Analysis Of The Film Mardi Gras : Made China And The Novel Global Woman

Moreover, women struggles in industry has posed new questions and renamed the meaning of morality in human beings. This represent an exploration for self determination against the capitalist and agencies with power control. For instance, Malay women have migrated to the state of 20th century homelessness in order to construct substitute homes and new identity of them stated in the book.

many of the women see themselves as objects of labor. For example in the documentary

Women are believed to have greater manual dexterity than men and they are therefore preferred by companies who want to maximize their production. Women who are hired for their supposed superiority to men when it comes to manual dexterity, a trade essential to a maquiladora worker, are ironically paid much less despite their valued trait. It is clear that the degree to which the women are devalued is far greater than the degree to which their ability and production is valued. Women's bodies are being exploited in factories where they are being paid ridiculously low wages based on a cultural belief that men superior to women, that women belong in the household and that men belong in the workplace. They are then paid significantly less partly to reinforce this ideal—to keep men as the leaders of the household--and partly in order to reinforce the stereotypes about the submissive and inferior nature of women.

Many factors all contribute to a demand for women workers in new sites and to the disintegration of families under stress from lack of income, causing women to look for alternatives away from home, and migration becomes the solution, even though it poses many pragmatic problems.

The book “Global Woman” edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild focuses on the lives of women that leave their third world country to work in homes as nannies or servants and others even sex work. These women take on that labor without knowing what results will come from their desperate action. The authors explain and recount the stories of many of the women whom have had to sacrifice their lives. These women sacrifice it all to provide for themselves and their families and give them a better life, this is told through different chapters.

Elieen Boris in Intimate Labors notes the commercialization of emotion, referencing it as the commodification of intimacy. Boris goes on to state that the commodification of intimacy “… encompasses a range of activities, including bodily and household upkeep, personal and family maintenance, and sexual contact or liaison.” () The emotional care aspect that Asian American women immigrants have distinctively utilized for a job is household upkeep and personal and family maintenance, better known as domestic work. Asian American women have capitalized on domestic work due to the fact that many families have outsourced domestic work. The estimated 11.5 million migrant domestic workers and the 73.4 percent of immigrant women who make up this estimation examples the boom in the field of domestic work. () Additionally, Asian American women immigrants have capitalized on the fact that a varying amount of domestic work employers have stereotypically searched for Asian American woman immigrants. Marije Meerman in her documentary Chain of Love notes this stereotyped based search, crediting it to the fact that certain Asian American women have stereotypes attached to them that employers deem favorable for domestic work. This can be exampled by Rachel Parrenas comment in the documentary, saying, “The Filipino nanny is the Mercedes Benz amongst the international [caregivers]." ()

As industrialization spread in Western Europe, the production of products and goods moved from the household to factories which drastically changed family life. Married women were unable to work unless they left their children and home in someone else’s care. Moreover, middle-class women generally did not leave their homes in order to work. In contrast, the women of Eastern Asia rapidly joined the work force after the introduction of industrialization and made up a gigantic portion of the labor force. This difference is probably due to the fact that the rural women of Eastern Asia were always laborers, and they make up the majority of the female population. Additionally, European women generally preferred domestic labor to laborious tasks. Rural women were offered independence by leaving their homes in order to perform domestic work; they generally sent their earnings to their families or saved it for themselves. Moreover, the European women that participated in the work force were forced to travel long distances and were separated from their families from long hours. Additionally, their wages were significantly lower than that of their male counterparts. Furthermore, women worked under poor conditions and were constantly susceptible to disease. Similarly, the poor women of Eastern Asia sought employment in the cotton and silk industry.

Film director David Redmon, created the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China, following the trail of beads from a factory in China to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, emotionally exposing the imbalances of globalization. Redmond skillfully illuminates the clash of cultures by comparing American excess and consumer ignorance against the harsh life of the Chinese factory worker. The film began with the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans where people gathered to party, drink alcohol, and expose themselves in exchange for brightly colored plastic bead necklaces. The stories follows four teenage women workers, providing insights

Kalpona Akter was a former garment worker and labor organizer from Bangladesh who worked long days and night at clothing factories to help pay for her father’s medical bills and make ends meet for her family. Her wages were not enough, but she had no other choice. As years went by, her mother grew tired and could no longer work at the factory and so her brother had to fill in for her. Akter would cut the fabric layers with scissors and she would mention how she would have to cut thousands of pieces a day. Cutting nonstop for almost fourteen hours a day grew into longer days and nights. Women from her country live in densely populated areas where family incomes were extremely low. Labor providers include men and children as well who work all

In Leslie T. Chang’s book, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, we are introduced to the stories of young workers who immigrate from rural Chinese villages to factories in more urban regions of China. Chang became acquainted with dozens of young women who have ventured off to Dongguan, a new metropolis just north of Hong Kong. Dongguan is just one of the cities in the Guangdong province, the largest receiving province, which attracts rural migrant workers. Chang focuses on two specific ones, Min and Chunming, who increasingly came to trust her enough to share their experiences, journal entries, phone calls, and personal confessions. These girls are employed in a variety of factories which include purse factories, phone factories,

Every society in the history of mankind has assigned work by gender; without work done by each gender economies could not thrive. Chapter 12 of Hunter College Women’s and Gender Studies Collective fourth edition depicts the truth about inequality, discrimination in the workforce against women and how globalization overall effects women. As the Hunter College Women and Gender Studies Collective (HCWGSC, 2015) states, “…women complete more than two thirds of the world’s unpaid work.” (p. 350), this is an issue for women world-wide. Each culture has different values, roles, and social norms they follow, and this includes gender specific roles and jobs. There is more to work equality than feminism; status, race and value play a major role on equality

In many developing countries globalization has brought masses of wealth to the elite at the expense of the poor. Consequently, many women of the poorer classes leave their homeland in search of opportunities for employment. These women are disproportionately affected by

It offers her a standard of living by affecting how she is seen, who she can identify with, and what opportunities she will be able to experience. Furthermore, her financial position plays a major factor in the construction of the perfect public image she created so as to “save face” as the primary reason for this persona is due to her family’s desire for prosperity. This concept is initiated by the instability of penny stocks and the neglected status of low class Asian Canadians in the job market. As a consequence, Jade’s parents don’t understand or widely publicize her aspiration to be an actress and would rather her choose a more practical career in business provided by the dominant industrialized class. This motivates her to lie about her successful employment in acting, adding a false attribute to her character. On top of that, the medium through which the power structures distinguish the proletariats bring high inequality, making Jade physically vulnerable. In respect to the given notion, she is offered multiple Chinese men who can take care of her through their good income and stability from being a doctor or lawyer. This system of ideas and ideals that form the basis of production communicates to the parents that their children are unable to obtain a voice or leave a trace in their new country. Nonetheless, it is the existence of the economic divisions of a society that take part in shaping identities to some

One woman tells about how she was a doctor, one of the highest paying jobs in America, and she tells about how she changed jobs for less stress and more money. It gave her self confidence and now she is able to speak in front of a large group of people, whereas before she was not able to do. Women are now able to own and afford their own things and are becoming more independent. In the movie, one woman who works for Business Processing Outsourcing tells us about how her father before really didn’t respect her and was angry that he has a daughter. She tells about how she’s learning English so that she can move up in her job, and how she is able to help support her family. She is paying for many things for her family, and now her father loves her and wants her to stay home and help support the family. This is very much different from America because most families want their children to go out and have their own lives and be able to live on their own. The documentary also shows two woman who moved out of their parents houses and moved into an apartment together and how people think of them negatively because they’re working until late into the night and then come home and have boys over and party and dance and have fun and are assuming things about them. They speak about how they don’t like being judged just because they decided to live on their own and because they’re working until late at night doesn’t mean that they’re doing bad things, they’re just trying to make a

Time has shown that the concept of labour has considerably evolved from what it previously was. Husbands are no longer the sole providers for their families (Sassen, 2003) and there has been an increase in the demand for what is known as “intimate “labour” (Boris & Parreñas, 2010, para. 1). This kind of labour is centred on the physical interaction between human beings, or being in situations whereby one has first hand access to lives of others (Boris & Parreñas, 2010). Types of intimate labour include domestic labour, whereby one has to clean the household, take care of children and tend to their needs in the form of bathing and feeding (Boris & Parreñas, 2010). Prostitution can also be considered as a form of intimate labour, as prostitutes have to physically engage in sexual activities with their clients (Boris & Parreñas, 2010). Other examples of intimate labour include surrogacy, whereby women carry the babies of other women who are either unable or unwilling to carry the baby to term themselves, whilst being paid to do so (Boris & Parreñas, 2010). Nurses and healthcare workers provide intimate labour when tending to patients who are unable to do certain daily tasks on their own, for example dressing (Sassen, 2003) and intimate labourers also include those who work in salons, providing facials or pedicures (Boris & Parreñas, 2010). Intimate labour does not always involve a long-term investment in one client or employer like in terms of domestic work, but can involve