticism on the part of feminists of their limited scope to address gender inequalities in the Global South. Suggestions have been made by the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality to improve the gender-responsiveness of the MDGs. Drawing on recent research on the ‘feminisation of poverty’ in Africa, Asia and Latin America and on the wider literature on gender in cities, this paper reflects on the potential of selected MDGs and their proposed revisions for reducing inequalities among poor urban women and men in the 21st century.

Topics: Class, Development, Economies, Economic Inequality, Poverty, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, NGOs, Political Economies Regions: Africa, Americas, Central America, South America, Asia

Year: 2007