GENDER IN IPE

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GENDER IN IPE
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• Why study gender in IPE
• 2003 2.8 billion in global labor force, 1.1.
  billion were women
• women hold up half the sky Indian folk song
• Female Labor force participation increased since
  1970s
• Beijing Conference 1995 recognize centrality of
  gender to global order
• World Bank Gender Action Plan, 2006 Gender
  Equality as Smart Economics (Paul Wolfowitz,
  Banks President)

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• IPE traditionally blind to question of gender
• Liberal theory market
• Marxian theory class (all workers)
• Development theory economy
• Institutional theory nature of institutions
• IR feminist theory insist on gender in IPE
• (Maria Mies early exception connection between
  capitalism and patriarchy

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• Distinction between sex and gender
• Not biological distinction
• Social construction of masculinity and femininity
• Social roles/behaviours/zones of action
• Attributes (feminine/masculine)
• Devalorization of the feminine
• Rationality male/affect, emotion female

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• Feminization of poverty (more women poor)
• Feminization of work force under conditions of
  globalization (flexible, insecure, de-skilled,
  dis-empowered/non-unionized labour)
• Men operate under social conditions that
  necessitate feminization

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• Power structures gender roles
• IPE trade, finance, labour, consumption,
  production offers differential opportunities
  for men and women
• Trade and capital inflows
• (a) Manufacturing jobs may help women
• (b) Women in agriculture hurt by liberalization
  of trade
• Globalization trafficking, mail order brides,
  scare industries, nannies, chambermaids

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• Gender equality
• Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland most
  equal
• Korea, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt most
  unequal
• 2/3 of 872 million illiterate people in
  developing countries are women
• South-Asia , China

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• Gendered global division of labour
• Women employed in low end, low wage, de-skilled
  areas, service sector
• FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY USA female headed
  households more likely to be poor
• Lack of access to health, education, nutrition,
  resources within housed
• Amartya Sen connection between womens
  disempowerment and low growth

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• Structural Adjustment (state subsides pulled
  back) slack taken up by women.
• Food subsidies reduction impact women
• Export agriculture peasant woemn lose land,
  seasonal workers
• GLOBALIZATION OF REPRODUCTIVE WORK
• Sex work, mail order brides, domestic care work

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• Militarization and prostitution
• Soldiers replaced by sex tourists
• Military bases Thailand, Philippines, Japan,
  Okinawa (73 of tourists to Thailand single
  males 1984 16,000 Thai women exported to Japan
  as entertainment workers)
• Filipino, Sri Lankan care industries

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• Neoliberal globalization, flexible production
• Labour intensive manufacturing industries
• Casualization of work
• Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in China,
  maquiladoras (US Mexico border)
• Women workers nimble fingers? Docile?
• State construction to attract global capital.