Women in Comparative Societies

Globalization’s Impact on Women

Based on Burn, Chpts. 7 and 11

Is globalization improving the quality of women’s life worldwide?

Where? How?

Economically, globalization’s effects on women are mixed

More women working in cash economy

Improves some women’s status in the family;

Allows them to delay marriage/child bearing;

Enables them to save for marriage/education;

Gives some more personal freedom, companionship of other women;

Improves their self-esteem;

Gives them greater leverage in fertility decisions;

Gives them greater leverage in other household economic and domestic decisions.

Yet, it depends on the nature of the work and the impact it has on family earnings, i.e., is she seen as a “breadwinner” or a “supplemental earner”

Is there a downside to globalization for women?

What are the negatives, the dangers, the pitfalls

Migration

How does the greater ability for women to migrate for work impact them and their families?

What other perils have increased for women and girls as a result of globalization?

Sex trafficking; human smuggling; debt peonage; labor exploitation; mail order brides;

Cultural Globalization

What does she mean by “cultural globalization” (185)?

How has this aspect of globalization affected women?

The Ethics of Globalization

Hochschild (2002) argues we need an ethics for the new world that globalization has created

What should be the foundation of this new ethics? What should be its goals, limits?

Women’s Rights as Human Rights

Universal Human Rights Standard

“that everyone has certain inalienable rights simply by virtue of being human.”

Sound familiar?

How is this similar/different from the liberal tradition/the US rights model?

What, if anything, is wrong or problematic about framing women’s rights as human rights?

Mechanisms for Change

Transnational feminism

NGOs, NGO networks

What do they do?

What have they accomplished already?

The United Nations

How has the UN contributed to improving women’s lives?

What are some concrete institutions the UN has developed to highlight/study women’s issues, protect or enhance women’s rights/status?

What are the limits to the UN as an means of redressing women’s inequalities?

Universalism vs. Cultural Relativism

What is the tension between these two perspectives on human rights?

How would universalists and cultural relativists view practices such as:

Not educating girls;

Marrying girls off/selling them to pay debts;

FGM?

Is there any room for compromise between these two positions?

How might cultural relativists be persuaded to change these harmful practices if not through rights discourse?