Treatment of Nepal Women Migrants

In Nepal, it is tradition for men to work abroad and support their families back home while the women pray for those abroad. In recent years, the trend has changed and instead, the Nepali women are leaving their families to work in different countries. According to an informational video by U.N. Women (formerly UNIFEM), approximately 420,000 women make large monetary contributions to their families via remittances. As a result of these remittances, some of the Nepali women have seen social change in their private sphere. Much like Vijaya in the video above, women who provide for their families are no longer expected to be confined to the kitchen, instead they are received as honored guests.

 

With the rise of poverty in Nepal, these women feel the pressure more than ever to provide family survival by finding jobs overseas. Although Nepal women find jobs to support their poverty stricken families, these women are vulnerable to different types of exploitation in their workplace. According to UN Women, sixteen percent of Nepali women return home empty handed after facing exploitation such as forced labor and sexual abuse. Nepali women who are most vulnerable to such harsh exploitation are the ones who are too poor to receive education and job training.

The Nepali women went looking for jobs as cleaners. The women have to seek the lowest level of work, because they lack certain skills and are desperate for any source of income to help support their family. When they would return back home, they were treated with higher respect due to there hard work and higher income. One of the downsides of working as a foreign worker, jobs are not stable and the workers are viewed as disposable. There is no compensation for people who are unemployed. It is a toll on the women migrants, because they have to leave maintain their duties at home and at their foreign job.

Globalization effects everyone on the planet, and the women workers of Nepal are no exception.  The following video shows exactly what is happening to these different women, and you might be surprised to learn that it is neither all good or all bad.  One of the women talked about in this video has been greatly benefiting from globalization by working abroad for a company and is now her family's main bread winner.  This women was fortunate enough to be educated and literate, which very much helped her to be able to take advantage of globalization.  However, not all women have been profiting from this new system as the first one has. The next women also tried to work abroad, having to take out a huge loan to move to another country.  However, the new job she was given as a cleaner barely paid her living expenses and she was unable to send any money back home to get rid of her large debt.  She eventually came back to Nepal with only a massive debt to show for her efforts.  This woman was uneducated and illiterate, which probably lead to why she was tricked into a job that was not going to be able to pay her bills. The situation in Nepal is very tricky because some of the women love the new system and are benefiting from it greatly.  The Nepal government is trying to come up with a way to compensate the women who lose money working abroad, but this will be extremely hard to finalize and enforce.  If you are reading this, think about what is going on around the world and what could possibly be done to help the problems.  Just one person with one good idea could possibly better the lives for millions of women across the world.

In order for the women in Nepal to benefit from traveling abroad for work they need to be educated, so they will have a better idea of what they are getting themselves into. If they are not literate, it would be helpful for them to have someone who is literate explain what each contract is saying, so they know what they are agreeing to. That would help keep the women safe. They need to know what jobs they are signing up for and what conditions they will be living in, and how long they are required to work. The country needs to have some program that is helping these women when they travel to other countries.

 

Relationship Between 1st World and 3rd World Women (Group 1)

As discussed in class, 1^st World women are starting to no longer wish to do the “private sphere” work. The Private Sphere work consists of domestic duties, childcare, housekeeping, cooking, shopping…etc. Back in the day, the private sphere work was done solely by the females out of love for their husband and family. Today, women have greater opportunities to advance in the career world, therefore women no longer want to do the private sphere duties, moreover they wish to engage in more public sphere activities. With this theory advancing to more female minds in 1^st world countries, women from 3^rd world countries are now being hired to do all these things. In a way the relationship between first world women and third world migrant workers are similar. Both females are looking to better their lives in order to provide for their families. However, each is seen in a different way. Some people think that the migrant housekeeper is “invisible”, or seen as an addition to the first world woman, instead of a hard-working individual trying to support her own family. Some first world women shield their migrant housekeepers because they feel shameful, because they are supposed to be “superwoman” and do it all. In my opinion, no one can “do it all.” You can make a choice to split career and family, or go in either direction, but to take credit for another woman’s work in the household you are building is, in my opinion, wrong. 

~Angela Cuomo



Adding to what Angela has said, I believe in Ehrenreich and Hochschild opinion, they think that a global relationship is created that is similar to that of a traditional relationship between the sexes, that "The First World takes on a role like that of the old-fashioned male in the family - pampered, entitled, unable to cook, clean or find his own socks. Poor countries take on a role like that of the traditional woman within the family - patient, nurturing, and self-denying"(196). In a sense, this 'division of labor' has become a global situation. As more women in First world countries are becoming career-orientated and coming into the public sphere, they begin to create a sort of 'care deficit' towards their families and that is where the striving woman from the Third World comes into site. These women come into the private sphere where they will tend to cooking, cleaning, and childcare along with other duties. Ehrenreich and Hochschild also state that this creates a sort of 'togetherness.' That First World women and Third World migrant women "come together as mistress and maid, employer and employee, across a great divide of privilege and opportunity"(195).


D.Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn. "Globalization: The transformation of Social Worlds."

-Korissa Arugay 

Facebook and Globalization

The article discusses facebooks decision to go public which only enhances its ability to further its globalization. Although many world wide are now able to benefit financially from facebooks increading popularity those who are actually able to invest is still a limiting factor. Ghemewats theory about actual globalization in this case I feel does not apply. Facebook as many know is now one of the most widely recognized and utilized websites. the famous Facebook "f" some would argue is almost as recognizable as Mcdonalds golden arches or Coca Colas signiature cursive logo.

The first article opens eyes to the readers that Facebook is now going public. They not only are a worldwide phenomena, but now investors are taking action. However, Facebook must be careful on what they are signing for. By other companies investing, more money will be put into toll. Even though more money is going to be used to make Facebook that much better, they have to keep in mind that they have to do their best to please everyone, which can become difficult. Prediction of how the site will do once the investors invest cannot be made at this time. The main focus of Facebook is advertising, because without that, the company wouldn't be anywhere like it is today.

The second article is focusing on the numbers that relates with Facebook's company. The statistics are very broad and well known. It also brings up the fact that this started in a dorm room from a college kid and it is now a multibillion dollar enterprise. If that's not inspiring in any way, then we don't know what is. Facebook went from 1 to 845 million in 7 years, unbelievable. It also shows an extreme example of globalization by how many users use it worldwide. We would think that the United States would be where most the users are, but we're only about 20%. Showing that it really is a worldwide company and with these investors putting more money into it, its going to be even better than what it already is.

Some may say that Ghemawat ideals are wrong here, because anyone with the right resources can now be able to buy shares in the company and have a certain amount of control. However, the sheer size of the company and all that it reflects show that it is a global matter most likely exceeding that of the 10% model. The Facebook model and brand are growing, and exceeding most levels of expectation on population and utilization. It is truly becoming another realm in which we exist, conduct ourselves, and conduct business. A new realm for a new world.

http://news.yahoo.com/company-grows-facebook-goes-public-164000181.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-by-the-numbers.html

Winners and Losers Issue (Group 4)

A current issue that relates to this week’s readings on the idea of the “winners and losers of the new globalization” is unemployment in the United States. The phrase “last hired, first fired” comes to mind when thinking about this unemployment issue. Winners are those whom are benefitting from globalization. Currently, the winners are the people who are able to keep their job and placed in higher managing positions by having better education and seniority advantages. The majority of these winners are men.  Males are more commonly placed in higher positions than females. The issue of men being more dominant than females is still present world-wide. Unfortunately, there are still jobs where women are paid less than men. Another example that proves women are currently lower balanced than men is that in developing third world countries, women still have to prove their commitment to the job by showing that they are not pregnant through sanitary napkins. Another illustration of winners and losers are the people who run big corporations versus the developing countries. These developing countries compete amongst other developing countries by lowering their prices to gain corporate labor. However by lowering their prices, the developing countries are risking danger for its workers and the environment. By the end of it all, the big corporations are the ones who will benefit from outsourcing to other countries.

Here is a NY article by Sydney Morris that reflects upon the issue "last hired, first fired" towards teachers:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/last_hired_first_fired_bad_for_the_vR1xqBVdCKlAVDeHd6twaK

"International Love": Frequent Flyer Miles for All?

So, this is the first time I'm using blogger.com in a class - let's see how it works out! I would love to hear from those of you who have used it in other courses. My hope is that this will be a much more dynamic medium than the forum setting in Titanium. Let's give it a try:

Today in class we started off with a discussion of "International Love," by Pitbull, featuring Chris Brown. "An odd choice for a Women's Studies class," you may have thought to yourself (particularly if you've seen the video or are familiar with Pitbull's... ahem... work). But wait! It is completely relevant, as I hope our ensuing discussion bears out. From the very first shot of the earth hurdling through space, to the flashes of the American and Puerto Rican flags emblazoned on its computer generated terrain, to - finally - Pitbull on stage surrounded by a bevy of lovely, scantily clad anonymous ladies, it is all a fantasy of globalization.

It is a very specific kind of diasporic, male, capitalist fantasy in which heterosexual male bodies emerge triumphant from inside fast cars in order to (literally) dance in victory on the earth's terrain and on top of its technological vistas, their recognizable likenesses projected onto skyscrapers. Where are the women? Certainly, they are in the video as well, but it would behoove us to take a moment to ask how, where, and ultimately why they are being represented. 

As we will see this semester, since at least the fifteenth century (the beginning of the age of colonialism), men came to be associated with travel, mobility, progress, and power, while women came to be associated with land, nature, nation, and earth.

Theodor Galle after Jan van der Straet (c. 1571-1633), The Discovery of America, from New Discoveries, detail, c. 1580 / 1590, Engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection.

Man was an active agent, while woman was passive, inert, a symbol waiting to be made meaningful. To what extent does this type of symbolic language still hold meaning in our current popular cultural representations of globalization? What, if any, "real-life" consequences does this have?

We'll start off each week with a video. This aspect of the course works best when you send in musical suggestions, so please do! You can either send me suggestions by email, or - better yet - write up a post on this blog that includes your own analysis of the cultural text. It doesn't have to be very long, but it should get all of us thinking!

Please use the comments section on this page to share the analyses you and your groups came up with today in class for this video.