The Struggle of Women in Maquiladoras

First off, people working in Maquiladoras work in very bad conditions. Document C, picture A shows how there are hundreds of people in one room all wedged together. Most of these machines were broken and falling apart, which made it harder for them to work. The Maquiladoras that many work in are poor, run-down, and dirty. The companies care little about their safety and more about their products being produced rapidly. They did not make safety their number one priority. Not caring about their

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexico as a nation torn in many directions, people gave up simple farming lives to take up arms against causes that many of them did not fully understand. Gender roles during the period in Mexico were exceptionally degrading towards women. Having little more rights than slaves and treated as trophies or property more than human beings, women role in society was nothing near that of a man’s. In The Underdogs, Mariano Anzuela highlights the issue of gender roles by continuously illustrating the punitive role of women and their mistreatment. Augmenting Anzuelas work with citations from Oscar Lewis and Stephanie Smith will paint a picture of the degrading gender roles for women during the Mexican Revolution. Highlighted points brought up by Azuela are how men speak with and treat women, women’s place in society, and general disregard for women’s feelings.

Along with the money that it brings the Maquiladoras, it saves the capitalists money on labor costs and import and export taxes. The capitalists save money because they are getting labor for $16.00 a day per worker. They would not be able to do that with American laborers.

All over the globe, violence and discrimination against women and girls violates their human rights and severely compromised their perception of equality. Culture, false beliefs and ancient traditions, such as early marriage, the nuclear family, gender-based discrimination, which lead to violence against women and femicide, destroyed young girls ' mental and physical wellbeing and self-esteem by supporting the ideas that gender-based discrimination and inequality is acceptable in our societies.

The historical Chicano women’s strike of Tex-Son in San Antonio, Texas, began in 1959. Tex-Son was a company that specialized in the production of children’s clothing. Tex-Son employed women and immigrants for cheap labor. The working conditions at Tex-Son were not up to par – filthy ventilation systems and unsanitary work areas made labor dangerous. Wages differed between women and men; women were paid by the piece, while men were paid by the hour – this made labor even more risky since the women tried to rush. Tex-Son - aware of the influx of immigrants from Mexico, and taking into consideration the stigma attached to women in the work force - knew that they could employ the women and non-citizens for cheap labor. Tex-Son also had plants throughout the country, and could send work to other cities, where labor was even cheaper. The women were employed by Tex-Son, and were members of union ILGWU. They knew something had to change, and so began the “unladylike” strike. At the start of the strike, the women garment workers established a negative reputation for their selves. Initially protesting violently, the strikers against Tex-Son successfully transformed their image by reverting their struggle’s focus to the theme of motherhood; in addition, they improved their image by befriending the Anglo women, male unionists, and the Catholic Church.

The hard working women who worked in these factories suffered horrible working conditions, not to mention low salary.

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.

We have read and watched a lot of information about the women and the way they are treated in their working area, specifically when we talked about the maquiladoras on the boarder. This week we are presented with another source of information about the maquiladoras and how maquiladora employees live their daily lives. The film, “Maquilapolis” by Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre uses a social art practice to contribute to the privileging of subalterns voices. In the film, the filmmakers start by telling the stories of a few women who worked for the maquilas and tell their experience as employees of those big corporations such as Sony, Panasonic, Sanyo, among many others. Some of these women explain how they started working since those maquiladoras opened in the 1960’s and they explain how it was a big deal to work

A maquiladora is a manufacturing plant based in Mexico where foreign companies import materials and equipment, on a duty free and tariff free basis, for the purposes of processing, manufacturing, or assembling goods which are then exported to other countries. The idea behind these maquiladoras promises a prosperous Mexican society. On paper, it really does seem like NAFTA is living up to expectations; creation of more jobs and a much less unemployment rate. On the surface, there seems to be nothing wrong with what’s going on in Mexico in terms of employment. Everyone has jobs and everyone is getting paid for these jobs, so what’s the issue? Despite all of this, the degrading and terrible working conditions imposed upon the maquiladora workers

Maquiladoras are assembly plants clustered mostly in northern Mexico, along the U.S. border. The factories employ 17 percent of the Mexican work force, this makes maquiladoras Mexico’s second largest source of jobs but some people would say that the negatives weight over the positives. Some negatives about this situation are that how the Mexican government does not have full control of the factories, how the employees have to work in harsh conditions and, the employees get paid a low wage. Maquiladoras have both a positive and negative effect on the Mexican economy because of the poor work conditions, however the large numbers of the population they employ cannot be ignored.

In the film, Maquilapolis: City of Factories, different Mexican women talk about their experiences with maquiladoras. Carmen Duran and Lourdes Lujan film video diaries that show how their communities are affected by maquiladoras and the experiences they have had working in maquiladoras. Mexico was first introduced to maquiladoras in the 1960s through foreign companies who arrived in order to get tax breaks and low-cost labor. In the 1990s, maquiladoras become prevalent and there were nearly 4,000 just near the border. A variety of things are assembled at different maquiladoras, as the film shows workers stating what they build at their perspective workplace. Workers assemble batteries, oxygen masks, filters, toys, and even urinary bags. The

Researchers could improve and expand studies on the policies of the corporations as well as study the girls and women possibly through self-report or observation. Subsequently, research may help expand and educate public knowledge as well as assist in changes to end the violence against the girls and women of the maquiladoras.

In 1960 when maquiladoras emerged in border cities, changing people’s perspective for better opportunities and a better future. The majority of the people working in the maquiladoras were women, the reason for that was because they thought that woman had smaller hands and could assemble the parts faster and more efficiently than men. Some of the women in the interview’s talked about having to work double shifts and even night shifts, in order to be able to survive being single parents. Leaving their children home alone without insufficient care and not growing up with the attention and demand they require. Some of the children from maquiladora employees grow up in the streets and involved in gangs from misguidance and not having the luxury of having their parents come home every night to help them with homework or to put them to sleep, due to the fact of their parent having to work at a low pay job with no incentives and no opportunities to

As a major contributor to the global economy, Mexico’s sweatshops have contributed to the United States’ wealth and economic growth. It is the unfortunate truth that many individual workers have suffered as a result of this prosperity. The sweatshops, known as maquiladoras, are in debate because of the ethical and lawful reasoning behind their existence and conditions. How can we, as a First-world nation, allow such industries to exist where people are denied basic and fundamental human rights? What, if any, laws and regulations are put into place for the maquiladoras? Are these laws and regulations hindering, harmful, or helpful? Are they enforced emphatically? If not, how does this affect development? After

On January 1, 1994, the nations of the United States, Canada, and Mexico entered into a three-way partnership to supposedly lift trade barriers and improve production in all three countries. This is called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). However, the effect was generally ruinous for southern Mexico. Trans-national corporations from Europe, Asia, and especially North America invested heavily in closing down factories inside their nations (primarily for environmental and labor costs) and establishing new ones, almost all of which