The Inequality Of Rural Women

In the text "Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy" by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild discusses the underlying issue of why these women are forced to leave their homes and go to developed countries to work. The issue is that there is not enough money in the third world countries because all the goods have been taken by developed countries. During colonialism, the developed countries were gaing so much leaving little for these third world countries. Even though colonialism is not as prevalent today there is still some type of inequality where developed countries are still taking workers from countries that are struggling economically. Some women have to move far away because

The inequality of the sexes in the world is arguably one of the oldest and most consistent issues in our country and in our world. At one time women could not vote, divorce, own property, hold a job or acquire complete body autonomy. In some countries, some women still aren’t allowed to do any of these things and are not allowed to even drive themselves. It is legislations such as the Roe vs. Wade decision, along with the movement they spark that have moved women one step closer to equality and inspired societal change. However, the one issue that has kept itself alive for centuries is the one staring us in the face: body and mind image. Women, though also men, have always been held down in some form or another in their lives by negative body

These women, although they lived in a third world country, have the skill and gumption to go into business for themselves, and “be their own boss”. In the United States, more women have the ability

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.

Another view of poverty is that is gender bias, that women are mostly like to live in poverty then men are, for this approach we going to discuss the Feminist Perspective. In 2006, 54 % of women lived in poverty ages 18 and over (NAPO 2006). This perspective uses the gender-based analysis, which works to understand the structures that contribute to women in poverty. Another interesting factor about this perspective is that it using the narrative analysis which focuses on women’s experiences with a symbolic approach which is put into data interpretation.

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Extremes differ around the world but for fact in developed and developing countries the amount of women living in poverty is adamant. Looking at the developing countries Canada and India provides different ways of looking at poverty and how poverty is identified. Through Canada women deal with poverty when their income is below the poverty line or they are using over half of their income on necessities to live. In India women are encountering human poverty, which is being without basic needs creating factors such as illiteracy, malnutrition, early death, poor health care and no access to clean water. Despite some differences between the two countries’ economies, women in both Canada and India face similar issues with poverty “The poverty of women in Canada and India is increasing as a result of globalization, social policies that neglect women, inequality in employment, and existing gender-based social repression” (Argiropoulos and Rajagopal 2003:612). The inequality of employment is a major cause of poverty, once women have to enter the workforce an increase in feminization in the workforce has taken place. Women are then segregated into the certain areas in the workforce, which often pay less and demand a less amount of skill

The oppression of women and girls in the developing world is this era’s most pervasive human rights violation. In the world today, being a girl means being sentenced to a life of poverty, abuse, exploitation and deprivation. Denied the most basic human rights, millions of girls and women are deprived of education, security, and most importantly, a voice. And yet, despite the cruel circumstances they endure, girls and women constantly strive to rise above their oppression. Marina Nemat, author of the memoir, Prisoner of Tehran and Meena Hasina from Nicholas D. Kristoff’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide are testaments of the bravery and willpower of women.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild’s collection of writing titled: Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex workers in the New Economy, published in 2002, is a good description of the dirty little secrets that haunt many underprivileged, non-white, Third World women experience. This reading is a rather detailed story of hard working women that are trying to support their families back in their native lands. Domestic servants are nothing new to the world- it’s something that has been passed down through many generations, continuing the persona of oppressed women. Millions of people, mostly from poor countries, flee hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles to seek better pay for their families.

The structural-functionalist perspective states that “poverty results from institutional breakdown” (Mooney et al. 176). People in today’s society do not have the skills or education needed for employment. The majority of those living in poverty are people who are willing to do the “dirty work” than those not living in poverty. It can be assumed that those living in low income homes are the one who are going to do the hard labor such as being a maid, gardener, janitor, etc., when it comes to being in the workforce. They are the people that are willing to do these jobs just to make ends meet. Many living in poverty are also single parents. “A third of all families headed by a single woman were in poverty last year” (Gongloff). Another issue is the unequal pay in the workplace today. There are many factors that come in to

Poverty is not easily defined, because it plays out in many different ways. To be in poverty, one is generally making at most three times the amount of money they would need to sustain themselves and their family members living a minimalist lifestyle. These families tend to eat cheaper food, use public transport, have less access to good educational institutions, are exposed to harmful environments, and have less access to healthcare, among many other things. Through the lenses of conflict theory and functionalism, one can begin to understand why poverty so affects many aspects many people’s lives in ways that carry them through adulthood, and sometimes pervades later generations of their families.

Poverty has increasingly become a noticeable issue worldwide over the past couple of decades. With the middle class steadily decreasing, considerable amounts of people are becoming part of the lower class, and even more of our world’s population are beginning to live in poverty. It is important to understand there are different definitions of poverty, and that is largely determined by what each country’s government determines as the cut off of poverty, otherwise known as the ‘poverty line’. Although some people could live above the poverty line, and still be struggling financially, it goes unrecognized by most research collection. However, what was initially noticed around the 1970’s is that there was a significant rise in women’s poverty statistics. More female-headed households were living in poverty, and a majority of those women belonged to a minority. This recognizable trend has been deemed the ‘feminization of poverty’, which according research is not only a growing problem in North America, but several other countries around the world. Information gathered about this issue in the United States shows that female-headed households is by far the fastest growing type of family structure, and due to the fact there is a growing poverty level amongst this group, it now means that approximately half of the all the poor in the United States live in a women-headed family and household. (Gimenez, 1999, p. 336) The biggest question when is comes to this particular topic is why?

The definition of gender roles is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behavior is generally considered acceptable based on the gender of a person. Additionally, if you don’t seem to accept this standard, there can be huge consequences. For example, in India, women are viewed as a burden and a “extra mouth to feed.” Her status promotes the idea that men can treat them in a subdued manner. If they don’t comply to these requirements, then a woman is murdered by her husband or his family by being set alight by a flammable liquid, which is usually known as bride burning. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also uncovers the harsh inequality of women. Gender roles shouldn’t be real and they were forced on us by society.

Feminization of poverty is defined as, “A societal-level process over time in which the poor are increasingly made up of women and children” (Eshleman, 2010, p. 588). According to Lauren Abbate of Mount Holyoke College, “Feminization of poverty is the phenomenon in which women experience poverty at rates that are disproportionately high in comparison to men” (Abbate, 2010). It appears that,

Globalization has had a significant impact on the lives of women in the developing nations, which we will further examine in the two countries – Bangladesh and Kenya. In this paper, Globalization is defined as “a complex economic, political, cultural, and geographic process in which the mobility of capital, organizations, ideas, discourses, and people has taken a global or transnational form (Valentine Moghadam 1999). Globalization has more negative effects on women in third world countries such as Kenya and Bangladesh. Corporations hire people in the third world countries, due to the cheap labor force. Corporations like to hire more women than men in the cheap labor force, because women “work in labor intensive industries at lower wages