Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Louise Lopman's paper on the role of "Gender and International Development"

Under bright lights and intense heat and at a rapid pace to meet excessive quotas, women between the ages of 17 and 25 sew and assemble GAP T-shirts for export to the U.S. for 60 cents an hour, less than one third of the living wage required to provide for a family.
Louise Lopman presented her paper on the role of gender and international development among the women who work in the maquilas (“sweatshops”) in the Free Trade Zones in El Salvador. These women sew and assemble apparel for duty-free export, mostly to U.S. manufacturers. Using phenomenological sociology as her theoretical approach, she focuses on how these women “experience” specifically corporate (neoliberal) globalization, in their every day lives. Louise points out that free trade and privatization represent a minimalist development agenda that does not incorporate or recognize the needs of women. The impact on the culturally acceptable gender roles in families with women entering the workforce and adding on to the surplus pool of workers is completely ignored. As an example she points out that there was no gender-impact assessment of how the free trade agreement, U.S.- Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) would impact the lives and livelihood of women throughout the Americas, let alone in El Salvador – and there certainly were no provisions to improve the living conditions of citizens, both women and men, or to correct the serious human rights violations and abuses of workers’ rights. On a positive note Louise mentions that women and men in El Salvador have been mobilizing and taking action to create an alternative just economic system that recognizes people’s right to self-determination. For more pictures visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/42433998@N00/sets/72057594084174972/

No comments: