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Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy
In a remarkable pairing, two renowned social critics offer a groundbreaking anthology that examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide.
Women are moving around the globe as never before. But for every female executive racking up frequent flier miles there are multitudes of women whose journeys go unnoticed. Each year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and other third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor associated with women's traditional roles results in an odd displacement. In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind. The migrant nanny — or cleaning woman, nursing-care attendant, maid — eases a "care deficit" in rich countries, while her absence creates one back home.
Confronting a range of topics, from the fate of Vietnamese mail-order brides to the importation of Mexican nannies in Los Angeles and the selling of Thai girls to Japanese brothels, a diverse and distinguised group of writers offer an unprecedented look at a world shaped by mass migration and economic exchange. Collected and introduced by bestselling authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, these fifteen essays — of which only four have been previously published — reveal a new era in which the main resource extracted from the third world is no longer gold or silver, but love.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and The Worst Years of Our Lives, as well as Blood Rites. She lives near Key West, Florida.
Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of national bestsellers The Time Bind and The Second Shift. She live in San Francisco, California.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2003
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About the author
Barbara Ehrenreich
96 books2,012 followersBarbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Erasmus Prize.
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March 20, 2014
This is a collection of essays, which generally means you're getting a mixed bag. I didn't go in expecting the most super radical thing ever but I was hoping for a bit more.
I guess what I found most disappointing was the focus on white, Western, professional-class women's perspectives — in particular, how they can be nice employers of Third World women. Who gives a shit? Arlie Russell Hochschild's "Love and Gold" begins as an incisive analysis of how caring labour, like natural resources, is extracted from the Third World to the First. Third World mothers often migrate to be nannies, leaving their own children in the care of local nannies, a process that obviously causes a lot of grief on both ends. Migrant nannies with children at home will often openly admit that they give their bosses' children the love they can't give their own. This love is often attributed by employers and agencies to romanticised cultures with more family values and less materialism, rather than what it in fact is — an expression of the need to love of women who have had to prioritise money over their own family life.
But then Hochschild goes into some weird liberal argument about how we just need to make sure the whole thing is better regulated. Most of these women would not be leaving their families and communities if they weren't pushed into it by the impoverishment of centuries of imperialism. What is needed is a reversal of that imperial relationship, but Hochschild's not daring enough to imagine that.
Susan Cheever's "The Nanny Dilemma" was even worse — she's an employer of domestic workers who interviews a formy nanny of hers, concluding that nannies often have it tough. Her closing argument is that Western women employing nannies and the nannies they employ are more similar than we might think — they're both working women who've chosen to put their energy away from their own kids and into building a career. One of these women gets to see her own kid at the end of a working day, one doesn't, it's not comparable, fuck you.
Similarly, Ehrenreich really really wants us to focus on how all women are oppressed by men's unwillingness to contribute to caring labour. This is fine as far as it goes, I agree with her, her essay ("Maid to Measure") isn't bad exactly. But again, it centres the experience of white Western professional women who employ nannies and domestic workers to do the housework they eschew.
There were some high points. "Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: Household Rules and Regulations", by Nicole Constable, was very good, and made me wanna read her book on the same topic. Her ethnographic methods meant that she prioritised the voices and analysis of the Filipina migrant workers she interviewed. The focus of her piece was on the workers' rage, humiliation, and resistance around their employers' micromanagement of their work, their personal habits, and even the length of their hair. Hardly the stuff of lurid tabloids, it's an everyday power conflict that's reflective of the day to day lives and struggles of a disempowered migrant group. (It made me think a lot of Andrea's checklists for her nannies in Real Housewives of Melbourne, and her assertion that her nanny-wrangling skills make her a model for "working women". D:) "Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Bridges and Low-Wage US Husbands" by Hung Cam Thai, "Among Women: Migrant Domestics and their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations" by Pei-Chia Lan, and "Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-Stone to International Migration", by Denise Brennan, are also well worth reading.
In contrast, "Because she looks like a child" by Kevin Bales is a highly vague and sensationalised take on sex trafficking. It opens with a really awful, tragic case study of the debt bondage of a fifteen-year-old girl working in a brothel. After that shocking image, we're given nothing from sex workers or trafficked women themselves — nothing in their own words. It's all the perspective of Kevin and the organisations he chooses to cite — and very little is actually cited. A lot of big numbers are thrown around with nothing to back them up. There's no distinction made between women who choose to enter the sex industry who had a lot of options, women who didn't have many options, and women who were tricked and forced into the industry. (Plus, Bales completely ignores the existence of sex workers who are not cis women, even though they're a large and visible proportion of sex workers in Thailand.) And I mean, very few of us are fortunate enough to have total freedom to choose the industry we work in and the conditions of our work, it's not black-and-white. But there's a difference, all the same, and it's extremely disingenous to pretend that there's not. Saskia Sassen's essay later in the book is also guilty of collapsing these distinctions. If you seek out actual sex workers' voices, you'll find that often even women who are hyper-exploited have strong criticisms of the anti-trafficking movement, in particular its focus on state intervention. I have criticisms of the work of Laura Agustin (admit it, she's a bit of a liberal) but I think Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry is a strong and necessary critique of many anti-trafficking initiatives, exposing them as frequently violent, coercive, dishonest, and unconcerned with the most desperately underpaid and demeaning employment as long as it's not sex-related.
But very few of the pieces in this collection engage with state violence, the materiality of the border, the bureaucracy of visa classes, the precarity induced by the border, capitalism itself. Most of the essays are like "hmm, migrant women are especially vulnerable to abuse because they're frightened of arrest and deportation, seems like that's just a fact of life, maybe we need more regulation of industries with lots of migrant workers". It's clear that a major factor in the vulnerability of migrant women workers is the border itself, and the colonial relationships that drew those borders and militarised them. I'm not asking for some kind of anarchist manifesto here, but I wish there was a little bit of questioning of the structural conditions causing this vulnerability, a little bit less of a focus on the moral questions plaguing the soul of the white Western bourgeoisie.
I guess what I found most disappointing was the focus on white, Western, professional-class women's perspectives — in particular, how they can be nice employers of Third World women. Who gives a shit? Arlie Russell Hochschild's "Love and Gold" begins as an incisive analysis of how caring labour, like natural resources, is extracted from the Third World to the First. Third World mothers often migrate to be nannies, leaving their own children in the care of local nannies, a process that obviously causes a lot of grief on both ends. Migrant nannies with children at home will often openly admit that they give their bosses' children the love they can't give their own. This love is often attributed by employers and agencies to romanticised cultures with more family values and less materialism, rather than what it in fact is — an expression of the need to love of women who have had to prioritise money over their own family life.
But then Hochschild goes into some weird liberal argument about how we just need to make sure the whole thing is better regulated. Most of these women would not be leaving their families and communities if they weren't pushed into it by the impoverishment of centuries of imperialism. What is needed is a reversal of that imperial relationship, but Hochschild's not daring enough to imagine that.
Susan Cheever's "The Nanny Dilemma" was even worse — she's an employer of domestic workers who interviews a formy nanny of hers, concluding that nannies often have it tough. Her closing argument is that Western women employing nannies and the nannies they employ are more similar than we might think — they're both working women who've chosen to put their energy away from their own kids and into building a career. One of these women gets to see her own kid at the end of a working day, one doesn't, it's not comparable, fuck you.
Similarly, Ehrenreich really really wants us to focus on how all women are oppressed by men's unwillingness to contribute to caring labour. This is fine as far as it goes, I agree with her, her essay ("Maid to Measure") isn't bad exactly. But again, it centres the experience of white Western professional women who employ nannies and domestic workers to do the housework they eschew.
There were some high points. "Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: Household Rules and Regulations", by Nicole Constable, was very good, and made me wanna read her book on the same topic. Her ethnographic methods meant that she prioritised the voices and analysis of the Filipina migrant workers she interviewed. The focus of her piece was on the workers' rage, humiliation, and resistance around their employers' micromanagement of their work, their personal habits, and even the length of their hair. Hardly the stuff of lurid tabloids, it's an everyday power conflict that's reflective of the day to day lives and struggles of a disempowered migrant group. (It made me think a lot of Andrea's checklists for her nannies in Real Housewives of Melbourne, and her assertion that her nanny-wrangling skills make her a model for "working women". D:) "Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Bridges and Low-Wage US Husbands" by Hung Cam Thai, "Among Women: Migrant Domestics and their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations" by Pei-Chia Lan, and "Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-Stone to International Migration", by Denise Brennan, are also well worth reading.
In contrast, "Because she looks like a child" by Kevin Bales is a highly vague and sensationalised take on sex trafficking. It opens with a really awful, tragic case study of the debt bondage of a fifteen-year-old girl working in a brothel. After that shocking image, we're given nothing from sex workers or trafficked women themselves — nothing in their own words. It's all the perspective of Kevin and the organisations he chooses to cite — and very little is actually cited. A lot of big numbers are thrown around with nothing to back them up. There's no distinction made between women who choose to enter the sex industry who had a lot of options, women who didn't have many options, and women who were tricked and forced into the industry. (Plus, Bales completely ignores the existence of sex workers who are not cis women, even though they're a large and visible proportion of sex workers in Thailand.) And I mean, very few of us are fortunate enough to have total freedom to choose the industry we work in and the conditions of our work, it's not black-and-white. But there's a difference, all the same, and it's extremely disingenous to pretend that there's not. Saskia Sassen's essay later in the book is also guilty of collapsing these distinctions. If you seek out actual sex workers' voices, you'll find that often even women who are hyper-exploited have strong criticisms of the anti-trafficking movement, in particular its focus on state intervention. I have criticisms of the work of Laura Agustin (admit it, she's a bit of a liberal) but I think Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry is a strong and necessary critique of many anti-trafficking initiatives, exposing them as frequently violent, coercive, dishonest, and unconcerned with the most desperately underpaid and demeaning employment as long as it's not sex-related.
But very few of the pieces in this collection engage with state violence, the materiality of the border, the bureaucracy of visa classes, the precarity induced by the border, capitalism itself. Most of the essays are like "hmm, migrant women are especially vulnerable to abuse because they're frightened of arrest and deportation, seems like that's just a fact of life, maybe we need more regulation of industries with lots of migrant workers". It's clear that a major factor in the vulnerability of migrant women workers is the border itself, and the colonial relationships that drew those borders and militarised them. I'm not asking for some kind of anarchist manifesto here, but I wish there was a little bit of questioning of the structural conditions causing this vulnerability, a little bit less of a focus on the moral questions plaguing the soul of the white Western bourgeoisie.
June 10, 2020
How do you have a collection that deals with globalized transnational work force and not engage with core and essential topics like capitalism, colonialism/imperialism, state violence, and the border and visa regime? Structural issues are essentially missing from this almost exclusively white, liberal western-centric professional class perspective. I was disgusted by Susan Cheever’s essay ‘The Nanny Dilemma’. That piece is so next level 90’s whitefeminism, I almost gave up. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s and Barbara Ehrenhrich’s do not age this collection well at all with the classist and racist undertones.
There were a few gems that should be mentioned that kept this collection from being a complete fail- Hung Cam Thai’s ‘Clashing Dreams: highly educated overseas brides and low-wage U.S. husbands.
Nicole Constable’s Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: household rules and relations and Pei-Chia Lan’s Among Women:Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers across generations.
There were a few gems that should be mentioned that kept this collection from being a complete fail- Hung Cam Thai’s ‘Clashing Dreams: highly educated overseas brides and low-wage U.S. husbands.
Nicole Constable’s Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: household rules and relations and Pei-Chia Lan’s Among Women:Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers across generations.
April 6, 2009
This is a terribly depressing read, simply because it's a terribly depressing subject: white, Western women are able to enjoy their postfeminist equality, but only by (under)paying non-white migrant workers to clean their homes and look after their children. It's a damning, seemingly-unsolvable problem and one that I wanted to know more about. But I really had to force myself to keep reading, because it's a topic that contains such upsetting truths.
There are some great articles in the book, but I'm not crazy about their arrangement. From an editorial point of view, it seems slapdash -- almost as if someone ran a JStor search and threw together any article they could find that mentioned female migrant workers. As a result, some of the articles are pure academia, some are journalistic. It's an odd mix. The collection also ends up being very repetitive on some subjects.
I can't help but feel that Global Woman was thrown together to capitalize on the success of Nickel and Dimed -- and, really, this couldn't be a more different book. I enjoyed Dimed for its claustrophobic, personal slant -- this is just a collection of essays, with little to tie it together. It's a worthy subject, but a heavy read, and I wish more care had gone into its compilation.
There are some great articles in the book, but I'm not crazy about their arrangement. From an editorial point of view, it seems slapdash -- almost as if someone ran a JStor search and threw together any article they could find that mentioned female migrant workers. As a result, some of the articles are pure academia, some are journalistic. It's an odd mix. The collection also ends up being very repetitive on some subjects.
I can't help but feel that Global Woman was thrown together to capitalize on the success of Nickel and Dimed -- and, really, this couldn't be a more different book. I enjoyed Dimed for its claustrophobic, personal slant -- this is just a collection of essays, with little to tie it together. It's a worthy subject, but a heavy read, and I wish more care had gone into its compilation.
March 15, 2024
I have gone back to edit, not rewrite.
A full 5 stars.
Having read Barbara Ehrenreich her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America when it was newly published, I knew that she writes from both her mind and her heart. By writing in that way, I can better empathize with her subject.
While men also immigrate internationally to find work, Ehrenreich has focused on the women. The women may immigrate legally with temporary documentation. Many stay in the countries that they have immigrated to past and sometimes years past their allotted time. Some just simply travel illegally. Think US-Mexican border. Think travelling as luggage. Think travelling using illegal documents. People are not bad because they do this. They are desperate to change their life experiences immediately or nearly immediately. They often have hungry, ill-clad, and could-be homeless-soon children. Even though Ehrenreich doesn't say, I strongly strongly suspect those children need medical care. Women's choices are never easy. Mother's are all too often difficult.
They women send their money home to pay for the basics and more. They pay for modest pieces of land, small modest houses, clothing, education. To meet these goals, some women live in virtual slavery, living in damp and un-air-conditioned basements. Many of these women find themselves unable to tell the police of their situations because they have over-stayed their documentation, because they know no one lse in US who will give them temporary shelter. All the while they become estranged from their husbands and children and all their other family members. Because they often. work as care providers or household workers, they have often have no one to talk with that understands their difficulties. Too often they are judged by the native population, their employers, their children. Yet immigrant women make it possible for professional women work and have their houses clean and their children tended to. Yet immigrant women make it possible for their family members to have their needs met. Sometimes the immigrant women have social services available to them. ut nowhere near often enough.
What is the crisis that creates a demand for immigrant worker women? Men too often refuse to help clean the house or tend to the children or care for the elderly family member. Let's socialize our sons differently. I grew up in a house where my brothers and I took terms at the same household chores. Sure they learned cars and I learned more advanced cooking; however I learned how to check my car fluids and tires, and my brothers learned the basics of food preparation and kitchen cleaning. My son learned what my brothers learned and a bit more because I was a single mom. My brothers taught him the car and fishing stuff.
A full 5 stars.
Having read Barbara Ehrenreich her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America when it was newly published, I knew that she writes from both her mind and her heart. By writing in that way, I can better empathize with her subject.
While men also immigrate internationally to find work, Ehrenreich has focused on the women. The women may immigrate legally with temporary documentation. Many stay in the countries that they have immigrated to past and sometimes years past their allotted time. Some just simply travel illegally. Think US-Mexican border. Think travelling as luggage. Think travelling using illegal documents. People are not bad because they do this. They are desperate to change their life experiences immediately or nearly immediately. They often have hungry, ill-clad, and could-be homeless-soon children. Even though Ehrenreich doesn't say, I strongly strongly suspect those children need medical care. Women's choices are never easy. Mother's are all too often difficult.
They women send their money home to pay for the basics and more. They pay for modest pieces of land, small modest houses, clothing, education. To meet these goals, some women live in virtual slavery, living in damp and un-air-conditioned basements. Many of these women find themselves unable to tell the police of their situations because they have over-stayed their documentation, because they know no one lse in US who will give them temporary shelter. All the while they become estranged from their husbands and children and all their other family members. Because they often. work as care providers or household workers, they have often have no one to talk with that understands their difficulties. Too often they are judged by the native population, their employers, their children. Yet immigrant women make it possible for professional women work and have their houses clean and their children tended to. Yet immigrant women make it possible for their family members to have their needs met. Sometimes the immigrant women have social services available to them. ut nowhere near often enough.
What is the crisis that creates a demand for immigrant worker women? Men too often refuse to help clean the house or tend to the children or care for the elderly family member. Let's socialize our sons differently. I grew up in a house where my brothers and I took terms at the same household chores. Sure they learned cars and I learned more advanced cooking; however I learned how to check my car fluids and tires, and my brothers learned the basics of food preparation and kitchen cleaning. My son learned what my brothers learned and a bit more because I was a single mom. My brothers taught him the car and fishing stuff.
August 28, 2008
I picked this book to read because I thought it was by Barbara Erenreich. Instead it is a collection of essays that is edited by her. (She did actually write ONE of the essays.) I also didn't realize it was just essays, not a contiguous study of women in the global economy. That was a little dissapointing. Just as an essay got interesting, it was over and the next one was boring.
But I would like to speak about the second to last essay. It was about Vietnamese (or Korean...I already forgot!) women who are highly educated that choose to marry low wage Vietnamese (or Korean) men who live in America. The essayist refers to those women as 'unmarriagebles' and that's why they have to marry in these odd combos. As a Mormom woman who did not get married until she was almost 27, I think I was considered to be an 'unmarriagable'. That was part of the reason those people were not marriagable: they were past marrying age.
Well, that is a load of crap. I was always very marriagable. Can you still be marriageable after you get married? If so, I think I am still marriageable. But oh man I hated when people would pity me for not being married. Or not dating anyone. Pity didn't help me at all! I just couldn't find anyone who would even date me, let alone MARRY me. Don't rub it in, people!
At my little sister's wedding (I don't resent her for beating me to the wedding stuff, but I sort of despised a lot of the people who attended) every conversation I had when like this:
Wedding Guest: Oh, Emily, how are you?!
Emily: Great.
WG: Are you married yet?
Emily: Nope.
WG: Dating anyone?
Emily: Uh, no.
WG: Didn't you go to BYU?
Emily: Yes, I went to SCHOOL. (What in the heck does that have to do with my single-ness????!?!)
WG: Oh (sad puppy dog face). Well, there's probably still hope. (Implied: You are 23...hopeless.)
Bleh!
Ok, so I don't think anyone is seriously unmarriageable. No one. Even the stinky or nerdy people in the world. They just have to find the right match. And it doesn't happen for everyone at age 18.
I remember there was a girl who I had some classes with at BYU. I thought of her as Gowron. Who's Gowron? Are you serious? He's the leader of the Klingons. Duh. The one with buggy eyes. And he's not very friendly. Anyways, so after summer break Miss Gowron came back wearing a wedding ring. Ok, that made me feel like a little bit of a loser. I was sure I had more possible marriage matches than Gowron...how could she find her's first?! Anyways, then I saw her with the guy. She was big and burly. He was little and mousy. Very VERY interesting combo. You could hear her bossing him around all the way across the lobby of the science building. I expected to see her throw him over her shoulder and march away sometimes.
I always wondered who asked who on the first date. Or was it an order? And what was it like when he took her home to meet HIS parents? Were they delighted? Scared? TERRIFIED? I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall!
So, back to the book: wow. There are a lot of women who struggle in some pretty difficult situations around the world. Can you imagine living in another country than your family does and wiping some old lady's butt in order to provide for your family? How sad.
I read this book at the same time as I read 'Confessions of a Slacker Wife'. Weird contrast. They mix as well as diet coke and mentos.
But I would like to speak about the second to last essay. It was about Vietnamese (or Korean...I already forgot!) women who are highly educated that choose to marry low wage Vietnamese (or Korean) men who live in America. The essayist refers to those women as 'unmarriagebles' and that's why they have to marry in these odd combos. As a Mormom woman who did not get married until she was almost 27, I think I was considered to be an 'unmarriagable'. That was part of the reason those people were not marriagable: they were past marrying age.
Well, that is a load of crap. I was always very marriagable. Can you still be marriageable after you get married? If so, I think I am still marriageable. But oh man I hated when people would pity me for not being married. Or not dating anyone. Pity didn't help me at all! I just couldn't find anyone who would even date me, let alone MARRY me. Don't rub it in, people!
At my little sister's wedding (I don't resent her for beating me to the wedding stuff, but I sort of despised a lot of the people who attended) every conversation I had when like this:
Wedding Guest: Oh, Emily, how are you?!
Emily: Great.
WG: Are you married yet?
Emily: Nope.
WG: Dating anyone?
Emily: Uh, no.
WG: Didn't you go to BYU?
Emily: Yes, I went to SCHOOL. (What in the heck does that have to do with my single-ness????!?!)
WG: Oh (sad puppy dog face). Well, there's probably still hope. (Implied: You are 23...hopeless.)
Bleh!
Ok, so I don't think anyone is seriously unmarriageable. No one. Even the stinky or nerdy people in the world. They just have to find the right match. And it doesn't happen for everyone at age 18.
I remember there was a girl who I had some classes with at BYU. I thought of her as Gowron. Who's Gowron? Are you serious? He's the leader of the Klingons. Duh. The one with buggy eyes. And he's not very friendly. Anyways, so after summer break Miss Gowron came back wearing a wedding ring. Ok, that made me feel like a little bit of a loser. I was sure I had more possible marriage matches than Gowron...how could she find her's first?! Anyways, then I saw her with the guy. She was big and burly. He was little and mousy. Very VERY interesting combo. You could hear her bossing him around all the way across the lobby of the science building. I expected to see her throw him over her shoulder and march away sometimes.
I always wondered who asked who on the first date. Or was it an order? And what was it like when he took her home to meet HIS parents? Were they delighted? Scared? TERRIFIED? I would give anything to have been a fly on the wall!
So, back to the book: wow. There are a lot of women who struggle in some pretty difficult situations around the world. Can you imagine living in another country than your family does and wiping some old lady's butt in order to provide for your family? How sad.
I read this book at the same time as I read 'Confessions of a Slacker Wife'. Weird contrast. They mix as well as diet coke and mentos.
May 26, 2020
4.5 stars -
An excellent collection of essays focusing on the femininization of the migrant work force, the mass migration of women from South to North, and its global impact. Largely unreported topic but one of huge significance. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from Vietnamese mail-order brides, to migrant domestics and their Taiwanese employers dealing with the notion of filial piety in the modern age, to sexual exploitation of women and girls in Thailand.
I am dropping a 1/2 star because of the essay 'Selling Sex for Visas'. The author portrays exploited women as making independent choices to be sex workers, yet readily admits that their lives are dangerous, that they have no other options in order to survive, that they are abused and abandoned by the men who purchase them. This sort of 3rd wave Choice Feminism hypocrasy was incredibly offensive and contradictory. Otherwise, the book was excellent.
An excellent collection of essays focusing on the femininization of the migrant work force, the mass migration of women from South to North, and its global impact. Largely unreported topic but one of huge significance. The essays cover a wide range of topics, from Vietnamese mail-order brides, to migrant domestics and their Taiwanese employers dealing with the notion of filial piety in the modern age, to sexual exploitation of women and girls in Thailand.
I am dropping a 1/2 star because of the essay 'Selling Sex for Visas'. The author portrays exploited women as making independent choices to be sex workers, yet readily admits that their lives are dangerous, that they have no other options in order to survive, that they are abused and abandoned by the men who purchase them. This sort of 3rd wave Choice Feminism hypocrasy was incredibly offensive and contradictory. Otherwise, the book was excellent.
September 28, 2013
WOMAN OF THE WORLD
I've always got time for the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's robust writing since I was lent "Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America" a few years back. In this book, published in 2002, Ehrenreich along with Arlie R Hochschild have collected a variety of essays that look at how the situation of woman has changed in the last couple of decades as the world economy has become increasingly globalised.
The contributions, as to be expected in collections such as this, vary in tone and quality. All except three are by academics, a surprising amount of the academics are anthropologists whose style verges on the detached in marked contrast to the forthright writing one normally expects of Ehrenreich. The majority of the contributions are focused on the issue of female migrant workers; those who leave their homes in less developed countries to take on work as nannies, maids and cleaners in the richer countries of the world. The extent of this trade is enormous. Countries such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka receive billions of dollars yearly from millions of contract workers who work in the Gulf States, the U.S. and other countries. The precarious position of these workers, the attitudes of their employers and their often-exploitative working conditions are in many cases appalling. The irony, which is made clear, is that these workers are "imported" to carry out the caring and cleaning that rich professional woman are unable to carry out in the two full-time worker model that has developed in the west, and the fact that their male counterparts will not share the burden of domestic duties. More than one of the writers makes the pertinent point that this care deficit in the richer countries is filled by cheap foreign labour, and that this leaves a care deficit in the poorer countries of the world. One of the contributions details the experience of families in the Philippines whose mothers now work abroad, and the difficulties for those at both ends.
A few of the essays deal with the sex-trade in it's modern state, both the "import" of woman into the west as well as those areas of the globe that have become destinations for sex-tourism, generally by men. One of the contributions in this area I thought was pretty dismal. Denise Brennan, in her work on sex-tourism in the Dominican Republic goes to excessive lengths to assert the "agency" and the ability of the sex worker to "react and resist". She states "Dominican sex workers use sex, romance, and marriage as means of turning [the] sex trade into a site of opportunity and possibility". Nothing in the case studies she cites lead me to believe these assertions were tenable, and that the "opportunity and possibility" were anything other than the necessary delusions that those involved in sex work clung to in order to get through the days and weeks of doing what they have to do in order to escape brutal poverty in a country that has had no opportunity for economic and social development.
Despite a couple of other below par essays that exhibit the Academics concerned less than total commitment to making themselves clear, it was still a book that opened a window on an under-written aspect of globalization. On that basis it was worth reading.
I've always got time for the journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's robust writing since I was lent "Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage America" a few years back. In this book, published in 2002, Ehrenreich along with Arlie R Hochschild have collected a variety of essays that look at how the situation of woman has changed in the last couple of decades as the world economy has become increasingly globalised.
The contributions, as to be expected in collections such as this, vary in tone and quality. All except three are by academics, a surprising amount of the academics are anthropologists whose style verges on the detached in marked contrast to the forthright writing one normally expects of Ehrenreich. The majority of the contributions are focused on the issue of female migrant workers; those who leave their homes in less developed countries to take on work as nannies, maids and cleaners in the richer countries of the world. The extent of this trade is enormous. Countries such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka receive billions of dollars yearly from millions of contract workers who work in the Gulf States, the U.S. and other countries. The precarious position of these workers, the attitudes of their employers and their often-exploitative working conditions are in many cases appalling. The irony, which is made clear, is that these workers are "imported" to carry out the caring and cleaning that rich professional woman are unable to carry out in the two full-time worker model that has developed in the west, and the fact that their male counterparts will not share the burden of domestic duties. More than one of the writers makes the pertinent point that this care deficit in the richer countries is filled by cheap foreign labour, and that this leaves a care deficit in the poorer countries of the world. One of the contributions details the experience of families in the Philippines whose mothers now work abroad, and the difficulties for those at both ends.
A few of the essays deal with the sex-trade in it's modern state, both the "import" of woman into the west as well as those areas of the globe that have become destinations for sex-tourism, generally by men. One of the contributions in this area I thought was pretty dismal. Denise Brennan, in her work on sex-tourism in the Dominican Republic goes to excessive lengths to assert the "agency" and the ability of the sex worker to "react and resist". She states "Dominican sex workers use sex, romance, and marriage as means of turning [the] sex trade into a site of opportunity and possibility". Nothing in the case studies she cites lead me to believe these assertions were tenable, and that the "opportunity and possibility" were anything other than the necessary delusions that those involved in sex work clung to in order to get through the days and weeks of doing what they have to do in order to escape brutal poverty in a country that has had no opportunity for economic and social development.
Despite a couple of other below par essays that exhibit the Academics concerned less than total commitment to making themselves clear, it was still a book that opened a window on an under-written aspect of globalization. On that basis it was worth reading.
May 14, 2017
This book tries to be pro-woman in it's defense of domestic workers, but ends up being anti-feminist in the double standards and expectations placed on the affluent women who choose to leave the home for higher pay. It is a family decision to hire a nanny or a maid, yet the authors repeatedly blame the mothers for having someone else raise their children. No mention of the fathers who leave the home.
Ehrenreiech and Hochschild use hyperbole to describe the horrors of being a domestic worker and the evilness of those women who employ them in a cringey and eye rolling worth essays with so many gender double standards.
In an article discussing how Philippines women are leaving the home for better opportunities abroad as nannies and domestic workers, the author implies a sense of blame to the affluent women who are breaking up Filipino homes. While the article discussed the fact that these Filipinas are able to make much more money abroad than at home and give better opportunities for their own children, there seems to be no blame on the part of Filipino men leaving the home for migrant work, a pattern which has gone on for years. If now there are greater opportunities for women abroad, why aren't the men being called on to stay home and support the family? The author implies that we in the western world should do more to ensure there are domestic opportunities for work within the Philippines and other migratory countries. How we should do this is not quite clear.
Another article discussed the "servile" and "humiliating" relationship between domestic help and the women whose children they are raising and homes they are cleaning. The author describes a time when feminists worked to celebrate the work women did in the home and how this work is now being outsourced to other lower class women. But it is not only the "women's work" that has been outsourced in the home. Many affluent men don't spend their weekends fixing a leaky pipe, mowing the lawn, or cleaning the gutters. This traditional "men's work" is outsourced as well, but with no guilt inducing commentary on the relationship between a man and his gardener.
Yes, there is a power relationship between domestic help and the home owner, it's one of a boss and worker. The free market dictates the demand for domestic help and the number of people employed in the profession shows that there is a ready supply of people willing to work in these jobs. The authors point out that the women who work as domestic help are often paid much higher than they can find at other jobs, yet the women who employ them are villanized.
Ehrenreiech and Hochschild use hyperbole to describe the horrors of being a domestic worker and the evilness of those women who employ them in a cringey and eye rolling worth essays with so many gender double standards.
In an article discussing how Philippines women are leaving the home for better opportunities abroad as nannies and domestic workers, the author implies a sense of blame to the affluent women who are breaking up Filipino homes. While the article discussed the fact that these Filipinas are able to make much more money abroad than at home and give better opportunities for their own children, there seems to be no blame on the part of Filipino men leaving the home for migrant work, a pattern which has gone on for years. If now there are greater opportunities for women abroad, why aren't the men being called on to stay home and support the family? The author implies that we in the western world should do more to ensure there are domestic opportunities for work within the Philippines and other migratory countries. How we should do this is not quite clear.
Another article discussed the "servile" and "humiliating" relationship between domestic help and the women whose children they are raising and homes they are cleaning. The author describes a time when feminists worked to celebrate the work women did in the home and how this work is now being outsourced to other lower class women. But it is not only the "women's work" that has been outsourced in the home. Many affluent men don't spend their weekends fixing a leaky pipe, mowing the lawn, or cleaning the gutters. This traditional "men's work" is outsourced as well, but with no guilt inducing commentary on the relationship between a man and his gardener.
Yes, there is a power relationship between domestic help and the home owner, it's one of a boss and worker. The free market dictates the demand for domestic help and the number of people employed in the profession shows that there is a ready supply of people willing to work in these jobs. The authors point out that the women who work as domestic help are often paid much higher than they can find at other jobs, yet the women who employ them are villanized.
August 6, 2018
The best thing about this book was that it introduced me to contemporary concepts and ideas that I had not thought about when discussing about globalization. To able to see how factors of globalization have changed the dynamics of relationships between women and the society and with other women from different social status. The fact that the book is composed of essays that discuss the about the position of woman in globalization from varying perspectives made the reading interesting. However, I felt that the book was heavy in concent and thus I had to push myself to continue reading. Also, I realized that due to the fact that the authors of the essays are different but they all focus on the same subject there were many ideas that were repeated throughout the book.
April 16, 2021
This books totally great.
December 17, 2014
From my perspective, the purpose of a collection of essays on any subect is that each essay enlightens a particular side of an issue, until when you're done reading the book you get a global picture. Not so here. There is a lot in this book about wealthy white American women on the one hand, and about struggling South East Asian women on the other, but almost nothing about African, European and Latin American women of all races and classes. There is a lot about domestic workers but little about sex workers (only two essays out of fifteen deal with the subect).
Another reason why the book feels disjointed is that some of the essays are very personal and deal with individual stories, while others are drier and rely on statistics and academic studies. No single essay introduces an attempt to offer a global picture of women's migrations from South to North, and while the introduction is well-written (but, frankly, places the bar too high so that you end up disappointed by the essays), there is no general conclusion to the book.
For a book about gendered work, surprisingly few of these essays offer analysis from a feminist perspective. Actually, few offer any analysis at all, they just present information and leave you to make of it what you will -- which wouldn't necessarily be terrible if there was enough data in the book to help you get the whole picture.
I was also uncomfortable with the ideologies put forward, in Ehrenreich's essay in particular. The question of whether Western women in the workforce can "have it all" is misogynistic in itself, but to blame women who employ nannies and maids instead of blaming the half-assed Western governments which do nothing to help two-income families and single parents care for their homes, children and dependants seems pretty hypoctitical to me. Similarly, the idea that poor countries in the global South need to embrace gender egalitarianism to put an end to women's work emigration seems like it conveniently sweeps under the rug the facts that, on the one hand, patriarchy was and is in many cases buttressed by colonialism and neocolonialism, and that, on the other hand, the economic imbalance that prompts these women to emigrate is also caused by Western countries in the first place. And of cousre, the essays in the first third of the book that deal with immigrant workers from the points of view of the white American women who employ them are simply infuriating (no one cares about your qualms and moral dilemmas, this book wasn't supposed to be about you, just shut up already).
I got into this book with high hopes because women's migrations is an important subject about which comparatively little has been written in feminist circles, but I was disappointed at the lack of global analysis and viable solutions offered. I'd still recommend it for young women who want to learn a little about women migrants and the failures of second-wave feminism because it's informative and easy enough to read, but this is by no means a landmark work on the subject.
Another reason why the book feels disjointed is that some of the essays are very personal and deal with individual stories, while others are drier and rely on statistics and academic studies. No single essay introduces an attempt to offer a global picture of women's migrations from South to North, and while the introduction is well-written (but, frankly, places the bar too high so that you end up disappointed by the essays), there is no general conclusion to the book.
For a book about gendered work, surprisingly few of these essays offer analysis from a feminist perspective. Actually, few offer any analysis at all, they just present information and leave you to make of it what you will -- which wouldn't necessarily be terrible if there was enough data in the book to help you get the whole picture.
I was also uncomfortable with the ideologies put forward, in Ehrenreich's essay in particular. The question of whether Western women in the workforce can "have it all" is misogynistic in itself, but to blame women who employ nannies and maids instead of blaming the half-assed Western governments which do nothing to help two-income families and single parents care for their homes, children and dependants seems pretty hypoctitical to me. Similarly, the idea that poor countries in the global South need to embrace gender egalitarianism to put an end to women's work emigration seems like it conveniently sweeps under the rug the facts that, on the one hand, patriarchy was and is in many cases buttressed by colonialism and neocolonialism, and that, on the other hand, the economic imbalance that prompts these women to emigrate is also caused by Western countries in the first place. And of cousre, the essays in the first third of the book that deal with immigrant workers from the points of view of the white American women who employ them are simply infuriating (no one cares about your qualms and moral dilemmas, this book wasn't supposed to be about you, just shut up already).
I got into this book with high hopes because women's migrations is an important subject about which comparatively little has been written in feminist circles, but I was disappointed at the lack of global analysis and viable solutions offered. I'd still recommend it for young women who want to learn a little about women migrants and the failures of second-wave feminism because it's informative and easy enough to read, but this is by no means a landmark work on the subject.
March 26, 2007
Not quite as personal as Nickel and Dimed, this is definitely for the readers who prefer a bit more academia in their reading. Nevertheless, it's filled with interesting stories about the women behind the faces we see on the news and beyond. One thing I really like about Ehrenreich is her ability to tackle the subjects that others hate to notice. Or rather, would like to NOT notice. Poverty? Please, of course people can live off minimum wage! If they can't, they're just lazy or spendthrifts. Women from "those" countries are always happy to come here, even if they get paid shit and are treated like scum.
Excellent book. =)
Excellent book. =)
October 31, 2010
A terribly depressing read made even more depressing by the fact that these are the experiences of women all over the world. These are their lives and they don't have the luxury of putting the book down.
Despite that this book is an enlightening read that makes you aware of your own position in the world. It merely scratches the surface of the injustices women experience in their lives all around the world.
One of the strengths of the book is the way in which the material is presented. It avoids highly academic language and instead tells women's experiences as stories, making them accessible and tangible.
Despite that this book is an enlightening read that makes you aware of your own position in the world. It merely scratches the surface of the injustices women experience in their lives all around the world.
One of the strengths of the book is the way in which the material is presented. It avoids highly academic language and instead tells women's experiences as stories, making them accessible and tangible.
May 17, 2008
Incredible much-needed look at women, labor and migration in the global economy. Too many 3rd world women are globe-trotting to fill the "care sector" as nannies, housekeepers and prostitutes only to leave a "care void" behind due to strict traditional gender roles that say a woman can't be the provider and a man is not supposed to be the family's source of love and support. This book opened my eyes to some very important work that needs to be done to reconcile the relationship between women in developed and underdeveloped countries.
June 20, 2013
This collection of essays was quite informative on often hidden or avoided topics, the role of migrant women in the global economy working as household help and as prostitutes-- in essence, taking over the domestic roles that women become too busy, too powerful, or just too disinterested and rich to play in their own household. The essays are mostly academic in tone, but accessible to the lay-reader (except maybe the final one) and tell a compelling story about both globalization and how far we still have to go in ridding ourselves of the idea of "women's work."
July 20, 2011
I read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide a couple of months ago, and now that I've read this book, I feel incredibly well informed. The last essay I found a bit boring, but the others were all interesting, if occasionally a bit repetitive.
December 28, 2016
I read this book for a class that I was taking. It was such an interesting read that I decided to keep the book. Depressing that women all over the globe are being suppressed in one form or another but nonetheless its informative and a good read. Thought provoking.
October 22, 2022
Excellent collection of essays on the domestic workers and global transfer of services associated with a wife's traditional role - child care, homemaking and sex fr0m poor countries to rich ones enable the lifestyles of the West
The collection had a good breadth of topics ranging from personal recollection to economic analysis and spanning the globe from Taiwan to Mexico, from Thailand to the Dominican Republic, highlighting among other themes that housework, as radical feminists once proposed, defines a human relationship and when unequally divided among the social groups, reinforces preexisting inequalities
Highlights of the collection include:
Analysing the commodification of domestic work and how employing a cleaner enables middle-class women to take on the feminine role of moral and spiritual support to the family, while freeing her of the feminine role of servicer, doer of dirty work; the employment of a paid domestic worker thereby facilitates status reproduction, not only by maintaining status objects, but also by allowing the worker to serve as a foil to the lady of the house; thus simply by hiring a domestic worker, the employer lowers the status of the work that employee does, after all, the employer has better or more lucrative things to do with her time
How economic explanations, fail to fully account for the popularity of domestic workers in middle class+ European households, because they fail to consider the status implications of hiring such workers
Explaining how the romanticised image of family unity obscures intergenerational power struggles - a family-based model of elder care also exacerbates class inequalities among the elderly: the poorer the elderly are, the more dependent they are on their children
Migrant care workers only present a solution to relatively privileged households, which outsource elder care to low-wage migrant women, who then leave their own families to care for others
The role of globalisation in the extraction of services from the periphery to fulfill what was once the imperial core woman's domestic role - the growing immiserisation of periphery governments and economies in the global south is one such condition, insofar as it enables and even promotes the migration and trafficking of women as a strategy for survival; the same infrastructure designed to facilitate cross-border flows of capital, information, and trade also makes possible a range of unintended cross-border flows, as growing numbers of traffickers, smugglers, and even governments now make money off the backs of women
Through their work and remittances, women infuse cash into the economies of deeply indebted countries, and into the pockets of "entrepreneurs" who have seen other opportunities vanish; these survival circuits are often complex, involving multiple locations and sets of actors, which altogether constitute increasingly global chains of traders and workers
Globalisation has also produced new labour demand dynamics that centre on the global cities of the imperial core, from here, economic processes are managed and coordinated by increasing numbers of highly paid professionals, whose lifestylesa and employers are maintained by low-paid service workers
The collection had a good breadth of topics ranging from personal recollection to economic analysis and spanning the globe from Taiwan to Mexico, from Thailand to the Dominican Republic, highlighting among other themes that housework, as radical feminists once proposed, defines a human relationship and when unequally divided among the social groups, reinforces preexisting inequalities
Highlights of the collection include:
Analysing the commodification of domestic work and how employing a cleaner enables middle-class women to take on the feminine role of moral and spiritual support to the family, while freeing her of the feminine role of servicer, doer of dirty work; the employment of a paid domestic worker thereby facilitates status reproduction, not only by maintaining status objects, but also by allowing the worker to serve as a foil to the lady of the house; thus simply by hiring a domestic worker, the employer lowers the status of the work that employee does, after all, the employer has better or more lucrative things to do with her time
How economic explanations, fail to fully account for the popularity of domestic workers in middle class+ European households, because they fail to consider the status implications of hiring such workers
Explaining how the romanticised image of family unity obscures intergenerational power struggles - a family-based model of elder care also exacerbates class inequalities among the elderly: the poorer the elderly are, the more dependent they are on their children
Migrant care workers only present a solution to relatively privileged households, which outsource elder care to low-wage migrant women, who then leave their own families to care for others
The role of globalisation in the extraction of services from the periphery to fulfill what was once the imperial core woman's domestic role - the growing immiserisation of periphery governments and economies in the global south is one such condition, insofar as it enables and even promotes the migration and trafficking of women as a strategy for survival; the same infrastructure designed to facilitate cross-border flows of capital, information, and trade also makes possible a range of unintended cross-border flows, as growing numbers of traffickers, smugglers, and even governments now make money off the backs of women
Through their work and remittances, women infuse cash into the economies of deeply indebted countries, and into the pockets of "entrepreneurs" who have seen other opportunities vanish; these survival circuits are often complex, involving multiple locations and sets of actors, which altogether constitute increasingly global chains of traders and workers
Globalisation has also produced new labour demand dynamics that centre on the global cities of the imperial core, from here, economic processes are managed and coordinated by increasing numbers of highly paid professionals, whose lifestylesa and employers are maintained by low-paid service workers
December 30, 2022
Global women: The nannies and maids western women use and why those western women feel bad about exploiting those other women. With a nod to sexual exploitation of women haphazardly thrown in.
This book was clearly written to induce pearl clutching in the western "liberal" reader who might know the first name of their cook/driver/nanny/cleaner/etc and want to subdue the inherent guilt they feel knowing they are exploiting her.
This book actively ignores and outright omits the voices, opinions, and writings of the women who actually live under the whims of their economic masters. It instead presents a series of short story essays and vignettes of these women, as told by a wash of neoliberal "experts". The grossest to me being the guy who owns an NGO not so humbly bragging his NGO's "work" over a trade he would be a primary user of. There is no indication in this book of the nature state violence(let alone capitalist exploitation) has on the lives these women live. The author gives milk toast appeals to "regulations", that of course provides no direct challenge to the prevailing economic status quo.
This book was clearly written to induce pearl clutching in the western "liberal" reader who might know the first name of their cook/driver/nanny/cleaner/etc and want to subdue the inherent guilt they feel knowing they are exploiting her.
This book actively ignores and outright omits the voices, opinions, and writings of the women who actually live under the whims of their economic masters. It instead presents a series of short story essays and vignettes of these women, as told by a wash of neoliberal "experts". The grossest to me being the guy who owns an NGO not so humbly bragging his NGO's "work" over a trade he would be a primary user of. There is no indication in this book of the nature state violence(let alone capitalist exploitation) has on the lives these women live. The author gives milk toast appeals to "regulations", that of course provides no direct challenge to the prevailing economic status quo.
November 13, 2024
Hochschild and Ehrenreich discuss how as more European and American women are entering the work force in areas previously dominated by men, a large market gap— a "care deficit"— is subsequently created for domestic caretaking roles. In the past, colonial countries extracted natural resources and agricultural resources from lands they conquered. Today, while still relying on the Third World countries for agricultural and industrial labor, wealthy countries also seek to extract "something harder to measure and quantify, something that can look very much like love." As someone who grew up with a nanny, this makes me deeply disturbed. How is it that intangible qualities like MOTHERHOOD are commodified now? The obvious question to ask here is probably: who's taking care of the children at home across the ocean?
"It is as if the wealthy parts of the world are running short on precious emotional and sexual resources and have had to turn to poorer regions for fresh supplies." (p. 150)
"It is as if the wealthy parts of the world are running short on precious emotional and sexual resources and have had to turn to poorer regions for fresh supplies." (p. 150)
May 4, 2019
The entire first 2/3rds is so draining to read. It’s all about injustices of migrant nannies, which is fine and what I expected, but it wasn’t composed. Just a hodgepodge of essays and experiences. The book doesn’t any sense of solution, what the world is doing about it, or how injustices affect the big picture. It offers very little historical precedence too as to how and why countries are sending so many migrant workers abroad. I like the idea of the book, but seriously a let down in execution. Could be so much better.
August 1, 2025
Global Woman offers a wealth of important information and insights into women’s roles in global labor markets and migration. The research is thorough and eye-opening, shedding light on critical social and economic issues. However, the writing style felt quite dry and hard to follow at times, which made it a bit challenging to stay fully engaged. This book is definitely worth reading if you want a deep dive into the subject, but be prepared for a dense presentation.
January 26, 2025
I am sure that 30 years ago, this book must have been extremely relevant. It is instructional indeed, but it is simply outdated by today's standards. It reeks of 90's feminism, which is important to recognize for the stepping stone It was, but leaves you wanting for more.
September 13, 2017
Proof that the "sensational" storylines on "Law & Order" are all too true. Deeply disturbing how people can treat each other in the name of making money.
July 14, 2018
Best book I've read in a very long time. Everybody should read this. It was written almost 20 years ago but is just as relevant today.
December 31, 2018
A very interesting and important read. A bit dated and some essays are stronger than others but overall very solid
March 21, 2019
very good book.
December 23, 2020
These essays were mostly interesting, but the book is quite outdated. Not the fault of the book, of course--it was written almost 20 years ago. But maybe not worth reading now.
July 1, 2021
Great book for those looking for international relations and global immigration from a feminist perspective.
January 17, 2022
Interesting book about how female roles in first-world countries have been transferred to third world-country women, and how this all supports globalisation as we know it.
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